nightspear | Losing and Leaving (1/2)

Rating: PG-13 (some harsh language)

Disclaimer: Nothing you recognize is mine. I gain nothing of materialistic value from this.

Pairings: Gen.

Summary: Dean thought a few times that he’d lose his brother because of a mistake. When it actually happened, it was Sam’s own choice. A sequence of pre-series firsts for the brothers.

XXXXXXXXXX

The first time their dad let Sam go on a hunt was the first time Sam was in the emergency room, and Dean thought his brother was going to die.

It wasn’t all that serious, actually. But it had looked pretty damn serious when eleven year-old Sam was unconscious with blood getting everywhere despite the pressure of Dean’s hand on the split in his scalp. The talking-to Dean got for that was pretty humiliating, since it turned out that the blood dripping onto Sam’s face was actually coming from Dean’s hand, which he’d clamped over the scalp wound.

The point was, Dean had only had one job during that hunt: watch out for Sammy. He wasn’t even supposed to be going after the damn spirit. It was an easy job, and they all knew it, and Sam was there to learn what it looked like and help with salting and burning the bones. It wasn’t even a two-person job; three Winchesters were definitely overkill. Except that there had been a spirit haunting the grave next to the one they were digging up—come on, who the hell haunted their own freaking grave?—and the stupid ghost must have been nearsighted or something and thought they were digging up its bones. Either that or Sam was nearsighted, because he hadn’t even noticed the spirit until it walked through him. And then Sam had fallen into the grave, Dad had yelled, and Dean had been tripped by a malevolent, stationary rock and cut his hand on the shovel Sam had dropped.

Seriously, was shit like that even possible?

Except it was possible, because it had happened, and...well. Blood, unconscious little brother, emergency room. Jesus.

And that wasn’t even the biggest problem. Dean was standing next to Sam, which got pretty boring once he realized Sam was actually just sleeping now, when he heard Dad speaking as he handed an ID and completed forms to the receptionist.

“Don’t move, Sammy, I’ll be right back,” Dean said hurriedly to his sleeping brother, then walked to his father’s side.

“Hey, Dad—”

“Just a second.”

“Remember that thing at school couple of mouths back when Sam got into that fight?” he pressed on casually, knowing his dad would interpret Sam got into a fight as I need to talk to you. His dad’s eyes narrowed slightly but he pulled back the forms. “Doc will want to know,” he continued lying. “Why don’t I just write it in?”

“Sure, Dean,” his dad said with a forced smile for the receptionist.

Sighing, Dean took the forms and the pen and walked a short distance away from the desk, his father looming tensely over his shoulder. He pretended to scribble something in while saying, “You gave her the wrong ID, Dad.”

“That’s the one I’ve been using.”

“Yeah, but you gave me the other one when I enrolled Sam and me into the school around here.” They enrolled under their real names, always, unless there was a good reason not to. Education was still important—or, at least, it was to Sam—but bigger payments were always on someone else’s card.

But his dad was staring uncomprehendingly, and with not a little annoyance, at him now. “It doesn’t matter what name they get. We’ve got insurance on this one.”

“Sam’s teachers will want a doctor’s note for medical absence, and it’s gotta be in the right name.”

“It’s just school, Dean. And he’s in fifth grade—no one will care.”

Dean licked his lips nervously. “Sam will care.”

“Son, what Sam cares about could... Look, there are more important things to worry about now.” He looked pointedly at Sam’s still form. Sammy’s hurt, the look said, and you’re worrying about school and absentee notes?

With a second more of hesitation, Dean dropped his eyes and said, “Yessir.”

John sighed tiredly. “If it ends up being a problem, I’ll write the note myself.”

“Yessir.”

It took a few hours before a doctor came to tell them it was a minor concussion. “But concussions are nothing to fool around with,” the doctor cautioned them. “When he gets home, make sure that...” Dean zoned out somewhere around there—concussions weren’t anything new to them. Not even to Sam before he started hunting, clumsy kid that he was.

Sam woke up on the car ride back with a headache, but nothing more. For once, he wasn’t bitching about anything, although Dean wasn’t sure whether that was the headache or their dad’s glower. He did have to stay home from the school the next day, however. Dean ended up forging the doctor’s note—he’d seen real ones enough times to know what to put in it, anyway—and brought it to the elementary school before walking the three blocks to his own class.

XXXXXXXXXX

The first time Dean got drunk—seriously drunk, not just buzzed or tipsy, but really smashed—he was sixteen, Dad wasn’t home, and Sam yelled at him after avoiding being kidnapped or worse.

To be fair, maybe he was imagining the kidnapping part.

