Author's Note: The first real chapter. Nothing terribly scarring in this one, that I can think of. Mentions of prostitution.
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It was an ordinary night for Sam Winchester. The May air was cool, but far from cold, which was a relief after spending four solid months freezing every time he went out to work. Dressed in ripped, skin-tight skinny jeans, his torso bare and his eyes rimmed with just a hint of make-up, he was sufficiently seductive for the average passer-by interested in men, and looked enough unlike himself that any wayward classmates or professors would be unlikely to recognize him. Anonymity was key in prostitution, Sam had long since decided. While the activity would not land him as severe a jail sentence as any of his previous exploits, it would still put a halt on his schooling, and would likely send any chance he had of becoming a successful lawyer into the trash. Still, it was less risky than holding down a legal job—taxed income was likely to jeopardize his financial aid, and then everything he had done would be for nothing. Sam pulled out a needle and thread, carefully stitching his house-key and wallet into the back pocket of his jeans, as was his customary defense against pick-pockets, and slid a worn pocket knife into his front pocket, where it bulged just enough to let any would-be muggers know that he was armed. A proper Winchester, Sam would be ashamed if he ever had to use a knife against a common mugger, but taking them down was always a hassle—his time was better spent fucking the money out of any client with enough cash on hand.
A knock on the door brought him pause. His mind ticked through the possibilities. It was unlikely that he had a visitor—the only acquaintance who knew where he lived was Jessica, the pretty little thing from school he had been stringing along the past several months, and she was in France for the summer. He had paid his rent—he had even paid ahead for the next month, as was his custom, so there was little chance that it was his landlord. He had had a few repeat clients, including one or two who seemed to indicate that they would like to take things beyond their business relationship, but none of the ones who had seemed truly capable of finding out where he lived still drew breath. A neighbor, perhaps, although that was unlikely, given the sort of people who lived in his neighborhood. A few encounters with Sam, and they tended to learn that if he had drugs, he was not the sort to sell or share. Curious, Sam stretched and wandered lazily over to the door.
He barely had time to register that his visitor was human, male, and well-built before the man threw him to the floor and shoved his way in, closing the door and locking it behind him. "Sam. Good to see I can still take you down when it comes to it!"
Sam blinked, staring at the brother he had not seen in four years. "Dean?" he asked incredulously, rising with as much dignity as he could muster. It always surprised him, the way he towered over the brother who had taken care of him all his life. Questions raced through his head—how have you been, what are you doing, do you need to hide from the law—he settled with a simple "How the hell did you find me?"
Dean snorted, jamming his hands deep into the pockets of his beat-up leather jacket. "Good to see you too, Sammy. I'm fine, thanks for asking. I'm not on the run from the law, though it's good to know you're concerned. Yes, I'd love a drink, where's your bar?"
"Bar? Well, haven't you been living the high life?" Sam scoffed, folding his arms across his bare chest. "Answer my question."
"Come on, Sam, we've got the same connections. It wasn't hard to find out what identity you're using. Samuel Greenwich? Dude, you couldn't have picked a more boring name." Dean shook his head, his bright green eyes flitting about the room, taking stock of Sam's simple possessions—lumpy couch, old television, books strewn across the floor, tiny kitchen visible from the living room, door to the bedroom crammed in the corner. "I need to talk to you."
"Make yourself at home, but you're going to have to wait. Money doesn't make itself," Sam said impatiently, turning back to the door.
"Okay, fine. How much for an hour of your time?"
Sam blinked and turned around. "One hundred dollars, ordinarily. I guess I can give you a fifty percent off family discount." Dean's lips twitched with amusement, and Sam couldn't blame him—those weren't words that usually came from the mouth of a prostitute.
"Fine. Sixty it is," Dean said, pulling out a bright pink wallet covered with garish purple hearts. "What?" he said defensively as Sam snickered. "Kill a chick with a wallet, might as well take it, right?" He tossed three twenty dollar bills at Sam. "Call the other ten a tip. Seriously dude, can I get a beer or something? Don't tell me you've gone straight-edge."
"In the fridge," Sam replied carelessly, sinking onto the couch with a regretful sigh. As nice as it was to know that his brother was alive and not yet in prison, he could not help but think that if Dean had gone through the trouble to track him down, it was bad news. "So, what brings you out here anyways? Something tells me if you just wanted a friendly chat you'd have tracked down my number, rather than my address." He looked expectantly at Dean, who pulled two beers out of the fridge and walked back into the living room, handing one to Sam as he sat down.
"Dad's missing," Dean said without preamble, popping the cap off his bottle with his teeth and taking a swig. "Been missing for almost a week now. Cops caught a whiff of him in Seattle and he took off while I stayed to play damage control. He hasn't called, and I can't get ahold of him, but I can't find him in any prison records either. Figured I could use some brains in trying to get him back," he said, an obvious attempt at flattery.
