World's Forgotten Boys, Chapter 19/? - (Sam/Dean - R)
Fic title: World's Forgotten Boys (link to the full verse)
Chapter 19/?
Pairing: Sam/Dean, Sam/Ross (sort of)
Rating: R
Word Count: 8,829
Summary: Season 1 AU. Ross Christopher Winchester knows three things to be true: that his father, John, is a hero, that he's going to be the best hunter in the goddamn world, and that his two older brothers are in love with each other. An AU-version of Season 1 where The Winchester Boys mean Dean and Sam and Ross, where John is still missing, where Mary and Jess are still crispy-fried, and where Dean and Sam are still obsessed with one another...
Previous Chapters Chapter 1
A/N This chapter was not beta-ed by the fabulous andreth47 as the poor thing is in the middle of beta-ing my stupidly long big!bang and I just couldn't burden her further... Therefore, all grammar errors, Britishisms, weirdo turns-of-phrase and any general incoherency = ALL MY FAULT. That said, hope you all enjoy it ;D
Chapter 19
The Impala’s gone and the motel room is empty.
Sam places one hand on the door frame, quickly scanning the parking lot for any sign of the car, of Ross, of Dad - no, not Dad, the demon, because that wasn’t Dad, that was the demon. All that time, all those hours, riding in the car alongside the three of them, the demon, not Dad. The thought makes him feel sick, a physical swoop of nausea to his belly, bile catching at the back of his throat as he tries to swallow it back.
The motel room looks exactly the same as any other motel room they’ve stayed in over the past few years. Nothing to tell that one of its inhabitants is anything other than what he seems, no lingering, tell-tale scent of sulfur or aura of demonic wrongness permeating the wrinkled wall-paper and nicotine stained ceiling, instead just a chaos of strewn clothes, the cache of weapons carefully zippered shut and thrown into the bottom of a flimsy wood closet, and the tangy smell of shower gel and sweat.
Everything seemed so simple only 24 hours earlier. They had a mission: Save Dean, Save Dad. Easy. Cold stone clarity. He was going to get Dean back and he didn’t care what he had to do, who he had to kill to do it. Hell, he’d killed Meg. He and Ross hadn’t given a shit that there was an innocent, possessed girl trapped inside that body alongside the demon. And he'd thought - God, he'd thought they’d done it, that they’d actually come out on top for the first fucking time in their lives. He should’ve known better. When have the Winchesters ever managed to catch a break?
The furthest bed is covered in wet towels and dirty clothes. Ross’s dirty clothes, the shirt and undershirt and old ragged jeans that he’d been wearing for the past two days - Dean’s jeans - Sam can see that now, Dean’s jeans and Dean’s shirt because Ross is constantly wearing Dean’s clothes these days. In fact, he’s been wearing Dean’s clothes ever since Dean rejected him all those weeks ago. It probably says something about Ross’s mindset; about just how fucked up his little brother is, about his debilitating dependence on Dean and Dean’s own need for that dependence because Dean has never remarked once on Ross’s new-found affection for stealing and wearing his clothes, Dean has been letting Ross get away with it.
Sam curls his fingers around the shirt, bunching the soft, worn fabric in his hands. He can remember Dean wearing this shirt about a month back, they’d pulled up on some lonely back road in the middle of the night because Dean could hear some odd noises coming from his baby’s engine and God forbid he not check that out immediately, despite the freezing cold and the pitch black night. So Dean popped the hood, made Sam stand beside him holding the flashlight, Ross asleep in the backseat while Dean fixed whatever little niggling fault he’d imagined. Sam stood beside him; one arm draped across his brother’s back, his face against Dean’s shoulder, the soft warmth of his flannel shirt - this flannel shirt - underneath his cheek as he held the flashlight in place. Dean finished up, turned around and pulled him into a kiss, grease-dirtied fingers coming up to cradle Sam’s cheek, black smudges of warpaint across Sam’s cheekbones as they made out under the stars.
“Why don’t you try using your freaky ESP thing?”
Sam jumps, snaps his head around to see Dean leaning up against the doorframe, white-faced and shaky but with that steely, determined look in his eyes that Sam recognizes way too fucking well.
“Dean, what the fuck are you -“
“Save it!” Dean interrupts. He holds up a hand as if to silence him. “We got more important shit to worry about.”
“Dean…”
“Sam!” Dean snaps. “Not now! After we know Ross is okay, after we’ve exorcised that sonofabitch, then I’ll go back to hospital like a good little boy, but not now, okay?”
Sam gulps, nods. He knows that he can’t argue with Dean, it will just be a waste of both their time.
“Right. So - you wanna spark up that freaky vision thing? Try and locate them?”
“Dean, I don’t know if -“
“You and Ross are connected, right? There must be some way that you can…” he waves a hand, staring fixedly at Sam, “… you know, like, locate him, using that big, freaky noggin of yours?”
“Dean, no, seriously. I don’t think it works like that. Listen - Dad - the demon - he mentioned something about a cabin out on Route 73. He wanted me to drive us there, but I refused and took you to hospital instead. He might’ve taken Ross there.”
Dean nods, crosses the room towards the closet, the bag of weapons. He crouches down, unzippers the bag. “Okay, so we’ll start there. You’ll have to steal us a car.” He takes out a couple of sawed-offs, grabbing handfuls of ammo and thrusting it into the pockets of his jacket as he recrosses the room. “C’mon!”
Dean leans against the side of an old Dodge, doing his best to look nonchalant as Sam quickly slips the lock. He darts Dean a look, he still looks pale, his breathing heavy and slightly labored, and he’s obviously leaning against the car for support, and not just to look nonchalant and unsuspicious.
“Hey,” he whispers. Dean jerks his head around, blinks, “You okay? I’m serious, Dean, you just got roofied. You were unconscious. If you’re -“
“Sam, I’m fine!” Dean growls. “And you can say what you want, but there’s no fuckin’ way I’m sittin’ this one out. That bastard has Ross and Dad.”
“And it’s probably expecting us to do just this - to come after it.”
He pries the door open, metal squeaking angrily, Dean glares at him and slides inside, shifting over to the driver’s side.
“Dean, no! You can’t seriously expect -“
“Sam! Get in! We’re wasting time here. And you need to do your Force thing, you can’t drive!”
Sam grits his teeth and slides into the shotgun seat, watching Dean pull off one of the beige faux-leather panels to get to the wiring. Dean was always the best at that, could hotwire a car in under 30 seconds. They pull out the parking lot with a squeal of breaks. Sam closes his eyes and tries to concentrate, tries to think about Ross, picturing his little brother’s face in his mind: big dark eyes, long eyelashes and wide generous mouth. He feels preposterous, like a fraud. He can’t do this, there’s no connection between him and Ross, they’re brothers, sure, and they look alike, but seriously, some sort psychic mind-meld bullshit... No, that’s just not going to happen.
He snaps his eyes open, turns his head to look at Dean. Dean’s staring through the dusty windshield; he looks exhausted, worn-out, fingers clamped around the wheel like a vise. He really, really shouldn’t be here; if Dad were here then he’d have forced Dean to stay behind to recover properly, like this, Dean is more of a liability than a help. But Dad’s not here, Dad’s… Fuck, Dad’s possessed. Possessed by the evil thing he’s been hunting for all these years, and if that isn’t some goddamn freaky irony then he really doesn’t know what is.
He flexes his fingers, he feels so stiff, his whole body stiff and tense and he really needs to sleep. He’s been awake for… God, must be nearly three days straight now, and it’s worse than that time all those years ago when he was 18, when they were chasing those mutant alligators for three days straight through the Florida swamp. He could remember the exhilaration and adrenalin threading through his body as he and Dean tore through the jungle after Dad had split the four of them up, Dean’s dazzling, white-toothed grin when he finally took out the final demonic motherfucker with a spray of blood and guts and gore and scaly gator parts, how Dean had pushed him back against a tree, bark scratchy through his thin, sweat-soaked shirt, and kissed him until they were both breathless, sinking to his knees and staring up at Sam with his blood and mud-streaked face as he tugged Sam’s fly open...
“Shit!”
Dean’s cry yanks Sam from his momentary fantasy, the car coming to a skidding halt, and then Dean’s stumbling out the door, running jaggedly towards something. Sam gulps, snaps off his seatbelt and tumbles out the car after him.
It’s the Impala, smashed up against a couple of huge, looming fir trees. Headlights on, doors open, soft sound of CCR’s Bad Moon Rising drifting towards them, steam rising from the half-open hood. It’s a wreck, formally gleaming sides dented and scratched, front bumper crumpled, headlights gleaming jaggedly through the wreckage.
Sam gulps again, bile and acid corrosive and sour at the back of his throat as he takes in the sight. There’s no sign of Ross, no sign of Dad, but there’s also no sign that either of them were hurt, no blood smeared to the cracked windshield or the upholstery.
He glances at Dean, the whites of his brother’s eyes are stark in the reflected headlights and his mouth is working dumbly, hands smoothing haphazardly over the dented, crumpled bodywork, soft murmurs of, “No, no, no, no, no…” seeping unchecked from his mouth.
Sam stumbles through the grass and mud, sliding up to his brother until he’s got his hand on Dean’s shoulder, his side against Dean’s. Dean turns his head slowly, stark glittering eyes meeting Sam’s, the glisten of tears on his long, dark lashes.
“It’s okay,” Sam whispers, “we’ll find them, it’ll be okay, Dean. We’ll find them and you can fix her. She’ll be okay. She’s tough.”
Dean huffs out a broken hitching sound and Sam squeezes his shoulder, leans over his brother to switch off the engine, pulling the keys out the ignition and sliding them into his pocket. “C’mon,” he says, trying to sound reassuring. He squeezes Dean’s shoulder again, leans closer to press his mouth to Dean’s temple, starts to push him away from the wreckage. “They must be okay. We just gotta find their tracks - we can -“
“There,” Dean interrupts dully. He lifts a hand, points through the lines of trees. Sam follows his gaze, there’s a cabin, yellow light glinting eerily through the thick trees.
Sam keeps his hand knotted in the sleeve of Dean’s jacket as they stumble through the trees towards the ominous yellow lights of the cabin. He feels like a stupid child in a fairy tale, like Hansel and Gretel running towards the Evil Witch’s marzipan lair. He can hear his own pulse beating rapidly, the blood bashing in his head, and Dean’s breathing heavy and labored as they half-run, half-stagger towards the cabin.
Wordlessly they drop to their knees as they draw close; creeping on their bellies, out of sight of the big open windows. A shadow crosses the window and Sam freezes, it’s Dad - the demon - peering out through the glass, those gleaming malevolent eyes scanning the clearing like high beams. He knots his fingers harder in Dean’s jacket, pushes the two of them into the ground, the rain-soaked grass soaking through his jeans and shirts. Dean glares at him, unknots Sam’s fingers with a pointed look. Sam represses the urge to laugh again, instead following his brother as they crawl to the side of the cabin.
Sam gets slowly to his feet, keeping his body pressed up against the side of the cabin he peers around the edge of the window-frame. Ross is tied to a chair in the middle of the room, unconscious, his head sagging against his chest, hair covering his face. Sam’s stomach gives a lurch; he presses his hand over his mouth to repress a gasp as he sinks to the ground beside Dean.
