A/N Ever just have one of those weeks/months where everyone is at you, and you can't get a minute to yourself? At least, not while you have a functional brain?
Sorry it's been so long.
Comment responses at the end with some explanations for the non-US residents and others.
I own nothing you already knew when you started reading, and I make no money off it.
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Singer Salvage
Sioux Falls, SD
June 16, 2001
12:30 pm
"Where is he?!"
Dean stepped back, amused, as Rick stalked into the front room, leaving Dean to close the door behind Sam's friend. "Hi, Rick," he said mildly. "Nice to see you, too."
Rick turned to face the older man, not in the least bit shamed by his rudeness or intimidated by Dean when the taller boy loomed over him, arms crossed.
There were advantages to being the youngest of five boys. Occasionally.
"Where's Sam?" Rick repeated, crossing his own arms and glaring up at Dean, who just raised an eyebrow. "And don't lie," he added firmly. "I know something's happened to him. What is it?"
"Why do you think anything…"
"Oh, please!" Rick scoffed and stalked a few feet away, before turning back to Dean and beginning to count his reasons off methodically on the fingers of one hand.
No wonder Sam was friends with the kid — two nerds in a pod.
"He hasn't answered a single call or text since last Thursday," Rick recited, "And not just my calls, either — none of the Pets have heard from him. He was going to stay over at my place last Friday while my Dad was out of town, and just never showed, no explanation. Sam always gives an explanation, even though I know he's mostly lying, and he knows I know he's mostly lying. He completely blew off Annie's birthday party Monday, again with no explanation, and he was the one who suggested the party in the first place. Nobody's seen him around town at all, not even waiting in that boat of yours while you chat up some chick at the diner. And Mrs. Ross says he hasn't been out jogging in over a week, and we both know he always goes by her house to make sure the mail and newspaper have been taken in, so he's sure she's okay.
"I know something happened to him, Dean. Did he have to go into hiding from your father? Did he get hurt on one of your…weekend ghostbuster things? What was it? Tell me. Please!" Rick added a little desperately. "He's my best friend, Dean, and I'm worried about him. What happened? Why has he just…disappeared?"
Dean watched the younger boy as he ranted, surprised that the kid knew so much about his baby brother. He wasn't sure if should be annoyed or impressed.
"Wow," he finally said. "That's a lot of guesswork over a kid who's got the flu."
"The flu?" Rick scoffed. "Well, hell, I had my flu shot last year, I'm just going to take my chances and go say hi," he decided and started towards the stairs, only to find Dean standing firmly in front of him at the bottom of the staircase. "Yeah," Rick nodded. "That's what I thought. Flu, my ass!" Rick shook his head and sighed, running his fingers through his messy black hair. "Look," he said more calmly. "I know that you and Sam have secrets, okay? And I know there's a good reason for them. There has to be, because Sam doesn't like secrets, and he wouldn't keep so much hidden if he didn't have to. Whatever's going on…Dean, I'm not going to tell anybody. Sam's secrets — and your secrets — are my secrets. I'm never going to betray Sam's trust. Ever. Or yours. I just want to know that my friend's okay. Or that he will be, because if he were actually okay, he'd be returning my fucking calls!"
Dean sighed and ran a hand over his close cropped dark blonde hair. "I…let's sit down," he urged and motioned to the old couch in front of the windows in the living room.
Rick nodded and walked over to throw himself petulantly into one corner of the sagging cushions, watching as Dean sat slowly at the other end of the couch.
"Okay, we're sitting," Rick shrugged after a moment. "Tell me."
"Sam's…" Dean hesitated and went for the one truth he believed in. "He's going to be okay."
Rick nodded, slowly. "Okay. Good to know. What is he now?"
Dean frowned.
"If he's going to be okay, then clearly he isn't okay, now," Rick pointed out. "So what is he? Sick? Hurt? Missing? What?"
"Um." Dean frowned and looked out the window hoping for some inspiration from the dried out front lawn.
The thing was, he respected Rick. He really did. The kid was bright and funny and loyal — like Sam — and he couldn't ask for a better friend for his little brother. Besides, despite himself, Dean liked Rick and it was weirdly hard — almost painful — to lie to the kid. In the two years or so they'd been in Sioux Falls, Dean had come to view Rick as…well, not quite a brother, but maybe a cousin. Or, what he thought a cousin might be like, anyway, since he'd never had one of his own.
Rick was some kind of half-assed family, at any rate.
He wanted to trust Rick, he really did. But something was after Sammy, and he just couldn't take the chance.
"Rick, I'm sorry," he finally shrugged, "but I can't tell you. I wish I could, man, but…"
Rick nodded, and reached a hand into his tee shirt to pull out a small round charm on a shiny chain. "Does this help?" he wondered, and held the pendant out to Dean.
Dean frowned. Where the hell did this kid get an anti-possession charm?
