Title: November Falls - 3/?
Author: Blueeyedliz
Word count: 3,322 (this part)
Rating: NC/17 for bad language and violence
Summary: They lose Sam in November....
Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/N: Sorry for the delay, RL hasn't been kind lately. Thanks to everyone who has reviewed and especially to those who poked me about this chapter, I nearly always go though a deprecating period of self-doubt when attempting multi-chapter fics...so an encouraging kick up the ass is always a good thing. Huge thanks to Gidgetgal9 and Sendintheclowns for suffering through the early draft and betaing this for me. I've played since then so any remaining mistakes are all mine.

November Falls - Part Three

Sam hunches down in his seat for the rest of the ride, quiet until Dean asks him if he's okay and then Sam nods once, a quick jerk of his head and mumbles something which sounds like uhuh and translates into yes.

He doesn't look okay. His skin is waxen and his hands are jittering in his lap, the constant motion of his fingertips rubbing against his thigh contradicts his otherwise steadfast stillness. Dean wants to get Sam to their dad in one piece but can't help taking his eyes off the road to peer over at his brother. Finding Sam, getting him back, it's a type of incredible luck that Dean's never been blessed with before and it's almost too good to be true. Dean can't relax because he's waiting for Sam to vanish, disappear from the passenger seat like the hallucination Dean's convinced his brother has got to be.

Dean puts on some music after the heavy silence in the car becomes even too much for him to stomach. When he looks in the rear-view mirror, he can see the empty backseat. The same bench seat which Sam always used to splay out on, all awkward limbs too long to properly fit, only two years ago.

It wasn't this Sam, this silent wary Sam who is sitting by Dean's side like a stranger but rather the Sam who liked school and chocolate shakes and watermelon Pop Rocks and would watch early morning cartoons if he thought no-one else was awake to rag him for it. The same Sam who couldn't still his flapping lips from moving for five minutes even if his life depended on it.

It's been two years but it feels like a hundred years to Dean.

Fifty miles outside of Indianapolis, Dean holds out the box containing his tape collection towards his brother, waving it under the kid's nose. "You wanna pick the tunes? You—you still like music?"

"Yes I still like music." Sam replies somewhat snarkily, quirking his eyebrow as though he thinks Dean's obviously insane for even suggesting otherwise. "Just not yours." He adds with a quick grin which fades away again too swiftly. "Anyway, you never used to let me choose."

Dean barks out a laugh and pulls the box of tapes back towards himself. "Yeah, I guess that's right. Anyway, I don't have any Celine Dion so it looks like you're bang out of luck, Sammy." He roots around for awhile, one hand on the wheel and more focus on his tapes than the road ahead. "AC/DC it is."

"Asshead." Sam mutters, almost too low for Dean to catch but Dean does hear it and he's way too happy that something familiar has slipped from Sam's lips that he doesn't even bother with a comeback.

The rest of the drive is done in easy silence, except for the sounds of AC/DC blaring out through the speakers naturally.

~0~

Dad's staying at the Budget King Motel on the outskirts of the city, this Dean knows simply because Dad put as much in his last text message. Dean's plenty familiar with cheap and tacky motels and so far, taking the name into consideration, Dean would bet high stakes that the room will have roaches, ineffective air conditioning which putters noisily all night long and a shower that dribbles water like a toothless old guy eating a big bowl of soup.

Dean leaves Sam in the car when he goes inside. Jokingly he tells Sam it's because Dad's getting on in years and might keel over with the shock but really, he wants to take things slow for Sam's sake. Sam seems fragile in a way Dean doesn't yet fully understand and ever since that freaky ass light show in the river, there's a stubbornly insistent warning alarm ringing in Dean's brain, one which refuses to be switched off.

Both Dad and Griffin are there in the room, pouring over a map spread out on one of the beds. Dad looks tired, there's a fresh purple bruise painting the skin around his right eye and Griffin has his wrist in a brace. Griffin's chin-length grey hair is falling forwards, tumbling across his face as he leans closer to the map and he irritably shoves the stray strands behind his ear with his good hand. Dean grins despite his own fatigue, he doesn't know why Griffin doesn't just take the sarcastic advice Dean loves to give him and wear it in braids.

"Need me to read the small print for you old man?" Dean says, pushing the door closed behind him with his foot.

"Dean." Griffin's face breaks into an easy smile and he steps forward to slap Dean's shoulder in a fairly heavy-handed show of masculine fondness. "Less of the old man. These grey hairs are premature, every single one of them caused by your Pop."

John studies the map for a few more seconds before finally lifting his head to acknowledge Dean's arrival. God, his eye is a mess but even with it mostly swollen shut he still manages to pull off a rather impressive scowl. "You're late, you were meant to be here at noon."

Missed you too Dad. "I know, sir, but I've got one heck of an excuse." Dad looks like he's ready for an argument. Dad hates excuses but Dean raises his hand and Dad's surprised enough about being cut off that he actually does stay quiet. "Maybe you should take a seat?"

