Title: Reader's Special: Fourth Edition - One Shot Reward Fic Collection
Author: Disasteriffic Kaz
Info: A collection of 1 Shot Reward Fics for Prompters of my Reader's Special: Fourth Edition. Features many seasons, hurt/limp/awesome/caring!Sam/Dean/John/Bobby See each chapter for specific info for each 1 shot reward fic.
Author's Note: The Reader's Special: Fourth Edition was a smashing success! Prompters of the story were offered a One Shot Reward story of their choice. These are they. None of the chapters contained in this collection are connected. Each one is a stand-alone one shot per the Prompters request. Thank you to all of you who prompted the Reader's Special! You were fantastic as always!
Chapter Info: For Murphy9202 - I want an AU story set after Dean goes to Purgatory that tells what happened to Sam while Dean is gone and shortly after he comes back. Sam meets a girl (not Amelia) he eventually falls in love with, he gets a dog, and he and the girl are still together when Dean comes back. You decide if he searches for Dean or not and what else happens while Dean is gone. There needs to be some hurt or sick Sam somewhere in the story.
A/N: Somehow it's always you asking me to rewrite the show for a reward story. LOL I think you enjoy watching me twist! HA Alrighty then! A rewrite of the beginning of season 8! Apologies for the delay on this one! Real life and arguing with the opening of my latest book got in the way. Lol
Do please Review once you've read. :D Every comment and vote of support helps keep me writing. Not to mention if I've pooched anything, someone can always tell me. :P
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Dean grunted with the effort of lugging his over-tall little brother up two flights of stairs to their motel room. Sam certainly hadn't lost much in the way of muscle mass while Dean had been in Purgatory. "You know…" he stopped and sucked in a breath before heaving Sam up the rest of the stairs. "…this was easier… before you were ten feet tall."
"M'fine," Sam protested, but it was weak even to his own ears. He saved his breath for getting down the balcony to their room and ignoring the fiery pain in his lower back. At that moment, he felt all of the year he hadn't spent hunting like a weight of uselessness around his neck.
"Come on." Dean kicked open the motel room door and aimed his brother toward the far bed. "Don't lay down yet, dammit." He grabbed Sam's shoulder before he could topple over into the pillows and tugged on his jacket. "Get that off, and your shirts. I ain't undressin' you."
Sam managed a small smile for the comment and wearily started pulling his jacket down his arms. He grimaced, hissed a breath between his teeth, and was stuck with the jacket and his flannel around his elbows. "Crap," he breathed and tried to wiggle out of them without moving his lower back to no avail.
Dean turned back from closing the door and watched his stoic little brother pale dramatically as he fought to get out of his jacket and sighed. "Alright. Alright. Hang on. Geez, sit still for a sec. You're makin' me hurt watching you." He went back to the bed and grabbed Sam's arms. "Hold still, dammit."
Sam lowered his head miserably and allowed his big brother to pull his jacket and flannel off. "I'd have managed."
"I'm sure," Dean grumbled and tossed them to the floor before eying Sam's t-shirt and deciding the best way to get it off. "You've been all independent. Don't need me babyin' you anymore, right? Just lay down man."
"I can get it."
"It's your back, Sam. You can't reach it yourself. Lay the hell down." Dean gave his brother a shove and was relieved when Sam went over without more argument, lying on his stomach with a low hiss of pain.
"It's not like that, you know," Sam said and turned his head so he could see Dean in his peripheral vision. It had only been less than a week since his brother's miraculous return, and like the time after Dean returned from Hell, Sam wasn't comfortable with him out of his sight for long. It was even stronger now, he knew, that need to be sure that what he was seeing… what was happening… was actually real and not his mind screwing with him again.
"Whatever. Stay still."
Sam closed his eyes on the dismissive tone in his big brother's voice. He deserved that, he supposed, after the things he'd told Dean. He shivered when his brother tugged the back of his shirt up and the cooler air of the room hit his skin, and then he remembered. Sam's eyes shot wide and he struggled up. "No. No, I can… I'll manage." He pushed Dean's hand away, trying to pull his shirt back down.
"Sam, what the hell? Knock it off." Dean shoved him back down to the bed, trying to swallow his frustration. He had noticed that, since returning from the nightmare world of purgatory, his patience, which had never been his strong suit to start with, had significantly decreased. He scowled while Sam continued to try and move away from him and pulled his little brother's shirt up with a jerk. Dean's eyes opened wide in shock. "What the fuck is this?" he asked hoarsely and stared down at the patchwork of old, white scars that crossed Sam's back above the blood of the open wound. He knew every scar on his little brother's body; he'd patched most of them up himself over the years, and these… they hadn't been there when Dean had been sucked into Purgatory. "Sam?"