"Sam gave it to me," Rick answered the unasked question. "He wouldn't tell me what it is, what it means, but he said that if we were going to be friends — if we were going to hang out a lot — I had to wear it. All the time. Even in the shower, or when I sleep. ALL the time. And I had to keep it on this chain," he added and lifted the string of small, shiny links towards Dean.
He might not be a jewelry expert, but Dean could always tell a silver chain when he saw one. Slowly, he reached out and took the charm between his thumb and forefinger, recognizing the weight of the disc, and gave a half smile at his Sammy's thoroughness. An iron anti-possession charm on a silver chain.
Nice, Sammy.
"I might not know what it's for," Rick admitted, "but it's important to Sam. I've never taken it off. Not since he gave it to me."
Dean nodded, and stood slowly. "Wait there," he instructed, and Rick rolled his eyes, but didn't get off the couch as Dean walked into the library and out of sight, returning a scant minute later with a glass of what looked like water.
Dean stopped beside him, looming over the smaller boy, and pressed the glass into Rick's hands. "Drink."
Rick frowned up at Dean, then sniffed the glass cautiously. He smelled nothing, so he just shrugged and took a long drink, draining about half the glass.
When he looked up again, Dean was smiling and nodding slowly as he took the glass back and set it aside on the end table as he sat on the couch again.
"Okay," Dean nodded and sighed. "Again. One at a time. What do you think might've happened to him?"
Rick looked surprised by the question, and thought for just a moment about protesting, but… well, he'd known when he came over, intending to demand the truth from the truth-shy Winchesters, that it wouldn't be easy to learn what he needed to know. So, okay, he'd play whatever weird game Dean wanted. So long as it got him to Sam.
"Is he in hiding from your dad?"
Dean frowned. "Why do you think that?"
"Well, I know he used to beat the shit of Sam," Rick admitted and huffed half a laugh at the look of pure shock on Dean's face. "Relax!" he chuckled. "I don't think anyone else knows."
"How do you?" Dean wondered, and was surprised not to be upset that he'd just tacitly confirmed Rick's hypothesis as truth.
Rick shrugged again. "He stays over sometimes. Sam. He's real careful in gym class or whatever to be sure no one sees him changing. He's less careful at my place. I've seen his scars. Now, some of them, I've got, just…no…fucking clue what would cause those. But there are others…" His voice trailed off and he looked out the window for a moment, before turning back to look Dean squarely in the eye. "My brother Clay," he explained, "my oldest brother. He's adopted. Back when Dad and my mother didn't think they could have kids of their own. It's pretty typical of my Dad — and I guess, of my mom — that they took the least adoptable, oldest, rudest, most difficult kid they could find in the system, to smother with parental affection," he chuckled. "But Clay's bio-dad? Used to regularly whale on the kid with his belt. Sometimes the buckle end. So, yeah. Soon's I saw some of Sam's scars, I knew what caused 'em. Given that you have custody, and that some of the stuff Sam's said lets me know your dad is still alive? Basically, 1 plus 1. Simple math. Shitty answer."
"You're a regular little Sherlock Holmes, aren't ya?" Dean frowned and shook his head, because of course Sam would be best friends with the most observant kid in his class who just happened to know exactly what scars having the shit beat out of you left behind.
"Is that it?" Rick pressed.
"No," Dean assured him. "Nothing to do with our dad. Your next guess was…"
Rick shrugged again. "Ghostbusting got out of hand."
"Ghostbusting," Dean repeated, keeping his tone carefully deadpan as his pulse shot up and his brain started the 'hunter in hiding' litany of oh shit, oh shit, ohshit.
"Yeah," Rick defended. "Or whatever the hell you two do when you suddenly disappear on a weekend and come back all banged up or broken."
"Why is that ghostbusting?" Dean challenged. "Maybe we like rock climbing. Camping in extreme conditions. Maybe we skydive and just aren't very good at it."
Rick just laughed. "Okay, first — you hate flying. That's why Sam can recognize the sound of your Batmobile when it's still a block out, because you have to drive across the country, instead of flying to wherever."
Dean rubbed a hand over his eyes. Damn, my kid's got a big mouth.
"Second, Sam hates camping. I know, 'cause my brothers Mike and Dave and I go a couple times a year, and we've invited him to come with. Mike and Dave wanted to invite you, too, by the way, which just made Sam laugh."
Yep. Going to need to have a talk with the kid when he comes back.
"As for why I know it's some kind of ghostbusting gig," Rick added and made sure Dean was looking directly in his eyes, "you need to know that Sam's never said a word about it. Not to me, and I'm sure not to anybody else. But I know that's what you guys do. You go after ghosts, or…boogeymen…or…some damn thing that shouldn't exist, but does."
"And you say that because…"
"Well, let's start with the fact that Sam is a walking Encyclopedia of the Weird."
"Aw, ain't that the truth," Dean grinned. "But a lot of people like that kind of shit. Sam just reads about it more than other people."
"I'm sure he does," Rick grinned back, "and I'd go with that, if it weren't for his other little reading habit."