“What?” hisses Dean.
“Ross."
“Is he okay?”
“I don’t know.”
He sees the roll of Dean’s throat as he swallows, sees his quick, hard nod, the setting of his teeth.
“The demon?” Dean asks.
“I don’t know, I can’t see it.”
He gets back to his feet, grateful for the wall behind his back. There’s a table in the corner of the room, and the Colt’s lying on it, dead centre, apart from that and the chair Ross is tied to there’s no more furniture, just rough wood floors, one bulb hanging bare from the ceiling. No sign of the demon.
“He’s not - I can’t see it - I -“
“Sam and Dean! Well, isn’t this a happy family reunion!”
The booming, cheesy villain voice is the last thing he hears before he’s unconscious again.
*****************************
Ross wakes up to the sound of his father’s voice - no, not his father, the demon - ‘cause his father - he would never do that to him, never say that to him, like, no fucking way, his father loves him, has always loved him best, more than his brothers, more than anyone, except maybe his dead wife. Dad came to get him when he was lost, took him from the children’s home, made him one of them. Dad was wanted by the FBI for years for that, Dad risked everything for him, Dad loves him.
“Nice of you to join us, Ross,” says Dad’s voice, and it’s nothing like Dad’s voice, and how can he ever have thought that was Dad? This voice is cruel and mocking, sneering and sarcastic, and okay, so Dad could be all those things when he wanted, but never to him, never to Ross.
He blinks, the room coming hazily into focus around him. He’s tied to a chair, bindings tight around his wrists and chest, and it’s dark, really dark, no lights on and no moon outside; the only light in the room coming from the feeble starlight outside, the big black window in front of them. He has vague memories of being in the car, of Dad crashing the car on purpose, wrenching the steering wheel and hurtling them towards a bank of dark, swaying trees, squeezing his eyes shut and thinking that Dean was never going to forgive him for being taken in by a demon and letting that demon crash his beloved baby.
He seems to be in a cabin, so Dad - the demon - must’ve taken him here after he crashed the car. He glances down at himself, he’s still wearing one of Dean’s shirts, but his jacket is missing, and his heart sinks, realizing that the demon must’ve discovered the Colt by now, have found it where he'd hidden it in his inside pocket. Goddamnit, Sammy was right, he should’ve left the fucking thing in the trunk, at least there it was protected by all the freaking devil traps Sam had drawn, the demon would never have been able to get at it there. But no, like a total tool, he's practically handed the fucking thing over to the sonofabitch on a fucking plate.
He squirms, testing the strength of the bindings, unsurprisingly, they’re really fucking strong, but, hey… what the… back up a damn moment… There’s something - someone - some person - pressed up warm and hard against his back, someone big and strong and freaking enormous. Someone who smells really fucking familiar: cigarette smoke and gun-oil and Winchester sweat… Sam or Dean, then? Gotta be Sam, Dean’s in hospital, Dean’s safe, they totally demon-proofed his room, that sonofabitch is not getting anywhere near Dean, but Sammy though… fuck it! Sam’s gone and walked into this fucking trap just like he did, and Sam’s supposed to be the smart one.
His stomach clenches up, a nauseous, despairing coil, and if he’d actually eaten anything in the past 48 hours, then he’d definitely have lost it now, so, yeah, just as fucking well they hadn’t had chance to eat a damn thing. He hitches in a breath, tries to get himself under control; he needs to remember Dad’s training, because if that bastard really does have both him and Sam in its clutches then he’s got to be awake and sharp and on the fucking ball, and ready to figure out his next move, ready to get them the hell outta there. He’s got to save Sam, recapture the Colt, and get that demonic piece of crap out of Dad, and then get them all safely back to Dean, and hope, Christ, pray that Dean’s still okay.
He flexes his fingers, and with a surge of relief, he feels the other hand brush back against them, and, yeah, thank God, that’s most definitely Sam, only Sam’s fingers are that freakishly long. He can feel Sam breathing now through their smashed-together bodylines, and hear the demon’s treads on the wooden floor, make out its big, lurking shape as it paces in front of them.
“What have you done with Dean?” he hears Sam ask.
The demon pauses in its pacing, the wooden floor creaking ominously as it twists on its heels. “You don’t get to ask questions, Sammy.”
Ross gulps, his vision is getting clearer as his eyes adjust to the dark, and he watches the demon stride towards the corner of the room and pick something up. When it turns around, it’s holding out the Colt, barrel aimed directly at him and Sam.
“You won’t believe what a pain in my ass this thing has been,” the demon remarks easily, like he's addressing a fucking audience and not just him and Sam. “And now, it’s all mine. Same as you boys.” It smirks, those horrible yellow eyes glinting as it adds smugly: “And your daddy.”
“What have you done with Dean?” Sam grits out again. Ross flinches, because Sam’s tone is like daggers and he knows that if he got a glimpse of his brother’s face then his stare would be equally hate-filled and icy, and that… so not a good idea right now, with this demonic sonofabitch towering over them, holding the goddamn Colt.
The demon chuckles warmly, and Christ, but that makes him sound just like Dad, exactly like Dad.
“Oh, Dean’s taken care of. Don’t you worry your pretty little heads about him.” That grating, mocking chuckle again, his voice threaded through with a horrible, knowing sort of contempt that turns Ross’s stomach, making it lurch like he’s about to throw himself over a cliff-face with no safety rope. “You know,” the demon continues conversationally, “he was going to leave you, abandon the both of you.”
“What do you mean?” Ross blurts out, unable to stop himself.
The demon jerks his head, his gaze raking over Ross and going amused and almost gleeful, like he totally knows he’s hit pay-dirt. He smiles silkily, starlight catching the white strip of his bared teeth and those stained yellow eyes. “Dean was going to leave you both,” he repeats, deliberately slowing down his words, like he’s explaining something to a couple of retards, like he’s really, really enjoying it. “John found out all about Dean’s sordid little arrangement with Sammy, and he told him to get gone, and Dean, well… we all know how much Dean enjoys taking orders, what a good little bitch he is… He couldn’t wait to say yes to Daddy. Finally, the chance to get away from you, Littlest Bro, his pathetic, sniveling, clingy, bastard brother. You’ve been a millstone around your big brother's neck ever since John shot his load up your momma’s cunt…” his voice shifts up into a horrible, grating falsetto: “Pay attention to meeee, Dean, why don’t you love me, Dean? Why don’t you love me like you love Sammy, Dean?”
“No, that’s a fuckin’ lie! No, you got it all wrong, you sonofabitch!”
The demon laughs out loud, but the joke's on him 'cause he is so wrong, he’s totally wrong. Dean would never agree to just leave, Dean would never leave him, Dean loves him, Dean would never think of him like that.
He feels Sam’s fingers brush against his own, and he flinches, tries to jerk away, he doesn’t want Sam’s fucking sympathy or reassurance right now. The demon’s still chuckling, pacing towards them and looming over Ross, looking down at him with this contemptuous expression that reminds Ross with a lurch of Dad, shaking his head over a local sheriff's department bungling a case.
“You know, John knew about Sam and Dean’s incestuous fuck-fest for a long, long time, but he was still too darned dumb to see what was really going on under his nose,” he pauses dramatically, before smirking at Ross and continuing: “luckily, I’ve been able to enlighten him. To bring him up to date with recent events. Now Daddy knows exactly how eager his precious little boy was to get his cherry ass in the air for Dean's fat cock, how you begged and begged to give it up to your big brothers. Both of them…”
Ross’s stomach knots up as he screams out: “No! NO! It wasn’t like that! Dad, it wasn’t - don’t listen to him! I never did - you got it all wrong - I ain’t like that! I ain’t like them!”
The demon laughs, loud and genuinely amused, cutting off Ross protestations with a wave of his hand. “I can read your mind, Littlest Bro; I know you’re lying your hot little ass off. I know how long you been coveting your brothers’ sweet bacon, how long you’ve been dreaming of Dean pounding you into the mattress while you beg for it like the bitch you are...” Ross’s chest heaves as he scrabbles for breath, his voice locked away as the demon holds his hand up and laughs, yellow eyes raking over him like a flashlight, like he’s peeling away the outer layers, the skin and bone, and peering underneath. “Me and Daddy are bosom buddies, now, boys. Ain’t no secrets between us, though, I gotta hand it to him, Jonny Boy’s got some mighty interesting secrets locked away in this meat suit -“
“My God, you really do like the sound of your own voice.”
Ross jumps, twists in his chair at the sound of Dean’s voice. His brother’s leaning against the doorframe to the room behind them, barely managing to hold himself upright, face pale and streaked with blood and looking like total shit, but it’s Dean, God, Dean’s here, it’s gonna be okay ‘cause Dean will have something figured out and it’ll be okay and Dean will save them. He swallows, feels Sam flinch behind him, and for a moment, he can feel the blood pumping hard in Sam’s veins, feel every muscle tense, primed and ready, feel every single pore of his brother’s body come alive as if they’re his own, an overwhelming awareness of Sam, taking over and invading his entire consciousness, that same freaky at-one-ness as when they exorcised that demon at Bobby’s place.
“Dean!” greets the demon with menacing cheerfulness. “You just couldn’t stay away, could you?”
It pulls away from Ross and Sam, and slowly saunters towards Dean, just like Dad when he enters a bar, letting every motherfucker know who’s boss, that he’s about to take those suckers for every last dollar they have. “Though, I have to say,” it continues conversationally, “you’re lookin’ a leetle worse for wear there, champ.”
It comes to a halt in the middle of the room, big looming shadow seeming to take up all the empty space. There’s a long pause and Ross can hear Dean breathing, hard and labored and hissy, like he’s breathing through a damaged lung, and fuck, that could be the case, that could totally be the case, it would be just like Dean to be so fucking brave and desperate and full of fucked-up bravado to turn up with a damaged lung and taunt the motherfucker that’s stolen their Dad. And what the fuck is Dean even doing here? Why isn’t he in hospital where he belongs, instead of here, getting his stupid-ass self fucking killed?
The demon tilts his head to one side, thrusts out one hand in a weirdly leisurely, nonchalant kinda way, and Dean crumples to the floor, like his safety rope has just been cut.
“No! You sonofabitch!”
And it could be his or Sam’s voice, because he can’t fucking tell which of them it is that’s screaming out loud, maybe both of them. But Dean’s lying on the floor, coughing and choking and there’s blood on his lips, and he’s groaning and whimpering and the demon’s cackling over him, flexing his fingers in time with Dean’s screams and for one weird moment, Ross thinks that the demon’s performing the freaking crucio curse on his brother, except he’s not saying the words out loud and of course that isn’t even real, this sonofabitch isn’t fucking Voldemort, and what the hell is wrong with his brain to be dredging up that shit right now?
