Take Me Back - Chapter Three: Staring Down Some Invisible Fear
Fic title: Take Me Back
Author name: safiyabat
Artist name: cassiopeia7
Genre: SPN AU - Human
Pairing: Sam/Dean (past Dean/Lisa, also Meg/Benny, unrequited Sam/Cas and Sam/Cara)
Rating: R
Word count (chapter): 5,592
Warnings: Bad language, past dub-con, surgical descriptions
Summary: A conspiracy takes place to try to help the Winchester brothers get through their issues. It goes about as well as you'd expect.
Dean should have known better than to think that running would get him anywhere, and if he were being honest with himself he’d admit that he never really thought that it would. He’d just wanted to get away, but it hadn’t lasted long. He’d gotten as far as his house before his phone rang, with Benny filling his ears with profanity. “I thought that woman was gonna eat me, Winchester! And I don’t mean in the fun sexy way!” his old friend had exploded. “Also she’s talking lawsuit and she’s right!”
Dean had to laugh at that one, because there was no way in hell that Sam was taking it to that level. A lawsuit? Really?
So he’d crashed and let oblivion welcome him. A few short hours later, though, he got a call from Bobby Singer, Chief Medical Officer for the whole hospital. He was Dean’s boss, and he was one of the few people who Dean’s phone was set to allow calls from even when the “Do Not Disturb” was on. “Hello?” he groaned into the phone.
“You’re in a heap of trouble, Winchester.” Bobby’s tone wasn’t angry, per se. It wasn’t friendly either. “I just got a call from Supervisory Special Agent Jody Mills. She’s in charge of the Boston field office for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and I’ve known her for a good while, Dean.”
Fuck. “Yes, sir.”
“It seems she’s got her dander up about one of her agents being denied basic post-surgical care - I believe her exact words were ‘treated worse than a criminal who went on a multi-state kidnap and kill spree’ - due to ‘one of your surgeon’s bias regarding said agent’s sexuality.’ She was good and angry, son.”
Fuck fuck fuck. “Sir, it wasn’t like that.”
“I sure as hell hope that it wasn’t. Nevertheless, that’s a formal complaint she made.”
The implications hit Dean like a boot to the chest. “You’re joking.”
“Nope. It’s already been kicked to the legal department.”
“Oh, for crying out loud, Bobby, you know I’m not like that. I don’t care what someone does with his…I’m not like that.” He pulled the other pillow over his face.
“Then explain to me why you and I are going to a meeting with the head of Legal tomorrow morning at eight AM sharp.”
Dean sighed. “I didn’t know it was my brother until I saw the scar, after the blood was cleared away, okay? We’ve been estranged for over ten years. I panicked, I freaked out. Yes, I should have had Ellen do the post-op meeting. I didn’t do that, I was too…I was distraught. This is why we don’t have surgeons operate on family members, or people they know.” He sighed. “I thought that Benny might…I mean, Benny knows more of my history with Sammy. I figured he’d be someone who might be able to talk to him better. I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking, I was panicking.”
“Well, your little bout of fraternal angst is going to wind up costing the hospital big. Hopefully he’ll be willing to settle out of court and keep this out of the papers.” Singer sighed. “Damn it, Dean. It’s a good thing you’re such a fine surgeon.”
“I’ve never given the hospital any trouble before this, Bobby. You know I haven’t.” He sat up. This absolutely could not be happening. Sammy had at least as much to lose from this as he did, at least as much.
“I know. I know you haven’t, son. This kind of thing, though, it’s big. Especially around here, right now. You get that, right?”
“Absolutely, sir.”
“Your brother has it in his power to absolutely destroy your career, Dean,” Bobby mentioned after a moment. “Why would he want to do that to you?”
“I don’t know, Bobby,” Dean sighed. “I mean, he shouldn’t even know that I was the surgeon, but if he found out it was me maybe?”
“What, you saved his arm and that’s grounds for a lawsuit?” The older doctor snorted. “My family was screwed up but that’s one screwed-up brother.”
“Yeah, well, that’s Sammy to a T,” Dean told him, not even bothering to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “Dad, uh, you know what he wanted for us. All three of us.”
“He wanted you to be doctors.”
“Well, yeah. But not just doctors.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose and tried to stave off the impending headache. “He wanted us to be his kind of doctor. Out there in the field like him, saving people the way he did. Field doctors, I guess. Sammy always hated that kind of life, hated moving around, hated the whole idea. He and Dad never stopped butting heads. Tell you the truth, I used to kind of worry about leaving them together when I left for college. Used to think I’d come home and maybe one of ‘em would be dead, and I wasn’t sure which one it would be. Dad got him into the pre-med program at Austin. Sammy went sneaking around his back and got himself a full ride to Stanford, and not for pre-med.”
It wasn’t the whole story, not by a long shot, and Bobby seemed to get that. “Okay. And?”
“And Dad kicked him out. If he wasn’t going to be part of the family, the family business, the family mission, then he didn’t get to be part of the rest of the family either.” Dean closed his eyes.
“Did you try to stop your father?” Bobby pressed.
“What? No! I mean, that was Dad’s whole…his whole thing. His whole reason for living, after Mom died. And she died protecting Sam, and there was Sam just…just crapping all over it. Crapping all over her. No, I didn’t try to stop Dad. His decision was final and he was right.” He could still hear the sound of Sammy’s feet walking away, echoing on the concrete with the one duffel slung over his back. “I couldn’t have gone against him even if I’d wanted to. It was Dad.”
Bobby sighed. “And did you know about your brother’s… alternative lifestyle?”
Dean grimaced. Dean, I think I like boys. I mean, I like girls too. But I’m pretty sure I like boys.
Are you sure, Sammy? The kid had been all of eleven, maybe.
He’d nodded, miserably. Dean had just chuckled lowly. How do you know? Have you ever kissed a girl? Sammy had shaken his head - no, he hadn’t. Well, why don’t we try this? I’ll kiss you - I’m a boy, right? I’ll kiss you, and you tell me if you like it. That way you’ll know.
Sammy had given him a dubious look, hair too long even then. Dean, come on. We’re brothers.
Exactly, Sammy. That’s why it doesn’t count for anything. We’re brothers, I’m just helping you out. Helping you figure out what you want. It’s normal.
“Yeah, Bobby,” he admitted. “I knew. I knew since he was about eleven.”
“Alright.” He’d never heard his mentor sound so incredibly old. “Well, hopefully someone will talk some sense into him and he’ll be willing to settle out of court. I don’t care how messed up a guy is; no one wants their brother’s career destroyed like that. I’m sure it wouldn’t do his any favors either, you know?”
“Right.” He swallowed. “What time are we meeting with Naomi?”
“Eight. You be there, Dean. And you be contrite.”