Dean frowned. "What do you mean?"
"For all of senior year, and half the year before, Sam and I have had the same free period," Rick told him. "And, being the nerds we are, we spend it in the library. I read science and psychology mags, and Sam…Sam looks at newspapers. Mrs. Montgomery, the head librarian? She's actually taken on about a dozen more papers because of Sam's interest. He reads every paper he can get his hands on for every city, town, county and freakin' holler within about a…3-400 mile radius. Although, reading the papers isn't quite the right description. He skims them," he corrected himself. "Like he's looking for something specific. And when he finds what he's looking for…he makes copies of the article. And once he copies an article, nine times out of ten…whatever we had planned for the weekend…he suddenly can't make it. And five, maybe six times out of ten, he comes back with some bruise, or bandage or some other injury he can't — or just won't — explain.
"That goes on long enough, a guy gets curious," Rick admitted. "So I started looking through the papers he looked through, the ones he made copies of. At first I didn't know what I was looking for, but then I noticed. All the papers he made copies of had one thing in common. They all reported that people were getting hurt. Or going missing. Or getting killed. And, most of the time, the local cops were either stumped, not really tryin', or they just had real stupid theories, like animal attacks in the middle of a city, or inside a locked apartment — like bear is going to break in, maul some poor schlub, then lock back up when he leaves. And then you and Sam go away for a weekend, sometimes longer. And when he comes back to school, he's all banged up." Rick looked away from Dean and ran a hand roughly over his eyes. "And when he comes back, even if he…if he hasn't been hurt…physically…there's always something in his eyes," Rick whispered. "A hurt there. A sorrow. An anger, sometimes. He comes back looking…I don't know. Haunted, maybe?" He met Dean's gaze again. "Look, my brother Jeff and I are the only two of the five of us who weren't adopted. And Clay wasn't the only one who got beat on — or worse — by somebody they should've been able to trust, you know? And I'll tell you, from experience? When you've been through that, when somebody who should've protected you hurts you, real bad? It makes you hard. And then it takes a lot to put that kind of a look in your eyes.
"I guess what I'm saying is that I, uh, Sherlocked it. I don't know what you guys do, not exactly, but I would lay every bit of cash I have, that you're protecting people from things that would hurt them. Hurt them bad. You're out there, the two of you, some times every weekend, trying to stop something from killin' people. Add that to Sam's, uh…Encyclopedia tendencies? That's 2 plus 2, equals Ghostbusters."
"Damn," Dean shook his head, forcing a laugh. "That's, uh…that's some pretty out there Sherlocking, kid. Does Sam know you think this stuff about us?" he wondered, putting as much incredulity into his voice as he could manage, given that the kid just laid their whole fucking lives bare. Shitshitshit.
"He does," Rick admitted with the smallest of smiles. "He won't confirm it," he admitted, "I think to keep me safe. But he doesn't deny it either. The most I can get out of him is, uh 'don't ask…"
"You don't want to know," Dean finished solemnly, and Rick nodded. "He's right, you don't."
"Yeah, I figured," Rick agreed. "Believe me, I'm not eager to get that…that look, either. It's why I've never pushed it. Never gave him a hard time about deflecting. But, it's different now, isn't it? Something's happened to him. Something bad has hurt my friend. Or…I don't know…took him, maybe? Whatever's happened…look all I know for sure, is that if Sam weren't in some kind of trouble…big trouble…then he'd be answering my calls. He wouldn't just ignore me by choice, Dean. I know that. I know that like I know how to breathe. And if Sam's in trouble, if he's in danger, I wanna know. If I can, I wanna help. Just…" He looked down for a moment, gave a little sniff and ran the back of his hand angrily across his eyes. When he spoke again, his voice was shaking, and it about broke Dean's heart. "I just need to know he's not dead, or something. Okay? Just…if you can't tell me what's going on, just…Give me that much, Dean. Please? Is Sam alive? Do you even know?"
The Big Brother in Dean couldn't leave the kid in pain, and he found himself reaching out to put a reassuring hand on Rick's shaking shoulder.
"He's not dead," Dean assured him. "And I do know that he isn't. In fact, he's…" Dean paused and shook his head, amazed at himself for what he was about to say. For what he was about to give away. "As far as we can tell, he's safe. Basically. We think."
"As far as you can tell?! What the hell does that mean, 'as far as you can tell'?"
Dean sighed and shook his head. "Sam is…he's in…It's kinda like a coma," he admitted with a shrug. "Only…not. Look. I'm not trying to dodge anything here — although I probably should," he chuckled darkly. "We don't know what's wrong with him. Not really. But he's not gotten any worse, and…That's all I really know to tell you, kid. Honestly? We think he's going to be okay, we really do. We just…don't know when."
"Coma," Rick breathed with a frown. "Well…what hospital is he at? And why aren't you with him? To hear Sam talk, every time he has a cold, you barely leave his side. But he's in a fucking coma, and your here?"
