A Brother's Sacrifice

by ayosb2000

Completely AU. John really did want Dean to have a home and for Sam to go to school. At Sonny's, Dean saw the possibility of another life, but chose family. Sam is chafing under his father's thumb. An exploration of what might have happened if Dean stood up to his father and decided that normal and hunting could co-exist. A large re-write of a previous story I wrote years ago.

28. May 2002 - Early June 2002

A/N Thanks to my readers and those who left me some reviews! I'm sorry I can't respond to guest reviews :/ but they are appreciated! Big thanks as always to mak2018 for her always helpful observations!

/

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Then we have a lot to talk about...

/

It turned out to be fortunate that they had a new room just for the full minibar alone.

Granted, Dean probably could have gone down to the front desk and wheedled a bottle of booze from the hotel's bar, but that would involve him leaving this room and he had a feeling that his distraught little brother wouldn't take that very well right now. It was better to have what he needed on hand.

/

"First thing you need to know," he started, "is that I would have been here when you were in the hospital if I could have been."

"I know that, Dean," Sam waved away his brother's statement. Confident that, no matter what, his brother would never have let him languish alone in a hospital bed if he had anything to do with it. "Don't listen to Brady. He was just being a dick. There was no way you could have known."

Taking a deep breath, Dean shook his head. "No, Sammy. You don't understand. I was out of cell range until early yesterday morning. So I only found out once I could check my messages. By then you were already discharged."

Sam's forehead scrunched up in confusion and the first spark of uncertainty flicked in his eyes. "Messages? Who called you?"

"Dad."

Dean watched his little brother draw in a quick, sharp breath. His eyes going wide from the unexpected answer. A thousand emotions flitted across his face like a movie playing in fast forward mode.

"Wha..I..he...," Sam stuttered, struggling mightily to formulate a coherent thought. "How?"

"The student health center called him when you got taken to the ER," Dean explained as calmly as he could. "I was hunting werewolves up in the mountains in Idaho, a million miles away from the nearest cell tower, so it took a few days for him to get a hold of me."

"Dad let you go on a hunting trip by yourself?" Sam's eyebrows raised all the way up to his hairline.

Dean cocked his head to the side as he looked at his brother for any indication of a head injury. The kid was usually pretty smart and observant and one would think he would have more important issues to ponder right now. Maybe his days of high fever boiled some of his freaky brain.

"That's your takeaway from what I just said?"

"But why would they call him?" Sam asked, shrugging and looking away so his brother wouldn't see the insecurity on his face. "It's not like he wants anything to do with me."

Oh Sammy. Why can't you understand that everything Dad does is because he needs to keep you safe?

Dean leaned forward and clasped his hands together, resting his forearms on his thighs. "Dad had the school list him as your emergency contact. He did it on his first trip out here."

Predictably, this did nothing to convince his stubborn baby brother that he still had a father that loved him no matter how much of a little shit he was. When it came to the resentment Sam had against John, it was a hill he was willing to die on every time.

"What would he even care, Dean?" Sam looked away as he sadly picked at a loose thread on his shirt sleeve. "He was the one who told me to get out. He was pretty damn clear that he was done with me."

Sam wouldn't admit it to himself, let alone Dean, that John's secret visit to the campus to put money in his account still hurt the boy terribly when he allowed himself to think about it. About how much he would have wanted to see his father that day after a solitary month in that cabin in Iowa, when Sam ached from the loss of his family, then arriving in Palo Alto and feeling all alone in the world.

Just to have seen his dad showing the least bit of support would have been enough for Sam to forgive a lot of the pain and harsh words between them.

Sighing deeply, Dean reached over to gently nudge Sam's knee. "Sammy, Dad was on the first flight out here the minute they called him."

This was clearly not the news that Sam was expecting judging by the look of surprise and hurt on the boy's face. Dean knew that there were serious wounds barely scabbed over that were going to be ripped back open today, so he gave his contemplative little brother a minute to process.

"I thought I was just imagining it," Sam finally said, his face pinched. "When I woke up in the hospital. I could have sworn that I'd heard Dad's voice. I could even smell that Brut aftershave crap he wears sometimes. I thought I was losing my mind."

"Yeah," Dean sighed as he leaned back against the sofa, hating that he hadn't been anywhere close by at the time. "He said you had a pretty rough time after he got here. He was up with you all night. You scared him half to death, kid."

Sam huffed and turned away. "Just not enough to be here when I woke up though, right?" he said bitterly. "Made sure I wasn't going to die out of some kind of random feeling of obligation and then just took off again? Why? So he didn't have to actually talk to me? Does he really hate me that much?"

Dean sighed again and pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a headache coming on. Sam and Dad were so much alike that they were practically the same person sometimes. Both of them stubborn and quick to think badly of the other one.

"Sammy, Dad doesn't hate you. Why would you even think that?"

"I don't know," Sam snapped. "Probably has something to do with him beating my ass and kicking me out of the house just because I wanted to go to school like a normal person."

Although Sam was making a pretty good effort to be angry, Dean knew his little brother well enough to easily tell that the boy was masking a deep seated hurt with his barked words. His eyes were flashing rage, but his lips were trembling and his breath was shaky. Exactly what Sam would do to avoid admitting how much their father's approval really meant to him.

"He was just scared, Sammy. He was afraid of what could happen to you without him around."

"Don't defend him," Sam scowled as a sore subject between them reared its ugly head again. This was by far not the first time they'd had this conversation. "You always defend him. No matter what he does. Just what exactly was he scared of? Cause Dad's not scared of anything, Dean."

If Dean didn't know how upset his brother really was behind his mask of bravado, he would have reached over and smacked the little bastard upside the head for his unwillingness to understand how much their father worried about them. Even if John usually had a pretty crappy way of showing it.

"What was he scared of? he asked, his eyes narrowed. "How about exactly what happened to you, genius? You being alone, vulnerable, and something getting close enough to you to hurt you. You're lucky you weren't killed by that bitch."

"What?"

All the hostility drained from Sam's face and was replaced with fear. Good, Dean thought. The kid should be afraid of the dangers around him. Especially now. It was time he knew how risky it was for him in the outside world away from the protection of the two people who loved him most.

"That professor of yours? The one you've been working for?"

"What about her?" Sam asked, a look of dread blossoming in his eyes. "Dean? What about her?"

"She's not a professor, Sammy, " Dean paused, hating that he had to be the one to give his kid the truth. "She's a demon."

"A what?"

Sam's face went white. Well, whiter than it already was. Dean really wished they didn't have to have this conversation when the kid was still recuperating. But Sam was far out of the loop and it was beyond time that he was brought up to speed. Especially since the protection they thought they had for him was basically worthless.

"A demon," Dean continued, gentling his tone in light of his brother's growing distress. "Filthy Hell spawn. We think one possessed the real professor to get better access to you. Close enough to poison you with something anyway. Does that sound possible? Did she do anything weird around you or maybe give you something to eat or drink?"

Sam's breathing was bordering on erratic while he took in his brother's words. All he could do was think of the endless cups of Yaupon he'd consumed during his time with Amanda while they worked. Gallons and gallons of the stuff. Unless...it was something he got from her of a more personal nature?

"Oh, God," Sam moaned as bile crested his throat. Ignoring Dean's panicked look, he shot up from the couch and sprinted to the bathroom.

Luckily he somehow got there in time to lift the toilet lid and empty the entire contents of his recently filled stomach. Visions of hours in bed with his sexy mentor doing things that you didn't discuss in polite, or even rude, company flooding his head as his blood ran cold. Following right behind, Dean dropped to one knee next to his brother and put a comforting hand on his back. Sam recoiled and jerked away like he'd been electrified.

"Don't," he choked out desperately, holding out a defensive hand between himself and his brother. "Don't touch me."

Dean raised his own hands in surrender and stood up slowly while Sam started to dry heave. All he wanted was to get any trace of her out of his body. His insides recoiled in horror as his skin crawled with the absolute evil of it. Even as he tried to upchuck his entire digestive system into that toilet he was also desperate to scrape his skin of any remnant of her touch.

All those times Sam had suspected something was wrong with her.

With him.

Only to immediately discard the idea because he was so angry with his father's teachings of seeing evil in everything. But somehow, deep down inside, Sam had known that what he was doing was wrong. That the time they spent together was far past simple sports sex.

It was unsavory and corrupt.

How many raunchy things had she encouraged him to do? To indulge in? Sexual acts that went way beyond experimental and right into deviancy. Guaranteeing that whatever moral compass he should have possessed was irrevocably broken in light of his, not only willingness, but eagerness to explore his darker nature.

Sam's body trembled as he grasped the bowl in his arms and forced out anything he could, tears from the effort streaming down his face. Dean looked on helplessly, hating that he was the bearer of such bad tidings that his little brother was tearing himself apart in his distress.

"Sammy," he pleaded, on the verge of tears himself, "Don't. You're going to hurt yourself, kiddo."

When he tried to gently grasp his brother's arm again, Sam cried out like a wounded animal and flung his body against the bathtub out of Dean's reach. Dean backed up again, pain etched on his face from his brother's distress as Sam scrambled to turn on the hot water dial on the shower and started yanking his clothing off. Torn between giving Sam his privacy and staying to make sure the kid didn't do any real damage to himself, Dean settled on turning away and leaning against the door jamb while Sam finished disrobing and climbed into the steaming shower.

