But What We Make (Part I)
The night air was cool and sweet and finally, he thought as he stepped up to the front door of his apartment, didn’t hold the fear that had punctuated his childhood. He was too tired to be tripping over monster lore and legends. It’d been four years since he’d left home to go to Stanford and Sam Winchester was done with that life. Some nights it was easier to remember than others.
It wasn’t that he hated the hunt. He might have hated the things his life had become while they were hunting, but he didn’t hate the hunt itself. He didn’t hate his family either, no matter how much his current friends thought he did. Sam didn’t talk about his family and what little he did say had always been misconstrued and Sam let the misconceptions lie. His family was an ache too close to his heart to bring up with a group of people that would always - always, he never lied to himself about that - be strangers. His heart filled with the loneliness at times but he’d learned to hold the emotions off, to keep it at bay. He didn’t have a choice. It’d been four years since his father had told him to get out and never come back. Two years since he’d talked to his older brother, Sam begging Dean to stop checking up on him. He loved Dean with everything in him, but he was never gonna let go of that life so long as Dean was hovering just out of sight.
Sam had moved on once Dean gave him that. He was getting ready for law school in the fall and he was living with a beautiful woman, someone who smiled and laughed and never tried to protect him from danger. Someone who needed him to be strong and mature and loved that he enjoyed reading and took his studies seriously.
Jessica was perfect for him, for all those reasons, and because in her infinite wisdom, she let him keep his past to himself. She never asked about John or Dean and never tried to listen in when he took calls from JC.
His little brother was the only link he still had to his family. JC was two years younger than him, smarter then hell, but still touring the country with John and Dean. He knew why JC did and Sam hoped, every single damn time he got a call from him, that they’d finally found JC’s mother. Each time JC hung up, Sam had to take ten minutes to get himself back together and pray it wasn’t the last time he heard from him.
The porch swing on the front patio of their rented duplex swayed quietly with the breeze but as Sam looked at the movement he noticed the front window slightly ajar. An tiny opening in the window wouldn’t have meant something to anyone else but Sam knew when he’d walked out earlier - Jess already in bed but Sam needing to head out to an all-night diner to get some studying done - that he’d made sure all the windows and doors were locked and salted.
He put his key in the lock and dropped his backpack just outside the door so he’d have both hands ready. When he pushed the door open, the apartment was silent. He closed the door behind him to make sure nothing could sneak up behind him. He crept through, room by room, until he was standing by the bedroom. The door was open and he could see Jess lying in bed. He nearly dropped to his knees as he saw the dark stains spattered across their pillows, the unnatural way her body was settled across the mattress.
“Jess?” he said her name softly, praying for her to answer though he already knew she wouldn’t. A lifetime of hunting had shown him too many corpses to mistake what he was seeing. He let out a sob, unable to move as he stared at the woman he loved, the woman he’d planned on spending the rest of his life with. She’d never known all of him, but she had accepted that and Sam, resilient as ever, had decided that was enough for him. He would never be as passionately in love with her as she was with him, but she was everything he’d ever dreamed was possible.
He was too far in his grief so the press of cold metal against his forehead startled him. He hadn’t heard Jessica’s murderer moving towards him.
The voice was cold and hard, feminine but with an odd accent he couldn’t quite place. “Where is John Connor?”
His grief started to turn towards anger because he knew that voice. He’d heard it once before, six years ago when she’d tried to kill his little brother.
“Why did you kill Jess?” he demanded instead.
“So that was her name. Just think of her death as mercy sweet heart. She won’t have to live through Judgment Day.”
He swung, wild and frantic, his mind grasping onto three things: she had killed Jess, she was most likely responsible for Sarah going missing, and she was going to try to kill JC again. The bullet missed Sam but even as he rolled away from the crazy woman, she held up a lighter and smiled into the flames. “I know you won’t bring me to Connor, so we’ll just see if we can bring him to you.”
She dropped the lighter and Sam didn’t realize she’d been busy in his absence, spreading accelerant onto the floor of their apartment. Flame spread quickly across the room and Sam lunged at her. She dodged but he managed to get his fingers in her long dark hair, pulled her back towards him. She was tiny, a little slip of a china doll with her dark, slanted eyes, and full red lips, but she knew how to fight. She jammed her elbow into Sam’s stomach and he let go of her. When she spun around he knocked the gun from her hands and she lashed out, fingernails raking over his face.
He screamed in pain but he knocked her to the floor with a leg sweep. She fell hard and he was on top of her. “Who the hell are you?” he asked, ignoring the way sweat trickled down his spine as the flames around them grew higher. “What do you want with John Connor? What did you do with Sarah?”
She smiled up at him and Sam knew she would never tell him anything. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
She forced her knees up between them, kicking up and knocking Sam on his side. Before he could catch her, she was throwing herself out the front bay window. Smoke poured through the window but even as Sam watched the escaping fumes, he was turning back to try to get to Jessica. The flames roared around him and he couldn’t get more than a step or two in before the heat was too much. He choked back a sob, lungs searing from the smoke, and then took a step away, jumping out of the same window as Jessica’s murderer.
He rolled on the grass and there were already a handful of people standing in the street, the wail of sirens coming closer in the background. The woman was gone and as he looked at the area around him he knew there was no way of tracing her.
There was only one thing he could do.
As much as he wanted to let it all go, to fall to the ground and forget anything but his beautiful Jess, he couldn’t just yet. His cell phone was still in his pocket and he pulled it out. He didn’t need to look for the number, just dialed his number one contact - the number he hadn’t called in two years - and moved to the other side of the street.
“Sammy?
He nearly sobbed at the sound of his brother’s voice but he didn’t have time. Someone would come looking for him as soon as the fire department got there and this needed to be done first.
“Dean? I … they… Jess.”
“Sammy, what happened? Are you okay?”
“Tell JC he needs to lie low and I need you to come get me, Dean.”
“Sam, man, tell me what happened?”
“The crazy lady is back, Dean. She’s back and she killed Jess.”
“Jesus,” he could hear the waver in Dean’s voice, the empathy he’d always been so damn good at. He took a deep breath and waited until he heard Dean’s voice again. “Alright. I’m on my way Sam. I’ll call when I’m close to see where you are. I’m … seven hours out. I’ll get in touch with JC and I’ll be there. Just hang on for me.”
