Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural.
Warnings: Language and flashbacks.
They left early in the morning, when the sun was just staring to rise, and arrived in the middle of the night to the little apartment they'd be calling 'home' for the coming weeks.
The ride had been relatively silent aside from the initial conversation of Dean trying to convince Sam it was better for them to turn around, not drive straight towards traffickers. Other than that, Dean still kept the music off and the tapping of his fingers on the steering wheel soft. He really didn't need to do something that would send Sam back into his nightmarish memories while they were on the road.
Throughout the trip, he heard Sam mutter '55943' under his breath. He had to strain to hear it, not much more than a whisper, but it sounded obsessive. It sounded like Sam thought he was going to forget the numbers if he didn't repeat them and burn them into his memory. It sounded like Sam thought something awful would happen if he did forget the numbers.
It left him exhausted by the time he could park for the night in one of the two parking spots allotted to them (along with having driven for an entire day with minimum breaks). Dean wasn't surprised that he'd be sharing one of the two bedrooms with Sam. In fact, he expected it.
The surprise would be how long his dad and Bobby could share a room before one of them threatened to kill the other.
The couch looked a little worn down, but they couldn't complain since they had furniture at the very least. Maybe he could get Sam to bet him over how long it would be before either Bobby or their dad ended up sleeping in the living room.
The thought made him pause for a second. The last time he made a bet with Sam ended with Sam's head being shaved.
Only for it to be shaved by traffickers again not long after. Even if Sam never mentioned it, Dean knew. His hair should have been longer when they found him, not shorter.
Maybe he wouldn't be making bets with Sam anytime soon.
He threw his own dufflebag at the foot of his bed, and Sam's at the foot of the opposite bed. If he hadn't grabbed both, he doubted Sam would have bothered bringing his own stuff into the apartment at all. He used to be hyper-aware of what needed to be done, but now he moved like he was lost and looking for something that Dean couldn't see. Something that Dean couldn't seek out for him.
Dean flopped onto his bed and stared at the ceiling. He was exhausted from driving all day and he just wanted to close his eyes and sleep for the next twenty-four hours (at least), but he should be getting out some of the few remaining sleeping pills for Sam. He should be setting an alarm to take Sam to a local doctor so they could get a prescription for more sleeping pills.
Sam wandered into the room and settled himself on the bed opposite of Dean's. He was getting better a little bit at a time, but there was still so much of him lost in places where Dean couldn't find him.
Sam wanted to shrink in on himself, away from the stares directed at him. Dean dragged him to the doctor for more sleeping pills (and thankfully did most of the talking for Sam and managed to avoid having Sam sent in for psychological evaluations), but he decided to stop at the pharmacy on the way back to their apartment to pick them up.
Which meant he decided that Sam had to go into the store with him because he was too uncomfortable to not have Sam in his line of sight.
Which meant that Sam was also put in the line of sight of people too curious for his liking.
He pulled his hood higher over his head, but the warmer weather in Texas made wearing a hoodie at all look strange.
Dean guided him through the store while they waited for the pharmacist to fill the prescription, picking up anything else he thought they might need (anything he thought he'd be able to get Sam to eat) with the money their dad gave him.
The Sam Survival Fund.
"Hey, Sammy," Dean said. He stopped in the middle of an aisle and pointed to one of the shelves. "How about some of that?"
Sam looked over. The shelf Dean pointed at was stocked full of PediaSure.
Dean had a shit-eating grin plastered on his face, but Sam wasn't amused. He shoved past Dean and continued down the aisle, trying to ignore the feeling of a hand holding his jaw in place while he gagged down protein shakes forced into his mouth. Trying to ignore the need to find a bathroom before he threw up and made a scene in the middle of the store.
"It was just a joke, Sammy," Dean said. "I'm sorry. They aren't exactly protein shakes, so I thought…"
Sam felt Dean's hand land on his shoulder, but he pulled away from it and turned to face Dean. "Everyone's fucking staring at me, Dean. I want to go back to the car."
"You're wearing a sweatshirt and it's, like, seventy degrees, dude," Dean said.
Sam glared at Dean and said, "Just give me the keys. I'll go wait in the car."
"Yeah, that's not happening, Sam," Dean said.
He dragged Sam out of the aisle and to the chairs in the pharmacy waiting area.
Dean sat next to him, bouncing one leg up and down on the ball of his foot.
"This isn't any better, Dean," Sam said. "People look at me and wonder what's wrong with me."
"You were stuck in a living nightmare for over a month," Dean said. "You're still recovering, and it's fine to not be okay yet."
Sam's tongue tied itself into a knot. He couldn't find the words to explain to Dean how it felt to be stared at. He couldn't ignore the idea that the staring was just the beginning, and that inspection from bidders would soon follow suit.
