Summary: Sam and Dean have conversations with girls with varying degrees of success. As Sam's sleep deprivation increases so does Dean's worry, and it begins to become clear that something is wrong.

As always and forever, thanks to Agelade who takes the time to read over my crap while simultaneously writing a darn fine season 9 for SPN! :D

Chapter 3: "I Disappear"

14 years ago

Sam 9-years-old

Dean 14-years-old

The cafeteria was bustling with lunch lines, lunch ladies, and the clack of formed plastic trays. Boys and girls who bought their food were directed and constantly watched by zealous teacher monitors who made sure hands were kept to themselves and conversation was at an acceptable level.

Sam, with his peanut butter and jelly sandwich, slipped in under the radar. Eyes to the floor but attention on the periphery, he made his way to the corner table as he had yesterday and sat heavily. Two nights of no sleep was taking a toll and he knew it. As long as the sun was up, the irrational fear appeared to be gone, and that's when it was hardest to resist the siren call of unconsciousness.

But school was no place to sleep; it wasn't safe here either, surrounded by strangers. Osseo Elementary was generally calm. Nice. The worst altercation he had seen so far involved a shove in a lunch line which resulted in a principal visit for the guilty party. Still, being nomadic had instilled a kind of paranoia of other people. Even mini ones.

So, it was with the greatest embarrassment that several undefinable seconds later Sam was suddenly half woken from midbite in his sandwich (Dean's handiwork) by the gentle sound of a tray connecting with the table surface. Yes, midbite. A little piece of jelly dropped to his plastic baggy and he looked up quickly to see if anyone had noticed, to make sure he still had all of his stuff. And then he reddened to the tips of his ears as he made eye contact with a girl. With grape jelly all over his chin.

Oh, so smooth. So smooth. Thank God Dean was in an entirely different wing of the building.

She was very pale-that was the first thing Sam noticed-with sandy blond hair gathered at the back and straight cut bangs that were too long and had to be pushed to the side. It left one of her blue eyes in perpetual shadow. The other looked sunken. Her clothes were plain, worn, and when she looked up at Sam from her square of cheese pizza her expression was apologetic, as if she was sorry he had to see her.

Sam's chest squeezed. With little effort she could be collapsed to the size of a milk carton, and while his policy was to keep to himself, it was rare he met someone who so obviously looked like her life was shittier than his own.

"Um. Hi." He tried, as he hastily wiped his chin with a napkin. He spoke softly. She seemed about to shatter from her own weight.

She was still.

"I'm Sam."

Silence.

Sam searched his memory. He hadn't seen this girl at this table yesterday, so maybe they had something in common.

"Um, are you new here too?"

At this, the girl shook her head. "This is my normal seat. I've been...sick for a few days."

"Oh." Sam's eyebrows drew together. It was true-she didn't look well. "I'm sorry." There was a second of silence and then he prompted. "Are you...feeling better?"

She hesitated and then shrugged half-heartedly.

"It doesn't matter. Mommy said I had to go to school so she could work."

Sam felt a lump in his throat and couldn't swallow it down. This was bad because...because he hurt for her. She took a shuddering breath and then looked at him from under her lashes and said, "My name is Amber."

Sam sat up. He was wide awake. She was connecting with him and...and she shouldn't because he wasn't going to be here for very long. He couldn't be a friend. And yet, he felt a tug. A pang.

"Are you in 4th grade too?" Shut up, Sam. Eat your lunch.

She shook her head again. "Third grade." She pushed her tray shyly towards him. "Do you want my pizza?"

Sam blinked at the offering and then pursed his lips before putting on his kindest smile and lifting his half eaten sandwich. "Nah, I'm good. PBJ. My brother made it. He'd be pissed if I ate cafeteria food over his gourmet." Stop joking. Stop. Sam slid the tray back to her and willed her with all of his might. Eat this.

Amber's lips gave Sam a Mona Lisa smile. Her tiny fingers reached towards the slice of pizza and she picked it up to nibble a mouse-sized bite from a corner. It made him feel better somehow.

He cleared his throat. "Do you have any brothers or sisters?" Sam just...couldn't...stop. And that was weird. But he was tired, and she was sad and lonely and sick and no one listened to her either.

