Fic: Hiding Out of Sight for weesta
Type of Submission: Fiction
Title: Hiding Out of Sight
Author: embroiderama
Recipient: weesta
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: none
Author's Notes: Thank you to my beta, who will be named later.
Summary: School's out + Memorial Day + Bobby's salvage lot = fun for Dean and Sam, until a game turns serious.
-----
When Dean Winchester ended up in schools with hippy-dippy teachers who made everybody sit on the floor and think about their happy place, he always thought about the car. Specifically, the driver's seat, even though he was four years away from being old enough to get a legal license. He'd driven the car a few times, once in a big field where he got to go fast with nothing around to hit and twice in Bobby's salvage lot, just pulling the car around back while dad lugged in their bags. Dean could close his eyes and feel the seat underneath him, squishy over firm, and the wheel in his hands, warm from Dad holding it for hours. He could feel the engine rev at the touch of his foot to the gas pedal and the way it made his heart beat faster, too.
That kind of meditation was something he could really get into. Sometimes the stupid teachers wanted them to pick a happy place they could walk around in, and then it was Bobby's place all the way. Nowhere near as good as the Impala, but there were a hell of a lot of cars, even if they couldn't run. Dean knew almost all of the makes and models and years, could run and find a part when Bobby was busy, as long as it wasn't too big or too hard to remove. He was pretty sure that jumping from one rusted roof to another and digging through moldy carpeted floorboards for change wasn't what the teachers had in mind for a tranquil happy place, but seriously? Dean Winchester did not do flower gardens.
But it was the Sunday before Memorial Day and their last school had been far enough south that they'd finished the year a week ago and then left town, spinning that dusty heat off the tires as Dad drove them north to South Dakota. Bobby promised them a backyard barbecue, and Sammy was ridiculously excited about it, running around the house without a book in his hands as if even a little geek like him was happy to be out of school for once. Dad had left for a hunt the morning after they arrived, but he promised to be back in time for the cook-out.
Dean tried not to worry that Dad would get held up, that Sammy would be disappointed. Dad had promised, and he didn't make promises unless he meant them. Dean walked into the kitchen, hungry for a peanut butter sandwich even though it was only an hour past breakfast, and found Sammy at the table, kneeling on a chair while he cut up eggs. He had some crazy idea that cookouts had to have egg salad, babbled about it half the day before until Bobby just shook his head and dug a battered old red and white checked binder out of one of his three hundred stacks of books. He said he guessed he had enough eggs and mayo and the rest of it to make egg salad for three or four people.
"Four people," Sam insisted. "Dad'll be back."
Dean just poked him in the ribs. "But who says I want to eat your nasty egg salad?"
Now Sam was intently focused on chopping up the hard-boiled eggs and transferring the remains into a glass mixing bowl. Dean had seen two packages of hot dogs plus a whole pile of hamburger wrapped up on a Styrofoam tray and sliced American cheese in the fridge and bags of buns in the cabinet, so he really didn't care if the egg salad was any good or if Bobby's dog ate it. He was going to have two cheeseburgers and two hot dogs and a whole bottle of Coke and then lay on the hood of one of the cars out in the lot and watch stuff explode in the sky. His plan was simple but perfect, he just had to get through the boredom of the next day and a half.
Finally, Dean grabbed Sam's onion and chopped it up for him because God knows the kid would take forever lining the knife up right just to make perfect oniony cubes. Then Sam measured out the mayo and mustard and whatever and mixed it all up, covered it with plastic wrap, and put it way back in Bobby's fridge, like he wanted to hide it from anybody who might want to mess with it before it was time.
From where he sat at his desk, Bobby turned around and looked at Dean, lowered his gaze to look pointedly at Dean's feet, which were tapping out a driving rhythm on the rungs of the chair. Dean smirked and then forced his feet to be still, pushing his restlessness down into stillness.
"Why don't you boys get outta here, run around outside before it gets too godawful hot?"
Dean didn't mind the heat, not unless it was close to a hundred and humid enough to suffocate, but Sammy always whined when it was over 90. He'd blow gusts of air up into his sweaty bangs and look at Dean like the weather was his fault--or Dad's fault, depending on the situation. Lucky for Sam, it hardly ever got that hot at Bobby's place. They'd already been sweating through their walks home from school in Georgia, but the weatherman on TV said the temperature was only going to hit 80°, which was seriously not hot at all.
Sam washed the egg and mayo gunk off of his hands and then they took off out the door. They chased each other through the lot, boosting themselves up over bumpers that were too close to slip between and bouncing off the sprung seats of convertibles. They disturbed a family of mice and Sammy screamed and then they both laughed and finally made it to the back of the lot. They flopped down in the dry grass, and once they got their breath back they agreed it was time for hide-and-seek.
Dean went first, and as far as he was concerned he took it easy on the kid. Sam knew the old wood-paneled station wagon had a big-ass hole in the undercarriage under the wayback area and carpet that could be pulled up in one big piece. They'd played there together the last time they visited Bobby, and if Sam couldn't remember that he was a moron. Dean ducked through the empty back window over the tailgate, pulled up the carpet and slipped down the huge rusted-out hole. It wasn't even uncomfortable, crouching on the bare dirt of the lot with the grungy carpet-backing over his head.