Sam hung up without answering. Dean was on the way and he’d take care of everything, just like he always did. With that figured out, he sat down on the curb, pulled his knees up and tried to drown out the memory of Jessica’s blood stained nightgown and the crazy woman who was trying to steal his brother away as well.
**
Sam looked down at his bag as his cell phone vibrated in class. It was against the rules to check your cell phone in class, but there were only a handful of people who had his number and none of them ever called just to check in. He quickly grabbed his phone and put it in his pocket before heading out the door. When his teacher looked up at him he just smiled. “Bathroom,” he answered as he walked out the door. He was bound to get in trouble for leaving but he didn’t care. He wasn’t likely to be in that school long enough to serve detention anyway. Their dad was supposed to be back on Saturday and he’d told Dean to have them ready to move on.
“Hello?” he answered the phone quietly as he walked down the hall towards the outer doors.
“Sam? Something’s here.”
“What? JC, are you okay?” He knew he wasn’t. By the age of ten his little brother knew how to handle a situation. Now, at fourteen, he wouldn’t call with that edge of fear in his voice if he was alright.
“I was in the bathroom and this woman came after me, Sam. I managed to fight her off but when I ran she was right behind me. I’m in the school theater but she’s between me and the door. I can’t get out.”
“Stay where you are,” Sam said calmly, though he didn’t feel composed at all. “I’m only a block away. I’m coming.”
He hung up the call and dialed even as he ran, suddenly grateful for the weight of the silver knife strapped to his ankle. He’d always hated walking around armed all the time but for once he was glad his father insisted.
“Sammy?”
“JC’s in trouble, Dean. He’s in the school theater. I’m running there now.”
“Be carefully, Sammy. I’m on my way.”
As much as Sam hated living in small towns, it was paying off today as he ran the short distance between the high school he attended and the middle school JC was in. They all knew the layouts of the two schools, the first thing drilled into them with their training was know the terrain so school floor plans were always memorized as soon as they got there. The theater, or auditorium, was at the back of the complex in a separate building from the rest of the school. A fence surrounded the grounds but Sam wasn’t willing to waste the time going around to the front and there wasn’t a fence made yet that could keep a Winchester from his brother.
He climbed the chain link and was over the other side quickly, thanking Dean in the back of his head for always daring them into stupid things, forcing them to train without even letting them realize what he was doing until now, when he needed to climb the damn fence and knew how.
He stopped running then, close to the building and trying to settle his heartbeat. He was hyper aware of what was happening around him and he needed that, but he needed to be prepared for anything. He couldn’t think of anything recent that could have followed them from a hunt, and JC said he’d been able to fight it off so it probably wasn’t something drastic like a terminator, but JC didn’t panic and if he said something was after him, something was.
Sam moved to the side entrance and opened the door slowly, creeping inside the small black entryway. He cursed himself for not finding out exactly where JC was in the theater, but he’d figure his location out.
“Come out, little man,” a female voice said from the center of the room, “I promise it won’t hurt a bit.”
Sam dared a look around the corner and saw her standing in the center of the round stage. She was in a perfect spot to see anyone trying to make a move towards the side door or the main entrance. She must have been turned completely away as Sam moved into the room or she’d have seen him, the small foyer area not giving him more than the tiniest cover.
She was beautiful, he had to admit that. Almond shaped eyes, with long black hair, her body was thin and he could see a fit, athletic body under the tight pants and black short sleeved shirt she wore. Brown knee high boots clicked prettily on the stage but all Sam could think were they were shit-kickers and they’d hurt like hell. At the small of her back was a gun tucked into her waistband and another was held in her hand.
“It didn’t have to be this way, John Connor!” she yelled. “It could have been different, but you changed everything!”
Sam saw a slight movement to the right and he found JC, slithering on the floor between the seats. The seats in front of him protected him from the crazy lady’s sight but from Sam’s angle he could just make him out. He needed to cause a distraction so JC could get out but all he had was a knife and she had her guns. What he needed were throwing knives because he just might be able to get in a good enough throw that she was immobilized long enough to get them out, but he had no such luck. His knife was made for hacking, not throwing.
“Sammy!” The main door flew open and Dean was there, striding through the door.
“Dean! Get down!” Sam yelled as the woman took a shot at Dean. JC was scrambling towards him and Sam grabbed him, putting his body between JC and the crazy lady.
Dean was dodging bullets as he ran towards them, guns pulled. He stopped to fire and the lady dove behind a row of seats to take cover. She hadn’t been prepared for JC to have back up and she didn’t have the advantage anymore. “Let’s get the hell out of here,” Dean said as he joined them behind a row of seats. The wooden backs weren’t great cover, but the lady didn’t have any better so at least they were even.
“Yeah, let’s go.”
“You have new friends, John,” the lady taunted from behind the seats. “Ever wonder what happened to your mother, John? Ever stop to question what happened to Sarah, or are you already too much of a machine?”
“What the hell do you know about my mother?’ JC demanded.
The sound of light laugh filled the air and Sam grabbed hold of JC’s arm to keep him from standing up. Dean’s eyes looked ready for murder but he was holding his ground. They had to keep each other safe, that was Dad’s rule, Sarah’s too.
“I know you’ll never find her unless I tell you where she is. I wouldn’t count on her help anytime soon though, Johnny boy.”
The sound of sirens made them all turn their heads and Dean cursed under his breath. “We have to get out of here.”
“JC?”
Their brother kept looking over his shoulder at where the woman was but Dean grabbed his arm. “We can’t find Sarah if we get caught, JC.”
Sam was more than a little surprised Dean wasn’t jumping the chairs to try to get to the woman himself, but Sam realized something new as he looked at his brother. Dean didn’t believe she was alive anymore. As much as he bolstered JC and Sam’s beliefs that she was out there, trying to find a way back to them, Dean had buried her in his head. He was keeping his family alive the best way he knew how. He grabbed JC’s wrist and nodded. “She’d kick our ass if we endangered you like this. Come on. We can’t let the cops find you, John.” He used the name on purpose. No one cared about JC Winchester, but if the cops came and ran prints they’d know they had John Connor on their hands and anyone could come after him then.
When his eyes caught Sam’s, JC nodded.
“Time to go, Dean,” Sam said, knowing Dean was trusting him to get JC out of there. He wasn’t about to let either of his brothers down.