Amber paused and then shook her head. "Just my mom. My Dad left on a hunting trip when I was five."

A hunting trip. Sam swallowed.

"That's a...long hunting trip." Not so smooth, idiot. But Sam's defense was that he was blindsided by the similarity on even that point. Figuratively.

"He's not dead but he's not coming back. I know that much." Her whole body shuddered with the confession: "I'm a lot of trouble..."

"Hey," Sam said with sudden intensity, "It's not your fault."

Her eyes filled immediately and Sam was left floundering. Did he...did he just make a little girl cry? He had to get himself together. His emotions were raw. Everything about her was just...hitting all the wrong notes. Or the right notes. No, wrong. But still, to make her cry? He took a deep breath and soothed it out.

"I don't believe it's you. I just don't believe it. Adults do stuff...and they hide things and maybe they don't realize things. I mean. I mean, my Dad's around, sometimes, and he tells me almost nothing when he is there." Dean would murder me right now. What am I saying? Shut up, Sam! "So...don't just think it's you. Okay?"

Amber pursed her lips. She nodded and then picked up a napkin to push at her face. When she pulled it away, she looked somehow sicker, paler, and Sam's stomach fell.

"Sam, I'm really tired..." Her voice was so small.

He put down his sandwich.

"How about you go see the nurse? Even if your mom isn't home to pick you up from school, you could lay down for awhile, right?"

She swallowed and nodded, and then Sam did something he had never done before. He climbed out of his seat and abandoned his things for five minutes to call a table monitor over.

Amber was on his mind for the rest of the day. It was impossible, after that, for her not to be. Sam poked himself in the arm with his pencil during math class to keep alert, to stay awake, to refocus. Somehow her problems felt worse than his own, as impossible as it was. But he had to let her go or it would be harder later.

For her, he reminded himself.

At 3:12 when Sam stepped onto the bus Dean was already in the aisle, pointing to the inside of the bench seat. Sam kept his head down here too because this town was so small that the elementary kids rode with junior high and high school kids. The high school boys, especially, could be the biggest dickwads to anyone they wanted to push around. Not that Sam had anything to worry about on that front; any kid who tried to pick on the quiet little brother had to go through Dean, and Dean was not just all talk when it came to bus altercations. Still, Sam disliked meaningless confrontation and so he did what he always did on the bus: he shut the sounds out of his ears, watched his feet, and slid into the green bench, rucksack on his knees. Only when Dean had plopped down next to him, feet in the aisle like Hadrian's Wall, did his eyes find their way from his feet to the window at his side. Only then did he breathe.

"How was school?" Dean asked.

Sam blinked. How was school? Dean never asked him questions like that. His brother's eyes were fixed on him and he felt a probing stare. Sam inspected the dimpled green vinyl of the seat in front of him and ignored the bone-weariness. An image of Amber's pale face floated in his memory.

"Fine. How was school for you?"

"Um." Sam felt Dean's attention shift and he hazarded a glance up. Dean was staring off at the front of the bus, his eyes already glazing. "Oh, sweet Jesus, there she is." He sat straight up as the object of his attention made her way, laughing, towards them.

So, yeah. Good talk, Sam thought. But it was fine because his plan had been to distract Dean anyway from too many questions. There was no way in hell Dean was going to pull out of him that he had had an honest-to-God conversation with a girl. Or that he hadn't slept in two nights for that matter. The way his brother had been acting lately, it was bound to become a problem. His brother began an ambitious round of flirting with what looked like an 11th grade blond cheerleader-type, while simultaneously watching behind them and in front of them for...what? Danger? Of course danger. Children were dangerous even when nothing supernatural was involved, and he and his brother were complete outsiders here in a town where everyone knew everyone.

Sam concentrated on the sound of his brother's voice to help him stay awake-not that it was entertaining or impressive in any way. Dean's lines sounded like something from a TV show: "Hey, sweetheart. I saw you at P.E. Are those shorts legal in Wisconsin?"