"Dean." John growls, finger stabbing at the crumpled map. "We've got a situation here that needs to be handled, I don't have time..."

"Dad, just listen to me. Please? There's—there's someone in the car you should meet." John's frown widens, agitation only increasing. "Wait here a sec, I'll go get him." And with that Dean ducks back outside, returning moments later with a shell-shocked looking Sam tucked into his side, Dean's arm curled tight around his brother's thin shoulders.

John stares, stumbles back a step so that his legs hit the end of the bed and he falls heavily, finishing up sitting clumsily half-on, half-off the edge of the mattress. "Jesus Christ."

"Close enough." Dean smiles but it falters when he feels Sam's body tensing as Sam's eyes dart from their dad to Griffin and back again.

John seems to pull himself together, his initial shock swiftly forgotten for the moment. He stands up and Sam shrinks closer into Dean's side as Dad's huge form lumbers across the room to pull him into a crushing hug. John's hand grips Sam's head so closely to his chest that Sam would suffocate if Dean didn't tap his Dad's arm to remind him that Sam sort of needs to breathe, sometime soon preferably. "I don't...I don't believe it. It's really you, Sam."

It comes out sounding more like a question than a statement. Sam's on the brink of tears as he stares up at his dad's face, a face he hasn't seen in two years, at least not in anywhere other than his dreams. "It's me, Dad. It's me."

Griffin watches the reunion from the sidelines, warmth tingling in his belly at the rare sight of John Winchester speechless with what he knows must be overpowering happiness. "I'll go get takeout and some beers. Reckon this calls for a celebration."

Griffin's not offended that nobody seems to hear him or even notice when he slips out of the room, smiling all the way.

~0~

The next couple of days are hard for everyone but things slowly start to become more comfortable once Sam relaxes enough to actually smile freely when Dean makes a joke and both Dean and John force themselves to stop staring at Sam as though he's walking around with two heads.

The only thing preventing Dean from being as happy as a sailor with a hooker and a weekend of shore leave is Sam's strange connection to the cadaver formally known as Silas.

It's Dean's first instinct to want to tell Dad the truth about how he found his brother but barely seconds after Sam had disentangled himself from Dad's arms, he had taken Dean to one side and begged for more time. More time to adjust Sam had said, more time to try and see if they can figure things out for themselves and however much Dean hates the idea of keeping secrets from their father, he can't deny his brother's request. Even when not faced with hazel eyes affecting enough to reduce even the most hardened hunter into a sandal wearing tree-hugger, he'd only had Sam back for approximately thirty-eight hours and knew he couldn't deny the kid anything, keys to the Impala included.

Luck is on their side because John and Griffin are professional enough to remember to be busily preoccupied with the necessity to finish their hunt for a homicidal Kobold sprite who has been slicing and dicing residents of a local retirement home. With both older hunters out of the way for most of the time, Sam and Dean have the motel room pretty much to themselves. They can research Selkie lore without being discovered and the situation even allows Sam to shower as often as he needs to without John or Griffin wondering if he's developed OCD over his personal hygiene.

It's the morning of the third day when things go south lightening fast. Dean has only nipped to the vending machine for a soda and when he gets back to the room, he finds Griffin has returned earlier than expected. As Dean walks inside Griffin is just stepping out of the bathroom, his face flushed and blood...Dean's sharp eyes immediately spot the tiny specks of blood dotted across Griffin's knuckles. "Grif? You okay?"

"Did you know?" Griffin says sharply, breathing heavily through his nose as he slams the bathroom door closed and storms forward to stand chest to chest with Dean.

Dean steps back automatically and shakes his head, confused and increasingly worried. He turns around to look over the room. There's a lamp lying in broken pieces on the table and some of the bedclothes are in a twisted heap on the floor. Sam? Sam was reading when Dean left. His book is there on the nightstand but...."Know what?"

"That your brother is a monster."

Dean turns cold at Griffin's words, stone cold. "What did you do, Griffin? WHAT DID YOU DO?" He's screaming but not really aware of it, hurrying towards the bathroom while shoving at Griffin's hands which reach out to try and stop him. The same hands which are stained with blood.

He pushes the door open and instantly sees Sam curled up on the floor next to the bath, hands protecting his face—his lip—which is split and dripping blood down his chin like a leaking faucet. Rage pulses through Dean's system, red hot rage which instantly melts the cold fear he had felt before. He drops to his knees and Sam flinches noticeably when Dean tries to move Sam's hands away so he can properly assess the damage.

Griffin's still talking and his words slowly start to filter through to Dean, penetrating the red haze he's caught up in. "He was drinking blood. I caught him drinking blood." Griffin's voice shakes as though he's disgusted, appalled to have witnessed something so abhorrent.

