The day Dean turned sixteen, Sam felt awful.
He hadn't seen or spoke to his brother in nearly two years, and this was the day that Dean would finally be allowed to drive. You know, officially.
Sam should be there, celebrating such an important day, mocking Dean's screwed up driver's license picture, sneaking out with the Impala (which he took to college with him) and finishing the day getting their asses handed to them by their father, who wouldn't remember the date and would be astronomically pissed with them for disappearing.
Which would probably be incredibly hypocritical, since dad would most likely have been hunting for weeks, not even bothering to call.
The whole scenario seemed so realistic Sam was left feeling mellow. Then he slid into something that came this close to depression, and suddenly a beer didn't look like such a bad idea.
One beer turned into five and Sam found himself drunk dialing Dean.
The next morning, he had no idea what they talked about and was way too embarrassed to call back and apologize.
One week later the Impala was stolen.
xoo0oox
Sam barged into the hospital almost knocking a girl to the floor.
"May I help you, sir?" a tiny nurse with a big voice asked him angrily.
"Jessica Moore." he breathed trying to control his shaking hands "Where is she?"
Jess was sunken in a huge pillow, dark circles around her eyes. She looked so tiny and fragile surrounded by the white bedding.
Blue eyes turned to him, slightly dazed "Sam…" she breathed and her face fell, chin trembling and fat tears rolling down her cheeks. Sam was sitting by her side in less than a second "Goddamn it, they said I wasn't supposed to feel anything with this meds" she mumbled rubbing her face with the heel of her hand "Why the hell do I keep crying?"
Sam just hugged her tighter. "You can cry." he said lamely and Jess being Jess sobbed out a laugh.
"You're so lame."
He smiled, giving enough space between them just so he could look at her "We don't have to talk about anything yet." she wrinkled her nose "I just wanna point out that you nearly gave me a heart attack."
"I don't know if you'll believe me" Jess all but whispered, glancing around to make sure they were alone "What I told them was complete bullshit, but I can't… I don't even know…" her words lingered, sentences unfinished.
Sam's heart dropped "You lied? Why?" he knew exactly why Jessica would lie, but it couldn't be happening here. Nothing like that should happen here.
"I had to." Jess set her jaw stubbornly "I don't even know why I'm telling you this. It's this meds, I can't shut up or stop crying… Dean will bitch so hard… And I can't even argue, I shouldn't be saying anything. Why aren't these drugs knocking me out? Nurse? Oh, nurse!" she actually sang-song the last part, which probably meant that the meds were more than enough.
"Jess?" he grabbed her chin and turned her face back to him "They called me saying you were stabbed by a guy who broke into our apartment. I think you need to tell me what happened."
She blinked owlishly "I was stabbed by a guy who broke into our apartment."
"What really happened, Jess."
"Why would I lie about being stabbed?"
"I didn't say you were-"
"'Cause… If I told you that I was trapped to the ceiling, then you'd think I'm lying. If I opened my mouth to say Brady had black smoke spilling out of his mouth? Then yeah, completely lying." she stopped, furrowed brow "Maybe even a little demented." she added as an afterthought "But no. I'm telling you I was stabbed. Because I was. I have stitches to prove it too."
It was pretty obvious Sam should say something to his girlfriend's drugged rant, but all though vanished from his mind. He could just see fire.
"Is everything ok here?" the tiny nurse with the big voice from before asked from the doorway.
"I'm fine." Jess said with a lopsided smile, eyes at half-mast "I'm fiiiiine.'
"Sure you are." the nurse smiled back and picked up Jess's chart to scribble on.
"Is Dean fine?" Jess went on, intertwining hands and fingers with Sam "If you gave him this stuff, then he's fiiiine. Is he fine?"
That ripped Sam right out of his stupor "Wait, is Dean here?" he looked from Jess to the nurse and back "Dean's here?!"
Jess' grip on him tighten a fraction as she leaned forward looking awfully peppy for someone who just got stabbed a couple of hour ago "He saved my life, Sam." she whispered fervently "Can we keep him?"