At some point when they were littler, Dean's obsession had been chiefly with cars. That was easy to understand because cars were fast, cool, and fixable. When, exactly, did girls start to climb the ladder of importance? It just proved that Dean was...changing. In ways. Some of those ways were making Dean harder to live with. Some of the changes worried Sam, though he wouldn't admit it. What if Dean changed into an adult like their father? Overnight? Dean already idolized the man, patterned himself after him, liked the same things their father liked with almost comedic perfection. It might have been comedic except that their father was hardly Father Of The Year. For one thing, he was never there.

What if Dean became like that? What if he became the stranger their father was? Sam shuddered. He had the irrational desire to hold onto Dean's shirttail like he used to when he was younger. The connection had solidified his physical proximity to the only other person in this world he knew, and, as a child, it was a lifeline-a source of comfort.

But Sam was trying to grow out of that habit.

Sam leaned forward, put his forehead onto the seat in front of him, and for maybe 20 minutes he slept like that. It was a surreal kind of jostled sleep covered in swear words and the smell of gum, and the sounds of happy and guileless children all talking, laughing, breathing...

Breathing...

Sam.

Strange...

Breathing.

Sam...

Who are you? Do I know you?

Sam, I'm leaving with Dad for a few weeks. Mac and Cheese is in the cupboard. I put a gun under your pillow. Keep the door locked until we get back. This place has cable, so knock yourself out. Just make sure you get some sleep. Dean smiles and pats him on the shoulder. You're big enough now.

No, Dean.

Come on, Sam, you knew this day was coming. Dean loads a bag with guns. Big guns. Small guns. Me and Dad have a job to do.

Don't Dean. Please don't...at least, take me with you.

Ready to kill something, Sammy?

Silence...

I don't want to kill anything.

Gotta stay home, Sammy. You aren't ready. You'll know when it's time.

Sammy, don't cry. You aren't a baby. Be a man. Sam. Sammy.

Dean, I'm cold.

"Sammy, wake up."

Sam jolted awake, an icy shiver down his spine, and in his mind's eye he saw a mirror-like shine in a place it shouldn't have been, and for a second his name had sounded strange in his ears. Instinctively he grabbed Dean's shirt, frantic for some reason he couldn't remember.

"Sam?"

Sam blinked. He was on the bus. Right. He dropped Dean's shirt as if it was made of molten lava and he let a suspicious Dean pull him out of the seat onto the drop off curb near the gas station, and he was quiet. But he was thinking of the closet at the motel.

Where it was...

If it was nothing, then it was nothing. If it was nothing, then he was just jittery lately. Dad had recently come back from a trip that was, like, a week long. It was normal to feel jumpy. Other children had routine fears about dark rooms- his was nothing new. But maybe, just maybe, what they thought was just routine was...something else. And maybe that "something else" was in the closet in the motel room, watching him. Waiting.

Suddenly a weight was lifted from his shoulder. Sam felt the rucksack drag down his arm for a split second and then was gone. He berated himself for having to blink twice to stop and get his bearings.

"Hey Sammy, this thing's gonna put you in the dirt." Dean hefted the bag onto his own shoulder and scanned the road before looking down at him again. "What's wrong with you? You're like a space case. Not sniffing whiteout or eating paste in that class, are you?"

And Dean was in douche mode apparently. Again. Sam's tired face reddened as he remembered grabbing Dean's shirt on the bus. Embarrassed and confused and irritated, Sam's expression fell into something hard as he grabbed his bag off of Dean's shoulder and took the weight, his weight, back. "I can carry my own stuff."

"Whoa. Alright already," Dean put up his hands. Sam saw the look of worry in his brother's eyes as he quickly turned around. A little bit of the Old Dean. Or...the younger Dean whom he used to ask to check his closets for him. And under the bed. But Sam didn't want to be the nervous little brother anymore. He had to grow up. He had to or he would be left behind. If his father was man enough to stake a vampire without batting an eyelash and Dean was totally ready to do the same, then he could deal with his...his boogeyman issues on his own. Yes, he could.

And despite those strong words to himself, despite Dean's veiled and sometimes extremely direct commands to explain why Sam's glazed eyes were half-focused on his plate of macaroni and cheese like he could see the future in it, that night in bed there he was, staring at shiny eyes from his closet.

They were eyes. They had to be eyes, right?

Was it waiting for something?