Dean figured it might take Sam a while to find him, so he pulled out the padlock he'd stuck in his back pocket and started working on it with a paperclip. He'd almost gotten the damn thing open when he heard the thud of feet over his head and then Sammy pulled back the carpet and shouted in Dean's face, his shaggy hair hanging down in his eyes. "GOTCHA!"
"Good job, squirt."
"That was such a lame spot to hide!" Sam rolled his eyes "I can hide way better than that."
"Oh yeah?" Dean pulled himself up out of the station wagon and landed on his feet on the lot next to Sam. "Try me. You've got to the count of thirty."
"You have to close your eyes."
Dean dutifully closed his eyes and started counting out loud. "One! Two!" He dug around in his pocket and pulled out the lock and paperclip again, letting what he felt turn into a 3-D shape in his mind. Before he got to thirty, the lock clicked open. When he opened his eyes, there was no sign of Sam in the lot. Time to seek.
Half an hour later, Dean walked back into Bobby's kitchen feeling like one seriously pissed off chump. Dean knew that lot almost as well as Bobby did, and Sam wasn't anywhere. Wasn't anywhere, so he must've pussied out, gone back inside to make one of those nasty salads with the pineapple and the green marshmallows or some shit.
He started calling for Sam before the screen door slapped closed. "Sammy!"
Bobby turned around and looked at Dean like he had a screw loose. "Isn't he with you?"
Dean shook his head. "We were playing hide-and-seek and the little bookworm cheated on me. At least give me a hint if he's upstairs or downstairs."
"Kid ain't in here." Dean glared at Bobby, but he just held his hands up. "I haven't seen him since you two ran out of here together. He must've found a good hiding spot to get over on you, Dean."
"No." Dean shook his head and the anger in his stomach twisted into worry. "No, I looked everywhere. Everywhere."
"There's no end of hideyholes out in that lot. C'mon, I'll help you scare him out, time for lunch anyway."
Dean ran down the stairs after Bobby, calling out as loud as he could. "SAMMY!"
Bobby reached back and smacked Dean lightly on the back of his head. "Way to blow out an old man's ear drums."
"Sorry," Dean mumbled.
"S'okay, kid. My turn." Bobby cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted out over the lot. "Sam! Come on in and get lunch. I got you boys frozen pizza!"
Sam loved frozen pizza even better than real pizza for some reason that made no sense to Dean, but Dean liked it better than no pizza so he didn't mind. He wouldn't mind frozen pizza still frozen if only Sam would stop messing around and come out of his hiding place. "Come on, Sam! I give up! You're the master of hide-and-seek and I suck, okay?"
Dean waited a minute, waited for Sam to come running out with a triumphant grin on his goofy face. Nothing. "If you don't come out I'm going to burn your Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles shirt!" Sam had just gotten it for his birthday, and he was wearing it as often as he could get away with. It was in the dirty laundry with a splotch of ketchup dried on it and Dean would burn it up in a trashcan right in front of Sam's face to get back at him for making Dean feel like something was wrong, like something was going to come apart in his stomach if Sam didn't come out. Right. Now.
Bobby shuffled one foot in the dirt and then cupped his hands around his mouth again. "That's enough, Sam!" He called out in a deep, booming voice that Dean had never heard from Bobby before. "Sam Winchester you get your butt out here right now before I send my dog after you!"
Nothing, there was nothing, and as much as Sam would mess with Dean just to win some silly war Dean didn't know had started, he wouldn't do that to Bobby. Not when Bobby was serious, and that voice was really damn serious. "Do you think your dog could really find him? I could go get Sam's t-shirt for him to smell."
Bobby just shook his head. "Aw hell, that dog's a mutt not a scent hound, and he's so old he couldn't smell a steak dinner three feet in front of his face, much less your brother out there somewhere."
Dean swallowed hard at the idea of "out there somewhere" and took off into the field of cars, walking around looking again, listening for any sign of Sam. Bobby joined him, working towards the opposite side.
"Think, Dean. Was he especially interested in any of these hunks of junk? Did he talk about any of them?"
Dean thought hard, tried to remember everything Sam said. Sammy could talk a lot sometimes--a lot--and sometimes it was just too many words in too little time. Still, the last time they'd been to Bobby's Sam had been talking about the red Volkswagen Beetle, how it looked like a big rotten apple on wheels. The trunk latch was busted and Sam spent, like, twenty minutes standing on the bumper of the car behind it slamming the trunk closed and watching it bounce back up. Again and again, totally annoying.
Dean had already looked inside and underneath it, but he couldn't think of anything else different to try. And something was working its way through his brain, something that was different, not right. He got closer to the VW, and suddenly he knew--the trunk, the trunk was closed now.
"BOBBY!"
Dean could hear Bobby running, footfalls over gravel, pounding steps over sheet metal, but he couldn't look away from the locked trunk of the battered red VW. Then Bobby was beside him and Dean looked up, suddenly scared to say the words. "The trunk shouldn't be closed. It was busted before, wouldn't lock. I--I--"
Dean palmed the curved metal of the trunk, and it was hot, hotter than the air. A lot hotter. He started pounding on the lock with his fist but it wouldn't open, wouldn't budge, and then Bobby's hands were on his. Bobby pushed his body in between Dean and the car. He pulled the Swiss Army knife out of his pocket and started working on the latch with the screwdriver, but the lock stayed stubbornly stiff.
