12: Moving Forward
Dean opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling, waiting for the familiar feeling to hit him. The sense that something was missing. It didn't come. The space around him didn't feel empty anymore. Dean turned to look at the sleeping bag next to his. Sam was curled up in a ball, wheezing slightly as he slept. A wide smile spread across Dean's face. Sam. My brother.
Dean checked the clock. Dad would expect them to be up and ready to go soon. Dean shimmied out of his sleeping bag and hurried to shower before Sam woke up. The way he always did. After he got Sam up for his turn in the shower, Dean went to the kitchen to cook up breakfast. He set out three plates, then added one for Bobby.
The routine felt smooth, right. There were no more gaps, no more missing spaces, no more reflexes that didn't make sense. Everything was as it should be. Dean started to hum a little LED Zeppelin, bouncing his head to the beat. The past three months felt like a strange dream, almost as if it hadn't been real. It would be so easy just to forget it all.
Except that Sam's face was still red from crying himself to sleep last night. Dean's humming skipped a beat. No, they couldn't just pretend it hadn't happened.
They needed to figure out what had happened. Who kidnapped Sam? Why?
What did they do to my baby brother that was so bad Sam refuses to talk about it? Dean's fists clenched. When he found out, there would be hell to pay. For now, all he could do was fry bacon and flip pancakes. He also added a pot of oatmeal to the stovetop. For some reason, Sam liked the stuff.
"What do you mean, you're leaving now?" Bobby's voice carried from the back porch. "John, this case isn't solved yet. There's still a demon out there, and we still don't know what really happened to Sam back in Missouri."
"We've got him back, that's enough. It doesn't matter if it was the witch or the demon. It doesn't matter if they were working together or against each other. There are demons signs all around this town. Which means we need to be somewhere else." The familiar sound of the Impala's hood slamming shut followed John's voice. Dad was doing his usual pre-travel checks on the car.
"No demon is getting in my house again, John. You helped me put up the wards."
"It doesn't matter, Bobby. I want Sam as far away from that thing as possible."
"I get that it's important to keep Sam away from those black-eyed monsters, but I also think we need more information before the drop this. There's something here that doesn't add up. What else happened the night Sam vanished? You said you two had a fight."
John's tone turned sour. "What are you implying, Bobby?"
"I don't know, I'm just saying that we need to know more. Sam is still scared of something-"
"He's scared because a demon walked into your house, Bobby. The best thing to do is get Sam as far away from that as possible."
"The best thing to do might be to explain a few things to both of your boys, John. If Sam and Dean knew a bit more about demons-"
"I will decide what they need to know and when they need to know it," John said. "We'll be on the road as soon as we finish breakfast."
The skillet hissed, and Dean turned his attention back to the stove top. He dumped the breakfast out into four plates and sat at the table, staring at his steaming food but not seeing it.
He was back in that motel room in La Plata, Missouri, the last night Sam had been with them.
Dean leaned back in the bed, flicking through channels on the TV. It was the end of the summer and the only thing on was reruns that Dean had seen several times before. He wanted to go out, but Dad wouldn't allow it. Not with a freshly dislocated shoulder, now popped back into place and settled in a sling. The pain killers Dad had doled out were making Dean a little fuzzy anyway. He might not make it too far if he did try to go out.
Dad was sitting in the corner, hunched over a stack of books they had taken from the witch's apartment. He had burned everything else, but had been pouring over these ever since they got back to the motel. Dean looked for his little brother. Sam had been subdued ever since they got back from the hunt, and he had avoided eye contact with Dean. When Dad had declared that Dean needed a quiet evening to rest his injury, Sam had practically turned mute. He was curled up in the corner, as far away from his family as he could get while still sharing the same room. There was a pillow at his back and a book in his lap.
Wasn't there always a book in Sammy's lap? He even had a pad of paper out to take notes as he flipped through the pages. As if this was homework, even though school didn't start for several more weeks. The book was thick and old and looked terribly boring.
"Hey, Sammy? Wanna play a game?" Dean had a deck of cards in his bag and he was trying to teach his little brother the finer points of poker so that they could team up when hustling. Sam preferred battleship, he had an old travel set in his duffle.
Sam shrugged, which wasn't really an answer, and leaned closer into his book.
Dean rolled closer to his brother, squinting at the book. Everything was a little hazy tonight. "Whatcha readin'? Something for your summer reading list?"