Under the scalding spray that was rapidly turning his skin pink, Sam ripped the wrapper from the bar of hotel soap in the dish built into the tile wall and started to viciously scrub himself. Nothing he was doing was helping to convince his mind that he would ever truly feel clean again, but that didn't stop him from trying. Over and over again his shaky hands made rough passes over every inch of his body while he cried bitter tears of rage and disgust until finally his legs gave out and he slid to the floor of the tub, too tired to continue.

A towel was dropped in his lap as Dean reached into the shower and adjusted the water until it was drizzling a much cooler temperature that began to alleviate some of the burning pain of Sam's raw skin. After a minute he started to shiver from the tepid water raining down on him and finally he looked up from under the wet strands of hair hanging in his eyes where it was easy to see that his brother had put two and two together.

"It's okay, Sammy," Dean insisted, his jaw set even as his heart was breaking. "You're going to be okay. I promise little brother. I will gut that bitch if it's the last thing I ever do. I swear to God."

Sam looked at him so bereft that it had Dean practically bordering on insanity. His little brother's red swollen eyes were wrecked and looking to him for comfort and protection one minute, then flashing between shame and anger and disgust the next.

Sammy should never, ever look that way.

It took a few more minutes of pleading but Dean eventually coaxed Sam out of the shower and got him dried off before helping him back into the shirt and sweats he'd worn to bed the previous night. He didn't want to lay down, so Dean got him settled back on the couch instead. He grabbed his inherited leather jacket and spread it over his trembling kid who immediately curled into it like it was a fortress that could protect him from the horror he just learned. Sammy clearly also didn't want to talk at the moment either, so Dean grabbed the remote and clicked on the television and surfed briefly until he found a repeat episode of History's Mysteries.

He could tell that Sam wasn't really watching it, but the boy was quiet and not actively trying to harm himself at the moment as he idly stared at the screen so Dean was calling it a temporary win. He walked between the beds, grabbed the phone on the nightstand and dialed down to room service, speaking as quietly as he could before hanging up and joining Sam on the couch.

Ten minutes later, while the brothers sat wordlessly in front of The Essex: The True Story of Moby Dick, a knock at the door heralded the arrival of a server delivering a carafe with warm spiced milk and a plate of dry toast. Dean thanked her and gave her a generous tip and then quickly ushered her back out before he snagged a small bottle of Maker's Mark from the minibar and dumped it into a mug of the warm milk that he shoved into his brother's hands.

"Drink," he ordered, staring Sam down until the boy reluctantly complied.

Sam obediently swallowed his first gulp, followed quickly by another, the taste familiar and comforting. Determined, Dean pushed a piece of the toast at his brother with a raised eyebrow. Sam glared but he eventually reached out to take it and then chewed off a small bite, because eating the toast was easier than arguing right now. Taking another sip from his mug he pushed his wet hair away from his face and rubbed his eyes tiredly.

"I'm supposed to be in my ASL class."

The words came out scratchy and Dean winced from the pain his brother's throat must be in from the repeated vomiting. Sam looked like death warmed over and that was really saying something considering how awful he'd looked last night. Right now it was incredibly hard to keep his temper in check when all Dean wanted to do was find something to kill.

"Yeah, that's not happening," he replied instead. "Neither are the rest of them today. You're not going anywhere for a while, kiddo. You need rest."

Sam's bleary eyes were clear that he wasn't about to put up a fight about that. He just turned back to the television screen where Drake's Secret Voyage was beginning and drained the last of his mug before taking a few more half-hearted nibbles at his toast under his big brother's watchful eye. Dean refilled the mug with the rest of the milk in the carafe and added the second mini bottle of the bourbon and the two of them sat quietly during the remainder of the hour long program.

Only once did Sam speak. A quivery whisper of

"Why me?"

And Dean couldn't honestly answer that question.

Because he couldn't bring himself to share their father's fears with his already traumatized little brother when they weren't actually one hundred percent sure why Sam was a target in all this. All they had right now were suspicions and guesses and none of that was strong enough to lay on the kid when he was barely holding it together as it was.

"Why anybody, Sammy?" he answered, squeezing Sam's socked foot where it was drawn up on the couch between them.

Surprisingly, the answer seemed to at least mollify the boy who had seen the lives of far too many innocent people get screwed up by forces beyond their control. He took a deep breath and returned his attention to the ending of the documentary without further comment. When the second mug of spiked milk was gone and Sam's eyes were drooping with fatigue and booze, Dean got him bundled into one of the double beds and he was out for the count not even five minutes later.

While Sam slept, Dean made five phone calls to their father that went straight to voicemail. His concern over his John's safety growing with each missed call.

/

"Aren't you going to get that?"

John's phone was buzzing again where it lay on the breakfast bar in the kitchen of the secluded cabin in Bath Springs, Tennessee. It vibrated enough to move around in jerky little motions across the Formica for a minute before it stopped again.

"Nope," he snarled as he drew another long cut down the bleeding torso of the body dangling from the chains bolted to the heavy wooden rafters of the ceiling in the center of a devil's trap.

The demon currently going by the name of her meat suit Amanda Stilner, gasped out a scream as the blade tore her flesh. Her unnecessary breaths were coming in short pants from the pain but it wasn't anything she hadn't been through before. The breathing she didn't need to do was simply a habit and made her feel more alive when she was topside. Unfortunately it was also too ingrained in her to turn off when the pain she was enduring was real enough.

She yanked futilely on the etched leather cuffs fastened tightly enough to her wrists to deeply bruise the skin of her dead meat suit but knew she wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.

It had been an obvious mistake to underestimate John Winchester. If by some miracle she got out of this mess her demonic father might just decide to hang her on a rack for eternity for being foolish enough to play with her food instead of following his instructions to the letter. In her defense, the lackluster protections guarding Sam in California had convinced her that the mighty monster hunter wouldn't actually live up to his reputation if confronted in person.

Surely he wouldn't have skimped on his child's safety if he had more sophisticated tricks up his sleeve?

But it was clear now that that had been a terrible error in judgment on her part.

Hubris had been her downfall. Centuries of being upper middle management in Hell had convinced her that no mere human could hurt her anymore. So she might have gotten a little more cocky with her game of cat and mouse against the hunter than she really should have. She was, after all, the cherished adopted daughter of one of Hell's Princes who had bestowed many gifts on her that ensured she was quite a talented girl.

A mere half insane, usually drunk mortal didn't have the sack to get the best of her.

Or so she thought.

The biggest mistake she and her brother had made was going on the assumption that John still hunted solo. Because it was well known in the hunting world that he didn't play well with others and trusted absolutely no one but his eldest son. And even when it came to his eldest son, John only trusted in Dean's unfailing devotion in having his father's back. Not necessarily his availability to do so. Because it was also known that John unfailingly sidelined his kids when the heat was on.

Daddy wouldn't let his little boys play with the real fire.

So she honestly wasn't expecting there to be another hunter waiting for her in Nashville after she left John enough breadcrumbs to follow her there. She also wasn't expecting the identity of her meat suit to be common knowledge to other hunters either and she certainly wasn't expecting the bullet engraved with a devil's trap that pierced poor Amanda's barely beating heart.

To be fair, the real Dr. Stilner buried deep inside the pretty body with the pert ass was already circling the drain by this time and nothing could have saved her. As a rule, the demon liked to ride her meat suits hard and put them away wet. But the hunter that shot her didn't know that and he'd dealt a fatal blow anyway. Which was surprising because they usually tended to get very precious about innocent victims. Obviously, John's partner wasn't incredibly concerned for the young lady who'd once had a very bright future before she choked on black smoke.

That was when the first tiny twitch of fear prickled at the demon's brain.

The binding link already had the demon tethered to the body she was riding, because she hadn't wanted to risk Sam figuring the truth out and trying to exorcise her prematurely. She really should have just burned it off the minute she left California to play tag with John. Not that it mattered now with that bullet paralyzing her talents. Without her demonic enhancements, she was only as strong as her human host had been. The young hunter, Caleb she thought his name was, easily choked her out and trussed her up like a chicken in warded bindings before tossing her in the back of a van fully graffitied with every sigil that could bite her in the ass.

John himself was waiting for them at the secluded cabin that would have made the Deliverance hillbillies jealous. Miles from the nearest main road, no one was going to hear her scream.

The entire place was covered in sigils, including some she hadn't seen for centuries, and unlike the half cocked effort in Palo Alto, these babies were the real deal.I

It made her wonder just exactly when Johnny-boy had figured out how to fight in the big leagues after his kid spent the better part of a year as a sitting duck. Stanford's campus was warded like someone had just scanned the CliffsNotes version of How to Repeal a Demon and then failed the book report anyway.

She knew things had gone horribly south the minute they pulled up at the end of the long driveway and saw John's black truck with no trace of his rented white pimp-mobile. At some point he'd gotten wily enough to exchange vehicles without her knowledge, which was a big fucking problem considering her demonic brother was supposed to be keeping a sharp eye on the hunter's every movement. Between the upgrade in bondage gear and the vehicular shell game she had clearly lost the upper hand.

The sigils made her location untraceable to any demon, her father included. Now that she was cloaked, she wasn't going to get a last minute rescue from either him or her brother. So it was going to be up to her alone to find a way out of this mess if she hoped to survive, because the way John was looking at her promised nothing good.