"Go get a crowbar," Bobby muttered. "A crowbar, Dean. Now!"
Dean ran, the soles of his shoes skating over the rooftops of scuffed American steel. He jumped down to the ground and pounded across the lot until he could grab a crowbar and then he hopped up and ran back, panting out, "Sammy, Sammy, Sammy," under his breath like some kind of prayer.
Bobby pulled the crowbar out of Dean's hand so fast that it hurt, and when he popped the trunk it flew open on a gust of hot air. Inside, Sammy was curled up on his side, and his face was bright red even in the dim interior of the trunk. His eyes were closed and Dean had a sudden flash of a dead puppy he'd found in a box on the side of the road once, its body curled up and still. The remains of breakfast hurtled up into Dean's throat but he choked it down and climbed up onto the VW's bumper.
"Aw, crap, Sammy," Bobby muttered as he reached inside and cupped Sam's face, his hand looking big and pale next to the flush of Sam's skin. "Aw, crap." He slipped his arms around Sam and pulled him out of the trunk, Sam's head falling against Bobby's shoulder like his neck was made out of rubber.
Dean reached up and felt Sam's face. It was hot and dry against his hand, but Dean fluffed up Sam's salt-encrusted bangs. "Hey, wake up dorkface."
"Dean." Dean didn't want to listen to Bobby, he just wanted Sam to wake up. "Dean," Bobby's voice sounded stern now, commanding attention. "It's gonna take me a minute to carry Sam up to the house. I need you to run in and call 911, tell them to send an ambulance."
"Ambulance? But, can't we just--"
"Dean!" Bobby barked it out this time. "GO!"
Dean went. He followed the same path he'd run to get the crowbar, going all the way inside the house this time. He grabbed up the phone in one sweaty hand and dialed 911, watching Bobby pick his way through the lot with Sam cradled against his chest. He wasn't sure what he said to the lady on the other end of the line, but it must've been good enough. As Bobby burst through the door with Sammy still limp in his arms, she told Dean the ambulance was on its way.
Bobby carried Sam back to the downstairs bathroom and pulled off all of his clothes before putting him in the bathtub. Sam was flushed red all over, and water rushed out of the tap with a harsh white noise that matched the sound inside Dean's head. Because this wasn't right, wasn't right. Dean knew how to patch up Sam's cuts and scrapes, and he knew how to put ice on bruises. He could comfort Sam when he had a nightmare or make him Jell-o with mandarin oranges in it, but he didn't know what to do with this--Sam not exactly hurt and not exactly sick, but still and hot and not even caring that he was naked in Bobby's tub.
All Dean could do was watch. He watched Bobby hold Sam up and rub water onto his skin with a washcloth, and then he watched as EMTs bustled in with their bags and their crisp uniform shirts and heavy shoes. They put Sam on a gurney and covered him up with one of Bobby's towels, wet down with cool water. They put a needle in his arm and Dean bit his lip, needing to feel that pinch even if Sam didn't. He watched them take Sammy out into the ambulance and then he sat in the car next to Bobby and watched the ambulance speed down the road ahead of them.
In the hospital waiting room, Dean watched the big doors that he thought the doctor would probably come through. Soon, maybe soon. Suddenly Bobby's face loomed large in front of him. "Bobby?"
"Dean, I've been trying to get you to pay attention to something other than that crack between the doors for five minutes." Bobby's hand was warm on Dean's back, and Dean let himself lean into it for a minute before pulling himself up straight.
"Dad's supposed to be back today. What if he gets back and we're not there?"
Bobby ran his hand over his face. "John Winchester is going to kill me dead," he murmured, which didn't make any sense because Bobby didn't do anything wrong. "You know his pager number?"
"Why don't you go ask that lady at the desk for the number here and then see if she'll let you use her phone, send your daddy a page with the number?"
"You'll watch for the doctor?"
Bobby nodded. "Course I will."
"Okay." Dean walked over to the desk and waited his turn. The lady there gave him the number and then started to point him toward the pay phone in the corner before grabbing her desk phone and turning it to face Dean. Ten digits to dial Dad's pager and then after the beep he carefully entered the number for the hospital. His finger hovered over the 9 but then he added the code 411 and hung up.
Dean thanked the lady and as he walked back over to sit next to Bobby he imagined the pager vibrating on his father's belt. He hoped his dad was in the car, maybe just a couple hours outside of town, maybe close enough to be here any minute.
A doctor came through the doors then, calling out, "Mr. Winchester!" as he looked up from the chart in his hands. Dean's heart pounded in his chest, and he turned around to see Bobby standing up and walking closer.
"That's me. Well, the boy's daddy is my half-brother so my last name's Singer, but what's going on with Sam."
"His temp is coming down now that we're getting cool fluids into him, and he's awake but agitated and not quite back with us yet. He's asking for Dean." The doctor looked down. "Would that be you?"
Dean nodded. "Can I go where he is?"
"Normally I would say no, but it's not doing your brother any good to be so upset."