Dean stood up, letting bullets fly and Sam and JC made a run for the door, Dean walking steadily backwards as they went. The wail of the sirens continued to get louder as Sam pulled JC out the door. He didn’t get more than a cursory glance - no limping so no broken limbs and though there were a few cuts on his face there wasn’t enough blood over all to warrant more concern just yet - as they waited for Dean to follow them out.
“Exit?” Dean bit out as he backed out the door. JC was pulling at Sam’s shoulder to get them moving, but Sam knew the tight tone in Dean’s voice. Whatever injury he had would have to wait though.
“A hole in the fence, this way,” JC answered. Sam pulled away from JC, grabbing at Dean’s shoulder but Dean shrugged him off. Sam knew the injury couldn’t be too bad the way Dean was moving so they ran out behind the theater until they found the hole JC was talking about.
They didn’t ask how JC knew about their escape route. Sam was too busy worrying about Dean and he knew Dean would just be impressed that JC had a secret exit lying in wait for them. They got through the fence quickly and then Dean was leading them down the next street to where the white jeep was parked. Although Dean drove the vehicle most of the time - except when their Dad was afraid the black Impala would stand out or leave the wrong impression - they still thought of the jeep as Sarah’s, like they were still keeping it for her and she’d return anytime to find it.
They piled in, though Sam took the keys when he realized Dean had been shot in the arm. “JC, look at his arm while I get us home.”
“Damn it, Sammy, its fine.”
“If it is then JC will tell me that in just a minute,” Sam replied coolly. He wasn’t about to trust his brother’s word when it came to an injury
Sam ignored the way Dean continued to bitch while he pulled away from the school as JC began pulling Dean out of his over shirt. Dean’s wound was still bleeding heavily, Sam could see that much from quick glances but JC was looking him over carefully.
“Looks like the bullet went all the way through, missed anything too important,” JC finally said to Sam. “We can take care of this back in the room.”
“Alright then.”
As much as Sam wanted to run every red light between them and the motel at neck-breaking speed, he kept a few miles under the speed limit to keep from getting into any trouble. Once they got there, Dean shook his head. “Sam, I’m fine. We need to get out of here. Whoever that was could have been following JC around. We need to find a new hotel.”
As much as he wanted to argue about it, he knew he couldn’t. Dean wasn’t about to let some crazy lady come after JC again. “Alright. Yeah, alright. JC, get our stuff packed up. Dad already got his but I’ll check his room over real quick and we’ll get a bandage over your arm, Dean. Once we get settled in again I can stitch the bullet hole up for good. Got it?”
The others nodded and they were moving to the motel room with a plan. Sam was right about John. He’d cleaned the room before leaving so there were no telltale signs of the Winchesters. He went to the other room then and watched as JC efficiently packed his things before grabbing Dean’s bag and packing his stuff as well.
Dean sat on the edge of the bed with his over shirt dropped to the floor beside him. The first aid kit was sitting on the bed and Sam opened the kit quickly as Dean swiped at the wound with an already bloody wash cloth. “Okay, Dean?” he asked quietly as he stood over his brother, looking at the broken flesh. His hands were already reaching for the first aid bag.
“Fine,” Dean gritted out. “Just slap something over it and let’s get going.”
Sam didn’t bother answering, just nodded as he pulled open the bandage and gauze. He put ointment on the bandage, and then wrapped the wound up tight until they could get someplace safer. “All good,” Sam said as he stepped back.
Dean stood up just as JC dropped Sam’s pack by the door as well. “That’s everything,” JC said.
“Let’s move out,” Dean walked through the door, leaving Sam to get the bags as JC ran to the front and left the keys.
The car was silent as Sam carefully drove them out of town, grateful that the next city was close by or he’d have been pulling over on the side of the road to patch Dean up. They got into town and Sam stopped the car at a phone booth as JC jumped out to find the first motel listed. They called and got the directions and Sam pulled up into the motel a little more than twenty minutes after they’d left their last place.
Dean was the only one old enough to get them a room and Sam pulled the jeep in, out of sight of the office window so no one would notice who Dean was with. Dean just grunted as Sam helped him put on a clean over shirt, then headed in for the office.
Dean managed to get them the far room, two queen beds and a lot of privacy since no one was booked in the room next to theirs. JC grabbed their bags as Sam pulled the door open and got Dean set up on the first bed. The rest of the room was a blur, but the motel seemed nicer than they usually stayed, cleaner and the air conditioning was actually keeping the room cool without the rasping banging sounds they were used to.
JC set the first aid kit out as Sam stripped Dean of his shirts. Dean looked up at Sam, brow raised slightly at that, but Sam didn’t want Dean having to raise his arms up to remove his shirt once he got him stitched up. Both shirts were dumped onto the floor just as JC came up with a bottle of tequila. They weren’t normally allowed to drink it, but John considered the liquor part of the medical kit - the Winchester Miracle Heal-all.
Dean took two long pulls from the bottle before Sam had the needle threaded. A look over his shoulder showed JC salting the door and windows and Sam took a deep breath. His hands were steady as he brought needle to flesh and Dean didn’t so much as flinch as he began working a neat line of stitches across the back of his brother’s bicep where the bullet had passed through.
He moved around to the front then, setting the needle to Dean’s skin where the bullet had passed on the way in. Dean’s hand gripped Sam’s hip tight, bruises forming under his strong fingers, but Sam didn’t try to pull away. He didn’t know if Dean would have been different in another life, but pain and the liquor flowing through his blood - another two shots when Sam had switched sides - left him pressing against his brother, his cock a hard outline at the seam of his jeans.
He finished the stitches and put the kit away before coming back to stand over Dean. Dean pulled him down and Sam let him, knees coming up on either side of Dean’s waist to straddle him. “You feeling okay, Dean?” he asked once again.
Dean’s smirk was slow and sweet. “Alright. You all done now, Doctor Sam?”
Dean grabbed Sam around the neck with his good arm and pulled him in close. Sam didn’t hesitate to bring their lips together, his hands wrapping around Dean’s shoulders to pull him closer. He needed to feel Dean around him, to know his brother was alright. It was the same whenever he got hurt. The years hadn’t made it any easier. Sam sucked at Dean’s bottom lip and was rewarded with a smile from his brother. He didn’t let him speak though, instead licking his way into Dean’s mouth and turning the words into moans.
