Sam rolled his eyes as his brother sang along to highway to hell on the radio. "Dude seriously, how do you even have a voice anymore? You've been singing none stop for nearly three hours."
"Awh Sammy, you do not appreciate the finer things. This is a classic."
"Yeah Dean, just like it was the first four times you played it tonight. Wouldn't kill you to play something different every now and then." Sam smirked, waving his iPod at Dean.
"You mean like your crappy music? No. My baby deserves only the best music, not that punk crap you listen to. Don't even think about plugging that thing into my baby ever again."
"I don't listen to punk crap Dean." Sam argued.
"Yeah, sure you do. Right Kate?" He got no response. "Kate?" Dean glanced over his shoulder into the backseat. "I think she's asleep you know."
"Well she always could sleep through your music. God knows I wish I could." Sam smirked, causing Dean to laugh.
They arrived in town the next morning and checked into a motel before heading out to get some breakfast. "So this hunt, should be just a simple salt and burn right?" Dean asked Sam with a mouth full of food.
Sam shot him a disgusted look and nodded. "Yeah Dean. We just need to figure out who the ghost it and destroy the corpse."
"You make it sound so easy." Kate muttered sarcastically. "So where do we start?"
"Well you and Dean are gonna talk to the dead guys girlfriend, I'm gonna head to the library and do some research. Meet you back at the motel later yeah?"
"Cool." She smiled at him as he stood up and walked out, leaving Kate and Dean alone.
Dean took a drink of his coffee and shook his head. "What do you think?"
"I think, he thinks we're idiots." She said slowly.
He nodded. "Right, what does he think he's gonna research? This case is so simple it's practically solves itself."
Kate shrugged. "You wanna follow him? See what he's up to?"
"Nah, leave him to it." He threw some money down on table and stood up, walking out of the diner.
It didn't take long for them to find and destroy the body. Soon after the three of them headed towards a bar to celebrate finishing the hunt with minimum injuries. "You know, we're getting kinda low on funds." Dean said, eyeing the group of guys occupying the pool tables in the back of the bar.
"You sure Dean? They look a bit.. big." Kate said, looking over at the pretty muscular guys.
"I'll be fine." He smirked, picking up his drink and walking away. An hour passed and Dean had let the guy win four hundred dollars from him. "One more game to let me win it back, we'll make it five." Dean said, pulling a wad of cash from his back pocket.
"You're gonna have to make it better if you want another game." The guy said to him.
Dean raised an eyebrow. "Like how?"
"When I win, I get your hot girlfriend over there." He grinned a disturbingly rapey grin, nodding over at where Kate was sitting with Sam across the room. Dean felt himself tense up and clenched his jaw. It took everything in him not to beat the guy half to death for just looking at his sister the wrong way. Instead, he simply smiled and agreed.
Dean beat the guy easily, picking up the money and throwing down the que before walking away. "Hey, you hustled me." He yelled, walking up behind Dean and pulling him around to face him.
"What can I say man, it's a tough game." Dean smirked. "You were just unlucky."
"No, you totally cheated me. So either give me the money or I'll kill you right here." He shouted, grabbing the front of Dean's shirt.
Dean laughed in his face. "Oh yeah? Well, I've got a gun so do you really want to go there?"
"Oh what, you're gonna shoot me? In here? Yeah, now I'm scared." The guy laughed. "Listen buddy, I've taken a bunch of smartasses like you before. You think you're so tough but when you're getting your ass kicked in a back alley with only your boyfriend for backup while that slut's being banged for twenty bucks-"
"Don't you dare." He practically growled in his face. It was one thing to try and threaten him but when that was extended to his family, Dean got pissed easily.
"Aw, did I hurt your feelings?"
"I swear to god, I'm going to beat the hell out of you. And your pathetic, lowlife friends."
He shook his head. "I'm really going to enjoy putting you in a coma."
"Oh, give it your best shot you spineless, little bitch." Dean went to punch him in the face before someone grabbed him around the arm.
"C'mon Dean. Time to go." Sam said as he pulled him through the bar to the door, Dean never once taking his eyes from the guy.
"Cutting it a little close there weren't you Dean? Guy's obviously a psycho." Kate said to him once they'd left the bar.
"Whatever, he deserved a good ass kicking if you ask me."
"Remember what happened the last time you said that in a bar Dean? You spent the night in jail."
Dean smirked at the memory. Some guy had said something to Sam and Dean had literally kicked the hell out of him before being dragged off him by three cops and thrown into the back of a squad car. "Oh yeah, fun times." She rolled her eyes at him and laughed.
They began walking back to the motel room when Kate noticed a bright light, she turned to see a car driving head on towards her brother. "Dean, watch out!" She yelled, running straight at him and pushing him with everything she had in her. The car hit her straight on, her body flying straight over the top and landing in the middle of the road. The car had swerved into the side of the road and stopped. Dean stumbled to his feet and ran after it but the driver saw him and put his foot down. He chased the car right to the end of the long street before it got away and he remembered his baby sister was lying in the middle of the street, a broken bloody mess.