Dean's stomach clenched hard but he followed the doctor and Bobby back through the big doors into the bustling traffic of the emergency room hallway. They waked into a small room, and there was Sammy, small and still flushed red against the white hospital sheets and pale blue gown. He had an IV still hooked up to his arm and a fan blowing air on him. A nurse was running a wet cloth over Sam's arms, and it looked like Sam was asleep but his eyes opened when Dean touched his warm, damp face.
"Dean! Dean did you kill the mouse?"
"Huh?" Sam struggled to sit up, and Dean nudged him down, leaving his hand splayed over Sam's chest.
"The mouse! Didn't you see it? It was in there with me."
"In the trunk?" It made sense, maybe, that one of the field mice had run up inside the VW's trunk while Sam was in there, that it had freaked Sam out as much as the confinement had.
Sam nodded. "It was talking to me. Talking to me and telling me that it was hot."
"Yeah, it was really hot in there, Sammy."
"No, I mean, yeah, it said--the mouse said it was even hotter where it came from." Sammy frowned and squirmed against the sheets.
"Come on Sammy, what do you think? The talking mouse came on a truck from Mexico? It was just a bad dream."
"It knew my name, Dean. It knew my name!" Sam squirmed harder, starting to really freak out and Dean didn't know what to do. The doctor stepped in and injected something into the tubes leading to Sam's arm. Sam's tense face relaxed, his body going still on the bed. "Dean," he whined.
Dean leaned close. "Relax Sammy, it's okay. There's no mice here, I promise."
"Dean," Sam whispered. "The mouse was weird, it had--" Sam yawned then, a huge yawn that showed off his tonsils. He sniffled and turned his head closer to Dean. "Had yellow eyes."
Dean felt a chill though he didn't know why, and he took a stumbling step backward into Bobby.
"He just fell asleep, kid; he'll be okay. He just hallucinated because he got too hot."
Dean let Bobby lead him back out to the waiting room. After a couple long hours, they let Dean and Bobby see Sam again in his room on the children's ward. There were elephants on his wall, little ones and big ones like a family. The doctor said that Sam could go home in the morning as long as his temperature was okay. Bobby and the doctor went out in the hallway to talk and Dean listened at the door, one eye on Sam the whole time. The doctor said they'd been lucky, lucky that it wasn't hotter outside, lucky Sam wasn't in there longer.
Dean shook his head and walked back over to stand next to Sammy. He already knew they'd been lucky--he wasn't stupid. Next time they played hide-and-seek in the salvage yard he was giving Sam one of those emergency whistles that could blow out your ears from a mile away.
Dean wanted to stay in Sam's room with him, but Bobby dragged him back to the house. He fell asleep on the couch and woke up to the clatter and thud of his dad coming through the door. He scrambled up from underneath Bobby's ratty afghan and stood staring at his father. "Dad. Do you--"
John held up his hand. "I just stopped by the hospital on my way into town." He walked closer, and then his hand was on Dean's shoulder, warm and heavy. "He's fine, just sleeping. We can pick him up just as soon as I can get moving in the morning, okay?"
"Okay. He was just asleep? He didn't say anything?"
"Nope. Just asleep, his temp almost normal. Anything he was supposed to be talking about?"
"No." What Sam said about the mouse was weird, but it felt like a secret. If Sam still remembered in the morning, maybe he would tell Dad himself. "Just wanted to make sure he's okay."
"How about you go back to sleep so you can go with me to pick your brother up tomorrow?"
"Yes, sir." Dean crawled back under the afghan and listened to his father's slow tread up the stairs, the sound of water running and steps overhead.
~~~
The next evening, Sam sat on one of Bobby's old lawn chairs wrapped up in John's leather jacket. He had a hotdog in one hand and a plate with a mound of egg salad and a handful of cut-up raw carrots balanced on his legs. It seemed weird to Dean, Sammy feeling so cold in the mild evening air when he'd been so hot the day before, but Dad said it was normal.
Dad and Bobby had argued a little over the grilling duties, grumbling about how to arrange the charcoal and other things that seemed pointless considering you ended up with cheeseburgers either way. Dean sat on the chair next to Sam's, feeling the sharp-edged strips shift around under his butt. He leaned his shoulder into Sam's and talked around the wad of burger in his mouth. "Do you remember what you said about the mouse?"
"Huh?" Sam turned to look. "Ew, gross!"
Dean opened his mouth wider and stuck out his tongue with a pile of half-chewed beef on it. Sam closed his eyes and made a face, but he laughed so it was all good.
"I don't know how you're supposed to be older than me. What mouse?"
"You said that you saw a mouse. You know, yesterday."
Sam bit his lip. "When we were running around, you mean? You saw them too, a whole bunch of mice."
"Yeah, I guess that's what it was." Whatever weird stuff Sam had seen or imagined, Dean figured it was better that Sam didn't remember. He wished he could shake loose the sight of Sam curled up in that trunk like something lost and thrown away, but at least he could look at Sam now and see him smiling, happy that Dad had come home.
When the fireworks started, Bobby sat in one of the lawn chairs with his feet kicked up on the other, and all three Winchesters climbed up onto the hood of the Impala. Sam kept warm in Dad's lap and Dean leaned back next to them. Stuff exploded in the night but they were all together, all okay. Even Sammy's egg salad wasn't that bad.
