"Terrific, Sam. This is fucking fantastic." Dean cursed, staring out the motel window, watching the hail fall from the sky and bounce off the ground.
"It'll be okay, Dean." Sam declared; an amused smile crossing his face before he returned his attention to the open laptop on the table.
"You know what hail does to my girl?" He growled back, hating on every single ice pellet that hit his baby.
"The Impala will be fine." Sam sighed in exasperation.
"That crap could crack the windshield, it'll probably—
"Chip the paint." His brother recited with him in unison.
Dean tore his eyes from the window to glare over at the brat. Sam tried to cover his smile, hiding his face behind his screen when he failed.
"Well I'm glad you're enjoying this. It's all your fault anyways." The older boy muttered, walking over to drop heavily into the other kitchen chair.
Sam looked up at him, an eyebrow raised.
"You're the one that wanted to come all the way up to Minnesota!" He hollered, his temper lost.
Dean got no satisfaction though; Sam didn't even grace his response with a bitch-face, but at least he had the decency to try to hold back a smile…the operative word being try.
"What the hell, man?"
"I'm sorry, Dean. Really, I am." Sam managed to reply through his laughter.
"Bullshit. You're loving this." Dean grumbled, mindlessly cleaning the weapons he'd brought in from the trunk a few hours ago when the crap weather had started and they'd realized that they wouldn't be going out tonight.
Dean glanced between Sam and the shotgun he was cleaning, watching as the younger man paused his rapid typing to clench his hands every now and then, he also noticed that the kid had yet to shed his coat. He casually stood up, sauntering over to the heater under the window and subtly checking to see if he could turn it up anymore.
Damn, it was already on high.
"If you turn that thing up any higher, it's going to explode." Sam commented, not bothering to remove his gaze from the laptop. Dean rolled his eyes, that brat always knew what he was up to.
"I don't know what you're talking about." He declared, feigning ignorance.
"I'm talking about you wanting to turn the heater up."
"I didn't touch the heater. I'm just standing here watching the hail violate my baby."
"If that's your story." Sam murmured distractedly.
"You find any new info?" Dean asked, making his way back towards the table, glancing over his kid brother's shoulder at the research.
"Not really, all the reports just call it a haunted house. All I can gather from the articles is that people are going in the house and never coming back out."
"How many people?"
"Six this year. A group of teenagers went to the house a few nights ago, apparently two of them went in to the house on a dare, and never came back out."
"We should talk to the other kids."
"Yeah, that's what I thought we could do this evening, but I guess we'll wait until tomorrow."
"This is what happens when you choose a hunt in Minnesota." Dean pointed out.
"How was I supposed to know the weather would be like this?" Sam asked incredulously.
"All I know is that it's not hailing in Georgia."
The dork rolled his eyes at his brother's whining and returned to his research.
That's how the night went, Sam aimlessly browsing through the internet trying to find information on something they knew nothing about, and Dean making every weapon in their arsenal shiny clean.
And then the power went out.
"Shit." The older hunter swore, flicking the light switch up and down, as if that would somehow magically illuminate the room and turn the damn heater back on.
Sam let out a long sigh, but spent the next hour using what was left of his battery to continue with research. Dean was also tremendously productive with his time; he made tiny airplanes out of the small notepad provided by the motel notepad.
Once he used the last scrap of paper and threw another plane at his little brother, smirking at the bitch-face he received for hitting him in the nose, he decided enough was enough. Dean got up, putting on his jacket, not realizing until it was around him how cold it was getting in there. He sent Sam a nervous look, realizing that the kid had his hands tucked into his sleeves as he looked up at him curiously.
"Where you going?"
"To the office, I want to see how long it's going to take them to turn the damn lights back on." And get that heater working again.
Sam nodded before turning his attention back to whatever was on the screen in front of him. Some boring newspaper article no doubt, the kid was never looking at anything interesting, like porn.
The trip in the freezing rain was useless. The guy at the office told him that a few power lines had gone down and the whole town was in the dark. He had no idea when it'd be back on or if the hail was going to come to an end anytime soon.
Useless.
Dean opened the motel door, cursing the weather as he entered the room.
