Dean sighed heavily as the automated hospital door slid open to allow his little brother entrance. This was it. The moment of truth. After the difficult hunt he'd just endured, he should have wanted to go back, become a nearly normal, completely solid life-form again, but the old fear still nagged him. It had settled in the pit of his stomach. Sammy had left him twice, once when he was in dire need of a friend, the other when he was in dire need of life support. Sam being the only real friend he'd ever had, it had hurt to watch him walk from the room.
And now he had to go back, back to a life where his father left suddenly, back to a life where evil and loneliness were constant threats, back to a life where he had pretended to be tough just to hide who he really was. He was broken, and he knew it.
Sam turned as the doors slid shut behind him, motioning for his brother to follow. Sighing again, Dean walked through the thin layer of glass. He had wanted to go back, but then things had changed. As much as he hated to admit it, even with the close call he'd just had, he kind of liked being a ghost. He could understand why so many people did it. The pure freedom alone was enough to make a person's head spin.
"What's the matter?" Sam asked, the look on his brother's face startling him a bit. He seemed lost.
"Keep your voice down," Dean cautioned, "people hear you talking to yourself, you'll be lucky if you don't get committed."
"Sorry," Sam muttered under his breath as a passing nurse gave him an odd look, "just tell me what it is."
"Nothing. Let's just get this over with."
Leaving it at that, the two men walked through the clean white hallways, Sam's steps echoing behind them. They took the stairs up to the third floor, where Dean's room was.
Sam walked in, leaving his ghostly companion in the hallway, assuming he was just readying himself for the task at hand. He knew it couldn't be easy to willingly go into something like that, all the therapy, the pain.
Dean was just as he'd left him, laying in the bed, hooked up to a number of various machines, his eyes closed. The scrapes and bruises left by the accident had healed long ago, most of them leaving scars in their place. He looked peaceful.
John was nowhere to be seen, leaving his youngest son to assume that he was either out on a short hunt or in the cafeteria getting something to eat. Dean walked in, the door closing slowly behind him.
"How'd you do that?" Sam asked as the ghost crossed the room.
"I have my ways." Dean looked at himself, slightly disgusted. How a guy like him had ever wound up completely defenseless in a hospital bed, he'd never know. It was mystery, right up there with the ultimate question: why hadn't he died in that crash? Anyone else would have. The doctors had gone so far as to call it a miracle. As far as the victim was concerned, there was nothing miraculous about it. It was pure torture.
"Well?" Sam urged, staring at him. Dean just gazed back. He didn't know what to tell his little brother. That he was scared?
Sam nodded toward his brother's body. The ghost just stood by the bed, looking at him. Something swam beneath his eyes, something he was trying hard to hide, something he didn't want his little brother to see. Something he'd never wanted Sammy to have to see. His uncertainty, his fear.
"Go on," Sam said, nodding again at his brother's corporeal form.
Dean shook his head. "I can't. I'm sorry, but I just can't. You understand, right, Sammy? I just can't go back now."
Sam gaped at him, mouth hanging open. Was his brother pleading with him to let him remain a ghost, something they'd both been raised to hate?
The door opened suddenly behind them, causing both men to jump as their father entered. "Sam? What are you doing back?"
"You didn't get my message?"
"Of course I did. I just thought… the way you ended it… I figured I would never see you again. I thought you said you messed it up."
"Well, I didn't," Sam replied shortly.
"You can help your brother?"
"I know how, but he's being stubborn again."
John nodded sadly, setting his cup of coffee down on a table by the bed. "He's in the room, isn't he? He's here, but I can't see him."
"How'd you know?"
"After I got your call, I put two and two together. Dean wrecks his car on purpose, goes comatose, and unties you in the warehouse, doesn't wake up, and suddenly you want to come back here after storming off? He's a spirit, a free-floater, no longer connected to his body. Lucky for us, I anticipated his resistance to coming back. I know exactly what to do." He exited the room, his face set in determination. He was going to bring his family back together, whether Dean wanted him to or not.
John reentered the room half an hour after leaving to find Sam arguing with something unseen. The older man cleared his throat, a signal for his boys to stop fighting, which they did.
"So, what's this all about?" Sammy asked, curious as usual.
John opened up the small book he'd retrieved from his hotel room, a slight smile forming on his aging face. "This book," he said, handing it to Sam, who took it cautiously, "about a month after the accident I found it. Local bookstores never tend to know what they really have in their shelves, do they?"
"To return a spirit to its body?" Sam questioned skeptically as he turned to a bookmarked page.
"A free floatingspirit, one whose body is still technically alive. This kind of thing has become increasingly common since doctors have started playing God, keeping people alive even though the laws of nature say they should be dead. I didn't want to use it in case I was wrong, but when you called, I dug it out. It should work now."
"And this'll just pull him back?"
John nodded. "It should. If he's in the room, just floating around, he'll be forced to return to his body."
"What if he's not the only one in the room? What if something else gets pulled in instead? What if something gets pulled in with him."
"It's not a dark incantation, Sammy," his father assured, "it's specific and good. It'll work, no problems, no complications, no worries. As long as your brother's here now, it'll work."
He took the small book back from his son and looked at the page, a spell he'd memorized months before, a spell he was more than happy to use.
As their father cleared his throat, Sam looked at Dean, who seemed awfully nervous about something. He was pacing around in one corner of the room, muttering something to himself. Finally, he stopped and stared at his brother, a devilish grin forming across his face.
"Sorry, dude," he said, the grin widening, as he appeared suddenly beside Sam. John started reading, his voice sounding more commanding than usual in the confined space of the room, as Dean stepped nonchalantly into his younger brother's body.
John stopped reading as Sam made a noise behind him. He turned to see his youngest son squirming uncomfortably. "You all right, Sammy?"
"Yeah," the man answered, flashing a brief smile as his left eye began to twitch, "fine."
"You sure?"
"Positive," Sam shrugged, though it may have been another twitch.
"Is this making you uncomfortable?"
"I dunno," Sam muttered, his right arm jerking around slightly, the hand balling into a fist which he repeatedly hit against his thigh, "now that you mention it, though, I should probably get out of here. You know, maybe get a little fresh air."
"Probably a good idea," John replied, raising an eyebrow, "just make sure Dean stays here."
"Yes, sir," Sam mumbled as he walked, still twitching, from the room.
John shook his head and turned back to his work. If that boy ain't the black sheep of family, I don't know who is, he thought to himself as he began to read the incantation that would bring his eldest son back into the land of the fully-alive.
Well, I told you it was longer :)