Dean shifted under Sam, trying to get better leverage but a pained groan broke free as he moved his injured arm the wrong way.
“Idiot,” Sam heard from the other bed. JC was shaking his head as he moved over to Sam and Dean. “Shove off, Sammy,” JC said as he pushed at Sam. He might have been offended if it had been anyone else, but JC knew all their secrets, just like they knew his. Instead, Sam got up and grabbed Dean’s bag, ruffling through the contents until he came across the lube. He tossed the bottle on the bed beside his brothers as he watched JC help Dean struggle out of his clothes. When he was done, Dean dropped a kiss onto JC’s forehead and JC snuggled into Dean’s chest for a second before bounding up off the bed. “What would you two do without me?” he asked as he flipped the light beside the bed off. It wasn’t dark outside yet, but with the motel blinds closed the only light in the room was from the bathroom. Sam didn’t know why JC preferred the lights dark that way, but neither Dean nor Sam protested as JC settled into the other bed, turning onto his side to watch as Sam dropped his pants and climbed up the bed to Dean.
Dean grabbed the bottle of lube and smiled up at Sam. “You got plans for the afternoon, Sammy?”
“If you’re not in the mood I could just go to the bathroom and take care of myself,” Sam offered, even as he watched Dean flip open the lid and coat his fingers. Normally, Dean would put him on his back and kiss him senseless until he barely even noticed the burn but this time had to be different since Dean couldn’t use his left arm. Sam crawled up his brother’s chest until Dean’s wet fingers were pressing against his entrance.
“Damn, Sammy,” he moaned as the first finger pushed in. Sam closed his eyes and let out a deep breath, relaxing into the feel of his brother’s movements. He opened Sam up quickly, each thrust of his fingers bringing Sam closer and closer to the edge. When he finally pulled out, Sam was begging for more.
“Come on,” Dean whispered as his hands gripped Sam’s hips tightly. “Ride me, Sammy.”
Sam reached back and gripped Dean’s cock, positioning him just right as he sunk down onto the thick length. Sam bit his bottom lip to keep from moaning, but Dean didn’t bother trying to be quiet. Filth flew from his mouth and Sam had to lean in to kiss him silent.
Neither of them were going to last long, it wasn’t about that, and Dean started stroking his cock as soon as he was fully seated on Dean’s lap. “Dean, please,” he begged as Dean brought his knees up for leverage. When he thrust up, Sam couldn’t stop the moan even if he’d wanted to. He worked himself up and down his brother’s cock while Dean pistoned into his ass, never letting his hand motion falter in the slightest. “Fuck, Dean, Dean,” Sam whimpered, but his words were too late and he was coming all over his brother’s hand.
“Jesus, fuck, Sammy,” Dean cried out, thrusting up hard twice before his hands gripped Sam’s hips tight, burying himself deep in Sam as he came inside him.
Sam collapsed forward, kissing Dean until the tremors subsided. He pulled away then, flopping onto the bed beside Dean for a minute before he went into the bathroom to get something to clean them up with.
He cleaned himself up quickly, but by the time he came back in, Dean was sitting up, his back against the headrest. JC sat at his side, knees pulled up under his chin as if to make himself smaller than he was. Sam didn’t hesitate to throw the blanket back and clean his brother up, but when he threw the wash cloth back into the bathroom, Dean pulled the sheet up for Sam to join him. He did, settling against his brother, pulling the blanket up to Dean’s waist before letting his head fall into Dean’s lap.
“I don’t know who she was, or why she was after me,” JC said quietly as he leaned against Dean’s side. Sam looked up at the two of them and watched the way JC’s guilt played over his face. “She said I betrayed her, but who the hell is she?”
Dean let out a deep breath as he looked at his youngest brother’s face. “Go get a shower, JC, clean up your face, then come talk to me.”
JC nodded and it was only then Sam realized his little brother still had dried blood on his face. JC got up and hobbled into the bathroom and Sam started to rise before Dean pushed him back down into his lap.
“I should help him, Dean.”
“You will, when he gets out, Sammy,” Dean assured him. “Let him deal with her taunts, then he’ll be ready for you.”
Sam let out a deep breath. “I’m never gonna be as a good a big brother as you are,” he said wistfully. “You always know when he needs me and when he doesn’t.”
Dean smiled fondly at him as his fingers tangled in Sam’s hair. “Maybe I do, but it’s always you he wants to hold onto, Sam. You’re an awesome big brother. We just do things differently. JC is lucky to get us both.”
Sam smiled against his lap, but the adrenaline was gone and they were all safe again and the last thing he remembered hearing before falling asleep was the soft sound of Dean and JC’s laughter.
**
Sam didn’t have much to say to the cops or the fireman when they finished. He told them there was a burglar and the place caught on fire, but he didn’t mention seeing Jessica dead. He didn’t mention the killer’s knowledge of his brother or the fact that she’d come after his family six years earlier. The type of things that came after JC wouldn’t be stopped by mere police anyway.
He was sitting in a hospital room, staring down at his hands as his feet dangled over the edge of the bed. He wanted to get up and run, to do anything that would get his mind off Jess’s body but the staff wanted to keep him close. He’d started having trouble breathing earlier and they were worried about the amount of smoke he’d inhaled. He’d have taken off already but he had nowhere to go.
He closed his eyes and lost himself in the beat of his heart. Sarah had taught him that, a long time ago, the first time Dean had gotten seriously hurt on a hunt and Sam had been unable to sleep. Sarah had sat down beside him in the uncomfortable hospital chairs and told him to rest while he could, that Dean would need him to be strong when he woke. Sam didn’t know how so she’d told him to close his eyes. Then she’d talked to him about the importance of the heart, not just the function of the body but as a driving force for the soul. She reminded him that humanity was just a step away from the horrors they hunted and the heart was what kept them all from becoming monsters. She’d told him to listen to his heart then, to always - always - listen to his heart. He’d focused on that, the sound of the beat, and he’d been able to relax enough to sleep. He was pretty sure Sarah would have been appalled to know what else her lesson had meant to him, but Sarah had disappeared without ever finding out that listening to his heart had led him into his older brother’s arms. That her words had not only given Sam the courage to love his brother, but they had also given JC the ability to accept that Sam and Dean were lovers without batting an eye.
