New Wings For Icarus | PART 1
Title: New Wings For Icarus
By: revenant_scribe
Rating: R
Word Count: 9,381
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Part of the Icarus 'Verse
On January 24, 2011, at 8:26 in the evening, two men walked through the doors of O’Malley’s pub, a little place just off of Chicago Avenue in Midtown Minneapolis. They were casually dressed, but respectable. One wore a battered burgundy leather bomber jacket, and the other had on a black double-breasted coat that looked expensive. They walked in-step with each other.
The bartender knew their faces, was setting down a glass of scotch and a bottle of beer in front of each of them as they pulled off their hats and gloves and settled onto their stools. They raised their glasses and shared a toast.
At 9:05, the shorter of the two men rose from his seat and made his way through the far room, to the back where the washrooms were. When he returned, he engaged his companion in a hushed conversation, voices low and heads together, which concluded when both men knocked back their drinks and rose from the bar.
They moved to a table tucked away in a corner of the pub, joining a man who had, until that moment, been hunched over a plate of fish and chips, eating with focused gusto but neatly so. He did not show any recognition of the men, seemed confused by their presence though he did not protest overmuch, even settled back to his meal and into a conversation with them.
At 9:27, both men rose from the table they had joined, each pulling a gun from beneath their jacket and between them, fired seven bullets that, at such close range, could not fail to hit their mark. The third man collapsed over his meal, his blood spilling onto the plate and the table, dripping down his arm and onto the floor. Holstering their weapons, the men covered their tab at the bar, leaving a sizable tip and half-meant apology to the barkeep, and left the way they had come in.
The facts were clear enough, with witnesses left trying to put together the fragments of what they had seen in some way that gave it sense. Two men, two guns, seven bullets, and one victim: simple.
The motive, however, was a little more complex.
So it is true that every one of our actions leaves some trace on our past,
either dark or bright. So it is true that every step we take is more like a
reptile's progress across the sand, leaving a track behind it. And often,
alas, the track is the mark of our tears!
The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
Sam Winchester pulled his silver Corolla into a space and turned off the ignition, hunching forward to peer out the windshield at the innocuous beige-slate building that sat, oddly majestic, across the street. There was something about the design of it that called to mind the Sphinx, lying aloof and mysterious, or a castle removed somehow from the bustle of everyday life in the middle of which it sat. Even the tiny regimented slits of windows reminded Sam more of a particularly baffling church he visited once when he was younger; he supposed that might have been what the architect intended when he mapped his creation: to make people think of anything but what the building actually was.
Letting out a short whoosh of breath, Sam opened his door and unfolded himself from the car, sparing a moment for a wistful remembrance of worn vinyl and ample legroom while he pulled his suit jacket from the backseat and quickly pulled on both it and his pea coat; one thing he had not anticipated was the bitter wind that turned his breath white. While the drive from New York to Minneapolis might not have been the longest road trip he had ever undertaken, the difference in weather was both significant and unfortunate.
His back popped as he rolled his shoulders before reaching into the car to grab his briefcase from the front seat, sparing a moment to run a mental checklist and remind himself that he was a professional and also that he hadn’t committed himself to anything. Locking his car, he jogged across the street and began to walk around the block to the entrance, noting with a hint of annoyance that there was covered parking that would have meant less time exposed to the cold wind. He hadn’t been in the city long enough to be confident with finding his way around, though he had looked it up online just to ensure he wouldn’t get hopelessly lost.
With another glance at the small rectangle of hotel paper, Sam confirmed the directions as he walked up the steps and through the glass doors. There was always a moment, no matter how often he did it, or how hard he tried to fight it, where his instincts kicked in and screamed at him. He had been taught every trick in the trade specifically so that he would never have to see the inside of a place like the county jail, and yet there he was, willingly walking deeper into the belly of the building. It was just something he’d have to get used to, he thought, though if that were true it likely would have happened already; he’d certainly had enough time.
“Good morning,” he greeted as he stepped up to the front desk, pulling his wallet from his pocket and presenting his identification, glancing at the nametag that the woman behind the desk was wearing. “Claire,” he read, managing a bright, disarming grin. “My name’s Sam Winchester; I’m here for a meeting with my clients.”
Claire’s blonde hair was pulled-back in a slick bun and she peered at him from above the rim of her black-framed glasses, her blue eyes shining. She looked surprisingly cheerful and engaged for someone working the front desk of a county jail, at least from Sam’s experience, and he watched as she checked over his identification carefully. “You’re coming in from New York?” she asked, her eyebrows jerking upward slightly.
“Yeah,” Sam said, squaring his shoulders and preparing to talk his way around any fuss she might try to make. Every so often, or so he had found, there was always a government employee who wanted to kick up an extra bit of fuss, just so they could feel like they were contributing to the system. Sam had learned to accept it, though it didn’t make it any less irksome.
Claire smiled at him warmly. “Well, welcome to Minneapolis, Minnesota. Do you need me to recommend someplace for you to stay?”
Her concern was genuine and Sam experienced a momentary vertigo as his professional aloofness warred with his honest reaction to her open friendliness; she wasn’t even flirting, he saw no hint of interest in her eyes at all. “I’ve found a place, thanks,” he said, which seemed to be the right answer because her smile broadened a little more as she handed back his identification and held out a plastic card with a clip on the top.
“This is your visitor pass; just clip that on and you’re set. You’ll be going to the fourth floor. Have a great day!”
Beyond the front desk was a bank of metal detectors that stood like sentinels, shoulder to shoulder in front of a stretch of glass. There were guards by each detector, their postures relaxed but not slouching, clad in beige uniform shirts and dark pants and chatting amicably with one another and with the people passing under the looming archway of detectors. Beyond the glass embankment he could make out a pale hallway and the elevators.
“Good morning!” the guard greeted as Sam reached the metal detector, already pulling the shoulder strap of his briefcase off and setting the bag to be scanned. “Or I guess it would be afternoon,” the guard corrected. “Don’t forget keys, if you keep them in your pocket.”
Sam fished his keys from his suit jacket and walked through without trouble, accepting his bag and coat from the guard who wished him a good day with enough sincerity that Sam couldn’t help feeling he had stumbled through into an alternate dimension somewhere along the way. He’d had just enough time to check into his hotel room after pulling into the city, where the people had been pleasant enough but that wasn’t outside the realm of expectation. A jail, however, usually did not lend itself to social niceties and between the cheerfulness of the people he had encountered, and the pristine state of the building itself, Sam was disinclined to believe he was even in the correct location.
The dark grey doors of the elevators slid open with a chipper chiming and Sam stepped inside. He rode to the fourth floor with a pinched woman who stood with her back pressed to the corner, fiddling compulsively with a gold band around her finger while the child who was apparently attached to her clutched the hem of her sweater. It was perhaps the only indication, outside the security check they had passed, that Hennepin Public Safety Facility was not a simple office or civic building.
With another bright chime the elevator doors slid aside and revealed a wide hallway with short, cloth-covered benches spaced along a stretch of tall windows. A surprisingly clean and well-kept tri-colored rug covered the floor and Sam adjusted his briefcase as he stepped cautiously into the hall, following the mother and son to the left where a set of glass doors slid open automatically for them. Down a shorter hallway with no windows was a frosted door that Sam held open, trying to smile as the woman glanced up at him, though she was too dazed to return the expression.
It was almost a relief to step beyond the door and see more security; though on the whole the space looked not unlike the waiting room at a clinic he remembered being taken to as a child. The room was predominantly taupe, and there were cloth-covered chairs pushed against the wall with magazines splayed on a wooden table in the corner. Two heavy metal doors stood on either side of a desk with a glass partition behind which sat a slightly heavyset guard who had a pronounced forehead and no great amount of hair. The guard greeted the woman and directed her through the door on the left before turning to Sam.
“What can I do for you, son?” he asked, his expression open and kindly. Sam gave his name again, shifting to better display his visitor’s badge, and explained he was visiting his clients. “What are their names?” the guard asked, when Sam had answered his other questions satisfactorily.
Sam pulled the paper, on which he had written the directions, from his pocket and flipped it around to read the back, “Aaron Conyers and Jesse Deacon.” The guard entered something into his computer and then gestured for Sam to take a seat. There was enough time for him to remove his coat and pick up a magazine from the pile before a guard stepped out from the door on the right side of the partition and called for him.
“So, New York, huh?” the guard said as he jingled the keys on his hip, leading Sam down a strikingly jaundiced hallway that smelled faintly of bleach. When Sam quirked an eyebrow the man smiled, “Ben mentioned it,” he explained, and Sam assumed Ben must be the name of the guard who had checked him in. “That’s a bit of a ways to come for a client. Are you good friends or something?”
Sam adjusted the strap on his briefcase and said, “Not particularly.” The guard boomed a laugh as if Sam had made a outstanding joke before he stopped by another door, running through a list of rules and procedures that were familiar, and when Sam agreed and assured the man he was clear on everything, the door was unlocked and opened for him. Sam stepped through.
The room was small, though he had been expecting that, and as plain and nondescript as the hallway. There was a faint reek of sweat and something earthy and cold like wet cement. From the inside, the slitted windows were more austere than they had seemed when Sam had surveyed them from the street, but the fluorescent lights were enough to distract from the distinct lack of natural light. In the center of the room, a rectangular table was bolted inconspicuously to the floor. Sitting in matching metallic chairs, their back to the scant natural light, were the two men whose stubborn insistence had prompted Sam to get in his car and drive about twenty hours to come and meet with them.
Their hands and feet were shackled, allowing them some freedom to handle any forms or paperwork that might be required but not so much that they might get ideas. They were in orange jumpsuits and slip-on rubber-soled shoes, but that was the extent of their similarities. The taller of the two, almost but not quiet Sam’s height, sat upright in his chair, his hands splayed flat against the table top in front of him with his fingers periodically tapping out a near silent rhythm. He had black hair that was ruffled and mussed, like he couldn’t be bothered with it, and dark chocolate eyes that wandered every which way but never once connected with Sam’s own.
The other man, though smaller, seemed coiled and ready to spring even as he was slouched back against his chair in a posture that any untrained eye might mistake for relaxed. His hair was long enough that Sam wondered how he survived in the tough crowds that he was apparently associating with, especially given his fair coloring. Neither one of them struck Sam as particularly threatening; they resembled cornered dogs more than anything. Innocent until proven guilty, and if Sam really was going to take the case, like both men clearly wanted, then Sam thought it best to begin optimistically. He stepped forward and dropped his briefcase down beside the available chair, bracing his fingertips against the table, ready to begin the meeting.
“Sammy fucking Winchester,” the blond said, bringing Sam up short.
“Excuse me?”
The man guffawed once, brightly, like it was a joke, and then his expression slid into something more serious. He shook his head. “You don’t remember.” Bumping the dark-haired man beside him with his elbow and nodding back toward Sam he said, “He doesn’t remember.”