“No, no, no, stop it, no, stop it! Stop hurting him! You goddamned sonofabitch! Stop it! You’re gonna kill him! Stop it, please…”
Sam’s voice. Begging and pleading, wrecked and hoarse with sobs and desperation, but the demon’s ignoring him, enjoying it, getting off on it, on torturing Dean, laughing like he’s the freaking Evil Emperor in Jedi with fingers full of Force-lightning and he’s teaching Luke Skywalker a lesson for not turning to the dark side.
“NO!” Sam screams, and his fingers stretch and wrap around Ross’s hand, the touch is electric, like, literally, electric: a jolt through his system, a flash, a blinding, deafening crack, and both he and Sam are on the floor, chairs shattered around them, splintered wood and frayed ropes, they’re both free of their bindings and Ross has absolutely no fucking idea what just happened, what he and Sammy just did.
Ross raises his head groggily, the floor is hard and gritty beneath him, dirty and disgusting, the wood splinters poking and grazing at his skin. He feels like he’s been emptied, all his insides, all of him, his energy - his fucking life-force, whatever the fuck you want to call it - everything emptied and drained, and he knows that it was Sam, emptying him, draining him like a battery, using him to free the both of them.
Sam scrabbles away from him on his hands and knees, storming to his feet and lurching, bounding, throwing himself, all his weight, at the demon, the two of them falling, tumbling to the floor in a thud of limbs and punches and flailing legs and Sam whaling on the demon like he’s lost his fucking mind, screaming through shredded vocal cords: “You’re gonna fuckin’ pay! You fuckin’ bastard, you’re gonna pay!”
“Sam?” he croaks, “Sam? Sammy!” And that’s a scream because Sam might be fucking deranged and he might’ve just broken them free of the ropes and the chairs with just the power of his goddamn mind, but Sam’s only human and the demon’s getting the better of him, forcing him to the ground and curling those big strong hands - Dad’s big strong hands - around Sam’s long, stupidly fragile looking neck.
He surges to his feet, adrenalin soaring, pumping, eyes skating around hopelessly, helplessly, tumbling over the limp, still form of Dean, of the demon hunched over Sam, choking the life out of him, and wait…
What’s that?
The Colt.
Lying innocent and cold and forgotten on the table by the window, starlight twinkling off its barrel.
He dives, snaps it up, fingers slotting around the butt, curling over the trigger like his hand is made for it, and ain’t that the goddamn truth, his hand has been made for every single firearm he’s ever held, ever since the age of six when Dad first curled his small fingers around a gun, saying with that proud look on his face: You’re a natural, son, got a true aim on you… Telling Sam and Dean to crowd close ‘cause you two could learn a thing from your little brother.
The memory of Dad’s voice fades away until all he can hear is the hideous, gurgling choking of Sam fighting for breath, for his life, and all he can see is the deranged, inhuman glow of the demon’s yellow eyes, the fucking demon - the motherfucker that’s stolen Dad and tortured Dean - and its hard relentless fingers locked around his brother’s neck.
The beating of his brain and the slamming of his heart speed up and he knows that this is it, it’s up to him. Dean and Sam and Dad are all out, he’s the last man standing and he has to do it, he has to step up, be a motherfucking Winchester and save their family. He has to do what Dad would do…
He takes a breath, points the gun, and pulls the trigger.
**********************************************
For a long time, Sam’s sure that he’s been shot, that he’s dead. The last thing he was aware of was a gunshot, and if there’s one sound he knows really fucking well, then that’s a gunshot. He is Sam Winchester and he was raised on the sound of gunfire in his ears and the feel of gunmetal in his hands.
He blinks; his neck and throat are throbbing like distinct entities, the pain so vivid that he can hear it, the air being forced through his lungs like a leak in an air mattress. He raises his hand tentatively to his throat, fingers trembling as they graze his skin. He winces out loud, the skin of his throat and neck feels like it’s been peeled away and exposed, chafed raw, like that time he slipped down the 20ft rope when they were breaking into a museum to steal a cursed artifact, the heavy, sodden rope fibers taking away the outer layer of the skin on his palms.
He scans the dark cabin, trying to locate his brothers, figure out what the gunshot was and where it came from. His eyes roll over a human shape, and he stills, a burst of fear holding him momentarily frozen in place.
Dean. He’d recognize that shape anywhere.
He scrambles to his hands and knees, palms scraping against the splintered floor as he crawls painstakingly towards his brother’s prostrate body, the breath rattling through his lungs, burning against his throat like he’s chugging gasoline.
He rolls Dean onto his back, one hand on his pulse point, other against his slack mouth, and Jesus, thank God again, he’s breathing, soft puff of air against his palm and pulse weak but steady under his fingertips.
“Dean?” he whispers, the words scraping at his raw, throbbing throat.
Dean doesn’t stir. Unconscious, but alive, breathing, and that’s… okay, he can work with that. They can get Dean to hospital, figure shit out, and it will be okay, Dean will be okay.
He lets out a long, relieved breath, head swimming and throat stinging as he sits back on his haunches. He looks around again, searching out his younger brothers, eyes dilating and breath catching when he spots the Colt lying innocent and discarded in the middle of the floor.
A low, keening sound hits him and he blinks rapidly, confusedly, finally seeing the hunched, darkened shape of Ross, slumped against one wall of the cabin, face hidden in the shadows, and Dad - God, Dad - sprawled motionless across his lap.
Sam gulps, gets unsteadily to his feet, and quickly crosses the floor to kneel down in front of Ross and Dad. Ross’s face is hidden, his body curled over Dad, face against Dad’s big familiar overcoat, he’s trembling, shaking, spine hitching and convulsing through thick, wracked, silent sobs.
Sam swallows, feels the blur of tears in his eyes as he reaches out a hand, places it on Ross’s shoulder, squeezes tentatively.
Ross’s head jerks up; his face is unrecognizable, snot and tears and red ugliness, smears of blood over his cheeks and chin, a blur of colors and grief.
Sam freezes, stares back at his brother, unable to shape the words, ask the question. It’s all useless anyway, because he can see it now, he can feel it, he knows that Dad is dead.
Dad is dead.
The words don’t really compute, they bash against the outside of his mind, as if his brain’s incapable of letting them get inside.
Dad is dead.
He swallows again, the burning in his throat like vinegar in a cut every time, the tears are beginning to break free and roll down his cheeks despite himself, his body is miles ahead of his brain, his body is already telling him that this is what you do when your Dad is dead.
“I killed him,” Ross whimpers. “Sammy, I killed him. It was me, I shot him, Sammy. I killed him… Oh God, I did it… I -“ he breaks off, body wracked by another lurch of grief, his face crumpling and creasing up like an old, torn-down poster. He leans forward, clutches at Sam’s jacket, “Sammy, I… I killed Dad.”
“Shush, no, that’s - you were just doing what you had to,” Sam stammers, the words scraping as he forces them out of his raw, enflamed throat.
Oh God, shit, he can’t handle this, he needs Dean, he wants Dean. Dean would know what to do, Dean would say the right thing, Dean would know how to comfort Ross.
“No, no, no, no, no,” Ross wails, “no, I killed him! I killed Dad! What are we gonna do now?”
“Hey, hey, shush, it’s okay,” he croaks uselessly. He leans in, raises his hands to Ross’s hot wet face, cradling it between his big palms, fingers slippery against the tears and snot and sweaty, clammy skin.
Ross hacks out a breath, grabs onto the back of Sam’s skull, and pulls him into a kiss.
It’s slippery and slimy and disgusting. The two of them are both crying, or maybe it’s just Ross’s tears smearing gummily over Sam’s cheeks as his little brother slops kisses over Sam’s mouth and teeth, his nose and chin, incoherent and messy, his hard capable fingers fisting urgently into Sam’s hair, grabbing and pulling at him so hard that it fucking hurts, every struggled out breath a wracked pain as he tries to breathe through Ross’s onslaught, through his own damaged esophagus.
For a few seconds, Sam tries to kiss Ross back, understanding somewhere at the still functioning part of his brain that this is what Ross wants, what he needs. His brave, smart-ass little brother reduced to a trembling, needy child grasping and clawing at him, and Jesus Christ, Dad’s body is still lying across Ross’s lap, right there between the two of them, and that’s… God, Sam doesn’t have words for what that is, for how fucked up and wrong and cataclysmic that is.
He wrenches out of his brother’s grasp and pants painfully for breath, his hands falling self-consciously from Ross’s face and landing on Dad’s chest: his big, thick overcoat, his bloodstained shirt. He flinches, distantly aware the sticky red goop of blood on his skin - Dad’s blood - and he jerks backwards, scalding tears burning at his eyes, as he slowly forces himself to look down, to look at his father. His dead father.
Dad’s face is slack, utterly expressionless and maybe even peaceful, but Sam can’t tell, though, honestly, when in his life has he ever been able to read Dad? Dad is as distant and closed-off and unreachable now as he always was in life. Dad was the omnipotent presence that Sam, however hard he used to try, never seemed to penetrate, never seemed to understand, and that never understood Sam back. He’d given up years before on trying to reach Dad, though he couldn’t say when he’d completely given up, maybe it was as long ago as that morning just before Christmas when he’d woken up to that boy in his bed that looked just like him, or maybe it was even before then, on one of those many occasions Dad left him to his big brother’s care? He knows he was a disappointment to Dad, the imperfect, recalcitrant soldier to Dean’s perfect, eager-to-please lieutenant, the least favorite child to Ross’s favorite. The middle-child, he thinks with a sudden surge of bitterness, remembering Becky years ago at Stanford, laughing and smiling at him, affection in her voice as she joked: “you’re such a middle-child, Sam…”
He’s never going to get a chance now to reconnect with Dad. To prove to Dad that he’s a true Winchester, that he’s a great hunter, that he’s so much more than Dad always thought he was, that he’s worthy…
A wave of grief coils up in his chest and he drops his head into his hands, palms slipping against his slimy, tear-streaked cheeks.
“It’s not okay, Sammy, it’s not okay, I killed him, I shot him, I did it…”
He can still hear Ross babbling hysterically in the background and he tries to force the sounds out. He can’t cope with that right now, can’t cope with Ross, with his endless fucking neediness and typically selfish grief - the demon was right about that - right about Ross. Dean is the only one who can deal with Ross right now.
Oh God, Dean, shit, they have to save Dean.
“Sammy, I don’t know what to do, what are we gonna do?” Ross is still not shutting up.
Sam jerks his head up, clamps his hand down forcefully on Ross’s shoulder, squeezes hard: “We gotta take Dean to the hospital. You gotta help me carry him to the car. Can you do that?”
It’s obviously the right thing to say, because Ross licks his lips, his eyelashes fluttering as he starts to nod his head, the old training, (Dad’s training), the action! first! mentality mixing with their overpowering urge to save their big brother taking over as Ross gets to his feet, gently, reverently lowering their Dad back to the floor. Sam pulls away from him, crosses the floor quickly back towards Dean, and hoists him carefully, up onto one shoulder. He glances back over at Ross; his younger brother is still staring down at Dad, hesitating, fingers locked around Dad’s collar, eyes riveted to Dad’s face.
“Ross!” he hisses. Ross’s head jerks up, eyes going wide and frightened. “Help me!”