“Sammy?”
He had no idea how long he’d been out, but when he opened his eyes, Dean was standing in front of him, concern and fear warring with the anger that always riled Dean up when one of his brothers got hurt.
“Dean,” his voice sounded dried and cracked but Dean didn’t make him say anything else. Instead, he was wrapped in his brother’s arms. He took comfort in the strength of Dean’s presence until his brother pulled back slightly, one hand cupping Sam’s face as he kept their foreheads together.
“You ready to get out of here?”
Everything was the same as it had always been between them, no matter that Sam had worried about how Dean would react. Sam was the one who’d walked away after all, left and then asked Dean to stop contacting him. Dean just accepted him back, in ways that Sam always knew he would. He’d be angry later, maybe, hurt, and Sam worried about the fall out, but Dean’s unconditional love and acceptance were just part of who he was. That Sam didn’t deserve him was one of the things he’d had run from. “Yeah.”
“You need to get anything?” Dean asked, stepping back to give Sam space.
“No,” Sam whispered. “I just need to see that my other brother is safe too.”
Dean gave him a tight smile as Sam looked him over; checking for any physical signs of what the last few years had been like for Dean. Dean signed as he handed Sam a bag of clothes from God only knew where. “I know what you mean, Sammy. I know what you mean.”
**
“How’s JC?” Sam asked as they stopped in front of the Impala. Dean wanted to force Sam into the seat, needed to put a million miles between Stanford and Sam, but his brother looked at the car with a mixture of fear and awe. It’d been two years since Dean had last talked to Sam and he had no idea what this meant to him, what getting into the front of the car would do to Sam. He knew what Sam sitting in the passenger side meant to himself and he tried to push those emotions down.
Sam wasn’t his anymore, not the way he once had been and Dean wasn’t about to do anything stupid on the night he lost his girl, no matter how much Dean needed to tangle his fingers in Sam’s hair, kiss his mouth bruised, and keep him right the fuck where he was supposed to be.
“Good. He was doing some recon when you called. He was going back to the motel and heading up to the next town to wait for us.”
“You told him about-“
“Yeah, of course I did. He wanted to come with me but I convinced him if that crazy bitch was after him, heading to you was a sure fire way of getting you shot at again.”
“Low blow, man,” Sam said softly.
“Yeah, well a big brother’s gotta do what a brother’s gotta do, right? JC’s just as stubborn as Sarah and he’s got Dad’s patience. If I didn’t go below the belt he’d be riding shotgun right now and we’d probably have a psycho following us.”
“I’m not sure that’s a bad idea,” Sam said, his head bowed as he stared at his hands.
“Excuse me?”
“She… she knows what happened to Sarah. For all we know, she killed Sarah, and she killed Jess. Maybe I wouldn’t mind getting my hands on her.”
“Yeah, well maybe I don’t plan on using either of my brothers as bait,” Dean spit out. “What the hell?” He didn’t mean to be harsh but, Jesus. Sam was talking about using JC to draw her out and while he knew Sam was hurting, neither of them would ever really put their little brother in danger.
“Dean-”
“We’ll find her, Sam,” he cut his brother off before he could say anything else. He didn’t think he could listen to his brother’s defeated tone. “Whoever she is, if she was waiting for 6 years to get to us, we’ll get another chance. Don’t you start thinking stupid on me now.”
Sam didn’t answer but he looked up, staring out the window instead. The silence thickened around them and Sam finally spoke, his voice still thick and bruised from smoke and grief. “I’d never put him in danger, Dean. I just … I loved her.”
“I know, Sammy.” He didn’t know how he had the voice for this conversation. For two years he’d left his brother alone, not calling or stopping by. No gifts sent to his dorm or apartment and no postcards from the strange places they passed along the road. Just the suffocating need Dean had to know Sam was safe, with no way to find out. JC made his calls and he offered to share what he knew, but Dean couldn’t listen. Sam had asked for a clean break, for a chance at a different life without him in it and Dean had given that distance to him. If he heard about Sam’s classes or his job or the girl he was banging, he’d never have been able to let him go.
What terrified him the most was that if he’d shown up, demanding his place in Sam’s life, Sam would have given it to him. They both knew that, which was why Dean had given him the space in the first place. Sam hadn’t needed to tell him all the reasons he wanted to leave home and even though he knew their relationship was a part of it, he knew it wasn’t the only thing either. If that’s all his leaving had been about Dean would have fought Sam tooth and nail. It wasn’t and Sam had finally gotten the things he wanted in life. Dean wasn’t sure he had it in him to speak about it now, his pain at being close to Sam was too damn near the surface and Sam was wrapped up in a whole other grief.
Sitting across from his brother in the Impala, trying to make comforting words over the death of the woman Sam loved - when what he really wanted to do was pull over and fuck his brother senseless in the backseat until he remembered what love really was - was nearly impossible.
“Just get some sleep. We’ll get back to JC and go from there.”
“Dean? What about Dad?”
Dean tensed because he was trying real hard not to think about his father. The crazy woman who’d attacked JC when he was fourteen years old, who’d just killed Sam’s girl, had also claimed to have taken Sarah all those years ago. They’d never heard from her since and Dean, in all his years hunting, had never met anyone else as capable as Sarah was. The crazy lady was back and John was missing. He really didn’t like the picture the puzzle pieces were starting to give him.
“Dad’s missing.”
“Dean.”
There was recrimination in his brother’s voice but Dean couldn’t deal with Sam’s emo bullshit. Not about this. Sam didn’t want to talk to Dean, did he really think he was gonna call when John went missing? If he wanted to reprimand someone he could talk to the brother that still mattered to him.
He ignored his anger and just gave Sam the facts in a tight, clipped voice. “About three weeks back he went on a hunt and didn’t come back. JC and I took care of the hunt, a woman in white, but Dad was gone. His journal was left behind with a set of coordinates on a page in the middle. We were gonna leave tomorrow to check the location out.”
Sam looked back out the window into the night and Dean let the silence fall between them. His mind wouldn’t be quiet though. As much as Dean kept telling himself it didn’t matter, that Sam’s choice to leave him behind meant he didn’t matter to Sam anymore, he couldn’t stop the thought that Sam had called him when he needed someone, instead of JC. That choice didn’t mean anything. It couldn’t.
But it did.