Sam frowned, glanced between both men. “Remember what, exactly?”
The blond leaned forward, his forearms on the table as he said, “Blue Earth, Kiddo, we were…”
But it fell into place, the vague memory of two youthful faces superimposed over the world-weary men he was confronted with and he shook his head again, though this time it was with a sense of surprise, and Sam matched the names he had been given to the faces of both men with ease, “…friends of my brother. It’s Jesse. Am I right?”
Jesse’s grin showed teeth slightly yellowed that looked somewhat ghoulish under the fluorescent humming glare. “Yeah.” He waited as Sam greeted the silent dark haired man, receiving only a shy, vague nod for his trouble. “If you didn’t remember us, what the hell did you drive all the way out here for?”
Sam settled into his chair, undoing the button on his jacket as he answered, “Based on the phone calls, it didn’t seem like I had much choice.”
“Oh those, yeah, sorry about that. We’re in a bit of a bind and, well, it’d be nice to have a familiar face backing us up, yeah?”
Sam twisted, pulling a pad and pen from his briefcase to set them on the table as he asked, “So tell me about this bind.”
“Well, Sam Winchester. We’re here because the law thinks we killed a man.” Jesse said it casually but without the humor his tone had sported a moment before. Sam kept his expression neutral as he waited and was entirely aware of both Jesse’s and Aaron’s assessing gazes. “You don’t want to ask us if we did it?”
Sometimes clients wanted reassurance, or something like it, but Sam met Jesse’s piercing blue gaze and took a chance. “Mr. Deacon, if you want to confess, I’d be happy to arrange for a priest; I’m just a lawyer.”
Jesse eyed him a moment longer before he huffed a somewhat bitter laugh and shook his head with amusement. “Can’t believe little Sammy Winchester grew up into this tough-nut, ball-cracking lawyer.”
“Not quite all that,” Sam said, but a part of him preened under the compliment. “So catch me up on this. I understand you’ve both entered a plea, which I’m assuming was ‘not guilty.’” He received a snort out of Aaron but continued, “but if I’m going to take this case, I need to have a better sense of where things are at, and what we’re dealing with.” He made sure to cut his eyes to each of them, noting the half-smile twist to Aaron’s lips when Sam said ‘we’ instead of ‘you’.
Jesse described the basics, relying on Aaron for specifics regarding the court, especially the relevant upcoming dates. Sam jotted it all down, and then encouraged them into giving a bit more detail about the circumstances of the crime. “The man … the victim,” Aaron corrected himself. “His name was Edward Dowell.” Aaron paused again, and Sam thought he was being given time to catch up with his note taking, but when he glanced up, both men were watching him with curiously intent gazes. Sam glanced back at the page, running the name through his head, but it didn’t jog any recollection. He nodded and asked Aaron to continue but the man seemed to deflate again, allowing Jesse to take up the conversation again. Jesse offered a few general details as well as the name of the attorney who had been assisting them up to that point, who was, according to Jesse at least, willing to support Sam in applying to the court to take the case pro hac vice, since Sam wasn’t licensed to practice law in Minneapolis.
It didn’t feel like a question anymore, whether or not he would accept the case. Even after they discussed legal fees, where Sam’s careful hedging was met with amused smiles and an unconcerned wave of a hand, as if money were no object even if Sam couldn’t think how that could be so. Sam felt a pull to defend these men who had, over seventeen years ago, been familiar features in his life, rebuffing his stubborn attempts to go on adventures with them, bringing over candy and popcorn and scary movies that Sam knew he wasn’t supposed to be watching. He pulled his thoughts away from the past as he finished up with the initial consultation, surprised at having covered more than he had initially anticipated.
“You’ve given me a good basis to get started,” Sam said, after checking that they didn’t have any pressing questions or concerns. “I’m just curious. I mean,” his gaze cut to Aaron and then back to Jesse, “you guys would have had to have tracked me down. The messages I got seemed pretty insistent. It sort of makes me wonder, why me?”
“Seemed like a good idea at the time,” Aaron muttered before the silence stretched just shy of being awkward.
Jesse rolled his eyes and then leaned forward. “Look,” he said. “I know we were never that close, not like we had much time to hang out or anything, but you’re Dean’s kid brother, and that means something to us.” His gaze drifted away for a moment before he huffed a breath and met Sam’s gaze directly again. “Aaron and I, we’re not good guys, okay? Don’t get any illusions. We have a reputation here, but it sort of felt like maybe we deserved a defense attorney who wasn’t coming in with any sort of bias against us, or whatever. Maybe someone who might understand.”
Sam nodded and tried not to feel like maybe there was a whole other conversation Jesse was trying to have with him that Sam just wasn’t getting. “Okay,” he said instead, and began tidying away the paperwork and his notes. “So listen, I’ll draw up those documents we discussed and start looking into some of the details. I’ll be by in a couple of days and we can work out the particulars. You have my number. I’m going to take this case.”
“Relax, man,” Jesse said, leaning back in his chair again, his serious expression disappearing with a wide grin. “No need to schmooze us, here. We trust you. We know you.” He said it like there hadn’t been a wide chasm of years since the last time they had even spoken, but Sam figured that these men had been his brother’s closest friends for several years and, in Winchester terms, that was a hell of a long time; maybe they did understand more than Sam was giving them credit for. He shook their hands just the same, ignoring the chains and refusing to entertain whether the warm hands that offered up firm and confident handshakes had also wielded weapons with the intent to kill. That was a matter for a later date; for now, he was interested purely in the basics.
Snapping his briefcase closed, Sam picked up his coat and headed toward the door. Before he could knock and indicate his readiness to leave, there was the sound of the lock clicking open, and then the door was swinging wide and a guard stepped aside so that a man in a sharp black suit and coat could come through.
Sam processed the splitting grin on Aaron’s face and the shrill cackle-laugh that erupted passed Jesse’s narrow lips in a haze, his world narrowed to green-gold eyes and a face so perfect and familiar that it felt like a physical blow knocking the breath out of him. “This your lawyer?” the guard was asking, puzzled, his gaze darting to each of the occupants of the room.
“Dean,” Aaron greeted, shaking his head like he couldn’t quite believe it. “As I live and breathe.” It was like the statement confirmed what his eyes were telling him, and Sam exhaled in a whoosh, watching Dean’s eyes flick from Aaron to Jesse, and then over to Sam, like he wasn’t sure who to deal with first. His dilemma was cut short as two guards entered through the prisoner’s entrance and began ushering their charges out.
“Catch you on the flip side!” Jesse yelled as he disappeared through the door, his harsh cackling laugh cut-short when the door clicked shut.
“Now, wait just a minute,” the guard who had shown Dean in said. “I thought you were coming in here for a meeting?”
“He’s with me.” Sam said, jumping in before his brother could open his mouth and insert his own foot in it. “He’s … my legal secretary.” He grabbed a hold of Dean’s arm, even as the shorter man snapped his mouth closed and glared at Sam’s explanation. “You’re late. We’ll talk about this outside.” With a tight smile to the guard, Sam ushered Dean down the hall and into the elevator.
“Dude, get off me,” Dean said, breaking Sam’s hold and pressing the button for the main floor, the gesture taking him to the opposite side of the cramped space.
Sam stared at his brother’s profile for a moment; took in the familiar muss of hair and the splash of freckles, and then looked at the pressed suit and the unfamiliar black coat his brother was holding. He tried to remember when, if ever, he had seen his brother dressed so presentably. “Dean, what the hell are you doing here?”
Dean turned a cheeky bright grin on him. “Well hello to you too, Sammy. Been a few years.”
“Uh, yeah,” Sam said. “Try four years.” Dean made a face like he didn’t believe it had been that long, or that he didn’t care, both of which Sam knew were bullshit. “Now what are you doing here?”
Dean sighed, turning to face his brother. “Could ask the same thing of you.” As the elevator chimed and the doors slid open Dean added, “They’re my friends, y’know.” Sounding so surprisingly hurt and defensive that Sam almost missed the flash of silver that his brother pulled from his pocket and dropped in the waste bin, before handing his coat over to pass through the metal detectors.
Sam bit his tongue as they both handed their visitor’s badges back to the front desk, but he kept in close-step until they were back outside in the bracing chill before he hissed, “Were you going to break them out?”
“What?” Dean said, flipping the collar of his coat up against the wind. “That’s crazy-talk.” He halted his steps as Sam continued down the block to the parking lot. “Dude, I’m this way.” It brought Sam up short, and he realized that he had fallen so easily into old habits, matching steps with Dean, ready to follow him to the Impala and head out. So much had changed, and nothing at all, and it was crashing in on him all at once leaving him stranded, feeling oddly alone.
“Right,” Sam said. He looked around in order to orient himself, then nodded down the street. “I saw a place down that way, not too far. Could do with some lunch, yeah?”
Dean hesitated. “Do they serve beer?”
“Sure,” Sam said, even though he had no idea if that was true. Still, it brought Dean into step with him again, and they walked a block huddled inside their jackets, saying absolutely nothing.
When he had looked up Minneapolis online, just after he had booked a hotel but before he had bothered to pack anything, Sam had discovered that the city had an enclosed pedestrian footbridge called the Skyway that connected about eighty blocks of the city without having to set foot out-of-doors. He could see the rationale, but as he walked, shoulders hunched and collar flipped up to stave off some of the chilled wind that was whipping down the street against him, he didn’t think he would trade for the warmth. It wasn’t as cold as some of the horror stories Sam had heard about Minnesota, but it was certainly a temperature he was not quite accustomed to.
Even with the chill slowing the steady race of his thoughts to the sluggish ebb of molasses, Sam could not reconcile himself to the fact that for the first time in four years, he was walking down a street in downtown Minneapolis with his brother. It was a soothing balm, like suddenly the world had righted itself after been topsy-turvy for so long, and it also felt like he could rip his brother apart with his bare hands, he was so angry. Four years ago, Sam had lost everything that had mattered and he still wasn’t clear about why.
“What about this place?” Sam said, gesturing to the sign across the street that declared in red lettering its name: Restaurant Max. It looked respectable, and maybe a little classier than the roadside diners that Dean was still likely in the habit of visiting. Sam didn’t fail to catch the slightly longing look his brother flashed to the Irish pub on the other side of the street, but he refused to give any ground, striding across the road the moment the light turned, before Dean had even accepted the restaurant.