John's hand was glistening with the scarlet red blood he was artistically carving from her body. The serrated, engraved blade held in his tight grip was immediately recognizable as one of the Kurds' ancient knives. The blades forged in the mountains of Mesopotamia by high priestesses who practiced the really old magic right before the Fall of Babylon were extremely few in number. To her knowledge, all the known knives were supposedly rounded up and brought back to Hell for safekeeping centuries ago.

Either this one was never accounted for, or some other demon was in a whole lot of trouble.

If it was the latter, and she managed to pull her own ass out of this hell fire, she was kicking off whatever damned soul was getting eviscerated on Alaistar's rack at the time and throwing on the dead demon walking who'd been stupid enough or disloyal enough to play Let's Make a Deal with a hunter.

Apparently tired of trying to find unmarked flesh to cut on her front, John spun her around in her cuffs and used the knife to slash through the remaining tatters of Amanda's six hundred dollar Versace blouse to drag a slow deep slice down her right shoulder blade. The sharp groan that burst from her throat couldn't be helped and she involuntarily flinched from the feel of the knife's hilt resting on her left shoulder blade.

John leaned in behind her ear, his breath hot, as he pushed the knife in just enough to break the skin while he held it there.

"Names."

No answer was going to be good enough for him, because the truth was something he would never believe.

This whole operation was just Azazel, with her and Tom recruited to assist him.

Sure there were hundreds of grunts in service to do the really dirty work, but they were rarely allowed to go topside and would have no value for John and they both knew that. John also knew that there were three more Princes of Hell that were completely out of the picture. They had long ago abandoned the plans for springing Lucifer from the cage, tired of their lives in Hell. They called her father a fanatic and a tyrant and wanted no part in his plans. Choosing to keep themselves well hidden on Earth, far away from the real work.

Only Lilith and Alastair outranked the Princes in terms of age and strength. Lilith was still buried deep in the Pit, where she would remain until Azazel released her to fulfill her part in Lucifer's plan. She was far too much of a wild card to be allowed to run loose until all the chess pieces were in play on the board. And Alastair wanting nothing more than to remain in his position as Hell's chief torturer.

He despised humans and abhorred being anywhere near them until their damned souls were hanging on his rack. And even then he made them pay for formerly being human in the first place. His purity of hatred was what made him very good at his job.

Simply put, she had no names to give John that would improve her situation. Not that she would, even if she could.

"Names!" John barked again, driving the knife into her flesh a little deeper.

Gasping, she steeled herself and forced her mouth to smile cruelly.

"John. Mary. Dean. Little Sammy. How about those?"

The knife was yanked out of her skin, bringing the shortest second of sweet relief from it's absence. Furious, John grabbed a large plastic jug filled with water and poured half a container of salt into it. He glared at her calmly as he slowly swished the contents while stalking towards her. Her breathing stuttered as he resumed his place behind her and she clamped her eyes shut in anticipation. She sensed John tipping the container up and then felt the stream of water cascade down her back.

He lifted his hand with the knife and made a vicious swipe at her skin through the water's stream and she released a primal scream in agony.

"John," he growled.

Swipe

"Mary."

Swipe

"Dean."

Swipe

"Little Sammy," he snarled painfully as he gouged a deep streak through the other cuts.

With her throat choking on the tears her meat suit could still shed, she released loud guttural cries of pain. Her only hope was to provoke John into making a mistake that she could use to get herself out of her bindings. Everyone in Hell knew that John's one weakness was his children. No matter how much it would hurt to get him to a point where he was emotional rather than methodical, she knew she needed to keep going.

Panting from the exertion, she let herself hang from the cuffs as she absorbed the waves of agony washing over her. Fortunately for her, John's phone began to buzz again.

"Really, you should get that, John," she grunted. "You never know when it might be your kids needing their daddy."

Wiping his bloody hands on a rag, John gave her a look of utter distaste.

"For your sake," he warned menacingly. "You'd better hope it's not true."

He did go and pick up his phone however. Immediately frowning when he saw his firstborn's name flashing on the screen after so many calls he let go to voicemail.

"Dean?"

She watched his shoulders visibly relax, obviously calmed by whatever his son was saying. It was amazing really, how he could go from the cold brutal killer he was one second to a pretty good personification of a loving father the next.

"How's Sammy doing?"

The name of the youngest Winchester and the memories she now associated with him helped to bring her mind to a much more pleasant place than she was right now. So many hours of absolute pleasure with that young strong body. How apt of a pupil he was. How eager. Obeying her every command like he was born to do it. He was magnificent when he let his inner demon shine and she knew without doubt that Father was right to groom him as their next king.

"Don't worry about her, kiddo," John was saying into the phone as he sneered at her. "I've got her tied up right where I want her. Why?"

She smiled a dirty smile at John, a little thrill rushing through her when his face cracked into horror from whatever his son was saying at the moment.

"Uh oh," she sing-songed as John visibly broke in real time. "Something tells me that Papa Bear just found out what Baby Bear was up to when he should have been studying," she laughed. "Such a bad, bad boy," she clucked sarcastically.

John honestly looked like he was going to be sick and inside she was giddy with glee, sure that he was finally at the point where his thinking would be cloudy from his distraught emotions over a demon filthy banging his baby.

"And Little Sammy loved every minute of it," she taunted. "He begged for it."

After another moment John's face went eerily calm as his hand gripped the phone tight enough to crack the plastic.

"That's your brother's, if he wants it," he said quietly. "Stay put and watch out for Sammy until I contact you."

He disconnected the call and laid the phone back down, closing his eyes and taking several deep breaths. When he opened them again, they were cold. Calculating. For all intents and purposes, inhuman. He cracked his neck on each side and caressed the knife like a gentle lover and slowly stepped towards her again. The smile on his face more evil than anything she had ever seen in the Pit.

For the first time since that night in her human life when she was dragged into that field, she felt fear.

/

Dean wasn't surprised when Sam slept throughout the rest of the afternoon. Even a Winchester had their limits of endurance, especially when Sam had been put through the ringer both physically and mentally over the past few days. The poor kid needed as much rest as he could possibly get all things considered.

Finally getting through to his father was also a big relief. Dean wasn't completely calm with the world when he didn't know where his father and brother were at all times and if they were safe.

It was just the way he was wired.

Sue him.

Although he wasn't necessarily happy with John's decision to not immediately stab the demon that had been, for all intents and purposes, repeatedly raping Sam before poisoning him, he grudgingly understood on a big picture level that she had extremely valuable information that they desperately needed. But in reality Dean couldn't think any farther ahead than his burning desire to tear apart the monster that hurt his kid.

It was only his father's insistence that she was Sam's kill to make, should he desire to take it, that kept Dean from shouting down the phone line to demand that John mount her head on a pike while he listened.

Sam had barely even stirred during the hours he slumbered. So obviously worn out that his body didn't even have the strength to toss and turn. Dean had put him to bed with the leather jacket pillowed in his arms with the hope that Sam's subconscious would understand that he was protected and safe with his big brother keeping guard over him. That it was okay to let go for a little while and get some much needed rest.

Because Dean would always stand between him and anything that dared to try and hurt him.

Several times during the afternoon Sam's friend Luis had called and texted his phone, and while normally Dean would draw lines about infringing on his little brother's privacy, the frequency of the attempted contacts had him wondering if something was wrong at Sam's dorm. He finally picked up the sixth call only to find out that Luis was just concerned because it wasn't like Sam to miss a whole day of classes.

The other boy was understandably worried that Sam's health had taken a bad turn after everything he'd been through recently.

Appreciating the fact that his little brother had other people who cared about him, Dean assured Luis that Sam was getting some much needed sleep and advised him that it was also more than likely that Sam would be bunking in Dean's hotel room for the foreseeable future. After what had happened that morning at the diner, Luis wasn't surprised that his friend might not want to share space with Brady at the moment.

Luis had seen for himself that Sam's big brother was obviously a good guy. Why Brady had to be such a dick, he didn't know, because Luis was a big brother himself and knew what it was like to care for younger siblings with an extra layer of concern for them. Zach did too, and the two of them had discussed after breakfast how much of themselves they saw in the older Winchester brother. Dean's protective nature of Sam practically bordered on parental and Sam clearly basked in his brother's presence.

After a whole school year of wondering what the story with Sam's absent family was, seeing for themselves how close the brothers actually were made them happy for Sam.

They wanted to help, so Luis offered to pack a bag with some of Sam's clothes and personal items so they wouldn't have to worry about crossing paths with Brady so soon after the blowup. As well as his books, because the boys also knew how much Sam's studies meant to him and he wouldn't want to fall behind.

Dean thanked him gratefully and gave him the info on where the brothers were holed up.

They arrived with a soft knock at a little after 4 pm carrying Sam's backpack and one of Luis' own overnight bags filled with Sam's personal items. Both of them looked sincerely concerned for their friend. So much so that Dean relaxed his guarded stance a fraction and moved away from the door just enough for them to see Sam in bed safely wrapped up in the white duvet and sleeping peacefully.

The sight seemed to take a weight off the boys' shoulders and Luis quietly told Dean that he'd had words with Brady over his conduct while he was packing Sam's things. Zach, sober for a change, said that he also hoped that Sam's big brother didn't think poorly of all of his friends at school as a result of Brady's asshole-ish behavior.