**
John Connor stared at the dark man, eyes filing away everything he knew about the stranger. His clothes were rough and stained; the type you bought cheap or second hand so you could wear them in the middle of nowhere and know they’d hold up. Heavy boots, even in the summer heat, were made for long travel and wear. He gripped the shotgun in his hands loosely but with finger placement that made it easy to pull up and shoot. He held the gun with the ease of familiarity and the set of his shoulders screamed soldier in ways John didn’t know how to describe but had seen in hundreds of men growing up as his mother had taken him off to whatever training she felt he needed next. The man’s eyes were hunted, pained, the way his mother’s were when he asked about his father, or his future. He looked up at his mom then, her eyes flicking back to John where he stood right behind her, his own gun held at the ready in case he needed to protect her. She didn’t make a move but when her eyes flicked across the clearing he understood what she was trying to say and he focused his attention on the two boys who were standing opposite them.
The taller of the two stood, back ramrod straight, gun held in the same easy way the other man held it. He couldn’t be more than sixteen, but his eyes told another story. He and the kid behind him were dressed the same as the older man and there were enough similarities in the three to make him think family. The younger kid leaned back against a tree trunk, just behind his brother, maybe two years older than John himself. He stood behind the other boy the way John stood behind his mother, willing to protect if need be, but knowing that the first shot, however it had to come, was the other’s domain.
John found his eyes drifting back to the man again, noticing the slight nod of approval, as if he expected the older boy to protect the younger. It made him angry, for reasons he couldn’t really explain, except his mother had just spent two years in a mental institute for trying to protect him and this man barely spared a glance for his oldest son except to see he was protecting the younger.
“You look like you’re a long way from home,” the man said to John’s mother.
He could see her tense as she stared at the man. Her body was as rigid as she’d let her muscles get when she might need to fight, a slight change in her stance let him know she was ready and he shifted slightly to give her room, ready to run to find a better advantage over their greater size and numbers. He hated the idea of leaving her, but he knew his training.
“We’re just out hunting,” his mother said lightly. “A coyote’s been bothering some friends and we decided to check the area out.”
Her story was mostly the truth. Jose and Manuella said there was a chupacabra but he and his mother didn’t believe in that sort of thing. She’d whispered that night that whatever was bothering their farm was probably just a sick coyote, too weak and tired to go after its normal game.
“You decided to hunt a coyote through the forest with a ten year old kid?” The guy asked, not bothering to hide his disbelief.
“Says the man standing in the forest with two boys of his own.”
The guy smiled. “What’s your real story?”
He saw his mother’s shoulders relax a little; something about the man’s smile brought her out of fight mode. John looked back at the two kids and saw their stance hadn’t changed at all and he took their attitudes as a sign, not letting himself relax no matter that his mother had.
“We’re … survivalists.”
The guy looked her up and down, his smile broadening. “Sure you are. This might not be the hunt for you and your boy though. I’ve heard things about this … coyote.”
“You mean you’ve heard it’s a chupacabra.”
The guy just nodded and he knew his mother was smiling at that. “I think we’ll be alright.” She looked back at him and nodded towards the path they’d been heading down when the newcomers had shown up. “Move out, John.”
John nodded, looking towards the two boys as he started following his mother. They were looking back at the other man and he was rolling his eyes as the youngest crossed his arms over his chest, bottom lip out in a sullen pout.
“Wait,” the guy called out. “Sounds like we’re hunting the same thing. Why don’t you stay with us? No use in putting the boys in danger of stray bullets if we both find this thing at the same time.”
His mom looked at the guy for a second and then back to him. John dropped his eyes and then looked back up, a silent agreement to pairing with the others that they wouldn’t be able to see. He was intrigued by the two boys and wanted to know more, even if he was wary. He trusted his mom to make the final call though.
She straightened up to look at the guy then, reaching out her hand to shake his. “Sarah Reese.”
“John Winchester. These are my boys, Dean and Sam.”
John looked at the boys as they came forward, Dean was the oldest and he stood between the newcomers and his brother right up until Sam smiled and reached a hand out to shake John’s. John couldn’t help but smile at the friendly grin directed at him. “Hey,” the boy said softly, almost shyly.
“Hi, I’m JC,” he said, aware that his mother had left his name off the introductions. John Connor wasn’t a name that was safe anymore, not now that terminators were actually trying to come back in time to stop him from surviving Judgment Day. He wasn’t really comfortable being John Reese either, taking the name of the father he’d never known and would someday meet. Instead, he went with JC. Besides, he knew his mother. This guy had something to teach and he saw the way she was looking at him, protection mode falling away to training mode and he figured this guy was going to be around a while. Two Johns was just confusing and the less people who knew his real name the better. A trail of bodies in Los Angeles and Pescadero State Hospital could attest to that.
“Boys, make nice,” John Winchester said as he began leading the way down the path his mother had been about to take.
“Yes sir,” John intoned with the other two, already too entrenched in following orders not to hear the command in John Winchester’s voice.
Dean smirked at him as he watched Sam start after their father. Dean dropped his arm and spread it wide, gesturing for John to follow after Sam and he did, realizing as he did so that Dean was both putting him in a protected position in the group but also cutting him off from his mother. It was a smart tactic and John realized the father wasn’t the only one they could learn from.
John moved on, following Sam, knowing Sarah was at the back of the group, weapons trained on John Winchester if anything should go down wrong.
On to Part Two
It wasn’t that he hated the hunt. He might have hated the things his life had become while they were hunting, but he didn’t hate the hunt itself. He didn’t hate his family either, no matter how much his current friends thought he did. Sam didn’t talk about his family and what little he did say had always been misconstrued and Sam let the misconceptions lie. His family was an ache too close to his heart to bring up with a group of people that would always - always, he never lied to himself about that - be strangers. His heart filled with the loneliness at times but he’d learned to hold the emotions off, to keep it at bay. He didn’t have a choice. It’d been four years since his father had told him to get out and never come back. Two years since he’d talked to his older brother, Sam begging Dean to stop checking up on him. He loved Dean with everything in him, but he was never gonna let go of that life so long as Dean was hovering just out of sight.
Sam had moved on once Dean gave him that. He was getting ready for law school in the fall and he was living with a beautiful woman, someone who smiled and laughed and never tried to protect him from danger. Someone who needed him to be strong and mature and loved that he enjoyed reading and took his studies seriously.