It was early enough in the dinner hour that when Sam asked for a booth, they were given one of the larger ones near the back. He nodded politely at the waitress, dropped his briefcase onto the dark-green fabric covered bench and spread his coat carefully atop it before sliding into the booth, stopping abruptly when his thigh bumped against Dean’s legs which were stretched out, bridging the distance between the benches. Sam stole a surprised, cautious look across the table, but his brother was concentrating on loosening his tie, and Sam watched as familiar fingers twisted the top buttons of a crisp white shirt free. Dean picked up his menu, focusing on the dinner options to the exclusion of everything else, and Sam took a long sip of his water before mirroring his brother. Dean’s posture was familiar, and suddenly they were in a sunny roadside diner, Dean hunched over his menu as their dad slapped his hand down on the table and glared, “Sam, we’re not talking about this here. We’re going to eat and then get onto the road, and you will not mention this Stanford business again. Clear?”
With neither one of them willing to give ground, they sat in silence until their waitress returned to take their orders. “How’ve you been?” Dean managed once the menus and any further attempt at distraction was removed from them.
Sam huffed, wanting to snap that it was a poor excuse for a conversation starter. “I’ve been good,” he said, instead. “Real good. I have a place of my own, and I’m practicing law in New York. I’m settled, you know? It’s good.” His expression felt oddly plastic given that until that moment, he had been perfectly contented with his apartment and his life in the boom and bustle of New York City.
Dean nodded, sipped at the beer that had come as Sam had been answering. “What about that girl. What was her name? The blonde?”
“Jess,” Sam said, narrowing his eyes a little as he saw through the casual tone. “Naw, we broke up.”
Dean might have been practiced at playing a part, but he couldn’t hide anything from Sam, and the slight widening of his eyes expressed the honest surprise that the dismissive tone of his voice masked, “Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Sam said, couldn’t help adding, “Four years ago.” Dean’s gaze skittered away and Sam savored the dark twist of satisfaction as his brother glanced out at the floor of the restaurant, and over to the bar where some of the wait staff had gathered and were joking with the dark-haired bartender. Dean was paler than Sam remembered, and there was a new scar that he could just make out the start of, at the base of his brother’s neck. Sam cleared his throat. “How about you?”
“You know how it goes,” Dean said, turning back and taking another pull of his beer. “Been hunting, moving around, the usual. I’m only here because I hadn’t heard from Aaron or Jesse. One of the guys that they run with said something had happened.”
Sam snorted. “Come on.”
“What?” Dean asked, his brows drawing together as he met Sam’s gaze.
“I’m supposed to believe that you just happen to be blowing through town at the same time that I get a call that basically demands that I be here?”
Dean tipped his head a little, “You think this has to do with you?”
“Does it?”
“What? No!” Dean rubbed at his forehead and shook his head. “I keep in touch with both of them, okay? I mean; we’re not on the phone every day, but we check-in, y’know? When I didn’t hear from them for a couple of days, I checked-around, and when I heard something was up, I came out. That’s all.”
Sam nodded idly, focused on his drink as he mulled over what his brother had said. There was a wealth of words that needed to be said, but in the middle of a restaurant wasn’t the place, and Sam was too busy thinking that finally, after all that time, he had his brother sitting at the table across from him. He turned the conversation to the most pressing issue, “They told me they weren’t good guys.”
Dean shrugged. “That would be the truth.”
“It doesn’t bother you?” Years of hopping from one town to the next, being stashed with one of their father’s acquaintances or another, and never once had Dean shown any real attachments to the people he met. He came in like a hurricane, sweeping everyone student and teacher alike off their feet, so they were all equally in his sway, and then he swept out just as easily, never displaying an ounce of regret. Where Sam had fought to fit in, struggled to find something solid outside of his family to hold onto, Dean had always seemed to understand that there was nothing outside of the Impala and their family that could even pretend at stability. Which left Sam wondering why two supposed criminals currently housed in a jail, who Dean knew off and on for about five years over fifteen years ago were worth the effort of keeping in touch. “Do you even know what they’ve been doing since you were kids?”
“I know enough,” Dean dismissed. Their waitress returned with their meal and suddenly Dean had an excuse not to maintain conversation, digging into his food with enthusiasm, periodically groaning in a way that made Sam shift awkwardly where he sat. “Man,” Dean said around a mouthful, “You shouldn’t have settled for that pansy-ass salad. This steak is incredible.” Beneath the table, Dean’s leg bumped against Sam’s thigh, stayed pressed close as his left foot rested lightly, just at the end of Sam’s shoe. “I’m assuming you’re paying, since it was your decision to come here.”
With his brother’s eyes bright with mischief, Sam knew that was the end of any serious conversation, what little there had been of it. Talking with Dean was a slow process that drew on every ounce of the patience Sam had cultivated over the years. Still, his brother was there, expounding on the virtues of steak, teasing and carefree and Sam couldn’t be anything but relieved and grateful, like a weight had slipped off his shoulders. He leaned back in the booth and pressed his thigh against Dean’s leg and played along.
It wasn’t without precedent, but Dean never got used to stopping in big cities. Everything had a busy, self-important pulse that the rhythm of his own life just never mirrored. Habit had him driving around the streets of Minneapolis in search of a cheap motel that didn’t put him too far away from Jesse and Aaron. He couldn’t remember it ever being so difficult to find a nondescript little place to hole-up, but after bouncing back-and-forth between Minneapolis and St. Paul, he gave in and asked the hunched little gnome of a man who ran the gas station he stopped at and got directions that seemed promising.
By the time he pulled into the motel’s parking lot it was late, and cold enough that he barely spared a moment to fret about the state of his car, all alone outside without even an awning to shelter her from the snow. He promised he’d wake up early and scrape the ice off her, which was about the best he could do, before he hauled his bag from the trunk and took the stairs to his room at a jog.
The room was small and the windows were drafty, so Dean cranked the thermostat before he tossed the keys onto the bed and dropped his bag on the fold-out luggage stand, rifling through to pull out the essentials. The ritual was ingrained, and it didn’t matter that he wasn’t in Minneapolis on a hunt, because he had yet to spend a night in a room that didn’t have at least a line of salt running by the exterior access points. He hung a charm on the window in case the draft weakened the salt line, before walking over to the nightstand.
Dean pulled the Bible from the drawer and hefted it in his hand. It had a green hardcover and no visible sign of use beyond the spine that had clearly been cracked. He dropped it into the considerably larger dresser drawer on which the television was perched, and continued back toward his bag, working his tie off and shedding his suit jacket.
The bathroom was small, but there wasn’t a window in it like some motels had, which meant that at least the room wasn’t cold. He snatched a cream-colored towel from the towel rack and leaned into the tub to turn the shower on, twisting the heat on full to warm up as he headed back to the other room, shedding his socks and belt along the way.
He pulled a fresh change of clothes from his bag, stuffing the dirty ones back inside, trying to keep the dirty clothes to one side. After wrapping his towel around his waist, Dean switched on the television, glancing at the list of upcoming shows as he put the suit pants and jacket on a hanger and set them in the closet, the only item in there, his coat hanging off the back of the chair. He took his gun from his bag and carried that, and a worn copy of The Count of Monte Cristo over to the nightstand.
Dean checked the gun prior to setting it down beside his cellphone, and then opened the drawer and set the book inside. The book was held together by a rubber band, some of the pages loose and tucked inside; it had a blue spine and on the front cover was a picture of a stone cell, markings scraped into the wall with a barred window letting in just a trace of light. Dean looked down at it a moment before he closed the drawer, turned the volume up on the television as he headed back toward the bathroom.
The tiny shower had green tile walls the exact shade of which made Dean wonder if they might have accrued that color over time. There were two separate knobs for hot and cold; he was not entirely surprised that when he turned the hot to full, the result was a tepid splash of water with as much conviction as a summer drizzle. Years of hopping from one motel to the next had taught him to appreciate the little things, like the fact that at least it was a private shower located in his own room, rather than a communal one he had to trek across the parking lot to access.
He toweled off quickly, ignoring the rough scratch of the thin towel that barely absorbed any of the damp, wondering, not for the first time, if he should maybe invest in his own towel. The opening chords of Zeppelin’s ‘Trampled Under Foot’ rang out just as he was wrapping the scratchy material about his waist, and Dean hurried into the other room, grabbing his cellphone from where he’d left it on the nightstand. “Hello?”
There was a pause before a voice that was definitely not Sam’s said, “Dean?”
“Aaron?” He supposed there was no reason why it should have been Sam calling. Four years was a long time, and it hadn’t seemed as if his brother was in any rush to reconnect; he probably needed a bit of time just to get used to the idea of Dean being in the same city; Sam had always been slow to adjust, even as he had been eager for change. Maybe after he got past the shock of their meeting they could get around to sorting through the rest of it. Still, Aaron was about the furthest down the list of people Dean had been expecting to call, especially given how much he hated phones on a good day. “What’s wrong, man?”
“You should know. It doesn’t feel right having you here without you knowing, and you shouldn’t hear it from anyone else.”
Dean frowned and rubbed idly at a drip that had leapt from the end of his hair, trailing down across his nose. “What is it?”
“One down, Dean,” Aaron said, his voice low and hoarse, like he had to work to get the words out. In the background, Dean could hear the chatter and ruckus that reminded him that his friend was calling on a prison phone line. “One down.”
His initial confusion was swept neatly aside by a tenuous, cold-shock of horror-hope. Such a tight conflict of emotions knotting up in his gut, striking him so hard and so fast he thought his vision might have actually whited-out. His throat felt tight, but he forced himself to push the word out, past the part of him that cried that he already understood the cryptic statement, “What?”
“One Edward Dowell.” There was a shuddery breath and then a click and silence. Dean sat with his cellphone pressed to his ear, damp from the shower with a wet towel soaking through the sheets of his bed, and felt nothing and everything.
The guard opened the door, and Dean adjusted his tie, trying to look serious and pinched like how Sam had looked when they’d met in that same room the other day. He nodded succinctly at the guard and dropped into the closest chair, fiddling with the notepad he’d brought in an attempt to more aptly exemplify the legal secretary that Sam had claimed him to be.
“Dean,” Jesse greeted with a vague smirk.
Dean was in no position to humor it, however. “What the hell were you thinking?”
Jesse looked honestly confused. “What?”
“Dowell? Are you kidding me?”
Jesse settled back in his chair, shaking his head. “Naw, man. I wouldn’t kid about something like that.” He stuck his tongue in the side of his cheek and tipped his head, eyes flicking over Dean as he said, “Thought you’d react a little differently, though.”
“No,” Dean said. “No, that’s great. Really. Super.” He leaned forward across the table, “So what the hell is Sam doing here?”
Jesse and Aaron shared a look that at least held a bit of remorse. “Dean, I thought he knew, honestly.”
“Right, because it’s really something I’d tell my kid brother.”
“I’m sorry, Dean,” Aaron said. “The both of us are. We can request different counsel.”
“No,” Jesse said. “Look, we’re probably going down for this. I’d rather it be with someone who’s genuinely giving it all they have, because they’re invested, because they care about the outcome. Anyway, can you honestly believe that Sam will just leave ‘cause we ask him? Now he knows it’s us, he’s gonna do some checking around, either way.” Jesse had a valid point, even if Dean would rather deny it. Whatever they did now was too little, too late.