"Power lines are down, whole town is out. The guy's got no clue when they'll be able to get the lights back on." He informed his little brother, sliding out of his wet coat and looking over at the table.
Sam was right where he left him, but he now had the hotel comforter wrapped around his shoulders. The kid made every effort to avoid eye contact. In his mind, Dean was directing every vile word he could think of towards the weather outside.
"We should get out of here."
Sam looked up at him, eyebrows raised.
"And go where?" He asked.
"I don't know, somewhere with power."
"Thought you said the entire town was out."
"So, we go to another town." He shrugged.
"But the hunt is in this town."
"We come back tomorrow."
"Dean, you can't drive in that." Sam said, gesturing to the hail currently pounding on the windowsill.
The bugger was right ofcourse, the Impala didn't do ice.
"Well then what are they supposed to do? Sit here in the dark all night?"
"It's almost eleven, dude, you could try getting some rest."
"You get some rest." Dean retorted childishly.
"I will, after I'm done reading this."
As if the technology was listening, the laptop's battery finally gave out and the screen went black.
"Well look at that." The older man mocked with a smirk.
Sam sent him a frustrated stare, sighing heavily as he closed the computer lid and glanced aimlessly around the room.
"The dark isn't so much fun now is it, geek boy?" Dean snickered.
Sam let out a light chuckle, shaking his head as he got to his feet, subconsciously pulling the blanket tighter around himself. Dean watched with a worried gaze as the kid shivered under the motel comforter.
"Stop staring." Sam huffed, dropping onto his bed.
"Stop shivering."
Sam rolled his eyes in annoyance.
"Yeah, I'll get right on that." He shot back sarcastically.
"You want to take a hot shower or something?" Dean suggested seriously.
"Ha! You really think there is going to be any hot water in this dump?"
Dean nodded, because the kid had a point. Besides two beds and a rickety table with a couple of chairs, there was nothing else in the dive of a room. There wasn't even a television, not that that mattered now. So, Sam and he did what they did every time they ended up stuck in some sketchy motel with nothing to do, they played poker.
"Man, little bro, you really need to work on your game." He jeered, collecting his winnings.
"You do realize that you aren't really gaining anything, we share cash." Sam pointed out between shivers. It wasn't really a surprise that the kid was losing, he was shivering and his hands were shaking so severely that he could barely even grip the cards let alone try and bluff his way through the game.
"Besides, I was always better at pool anyways." Sam reminded him with a sheepish grin.
"No argument there." He responded, his smile fading as he watched another shiver run its way through the long frame in front of him.
They played another couple of games before they had to stop, because Sam's hands were shaking too violently for him to pretend to be able to function any longer. He had to resort to putting on his gloves, which made playing any sort of card game virtually impossible.
Sam was getting ready to turn in, the water was running in the bathroom for almost half an hour before he appeared back in the main room.
"Get any hot water?" Dean asked, knowing exactly why the tap hand been on so long.
The cold young man just shook his head miserably before dropping into bed, having already changed into his sweats.
"Good night, Sammy." He called, heading into the bathroom.
"Night Dean." The other hunter mumbled into his pillow.
It was only a couple hours later, he was in the middle of a very pleasant dream, growing more enjoyable by the minute, when Dean was pulled from it by the feel of ice sliding underneath his legs. Years of experience had him recognizing those icicles instantly, his little brother's feet. The same freezing cold feet the kid had been shoving underneath his legs for his entire life.
"Sammy?" He murmured; rolling onto his side from his stomach, as he felt a nudge against his shoulder. "What's up, buddy?" He questioned groggily, cracking his eyes open.
Dean felt the body that had slid in next to him wiggle closer, and instinctively made more room for it, assuming that Sam had some kind of nightmare, and throwing his arm over the younger man's chest. Dean stiffened when he felt a full body shiver rack the thin frame that was pressed against his side. He was instantly awake, propping himself up on his elbow to get a better look at the kid.
Sam was cocooned in the comforter from his bed as well as underneath Dean's blanket, but his body was still shaking. The older man noticed his brother's jaw was clenching and he knew that it was because he was trying desperately to keep his teeth from chattering. He reached a hand over and slid it onto the back of his baby brother's neck.