Dean was there, and he was contrite. Fortunately the hospital really never had known a day’s worth of trouble from him, so the lawyers were willing to take his word that there wouldn’t be any further problems of a homophobic variety. “We really feel,” Bobby told him gently, “that it would be for the best if you made some overtures toward Agent Winchester."
Dean almost choked on his water. “Excuse me?”
The head of the legal department was Naomi Tapping. She terrified Dean. Maybe it was the way she never lost that artificial half-smile, kind of like a Barbie doll. “We believe that part of the reason for his…resentment…is the extremely rude treatment he received after the discovery that you had treated your brother. Perhaps if you make an attempt to treat him like a patient he’ll be more likely to accept a settlement and not pursue litigation.”
Damn it. Dean knew that he’d freaked, he knew that part was wrong, but he wasn’t the bad guy here. “Alright. I’ll see what I can do. But I’m telling you, Sammy’ll do what Sammy wants to do. Nothing I’ve said or done has ever changed his mind.”
He went back to his office, not really feeling up to going back to his empty house right now, and reached out to Benny. Benny was still angry, but agreed to being treated to the “nicest steak dinner you’ve ever seen, Winchester. You freaking owe me that much.”
Dean did owe him that much. He dropped off a bottle of the best whiskey he had in his collection besides.
He had Ben that weekend. It was nice to lose himself in being a dad for a few days. As promised, they went apple picking. They baked pies, and cobblers and strudels and a brown betty. They played catch. They watched the entire Indiana Jones trilogy. Ben wanted to watch Star Wars but Dean couldn’t do that quite yet. Maybe when he’d adjusted to the sudden reappearance of Sam in his life, or maybe when Sam went back to wherever he lived full-time.
On Monday he dropped Ben off at the British International School and made his way to work, settling in early to start on the process of “making overtures” to the brother who had abandoned him. He could do this. He talked to Benny first.
Benny confirmed that Sam and his “partner” - whatever that meant - Meg had overheard their conversation. Well that was just great; it meant that Dean wouldn’t be able to lie his way out of this, no matter what. Still, he could be professional. Right? Especially if it was temporary. Sam was only in town for a little while, for a short period of time. Dean had gotten very attached to the idea that Sam’s residence in Boston was temporary, only related to the case.
Benny wasn’t so sure. “Hospital records show an actual address in Arlington,” he pointed out. “Like a real home out in the burbs.”
Dean waved a hand. “I’m sure it’s a corporate apartment, or temporary housing for agents on long-term assignment or something. There’s no way he’d move to the same city where I live.”
“Mmm-hmm. And in all these years did you ever think to check up on your little brother, brother?” Benny sat back and rested his hand in his chin.
“Well, no. But that’s me. It wasn’t on me to check up on him. I wasn’t disowned.” He beamed.
Benny blinked. “I should record you, so that you can go back and listen to yourself like two days later.”
“I’m telling you, Benny. I mean, I’m the head of trauma.”
“And I can see why! You traumatized me, you traumatized him, I’m pretty sure you traumatized that other agent -”
“No one’s traumatizing her, Benny. That woman sprinkles trauma on other people’s corn flakes.” And what, exactly, was she doing with Sam?
“Okay,” Benny admitted after half a second. “You have a point there. She sure as hell sprinkled some on mine, which is totally your fault by the way. But that’s not the point. The point is that there’s no reason to think that Sam would have checked up on your whereabouts after you cast him out anymore than you checked on his after you cast him out, you feel me?”
“Hey, I didn’t cast him out. Dad cast him out.”
Benny made him sit in silence for a good two minutes to appreciate the absurdity of that statement. Then he spoke. “Try not to bring that up when you speak to him. Try and stay professional, would you?”
Dean sighed and dialed the phone. The landline went straight to voicemail, which couldn’t be right. “He wouldn’t have gone back to work, would he?” he asked.
“He’s your brother,” the psychiatrist pointed out, rifling through Dean’s inbox.
“Like that means anything,” Dean muttered, looking through the hospital records. “Let’s see. We’ve got a cell phone. Should we try that?”
“Let your fingers do the walking, brother,” Benny urged.
Dean dialed the cell phone. This time someone did pick up, and it was a male. “Agent Winchester,” the gruff, tense voice greeted. Well of course his voice is tense, jackass, he told himself. He’s got a gunshot wound to the arm. Still, it didn’t sound like Sam. It was deep, and it was rough, and it carried a hell of a lot more than thirteen years with it.
“Agent Winchester,” Dean greeted, clearing his throat. “I’m calling from Boston General Hospital. We’d like for you to come in for a post-surgical evaluation and talk to a physical therapist -”
“Is this some kind of joke?” Sam’s voice shook with rage. “What the actual ever loving fuck? I can’t even get a surgeon to look at the injury but you think I’m going to brave Boston traffic for the privilege of having a therapist at your hospital poke at me? Good luck, Dean.” The phone went dead.
Dean looked at Benny. Benny looked at Dean. “Well. That went well,” the surgeon declared.
Sammy hated him. Sammy hated him. He could live with it when Sam just wanted to get away from Dad and Dad’s strictures - he’d resented it, he’d hated it, it had destroyed him, but he could live with it. He could live with it because it hadn’t been personal. It had been Dean not being enough to keep Sammy around. This was different. This was Sammy hating Dean personally, and the thought was like poison in his veins.
He tried again, having the actual scheduling department call his brother. The result was the same, with fewer profanities. He asked Benny to call. Benny firmly declined to get in between any more Winchester family drama, “’specially not when your brother’s built like that. Or has that bodyguard with him, brother. I ain’t getting anywhere closer to that hot mess than this chair right here.”
Benny was probably a smart man.
Bringing up the “bodyguard,” the beautiful woman with the gun, got Dean thinking, though. Maybe going the “professional” route wasn’t the right way to play this. He tried calling Sam’s cell phone, but he didn’t get very far. Sam answered the phone. “Hello?”
“Sammy, listen -”
“Dean.” That flat tone that Dean hated so much was back, and that was as much as Dean got to hear of his little brother’s voice.
A new voice took over, or rather a different voice. Dean had heard this one before; it was the “bodyguard.” “This is Special Agent Meg Masters, is this Dr. Dean Winchester?”
“Yes, why are you on my brother’s phone?” He blinked at the naked hostility in the woman’s tone.
“Because you’re harassing my partner, dumbass,” she retorted. “You need to cease and desist. Stop calling him. Stop having your people call him. Stop contacting him. Leave him alone. He didn’t come to Boston looking for you, looking to ‘reconnect’ or any crap like that. You made your needs abundantly clear -”
“Oh did I?” Dean erupted.
“Yeah, you did, when you denied him the most routine level of care that would be offered to the worst kind of felon. Leave him alone, Dr. Winchester, or we’ll be forced to press charges.”