"It's not… It's…" Sam gave up and slumped into the bed, finally just too exhausted to keep up the pretense any longer.
"Not what?" Dean demanded and grabbed the scissors out of the first aid kit. He hastily cut up the back of the bloodied shirt and threw the halves apart to get a clear view of Sam's back. "Because this… this looks like someone whipped you, Sam. These are… Jesus, when the hell did this happen? WHY did it happen?" He brushed his fingers over one of the marks with a dark scowl for whoever had done this to his little brother. "What aren't you telling me, Sammy?" The instinctive need to protect that he'd been afraid had been swallowed forever by Purgatory blazed to life suddenly and took his breath away as it warmed parts of him he hadn't realized had gone cold.
"It's nothing," Sam said softly.
"Don't you give me that," Dean said angrily even as he began to gently clean blood from the open slash mark on the small of Sam's back. He worked to pull back the anger at seeing the scars and knowing Sam was keeping things from him… yet again. "Talk to me, Sam. When the hell did this happen?"
Sam flinched while Dean worked at cleaning the gash on his lower back and blew out a breath. "After… after you… vanished."
"You said you quit hunting and shacked up with…" Dean shook his head. "So clearly you forgot to mention a few things."
"Didn't forget," Sam said simply.
Dean studied the back of his brother's head. He thought back to what little conversation they'd had a week back at the cabin, and with a spurt of guilt, Dean realized that he'd stopped listening to anything after Sam had said he was out of hunting and living with someone again. He remembered with vicious clarity that he hadn't had then the look of hurt on Sam's face when Dean had all but called him a bad brother, had accused Sam of abandoning him. Dean had spent the better part of thirty years teaching his little brother that, when Dean was hurt and pissed, there was little point in talking to him, and Sam had shut up.
"Talk to me now, Sammy," Dean said in as calm a voice as he could manage. "I gotta stitch this up and it ain't gonna be pretty. Tell me everything." He blew out a breath and rolled his eyes fondly because here he was asking for the chick-flick for a change. "I got nothin' to do but listen while I do this."
Sam turned his head enough to see Dean's face, expecting anger and relieved when he found patience instead. "I… I did try to find out what happened to you. I swear I did, Dean."
Dean nodded with that heartfelt plea, with Sam sounding like he had as a child, begging his big brother to believe him. "Obviously, that didn't go well. What happened?" And for the first time, as he asked that, he allowed himself to contemplate his little brother hunting on his own… alone… with no one left alive to watch his back or stitch closed wounds that just wouldn't stop bleeding. And he felt fear.
Sam flinched both from the memories and the first, sharp stitch into his back. He took a breath and settled himself. "There was nothing to go on after… SucroCorp was just empty." He shook his head in the pillow with the remembered helplessness he'd felt back then. "The whole place was painted in that black goo, like all the leviathans just exploded at once with him." Sam sucked in a pained gasp with a particularly painful tug of needle and thread in his back.
"Sorry." Dean stopped and gave his brother a moment. "Skin's jagged." The wound was a zigzag of open, bleeding flesh several inches long, and Dean knew it had to hurt like hell. "You good?" he asked once the tremors eased of Sam's body and picked up the needle again when Sam nodded. "I never thought about it, man. What happened after we got zapped into fight-or-die monster Disneyland." He shook his head as he tied off yet another stitch. "Must'a been like a damn nightmare for you."
"Thought I was crazy," Sam whispered and slammed his eyes closed even as his right hand crept into his left on the pillow over his head and pressed the long-healed scar without being aware of the sudden need. He shuddered. "I thought… God, you were gone, Cas, all the leviathans… I thought it was all a delusion, you know? That Cas had never 'fixed' me in that hospital, and I was just… and you were gone and there was nothing to hold onto!"
"Hey, hey!" Dean dropped the needle and grabbed his brother's shaking shoulder, seeing the shine of tears on the side of his face. "Sammy. I'm here, dude. I'm right here. Take it easy." It rocked him to his core trying to picture Sam in that place and seeing his little brother in that psych ward an inch from death because of madness. Why hadn't he even thought of that before now? What the hell was wrong with him? He pried Sam's hands apart and waited until his little brother's ragged breaths slowed a little again. "You're good, Sam. No crazy train here."
Sam huffed a small, sad laugh and nodded. "Sorry. Sorry. Yeah, I'm… shit. Sorry."