"Fuck, Sammy." He hissed, feeling the icy chill of his skin.
"So co-cold, De." The kid stuttered, rolling over and burying his face against the broad chest.
Dean was taken aback, his grown brother acting so much like the little child he used to be. "Don't worry, buddy. I've got you." He promised.
Dean rolled the lanky shivering body onto his back. Sam released an agitated whine as he unwrapped him from the layers of blankets.
"I've got to get a look at your hands, it'll just take a second." He assured, slowly removing the gloves from Sam's hands, and carefully held the chilled appendages. They were cold, but the thermal gloves were doing their job. Even as they shook in his light grip, they weren't discoloured in the least.
"Your hands in any pain?" He asked, gently turning them over.
Sam shook his head, looking up at him, wide hazel eyes staring into green ones.
"Good, that's good." Dean added, slipping the gloves back on.
Dean slid his hand up under Sam's sweater, feeling the tremors go through the slim body as the freezing temperature of the skin travelled into Dean's fingers.
"Awe hell, Sammy." He whispered, wrapping the long frame back up in blankets and climbing from the bed, trying not to let his little brother's mewling cry distract him.
"It's alright, kiddo, be right back." He promised as he rushed to the heater, hoping that the damn thing would turn on, which of course it did not. He tried the light switch, knowing that it wouldn't work and then moved onto the bathroom, turning the shower dial on hot and blasting the water, waiting less than fifteen minutes before realizing that the temperature wasn't going to change.
He hurried back over to the bed.
"Sam, do you need a hospital?" He asked, his hands on either side of the kid's face as he made him look at him. It wasn't a new question, they both had to ask it of each other before, when triage wasn't enough and only the injured person would know the truth.
Sam shook his head, indicating that a hospital wasn't necessary.
"Just n-need to g-get w-w-warm, De-eean." Sam explained through chattering teeth.
"Alright buddy. Alright, we got this." Dean assured, taking his brother at his word. If anyone knew hypothermia it was his kid, and after Sam had promised he would be more careful and honest – Dean knew he wouldn't lie about the severity of the situation. So, he did what was necessary to bring heat back into his baby brother's frozen body.
He climbed into the bed wrapping both him and Sam in the blankets and pulling his little brother into his arms, feeling the boy curl up against his chest.
They stayed like that for almost an hour, but nothing was changing. Sam's shivers were just as severe as they had been when he first climbed into the other bed. His shaggy head was tucked up under Dean's chin and the kid kept trying to wiggle himself impossibly closer. The shorter man's arms were stiff from holding his brother so tightly, but still he could feel tremors wracking his frame and hear his teeth chattering.
"Alright, that's it." He muttered, releasing Sam, his heart aching as the frozen kid instantly reached out for his big brother.
"Dean." He called out, alarmed.
"One second." He soothed, swiping Sam's bangs off his forehead.
He pulled off his sweater, feeling the chill in the air as he tossed it to the ground. He dug under the blankets, reaching for the hem of Sam's sweater and tugging it up.
"Lift up your arms, buddy." He instructed, softly. Sam obeyed his arm's shaking as he sluggishly raised them over his head. "That's it." Dean encouraged, tugging the sweater off, followed by the shirt underneath.
Sam gasped as the cold air hit his bare chest.
"I know, kiddo, just hold on a sec." Dean quickly climbed under the covers, wrapping his arms around his shivering little brother and pulling him into his chest.
Sam tucked his head in beneath Dean's chin and slid his feet back under his legs. His brother's gloved hands were wrapped around him as Dean's arms were wrapped across the slender shoulders. Their chests were pressed together; skin to skin contact was always the best way to warm someone up, a lesson their father taught them years ago. The frigid trembling body was met by Dean's warm solid grip as he willed his heat to invade the freezing skin, the same way Sam's cold was invading him.
The young man moaned miserably as a violent shiver wracked his thin body. Sam pressed himself impossibly closer to his brother, displaying a clear desperation for warmth.
"I got you, Sammy." Dean promised into his ear, rubbing his hands up and down his back.
"You remember one of the first times we pulled this stunt?"