Title: Hiding Out of Sight
Author: embroiderama
Recipient: weesta
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: none
Author's Notes: Thank you to my beta, who will be named later.
Summary: School's out + Memorial Day + Bobby's salvage lot = fun for Dean and Sam, until a game turns serious.
-----
When Dean Winchester ended up in schools with hippy-dippy teachers who made everybody sit on the floor and think about their happy place, he always thought about the car. Specifically, the driver's seat, even though he was four years away from being old enough to get a legal license. He'd driven the car a few times, once in a big field where he got to go fast with nothing around to hit and twice in Bobby's salvage lot, just pulling the car around back while dad lugged in their bags. Dean could close his eyes and feel the seat underneath him, squishy over firm, and the wheel in his hands, warm from Dad holding it for hours. He could feel the engine rev at the touch of his foot to the gas pedal and the way it made his heart beat faster, too.
That kind of meditation was something he could really get into. Sometimes the stupid teachers wanted them to pick a happy place they could walk around in, and then it was Bobby's place all the way. Nowhere near as good as the Impala, but there were a hell of a lot of cars, even if they couldn't run. Dean knew almost all of the makes and models and years, could run and find a part when Bobby was busy, as long as it wasn't too big or too hard to remove. He was pretty sure that jumping from one rusted roof to another and digging through moldy carpeted floorboards for change wasn't what the teachers had in mind for a tranquil happy place, but seriously? Dean Winchester did not do flower gardens.
But it was the Sunday before Memorial Day and their last school had been far enough south that they'd finished the year a week ago and then left town, spinning that dusty heat off the tires as Dad drove them north to South Dakota. Bobby promised them a backyard barbecue, and Sammy was ridiculously excited about it, running around the house without a book in his hands as if even a little geek like him was happy to be out of school for once. Dad had left for a hunt the morning after they arrived, but he promised to be back in time for the cook-out.
Dean tried not to worry that Dad would get held up, that Sammy would be disappointed. Dad had promised, and he didn't make promises unless he meant them. Dean walked into the kitchen, hungry for a peanut butter sandwich even though it was only an hour past breakfast, and found Sammy at the table, kneeling on a chair while he cut up eggs. He had some crazy idea that cookouts had to have egg salad, babbled about it half the day before until Bobby just shook his head and dug a battered old red and white checked binder out of one of his three hundred stacks of books. He said he guessed he had enough eggs and mayo and the rest of it to make egg salad for three or four people.
"Four people," Sam insisted. "Dad'll be back."
Dean just poked him in the ribs. "But who says I want to eat your nasty egg salad?"
Now Sam was intently focused on chopping up the hard-boiled eggs and transferring the remains into a glass mixing bowl. Dean had seen two packages of hot dogs plus a whole pile of hamburger wrapped up on a Styrofoam tray and sliced American cheese in the fridge and bags of buns in the cabinet, so he really didn't care if the egg salad was any good or if Bobby's dog ate it. He was going to have two cheeseburgers and two hot dogs and a whole bottle of Coke and then lay on the hood of one of the cars out in the lot and watch stuff explode in the sky. His plan was simple but perfect, he just had to get through the boredom of the next day and a half.
Finally, Dean grabbed Sam's onion and chopped it up for him because God knows the kid would take forever lining the knife up right just to make perfect oniony cubes. Then Sam measured out the mayo and mustard and whatever and mixed it all up, covered it with plastic wrap, and put it way back in Bobby's fridge, like he wanted to hide it from anybody who might want to mess with it before it was time.
From where he sat at his desk, Bobby turned around and looked at Dean, lowered his gaze to look pointedly at Dean's feet, which were tapping out a driving rhythm on the rungs of the chair. Dean smirked and then forced his feet to be still, pushing his restlessness down into stillness.
"Why don't you boys get outta here, run around outside before it gets too godawful hot?"
Dean didn't mind the heat, not unless it was close to a hundred and humid enough to suffocate, but Sammy always whined when it was over 90. He'd blow gusts of air up into his sweaty bangs and look at Dean like the weather was his fault--or Dad's fault, depending on the situation. Lucky for Sam, it hardly ever got that hot at Bobby's place. They'd already been sweating through their walks home from school in Georgia, but the weatherman on TV said the temperature was only going to hit 80°, which was seriously not hot at all.
Sam washed the egg and mayo gunk off of his hands and then they took off out the door. They chased each other through the lot, boosting themselves up over bumpers that were too close to slip between and bouncing off the sprung seats of convertibles. They disturbed a family of mice and Sammy screamed and then they both laughed and finally made it to the back of the lot. They flopped down in the dry grass, and once they got their breath back they agreed it was time for hide-and-seek.
Dean went first, and as far as he was concerned he took it easy on the kid. Sam knew the old wood-paneled station wagon had a big-ass hole in the undercarriage under the wayback area and carpet that could be pulled up in one big piece. They'd played there together the last time they visited Bobby, and if Sam couldn't remember that he was a moron. Dean ducked through the empty back window over the tailgate, pulled up the carpet and slipped down the huge rusted-out hole. It wasn't even uncomfortable, crouching on the bare dirt of the lot with the grungy carpet-backing over his head.
