World's Forgotten Boys, Chapter 25a/28 - (Sam/Dean, Sam/Ross, Ross/Dean, Sam/Ross/Dean) - NC-17
Fic title: World's Forgotten Boys (link to the full verse via tags)
Chapter 25a/28
Pairing: Sam/Dean, Sam/Dean/Ross, Sam/Ross, Dean/Ross
Rating: NC-17 for this one
Word Count: 6,876 this part (13,904 for entire chapter)
Summary: SPN 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 Link to the Masterpost
A/N Many thanks to the lovely violateraindrop for doing this awesome picture - we decided that it looks like a record cover but I love it so much I'm going to use it just this once as a banner, and it has that incredible picture of Dean with the gun...
Extra super-special thanks also to andreth47 for being such an awesome beta and picking out those niggling Briticisms and of course for all the suggestions and improvements! You know you rock BB <3
I should mention that this chapter is a little longer than normal at nearly 14k, so I've split it into 2 posts. I have a feeling that most of the remaining chapters of this fic will be similarly lengthy. Hope you all enjoy!
Chapter 25 - part I
“Ohmigod, are you serious? Will you guys really do that?”
Sam clears his throat and runs his finger uncomfortably under his collar, watching Dean flash a wide and exceedingly fake smile at their over-excited interviewee, Ava Wilson, a twenty three year old secretary from Peoria, Illinois, and according to their father’s journal, another of Azazel’s “chosen kids”.
“Yes,” Dean continues smoothly, “you won the competition, Ms Wilson, so your wedding will feature in our winter edition of Your Special Day. Our photographer will be with you on the day to take pictures of yourself, your fiancé and your guests. And either my colleague or myself will be there to interview you so we can share the joy and laughter of your special day with our readers. And of course we will be presenting you with the grand prize… the check for $1000 cash!”
“Ohmmigod! Wow - just - seriously - wow! I don’t even remember entering the competition!” she squeals, hands flailing excitedly. “It was Brady wasn’t it? My fiancé, who entered us? He just - I can’t believe he didn’t tell me! But that’s so like him - he’s, like, so thoughtful, just the awesomest boyfriend ever!”
Sam watches Dean make a show of consulting the empty notebook in front of him, then he raises his eyes back to Ava’s, smiles again. “Brady McIntosh, yes.”
“Wow. Sorry I’m just -“ she waves a hand in front of her face, exhaling, hair puffing off her forehead. “I have to text him!” She turns to scrabble around in her purse for her phone. “I just absolutely have to text him right now - he’s just gonna - he’s gonna totally freak out when he hears this!”
Sam clears his throat, exchanges a pointed look with Dean. “Sorry, excuse me, Ms Wilson, but if you wouldn’t mind, before you call your fiancé, we’d like to just ask you a few questions? Our readers love to hear all about the winners - the human interest element, you know how it is,” he adds with a slick smile.
She snaps her phone closed and turns her attention back to him. “Oh right, yes of course. No, that’s totally cool. I’m happy to answer your questions. Just ask me whatever you want.”
“So… not evil?” he says as they stroll down the sidewalk towards the spot where they left the car.
“Dude, evil! She’s a freakin’ bridezilla! Just makes me glad I’m never gonna get hitched. I don’t care how much you beg or plead for it, Sammy, it ain’t happening, okay? You and me’re never tying the knot.”
“I’ll try to contain my disappointment.”
“Whatever, I know your ass is secretly dying to get me to the altar.” Dean turns his head, grins at him, crooked and smug. “Admit it, man; you have the dress picked out already, dontcha?”
“Hey, you were the one going on about wedding gowns and how many bridesmaids,” he raises his voice into a high-pitched and dead-on accurate impression of Dean’s gushing in the coffee shop: “Ooh, russet for the bridesmaids' dresses, not everyone can carry that off, but it totally works for a fall wedding… have you thought about the colors for the flowers yet? Wait, of course you have - posies or bouquets? Boutonnières of course, a wedding isn’t a wedding without boutonnières. He breaks off, snorts at his brother. “Sounded to me like you knew exactly what you were talking about, like you’d done plenty of research.”
“Just playing a character, man.”
“Yeah, sure you were, Dean, whatever you wanna tell yourself.”
They come to the car, Dean unlocks it and Sam slides into the passenger side, letting his head fall back, lolling over the bench seat.
He sighs and straightens up. “Still, I don’t think she’s going dark-side anytime soon.”
Dean nods, starts the engine. “I think you’re right.”
***********************
Ava’s the second psychic kid that they’ve found - that Dad found, Angela helpfully deciphering Dad’s cryptic markings in the journal before they left her place. So far, both kids they’ve found have been, well, normal. Reassuringly, mundanely normal in fact. Admittedly, the first kid, Scott Carey, had his problems; he’d been seeing a psychiatrist and was on some pretty strong antidepressant meds. They’d broken into his psychiatrist’s office to read his notes, but there’d been no visions or nightmares, no hallucinations or weird occurrences in Scott Carey’s file, just a regular mixed-up kid dealing badly with his parents’ divorce and his inability to do anything with his fine arts degree.
If either Ava or Scott ever had any freaky psychic powers then they’ve not manifested so far, or at least not so either of them have noticed. And the demon’s dead. Whatever its end-game was with infecting all these kids all those years ago, it’s not around to carry it out right now.
Still, Sam’s not going to completely erase them from his list or from his mind. It’ll be easy enough to swing by and discreetly check up on both Ava and Scott every few months, and he knows he’ll feel better doing so.
There are two other names left on Dad’s list: Andy Gallagher and Jake Talley. Andy’s a resident of Guthrie, Oklahoma, while Jake is currently serving with the 51st regiment in Afghanistan, which rules him out for any further investigation, at least for the moment.
Sam closes Dad’s journal and drums his fingers on the leather cover. His stomach gives a rumble, reminding him that he’s hungry, and as if on cue, someone raps on the motel room door, calls out: “Pizza!”
He gets to his feet, grabbing Dean’s .45 from the table and tucking it into the back of his jeans as he goes to get the door. He takes the pizzas gratefully from the bored looking kid, and tips him more generously than they can afford.
“Dean! Pizza’s here!” he yells in the general direction of the bathroom as he opens the boxes, the steamy and mouth-watering aroma of baked cheese, onions and pepperoni filling the air. He takes a seat at the table again, pulling the pizza box towards him and pushing Dad’s journal away from the food.
“Dean!” he calls out again when he’s devoured three slices and Dean still hasn’t appeared.
There’s a muffled noise from the bathroom, some banging around and the sound of Dean’s voice. Sam shrugs and munches another slice, looking up when finally, the bathroom door bursts open and Dean emerges, followed by a waft of thick steam. Dean’s half-dressed, faded grey t-shirt wet around the neck and clinging damply to his chest, jeans not fully buttoned and feet bare. He looks fresh-faced, rosy-cheeked and eminently fuckable.
Dean walks right past him, barely acknowledging him in his quest for food. He grabs a slice of pizza and stuffs it whole into his mouth, cheeks going hamster-like as he chews. It’s vaguely obscene.
Dean’s phone goes off after he’s inhaled two more slices, and he swears, goes to pick it up. Sam looks up as Dean answers, heart sinking when he sees the concerned look sweep across his brother’s face.
It’s got to be Ross. Dean only looks like that when it’s Ross.
“Yeah? Two fuckin’ days. Are you kidding me?” Dean snaps. He frowns, eyebrows drawing together as he listens closely to the person on the other end. He raises his hand, drags it through his wet hair, rubs at the back of his neck. “What? Yeah. Okay. We can - fuck, we’re in - Peoria. So we can be there…” he looks at Sam.
Sam quickly calculates in his head: Peoria to New Paltz. “Uh, fifteen, sixteen hours,” he says.
“You hear that?” Dean says into the phone.
Sam watches his brother press his lips together, nod tightly, his shoulders seeming to slump under whatever the person on the other end is saying.
Sam sighs and gets to his feet to start gathering their stuff. He’s relieved he thought to have a shower before Dean, that they’ve got food now. They’re pretty much ready to go soon as he gets their shit packed and Dean finishes dressing. This way, they can drive without a break, taking shifts at the wheel.
Dean says a couple more terse sentences and then he’s hanging up, throwing his phone to the bed with a weighty sigh.
“What is it? Is he okay?”
Dean blows out a breath, shakes his head. “Fuck, dude. That was Sarah. She says he hasn’t gotten out of bed for two days.”
“What?”
“What I said, man. He hasn’t gotten out of bed for two days. He ain’t eating or saying much, he - he’s fucked-up, Sam. We should never have left him behind! I knew - I fuckin’ knew…” he trails off, bites his lip, worry etched into every line of his face.