Because Dean had never been so thoroughly objectified, how could he possibly understand the feeling that it left?
When their name was called, Sam was on his way out of the door, leaving Dean to jog in order to catch up to him by the time he grabbed the pills.
Sam sunk into the passenger seat of the Impala, followed shortly by Dean.
"We have three months worth, but I'll come by myself next time," Dean said.
"It doesn't matter, Dean. We probably won't even still be here in three months. We'll have moved on again by then."
"Are you upset about that?" Dean asked.
Sam tried not to roll his eyes. He didn't need Dean interrogating him to figure out what was bugging him. Most times, it was something he didn't want to talk about (or too many things that he wouldn't know where to start talking). He didn't want to admit that he should have listened to Dean and asked to stay at Bobby's or go to Pastor Jim's while his dad and Bobby took care of hunting for Liu.
There was just something about being in Austin that unsettled him. Maybe it was the knowledge that his dad had good reason to suspect human trafficking happening in the city. Maybe it was the knowledge that he was far too close to the very thing that was still breaking him.
Maybe it was simply the fact that there were too many eyes, and he couldn't escape all of them.
"No, Dean," Sam said. "That's not it. It's nothing."
"Sam, talk to me, man. Let me help you."
"I don't want to talk about it."
Dean didn't push, but Sam saw his frequent glances out of the corner of his eye. He could practically feel how much Dean wanted answers.
The problem was that Sam didn't have all of the answers either.
Sneaking out proved harder at the apartment than at Bobby's house. There was less space, and Dean hovered over Sam like he would vanish into thin air if he looked away.
Bobby had yet to find a real dream catcher or God's eye (the kinds still believed to have the spiritual power to heal and protect), and Dean refused to let Sam skip taking sleeping pills until they had one. Not when he knew that Sam had strange dreams that could be prevented.
Which left Sam in need of a plan to escape Dean's protection in order to continue practicing with his abilities, and hope that the demon would find a way to visit him again to clear up more memories.
Now that he'd seen one with new clarity, he needed to see more.
"Dean?" he asked. They were left at the apartment yet again while John and Bobby tried to dig up any information they could.
"What?" Dean sat next to him on the couch, flipping through channels, but he never stayed on one for more than a handful of seconds.
"If we're going to be here for a few weeks at least, shouldn't I be going to school?"
Dean sighed and set the remote to the side, giving Sam his full attention (as if Sam could pretend that Dean's attention was ever not on him these days). "Sam," he said, "no one expects you to go back to school after everything."
"The law does. I'm too young to dropout."
"I'm pretty sure that if we wanted, we could get an exception made for you," Dean said.
"What if I want to go back to school?" Sam asked.
Dean shook his head. "I don't like that, Sammy. I can't keep an eye on you if you're in school. What if something happens?"
Sam took a deep breath. A dull ache started throbbing in the back of his skull. Sometimes, Dean was near impossible to deal with.
"None of the kids who went missing in Massachusetts were taken from school. They were probably taken on their way home."
"Well, none of them were taken from their beds either," Dean said. "Until you."
Dean had an almost smug look on his face, like they were playing chess and Sam fell right into a trap he set up. He looked like he was daring Sam to challenge his rebuttal because he knew he was right.
"And where were you when that happened, Dean?" Sam asked.
The satisfaction of wiping the I-know-I'm-right look off of Dean's face faded when Sam saw the horror that replaced it, the anger he felt when he said the words long gone.
"Dean, I'm sorry," Sam said. "I didn't mean it."
"No, I deserved that. You're right," Dean said. He returned his attention to the TV, which now seemed much more interesting than it had minutes ago.
"Dean…"
"I'll talk to Dad about it when he gets home," Dean said softly.
"You agree?" Dean asked. His voice rose to the point where he was practically yelling.
John shrugged. "Why not? I thought you wanted Sam to be interested in normal things again. You were the one who complained that it wasn't like Sam to be okay with missing so much school."
"Yeah, well, I didn't mean that I wanted him going back. I can't keep an eye on him if he's at school, not without getting the cops called on me because it looks like I'm being creepy."
"Drop him off and be there to pick him up," John said. "And stop pacing before you wear down what's left of the carpet. Be glad that Sam wants to go back to a normal routine. Means he's healing."
Dean dropped onto the couch. "I'm glad he's healing. Believe me, I am. But what happens if he decides to get back to his independence streak and it ends with the world screwing him over again? Besides, you weren't at the pharmacy with us when we picked up the sleeping pills. You didn't see him."
"What happened at the pharmacy? And why didn't you tell me something happened at the pharmacy the day you boys went there?" John asked. He finally put down the mess of papers he and Bobby collected from the library and appeared interested in the conversation for the first time since its beginning.