"He's not in a hospital," Dean admitted. "They couldn't help him. They'd…just trust me when I say, a hospital is the last place he should be right now. He is under medical care," he hastened to add, "but…not in a hospital."
"Then…well, where is he?"
Dean closed his eyes with a sigh. He knew what the next question would be after the answer, and he wasn't entirely sure what he would say in response. "He's upstairs," he admitted. "In our room."
"In your..can I see him?"
Dean opened his eyes, smiling sadly at the eager look on the kid's face. "If I say yes, you cannot tell anyone. And I mean Any. One. Ever. Okay?"
Rick nodded. "Of course not," he agreed. "I told you. I'll keep your secrets. Always."
Dean nodded slowly. "I know you will," he admitted. "All right," he agreed and stood slowly. "Come on."
Rick followed Dean up the staircase, marveling, as he had on the few previous occasions when Sam had led the way upstairs, at the way Dean, like Sam, made no sound on the stairs, while every step Rick took seemed to make the entire staircase squeak.
They reached the landing, and Dean stopped, facing Rick with a frown. "Look, when you see him…"
"I've seen people unconscious before," Rick nodded. "Couple years back, Clay and Jeff got t-boned by a drunk driver. Jeff didn't wake up for four days. I know he's going to look bad. Are there tubes and stuff?"
Dean nodded. "Yeah, he's got an I.V. and we added a feeding tube, a few days ago. But, it's more than that," Dean warned. "There aren't any monitors, or anything, and…well…look, when look at him, it's gonna seem…he's gonna look…kinda…well. Dead."
Rick nodded again. "Yeah. I've seen that. Sometimes the only way you can tell they aren't dead is watching them breathe."
Dean bit his lower lip. "Yeah, about that," he began with a wince. "You're not going to see that."
"What, I'm not going to see him breathe?"
"No," Dean shook his head. "You're not. He is breathing," he hastened to add, "but…not deep enough or…or often enough to be noticed when you just look. And you wouldn't find a pulse, either. Like I said. He looks dead. But he isn't, Rick. I swear to you, he's not. I just…it's kind of a shock to see it," Dean shrugged. "T'be honest, it still kinda creeps me out, and I know what's going on. More or less."
Rick nodded. "Okay. Thanks for the warning," he added and turned towards the door he knew led to the brothers' room.
Dean stepped in front of him, and opened the door.
The bedroom looked basically the same as the last time Rick had been there, about a month ago. The nightstand that had previously separated the Winchesters' twin beds now stood against the wall opposite the door, on the far side of Sam's bed, repurposed with a bracket and pole to hold the I.V. bags and the bag leading to what he guessed was the feeding tube that ran into Sam's nose.
An old wooden trunk that had stood on the wall opposite the bottom of the beds was now tucked up against the foot of Sam's bed, piled with what looked like old pillows, giving support to Sam's ankles and feet where they hung over the end of the bed.
Rick moved slowly into the room, walking between the beds — and was the space between them actually narrower than it used to be, or did it just seem that way without the nightstand between them? — until he was standing at Sam's bedside.
"You can sit," Dean said gently and Rick nodded, settling himself carefully on the edge of the mattress.
He made an abortive move towards taking Sam's hand, but stopped himself, remembering that Dean stood behind him.
"Can he hear us?" Rick practically whispered, glancing up at Dean.
"Can't say for sure," Dean admitted, reluctantly. "Maybe? I like to think so. Otherwise, I'm spending a lot of time talking to myself."
Rick nodded, and turned to look again at his friend, lying so unnaturally still beneath the cotton sheet that was pulled halfway up over his chest.
"What the hell happened?" he breathed. "How did…What did this?" he wondered and twisted to look up at Dean, standing a foot or so behind him.
"I don't really know," Dean confessed, quietly. "I was there, but…" He stepped forward as Rick turned his attention to the figure in the bed, and put a hand lightly on Rick's shoulder. "Something's after him, Rick," he whispered. "For more than a year. And I don't know what. Nobody does. Not even Sam."
Rick looked back up at him. "What do you mean, after him? Like…trying to kill him? Is that what happened?" he wondered, looking again at his friend in the bed. "Did something try to kill you?"
Dean shook his head. "I don't know," he admitted. "Maybe. But…I think…"
"What?" Rick pressed. "What do you think?"
"Sometimes…I don't think they were trying to kill him. But I think maybe…maybe they tried to take him."
Rick turned more fully to look at Dean, who stood frowning down at his brother, a look of such pain and loss on his face that Rick was embarrassed to see it. "Take him?" he repeated. "You mean…like, an abduction? Like aliens?"
Dean's eyes flew to Rick and he gave a breathy laugh. "No!" he smiled. "There's no such thing."