He suspected Sam had actually dragged him in from the parking lot where he’d decided to crash for the night, but that part was kind of hazy. What he did remember was his little brother’s voice drilling holes into his brain when the hangover hammered maliciously at his head the next morning. It was a little funny, because Sam’s voice had just broken and it cracked every so often, but, you know, it wasn’t really that funny, because holy crap, his fucking head...

“You’re lucky Dad’s away on a hunt,” Sam rebuked hours later, when Dean felt a little more alive and his brother was more amused than pissed off. “He’d be kicking your ass if he knew you were out getting shitfaced.”

“Watch your language,” Dean snapped without thinking.

Sam snickered. “You’re kidding me, right? You’re telling me to watch my language?”

It was too early to think of a good response to that—yes, eleven-thirty in the morning totally counted as early on a weekend—so he grumbled, “Bitch,” which just made the little shit laugh harder. “I’m gonna kill you,” he informed his brother.

“Yeah, whatever. Drink your coffee.”

Dean took a sip of his coffee.

“Seriously, man, you’d better not do this again when Dad is here.”

A traitorous part of him remembered dragging his dad to a motel after too many close encounters with a shot glass, so why shouldn’t his dad be the one to drag Dean in after his first time? The smarter part of him was really freaking glad his dad hadn’t been there, because Sam was right—there would’ve been Hell to pay if he’d been caught.

“You still alive, Dean?”

“No,” Dean groaned, laying his head on the table. “M’going to sleep.”

“Dude, it’s like noon.”

“Do I look like I give a crap?”

“You look like a troll that got beaten with the ugly stick.”

“Fuck you, too.”

“Watch your language. I’ll tell,” Sam teased, a grin in his voice. “Dad’ll be pissed.”

“Well, Dad’s not here.” He wasn’t sure why there was a perverse piece of his mind that kinda wished their had heard. It was just plain wrong to have a twelve-year-old kid brother scolding about language, that was all. Not that it would be better to have his dad to yell at him.

“Well, I was thinking—”

“Jesus Christ. I’m tired, Sammy.”

There was a short pause. “Yeah, whatever,” Sam repeated, adding, “Oh yeah, your friend, Brendan something? His dad came around asking for you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know someone named Brendan from school?”

That made him lift his head. “No, I don’t.”

Sam looked surprised. “Uh, well, this guy was at the door and wanted to know where you were. Said you were at his son’s house the other day and his son left something in your bag, so he would just come in and pick it up...” He trailed off. “What?”

“Did you let him in?” Dean demanded, sitting straight now and struck anew by the fact that he’d left his not-yet-teenaged little brother alone last night, in a cheap motel room surrounded by who the hell knew what kind of people.

Sam’s expression twisted to indignation. “No. I told him you’d bring it back yourself. And I can take care of myself, jerk.”

“Where’s the shotgun?”

“Geez, Dean, he probably just made an honest mistake. You’re so paranoid sometimes.”

And you’re too trusting. “Where was the gun, Sam?”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Next to the door, right by my hand. How stupid do I look?”

Swallowing, Dean made himself say, “You really don’t want me to answer that.”

And even though he probably was just paranoid, he gave up on his nap. That night, he double-checked the locks on the door and slipped a knife under his pillow before falling asleep.

XXXXXXXXXX

The first time Sam went to school with a sling and a bruise on his face, they were in Minnesota, and they took him away.

Well, not really. But it sure had felt like it at the time, and, honestly, it had been a close thing.

Child Protective Services had been something they’d grown up fearing more than demons and spirits. Demons they could exorcise, and spirits they could send off with a good cremation...but social workers? Man. They were like leeches, and Sam complained whenever he suggested shooting them. In any case, the Winchesters knew how important it was to avoid being noticed that way, and they’d perfected their smiley faces and casual laughs of no way, are you kidding me, Dad wouldn’t hurt a fly. Or, anyway, Sam had mastered the face, and Dean took care of the smooth-talking, but it had worked the few times they’d needed it.

But Dean had never expected this.

He’d never considered the fact that, while Sam still looked like a runt who everyone wanted to cuddle, Dean couldn’t pull that off anymore, not with his best acting efforts. With their dad gone, Sam was living alone with a tall, muscular seventeen-year-old older brother who kept notoriously close tabs on him. And now he had a broken arm and visible bruises, and he was stammering and insisting that he’d just fallen and hurt himself.

Well, Sammy...we’re fucked.

What Dean actually said, when he finally found out and ran over from the high school, was, “Fuck you,” and it was to the social worker standing in the school nurse’s office, because there was no way in Hell she’d just suggested that he would ever lay a finger on Sammy. Beyond her, Sam was shaking with tension and fear, and his wide eyes were silently screaming Help me, Dean. Dean could feel his own muscles quivering, but he didn’t fuck around with silence and called, “Sam, let’s go...Christ, lady, he’s my brother...”