Sam snorted, cracking open his own beer, but putting it down without taking a sip. "Dad? What makes you think I'd want to help you find him? Good riddance to that asshole. Or don't you remember that he tried to add me to his body count?" Still, Sam could not help but feel a slight twinge of concern. Asshole or not, John was still family, and that was important. He sighed and leaned back, propping his head on the armrest of the couch, letting his legs land over Dean's to spill off the edge of the sofa.
"Yeah, he's an ass, but still. Come on, Sammy, this is Dad we're talking about. You know, our father?" Dean took another gulp of his beer. "You know, he wouldn't have really killed you. He regrets attacking you, he's admitted it when drunk. You know that's the only time the old man ever told the truth—he loved you best anyways." Dean shrugged. "It just killed him, you know? You walking out on the family like that."
Sam returned Dean's shrug with one of his own. "Dad can see it how he wants. Me, I wasn't walking out on anyone. If I'd done that, I'd have called the cops on Dad, not gone off to college." He sighed and picked up his beer, taking a long drink. "I'd help you out, but the thing is, I've got an interview coming up. Law school. If I can swing a full ride, I can keep my night job to the weekends. Otherwise it's going to be a nightly thing and run through my savings as well. I'd rather not have to deal with that."
"Damnit Sam!" Dean leapt to his feet, fists clenched, glaring at Sam, whose legs hit the couch with a loud thump. "This is more important than your stupid degree! This is life! This is family! I've needed you around these past four years while you were prancing around at law school, and you're screwed up in the head if you think this damn law school is more important than Dad!"
Coldly, Sam placed his beer on the coffee table and rose, glaring down at his brother. He swallowed hard, trying to fight down the sudden burst of rage that coursed through his body. It was a futile effort, he knew. "This is life? Dean, I have a life. This is family? Where were the familial bonds when he tried to strangle me and threw me out of his life? He can say he regrets it all he wants, but I will never view that man as my father again. You needed me? Well, maybe I needed you. You had Dad. Every time I needed to kill a customer? I did that on my own. Every time I had to talk my way out of an arrest for daring to try to put myself ahead in life? No family to help me out there. I've been doing just fine looking out for myself on my own without you, and definitely without Dad." Sam stepped forward, close enough to feel Dean's breath on his chin. "So what are you going to do? Going to force me to go with you? I'd like to see you try."
Dean's eyes hardened. "I was hoping it wouldn't come to this," he said, voice stony and emotionless. His hand went to his belt; quick from the force of old habits, Sam grabbed his wrist as Dean yanked a gun out from the waistband of his loose pants. Dean twisted his wrist, but Sam held on tightly, digging his fingernails into his brother's arm, reaching up to grapple the gun away from him. Quicker than Sam could evade, Dean grabbed Sam's wrist and slackened his gun hand, dropping the weapon and pivoting Sam around, wrenching his brother's arm up behind his back and pulling him flat against his chest. "Getting slow, Sammy," Dean hissed, his breath hot and stale in his brother's ear. "You think you've been taking care of yourself? You wouldn't last five minutes in the real deal anymore." Sam growled as Dean gave his arm a sharp yank, sending a sharp shoot of pain up through his shoulder. "Damn good thing I need you for your brains, not your brawn. Now, you coming the easy way, or do I have to knock you out and kidnap you the old-fashioned way?"
Seething, Sam went slack, allowing his brother to hold him in the uncomfortable submission position. "Fine," he snapped, letting his rage fizzle out to an ember of anger. "I'll go with you for three days. After that, I come back for my interview and go with you until the semester starts. But I keep working my job while I'm running all over the country with you, and I don't want to hear a single fucking argument when I come back here for school, got it?"
"The second one is negotiable. The first one—fine. I've got no problems with you whoring yourself out, as long as you're not bringing your shit back to my car or room," Dean said, easing up his hold on Sam's arm. "So, we good? Can I let you pack your stuff without you throwing a bitch fit?"
"Yeah, fine," Sam said, jerking out of Dean's loosened grip. "After I hit my quota for the night. You go ahead and pack my stuff up, and I'll be back before dawn, got it?"
Dean groaned, bending down to retrieve his gun. "Yeah, yeah, fine. Go paint the town slutty, and we'll leave as soon as you get back, got it?"
"Crystal clear," Sam replied drily, giving his brother a mock salute before heading out the door.