"But then…"
"I don't know what," Dean shrugged. "It's just a thought," he clarified. "It just seems, sometimes…"
Rick turned back to his not-actually-comatose friend. "You think they tried to take him," he said flatly. "And they only got his mind." He shot another look at Dean over his shoulder. "Is he brain-dead? Dean, is that what you're trying to say? They took his mind and he's…"
"He's not brain dead," Dean assured him. "We've checked. Over and over. He's not brain dead. He's…" Dean stopped himself, and looked away, towards the door and escape. "I, uh…You know what, I need to go check some…things," Dean decided. "Downstairs. I'll um…" Dean nodded, realizing that Rick had stopped paying him the slightest bit of attention. "Yeah," he finished and left the room, closing the door behind him with an audible click.
Rick heard the door close and waited a beat; two; then reached out to take Sam's large hand between his own smaller ones.
"Dammit, Sam," he whispered and finally allowed the tears that had been threatening almost since Dean had let him in the front door to fall. He lifted the large hand from the bed and lowered his forehead to rest against it, taking some small comfort from the warmth of Sam's skin, letting the meager heat reassure him that Dean was right — Sam was living still, despite appearances to the contrary. "Oh, god," he breathed, and without thinking, placed a small kiss to the back of Sam's fingers. "Damn," he muttered, and his gaze flew to Sam's face, still, quiet and unresponsive to his touch.
He lowered Sam's hand to the bed anyway, unaccountably embarrassed.
"I'm sorry," he told his friend, and lightly patted the hand. "I shouldn't have…I mean I know you don't…I'm sorry," he repeated and took a steadying breath.
Rick spent a few minutes watching the slow drip of fluid from the bag to the I.V. tube, unconsciously smoothing the sheet covering Sam's unmoving chest over and over again.
"I don't know if I ever told you," he said, finally, "but most of our graduating class — and I'm talking, 90, 95 percent, here — I've known most of them literally since kindergarten. First, second grade at the latest. Was real close with some of them. Lost some of them as friends when I came out in sixth grade. Others, when they went into sports or somethin'." He inhaled deeply, let it out slow. "Kids I've known, been friends with, more or less, for 13 years. Longer, some of 'em." He finally let his hand rest on the back of Sam's again. "Never had a better friend than you," he admitted a little reluctantly. "Which is ridiculous, really," he scoffed. "I know everything there is to know about basically everybody we went to school with, and you don't share shit," he laughed to himself. "And what you do share… at best, it's half truths. Outright lies, some of it. And still…" He paused and wiped his hand lightly across his mouth. "Best friend I've ever had," he breathed.
Rick closed his eyes, and shook his head, trying to fight back more tears. "Dean says," he continued his monologue after a moment, "that you're not brain dead. He really seems to think you're in there. And that you can hear. Maybe. I don't know if that's true; if any of it's true. But on the off chance that you can hear me, Sam? Please come back. I miss you," he admitted and started to cry in earnest. "Just come back. I need my friend."
Rick slid slowly to his knees beside the bed, pressed his cheek to Sam's limp hand, and sobbed.
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Dean leaned briefly against the door to their room, closing his eyes. He was unsettled and uneasy almost beyond words that he'd so easily told Rick — an outsider, for all that Sam trusted him and he, himself, liked the kid — that Sam was completely vulnerable. Worse, he'd left the kid alone with his brother.
Rick's a good guy. He's not possessed by a demon or ghost, he's not a shifter. It's fine. It's all fine.
He took a deep breath, and forced himself to walk to the stairs, and concentrated on getting his feet to make the descent away from Sammy.
He got to the bottom of the stairs and just stood there, looking around the foyer and front room as if he'd never seen them before, confused by his own actions.
He'd left Sammy, unconscious to the extreme, alone with someone else. Someone not him, not Bobby, not even Carla, and he'd barely hesitated.
"It's gotta be some kind of a spell," he mused aloud and turned to start up the stairs again.
He got as far as three steps from the top when he heard Rick's heartbroken — heartbreaking — sobs through the door.
Nope.
That was real. No way was that not real, not really Rick. No way.
And no fucking way could he deal with a sobbing kid who wasn't his baby brother.
He turned and went back downstairs, immensely relieved when he heard the familiar slightly off-kilter rumble of Bobby's POS Chevelle pull into the yard.
By the time Bobby was parked, Dean was opening the unlocked passenger door and flipping the seat forward to get to the back seat, grateful to have something to do.
Bobby raised an eyebrow as Dean pulled the grocery bags from the back of the car. "Thanks, Dean," he said cautiously, not sure how to deal with the unexpected behavior. Usually if he wanted Dean to help bring in the groceries he had to threaten the boy with starvation (you want to eat food I bought, made in my pans, kept in my kitchen, you can bring in a couple of damn bags). And why wasn't he with Sam?
Dean half-jogged up the front steps and Bobby grabbed the last of the bags, kicking the door on the driver's side closed. He was part way up the front steps before he saw the heavily Bondo-ed Volvo parked on the other side of Dean's Impala.
When Bobby reached the kitchen, the miracles continued — Dean was actually putting the groceries away.