Ross gulps, the ripple of his throat visible even from this distance and he crosses quickly towards them, the instinct to obey orders as automatic as ever. He takes Dean’s other side, and together they stagger out the cabin and back into the night, Sam carefully, deliberately, not looking back at his dad’s body as they push the door shut behind them.
Dean gets whisked away as soon as they arrive back at the ER, abrupt, barked words about internal injuries and internal bleeding and he’s on a gurney being wheeled at a breakneck ER-esque pace through the double doors, hospital staff charging after him.
Sam takes a seat next to Ross, feeling his brother trembling through their pressed together thighs, though it could just as easily be him, his own exhausted, wrung-out body rebelling at last and giving into muscle tremors and endless anxiety. Ross is uncharacteristically silent and catatonic beside him, barely moving as his eyes stay rooted to his clasped hands. But then, Dad is dead, there is no precedent for this. And Sam really, really needs to get to grips with it - Dad is dead - the reality behind the words still refusing to penetrate his uncooperative, exhausted brain. Dad is dead.
He’s managed to piece together what happened in the cabin, he can remember the demon over him, on top of him, its cruel, thick fingers (Dad’s fingers) digging into his neck, cutting off his air supply, and he knows that if Ross hadn’t done what he did, then he wouldn’t be there right now. Ross saved his life. Hell, Ross probably saved Dean’s life too, and his own, because there was no way, the sonofabitch was going to stop there. It would’ve killed all three of them.
He gets to his feet with a sigh, Ross twitches beside him, but other than that, doesn’t say anything, barely seeming to notice.
“I’m gonna call Bobby,” Sam tells him, “ask him to get the car. And, uh, Dad…” he swallows over the word so it’s barely audible, but he can tell that Ross had heard and understood by his full-body, involuntary flinch.
He walks slowly, tiredly, down the hall towards the phone area. This is not a call he is anxious to make, but they have to do something. As far as he knows, fuck, as far as he hopes, the Impala is still resting in its half wrecked state, just off the highway, where Ross and the demon crashed it. They have to do something about that before the police impound it or someone steals it. When Dean wakes up, he’s going to need to know that his car is okay, Sam’s already got to explain to him that his beloved father is dead; he doesn’t think that he’s capable of explaining that his baby is no more either.
And then there’s Dad’s body.
He takes a deep breath and dials Bobby’s number.
Bobby doesn’t say anything, just asks for the exact location and promises to get his tow-truck out straight away. Truthfully, Sam has no idea how Bobby’s going to manage carrying Dad’s big, heavy body on his own, but the old guy seems sure that he’ll be able to deal with it, that it won’t be a problem, so Sam doesn’t think about it, pushes the thoughts, the reality of Dad - Dad’s body - Dad’s corpse - to the back of his brain, and concentrates on the here and now.
After he hangs up, he makes his way to the cafeteria, feeling unable to cope with Ross just yet. Nothing’s open, but the vending machines are still alight, still chugging away in the corner of the room next to the plastic waiting chairs. He gets himself some water, knowing that his poor damaged throat is not ready for coffee just yet. He feels suddenly really fucking hungry and thinks distractedly that he probably hasn’t eaten for nearly two days. It’s not the longest he’s gone without food, but he’s really fucking hungry. He gets a Mars bar and devours that in a few bites, his mouth working automatically, teeth chomping at the thick, gloopy filling, throat on fire as he forces it down in small bites with big mouthfuls of water. He gets a couple extra candy bars for Ross, and a cup of vending machine coffee, and he trudges back towards the waiting area, but Ross is nowhere to be seen.
Dean’s still in surgery, no new news, so he waits for half an hour, and sips cautiously at the coffee while he waits for Ross to get back from wherever he’s gone - the bathroom, outside for a cigarette, the phone, though who he’s going to phone right now, Sam has no fucking clue. After thirty minutes, he stows the extra candy bars in his jacket and goes out into the designated area to call Ross on his cell phone. There’s no answer on Ross’s phone, the call switching directly to voicemail.
He goes back to wait.
Three hours later and Ross still hasn’t returned. Sam tries not to worry, after all, it’s only been three hours, and the demon, well, he’s dead, that fact is as irrevocable and certain than anything in his life. The demon is dead, it can’t come after them anymore, Ross killed it.
Ross could’ve just gone to explore the hospital, wander around outside, buy a packet of cigarettes; fuck, even perhaps for a nap in the backseat of their stolen car. He’s a grown boy, he can look after himself. Except…
He really can’t look after himself. And he definitely can't right now. He's in no fit state, he's in shock, and if anything were to happen to him…
Then, he guesses, that at least he would end up at this fucking hospital. At least Sam would be informed.
He bites his lip and goes to try Ross’s cell again. Voicemail.
He’s on his feet, wondering if he has time to slip down to the car just to check that Ross isn’t in fact napping on the back seat, when Dean’s doctor emerges from the OR area. Sam surges to his feet and collars the guy as he removes his mask and gloves.
“Is he okay?”
“He’s going to live,” the guy says flatly. “We were able to repair the damage to his internal organs. We had to give him a transfusion, there was some internal bleeding, but he will be okay. Fortunately, there was no damage to his brain and no oxygen deprivation which can occur in these kinds of traumas.”
Sam pales, his limbs wooly and heavy beneath him, he hadn’t realized, he’d had no fucking idea that it was that bad… lying in that cabin, Dean had just been unconscious, no different from how he'd looked the first time they’d rescued him from the demon, when he’d been drugged, he’d never thought -
“He needs a lot of rest,” the doctor continues. “We’re going to keep him sedated for a couple of days, let his body repair itself before we bring him back to the land of the living.” He breaks off and peers at Sam closely, his eyes measured and professional. “You should have someone dress those bruises,” he says, in the same flat monotone.
Sam raises his hand self-consciously to his throat, wincing when his fingertips brush the raw, damaged skin. “I, uh, it’s not so bad.”
The doctor ignores him, waves one of his looming cohorts over and directs them to see to Sam, and Sam finds himself forced into an empty triage room despite his fruitless protests. A doctor dresses and bandages his neck, and tells him that Dean's doctor - evidently the guy in charge around here - has ordered specifically that Sam will not be permitted to see Dean until he’s been properly treated. So Sam submits to the inevitable, taking the pills they force on him, and feeling vaguely grateful when the throbbing pain starts to dim away, his mind getting foggy and thick as his body forces him to remember just how fucking long it’s been since he last slept.
They let him into Dean’s room, and one of the nurses, on seeing his confused, exhausted state, wheels in a spare cot and lets him crash out on it. He finally drifts off to sleep to the sound of the machines rigged up to Dean's body, the steady beep reaffirming his brother's heartbeat.
He wakes up the next morning to see the friendly nurse from the previous night injecting something into Dean's drip. He watches her foggily, his sleep-deprived eyes hazy and filmy as he blinks away the dry, scratchy flakes of sleep. She smiles at him and says good morning as she leaves the room, scrubs swishing in a reassuring, competent way. Sam rolls off the cot and pads in his socked feet to the edge of Dean’s bed. His brother’s face is still and slack and pale, but a quick glance at the machines, at his chest rising and falling assure him that Dean is okay, and he remembers the doctor’s words from the night before, they’re sedating him on purpose, letting his body repair itself before they wake him up again. This is all good. It’s what Dean needs. He brushes his fingertips over Dean’s bristly cheek, and traces his finger down over the neck of the thin cotton gown, down his bare arms. He touches the back of Dean’s hand gently, the skin threaded through with its flower arrangement of tubes and drips and fluids.
He sighs and sinks to the chair beside Dean’s bed, letting his head drop into his hands.
Ross.
He jerks his head back up at the thought of his younger brother, feeling suddenly wide awake and cursing himself.
Ross - where is Ross?
He fumbles to his feet and gathers up his jacket, reaching into his pocket for his phone. It’s switched off of course; he wasn’t permitted to keep it on so close to all this equipment. He swears under his breath, stuffs his feet into his boots, grabs up his phone and stalks quickly into the waiting area.
He has no missed calls, just one new text message from Bobby, just four words in capitals: DON’T WORRY. GOT THEM. He shivers, dropping the phone back into his pocket when he remembers what that message really means: Bobby’s got the car, and he’s got Dad. He swallows, blinking back a sudden wave of grief in his gut, his chest beginning to ache again. He glances back at Dean’s room and feels his eyes start to blur over, when Dean wakes up, he’s got to tell him. He has no idea how he’s going to tell him.
But that’s not important right now, Dean’s not going to wake up for at least another day, the urgent thing now is to find Ross.
He dials Ross’s number and really does swear out loud when it switches to voicemail.
The receptionist looks at him as if he’s crazy as he tries to describe his brother, stumbling over the words: “Looks just like me, but shorter, like 6’2, dark hair and brown eyes and he was wearing a blue shirt and ripped jeans…” He trails off, stomach cramping with a dread sense of foreboding. What the hell will he tell Dean? Dean will never forgive him if he’s lost Ross on his watch.
Oh, God. He swallows, ducks his head, feeling the useless, self-pitying tears start to swell up.
“Look, it’s my brother, please, I just need to know - who was working last night between 6 and 7, he was sitting here with me, and he just - God, I don’t know where he went…”
“Are you Sam?”
Sam spins around; one of the nurses is regarding him with frank interest. She’s obviously just about to start or finish her shift because she’s dressed in her coat, bag slung over one shoulder.
“Yes!” he busts out, “Yes, that’s me! What - did you see him last night? My brother? Did you see Ross?”
She comes forward, reaches into her purse to take out a crumpled envelope, smoothing it between her fingers before she holds it out to him. “Here,” she says calmly. “I was told to give this to someone called Sam who was freakishly tall with weird, froofy hair and bandages on his throat. I’m guessing that’s you.”
Sam nods and gulps, because yes - that description - so Ross. He wrenches his gaze from her face to the envelope she’s holding out. It’s got SAM written on it in Ross’s terrible handwriting and is obviously some motel stationery that Ross must’ve kept stuffed in his pocket or retrieved from somewhere, who the hell knows with Ross.
He takes it from her hand with a long breath, eyes going wide as he meets her gaze. “Thanks,” he breathes.
“That’s okay,” she says with a smile. “I should’ve given it to you earlier, but he gave me it while you were being treated and I didn’t want to disturb you, and then, well, my shift finished. Luckily I’m doing a double today so I came in early, huh?”
Sam nods weakly and turns away to read the note.
Dear Sammy,
Sorry for leaving you a note, I know it’s really emo and lame but if I didn’t say or write anything then you and Dean will think that I’ve been kidnapped again and that would suck. Anyway, I’m leaving. I don’t know where I’m going to go. Fuck it, maybe I'll go to Disneyworld, I always wanted to go there when we were kids.
Don’t try to follow me and don’t try to call me, I’ve already dumped my phone and I will call you when I'm ready, not like I don't know your number, unless you change it, so don't do that.
Don’t worry about me, I can look after myself, I’m not completely useless on my own like you both think. Take care of Dean, though I don’t need to tell you that, but maybe you should leave off fucking him until he’s all properly healed.
Tell Dean I’m really fucking sorry.
Ross.
He folds the note up carefully and slides it into the back pocket of his jeans, then he walks back into Dean’s room and waits for his brother to wake up.
