Dean was 10 when Sam decided that John was plain moronic in his army antics. So he decided to tell his dad exactly that. It didn't bode well with the old man. At first when Sam's tongue got loose, it seemed just a huge joke as Dean would be peaking behind doors, giggling at his older brother's jabs.
Suddenly it wasn't funny anymore and when Sam and John were at each other's throats, Dean huddled on a sofa or a bed clutching an unrecognizable stuffed animal that the kid usually claimed he didn't need anymore.
Then one day, Dean just wasn't there.
John noticed it first, Sam still was too busy fuming, even if the argument had ended the day before, and afterwards he wanted to beat himself up over it. Later, John took care of that for him.
"He was supposed to be on your watch." was dad's mantra as they searched. Like Sam didn't know that. Like Sam's gut wasn't churning with guilt and worry just as John's.
They found Dean in a one bedroom on Flagstaff and Sam had to hand it to the younger Winchester: the little bastard was resourceful. When John kicked down the door, Dean had a slice of pizza halfway to his mouth and a huge shaggy dog with its head on his lap.
"Dad?" Dean asked, blinking in surprise. Karate Kid blasting on the TV.
Sam hanged back, hands in his pockets, jaw still aching where dad reminded him of his responsibilities, trying not to glare at Dean. And failing completely.
John grabbed Dean by the back of the kid's shirt, throwing him over his shoulder and walking out, so quick and clean that Dean only had the time to yelp when his feet left the floor.
The drive back was awkward, the silence only ceasing when John asked "What the hell were you thinking?"
Sam turned slightly to see the confused look on Dean's face, followed by the one shoulder shrug "I never had a dog."
In his conscious mind, Sam knew he was the older brother; older and wiser, so he shouldn't be so pissed at Dean – the younger, brainless one – for the disappearing act, but the rest of him couldn't help the bitterness that seeped through his bones at the realization that Dean ditched them, ditched him, over a fucking dog.
Dean seemed clueless as to why Sam was so completely pissed, and that angered Sam to a whole new level. John's choice of punishment was to alienate the youngest just as he'd been alienated, and it worked too damn perfectly for Sam not to follow his dad's lead.
No one talked anymore, Sam and John weren't on speaking terms to begin with and it took Dean a day and a half to finally get that his voice wasn't welcomed. The cold shoulder lasted a month, even if John still had to speak, at least to bark orders at them, but Sam was mute the whole time.
The break finally came on one afternoon, he washed the dishes and tried to ignore the sound that Dean's pencil made when it crossed the paper he was drawing on. Sam peaked at his brother through the corner of his eyes and the sight of Dean's deep frown made the words just tumbled out of Sam's mouth without permission "Why did you do that?"
The pencil stopped. Dean looked up at Sam's back and his eyes dropped to the table again. "I didn't think you'd notice."
Sam grabbed the corners of the tiny sink. "How in hell wouldn't I notice that my brother, who I was supposed to be watching, suddenly vanished?"
"But you needed space!" the absolute certainty in Dean's statement made Sam turn around.
"What are you talking about?"
The question caught Dean off guard "I mean…" he swallowed "You told me that."
"When did I ever tell you that I needed space?" even as he spoke Sam remembered saying that. More than once, actually. A whole bunch of times. Pretty much every time Dean came up to him with anything else than a problem with homework.
Dean frowned again "You were mad at dad, and you two needed to talk, and after that, both of you would need space and this room is so small, and… There wasn't any space left for me, so I thought I'd come back after you had your space. Never thought you'd get that mad…"
Sam felt like a jerk.
xoo0oox
Whenever Jessica would pick up a book, she'd read it out loud. It didn't matter if it was a text book or just a novel, she'd either have her weird little version of a public reading or have music blasting way too loudly on a headset. Sometimes both.
Sam couldn't quite decide if it was endearing or unnerving. He guessed it was endearing because it was Jess and he was completely and utterly whipped, as it's been established, and it was unnerving because he had to listen to freaking everything.
She was a psychology major, he really didn't wanna know about the crap hovering in his subconscious, but she read it to him anyway. Sure she didn't really realize how loud she was, or that Sam couldn't turn her voice off, still…
And ok, even Sam had to admit that sometimes it wasn't all that bad. He never had to read Harry Potter, for instance, he heard everything. Even the Diggory Breakdown, which went as follows:
"'A blast of green light blazed through Harry's eyelids, and he heard something heavy fall to ground beside him. Cedric was lying spread-eagled on the ground beside him. He was dead.'" a moment of silence, then "Wait, what? Sam! Sam, oh my God, do you know what just happened?"
"Yeah, I heard it."
"But… Oh my God! Who the hell is Cedric?"
"Well… He's the guy from Huffle-"
"Yeah, yeah, Hufflepuff, Triwizard Champion, is banging the little Asian chick Harry's into, I know that!"