The tiny nurse guided Sam to a different bedroom, she wasn't so loud now that she realized how distressed he was after finding out his kid brother had been there all along.
She told him Jessica had been pretty out of it from the start, the medication just made her funny after it took on. Jess did manage to give them Sam's number, but Dean ("Is that his name? Dean?") wasn't able to talk.
Ice ran through Sam's veins. Dean talked. Dean talked and Dean ate. That's what the kid did.
He must've stopped walking, because suddenly, the nurse was touching his shoulder "Right through that door."
If Jess looked bad, Dean looked on the verge of death.
His eyes were completely bloodshot as Sam had never seen before, even with all the injuries they sustained over the years, what Sam thought was a scarf was a huge black bruise that encircled his brother's neck almost completely.
He didn't dare to look further down, wasn't sure he could cope with what could be there.
There was a nurse there changing his bag of IV; Sam watched as Dean outstretched a hand to pull oh her skirt until she turned around. He showed her a notepad and she snorted, then they both noticed Sam.
"Are you ok?" Sam asked tentatively, stepping inside.
Dean gave him a bemused look and wrote on his notepad, turning it towards Sam a second later "Yeah."
"I'm sorry I didn't come earlier" Sam ran a hand through his hair "It's been kinda… stressful."
"No problem."
There was a silent second in which Deans still bemused expression took a twinge of confusion, he scribbled quickly "What now, doc?"
"Doc?" Sam read aloud "What are you talking about, Dean?"
Dean frowned, and with those red eyes, even that tiny action looked painful "Who are you, then?"
"What?" Sam was floored. Again. It seemed to be happening a lot lately "Stop that, Dean, it's not funny."
His brother's mouth twitched in a failed smirk as he looked for the nurse for guidance and got only a shrug "Do I know you?"
It was the same as being slapped repeatedly with a giant concrete hand, his baby brother was in a hospital bed, beaten to shit and couldn't even remember him.
How could he let that happen? Dean had been alone for God knows how long and survived, actually he looked completely ok – if not a little skinny – until the moment he got in touch with Sam again.
Sometimes Sam wondered if what had made their lives miserable before had really been their father or if it had been Sam himself.
Sometimes he felt like poison.
Sometimes he-
Dean's face got all scrunched up in a way Sam was all too familiar since the kid was about 2 years old. It usually happened before the little bastard would-
Yup, there he goes. Laughing his ass off.
It was an eerie little laugh, there was pretty much no sound at all, just a hissing breath, even as his whole body shook. He used Sam's momentary shock to extend his hand towards the amused looking nurse, who slipped him a fifty.
Naturally, Sam started to sputter "Wait, were you- Did you just- But I thought- Fuck you, Dean! Fuck you."
That only made the silent laugh shake Dean even harder. Somehow he managed to write "So fucking easy."
The nurse sent him an apologetically smile "Don't get mad, I thought he wouldn't do it."
"Oh you of little faith" Dean waved the notepad until he was noticed.
Sam glared and the nurse chuckled, moving to leave. "Don't be too hard on him" she whispered as Dean turned his attention to the notepad "He has high tolerance to painkillers, was almost maxed out on morphine before it even tickled. He needed some distraction."
She left and Sam took a deep breath "It's 'ye of little faith' not 'you'." he told Dean before sitting on the edge of the bed "And your sense of humor is crap."
And Dean shot him a self-satisfied smirk before frowning at the notepad, Sam caught him mouthing 'ye of little faith' as he corrected the writing.
"Jess. Is she good?"
"She was stabbed. And was going on about being stuck to a ceiling and black smoke. Wanna tell me what's that about?"
"No idea. We got stoned after you left though, might be it."
"I'll tell her you said that."
Dean shrugged a shoulder, not scared in the least. The bruise on his neck looked suspiciously like a hand, even had a ring mark and everything. "Is she okay?" he insisted.
"No. But she will be."
Dean nodded and breathed a sigh of relief, doing a damn good job of ignoring Sam's pissed of stare.
"Are you seriously not gonna tell me what happened back there?"
"What did Jess tell you?"
"Goddamn it, Dean…" Sam rubbed a hand across his face "It's like pulling teeth with you two."