Next Chapter
Chapter 19/?
Pairing: Sam/Dean, Sam/Ross (sort of)
Rating: R
Word Count: 8,829
Summary: Season 1 AU. Ross Christopher Winchester knows three things to be true: that his father, John, is a hero, that he's going to be the best hunter in the goddamn world, and that his two older brothers are in love with each other. An AU-version of Season 1 where The Winchester Boys mean Dean and Sam and Ross, where John is still missing, where Mary and Jess are still crispy-fried, and where Dean and Sam are still obsessed with one another...
Previous Chapters Chapter 1
A/N This chapter was not beta-ed by the fabulous andreth47 as the poor thing is in the middle of beta-ing my stupidly long big!bang and I just couldn't burden her further... Therefore, all grammar errors, Britishisms, weirdo turns-of-phrase and any general incoherency = ALL MY FAULT. That said, hope you all enjoy it ;D
Chapter 19
The Impala’s gone and the motel room is empty.
Sam places one hand on the door frame, quickly scanning the parking lot for any sign of the car, of Ross, of Dad - no, not Dad, the demon, because that wasn’t Dad, that was the demon. All that time, all those hours, riding in the car alongside the three of them, the demon, not Dad. The thought makes him feel sick, a physical swoop of nausea to his belly, bile catching at the back of his throat as he tries to swallow it back.
The motel room looks exactly the same as any other motel room they’ve stayed in over the past few years. Nothing to tell that one of its inhabitants is anything other than what he seems, no lingering, tell-tale scent of sulfur or aura of demonic wrongness permeating the wrinkled wall-paper and nicotine stained ceiling, instead just a chaos of strewn clothes, the cache of weapons carefully zippered shut and thrown into the bottom of a flimsy wood closet, and the tangy smell of shower gel and sweat.
Everything seemed so simple only 24 hours earlier. They had a mission: Save Dean, Save Dad. Easy. Cold stone clarity. He was going to get Dean back and he didn’t care what he had to do, who he had to kill to do it. Hell, he’d killed Meg. He and Ross hadn’t given a shit that there was an innocent, possessed girl trapped inside that body alongside the demon. And he'd thought - God, he'd thought they’d done it, that they’d actually come out on top for the first fucking time in their lives. He should’ve known better. When have the Winchesters ever managed to catch a break?
The furthest bed is covered in wet towels and dirty clothes. Ross’s dirty clothes, the shirt and undershirt and old ragged jeans that he’d been wearing for the past two days - Dean’s jeans - Sam can see that now, Dean’s jeans and Dean’s shirt because Ross is constantly wearing Dean’s clothes these days. In fact, he’s been wearing Dean’s clothes ever since Dean rejected him all those weeks ago. It probably says something about Ross’s mindset; about just how fucked up his little brother is, about his debilitating dependence on Dean and Dean’s own need for that dependence because Dean has never remarked once on Ross’s new-found affection for stealing and wearing his clothes, Dean has been letting Ross get away with it.
Sam curls his fingers around the shirt, bunching the soft, worn fabric in his hands. He can remember Dean wearing this shirt about a month back, they’d pulled up on some lonely back road in the middle of the night because Dean could hear some odd noises coming from his baby’s engine and God forbid he not check that out immediately, despite the freezing cold and the pitch black night. So Dean popped the hood, made Sam stand beside him holding the flashlight, Ross asleep in the backseat while Dean fixed whatever little niggling fault he’d imagined. Sam stood beside him; one arm draped across his brother’s back, his face against Dean’s shoulder, the soft warmth of his flannel shirt - this flannel shirt - underneath his cheek as he held the flashlight in place. Dean finished up, turned around and pulled him into a kiss, grease-dirtied fingers coming up to cradle Sam’s cheek, black smudges of warpaint across Sam’s cheekbones as they made out under the stars.
“Why don’t you try using your freaky ESP thing?”
Sam jumps, snaps his head around to see Dean leaning up against the doorframe, white-faced and shaky but with that steely, determined look in his eyes that Sam recognizes way too fucking well.
“Dean, what the fuck are you -“
“Save it!” Dean interrupts. He holds up a hand as if to silence him. “We got more important shit to worry about.”
“Dean…”
“Sam!” Dean snaps. “Not now! After we know Ross is okay, after we’ve exorcised that sonofabitch, then I’ll go back to hospital like a good little boy, but not now, okay?”
Sam gulps, nods. He knows that he can’t argue with Dean, it will just be a waste of both their time.
“Right. So - you wanna spark up that freaky vision thing? Try and locate them?”
“Dean, I don’t know if -“
“You and Ross are connected, right? There must be some way that you can…” he waves a hand, staring fixedly at Sam, “… you know, like, locate him, using that big, freaky noggin of yours?”
“Dean, no, seriously. I don’t think it works like that. Listen - Dad - the demon - he mentioned something about a cabin out on Route 73. He wanted me to drive us there, but I refused and took you to hospital instead. He might’ve taken Ross there.”
Dean nods, crosses the room towards the closet, the bag of weapons. He crouches down, unzippers the bag. “Okay, so we’ll start there. You’ll have to steal us a car.” He takes out a couple of sawed-offs, grabbing handfuls of ammo and thrusting it into the pockets of his jacket as he recrosses the room. “C’mon!”
Dean leans against the side of an old Dodge, doing his best to look nonchalant as Sam quickly slips the lock. He darts Dean a look, he still looks pale, his breathing heavy and slightly labored, and he’s obviously leaning against the car for support, and not just to look nonchalant and unsuspicious.
“Hey,” he whispers. Dean jerks his head around, blinks, “You okay? I’m serious, Dean, you just got roofied. You were unconscious. If you’re -“
“Sam, I’m fine!” Dean growls. “And you can say what you want, but there’s no fuckin’ way I’m sittin’ this one out. That bastard has Ross and Dad.”
“And it’s probably expecting us to do just this - to come after it.”
He pries the door open, metal squeaking angrily, Dean glares at him and slides inside, shifting over to the driver’s side.
“Dean, no! You can’t seriously expect -“
“Sam! Get in! We’re wasting time here. And you need to do your Force thing, you can’t drive!”
Sam grits his teeth and slides into the shotgun seat, watching Dean pull off one of the beige faux-leather panels to get to the wiring. Dean was always the best at that, could hotwire a car in under 30 seconds. They pull out the parking lot with a squeal of breaks. Sam closes his eyes and tries to concentrate, tries to think about Ross, picturing his little brother’s face in his mind: big dark eyes, long eyelashes and wide generous mouth. He feels preposterous, like a fraud. He can’t do this, there’s no connection between him and Ross, they’re brothers, sure, and they look alike, but seriously, some sort psychic mind-meld bullshit... No, that’s just not going to happen.
He snaps his eyes open, turns his head to look at Dean. Dean’s staring through the dusty windshield; he looks exhausted, worn-out, fingers clamped around the wheel like a vise. He really, really shouldn’t be here; if Dad were here then he’d have forced Dean to stay behind to recover properly, like this, Dean is more of a liability than a help. But Dad’s not here, Dad’s… Fuck, Dad’s possessed. Possessed by the evil thing he’s been hunting for all these years, and if that isn’t some goddamn freaky irony then he really doesn’t know what is.
He flexes his fingers, he feels so stiff, his whole body stiff and tense and he really needs to sleep. He’s been awake for… God, must be nearly three days straight now, and it’s worse than that time all those years ago when he was 18, when they were chasing those mutant alligators for three days straight through the Florida swamp. He could remember the exhilaration and adrenalin threading through his body as he and Dean tore through the jungle after Dad had split the four of them up, Dean’s dazzling, white-toothed grin when he finally took out the final demonic motherfucker with a spray of blood and guts and gore and scaly gator parts, how Dean had pushed him back against a tree, bark scratchy through his thin, sweat-soaked shirt, and kissed him until they were both breathless, sinking to his knees and staring up at Sam with his blood and mud-streaked face as he tugged Sam’s fly open...
“Shit!”
Dean’s cry yanks Sam from his momentary fantasy, the car coming to a skidding halt, and then Dean’s stumbling out the door, running jaggedly towards something. Sam gulps, snaps off his seatbelt and tumbles out the car after him.
It’s the Impala, smashed up against a couple of huge, looming fir trees. Headlights on, doors open, soft sound of CCR’s Bad Moon Rising drifting towards them, steam rising from the half-open hood. It’s a wreck, formally gleaming sides dented and scratched, front bumper crumpled, headlights gleaming jaggedly through the wreckage.
Sam gulps again, bile and acid corrosive and sour at the back of his throat as he takes in the sight. There’s no sign of Ross, no sign of Dad, but there’s also no sign that either of them were hurt, no blood smeared to the cracked windshield or the upholstery.
He glances at Dean, the whites of his brother’s eyes are stark in the reflected headlights and his mouth is working dumbly, hands smoothing haphazardly over the dented, crumpled bodywork, soft murmurs of, “No, no, no, no, no…” seeping unchecked from his mouth.
Sam stumbles through the grass and mud, sliding up to his brother until he’s got his hand on Dean’s shoulder, his side against Dean’s. Dean turns his head slowly, stark glittering eyes meeting Sam’s, the glisten of tears on his long, dark lashes.
“It’s okay,” Sam whispers, “we’ll find them, it’ll be okay, Dean. We’ll find them and you can fix her. She’ll be okay. She’s tough.”
Dean huffs out a broken hitching sound and Sam squeezes his shoulder, leans over his brother to switch off the engine, pulling the keys out the ignition and sliding them into his pocket. “C’mon,” he says, trying to sound reassuring. He squeezes Dean’s shoulder again, leans closer to press his mouth to Dean’s temple, starts to push him away from the wreckage. “They must be okay. We just gotta find their tracks - we can -“
“There,” Dean interrupts dully. He lifts a hand, points through the lines of trees. Sam follows his gaze, there’s a cabin, yellow light glinting eerily through the thick trees.
Sam keeps his hand knotted in the sleeve of Dean’s jacket as they stumble through the trees towards the ominous yellow lights of the cabin. He feels like a stupid child in a fairy tale, like Hansel and Gretel running towards the Evil Witch’s marzipan lair. He can hear his own pulse beating rapidly, the blood bashing in his head, and Dean’s breathing heavy and labored as they half-run, half-stagger towards the cabin.
Wordlessly they drop to their knees as they draw close; creeping on their bellies, out of sight of the big open windows. A shadow crosses the window and Sam freezes, it’s Dad - the demon - peering out through the glass, those gleaming malevolent eyes scanning the clearing like high beams. He knots his fingers harder in Dean’s jacket, pushes the two of them into the ground, the rain-soaked grass soaking through his jeans and shirts. Dean glares at him, unknots Sam’s fingers with a pointed look. Sam represses the urge to laugh again, instead following his brother as they crawl to the side of the cabin.
Sam gets slowly to his feet, keeping his body pressed up against the side of the cabin he peers around the edge of the window-frame. Ross is tied to a chair in the middle of the room, unconscious, his head sagging against his chest, hair covering his face. Sam’s stomach gives a lurch; he presses his hand over his mouth to repress a gasp as he sinks to the ground beside Dean.