Boy, Benny hadn’t been kidding when he’d called this woman a bodyguard. “Don’t you think it’s up to Sammy to decide?”
“That’s Special Agent Winchester to you,” she snapped. “Remember that.” The phone went dead.
Dean growled at his handset. “Fuck this,” he said to the room in general, and drove down to the Federal Building.
The drive should have been enough to clear his head, but downtown Boston traffic isn’t conducive to calming of anyone’s temper and neither is looking for parking near the Federal Building. He presented himself at the field office reception desk using his full height and bulk. “Doctor Dean Winchester, here to see Special Agent Sam Winchester.”
The receptionist wasn’t impressed or intimidated. “Do you have an appointment, Dr. Dean Winchester?” she asked him, spitting out his name in the same tone with which he’d spat out his brother’s full name and title.
“No, but I believe he’s expecting me.”
“Have a seat. I’ll announce you.”
Dean waited. He waited for five minutes. He shifted seats and he waited for another five minutes. Finally someone came out, but it wasn’t Sammy. The smartly dressed agent was a few years older than the brothers, with short brown hair and an expression on her face that made Dean feel like he’d been caught stealing cookies. “I’m Supervisory Special Agent Jody Mills,” she greeted. She didn’t hold out a hand to shake. “I manage the Boston office and I’m Agent Winchester’s immediate supervisor.”
Dean blinked. “Wait - Sammy’s in the Boston office now?”
She nodded. “He transferred here about a month ago. We’re very fortunate to have him - he’s a valuable agent. He’s fucking brilliant, he speaks ten languages fluently, he’s incredible in a fight and there’s not a better shot on the East Coast.” Her smile was more than a little smug. “More than a few agencies had their eyes on him, but we’re the ones who got him. I’d say you should be proud, but we know that’s not something that happens in the Winchester family.”
Dean crossed his arms over his chest. “Now listen here, lady -”
“No. You listen here. You were told to stop calling, you were informed that your advances were unwelcome, so you drove down here to do what - force yourself on him?” She stepped into his space. “No. Not here, not in my office, not to one of my agents. I get that ‘choice’ was never a big part of Sam’s life growing up but it is now, and after you refused him medical treatment I think he’s right to choose to exclude you now.”
“Okay,” Dean told her, breathing out slowly in an effort to rein in his temper. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, but okay. Even if all that is true you can’t have a guy in his condition back at work already - he was just shot!”
“It’s not the first time for him, and knowing him it won’t be the last.” She offered a wry grin. “We’ve found him a private physician who has taken over his care; his mental health wouldn’t be helped by staring at the ceiling for weeks.”
“No no no no no,” Dean shook his head. “Let him go walk the Freedom Trail or explore the State House or something. Let him go take in a show or watch Netflix, but he can’t be out here running around working full days. His arm will fall off.”
“You don’t get a say, Dr. Winchester. You couldn’t be bothered to care for him when he was your patient, you don’t get to pretend to care now. Get out of our office and don’t come back. If I see you again, or if you attempt to call him again, I’ll arrest you for stalking. Have a nice day.” She returned to the office.
The hospital offered Sam a hundred grand to not sue. According to Bobby, who spoke with him on the phone, he accepted on the condition that Dean “stop pestering me” and the hospital make the check out to a local organization that helped MOGAI youth. He sounded surprised by the offer, Bobby told him, but took the opportunity when it was presented.
Dean had to admit that he was puzzled. Why wouldn’t he just keep the money? But the ultimate result was the same. As far as the hospital was concerned the affair was over.
Dean’s position was not so clear. He still needed to talk to Sam, try to clear this air between them, but he didn’t know how. “If I go to his office I’ll get arrested, Lisa,” he told her one night after Ben went to bed. He’d decided to fill her in on what had happened, just in case. He didn’t want her to think he was trying to hide anything.
Lisa, as always, was sympathetic but pragmatic. “It’s for the best, Dean,” she pointed out. “It’s not like you parted on good terms in the first place. Maybe it’s better to go your separate ways and just…not have a brother named Sam anymore. I mean, you’ve spent thirteen years not having a brother named Sam; I’m pretty sure Adam’s forgotten he ever existed. Ben doesn’t even know he had an uncle Sam. Maybe just letting it lie is the way to go.”
He sighed. “Part of me thinks you’re right,” he admitted. “Part of me, though, just can’t. I mean, I took care of him, I changed his friggin’ diapers for crying out loud, and he hates me and I have no idea why.”
“You mean besides the incest?” she pointed out.
“That was at least as much him as it was me,” he shot back. “At least as much. And yeah, I do mean besides that. We’re still brothers, still…I don’t know. It’s kind of moot anyway, since we’re not exactly likely to run into each other in the supermarket or anything. It just bugs me that he hates me so much.”
She sighed fondly. “Well, you did kind of shoot any kind of reunion in the foot when you freaked out about having treated him and sent Benny in. Nothing you can do about it now. Maybe someday.”
“But probably not,” he had to admit.
He went out and picked up a girl that night, just because he could and because he needed to prove something to himself.
As fate had it, however, he was to be offered another chance to reconnect and it was the same Jody Mills who had threatened to arrest him for stalking that inadvertently brought the opportunity to his doorstep. A man accused of an act of terror in Texas had successfully petitioned to get his trial moved to Boston on the grounds that he was unable to get a fair trial in the state where the crime had taken place. Dean certainly couldn’t fault the decision - the guy had killed twenty people and injured sixty more with a homemade fertilizer bomb, no shit he wasn’t going to get a fair trial. Texans weren’t usually big on the whole “live and let live” thing either. They’d probably saved the federal government a billion dollars in security and policing just by moving the trial to Boston.
Of course, that didn’t mean that it wasn’t a circus up here, too. Protestors of all kinds ringed the courthouse and media from all over the world descended on Beantown, cluttering up the streets, falling down and making their way to the emergency rooms of the city. Dean followed the goings on with a little more interest now that he at least peripherally knew some of the players involved, although he never did see a giant in a sling wandering around in the news footage.
Of course all the security in the world can’t necessarily stop a determined individual with a grudge, and one evening about three weeks after Dean’s disastrous reunion with his brother he found himself watching in horror as a lone gunman opened fire on the crowd at the courthouse. The alleged terrorist went down. So did a good ten other people before the camera cut out and Dean’s phone alerted him to the initiation of a lockdown procedure.
Intellectually he knew that some of the victims would be brought to Boston General, but knowing it was different from living it. He was used to trauma, he was the top trauma surgeon in the state for crying out loud, but mass trauma like that was different from isolated incidents. It always threatened to remind him of the bad old days, of life with Dad. No matter how many fancy toys they had or how clean the OR was, at the end of the day it was still just blood and grime and gore and bones.
