AN: hellatus SUCKS! But at least it affords me the time to get this finished up.
Disclaimer: Play dumb. When the authorities ask you why you're breaking into the Mental Health Institute to steal Sam, you play dumb.
"You could have family out there, man. And friends who care about you, depend on you, but instead you're here living this…other life. You could be someone important."
It wasn't as though the thought had never occurred to him. Of course it had occurred to him, only a few thousand times a day had it occured to him. In fact, it had been his primary thought since waking up in University Hospital all those months ago – 'what if they need me?' The thought had eaten at him, torn him apart and very quickly had sent him over the edge.
James didn't remember the incident that had seen him moved to MHI, but he'd been told about it. One morning, a few days after he'd awoken from his coma, a nurse had walked in to discover that he had transformed his room into something out of A Beautiful Mind. Using the dry erase markers that had been left on the in-room white board, he had marked every available surface with strange, unrecognizable symbols and pictographs of every size and shape, and he himself had been sitting naked in the middle of that whacked out art project, covered in the same bizarre markings, muttering in an unknown tongue, and completely unresponsive to the nurse's attempts to help him back into bed.
The nurse had immediately paged for assistance and called the doctor to arrange for a psych consult. What had started out as a careful intervention, quickly skyrocketed into a 3 hour standoff in which two of the larger male nurses from the Department of Psychology were injured; one of them had even been sent up to radiology for x-rays after he'd been thrown like a ragdoll across the room. In the end, it had taken several men to hold him down so that he could be restrained and sedated. After that, the consult hadn't been needed. He had been moved immediately to MHI and placed under surveillance for 'his own' protection and there he had remained for the better part of a month.
He had 'woken' in early December. It had been as though someone had flipped a switch and he had gone from being locked in a catatonic, self-imposed prison of his mind to becoming fully conscious of an entirely different environment than he had left at University, and having no memory what-so-ever of how he'd gotten from one place to another and why? Over the course of a week he was seen by several doctors, tested extensively and finally deemed fit enough to be taken out of the secured ward and released into the institution's general population with access to come and go from his room. He had attended counseling as prescribed and had begun courses to integrate him back into the working society and he'd found himself a new name: James Smith. When his doctor had inquired as to why he'd chosen that particular name, James had remarked that the name Jimmy had been floating around in his head for a week, but that he hadn't particularly felt like a Jimmy and so he'd gone w/ James.
His health had progressed, both physically and mentally and over the course of an additional month, his doctor had become so impressed with James's improvements that he had arranged for a volunteer work program outside of the institution.
The Angels of Mercy Crisis Center had been a warm and inviting place, and James had fallen in with its people easily, making a place for himself there. So much so, that when he had been discharged from MHI in January, he had gone to live at the center for a short while. The nice thing about the center had been that it offered peer to peer counseling, and James had been quick to jump on a volunteer position when it had opened up.
Life seemed to change rather rapidly for James at that point. He had gone from a volunteer to a paid employee within a month's time, which allowed him to get out from beneath the center's roof and into an apartment of his own. He had found a new focus; a purpose in helping those in need, which had gone a long way towards helping his own life make sense again, towards lessening the enormous loss that James could feel inside. But that one question always lingered: 'What if they need me?"
Dean slammed heavily into the booth seat, jolting James from his thoughts and making him fumble for the slick glass as it slipped and his beer slopped out over the edge and down the front of him. Fresh from the tap, the beer was cold and it nearly stole his breath as he choked out: "Dude!" He tucked a few napkins down the open V of his shirt and dabbed at the moisture there, scowling and mumbling under his breath.
"We gotta talk. There-there's, uh…" Dean stuttered for a moment, swallowed and found his voice again, "there's something I gotta ask you."
Sitting back further into the booth to better observe the new mood Dean was wearing, James tossed the damp napkins aside, and eyed Dean guardedly, "Is this gonna require a stronger drink?"