“Maybe it won’t be so bad,” Aaron said. “I mean, he didn’t remember us until we prompted him. There’s nothing to make him think this is anything but a straight-up act of random violence.”
“Gang violence,” Jesse said with a smirk, it was obviously something he was used to hearing.
“You should have talked to me, first.”
“You’re right,” Jesse said. “Of course you’re right. But maybe it’s worth thinking about it from where we’re sitting. Of all the times and all the places, we end up at the same place at the same time. It all comes back, man. Every bit of it. They picked us up for it and we still couldn’t believe everything hadn’t just been a dream. I mean, we’ve wished for it often enough. So we wanted one familiar thing, one thing we remembered, and we couldn’t reach you.”
“The boys had the word out,” Aaron agreed. “They were looking for a Winchester; any old one would do. We weren’t going to turn our noses up when the first word we got back was from a familiar face, who also had himself a law degree. We’re only human.”
Dean let his eyes fall closed for a second, his jaw clenching and unclenching before he consciously exhaled in a slow steady whoosh. When he looked back up at the two men, his closest friends, his anger was harnessed. “Okay,” he said. “We’ll figure this out, but you’re not going down for this. Not for this one.”
The Normandy was a nice, fancy name for the Best Western that was located about fourteen minutes from Snelling Motor Inn, where Dean had a room, and barely a minute away from Hennepin County Jail. It was squat and sprawling, a three-story boxy building that was doing its best to look historic, surrounded by sleek, tall structures with glass and metal that glinted and reeked of modernity. Dean thought it could have done without the splotches of smooth grey cement that were maybe meant to make the place look old but managed instead to make it seem like it had been attacked by a flock of really big birds with digestive problems and good aim. He had hoped, when it occurred to him that his brother was a respectable lawyer earning his own way through life, that maybe Sam had stashed himself away at the Hilton, which looked at least as if it belonged in the middle of a bustling city.
Still, as Dean found his way to what the man at the front desk assured him was Sam Winchester’s room, there was something that just felt more like his brother than the cold whites and blues the Hilton’s website had displayed just failed to capture. It was reassuring in a way, like maybe Sam was still Sam, despite his Stanford degree and his apartment in New York and his career.
Sam answered the door on the third knock, his hair ruffled in that way it got when he’d been researching and brushing it back constantly to keep it out of his face. His feet were bare, and he was in a pair of loose navy sweats and a white t-shirt that stretched tightly across his broad shoulders. He said, “Dean,” in that startled, pleased way that Dean remembered from years ago, and it was that more than anything that allowed him to answer as casually as he did.
“Tell me you haven’t gone totally respectable,” he purred, leaning his shoulder against the door-frame. There was heat in Sam’s eyes as he tugged Dean inside, and Dean took a quick moment to survey Sam’s hotel suite while his brother closed and locked the door. There was an open laptop and papers scattered on the coffee table by the sofa that sat beside a fake fireplace and in front of a tragically small flat screen television that hung on the painted wall. There was a kitchenette but, more importantly, Dean could see an acceptably large king-sized bed through the other room.
Sam moved forward, stepped right into Dean’s personal space like he belonged there, like he’d always been there, and then Dean forced himself to stop thinking, stop caring, and just go with it.
The kiss maybe shouldn’t have felt as good as it did, but Dean had already made his decision, turned his face up and opened his mouth further and met Sam’s questing tongue with his own. Sam’s hand wrapped around the back of his head as he pressed closer, like he was trying to fuse them together right there in the middle of the suite, his breath hot as it ghosted across Dean’s cheek and down his throat, neither one wanting to pull back to catch his breath.
With a sharp tweak of Sam’s right nipple, Dean took control of the familiar dance, sucking a path from the corner of Sam’s lips down his throat, tasting the salt of his brother’s skin as his hands worked the sweatpants off slender hips, letting them drop to the floor. “I missed you,” Sam said, his mouth following Dean’s as Dean used his shirt to tug him forward. “Dean,” he groaned, a warm gust of air across Dean’s ear that made him shiver.
Dean dismissed the couch and spun them slowly so he could see his target, the big king-sized bed that sat neatly made and welcoming. Sam tripped over the pants that were still around his ankles as Dean’s hands cupped his hips, slid up and under the shirt, sliding the rough cotton past perked nipples until, finally, Sam stood naked and wanting, knees pressed to the back of the bed and eyes hooded, mouth open and panting and already looking like sin. Dean pushed him back and climbed over him, kicking his boots and socks free as he moved to perch above his brother.
At some point, Sam had worked open Dean’s belt and jeans, his coat and zip-top long discarded; Dean was a little surprised to realize he couldn’t pinpoint when but dismissed it as unimportant. All that mattered was the hot, wet curve of cock that stretched up Sam’s belly.
“C’mere,” Sam said, one hand slipping around the back of Dean’s neck and pulling him forward until their lips touched. “I don’t think you understand what it is to have rules. You’ve got to have rules, and you’ve got to have discipline.” Sam’s hands worked their way up the skin on Dean’s back, pressing him closer as he arched upward, and Dean spared a moment to think about Sam leaving a wet spot on the front of his jeans. “Down on your knees.”
“What’s wrong?” Sam asked, his brows furrowing as he pulled back, stopped rucking Dean’s shirt along his torso.
Dean shook his head, managing a sly smile as he knelt up. Sam’s hands dropped to his hips as he pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it aside. “Nothing at all,” Dean said as he pressed his mouth to Sam’s collarbone and sucked hard until Sam arched under him again and gave that helpless shiver-moan that meant he was having trouble thinking coherently, which was just fine with Dean.
His mouth blazed across his brother’s torso, suckling and laving one nipple, as his hand pinched and rubbed the other. He listened to Sam’s choked, needy gasps and quiet chants that Dean realized were his name, over and over like a prayer. He trailed his tongue lower, dipped it tauntingly into and out of Sam’s belly-button, swirled it around and round until he moved on, moved down further still until, in a swift and ruthless move, he took Sam in his mouth right to the quick.
“This is what happens when you don’t follow the rules.”
It had been a while, and maybe Dean had been overconfident because for a moment he felt his throat constricting, felt a desperate panicked tension zing through him as he thought 'no, god no,' but then Sam whispered his name and he looked up, saw Sam’s hooded hazel eyes watching him, Sam’s hand cupping gently at the back of his head, and Dean could breathe again.
He smirked as he pulled back, licked teasingly at Sam’s cock, tracing patterns with a firm tongue, and then ghosting a breath across his brother’s skin, working slowly, keeping hold of Sam’s gaze until Sam couldn’t hold it anymore, could do nothing but moan and move his hips in little start-stops of action like he was trying to remember not to thrust up. Dean braced a hand against the jut of Sam’s hip and took him in to the root once more, sucked and swallowed until Sam managed a choked, “Dean,” that Dean knew the meaning of and ignored; he drank his brother down until there was nothing left and sat back, more than a little pleased with the intensity of the reaction his efforts had garnered.
He had only the briefest of moments to feel smug before Sam’s hand, once resting passively turned into a grip on his hair strong enough to compel Dean forward and into a helpless kiss as Sam’s other hand found its way to Dean’s hip and worked his jeans and boxers down, setting his cock free. Sam pulled back long enough to lick his palm, and then Dean’s eyes were falling closed and he was dropping down a little heavier on his brother’s chest, his cock wrapped up in a firm hand and his mouth devoured, the scent of his brother’s sweat and Sam’s cologne, lemon and ginger spice, filling him up.
It wasn’t romantic, how he came with his hands fisting the blankets on either side of his brother’s head, his own head tucked into the side of Sam’s neck, warm breath in his ear as Sam said, “Come on, Dean,” as Sam’s tongue laved that spot just there behind Dean’s ear, Sam’s hand on his cock and the other in his hair. It left Dean shaking and shaken, not sure if he should curl up in his brother’s arms or grab his clothes and go, but that wasn’t anything new, and Dean pressed a kiss to the side of Sam’s neck and closed his eyes.
When Dean managed to swim up from the afterglow he was no longer sticky or half-clothed, but instead he was tucked under the blankets and wrapped up in Sam’s arms. It shouldn’t have been that easy, but Dean was thankful that it had been. “Hey, you awake?” he asked as he twisted until he faced his brother.
Sam blinked open an eye and glared, “Not for lack of trying.”
“Why’d you come out here?”
Sam blinked open his other eye and looked back as if he were really considering the question; or, more likely, considering Dean’s reason for asking. “I got a call from a client. It’s what I do.”
“But you drove out to Minneapolis.”
Sam shrugged awkwardly and let his left hand slip down to rest casually on Dean’s hip, rubbing his thumb idly back-and-forth across Dean’s skin. “I think maybe it was always the plan, never to be too confined to a single place. New York is flexible; it has reciprocity with a lot of states, which simplifies the back-and-forth a bit. Besides, it was sort of nice to be on the road again.”
“Liar,” Dean teased. “I’ve seen your piece of shit car.” Sam didn’t bother to deny it; Dean figured his brother knew a losing battle when he saw one. “Sammy,” Dean said, when the silence stretched between them, not entirely uncomfortable. Sam turned from where he had been idly watching his thumb moving against Dean’s hip and Dean said, “don’t take the case.”
Sam frowned, his hand stilling as he braced himself up on the pillow. “What’s going on?” Dean let his gaze slip away, looked at the rug where a trail of clothes directed his gaze out into the suite where Sam had forgotten to turn off one of the lamps. Sam’s sigh was part frustration and part resignation; Dean felt oddly affectionate as he heard it, reminded all at once of how well his brother knew him, no matter how long it had been. “If you can give me a reason why I shouldn’t take this case, then I won’t.”
The tone was everything: that solid, confident promise that struck Dean to the core. One honest reason... but Dean couldn’t give it, couldn’t conjure one, couldn’t get the words out. All he managed was, “You said yourself, they’re not good guys,” which felt a little bit like a betrayal, even if he couldn’t bring himself to regret it.
“I knew going in I wouldn’t only be defending the good guys. It’s part of the job, and I kind of like the idea of helping out friends. Even if they’re your friends and they have dubious morals.” His hand moved from Dean’s hip to his face, brushed a strand of hair back and Dean endured the frowning scrutiny that meant Sam was trying to puzzle him out.
Dean forced himself to shrug and turn away, like the answer was of no concern to him. “I should probably go.”
“You should stay here. Better than driving all the way back to wherever you’re holed up.”