Dean figured it might take Sam a while to find him, so he pulled out the padlock he'd stuck in his back pocket and started working on it with a paperclip. He'd almost gotten the damn thing open when he heard the thud of feet over his head and then Sammy pulled back the carpet and shouted in Dean's face, his shaggy hair hanging down in his eyes. "GOTCHA!"
"Good job, squirt."
"That was such a lame spot to hide!" Sam rolled his eyes "I can hide way better than that."
"Oh yeah?" Dean pulled himself up out of the station wagon and landed on his feet on the lot next to Sam. "Try me. You've got to the count of thirty."
"You have to close your eyes."
Dean dutifully closed his eyes and started counting out loud. "One! Two!" He dug around in his pocket and pulled out the lock and paperclip again, letting what he felt turn into a 3-D shape in his mind. Before he got to thirty, the lock clicked open. When he opened his eyes, there was no sign of Sam in the lot. Time to seek.
Half an hour later, Dean walked back into Bobby's kitchen feeling like one seriously pissed off chump. Dean knew that lot almost as well as Bobby did, and Sam wasn't anywhere. Wasn't anywhere, so he must've pussied out, gone back inside to make one of those nasty salads with the pineapple and the green marshmallows or some shit.
He started calling for Sam before the screen door slapped closed. "Sammy!"
Bobby turned around and looked at Dean like he had a screw loose. "Isn't he with you?"
Dean shook his head. "We were playing hide-and-seek and the little bookworm cheated on me. At least give me a hint if he's upstairs or downstairs."
"Kid ain't in here." Dean glared at Bobby, but he just held his hands up. "I haven't seen him since you two ran out of here together. He must've found a good hiding spot to get over on you, Dean."
"No." Dean shook his head and the anger in his stomach twisted into worry. "No, I looked everywhere. Everywhere."
"There's no end of hideyholes out in that lot. C'mon, I'll help you scare him out, time for lunch anyway."
Dean ran down the stairs after Bobby, calling out as loud as he could. "SAMMY!"
Bobby reached back and smacked Dean lightly on the back of his head. "Way to blow out an old man's ear drums."
"Sorry," Dean mumbled.
"S'okay, kid. My turn." Bobby cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted out over the lot. "Sam! Come on in and get lunch. I got you boys frozen pizza!"
Sam loved frozen pizza even better than real pizza for some reason that made no sense to Dean, but Dean liked it better than no pizza so he didn't mind. He wouldn't mind frozen pizza still frozen if only Sam would stop messing around and come out of his hiding place. "Come on, Sam! I give up! You're the master of hide-and-seek and I suck, okay?"
Dean waited a minute, waited for Sam to come running out with a triumphant grin on his goofy face. Nothing. "If you don't come out I'm going to burn your Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles shirt!" Sam had just gotten it for his birthday, and he was wearing it as often as he could get away with. It was in the dirty laundry with a splotch of ketchup dried on it and Dean would burn it up in a trashcan right in front of Sam's face to get back at him for making Dean feel like something was wrong, like something was going to come apart in his stomach if Sam didn't come out. Right. Now.
Bobby shuffled one foot in the dirt and then cupped his hands around his mouth again. "That's enough, Sam!" He called out in a deep, booming voice that Dean had never heard from Bobby before. "Sam Winchester you get your butt out here right now before I send my dog after you!"
Nothing, there was nothing, and as much as Sam would mess with Dean just to win some silly war Dean didn't know had started, he wouldn't do that to Bobby. Not when Bobby was serious, and that voice was really damn serious. "Do you think your dog could really find him? I could go get Sam's t-shirt for him to smell."
Bobby just shook his head. "Aw hell, that dog's a mutt not a scent hound, and he's so old he couldn't smell a steak dinner three feet in front of his face, much less your brother out there somewhere."
Dean swallowed hard at the idea of "out there somewhere" and took off into the field of cars, walking around looking again, listening for any sign of Sam. Bobby joined him, working towards the opposite side.
"Think, Dean. Was he especially interested in any of these hunks of junk? Did he talk about any of them?"
Dean thought hard, tried to remember everything Sam said. Sammy could talk a lot sometimes--a lot--and sometimes it was just too many words in too little time. Still, the last time they'd been to Bobby's Sam had been talking about the red Volkswagen Beetle, how it looked like a big rotten apple on wheels. The trunk latch was busted and Sam spent, like, twenty minutes standing on the bumper of the car behind it slamming the trunk closed and watching it bounce back up. Again and again, totally annoying.
Dean had already looked inside and underneath it, but he couldn't think of anything else different to try. And something was working its way through his brain, something that was different, not right. He got closer to the VW, and suddenly he knew--the trunk, the trunk was closed now.
"BOBBY!"
Dean could hear Bobby running, footfalls over gravel, pounding steps over sheet metal, but he couldn't look away from the locked trunk of the battered red VW. Then Bobby was beside him and Dean looked up, suddenly scared to say the words. "The trunk shouldn't be closed. It was busted before, wouldn't lock. I--I--"
Dean palmed the curved metal of the trunk, and it was hot, hotter than the air. A lot hotter. He started pounding on the lock with his fist but it wouldn't open, wouldn't budge, and then Bobby's hands were on his. Bobby pushed his body in between Dean and the car. He pulled the Swiss Army knife out of his pocket and started working on the latch with the screwdriver, but the lock stayed stubbornly stiff.