Dean didn't answer. He just sat on his side of the booth, his mouth twisted, his brow drawn heavily over his lowered eyes and looking as though he was really putting too much thought into the answer.
"Dean?"
"Yeah," Dean breathed deep. He raised uncertain eyes up to meet James's and then quickly looked away, his mouth quirking up in an uneasy half-smile. "I'm not trying to be all emo about this," he said, chuckling nervously, "but my brother…he was pretty much the only thing I had. And…now I don't." Dean straightened himself up in the seat, meeting James's eyes again, this time straight on and unwavering. "It's like you said. I lost my purpose," he shook his head slowly, adding, "and I have no way of coping with it."
James chewed that statement over, surprised by the honest sentiment and how similar it was to how he, himself had felt. And wasn't this what he did; help people?
"What can I do?"
"Go with me to see my brother?" Dean asked hopefully.
"Oh…okay. I think I can rearrange my afternoon tomorrow, if you want."
"No, not tomorrow…now."
"What?" James laughed, "We can't go right now. It's," he looked down at his watch, squinting beneath the dim bar lights to read the watch face, "it's 1.30 in the morning. They're not gonna let you in at this hour."
A smile stretched slowly over Dean's face; a look which James wasn't ashamed to admit, gave him the chills.
"I don't plan on asking for permission."
Play dumb. When the authorities ask you why you're breaking into the Mental Health Institute, you play dumb. That was the thought running though James's head as he climbed out of Dean's baby-puke green Coronet, and yeah…like that wasn't the most obviously 'doesn't belong here' sign they could possibly drive to the scene of a crime. He gathered what little bit of courage he had left and followed after Dean into the dark. Why he had agreed to this crazy, screwed up scheme, was beyond him. His intention had been to help Dean, not help him into a room beside his brother, but for James, it just seemed to be out of his control to say 'no' to the man.
Dean belonged in a room beside his brother. The man was insane, that's all there was to it. He had stolen a key card and they were actually breaking into a mental health institute. Who the Hell does that? Crazy people, that's who. And even though multiple warning bells were sounding in James's head, they didn't deter him from following Dean on his insane mission. Moving quickly down the hallway, James stayed hot on Dean's heels for fear of being the straggler that got them caught. They fell into step, like a well-choreographed dance, Dean leading and James the willing partner and why did this feel so natural?
James shook off the sense of familiarity and whispered harshly over Dean's shoulder, "I don't feel good about this, Dean." But as soon as he'd said it, James heard something. He stilled just long enough to listen and pinpoint the sound – there…footsteps. Two people – in the next hall – coming in their direction and coming fast. James looked around quickly for a place to duck into, finding a doorway that was barely deep enough to hide one of them, but it would have to work.
"Don't wuss out on me now, man. We're almost –"
James snatched Dean mid-sentence; one hand wrapped over Dean's mouth to quiet any exclamation that might leave the man's mouth involuntarily. He pulled Dean into the shallow doorway, bracing him with a forearm and signaling for Dean's silence, and then they waited. For several long minutes, James held Dean in place, listening for the men; two institution employees who were returning to their stations and preparing for the 2.00 am shift change. The men talked quietly and then turned a corner at the far end of the hallway, and walked away from where Dean and James were hidden.
James could feel Dean boring holes into him with his glare, but it wasn't until James sighed with relief that Dean pushed him away; hard.
"What was that?" he demanded.
"That was me saving your ass…again."
Again? Where had 'again' come from, James wondered. He'd only just met Dean. There had been no prior situations which would necessitate an 'again'. And yet, James had such an overwhelming sense of déjà vu that the words had slipped from his lips as if this were any other Sunday. And yet again, the argument that had ensued, felt…off – wrong – James had given Dean logical, sensible reasons for his use of 'again', but he was aware that they weren't his real reasons. It had just seemed…right. James tried to shake off the weird, unsettling sense of kinship he felt for Dean and focus on the problem at hand; getting into Dean's brother's room.