“It’s barely a fifteen minute stretch,” Dean argued, but he settled back under the blankets and let his mind drift, his brother’s arm settling across his belly as Sam pressed against his side. He thought about waiting until Sam fell asleep before heading out, but it had been four years and Sam still smelled the same, still held him the same, and Dean ended up falling asleep before his brother could start snoring the same as well.
|| END PART ONE >>|
MASTERPOST
By: revenant_scribe
Rating: R
Word Count: 9,381
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Part of the Icarus 'Verse
On January 24, 2011, at 8:26 in the evening, two men walked through the doors of O’Malley’s pub, a little place just off of Chicago Avenue in Midtown Minneapolis. They were casually dressed, but respectable. One wore a battered burgundy leather bomber jacket, and the other had on a black double-breasted coat that looked expensive. They walked in-step with each other.
The bartender knew their faces, was setting down a glass of scotch and a bottle of beer in front of each of them as they pulled off their hats and gloves and settled onto their stools. They raised their glasses and shared a toast.
At 9:05, the shorter of the two men rose from his seat and made his way through the far room, to the back where the washrooms were. When he returned, he engaged his companion in a hushed conversation, voices low and heads together, which concluded when both men knocked back their drinks and rose from the bar.
They moved to a table tucked away in a corner of the pub, joining a man who had, until that moment, been hunched over a plate of fish and chips, eating with focused gusto but neatly so. He did not show any recognition of the men, seemed confused by their presence though he did not protest overmuch, even settled back to his meal and into a conversation with them.
At 9:27, both men rose from the table they had joined, each pulling a gun from beneath their jacket and between them, fired seven bullets that, at such close range, could not fail to hit their mark. The third man collapsed over his meal, his blood spilling onto the plate and the table, dripping down his arm and onto the floor. Holstering their weapons, the men covered their tab at the bar, leaving a sizable tip and half-meant apology to the barkeep, and left the way they had come in.
The facts were clear enough, with witnesses left trying to put together the fragments of what they had seen in some way that gave it sense. Two men, two guns, seven bullets, and one victim: simple.
The motive, however, was a little more complex.
So it is true that every one of our actions leaves some trace on our past,
either dark or bright. So it is true that every step we take is more like a
reptile's progress across the sand, leaving a track behind it. And often,
alas, the track is the mark of our tears!
The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
Sam Winchester pulled his silver Corolla into a space and turned off the ignition, hunching forward to peer out the windshield at the innocuous beige-slate building that sat, oddly majestic, across the street. There was something about the design of it that called to mind the Sphinx, lying aloof and mysterious, or a castle removed somehow from the bustle of everyday life in the middle of which it sat. Even the tiny regimented slits of windows reminded Sam more of a particularly baffling church he visited once when he was younger; he supposed that might have been what the architect intended when he mapped his creation: to make people think of anything but what the building actually was.
Letting out a short whoosh of breath, Sam opened his door and unfolded himself from the car, sparing a moment for a wistful remembrance of worn vinyl and ample legroom while he pulled his suit jacket from the backseat and quickly pulled on both it and his pea coat; one thing he had not anticipated was the bitter wind that turned his breath white. While the drive from New York to Minneapolis might not have been the longest road trip he had ever undertaken, the difference in weather was both significant and unfortunate.
His back popped as he rolled his shoulders before reaching into the car to grab his briefcase from the front seat, sparing a moment to run a mental checklist and remind himself that he was a professional and also that he hadn’t committed himself to anything. Locking his car, he jogged across the street and began to walk around the block to the entrance, noting with a hint of annoyance that there was covered parking that would have meant less time exposed to the cold wind. He hadn’t been in the city long enough to be confident with finding his way around, though he had looked it up online just to ensure he wouldn’t get hopelessly lost.
With another glance at the small rectangle of hotel paper, Sam confirmed the directions as he walked up the steps and through the glass doors. There was always a moment, no matter how often he did it, or how hard he tried to fight it, where his instincts kicked in and screamed at him. He had been taught every trick in the trade specifically so that he would never have to see the inside of a place like the county jail, and yet there he was, willingly walking deeper into the belly of the building. It was just something he’d have to get used to, he thought, though if that were true it likely would have happened already; he’d certainly had enough time.
“Good morning,” he greeted as he stepped up to the front desk, pulling his wallet from his pocket and presenting his identification, glancing at the nametag that the woman behind the desk was wearing. “Claire,” he read, managing a bright, disarming grin. “My name’s Sam Winchester; I’m here for a meeting with my clients.”
Claire’s blonde hair was pulled-back in a slick bun and she peered at him from above the rim of her black-framed glasses, her blue eyes shining. She looked surprisingly cheerful and engaged for someone working the front desk of a county jail, at least from Sam’s experience, and he watched as she checked over his identification carefully. “You’re coming in from New York?” she asked, her eyebrows jerking upward slightly.
“Yeah,” Sam said, squaring his shoulders and preparing to talk his way around any fuss she might try to make. Every so often, or so he had found, there was always a government employee who wanted to kick up an extra bit of fuss, just so they could feel like they were contributing to the system. Sam had learned to accept it, though it didn’t make it any less irksome.
Claire smiled at him warmly. “Well, welcome to Minneapolis, Minnesota. Do you need me to recommend someplace for you to stay?”
Her concern was genuine and Sam experienced a momentary vertigo as his professional aloofness warred with his honest reaction to her open friendliness; she wasn’t even flirting, he saw no hint of interest in her eyes at all. “I’ve found a place, thanks,” he said, which seemed to be the right answer because her smile broadened a little more as she handed back his identification and held out a plastic card with a clip on the top.
“This is your visitor pass; just clip that on and you’re set. You’ll be going to the fourth floor. Have a great day!”
Beyond the front desk was a bank of metal detectors that stood like sentinels, shoulder to shoulder in front of a stretch of glass. There were guards by each detector, their postures relaxed but not slouching, clad in beige uniform shirts and dark pants and chatting amicably with one another and with the people passing under the looming archway of detectors. Beyond the glass embankment he could make out a pale hallway and the elevators.
“Good morning!” the guard greeted as Sam reached the metal detector, already pulling the shoulder strap of his briefcase off and setting the bag to be scanned. “Or I guess it would be afternoon,” the guard corrected. “Don’t forget keys, if you keep them in your pocket.”
Sam fished his keys from his suit jacket and walked through without trouble, accepting his bag and coat from the guard who wished him a good day with enough sincerity that Sam couldn’t help feeling he had stumbled through into an alternate dimension somewhere along the way. He’d had just enough time to check into his hotel room after pulling into the city, where the people had been pleasant enough but that wasn’t outside the realm of expectation. A jail, however, usually did not lend itself to social niceties and between the cheerfulness of the people he had encountered, and the pristine state of the building itself, Sam was disinclined to believe he was even in the correct location.
The dark grey doors of the elevators slid open with a chipper chiming and Sam stepped inside. He rode to the fourth floor with a pinched woman who stood with her back pressed to the corner, fiddling compulsively with a gold band around her finger while the child who was apparently attached to her clutched the hem of her sweater. It was perhaps the only indication, outside the security check they had passed, that Hennepin Public Safety Facility was not a simple office or civic building.
With another bright chime the elevator doors slid aside and revealed a wide hallway with short, cloth-covered benches spaced along a stretch of tall windows. A surprisingly clean and well-kept tri-colored rug covered the floor and Sam adjusted his briefcase as he stepped cautiously into the hall, following the mother and son to the left where a set of glass doors slid open automatically for them. Down a shorter hallway with no windows was a frosted door that Sam held open, trying to smile as the woman glanced up at him, though she was too dazed to return the expression.
It was almost a relief to step beyond the door and see more security; though on the whole the space looked not unlike the waiting room at a clinic he remembered being taken to as a child. The room was predominantly taupe, and there were cloth-covered chairs pushed against the wall with magazines splayed on a wooden table in the corner. Two heavy metal doors stood on either side of a desk with a glass partition behind which sat a slightly heavyset guard who had a pronounced forehead and no great amount of hair. The guard greeted the woman and directed her through the door on the left before turning to Sam.
“What can I do for you, son?” he asked, his expression open and kindly. Sam gave his name again, shifting to better display his visitor’s badge, and explained he was visiting his clients. “What are their names?” the guard asked, when Sam had answered his other questions satisfactorily.
Sam pulled the paper, on which he had written the directions, from his pocket and flipped it around to read the back, “Aaron Conyers and Jesse Deacon.” The guard entered something into his computer and then gestured for Sam to take a seat. There was enough time for him to remove his coat and pick up a magazine from the pile before a guard stepped out from the door on the right side of the partition and called for him.
“So, New York, huh?” the guard said as he jingled the keys on his hip, leading Sam down a strikingly jaundiced hallway that smelled faintly of bleach. When Sam quirked an eyebrow the man smiled, “Ben mentioned it,” he explained, and Sam assumed Ben must be the name of the guard who had checked him in. “That’s a bit of a ways to come for a client. Are you good friends or something?”
Sam adjusted the strap on his briefcase and said, “Not particularly.” The guard boomed a laugh as if Sam had made a outstanding joke before he stopped by another door, running through a list of rules and procedures that were familiar, and when Sam agreed and assured the man he was clear on everything, the door was unlocked and opened for him. Sam stepped through.
The room was small, though he had been expecting that, and as plain and nondescript as the hallway. There was a faint reek of sweat and something earthy and cold like wet cement. From the inside, the slitted windows were more austere than they had seemed when Sam had surveyed them from the street, but the fluorescent lights were enough to distract from the distinct lack of natural light. In the center of the room, a rectangular table was bolted inconspicuously to the floor. Sitting in matching metallic chairs, their back to the scant natural light, were the two men whose stubborn insistence had prompted Sam to get in his car and drive about twenty hours to come and meet with them.
Their hands and feet were shackled, allowing them some freedom to handle any forms or paperwork that might be required but not so much that they might get ideas. They were in orange jumpsuits and slip-on rubber-soled shoes, but that was the extent of their similarities. The taller of the two, almost but not quiet Sam’s height, sat upright in his chair, his hands splayed flat against the table top in front of him with his fingers periodically tapping out a near silent rhythm. He had black hair that was ruffled and mussed, like he couldn’t be bothered with it, and dark chocolate eyes that wandered every which way but never once connected with Sam’s own.
The other man, though smaller, seemed coiled and ready to spring even as he was slouched back against his chair in a posture that any untrained eye might mistake for relaxed. His hair was long enough that Sam wondered how he survived in the tough crowds that he was apparently associating with, especially given his fair coloring. Neither one of them struck Sam as particularly threatening; they resembled cornered dogs more than anything. Innocent until proven guilty, and if Sam really was going to take the case, like both men clearly wanted, then Sam thought it best to begin optimistically. He stepped forward and dropped his briefcase down beside the available chair, bracing his fingertips against the table, ready to begin the meeting.
“Sammy fucking Winchester,” the blond said, bringing Sam up short.
“Excuse me?”
The man guffawed once, brightly, like it was a joke, and then his expression slid into something more serious. He shook his head. “You don’t remember.” Bumping the dark-haired man beside him with his elbow and nodding back toward Sam he said, “He doesn’t remember.”
