Sanctuary

By: Cheryl W.

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural, Dean or Sam, nor am I making any profit from this story.

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Chapter 5: Running Interference

There was nothing in the world like seeing the grill of a truck coming right for you. In the spectrum of Dean's life, it was a pretty tame last sight. Ah crap! Going out as road kill, right in front of Sammy! Not if I can help it! Even as he tried to dodge right, he knew in his gut that he wasn't going to be fast enough. Least it's not going to take out Sam, the truck having been relentlessly locked on him from the start and seemingly to the finish.

Other people discounted seconds, writing them off, never valuing them for the saving grace they were, or could be, ...to the right people. People like Sam Winchester, who had been raised with the stout belief that seconds were malleable, were where the Winchesters excelled, in the blinking of an eye, the line between success and failure, life and death. Sam used his seconds wisely, shoving Dean to the right with all his might before he himself dodged left. He could feel the whish of the truck as it nearly clipped him. And then he was tumbling onto the sidewalk, coming to a halt as his back impacted harshly with the wall of the nearest building.

Anticlimactically the truck came to an abrupt almost noiseless stop on the sidewalk. Confusion eclipsed Sam as the distinct sound of tires squealed, brakes locked up, metal crashed into metal, and glass shattering. Disaster had been averted…or had it? No, the truck was stopped, and I know I shoved Dean clear of the truck. A counter thought blazed through his soul, Too clear, sickly recalling the desperate strength he had put into the shove to Dean. "Dean!" he screamed, leaping from the ground and rounding the truck, heart painfully pounded in his chest.

Then everything stopped, his breathing, his heart, his hearing, everything but the shock. The two crashed cars, their grill and back bumper forged together by the force of the impact, barely registered his notice. Stumbling forward, pushing through the gathered crowd, feeling as if the death of his very soul lay just out of sight.

It was a gift of his training that he didn't scream, that he stood there, wavering, stunned. Wishing he didn't recognize his brother's boots, his nearly worn through jeans. "Dean" Sam choked out, his voice shattering as he sank to his knees beside his brother's still body, his brother's torso and head hidden underneath the crashed cars. Sam's hands gripped onto his brother's jeans, desperate, shaking, white as their grip intensified. "Dean?" Sam cried, so scared to look under the cars to see Dean mangled, decimated, unrecognizable or maybe even worse, looking like he was simply asleep, that all it would take was Sam's calling his name to rouse him. "Dean, please," Sam pleaded his voice a sob. Sinking to his stomach, Sam forced himself to crawl forward, to save Dean or to say goodbye. His badly trembling body barely worked as he inched further under the car, gripping Dean as he went, unwilling to relinquish the contact, desperate that Dean that he was coming, that he was here, now, even if it was too late.

Two things registered with Dean, the smell of rubber and the feel of hands moving from his legs, up his left arm and onto his chest. More alarming than the rubber was the certainty he had that the hands seemingly using him as a ladder were not female hands. Female hands he had intimate knowledge of, with his eyes closed or open, he was an expert either way. Frantically, he wracked his brain to make sense of it all. It came back to him like blinding, flashes of light. September 21st, cursed, truck determined to make him a hood ornament, Sam's shove, tumbling full out onto the street, lying there as a car barreled right for him, rolling away and then nothing..until now.

"Sam, those better be your hands on me and not some pervert's," Dean wheezed out, blinking the world into focus and finding the undercarriage of two cars a less than encouraging sight.

"Dean!" Sam choked out, relief washing over him, sapping whatever strength he had held onto by sheer willpower. Bowing his head onto Dean's shoulder, Sam tightened his grip on Dean's other shoulder, leaving his arm resting across Dean's chest in what some would classify as almost a hug. "I thought…you weren't moving…the cars," Sam's voice hitched and he raised his eyes, taking in Dean's pale but animate features. "Someone called an ambulance, just relax…"

"Relax!" Dean very lowly repeated with exasperated indignation. "Sam, I'm lying on the street, under two cars! Now get off me so I can get out of here." Putting action to words, he wrestled his right arm free from Sam's weight enough to latch onto Sam's jacket and give it a sharp impatient pull backwards, like Sam was a disobedient horse, his jacket equivalent to a rein in his mouth.