Dean assured him that everything was cool and that he'd have Sam call them both as soon as he was up to it.

It was close to six o'clock when Dean's stomach really started to voice its complaint over his failure to fill it since that morning. Using his cellphone instead of the room phone that was too close to where Sam was sleeping, Dean called the hotel directly and got transferred to room service where he put in a repeat of last night's dinner order. Sam was going to need to eat something pretty soon, although his brother was reluctant to wake him up for it.

As it turned out, Dean didn't need to wake him. The knock on the door from room service did it for him, and after Dean got their meal settled on the table in front of the television in the seating area, he turned around to see Sam sitting up in bed and rubbing his face. His floppy hair tousled and wild and jutting out in all directions, making him look like a young Sammy who been unwillingly roused for their next move in the middle of the night. He grunted an acknowledgement at Dean as he swung his legs over the side of the bed and yawned, trying to shake the sleep off.

Dean couldn't control the wince on his face when he saw the angry red scratches down Sam's arms from where he had tried to scrub his own skin off earlier.

Still bleary-eyed, Sam didn't notice as he stumbled into the bathroom to relieve himself and wash his face. He let the cold tap water run for a few minutes as he bathed his flushed skin. Both to soothe some of the earlier burn as well as to help wake him up. The sleep had done wonders in alleviating his body's aches and pains for the most part and thankfully his stomach had settled again, but he was still having a hard time looking at himself in the mirror.

It might be a while before he could without hating the person he saw there.

Eventually he turned the water off and knew he'd have to face his brother who had been uncharacteristically patient about Sam's little freak out. But when he went back out into the room he saw Dean hunkered down on one end of the sofa casually chowing down on a burger. Dean lifted his face long enough to quickly assess Sam's overall well-being before jerking his head to indicate that Sam should come over and join him.

There was no weepy concern or overt hovering in the look. Just Dean being Dean, and Sam was absurdly grateful that his brother didn't look like he was about to bring up what had happened earlier.

"Eat."

Sam's stomach gave an interested gurgle at the predictable command and he looked at the offerings on the table before grabbing the crock of French Onion soup and a spoon and then sitting on the other end of the couch with his long legs tucked up underneath him.

Dean had a Simpsons rerun playing that seemed to be entertaining him and Sam was content to eat his soup and watch the comedy in companionable silence for a while. Happy to let his thoughts drift away from more painful topics. Somehow, despite all the turmoil rambling around in his mind, Sam managed to finish the soup, half the chicken salad and all the grapes and figs from the charcuterie board before Dean grabbed the remote and clicked the television off.

"You feeling any better, Sammy?"

Surprisingly, he was. Not that he thought he'd ever truly feel okay again, but he certainly felt better than he had that morning. So to put his worried brother at ease he nodded, relinquishing his empty plate when Dean held his hand out for it. Dean then snagged two of the beers that had also come with room service and handed one to his little brother before sitting back down to face him.

"How about I tell you about some of the cool things that have been going on?"

For the next twenty minutes, Dean filled his little brother in on all the astounding events that had transpired in the lives of the Winchester family over the past three months. Henry and Abbadon. The Men of Letters. The bunker. Hunter Corp. The treasure trove of knowledge and weaponry. The family money. Everything. Sam let him speak without interrupting him even once. Quietly sitting on his side of the couch and listening in rapt fascination as he slowly sipped at his beer. By the time Dean finished, he himself was in awe of it all and he'd been living it.

Sam's face, which had been placid and unreadable through his brother's story, now scrunched up in concern.

"Exactly how many of those have you had?" he asked cautiously as he nodded towards the half drunk beer in Dean's hand.

Dean rolled his eyes and sighed. Nothing was ever easy with this kid.

"Sammy, I just told you that we inherited the Batcave, and that's your response?" he asked incredulously.

Sam opened his mouth to hesitantly speak but couldn't make himself voice an actual question about his brother's tall tale. There was real fear running through him that maybe all of their years of living this crazy existence had finally caused Dean to crack under the pressure. Large strides were being made in the treatment of mental health every day and Sam was fairly confident that they could find someone to help his brother deal with whatever trauma had him living in this genuinely bizarre alternate reality.

"Dean," he pleaded, unable to keep the worry out of his voice. "C'mon."

And Dean, seeing the disbelief on his brother's face, hung his head in frustration and then pulled out his phone to dial a number.

"Hey, it's me," he said to the person who picked up. "I'm with Sam and he's dying to hear about what we've been doing in Lebanon."

Holding out the phone to his skeptical little brother, he waited a second for Sam to take it before wiggling it in the boy's direction and insisting upon it. Pursing his lips, Sam took it carefully, like it might bite him, and then spoke into it.

"Hello?"

"Sam! How nice to hear your voice, Son."

Sam's eyes widened as he instantly recognized the voice. "Pastor Jim?"

It only took Jim Murphy a couple of minutes to confirm Dean's fanciful telling of events. Sam listened wide-eyed in complete silence as one of the only other people he trusted in the world, aside from his brother and father, repeated Dean's dubious claims about their family's new reality. While Jim was talking on the phone, Dean was pulling items out of his wallet and laying them on the table still holding the remnants of their dinner so Sam could see them for himself.

A business card for Hunter Corp. A laminated bounty hunter's license. A certified copy of Dean's seemingly legit concealed carry permit.

An American Express black card in Dean's name...

Sam couldn't help either his jaw dropping or his eyes popping as he took in the proof in front of him.

When he finally got off the phone with Pastor Jim after the appropriate pleasantries, he sat on the couch taking it all in as he slowly shook his head. Suddenly it was all making sense. The nice hotel. Dean's out of character clothing. The money deposited in Sam's account. Clearly his brother was on the level.

"He time traveled through a closet?"

Dean huffed out a laugh and nodded as he put his things back in his wallet. "Yep."

"Our lives are weird, man," Sam muttered as he ran his fingers through his hair.

It was a lot to process on top of everything else he'd learned that day so far even if Sam had grown up in a world where they saw the inexplicable on a fairly regular basis. He'd made his peace with knowing for sure that there were things in the world that other people only fantasized about. So really he should just be used to rolling with the punches by now. But it was one thing to hunt monsters, and another altogether to accept the rest of what was going on at the moment.

Still, there was one thought that rose to the surface ahead of all the others.

"You kept renting the house?" he asked tentatively, barely able to peek up at his brother's face.

Dean took another sip of his beer, his face betraying nothing. "Yep."

Sam was quiet for another minute as he worked up the courage to ask the question burning on the forefront of his mind. More than afraid of the answer.

"Why?" he finally managed as he started to nervously chew on his pinky nail out of habit. "I mean, I was sure you'd bail the minute I left town."

Taking a deep breath, Dean scowled as he reached over to pull Sam's hand away from his mouth. He'd hoped that he'd broken his little brother of the practice by now. Sometimes Sam would get so intense with this particular nervous tick that he'd make himself bleed.

"Stop that," he scolded gently. "I kept it because I knew you'd come home someday," he shrugged. "And when you did, I wanted to make sure that you'd have a house to come home to."

Deep down Sam had hoped that this was the answer, but he hadn't let himself truly believe it until he heard the words coming from Dean's own mouth. Something inside him broke even further then. Partly from the happiness of knowing that Dean had never completely given up on their brotherhood and partly from the sadness that Sam had willingly walked away from that kind of unconditional love. His eyes welled as he stared at his brother apologetically for putting them both through such a terrible strain on their relationship.

Dean watched Sam crumble further and knew he couldn't take even one more of his baby brother's tears after almost two days of the kid running the emotional gamut. He had to turn this around because Sam needed to stop wallowing in his pool of self-recrimination.

"Yeah, I wouldn't be so excited about it, if I was you," he warned, crossing his arms sternly. "Considering that I'm grounding your ass for the whole summer the minute we get back. You're gonna get tired of that house sooner than you think."

That seemed to do the job pretty quickly. In less than three seconds Sam's face morphed from pain into a scowl and then into incredulous disbelief when Dean didn't look like he was joking.

"Ha Ha, Dean," Sam rolled his eyes. "Very funny."

"Do I look like I'm laughing?" Dean asked, his own eyes narrowed.

"Well, then you're having a stroke or something if you really think I'm agreeing to that," Sam said affronted. "In case you haven't noticed, I'm a big boy now."

All trace of tears vanished as Sam glared at his brother. Dean obviously had some kind of head injury or maybe just too much booze if he seriously thought for a second that Sam was going to allow his big brother to treat him like a kid again. One of the reasons why he'd left home in the first place was to get away from his father's heavy handed control.

"I don't give a rat's ass how much you've grown. Or overgrown, for that matter," Dean snapped. "I just spent ten months of my life worrying about you every damn second of every day. Whether you were safe. Or if you were taking care of yourself."

Sam cringed at the reminder that he hadn't been doing such a great job at that, but he crossed his own arms and held his ground.

"So you're gonna give me a couple of months where I know where you are at all times and that you're okay before I have to bring you back here again," Dean allowed his real fear to peak out for a minute. "I think I deserve that much."

There was so much sadness and concern on his big brother's face that all the fight drained out of Sam and he immediately backed down.

Dean did deserve that after the way Sam had abandoned him and broken off all contact.

The truth was, Sam was also simply tired of fighting and the energy it took to be obstinate. Because Dean wasn't their father and he didn't deserve to be treated like he was. There was actually nothing Sam wanted to do more after his finals were over than to get in the car with his brother and go home to Sioux Falls.