"Forget it," Dean said gruffly and went back to the needle. "Stop screwin' up my stitches." He nodded to himself, satisfied when he saw the small smile on Sam's face. "So, the big mouths painted the walls and you…"
Sam didn't need the prompt. "Crowley showed up for a minute." He felt Dean jerk beside him and went on. "He, uh… he said you were dead and job well done or some crap. I wasn't really… I think I was in shock. Anyway, he grabbed Kevin and vanished and left me…" He blew out an irritated breath into the pillow and knew he was getting to the part where Dean was going to start being angry at him and at the king of Hell. "I got out of there. Found the Impala, and…" Sam broke off for a smirk. "You really don't wanna know what Meg did to the paintwork on your car."
Dean ignored the attempt at distracting him and tied another stitch. He had the wound half closed now and wiped the fresh welling of blood away. "What did you do?"
"I went back to the cabin, and, uh… tried to summon Crowley." Sam groaned. "It didn't work. He must have figured I was going to try looking for answers. I got nothing, so I packed up and… really, don't hit me alright?"
"Sam."
"I went to a crossroads."
That took a moment for Dean to fully process through his disbelief. "Are you fuckin' crazy, Sammy?" Dean said loudly as a fresh wave of angry fear went through him. He set the needle and thread down again, not willing to risk hurting Sam more until he could get his shaking hands under control.
"Don't worry," Sam said miserably into the pillow. "It's not like anyone offered me a deal." He snorted. "I would have taken it if I'd known where you were, Dean. God, I would have… but when I summoned the crossroads demon, I got Crowley instead." He felt Dean jerk again in response and nodded. "He was waiting for me. Cocky bastard said he knew it wouldn't be long before I… before I broke."
"You don't break, Sammy," Dean said fiercely. "I know you."
"I broke." Sam shook his head and kept his face turned away. "Crowley was right. I was desperate to find out what happened to you. I had to know. I'd have given anything to get you back, but he wouldn't deal. He said…" Sam fisted his hands in the pillow and pushed himself up, no longer willing to be on his damn stomach. He sat, ignoring Dean's attempts to stop him. "He said you were dead and that there wasn't a demon or angel who'd even consider bringing you back and putting both Winchesters back into the game when they'd finally gotten rid of one of us." Sam ducked his head and scowled. "He said you were in Heaven and asked me what kind of a bastard I'd be to even try and pull you out of that just for my own selfish need to not be alone." Sam's laugh was soft and clogged with tears. "Given what I know now, obviously, he just wanted me to stop looking. But, God help me, Dean. I believed him."
"Jesus," Dean breathed and wished he could have his hands around Crowley's neck right then.
"He was right. Last man standing." Sam laughed again and it wasn't pleasant. "I had to bag up and deal with it. That's when…"
Dean knew something bad was coming when Sam broke off with that tone in his voice. "This is where the scars come in, isn't it?"
Sam nodded. "Crowley said I didn't get to summon a demon and just walk away unscathed… not this time. He wanted to, uh, teach me a lesson in respect." He shook his head miserably. "You never would have been caught like that. I was so pissed when they grabbed me because I knew you wouldn't have been such an easy, damn target."
"Why didn't he just kill you?" Dean asked and saw his brother flinch. "Sam. I'm glad you're still here. I just meant, he's Crowley. Why didn't he just kill you and be done with it?"
"He liked knowing I was still up here stumbling around like a… like a sad, lonely, broken little moose." Sam said, easily remembering the words Crowley had used and scowled. "I really want to kill him some day."
"Yeah." Dean agreed darkly. "I got a few things to thank that bastard for." He looked over at the scars decorating the back of Sam's bare, hunched shoulders again and forced down the answering rage that rose up.
"He had his demons spend a couple… uh… days… making sure I remembered to leave Crowley alone."
"Sam." Dean gave his brother's arm a nudge and gave him a frustrated look. "Days?"
"Ok, a week. It's not a big deal," Sam said and dropped his eyes again. He'd been starving and dehydrated by the time they let him go. The demons had only given him enough water and food to barely keep him alive, and he thought it'd be a long time before he could eat beef jerky again without gagging. It was all they'd given him for sustenance.
Dean nodded in silence, needing a moment to collect the rage and stuff it away before he spoke. "How bad… I mean, you were ok, right? Other than…" he brushed his fingers over one of the scars and Sam shrugged.