Wait. What? Dean pauses horror-struck in the midst of his triage. He shakes it off again almost as quickly, pushes it away, pushes it down deep to deal with later. Dean licks across his lips, stands up slowly, back to Griffin. "So, you thought you'd what? Beat him up? Smack him around some?"

"Dean...Dean, you're not being rational. He's your brother and I'm sorry but...he can't stay breathing. He's not human, Dean." Griffin has a small red smear across his forehead where he's obviously swiped at his forehead with the back of his hand. Dean's eyes can't look at anything else.

"You touch my brother again and I will kill you, friend or not." It's an immediate response—like sticking out your hands to brace yourself in a fall—a threat towards Sam and the small hunting knife tucked in Dean's boot lets its presence be known. It feels like it's white hot, blistering the skin on his ankle and Dean wants to draw it. Wave it around a little to emphasise his point but he settles for balling his hands into fists instead. Griffin eyes Sam thoughtfully but then his eyes move back to Dean's angry face. Even though Dean is smaller, younger he can be deadly when he wants to be. Griffin's been around the Winchesters long enough to appreciate that fact.

"Your dad won't see things like you do." Griffin sounds confident and Dean doesn't argue because Griffin is probably right. Griffin is the older man, the more experienced hunter of the pair but Dad has an unspoken air of authority about him which nobody argues with. Whenever they hunt together, Dad bellows orders and Griffin goose-steps right along.

Dean can feel sweat beading on the back of his neck. He doesn't know what the hell he's doing, the only thing he's truly certain of is that he's getting Sam out of here. Danger means fighting but where danger and Sam meet, it will always mean it's time to get the fuck out. Every muscle in Dean's legs throbs with the need for it.

He loves his dad fiercely but he loves Sam more and right now, he's not sure what will happen when his dad finds out the truth. This goes way beyond his brother having to take a shower or soak in a tub several times a day and Dean's damn sure that when Dad gets back to the motel, things won't end pretty.

Trying to ignore the way Sam will barely even look at him, Dean wraps a hand around Sam's bicep and hauls him to his feet. He guides him out of the bathroom and deposits him on one of the beds, thrusting a balled up towel into his hand so Sam can clean up the blood on his mouth and chin. Griffin watches silently, an unreadable expression on his face as Dean quickly starts yanking open drawers, pulling out crumpled clothes and shoving them into a duffel. When he feels Sam's eyes on him he mumbles, "pack a bag, we're leaving in five."

~0~

They drive for a long time without talking. Sam is more distant than ever, the steps they had been taking towards being a family again seemingly destroyed. Staring out of the window he's turned away from Dean with his whole body, his posture radiating that he wants to be left alone. Dean's too caught up in his own thoughts to really notice, Griffin's words trapped in an endless loop of instant replay inside his head.

"It was a rat, Dean. It's was a rat's blood." Sam says suddenly and his voice sounds broken, dried out and crackled—as though he's been talking nonstop instead of being almost catatonic for the last two hours.

Dean sucks his bottom lip in, bites down on it and focuses on the stab of pain. "You didn't tell me. Why didn't you tell me, Sam?"

"I didn't want you to think..."

"What?"

"That I wasn't your brother anymore, Dean. I'm still him. I'm still Sam." In the darkness Dean can see Sam's face and the flitting shadows inside the car make him look old, worn down. "I'm trying so hard to fight it but the bond; it's stronger than I am."

Dean steadies his breathing, forces himself to sound calm and confident, flippant almost. "So besides the water and the blood drinking, there anything else I should know?" It's an Academy Award winning performance.

Sam shakes his head and the shutters come down in his gaze. "That's bad enough."


No kidding. "We'll fix it." Dean replies automatically but Dad is a few hundred miles behind them by now and almost certainly livid at Dean's betrayal. Dean has no doubts that what he's done, this running away with Sam, will be seen as an act of betrayal in his dad's eyes. There's an empty pit growing in Dean's stomach and if he didn't have Sam by his side, the pit would surely swallow him whole.

"We're going back there aren't we? To North Carolina?" Sam says. To where you found me, to where you killed Silas, is what he doesn't say.

"Yes, kiddo." Dean tightens his grip on the wheel. "We're going back so we can end this."

~0~

TBC

So I know this story contains similarities to certain plot lines in Season 4 but it was always the direction I had intended on taking and I think it's from a need to see things played out how I would like have liked them to happen in the show. I guess I just want the brothers standing side by side again.

Good news to any limp Sam lovers is that the real whumping is still to come....I was aiming to put it in this chapter but those who know me, know my aim sucks. This story is turning out longer than expected and I don't want to rush what I always think of as the best bits.

And finally....the wait for Season 5 is painfully long so if anyone is interested there is a fantastic Summer of Sam Love fic exchange taking place over on LJ, a link to the community which has been created for the event can be found on my LJ page - which you can reach from my ffnet profile. Hope to see you there.