Dean's face lost all humor and he just arched his eyebrows, shot a look to the door and back to Sam who was completely lost.
"What?"
With a dramatic eye roll, Dean repeated the exact same motion and turned to Sam expectantly.
"You don't wanna talk in front of… nurses?"
"Bingo"
"You know you don't actually have to talk, right? Just write it down."
Yeah, Dean didn't have to talk, he simply flipped Sam off. "Oh yeah, it would go REALLY well for me, this whole hospital of civilians having physical evidence that the charity case went bananas."
"No one would find it and why the hell did you just refer to yourself as the charity case?"
Dean gave him the same bemused look as before, and Sam thought he was missing something "What do you think happened?"
Sam scowled at the deflection "What I think happened couldn't have happened. That kind of thing doesn't happen here."
"BAD things don't happen here?" Dean was kinda smiling, though the rest of him looked disheartened, Sam didn't like that at all.
"No, they don't."
"Tell that to your girlfriend's stomach, I think the 57 stitches might disagree."
That flared something horrible in Sam's gut "Nothing bad had ever happened before you came along."
The words left his mouth tasting like battery acid, he regretted them instantly. This wasn't Dean's fault, how could it be? Dean saved Jessica from something that apparently had taken over Brady's body, if it weren't for Dean, she'd be dead.
Sam opened his mouth to apologize, to say he didn't really mean it, that he was so scared nothing made sense, but Dean's face contorted in anger and he was breathing so fast it was almost hyperventilation.
"Get out." Dean croaked in a gravely voice that left Sam's hair standing on end.
"Dean, you shouldn't be talking."
"Get out!"
"Dean-"
But Dean isn't listening anymore, his using the notepad to bang on the metal bed, and damn if it didn't make a huge ruckus. It also instantly brought the tiny nurse to the door.
"What's going on?" she bellowed in her huge voice.
"Nothing!" Sam nearly shouted back, even though Dean stopped fussing.
"All that noise was nothing?" she asks but then stares pointedly to something beyond Sam's shoulder.
He turns to find Dean's slightly tilted handwriting staring back at him "HIM. OUT. NOW."
"Oh Dean, come on…"
"Sir" the nurse called in a totally professional and controlled tone "If you don't leave now, I'm gonna have to call security."
"Alright, alright! I'm going." Sam got up and with a last look at Dean, whose enraged eyes were brimming with tears. When the nurse took in that sight, Sam was grabbed by the tiniest, strongest hands that ever were.
He was just kicked out of his kid brother's room. Sam didn't think that had actually successfully happened before. Ever.
It was such a foreign situation, Sam wasn't sure if he should go back to Jess' room or just leave.
The idea of seeing Jessica, even if she was loopy or sleeping was enough to make the decision for him, and he made his way back to her room under the glare of the tiny nurse.
Jessica was asleep, but her eyes snapped open the second Sam's hand caressed her hair.
"Am I crazy?" she asked completely serious.
Sam's heart twisted "No."
"So that was all real?"
"Yeah."
"Oh."
"I'm so sorry."
"Dean said that too. I don't like it, so stop."
"Ok."
He didn't know what else to say, in fact he'd fuck up enough already, so not knowing what to say was probably a good thing. His brother so close to tears over something he said was going to torment him for… ever. How the hell could he say that?
Why did Dean have to make him so angry so easily?
Fuck.
Jess was so quiet Sam thought she was asleep again, but suddenly her hand was making its way into his pocket and pulling a strip of paper. She read it silently then passed it on to Sam.
In it he found a familiar tilted handwriting "I can still cry on command, asshole"
Jess' eyes were so intense in their drugged stare that Sam was compelled to look back and did so in time to see her frown before saying "You are so screwed."
A/N.: (I had reupload the chapter, it was missing a piece) Oh Sam... You suck sometimes.
If there's one thing I've missed on the show is the "We're so screwed", someone should definitely bring that back!
Thanks for the feedback, guys! You have no idea how giddy I get when I see all the nice words you have to say about this!
And I do apologize for Sam's behavior, he doesn't handle stress very well.