"No, I finished that last month." Show-off. "Dean, are we sure witches get their power from demons? Because a lot of the spells in here don't say anything about them. It looks a little bit like a chemistry project, mixing bits of things together."
Dad's head snapped up, his eyes narrowed on his youngest son. "Sam? What are you reading?" John counted up the books in his stack and frowned. "Sam?"
Sam's spine straightened and he snapped the book closed. "You're reading them!"
"I am doing research so we'll be prepared if we ever come across a demon. I'll teach you what you need to know when you need to know it." John held out his hand, demanding Sam return the book to him without saying a word.
"But Dad!" Sam climbed to his feet to face their father, but kept a firm hold of the book. "You make me do research all the time and now I can't read just one book?"
"This is a very bad book, Sam."
"It didn't look that bad to me. Some of the spells in there looked kind of useful." Dean winced at Sam's words. Why did the kid always have to say the thing that he knew would upset Dad the most?
"Come on, Sammy! Dad can't tell when you're teasing the way I can." Dean butted in, trying to calm things down before they boiled over. If the fight got bad, both Sam and Dad would sulk for days.
Dad wasn't going to back down from this one, though. This wasn't about Sam being slow to get ready for a hunt or refusing to to practice drills so that he could read a book. This was much more serious than that. "Sam, this is witchcraft and I don't want you anywhere near it."
"You're reading them!"
"That's different."
"How?" Sam crossed his arms and glared at his father. "How is it different?"
Dean closed his eyes, wishing he could be anywhere but here. Then he opened them again and levered himself upright on the bed despite the sharp pain that rammed through his shoulder when he moved. Someone might need to break this up soon, and that someone would have to be Dean. He watched, waiting to see if he would be needed and hoping he would not.
"It just is," John said.
Sam's eyes narrowed and his glare deepened. This argument was going nowhere good, and fast.
"Sammy, you gotta trust Dad! He knows what's best."
"I don't want to just follow orders, I want to understand what is happening!"
"Sam! Your brother got hurt today because you didn't follow orders." Dad's tone was sharp, leaving no room for further argument.
Sam's defiant expression collapsed and his eyes flew to his big brother. "I didn't mean—I was trying to help!"
"And it got your brother hurt."
Sam's jaw clenched, and he looked away.
"Give me the book Sam." John held out his hand again, and Sam handed over the book. "It's getting late now, I think it's time you boys went to bed." Dad gathered up the books, tucked them under his arm, and left.
"I'm sorry, Dean. I guess I really messed up." Sam's voice had that scratchy quality it always got when he was trying to hold back tears.
"I'm fine, Sam." Dean gave his brother his most convincing smile, but it may have been a bit wobbly. The painkillers were making everything wobbly. "It'll be ok. You'll know to follow orders next time."
"Next time?" Sam scrubbed his hand over his eyes and shook his head. "I'm gonna get ready for bed." Sam gathered up his notepad and retreated to the bathroom.
Sam hadn't come out of the bathroom for over an hour, and Dad had been gone far longer than that. When he returned, the books were gone.
It didn't seem important. Clearly, Dad didn't think it was important. But Dean knew from experience that the smallest detail that a witness thought didn't make any difference at all could be the key to solving a case. Bobby ought to know. Maybe he could see something that Dean and Dad had missed.
o0o
Logic. It was a tricky ally, absolutely necessary but always willing to stab you in the back. Facts had a coldness about them that pulled no punches. Bobby lined up the facts as he knew them, and the resulting picture left him feeling like all the air had been knocked from his lungs.
Sam wouldn't do that. The panic that had driven Bobby and John these past few days, Sam wouldn't do that to them. He was a good kid. He loved his dad and his brother. He wouldn't.
Denial was a friendly monster. It smiled at you right at first, made you feel warm and comfortable. But in the end it always betrayed you. Bobby had learned to dispense with denial long ago.
Which left him with an uncomfortable conclusion: Sam had run away. Dean's story proved that Sam had access to recipe for the hex bag. It also explained why the youngest Winchester had waited so long to call anyone for help and why they couldn't find evidence that a witch or a demon had been in La Plata the night Sam vanished.
The simplest answer was, they hadn't.
Which left Bobby with a problem and very little time to decide what to do. John had left to run an errand in town with strict instructions that Bobby was not to take his eyes off Sam.