Especially when he'd convinced himself that he'd never see their little house ever again and he missed it almost as much as he'd missed his family.

"Yeah, okay," Sam finally agreed quietly. Willing to say anything that took that look off his brother's face. "You're right, Dean. I'm sorry."

Dean's tense shoulders relaxed slightly at that. He hadn't realized just how much he needed to know that Sam would be sticking close by him for the foreseeable future. It had been too long since he'd had a restful night's sleep like he'd had last night and the reason was knowing exactly where his little brother was and that Dean could keep him safe if anything came knocking.

"That is, if you still want to come back here?"

The idea that maybe Sam wasn't such a big fan of California anymore after what he learned dawned on Dean suddenly. He was thinking for the first time that whether or not Sam came back to Stanford might not have anything to do with their family squabbles.

And truthfully the question brought Sam up short, because he really hadn't had a chance to give it any thought. To be honest, there were going to be a lot of bad memories of the place now. Places he couldn't see without thinking of his time with Amanda. The general unease of knowing that something had been able to get to him here, just like his father had warned him about every time he restricted Sam's freedom while he was growing up.

It was a valid question.

But Sam had also been happy in Palo Alto. He had friends and non-demonic professors he was fond of. Even a job he...

"Shit! I'm supposed to be at work! Damn it!"

Practically tripping over himself, he scrambled for his phone before Dean put a restraining hand on his arm.

"Relax. It's handled," he soothed. "I called your place while you were sleeping and told them you still weren't feeling well. They were very cool about it."

Sam grimaced and roughly rubbed his hands over his face. He hated to be unreliable. Maria and Antonio had been nothing but good to him and they didn't deserve to have to keep covering his lame ass for every shift. Even good employers had their limits when you took a little too much advantage of their generous natures.

"I'm so getting fired after all this time away," he said finally, thoroughly annoyed with himself. "It's a good thing that you have money now. I'm gonna need to borrow some if I don't get another job."

"We have money now," Dean reminded him. "Dad and Henry set up a trust fund for you too. A little different from mine, since you're still just a kid," he winked when Sam glared at him. "But you got just as much as I did. We'll figure out all the details when we get you home."

Nodding, Sam relaxed a little and gave further thought to Dean's earlier question. Now that his brother had promised to make sure that Sam could come back to Stanford for his next year, did he want to give it up just because of a few bumps in the road?

Well, it was more like several large mountains in the road, but that wasn't the point.

"Am I going to be safer going to school someplace other than here?" he asked sincerely. "Or is any college going to be as risky? Is there a reason why I shouldn't just come back?"

Dean wanted to make a case for Sam to attend classes at a university back home like they had talked about before. Or even one that was within commuting distance from the bunker. But then he reminded himself about how happy Sam had been around his friends yesterday and how he'd otherwise looked like he was having a good time when Dean had checked in on him, and he realized that it wouldn't be right to offer Sam his freedom just to take it away again.

"Probably not," he admitted reluctantly. "We'll just have to do a better job securing the place here. Speaking of which."

Going over to his duffel, Dean pulled out a little cloth patch with symbols drawn on it and tossed it to Sam who easily caught it.

"What is this?" he asked as his forehead scrunched up in confusion.

"Hex bag," Dean said, rummaging around in his bag further. "A little gift from Grandpa. It'll keep you hidden from demons."

"Witchcraft?" Sam was beyond shocked. "Dad'll freak if he finds out you've got that kind of stuff in your bag."

Chuckling, Dean pulled out a piece of paper from the bottom of his duffel and handed it to his brother. "Dad was the one who told me to bring it to you. And if I catch you going out that door without it on you, I'm buying one of those kiddie harnesses in jumbo size and tying you to my wrist. Capisce?"

Sam rolled his eyes, but he nodded and reached out to take the paper which had an elaborate pentagram design on it. "What's this?"

"We're getting inked up, little brother. No demon is ever getting their dirty mitts on you again."

/

Henry couldn't sleep.

Insomnia had been a problem for him for years. Maybe it was because of what he did for a living. Maybe it was because of what he learned for a living.

Maybe it was just because he drank too much coffee during the day.

Whatever the reason was, Henry often had insomnia.

Millie had found him restlessly wandering around the house in the middle of the night on many occasions during their marriage. At first it had worried her, because she was afraid of what was so awful that it kept her normally calm and easy going husband awake during the hour of the wolf. But eventually she accepted the inevitability of it and would often leave Henry a sweet treat on the dining room table in an effort to take away the bitterness of whatever was plaguing him.

In the quiet of the bunker, Henry once again found himself lying in bed, wide awake with no plans on sleeping anytime soon and he heard the siren call of Mrs. Butters' scrumptious peach cobbler from the ice box in the kitchen. Swinging his legs out of bed, he rubbed his non-compliant eyes, donned the soft leather slippers waiting for him on the floor and slowly made his way through the hallway.

The soft swishing of his slippers was the only sound as he slowly strolled through the long passages. Although Bobby Singer was somewhere in the bunker's depths, he wasn't in the common areas at the moment. Mrs. Butters didn't sleep, but she did respect that the men who lived there needed to so she made herself scarce during the nights with the understanding that she would wake whichever one was on duty if an alarm went off.

Turning into the kitchen with nothing more on his mind than cobbler and maybe a glass of buttermilk, he flipped on the light switch next to the door and almost had a heart attack when he saw his son sitting hunched over at the table looking lost and completely worn out. It was a wholly unexpected sight since John hadn't called in a couple of days and Henry hadn't heard him come in through the bunker's heavy metal door which was annoyingly loud when it shut.

Not that he wasn't always happy to see John, because he was, but having him here without warning was probably a bad sign. Usually his son was very meticulous about alerting the bunker's occupants regarding any impending arrival so there would be no confusion about whether or not it was actually him.

Henry hated that his boy lived a daily life where a safeguard such as that was even necessary in the first place.

"John?" Henry greeted, pasting a warm smile on his face to mask the deep concern. "What a pleasant surprise."

A closer look at his son had Henry noticing the nearly empty bottle of Macallan. A surefire tell that not all was right in John's world. Not that Henry shouldn't have expected it realistically right now. With all the recent uproar it wasn't a secret in their small circle that what John had been doing for the last few days certainly warranted a drink or ten.

In fact, his son's absence and the reason for it was most likely the cause of Henry's insomnia tonight. But John's current appearance wasn't what he would have expected from the man Henry had grown to know so far.

Usually when Henry had seen John come back from a rough hunt, no matter how ugly it got, his son would be quiet, sometimes very contemplative. He'd sit at a table in the library or at his desk in the work room he'd claimed for himself next to the archives with his journal open and a bottle of something bracing next to him. John would be in no mood to engage him. Barely deigning to give his father perfunctory answers to any questions he was asked and making it very clear that Henry's presence was an intrusion.

Henry, attempting to tread carefully to avoid rocking their precarious boat, would bow out gracefully. Feeling decidedly useless in any effort to get John out of his head a little. Something that only the liquor apparently managed to do.

But Dean had also let slip on one occasion that his father could have quite a temper when he was drinking heavily. The boy obviously hadn't meant to reveal such personal information because he was very good about keeping things like that very close to the vest. It was only because Dean had been a little in his cups himself and it made him quite a bit more chatty than normal.

The thought of John being drunk and violent around his children worried Henry to no end. He knew that John had been strict with his boys and truthfully he still was by all accounts. But the idea that he could have crossed lines when his judgement was blurred was something that concerned his father deeply. Henry had seen it happen to more than one family growing up in a time where publicly respectable social drinkers were often monsters in their own homes behind closed doors.

He accepted it as yet another failure on his part because none of them would have needed to go through this kind of alcohol reliant upheaval if he'd still been around to be a father to his son. Of course Dean had hurriedly reversed course on seeing Henry's distress over the information, assuring him that John had never harmed his children during these rages, but it pained Henry anyway because harm wasn't always physical.

So Henry didn't like it, but he accepted that John drank too much. That little facet of his son's personality wasn't even in question and John himself wouldn't bother denying it out of some kind of self-preservation or denial of exactly who or what he was. He owned his functional alcoholism every time his father had tried to make pointed comments regarding his dependency on high octane spirits to get through the rough days.

But right now John was very different than Henry had ever seen him since his arrival in this time.

Unlike other bad days there was no journal but there was also none of the rage Dean had spoken about. The usual quiet contemplation had made way for utter devastation and emotional pain. Henry was a very smart man, a genius even, but it didn't take someone with his IQ to see that John was half out of his mind with grief. His son's hands were trembling and his handsome face was wrecked and there wasn't a nicer way to put that.

Seeing the glassy eyes rife with despair, replacing the usual thunderclouds of general anger or the laser focus of determination, Henry made a decision to hold his tongue about the almost empty bottle and do what he could to be a father to a man physically older than he was himself. Their current age differences certainly made for a strange sort of familial dichotomy between them, a further gulf that Henry was finding hard to bridge, but he was going to have to force himself to see his boy inside the grown man if he was going to reach him.

Because the truth was that he loved John the man in front of him every bit as much as he had loved the boy he'd left behind in 1958, and his son's older physical state didn't change Henry's need to comfort and protect his child, even if John no longer was one.

