Chapter Fourteen

Dean was still recovering, but he had spent quite a time complaining and whining and trying to convince everyone that he didn't need the cast anymore, even though his injury was severe enough to need four months of it, at least. And they were only about a month and a half in.

Sam's stomach was far better now. He no longer felt even a twinge of pain when moving, and the stairs weren't a dread as they had been during the first few weeks. It was why he had stayed mostly in his room. Bobby hadn't minded, since he would scold him for descending them on his own in the first place. But he had been caught between boredom and uselessness and the pain of climbing down stairs with a stitched stomach, and eventually, the boredom won out and he decided he wanted to at least get a book downstairs and stop feeling lazy by doing nothing.

John dropped by a few weeks later. Dean just about jumped out of his seat when he heard the roar of his father's truck, and Sam had to grip him by the shoulders before he fell over, and Bobby made him sit down silently, to which Sam had to compose himself at the near pout Dean had on his face, and then Bobby made Sam get the door.

Sam was hesitant. After all, him and John didn't exactly get off well, all of which was his own fault. He shot him on their first hunt together, and then potentially caused a possible issue for him with Rick. He wasn't sure he'd be too pleased to see him again.

But the knocks were getting more and more impatient and louder, and Bobby was busy glaring Dean down into staying seated while making sure his chili didn't get burnt. So Sam eventually had to comply, and so he stood up, walked over from the kitchen to the front door, and pulled it open.

Sam's eyes widened as John, without much warning, toppled forward right into him, his large bulk knocking the air out of his chest. His arms came up and grappled to push him on his feet, but the man was already gone, and Sam had to find a way to maneuver out from their awkward positions so that he had John's arm on his shoulder and his own around his back. When that was done, Sam carried him into the house, heart pounding from the exertion on his, admittedly for quite a while now, sedentary body. John was too heavy on him, and he was too thin and lanky, and his height advantage barely assisted him.

John groaned next to him, and he could feel warm blood sticking to his own shirt now.

Dean was worried the moment he walked in with blood on his clothes. It didn't help that he came in about a half an hour later since the knock. Dean had been yelling for them both on and off in the meantime, and Bobby had left to see what was going on after ten minutes of not seeing them.

"Oh god. Is that Dad's?" Dean asked, frantic, sounding desperately as if he was trying to control his voice into a more level tone.

"Yeah," Sam said quietly. "But don't worry. It's not as bad as it looks. It's just a gash on his side. Flesh wound."

Bobby came in behind him, a little less blood on him.

"Yeah," he agreed. "He'll be fine, son. Sam here stitched him up pretty good." He patted his shoulder.

It was after all the tension drained from the room that they all registered the smell. Bobby scrunched his nose up at the burnt chili and walked over to fix the mess.

Dean tried to stand up, only to fall back on the chair helplessly, defeated, as if he knew the moment he lifted his ass up that he wouldn't be able to go far without his crutches. And he hated using those. He groaned, looked up at the ceiling for a while, then sighed.

Sam gave an awkwardly tight sympathetic smile, and gingerly retrieved the crutches from where they were dropped to the ground, handing it to him. Dean sighed again, seemingly trying not to glare at those damn armpit-smelling shits.

Dean braced the crutches against the slippery tiles of the kitchen, and thanked whatever for Sam and his considerate nature as he came up to help him without his asking. He groaned under his breath and wobbled when he stood up on one leg, while Sam kept a careful hold on the crutches so that they don't slide out from under his grasp.

Sam stayed behind him, ready to catch him if he fell. Dean felt a blend of embarrassment as well as fondness, and shaking his head slightly, he walked forward.

...

John was on the couch, where Dean slept most of the time now. His father looked pale and tired, his eye bruised, his bare waist bandaged with only specks of blood bleeding through. But he was breathing steadily and evenly, and that was all Dean needed.

Sam brought a chair from the kitchen to the library for him to sit down on. The fondness blooming in his chest was back, and Dean smiled a little at him this time, letting go of one crutch, but still keeping it leaning under his arm, to mess up his hair.

Dean lowered down on the chair, eyes glued on his father's face. Sam sat beside him on another chair.

"He's gonna be fine," Sam assured him once more, looking at him.

"Yeah, I know," Dean replied, nodding. He sighed. "Just wish I could have been there to watch his back, ya know? It's just... he's... he's all I have."

"You have Bobby," Sam said softly, staring down at his hands. And then, quietly and uncertainly... "You have me."