Sam walks towards him. “Hey,” he says. He raises his hands, cups Dean’s face, fingers threading into his brother’s wet hair. “Hey, he’ll be alright, Dean.” He puts all the certainty he feels into the words. “Listen to me, he’ll be okay. Once the three of us are back together again. You’ll fix him; you’ll make it better for him - just like you’ve always done.”
Dean pulls away from him, bows his head. “Jesus, Sam, what if I can’t?”
“You can,” Sam insists. “I know you can.”
Dean shakes his head at him, smiles faintly. “Sam -“
“Get dressed. C’mon, we should be leaving soon. I’ll drive the first shift.” He holds up one hand as Dean starts to protest. “No protests. You need to rest and you need to eat. You can eat in the car. I’ve had my share.”
They’re checked out and on the road in under ten minutes. Dean sits in the shotgun seat and half-heartedly munches on the rest of the pizza as Sam puts his foot to the floor and merges them onto the I-74.
“What else did she say?” Sam asks.
Dean sighs and drops the rest of the slice to the cardboard box. “They were huntin’.”
“Hunting? Ross and Sarah?”
“Yup.”
“Shit, the stupid ass, why the fuck would he do that?”
“He’s a hunter, Sammy, it’s what he is. Like us. It’s what we do.”
It’s true. He remembers all those months in college, forcing himself not to read about the unexplained deaths and accidents that he couldn’t help scanning for in the papers. It was hard not to get involved, and he’d had a lot of distractions at the time: Jess and his friends, college essays and his part-time jobs. Ross doesn’t have those distractions, and Ross has been hunting his entire life. Of course he would gravitate to it.
“They went huntin’ a coupla weeks ago. Some case upstate - vampires - ‘cept they were friendly vampires or something. Anyway, this other hunter turned up and he was trying to get to Sarah and the vampire chick and Ross was defending them. He beat the guy up pretty bad, least that’s what she said. He broke down after that, just started crying, though he seemed better the next day, just like normal again, making out like nothing had happened.” Dean breaks off, sighs heavily. Sam darts him a quick look, sees his bent head, slumped shoulders, fingers prodding desultorily at a pizza crust.
Ross would want to pretend nothing had happened. Ross is a Winchester; Ross learned from Dad that repression and denial of all feelings that aren’t vengeance or family loyalty is the way a Winchester behaves, so of course Ross would make out like nothing had happened. He doesn’t know any other way.
“But he’s not okay now?” Sam says slowly.
Dean shakes his head, exhales. “No.” He licks his lips, starts to fold up the pizza box, cardboard creasing and tearing. “We should never have left him behind. It felt wrong at the time. I knew we should’ve forced him to come with us.”
“It’s what he wanted,” says Sam.
“Fuck what he wanted! He wasn’t capable of deciding that shit for himself! I knew that and I just - I let him stay behind.”
“So you think this wouldn’t’ve happened if he’d been with us?” Sam says mildly. He hears Dean swallow, lick his lips again and he darts him a quick side-ways look. Dean’s staring through the windshield, his expression blank and drawn. “Think of everything that’s happened - Dad - and - and how Dad died. Dean, he hasn’t had a chance, he hasn’t even started grieving yet. He wasn’t there when we burned Dad. He hasn’t had the closure we have.” He pauses, reaches over to lay his hand on Dean’s thigh. “Hey, listen to me, man. Don’t you dare beat yourself up about this! Acting out - kicking the shit out of some hunter or lying in bed all day - all these things, they’re not unusual for someone who’s going through what Ross is going through. It’ll be okay, man. Trust me on this.”
“He needs to be with us,” Dean says quietly.
“I agree, and we’re not that far away. It’ll be alright, Dean.” He pats Dean’s thigh a couple of times before removing his hand and putting it back on the wheel.
*****************************************
They pull up outside Sarah’s apartment building thirteen hours later. They’ve made good time - really good time, breaking a few speed limits along the way. Sam’s watch reads 6:30am and it’s quiet outside, the streets still pretty empty, the sun not yet up.
Sarah looks frazzled when she lets them in. She’s wearing a robe and carrying a mug of coffee in her hands. Sam follows her into the kitchen while Dean just walks right past them and into the bedroom, barely stopping to greet her. Sarah doesn’t call him back, just watches him go with her lip between her teeth, creases around her eyes and mouth that tell a story of late nights and no sleep.
Sam glances at the closed bedroom door and thinks about joining them. He remembers only a couple of weeks ago, their last trip here. He remembers sitting on the other side of a closed door with Sarah and sharing an awkward cup of coffee. Should he sit out here again? Let Dean work his magic on Ross, let Dean do whatever it is that Dean does to keep them going, keep them moving. Or should he go on inside? He’s one of them after all. He belongs with them; the three of them belong together.
“Coffee, Sam?” asks Sarah. He turns around, accepts the mug gratefully. She gives him a wan smile. “I think I remembered how you take it.”
She has, and he nods, tells her thanks.
She shrugs, looking uncomfortable and awkward in her robe and slippers, hair in a tangled bun, face unwashed. She takes a seat at the table, gestures for him to join her.
He hesitates, thinking again about going on into the bedroom, but it would be rude to say no to her, and after all she’s been good to them, she’s been good to Ross. They owe her.
“What happened?” he asks after a moment’s silence.
She sighs, takes a sip of her coffee. “I don’t know, Sam, honestly, I have no idea. On Monday he was okay, he seemed fine. We had this dumb fight, but we - he was fine. But on Tuesday, he just suddenly refused to get out of bed, ignoring me like I wasn’t even there. I was so pissed with him, I thought he was just being cute, giving me the silent treatment because of the fight, you know how he can be sometimes -“ Sam nods, huffs out a smile. She smiles half-heartedly back at him. “Yes, so I left him, I went to work. I had to, I was running late and we had this shipment coming in and we were busy.” Her tone has gotten self-defensive, Sam notes, her expression a little guilty. “But yesterday, it was more of the same. He just lay there, he barely even moved. I managed to get him to eat some toast last night - but most of the time…” She breaks off again, tugs at her hair, running her hand over her face. “- I remember how it was when my Mom passed. I didn’t leave my room for days. I just couldn’t face it. The idea of going out there, of speaking to people and seeing people, all the while she was gone was so awful to me, I couldn’t bear even thinking about it.” She shakes her head and Sam sees the gleam of tears in her eyes. “Jesus, I’m so damn tired, Sam. I have no fucking idea what to do here. I don’t know how to help him.”
Sam swallows back the resentment starting to niggle in his belly. What does he expect? She doesn’t know Ross; she doesn’t even begin to know half of what he’s been through. And that’s not her fault; he can’t blame her for that. They should be grateful that she’s even been here at all for him.
He slides his hand across the table, pats her hand, putting on his best sympathetic face. “I’m sorry,” he says. “You should’ve called us straight away.”
She straightens up again, blinks, tears spilling, rolling down her face. “Don’t be sorry. I get it, I - I understand how it is when you lose someone. But I feel like I’m making things worse for him, I feel so damn useless! I can’t - I can’t talk about this with him and every time I mention to him that he might benefit from seeing a professional, he just pushes me away. And I - I can’t stop thinking about my mom. I just keep thinking about her and I can’t deal with that - “
“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” he interrupts. “Listen, we’re not judging you. We want him to come with us anyway. He should be with his family right now. And you’re probably right about the professional thing but we, uh, in our family, it’s not really done.” He huffs out a half-smile, wry and sympathetic.
He watches her fumble in the pocket of her robe, take out a tissue. She wipes her eyes, nods, says: “I don’t want to stop seeing him. I like him; I don’t want it to be over - but right now -“
“Right now is seriously bad timing,” Sam finishes.
She huffs out a shaky relieved breath, mouth curling into a self-deprecating shape. “Yeah, you could say.”
“Don’t worry; I don’t think Ross’ll be forgetting your number in a long while. I know he really likes you. He will want to see you again.”
Her expression softens and she smiles, the wryness dropping away, to reveal real affection. “I hope so. I still want us to be together, despite everything - it’s been - it’s been really good these past few weeks. I don’t want this to be over. Will you tell him that from me?”
“It doesn’t have to be over,” he says matter-of-factly. “And you can tell him that yourself. There are such things as phones and email, you know?”
She nods, wipes her eyes, that little self-deprecating smile again. “Doing the long-distance thing?” she sighs.
“Why not? And remember we can come back any time, travelling around is what we do. And I know Ross will want to come back. Trust me, I’ve never seen him this into anyone before.” He drains the rest of his coffee, gets up from the table. “Is it okay if I take a couple of mugs in for them?”