It took a moment, but eventually he felt Sam nod, his hair sliding against his chin as he moved his head up and down.
Dean recalled the memory, reciting parts of it aloud as it played out in his head, giving Sam something to think about other than how cold he was.
"Piece of shit!" Dean hollered, chucking a useless hunk of wood across the dark room.
"Dean, relax." Sam said with a tired sigh.
"Do not tell me to relax, Sam! We are trapped in some fucking cellar with no way to get out!" He reminded the all-too-calm teenager.
"Oh really, I hadn't noticed?" Sam replied sarcastically, leaning back against the wall from where he was seated on the floor.
"Then why the hell are you telling me to calm down?" The older boy asked in aggravation.
"Because all your yelling and chucking things really isn't helping."
"Oh, I'm sorry. Did you have a better plan?"
"Throwing a temper-tantrum is hardly a plan, Dean."
"Yeah, well neither is whining."
"I'm not whining. It's just, you're being loud and my head is killing me." Sam confessed quietly.
Dean felt the pang of guilt. How could he be so stupid? The kid had just taken a tumble down a set of stairs and he had blood oozing from his skull, and here Dean was making a bunch of noise.
"Let me see your head." He ordered softly, kneeling in front of Sam, moving his hand from where it had been pressing his t-shirt against the wound.
"You just looked at it." Sam reminded him petulantly, reluctantly submitting himself to the examination. The cut wasn't too deep, but it was a head wound, which meant it was bleeding like crazy. Dean gently combed his little brother's shaggy hair to the side, trying to get a better look at the source.
"Head wounds bleed like a bitch." He muttered, taking the blood-stained rag that used to be his clothing from Sam's hand and holding it against the wound.
The kid hissed as more pressure was placed on the cut. Dean grimaced at the sound, hating to be the one to cause the kid pain even when he knew he was helping him in the long run.
"Got to stop the bleeding." He explained, Sam nodded slightly in understanding, resting his head back against the wall.
"You sure your noggin is the only thing you cracked tripping down those stairs?"
"I didn't trip down the stairs, Dean. They fell out from underneath me. There's a difference." The teen stated defensively.
"Which I don't get, because I walked down them first, and they didn't collapse, but you get to the second step and the thing whole just crumbles. Maybe we got to keep you off the sweets there, Sammy-boy." He remarked, smirking at the bitch-face that came his way.
"Or maybe you should lay off the pie."
"Me? Those steps didn't give-way under me, kiddo. That was all your doing."
"Well maybe you weakened them, and they were so damaged from holding up your fat ass that they couldn't hold me." Sam elaborated with a cheeky grin.
"That's weak, little brother, even for you." Dean replied with a laugh before he lifted the make-shift bandage from the cut and scowled at the blood still flowing out of it. Pressing the ball of fabric back against the wound as he moved from kneeling to sitting beside the injured kid.
"So, what do we do?" Sam asked, looking over at his big brother with those trusting hazel eyes that always believed Dean had the answers.
"We are going to have to wait for Dad, I guess." The taller boy responded casually.
"How will he find us?"
"When he gets back to the motel and we never show, he'll figure out something went wrong."
"Yeah, but we weren't supposed to be scouting the barn."
"I know, but once he realizes we aren't at the house he'll come looking over here." Dean responded logically.
Sam looked unconvinced.
"We just got to sit tight, Sammy. There's nothing else we can do. This hole in the ground isn't a great place to get cell reception so calling isn't an option. Dad will realize that something happened after he gets back from interviews and notices that we haven't returned from scouting. He will go to the house we were supposed to be checking EMF readings at. He will realize exactly what we did, that there aren't any readings there, and he will make his way over here."
"Yeah, but we aren't just in the barn, Dean. We are in the cellar underneath a stupid trap door, that is now shut. How is he even going find it?"
"Dad may be old, but he still has eyes, dude. If we could spot it, he'll spot it in half the time. Alright? Quit worrying and give the man some credit. This isn't his first rodeo." Dean pointed out, hoping to ease his brother's fears, even though his own were growing.
The teen seemed to accept the argument, but the worry line in his forehead never went away.