For now, Sam didn't seem to mind being confined inside. Bobby found him in the library, curled up on the sofa under the window, pouring over a book. A book about demons. A book the boy hadn't picked up until his father left.
Bobby pulled over a chair and settled down with a groan. "So, Sam, I got a question for you." Sam's eyebrows snapped down in a scowl, but Bobby raised a hand to forestall his protest. "I know you don't want to talk about what happened, but I just need to know one thing. You weren't hexed, were you?"
"Hexed?" The way Sam's eyes grew wide at the question was almost answer enough. His gaze shifted, a guilty suspect trying to decide which answer would be the least suspicious.
"You mean, did I forget about Dad and Dean the way they forgot about me?" Answer a question with a question. Classic stall tactic.
"That's right. The social worker in La Plata said that you knew everything that happened." Would he try to deny it?
Sam's mouth dropped open in surprise. "I didn't tell her anything!"
"Sometimes what you don't say counts just as much as what you do say."
Sam's mouth snapped shut, then opened again but no sound came out. He was stuck. "I—she-"
"If you were hexed, you wouldn't have been able to remember me or come to me for help." Bobby dropped his last line of reasoning down neatly and waited for Sam's reaction, hoping the kid wouldn't spot the gap in his logic. The hex bag could have made Sam forget his father without forgetting Bobby, just as John had forgotten Sam but not Bobby. Thankfully Sam was a bit too busy trying to keep his secret to catch the slip.
"I didn't forget. No one hexed me."
There it was, the confirmation of what Bobby had begun to suspect. Which begged the next question. "If no one hexed you, why didn't you come for help sooner?"
Sam looked away.
"No one kidnapped you, did they?"
"What do you mean, Bobby? Someone hexed Dad-" Sam's knuckles had turned white as his grip on his soda tightened. His eyes darted toward the door as if contemplating his escape.
"You had a good long look at that witch's spell book, and her specialty was memory charms." Bobby was glad he had seated himself between the boy and the door. Sam wasn't in a good position to run away from this conversation.
Sam's eyes grew even wider, and darted toward the escape route again. Bobby suddenly realized that Sam wasn't afraid of the demon or the witch, he was afraid of the hunter in front of him.
"I won't do it again. I swear I won't!" Sam's voice was shrill with fear. "I didn't hurt anybody, I didn't want to hurt anyone."
"Easy, easy!" Bobby put a hand on Sam's shoulder, meaning to comfort him, but the boy flinched. "What do you think is going to happen, Sam?"
"Hunters kills witches." His voice was a whisper.
The words hit Bobby like a knife in the back. Could the boy really think his own friends and family would turn on him? Of course he could. Some hunters would.
"Yeah, hunters kill witches. A kid who made one dumb move ain't a witch." Bobby squeezed Sam's shoulder tight. "That's how I see it and that's how your Dad will see it." After a moment, he added, "But don't go telling no one else."
Sam shook his head. No, he knew better than that. For a moment Sam toyed with the bottle in his hands and gave Bobby a considering look out of the corner of his eye. The boy had another question, one he wasn't sure he should ask.
"What else happened?" Bobby prompted. "What happened when that witch caught up to you?"
"Nothing. Nothing important. But the demon-" Sam paused. "The demon said I have something special. What do you think that could mean, Bobby? Why would—why would a demon save my life?"
"The demon saved your life?" Bobby repeated.
Sam shifted away from him again and nodded. Fear was at war with curiosity, but this was Sam, so curiosity won. "The demon only came when the witch tried to kill me, and it said that I had something special and that the boss doesn't want me dead yet."
The boss?
"I think there was one in Missouri, too." Now that Sam had gotten started, it seemed he wasn't going to stop. "There was this funny smell the whole time I was there, and I didn't know what it was. There was the same smell here, but only after the demon showed up."
"That would be sulphur. It's a yellow powder, they say it's all over hell. Demons track it everywhere." Bobby recited the simple fact without really thinking about it. He mind was full of other things.
"Mr. Finklestein knew things about me that he shouldn't have. It was just little things. Sometimes it was things that I know no one could have seen-" Sam frowned. "He said he'd been watching me, only I didn't think that was possible. I just thought he was a jerk and he was really good at guessing. You know how you can read people and guess what to say to freak them out? But then the demon came, and-" Sam shook his head. "That's just crazy, right Bobby? Demons are just evil spirits that do nasty stuff. They wouldn't just sit around and spy on someone."