“What? Oh yes, yes, sure. Shit, I - uh - I have to go to work. We got this customer - “
“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” he cuts her off. “Just go, do what you have to. We got it now.”
“Right,” she says, but she hesitates, half up off her chair. “Well, I’ll - go take a shower I guess. You promise you’ll come by and say goodbye before you go?“
“I promise,” he tells her.
She bites her lip, nods her head. “Okay, okay, that’s, uh, that’s good I guess.”
He gives her another reassuring smile and turns to pour the coffees for his brothers. She gets up from the table and deposits her mug neatly in the sink before leaving the room.
He sighs in relief when she’s left, momentarily closing his eyes, then opening them again as he gathers up the mugs and heads for the bedroom.
It’s dark inside the bedroom, the curtains mostly pulled, thin dawn light starting to seep through a chink where they don’t quite meet. Dean is sitting back against the headboard, shoes kicked off onto the floor, leather jacket tossed down beside them. Ross is sprawled across Dean’s chest, face buried in Dean’s neck, fingers fisted in Dean’s flannel, gripping so tight the fabric is pulled taut around Dean’s belly. Dean’s got one hand on Ross’s back, gently caressing his jutting shoulder blades, his face lowered over Ross’s head, mouth and chin hidden in his thick greasy hair.
Dean glances up as Sam pushes the door open, expression brightening when he sees the mugs of coffee in his hands. He smoothes his hand over Ross’s back, down to his hip and mutters quietly: “Hey, littlest bro, look up, Sammy brought us coffee.”
He sounds like he’s talking to a five year old, using the same falsely bright tone of voice, the same note of affection and caretaking that Sam can remember from years ago, from days of being sick or injured, lying sweating under a blanket while Dean brought him Gatorade and made him soup and read to him.
Ross slowly raises his head. He stares at Sam, blinking, his gaze fluttering to the mugs of coffee in Sam’s hands.
“Is one of those for me?” he says.
Sam smiles in relief. “Yeah, yeah, ‘course, man. I wouldn’t leave you hangin’.”
He comes forward, holds the mug out to him. Ross takes it carefully, his hand trembling a little as he wraps his fingers around it.
He looks like shit. There’s no other way of saying it. Sam’s seen him look bad before, in fact the last few times he’s seen Ross: back here in New Paltz a few weeks ago, and before that - the cabin - Ross hardly looked his best, snotty, bloody, tearful, pale, but here right now, this is something else.
He looks thinner, like he’s less substantial, less Ross-like, and Sam can see from the way his t-shirt hangs that he’s lost weight, muscle definition less pronounced, his shoulder blades and hip bones too prominent. It’s maybe only 20, 25 pounds, but on someone like Ross who was always pretty spare and lean, it’s really obvious. His hair looks lank and greasy, like he hasn’t washed it in a few days. His skin has that grubby, pallid sheen to it, and he smells as if he hasn’t washed in days, that intense pungent Ross-sweat smell that makes Sam’s chest tighten but also makes him gag at the same time.
Ross turns to watch him as he sips his coffee, his eyes wide and round, his face pale, cheeks a little sunken, jaw more angular than Sam remembers. Ross never had the chubby cheeks that Sam had when he was younger, but his face has never been this gaunt looking, this hard. His stomach gives a lurch and he feels a sudden breathless anger towards Sarah. Why hasn’t she noticed? How couldn’t she have seen that Ross was losing weight, not eating? Why the fuck didn’t she call them before?
But maybe this is his fault too. Out of sight, out of mind and all that, and Ross had seemed okay when they last saw him. Maybe not okay exactly, but he seemed to be dealing in the best way he could and he was happy with Sarah. He knew that Ross would be back with them at some point, but he’d honestly thought that giving him this time away would be good for him, like how his own time away at Stanford had been for him.
Of course if he’s brutally honest with himself he knows that he’s been conveniently forgetting about his younger brother these past few weeks, too caught up in all that shit with Angela, in the demon-blood revelations, too caught up in Dean. Too busy worrying about Dean, about how Dean was coping with losing Dad. But Dean’s been doing better ever since the Roadhouse. Dean’s finally started to realize that Dad was fallible, that Dad could get things wrong, that Dad did get things wrong, at least as far as Ross and Angela and that entire fucking mess was concerned. And realizing all that has helped. Dean’s still missing Dad, hell, Sam’s still missing Dad, but Dean’s no longer being crushed under the weight of Dad’s last words to him, Dad’s last order to stay the fuck away from Sam and Ross, and his stupid erroneous belief that he was a shitty son, a shitty brother. Dean’s finally getting some perspective.
Ross, though. God, Sam’s just as guilty as Sarah. No, he’s more guilty than Sarah, because unlike her, he actually knows Ross. He knows just how much Ross loved Dad. Ross is still stuck at the beginning; Ross hasn’t started to process anything, to get any perspective. Those weeks ago when they saw him last, they should’ve seen it. Ross was faking it. He was putting on a show, he was living the Winchester lie so damn well that he fooled both of them, he fooled himself. But this - whatever exactly went down with this hunt last week - it seems to have broken the levee.
Still, they can make up for it now, and Ross is already looking a little more Ross-like. He’s drinking his coffee now and responding to whatever Dean’s saying to him, talking some bullshit about do you remember that hunt back in Saginaw? The one with the fourteen year old girl spirit who wanted to date Sammy? And wasn’t it like the most hilarious thing ever?
Sam feels his mouth twitch into a smile as Dean continues. He knows exactly what Dean is doing. And he can see it having an effect, Dean’s bullshitting and teasing and wasn’t-Sammy-a-total-dweeb crap pushing Ross back into the little brother shape they remember.
Ross finishes his coffee and passes the empty mug back to Dean, blinking up at him with his big dark eyes like he can’t quite believe Dean is really there, and Sam is struck by sudden realization that Ross has been lonely these past few weeks. Sure, he had Sarah, but Sarah’s not a Winchester, she’s not family. Ross is a social person; Ross needs to have family around him. Even when he was a teenager he never wanted his own space like Sam used to do, he even preferred to tag along with Sam and his friends - people he claimed to despise - than be left at home on his own. Ross hates being on his own. Sam knew that about him, and yet he and Dean still drove away and left him.
He swallows and bows his head, listening to Dean’s voice wash over them. “Hey, I don’t know about you, kiddo, but I am freakin’ famished? You want some breakfast, huh? You want Sammy to get his ass out there and do his housewifely duty and make us men-folks some eggs?”
He huffs out a breath, catching Dean’s eye, he makes a show of rolling his eyes while Dean smirks. Seriously, why does Dean cheering up Ross always have to involve the two of them ragging on him? But he can hear the note of quiet desperation in his voice, and Sam’s not going to throw a hissy fit and refuse. Of course he’s not; he’s willing to do anything to turn this strange zombie-like creature back into his bratty little brother.
Ross nods at Dean’s suggestion, and when he turns his head to look at Sam there’s a glint of the brother Sam knows in the way his mouth curls up at the corner when his eyes meet Sam’s.
A half hour later Sam’s in the kitchen, rifling through Sarah’s cupboards in a hunt for eggs and bread and anything else that looks like it could be turned into breakfast food, when he hears the bedroom door open again and Dean’s voice come floating out.
“… Man, ‘cause I didn’t wanna say this before, but you’re kinda rank, dude. Not exactly rockin’ the bed-head there either, kiddo, got enough freakin’ grease on there to deep fry a turkey.”
And then amazingly, coming through clear and familiar: “Shut up, Dean. Like you would even know what good hair was, you’ve had the same haircut for, like, forever.”
Dean laughs and Sam watches the two of them shuffle past the kitchen door and head for the bathroom. He pauses, skillet in hand, and feels the tears well up behind his eyes.
**************************************
They leave a few hours later. They stop by the gallery on their way out of town for Ross to say goodbye to Sarah.
The two of them kiss on the steps of the gallery and Sam and Dean lean against the car and watch. It’s so much like the last time this happened, when Ross first met Sarah all those months ago, that Sam feels momentarily disoriented, overwhelmed by just how much has happened since then. Just like last time Ross pulls away from her, though this time there’s less reluctance in his step as he turns to rejoin them. Sarah’s crying openly, her hands twisted in front of her as she watches Ross trip down the steps and into Dean’s arms, tears rolling down her face unchecked.
Dean grabs onto Ross as if he’s claiming him back and Ross sinks into him, wraps his arms around Dean’s back and buries his face in his shoulder, and Sam thinks that perhaps nothing really has changed, not fundamentally, not where it matters.