Sam's blood finally managed to clot, but the amount that coated the balled-up t-shirt was discouraging. However, the bigger problem was the drop in temperature. Cellars were cold and damp, any moron could tell you that. The chill in the air was noticeable, but not dangerous, unless you were a young teenager prone to both hypothermia and frostbite, who had recently lost a significant amount of blood - then a chill wasn't quite as simple.
Dean zipped up Sam's coat as he shivered, sliding out of his own and wrapping it around the slim frame as well.
"No, Dean. You keep it." The kid said, trying to shimmy out of the jacket.
"Nah, I'm good, little brother. You have it." Dean insisted casually, guiding the skinny arms through the sleeves and zipping it up, like he had done so many times back when Sam was just a toddler.
Sam's easy acceptance and lack of argument was a blatant display of how cold the kid really was.
Dean got to his feet and wandered around the room for what must have been the twelfth time since the stairs gave out and trapped them down there. There was literally nothing in the cellar, nothing more than a bunch of crumbled rotten wood that used to be a set of stairs. All they had was a crowbar, a shotgun, the glock tucked into the back of Dean's jeans, and the flashlight currently lighting up the small space. He couldn't reach the fucking door because while the cellar didn't have a lot of surface area, it had some serious height. Even with Sam standing on his shoulders there was no way they'd be close enough to reach the trap door. Dean inwardly cursed their misfortune again, sending a worried glance over to his little brother who was sitting against the wall shivering, and wishing for the billionth time in the past hour that their Dad would hurry the fuck up.
It was Dean's fault they were trapped. He shouldn't have tried to go down here, hell he shouldn't have even come over to the barn. Sammy had wanted to leave when they didn't find any readings at the old abandoned house and that's what they should have done. Instead, Dean had to go exploring, and look where that got them.
Dean directed his gaze back to his little brother, noting that his shivering was becoming more intense by the minute.
Dean moved and sat beside the kid, pulling the slim frame towards him. The trembling boy made no objection to being held in his big brother's arms, another alarming sign of how poorly the kid was feeling. As Dean sat there he could feel the cold seeping through his jeans, and he realized something. He switched to sit cross-legged and manoeuvred his little brother so he was sitting sideways in Dean's lap, the shaggy head dropping to rest against the older boy's shoulder as the skinny legs draped over his right thigh.
"What you doing, Dean?"
The fogginess of the question wracked the hunter's concern up to a whole new level. It may have been due the wound on Sam's head or the freezing state of his body, but either way it didn't seem like a good thing.
"The floor is as cold as ice, kiddo, it's sucking the heat right out of you." He explained as he wrapped one arm around the teen's shoulders and another around his legs, rubbing his limbs to try and generate some heat.
"Okay." Sammy sighed, in a more compliant tone than he'd used in years.
"How are your hands?" Dean asked, looking at the gloved appendages resting in his lap, grateful as hell that he had forced Sam to wear his gloves before they left the motel.
"They're alright." The wounded boy stated through teeth that had just begun to chatter.
And not that Dean didn't trust the kid, but Sam had always been shitty when it came to gauging the severity of his own injuries, so he pulled the gloves off and checked to see for himself. They weren't too bad, no discolouration and not as cold to the touch as the rest of him seemed to be. Satisfied he slipped the gloves back on the chilled hands and set them in his lap.
It wasn't long until Dean started to shiver. Part of the reason being that he was sitting in a cold, damp cellar wearing nothing more than jeans and a flannel over-shirt, his t-shirt balled up on the floor covered in too much blood and his jacket wrapped around the boy sitting in his lap. Another reason for his shivering probably being that he was holding his cold little brother so closely against his body and the kid was sucking out all his warmth.
"I'm s-sorry, D-Dean." The stunted whisper had him looking into the wide hazel eyes directed his way.
"For what?" He wondered, rubbing up and down the Sam's arm, trying desperately to generate some heat.
"It's m-my f-fault the st-stairs b-broke." He stuttered miserably.
"I was just joking when I said that, dude."
"Yeah, b-but you w-were right."
"Buddy, that wood was rotted straight through, it shouldn't have been able to hold its self-up let alone us. And if you really think your skinny-ass could do all that damage alone, then you're nuts." He reassured with a smile.