This was the part, Sam knew, that was likely to make Dean blow a gasket, but he couldn't back down from the truth; not now that Dean was actually willing to listen. "I, uh, I was pretty bad off, I guess. They left me alive, but I was a mess. They dumped me on the side of the road, middle of the night… man, it was freezing."
Dean clenched his fists and wished he could track down the bastards who'd dumped his brother off on the side of the road like trash. The image he had in his head of Sam battered and bleeding, whipped half to death and left alone in the cold night made his protective streak scream in rage.
"I didn't care anymore," Sam said softly, remembering the hopelessness that had overtaken him on that lonely road. "I was just… wandering in the middle of the road, trying not to fall down, and I couldn't… couldn't remember what the hell I was even fighting to stay alive for at that point." He felt Dean's shoulder jerk against his and nodded. "I think I was just… done, you know? I didn't have anything left to care about at that point. I mean, Crowley said you were dead… you were in Heaven, and I couldn't pull you away from that, even if I'd been able to find away." Sam ducked his head and smiled sadly. "And then Anne hit me with her car. Never even saw her coming." He snorted a soft laugh and looked up at his brother's surprised face with wet eyes.
"Excuse me? She hit you with her car?" Dean asked in surprise. "Your girlfriend ran you over, and this is your idea of 'meet-cute'?"
Sam smiled and shook his head. "It was raining and dark and I was in the middle of the damn road, man. I'm lucky she was driving a Prius."
Dean snorted in disgust. "No wonder it didn't kill you. That's like gettin' run over by a Big Wheel."
Sam chuckled and nodded. "She was pretty freaked. She called an ambulance, followed me to the hospital. She sat with me for like three days until they released me." Sam smiled again fondly with the warm memory of waking up to her face each time he'd opened his eyes. It had been a balm to his wounded soul, having someone there to care whether or not he was even alive at the time. "She could have just left me there, but… Anne took me home with her. Still don't know why she trusted me like that, but she gave me a room." He shook his head. "Her house was a mess, man. I started fixing things while I was healing, what I could at first, anyway." Sam snorted. "What she'd let me do. She said I had to be good people, because Riot started sleeping in my room instead of hers and he was a good judge of character."
"Riot?"
"Her dog." Sam laughed and this time the smile reached his eyes when he looked over at Dean. "She hit him with the Prius too."
"So, she's a menace." Dean chuckled and watched Sam nod.
"Good kind of menace. You'd like her, Dean." Sam met his brother's eyes again with a challenging look. "She has a love of 80's metal bands that borders on unhealthy."
"Yeah; but she drives a Prius, dude." Dean shivered and grinned but the smile fell away slowly and he put a hand on Sam's shoulder. "Ok, Sammy. I'll meet her. I gotta thank her for takin' care of my pain-in-the-ass little brother."
"She did, Dean. She does." Sam blew out a breath with a sudden longing to see Anne. "I miss her."
"Come on. Lay back down and let me finish this, then we'll get on the road." Dean gave him Sam a shove toward the pillow. "You're gonna need a few days to heal up from this. Do too much movin' around and those stitches are gonna tear open."
Sam nodded and lay back down on his stomach. "She makes pies. First night after she took me home, she made this apple pie… all I could think of was you and…" He closed his eyes and turned his face into the pillow when he couldn't stop the sudden tears. Sam felt his brother's hand squeeze the back of his neck for a moment and it made his breath hitch in his chest. He'd missed that… missed him so damn much. "I'm sorry, Dean. I should have looked harder… found someone else to ask about you… something."
"Knock it off." Dean leaned back and took up the suture needle and thread again, relieved to see the bleeding hadn't gotten any worse. "I get it, Sammy. I do. What happened to you… what that bastard Crowley did…" He looked up to the ceiling for patience before bending back to his work. "Walkin' away was the best thing you could have done. I see that now. You had no way of knowing where I was. I mean, who knew a human could get dragged into Purgatory?" As he said it, he realized just how true that was and how lost Sam must have been when he and Castiel had vanished along with Dick Roman. He put in the last few stitches and carefully cleaned the wound again before taping a bandage over it.
"We really gonna go to Anne's?" Sam asked hopefully.
"Yeah, buddy. Just let me pack up the room. Stay put." Dean patted his shoulder and stood. He sighed and looked down at Sam. "I'm, uh… I'm sorry I kicked you so hard the other day when you tried to tell me all this. I wasn't ready to listen. Purgatory, it… it screws with your head." Dean scrubbed his bloody hands on his jeans, his gaze going vacant for a moment, remembering past horrors of his own. He brought himself back to the present with a shake of his head. "It's like part of me's still there, ya know? It's gonna take a while."