Hell, a day like today was probably the only day that Dad would be proud of him. Of course, that was contingent on him actually saving someone instead of sitting in his office and hoping that the door wouldn’t open into Afghanistan or Chiapas or Georgia or Oromo or whatever fresh Hell their father decided most needed their help.
He changed and scrubbed in. The hospital was being locked down - all ambulances being re-routed to other facilities, the main doors being locked. Patient surgeries were being rescheduled for other days, Dean had no idea when that would be but many would be put off into the next week if they could wait that long. Visitors were being evacuated. That was an unusual step and it meant that one of the patients being brought in - at least one - was going to be a Very Important Person related to the trial. Maybe they would be the suspect, the shooter. Maybe they would be the defendant. Maybe they would be a key witness, or a judge, or one of the jurors. Either way, the authorities were going the extra mile to make sure that security was as tight as it could be for these patients.
Dean couldn’t afford to think about that. He couldn’t afford to think about any of the whos or whys. He wasn’t going to be able to get away with letting malpractice insurance cut a check to a charity if he lost his objectivity here, nor should he.
The first patient brought to him had a gunshot wound to the upper left part of his abdomen. The bullet was still lodged in his gut, but Dean was able to get it out without much trouble. Repairing the damage left behind to the organs and soft tissue - that was going to take time and effort. Fortunately Dean had both time and skill to spare.
Four hours later he finished sewing up the first victim, went back into the scrub room. He changed and washed up for the next victim, who presented with a gunshot wound to the thigh. This one didn’t need as much work; the bullet had lodged in the femur and that was certainly going to cause the victim some problems in the long term, but it had also cauterized the wound to some extent which prevented the kind of bleeding-out that Dean would have expected from such an injury. He cleaned it out and inspected it, then called Ellen in for an ortho consult. They got some screws into the poor soul and got them casted up. They’d walk with a limp, but they’d walk again.
The procedure had taken another three hours; by this point Dean was certainly feeling the strain. Fortunately there were no more victims for him to treat. He caught a shower and went to go fill in some reports in his office; he liked to do those earlier rather than later while all of the details were fresh in his mind. When he stepped out of the shower and grabbed a towel, though, he found Benny standing before him. “Dean, do you have a few minutes? I’d really like for you to come to my office and talk.”
Dean closed his eyes and rolled his head back, trying to work out some kinks in the stiff muscles. “Benny, it’s been a really long day and a couple of really challenging surgeries. I love you, man, but can it wait?”
“Don’t think you’re going to get an opportunity like this again, brother.” The Cajun shook his head, putting a hand on Dean’s bare shoulder. “I really think you should take the chance and come to my office. Now.” He considered. “Well, maybe you should put some pants on first. They’ve got guns.”
Understanding dawned. Somehow, Benny had gotten Sam to agree to a meeting. With him. “Shit. Yeah.” He started toweling off as he raced for the locker with his things. “Um. Pants are key. Do I even want to know how you pulled this off?”
Benny politely looked away while Dean changed. “I had a little chat with the lovely lady by his side -”
Dean looked up. “You mean the bodyguard?”
“You hush. She’s a delicate flower of New England womanhood. She does have certain views on how her partner should be treated, but I figure you and she will get along like a house on fire if you really want what’s best for Sam.”
Dean tugged his pants on. “If she’s his partner then why are you making heart eyes about her all of a sudden?”
“His work partner, dumbass. They catch bad guys together. Transferred over from Counterterrorism at the same time. She wanted to be closer to her family in Andover and didn’t want to leave him alone; Mills jumped at the chance to have him on the team.” He smiled thinly. “I think Meg might’ve been hoping that he would look to put down some roots and find some stability of his own once he got here, but it’s kind of hard to tell.”
Dean drew an undershirt over his head. “Wait, so you think she’s got a thing for him?”
“What did I just tell you, Dean? Good Lord, you sound like the jealous ex.”
He looked around the locker room. They seemed to be alone, but you could never be too careful. “I kind of am.”
Benny frowned. “You’re jealous?”
“Well, no. I mean, not really. I mean, I don’t want Sam back. No, I mean that’s just wrong. I know that now. But it is a little…I don’t know, weird, thinking about him with someone else. I guess it would be for anyone I’d split with under bad circumstances. It’ll pass once I get used to seeing him again, you know?”
“Right. Perfectly normal.” He almost thought Benny was laughing at him, but he could only see sweetness and light in his friend’s face.
Dean finished dressing as fast as he could and the pair raced toward the psychiatry department. He knew the way to Benny’s office like he knew the way to his own, so he didn’t need the shorter man to lead him anywhere. He threw open the door to Benny’s office and stopped short.
Sam was there. Right there, in the office, sprawled in one of the comfortable guest chairs. He looked tired. It was the first thing Dean noticed about him, the exhaustion plain on his face. Even with the plain fatigue, though, he looked pretty good. His hair touched the pale blue collar of his dress shirt, how the hell was that allowed in the FBI, but he looked good. He needed a shave, too - the stubble highlighted the shadows on his face, made him look like he needed to eat more. He looked at Dean with naked pain on his face as soon as that door opened, and all that Dean wanted to do was to throw his arms around his baby brother and kiss that look right off his face.
But gentleness didn’t come easily to Dean. It never had, not since the day that their mother had died and Dad had shoved a squalling Sammy into his arms. He simply didn’t know how to express himself softly, especially not where Sammy was concerned. And he noticed, once he tore his eyes away from soul-crushing hazel, was that Sam wasn’t wearing his brace.
“Where the fuck is your sling, man?” he demanded.
Sam’s whole face, his whole being transformed. He straightened up, went from rumpled younger sibling to professional FBI agent in less than a second. And that jaw of his, that eternal marker of the shifting moods that made up Sammy’s psyche, set. Benny, who had moved over to his own desk, covered his eyes with his hand and shook his head. Meg’s face went from guarded hope to protective hostility.
“Good seeing you too, Dean.” Sam turned to Meg. “I’ll see you back at the house.” He hauled himself to his feet and started walking toward the door.
“Sammy, wait!” Dean objected, reaching out. “I’m sorry. I’m not good at…you know. I never was. But, I, uh. You should be wearing a sling for at least another week and nowhere near returning to duty. I mean, you were shot.”
“I’m fine.”
Meg rolled her eyes. Dean took that for permission. “Look, I know things didn’t go…well. Or right. But I mean, at least take care of yourself, man.”
“Right. Good talk. I’ll see you around.”
“Sam, stop. Can we just…it’s been thirteen years, man.” Dean put his hand down; clearly no one wanted to grab it. “Can’t we just have a conversation like normal people?”
Sammy stared at him for a good minute. What was going through that giant head of his? It had been too long; he had no way of knowing now. Of course, maybe he’d never really known. Not if this was what they’d come to. “Fine,” he said, sitting gracefully back down, but only after Meg tugged on his sleeve.