"He was really paranoid and upset. He felt like everyone was staring at him, but he was wearing a sweatshirt with the hood up in seventy degree weather. I made a bad joke about the nutrition shakes there, and he lost all of the color in his face. I thought he was going to throw up, and then he spent the rest of the time asking if he could go wait in the Impala."
"Look, Bobby will be back with dinner any minute," John said. "I'll talk to Sam about it after, but if he feels like he wants to try, we might have to shove aside our worries and let him. It could be good for him to regain a little independence."
Dean crossed his arms. "He doesn't need independence," Dean said. "He needs safety."
"You know, maybe having some time to yourself while he's at school won't hurt either," John said.
Dean shook his head, but dropped the conversation. It felt like his arguments were always being discounted, his words not really heard. If he wasn't being ignored, his mistakes were being thrown back into his face. He wondered if that's how Sam felt before he was trafficked, like he was arguing with a brick wall.
Couldn't his dad and Sam understand that Sam really shouldn't be anywhere alone when they knew that there are traffickers in the area? When they knew that Liu was supposed to be coming to the area?
Dean brought the Impala to a stop, only allowed to drive it for the sake of helping Sam, and Sam once again wondered what the hell he was doing. Was this really worth a bit of time to practice his pyrokinesis (the only term he could find that fit what he could do)?
"You don't have to go if you don't want to, Sam," Dean said. "I could turn around and take us back to the apartment."
Dean had been repeating those same words the entire way to the high school their dad enrolled Sam in, and every time it shook Sam's determination a little more.
"Dad said he talked to the school administrators, and forged a doctor's note. They know I'm not, uh, in a good state of mind, so I can leave early any time I need to. Or go talk to the counselor."
Which wasn't going to happen. Why would he talk to a stranger about his problems when he wouldn't even talk to Dean about them most of the time?
Dean nodded, still scowling like he had been the entire drive (and the entire night before). "You have your phone?" he asked.
"In my backpack."
"Good," Dean said. "You feel the slightest bit uncomfortable, you call me. Understand?"
"Yes, Dean."
"And make sure you stay in the building when you call. I'll come in and get you."
"Yes, Dean."
Sam got out of the Impala and rushed into the school building before he lost his nerve and asked Dean to drive him back home. None of the other kids flooding the area looked at him with much other than curiosity, and even that was short-lived, but Sam tried to shrink into himself anyway.
The layers of clothing he piled on made him warm to the point of it being unbearable, but there were too many marks on his skin that he didn't want anybody to see. It was bad enough that his family had to witness remnants of what he went through. Without physical evidence, it would have been easier to pretend it was all just a bad dream for all of them.
He raised a hand and brushed his fingertips against his throat, covered in pretty, white bandages to hide the hideous electrical scarring left behind from the traffickers' unhealthy obsession with shock collars. The scars that still left him with a deep ache that he refused to tell Dean about, not when Dean thought that every pain of Sam's was his responsibility. Not when Dean acted like he was the source of every scar.
He knew the drill of being the new kid at a school. Go to the principal's office, be shown around the building, get his schedule, and don't get in trouble.
This time, the principal showed him the school himself instead of one of the student ambassadors (who always seemed a little too peppy when it came to giving the new kid a tour). He kept glancing at Sam throughout the tour. Sam couldn't fully read his expression, but he swore there was a touch of worry there. There was a bit of excitement, too. But after receiving his transcripts from his past schools, most administrators were more than happy to have him at their school.
The principal put a lot of emphasis on where the counselor's office was, and even more emphasis on how Sam was welcome to go and talk with the counselor at any point.
She seemed nice enough, coming out to greet Sam and explain that she heard he recently went through some traumatic events, but Sam still didn't plan on speaking to her any time soon. There were some problems that she wouldn't be able to help him with, and he wasn't about to risk slipping up and being committed.
And then he was sent to class.
He planned on making it through his first day in full before he started skipping to put his plan to practice in action, but the world always seemed to have other plans in place for him.
He didn't realize that he had a Phys. Ed class until it was time for him to head to it, right before lunch (which he preferred over having it right after lunch).
As he watched his classmates file into the locker rooms to change, the teacher flagged him down. He looked like he was about Dean's age, tall and even had the same hair color, which would have comforted him in the past. Now, it just left him homesick for his brother's company.
The teacher held out clothes to Sam. "Heard there was going to be a new kid in my class, and I figured you didn't have a change of clothes just yet. Most kids don't bring a set on the first day," he said. "Don't worry, these are clean. After too many kids 'forgot' to bring clothes so they could skip out of class, the school started keeping some spares."
Sam was tossed a few towels and a set of clothes.