Ross sits up front with Dean for the first couple of days they’re on the road. He cries a lot, staring through the windshield into the middle distance with tears rolling down his cheeks. It’s weird and uncanny and it freaks Sam out. But as usual, Dean seems to have it, knowing in that instinctive Dean way of his what to do. He drapes an arm around Ross’s shoulders and pulls him in, driving the next couple of hundred miles one-handed, though his arm must be going dead under Ross’s weight. When they pull up at a gas station, the shoulder of Dean’s t-shirt is soaked through with Ross’s tears and snot.
The first few nights Ross and Dean share one queen and Sam takes the other. He wakes up in the middle of the night, blinks up at the ceiling and wonders what woke him, then he hears it: Ross’s sobs, Dean’s quiet whispering. He goes still and listens to his little brother’s panicked crying and Dean’s soft soothing words. He bites his lip and thinks about Ross’s face in the cabin, about Ross clinging onto him, about Ross pulling him in and kissing him over Dad’s body. He feels removed from his brother’s grief, useless and left out.
At the next motel room, he goes into the clerk’s office and gets them a king. Dean raises his eyebrows when they enter the room, but Sam shrugs, doesn’t say anything. When it’s time for bed, they all crowd into the same bed, Ross in the middle between his two brothers.
It’s the first night since leaving New Paltz that Ross sleeps through the night, and Sam feels for the first time like he’s actually helping.
The next morning Dean wakes them all up early, forces them out the door and into a five mile run. Sam’s muscles burn and his stomach cramps up, stitches like fire in his sides as he keeps pace with Ross and Dean. Ross and Dean aren’t in any better shape; the three of them have been slacking off, they haven’t had a PT session like this in weeks. Wherever Dad is, if he’s watching this, then he’s gonna be seriously pissed with them. They come to a rest in a clearing in the wood and Dean carves a rudimentary target into a tree for shooting practice, taking the guns out of the backpack he made Sam carry.
Sam sees Ross hesitate as Dean holds out the Taurus and he feels his breath catch, his brain hurtling him back to that night in the cabin, to the Colt skittering across the floor, Ross wrapped around Dad’s body, blood on his shirt.
“C’mon, little bro, you wanna beat me, right? Get a bull’s-eye?” Dean voice drags Sam out of the memories and he looks up, sees Ross shift and swallow hard, then nod and come forward to take the weapon from Dean’s hand.
He rolls his shoulders as he goes to take the shot, relaxing into the posture that Dad taught them. Ross has always been the most natural of them with a weapon; Dean might be technically the best, and it’s rare the occasion when either of them beat Dean in target practice, but Ross always looks so at home with a gun, particularly with that gun, his favorite Taurus. He raises his arm, squints, and takes the shot, bark shattering as the bullet smashes into the tree trunk.
Dean whoops and comes over to clap Ross on the back. “Nice shot, man!” He looks over his shoulder to grin at Sam. “You ain’t gonna beat that!”
“We’ll see,” Sam says, though Dean is probably right.
He takes the shot anyway and it’s not as good as Ross or Dean, but it’s pretty fucking good, and he’s pleased enough with it. Besides, it’s worth it to see the little smirk on Ross’s face, the familiar one-upmanship in his little brother’s expression when their eyes meet. Ross comes to take the weapon back from Sam and Sam shoulders him, laughing as Ross stumbles, then Ross is coming back at him, hip-checking him and putting out a foot to trip him which Sam neatly sidesteps.
It’s so much like normal that Sam’s half-expecting to hear their Dad’s voice calling them out for screwing around when they’re supposed to be training. Of course, there is no reprimand from Dad because Dad’s dead, and Dean just looks too relieved to see Ross acting like himself again to chastise either of them.
By the time they get back to the room, the three of them are panting heavily, chests heaving and sweat rolling down their faces. They’re in Alabama and it’s humid; Sam feels clammy and dirty, his t-shirt clinging to his back and shoulders. He puts on a burst of speed, overtaking Ross and Dean at the last moment to get to the room first - and more importantly, get to the bathroom first - laughing out loud when Ross and Dean’s irritated bitching follow him inside. Score one to the middle brother.
They don’t take on any jobs. They just drive; stop when and where they feel like it. The motels they choose are better than usual, with pools and cable and working air conditioning. They hang out; they play cards and watch movies. They call each other names and play-spar and take turns picking what kind of take-out to have each night. It feels like being on vacation. Not that any of them know what a vacation’s like, you don’t get vacations from hunting.
Ross calls Sarah every day. They don’t know what he says to her; both he and Dean usually make themselves scarce when Ross’s phone goes off with Sarah’s ringtone or when Ross mumbles something about calling her. Sometimes Ross is smiling afterwards, and sometimes he’s not. Sometimes he’s got that withdrawn look on his face that Sam is starting to find familiar in this new slightly off-kilter version of their brother.
Still, it’s been three weeks, and Ross has been acting more Ross-like with every passing day. He still cries occasionally, Sam still wakes up sometimes in the middle of the night so see Dean cradling and rocking Ross, Ross’s thin body wracked with sobs as he clings onto Dean, jumbles of words falling from his mouth in shaky broken sentences, “I did it, I killed him, Dean, it was me, I killed Dad, Dad’s dead ‘cause of me, you hate me, you and Sammy hate me, it was my fault…” and Dean’s endless repeated reassurance: “You did the right thing, you did what he wanted, Ross, you did what Dad wanted. He’s happy you did that, I know he is. And it’s okay, we forgive you, we love you, there’s nothing to forgive. You did the right thing…”
Sometimes Sam will draw closer, reach out and pat Ross’s shoulders, run his hands soothingly up and down Ross’s shaking back, mutter soft indistinguishable words, backing up whatever Dean’s saying to him. But most of the time, he lets Dean handle it. Dean is now Ross’s voice of authority. Ross just needs to start believing in it, just as he used to believe in Dad.
They stick to the southern states, to Louisiana and Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia, states where it’s still hot enough in October to use the outdoor pools. They stay a few days at a motel outside of Lake Charles, and Sam makes the most of the pool. He swims laps in the mornings until his body aches all over. Dean and Ross join him half-way through, but they have less patience with swimming laps, not as at home in the water as he is. The three of them race and Sam wins, beating both his brothers by several feet. He raises his arms in victory, water sloshing around him, ridiculously happy that for once he’s managed to come out on top in something physical.
“Whatever, swimming’s like totally the lamest sport,” Ross bitches.
“You’re just a sore loser,” Sam says with a shrug.
Ross sticks his tongue out at him, and then he’s surging outof the water, jumping on top of Sam and trying to dunk him, shouting at Dean to give him a hand. Dean comes hollering through the water towards them, reaching and grabbing for slick slippery limbs. They play-fight and splash each other, and afterwards, they have holding-your-breath-underwater and dive-bomb competitions, and it’s just like when they were kids, and Sam is still the champion at holding his breath for the longest under water.
Dean disappears the next day, goes off somewhere to earn them some money, so Sam and Ross hang out at the pool again. The motel’s empty apart from them and a couple of older retired couples in a Winnebago. Sam does a few lazy laps and pulls himself out to sprawl on the concrete, turning his face up towards the sun and closing his eyes against the bright glare.
He looks over when he hears the rattle of the rusted gate that screens off the pool area, sees Ross come inside, towel slung around his neck and sunscreen in one hand. Their eyes meet and Sam watches his brother’s gaze run down his body as if he’s tracking one of the water droplets rolling down his chest. A warm buzz of heat snaps awake in his belly and his mouth goes dry as he watches Ross pad across the concrete towards him. His cock is stirring in his soaked trunks and he can’t take his eyes off the play of the muscles in Ross’s chest and stomach.
He’s horny, he knows he is. He and Dean haven’t done anything since Ross joined them three and a half weeks ago. It hasn’t felt right to do anything - for either of them. But knowing that doesn’t help. He’s jerked off in the shower a few times, but that’s barely taken the edge off it, and sharing a double bed with both his brothers every night is definitely not helping.
Ross sinks down beside him, sitting close enough for their knees to jog together. He drops the towel and sunscreen onto the concrete and turns his head, stares back at Sam.
“Hey,” he says.
Sam blinks, says, “Hey.”
Ross’s mouth twitches, and Sam watches his eyes rove all over him, drink him in greedily.
“You know, you look hot when you’re all naked and wet,” he says. He licks his lips, deliberate and teasing, a total come-on, then he gets smoothly to his feet and dives into the pool.
Sam swears under his breath - fucking tease - his brother is a fucking tease. Did he get pointers from Dean or has he always been that much of a fucking tease? He guesses it’s a moot point.
He gets to his feet and dives in after him.
The water is startlingly cool after being in the sun for a while, but Sam barely notices. He swims the length of the pool, pulls up at the other end - the shallow end - where Ross is leaning back against the edge, a smirk playing across his face.
“You’re a fuckin’ tease, you know that,” Sam tells him.