Instead of easing his weight on Dean, Sam pulled himself up further, leveraging more firmly on Dean, his hand pressing his brother's shoulder back onto the pavement. His breath was practically in Dean's face, the fire in his eyes readily discernible even in the shadow made by the two cars overhead. "Dean, you're hurt," his words blunt, as his eyes stole to the blood that matted the left side of his brother's head, spiking his emotions to fear once again. Feeling his brother's body tense with rebellious denial, Sam unearthed the most calm, soothing tone he could tap into under the circumstances. "I think it would be best…"

"What would be best is if you got off me and helped me out of here. Now," Dean said dangerously.

"Dean.." Sam unleashed his most effective weapon, his soft tortured pleading tone.

Allowing himself to sympathize with Sam's present feelings, Dean, removing his grip from Sam's jacket, quietly assured, "Sam, I'm not hurt, not really. Head hurts a little but that's it." He gave a little scoffing laugh, "My leg isn't going to come off in your hands if you go to yank me out from under here, Sammy."

"You stupid jerk," Sam cursed back, his voice teetering between laughter and a sob.

"Yeah, whatever. Now get your butt in gear Sam," Dean boldly ordered, knowing when a battle with Sam was won.

"Nice and slow, Dean," Sam warned, inching himself backwards, missing Dean's silent mimic of 'nice and slow, Dean.' Almost clear of the cars, Sam halted and hesitantly put his hand on his brother's legs. "You ready?" he called, tilting his head to see Dean's face under the cars.

"Yeah, been ready for a year now," Dean retorted back.

"Here goes," Sam breathed and as gently as possible he picked up Dean's legs and began to pull his brother free from the wreckage. Ignoring the shocked gasps and outraged reactions from the onlookers behind him, Sam focused on the task at hand, relieved when Dean was fully free from the twisted metal.

Before Sam could order Dean to lie still, the older Winchester was sitting up, was working on making the move to stand. Knowing a lost cause when he saw it, Sam went to Dean's side, wrapped an arm around his brother's waist, gripped Dean's hand and helped him to his feet. Dean's falter was not noticeable to the crowd that thought they were witnessing a miracle, but Sam felt the tremble that went through Dean like it was an arrow burrowing into his chest, shattering the illusion of invulnerability his brother donned, sometimes just for him.

Tightening his hold on Dean, Sam led Dean to the sidewalk, cursing the lack of a bench for the second time in the day. The onlookers closed in on the siblings, questions flew, recaps of the events filled the air, a guy approached, ready to lend his support to Dean on his right side.

"Don't touch him," Sam commanded lowly, his voice menacing enough to make the good Samaritan stumble to a stop.

At the tone, Dean shot an accessing, worried look to his little brother's profile. Concluding that this was Sam at his most dangerous, when he was in that worried, overprotective little brother mode, Dean reassessed his next course of action. Breaking free of Sam's support seemed the wrong move now, sensing that Sam needed to give him support almost more than Dean needed to receive it.

Dean was contemplating option 2 when Sam propped him against a parked car, his brother's taller body close enough to ensure Dean would contact with that hard flesh before the cement under his feet. Wincing against the sunlight, Dean shook his head, attempting to get his fuzzy vision to clear. Gentle but persistent fingers settled under his chin, forcing him to meet Sam's anxious gaze, even as another even more gentle hand touched his forehead, looking for the source of the blood staining his face.

"Ahh…" erupted from Dean as he winced, indicating that Sam's probing fingers had found their mark.

"Sorry," Sam murmured using that tender tone Dean loved and hated, lightening his touch, his well trained eyes assessing the seriousness of the still bleeding gash. "Doesn't look too deep," he diagnosed, pulling back a little to double check his finding in Dean's gaze. "You don't seem to have a concussion."

Uncomfortable being the center of the crowd's attention and Sam's, Dean flicked his eyes to the strangers that were taking in everything like it was a show and then back to Sam. "Told you I was fine," his hand already pushing on Sam's shoulder to give him room, his escape planned. Once again Sam was proving to be a stumbling block.

His hand on his brother's chest, Sam pressed Dean back against the car. "Dean you just got hit by a car!" Sam quietly reiterated as if Dean had somehow missed that event. "You could have internal bleeding, or bruised kidneys. You need to go to the hospital to get checked over."

"I didn't get hit by a car!" Dean denied with a hiss. "And I'm NOT going to the hospital, Sam," his tone of voice telling Sam that the decision was made and nothing he did was going to unmake it.