Back to Chapter Two -- On to Chapter Four
Author name: safiyabat
Artist name: cassiopeia7
Genre: SPN AU - Human
Pairing: Sam/Dean (past Dean/Lisa, also Meg/Benny, unrequited Sam/Cas and Sam/Cara)
Rating: R
Word count (chapter): 5,592
Warnings: Bad language, past dub-con, surgical descriptions
Summary: A conspiracy takes place to try to help the Winchester brothers get through their issues. It goes about as well as you'd expect.
Dean should have known better than to think that running would get him anywhere, and if he were being honest with himself he’d admit that he never really thought that it would. He’d just wanted to get away, but it hadn’t lasted long. He’d gotten as far as his house before his phone rang, with Benny filling his ears with profanity. “I thought that woman was gonna eat me, Winchester! And I don’t mean in the fun sexy way!” his old friend had exploded. “Also she’s talking lawsuit and she’s right!”
Dean had to laugh at that one, because there was no way in hell that Sam was taking it to that level. A lawsuit? Really?
So he’d crashed and let oblivion welcome him. A few short hours later, though, he got a call from Bobby Singer, Chief Medical Officer for the whole hospital. He was Dean’s boss, and he was one of the few people who Dean’s phone was set to allow calls from even when the “Do Not Disturb” was on. “Hello?” he groaned into the phone.
“You’re in a heap of trouble, Winchester.” Bobby’s tone wasn’t angry, per se. It wasn’t friendly either. “I just got a call from Supervisory Special Agent Jody Mills. She’s in charge of the Boston field office for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and I’ve known her for a good while, Dean.”
Fuck. “Yes, sir.”
“It seems she’s got her dander up about one of her agents being denied basic post-surgical care - I believe her exact words were ‘treated worse than a criminal who went on a multi-state kidnap and kill spree’ - due to ‘one of your surgeon’s bias regarding said agent’s sexuality.’ She was good and angry, son.”
Fuck fuck fuck. “Sir, it wasn’t like that.”
“I sure as hell hope that it wasn’t. Nevertheless, that’s a formal complaint she made.”
The implications hit Dean like a boot to the chest. “You’re joking.”
“Nope. It’s already been kicked to the legal department.”
“Oh, for crying out loud, Bobby, you know I’m not like that. I don’t care what someone does with his…I’m not like that.” He pulled the other pillow over his face.
“Then explain to me why you and I are going to a meeting with the head of Legal tomorrow morning at eight AM sharp.”
Dean sighed. “I didn’t know it was my brother until I saw the scar, after the blood was cleared away, okay? We’ve been estranged for over ten years. I panicked, I freaked out. Yes, I should have had Ellen do the post-op meeting. I didn’t do that, I was too…I was distraught. This is why we don’t have surgeons operate on family members, or people they know.” He sighed. “I thought that Benny might…I mean, Benny knows more of my history with Sammy. I figured he’d be someone who might be able to talk to him better. I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking, I was panicking.”
“Well, your little bout of fraternal angst is going to wind up costing the hospital big. Hopefully he’ll be willing to settle out of court and keep this out of the papers.” Singer sighed. “Damn it, Dean. It’s a good thing you’re such a fine surgeon.”
“I’ve never given the hospital any trouble before this, Bobby. You know I haven’t.” He sat up. This absolutely could not be happening. Sammy had at least as much to lose from this as he did, at least as much.
“I know. I know you haven’t, son. This kind of thing, though, it’s big. Especially around here, right now. You get that, right?”
“Absolutely, sir.”
“Your brother has it in his power to absolutely destroy your career, Dean,” Bobby mentioned after a moment. “Why would he want to do that to you?”
“I don’t know, Bobby,” Dean sighed. “I mean, he shouldn’t even know that I was the surgeon, but if he found out it was me maybe?”
“What, you saved his arm and that’s grounds for a lawsuit?” The older doctor snorted. “My family was screwed up but that’s one screwed-up brother.”
“Yeah, well, that’s Sammy to a T,” Dean told him, not even bothering to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “Dad, uh, you know what he wanted for us. All three of us.”
“He wanted you to be doctors.”
“Well, yeah. But not just doctors.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose and tried to stave off the impending headache. “He wanted us to be his kind of doctor. Out there in the field like him, saving people the way he did. Field doctors, I guess. Sammy always hated that kind of life, hated moving around, hated the whole idea. He and Dad never stopped butting heads. Tell you the truth, I used to kind of worry about leaving them together when I left for college. Used to think I’d come home and maybe one of ‘em would be dead, and I wasn’t sure which one it would be. Dad got him into the pre-med program at Austin. Sammy went sneaking around his back and got himself a full ride to Stanford, and not for pre-med.”
It wasn’t the whole story, not by a long shot, and Bobby seemed to get that. “Okay. And?”
“And Dad kicked him out. If he wasn’t going to be part of the family, the family business, the family mission, then he didn’t get to be part of the rest of the family either.” Dean closed his eyes.
“Did you try to stop your father?” Bobby pressed.
“What? No! I mean, that was Dad’s whole…his whole thing. His whole reason for living, after Mom died. And she died protecting Sam, and there was Sam just…just crapping all over it. Crapping all over her. No, I didn’t try to stop Dad. His decision was final and he was right.” He could still hear the sound of Sammy’s feet walking away, echoing on the concrete with the one duffel slung over his back. “I couldn’t have gone against him even if I’d wanted to. It was Dad.”
Bobby sighed. “And did you know about your brother’s… alternative lifestyle?”
Dean grimaced. Dean, I think I like boys. I mean, I like girls too. But I’m pretty sure I like boys.
Are you sure, Sammy? The kid had been all of eleven, maybe.
He’d nodded, miserably. Dean had just chuckled lowly. How do you know? Have you ever kissed a girl? Sammy had shaken his head - no, he hadn’t. Well, why don’t we try this? I’ll kiss you - I’m a boy, right? I’ll kiss you, and you tell me if you like it. That way you’ll know.
Sammy had given him a dubious look, hair too long even then. Dean, come on. We’re brothers.
Exactly, Sammy. That’s why it doesn’t count for anything. We’re brothers, I’m just helping you out. Helping you figure out what you want. It’s normal.
“Yeah, Bobby,” he admitted. “I knew. I knew since he was about eleven.”
“Alright.” He’d never heard his mentor sound so incredibly old. “Well, hopefully someone will talk some sense into him and he’ll be willing to settle out of court. I don’t care how messed up a guy is; no one wants their brother’s career destroyed like that. I’m sure it wouldn’t do his any favors either, you know?”
“Right.” He swallowed. “What time are we meeting with Naomi?”
“Eight. You be there, Dean. And you be contrite.”