"I'm n-not that sk-skinny." Sam huffed.
Dean barked out a surprised laugh. "Sure, little man, whatever you say." His grin fading as a particularly violent shiver made its way through the teen. "I'm the one who should be saying sorry." He muttered, pulling the kid even closer.
Sam raised an eyebrow as his big brother looked at him past all that hair.
"I shouldn't have made us go exploring. We should have gone home after we didn't find anything at the house, like you wanted to. And I sure as hell shouldn't have come down here." He spat out angrily, hating himself even more now that he admitted to his asinine behaviour.
"Dean, you couldn't have known this was going to happen. And checking the barn made sense, I just wanted to go home so that I could finish working on my history paper." Sam admitted softly in between shivers, his teeth having momentarily stopped their chattering.
"You are such a dork." Dean insulted fondly, swiping Sam's hair from his face so he could get a clear view of the teenage eye-roll his comment received.
"You feeling a little warmer?"
"Little bit." Sam informed him with a slight smile.
"Good."
Dean lost track of time, unable to reach his phone without releasing his grip on Sam and unable to see outside, he had no way of knowing how much time had passed. It had been about seven at night when they got to the house, and about forty-five minutes later they had strolled over to the barn. He was thinking that they had spent at least two hours trapped in the cellar, maybe three.
And it wasn't getting any warmer.
By the time he heard the sound of footsteps above them, he was doing his best to keep his little brother conscious while he shook violently in his arms. Dean shifted slightly, pulling the handgun from the back of his jeans and aiming it up when he heard the trap door being lifted, just in case.
"Dean? Sam?" Their father's gruff voice was everything that Dean ever wanted to hear in that moment of time.
"We're down here, Dad." He called out, the flashlight was dim and flickering, its battery on its last legs, but it was enough light for the older hunter to find them with his eyes.
Dean watched the hunter's expression morph into one of momentary panic, a rare occurrence for John Winchester. The younger man looked down and realized what John was seeing. His eldest son on the ground and the youngest being cradled in his lap with his eyes closed and hair matted with blood.
It wasn't until a full body shiver ran through the kid that their dad's panic visibly faded and he schooled his features, the fear of his son being dead was seemingly gone and it was time to take action.
"The stairs broke." Dean croaked out, having done nothing but whisper comforting nonsense to his little brother for the past few hours, forgetting momentarily how to speak in a full-volume.
"Alright, I'm going to find something to get you guys out of there. Just hang on boys." John instructed, his face disappearing from the open space.
"Hear that, Sammy? Told you he'd find us." Dean stated, nudging his little brother, pleased when the kid cracked his eyes open to look at him, but not overly thrilled about the lack of clarity he saw within the hazel gaze. Sam burrowed into the older boy as his body shook.
Dean was so fucking tired of watching his kid shiver.
"Hurry, Dad!" He called out, not sure his voice had enough volume to carry out of the cellar, let alone to wherever the hunter was. He was tired and cold as he clung to the small teen vibrating against him.
A moment later Dean was startled by a loud thud, looking over to see a ladder leading from the trap door to the cellar floor. He watched as their father climbed down it, cautiously testing each step for sturdiness as he descended, thankfully the wooden ladder looked to be much sturdier than the stairs had been.
The older man rushed over and squatted down in front of them.
"Fill me in here, Dean." He ordered, but his voice wasn't as hard as it often was when he gave a command.
"No EMF at the house, came to check the barn. Found the cellar, on our way down the stairs collapsed." He explained, nodding towards the rotten chunks of wood littering the room. "Sammy smashed his head. No concussion, just a cut. It's clotted now but it bled a lot, not too deep though." He continued, watching John's large calloused hand become a gentle instrument as he sifted carefully through Sam's matted hair, nodding in agreement with the description of the wound.
"He hurt anywhere else?" The hunter asked, looking the teen over.
Dean shook his head to indicate the negative. "Just cold."
As if to prove it, his little brother shivered violently.
Dad tore his eyes from triaging Sam and brought them up to meet Dean's weary gaze.