"So what are you asking?"
"I mean… Who the hell is this guy? I never gave a teeny tiny rat's ass about him, but now that he's dead I'm all like 'No! Damn you, Scabbers! Damn you!' and why? Because of a dead Hufflepuff? I don't get it."
Neither did Sam, but it was pretty funny.
What he never imagined was that this little quirk of Jess's would ever be useful, but now, standing outside Dean's hospital room – from where he was still banned from – he totally wanted to thank her.
"He's your brother, he's bound to say stupid stuff to you." he heard her tell Dean "You know you can't stay mad at him forever, right?"
"Sure I can, you just watch." Dean answered.
Well, not really. Actually, Jessica read Dean's notepad out loud, making it sound like they were having a normal conversation. She even sounded different, so Sam always knew which one was 'talking'.
"You're not serious. I don't think you're even mad anymore, you're just doing this to make him squirm. I mean, what could he possibly have said to make you this pissed?"
"He didn't tell you?"
"No. He just said he screwed up."
"You can chill. We're fine, I just wanna get out of here."
"Ok, leave the hospital, then what?"
"Hit the road."
"On your own?"
"I tried living with others, lotta good it did me."
"You can't let one guy puking smoke ruin your faith in mankind. Oh, and by the way… What the fuck was that?"
"This isn't the best place to talk about it, and you're reading all my crap out loud, we look like a couple of lunatics."
From the sound of things, Dean got cuffed on the head "I'll show you lunatic, you little ass. How can you just up and leave me like that? I thought I could keep you."
"I'm not leaving you, I'm just leaving. And you've got Sam. Also, I'm not a pet."
"So do you, you know? You've got Sam too. Oh, no. You don't get to erase the stuff you're writing, let me see. Stop that!"
Sam wanted to take a peek so bad because it really sounded like they were wrestling, but he knew that as soon as his head got anywhere near the door, Dean would spot him.
"'He never really liked me', is that what's written here?" Jess asked and octave higher and Dean sighed audibly.
"It was a joke."
"A bitter fucking joke."
"It's a good joke, your sense of humor is crap."
"Oh, my sense of humor is crap? Which one of us pretended to lose his memory?"
"Another good joke."
They were silent for a second and Sam nearly went mad trying to keep from barging into the room and telling Dean to get over himself already. Sure, Sam fucked up big time, but there was obviously more pressing concerns with that monster that had taken over Brady and almost killed Dean and Jess. That thing could still be out there and it was pretty clear that Dean had some important knowledge that Sam didn't. And the little ass couldn't talk and wouldn't write about it.
Talk about nerve racking…
"Tell you what" Jess read and Sam jumped to attention "If you can make Sam stop eavesdropping I'll tell you what you wanna know."
"Sam's not here." Jess said laughingly and already way too close for Sam to find a decent hiding place. She leaned with a hand on the threshold and her eyes boggled when she saw him "But you are."
From beneath her arm, Sam saw Dean wave then flip him off.
"I was worried." he said lamely.
"Stop being such a pigheaded ass and say you're sorry!" she demanded in an angry whisper.
"I'm sorry" he called over her shoulder.
The "FUCK YOU" was written in huge bold letters, Dean probably spent a lot of time working on it just for that precise moment.
Sam ran a hand over his face, so it took him a moment to notice that Jess was laughing and Dean was trying very hard to hide a smile.
"He's still mad," Jess clarified "but that 'fuck you' sign was a huge stress reliever, you have no idea."
"It was your idea, wasn't it?"
"I might've done the outline, yes… But you can bitch at me later, go get some coffee or something 'cause I wanna talk to him and I can't if I know you're hovering."
"I thought you needed bed rest."
"I'm on his bed, resting."
"Jess…" she took a deep breath and stuck a hand on the middle of his chest pushing him away from the door.
"Sam, look. I love you and I get how you're feeling, but I need to understand what happened to me back there, and the only one who can help me right now is Dean. He will never admit it, but I'm pretty sure he's too scared to talk for some reason and let's face it, whatever it is you said to him didn't help at all."
"I told him it was his fault." Sam blurted and grimaced instantaneously.
"What?" she whispered with a pained expression.
"I know, I fucked up! But I really thought I had left all that crap behind and right when he shows up, boom! You almost died, Jess. He almost died. I didn't even know what I was saying."
"Wait. Just wait a second." she waved her hands in front of his face "Left what crap behind?"
Sam gaped for a bit, then his mouth started to work but no sound came out of it "Well…"
"Crap like what, Sam? Did you leave behind a bunch of people vomiting smoke? Is that it?"
"No, not that…"
"Because if you don't correct me pretty quickly, I'm gonna assume you knew shit like that existed."