Dean was there, and he was contrite. Fortunately the hospital really never had known a day’s worth of trouble from him, so the lawyers were willing to take his word that there wouldn’t be any further problems of a homophobic variety. “We really feel,” Bobby told him gently, “that it would be for the best if you made some overtures toward Agent Winchester."
Dean almost choked on his water. “Excuse me?”
The head of the legal department was Naomi Tapping. She terrified Dean. Maybe it was the way she never lost that artificial half-smile, kind of like a Barbie doll. “We believe that part of the reason for his…resentment…is the extremely rude treatment he received after the discovery that you had treated your brother. Perhaps if you make an attempt to treat him like a patient he’ll be more likely to accept a settlement and not pursue litigation.”
Damn it. Dean knew that he’d freaked, he knew that part was wrong, but he wasn’t the bad guy here. “Alright. I’ll see what I can do. But I’m telling you, Sammy’ll do what Sammy wants to do. Nothing I’ve said or done has ever changed his mind.”
He went back to his office, not really feeling up to going back to his empty house right now, and reached out to Benny. Benny was still angry, but agreed to being treated to the “nicest steak dinner you’ve ever seen, Winchester. You freaking owe me that much.”
Dean did owe him that much. He dropped off a bottle of the best whiskey he had in his collection besides.
He had Ben that weekend. It was nice to lose himself in being a dad for a few days. As promised, they went apple picking. They baked pies, and cobblers and strudels and a brown betty. They played catch. They watched the entire Indiana Jones trilogy. Ben wanted to watch Star Wars but Dean couldn’t do that quite yet. Maybe when he’d adjusted to the sudden reappearance of Sam in his life, or maybe when Sam went back to wherever he lived full-time.
On Monday he dropped Ben off at the British International School and made his way to work, settling in early to start on the process of “making overtures” to the brother who had abandoned him. He could do this. He talked to Benny first.
Benny confirmed that Sam and his “partner” - whatever that meant - Meg had overheard their conversation. Well that was just great; it meant that Dean wouldn’t be able to lie his way out of this, no matter what. Still, he could be professional. Right? Especially if it was temporary. Sam was only in town for a little while, for a short period of time. Dean had gotten very attached to the idea that Sam’s residence in Boston was temporary, only related to the case.
Benny wasn’t so sure. “Hospital records show an actual address in Arlington,” he pointed out. “Like a real home out in the burbs.”
Dean waved a hand. “I’m sure it’s a corporate apartment, or temporary housing for agents on long-term assignment or something. There’s no way he’d move to the same city where I live.”
“Mmm-hmm. And in all these years did you ever think to check up on your little brother, brother?” Benny sat back and rested his hand in his chin.
“Well, no. But that’s me. It wasn’t on me to check up on him. I wasn’t disowned.” He beamed.
Benny blinked. “I should record you, so that you can go back and listen to yourself like two days later.”
“I’m telling you, Benny. I mean, I’m the head of trauma.”
“And I can see why! You traumatized me, you traumatized him, I’m pretty sure you traumatized that other agent -”
“No one’s traumatizing her, Benny. That woman sprinkles trauma on other people’s corn flakes.” And what, exactly, was she doing with Sam?
“Okay,” Benny admitted after half a second. “You have a point there. She sure as hell sprinkled some on mine, which is totally your fault by the way. But that’s not the point. The point is that there’s no reason to think that Sam would have checked up on your whereabouts after you cast him out anymore than you checked on his after you cast him out, you feel me?”
“Hey, I didn’t cast him out. Dad cast him out.”
Benny made him sit in silence for a good two minutes to appreciate the absurdity of that statement. Then he spoke. “Try not to bring that up when you speak to him. Try and stay professional, would you?”
Dean sighed and dialed the phone. The landline went straight to voicemail, which couldn’t be right. “He wouldn’t have gone back to work, would he?” he asked.
“He’s your brother,” the psychiatrist pointed out, rifling through Dean’s inbox.
“Like that means anything,” Dean muttered, looking through the hospital records. “Let’s see. We’ve got a cell phone. Should we try that?”
“Let your fingers do the walking, brother,” Benny urged.
Dean dialed the cell phone. This time someone did pick up, and it was a male. “Agent Winchester,” the gruff, tense voice greeted. Well of course his voice is tense, jackass, he told himself. He’s got a gunshot wound to the arm. Still, it didn’t sound like Sam. It was deep, and it was rough, and it carried a hell of a lot more than thirteen years with it.
“Agent Winchester,” Dean greeted, clearing his throat. “I’m calling from Boston General Hospital. We’d like for you to come in for a post-surgical evaluation and talk to a physical therapist -”
“Is this some kind of joke?” Sam’s voice shook with rage. “What the actual ever loving fuck? I can’t even get a surgeon to look at the injury but you think I’m going to brave Boston traffic for the privilege of having a therapist at your hospital poke at me? Good luck, Dean.” The phone went dead.
Dean looked at Benny. Benny looked at Dean. “Well. That went well,” the surgeon declared.
Sammy hated him. Sammy hated him. He could live with it when Sam just wanted to get away from Dad and Dad’s strictures - he’d resented it, he’d hated it, it had destroyed him, but he could live with it. He could live with it because it hadn’t been personal. It had been Dean not being enough to keep Sammy around. This was different. This was Sammy hating Dean personally, and the thought was like poison in his veins.
He tried again, having the actual scheduling department call his brother. The result was the same, with fewer profanities. He asked Benny to call. Benny firmly declined to get in between any more Winchester family drama, “’specially not when your brother’s built like that. Or has that bodyguard with him, brother. I ain’t getting anywhere closer to that hot mess than this chair right here.”
Benny was probably a smart man.
Bringing up the “bodyguard,” the beautiful woman with the gun, got Dean thinking, though. Maybe going the “professional” route wasn’t the right way to play this. He tried calling Sam’s cell phone, but he didn’t get very far. Sam answered the phone. “Hello?”
“Sammy, listen -”
“Dean.” That flat tone that Dean hated so much was back, and that was as much as Dean got to hear of his little brother’s voice.
A new voice took over, or rather a different voice. Dean had heard this one before; it was the “bodyguard.” “This is Special Agent Meg Masters, is this Dr. Dean Winchester?”
“Yes, why are you on my brother’s phone?” He blinked at the naked hostility in the woman’s tone.
“Because you’re harassing my partner, dumbass,” she retorted. “You need to cease and desist. Stop calling him. Stop having your people call him. Stop contacting him. Leave him alone. He didn’t come to Boston looking for you, looking to ‘reconnect’ or any crap like that. You made your needs abundantly clear -”
“Oh did I?” Dean erupted.
“Yeah, you did, when you denied him the most routine level of care that would be offered to the worst kind of felon. Leave him alone, Dr. Winchester, or we’ll be forced to press charges.”