Dean tore his gaze away from his father at that, staring at Sam, who didn't seem to want to look back at him. He knew they had never exactly named this, the bond or friendship or whatever it is that they have, out loud, and he knew Sam wondered if it was even there. Dean could understand, because he had been wondering himself. Sam had been through a lot, and so he didn't know if he was ready to trust anyone other than Bobby after that, especially considering he had only known Dean for about two months now.

It was surprising though, how much he had felt for the kid in such a short period of time.

"Thanks, Sam," Dean said softly, smiled a little once more.

It was then that Sam looked at him, finally, and smiled back.

...

John woke up as the daylight lit the house up. Bobby's house, he immediately recognized as his vision cleared and stilled. The next thing that came to his attention was his parched mouth and his leaded bones and his throbbing side, and he shifted slightly in discomfort. He looked over to the side and found Dean on the ground, couch cushions under his head and his leg, a blanket draped over him. He sighed, shaking his head, but couldn't help the tiny, fond smile curling at his lips.

He really did love the boy.

His heart scrunched up painfully as he thought about his other boy, felt the empty space of him in this room and his life and this world like a solid presence, and pushed away the thoughts and memories bubbling up in his head and the crave of whiskey burning down his throat.

Instead, he thought about Sam. Sam, who came from his own broken little family. The kid that Dean was so desperately fond of. He had made his peace with the thought, ever since Dean had assured him that he wasn't trying to replace his brother, John's son, with him. But when he had thought about it later on, it seemed ridiculous, because he knew that it wasn't easy to move on from such a deep loss the moment he found someone else. In fact, it was probably the pain of that very loss that had led Dean to find comfort in Sam. And he knew Dean. He knew Dean wouldn't just replace Adam like that. Yes, maybe he had found something with Sam, something he had with Adam, but it was different than just forgetting him for someone else. That wouldn't be possible if he tried.

He wondered if Dean had told Sam about Adam. He wondered what Sam had thought, or would think.

And then, speak of the devil, Sam was here.

He seemed unaware of John's consciousness, quietly padding into the room with a book in his hands. He glanced over at Dean, maybe to make sure he wasn't disturbing him, or to just see him, John didn't know, but it sure said something when he looked at him first rather than the wounded, bleeding man on the couch. He wasn't sure if Sam even knew he was doing it. But then, he figured, he and Sam hadn't exactly been on the best of terms since Dean had taken him in, which might partially be his own fault. Or completely.

He remembered Bobby's fond voice through the phone, telling him about how well Sam was taking care of Dean.

A thud sound startled him back to the present, and his eyes shoot up to meet Sam's, which were wide-eyed and on him right now, like a deer in headlights, the thought of which almost made him snort.

Sam snapped out of it as soon as it happened, bending down quickly to take his book, which was a different one from the one before; another book to read.

"I'm sorry. I was j-just..." He jerkily gestured his book up. "I was just l-leaving though. Sorry if..."

"Nah. I was already awake," John said, waving dismissively. "Go ahead."

Sam nodded, looked back at the bookcase and took one more. Then he turned back, skimmed his eyes over Dean to check him over, maybe if he was comfortable or not, which John couldn't help but like the kid for. He seemed to care about Dean a lot.

"You been taking good care of him?" John asked conversationally, feeling it as some kind of olive-branch or repentance for his dick behavior towards him before.

Sam looked up at him, stared at him for a while as if he wasn't sure if he was talking to him or someone else. After a while, he nodded. "I'd like t-to think so, Sir."

John nodded back. Sam stood there for a while, as if waiting to see if he'd say anything more. When he didn't say anything after a long while, he turned and walked towards the door, almost finished two steps towards the door when John finally did.

"Why?"

Sam's head snapped up again, stared at him for a while, almost like he couldn't believe John was even talking to him. He couldn't be blamed, since he had barely talked to him much ever since they've met.

"Because I owe h-him, Sir," Sam answered, cleared his throat. He kept his gaze on his books as he spoke the rest. "I o-owe him everything. My way of r-repaying him, I g-guess."

John nodded, features softened. "Dean's a good man."

The way Sam smiled at that, John knew he agreed more than anything.

"That's good of you. Looking out for him." He glanced at Dean. "Somebody ought to take care of the stupid ass. He does it for everyone else, just not himself."

Sam smiled shyly, dimples light and flickering. "I'm g-glad I could do the job, S-Sir."

After he said that, he began to walk out. But he was stopped in his tracks by John's voice, but possibly more than that, his words.

"I'm glad too," John said.

...