Sam frowned, glanced between both men. “Remember what, exactly?”
The blond leaned forward, his forearms on the table as he said, “Blue Earth, Kiddo, we were…”
But it fell into place, the vague memory of two youthful faces superimposed over the world-weary men he was confronted with and he shook his head again, though this time it was with a sense of surprise, and Sam matched the names he had been given to the faces of both men with ease, “…friends of my brother. It’s Jesse. Am I right?”
Jesse’s grin showed teeth slightly yellowed that looked somewhat ghoulish under the fluorescent humming glare. “Yeah.” He waited as Sam greeted the silent dark haired man, receiving only a shy, vague nod for his trouble. “If you didn’t remember us, what the hell did you drive all the way out here for?”
Sam settled into his chair, undoing the button on his jacket as he answered, “Based on the phone calls, it didn’t seem like I had much choice.”
“Oh those, yeah, sorry about that. We’re in a bit of a bind and, well, it’d be nice to have a familiar face backing us up, yeah?”
Sam twisted, pulling a pad and pen from his briefcase to set them on the table as he asked, “So tell me about this bind.”
“Well, Sam Winchester. We’re here because the law thinks we killed a man.” Jesse said it casually but without the humor his tone had sported a moment before. Sam kept his expression neutral as he waited and was entirely aware of both Jesse’s and Aaron’s assessing gazes. “You don’t want to ask us if we did it?”
Sometimes clients wanted reassurance, or something like it, but Sam met Jesse’s piercing blue gaze and took a chance. “Mr. Deacon, if you want to confess, I’d be happy to arrange for a priest; I’m just a lawyer.”
Jesse eyed him a moment longer before he huffed a somewhat bitter laugh and shook his head with amusement. “Can’t believe little Sammy Winchester grew up into this tough-nut, ball-cracking lawyer.”
“Not quite all that,” Sam said, but a part of him preened under the compliment. “So catch me up on this. I understand you’ve both entered a plea, which I’m assuming was ‘not guilty.’” He received a snort out of Aaron but continued, “but if I’m going to take this case, I need to have a better sense of where things are at, and what we’re dealing with.” He made sure to cut his eyes to each of them, noting the half-smile twist to Aaron’s lips when Sam said ‘we’ instead of ‘you’.
Jesse described the basics, relying on Aaron for specifics regarding the court, especially the relevant upcoming dates. Sam jotted it all down, and then encouraged them into giving a bit more detail about the circumstances of the crime. “The man … the victim,” Aaron corrected himself. “His name was Edward Dowell.” Aaron paused again, and Sam thought he was being given time to catch up with his note taking, but when he glanced up, both men were watching him with curiously intent gazes. Sam glanced back at the page, running the name through his head, but it didn’t jog any recollection. He nodded and asked Aaron to continue but the man seemed to deflate again, allowing Jesse to take up the conversation again. Jesse offered a few general details as well as the name of the attorney who had been assisting them up to that point, who was, according to Jesse at least, willing to support Sam in applying to the court to take the case pro hac vice, since Sam wasn’t licensed to practice law in Minneapolis.
It didn’t feel like a question anymore, whether or not he would accept the case. Even after they discussed legal fees, where Sam’s careful hedging was met with amused smiles and an unconcerned wave of a hand, as if money were no object even if Sam couldn’t think how that could be so. Sam felt a pull to defend these men who had, over seventeen years ago, been familiar features in his life, rebuffing his stubborn attempts to go on adventures with them, bringing over candy and popcorn and scary movies that Sam knew he wasn’t supposed to be watching. He pulled his thoughts away from the past as he finished up with the initial consultation, surprised at having covered more than he had initially anticipated.
“You’ve given me a good basis to get started,” Sam said, after checking that they didn’t have any pressing questions or concerns. “I’m just curious. I mean,” his gaze cut to Aaron and then back to Jesse, “you guys would have had to have tracked me down. The messages I got seemed pretty insistent. It sort of makes me wonder, why me?”
“Seemed like a good idea at the time,” Aaron muttered before the silence stretched just shy of being awkward.
Jesse rolled his eyes and then leaned forward. “Look,” he said. “I know we were never that close, not like we had much time to hang out or anything, but you’re Dean’s kid brother, and that means something to us.” His gaze drifted away for a moment before he huffed a breath and met Sam’s gaze directly again. “Aaron and I, we’re not good guys, okay? Don’t get any illusions. We have a reputation here, but it sort of felt like maybe we deserved a defense attorney who wasn’t coming in with any sort of bias against us, or whatever. Maybe someone who might understand.”
Sam nodded and tried not to feel like maybe there was a whole other conversation Jesse was trying to have with him that Sam just wasn’t getting. “Okay,” he said instead, and began tidying away the paperwork and his notes. “So listen, I’ll draw up those documents we discussed and start looking into some of the details. I’ll be by in a couple of days and we can work out the particulars. You have my number. I’m going to take this case.”
“Relax, man,” Jesse said, leaning back in his chair again, his serious expression disappearing with a wide grin. “No need to schmooze us, here. We trust you. We know you.” He said it like there hadn’t been a wide chasm of years since the last time they had even spoken, but Sam figured that these men had been his brother’s closest friends for several years and, in Winchester terms, that was a hell of a long time; maybe they did understand more than Sam was giving them credit for. He shook their hands just the same, ignoring the chains and refusing to entertain whether the warm hands that offered up firm and confident handshakes had also wielded weapons with the intent to kill. That was a matter for a later date; for now, he was interested purely in the basics.
Snapping his briefcase closed, Sam picked up his coat and headed toward the door. Before he could knock and indicate his readiness to leave, there was the sound of the lock clicking open, and then the door was swinging wide and a guard stepped aside so that a man in a sharp black suit and coat could come through.
Sam processed the splitting grin on Aaron’s face and the shrill cackle-laugh that erupted passed Jesse’s narrow lips in a haze, his world narrowed to green-gold eyes and a face so perfect and familiar that it felt like a physical blow knocking the breath out of him. “This your lawyer?” the guard was asking, puzzled, his gaze darting to each of the occupants of the room.
“Dean,” Aaron greeted, shaking his head like he couldn’t quite believe it. “As I live and breathe.” It was like the statement confirmed what his eyes were telling him, and Sam exhaled in a whoosh, watching Dean’s eyes flick from Aaron to Jesse, and then over to Sam, like he wasn’t sure who to deal with first. His dilemma was cut short as two guards entered through the prisoner’s entrance and began ushering their charges out.
“Catch you on the flip side!” Jesse yelled as he disappeared through the door, his harsh cackling laugh cut-short when the door clicked shut.
“Now, wait just a minute,” the guard who had shown Dean in said. “I thought you were coming in here for a meeting?”
“He’s with me.” Sam said, jumping in before his brother could open his mouth and insert his own foot in it. “He’s … my legal secretary.” He grabbed a hold of Dean’s arm, even as the shorter man snapped his mouth closed and glared at Sam’s explanation. “You’re late. We’ll talk about this outside.” With a tight smile to the guard, Sam ushered Dean down the hall and into the elevator.
“Dude, get off me,” Dean said, breaking Sam’s hold and pressing the button for the main floor, the gesture taking him to the opposite side of the cramped space.
Sam stared at his brother’s profile for a moment; took in the familiar muss of hair and the splash of freckles, and then looked at the pressed suit and the unfamiliar black coat his brother was holding. He tried to remember when, if ever, he had seen his brother dressed so presentably. “Dean, what the hell are you doing here?”
Dean turned a cheeky bright grin on him. “Well hello to you too, Sammy. Been a few years.”
“Uh, yeah,” Sam said. “Try four years.” Dean made a face like he didn’t believe it had been that long, or that he didn’t care, both of which Sam knew were bullshit. “Now what are you doing here?”
Dean sighed, turning to face his brother. “Could ask the same thing of you.” As the elevator chimed and the doors slid open Dean added, “They’re my friends, y’know.” Sounding so surprisingly hurt and defensive that Sam almost missed the flash of silver that his brother pulled from his pocket and dropped in the waste bin, before handing his coat over to pass through the metal detectors.
Sam bit his tongue as they both handed their visitor’s badges back to the front desk, but he kept in close-step until they were back outside in the bracing chill before he hissed, “Were you going to break them out?”
“What?” Dean said, flipping the collar of his coat up against the wind. “That’s crazy-talk.” He halted his steps as Sam continued down the block to the parking lot. “Dude, I’m this way.” It brought Sam up short, and he realized that he had fallen so easily into old habits, matching steps with Dean, ready to follow him to the Impala and head out. So much had changed, and nothing at all, and it was crashing in on him all at once leaving him stranded, feeling oddly alone.
“Right,” Sam said. He looked around in order to orient himself, then nodded down the street. “I saw a place down that way, not too far. Could do with some lunch, yeah?”
Dean hesitated. “Do they serve beer?”
“Sure,” Sam said, even though he had no idea if that was true. Still, it brought Dean into step with him again, and they walked a block huddled inside their jackets, saying absolutely nothing.
When he had looked up Minneapolis online, just after he had booked a hotel but before he had bothered to pack anything, Sam had discovered that the city had an enclosed pedestrian footbridge called the Skyway that connected about eighty blocks of the city without having to set foot out-of-doors. He could see the rationale, but as he walked, shoulders hunched and collar flipped up to stave off some of the chilled wind that was whipping down the street against him, he didn’t think he would trade for the warmth. It wasn’t as cold as some of the horror stories Sam had heard about Minnesota, but it was certainly a temperature he was not quite accustomed to.
Even with the chill slowing the steady race of his thoughts to the sluggish ebb of molasses, Sam could not reconcile himself to the fact that for the first time in four years, he was walking down a street in downtown Minneapolis with his brother. It was a soothing balm, like suddenly the world had righted itself after been topsy-turvy for so long, and it also felt like he could rip his brother apart with his bare hands, he was so angry. Four years ago, Sam had lost everything that had mattered and he still wasn’t clear about why.
“What about this place?” Sam said, gesturing to the sign across the street that declared in red lettering its name: Restaurant Max. It looked respectable, and maybe a little classier than the roadside diners that Dean was still likely in the habit of visiting. Sam didn’t fail to catch the slightly longing look his brother flashed to the Irish pub on the other side of the street, but he refused to give any ground, striding across the road the moment the light turned, before Dean had even accepted the restaurant.
It was early enough in the dinner hour that when Sam asked for a booth, they were given one of the larger ones near the back. He nodded politely at the waitress, dropped his briefcase onto the dark-green fabric covered bench and spread his coat carefully atop it before sliding into the booth, stopping abruptly when his thigh bumped against Dean’s legs which were stretched out, bridging the distance between the benches. Sam stole a surprised, cautious look across the table, but his brother was concentrating on loosening his tie, and Sam watched as familiar fingers twisted the top buttons of a crisp white shirt free. Dean picked up his menu, focusing on the dinner options to the exclusion of everything else, and Sam took a long sip of his water before mirroring his brother. Dean’s posture was familiar, and suddenly they were in a sunny roadside diner, Dean hunched over his menu as their dad slapped his hand down on the table and glared, “Sam, we’re not talking about this here. We’re going to eat and then get onto the road, and you will not mention this Stanford business again. Clear?”
