Chapter Seven

Bobby glanced at the shivering kid sitting on the bed once again, watching as he pulled Dean's jacket tighter around him and shifted awkwardly under the scrutiny of his gaze. His brown bangs shyly covered his lowered hazel eyes, just how Bobby remembered it since the day Richard Wesson left Sam at his doorstep while him and Rick went off on another hunt.

"Stop staring at him, Bobby. You're making him uncomfortable." Dean's voice piped up from behind him.

Bobby turned his head and glowered at him over his shoulder.

He looked back at Sam once more and held his gaze there for another moment before he released a sigh, turning on his heel to face Dean completely as he ran a hand over his bearded mouth.

"What are you gonna do?" Bobby asked him quietly.

Dean paused, his eyes shifting towards Sam. "I... I don't know. I mean, I thought... I thought we could just take him in or something. It's not like he has anywhere else to go since he doesn't have any other relatives."

"Do you have anyone you can live with?"

"N-no."

"No one at all?"

A shake of head.

"Come with me."

"I don't know you."

"But you know Bobby."

"Well, you could take him in. Because he doesn't really trust us," Dean added, shrugging slightly.

"Speaking of 'us', you do know your daddy's gonna be real pissed about you poking into another hunter's business, right?" Bobby reminded, raising an eyebrow. He turned his head over to the man in question and eyed the sleeping hunter for a moment, before shifting his gaze back to Dean. "He did always tell ya to stay away from whatever happens behind their doors. He already has t'deal with monsters. Don't need hunters on his ass as well."

Dean clenched his jaw, feeling the burn of irritation flare in his chest. "What was I supposed to do? Turn a blind eye and let him get beaten up by that dickless bastard?"

"I didn't mean that, boy," Bobby denied, his own tone exasperated. "I'm just saying your papa won't agree with this. Rick can be one dangerous son of a bitch when he wants to be."

Dean glanced at the kid trying to hide into his arms and legs, his limbs curled into his chest as his bruised eyes peeked out slightly towards him and Bobby, no doubt listening in on their conversation but trying to remain stealthy. He hid his face into the sleeve of Dean's jacket as soon as he caught sight of his gaze on him.

"I can see that," Dean muttered softly.

Bobby exhaled lightly in agreement, following Dean's gaze on Sam.

He looked back at Dean, pursing his lips and nodding slightly, and then reached out a hand to pat the boy's shoulder.

"Well, I'd say you did the right thing."

Dean smiled in gratitude. "Thanks, Bobby."

...

"S'he gonna be angry at me?" Sam asked quietly, hesitantly, as if unsure if he was allowed to speak or not. He glanced at John on the other bed, swallowing slightly as he tried to estimate the amount of pain that would come at being beaten by the hunter from the muscle mass of his body. He was quite well-built, broad chest and wide shoulders with large, toned biceps (almost as strong as Rick, maybe a bit more), which was the complete contrast to his skinny, lanky form.

"No... well, at least not at you," Dean said as he wiped at the cut on his cheek, shrugging slightly. "He'd be pissed at me for not staying out of another hunter's matters."

Sam nodded, his eyes moving down at his hands. He liked Dean. Dean was nice to him like Rick never was. Although, for how long he'd be able to remain that way was the question. He knew it was too good to be true for anyone to like him, with how much he screwed up all the time and the heavy burden he was on everyone around him. It was why his entire family hated him, wasn't it? People didn't just hate their sons and brothers without a reason. He had to have done something to bring it all onto himself; something to deserve the way they had felt about him. Something to have been told by them every single day of his life that he was worthless. Nothing. To have been beaten until he was bruised and battered over for most of the fourteen years of his life.

It was all his fault. He was certain of that.

Sam knew part of it had a lot to do with what had happened with his mother. He was too stupid. He should have known better than to keep his mother's secret. If he had just told his father about the man, she'd still be alive. She'd still be here, with them.

But sometimes, he wondered if maybe it also had a lot to do with himself. He wondered if they also hated him because of the worthless failure, the useless burden that he was. The inconvenient nuisance that they were forced to carry around.

He wondered if his father and brother would have still felt the same even if their mom was alive.

"He just doesn't want any trouble. Better allies than enemies, right?" Dean's conversational voice broke him out of his abstraction, causing him to jerk slightly. Although, Dean seemed to have either ignored or remained oblivious to his startlement as he continued on, dabbing the alcohol wipe on his split lip with a gentleness that seemed odd and unfamiliar and, at the same time, strangely nice. "You know the hunters around here. Not all of them are exactly the moral kind. They can be pretty damn dangerous when they want to be. And most of them just don't like people interfering into their personal life. Whatever happens behind closed doors and all..."