Jessica was perfect for him, for all those reasons, and because in her infinite wisdom, she let him keep his past to himself. She never asked about John or Dean and never tried to listen in when he took calls from JC.
His little brother was the only link he still had to his family. JC was two years younger than him, smarter then hell, but still touring the country with John and Dean. He knew why JC did and Sam hoped, every single damn time he got a call from him, that they’d finally found JC’s mother. Each time JC hung up, Sam had to take ten minutes to get himself back together and pray it wasn’t the last time he heard from him.
The porch swing on the front patio of their rented duplex swayed quietly with the breeze but as Sam looked at the movement he noticed the front window slightly ajar. An tiny opening in the window wouldn’t have meant something to anyone else but Sam knew when he’d walked out earlier - Jess already in bed but Sam needing to head out to an all-night diner to get some studying done - that he’d made sure all the windows and doors were locked and salted.
He put his key in the lock and dropped his backpack just outside the door so he’d have both hands ready. When he pushed the door open, the apartment was silent. He closed the door behind him to make sure nothing could sneak up behind him. He crept through, room by room, until he was standing by the bedroom. The door was open and he could see Jess lying in bed. He nearly dropped to his knees as he saw the dark stains spattered across their pillows, the unnatural way her body was settled across the mattress.
“Jess?” he said her name softly, praying for her to answer though he already knew she wouldn’t. A lifetime of hunting had shown him too many corpses to mistake what he was seeing. He let out a sob, unable to move as he stared at the woman he loved, the woman he’d planned on spending the rest of his life with. She’d never known all of him, but she had accepted that and Sam, resilient as ever, had decided that was enough for him. He would never be as passionately in love with her as she was with him, but she was everything he’d ever dreamed was possible.
He was too far in his grief so the press of cold metal against his forehead startled him. He hadn’t heard Jessica’s murderer moving towards him.
The voice was cold and hard, feminine but with an odd accent he couldn’t quite place. “Where is John Connor?”
His grief started to turn towards anger because he knew that voice. He’d heard it once before, six years ago when she’d tried to kill his little brother.
“Why did you kill Jess?” he demanded instead.
“So that was her name. Just think of her death as mercy sweet heart. She won’t have to live through Judgment Day.”
He swung, wild and frantic, his mind grasping onto three things: she had killed Jess, she was most likely responsible for Sarah going missing, and she was going to try to kill JC again. The bullet missed Sam but even as he rolled away from the crazy woman, she held up a lighter and smiled into the flames. “I know you won’t bring me to Connor, so we’ll just see if we can bring him to you.”
She dropped the lighter and Sam didn’t realize she’d been busy in his absence, spreading accelerant onto the floor of their apartment. Flame spread quickly across the room and Sam lunged at her. She dodged but he managed to get his fingers in her long dark hair, pulled her back towards him. She was tiny, a little slip of a china doll with her dark, slanted eyes, and full red lips, but she knew how to fight. She jammed her elbow into Sam’s stomach and he let go of her. When she spun around he knocked the gun from her hands and she lashed out, fingernails raking over his face.
He screamed in pain but he knocked her to the floor with a leg sweep. She fell hard and he was on top of her. “Who the hell are you?” he asked, ignoring the way sweat trickled down his spine as the flames around them grew higher. “What do you want with John Connor? What did you do with Sarah?”
She smiled up at him and Sam knew she would never tell him anything. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
She forced her knees up between them, kicking up and knocking Sam on his side. Before he could catch her, she was throwing herself out the front bay window. Smoke poured through the window but even as Sam watched the escaping fumes, he was turning back to try to get to Jessica. The flames roared around him and he couldn’t get more than a step or two in before the heat was too much. He choked back a sob, lungs searing from the smoke, and then took a step away, jumping out of the same window as Jessica’s murderer.
He rolled on the grass and there were already a handful of people standing in the street, the wail of sirens coming closer in the background. The woman was gone and as he looked at the area around him he knew there was no way of tracing her.
There was only one thing he could do.
As much as he wanted to let it all go, to fall to the ground and forget anything but his beautiful Jess, he couldn’t just yet. His cell phone was still in his pocket and he pulled it out. He didn’t need to look for the number, just dialed his number one contact - the number he hadn’t called in two years - and moved to the other side of the street.
“Sammy?
He nearly sobbed at the sound of his brother’s voice but he didn’t have time. Someone would come looking for him as soon as the fire department got there and this needed to be done first.
“Dean? I … they… Jess.”
“Sammy, what happened? Are you okay?”
“Tell JC he needs to lie low and I need you to come get me, Dean.”
“Sam, man, tell me what happened?”
“The crazy lady is back, Dean. She’s back and she killed Jess.”
“Jesus,” he could hear the waver in Dean’s voice, the empathy he’d always been so damn good at. He took a deep breath and waited until he heard Dean’s voice again. “Alright. I’m on my way Sam. I’ll call when I’m close to see where you are. I’m … seven hours out. I’ll get in touch with JC and I’ll be there. Just hang on for me.”
Sam hung up without answering. Dean was on the way and he’d take care of everything, just like he always did. With that figured out, he sat down on the curb, pulled his knees up and tried to drown out the memory of Jessica’s blood stained nightgown and the crazy woman who was trying to steal his brother away as well.
**
Sam looked down at his bag as his cell phone vibrated in class. It was against the rules to check your cell phone in class, but there were only a handful of people who had his number and none of them ever called just to check in. He quickly grabbed his phone and put it in his pocket before heading out the door. When his teacher looked up at him he just smiled. “Bathroom,” he answered as he walked out the door. He was bound to get in trouble for leaving but he didn’t care. He wasn’t likely to be in that school long enough to serve detention anyway. Their dad was supposed to be back on Saturday and he’d told Dean to have them ready to move on.
“Hello?” he answered the phone quietly as he walked down the hall towards the outer doors.
“Sam? Something’s here.”
“What? JC, are you okay?” He knew he wasn’t. By the age of ten his little brother knew how to handle a situation. Now, at fourteen, he wouldn’t call with that edge of fear in his voice if he was alright.
“I was in the bathroom and this woman came after me, Sam. I managed to fight her off but when I ran she was right behind me. I’m in the school theater but she’s between me and the door. I can’t get out.”