Dean was squatted down in front of the door and he slid first one piece of the pick set into the lock and then the other. James looked over his shoulder curiously, watching the precision with which Dean seemed to know exactly where to press the pin and roll the tumbler, and then with a flash of tongue and teeth and a wrinkle above his nose, the door sprung open as if by magic, the slide and click of the lock echoing in James's ear along with another sound; footsteps again. So much for this place being quiet at night. James turned his head, closed his eyes and listened. A woman – probably a nurse if the squeak of her well-worn shoes were anything to go by – moving at a quick pace away from the nurse's station and away from them. They were safe for now, but Dean was cutting things entirely too close for James's comfort and he asked himself again why he'd blindly followed Dean into this predicament.
Dean pulled himself up from the ground with a low groan and James quickly grabbed ahold of his jacket and pushed him stumbling over the threshold into the room before that nurse changed her mind and circled back around on them. James followed behind, turned, and giving the hallway one last listen, closed the door silently.
"Sammy." Dean spoke the name with such reverence that it was like a prayer, and James felt it as much as Dean. When he turned around, the reality of the situation came rushing in on him. The stark room, the medicinally clean scent, Dean's brother – Sammy – baby brother – lying prone on a minimally dressed bed; it was all so familiar and overwhelming that James found himself pressed up against the closed door, his breathing labored and his head spinning.
To see the over-grown giant of a little brother lying so still in an institution bed created such an unexpectedly intense sense of responsibility; a desire to protect, that James was completely beside himself. He reached blindly for Sam, feeling the first tear well and fall, trickling over and down the sharp angle of his cheek.
Sam started to fight against Dean's hold, struggling so hard to pull free from his brother's hands that Dean was forced to put his weight into holding him still. And James moved. Not to lend aid to Dean, but to defend Sam. He was at Sam's side in the blink of an eye and about to force Dean off, when Sam stilled; blinded by the shield of Dean's hand, and there was a collective sigh of relief.
James's head fell to the side, taking in his first real look at the now serene face, and James heart thrummed loudly to the beat of 'watch out for Sammy'. It was a small miracle to see Sam this way; so quiet and calm that his youthful beauty still shone through all the torment. James caught himself stretching out to touch Sam's face, to comb the long, unruly hair back into place the way Sam should wear it, to feel the warmth of Sam's skin and know he was real and alive and…James stumbled backwards a step, reeling in confusion.
"Dean, this is a very bad idea," James rasped out; his voice completely choked off by a wave of emotion and belonging that couldn't possibly belong to him.
Sam's eyes snapped open, his terror stricken eyes finding James and locking on with full recognition. James felt more than saw the shudder that passed over Sam, his mouth moving and trembling with unspoken words, and then it happened so fast, that James was caught completely off guard and in shock.
Sam was up and out of the bed, attacking his brother; pinning Dean to the wall with one hand closed tight around the other man's throat and demanding answers. A choked off cry, words like rules and demons and angels, and the sickening crack of skull against unforgiving wall, and then James was there, pressing himself between Dean and his brother.
"Stop."
He took Sam by the arm, pressing his thumb into the pressure point in the inside of Sam's elbow, and compressed the spot like pressing a button to release Sam's hand from around Dean's throat. Sam stared down at him, confusion playing strongly over his face.
"That's enough, Sam."
James reached up then and softly brushed the hair from Sam's face, his fingertips lingering over the strands of silk and the soft skin of Sam's forehead, craving that short, intimate connection.
For one brief moment, Sam leaned into the touch, and then his eyes rolled up into his head and he sank like a ragdoll to the floor; James chasing him down and catching him by the shoulders and cradling Sam's head before it connected with the concrete. Behind them, Dean also slumped down the wall to the floor, gasping raggedly for breath and rubbing at his bruised throat.
"What did you do?" he rasped out.
"Nothing!" James cried in defense, "I didn't do a thing."
