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Chapter Ten

Dean finally sat beside his brother's bed in the hospital after hours of filling out paperwork for the doctors and answering questions for the police. He and Bobby had worked up the story that Sam had been kidnapped, managed to escape his captors and stumble onto a payphone where he was able to contact his brother who had been in town waiting for the detectives to release his 'body' when they identified it. Thankfully, though skeptical, the police seemed to believe it, though they wanted to question Sam when he woke and was coherent enough to speak. Dean was glad of that; it would buy him some time to talk over the story with Sam.

The younger Winchester had been a mess when they brought him in, and hadn't regained consciousness fully since he had fallen asleep on the car ride there. When Dean finally got a chance to talk to the doctor after his discussion with the cops, the man had told him that Sam had suffered multiple wounds that looked like they were made with a knife, and bruises from various beatings. On top of that, he had just begun to suffer from dehydration and starvation and that, coupled with the drugs pumped into his system, had made him weak and gave him a fever. But they were giving him fluids and antibiotics to fight any infections that may have been contracted and as soon as he woke they would work on getting some food into him. It wasn't as bad as it could have been, Dean knew that, and was thankful, but it was still bad enough. The fact that it had happened at all, and that he had failed to gank the demon responsible for making his brother suffer made him angry. But at least he had Sammy back and alive. That thought struck him for the first time and made him bury his face in his hands as several tears of relief escaped. Just a week ago he thought he might never see his little brother again, and here he was. A little worse for wear, but alive and on the road to recovery.

A small moan sounded from the bed, making Dean instantly alert. He leaned over the bed, scooting his chair closer and took hold of Sam's hand, giving it a little squeeze.

"That's it, Sammy, you can do it," he coaxed and then grinned as his little brother's eyes flickered open. "Hey, sleepyhead."

"Dean?" Sam asked groggily, frowning as he looked around the room.

"You're at the hospital," Dean offered in case Sam didn't remember. "Doc got you all patched up. You'll live. How are you feeling?"

"Sore," Sam muttered, picking up his other hand to rub his head. "Tired, headache."

"You have a fever, but it's gone down a lot in he last couple hours. Should be gone by morning," Dean assured him. "The police were here. They're gonna want to talk to you sometime. I'll tell you the story later."

Sam smiled slightly. "Just like old times."

Dean chuckled. "Yeah."

Sam was silent for a while then, "Did you ever get ahold of Dad?"

Dean sobered. "No. I called again to tell him everything was all right and to ignore Steven's message. Don't know what good it will do."

Sam looked down at his bandaged wrists where some blood was still showing through the gauze. "Dean, have you thought of the possibility that he might be—"

"No," Dean said quickly, sharper than he had intended, and he softened his voice with a sigh. "No, I know he's still alive. It's nothing new, Sam. He's only gotten worse since you left. Sometimes we hunt together, but most of the times he just goes off on some lead by himself for weeks at a time, sometimes with only a handwritten note waiting for me when I wake up. I think that's just how it's going to be until he finally finds the thing that killed Mom. If he ever does." Dean swallowed hard knowing that he might very well have been closer than John had in years, but there was no way of knowing. It wasn't a certain thing that the demon that had taken Sam had been the one who killed their mother as well. Even Bobby thought it could be a coincidence. Of course, he and Dean both knew better than that, but there wasn't really any harm in lying to yourself sometimes—that's how Dean felt anyway. And so as long as he was doing that, he was going to keep the information from his brother for now too. There was no reason to upset Sam more than he was already. He didn't need to feel obligated to be a part of this.

Dean stood quickly, and patted Sam's knee. "Now that you're awake, I'm going to go get some coffee. I'll be right back."

"Dean," Sam called before he could leave and Dean turned around to see his younger brother fidgeting restlessly with the edge of the blanket draped over his lap. Dean could tell he had something to say and slowly sat back down, leaning forward with his elbows against his knees.

"What is it, Sammy?" he asked gently.

Sam swallowed, still fidgeting. Dean bit the inside of his cheek as he saw the hesitation on Sam's face; something was definitely bothering him. He looked so young sitting there in the bed, his bruised face and messy hair that the nurse had thankfully washed for him, and Dean's chest tightened with the need to protect his little brother, his kid, the way he always had; to make whatever was bothering him go away. Hell, he had missed Sammy so much, he hadn't even realized how much—had denied it to himself since Sam had left that night—and now having him back was like a bittersweet punch to the gut. He fell back into just being his older brother, as if not a day had passed when they hadn't been together like always.

Finally Sam raised his eyes to meet Dean's, that crease between his brows that came around when he was troubled. "That demon who caught me, Dean, he seemed to think I was…someone else," he said.

Dean frowned. "Why would you say that, Sammy?"