Boy, Benny hadn’t been kidding when he’d called this woman a bodyguard. “Don’t you think it’s up to Sammy to decide?”
“That’s Special Agent Winchester to you,” she snapped. “Remember that.” The phone went dead.
Dean growled at his handset. “Fuck this,” he said to the room in general, and drove down to the Federal Building.
The drive should have been enough to clear his head, but downtown Boston traffic isn’t conducive to calming of anyone’s temper and neither is looking for parking near the Federal Building. He presented himself at the field office reception desk using his full height and bulk. “Doctor Dean Winchester, here to see Special Agent Sam Winchester.”
The receptionist wasn’t impressed or intimidated. “Do you have an appointment, Dr. Dean Winchester?” she asked him, spitting out his name in the same tone with which he’d spat out his brother’s full name and title.
“No, but I believe he’s expecting me.”
“Have a seat. I’ll announce you.”
Dean waited. He waited for five minutes. He shifted seats and he waited for another five minutes. Finally someone came out, but it wasn’t Sammy. The smartly dressed agent was a few years older than the brothers, with short brown hair and an expression on her face that made Dean feel like he’d been caught stealing cookies. “I’m Supervisory Special Agent Jody Mills,” she greeted. She didn’t hold out a hand to shake. “I manage the Boston office and I’m Agent Winchester’s immediate supervisor.”
Dean blinked. “Wait - Sammy’s in the Boston office now?”
She nodded. “He transferred here about a month ago. We’re very fortunate to have him - he’s a valuable agent. He’s fucking brilliant, he speaks ten languages fluently, he’s incredible in a fight and there’s not a better shot on the East Coast.” Her smile was more than a little smug. “More than a few agencies had their eyes on him, but we’re the ones who got him. I’d say you should be proud, but we know that’s not something that happens in the Winchester family.”
Dean crossed his arms over his chest. “Now listen here, lady -”
“No. You listen here. You were told to stop calling, you were informed that your advances were unwelcome, so you drove down here to do what - force yourself on him?” She stepped into his space. “No. Not here, not in my office, not to one of my agents. I get that ‘choice’ was never a big part of Sam’s life growing up but it is now, and after you refused him medical treatment I think he’s right to choose to exclude you now.”
“Okay,” Dean told her, breathing out slowly in an effort to rein in his temper. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, but okay. Even if all that is true you can’t have a guy in his condition back at work already - he was just shot!”
“It’s not the first time for him, and knowing him it won’t be the last.” She offered a wry grin. “We’ve found him a private physician who has taken over his care; his mental health wouldn’t be helped by staring at the ceiling for weeks.”
“No no no no no,” Dean shook his head. “Let him go walk the Freedom Trail or explore the State House or something. Let him go take in a show or watch Netflix, but he can’t be out here running around working full days. His arm will fall off.”
“You don’t get a say, Dr. Winchester. You couldn’t be bothered to care for him when he was your patient, you don’t get to pretend to care now. Get out of our office and don’t come back. If I see you again, or if you attempt to call him again, I’ll arrest you for stalking. Have a nice day.” She returned to the office.
The hospital offered Sam a hundred grand to not sue. According to Bobby, who spoke with him on the phone, he accepted on the condition that Dean “stop pestering me” and the hospital make the check out to a local organization that helped MOGAI youth. He sounded surprised by the offer, Bobby told him, but took the opportunity when it was presented.
Dean had to admit that he was puzzled. Why wouldn’t he just keep the money? But the ultimate result was the same. As far as the hospital was concerned the affair was over.
Dean’s position was not so clear. He still needed to talk to Sam, try to clear this air between them, but he didn’t know how. “If I go to his office I’ll get arrested, Lisa,” he told her one night after Ben went to bed. He’d decided to fill her in on what had happened, just in case. He didn’t want her to think he was trying to hide anything.
Lisa, as always, was sympathetic but pragmatic. “It’s for the best, Dean,” she pointed out. “It’s not like you parted on good terms in the first place. Maybe it’s better to go your separate ways and just…not have a brother named Sam anymore. I mean, you’ve spent thirteen years not having a brother named Sam; I’m pretty sure Adam’s forgotten he ever existed. Ben doesn’t even know he had an uncle Sam. Maybe just letting it lie is the way to go.”
He sighed. “Part of me thinks you’re right,” he admitted. “Part of me, though, just can’t. I mean, I took care of him, I changed his friggin’ diapers for crying out loud, and he hates me and I have no idea why.”
“You mean besides the incest?” she pointed out.
“That was at least as much him as it was me,” he shot back. “At least as much. And yeah, I do mean besides that. We’re still brothers, still…I don’t know. It’s kind of moot anyway, since we’re not exactly likely to run into each other in the supermarket or anything. It just bugs me that he hates me so much.”
She sighed fondly. “Well, you did kind of shoot any kind of reunion in the foot when you freaked out about having treated him and sent Benny in. Nothing you can do about it now. Maybe someday.”
“But probably not,” he had to admit.
He went out and picked up a girl that night, just because he could and because he needed to prove something to himself.
As fate had it, however, he was to be offered another chance to reconnect and it was the same Jody Mills who had threatened to arrest him for stalking that inadvertently brought the opportunity to his doorstep. A man accused of an act of terror in Texas had successfully petitioned to get his trial moved to Boston on the grounds that he was unable to get a fair trial in the state where the crime had taken place. Dean certainly couldn’t fault the decision - the guy had killed twenty people and injured sixty more with a homemade fertilizer bomb, no shit he wasn’t going to get a fair trial. Texans weren’t usually big on the whole “live and let live” thing either. They’d probably saved the federal government a billion dollars in security and policing just by moving the trial to Boston.
Of course, that didn’t mean that it wasn’t a circus up here, too. Protestors of all kinds ringed the courthouse and media from all over the world descended on Beantown, cluttering up the streets, falling down and making their way to the emergency rooms of the city. Dean followed the goings on with a little more interest now that he at least peripherally knew some of the players involved, although he never did see a giant in a sling wandering around in the news footage.
Of course all the security in the world can’t necessarily stop a determined individual with a grudge, and one evening about three weeks after Dean’s disastrous reunion with his brother he found himself watching in horror as a lone gunman opened fire on the crowd at the courthouse. The alleged terrorist went down. So did a good ten other people before the camera cut out and Dean’s phone alerted him to the initiation of a lockdown procedure.
Intellectually he knew that some of the victims would be brought to Boston General, but knowing it was different from living it. He was used to trauma, he was the top trauma surgeon in the state for crying out loud, but mass trauma like that was different from isolated incidents. It always threatened to remind him of the bad old days, of life with Dad. No matter how many fancy toys they had or how clean the OR was, at the end of the day it was still just blood and grime and gore and bones.
