Disclaimer: According to everyone I ask nothing belongs to me, including The Pretty. That sucks.
CHARACTERS: Dean, Sam. AU
Snow Globe"Down, Sam!"
Four years at Stanford were not enough to wipe out many more years of training. Sam hit the ground a nanosecond before the shots blasted over his head. He could feel the air thrum with the energy of their passing.
The growling that had been behind him turned to pained howling and then silence. Sam slowly raised his head and looked back. The two werewolves they had been hunting lay dead, transforming back into the human forms they wore when the moon was not full.
Quick footsteps approached him and a pair of dusty biker boots came into view. A concerned voice asked, "You okay, Sammy?"
"It's Sam," the younger man replied. "And I'm fine, though I may have a new part in my hair."
His brother grinned, his hazel, though more-green-than-brown, eyes alight with devilment. "How could anyone tell in that mop? I swear, Sam, one day I'm going to get you totally wasted and then haul your ass over for a haircut!" He burst out laughing.
Sam appeared less amused, scowling at his older brother. He rose to his feet, brushing his pants and sending clouds of dust everywhere. Looking at the deceased werewolves, he shivered slightly. They had been only a few steps behind him before Dean had come racing up the path, guns a-blazing. Too damn close.
He gave Dean a rueful smile. "Thanks."
Pleasure flickered briefly in Dean's eyes before the older man masked it with his usual cockiness. "Hey, that's the kind of incredible big brother I am." He reached out, gave Sam's shoulder a pat and said softly, this time with genuine emotion, "I'll always have your back, Sammy."
And Sam knew he would.
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Sam Winchester watched as the vending machine dropped first an empty cup and then proceeded to send a stream of moderately hot coffee into its gaping maw. Not Starbuck's, but any caffeine was better than no caffeine. After the flow stopped, Sam waited. A few seconds later, another short burst of coffee topped off the cup. Sam had been slightly burned the first time he had used this machine and he had learned its quirks.
He knew the quirks of every vending machine in this private, luxurious long-term nursing facility cum rehab center. You get to learn every nook and cranny when you spend a major portion of the last four years haunting the corridors of the facility.
And, of course, haunting one particular room. The one that housed Dean Michael Winchester. Or rather, the shell of what had been Sam's best friend, defender and beloved older brother. Every time Sam stepped into Dean's room, the pain threatened to send him to his knees in tears.
When Sam was six months old, their mother died in an automobile accident. Sam had been strapped into a car seat in back and had survived without even a scratch, but Mary Winchester had been killed instantly when the out-of-control semi had slammed into the front of her car.
It would have been understandable if his father and his brother—not quite five when he lost his mother—had resented the infant, had asked why was he alive while she was dead. But, instead, they had made him the centerpiece of the family, Mary Winchester's last gift to them. Sam could not remember a day when he had not felt loved and wanted and protected. Especially by Dean. Who had apparently decided even before Sam was born that he would be the "bestest big brother ever", as Dad said he had once solemnly stated at the dinner table to both his parents.
And if anyone had ever had the secret of being the bestest big brother ever, it was Dean.
And that damn corporation, with its cutting corners, had taken Dean away from him.
Dad owned an auto body shop and Dean had worked there after leaving school while trying to start up his own electronics business. Just as Dad could make a car sing and dance, Dean was a genius when it came to all things electrical. A computer giant had decided to put up a Mid-West headquarters outside of Kansas City and Dean had been hired to plan out the wiring for the structure. While working inside the mostly-built building, a part of it had collapsed, burying Dean and two of his employees, as well as some employees of other subcontractors. Dean had been "lucky": the others had all died in the collapse.
Sam sometimes thought that they had been the lucky ones. Dean had never opened his eyes, moved or said another word since that day.
Subsequent investigation had uncovered a morass of shoddy materials and corner-cutting, all approved by corporate officers, who had ended up going to jail along with the owners of the construction company and the corporation had agreed, in addition to paying basic damages, to pay for Dean's treatment for the rest of his life.
In Sam's opinion, it was not enough. It would never be enough. Dean would not be out in a few years, able to start over. Dean had received a life sentence, imprisoned in his own body. He knew, though, that he and his father would never have been able to afford this place and he at least grateful that Dean was not wasting away in some rat-hole of a nursing home where he was ignored or abused.
Instead Dean lay, unresponsive to everything, in luxury. The doctors and nurses had long since given up any belief that Dean would ever wake up again. The brain damage had been too massive. Though he could breath on his own, he needed a feeding tube to stay alive. Sam could barely bring himself to look at it.
It hit their father even more. Sam knew John wanted to come more often, but he also knew it would never happen. The look in John Winchester's eyes every time he saw his elder son, his laughing beautiful Dean, lying like a living statue, would have caused angels to weep. Sam, having had to sit with his father after a visit while John sobbed, could not be angry that his father was simply unable to come more than he did.
Sam came as often as he could. He knew that in part—because it hurt like hell to see Dean like this—he was driven by the lash of guilt. It had been one of those stupid fights that brothers have. Except, of course and as usual, it had really been Sam yelling at Dean, who had taken it with his typical easy-going manner, knowing from experience that Sam's anger would blow over by the next day.
Only there had not been a "next day", and there never would be. And Sam's last words to his brother had been angry, hurtful ones that he could never take back. It would haunt him to his grave.
He stood at the doorway to Dean's room, studying his brother. The once robust physique—buff not from hours in the gym but from a lifetime of hard work—had shrunk in on itself, muscles atrophied and wasting away. His hair, kept short as Dean had always preferred it, was showing signs of gray.
And Sam knew that one day, the guilt, the love, the need that drove him to keep the feeding tube in place, to keep his brother alive, would falter before the knowledge that Dean would have hated this more than anything. Being trapped in his own failing body. Being kept alive after everything that truly mattered had long since moved on to a better place. Being an object of pity.
On that day, Sam would nod and agree with the doctors and tell them to take the tube out. He would not ask his father about it, because John would fall apart completely. And he would take whatever time he needed from the law firm where he worked to be at Dean's side, day and night until the end, because he would not let Dean go on alone.
Unbidden, a line from The Lord of the Rings, one of his favorite books, drifted into his mind. "Don't go where I can't follow." But Dean--the Dean he loved, the Dean who had soothed away his nightmares when he was little, who had taught him how to tie his shoelaces and pick out his clothes—his Dean, had long since traveled on to where Sam could not go.
He crossed to his brother's side and smoothed the short hair back with one hand. Bending over, he whispered into his brother's ear, "Where did you go, Dean? Where are you now?"
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Dean lifted the top of the hidden compartment in the trunk of the Impala, Sam standing beside him. Now, and not when the brute was in front of them, was the time to set aside what they would need to deal with the hellhound that was lurking in the forest beyond the small Michigan town where they had spent the day, asking questions and doing research. Too many people had already fallen to the beast, but it had attacked its last innocent.
Tonight, Dean vowed, we are busting your ass!
Satisfied they were ready, he glanced over at Sam, who nodded back. They walked to the front doors and slid inside their fiery metal steed, two knights of the road, hunting dragons to their lairs.
Dean turned the ignition key and the engine roared to life, a challenge to the night. Sam smiled, his eyes lit with anticipation of the battle to come and Dean laughed. It was good to have Sammy back.
The Impala blazed out of the parking lot, into the deadly darkness beyond, its headlights seeming to burn with golden fire and a hint of flame coming from its exhaust pipe.
Hey, evil, better get ready! The Winchester boys are going hunting!
A/N: A little sad, I know. Please let me know what you think. The title may be a bit confusing; it is a reference to the last episode of "St. Elsewhere."