The pair worked in companionable silence, refilling the fridge and the pantry, before Bobby spoke.
"That Rick's BondoMobile I saw out front?" he wondered casually.
Dean shrugged, equally casually. "Yep. He noticed that Sammy was kinda missing from…well, everything…and came around to make sure he's okay."
"And you told him…."
"I said it was the flu," Dean admitted with a sheepish half-grin. "He didn't buy it."
"Ah."
Dean reached into the fridge for a couple beers, and handed one to the older hunter before using his ring to pop the top off his own.
The pair drank quietly, leaning against the counter.
"Did you know Sam gave him an anti-possession charm?" Dean wondered, still keeping the casual tone.
"Huh. I did not," Bobby admitted.
"Yeah. Iron charm, silver chain."
Bobby nodded thoughtfully. "Bright idea."
"Yeah."
"I take it from the glass in the living room, you also gave him some holy water," Bobby observed.
"Yeah. It's Rick," Dean confirmed and huffed a tiny laugh. "If I had any doubts after that, the sobbing coming from Sammy's room right now pretty much killed 'em."
"Sobbing," Bobby frowned and looked up at the ceiling.
"Yeah," Dean drawled slowly. "I thought I could leave him alone for that."
"Good thinkin'," Bobby nodded, because heaven forbid a Winchester should actually deal with any real damned emotions. Next time he needed Dean to clear out, he'd have some neighbor come by and cry, that'd have him running. Idjit.
"He's figured out we hunt," Dean admitted quietly and moved to sit wearily at the foot of table, closest to the door, because even for Bobby, any evil damn thing would have to go through him first. "Well, he calls it ghostbusting, but…yeah. Turns out, those hunts Sammy would bring us? He was looking 'em up in the school library. Basically in front of Rick, who figured it out."
"He's a bright kid," Bobby noted and sat at the head of the table. "Sam wouldn't be his friend, otherwise."
Dean nodded in agreement. "Nothing gets Sammy to drop a potential friend faster than stupidity." Or endlessly moving from town to town.
"Whatcha tell him?" Bobby asked gently. "About what happened to Sam."
Dean shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck with one hand, keeping the other wrapped around the bottle in front of him. "The truth, basically."
"Which is…" Because if Dean knew the Truth of what had happened to their boy, he sure the hell hadn't shared it with Bobby.
"Something's after him," Dean said quietly. "We don't know what, but it…it left him…" He shook his head and gestured vaguely at the ceiling above.
"Yeah."
Silence fell, while the two men sipped their beers and avoided looking at each other or the empty seat between them.
"You know…" Bobby began and stopped when Dean's voice broke over his.
"I was thinking…"
They smiled at each other, both fairly confident that they were on the same page.
Dean lifted his chin in Bobby's direction, urging the older hunter to speak first.
Bobby nodded in gracious acknowledgement. "Rick's a smart kid," he began and Dean nodded.
"We know he's good at research," Dean pointed out, "from all those projects and papers he and Sammy did together."
"And he was in Sam's Latin class," Bobby mused. "Got good grades, as I recall. Near as good as Sam's."
"And since he's already figured stuff out…"
The discussion stopped before the obvious conclusion could be reached, and the pair stood to go into the living room when they heard the creaking of the stairs.
The hunters stood quietly, looking at the red eyed teen who walked slowly down the stairs.
Rick stepped into the living room and, cut to the chase. "I wanna help."
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Singer Salvage
Sioux Falls, SD
July 13, 2001
3:30 PM
They'd fallen into a routine since that hot June afternoon when Rick had arrived, spoiling for a fight and leaving with a purpose.
Dean, of course, spent the vast majority of his time sitting at his brother's bedside, ensuring that the I.V. bags and the nutrient bag for the feeding tube were regularly changed, cleaning up after his brother as required (with absolutely no embarrassment, to Bobby, Rick and even Carla's astonishment. Dean would just shrug. He'd started changing Sammy's diapers when Dean was only four. At least now, the kid wasn't trying to kick him or roll away).
Carla still came several times a week, to bring new supplies and, once a week, run new EEGs to make sure that Sam's brain was still functioning. Well, overfunctioning.
Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, Bobby would take a short evening shift with Sam so Dean could eat a decent meal and get a shower, before returning to spend the night at Sam's side. (At first, Dean had been pushing their beds together at night, then sliding them back apart in the morning, but the visible grooves on the hardwood floor had prompted Bobby to put an end to that. We all know you're putting the beds together every night, boy, we ain't blind. Just leave 'em together in the middle of the room. It gives more room on the side with the I.V.s, and saves you havin' to refinish my floors when Sam's awake again).
