Title: Family, Duty, Honor (Adjusting, part three).

Words: about 1250

Pairing: None, gen.

Rating: PG-13 for language.

Characters: Sam, Dean, Bobby.

Disclaimer: Not mine

A/N: Part of my Blind!Dean 'verse. Title of this chapter is taken form George Martin's book, A Song of Ice and Fire.

Feedback: Love it.

"You can't make somebody hunt. You can't buy him – there's nothing to buy him with. You can force him, but that won't last.

Call it a noble obligation, or an unhealthy interest in blowing shit up and setting things on fire, but a hunter becomes one because he wants to."

Taken from Saving People, Hunting Things, by Dean Winchester.

Bobby called and asked to come and visit them, all the way from the junk yard to the sleepy suburban where they lived. Sam had to admit he was grateful. Usually, a knock on their door meant that Lori came to visit, or that the delivery guy brought groceries from the supermarket.

In the before days, Sam wasn't that bothered by their isolation. Dean, the occasional e-mail from a friend, and the people they met while at work were more than enough. The lack of normality used to bother him – most people had friends to visit, family obligations, etc. etc. – but ghost hunters (the job description was a dead give-away) weren't normal.

The after days, though…

The Demon was gone, but Sam had found that revenge didn't taste as sweet as he thought it would. He wondered…maybe the price was too high. Yeah, technically, they both made it out alive, and more-or-less in one piece. But there's life and there's life. There was the before Dean and the after Dean, who reminded Sam more of a shadow than of his big brother. He could recognize the basic shape, but the details were blurry. Dean spoke less, wouldn't leave the house, and seemed to have lost weight.

The old Dean used to spend decades in the bathroom, fixing his spiky hair. The new Dean's hair was gel-free, and longer than ever. The old Dean used to flirt with anything with breasts. The new Dean remained quiet while Lori was reading to him, at most making a smart-ass remark about the material.

It was, according to the articles Sam had read, the grieving stage. The new handicapped person was supposed to grieve for his lost organ and/or function, and it was perfectly normal. However, none of the articles had mentioned how long that stage was supposed to last. Honestly, Sam didn't give a damn about psychological theories. He just wanted his big brother back.

"So," said Bobby, "how are you guys doin'?"

"Pretty good," replied Sam, shaking's Bobby's hand. Dean, who stood next to them, put his hand out, and Bobby shook it as well, adding a pat on Dean's back. Okay, thought Sam, 'pretty good' was an exaggeration, but they were doing…well, they were alive.

"You've got yourself a nice place here."

"Yeah," Dean roughly agreed. The way he said that, one would think they had committed a capital crime. "It has a back yard and everything."

Sam held back a sigh.

They were sitting in the living room for a while now, talking and drinking beer.

"And then," said Dean, "Madame Iritosky here said that he managed to open and close the bathroom door with his mind..."

"Madame Iritosky?" asked Sam, "don't tell me you started making up psychics' names just to annoy me, Dean."

"I didn't!" said Dean, "she's a psychic in that book Lori read to me, To Say Nothing of the Dog."

Huh. Sam was pretty sure that Dean was reading – well, hearing - more books now than he had read before his injury. Strange world.

"Who's this Lori girl?" asked Bobby. "Your girlfriend?"

"Yeah, Bobby," said Dean, sobering up, "the girls are all lined up outside the house to date the blind guy. You must have missed them on your way in."

"Just askin'," said Bobby.

"She's a Good Samaritan. The hospital put my name in one of those social involvement project's lists."

He didn't, Sam noticed, mentioned the first girl from the same project, the one who he ran out of the room after she tried to read to him from the Bible.

"Oh," said Bobby, and that closed the subject.

Then, Bobby's face went even more serious than usual - that was never good. "Guys, I wasn't very honest with you…"

Sam straightened up a bit, tensing. "What do you mean?"

"I mean," said Bobby, slowly, "that I came here to ask you a big favor."

Sam knew what that was about, or at least, he thought he did. "You want us – me – to work a job," he said, and could see the way Dean stiffened. A job…that didn't sound too bad. But how could he leave Dean alone? Even for a few days? His brows furrowed.

"Not a job, Sam," said Bobby, his face serious. "You see, there aren't too many of us hunters. Never were. "Now your dad's gone, and Dean ain't hunting anymore…"

"Somebody has to fill in," completed Sam.

"Exactly," replied Bobby. "You got rid of a very big bastard, but that doesn't mean evil isn't still out there."

"Well, Sam won't be the one 'filling in'," said Dean, "Because he's done hunting. Sorry, Bobby, we're retired. Both of us."

"I can't, Bobby," said Sam.

"See?" asked Dean. "Sam doesn't want to hunt."

Sam shifted uncomfortably. "Um…I didn't say I don't want to. I said I can't."

"Why?" asked Bobby, exactly when Dean said "WHAT??"

"I was thinking about going back to hunting…" Sam didn't finish the sentence. "You said it once yourself, Dean," he said instead, "there's always going to be something to hunt."

"Sammy," said Dean, "you don't want to be a hunter. You said that a million times. All those talks about going back to Stanford and being a person again."

"I told you, man, people change," replied Sam. He had, anyway. He finally got what it was that drove the old Dean from one gig to another, even though he had to live in motel rooms, eat lousy food, and risk his life on a regular basis. Saving people. And Sam had a home base now, and a new power to exercise. And maybe… maybe he just wanted to be like his big brother.

But he couldn't leave Dean alone.

"Okay," said Dean, "so let's say you do want to hunt. What's stopping you?"

Was Dean really going to make him say it? Wondered Sam. Didn't he understand that even if he could bring himself to hunt without his brother, he couldn't leave him alone?

"Dean…"

"Oh," said Dean. "Don't worry, dude, you don't have to say it…you don't want to leave your cripple brother alone."

"Dean," said Sam, almost in a plea, "you can't see." Damn that demon and damn that last battle and damn his revenge that made Dean that way.

Dean got up and put his hand on the wall. "I hate this," he said, and the desperation in his voice made Sam want to scream. It wasn't supposed to end up like that...he was supposed to pay the price, not Dean. Dean made his way out of the room, and they could hear a door slamming.

Sam walked Bobby to his truck.

"I can't…I can't leave him, Bobby," said Sam as they stood near the vehicle. "He has those nightmares, about everything that happened, and somebody has to be there to wake him up. Besides, what if something will happen? Who's going to take care of him then? He's blind"

"Never said it's an easy decision to make, Sam," said Bobby, "or that hunting comes with life insurance." He patted Sam's shoulder. "Your old man raised you right, to make the right decisions. Whatever you decide, it's gonna be okay with me."

-END-