Sam dropped straight to his knees beside her when she was hit. He took her face in his hands and fought back the tears. "Oh god, Kate wake up. Please baby, you gotta wake up from me. Open your eyes, please!" She didn't respond to him. "Kate? Kate?! Someone call 911!" He yelled as people began to gather around them.
When Dean got back to the road, they were lifting Kate onto a stretcher. "Did you get him?" Sam asked him quietly.
"No.. He uh.. he got away. Go with her Sammy, I'll be there soon."
"What are you going to do Dean?"
"Just go Sam. She needs you with her right now."
"She needs you too Dean." Sam said, but Dean had already turned and began walking back to his car. He gave his brother one last look before climbing into the back of the ambulance to be with his sister. He knew where his brother was going. Half of him wanted Dean to find the guy and beat him to death for what he'd done to their sister but he knew inside that wasn't the answer. The police would be hanging around soon asking questions, a murder on Dean's hands wouldn't make it any easier for them. Not forgetting that at one point they'd been wanted by the authorities for several murders already.
Dean put his foot down on the pedal and drove the same way the car had gone, looking for anything that might give him a clue about where the guy had gone. After driving around for about half an hour at the top end of the speed limit, he realised he was getting nowhere fast. "C'mon Dean, what the hell are you doing?" He muttered to himself. He drove back to the bar where they'd been earlier, parking up before he got close to where it had happened. He paused at the door, he needed to be with his sister but he didn't think he could stand to see her the way she was now. He couldn't do anything for her from the hospital, this was the way he could help her now.
He walked in and saw that the guy's friends were still standing at the back near the pool tables. He stormed straight over and grabbed one of them around the neck, pushing him back into the wall. "Your friend, where is he?" He demanded.
"Dude, what the hell?" He struggled against Dean's grip.
"Look, I don't have time for your crap. Either tell me where he is or I swear to god, you'll be lying in the hospital bed next to the one he's put my sister in!"
The look on Dean's face told him that he wasn't kidding around. He wrote down the guy's address on a piece of paper and handed it to him. Without saying another word to him, Dean stormed back out of the bar to his car.
He pushed his car as fast as it would go, not caring how many speed laws he was breaking. All he could think about was how far he'd pushed that guy back there, far enough for him to try and run him over. It was Dean's fault his sister was hurt, lying in a hospital bed somewhere in pain. He'd never forgive himself for this one. He snapped out of his thoughts at the sound of his phone ringing. It was Sam. "Sammy? Is she okay? What's wrong?" He asked quickly.
"Dean, where are you? You should be here."
"I just got something to take care of, then I'll be there."
"Listen to me, Kate needs her brothers here now. Both of them. Imagine how she's gonna feel if she wakes up and you're not here. I know what you're thinking Dean, revenge can wait."
"You don't know Sam. The guy could run.. He deserves what's coming to him now."
"Dean please, it's not just her. I need my brother here too."
He could hear his voice crack over the phone. Sam needed him now, and so did his sister. "Okay Sammy, I'll be there. I promise." He hung up and turned the car around, heading to the hospital.
Dean knew his brother was right. He knew that even if they guy did run, it wouldn't take them long to find him. Truth was, he was avoiding the hospital because he didn't know if when Kate did wake up, if she woke up, that she'd even want to see him. It was all his fault that she was there. He didn't think he'd be able to look her in the face. Or Sam. If something happened to her, it would all be on him. He'd let everyone down.
After pulling into the parking lot, he ran straight from his car to the hospital reception and demanded to know where his sister was. He ran up the stairs and down the corridor before stopping at the slightly open door of a room. His heart broke at the scene in front of him. His sister attached to all sorts of wires and machines and his little brother sitting there, holding her hand with tears in his eyes. Sam looked up towards him and stood up, making his way out of the room and closing the door. "Dean, thank god." He sighed.
"Is she okay?" Dean asked him, the panic clear in his usually calm voice. "Is she gonna be alright?"
"She has internal bleeding, broken ribs, lung damage and head trauma." He said quietly.
Dean felt the tears stinging in his eyes. "Oh my god, what did I do?" He whispered.
"Dean, it wasn't your fault."
"I wound him up Sam, I pushed him to it.. He was driving at me. And now my sister's going to die for saving me."
"Hey." Sam cut him off sharply. "She is not going to die. She's tough. She'll make it." He shook his head and leaned against the wall. "She has to.."
Dean nodded slowly. "What are we-" He stopped and took a breath.
Sam looked up at him and shook his head in defeat. Honestly, he didn't know what either of them would do without their baby sister to look after them. All their life, they'd done everything in their power to keep her safe, but that was something that went both ways. She protected them just as much as they protected her. They needed her. More than he had every realised before.