He wondered if John was going to hurt Dean. That'd be all his fault too if he did, and maybe that would be when Dean would start hating Sam too. He didn't want anyone else to get hurt because of him. He had already done that enough, with his mother, his father, and now Rick, who was arrested all because of him.

"Alright," Dean said, grounding his attention back into the present once more. "Your back now."

...

His back iced and bandaged and covered by Dean's clothes (since his own were still stained with coffee), Sam sat quietly on the bed, unsure of what to do next.

"Aren't you gonna sleep?" Dean asked, and Sam sensed more than he saw him reclining back on the spread blanket on the ground, hearing the low groan and the dull thud, and he felt the burn of his expectant stare.

Sam slowly lifted his gaze slightly, letting it land on Dean for a second, before dropping it back down. Rick never liked it when he looked at him in the eye.

"Wh-where?" he mumbled the question, a mild hitch in his voice. He didn't want to make Dean angry by asking him too many questions.

But he wanted to be sure about where Dean wanted him to sleep. Whenever there were more hunters and less beds, Rick always made him sleep in the corner of the room. But right now, there weren't any corners available as the beds shoved into the first and second corners of the room, a desk shoved into the third corner, while Dean was taking the fourth corner.

"On the bed, of course," Dean answered, confusion creeping into his voice.

Sam froze, not expecting that response at all. His eyes raised up at Dean's face, a puzzled knit between his brows as if he couldn't comprehend why Sam would be asking such a question.

"I... I d-don't understand," Sam stuttered, his confused voice just a little above a feeble whisper. It was probably enough to carry across the room and reach Dean's ears, because he saw Dean's bewildered gaze turn towards him again.

And then there was some sort of realization dawning in his eyes.

"It's okay," Dean assured, looking at him from where he laid on the floor with a casual arm beneath his head. "You need the bed more than I do anyway. You know, with your, uh... injuries and all."

Sam wasn't sure how to react to such display of kindness. Other than Bobby, there haven't been many people who had shown such generosity to him. Especially not from strangers.

Strangers who were hard-hearted hunters.

Strangers who shouldn't care.

So he said nothing. He just lied down on the bed, closed his eyes and tried to sleep.

...

"What?"

Sam was startled awake by a sharp hiss coming from the front of his bed.

"Goddamnit, Dean. I thought I taught you better than that," he heard John's voice whisper harshly.

"You taught me to save people," Dean replied simply. "That's what I did."

Sam swallowed, peering out at the two men quietly from the bed.

"Goddamnit, Dean. These things should be left to the cops, not to the hunters!"

"And that's exactly what I did!" Dean almost yelled, a note of frustration and exasperation creeping into his voice.

"No, Dean. You didn't," John disagreed. "You intervened with another hunter's personal business, which I taught you never to do. Now when Rick gets out of that prison? Trust me, son. You're gonna have a lot of problems to deal with."

"You can't seriously have expected me to leave a... a freaking kid in the 'care' of that abusive bastard!" Dean exclaimed angrily. "I heard the crap he yelled at him. I heard him belt the shit out of the kid. And you're telling me that I should have just ignored it and let him go through that until... until it all went too far some day?"

John exhaled heavily, turning away and dragging a hand down his mouth. He let a few beats of silence pass before he faced him again. "What will you do when you find another kid like him, huh, Dean? You gonna take them in too? You can't help - "

"Alright, that's enough, you two," Bobby intervened, uncrossing his arms and stepping forward until he was standing right between them. "John, I understand why you don't approve of Dean's decision. I know sending Rick to jail's gonna bring him back pissed as hell, and it's also gonna spread words which ain't gonna help your low profile plans. But what Dean did was the right thing. That boy was probably gettin' abused on a daily basis, and leaving him like that wouldn't have been the most moral thing to do. You taught yer son better than bailin' on a kid."

They broke off the argument for the time being.

"We'll talk about this later," John said after wiping a hand down his face once again.

Dean glowered at him. "I'll go get breakfast," he said lowly, almost a growl, and then turned away and walked towards the door.

The door slammed shut, the hard bang and click sounding louder in the silent room. Sam flinched involuntarily at it, and then immediately felt the shame burn in his stomach, swallowing slightly. Rick wouldn't have liked such display of weakness. He always hated it.

It was almost completely silent for the next twenty minutes, save for the occasional slight scratch of pen against paper as he watched John write on the pages of a leather-bound book. Sam concluded that it was some kind of journal by the looks of it, although he couldn't be sure.