"You alright?" He questioned, needing to depend on his son's honest assessment, because he was unable to look him over as his body was covered by the lanky teenager in his lap.
"I'm good." He informed his dad confidently with a nod of his head.
"Good, that's good. Alright, let's get you boys out of here."
John got to his feet, leaning down and reaching for Sam. Instinctively, Dean's arms clenched tighter around the young boy, not wanting to hand him over.
"Come on, son. Let me take him." The command was said with a certain amount of patience and understanding, more than Dean would normally accredit his father of possessing.
John waited, his arms outstretched as his eldest son slowly loosened his grip on the youngest Winchester.
"That's it, Dean. I got him." Dad reassured, sliding one arm under Sam's leg, the other curling around his back as he lifted the teen off the other boy's lap.
Dean's partially-coherent little brother panicked for a moment, confused about what was going on, he flailed about.
"No! De." The kid gasped, looking around in confusion.
"It's alright, Sammy. Dad's got you." He explained, quickly climbing to his feet and gently combing the unruly brown hair off the young face.
Sam spun his head around, looking up to see their father's face staring down at him.
"Dad." He sighed in relief, going slack in the older man's arms, letting his head roll until it came to rest against John's collarbone.
Dean looked at his father and watched as his schooled expression fell away, revealing an emotion he was all too familiar with, one that he had felt every second of every day since he carried Sam out of their burning home.
Love.
The kind of love you feel when you have someone who is entirely dependent on you, when someone trusts you so completely. That love was followed by another emotion Dean understood just as well, one that ran his life, one that he felt every time he heard his little brother say his name, specifically the shortened version. The fierce need to protect. To protect the innocent life of the person you love, to protect the helpless child you are holding in your arms.
Dean watched as that protective surge filled his Dad's body, his arms wrapping tighter around the lanky teenager in his arms, pulling the kid closer into him. His face set in a stern determination as he looked over at his eldest son.
"You good?" He inquired, his voice thick with emotion.
Dean nodded grabbing hold of the ladder, knowing that he'd need to hold it steady while John climbed up with Sam in his arms. The hunter ascended the steps, steady the whole way, waiting for Dean to follow once he arrived at the top.
They made their way back to the Impala and the truck parked next to it.
"Does he need a hospital, Dean?" Dad asked, sliding Sam into the back seat of the car, pulling the blanket out from underneath the passenger seat and wrapping it around the kid, followed by his leather jacket.
"I don't think so, not for the cut on his head anyways. He lost enough blood to make him tired and add to the cold, but not so much that he needs to be topped up." Dean reported, thinking back to the amount of blood that had covered his t-shirt.
Their father nodded in agreement, having also seen the evidence.
"I'm just not sure about the cold, Dad. He's shivering hard."
"He's not hypothermic. We can warm him up back at the room."
Dean nodded, trusting his father's diagnosis entirely. The man was ex-military, he knew shit.
He followed John's truck back into town, keeping up with his just-over-the-limit speed, fast enough to get there quickly, but not so fast you risk attracting attention.
He barely had time to put the Impala in park before John was pulling Sam carefully out of the backseat and entering the room, laying the kid gently on the bed.
"How's your temperature?"
The question threw the older boy off as he looked quizzically at his father, watching him removing the multiple layers from Sam's body.
"Dean?" He asked again, peeling his little brother's shirt off over his head.
"I'm good, warm." He informed the older hunter, just now noticing that blasting heat in the car had warmed him quite sufficiently.
"Good, take off your clothes."
Dean stalled at the question, but quickly realized what the game plan was when he watched Dad pulling Sam's jeans off his skinny legs.
The young teen let out a startled gasp as his boxer clad body was exposed to the chill in the air, even though the motel room was a pretty warm temperature, it was almost too much for Sam and he began to whimper. Dean stripped down to his boxers, climbing immediately under the blankets his dad was holding open.
"Chest to chest." The hunter reminded his son distractedly, as he added the blanket from the other bed and wrapped it securely around the two boys.
Dean nodded as he pulled Sammy into him.
"Make sure his hands are between you. The gloves kept them from frostbite, but they are still cold."