Ross just chuckles, puts his hand around the back of Sam’s neck and pulls him into a kiss.
Onto Chapter 25, part II
Chapter 25a/28
Pairing: Sam/Dean, Sam/Dean/Ross, Sam/Ross, Dean/Ross
Rating: NC-17 for this one
Word Count: 6,876 this part (13,904 for entire chapter)
Summary: SPN 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 Link to the Masterpost
A/N Many thanks to the lovely violateraindrop for doing this awesome picture - we decided that it looks like a record cover but I love it so much I'm going to use it just this once as a banner, and it has that incredible picture of Dean with the gun...
Extra super-special thanks also to andreth47 for being such an awesome beta and picking out those niggling Briticisms and of course for all the suggestions and improvements! You know you rock BB <3
I should mention that this chapter is a little longer than normal at nearly 14k, so I've split it into 2 posts. I have a feeling that most of the remaining chapters of this fic will be similarly lengthy. Hope you all enjoy!
Chapter 25 - part I
“Ohmigod, are you serious? Will you guys really do that?”
Sam clears his throat and runs his finger uncomfortably under his collar, watching Dean flash a wide and exceedingly fake smile at their over-excited interviewee, Ava Wilson, a twenty three year old secretary from Peoria, Illinois, and according to their father’s journal, another of Azazel’s “chosen kids”.
“Yes,” Dean continues smoothly, “you won the competition, Ms Wilson, so your wedding will feature in our winter edition of Your Special Day. Our photographer will be with you on the day to take pictures of yourself, your fiancé and your guests. And either my colleague or myself will be there to interview you so we can share the joy and laughter of your special day with our readers. And of course we will be presenting you with the grand prize… the check for $1000 cash!”
“Ohmmigod! Wow - just - seriously - wow! I don’t even remember entering the competition!” she squeals, hands flailing excitedly. “It was Brady wasn’t it? My fiancé, who entered us? He just - I can’t believe he didn’t tell me! But that’s so like him - he’s, like, so thoughtful, just the awesomest boyfriend ever!”
Sam watches Dean make a show of consulting the empty notebook in front of him, then he raises his eyes back to Ava’s, smiles again. “Brady McIntosh, yes.”
“Wow. Sorry I’m just -“ she waves a hand in front of her face, exhaling, hair puffing off her forehead. “I have to text him!” She turns to scrabble around in her purse for her phone. “I just absolutely have to text him right now - he’s just gonna - he’s gonna totally freak out when he hears this!”
Sam clears his throat, exchanges a pointed look with Dean. “Sorry, excuse me, Ms Wilson, but if you wouldn’t mind, before you call your fiancé, we’d like to just ask you a few questions? Our readers love to hear all about the winners - the human interest element, you know how it is,” he adds with a slick smile.
She snaps her phone closed and turns her attention back to him. “Oh right, yes of course. No, that’s totally cool. I’m happy to answer your questions. Just ask me whatever you want.”
“So… not evil?” he says as they stroll down the sidewalk towards the spot where they left the car.
“Dude, evil! She’s a freakin’ bridezilla! Just makes me glad I’m never gonna get hitched. I don’t care how much you beg or plead for it, Sammy, it ain’t happening, okay? You and me’re never tying the knot.”
“I’ll try to contain my disappointment.”
“Whatever, I know your ass is secretly dying to get me to the altar.” Dean turns his head, grins at him, crooked and smug. “Admit it, man; you have the dress picked out already, dontcha?”
“Hey, you were the one going on about wedding gowns and how many bridesmaids,” he raises his voice into a high-pitched and dead-on accurate impression of Dean’s gushing in the coffee shop: “Ooh, russet for the bridesmaids' dresses, not everyone can carry that off, but it totally works for a fall wedding… have you thought about the colors for the flowers yet? Wait, of course you have - posies or bouquets? Boutonnières of course, a wedding isn’t a wedding without boutonnières. He breaks off, snorts at his brother. “Sounded to me like you knew exactly what you were talking about, like you’d done plenty of research.”
“Just playing a character, man.”
“Yeah, sure you were, Dean, whatever you wanna tell yourself.”
They come to the car, Dean unlocks it and Sam slides into the passenger side, letting his head fall back, lolling over the bench seat.
He sighs and straightens up. “Still, I don’t think she’s going dark-side anytime soon.”
Dean nods, starts the engine. “I think you’re right.”
***********************
Ava’s the second psychic kid that they’ve found - that Dad found, Angela helpfully deciphering Dad’s cryptic markings in the journal before they left her place. So far, both kids they’ve found have been, well, normal. Reassuringly, mundanely normal in fact. Admittedly, the first kid, Scott Carey, had his problems; he’d been seeing a psychiatrist and was on some pretty strong antidepressant meds. They’d broken into his psychiatrist’s office to read his notes, but there’d been no visions or nightmares, no hallucinations or weird occurrences in Scott Carey’s file, just a regular mixed-up kid dealing badly with his parents’ divorce and his inability to do anything with his fine arts degree.
If either Ava or Scott ever had any freaky psychic powers then they’ve not manifested so far, or at least not so either of them have noticed. And the demon’s dead. Whatever its end-game was with infecting all these kids all those years ago, it’s not around to carry it out right now.
Still, Sam’s not going to completely erase them from his list or from his mind. It’ll be easy enough to swing by and discreetly check up on both Ava and Scott every few months, and he knows he’ll feel better doing so.
There are two other names left on Dad’s list: Andy Gallagher and Jake Talley. Andy’s a resident of Guthrie, Oklahoma, while Jake is currently serving with the 51st regiment in Afghanistan, which rules him out for any further investigation, at least for the moment.
Sam closes Dad’s journal and drums his fingers on the leather cover. His stomach gives a rumble, reminding him that he’s hungry, and as if on cue, someone raps on the motel room door, calls out: “Pizza!”
He gets to his feet, grabbing Dean’s .45 from the table and tucking it into the back of his jeans as he goes to get the door. He takes the pizzas gratefully from the bored looking kid, and tips him more generously than they can afford.
“Dean! Pizza’s here!” he yells in the general direction of the bathroom as he opens the boxes, the steamy and mouth-watering aroma of baked cheese, onions and pepperoni filling the air. He takes a seat at the table again, pulling the pizza box towards him and pushing Dad’s journal away from the food.
“Dean!” he calls out again when he’s devoured three slices and Dean still hasn’t appeared.
There’s a muffled noise from the bathroom, some banging around and the sound of Dean’s voice. Sam shrugs and munches another slice, looking up when finally, the bathroom door bursts open and Dean emerges, followed by a waft of thick steam. Dean’s half-dressed, faded grey t-shirt wet around the neck and clinging damply to his chest, jeans not fully buttoned and feet bare. He looks fresh-faced, rosy-cheeked and eminently fuckable.
Dean walks right past him, barely acknowledging him in his quest for food. He grabs a slice of pizza and stuffs it whole into his mouth, cheeks going hamster-like as he chews. It’s vaguely obscene.
Dean’s phone goes off after he’s inhaled two more slices, and he swears, goes to pick it up. Sam looks up as Dean answers, heart sinking when he sees the concerned look sweep across his brother’s face.
It’s got to be Ross. Dean only looks like that when it’s Ross.
“Yeah? Two fuckin’ days. Are you kidding me?” Dean snaps. He frowns, eyebrows drawing together as he listens closely to the person on the other end. He raises his hand, drags it through his wet hair, rubs at the back of his neck. “What? Yeah. Okay. We can - fuck, we’re in - Peoria. So we can be there…” he looks at Sam.
Sam quickly calculates in his head: Peoria to New Paltz. “Uh, fifteen, sixteen hours,” he says.
“You hear that?” Dean says into the phone.
Sam watches his brother press his lips together, nod tightly, his shoulders seeming to slump under whatever the person on the other end is saying.
Sam sighs and gets to his feet to start gathering their stuff. He’s relieved he thought to have a shower before Dean, that they’ve got food now. They’re pretty much ready to go soon as he gets their shit packed and Dean finishes dressing. This way, they can drive without a break, taking shifts at the wheel.
Dean says a couple more terse sentences and then he’s hanging up, throwing his phone to the bed with a weighty sigh.
“What is it? Is he okay?”
Dean blows out a breath, shakes his head. “Fuck, dude. That was Sarah. She says he hasn’t gotten out of bed for two days.”
“What?”
“What I said, man. He hasn’t gotten out of bed for two days. He ain’t eating or saying much, he - he’s fucked-up, Sam. We should never have left him behind! I knew - I fuckin’ knew…” he trails off, bites his lip, worry etched into every line of his face.