"Again, not exactly that, but kind of, yeah…"
"What? How?"
"Jess, please, this isn't important right now" he tried reaching a hand, but she stepped back.
"Oh, but it is, Sam! Did you know that I thought your brother was dead up until I met him in our kitchen? Was Dean part of the crap you left behind?"
How the hell was he supposed to answer that?
"He was… around the crap but not the crap itself? Come on, Jess…"
"What are you not telling me? I mean, besides everything." she bit her lips and when she spoke again, her voice was calm and collected "Sam, why did you leave home?"
"Jessica, love…" he caressed her hair and got his hand slapped for it "It's not like I don't wanna tell you, I just can't understand why that's so important right now."
"Because I'm freaking out, Sam!" she shrieked "Because I would've appreciated a heads up, and because Becky has been telling everyone that you ran away from home because your father molested you."
"I- what?!"
"I'm freaking out, Sam." not really what he was asking about, but… "I think I'm losing my mind."
"You're not."
"Then I need some explanations, Sam."
Sam shifted his weight from feet to feet, but he had no idea how to begin. Jessica huffed irritably and headed back to Dean's room.
"Jess!" he called to her back, but she just kept going only stopping by Dean's bedside.
When she turned, Sam even smiled, but she just slammed the door shut, the 'fuck you' sign stuck on the tiny window that would've given him a clear view of the bed.
Jessica paced, still fuming from the talk with Sam and Dean watched with wide eyes and arched brows. He had stupidly long eyelashes and the sight of them pissed her off even more. Do you know how hard she had to work to get her lashes looking like that?
Totally unfair.
She opened her mouth to talk at the same time the door swung open and the tiny nurse that freaked her out eyed them suspiciously "This door stays open."
Dean saluted her and smiled sweetly. What a kiss ass.
Her expression must've been pretty obvious because as soon as the tiny nurse left Dean lifted his notepad.
"Know who to please, dude. That's why I always get extra jello."
"You don't even like jello."
"I like jello, you just ate it all before I could get it."
Her tense shoulders dropped and she blinked "Sorry."
Dean simply shrugged. What a cool kid…
"Why did Sam leave?" she blurted out exactly like Sam had done with her a couple of minutes back, she rolled her eyes internally.
Dean blinked at her before writing "I think you told him to leave."
"Oh, no. I meant, he's always been pretty secretive about his life before Stanford and I always thought-" that you were dead. Nope, not saying that "It doesn't matter what I thought, I just… I need… I need you to talk to me."
Dean licked his lips nodding thoughtfully and beckoned her closer. Jessica took a step forward and Dean rolled his eyes.
"Closer, stupid"
"You're stupid. Stupid." she mumbled and sat down beside him, shoulder to shoulder.
Jessica expected him to pick up the notepad and write away, instead Dean shifted closer, pushing her hair back and began whispering in her ear in his still scratchy voice. "When I was a baby, my mom died. Sam was four years old, he carried me out of the house."
"You shouldn't be talking, Dean…" Jess chastised but Dean brought a finger to his lips.
"Shhh…"
"If the tiny nurse yells at me-"
"Sam will step on her to protect you." Jess gave a very unladylike snort and bit her lips to keep from smiling to wide. Dean's face lost all humor and he went back to the story "When Sam was four, our mom died. Someone cut her up and set her on fire on the ceiling above my crib."
Jessica looked at Dean then, but he was dead serious. She remembered the feeling of not having control over her body and swallowed hard.
But Dean kept talking. He told her how his father made it his life mission to track down the thing that killed his wife and ended up dragging both sons into it. He told her about their training, the hunt, how Sam was the one to take care of Dean most of the time and how Sam hated it all. He told her about the fights, how Sam stood against their father constantly. He told her about the monsters.
He told her how Sam left for Stanford and how their father went missing.
He told her that he was alone for so long that he freaked enough to end up there on her kitchen in the middle of the night.
He told her he was sorry that she had to find out this way, that she had to find out at all.
He told her that Sam was right, he should've never gone there.
By the time Dean finished talking his eyes were hollow and so very tired even as he tried to give Jess a reassuring smile.
"You should sleep now" she murmured standing up.
Dean slid down the bed, getting comfortable but whined "I don't wanna…" with a soft smile that felt more real. He fought the drowsiness to pick up the notepad again, he scribbled something quick, ripped the page, folded it and handed it to Jess, letting his head fall heavily on the pillow.
He looked about fourteen.
Jessica left silently and found Sam seated in secluded chair, away from the door. His eyes brightened at the sight of her, it made her heart clench.
She took a deep breath and opened Dean's note.
Give him hell for me.
A/N.: In my head, Jessica should date both Sam and Dean. Yeah, I don't know.
Sorry about how long this took, but I hope you guys enjoy the chapter. The reviews have been awesome and I thank you all!