Dean immediately found Sam's chilled fingers and brought them up, placing them against his chest as he wrapped his arms around slender back and pulled the smaller frame into him, hooking his legs onto Sam's and tugging him closer.
"Good. Hold him. I'm going to go get a warm bath started." Dad said, making his way to the small motel bathroom.
"Dean?" Sam asked groggily, his face pressed into his big brother's chest.
"Yeah Sammy, you're going to be alright. Dad and I are going to warm you up." He promised into his ear.
His kid nodded against him.
John returned moments later, he placed a warm washcloth along the back of Sam's neck, using another one to wash the blood from the teenager's face and hair.
The older boy watched, his father's face mere inches from his as he provided such gentle care to his baby brother. He often missed this side of his dad. The side that was loving and gentle, the side that remembered how breakable children could be. It was the side of him that was often hidden behind the gruff exterior of an embittered hunter, only coming out in times like this, times where the hunt didn't matter, times where the only thing that mattered was family.
"You're going to be alright, Sammy." Their father reassured the kid, placing a comforting hand on his head as Sam squinted up at him, a small smile making the dimples appear on his face. John smiled down softly at his youngest and then made to leave, but before he could, Sam wiggled one of his hands free and grabbed onto one of his father's much larger ones.
Their dad looked down, visually surprised when the cold fingers gripped onto him.
"What is it, Sam?" He asked, focussing on his youngest.
"Thanks for saving us, Dad." Sam whispered out between shivers, his wide hazel eyes staring up at their father.
Dean smirked, watching the hunter's face soften at the puppy-dog look he was receiving – the younger man knew exactly how it felt to be on the other end of Sammy's soft grateful expression, he knew the power it held and the impact it had.
John didn't say anything, the emotion of the moment clearly overwhelming him. He simply smiled, gently squeezing Sam's hand before letting go and returning to the bathroom.
Sam turned back towards Dean, his shivering tapering off as he pressed his body impossibly closer to his big brother.
Dean grinned at his little brother. Because if anyone could coax out the soft side of hard-core hunter John Winchester, it was this shaggy headed, puppy-dog eyed teenager, who was currently acting very much like the young child he had once been.
Dean knew first-hand how Sammy could bring out someone's softer side, how he could bring out the best in people. Dean didn't want to imagine what kind of hard, unfeeling, bitter person he would be if he hadn't had a little brother like Sam.
"Cuddling and story time. my gawd, Dean. I think we've surpassed chick-flick territory." Sam mumbled tiredly against his big brother, slapping him playfully on the shoulder. His hand was warm; he must have taken his gloves off while the older boy was rambling on. Dean couldn't blame the kid, didn't imagine he'd want to sleep with them on.
"Shut up, Bitch." He laughed in reply, unbelievably glad to feel that his little brother's shivers were not nearly as intense as they had been.
"Jerk." Sam sighed, nuzzling is head against him, like a cat, before letting his body relax.
Dean could tell by the soft steady breathing that the kid was falling asleep, the occasional shiver not enough to wake him.
Dean hated how often he found himself trying to warm Sam up. He hated how many times he had to watch him shiver. He hated that there was nothing he could do to fix this. He could try as much as he wanted to prevent it, and when it happened he could hold the kid until it stopped, but there was no quick fix. There was no one he could threaten or kill to stop the cold form invading his little brother. No spell or ritual he could perform, no one he could beat the hell out of to fix this.
It had always been Dean's job to stand between Sam and the threat. It never mattered what the threat was, be it man or monster. He had always known that his place was in front of Sam, protecting his little brother. But when the threat wasn't human or supernatural, when it wasn't something or someone he could maim or kill, when he had not control, that was when he felt helpless.
He felt helpless lying in bed with his shivering little brother in his arms.
Dean Winchester didn't do helpless.
Sam murmured softly against him, the long hair tickling his chin as the younger man moved his head and his hand came in between them, travelling up Dean's chest, until it came to rest on the amulet and long bony fingers curled around the small charm.
Dean smiled, gawd he loved his kid.
He would do anything for him.
He would fight people, monsters, and even the fucking weather for his little brother.
Because Sammy belonged to him.
He was Dean's to look out for.
His to love.
And his to protect.