Going over to the cabinet next to the sink he pulled out a glass tumbler similar to the one his son held tight in his grasp, took a deep breath and then walked back over to the table.

John still hadn't acknowledged his presence as Henry sat down on the attached stool opposite his son. He wasn't ordering him away either, which Henry was choosing to take as a good sign that his company wasn't entirely unwanted at the moment. Setting his own glass on the table in front of him, he slightly lifted the bottle in question.

"May I join you?"

Hearing his father's voice, John blinked hard and looked up enough to give Henry the barest of glances before turning back to stare at his hands clasped together on the table. He didn't even have it in him to put up the usual invisible barrier between them. The one that kept John from having to fully unpack all the emotional crap stored in a tiny closet in the back of his mind for the past decades dealing with his father's abandonment of him and his mother.

He simply didn't have time for that shit right now when his entire world was crumbling around him.

Henry poured a generous measure of the whisky into his glass and then took a deep sip, letting the burn work its way down his throat before he worked up the nerve to speak.

"When you were a baby, I used to rub this on your gums when you were teething," he mused with a small smile on his face. "Worked like a charm."

John let out a small huff, probably blaming his father for his problems with alcohol in the first place, and then took another large swallow from his own glass.

"Of course, we didn't think about whether or not it was good for a baby," Henry continued conversationally. "I just couldn't bear to hear you cry and know you were hurting, so I did whatever I could to spare you pain. That's the way it is with fathers."

He took another sip from his glass while John stared at his own, his eyes bleary and flooded with devastation. Emboldened by his son's silence, glad he wasn't being summarily dismissed already, Henry pressed on.

"The first time I ever really drank too much was the night you spent in the hospital after I accidentally hit you in the head with a baseball," Henry said with a heavy note of guilt in his voice. "You were only three years old. So small, really." He took another sip and saw that John was now at least looking in his general direction. "Your mother was furious with me. She'd warned me that you were too young to play catch with a ball that hard, but I didn't listen."

Henry swallowed down the last of the liquid in his glass and then poured another for himself and topped off his son's glass as well.

"You caught the first pitch like a champ," he remembered with a smile. "And you begged me to throw another, so I did. But your mother had just come out of the house and you were so proud of yourself. You turned to tell her about your catch and never saw the second pitch coming at you."

John finally lifted his head enough to look at his father, an indescribable look on his face.

"My heart just stopped," Henry admitted. "All I ever wanted to do was protect you, and here I was the reason you were truly hurt for the first time. I thought I knew best and I made a terrible decision and you were the one that paid the price."

The two men looked at each other across the table, both of them knowing that this story had stopped being about them. For a moment there was silence in the cavernous room until John picked up his glass and drained it in one swallow.

"I failed him," he finally said as his eyes welled with tears. "I made the wrong choice and lost my son. Now he's been hurt and I don't know if he'll ever forgive me."

"A feeling that I'm intimately familiar with," Henry said sadly as he looked his son in the eye. "But maybe someday he'll understand that you were only doing what you thought you had to."

John swallowed hard and rubbed a hand down his face to wipe away the stray tear that fell.

"Maybe he will," he said, standing and walking towards the hall. "Good night, Pop."

Henry's breathing stuttered from the appellation and by the time he recovered enough to answer, John's footsteps were fading down the corridor.

"Good night, Son."

/

Dean did his best to cheer his brother up following the revelations about his professor and the demonic presence that had been surrounding him for quite some time.

Of course it wasn't necessarily easy because Sam was the original brooding brooder that brooded, but big brother had a trick or two up his sleeve just like always and it wasn't too long before he got the kid to smile on a regular basis again.

Just the two of them being together soothed the majority of the hurt Sam had been harboring. Sharing a hotel room, just like old times, brought with it a sense of familiarity and stability to the boy who was struggling to deal with a lot of things that no one should really ever have to deal with in a less fucked up world. It wasn't just reconnecting with Dean that soothed Sam's ruffled feathers. It was having his brother present and next to him after being on his own for so long.

They laughed together and shared stories of the past ten months apart from each other, sure. That was important. But they also bickered and tussled too. Because it wasn't just the good times that defined their brotherhood. It was the daily minor annoyances and irritations that reminded Sam of how much he'd missed having his sibling by his side.

Dean hovered and fussed over him while he recuperated and Sam loved it and hated it in equal measure, just like he'd always had. Because there was something comforting in knowing that things had not been irreparably broken between them.

He could see that Dean felt it too.

There were times when the two of them might be griping at each other over who left the cap off the toothpaste, Dean, always Dean, but Sam would smile at how easily their dynamic snapped back into place and Dean would smile back at him and the fight would end as quickly as it had begun with them just being happy to be together again.

Then Dean would slap him in the back of the head and say clean up your mess slacker and Sam's eyes would flare with indignation and they'd be back to bickering again.

Dean was kicking himself for going through the trouble of getting a poolside room once they got the matching tattoos on their chests. Both of them had been well trained in wound care and knew that swimming would be out of the question for most of their time left in California. He simply hadn't thought about it before he made the change, thinking that Sam looked like he needed some sun when Dean saw him up close for the first time.

It didn't help that Sam's tat was taking a little longer than normal to heal over, which shouldn't have been surprising with how compromised he'd been physically. Their largest fights so far had been because of Dean's insistence on regularly checking over Sam's bandages and keeping a very close eye on how well the healing process was going.

Sam, besides being perfectly capable of tending to his own medical needs, still bristled from being touched too much. It was all he could do to hold still while getting inked by a stranger's hand that was far too close to him for so long.

Too make up for the hurt he saw flash in his brother's eyes over not being able to care for him that way, Sam agreed to let Dean more or less call all the rest of the shots for his personal care without too much resistance. It was working too, because slowly Sam was starting to put on some much needed weight and he no longer looked like a George Romero zombie reject.

He wasn't allowed to leave for class in the morning until he'd eaten a good breakfast or left alone to study at night until he'd consumed a respectable dinner. His morning runs were cancelled for the foreseeable future so he could get the extra sleep he so obviously needed. At first Dean had also insisted on driving him the less than two miles to campus for his classes and then picking him up after they were done for the day. Sam grudgingly put up with that nonsense for a week before finally putting his extra large foot down.

Tersely reminding his overzealous brother that he'd been slogging his way around Stanford for the better part of the year and he didn't actually need to be ferried around like a preschooler.

Dean backed down reluctantly, but it didn't stop him from demanding to see that Sam had the hex bag directly on his person every time he took a step outside their hotel room door. Sam would huff and posture before ultimately caving because he knew where the concern was coming from.

This seeming fraternal bliss only suffered one major setback during all of their time in close quarters together and it had the potential to be a lethal blow to the relationship they were carefully reforging.

In truth Sam had no real business going through his brother's phone that day. It was a terrible invasion of privacy between brothers who had grown up valuing the scant few instances of having any and to be honest he knew better than to poke around in Dean's things uninvited. But Sam was feeling a little worn out at the moment. Too brain dead to get anything useful out of the book he was trying to study from after a long day of review for his upcoming finals but looking for something more constructive to do than watching some crap cable.

Finally burned out on the hotel's room service menu, Dean had gone out to pick up dinner for a change. It hadn't taken much to talk him into getting them a couple of pizzas from the place that Sam had been raving about for having the best stuffed crust. Because as far as big brother was concerned, the only thing better than cheese was more cheese.

As a surprise Dean had taken Sam to buy the new Palm Treo 270 for a late birthday present after his final reviews were done for the day. Just released that week, it was a sleek little beauty with tons of features and Sam had eyed it lustily in the store like the little tech geek that he was. Far superior than his current scratched up and outdated phone, he couldn't help playing around with it the minute they got back to the Westin, even if he had an upcoming calculus final that definitely needed his attention more.

But considering that he was going to be spending his summer at least on the periphery of the hunting world, he decided that it would be a good idea to add the new numbers associated with everyone working for Hunter Corp while he was transferring the others from his old phone.

Fortunately for Sam's current purpose, Dean had also bought a new phone for himself as well and had left his old one behind when he went on the food run. So Sam, not thinking farther than his desire to collect information, grabbed it from the table and started to scroll through his contact list for anyone he thought should also be in his own list for future reference. There were obviously a lot of contacts that Sam didn't recognize, but a few that he did and he took the time to add them to his own because he liked to be thorough.

But then he came upon one that had absolutely no business being in his brother's phone and the floor dropped out beneath him.

When Dean came back in a good mood bearing two amazing smelling pizza boxes he found his little brother sitting on the couch in their room, Dean's old phone in his hand, absolutely fuming.

"Sammy?" he asked, taking a look around the room to see if something was amiss. "You okay?"

Sam's chest was heaving deep, angry breaths, his nostrils flaring. In answer to his brother's question, he simply held up Dean's phone on the pertinent screen and showed it to his brother.

"What are you doing with Milo's name and number in your phone?"

Dean sighed, knowing he was busted, and placed the pizzas down on the table next to the couch. He was hoping this conversation wouldn't happen for another week but here it was and he had to deal with it.

"Okay, look," he started as he scratched his head and sat down next to his brother. "In order to make sure you were okay out here, Dad made some arrangements."

Sam's eyebrows raised in annoyance and he pursed his lips into a frown. "Dad made some arrangements," he repeated angrily, shaking his head "Of course he did."

