Nobody's Home 2/2

[mentholpixie]

Nobody's Home

Chapter Two


A/N: Because everyone seemed to want aftermath and I can't stop hurting Sam ;)

XXX
Sam is filthy, hair matted and snarled, still wearing the clothes he disappeared in almost a month ago; the jeans now tearing open at the knees, the t-shirt greyed with dust. He's covered in a thin layer of grime, one eyebrow split open and splattered with dark, dried blood, his eye blackened. Worse is the fresh blood spilling from his nose and ears while he shrieks like he's on fire, fighting with the wild abandon of a trapped and wounded animal.

“Dean!” John yells, struggling to hold Sam still, grabbing at arms that scrape roughly against the pavement. They'll be picking out gravel later, Dean's sure of it (as long as there is a later, as long as they can fix this, damn it, where is it?) but Sam doesn't seem to notice or care, too busy screaming and fighting against Dad's grip, and Jesus, there's so much blood, Dean can smell it as he desperately tears at Sam's backpack. What the fuck is happening? Is this some kind of aneurysm? Will it even stop when he finds -

“I've got it!” The hexbag is sewn into the backpack's lining. Dean tosses the torn remains to the ground and fumbles his lighter from his pocket with shaking, frantic fingers. The hexbag goes up so easily that he singes his fingertips but he doesn't care, it doesn't matter, he's already dropping to his knees, trying to catch sight of his brother's face beneath the solid mass of John Winchester. The bleeding has stopped, so have the screams, cut off with the burst of flame.

“Sam?” he asks anxiously as John clambers to the side, off of Sam's back, though he still keeps a cautious hold on the kid's forearms. Sam flinches his hands over his ears as if he's worried Dean's voice might make his head explode. When it doesn't, Sam looks up at him slowly. He's shaking, covered in blood, wide eyes staring at Dean in shell-shocked disbelief. Dean can see the gears turning, trying to put everything together.

“Sam?” John prompts gently, and Sam flinches again, startled. His gaze moves over to John like he's only just noticed him, despite the fact that moments ago Dad's weight had been smothering him against the pavement.

“... Dad?” Sam asks uncertainly. John helps him to his knees, leaves an arm around his shoulders when Sam sways alarmingly.

“We're here,” John says. “Me and Dean, we're here. We've got you.”

“I...” Sam swallows, tentatively lowering his hands. He inspects the blood on them shakily, looks down at his filthy clothes with the same expression of bewildered surprise he'd given Dad, like he's seeing himself for the first time. “Where am I?”

“Middle of Nowhere, Nebraska.” Dean's voice is wobbly with relief. He strips off his over-shirt and swipes it gently over the blood on his little brother's face, mostly to make sure that the bleeding really has stopped and partly to double check that it really is Sam under all that blood and dirt. “You remember anything?”

“I...” Sam starts again, looking lost. “Um, yeah... I remember everything, I think. It just... it doesn't really make sense now.”

“It's okay,” John says. “You're back now. We got you back. That's all that matters.”

“Where...?” Sam starts to ask again, looking around the alley now, dazed eyes moving over the scattered schoolbooks, the torn backpack, and it strikes Dean that anyone watching - and surely they can't have avoided detection what with the way Sam was screaming - would think they had just witnessed a violent assault on a helpless teenager.

The thought seems to cross Dad's mind too because he glances around warily. “We should find a motel,” he says, but he pauses another moment to examine the wound splitting Sam's eyebrow with dark, worried eyes. “This should've been stitched days ago. It's infected.”

Dean sweeps a hand over Sam's forehead. It's hot.

Sam blinks at them. “Sorry.”

“No, no, it's not your fault.” Dad brushes aside the apology. Sam doesn't really seem to know what he's apologizing for anyway. “We just need to get you cleaned up. How did it happen?”

“What happen?” Sam's lost again.

“Your head, Sammy,” Dad says patiently. “What happened to your head?”

“Um...” Sam raises a trembling hand to probe at the injury experimentally, eyes losing focus as he thinks. His fingernails are caked with dirt and dried blood, and Dean gently tugs Sam's hand away from the open wound.

“I think it has something to do with Black Sabbath,” Sam offers sincerely. Dean exchanges an anxious look with John. How long has Sam been walking around with a fever? Has he even been eating? How much of this is delirium and how much is left over from the curse?

“Okay,” Dad says, “We're going to get a motel room and get you all fixed up, okay, Sammy? Can you stand?”

“I think so,” Sam says, right before passing out.