Rick worked as one of the service coordinators at his dad's flagship car dealership, but came over after work nearly every night, happily cooking for Bobby and Dean, since one could only eat so much chili or pot roast in any given week, and pizza or cheeseburgers every other night of the week was apparently "too unhealthy" (and what was it, Dean wondered, about brainiac kids that made them so hung up on vegetables and low cholesterol?). After dinner, he helped Bobby with research as they tried (so far unsuccessfully) to determine what exactly was after Sam. His shift at the dealership didn't start until noon on Monday, Wednesdays and Thursdays, and he was off completely Saturdays and Sundays, so Rick took a shift with Sam on the nights Bobby didn't, bullying Dean with threats of telling Sam that Dean wasn't taking care of himself when their patient awoke to ensure Dean's compliance. When Dean was fed and washed, Rick returned to the library to continue to assist with the research. Not too infrequently, he ended up crashing on the living room couch on the nights when he didn't have to be at the dealership early the next day, when he and Bobby got wrapped up in the research until Rick was too tired (in Bobby's opinion) to safely drive home.
Sam was such a focus in the lives of the three men who loved him most that they didn't notice when the rest of June passed them by.
A Wednesday night sky suddenly, unexpectedly, exploded with light and sound, causing Dean and Bobby to send Rick upstairs with a salt-filled shotgun while the hunters grabbed a variety of weaponry and headed outside to defend their "sleeping" charge, only to realize it was just Independence Day fireworks being set off in town.
The pair went back inside, and Bobby told Rick to stand down, even as he cast confused, worried glances at the sudden glisten in Dean's eyes.
None of the three ever gave up hope. Not for a second.
But Rick was looking for a local community college to start his degree at in the fall, so he didn't have to leave town to attend school on the way to getting his planned Psychiatry doctorate.
Bobby was building an ever larger network of Hunters to handle hunts outside the acceptable radius of 300-400 miles that would generally not take Dean or himself (or both) more than a day or so away to handle.
And Dean…
Dean sat on his bed, his back against the headboard, and his left hand on Sammy's chest while he, once again, read through the copies of the acceptance packet from Stanford. They'd long ago filled out the required forms and sent the originals back, but it was mid-July and there were only about six weeks before Sam was due on campus for orientation, they hadn't been able to even visit to find a place for Dean to live, and if they needed to push Sammy's enrollment back to the Winter Quarter in January, Dean wasn't sure how that would impact the scholarship, so he'd been reading through the packet again for clues, because he didn't want Sammy to lose the opportunity of a lifetime because Dean didn't understand what he needed to do to make sure that it would all be okay, and…
A deep breath followed by a soft groan tried to break into Dean's Worry Death Spiral. A lifetime of habit had him shifting his hand to settle more firmly over Sammy's heart, checking the regular beat he found there, before gently patting the rising and falling chest. "It's okay, Sammy," he said softly, and flipped to the next page in the Scholarship documentation, "I got you, little brother."
Another soft moan, and Dean shifted a little closer, letting Sammy feel his body heat. "You're all right, Sammy," he continued absently. "Big brother's here."
"Wh'r m' broth…," the deep, rough voice seemed to burst from Sam.
"I'm right here, Sa…."
The packet of papers fell from his hands and Dean was on his knees, staring down at his little brother lying beside him in the bed, chest rising and falling, heart beating strong and even beneath his hand.
Holy shit. "BOBBYYYY!" he yelled and grabbed hold of his brother's shoulders. "Sam? Sammy?"
"..evl dck," Sam replied and Dean —long fluent in Sleeping Sammy — decided not to take that personally, as the deep frown lines on Sammy's forehead, his scrunched up nose and the fists grabbing the sheets told Dean as clearly as a neon sign that his brother was having a nightmare.
"Sammy," Dean repeated and pressed one hand firmly to his brother's sternum, letting the other card through the now nearly shoulder-length hair.
"Whtr yu?" Sam demanded, and pushed himself upright. "Whr. Dn?!" he demanded and started to cough violently against the tube down his throat, as the object of his search found himself flying across the room and into the door, consequently knocking Bobby, who had been opening said door, nearly back down the stairs.
Dean struggled to his feet and cautiously approached, crawling onto his twin bed and slowly making his way over to Sam's on his knees, arms raised to show the now panting, coughing boy that Dean was weaponless.
"Sammy," Dean said in the soothing voice he'd first learn when he was four and his baby brother was less than a week old, "it's okay. I'm here. It's Dean. I'm right here."
Behind him, he heard the door open and briefly put one hand behind his back, giving Bobby a stay back, I got this sign.
In front of him, Sammy blinked and looked around the room, then started choking in earnest.
"Okay, okay," Dean moved quickly to Sam's side and pushed his brother flat on the bed again. Sam grabbed the hand holding him down and reached for Dean's throat, still coughing. "Easy, easy, tiger," Dean said soothingly. "You want the tube out, Sammy? Huh? You want me to pull it out?"
Sam froze and blinked up at his brother, his gaze finally coming clear, the familiar hazel eyes pleading up at Dean as Sam let go of the hand holding him and reached for the tube himself.
"No, no," Dean gently caught the hand and set it on the mattress. "Let me, Sammy. Let me do it. It'll hurt less if I do it, okay?"