By the next week, after having recovered enough to move without doubling over, John was gone. He didn't say goodbye to Sam, and maybe that might have made him feel a little sad that he didn't consider him good enough for that, but Dean was cranky about being left behind (he had been pestering John to take him with him for the most of the duration that he'd been around and awake), so Sam tried to focus on that. He went out and drove (he was really getting used to it now, getting more and more comfortable every time he placed his hands on the wheel and pressed down the pedal) for almost an hour to find a place that sold good apple pie, snagged a bag of M&Ms and six-pack-beer from the store along the way and thought, with a shake of his head, the things he did for the guy. It felt good, though, actually wanting to do something like this for someone, because he knew it'd matter.

Dean perked up at the sight of all the things he laid out before him, but the best was when he pulled out the pie. Mouth watering and wide-eyed and his face alight with a grin of childlike joy, only just a hint of nostalgia that you wouldn't see unless you looked real close and careful, the kind that's been felt enough times to wear out into your skin until you can't see it (my mom, she used to make the best apple pies in the whole world. Wish you could have been able to taste it), but it's still there, etched into the creases, a part of it just like another wrinkle.

"I drove an hour for this," Sam said, tossing the keys to Dean, who caught it effortlessly. "So you better be grateful. Maybe share a slice."

"Nah," Dean said, waving away his comment. "I'll find another way to show you my gratitude. But seriously, you drove an hour for this?" He looked a bit bemused and awed.

Sam shrugged, taking his book off the table where he left it before, and plopped down on the couch beside Dean. "I kind of wanted to drive a little. S'fun."

Dean nodded, grinning proudly. "I know. She's a cool car, ain't she?"

Sam sighed and shook his head at the pronoun, looked down at the book and smiled into it, and smiled even wider when he felt a calloused, soothing hand ruffle his hair.

Dean muttered something about him needing a haircut, and Sam reached out and broke a chunk of Dean's pie and ate it in vengeance to that remark. It resulted in him receiving a glare from Dean, but it didn't make his heart skip and it didn't make him shy away and it didn't make him fear pain. He stole another piece and grinned, and reveled in the ease and Dean's wavering scowl.

...

After two more months, Dean's cast was removed. And Sam was caught between that same befuddled mixture of feeling that had become so familiar ever since Dean had taken him away and then Bobby had taken him in. He was sad and happy. Happy because Dean was happy, better, going back to doing what he liked to do. Sad because he was going away, leaving him.

"You're really gonna go," Sam said quietly.

Dean was shoving things into his bags, grabbing his clothes from the half-space of drawers that he and Sam had shared, his guns, a picture of his Mom, his Dad from earlier years, like he was almost ready to make this room home, because it felt like it with Sam. He glanced down at the picture of him and Adam at the beach, left in the duffel that he never dared to take out, too afraid of... of something, something to do with Sam finding out about it, for some reason (because he felt selfish, and maybe Sam would think he was too). He stilled and breathed, his heart heavy in his chest as if it was filled with water, because Adam was once alive in that picture, and now he isn't, and because Sam felt like home, but now he had to leave. "Yeah, Sammy."

"Time really flew by, huh?" Dean didn't look at him, but there was a tiny, wry smile in his voice.

"It did," Dean replied, nodded. He realized how much he stopped meaning his complaints about wanting to get out of here and go hunt over the months he spent with Sam. He wished he could stay with Sam, but also hunt and save lives. But there was just one or the other.

He heard a rustle of sheets, a scruff of feet. He looked up, just slightly, and saw Sam getting off the bed, something clutched in his hands.

Dean stared at him, and then at his hand curiously. Sam stood before him, looking back at him. His gaze had been steadier these past few months, but it was wavering now, shifting, flickering. It was subtle, but Dean noticed.

"I, um..." Sam started, his hand clenched white. "I don't know. I... it's a little stupid, I guess. But, uh... I just... Bobby said it can protect people, and..." his voice faded uncertainly. Dean was confused, brows pinched, just watching him. Sam sighed, took a deep breath and opened his palm up.

Revealing a black-corded brass amulet, its talisman a horned golden man.

"I-I wanted you t'have it. Y'know, so it can protect you when you're hunting," Sam said softly, wide-eyed and nervous and making Dean's heart sing stupidly.

Dean reached out his fingers, gently unfurled it up from Sam's hand. For a moment, just looking at it, a quiet glint in the lamplight, feeling the silent meaningfulness of it, feeling it buzz in his veins, ache and heat and something, something like wanting to live again.

Sam shifted on his feet. "Um... if you don't want it... just..." He flitted out a hand in front of him, palm up, waiting.

Instead, Dean lifted it and pulled it over his head, watching the weight settle fittingly against his chest.

"Thanks, Sammy," Dean said, rough and intenerated. He cleared his throat, smiled up at him. "I love it."

Sam beamed.

"Don't die," he then said, wide smile gone, dead serious. "Or I'll kick your ass."