“What?” hisses Dean.
“Ross."
“Is he okay?”
“I don’t know.”
He sees the roll of Dean’s throat as he swallows, sees his quick, hard nod, the setting of his teeth.
“The demon?” Dean asks.
“I don’t know, I can’t see it.”
He gets back to his feet, grateful for the wall behind his back. There’s a table in the corner of the room, and the Colt’s lying on it, dead centre, apart from that and the chair Ross is tied to there’s no more furniture, just rough wood floors, one bulb hanging bare from the ceiling. No sign of the demon.
“He’s not - I can’t see it - I -“
“Sam and Dean! Well, isn’t this a happy family reunion!”
The booming, cheesy villain voice is the last thing he hears before he’s unconscious again.
*****************************
Ross wakes up to the sound of his father’s voice - no, not his father, the demon - ‘cause his father - he would never do that to him, never say that to him, like, no fucking way, his father loves him, has always loved him best, more than his brothers, more than anyone, except maybe his dead wife. Dad came to get him when he was lost, took him from the children’s home, made him one of them. Dad was wanted by the FBI for years for that, Dad risked everything for him, Dad loves him.
“Nice of you to join us, Ross,” says Dad’s voice, and it’s nothing like Dad’s voice, and how can he ever have thought that was Dad? This voice is cruel and mocking, sneering and sarcastic, and okay, so Dad could be all those things when he wanted, but never to him, never to Ross.
He blinks, the room coming hazily into focus around him. He’s tied to a chair, bindings tight around his wrists and chest, and it’s dark, really dark, no lights on and no moon outside; the only light in the room coming from the feeble starlight outside, the big black window in front of them. He has vague memories of being in the car, of Dad crashing the car on purpose, wrenching the steering wheel and hurtling them towards a bank of dark, swaying trees, squeezing his eyes shut and thinking that Dean was never going to forgive him for being taken in by a demon and letting that demon crash his beloved baby.
He seems to be in a cabin, so Dad - the demon - must’ve taken him here after he crashed the car. He glances down at himself, he’s still wearing one of Dean’s shirts, but his jacket is missing, and his heart sinks, realizing that the demon must’ve discovered the Colt by now, have found it where he'd hidden it in his inside pocket. Goddamnit, Sammy was right, he should’ve left the fucking thing in the trunk, at least there it was protected by all the freaking devil traps Sam had drawn, the demon would never have been able to get at it there. But no, like a total tool, he's practically handed the fucking thing over to the sonofabitch on a fucking plate.
He squirms, testing the strength of the bindings, unsurprisingly, they’re really fucking strong, but, hey… what the… back up a damn moment… There’s something - someone - some person - pressed up warm and hard against his back, someone big and strong and freaking enormous. Someone who smells really fucking familiar: cigarette smoke and gun-oil and Winchester sweat… Sam or Dean, then? Gotta be Sam, Dean’s in hospital, Dean’s safe, they totally demon-proofed his room, that sonofabitch is not getting anywhere near Dean, but Sammy though… fuck it! Sam’s gone and walked into this fucking trap just like he did, and Sam’s supposed to be the smart one.
His stomach clenches up, a nauseous, despairing coil, and if he’d actually eaten anything in the past 48 hours, then he’d definitely have lost it now, so, yeah, just as fucking well they hadn’t had chance to eat a damn thing. He hitches in a breath, tries to get himself under control; he needs to remember Dad’s training, because if that bastard really does have both him and Sam in its clutches then he’s got to be awake and sharp and on the fucking ball, and ready to figure out his next move, ready to get them the hell outta there. He’s got to save Sam, recapture the Colt, and get that demonic piece of crap out of Dad, and then get them all safely back to Dean, and hope, Christ, pray that Dean’s still okay.
He flexes his fingers, and with a surge of relief, he feels the other hand brush back against them, and, yeah, thank God, that’s most definitely Sam, only Sam’s fingers are that freakishly long. He can feel Sam breathing now through their smashed-together bodylines, and hear the demon’s treads on the wooden floor, make out its big, lurking shape as it paces in front of them.
“What have you done with Dean?” he hears Sam ask.
The demon pauses in its pacing, the wooden floor creaking ominously as it twists on its heels. “You don’t get to ask questions, Sammy.”
Ross gulps, his vision is getting clearer as his eyes adjust to the dark, and he watches the demon stride towards the corner of the room and pick something up. When it turns around, it’s holding out the Colt, barrel aimed directly at him and Sam.
“You won’t believe what a pain in my ass this thing has been,” the demon remarks easily, like he's addressing a fucking audience and not just him and Sam. “And now, it’s all mine. Same as you boys.” It smirks, those horrible yellow eyes glinting as it adds smugly: “And your daddy.”
“What have you done with Dean?” Sam grits out again. Ross flinches, because Sam’s tone is like daggers and he knows that if he got a glimpse of his brother’s face then his stare would be equally hate-filled and icy, and that… so not a good idea right now, with this demonic sonofabitch towering over them, holding the goddamn Colt.
The demon chuckles warmly, and Christ, but that makes him sound just like Dad, exactly like Dad.
“Oh, Dean’s taken care of. Don’t you worry your pretty little heads about him.” That grating, mocking chuckle again, his voice threaded through with a horrible, knowing sort of contempt that turns Ross’s stomach, making it lurch like he’s about to throw himself over a cliff-face with no safety rope. “You know,” the demon continues conversationally, “he was going to leave you, abandon the both of you.”
“What do you mean?” Ross blurts out, unable to stop himself.
The demon jerks his head, his gaze raking over Ross and going amused and almost gleeful, like he totally knows he’s hit pay-dirt. He smiles silkily, starlight catching the white strip of his bared teeth and those stained yellow eyes. “Dean was going to leave you both,” he repeats, deliberately slowing down his words, like he’s explaining something to a couple of retards, like he’s really, really enjoying it. “John found out all about Dean’s sordid little arrangement with Sammy, and he told him to get gone, and Dean, well… we all know how much Dean enjoys taking orders, what a good little bitch he is… He couldn’t wait to say yes to Daddy. Finally, the chance to get away from you, Littlest Bro, his pathetic, sniveling, clingy, bastard brother. You’ve been a millstone around your big brother's neck ever since John shot his load up your momma’s cunt…” his voice shifts up into a horrible, grating falsetto: “Pay attention to meeee, Dean, why don’t you love me, Dean? Why don’t you love me like you love Sammy, Dean?”
“No, that’s a fuckin’ lie! No, you got it all wrong, you sonofabitch!”
The demon laughs out loud, but the joke's on him 'cause he is so wrong, he’s totally wrong. Dean would never agree to just leave, Dean would never leave him, Dean loves him, Dean would never think of him like that.
He feels Sam’s fingers brush against his own, and he flinches, tries to jerk away, he doesn’t want Sam’s fucking sympathy or reassurance right now. The demon’s still chuckling, pacing towards them and looming over Ross, looking down at him with this contemptuous expression that reminds Ross with a lurch of Dad, shaking his head over a local sheriff's department bungling a case.
“You know, John knew about Sam and Dean’s incestuous fuck-fest for a long, long time, but he was still too darned dumb to see what was really going on under his nose,” he pauses dramatically, before smirking at Ross and continuing: “luckily, I’ve been able to enlighten him. To bring him up to date with recent events. Now Daddy knows exactly how eager his precious little boy was to get his cherry ass in the air for Dean's fat cock, how you begged and begged to give it up to your big brothers. Both of them…”
Ross’s stomach knots up as he screams out: “No! NO! It wasn’t like that! Dad, it wasn’t - don’t listen to him! I never did - you got it all wrong - I ain’t like that! I ain’t like them!”
The demon laughs, loud and genuinely amused, cutting off Ross protestations with a wave of his hand. “I can read your mind, Littlest Bro; I know you’re lying your hot little ass off. I know how long you been coveting your brothers’ sweet bacon, how long you’ve been dreaming of Dean pounding you into the mattress while you beg for it like the bitch you are...” Ross’s chest heaves as he scrabbles for breath, his voice locked away as the demon holds his hand up and laughs, yellow eyes raking over him like a flashlight, like he’s peeling away the outer layers, the skin and bone, and peering underneath. “Me and Daddy are bosom buddies, now, boys. Ain’t no secrets between us, though, I gotta hand it to him, Jonny Boy’s got some mighty interesting secrets locked away in this meat suit -“
“My God, you really do like the sound of your own voice.”
Ross jumps, twists in his chair at the sound of Dean’s voice. His brother’s leaning against the doorframe to the room behind them, barely managing to hold himself upright, face pale and streaked with blood and looking like total shit, but it’s Dean, God, Dean’s here, it’s gonna be okay ‘cause Dean will have something figured out and it’ll be okay and Dean will save them. He swallows, feels Sam flinch behind him, and for a moment, he can feel the blood pumping hard in Sam’s veins, feel every muscle tense, primed and ready, feel every single pore of his brother’s body come alive as if they’re his own, an overwhelming awareness of Sam, taking over and invading his entire consciousness, that same freaky at-one-ness as when they exorcised that demon at Bobby’s place.
“Dean!” greets the demon with menacing cheerfulness. “You just couldn’t stay away, could you?”
It pulls away from Ross and Sam, and slowly saunters towards Dean, just like Dad when he enters a bar, letting every motherfucker know who’s boss, that he’s about to take those suckers for every last dollar they have. “Though, I have to say,” it continues conversationally, “you’re lookin’ a leetle worse for wear there, champ.”
It comes to a halt in the middle of the room, big looming shadow seeming to take up all the empty space. There’s a long pause and Ross can hear Dean breathing, hard and labored and hissy, like he’s breathing through a damaged lung, and fuck, that could be the case, that could totally be the case, it would be just like Dean to be so fucking brave and desperate and full of fucked-up bravado to turn up with a damaged lung and taunt the motherfucker that’s stolen their Dad. And what the fuck is Dean even doing here? Why isn’t he in hospital where he belongs, instead of here, getting his stupid-ass self fucking killed?
The demon tilts his head to one side, thrusts out one hand in a weirdly leisurely, nonchalant kinda way, and Dean crumples to the floor, like his safety rope has just been cut.
“No! You sonofabitch!”
And it could be his or Sam’s voice, because he can’t fucking tell which of them it is that’s screaming out loud, maybe both of them. But Dean’s lying on the floor, coughing and choking and there’s blood on his lips, and he’s groaning and whimpering and the demon’s cackling over him, flexing his fingers in time with Dean’s screams and for one weird moment, Ross thinks that the demon’s performing the freaking crucio curse on his brother, except he’s not saying the words out loud and of course that isn’t even real, this sonofabitch isn’t fucking Voldemort, and what the hell is wrong with his brain to be dredging up that shit right now?
“No, no, no, stop it, no, stop it! Stop hurting him! You goddamned sonofabitch! Stop it! You’re gonna kill him! Stop it, please…”
Sam’s voice. Begging and pleading, wrecked and hoarse with sobs and desperation, but the demon’s ignoring him, enjoying it, getting off on it, on torturing Dean, laughing like he’s the freaking Evil Emperor in Jedi with fingers full of Force-lightning and he’s teaching Luke Skywalker a lesson for not turning to the dark side.