"I know. But you're here now." Sam turned his head up to look at him and smiled. "You're out."
Dean smiled and turned away to start packing up the room. The words were a reminder of all the times he'd assured Sam of that very same thing after the wall in his mind had fallen, and it felt nice to have the shoe on the other foot for a moment. "I know, Sammy. I'm workin' on it."
The time went in a daze for Sam as Dean packed and then shepherded him into the car. The drive was a little surreal through his fogged mind, thanks to the painkillers Dean had made him take, and he knew he was grinning stupidly when they pulled up outside Anne's house… his house. Sam couldn't help it, and the grin only grew wider when the front door opened and she appeared on the porch. "That's Anne. She's pretty, huh?"
Dean snorted a laugh at his very high little brother and nodded. "Yeah, Sammy. She is." Anne was tall, and Dean had to appreciate the waves of coppery, red hair that flowed around her face in the breeze as she came down off the porch. Her bright green eyes looked curiously at him for a moment before latching onto Sam in the passenger seat, and Dean knew he was going to have some explaining to do. "Stay put." He climbed out of the Impala and walked around, meeting the woman at Sam's door.
"You're Dean." Anne tilted her head up to meet his gaze and smiled. "He always said you two didn't look alike, but he was wrong. He does kind of look like you." She glanced into the car and back at Dean. "So, what happened to him?"
Dean smirked, hearing the underlying question of whether it was his fault or not and liked her just a little more. He opened his mouth to try and come up with a story and stopped when she held up a hand.
"It's ok. You can tell me the truth." Anne assured him. "I know what you do, what he does." She chuckled. "Sam can't keep his mouth shut when he's high on painkillers. It sort of all came out shortly after I met him."
Dean did laugh finally and shrugged. "Ghoul with a grudge and a big knife. He was saving my ass."
"That sounds like him." Anne raised a brow and put a hand on the door handle.
"Yeah. Sammy?" Dean called while Anne opened the door and he knelt down next to his brother. "You ready to move, buddy?" Sam gave him a nod and Dean chuckled, seeing that his little brother's eyes were fixed on Anne happily. "Stop makin' eyes at your girl for two minutes."
Anne laughed and felt a little warm flutter in her heart, watching how gently and expertly Dean helped Sam out of the car and kept him on his feet. "Is he hurt bad? Does he need a hospital?"
Dean shook his head. "Naw. I stitched him up. It's just in a bad place. Gotta keep his gigantor ass still for a few days so it can heal."
Anne led them into the house and moved aside to let Dean ease Sam down to the overlong couch she'd bought just for him. She kept out of the way while Dean settled his brother and smiled. "I'm glad, you know. That you're alive. That you're safe." She looked down at Sam and moved to brush her fingers through his hair softly. "Being without you, it was like an open wound. I could keep bandaging it up but it never healed." She looked at Dean where he sat beside Sam's hip and sniffed back a wave of tears. "You're like his father, you know that? Not just his big brother. Every story he ever told me about being a kid always started and ended with you, and I think… part of him couldn't forgive himself for not ending with you a year ago."
"That's because he's an idiot," Dean said gruffly and rested a hand on the side of Sam's neck. "All I ever wanted him to do was live and be happy." He met Anne's eyes and smiled warmly. "Glad you hit him with your toy car."
"Hey!" Anne said in mock anger. "There is nothing wrong with a Prius."
"Nothing a sledge hammer wouldn't fix," Dean retorted with a grin.
"Oh, my God. Winchester men. Jesus." Anne laughed and rubbed a hand over her face. "He says the same damn thing."
"That's my boy." Dean squeezed Sam's neck fondly.
"Yeah. Yeah, he is," Anne agreed quietly and laughed. "I'm gonna go make some coffee and let Riot in from the backyard before he smells Sam and starts to howl. Honestly, my own dog threw me over for Sam. It's embarrassing."
Dean watched her leave the room and looked back to his brother as Sam's eyes began to flutter open again. "You're right, Sammy. I do like her." Sam gave the smile of the blissfully high and closed his eyes again, making Dean laugh. "And you're stupid over her. It's ok." Dean smoothed a hand over Sam's brow and down to his neck again. "I approve. She's smart, she's hot, and she doesn't take any of your crap." He chuckled. "We're gonna have to work on her taste in cars though." Dean looked out the window at the Impala, around the quiet, clean, and homey house and then settled his eyes back on Sam. "I'm home, little brother," Dean whispered and tried to let that finally sink in. "Home."
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The End.
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