Sam walks towards him. “Hey,” he says. He raises his hands, cups Dean’s face, fingers threading into his brother’s wet hair. “Hey, he’ll be alright, Dean.” He puts all the certainty he feels into the words. “Listen to me, he’ll be okay. Once the three of us are back together again. You’ll fix him; you’ll make it better for him - just like you’ve always done.”
Dean pulls away from him, bows his head. “Jesus, Sam, what if I can’t?”
“You can,” Sam insists. “I know you can.”
Dean shakes his head at him, smiles faintly. “Sam -“
“Get dressed. C’mon, we should be leaving soon. I’ll drive the first shift.” He holds up one hand as Dean starts to protest. “No protests. You need to rest and you need to eat. You can eat in the car. I’ve had my share.”
They’re checked out and on the road in under ten minutes. Dean sits in the shotgun seat and half-heartedly munches on the rest of the pizza as Sam puts his foot to the floor and merges them onto the I-74.
“What else did she say?” Sam asks.
Dean sighs and drops the rest of the slice to the cardboard box. “They were huntin’.”
“Hunting? Ross and Sarah?”
“Yup.”
“Shit, the stupid ass, why the fuck would he do that?”
“He’s a hunter, Sammy, it’s what he is. Like us. It’s what we do.”
It’s true. He remembers all those months in college, forcing himself not to read about the unexplained deaths and accidents that he couldn’t help scanning for in the papers. It was hard not to get involved, and he’d had a lot of distractions at the time: Jess and his friends, college essays and his part-time jobs. Ross doesn’t have those distractions, and Ross has been hunting his entire life. Of course he would gravitate to it.
“They went huntin’ a coupla weeks ago. Some case upstate - vampires - ‘cept they were friendly vampires or something. Anyway, this other hunter turned up and he was trying to get to Sarah and the vampire chick and Ross was defending them. He beat the guy up pretty bad, least that’s what she said. He broke down after that, just started crying, though he seemed better the next day, just like normal again, making out like nothing had happened.” Dean breaks off, sighs heavily. Sam darts him a quick look, sees his bent head, slumped shoulders, fingers prodding desultorily at a pizza crust.
Ross would want to pretend nothing had happened. Ross is a Winchester; Ross learned from Dad that repression and denial of all feelings that aren’t vengeance or family loyalty is the way a Winchester behaves, so of course Ross would make out like nothing had happened. He doesn’t know any other way.
“But he’s not okay now?” Sam says slowly.
Dean shakes his head, exhales. “No.” He licks his lips, starts to fold up the pizza box, cardboard creasing and tearing. “We should never have left him behind. It felt wrong at the time. I knew we should’ve forced him to come with us.”
“It’s what he wanted,” says Sam.
“Fuck what he wanted! He wasn’t capable of deciding that shit for himself! I knew that and I just - I let him stay behind.”
“So you think this wouldn’t’ve happened if he’d been with us?” Sam says mildly. He hears Dean swallow, lick his lips again and he darts him a quick side-ways look. Dean’s staring through the windshield, his expression blank and drawn. “Think of everything that’s happened - Dad - and - and how Dad died. Dean, he hasn’t had a chance, he hasn’t even started grieving yet. He wasn’t there when we burned Dad. He hasn’t had the closure we have.” He pauses, reaches over to lay his hand on Dean’s thigh. “Hey, listen to me, man. Don’t you dare beat yourself up about this! Acting out - kicking the shit out of some hunter or lying in bed all day - all these things, they’re not unusual for someone who’s going through what Ross is going through. It’ll be okay, man. Trust me on this.”
“He needs to be with us,” Dean says quietly.
“I agree, and we’re not that far away. It’ll be alright, Dean.” He pats Dean’s thigh a couple of times before removing his hand and putting it back on the wheel.
*****************************************
They pull up outside Sarah’s apartment building thirteen hours later. They’ve made good time - really good time, breaking a few speed limits along the way. Sam’s watch reads 6:30am and it’s quiet outside, the streets still pretty empty, the sun not yet up.
Sarah looks frazzled when she lets them in. She’s wearing a robe and carrying a mug of coffee in her hands. Sam follows her into the kitchen while Dean just walks right past them and into the bedroom, barely stopping to greet her. Sarah doesn’t call him back, just watches him go with her lip between her teeth, creases around her eyes and mouth that tell a story of late nights and no sleep.
Sam glances at the closed bedroom door and thinks about joining them. He remembers only a couple of weeks ago, their last trip here. He remembers sitting on the other side of a closed door with Sarah and sharing an awkward cup of coffee. Should he sit out here again? Let Dean work his magic on Ross, let Dean do whatever it is that Dean does to keep them going, keep them moving. Or should he go on inside? He’s one of them after all. He belongs with them; the three of them belong together.
“Coffee, Sam?” asks Sarah. He turns around, accepts the mug gratefully. She gives him a wan smile. “I think I remembered how you take it.”
She has, and he nods, tells her thanks.
She shrugs, looking uncomfortable and awkward in her robe and slippers, hair in a tangled bun, face unwashed. She takes a seat at the table, gestures for him to join her.
He hesitates, thinking again about going on into the bedroom, but it would be rude to say no to her, and after all she’s been good to them, she’s been good to Ross. They owe her.
“What happened?” he asks after a moment’s silence.
She sighs, takes a sip of her coffee. “I don’t know, Sam, honestly, I have no idea. On Monday he was okay, he seemed fine. We had this dumb fight, but we - he was fine. But on Tuesday, he just suddenly refused to get out of bed, ignoring me like I wasn’t even there. I was so pissed with him, I thought he was just being cute, giving me the silent treatment because of the fight, you know how he can be sometimes -“ Sam nods, huffs out a smile. She smiles half-heartedly back at him. “Yes, so I left him, I went to work. I had to, I was running late and we had this shipment coming in and we were busy.” Her tone has gotten self-defensive, Sam notes, her expression a little guilty. “But yesterday, it was more of the same. He just lay there, he barely even moved. I managed to get him to eat some toast last night - but most of the time…” She breaks off again, tugs at her hair, running her hand over her face. “- I remember how it was when my Mom passed. I didn’t leave my room for days. I just couldn’t face it. The idea of going out there, of speaking to people and seeing people, all the while she was gone was so awful to me, I couldn’t bear even thinking about it.” She shakes her head and Sam sees the gleam of tears in her eyes. “Jesus, I’m so damn tired, Sam. I have no fucking idea what to do here. I don’t know how to help him.”
Sam swallows back the resentment starting to niggle in his belly. What does he expect? She doesn’t know Ross; she doesn’t even begin to know half of what he’s been through. And that’s not her fault; he can’t blame her for that. They should be grateful that she’s even been here at all for him.
He slides his hand across the table, pats her hand, putting on his best sympathetic face. “I’m sorry,” he says. “You should’ve called us straight away.”
She straightens up again, blinks, tears spilling, rolling down her face. “Don’t be sorry. I get it, I - I understand how it is when you lose someone. But I feel like I’m making things worse for him, I feel so damn useless! I can’t - I can’t talk about this with him and every time I mention to him that he might benefit from seeing a professional, he just pushes me away. And I - I can’t stop thinking about my mom. I just keep thinking about her and I can’t deal with that - “
“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” he interrupts. “Listen, we’re not judging you. We want him to come with us anyway. He should be with his family right now. And you’re probably right about the professional thing but we, uh, in our family, it’s not really done.” He huffs out a half-smile, wry and sympathetic.
He watches her fumble in the pocket of her robe, take out a tissue. She wipes her eyes, nods, says: “I don’t want to stop seeing him. I like him; I don’t want it to be over - but right now -“
“Right now is seriously bad timing,” Sam finishes.
She huffs out a shaky relieved breath, mouth curling into a self-deprecating shape. “Yeah, you could say.”
“Don’t worry; I don’t think Ross’ll be forgetting your number in a long while. I know he really likes you. He will want to see you again.”
Her expression softens and she smiles, the wryness dropping away, to reveal real affection. “I hope so. I still want us to be together, despite everything - it’s been - it’s been really good these past few weeks. I don’t want this to be over. Will you tell him that from me?”
“It doesn’t have to be over,” he says matter-of-factly. “And you can tell him that yourself. There are such things as phones and email, you know?”
She nods, wipes her eyes, that little self-deprecating smile again. “Doing the long-distance thing?” she sighs.
“Why not? And remember we can come back any time, travelling around is what we do. And I know Ross will want to come back. Trust me, I’ve never seen him this into anyone before.” He drains the rest of his coffee, gets up from the table. “Is it okay if I take a couple of mugs in for them?”
“What? Oh yes, yes, sure. Shit, I - uh - I have to go to work. We got this customer - “
“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” he cuts her off. “Just go, do what you have to. We got it now.”