With neither one of them willing to give ground, they sat in silence until their waitress returned to take their orders. “How’ve you been?” Dean managed once the menus and any further attempt at distraction was removed from them.
Sam huffed, wanting to snap that it was a poor excuse for a conversation starter. “I’ve been good,” he said, instead. “Real good. I have a place of my own, and I’m practicing law in New York. I’m settled, you know? It’s good.” His expression felt oddly plastic given that until that moment, he had been perfectly contented with his apartment and his life in the boom and bustle of New York City.
Dean nodded, sipped at the beer that had come as Sam had been answering. “What about that girl. What was her name? The blonde?”
“Jess,” Sam said, narrowing his eyes a little as he saw through the casual tone. “Naw, we broke up.”
Dean might have been practiced at playing a part, but he couldn’t hide anything from Sam, and the slight widening of his eyes expressed the honest surprise that the dismissive tone of his voice masked, “Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Sam said, couldn’t help adding, “Four years ago.” Dean’s gaze skittered away and Sam savored the dark twist of satisfaction as his brother glanced out at the floor of the restaurant, and over to the bar where some of the wait staff had gathered and were joking with the dark-haired bartender. Dean was paler than Sam remembered, and there was a new scar that he could just make out the start of, at the base of his brother’s neck. Sam cleared his throat. “How about you?”
“You know how it goes,” Dean said, turning back and taking another pull of his beer. “Been hunting, moving around, the usual. I’m only here because I hadn’t heard from Aaron or Jesse. One of the guys that they run with said something had happened.”
Sam snorted. “Come on.”
“What?” Dean asked, his brows drawing together as he met Sam’s gaze.
“I’m supposed to believe that you just happen to be blowing through town at the same time that I get a call that basically demands that I be here?”
Dean tipped his head a little, “You think this has to do with you?”
“Does it?”
“What? No!” Dean rubbed at his forehead and shook his head. “I keep in touch with both of them, okay? I mean; we’re not on the phone every day, but we check-in, y’know? When I didn’t hear from them for a couple of days, I checked-around, and when I heard something was up, I came out. That’s all.”
Sam nodded idly, focused on his drink as he mulled over what his brother had said. There was a wealth of words that needed to be said, but in the middle of a restaurant wasn’t the place, and Sam was too busy thinking that finally, after all that time, he had his brother sitting at the table across from him. He turned the conversation to the most pressing issue, “They told me they weren’t good guys.”
Dean shrugged. “That would be the truth.”
“It doesn’t bother you?” Years of hopping from one town to the next, being stashed with one of their father’s acquaintances or another, and never once had Dean shown any real attachments to the people he met. He came in like a hurricane, sweeping everyone student and teacher alike off their feet, so they were all equally in his sway, and then he swept out just as easily, never displaying an ounce of regret. Where Sam had fought to fit in, struggled to find something solid outside of his family to hold onto, Dean had always seemed to understand that there was nothing outside of the Impala and their family that could even pretend at stability. Which left Sam wondering why two supposed criminals currently housed in a jail, who Dean knew off and on for about five years over fifteen years ago were worth the effort of keeping in touch. “Do you even know what they’ve been doing since you were kids?”
“I know enough,” Dean dismissed. Their waitress returned with their meal and suddenly Dean had an excuse not to maintain conversation, digging into his food with enthusiasm, periodically groaning in a way that made Sam shift awkwardly where he sat. “Man,” Dean said around a mouthful, “You shouldn’t have settled for that pansy-ass salad. This steak is incredible.” Beneath the table, Dean’s leg bumped against Sam’s thigh, stayed pressed close as his left foot rested lightly, just at the end of Sam’s shoe. “I’m assuming you’re paying, since it was your decision to come here.”
With his brother’s eyes bright with mischief, Sam knew that was the end of any serious conversation, what little there had been of it. Talking with Dean was a slow process that drew on every ounce of the patience Sam had cultivated over the years. Still, his brother was there, expounding on the virtues of steak, teasing and carefree and Sam couldn’t be anything but relieved and grateful, like a weight had slipped off his shoulders. He leaned back in the booth and pressed his thigh against Dean’s leg and played along.
It wasn’t without precedent, but Dean never got used to stopping in big cities. Everything had a busy, self-important pulse that the rhythm of his own life just never mirrored. Habit had him driving around the streets of Minneapolis in search of a cheap motel that didn’t put him too far away from Jesse and Aaron. He couldn’t remember it ever being so difficult to find a nondescript little place to hole-up, but after bouncing back-and-forth between Minneapolis and St. Paul, he gave in and asked the hunched little gnome of a man who ran the gas station he stopped at and got directions that seemed promising.
By the time he pulled into the motel’s parking lot it was late, and cold enough that he barely spared a moment to fret about the state of his car, all alone outside without even an awning to shelter her from the snow. He promised he’d wake up early and scrape the ice off her, which was about the best he could do, before he hauled his bag from the trunk and took the stairs to his room at a jog.
The room was small and the windows were drafty, so Dean cranked the thermostat before he tossed the keys onto the bed and dropped his bag on the fold-out luggage stand, rifling through to pull out the essentials. The ritual was ingrained, and it didn’t matter that he wasn’t in Minneapolis on a hunt, because he had yet to spend a night in a room that didn’t have at least a line of salt running by the exterior access points. He hung a charm on the window in case the draft weakened the salt line, before walking over to the nightstand.
Dean pulled the Bible from the drawer and hefted it in his hand. It had a green hardcover and no visible sign of use beyond the spine that had clearly been cracked. He dropped it into the considerably larger dresser drawer on which the television was perched, and continued back toward his bag, working his tie off and shedding his suit jacket.
The bathroom was small, but there wasn’t a window in it like some motels had, which meant that at least the room wasn’t cold. He snatched a cream-colored towel from the towel rack and leaned into the tub to turn the shower on, twisting the heat on full to warm up as he headed back to the other room, shedding his socks and belt along the way.
He pulled a fresh change of clothes from his bag, stuffing the dirty ones back inside, trying to keep the dirty clothes to one side. After wrapping his towel around his waist, Dean switched on the television, glancing at the list of upcoming shows as he put the suit pants and jacket on a hanger and set them in the closet, the only item in there, his coat hanging off the back of the chair. He took his gun from his bag and carried that, and a worn copy of The Count of Monte Cristo over to the nightstand.
Dean checked the gun prior to setting it down beside his cellphone, and then opened the drawer and set the book inside. The book was held together by a rubber band, some of the pages loose and tucked inside; it had a blue spine and on the front cover was a picture of a stone cell, markings scraped into the wall with a barred window letting in just a trace of light. Dean looked down at it a moment before he closed the drawer, turned the volume up on the television as he headed back toward the bathroom.
The tiny shower had green tile walls the exact shade of which made Dean wonder if they might have accrued that color over time. There were two separate knobs for hot and cold; he was not entirely surprised that when he turned the hot to full, the result was a tepid splash of water with as much conviction as a summer drizzle. Years of hopping from one motel to the next had taught him to appreciate the little things, like the fact that at least it was a private shower located in his own room, rather than a communal one he had to trek across the parking lot to access.
He toweled off quickly, ignoring the rough scratch of the thin towel that barely absorbed any of the damp, wondering, not for the first time, if he should maybe invest in his own towel. The opening chords of Zeppelin’s ‘Trampled Under Foot’ rang out just as he was wrapping the scratchy material about his waist, and Dean hurried into the other room, grabbing his cellphone from where he’d left it on the nightstand. “Hello?”
There was a pause before a voice that was definitely not Sam’s said, “Dean?”
“Aaron?” He supposed there was no reason why it should have been Sam calling. Four years was a long time, and it hadn’t seemed as if his brother was in any rush to reconnect; he probably needed a bit of time just to get used to the idea of Dean being in the same city; Sam had always been slow to adjust, even as he had been eager for change. Maybe after he got past the shock of their meeting they could get around to sorting through the rest of it. Still, Aaron was about the furthest down the list of people Dean had been expecting to call, especially given how much he hated phones on a good day. “What’s wrong, man?”
“You should know. It doesn’t feel right having you here without you knowing, and you shouldn’t hear it from anyone else.”
Dean frowned and rubbed idly at a drip that had leapt from the end of his hair, trailing down across his nose. “What is it?”
“One down, Dean,” Aaron said, his voice low and hoarse, like he had to work to get the words out. In the background, Dean could hear the chatter and ruckus that reminded him that his friend was calling on a prison phone line. “One down.”
His initial confusion was swept neatly aside by a tenuous, cold-shock of horror-hope. Such a tight conflict of emotions knotting up in his gut, striking him so hard and so fast he thought his vision might have actually whited-out. His throat felt tight, but he forced himself to push the word out, past the part of him that cried that he already understood the cryptic statement, “What?”
“One Edward Dowell.” There was a shuddery breath and then a click and silence. Dean sat with his cellphone pressed to his ear, damp from the shower with a wet towel soaking through the sheets of his bed, and felt nothing and everything.
The guard opened the door, and Dean adjusted his tie, trying to look serious and pinched like how Sam had looked when they’d met in that same room the other day. He nodded succinctly at the guard and dropped into the closest chair, fiddling with the notepad he’d brought in an attempt to more aptly exemplify the legal secretary that Sam had claimed him to be.
“Dean,” Jesse greeted with a vague smirk.
Dean was in no position to humor it, however. “What the hell were you thinking?”
Jesse looked honestly confused. “What?”
“Dowell? Are you kidding me?”
Jesse settled back in his chair, shaking his head. “Naw, man. I wouldn’t kid about something like that.” He stuck his tongue in the side of his cheek and tipped his head, eyes flicking over Dean as he said, “Thought you’d react a little differently, though.”
“No,” Dean said. “No, that’s great. Really. Super.” He leaned forward across the table, “So what the hell is Sam doing here?”
Jesse and Aaron shared a look that at least held a bit of remorse. “Dean, I thought he knew, honestly.”
“Right, because it’s really something I’d tell my kid brother.”
“I’m sorry, Dean,” Aaron said. “The both of us are. We can request different counsel.”
“No,” Jesse said. “Look, we’re probably going down for this. I’d rather it be with someone who’s genuinely giving it all they have, because they’re invested, because they care about the outcome. Anyway, can you honestly believe that Sam will just leave ‘cause we ask him? Now he knows it’s us, he’s gonna do some checking around, either way.” Jesse had a valid point, even if Dean would rather deny it. Whatever they did now was too little, too late.