XXX
Dean slowly works his fingers through the snarls in Sam's hair, untangling the knots. The ancient heater is humming in the corner, slowly warming the motel room, and Sam is drowsy, doped up on antibiotics and painkillers he says he doesn't need, his forehead cleaned and bandaged. The worst of the blood has been wiped from his face but even without it Sam looks worse than the ghoul Dad had taken Dean to hunt last summer; so pale his skin is verging on grey, eyes sunken by malnourishment and bright with fever. He's curled under a blanket on his side, head in Dean's lap, watching lazily as Dad gently wipes at his hands and forearms, wincing occasionally when the damp cloth touches the self-inflicted pavement scrapes. He really needs a proper bath - kid kind of smells like a dumpster - but warm water and face cloths will have to do until Sammy looks less likely to keel over in a slight breeze. Anyway, Dean's not ready to give Sam too much privacy, not until he's sure that the spell is really, truly broken and Sam's not about to disappear again.

“Did you get the witch?” Sam asks. His voice is wrecked from all the screaming and slurred a little by exhaustion. Dean's not sure Sam did much talking while he was gone either; Sam seems slightly surprised every time he hears himself speak and most of Dean's questions have been met with vague comments about needing to run or not being allowed to stop.

“Yeah,” Dad answers quietly. “We got him.”

“Who was it?”

Dean breathes deep, combs his fingers through a clump of tangled hair, remembering the way the man had begged under John's fists. “One of your teachers. Mr Watson.”

Sam looks from Dean to Dad questioningly. “How come he went after me?”

“He thought we were on to him,” Dean explains, “So he tried to get rid of us by cursing you, figured by the time we'd chased you around America, he'd be long gone. Except he timed it wrong, we didn't even know it was him until he went after you. So he kind of screwed himself.”

“Oh.” Sam yawns. “I liked Mr Watson.”

“He had a lot of people fooled,” John says grimly. “You need to sleep. Come on, Dean, let him rest. His hair can wait.”

“No!” Sam's hand darts up to grab Dean's knee as he shifts. “Don't go. I don't want to wake up somewhere else again.”

“You won't wake up anywhere but here,” John assures him, but Sam just clings tighter.

“Please. It's easier to remember when you're here. I don't want to sleep. What if I forget again?”

“We burnt the hex bag, Sammy,” Dean says gently, but he settles back down all the same. “You won't forget. But I'll stay with you, okay? There's room for two of us in this bed, especially since there's barely any of you left.”

“Couldn't eat,” Sam mumbles, relaxing again and releasing his grip on Dean's knee. “Had to run.”

“I know, kiddo. We'll sort that out too. Are you hungry now?”

“Uh-uh.” Sam shakes his head against Dean's thigh. “How did you find me?”

Dean goes back to fiddling with Sam's hair, plucking out a tangled twig. “The spell wasn't exactly subtle. Once we knew what happened, we caught you on a bunch of security cameras in bus stations - acting like a nut-case, by the way.”

Sam quirks a small, self-deprecating grin at the gentle jibe.

“Then we followed the trail of stolen cars for a while... I'm guessing you were the kid who freaked out and almost caused a pile up?”

“Hmm... maybe?” Sam thinks for a moment. “I remember lots of honking... but Black Sabbath was playing and I had to get away. I was supposed to run.”

“Well, witnesses said it looked like the suspect was either having a seizure or a psychotic break. We thought that sounded like you.”

“Haha,” Sam says. His voice is winding down to a murmur now. Dean catches his eyelids drooping a few times despite Sam's desire to stay awake. “I was cursed. I couldn't help it.”

“I know.” Dean smooths his fingers through a lock of untangled hair. “That's where the black eye came from, right?”

“I have a black eye?” Sam looks sleepily surprised.

“Yeah,” Dean says patiently. “I'm guessing your face got pretty well acquainted with a steering wheel. Your eyebrow was split open too but Dad's already fixed that.”

“He did?” Sam frowns, raising one of his hands to feel at the bandage taped to his forehead. “I don't remember.”

“That'll be the fever,” Dad says, dropping the wash cloth into the bowl of lukewarm, now pink-tinged, water. Sam's nails really need scrubbing to get out all the dirt and blood but that's another thing to worry about later. “I just need to bandage these scrapes on your arms, Sammy. Then you can get some proper rest.”

“'kay,” Sam mumbles, obediently lowering the hand he'd been using to inspect his head. Cleaned, the grazes look raw and angry, pinpricks of blood still sluggishly welling to the surface. Dean watches Dad's gentle hands, steady and efficient, smoothing antiseptic cream along Sam's arms, covering the torn and fragile skin with bandages. His hands linger over Sam when he's done, settling for a reassuring squeeze of his shoulder.

“We'll be here when you wake up, kiddo,” he says.

Sam's eyes have slipped closed. “Don' let me go away again,” he mumbles, maybe in his sleep. Dean doesn't think he's awake to hear Dad's whispered promise.

“Never.”