“Right,” she says, but she hesitates, half up off her chair. “Well, I’ll - go take a shower I guess. You promise you’ll come by and say goodbye before you go?“
“I promise,” he tells her.
She bites her lip, nods her head. “Okay, okay, that’s, uh, that’s good I guess.”
He gives her another reassuring smile and turns to pour the coffees for his brothers. She gets up from the table and deposits her mug neatly in the sink before leaving the room.
He sighs in relief when she’s left, momentarily closing his eyes, then opening them again as he gathers up the mugs and heads for the bedroom.
It’s dark inside the bedroom, the curtains mostly pulled, thin dawn light starting to seep through a chink where they don’t quite meet. Dean is sitting back against the headboard, shoes kicked off onto the floor, leather jacket tossed down beside them. Ross is sprawled across Dean’s chest, face buried in Dean’s neck, fingers fisted in Dean’s flannel, gripping so tight the fabric is pulled taut around Dean’s belly. Dean’s got one hand on Ross’s back, gently caressing his jutting shoulder blades, his face lowered over Ross’s head, mouth and chin hidden in his thick greasy hair.
Dean glances up as Sam pushes the door open, expression brightening when he sees the mugs of coffee in his hands. He smoothes his hand over Ross’s back, down to his hip and mutters quietly: “Hey, littlest bro, look up, Sammy brought us coffee.”
He sounds like he’s talking to a five year old, using the same falsely bright tone of voice, the same note of affection and caretaking that Sam can remember from years ago, from days of being sick or injured, lying sweating under a blanket while Dean brought him Gatorade and made him soup and read to him.
Ross slowly raises his head. He stares at Sam, blinking, his gaze fluttering to the mugs of coffee in Sam’s hands.
“Is one of those for me?” he says.
Sam smiles in relief. “Yeah, yeah, ‘course, man. I wouldn’t leave you hangin’.”
He comes forward, holds the mug out to him. Ross takes it carefully, his hand trembling a little as he wraps his fingers around it.
He looks like shit. There’s no other way of saying it. Sam’s seen him look bad before, in fact the last few times he’s seen Ross: back here in New Paltz a few weeks ago, and before that - the cabin - Ross hardly looked his best, snotty, bloody, tearful, pale, but here right now, this is something else.
He looks thinner, like he’s less substantial, less Ross-like, and Sam can see from the way his t-shirt hangs that he’s lost weight, muscle definition less pronounced, his shoulder blades and hip bones too prominent. It’s maybe only 20, 25 pounds, but on someone like Ross who was always pretty spare and lean, it’s really obvious. His hair looks lank and greasy, like he hasn’t washed it in a few days. His skin has that grubby, pallid sheen to it, and he smells as if he hasn’t washed in days, that intense pungent Ross-sweat smell that makes Sam’s chest tighten but also makes him gag at the same time.
Ross turns to watch him as he sips his coffee, his eyes wide and round, his face pale, cheeks a little sunken, jaw more angular than Sam remembers. Ross never had the chubby cheeks that Sam had when he was younger, but his face has never been this gaunt looking, this hard. His stomach gives a lurch and he feels a sudden breathless anger towards Sarah. Why hasn’t she noticed? How couldn’t she have seen that Ross was losing weight, not eating? Why the fuck didn’t she call them before?
But maybe this is his fault too. Out of sight, out of mind and all that, and Ross had seemed okay when they last saw him. Maybe not okay exactly, but he seemed to be dealing in the best way he could and he was happy with Sarah. He knew that Ross would be back with them at some point, but he’d honestly thought that giving him this time away would be good for him, like how his own time away at Stanford had been for him.
Of course if he’s brutally honest with himself he knows that he’s been conveniently forgetting about his younger brother these past few weeks, too caught up in all that shit with Angela, in the demon-blood revelations, too caught up in Dean. Too busy worrying about Dean, about how Dean was coping with losing Dad. But Dean’s been doing better ever since the Roadhouse. Dean’s finally started to realize that Dad was fallible, that Dad could get things wrong, that Dad did get things wrong, at least as far as Ross and Angela and that entire fucking mess was concerned. And realizing all that has helped. Dean’s still missing Dad, hell, Sam’s still missing Dad, but Dean’s no longer being crushed under the weight of Dad’s last words to him, Dad’s last order to stay the fuck away from Sam and Ross, and his stupid erroneous belief that he was a shitty son, a shitty brother. Dean’s finally getting some perspective.
Ross, though. God, Sam’s just as guilty as Sarah. No, he’s more guilty than Sarah, because unlike her, he actually knows Ross. He knows just how much Ross loved Dad. Ross is still stuck at the beginning; Ross hasn’t started to process anything, to get any perspective. Those weeks ago when they saw him last, they should’ve seen it. Ross was faking it. He was putting on a show, he was living the Winchester lie so damn well that he fooled both of them, he fooled himself. But this - whatever exactly went down with this hunt last week - it seems to have broken the levee.
Still, they can make up for it now, and Ross is already looking a little more Ross-like. He’s drinking his coffee now and responding to whatever Dean’s saying to him, talking some bullshit about do you remember that hunt back in Saginaw? The one with the fourteen year old girl spirit who wanted to date Sammy? And wasn’t it like the most hilarious thing ever?
Sam feels his mouth twitch into a smile as Dean continues. He knows exactly what Dean is doing. And he can see it having an effect, Dean’s bullshitting and teasing and wasn’t-Sammy-a-total-dweeb crap pushing Ross back into the little brother shape they remember.
Ross finishes his coffee and passes the empty mug back to Dean, blinking up at him with his big dark eyes like he can’t quite believe Dean is really there, and Sam is struck by sudden realization that Ross has been lonely these past few weeks. Sure, he had Sarah, but Sarah’s not a Winchester, she’s not family. Ross is a social person; Ross needs to have family around him. Even when he was a teenager he never wanted his own space like Sam used to do, he even preferred to tag along with Sam and his friends - people he claimed to despise - than be left at home on his own. Ross hates being on his own. Sam knew that about him, and yet he and Dean still drove away and left him.
He swallows and bows his head, listening to Dean’s voice wash over them. “Hey, I don’t know about you, kiddo, but I am freakin’ famished? You want some breakfast, huh? You want Sammy to get his ass out there and do his housewifely duty and make us men-folks some eggs?”
He huffs out a breath, catching Dean’s eye, he makes a show of rolling his eyes while Dean smirks. Seriously, why does Dean cheering up Ross always have to involve the two of them ragging on him? But he can hear the note of quiet desperation in his voice, and Sam’s not going to throw a hissy fit and refuse. Of course he’s not; he’s willing to do anything to turn this strange zombie-like creature back into his bratty little brother.
Ross nods at Dean’s suggestion, and when he turns his head to look at Sam there’s a glint of the brother Sam knows in the way his mouth curls up at the corner when his eyes meet Sam’s.
A half hour later Sam’s in the kitchen, rifling through Sarah’s cupboards in a hunt for eggs and bread and anything else that looks like it could be turned into breakfast food, when he hears the bedroom door open again and Dean’s voice come floating out.
“… Man, ‘cause I didn’t wanna say this before, but you’re kinda rank, dude. Not exactly rockin’ the bed-head there either, kiddo, got enough freakin’ grease on there to deep fry a turkey.”
And then amazingly, coming through clear and familiar: “Shut up, Dean. Like you would even know what good hair was, you’ve had the same haircut for, like, forever.”
Dean laughs and Sam watches the two of them shuffle past the kitchen door and head for the bathroom. He pauses, skillet in hand, and feels the tears well up behind his eyes.
**************************************
They leave a few hours later. They stop by the gallery on their way out of town for Ross to say goodbye to Sarah.
The two of them kiss on the steps of the gallery and Sam and Dean lean against the car and watch. It’s so much like the last time this happened, when Ross first met Sarah all those months ago, that Sam feels momentarily disoriented, overwhelmed by just how much has happened since then. Just like last time Ross pulls away from her, though this time there’s less reluctance in his step as he turns to rejoin them. Sarah’s crying openly, her hands twisted in front of her as she watches Ross trip down the steps and into Dean’s arms, tears rolling down her face unchecked.
Dean grabs onto Ross as if he’s claiming him back and Ross sinks into him, wraps his arms around Dean’s back and buries his face in his shoulder, and Sam thinks that perhaps nothing really has changed, not fundamentally, not where it matters.
Ross sits up front with Dean for the first couple of days they’re on the road. He cries a lot, staring through the windshield into the middle distance with tears rolling down his cheeks. It’s weird and uncanny and it freaks Sam out. But as usual, Dean seems to have it, knowing in that instinctive Dean way of his what to do. He drapes an arm around Ross’s shoulders and pulls him in, driving the next couple of hundred miles one-handed, though his arm must be going dead under Ross’s weight. When they pull up at a gas station, the shoulder of Dean’s t-shirt is soaked through with Ross’s tears and snot.