“Maybe it won’t be so bad,” Aaron said. “I mean, he didn’t remember us until we prompted him. There’s nothing to make him think this is anything but a straight-up act of random violence.”
“Gang violence,” Jesse said with a smirk, it was obviously something he was used to hearing.
“You should have talked to me, first.”
“You’re right,” Jesse said. “Of course you’re right. But maybe it’s worth thinking about it from where we’re sitting. Of all the times and all the places, we end up at the same place at the same time. It all comes back, man. Every bit of it. They picked us up for it and we still couldn’t believe everything hadn’t just been a dream. I mean, we’ve wished for it often enough. So we wanted one familiar thing, one thing we remembered, and we couldn’t reach you.”
“The boys had the word out,” Aaron agreed. “They were looking for a Winchester; any old one would do. We weren’t going to turn our noses up when the first word we got back was from a familiar face, who also had himself a law degree. We’re only human.”
Dean let his eyes fall closed for a second, his jaw clenching and unclenching before he consciously exhaled in a slow steady whoosh. When he looked back up at the two men, his closest friends, his anger was harnessed. “Okay,” he said. “We’ll figure this out, but you’re not going down for this. Not for this one.”
The Normandy was a nice, fancy name for the Best Western that was located about fourteen minutes from Snelling Motor Inn, where Dean had a room, and barely a minute away from Hennepin County Jail. It was squat and sprawling, a three-story boxy building that was doing its best to look historic, surrounded by sleek, tall structures with glass and metal that glinted and reeked of modernity. Dean thought it could have done without the splotches of smooth grey cement that were maybe meant to make the place look old but managed instead to make it seem like it had been attacked by a flock of really big birds with digestive problems and good aim. He had hoped, when it occurred to him that his brother was a respectable lawyer earning his own way through life, that maybe Sam had stashed himself away at the Hilton, which looked at least as if it belonged in the middle of a bustling city.
Still, as Dean found his way to what the man at the front desk assured him was Sam Winchester’s room, there was something that just felt more like his brother than the cold whites and blues the Hilton’s website had displayed just failed to capture. It was reassuring in a way, like maybe Sam was still Sam, despite his Stanford degree and his apartment in New York and his career.
Sam answered the door on the third knock, his hair ruffled in that way it got when he’d been researching and brushing it back constantly to keep it out of his face. His feet were bare, and he was in a pair of loose navy sweats and a white t-shirt that stretched tightly across his broad shoulders. He said, “Dean,” in that startled, pleased way that Dean remembered from years ago, and it was that more than anything that allowed him to answer as casually as he did.
“Tell me you haven’t gone totally respectable,” he purred, leaning his shoulder against the door-frame. There was heat in Sam’s eyes as he tugged Dean inside, and Dean took a quick moment to survey Sam’s hotel suite while his brother closed and locked the door. There was an open laptop and papers scattered on the coffee table by the sofa that sat beside a fake fireplace and in front of a tragically small flat screen television that hung on the painted wall. There was a kitchenette but, more importantly, Dean could see an acceptably large king-sized bed through the other room.
Sam moved forward, stepped right into Dean’s personal space like he belonged there, like he’d always been there, and then Dean forced himself to stop thinking, stop caring, and just go with it.
The kiss maybe shouldn’t have felt as good as it did, but Dean had already made his decision, turned his face up and opened his mouth further and met Sam’s questing tongue with his own. Sam’s hand wrapped around the back of his head as he pressed closer, like he was trying to fuse them together right there in the middle of the suite, his breath hot as it ghosted across Dean’s cheek and down his throat, neither one wanting to pull back to catch his breath.
With a sharp tweak of Sam’s right nipple, Dean took control of the familiar dance, sucking a path from the corner of Sam’s lips down his throat, tasting the salt of his brother’s skin as his hands worked the sweatpants off slender hips, letting them drop to the floor. “I missed you,” Sam said, his mouth following Dean’s as Dean used his shirt to tug him forward. “Dean,” he groaned, a warm gust of air across Dean’s ear that made him shiver.
Dean dismissed the couch and spun them slowly so he could see his target, the big king-sized bed that sat neatly made and welcoming. Sam tripped over the pants that were still around his ankles as Dean’s hands cupped his hips, slid up and under the shirt, sliding the rough cotton past perked nipples until, finally, Sam stood naked and wanting, knees pressed to the back of the bed and eyes hooded, mouth open and panting and already looking like sin. Dean pushed him back and climbed over him, kicking his boots and socks free as he moved to perch above his brother.
At some point, Sam had worked open Dean’s belt and jeans, his coat and zip-top long discarded; Dean was a little surprised to realize he couldn’t pinpoint when but dismissed it as unimportant. All that mattered was the hot, wet curve of cock that stretched up Sam’s belly.
“C’mere,” Sam said, one hand slipping around the back of Dean’s neck and pulling him forward until their lips touched. “I don’t think you understand what it is to have rules. You’ve got to have rules, and you’ve got to have discipline.” Sam’s hands worked their way up the skin on Dean’s back, pressing him closer as he arched upward, and Dean spared a moment to think about Sam leaving a wet spot on the front of his jeans. “Down on your knees.”
“What’s wrong?” Sam asked, his brows furrowing as he pulled back, stopped rucking Dean’s shirt along his torso.
Dean shook his head, managing a sly smile as he knelt up. Sam’s hands dropped to his hips as he pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it aside. “Nothing at all,” Dean said as he pressed his mouth to Sam’s collarbone and sucked hard until Sam arched under him again and gave that helpless shiver-moan that meant he was having trouble thinking coherently, which was just fine with Dean.
His mouth blazed across his brother’s torso, suckling and laving one nipple, as his hand pinched and rubbed the other. He listened to Sam’s choked, needy gasps and quiet chants that Dean realized were his name, over and over like a prayer. He trailed his tongue lower, dipped it tauntingly into and out of Sam’s belly-button, swirled it around and round until he moved on, moved down further still until, in a swift and ruthless move, he took Sam in his mouth right to the quick.
“This is what happens when you don’t follow the rules.”
It had been a while, and maybe Dean had been overconfident because for a moment he felt his throat constricting, felt a desperate panicked tension zing through him as he thought 'no, god no,' but then Sam whispered his name and he looked up, saw Sam’s hooded hazel eyes watching him, Sam’s hand cupping gently at the back of his head, and Dean could breathe again.
He smirked as he pulled back, licked teasingly at Sam’s cock, tracing patterns with a firm tongue, and then ghosting a breath across his brother’s skin, working slowly, keeping hold of Sam’s gaze until Sam couldn’t hold it anymore, could do nothing but moan and move his hips in little start-stops of action like he was trying to remember not to thrust up. Dean braced a hand against the jut of Sam’s hip and took him in to the root once more, sucked and swallowed until Sam managed a choked, “Dean,” that Dean knew the meaning of and ignored; he drank his brother down until there was nothing left and sat back, more than a little pleased with the intensity of the reaction his efforts had garnered.
He had only the briefest of moments to feel smug before Sam’s hand, once resting passively turned into a grip on his hair strong enough to compel Dean forward and into a helpless kiss as Sam’s other hand found its way to Dean’s hip and worked his jeans and boxers down, setting his cock free. Sam pulled back long enough to lick his palm, and then Dean’s eyes were falling closed and he was dropping down a little heavier on his brother’s chest, his cock wrapped up in a firm hand and his mouth devoured, the scent of his brother’s sweat and Sam’s cologne, lemon and ginger spice, filling him up.
It wasn’t romantic, how he came with his hands fisting the blankets on either side of his brother’s head, his own head tucked into the side of Sam’s neck, warm breath in his ear as Sam said, “Come on, Dean,” as Sam’s tongue laved that spot just there behind Dean’s ear, Sam’s hand on his cock and the other in his hair. It left Dean shaking and shaken, not sure if he should curl up in his brother’s arms or grab his clothes and go, but that wasn’t anything new, and Dean pressed a kiss to the side of Sam’s neck and closed his eyes.
When Dean managed to swim up from the afterglow he was no longer sticky or half-clothed, but instead he was tucked under the blankets and wrapped up in Sam’s arms. It shouldn’t have been that easy, but Dean was thankful that it had been. “Hey, you awake?” he asked as he twisted until he faced his brother.
Sam blinked open an eye and glared, “Not for lack of trying.”
“Why’d you come out here?”
Sam blinked open his other eye and looked back as if he were really considering the question; or, more likely, considering Dean’s reason for asking. “I got a call from a client. It’s what I do.”
“But you drove out to Minneapolis.”
Sam shrugged awkwardly and let his left hand slip down to rest casually on Dean’s hip, rubbing his thumb idly back-and-forth across Dean’s skin. “I think maybe it was always the plan, never to be too confined to a single place. New York is flexible; it has reciprocity with a lot of states, which simplifies the back-and-forth a bit. Besides, it was sort of nice to be on the road again.”
“Liar,” Dean teased. “I’ve seen your piece of shit car.” Sam didn’t bother to deny it; Dean figured his brother knew a losing battle when he saw one. “Sammy,” Dean said, when the silence stretched between them, not entirely uncomfortable. Sam turned from where he had been idly watching his thumb moving against Dean’s hip and Dean said, “don’t take the case.”
Sam frowned, his hand stilling as he braced himself up on the pillow. “What’s going on?” Dean let his gaze slip away, looked at the rug where a trail of clothes directed his gaze out into the suite where Sam had forgotten to turn off one of the lamps. Sam’s sigh was part frustration and part resignation; Dean felt oddly affectionate as he heard it, reminded all at once of how well his brother knew him, no matter how long it had been. “If you can give me a reason why I shouldn’t take this case, then I won’t.”
The tone was everything: that solid, confident promise that struck Dean to the core. One honest reason... but Dean couldn’t give it, couldn’t conjure one, couldn’t get the words out. All he managed was, “You said yourself, they’re not good guys,” which felt a little bit like a betrayal, even if he couldn’t bring himself to regret it.
“I knew going in I wouldn’t only be defending the good guys. It’s part of the job, and I kind of like the idea of helping out friends. Even if they’re your friends and they have dubious morals.” His hand moved from Dean’s hip to his face, brushed a strand of hair back and Dean endured the frowning scrutiny that meant Sam was trying to puzzle him out.
Dean forced himself to shrug and turn away, like the answer was of no concern to him. “I should probably go.”
“You should stay here. Better than driving all the way back to wherever you’re holed up.”
“It’s barely a fifteen minute stretch,” Dean argued, but he settled back under the blankets and let his mind drift, his brother’s arm settling across his belly as Sam pressed against his side. He thought about waiting until Sam fell asleep before heading out, but it had been four years and Sam still smelled the same, still held him the same, and Dean ended up falling asleep before his brother could start snoring the same as well.
|| END PART ONE >>|
MASTERPOST