Sam shook his head and looked back down at his lap. "He—he seemed to think I could do things."

Alarm bells started to go off in Dean's head but he forced himself to stay calm for Sam's sake. "What kind of things?"

Sam shrugged, but he couldn't hide how shook up he was. "I'm not entirely sure. I guess some kind of psychic powers or something?"

"What?" Dean asked, almost laughing. "He thought you were Wonder Boy or something?"

Sam gave him a bitchface, something Dean had almost forgotten he did. "Dean, it's not something to joke about, he was so determined I had these powers that he was willing to torture me and people I love to either force me to admit it, or to force me to learn how to do it. That's why he gave me all those drugs. It was like to 'stimulate my senses' or something. And…right before you got there, he was going to…"

"What, Sammy?" Dean asked, leaning closer to his brother, putting a hand on his arm and squeezing slightly. "What was he going to do?"

Sam's frown deepened. "He was going to…bleed in my mouth?"

Cold fear clutched at Dean's stomach and he tightened his grip on Sam subconsciously. "Bleed in your mouth? Why the hell would he do that?"

"I don't know," Sam said helplessly. "But I get the idea it wouldn't have been a good thing."

Dean rubbed his arm to calm him as he thought, wondering what this all had been about really? He had no idea what could be accomplished by a demon bleeding in someone's mouth. Was demon blood some kind of drug? He was going to have to look into that.

"It's okay, Sammy, he didn't do anything, right?" he tried to assure his brother. "And he's gone, Bobby sent the son of a bitch back to hell, so he shouldn't bother you again."

"Yeah," Sam said, though he didn't sound convinced. Dean was about to say something else reassuring, but Sam spoke again, quietly. "I thought I was out, Dean."

Dean frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, this." He motioned around the room. "Getting beat up by monsters and hunting and getting people hurt or worse. I thought I was done with that, and then it found me again and now…with what almost happened to Jess…" He swallowed hard. "That demon was inside of her, Dean, she came to me in Jess' body and said that if I didn't do what Steven wanted then they would hurt her. It possessed her while she was sleeping, she never even knew…"

"Sammy," Dean shook his head, reaching out to put a gentle hand on his brother's shoulder, careful of his wounds. "None of that was your fault, okay? Crap just happens to us, it always has. I wanted you to get out, and no one says you can't. Sam, what you have here, what you built—it's good, really good. I envy you for what you made of yourself."

"Come on," Sam protested.

"No, seriously!" Dean said. "You have friends, a hot girlfriend—who you're living with, no less—you have a life here, Sammy. I bet you even do great on your midterms." That coaxed a small, annoyed smirk out of Sam that made Dean smile in return. "You did good here, kiddo."

"But if I'm just going to bring trouble, what's the point?" Sam sighed. "I may as well go back and hunt with you and Dad."

"Sammy," Dean said earnestly, forcing his brother to look at him. "Don't throw this away, not just because of this, okay? I know it was bad, and traumatizing, but don't be stupid. You were never happy hunting. You can't just quit your chance at a normal life like that. You gotta keep fighting because that's what we do, right?" Dean looked up and smiled as he saw the door opening and nodded toward it, lowering his voice. "See? You have people who would miss you. That's your reason to try, Sammy."

Sam looked up to where Bobby stood in the doorway with Jessica. "Hey, Sam, glad to see you up. Brought you a visitor."

Dean relinquished his seat with a smile as Jessica hurried into the room and looked like she was going to throw herself into Sam's arms when she pulled back, obviously noting his injuries and simply stroked his face and bent to kiss him.

"Sam," she said, tears streaming down her cheeks.

Sam reached up to wipe them away and stroked a hand through her hair. "It's okay, Jess, I'm alright."

"I think I'll go get that coffee now," Dean said with a smirk. "You two love birds can catch up. Be gentle with him, Jess."

"Thank you, Dean," she said sincerely, turning to look at him.

Dean nodded and followed Bobby back out into the hall.

"He gonna be all right?" the older hunter asked.

Dean took a deep breath. "Yeah, I think he'll be okay."

Bobby was silent a while before he continued. "You know, I have the feeling this is only the beginning of something. Something big and nasty."

Dean swallowed hard, but forced the nonchalance back onto his face. "Yeah, when isn't it? Look, whatever it is, we'll deal with it when we get to it. But right now, I'm just glad to have Sammy back."

"I know, me too," Bobby said, clapping Dean on the shoulder before heading down the hall, leaving the younger man standing there. Dean closed his eyes and breathed deeply. He had a sick feeling in his gut too. He knew something was coming, and he knew better than to think it was going to be easy, but he also knew that if it came to it, they would beat it. Because they were the freakin' Winchesters and that's what they did.

Right now, though, he was going to get some coffee and keep his brother company, because that was all that mattered at the moment.

The End