He shot up from the couch and began to pace around the room. Dean rubbed his face and took a deep breath, knowing that his little brother was about to get like he got when he felt wronged.

"Yeah, and it's lucky he did," Dean retorted firmly. "Or else we wouldn't have known what was happening to you."

Sam spun around and there was pure fury on his face. "What was happening to me? I was being spied on! By someone I thought was a friend! That's what was happening to me."

"He is your friend, Sammy," Dean insisted. "The guy really cares about you. Trust me."

"Trust you?" Sam sneered. "And why should I do that? You've been keeping this from me for weeks!"

"Sammy..."

"No!" Sam barked, holding his hand up. "No. All this time he's been lying to my face. You've been lying to my face and you can't see why that upsets me? You know what? I can't do this with you right now. I can't be here."

Before Dean could stop him he was out the door and slamming it behind him. Leaving his brother shaking his head with a definite headache coming on.

Unfortunately for Sam things with Brady were still on the outs so he didn't feel comfortable going back to his dorm room. Of course Brady had tried to contact him several times, but every time Sam took the call Brady couldn't help taking a stab at Dean and it was only getting worse the longer Sam stayed with Dean at the hotel instead of going back to Adams. He was in no mood to have to face another potential confrontation right now so he was steering clear of Sterling Quad for the foreseeable future.

But he did want to find someplace to hole up for a while and collect his thoughts and decide how he was going to deal with the obvious deception going on by the people he trusted. So like he occasionally did when he felt a little lost, he found himself standing outside Stanford Memorial Church.

Sadly, this time he was hesitant about actually going inside. This was a place that had been something of a comfort to him when he needed a little solace and peace. The stillness of the atmosphere was very conducive to calming the storm in his mind. There was a peace that surrounded him as he sat in the wooden pew and just let his mind work through whatever had him twisted up into knots. He felt the spiritual part inside of him responding to the visual cues of divinely influenced decor while he pondered things greater than himself.

Only it was feeling a little off limits now given everything that Sam had done with who he now knew to be a demon.

How did you enter a house of worship when you felt unclean in the biblical sense? After you willingly participated in multiple acts of degeneracy that once got Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed by fire from Heaven?

If there was a God, then surely He wouldn't have a very high opinion of someone who could fall to temptation like that? Would not welcome a person so wholly tainted by evil into His home?

But then Sam realized that if he truly believed in a higher power then he needed to believe that any sin, no matter how grievous, could be forgiven if he was genuinely repentant about it.

And he was. He truly was.

Swallowing nervously, he made his way inside and got down on his knees in his usual pew and prayed harder than he ever had before.

He was there for an hour before he felt calm enough to head back to the hotel. On one level he was feeling better after purging himself in prayer. The weight of some of the things he'd been carrying inside lifted by the lack of a punishing lightning strike from the Almighty. He couldn't change what had happened, but he could express remorse for it and vow to try and do better in the future.

Feeling a certain amount of forgiveness for his own behavior made him significantly more charitable towards others at the moment. He was still annoyed with his brother, but not as much as he was with his father and the person who had pretended to be his friend all this time.

Sam didn't want to fight with Dean anymore. Not after their months of separation. It was too hard and he'd been too lonely and there were just more important considerations than his big brother doing what he always did, which was to watch out for him, even when his methods were wrong. Because Dean would always do what was best for Sam when it came right down to it and although Sam didn't necessarily care for the heavy handed methods his brother used, he was honest enough to at least appreciate the sentiment behind the actions.

Besides, he'd skipped dinner and now he was starving and Dean would be worried and he didn't need to put his brother through more crap after everything else.

But when Sam got back to the room and saw Dean and Milo sitting on the couch waiting for him, his plan to let go of his anger went right out the window.

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," Sam snapped, narrowing his eyes and feeling the urge to take a swing at someone rising.

Dean got up from the couch, his hands up in surrender as he tried to calm his little brother down. Milo had been just as upset as Sam when Dean called to give him the heads up and rushed right over to make peace with the kid.

"Sammy, just hear him out."

Sam snorted and turned to back out the door he'd just come in. Seeing this amped up Dean's annoyance even further because Sam's earlier vanishing act upset him terribly and the kid was not just going to keep walking away from someone who had worked their ass off to protect his.

"Samuel!" Dean barked, his tone stopping the kid in his tracks. "For once in your life, you're gonna sit your ass down and listen."

Turning around, his hazel eyes flashing anger, Sam fumed at both the order and the use of his proper name. He glared at Dean who glared right back, looking like he was about two second away from physically putting Sam on the couch if he didn't obey. To be fair, Dean probably could at this point. Sam had lost a fair amount of muscles over the past few months while his brother seemed to have found them. It wouldn't be much of a fight.

He was already humiliated enough and didn't need to be manhandled in front of Milo so he grudgingly trudged over to the couch and sat with a huff, his eyes forward and not looking at the man next to him.

"So who are you really?" Sam asked sarcastically, crossing his arms over his chest.

"I'm Milo D'Angelo from Park Slope, Brooklyn," Milo replied sincerely, craning his neck to get Sam to look at him. "Just like I said I was. I also used to be a hunter."

Sam closed his eyes and shook his head, thoroughly annoyed. "How could you just lie to me like that? All that time?" he said bitterly.

"Because you needed someone watching your back," Milo answered simply as he shrugged. "And your old man saved my life, so I was happy to return the favor if I could."

That got Sam's attention. His eyes snapped back open and his head spun around to look at the person he'd thought of as one of his closest friends.

"So, I was what? Just a debt to be repaid?" he asked, not able to completely mask the hurt in his voice. "You pretended to be my friend so you had access to me?"

"No," Milo said calmly, leaning forward a little. "I helped you get a job at my cousin's restaurant so I had access to you. I was your friend because I genuinely like you."

Sam huffed again and rolled his eyes. "Yeah, well I think we have very different ideas of what friends are."

Dean had had just about enough of the kid's smart mouth. Sam could be a little upset about being in the dark, but he had no business crapping on someone who reworked their entire life to make sure he was okay. Both physically and financially.

"Hey," Dean scolded. "I know I taught you better manners than this. Try saying thank you instead of being a dick."

Sam's face flushed pink with anger over the chastisement. "Thank you, Milo," he spat out. "For deceiving me about who you were the entire time I've known you."

Milo could see Dean gearing up to throttle the kid so he held up a hand to restrain him. He got up from the couch, shaking his head at Dean in hopes of stopping a fight between the brothers that looked like it could get awfully ugly.

"For what it's worth, Sam," he said sincerely, "we were always going to tell you. Maria and Antonio have this whole dinner planned for after you're done with finals where we were gonna to talk about the work our family does with the hunting community. We just didn't want to distract you while you were studying."

Sam scowled but he didn't look up to acknowledge Milo's words, even though he was clearly shaken by them.

"I'll walk you out," Dean offered, moving towards the door with Milo. They shook hands and Dean closed the door once Milo left and then strode back to the couch.

"You can be pissed all you want," Dean growled at his pouting little brother, "but quit being a little bitch. You shit all over hunting and hunters. But me? Milo? Dad? We make a difference in this world. And yeah, we usually have to lie to do it, but that doesn't mean we don't care. And we don't expect appreciation. We never get thanked. But you? You fucking know that better than any civilian."

Sam flinched and turned away, but Dean wasn't done with him yet.

"That guy is the only reason I didn't drag your ass away from here months ago whether you wanted to come with me or not. You could at least show him a little gratitude for that if nothing else."

Moving to the table, Dean packed up his new laptop and slid his old phone into his pocket.

"There's pizza in the fridge for you," he said, grabbing a beer from the minibar. "I'm going out to do some research by the pool. Stay or don't stay. It's up to you."

He left his little brother inside the room and slammed the patio door behind him, startling some of the other guests gathered poolside. He threw an apologetic look their way and found an empty table a few yards from his own door and set up camp. There were emails to answer and some reading that he promised Henry he would do in a half-hearted attempt to please his grandfather who wanted him to be more Man of Letters than hunter.

Then there was some quality time talking to Lisa. She'd been very cool about his prolonged stay in California, even though originally they'd had plans. Ben was missing him too, but she assured Dean that she understood that his brother needed him right now and she'd see him as soon as he could make it.

There was bar service poolside and he had a few more than he'd planned, probably because he was putting off the inevitability of going inside the room and finding his little brother gone.

Again.

A small part of him regretted being so harsh with the kid, but Sammy could be more than a little spoiled and self-centered at times, and maybe Dean saw a little of himself in Milo. Enough that he took the slight on the older man personally. As much as he was pissed at the Campbells, he didn't hold Milo responsible for the failure of the security on campus. It was Milo's job to look after Sammy when he was at work and the kid had always been fine at the restaurant.

Besides, Milo had already admitted that Christian had been blowing off their usual meetings about Sam lately after an argument they had a few weeks ago. He had been noticing Christian's increasing lack of interest in exchanging safety updates which resulted in a terse conversation between them. Out of an abundance of caution Milo had taken to checking on Sam more himself, although his access was significantly more limited. It was safe to say he wasn't on the best of terms with Christian these days either.

When everything started to close up and it was getting late, Dean couldn't put off his return any longer. He shut down his laptop and slid it in the nice leather case he'd bought for it and headed for the room. Holding his breath, he swiped his card over the reader, waited for the buzz and green light and then stepped inside.