He had also been trying to gather up courage to voice the question on his mind, but fear had been keeping the words stuck in his throat. Some part of him didn't want to ask, to just let it go and never think of it again, but he knew it could have consequences if he didn't say anything. If he didn't speak up and take responsibility, Dean might get hurt. And he didn't deserve the punishment for something that was Sam's fault.

Sam closed his eyes.

He had expected to just blurt it out, quick and rushed.

But instead, it came out soft. Quiet.

Scared.

"Are you going to hurt him?"

John's hand stilled.

"I-it wasn't his fault. He was... he was only trying to help me. S-so if you're gonna... if you're gonna p-punish someone..." he trailed off, trying to control his breaths as his mouth went dry. He swallowed hard, looking down at his hands. His heart raced with apprehension, his blood pounding in his ears, but none of them were an unfamiliar sensation. It was something he was used to more than anything. "I-I'm sorry. S'my fault, I'm sorry."

"Look, whatever kind of person you think I am, I'm not - "

"Don't mind him, son," Bobby chimed in, the newspaper he was reading on his lap as he looked at the kid. "I know he looks scary, but he's just an ol' teddy bear once ya get t'know him."

Bobby chuckled slightly and Sam felt his lips twitch at that, curling into a small smile at his words.

It dropped off as soon as he caught John's glare, even though it was directed at Bobby and not him.

The gruff hunter just smirked at him in response.

...

"Breakfast!" Dean announced cheerfully, barging in through the door with a little more bounce in his step than when he left. He almost seemed as if he had already forgotten the earlier events this morning.

"Thank God. I'm starving," John muttered, pushing away from the desk and moving to the small table in front of the TV set. Bobby followed as Dean placed the aromatic plastic bags of food on said small table.

"I call dibs on the couch!" Dean exclaimed, plopping down on the two-seater and spreading his legs all over it just to annoy the crap out of his elders. He grinned, staring up at Bobby who was coming to sit on the other seat. John seemed to be the only one okay with settling on the ground.

Bobby rolled his eyes and threw his legs off, taking the now vacant spot himself.

It was after they were all set that Dean's eyes flickered towards an empty space beside John, all traces of lightness and amusement chased away. His gaze grew sad with pain and longing as he was reminded, not for the first time, about who should have been here among them as well.

He closed his eyes and inhaled a deep breath, swallowing as the flashes of memory passed by his mind. He remembered Adam, ten years old and sitting beside John on the ground, shaking his head at him as Dean took over both of the couch cushions, as if he was the only mature one in the room other than his father.

"You're an idiot, you know that?" Adam said. But despite his words, there was a soft and fond smile on his lips, as if there wasn't anyone else he'd rather have for a brother, no matter ridiculous and obnoxious he was.

Dean smiled and opened his eyes.

It was then he realized that Sam hadn't arrived at the table.

And when he turned his head back, he saw him staring after them silently, a sense of yearning in his eyes to join them, but the fear and hesitance overlaying it held him back from doing just that. When he caught Dean's eyes, he quickly averted his gaze, looking ashamed and scared.

"What are you waiting for?" Dean said, smiling at him. "There's a juicy chicken burger and fries with your name on it. Well, I didn't know what you wanted, and you were sleeping and I didn't want to wake you up, so I just brought you what I thought you' d like."

Sam's gaze slowly rose to him.

"Come on," Dean urged, jerking his head towards the food.

Sam swallowed, ducking his head. But he still slid off the bed, his feet softly touching the ground for a moment. He took a deep breath and let them press a little firmer to the floor.

He stood up and slowly made his way over to them, fidgeting with his sleeve.

"Where do I sit?" Sam asked quietly.

John moved slightly sideways, and Sam seemed to have gotten the hint as he walked over and sat down beside him.

They began eating their burgers.

And when Dean looked up, half-way through his meal, at Sam as he munched on his own.

He found that it wasn't as painful to look at that place anymore.

Author's Note: Hi. Thank you all so much for the patience, loyalty and the support in the previous chapters. The reviews and tags mean so much to me and I appreciate every one of them, and you all are the reason I'm pushing through all of these problems. So thank you for being my motivation and inspiration. Reading your reviews and how much you enjoy this story rekindles a fire that I don't feel very often these past months! I love you all! *tackle hugs everyone* You're all awesome, every one of you! Know that there is a person whose world you brighten with every bit of your love and encouragement! Thank you, thank you, thank you so much!

Constructive criticism is welcome, as long as it's polite and doesn't cross into brutal flaming. :)