"Yeah, you're right. Demons like chaos and blood."
"They also wouldn't save my life."
Bobby couldn't argue with that. "Why don't you want to tell your dad or your brother any of this?"
Sam's face fell. "They won't like it."
Bobby sighed. No they would not. "Why did you run away? Are things really that bad with you and your dad?"
"No! I just—I didn't want to do it anymore. I don't like hunting." Sam frowned and looked up at Bobby. "Don't tell them. Don't tell Dad any of this."
"Sam, your dad needs to know."
"No he doesn't!"
Bobby grimaced. He did not like the idea of getting between two Winchesters. "I won't if you make me a promise."
"Promise what?" Sam asked cautiously.
"Next time you feel like you have to leave home, you come to me. Don't go off on your own."
For a moment Sam's expression was stubborn, as if he took offense at the idea of limiting his choices. But he nodded, and Bobby believed he meant it. That left one problem solved, but a whole new heap to tackle.
The fact that the demon had stepped in to save Sam didn't trouble Bobby as much as it might. It only confirmed what they already knew; the demons wanted something from Sam. Someday, they would come for him. But not today. There were no new worries there. The only problem was that now Sam knew. He knew the demons were watching him. He knew the demons were interested in him, thought he was 'special.'
Whatever 'special' meant. A boy like Dean would have shrugged it off and gotten on with his life. Sam was not like Dean, and while that didn't mean they loved him any less, it could be a source of great frustration to anyone who tried to look after him. Sam always was a deep little kid. The wheels inside his head were always turning, going who-knows-where. What would Sam make of the demon's words?
Nothing good.
o0o
"Here you go, Dean." John placed the shiny new cell phone in Dean's hand. He still couldn't believe they had made these things so small, and so cheap. It wasn't that long ago, a shoe in one's phone was a spy-movie fantasy of the future. Now, the phone was significantly smaller than a shoe. John watched Dean's expression light up, and allowed himself a small smile. It was always a pleasure to give his boys something that excited them or made them happy. Thankfully, Dean was easy to please.
"Awesome!" Dean pulled the antenna up, down, then up again. He started pressing buttons, eyes dancing. "Wow, this has a game on it!"
"Remember, Dean. This is a tool, just like your shotgun or your knife. You are to take care of it and make sure it is in working condition at all times so you have it when you need it. If I call, I expect an answer."
Dean's grin flattened immediately. Time to get down to business. "Yes, sir."
John handed over the charger and owner's manual. "You have 120 minutes every month. If you use them up, you find the money to refill them. Battery life is three hours."
"Three hours? Who would spend three hours on the phone?" Dean stared at the tiny piece of technology in his hands, then grinned again. "Riley's been begging his parents for one of these. He's gonna flip." Dean's eyes were alight with possibilities.
"You're not going back to school at Pella, Dean." John broke the news as gently as he could, and watched Dean's expression fall again. John's heart fell with it. In these past few months, he had seen a new side of his son. He had seen what Dean could have been if Mary had never died, if they had never become hunters. The way he had worked to get his grades up, worked to get on the wrestling team, and put in time at the shop to learn more about mechanics in hopes of getting a good job someday—John had enjoyed watching it all. He couldn't be prouder.
He also could not tell Dean any of that. Talking about how good those few months had been would only make their next move harder. Best to sweep it all away, tuck it out of sight.
"We're only going back long enough to pack out the apartment. We'll need a few more things than we brought with us this time."
"We could stay, Dad. Sammy would really like it there. We could just tell people he's my half brother and we rescued him from your evil ex. They'd all buy it."
John snorted. "I'm sure they would, but we've got to move on. I don't know where that demon went off to, and if it's tracking us—well. We've got to do our best to lose him."
Dean looked up and around at the street outside the cell phone shop. "You think it's still out there?"
"I know it is. I caught it's scent this morning. I hasn't gone far."
Dean frowned. "What do they want with Sammy?"
"I don't know, and I don't want to find out. Our job is to keep Sam as far away from them as possible, stay sharp, and take as many of their kind down as we can." It wasn't the best strategy, but it was the only one John had at the moment.
Dean's shoulders straightened and he gave his father a proud nod. "Taking down monsters is what we do best."
"That it is." John gripped Dean's shoulder tight. "That it is."
Should Bobby tell John what he knows? Will Sam be content to stay with his family now? Will the demon be back?
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