0o0o0o0o0
It was strange, that Sammy's sleeping form in the passenger seat brought back so many memories. Dean sped down the highway, deserted at four in the morning, rock music playing from the same tapes that he had listened to as a teenager. It was strangely reminiscent of the first time he had driven the Impala on his own—alone on the road at far too early in the morning, Sam passed out from lack of sleep despite the loud volume of Dean's music. Dean chuckled, and smoothed his brother's hair back with one hand, lazily steering with the other. Sam twitched and grumbled, but did not wake up, and that, too, was familiar. He had always been good at sleeping when he could, surroundings be damned. Dean had never picked up the habit—noise usually meant people, and with the exception of Dad, Sammy, and a few other very select allies, people meant danger. Dean was careful; he was not a wanted man, not yet, but he was not enough of a damn fool to think that his circumstances would always be the same. There was always a chance that some slippery witness to his crimes had escaped his careful purges and gone to the police, or was out seeking vigilante justice for himself.
Dean supposed that Sam had turned to softer crimes now anyways, but even before he had downgraded from murder and robbery to petty prostitution, he had never shared Dean's paranoia. Dean and John had always been around to be paranoid for him.
Dean had never envied Sam for getting out of the life, for heading to college to try to have a normal existence, a future, even. He had not resented him, not the way John had, but something inside Dean was keenly aware that the house with a picket fence, filled with a wife and a dog and 2.6 kids was not for him. Even had he wanted to turn into an honest life, he doubted that he would know how. What was the point in going to school when all it did was make you a shmuck, a soft sucker just waiting to be knifed for your wallet or murdered for the rights to your wife? Who would honestly choose to pour their time into a soul-sucking job under some slave-driver boss when they could keep their own hours, work on their own time if and when they pleased, taking what they wanted and needed at any time? Who wanted to throw themselves on the mercy of the law, walking the narrow line, unable to stray when provoked or desiring lest some thugs with nightsticks and inflated egos come to haul them off to a cage for the rest of their life? Dean was no fool; he knew that in his line of work, his line of entertainment, he was at risk for arrest and imprisonment on an hourly basis, but at least he would get there honestly, with no pretense at virtue along the way. If he ever had to stand before a judge for robbery or murder, there would be no blubbering, no claims of self-defense or a crime of passion. Cold-blooded murder was clean; robbery for the sake of convenience with no pretense was honorable, and Dean prided himself on upholding his own personal sense of honor.
It was nearly noon before they reached the motel, a crummy building straddling the border between California and Nevada. Dean pulled into a parking space, the dividing lines worn to near invisibility on the cracked black asphalt, and punched Sam hard in the shoulder. "Wake up, sleeping beauty," he called, turning Baby off and turning his attention back towards his brother. "Hey. Bitch," he said, shoving his brother when he did nothing but stir slightly and roll away at the sound of Dean's voice.
"Fuck off, Jess, don't have classes today," Sam muttered, pulling the collar of his jacket up over his eyes.
"Jess?" Dean snorted disbelievingly. "I sound like a chick to you? Come on Sammy, we're here and I need my four hours. Up." He wrenched Sam's hands off of his face, pulling the jacket off away from his brother's eyes.
Sam turned towards him and cracked his eyes open. "Oh, right. Your ugly mug's not what I'm used to waking up to," he grumbled, rubbing his eyes with the same bleary look he had sported all throughout childhood, finally sitting straight, blinking at the light as though it had personally offended him.
"Yeah, well, get used to it." Dean smacked him lightly on the back of his head. "Come on, you can sleep in the room. I'll fill you in on everything when I've gotten my own beauty sleep, now let's go."
Sam muttered something under his breath, but exited the car gracefully, stretching as he did. "Got any food?" he asked, walking around to the backseat to grab his duffel bag and backpack, shaggy brown hair swinging in front of his eyes as he bent over to pick them up.
"Yeah, in the cooler on the floor," Dean answered, shutting the car door behind him after exiting. He waited for Sam to dig the cooler out, locking the car as soon as all the doors were shut. "Come on, you can eat inside. The sooner we get checked in, the sooner we can finish sleeping, the sooner we can get everything sorted out and go looking for Dad, got it?"
Sam's huff and subsequent silence was enough of an answer for Dean. He checked them into the motel under the name Tyler Perry, and before long he was sprawled out on a creaky bed, the lumpy mattress a godsend as far as he was concerned. Not bothering to so much as take off his shoes, Dean wriggled under the covers and closed his eyes, ready to sleep.
"Dean?" Sam's voice was quiet, uncharacteristic of his loud, outgoing brother. "You said the cops caught wind of Dad. How'd they manage to find him out and not you?"
Dean groaned, rolling over and aiming a scorching look at his brother, seated on his own bed, power bar halfway unwrapped in his large hands, soft and smooth after years of no doubt pampered college living. "Because Dad was reckless and used his own name, and I was smart enough to stick to an alias. Because we weren't staying in the same place, and I destroyed the phone he called to tell me he was in deep shit. I told you, we'll go over everything once I've gotten my sleep, now shut up and let me recharge for a few hours.