“NO!” Sam screams, and his fingers stretch and wrap around Ross’s hand, the touch is electric, like, literally, electric: a jolt through his system, a flash, a blinding, deafening crack, and both he and Sam are on the floor, chairs shattered around them, splintered wood and frayed ropes, they’re both free of their bindings and Ross has absolutely no fucking idea what just happened, what he and Sammy just did.
Ross raises his head groggily, the floor is hard and gritty beneath him, dirty and disgusting, the wood splinters poking and grazing at his skin. He feels like he’s been emptied, all his insides, all of him, his energy - his fucking life-force, whatever the fuck you want to call it - everything emptied and drained, and he knows that it was Sam, emptying him, draining him like a battery, using him to free the both of them.
Sam scrabbles away from him on his hands and knees, storming to his feet and lurching, bounding, throwing himself, all his weight, at the demon, the two of them falling, tumbling to the floor in a thud of limbs and punches and flailing legs and Sam whaling on the demon like he’s lost his fucking mind, screaming through shredded vocal cords: “You’re gonna fuckin’ pay! You fuckin’ bastard, you’re gonna pay!”
“Sam?” he croaks, “Sam? Sammy!” And that’s a scream because Sam might be fucking deranged and he might’ve just broken them free of the ropes and the chairs with just the power of his goddamn mind, but Sam’s only human and the demon’s getting the better of him, forcing him to the ground and curling those big strong hands - Dad’s big strong hands - around Sam’s long, stupidly fragile looking neck.
He surges to his feet, adrenalin soaring, pumping, eyes skating around hopelessly, helplessly, tumbling over the limp, still form of Dean, of the demon hunched over Sam, choking the life out of him, and wait…
What’s that?
The Colt.
Lying innocent and cold and forgotten on the table by the window, starlight twinkling off its barrel.
He dives, snaps it up, fingers slotting around the butt, curling over the trigger like his hand is made for it, and ain’t that the goddamn truth, his hand has been made for every single firearm he’s ever held, ever since the age of six when Dad first curled his small fingers around a gun, saying with that proud look on his face: You’re a natural, son, got a true aim on you… Telling Sam and Dean to crowd close ‘cause you two could learn a thing from your little brother.
The memory of Dad’s voice fades away until all he can hear is the hideous, gurgling choking of Sam fighting for breath, for his life, and all he can see is the deranged, inhuman glow of the demon’s yellow eyes, the fucking demon - the motherfucker that’s stolen Dad and tortured Dean - and its hard relentless fingers locked around his brother’s neck.
The beating of his brain and the slamming of his heart speed up and he knows that this is it, it’s up to him. Dean and Sam and Dad are all out, he’s the last man standing and he has to do it, he has to step up, be a motherfucking Winchester and save their family. He has to do what Dad would do…
He takes a breath, points the gun, and pulls the trigger.
**********************************************
For a long time, Sam’s sure that he’s been shot, that he’s dead. The last thing he was aware of was a gunshot, and if there’s one sound he knows really fucking well, then that’s a gunshot. He is Sam Winchester and he was raised on the sound of gunfire in his ears and the feel of gunmetal in his hands.
He blinks; his neck and throat are throbbing like distinct entities, the pain so vivid that he can hear it, the air being forced through his lungs like a leak in an air mattress. He raises his hand tentatively to his throat, fingers trembling as they graze his skin. He winces out loud, the skin of his throat and neck feels like it’s been peeled away and exposed, chafed raw, like that time he slipped down the 20ft rope when they were breaking into a museum to steal a cursed artifact, the heavy, sodden rope fibers taking away the outer layer of the skin on his palms.
He scans the dark cabin, trying to locate his brothers, figure out what the gunshot was and where it came from. His eyes roll over a human shape, and he stills, a burst of fear holding him momentarily frozen in place.
Dean. He’d recognize that shape anywhere.
He scrambles to his hands and knees, palms scraping against the splintered floor as he crawls painstakingly towards his brother’s prostrate body, the breath rattling through his lungs, burning against his throat like he’s chugging gasoline.
He rolls Dean onto his back, one hand on his pulse point, other against his slack mouth, and Jesus, thank God again, he’s breathing, soft puff of air against his palm and pulse weak but steady under his fingertips.
“Dean?” he whispers, the words scraping at his raw, throbbing throat.
Dean doesn’t stir. Unconscious, but alive, breathing, and that’s… okay, he can work with that. They can get Dean to hospital, figure shit out, and it will be okay, Dean will be okay.
He lets out a long, relieved breath, head swimming and throat stinging as he sits back on his haunches. He looks around again, searching out his younger brothers, eyes dilating and breath catching when he spots the Colt lying innocent and discarded in the middle of the floor.
A low, keening sound hits him and he blinks rapidly, confusedly, finally seeing the hunched, darkened shape of Ross, slumped against one wall of the cabin, face hidden in the shadows, and Dad - God, Dad - sprawled motionless across his lap.
Sam gulps, gets unsteadily to his feet, and quickly crosses the floor to kneel down in front of Ross and Dad. Ross’s face is hidden, his body curled over Dad, face against Dad’s big familiar overcoat, he’s trembling, shaking, spine hitching and convulsing through thick, wracked, silent sobs.
Sam swallows, feels the blur of tears in his eyes as he reaches out a hand, places it on Ross’s shoulder, squeezes tentatively.
Ross’s head jerks up; his face is unrecognizable, snot and tears and red ugliness, smears of blood over his cheeks and chin, a blur of colors and grief.
Sam freezes, stares back at his brother, unable to shape the words, ask the question. It’s all useless anyway, because he can see it now, he can feel it, he knows that Dad is dead.
Dad is dead.
The words don’t really compute, they bash against the outside of his mind, as if his brain’s incapable of letting them get inside.
Dad is dead.
He swallows again, the burning in his throat like vinegar in a cut every time, the tears are beginning to break free and roll down his cheeks despite himself, his body is miles ahead of his brain, his body is already telling him that this is what you do when your Dad is dead.
“I killed him,” Ross whimpers. “Sammy, I killed him. It was me, I shot him, Sammy. I killed him… Oh God, I did it… I -“ he breaks off, body wracked by another lurch of grief, his face crumpling and creasing up like an old, torn-down poster. He leans forward, clutches at Sam’s jacket, “Sammy, I… I killed Dad.”
“Shush, no, that’s - you were just doing what you had to,” Sam stammers, the words scraping as he forces them out of his raw, enflamed throat.
Oh God, shit, he can’t handle this, he needs Dean, he wants Dean. Dean would know what to do, Dean would say the right thing, Dean would know how to comfort Ross.
“No, no, no, no, no,” Ross wails, “no, I killed him! I killed Dad! What are we gonna do now?”
“Hey, hey, shush, it’s okay,” he croaks uselessly. He leans in, raises his hands to Ross’s hot wet face, cradling it between his big palms, fingers slippery against the tears and snot and sweaty, clammy skin.
Ross hacks out a breath, grabs onto the back of Sam’s skull, and pulls him into a kiss.
It’s slippery and slimy and disgusting. The two of them are both crying, or maybe it’s just Ross’s tears smearing gummily over Sam’s cheeks as his little brother slops kisses over Sam’s mouth and teeth, his nose and chin, incoherent and messy, his hard capable fingers fisting urgently into Sam’s hair, grabbing and pulling at him so hard that it fucking hurts, every struggled out breath a wracked pain as he tries to breathe through Ross’s onslaught, through his own damaged esophagus.
For a few seconds, Sam tries to kiss Ross back, understanding somewhere at the still functioning part of his brain that this is what Ross wants, what he needs. His brave, smart-ass little brother reduced to a trembling, needy child grasping and clawing at him, and Jesus Christ, Dad’s body is still lying across Ross’s lap, right there between the two of them, and that’s… God, Sam doesn’t have words for what that is, for how fucked up and wrong and cataclysmic that is.
He wrenches out of his brother’s grasp and pants painfully for breath, his hands falling self-consciously from Ross’s face and landing on Dad’s chest: his big, thick overcoat, his bloodstained shirt. He flinches, distantly aware the sticky red goop of blood on his skin - Dad’s blood - and he jerks backwards, scalding tears burning at his eyes, as he slowly forces himself to look down, to look at his father. His dead father.
Dad’s face is slack, utterly expressionless and maybe even peaceful, but Sam can’t tell, though, honestly, when in his life has he ever been able to read Dad? Dad is as distant and closed-off and unreachable now as he always was in life. Dad was the omnipotent presence that Sam, however hard he used to try, never seemed to penetrate, never seemed to understand, and that never understood Sam back. He’d given up years before on trying to reach Dad, though he couldn’t say when he’d completely given up, maybe it was as long ago as that morning just before Christmas when he’d woken up to that boy in his bed that looked just like him, or maybe it was even before then, on one of those many occasions Dad left him to his big brother’s care? He knows he was a disappointment to Dad, the imperfect, recalcitrant soldier to Dean’s perfect, eager-to-please lieutenant, the least favorite child to Ross’s favorite. The middle-child, he thinks with a sudden surge of bitterness, remembering Becky years ago at Stanford, laughing and smiling at him, affection in her voice as she joked: “you’re such a middle-child, Sam…”
He’s never going to get a chance now to reconnect with Dad. To prove to Dad that he’s a true Winchester, that he’s a great hunter, that he’s so much more than Dad always thought he was, that he’s worthy…
A wave of grief coils up in his chest and he drops his head into his hands, palms slipping against his slimy, tear-streaked cheeks.
“It’s not okay, Sammy, it’s not okay, I killed him, I shot him, I did it…”
He can still hear Ross babbling hysterically in the background and he tries to force the sounds out. He can’t cope with that right now, can’t cope with Ross, with his endless fucking neediness and typically selfish grief - the demon was right about that - right about Ross. Dean is the only one who can deal with Ross right now.
Oh God, Dean, shit, they have to save Dean.
“Sammy, I don’t know what to do, what are we gonna do?” Ross is still not shutting up.
Sam jerks his head up, clamps his hand down forcefully on Ross’s shoulder, squeezes hard: “We gotta take Dean to the hospital. You gotta help me carry him to the car. Can you do that?”
It’s obviously the right thing to say, because Ross licks his lips, his eyelashes fluttering as he starts to nod his head, the old training, (Dad’s training), the action! first! mentality mixing with their overpowering urge to save their big brother taking over as Ross gets to his feet, gently, reverently lowering their Dad back to the floor. Sam pulls away from him, crosses the floor quickly back towards Dean, and hoists him carefully, up onto one shoulder. He glances back over at Ross; his younger brother is still staring down at Dad, hesitating, fingers locked around Dad’s collar, eyes riveted to Dad’s face.
“Ross!” he hisses. Ross’s head jerks up, eyes going wide and frightened. “Help me!”
Ross gulps, the ripple of his throat visible even from this distance and he crosses quickly towards them, the instinct to obey orders as automatic as ever. He takes Dean’s other side, and together they stagger out the cabin and back into the night, Sam carefully, deliberately, not looking back at his dad’s body as they push the door shut behind them.