Hell, a day like today was probably the only day that Dad would be proud of him. Of course, that was contingent on him actually saving someone instead of sitting in his office and hoping that the door wouldn’t open into Afghanistan or Chiapas or Georgia or Oromo or whatever fresh Hell their father decided most needed their help.
He changed and scrubbed in. The hospital was being locked down - all ambulances being re-routed to other facilities, the main doors being locked. Patient surgeries were being rescheduled for other days, Dean had no idea when that would be but many would be put off into the next week if they could wait that long. Visitors were being evacuated. That was an unusual step and it meant that one of the patients being brought in - at least one - was going to be a Very Important Person related to the trial. Maybe they would be the suspect, the shooter. Maybe they would be the defendant. Maybe they would be a key witness, or a judge, or one of the jurors. Either way, the authorities were going the extra mile to make sure that security was as tight as it could be for these patients.
Dean couldn’t afford to think about that. He couldn’t afford to think about any of the whos or whys. He wasn’t going to be able to get away with letting malpractice insurance cut a check to a charity if he lost his objectivity here, nor should he.
The first patient brought to him had a gunshot wound to the upper left part of his abdomen. The bullet was still lodged in his gut, but Dean was able to get it out without much trouble. Repairing the damage left behind to the organs and soft tissue - that was going to take time and effort. Fortunately Dean had both time and skill to spare.
Four hours later he finished sewing up the first victim, went back into the scrub room. He changed and washed up for the next victim, who presented with a gunshot wound to the thigh. This one didn’t need as much work; the bullet had lodged in the femur and that was certainly going to cause the victim some problems in the long term, but it had also cauterized the wound to some extent which prevented the kind of bleeding-out that Dean would have expected from such an injury. He cleaned it out and inspected it, then called Ellen in for an ortho consult. They got some screws into the poor soul and got them casted up. They’d walk with a limp, but they’d walk again.
The procedure had taken another three hours; by this point Dean was certainly feeling the strain. Fortunately there were no more victims for him to treat. He caught a shower and went to go fill in some reports in his office; he liked to do those earlier rather than later while all of the details were fresh in his mind. When he stepped out of the shower and grabbed a towel, though, he found Benny standing before him. “Dean, do you have a few minutes? I’d really like for you to come to my office and talk.”
Dean closed his eyes and rolled his head back, trying to work out some kinks in the stiff muscles. “Benny, it’s been a really long day and a couple of really challenging surgeries. I love you, man, but can it wait?”
“Don’t think you’re going to get an opportunity like this again, brother.” The Cajun shook his head, putting a hand on Dean’s bare shoulder. “I really think you should take the chance and come to my office. Now.” He considered. “Well, maybe you should put some pants on first. They’ve got guns.”
Understanding dawned. Somehow, Benny had gotten Sam to agree to a meeting. With him. “Shit. Yeah.” He started toweling off as he raced for the locker with his things. “Um. Pants are key. Do I even want to know how you pulled this off?”
Benny politely looked away while Dean changed. “I had a little chat with the lovely lady by his side -”
Dean looked up. “You mean the bodyguard?”
“You hush. She’s a delicate flower of New England womanhood. She does have certain views on how her partner should be treated, but I figure you and she will get along like a house on fire if you really want what’s best for Sam.”
Dean tugged his pants on. “If she’s his partner then why are you making heart eyes about her all of a sudden?”
“His work partner, dumbass. They catch bad guys together. Transferred over from Counterterrorism at the same time. She wanted to be closer to her family in Andover and didn’t want to leave him alone; Mills jumped at the chance to have him on the team.” He smiled thinly. “I think Meg might’ve been hoping that he would look to put down some roots and find some stability of his own once he got here, but it’s kind of hard to tell.”
Dean drew an undershirt over his head. “Wait, so you think she’s got a thing for him?”
“What did I just tell you, Dean? Good Lord, you sound like the jealous ex.”
He looked around the locker room. They seemed to be alone, but you could never be too careful. “I kind of am.”
Benny frowned. “You’re jealous?”
“Well, no. I mean, not really. I mean, I don’t want Sam back. No, I mean that’s just wrong. I know that now. But it is a little…I don’t know, weird, thinking about him with someone else. I guess it would be for anyone I’d split with under bad circumstances. It’ll pass once I get used to seeing him again, you know?”
“Right. Perfectly normal.” He almost thought Benny was laughing at him, but he could only see sweetness and light in his friend’s face.
Dean finished dressing as fast as he could and the pair raced toward the psychiatry department. He knew the way to Benny’s office like he knew the way to his own, so he didn’t need the shorter man to lead him anywhere. He threw open the door to Benny’s office and stopped short.
Sam was there. Right there, in the office, sprawled in one of the comfortable guest chairs. He looked tired. It was the first thing Dean noticed about him, the exhaustion plain on his face. Even with the plain fatigue, though, he looked pretty good. His hair touched the pale blue collar of his dress shirt, how the hell was that allowed in the FBI, but he looked good. He needed a shave, too - the stubble highlighted the shadows on his face, made him look like he needed to eat more. He looked at Dean with naked pain on his face as soon as that door opened, and all that Dean wanted to do was to throw his arms around his baby brother and kiss that look right off his face.
But gentleness didn’t come easily to Dean. It never had, not since the day that their mother had died and Dad had shoved a squalling Sammy into his arms. He simply didn’t know how to express himself softly, especially not where Sammy was concerned. And he noticed, once he tore his eyes away from soul-crushing hazel, was that Sam wasn’t wearing his brace.
“Where the fuck is your sling, man?” he demanded.
Sam’s whole face, his whole being transformed. He straightened up, went from rumpled younger sibling to professional FBI agent in less than a second. And that jaw of his, that eternal marker of the shifting moods that made up Sammy’s psyche, set. Benny, who had moved over to his own desk, covered his eyes with his hand and shook his head. Meg’s face went from guarded hope to protective hostility.
“Good seeing you too, Dean.” Sam turned to Meg. “I’ll see you back at the house.” He hauled himself to his feet and started walking toward the door.
“Sammy, wait!” Dean objected, reaching out. “I’m sorry. I’m not good at…you know. I never was. But, I, uh. You should be wearing a sling for at least another week and nowhere near returning to duty. I mean, you were shot.”
“I’m fine.”
Meg rolled her eyes. Dean took that for permission. “Look, I know things didn’t go…well. Or right. But I mean, at least take care of yourself, man.”
“Right. Good talk. I’ll see you around.”
“Sam, stop. Can we just…it’s been thirteen years, man.” Dean put his hand down; clearly no one wanted to grab it. “Can’t we just have a conversation like normal people?”
Sammy stared at him for a good minute. What was going through that giant head of his? It had been too long; he had no way of knowing now. Of course, maybe he’d never really known. Not if this was what they’d come to. “Fine,” he said, sitting gracefully back down, but only after Meg tugged on his sleeve.
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