"Fine." Sam bit almost defiantly into his power bar, chewing obnoxiously, no doubt in an attempt to irritate Dean. It was working; Dean grimaced and resisted the urge to teach his brother a lesson the old-fashioned way, the way he had ever since he was old enough to exert any sort of power over his younger brother. He was too tired for a power play, especially not since Sammy was no longer a small, scrawny kid, able to be bullied by Dean without fighting back. He pulled the covers up over his ears and snuggled down into the bed, falling into his customary light sleep after only a few minutes of Sam's loud chewing.
The sun was setting when Dean woke again. Sam had sprawled out on his bed, laptop resting on his chest, head propped up by what looked like every pillow the motel had ever possessed. "Who's sleeping beauty now?" Sam asked without looking at him, surprising Dean. Perhaps his brother's awareness skills were not as dull as he had thought them to be.
"Shut up, bitch," Dean groaned, kicking the covers off and sitting up, twisting to pop the kinks from his spine.
"Jerk," Sam replied, almost reflexively, if Dean was reading his brother properly. "All right, time to talk now. What happened, and how exactly are you expecting to find Dad?"
"All business right away?" Dean asked, planting his feet on the floor and leaning forward. "Okay, here's the run down. Dad and I were in Seattle, working some banks. He got a bit itchy with the trigger and killed eleven people when some security guard tried to put out a 911 call. Security guy, unfortunately, lived, and came out of his coma two days later. He had a pretty reliable sketch of Dad put together, and when the cops came to the motel, turns out the idiot had signed in using his real name. Guess he thought it had been long enough, or something like that. Anyways, Dad killed both the cops getting out, but he had to high-tail it from there. A couple of people had seen me with Dad, so I got to play damage control when I found out, telling them I had known him by some alias he's never actually had, said he'd told me he could offer me work if I kept around so he could find me. Soon as the suspicion was off me, I went looking for you. I haven't heard from Dad, which means if he's lying low, he's lying real low, so I'm guessing the search for him has gone federal. Right now, we need to find him, help him get a really convincing disguise and alias together—more convincing than the ones we've always used—and find some way to derail the investigation so he can get on with his life without cops sniffing around him the whole time. Make sense?" He met Sam's eyes, unreadable as the tall man mulled things over.
"So what you're saying is, Dad fucked up and we're supposed to clean up his mess for him," Sam said finally, closing his laptop with a sigh. "What do you want? If you need someone to get him new ID, get Bobby. Need someone to screw with police records, Ash is always willing to keep his trap shut if you pay him enough. I don't see why you need me to get involved with this one."
Dean sighed, running a hand through his thick, short hair. "I need to track him, for one," he said, thinking hard in an attempt to choose words that would not anger his brother. "I need to find out where he is, and sure, I could use Ash for that, but the cops have been sniffing around Roadhouse for a while, and I'd rather not get Ash or anyone arrested, or have the cops move Dad if he did get himself arrested and is in jail somewhere. I'm also going to need back-up," he said. He noticed a slight flare in Sam's eyes as his brother stiffened at his words. "Come on, a situation like this—I know it's going to get to the point where I need to blow off steam, and you can't blame me for that. Just because your college-boy ass has moved on to bigger and better ways of stress relief doesn't mean we all work that way. I need someone to help me make sure no witnesses live to report me and help me cover my tracks in general. I don't trust anyone else with that."
Sam snorted, not giving away whether he took Dean's words as a compliment or as a pathetic show of weakness. It was a moment before he replied. "So, you don't need me to help you find Dad, you need me to be in your position, playing clean-up for you when you pull an idiotic move," he said finally, his face still unreadable. "Fine, I get it. You're damn lucky you're my brother, otherwise I'd probably kill you myself." He stretched, arching gracefully as he worked the stiffness from his muscles; Dean almost wished that he had refused, just so that he would have an excuse to show Sam who was boss. "Are we staying the night here, or moving on?" he asked, voice almost cheerful.
"Staying here and looking sounds preferable to me," Dean said, rising from the bed to make his way to the cooler. He unzipped the bottom pocket, pulling out his old laptop from on top of his daily clothing change—saved time pulling luggage from the Impala every time he needed to crash for the night, or so he had always been taught. "Police records or current events?" he asked, settling down into one of the motel room's rickety chairs.
"I'll take the records. You look for anything that screams Dad," Sam said, turning his attention back to his laptop. Dean bit back a grin—just like old times, Sammy taking on the more challenging part of the research—before turning his attention to his own work, and anything that might imply that their father had passed through town.