Frowning, looking somehow about six years old and lost and confused as the coughing subsided, Sam nodded slowly.
"Okay. You hold still," Dean instructed, "and I'll pull it out." He took hold of the tube in one hand and gently pulled off the tape on Sam's nose that was holding the feeding tube in place. "Okay. I'm not gonna lie to you, Sammy, this is gonna suck. But I'm gonna count to three. When I get to three, I want you to stay real still, and count to ten in your head, okay? When you get to ten, it'll all be over. Got it?"
Hesitantly, Sam nodded.
"Okay, here we go," Dean smiled at him reassuringly, and grabbed the tubing more firmly. "One, two, three." Dean pulled the tube smoothly towards him, like he was opening a large curtain, hand over hand until the tube was out, leaving Sam gasping and starting to cough again.
"All over," Dean smiled and reached over Sam to the nightstand on the far side of the bed, grabbing a towel and holding it in front of Sammy's mouth and nose as he helped his brother sit up. "Okay, okay," he soothed, as Sammy coughed up mucus and blood and a little bit of sick into the towel. "It's okay, just get it out," he urged, and ran his free hand in soothing circles over Sam's back, letting the boy lean against him.
When it was over, he gently lay Sammy back on the bed, and set the towel full of ick on the bed behind him.
For a moment, Dean was too overwhelmed to speak, and just smiled down at his brother, who was looking around the familiar — if slightly rearranged — room with a frown.
Dean felt Bobby coming up behind him and glanced over his shoulder, shaking his head. Not that he didn't want to share his newly awake brother with the man who loved them both like sons, but there was still something off — something confused, and worried and just a little bit frightened — in his brother's eyes, and Dean didn't want to overwhelm him.
Bobby seemed to understand and nodded, smiling at Dean. "I'll let Rick know," he said softly as he carefully picked up the towel, "and see if I can get Carla to come tonight."
Dean nodded and turned back to Sam, dismissing the other hunter, Rick, Carla and literally everything else from his mind.
He waited quietly, while Sammy searched the room until his brother's gaze came back to him.
"Heya, Sammy," he said with a suddenly slightly watery smile. "Welcome back."
"D…Dean?" Sam asked hesitantly.
"Yeah, it's me, little brother," Dean assured and tried not to be offended at the frown that news brought to Sammy's still too pale face.
"Are…I don't…" Sam stopped and raised a hand slowly to Dean's shoulder. "Dean?" he whispered, his voice soft with disuse and unshed tears. "Is it…are you…"
"It's me, Sammy," Dean assured him and reached down to pull Sammy back up, into his arms, cradling Sam's head on his shoulder as they both began to cry.
"Dean?" Sammy breathed and let his hands close on Dean's waist, still unsure, still afraid, still unwilling to fully trust his instincts. He'd seen through the trick before, but that didn't mean he couldn't be fooled with another Dean imposter, a better facsimile.
Dean held him tighter and began to rock them both, burying his face in Sammy's hair, half babbling like he always did when Sammy needed to be reassured. "I got you," he whispered. "You're okay. You're okay, now. I got you, little brother. It's okay, Sammy. Big brother's here. Big brother's been here the whole time. Just waiting for you, Sammy. God, I thought I'd lost you," he admitted with a catch in his voice and held on a little tighter.
"Dean," Sammy sighed, and all doubts were gone. This was Dean's voice. This was Dean's comfort. This was Dean's touch, his caring, his protection.
This was Dean's love.
Sammy wrapped one arm tightly around Dean's waist, slid his other hand up to hold on to the back of Dean's neck and let himself burrow into Dean's warmth.
This was home. He'd made it home.
=========SPN========SPN========SPN========
A/N For those who did not have the opportunity to go through a high school in the U.S.A.: Senior Year is the final year of High School, after which a student typically goes to College or University, or joins the job market. A free period (formerly known as Study Hall, when I was in High School, lo these many many moons ago) is a class period when there is no scheduled class a student needs to be in (basically, you've taken all the required courses for that year, and either couldn't find or didn't want to take and elective (optional) course).
For those who didn't grow up surrounded by kids driving junkers, Bondo is a compound used on cars to smooth over areas of the car with questionable structural integrity, holding different panels of the metal together without having to weld a new piece of metal between them. To put it more simply: you use Bondo to take the place of the rust holding the car together. Bondo can be painted over, but rarely is (for some reason), and any car with more than 30% or so of its surface area showing the signature matte grey (sometimes black) color is often called a BondoMobile. This is almost always an insult, except to the person actually owning the car.
POS is slang for piece of shit
The dates for orientation, etc for Stanford are a pure guess. I tried to research it (because I'm goofy like that) but it's COVID, man, and…well, guessing was the best I could do.
Souless666 Thank you! Both for reading and for being the one to finally get the clues I thought I was laying out LOL. Seriously, man, I thought somebody would figure out that new player way earlier than this! Glad you're still with me!