The first few nights Ross and Dean share one queen and Sam takes the other. He wakes up in the middle of the night, blinks up at the ceiling and wonders what woke him, then he hears it: Ross’s sobs, Dean’s quiet whispering. He goes still and listens to his little brother’s panicked crying and Dean’s soft soothing words. He bites his lip and thinks about Ross’s face in the cabin, about Ross clinging onto him, about Ross pulling him in and kissing him over Dad’s body. He feels removed from his brother’s grief, useless and left out.
At the next motel room, he goes into the clerk’s office and gets them a king. Dean raises his eyebrows when they enter the room, but Sam shrugs, doesn’t say anything. When it’s time for bed, they all crowd into the same bed, Ross in the middle between his two brothers.
It’s the first night since leaving New Paltz that Ross sleeps through the night, and Sam feels for the first time like he’s actually helping.
The next morning Dean wakes them all up early, forces them out the door and into a five mile run. Sam’s muscles burn and his stomach cramps up, stitches like fire in his sides as he keeps pace with Ross and Dean. Ross and Dean aren’t in any better shape; the three of them have been slacking off, they haven’t had a PT session like this in weeks. Wherever Dad is, if he’s watching this, then he’s gonna be seriously pissed with them. They come to a rest in a clearing in the wood and Dean carves a rudimentary target into a tree for shooting practice, taking the guns out of the backpack he made Sam carry.
Sam sees Ross hesitate as Dean holds out the Taurus and he feels his breath catch, his brain hurtling him back to that night in the cabin, to the Colt skittering across the floor, Ross wrapped around Dad’s body, blood on his shirt.
“C’mon, little bro, you wanna beat me, right? Get a bull’s-eye?” Dean voice drags Sam out of the memories and he looks up, sees Ross shift and swallow hard, then nod and come forward to take the weapon from Dean’s hand.
He rolls his shoulders as he goes to take the shot, relaxing into the posture that Dad taught them. Ross has always been the most natural of them with a weapon; Dean might be technically the best, and it’s rare the occasion when either of them beat Dean in target practice, but Ross always looks so at home with a gun, particularly with that gun, his favorite Taurus. He raises his arm, squints, and takes the shot, bark shattering as the bullet smashes into the tree trunk.
Dean whoops and comes over to clap Ross on the back. “Nice shot, man!” He looks over his shoulder to grin at Sam. “You ain’t gonna beat that!”
“We’ll see,” Sam says, though Dean is probably right.
He takes the shot anyway and it’s not as good as Ross or Dean, but it’s pretty fucking good, and he’s pleased enough with it. Besides, it’s worth it to see the little smirk on Ross’s face, the familiar one-upmanship in his little brother’s expression when their eyes meet. Ross comes to take the weapon back from Sam and Sam shoulders him, laughing as Ross stumbles, then Ross is coming back at him, hip-checking him and putting out a foot to trip him which Sam neatly sidesteps.
It’s so much like normal that Sam’s half-expecting to hear their Dad’s voice calling them out for screwing around when they’re supposed to be training. Of course, there is no reprimand from Dad because Dad’s dead, and Dean just looks too relieved to see Ross acting like himself again to chastise either of them.
By the time they get back to the room, the three of them are panting heavily, chests heaving and sweat rolling down their faces. They’re in Alabama and it’s humid; Sam feels clammy and dirty, his t-shirt clinging to his back and shoulders. He puts on a burst of speed, overtaking Ross and Dean at the last moment to get to the room first - and more importantly, get to the bathroom first - laughing out loud when Ross and Dean’s irritated bitching follow him inside. Score one to the middle brother.
They don’t take on any jobs. They just drive; stop when and where they feel like it. The motels they choose are better than usual, with pools and cable and working air conditioning. They hang out; they play cards and watch movies. They call each other names and play-spar and take turns picking what kind of take-out to have each night. It feels like being on vacation. Not that any of them know what a vacation’s like, you don’t get vacations from hunting.
Ross calls Sarah every day. They don’t know what he says to her; both he and Dean usually make themselves scarce when Ross’s phone goes off with Sarah’s ringtone or when Ross mumbles something about calling her. Sometimes Ross is smiling afterwards, and sometimes he’s not. Sometimes he’s got that withdrawn look on his face that Sam is starting to find familiar in this new slightly off-kilter version of their brother.
Still, it’s been three weeks, and Ross has been acting more Ross-like with every passing day. He still cries occasionally, Sam still wakes up sometimes in the middle of the night so see Dean cradling and rocking Ross, Ross’s thin body wracked with sobs as he clings onto Dean, jumbles of words falling from his mouth in shaky broken sentences, “I did it, I killed him, Dean, it was me, I killed Dad, Dad’s dead ‘cause of me, you hate me, you and Sammy hate me, it was my fault…” and Dean’s endless repeated reassurance: “You did the right thing, you did what he wanted, Ross, you did what Dad wanted. He’s happy you did that, I know he is. And it’s okay, we forgive you, we love you, there’s nothing to forgive. You did the right thing…”
Sometimes Sam will draw closer, reach out and pat Ross’s shoulders, run his hands soothingly up and down Ross’s shaking back, mutter soft indistinguishable words, backing up whatever Dean’s saying to him. But most of the time, he lets Dean handle it. Dean is now Ross’s voice of authority. Ross just needs to start believing in it, just as he used to believe in Dad.
They stick to the southern states, to Louisiana and Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia, states where it’s still hot enough in October to use the outdoor pools. They stay a few days at a motel outside of Lake Charles, and Sam makes the most of the pool. He swims laps in the mornings until his body aches all over. Dean and Ross join him half-way through, but they have less patience with swimming laps, not as at home in the water as he is. The three of them race and Sam wins, beating both his brothers by several feet. He raises his arms in victory, water sloshing around him, ridiculously happy that for once he’s managed to come out on top in something physical.
“Whatever, swimming’s like totally the lamest sport,” Ross bitches.
“You’re just a sore loser,” Sam says with a shrug.
Ross sticks his tongue out at him, and then he’s surging outof the water, jumping on top of Sam and trying to dunk him, shouting at Dean to give him a hand. Dean comes hollering through the water towards them, reaching and grabbing for slick slippery limbs. They play-fight and splash each other, and afterwards, they have holding-your-breath-underwater and dive-bomb competitions, and it’s just like when they were kids, and Sam is still the champion at holding his breath for the longest under water.
Dean disappears the next day, goes off somewhere to earn them some money, so Sam and Ross hang out at the pool again. The motel’s empty apart from them and a couple of older retired couples in a Winnebago. Sam does a few lazy laps and pulls himself out to sprawl on the concrete, turning his face up towards the sun and closing his eyes against the bright glare.
He looks over when he hears the rattle of the rusted gate that screens off the pool area, sees Ross come inside, towel slung around his neck and sunscreen in one hand. Their eyes meet and Sam watches his brother’s gaze run down his body as if he’s tracking one of the water droplets rolling down his chest. A warm buzz of heat snaps awake in his belly and his mouth goes dry as he watches Ross pad across the concrete towards him. His cock is stirring in his soaked trunks and he can’t take his eyes off the play of the muscles in Ross’s chest and stomach.
He’s horny, he knows he is. He and Dean haven’t done anything since Ross joined them three and a half weeks ago. It hasn’t felt right to do anything - for either of them. But knowing that doesn’t help. He’s jerked off in the shower a few times, but that’s barely taken the edge off it, and sharing a double bed with both his brothers every night is definitely not helping.
Ross sinks down beside him, sitting close enough for their knees to jog together. He drops the towel and sunscreen onto the concrete and turns his head, stares back at Sam.
“Hey,” he says.
Sam blinks, says, “Hey.”
Ross’s mouth twitches, and Sam watches his eyes rove all over him, drink him in greedily.
“You know, you look hot when you’re all naked and wet,” he says. He licks his lips, deliberate and teasing, a total come-on, then he gets smoothly to his feet and dives into the pool.
Sam swears under his breath - fucking tease - his brother is a fucking tease. Did he get pointers from Dean or has he always been that much of a fucking tease? He guesses it’s a moot point.
He gets to his feet and dives in after him.
The water is startlingly cool after being in the sun for a while, but Sam barely notices. He swims the length of the pool, pulls up at the other end - the shallow end - where Ross is leaning back against the edge, a smirk playing across his face.
“You’re a fuckin’ tease, you know that,” Sam tells him.
Ross just chuckles, puts his hand around the back of Sam’s neck and pulls him into a kiss.
Onto Chapter 25, part II