He almost pushed past the small wall of people blocking his path by force, but he hadn’t completely lost his mind (yet) and knew that wouldn’t be a smart idea.

They told him he wasn’t allowed to see his baby brother until they’d ‘looked into the matter’—something about a foster home, God, what the hell—and Dean called his dad on the his cell phone.

“The number you dialed is out of service...”

Dean yanked the phone away and gaped at it. What the fuck? He tried again, and again—

“The number you dialed...”

Jesus Christ. Okay. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d had to ditch a phone, and there were a few warrants out for John Winchester, so... Okay. Nothing was wrong. Dad would call, eventually, when he got the chance.

Anyway, what could he have said besides Dad, I screwed up and lost Sammy...

God, his dad was going to kill him.

He stared at the phone for a few moments, thinking it was going to ring and it would be Dad, yelling at him and telling him how to fix everything. It didn’t ring.

The stupid thing was that Sam’s injuries weren’t even from hunting this time. It was his stupid little brother deciding to climb the stupid tree, and Dean’s stupid idea to sneak up behind him and yell in his ear, and Sam’s stupid teacher trying to send him to the nurse and then trying to call Dad, which had made Sam nervous and act all shifty around them. And then, with the added fact that they moved so much and that Sam’s medical records were a mix of really extensive and really obviously full of holes, they’d decided that safe was better than sorry. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

It took two days of finding people to yell at and talk to and full-on beg for his brother. And then, with no choice left, his frazzled brain finally thought of calling Jim Murphy, who lived nearby, to say that he’d fucking lost his little brother, okay, and they wouldn’t tell him anything about where they’d taken the kid, and Jim, man, you gotta help us out, please, I’m losin’ it here...

“Dean, calm down,” Jim said, in that voice that always reminded Dean of a shrink.

“Dammit, Jim, how’m I supposed to calm down, I don’t know where my brother is, Jesus...”

“Dean!” Dean stopped, reacting instinctively to the sharper voice that reminded him Jim Murphy had been a hunter before he’d been a man of the cloth. “Is your father home?”

“No. He’s with Bobby—demonic omens out west.”

“Have you called him?”

Dean hesitated, then said, “He’s not available.”

Jim sighed but assured him, “Don’t worry, Dean. We’ll fix this. I’ll find out where Sam’s been placed and contact a lawyer I know.”

“Wh—well, what do I do? I’m not gonna sit here doing nothing!”

“I’ll come to you. Where are you staying?”

“Outside Duluth. You can...you can do something about this?” Jim Murphy had always had a soft spot for them—for Sam, especially—and he was one of the few hunters Dean knew who had a shining public reputation, and even that was backed by a congregation of people who looked up to him.

“We’ll sort it out. Don’t do anything until I’m there. I’ll ask the attorney to meet us there.”

“Don’t do anything? Jim!”

“I know the way you are—make sure you’re taking care of yourself. I mean it, Dean.”

Dean didn’t have a clue what Jim and his lawyer friend did or said, but he didn’t care, because, on the fourth day after they stole Sam from him, they gave him back. Not without conditions, because they wanted to make sure no one was making a mistake. There was something about the pastor keeping an eye on them, but that was fine, because he was a hunter, and hunters understood how it was.

Thank the goddamn Lord for Jim Murphy.

“Where is he?” Dean asked as soon as the man told him.

“I just spoke with Sam,” Jim told him. “His caseworker’s talking to him now—”

“Fuck that, I’m going to—”

“Dean, you’ll see him in two minutes. You do not need to step out of line right now. Just calm down and sit down before you fall down.”

Scrubbing a hand through his short hair, he finally said, “Okay. Jim, I don’t know...thank you, Jim, I don’t...”

“It’s okay, Dean. You and your brother are like my own family.” Jim paused with a hand on Dean’s shoulder. “I tried calling your father, and I couldn’t reach him.”

Dean didn’t mistake the statement for anything but the question and accusation it was. He rubbed his forehead in frustration and exhaustion, admitting, “I can’t reach him, either. But he’s not supposed to be back yet, so I figured it probably wasn’t anything big.”

“Wouldn’t he have contacted you?”

He shrugged uncomfortably. “Not necessarily. It probably isn’t safe for him to stop and find a phone.”

Jim’s eyes were narrowed, but all he said was, “If you’re alright here, I’m going to leave and see if I can find him and Bobby or at least contact someone who knows.” When Dean didn’t answer, he pressed, “You’re alright here?”