Sam was dressed in his sleeping pants and tee already as he sat cross legged on his bed, a mountain of books and papers surrounding him. A plate with several pizza crusts and a half empty bottle of water were on the nightstand between the beds. He looked up when Dean came in with a hangdog expression on his face and the older brother knew he'd taken his earlier words to heart.

"Those are the best parts," he indicated in the direction of the discarded crusts. Happy to see his brother still in the room. "How are we related?"

Sam huffed out a little laugh, before swallowing hard. "I called Milo and apologized," he said softly. "I'm still mad, but you were right. I appreciate him looking out for me."

"That's good," Dean nodded, satisfied. "Because I know for a fact that he's pretty fond of you. I'm glad he could be here when I couldn't."

Pain flashed in Sam's eyes at the reminder before he cleared his throat. "He also invited us for dinner at Maria and Antonio's house on Saturday. I said we would go if that's okay with you?"

"Sure, kiddo," Dean nodded as he pulled out his own sleep clothes. "I've been wanting to meet them too."

Glancing at the alarm clock, Dean frowned. Just now realizing how long he'd been outside. No wonder his head was buzzing. He'd lost track of the number of beers he had.

"Sammy, it's getting late," he said, pulling down the duvet on his own bed. "Put your books away and go brush your teeth."

Sam rolled his eyes predictably and sighed. "I'm not five, Dean," he reminded his bossy brother. "And I still have work to do."

"Yeah, and I have sleeping to do," Dean replied, not caring in the slightest. "Which means you have sleeping to do because you need more than me. So get."

If Sam wasn't already worn out from their earlier fight, he might have dug his heels in further and asserted his adulthood. But as it was, his brother wasn't wrong. Not that he'd ever admit that his brother wasn't wrong, but it didn't change the fact. Instead he settled for scowling at Dean as his brother rotated clothing between his duffels and gathered up his study materials before heading into the bathroom to wash up for the night.

He already had the lights off in the room, just to be a snot, by the time Dean finished up his own bedtime routine twenty minutes later, making his older brother have to fumble his way through the dark. But Dean was a pro at working in situations with no lighting so it wasn't necessarily hard for him to get to his own bed and climb in.

"I'm sorry I looked through your phone," Sam muttered sincerely after they'd been lying quietly for a couple of minutes.

He heard Dean sigh in the other bed. "Well, don't look for it, Taylor. You may not like what you find."

"Classic Planet of the Apes," Sam answered, flinching slightly from the mild reprimand.

As Dean turned over on his side away from Sam, the pensive little brother waited another moment before daring to ask the question on his mind.

"So. Who's Lisa?"

/

Brady was waiting for him outside the lecture hall after Sam finished the final for his Modern Political Thought class.

It had been a few days since the last time his roommate had called him once again to see when Sam would be coming back to the dorm. Quite frankly, Sam was perfectly happy where he was. Surprisingly enough, the hotel was much more quiet than Adams was and ever since Dean had come clean about the Campbell cousins during the dinner at Maria and Antonio's house, going to the library was not an attractive option for studying.

Even though his brother assured him that the cousins had been recalled to their home base in Michigan after the fiasco involving the possessed Dr. Stilner so there was no chance he'd run into Gwen. Mark had also pulled out of school at the zero hour which apparently, according to Luis and Zach, was a bit of gossip among the residents of Adams for about twenty minutes before everyone just forgot about the quiet boy none of them bothered to get to know in the first place.

Still thoroughly pissed about being watched by a bunch of strangers, even if they were related, Sam had promised himself in the spirit of familial harmony with his sibling that he was going to keep his anger about it all in check for the time being.

It was water under the bridge, a sore subject between him and his brother and Dean had promised that it wasn't going to happen again when Sam returned to school no matter what Dad said.

That didn't make it right, but it at least made the idea of it tolerable for now when he had other pressing concerns on his mind, like his remaining final tomorrow.

"Hey," Brady called, giving him a little wave from across the hall as he made his way over.

"Hey," Sam answered with half a smile, hoping that his friend wasn't here to pick another fight. It was hard enough over the phone. In person it would impossible.

Brady jammed his hands in his pockets and looked decidedly uncomfortable. It was an odd sight on a boy that was usually so full of confidence it was almost blinding. He also looked like he hadn't been sleeping well lately which truthfully described most of the student body at the moment.

"How'd it go in there?" he asked, jerking his head towards the lecture hall.

Sam was pushing his way towards the exit and Brady fell into step next time. "Okay, I hope. A couple of tricky questions, but nothing too crazy."

They walked out the door into the blinding sunshine of a beautiful day. Barely dodging a Frisbee being thrown by a couple of guys on the grass next to the building. Brady also had a backpack slung on his shoulder that looked like it was about to burst.

"What'd you have today?" Sam asked conversationally as they strolled.

Brady groaned and made a face. "Chemistry. And it was a mother, let me tell you. I've been doing formulas in my sleep for days."

Chuckling Sam nodded. "Yeah I hear you."

Sam was thankful for the easy back and forth between them. Truly he did miss his friend, despite his jerk behavior since Dean's arrival in California. Feeling lighter, they made small talk for a couple of more minutes until it became clear that Sam was heading off campus instead of back to Adams. Brady stopped short and dropped his backpack to the ground.

"Are we gonna get past this?" he asked, his forehead wrinkled with concern.

"Depends on you," Sam shrugged. "You're the one who has beef with my brother for some weird reason. You don't even know him."

Brady sighed and gave his friend an apologetic look. "You're right. I'm sorry. I don't know why. He just rubbed me the wrong way."

"Yeah, he can do that," Sam admitted with a small smile. Eager to put aside their recent argument before he left for the summer. "Why don't we grab breakfast at the diner Friday and try again. Okay? Dean and I are heading home on Saturday and I was planning on packing up Friday night."

"You're really going back to South Dakota for the summer?" Brady couldn't stop himself from asking.

"Yes," Sam said with no room for argument. "I am. And I'm pretty happy about it."

Brady held his hands up in surrender and backed off. The decent friend inside of him was demanding that he be happy for Sam about his decision to go home finally after so long of avoiding his family like the plague.

"Okay, okay. Just know that the door in Park City is always open if you change your mind."

"Thanks," Sam replied sincerely. "I really hope you have a good time there. I'll see you Friday, okay?"

Brady nodded and picked his bag back up and gave his friend a little wave as they went their separate ways.

/

Sam's last breakfast at the diner with Dean and his friends before they split up for the summer went better than the first one had. Brady was already waiting at their usual booth when the Winchester brothers arrived and Dean, braving Luis' habit of kicking under the table, took his previous seat against the window. But when Sam pointedly slipped into the booth next to his brother instead of joining Brady on his side of the table, the intent wasn't lost on any of them.

While Sam considered Brady a friend, a good friend, his loyalty was always going to be to his brother first.

For his part, Brady could see the easy dynamic between the siblings and the obvious shift in their behaviors. Sam looked much healthier than he had in a while and he smiled easily and freely as he ordered a real sized meal for once. Dean was more an annoying big brother than parent as he teased Sam repeatedly in an effort to mildly embarrass him by sharing small snippets of childhood memories that ultimately had the younger Winchester genuinely laughing.

Simply put, Sam was happy.

Happier than Brady had ever seen his overly nice but often emotionally reticent roommate.

Clearly being around Dean brought out a part of Sam that never showed itself before his arrival. Which was a shame because it was a good part. One that people who cared about Sam would want to see on a regular basis. It also made Brady lament the turbulent relationship with his own brother. He and Clay only seemed to bring out the worst in each other.

As the meal came to a close, Luis leaped on the check in an effort to forestall any potential conflict. He and Zach had been invited on two occasions to have dinner with the brothers poolside at the hotel that Dean paid for so it was the least he could do in case Dean and Brady took another stab at being alpha dog.

They all headed back to Adams after breakfast, the dorm itself abuzz with activity as the residents prepared to depart for the break.

Although Sam had set aside the entire rest of the morning to gather his things, it became very clear that it didn't really take a long time to pack up what could still fit in a couple of bags. While he sorted through papers to keep or throw, Dean took the opportunity to give a closer inspection to Sam's minimal decor. He smiled at the photos on Sam's dresser, especially seeing the one of their parents that Dean had copied for him from the original stuffed in their father's wallet, but his face fell when he realized that the only one of him and Sam was buried at the back. Hidden behind all the others.

"It hurt too much to look," Sam's quiet voice came from behind him.

Dean turned to see his brother sitting sadly on the edge of his bed, his hands stilled in their task. He thought about the bedroom door back in their house that he hadn't been able to force himself to open since the day his brother left and nodded.

"I know."

Sooner than they thought, Sam's minimal possessions were packed. Between the two of them, it was only going to take one trip to get everything down to the Impala. Dean looked around Brady's full room and then the nicely decorated double that Zach and Luis shared when Sam went to hug them goodbye and promised himself that it was going to be different for his little brother when September came.

Sam was going to get to be the kid that had a family that over-packed for him and brought him to school and fussed over where he'd be living instead of being forced to go it alone.

When the brothers climbed into the car, Dean looked over at his kid, back where he belonged in the shotgun seat, and shrugged.

"You know, I'm not tired and it's pretty early," he said suggestively. "We could just..."

Sam smiled and leaned back into comfort of the familiar leather seats and settled in happily for a long drive.

"Let's go home."