The sound of an ambulance's siren interrupted Sam's reply. Dean made an attempt to slip to the left and evade Sam's grasp but Sam was instantly there, blocking that route. "I'm serious, Dean. You need to get examined." Sam's reaction to seeing Dean trapped under the cars, unmoving, gave Sam the steel to not back down, even to his brother's most stringent protests.

With the siren's whine getting closer, Dean felt pressured to get through to Sam. So he did what he did best, he kept his cool. Leaning back against the car willingly, Dean crossed his arms at his waist and crossed his legs at his ankles. "Fine. Sure. The hospital's a safe place for me today. It's not like they could overdose me, poison me, sever an artery, inject me with something I'm allergic to, take me to surgery and screw up." Each scenario deepened his brother's features, made the resolve in Sam's eyes dim. Seeing he was having marginal success in breaking through to Sam, Dean brutally condemned, his voice now sharp, "You send me to the hospital and you might as well be putting a gun to my head and pulling the trigger, Sam."

"Again, you mean," Sam breathed out, his head dropping to the left, his eyes watching the accident victims bicker among themselves, having already forgotten that they almost killed his brother.

"Oh, yeah, right, I meant you could put the gun to my head and pull the trigger, again, like you did in the asylum," Dean sarcastically bit back. "Sam don't be such a drama queen."

Warily Dean watched the ambulance pull in beside the two damaged cars. When Dean's eyes alighted back on Sam, the pleading in them shook Sam to the core. "Sam.." Dean began.

"I won't let them take you to the hospital, Dean. They can stitch you up in the ambulance with me watching their every move," Sam counter offered. And Sam needed Dean to agree, because, for all Sam's hands-on medical knowledge, he really wanted to hear some reassurances from an honest to God medic that Dean wasn't slowly dying of internal bleeding. It had been too close this time, too real, his emotions too similar to his reaction to Dean's electrocution. "Don't fight me on this, Dean," his words as much an order as a plea.

Recognizing the emotional edge Sam perched on, Dean relented. "I'm not taking any medication, I'm getting no shots..of anything," he qualified.

Sam nearly gave an outward sign of relief. "Fine with me." Then Sam wrapped his hand around Dean's arm and pulled him from the car. The brothers turned and were suddenly confronted by two male paramedics.

"Sir, can you make it back to the ambulance or.." the younger, blond man began but Dean cut him off as Sam knew he would.

"I can walk," Dean's voice was indignant and Sam couldn't help the smile that broke out on his tense mouth.

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Sam shot a worried look to Dean as they crossed the park. "You sure you don't want to go back to the room, lay down for awhile?"

It was a different variation to the same question his brother had been asking for the past hour. Watching as a beautiful blonde woman jogged by them, Dean almost forgot the question, until Sam slipped to his other side, and began to repeat his question for his fully functional ear.

"Dean, I said are you sure…"

"You know I'm starting to think you have the hearing problem," Dean said, trying to keep his tone light, sensitive to his brother's touching but over the top worry for him. "The medic said I didn't have a concussion, I didn't even need stitches Sam." As Sam seemed ready to object, Dean finished, "And I don't have any internal bleeding, or bruised …lung or whatever. Like I told you, my head hurt a little but that was it." Then Dean shot off on a tangent, hoping to wipe out the seriousness in Sam's eyes, "I should have a medical degree, stuff I know, stuff I know that that medic didn't know… Did he seem young to you? What is this? His high school co-op job!"

Sam looked across the park, biting his lower lip. Dean wanted to make this all a joke but nothing about Dean getting hurt, almost killed was funny, especially this last accident. "I'm sorry, Dean," his words a whoosh of air that barely carried to Dean. "It was my fault…I shoved you too hard…I just…when I saw the truck, I just wanted you to be safe."

Dean snagged Sam's arm, yanking his brother around to face him. "Sam, if you hadn't given me that push you'd be using a Shop Vac to suck me out of that truck's grillwork."

"Dean, I pushed you right into traffic!" Sam nearly yelled, his tone taking on that hard edge it always did when his anger was getting the best of him. Running trembling hands through his hair, Sam walked away from Dean. Already remorse was setting in for raising his voice at Dean. He wasn't mad at Dean. He was mad at himself, at his actions, at almost getting his brother killed. 'Yeah, and I'm supposed to be protecting him! With a bodyguard like me, who needs to hire assassins…or bother to put a curse on someone?'