Where’s Sammy? he thought. “Yeah,” he said. “We’re good.”

And then, an eternity of minutes later, Sam was sniffling and wrapping his unbroken arm around Dean’s waist.

“Ow,” he said into Dean’s shirt as his broken arm banged into something, and Dean didn’t even acknowledge the well-intentioned social worker who was still standing there when he turned to usher his brother out the door and drive him home.

Dean learned later that Sam had tried to help, too, though it probably hadn’t helped nearly as much as the pastor’s testimony and his legal contacts. The little geek had reasoned with the temporary family he’d been placed with that they couldn’t keep him there against his will if he and his brother and father contested it, and that there was a perfectly good explanation for every injury he’d ever gotten. Dean didn’t know how true that was or what the law was on this, but apparently the argument hadn’t been good enough, so Sam had decided to be stupid again.

“You did what?” Dean asked when they were finally safe in their motel room. If he was practically holding Sam on his lap, it was only because the idiot hadn’t taken pain medication for his arm over the last few days and was tired and falling asleep. And that was probably because, “You tried to starve yourself? You think that was gonna convince people you weren’t from a dysfunctional home?”

“It was only two days,” Sam mumbled sleepily. “Wasn’t gonna starve from that.”

“And they said you had a bottle of the lady’s sleeping pills hidden under your pillow. Sam...? Sam, wake the fuck up! Answer my question.”

“I didn’t hear a question.”

“God, Sammy—”

“Had to get out of there.”

A shaky breath crawled out of Dean’s lungs and his arms tightened around Sam. “Had to get out of there? That was your solution? You were gonna overdose on—”

“Wasn’t trying to kill myself, Dean.”

Dean closed his eyes and buried his face in the top of his brother’s head. “You actually thought that would’ve helped? ‘Cause that’s not real healthy-sounding behavior.”

“But they would’ve had to take me to the hospital, and then—”

“And then what?”

“Would’ve had more time to figure it out.”

“Fuck, Sammy, do you know how many ways that could have gone wrong? Do you know what could’ve...” He stopped there.

“Pastor Jim said it was mostly because of you.”

God, it was, he knew that. “Sam...”

“Or not mostly, but he said you had an impact,” Sam clarified.

“Sam, I didn’t know you were gonna fall out of the tree—”

Sam squirmed, then craned his neck around to squint at Dean. “The tree?”

“Yeah...that’s how you broke your arm, dude. You hit your head and get amnesia, too?” he quipped weakly, thinking, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry...

Sam huffed exasperatedly. “Not that, moron. The part where you fainted in front of—”

“I did not faint,” Dean said, indignation snapping back into place.

“Pastor Jim said you didn’t sleep at all and then you just passed out, and the caseworker or whoever saw you freaking out and felt bad for your, and then she found out Dad wasn’t around, and...”

“Dude, I didn’t pass out.”

Sam resettled himself and leaned back against Dean’s chest with a contented sigh. “Okay.”

A few minutes of silence later, Dean thought Sam had fallen asleep when he heard, “Don’t tell Dad.”

They should really tell him.

“Dean, don’t. Dad won’t be back for another week.”

“Four days,” Dean corrected, because he’d been counting down the days until their dad came back and killed him for losing his brother. This was some pretty big shit to hide, with judges and lawyers involved and everything.

“Please, Dean. Dad wouldn’t care, anyway.”

“Bullshit. He’d care. You know that, Sam.”

Sam somehow scrunched himself closer and Dean automatically adjusted his arms to wrap more tightly around his brother. “I just wanna forget about it, Dean.”

And Dean wanted to forget about it, too, so he almost said, Okay. In the end, though, there was no hiding it. “Jim will tell him.”

“Oh.” Sam leaned his head back to rest more snugly against Dean’s chest. “So...Pastor Jim’s going to find Dad and Bobby?”

“Yeah.”

“You think...they’re okay?”

“Sure they are. It’s probably just—Dude,” he said incredulously, “you’re not crying, are you?” Sam’s head shook from side to side, but he didn’t say anything or turn around. Studiously ignoring the trembling he could feel under his arms, he said, “They’re fine, Sammy. This isn’t the first time he’s been out of reach. Jim’s just being paranoid.”

He was right, as it turned out. Dad came back, ran a hand over Sam’s arm in its cast, and tried to lock eyes with Dean as he said, “Come on, pack up. We’re moving out tonight.” Dean avoided his gaze, but he didn’t escape the hand that dropped onto his shoulder when they stepped out the door. He was never sure afterward whether it was a reprimand or something else, and he was too afraid to look up and find out.

Continued in Part 2