Dean gets whisked away as soon as they arrive back at the ER, abrupt, barked words about internal injuries and internal bleeding and he’s on a gurney being wheeled at a breakneck ER-esque pace through the double doors, hospital staff charging after him.
Sam takes a seat next to Ross, feeling his brother trembling through their pressed together thighs, though it could just as easily be him, his own exhausted, wrung-out body rebelling at last and giving into muscle tremors and endless anxiety. Ross is uncharacteristically silent and catatonic beside him, barely moving as his eyes stay rooted to his clasped hands. But then, Dad is dead, there is no precedent for this. And Sam really, really needs to get to grips with it - Dad is dead - the reality behind the words still refusing to penetrate his uncooperative, exhausted brain. Dad is dead.
He’s managed to piece together what happened in the cabin, he can remember the demon over him, on top of him, its cruel, thick fingers (Dad’s fingers) digging into his neck, cutting off his air supply, and he knows that if Ross hadn’t done what he did, then he wouldn’t be there right now. Ross saved his life. Hell, Ross probably saved Dean’s life too, and his own, because there was no way, the sonofabitch was going to stop there. It would’ve killed all three of them.
He gets to his feet with a sigh, Ross twitches beside him, but other than that, doesn’t say anything, barely seeming to notice.
“I’m gonna call Bobby,” Sam tells him, “ask him to get the car. And, uh, Dad…” he swallows over the word so it’s barely audible, but he can tell that Ross had heard and understood by his full-body, involuntary flinch.
He walks slowly, tiredly, down the hall towards the phone area. This is not a call he is anxious to make, but they have to do something. As far as he knows, fuck, as far as he hopes, the Impala is still resting in its half wrecked state, just off the highway, where Ross and the demon crashed it. They have to do something about that before the police impound it or someone steals it. When Dean wakes up, he’s going to need to know that his car is okay, Sam’s already got to explain to him that his beloved father is dead; he doesn’t think that he’s capable of explaining that his baby is no more either.
And then there’s Dad’s body.
He takes a deep breath and dials Bobby’s number.
Bobby doesn’t say anything, just asks for the exact location and promises to get his tow-truck out straight away. Truthfully, Sam has no idea how Bobby’s going to manage carrying Dad’s big, heavy body on his own, but the old guy seems sure that he’ll be able to deal with it, that it won’t be a problem, so Sam doesn’t think about it, pushes the thoughts, the reality of Dad - Dad’s body - Dad’s corpse - to the back of his brain, and concentrates on the here and now.
After he hangs up, he makes his way to the cafeteria, feeling unable to cope with Ross just yet. Nothing’s open, but the vending machines are still alight, still chugging away in the corner of the room next to the plastic waiting chairs. He gets himself some water, knowing that his poor damaged throat is not ready for coffee just yet. He feels suddenly really fucking hungry and thinks distractedly that he probably hasn’t eaten for nearly two days. It’s not the longest he’s gone without food, but he’s really fucking hungry. He gets a Mars bar and devours that in a few bites, his mouth working automatically, teeth chomping at the thick, gloopy filling, throat on fire as he forces it down in small bites with big mouthfuls of water. He gets a couple extra candy bars for Ross, and a cup of vending machine coffee, and he trudges back towards the waiting area, but Ross is nowhere to be seen.
Dean’s still in surgery, no new news, so he waits for half an hour, and sips cautiously at the coffee while he waits for Ross to get back from wherever he’s gone - the bathroom, outside for a cigarette, the phone, though who he’s going to phone right now, Sam has no fucking clue. After thirty minutes, he stows the extra candy bars in his jacket and goes out into the designated area to call Ross on his cell phone. There’s no answer on Ross’s phone, the call switching directly to voicemail.
He goes back to wait.
Three hours later and Ross still hasn’t returned. Sam tries not to worry, after all, it’s only been three hours, and the demon, well, he’s dead, that fact is as irrevocable and certain than anything in his life. The demon is dead, it can’t come after them anymore, Ross killed it.
Ross could’ve just gone to explore the hospital, wander around outside, buy a packet of cigarettes; fuck, even perhaps for a nap in the backseat of their stolen car. He’s a grown boy, he can look after himself. Except…
He really can’t look after himself. And he definitely can't right now. He's in no fit state, he's in shock, and if anything were to happen to him…
Then, he guesses, that at least he would end up at this fucking hospital. At least Sam would be informed.
He bites his lip and goes to try Ross’s cell again. Voicemail.
He’s on his feet, wondering if he has time to slip down to the car just to check that Ross isn’t in fact napping on the back seat, when Dean’s doctor emerges from the OR area. Sam surges to his feet and collars the guy as he removes his mask and gloves.
“Is he okay?”
“He’s going to live,” the guy says flatly. “We were able to repair the damage to his internal organs. We had to give him a transfusion, there was some internal bleeding, but he will be okay. Fortunately, there was no damage to his brain and no oxygen deprivation which can occur in these kinds of traumas.”
Sam pales, his limbs wooly and heavy beneath him, he hadn’t realized, he’d had no fucking idea that it was that bad… lying in that cabin, Dean had just been unconscious, no different from how he'd looked the first time they’d rescued him from the demon, when he’d been drugged, he’d never thought -
“He needs a lot of rest,” the doctor continues. “We’re going to keep him sedated for a couple of days, let his body repair itself before we bring him back to the land of the living.” He breaks off and peers at Sam closely, his eyes measured and professional. “You should have someone dress those bruises,” he says, in the same flat monotone.
Sam raises his hand self-consciously to his throat, wincing when his fingertips brush the raw, damaged skin. “I, uh, it’s not so bad.”
The doctor ignores him, waves one of his looming cohorts over and directs them to see to Sam, and Sam finds himself forced into an empty triage room despite his fruitless protests. A doctor dresses and bandages his neck, and tells him that Dean's doctor - evidently the guy in charge around here - has ordered specifically that Sam will not be permitted to see Dean until he’s been properly treated. So Sam submits to the inevitable, taking the pills they force on him, and feeling vaguely grateful when the throbbing pain starts to dim away, his mind getting foggy and thick as his body forces him to remember just how fucking long it’s been since he last slept.
They let him into Dean’s room, and one of the nurses, on seeing his confused, exhausted state, wheels in a spare cot and lets him crash out on it. He finally drifts off to sleep to the sound of the machines rigged up to Dean's body, the steady beep reaffirming his brother's heartbeat.
He wakes up the next morning to see the friendly nurse from the previous night injecting something into Dean's drip. He watches her foggily, his sleep-deprived eyes hazy and filmy as he blinks away the dry, scratchy flakes of sleep. She smiles at him and says good morning as she leaves the room, scrubs swishing in a reassuring, competent way. Sam rolls off the cot and pads in his socked feet to the edge of Dean’s bed. His brother’s face is still and slack and pale, but a quick glance at the machines, at his chest rising and falling assure him that Dean is okay, and he remembers the doctor’s words from the night before, they’re sedating him on purpose, letting his body repair itself before they wake him up again. This is all good. It’s what Dean needs. He brushes his fingertips over Dean’s bristly cheek, and traces his finger down over the neck of the thin cotton gown, down his bare arms. He touches the back of Dean’s hand gently, the skin threaded through with its flower arrangement of tubes and drips and fluids.
He sighs and sinks to the chair beside Dean’s bed, letting his head drop into his hands.
Ross.
He jerks his head back up at the thought of his younger brother, feeling suddenly wide awake and cursing himself.
Ross - where is Ross?
He fumbles to his feet and gathers up his jacket, reaching into his pocket for his phone. It’s switched off of course; he wasn’t permitted to keep it on so close to all this equipment. He swears under his breath, stuffs his feet into his boots, grabs up his phone and stalks quickly into the waiting area.
He has no missed calls, just one new text message from Bobby, just four words in capitals: DON’T WORRY. GOT THEM. He shivers, dropping the phone back into his pocket when he remembers what that message really means: Bobby’s got the car, and he’s got Dad. He swallows, blinking back a sudden wave of grief in his gut, his chest beginning to ache again. He glances back at Dean’s room and feels his eyes start to blur over, when Dean wakes up, he’s got to tell him. He has no idea how he’s going to tell him.
But that’s not important right now, Dean’s not going to wake up for at least another day, the urgent thing now is to find Ross.
He dials Ross’s number and really does swear out loud when it switches to voicemail.
The receptionist looks at him as if he’s crazy as he tries to describe his brother, stumbling over the words: “Looks just like me, but shorter, like 6’2, dark hair and brown eyes and he was wearing a blue shirt and ripped jeans…” He trails off, stomach cramping with a dread sense of foreboding. What the hell will he tell Dean? Dean will never forgive him if he’s lost Ross on his watch.
Oh, God. He swallows, ducks his head, feeling the useless, self-pitying tears start to swell up.
“Look, it’s my brother, please, I just need to know - who was working last night between 6 and 7, he was sitting here with me, and he just - God, I don’t know where he went…”
“Are you Sam?”
Sam spins around; one of the nurses is regarding him with frank interest. She’s obviously just about to start or finish her shift because she’s dressed in her coat, bag slung over one shoulder.
“Yes!” he busts out, “Yes, that’s me! What - did you see him last night? My brother? Did you see Ross?”
She comes forward, reaches into her purse to take out a crumpled envelope, smoothing it between her fingers before she holds it out to him. “Here,” she says calmly. “I was told to give this to someone called Sam who was freakishly tall with weird, froofy hair and bandages on his throat. I’m guessing that’s you.”
Sam nods and gulps, because yes - that description - so Ross. He wrenches his gaze from her face to the envelope she’s holding out. It’s got SAM written on it in Ross’s terrible handwriting and is obviously some motel stationery that Ross must’ve kept stuffed in his pocket or retrieved from somewhere, who the hell knows with Ross.
He takes it from her hand with a long breath, eyes going wide as he meets her gaze. “Thanks,” he breathes.
“That’s okay,” she says with a smile. “I should’ve given it to you earlier, but he gave me it while you were being treated and I didn’t want to disturb you, and then, well, my shift finished. Luckily I’m doing a double today so I came in early, huh?”
Sam nods weakly and turns away to read the note.
Dear Sammy,
Sorry for leaving you a note, I know it’s really emo and lame but if I didn’t say or write anything then you and Dean will think that I’ve been kidnapped again and that would suck. Anyway, I’m leaving. I don’t know where I’m going to go. Fuck it, maybe I'll go to Disneyworld, I always wanted to go there when we were kids.
Don’t try to follow me and don’t try to call me, I’ve already dumped my phone and I will call you when I'm ready, not like I don't know your number, unless you change it, so don't do that.
Don’t worry about me, I can look after myself, I’m not completely useless on my own like you both think. Take care of Dean, though I don’t need to tell you that, but maybe you should leave off fucking him until he’s all properly healed.
Tell Dean I’m really fucking sorry.
Ross.
He folds the note up carefully and slides it into the back pocket of his jeans, then he walks back into Dean’s room and waits for his brother to wake up.
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