That was it. He was going to get up and just walk over there-open that damn door, find the stupid shiny eye-like thing and get it over with. Once he knew it was...whatever it was...he could sleep. Sleep. And then he wouldn't have to be subject to his brother's comments, he would keep his eyes open in school and continue to be worthy of Mrs. Appleton's notice...of Amber's tiny smile.

But he could not. He could not. He could not get out of bed. Something inside, something in his brain that trumped every fraction of logic he had managed to develop in his almost ten years of life, told him to stay away. It practically screamed it. It also told him that if he looked away or fell asleep, those eyes would emerge connected to some nightmare, and it would be on him so fast there wouldn't be time to shout. To cry out. To do anything but die. And that same something that told him not to look away, to stay put, told him that he was the only target in this room. Just him. Sam Winchester.

Ironically, it seemed that the only one who had any real use for him was a monster.

January 25, 2006

Flash forward

Dean 27-years-old

Sam 22-years-old

Libraries made Dean itch. It wasn't that he hated words, it's just that there were so many in a library, all jumbled together, most of them completely pointless. Like any deep wilderness, one needed a guide to make it through, to survive it, to sift out the useless from the useful.

Luckily he had a smart little brother to work this part of their current case.

From across the open room, Dean observed Sam at a far table completely engrossed in a very old book. He was checking the words with his finger, making small, precise notes in a notebook. It was very Dadlike. Did Sammy even realize how much he looked like him when he was knee-deep in research? Would he be flattered by it? Probably not. But Dean might have been a little jealous.

He purposefully stealthed up behind his brother to survey the researcher's "nest" Sam had made- all very carefully arranged-pencils, pens, books neatly stacked and...something he hadn't seen in a long time.

He smiled and picked it up. "Hey, you still have this? Holy crap."

Sam jumped slightly, and Dean forgave him for not watching his back as he turned to see what his brother was talking about.

"Yeah, of course I do. Why wouldn't I?"

Dean shrugged lamely. "I don't know. I guess I just thought...it's kinda old. And..." his smile fell. Once upon a time he had been so excited to give this to Sammy. For his 10th birthday.

God, that birthday. Was everything going to remind him of it now?

"Dean, this was best present you ever gave me when we were kids...or ever," Sam academically explained as he took it from his hand carefully, reverently.

"Yeah, I didn't have it in me to top it," he laughed shortly but there was no joy in it.

Sam stared up at him quizzically and squinted his eyes. "Hey, what's with you?" He points, "you still wear that...stupid pendant I gave you for Christmas."

Damn you, Sam. No fair going for the heart. "I like this pendant, okay? It's...lucky." He cleared his throat and pointed at the gift as Sam started to clean up his nest. "I just thought, you know...with it being that day when I gave it..."

Sam flashed a brief smile that quickly escaped back to neutral. He nodded. "It's important to me, okay? Happy?"

Yeah. Yeah, actually, Dean was...and felt tremendously guilty for it.

Sam faced the books and began closing them. "And you can one-up it any year you stop giving me beef jerky or beer or porn for my birthday."

"What? Hell no, you need those things. That's like, road survival gear."

"Yeah, like the three quarts of motor oil, dashboard cleaner, and Turtle wax you asked for your birthday yesterday?"

Dean shrugged, "Gotta keep the baby happy, Sammy, or she won't take us anywhere. And you owe me a 'wax off' after we get this job done, Daniel-san."

Sam raised his eyebrows at that. "Right. Sure thing, Mr. Miyagi."

"Shhh!"

An imposing old woman with blue hair gave him the stink eye. Dean did the only mature thing given the situation: he stuck out his tongue.

"I've got what we need," Sam whispered obediently. He finished putting everything into the faded green rucksack and stood up.

Dean swallowed. His mind was still on the image of his little brother's face and that present. The surprise...and then the door opening...

Sam put a steadying hand on his shoulder as if the older brother was the one who needed comfort. And in a way, he was. That gift would only ever be a reminder of a time Sam should have just...let go. It shouldn't have been something he carried around for the next twelve and a half years of his life. None of it was.

Dean realized he had gotten stalled in the memory himself when Sam finally said, "I'm not thinking about it. Let's go find Dad or save someone."

Yeah. Sammy was becoming a good liar too.

(to be continued...)