Dean felt a little bit like he was intruding as he hovered by Sam's bed; Mary was sitting on the edge, murmuring something to her son as Sam's eyes struggled to stay open.
"That's it, baby, wake up, you're safe now." Mary's hand swept Sam's hair out of his face. "Look at me."
"Mom." There was a heartbreaking desperation in Sam's voice. "Here? Real?"
"I am right here," Mary said.
"Dean?"
Dean blinked, surprised Sam would even remember he was there. "Hey, Sam."
"You got away?" His question was slurred, and Dean's throat felt tight.
"Yeah, man, thanks to you." He dared to approach and place a hand on Sam's arm. "You just focus on getting better, okay?"
"Mmm. Mom, you kill them?"
"Uh huh."
"Good." Sam's eyes closed—his shadowed eyes and pale skin made him look almost dead. Dean shivered.
"That was close," he murmured. "Does that happen a lot?"
"More than I like." Mary's shoulders dropped. "Sam has the tendency to be reckless on hunts."
"Why?" Dean asked.
Mary sighed. "Sometimes to protect me. Other times because of what has happened to him in the past, and what he feels is wrong with him."
"What do you—"
"Mom," Sam mumbled, waking up again to blink at the two of them. "Mom we need to leave. They'll check insurance soon."
"You can use mine," Dean offered.
"I already filled out the forms with the fake info," Mary told him.
Sam sat up in bed, already disconnecting leads and whatever tubing the hospital had put into him with shaky, yet practiced, fingers.
"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Dean asked.
Sam put his feet on the floor and stood, face still frighteningly pale. Dean hurried around the bed to the other side, slinging his arm around Sam's back. "Easy, man."
"Mom, where are my clothes?"
Dean could feel Sam trembling in his grip. With his eyes, he begged Mary to move quickly.
There was a familiar ease in the way they escaped the hospital. Dean didn't want to even think how many times Mary and Sam had been forced to go to a hospital and then book it out of there because of a lack of funds or insurance.
As they settled Sam down for the night, Dean pulled Mary aside.
"I want to give you something," he said.
"Can it wait, Dean?" Mary looked back at Sam. "I need to monitor him overnight."
"Here." Dean passed over the card. "This is my bank information. I want you to take care of it."
Mary frowned. "What do you mean?"
"I mean that this is my life now, and I'm all in. All of my savings, whatever."
Mary looked appalled. "Dean, you can't—"
"—I can." He quirked his lips into a smile. "After all, what kind of hunter would I be with one foot out the door?"
Mary looked like she wanted to argue further, but Sam grunted in pain, and she was distracted. Dean focused on unpacking his duffel. It was surreal, being shackled up in a cabin with vampires one day, and trying to remember where his toothbrush was the next.
After changing for bed, he stood in the middle of the room, staring uncertainly at the bed. Mary was asleep on the chair, slumped over next to Sam with her hand on his wrist. Dean carefully pried her grip free and carried her to the other bed. He hesitated, and then bent over, pressing his lips against her forehead.
"Sleep well, Mom," he whispered.
Dean shut off the lights and settled into the armchair next to Sam's bed. He carefully felt for Sam's pulse, noting an increase in his breathing and sweat on his forehead.
"No," Sam mumbled. "Please."
Dean grimaced, gently gripping his brother's shoulders. "Sam, wake up. It's just a dream. Wake up."
Sam's eyes snapped open, unfocussed gaze panicked. "No, please, stop," he whimpered. His hands pulled weakly at Dean's. "Don't hurt her."
"Sammy, wake up," Dean whispered. "It's me. Dean. C'mon, man, you're safe, I promise." Sam shuddered. A tear rolled down his cheek, and Dean felt his heart breaking. He took Sam's hands in his own. "Sam, I swear, they won't come after you. I'll take watch."
"Not alone?" Sam mumbled. In Dean's grip, his hands slowly lost their tension. "Safe?"
"Yeah, Sam. Safe." Dean put Sam's hands down, reaching up to cup Sam's cheek. "I won't let anything happen to you."
Everything became uncertain, for a while. Having Sam taken—again—shook Mary to her core. The last time, Sam had been young, vulnerable. Now, as a nearly fully-fledged hunter, to know that he could still be taken from her in such a way, made everything dangerous and terrifying. She took to triple-checking the salt lines, patrolling around the motel twice a day, and keeping a gun under her pillow instead of a knife.
What Mary hadn't counted on was how Dean's presence helped. The money he had given her was enough to keep them steady for a good long time, but beyond that, he became a stalwart presence at Sam's side, giving Mary the opportunity to keep tabs on everything else.
"I can't believe you haven't watched this show!"
Mary heard Sam murmur something that made Dean laugh.
"Yeah, well, the A-Team is classic, man, you have to watch it."
"You boys okay?"
Sam's gaze latched onto her with a desperate swiftness. "Where are you going?" he asked.
"Just need to run some errands," she said. Sam's eyes narrowed—he probably guessed what Mary needed to do—while Dean watched the television.
"Be safe," was all he said, smart enough to know he was still confined to the bed for at least 24 hours before he had leave to start whining about being able to run around again.