Dean chuckled, reached out a hand to the back of his neck and tugged him into a hug. He wrapped his arms around the kid's lanky frame, smiling softly into his shoulder when he felt him return the embrace. Couldn't help but think, god, I love this kid.

And realized that he wasn't half-thinking about doe green-eyes and soft blonde hair and a big-toothed grin. He was only thinking of brown floppy-hair and hazel-puppy eyes and dimpled cheeks. And he was realizing that forgetting Adam and loving Sammy didn't have to be the same thing, and that he could love Sammy because he was Sammy, not because he was like Adam; that he could love them both in the same way, without it being one or the other, without it being selfish. That was okay. That was okay and possible, and maybe this was what Bobby meant.

...

"Why don't ya go with 'im?" Bobby asked Sam, who was sitting on the couch, watching Dean eat his last meal here until next time, which was Bobby's infamous chili again.

Bobby had thought about this a lot. He really had. And while he certainly didn't like the idea of another kid having to travel around on roads and shoot guns at monster-heads, he couldn't help but feel that it would be far more right to keep those boys together. They could find peace in each other from going through what they did, from what they had lost or never really had.

Especially after thinking about Dean's last 'episode'. Something told him that if Sam was with him, it wasn't going to happen again.

"What?" Sam asked, wide-eyed.

"Said, why don't ya go with 'im?"

Sam seemed perked up about that, but also slightly uncertain. He shifted in his seat to turn over to Dean, glancing at him, and then looking back at Bobby.

"You think... you think he'd be... okay with that?" Sam asked tentatively, forehead furrowed.

Bobby shook his head, rolling his eyes and resisting the urge to whack the obliviousness out of his head. "The way that idjit looks at ya? Yeah. Bet he'll love that."

Sam smiled, and Bobby couldn't help but smile too. He pushed himself off the arm of the opposite couch, wiping his hands over his jeans as he stood up straight. "Now, ya wanna tell him the news, or should I?"

...

The next morning, just as the dawn lights began peeking orange and yellow shades over houses and buildings, John stood outside Bobby's house, leaning against his truck. He looked tired, surely having driven all night. Dean was already up and ready to go, somewhat eager, somewhat constantly looking towards where Sam would be inside the house, John noticed.

And then Sam was outside the house, striding over towards them, duffel bag slung over his shoulder. It was heavier than the very first time he remembered seeing it, and he knew it must have something to do with Dean.

John looked at him. Dean seemed confused, brows tight, but also something of a flicker in his eyes. Something like hope.

"What you doing, Sammy?" Dean asked softly.

"I..." Sam said, trailed off. He turned his head and looked back at Bobby, standing in the doorway, who gave him a small encouraging smile. He focused back to Dean, back straightening, standing tall and firm and almost defiant, ready to fight on it. "I'm coming with."

"Sam..."

"It's my decision," Sam said, strong and bold and purposeful, in a way that made John think that he had underestimated him a little too much. "I want to come with."

John glanced over to Dean, expected him to protest.

But he just looked proud.

Like he had known that Sam was strong and bold and purposeful all along, even when he couldn't look them in the eye or talk louder than a mumble. He just knew.

Dean jerked his head towards the car, barely containing his grin. "Get your stuff in."

Once Sam had finished settling his bag against Dean's in the trunk, Dean smiled at him, hand on the door.

"We've got work to do."

He pulled it down and shut it close.

Author's Note: So, as it turns out, a few people were confused in the last chapter about what happened in Sam's past. For this, you can refer back to chapter three, in which Sam's mother's death was explained through a flashback. It was written by my lovely friend, AlElizabeth.

In short (a.k.a a very crappy summarization and probably why I got a C in my English exams *sighs*), Richard Wesson was a transport trucker, and as a result, had to move around a lot, which left his wife, Carol (Sam's mother), lonely at home. This made her susceptible to a monster named Gancanagh, a seductive and attractive creature from the Fair Folk that preyed on vulnerable women. At one point, Sam walked in on them, but being so young, did not understand what was truly going on. His mother told him not to tell anyone about him, which he didn't, and eventually, she got sick from the monster's influence and died.

Thank you to my awesome reviewers: Tie-Dyed Broadway (I love how you always compare the chapters with Panic! At the Disco songs. Makes me so happy!), whatnosheep, StyxxsOmega, Ghostwriter, babyreaper, Kas3y, AlElizabeth, lenail125, girlatthecrossroads, ArtistKurai, Souless666, jensensgirl3, YesteryearsGirl, IWantColoredRain. All your feedbacks made me grin like a dope! Thank you for all the tags and reads. You all rock!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!