Dean struggled after Sam, his left leg emanating a twinge of pain, a deterrent to his speed, a deterrent Sam didn't know about and did not need to know about. Dean came to stand before Sam, who had taken up a leaning position against a tree that offered a fair amount of cover from the sun that was turning even more relentless as the afternoon continued. Toe to toe, the brothers' eyes held.

Seeing Sam's guilt, Dean looked away and clenched his jaw, he had known this would happen the second Sam assigned himself bodyguard duty. Sam just wasn't willing to see what they were up against, what Dean was up against. 'Well, it's time he faced facts,' Dean resolved, his eyes lancing into Sam. "That wasn't your fault, Sam! Nothing that happens to me today is anyone's fault. It's the curse, Sam. Come on, man, you know the strength of a curse! It will use whatever is in the works, will create whatever situations it has to in order to inflict the most damage. A curse manipulates everything, does whatever it has to do so that it is fulfilled."

In hind sight, as he watched the color drain completely from Sam's face, Dean perceived that explaining the relentlessness of a curse wasn't exactly the comforting pep talk Sam needed right now. "Oh, Sam, don't.." Dean quietly mumbled in almost a plea, shifting on his feet. "Stop looking at me like I just told you Santa Clause isn't real."

Forcing anger to eclipse the fear that was threatening to seize control of his every thought, Sam pushed off the tree. He seemed intent on stalking away, until he swung around after five steps, accusation in his eyes, a damning finger aimed at Dean who had taken up Sam's abandon position against the tree. "You're doing it again!"

Remaining calmly poised against the tree, Dean answered Sam's accusation with silence a few moments before raising his eyebrows in inquiry. It was a testament to Sam's love for his brother that he didn't close the distance between them and deliver a knock out punch.

"You're giving up!" Sam roared. "Just like.." his voice suddenly deserted him and he clenched his jaw. He couldn't say it, didn't want to remember it, didn't want to draw any conclusion of similarities.

Dean had no such qualms to making the connection. "When I was dying," he finished Sam's sentence, his forthrightness instantly deepening the pain in Sam's eyes. Regret burned in Dean. He should not have bowed to his need to prove he could talk about that time without batting an eye. Somehow it was a revelation to see that, even referring to that event, hurt Sam, deeply if his eyes were any gauge.

Sam put his hands in his pockets and dropped his gaze to the ground, refusing to go to pieces on Dean. He was supposed to be the strong one today, to take on the big brother protective role. 'It's too heavy a mantle, Dean. You wear it so effortlessly and me, I'm crumbling under it! I'm failing you in so many ways!'

Pained at the sight of Sam looking so dejected, Dean sighed and tried to ease his brother's worry. "Look Sam, I was just saying all the ways a curse tries to be fulfilled. I didn't say anything about this curse being fulfilled," he boasted, his voice a bold 'I dare ya' to any curse that wanted to take him on. It earned him Sam's attention and that quick smile Sam pulls out when he's closest to crying but his big brother has made him smile instead. "Remember I've gone a few rounds with this bad boy. And the score is: Dean Winchester – 2, Curse – 0. And my bet's on another victory for that handsome Winchester guy."

Sam couldn't hold back the small laughter, the smile. He had never been able to build any defenses against one of Dean's pep talks. Four years at college hadn't changed that. "Come on, Rocky," he sallied, turning around and beginning to walk toward the pond in the park.

Dean smiled, his eyes flashing with good humor and started to follow Sam. It shouldn't have surprised him, he should have seen it coming. Sure, why not. Add crushed by a tree limb to his tally of accomplishments for the day. It happened too quickly, too quietly. There was no time to react, no time to leap clear, only time to regret he was going out like some stoned lumberjack. 'Timber.'

And then the freight train that was Sam crashed into his side, knocking the air from his lungs, slamming him into the ground. Miraculously the crash of the limb striking the ground didn't coincide with pain shooting down his spine or the nothingness of death. No, the only thing that pressed against his spine as he lay face first on the ground was the weight of Sam. Dead weight.

TBC

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Thank you all for reading and for all the wonderful supportive reviews!

You've all made it a joy to post each chapter!

(I know, if I really appreciated your kindness I wouldn't have ended this chapter with another cliffhanger! Well if Dean has to suffer (and now Sam) wouldn't you feel a little guilty being stress free at their expense? (Me neither).

Cheryl W.