Mary nodded at them, locking the door behind her and setting out, the Impala grumbling as she drove through the backwoods paths.
The smell of death was pungent by now. Mary grimaced at the bodies surrounding the cabin, pulling on heavy duty gloves and a face mask. Clean-up was the worst part of hunting, aside from Sam getting hurt.
Mary made a pile of the bodies, and examined the cabin carefully. Were she to light it on fire, there was a chance it could spread to the surrounding trees. Instead, she went to the back of the car, and pulled out the chemical mixture Sam had come up with for taking care of . . . well, everything. It was acidic enough to eat through the remaining viscera, and Mary spread it generously across the floor where there was blood.
She finished her work by burning the vampire's bodies and burying the bones. The sun started setting by the end, prompting Mary to pick up dinner on her way back.
There was something gratifying about seeing the people she loved relax at the sight of her. Dean smiled. "Get your errands done?"
"Uh huh."
Sam's more knowing gaze caught her. "Safe?" he murmured.
"Course. And I brought fried chicken."
Sam wrinkled his nose. "Really?"
"And a salad." Mary grinned. "What, you think I don't know my son?"
Sam smiled, something that Mary saw far too little of. "Thanks, Mom." He tried to get up, and Mary started forward.
"Don't you even think about it," Dean growled, blocking Sam's way. "Sit down or I'll knock you down."
"Like you even could," Sam scoffed, but it was a weak protest, and he sank down onto the bed gingerly. He glared at Mary. "What are you smiling about?"
"Nothing, nothing at all," Mary said innocently. "Here's your dinner, Sammy."
He took the salad. "I know when you're acting all squishy."
"Squishy?" Dean looked like he was fighting a smile as well. "Like an octopus?"
"Both of you stop ganging up on me or I'll get out of this bed and punch you in the face."
Mary and Dean looked at each other for a moment, and then burst out laughing.
He struggled against invisible bonds, terrified as the knife lowered once again. Broken words fell across his lips. He could hear her screams, and forced himself to keep quiet under his own torture, just to make sure she didn't go quiet, because if she went quiet, she was—
Sam jolted awake, gasping for breath and pain rippling through his body at the sudden movement. At his side, Dean shifted, waking up as well.
"Sam?"
"I'm fine, I'm fine," Sam whispered. He looked over to find his mom, breathing a little deeper at the sight of her asleep in her bed. She was fine.
"No, you're not."
Sam turned his attention back to Dean. "Go back to sleep, Dean."
"No." Dean kept his voice low, but it was demanding, insistent. Sam shivered, a little. "I know you aren't dreaming about the vampires, because every time you talk in your sleep you mention 'hurting her.' Who's 'her'?"
Sam swallowed, hesitating. But after what they had been through together, Dean deserved to know. "Come on," he muttered, going into the bathroom. Dean followed him, blinking bemusedly as Sam flicked on the light and closed the door. "Don't want Mom to wake up," Sam explained. He perched gingerly on the edge of the bathtub while Dean closed the toilet lid and sat there.
"Please, don't . . . don't interrupt me," Sam said. "I want to go through this once and that's it."
"Alright."
Sam took a deep breath. "Mom made a deal to save John's life before they were even married. The result was that a demon came when I was six months old and fed me its blood. Mom was too late to stop it, and so that was when she left you and your dad behind and took me away." He spoke in a clipped, emotionless tone, keeping things as straightforward as he could.
"What does the demon blood do?"
Sam laughed, humorlessly. "We don't know. When I was fourteen, demons kidnapped me. They didn't reveal anything about what the demon blood did, just tried to—" Sam swallowed, "—tried to break me. They had a demon possessing a female in the other room, and she would scream, and they told me . . . they told me me it was my mom." Dean whispered something, but Sam was falling too deep inside his own head to hear him. "That wasn't the worst, though, the worst was when the screams stopped, and she was dead, and—"
"Hey, hey, easy." Dean slid off the toilet kneeling on the grimy linoleum by Sam's feet. "You're okay. Your mom's okay, she's right out there, sleeping." His hands rested on Sam's knees, a point of contact that Sam wanted to throw off and cling to at the same time.
"They didn't really have her, but I didn't know that, and for a week they kept hurting me and telling me she was dead and I wanted to die and I couldn't . . ."
Sam's shaking hands were enfolded in Dean's steady ones. "Easy, little brother. Come here."
Sam found himself drawn into Dean's arms—all his instincts to run away flared up, and he tensed, body protesting also from the pain of his injuries.
"I'm sorry for the things I've said in the past," Dean murmured. "Especially about you being a killer. You're strong, and I'm proud to know you as my little brother."
Sam snorted wetly into Dean's shoulder. "You're such a girl," he mumbled.
"Shut up, bitch."
Sam pulled back slowly, wincing as his ribs—cracked from the vampires' assault—protested.
"Let's get you back in bed." Dean was annoyingly considerate, and Sam hated it. Or rather, hated that he didn't actually hate it.
"You suck," he mumbled.
"Yeah, yeah." Dean shuffled him into bed and pressed his hand against Sam's forehead. "Go to sleep."
A/N: The big reveal . . . let me know what you thought! :)