"Get cleaned up," Harold said. "Gotta look presentable when bidders come through."
Sam was about to refuse, throw the clothes to the ground, and rebel, but Harold must have seen his intentions because he added, "Get cleaned up, or I'll call in some of the other guys and they will gladly clean you up."
Sam felt his hands trembling and heard how harsh his breathing sounded, but there was a disconnect that left him believing that it was someone else's hands shaking. It was someone else having trouble breathing.
"Hey, you okay?" his teacher asked.
Sam swallowed the bile attempting to rise up his throat several times before he answered. "I need to leave," he said. He sounded pathetic, but he didn't care and his legs carried him to the main office on autopilot.
He made it to the office in record time and sat in one of the chairs across from the secretary's desk. She did her best to not stare at him while he dialed Dean's number, but he could tell she really wanted to.
Sam heard Dean answer his phone after the first ring, and he did his best to not sound as shaken as he felt. The last thing any of them needed was Dean getting into a car accident on his way there. "Dean, can you come pick me up?" Sam asked.
Dean stormed into the room a matter of minutes later, and Sam didn't want to know how many traffic laws he broke on his way.
He didn't say 'I told you so' or 'You should have listened to me'. He just herded Sam back to the Impala and started them on their way home.
Sam was beyond grateful to Dean and how he was handling everything, but there was so much he couldn't know. There was so much he had to hide from Dean, and he felt it eating away at him internally.
Dean deserved a better brother than him.
Dean didn't let him go back to school for the rest of the week. Sam hadn't planned on going to classes anyway, but he needed to be separate from Dean if he wanted to practice his pyrokinesis without having to give explanations that he didn't have, and school was the perfect cover.
But the week after, he made it through school without incident. Mostly because he walked into the building as a show for Dean, then walked straight out through the back entrance and to a nearby park that had just enough trees to conceal his small fires.
He tried not to over do it. He needed to be back at school when it let out so that Dean wouldn't be suspicious, and he definitely needed to not have a bloody nose when Dean picked him up. He didn't know how long he'd be able to keep it up before the school reported to his dad that he'd been missing too much, if they noticed at all.
But the feeling of fire in his hands and knowing that he was the cause of it was addicting. Intoxicating. He could hold fire in his hands and not be burned.
The solitude was a nice bonus, and much needed after always being surrounded and watched.
"Sam?"
The fire extinguished as he turned to face whoever decided to interrupt his time alone. But once he saw her, any anger and fear at being found out melted away.
"Amy?" he asked. "What are you doing here?"
"I could ask you the same thing," she said. She looked around and shrugged, raising her hand enough so Sam could see the blood on it. "I've been feeding off of animals. It's not great, but it raises less suspicion. What about you?"
Sam said, "I don't know what to do."
"About… what I just think I saw?" she asked.
Sam nodded.
Amy returned the nod and wiped her hands as best as she could to get the blood off. "Let's just take a walk and we'll figure it out together, okay?"
They walked out of the woods in silence until they came to a park bench and sat side-by-side.
Amy broke the silence by pulling out a printed newspaper article. "I'm glad you're okay," she said. "I looked you up and found this, so I thought that something bad had happened."
Sam took the article, seeing his own picture and name on it. "I was reported missing?" he asked.
Had things been so bad that his family resorted to asking the police for help?
"You didn't know?" Amy asked. "I guess a lot of kids went missing from the same area as you. I just wanted to see if I could find anything to tell me you were okay. I didn't expect this."
"A lot happened since I last saw you," Sam said. "A lot of bad things, but my dad and brother got me out. They've been looking after me, but I can't let them find out what you just saw me do. I can't let them know how much of a freak I am. If I'd taken your offer and run away too, maybe it could have all been avoided."
"Do you still want to?" Amy asked. "Run away and be freaks together?"
Sam smiled a bit, but shook his head. "I don't think that could happen anymore. I'm sorry, but I just really need Dean around. Even if I have to keep secrets from him."
Amy opened her mouth to speak, but a hand pressed a cloth over it and her nose. Her eyes went wide, her pupils narrowed to feline slits, then closed and she slumped in her seat.
Sam tried to reach out to help her. He tried to figure out what was wrong, tried to catch a glimpse of the people responsible, but his mind was growing increasingly foggy.
He reached up and found a hand holding a sweet-scented cloth over his own mouth and nose. Without the strength left to try and pull the hand away, his consciousness faded as quickly as Amy's had and he was plunged into darkness.
Author's Note: What? Are we finally getting to some action? Yes! We are! Who could possibly be after Sam, and what could possibly happen to him (and Amy)?
Thanks to everyone who reads, reviews, follows, and favorites! I really appreciate the support.
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