"Go get a crowbar," Bobby muttered. "A crowbar, Dean. Now!"
Dean ran, the soles of his shoes skating over the rooftops of scuffed American steel. He jumped down to the ground and pounded across the lot until he could grab a crowbar and then he hopped up and ran back, panting out, "Sammy, Sammy, Sammy," under his breath like some kind of prayer.
Bobby pulled the crowbar out of Dean's hand so fast that it hurt, and when he popped the trunk it flew open on a gust of hot air. Inside, Sammy was curled up on his side, and his face was bright red even in the dim interior of the trunk. His eyes were closed and Dean had a sudden flash of a dead puppy he'd found in a box on the side of the road once, its body curled up and still. The remains of breakfast hurtled up into Dean's throat but he choked it down and climbed up onto the VW's bumper.
"Aw, crap, Sammy," Bobby muttered as he reached inside and cupped Sam's face, his hand looking big and pale next to the flush of Sam's skin. "Aw, crap." He slipped his arms around Sam and pulled him out of the trunk, Sam's head falling against Bobby's shoulder like his neck was made out of rubber.
Dean reached up and felt Sam's face. It was hot and dry against his hand, but Dean fluffed up Sam's salt-encrusted bangs. "Hey, wake up dorkface."
"Dean." Dean didn't want to listen to Bobby, he just wanted Sam to wake up. "Dean," Bobby's voice sounded stern now, commanding attention. "It's gonna take me a minute to carry Sam up to the house. I need you to run in and call 911, tell them to send an ambulance."
"Ambulance? But, can't we just--"
"Dean!" Bobby barked it out this time. "GO!"
Dean went. He followed the same path he'd run to get the crowbar, going all the way inside the house this time. He grabbed up the phone in one sweaty hand and dialed 911, watching Bobby pick his way through the lot with Sam cradled against his chest. He wasn't sure what he said to the lady on the other end of the line, but it must've been good enough. As Bobby burst through the door with Sammy still limp in his arms, she told Dean the ambulance was on its way.
Bobby carried Sam back to the downstairs bathroom and pulled off all of his clothes before putting him in the bathtub. Sam was flushed red all over, and water rushed out of the tap with a harsh white noise that matched the sound inside Dean's head. Because this wasn't right, wasn't right. Dean knew how to patch up Sam's cuts and scrapes, and he knew how to put ice on bruises. He could comfort Sam when he had a nightmare or make him Jell-o with mandarin oranges in it, but he didn't know what to do with this--Sam not exactly hurt and not exactly sick, but still and hot and not even caring that he was naked in Bobby's tub.
All Dean could do was watch. He watched Bobby hold Sam up and rub water onto his skin with a washcloth, and then he watched as EMTs bustled in with their bags and their crisp uniform shirts and heavy shoes. They put Sam on a gurney and covered him up with one of Bobby's towels, wet down with cool water. They put a needle in his arm and Dean bit his lip, needing to feel that pinch even if Sam didn't. He watched them take Sammy out into the ambulance and then he sat in the car next to Bobby and watched the ambulance speed down the road ahead of them.
In the hospital waiting room, Dean watched the big doors that he thought the doctor would probably come through. Soon, maybe soon. Suddenly Bobby's face loomed large in front of him. "Bobby?"
"Dean, I've been trying to get you to pay attention to something other than that crack between the doors for five minutes." Bobby's hand was warm on Dean's back, and Dean let himself lean into it for a minute before pulling himself up straight.
"Dad's supposed to be back today. What if he gets back and we're not there?"
Bobby ran his hand over his face. "John Winchester is going to kill me dead," he murmured, which didn't make any sense because Bobby didn't do anything wrong. "You know his pager number?"
"Why don't you go ask that lady at the desk for the number here and then see if she'll let you use her phone, send your daddy a page with the number?"
"You'll watch for the doctor?"
Bobby nodded. "Course I will."
"Okay." Dean walked over to the desk and waited his turn. The lady there gave him the number and then started to point him toward the pay phone in the corner before grabbing her desk phone and turning it to face Dean. Ten digits to dial Dad's pager and then after the beep he carefully entered the number for the hospital. His finger hovered over the 9 but then he added the code 411 and hung up.
Dean thanked the lady and as he walked back over to sit next to Bobby he imagined the pager vibrating on his father's belt. He hoped his dad was in the car, maybe just a couple hours outside of town, maybe close enough to be here any minute.
A doctor came through the doors then, calling out, "Mr. Winchester!" as he looked up from the chart in his hands. Dean's heart pounded in his chest, and he turned around to see Bobby standing up and walking closer.
"That's me. Well, the boy's daddy is my half-brother so my last name's Singer, but what's going on with Sam."
"His temp is coming down now that we're getting cool fluids into him, and he's awake but agitated and not quite back with us yet. He's asking for Dean." The doctor looked down. "Would that be you?"
Dean nodded. "Can I go where he is?"
"Normally I would say no, but it's not doing your brother any good to be so upset."
Dean's stomach clenched hard but he followed the doctor and Bobby back through the big doors into the bustling traffic of the emergency room hallway. They waked into a small room, and there was Sammy, small and still flushed red against the white hospital sheets and pale blue gown. He had an IV still hooked up to his arm and a fan blowing air on him. A nurse was running a wet cloth over Sam's arms, and it looked like Sam was asleep but his eyes opened when Dean touched his warm, damp face.
"Dean! Dean did you kill the mouse?"
"Huh?" Sam struggled to sit up, and Dean nudged him down, leaving his hand splayed over Sam's chest.
"The mouse! Didn't you see it? It was in there with me."
"In the trunk?" It made sense, maybe, that one of the field mice had run up inside the VW's trunk while Sam was in there, that it had freaked Sam out as much as the confinement had.
Sam nodded. "It was talking to me. Talking to me and telling me that it was hot."
"Yeah, it was really hot in there, Sammy."
"No, I mean, yeah, it said--the mouse said it was even hotter where it came from." Sammy frowned and squirmed against the sheets.
"Come on Sammy, what do you think? The talking mouse came on a truck from Mexico? It was just a bad dream."
"It knew my name, Dean. It knew my name!" Sam squirmed harder, starting to really freak out and Dean didn't know what to do. The doctor stepped in and injected something into the tubes leading to Sam's arm. Sam's tense face relaxed, his body going still on the bed. "Dean," he whined.
Dean leaned close. "Relax Sammy, it's okay. There's no mice here, I promise."
"Dean," Sam whispered. "The mouse was weird, it had--" Sam yawned then, a huge yawn that showed off his tonsils. He sniffled and turned his head closer to Dean. "Had yellow eyes."
Dean felt a chill though he didn't know why, and he took a stumbling step backward into Bobby.
"He just fell asleep, kid; he'll be okay. He just hallucinated because he got too hot."
Dean let Bobby lead him back out to the waiting room. After a couple long hours, they let Dean and Bobby see Sam again in his room on the children's ward. There were elephants on his wall, little ones and big ones like a family. The doctor said that Sam could go home in the morning as long as his temperature was okay. Bobby and the doctor went out in the hallway to talk and Dean listened at the door, one eye on Sam the whole time. The doctor said they'd been lucky, lucky that it wasn't hotter outside, lucky Sam wasn't in there longer.
Dean shook his head and walked back over to stand next to Sammy. He already knew they'd been lucky--he wasn't stupid. Next time they played hide-and-seek in the salvage yard he was giving Sam one of those emergency whistles that could blow out your ears from a mile away.
Dean wanted to stay in Sam's room with him, but Bobby dragged him back to the house. He fell asleep on the couch and woke up to the clatter and thud of his dad coming through the door. He scrambled up from underneath Bobby's ratty afghan and stood staring at his father. "Dad. Do you--"
John held up his hand. "I just stopped by the hospital on my way into town." He walked closer, and then his hand was on Dean's shoulder, warm and heavy. "He's fine, just sleeping. We can pick him up just as soon as I can get moving in the morning, okay?"
"Okay. He was just asleep? He didn't say anything?"
"Nope. Just asleep, his temp almost normal. Anything he was supposed to be talking about?"
"No." What Sam said about the mouse was weird, but it felt like a secret. If Sam still remembered in the morning, maybe he would tell Dad himself. "Just wanted to make sure he's okay."
"How about you go back to sleep so you can go with me to pick your brother up tomorrow?"
"Yes, sir." Dean crawled back under the afghan and listened to his father's slow tread up the stairs, the sound of water running and steps overhead.
~~~
The next evening, Sam sat on one of Bobby's old lawn chairs wrapped up in John's leather jacket. He had a hotdog in one hand and a plate with a mound of egg salad and a handful of cut-up raw carrots balanced on his legs. It seemed weird to Dean, Sammy feeling so cold in the mild evening air when he'd been so hot the day before, but Dad said it was normal.
Dad and Bobby had argued a little over the grilling duties, grumbling about how to arrange the charcoal and other things that seemed pointless considering you ended up with cheeseburgers either way. Dean sat on the chair next to Sam's, feeling the sharp-edged strips shift around under his butt. He leaned his shoulder into Sam's and talked around the wad of burger in his mouth. "Do you remember what you said about the mouse?"
"Huh?" Sam turned to look. "Ew, gross!"
Dean opened his mouth wider and stuck out his tongue with a pile of half-chewed beef on it. Sam closed his eyes and made a face, but he laughed so it was all good.
"I don't know how you're supposed to be older than me. What mouse?"
"You said that you saw a mouse. You know, yesterday."
Sam bit his lip. "When we were running around, you mean? You saw them too, a whole bunch of mice."
"Yeah, I guess that's what it was." Whatever weird stuff Sam had seen or imagined, Dean figured it was better that Sam didn't remember. He wished he could shake loose the sight of Sam curled up in that trunk like something lost and thrown away, but at least he could look at Sam now and see him smiling, happy that Dad had come home.
When the fireworks started, Bobby sat in one of the lawn chairs with his feet kicked up on the other, and all three Winchesters climbed up onto the hood of the Impala. Sam kept warm in Dad's lap and Dean leaned back next to them. Stuff exploded in the night but they were all together, all okay. Even Sammy's egg salad wasn't that bad.