“Stay where you are,” Sam said calmly, though he didn’t feel composed at all. “I’m only a block away. I’m coming.”
He hung up the call and dialed even as he ran, suddenly grateful for the weight of the silver knife strapped to his ankle. He’d always hated walking around armed all the time but for once he was glad his father insisted.
“Sammy?”
“JC’s in trouble, Dean. He’s in the school theater. I’m running there now.”
“Be carefully, Sammy. I’m on my way.”
As much as Sam hated living in small towns, it was paying off today as he ran the short distance between the high school he attended and the middle school JC was in. They all knew the layouts of the two schools, the first thing drilled into them with their training was know the terrain so school floor plans were always memorized as soon as they got there. The theater, or auditorium, was at the back of the complex in a separate building from the rest of the school. A fence surrounded the grounds but Sam wasn’t willing to waste the time going around to the front and there wasn’t a fence made yet that could keep a Winchester from his brother.
He climbed the chain link and was over the other side quickly, thanking Dean in the back of his head for always daring them into stupid things, forcing them to train without even letting them realize what he was doing until now, when he needed to climb the damn fence and knew how.
He stopped running then, close to the building and trying to settle his heartbeat. He was hyper aware of what was happening around him and he needed that, but he needed to be prepared for anything. He couldn’t think of anything recent that could have followed them from a hunt, and JC said he’d been able to fight it off so it probably wasn’t something drastic like a terminator, but JC didn’t panic and if he said something was after him, something was.
Sam moved to the side entrance and opened the door slowly, creeping inside the small black entryway. He cursed himself for not finding out exactly where JC was in the theater, but he’d figure his location out.
“Come out, little man,” a female voice said from the center of the room, “I promise it won’t hurt a bit.”
Sam dared a look around the corner and saw her standing in the center of the round stage. She was in a perfect spot to see anyone trying to make a move towards the side door or the main entrance. She must have been turned completely away as Sam moved into the room or she’d have seen him, the small foyer area not giving him more than the tiniest cover.
She was beautiful, he had to admit that. Almond shaped eyes, with long black hair, her body was thin and he could see a fit, athletic body under the tight pants and black short sleeved shirt she wore. Brown knee high boots clicked prettily on the stage but all Sam could think were they were shit-kickers and they’d hurt like hell. At the small of her back was a gun tucked into her waistband and another was held in her hand.
“It didn’t have to be this way, John Connor!” she yelled. “It could have been different, but you changed everything!”
Sam saw a slight movement to the right and he found JC, slithering on the floor between the seats. The seats in front of him protected him from the crazy lady’s sight but from Sam’s angle he could just make him out. He needed to cause a distraction so JC could get out but all he had was a knife and she had her guns. What he needed were throwing knives because he just might be able to get in a good enough throw that she was immobilized long enough to get them out, but he had no such luck. His knife was made for hacking, not throwing.
“Sammy!” The main door flew open and Dean was there, striding through the door.
“Dean! Get down!” Sam yelled as the woman took a shot at Dean. JC was scrambling towards him and Sam grabbed him, putting his body between JC and the crazy lady.
Dean was dodging bullets as he ran towards them, guns pulled. He stopped to fire and the lady dove behind a row of seats to take cover. She hadn’t been prepared for JC to have back up and she didn’t have the advantage anymore. “Let’s get the hell out of here,” Dean said as he joined them behind a row of seats. The wooden backs weren’t great cover, but the lady didn’t have any better so at least they were even.
“Yeah, let’s go.”
“You have new friends, John,” the lady taunted from behind the seats. “Ever wonder what happened to your mother, John? Ever stop to question what happened to Sarah, or are you already too much of a machine?”
“What the hell do you know about my mother?’ JC demanded.
The sound of light laugh filled the air and Sam grabbed hold of JC’s arm to keep him from standing up. Dean’s eyes looked ready for murder but he was holding his ground. They had to keep each other safe, that was Dad’s rule, Sarah’s too.
“I know you’ll never find her unless I tell you where she is. I wouldn’t count on her help anytime soon though, Johnny boy.”
The sound of sirens made them all turn their heads and Dean cursed under his breath. “We have to get out of here.”
“JC?”
Their brother kept looking over his shoulder at where the woman was but Dean grabbed his arm. “We can’t find Sarah if we get caught, JC.”
Sam was more than a little surprised Dean wasn’t jumping the chairs to try to get to the woman himself, but Sam realized something new as he looked at his brother. Dean didn’t believe she was alive anymore. As much as he bolstered JC and Sam’s beliefs that she was out there, trying to find a way back to them, Dean had buried her in his head. He was keeping his family alive the best way he knew how. He grabbed JC’s wrist and nodded. “She’d kick our ass if we endangered you like this. Come on. We can’t let the cops find you, John.” He used the name on purpose. No one cared about JC Winchester, but if the cops came and ran prints they’d know they had John Connor on their hands and anyone could come after him then.
When his eyes caught Sam’s, JC nodded.
“Time to go, Dean,” Sam said, knowing Dean was trusting him to get JC out of there. He wasn’t about to let either of his brothers down.
Dean stood up, letting bullets fly and Sam and JC made a run for the door, Dean walking steadily backwards as they went. The wail of the sirens continued to get louder as Sam pulled JC out the door. He didn’t get more than a cursory glance - no limping so no broken limbs and though there were a few cuts on his face there wasn’t enough blood over all to warrant more concern just yet - as they waited for Dean to follow them out.
“Exit?” Dean bit out as he backed out the door. JC was pulling at Sam’s shoulder to get them moving, but Sam knew the tight tone in Dean’s voice. Whatever injury he had would have to wait though.
“A hole in the fence, this way,” JC answered. Sam pulled away from JC, grabbing at Dean’s shoulder but Dean shrugged him off. Sam knew the injury couldn’t be too bad the way Dean was moving so they ran out behind the theater until they found the hole JC was talking about.
They didn’t ask how JC knew about their escape route. Sam was too busy worrying about Dean and he knew Dean would just be impressed that JC had a secret exit lying in wait for them. They got through the fence quickly and then Dean was leading them down the next street to where the white jeep was parked. Although Dean drove the vehicle most of the time - except when their Dad was afraid the black Impala would stand out or leave the wrong impression - they still thought of the jeep as Sarah’s, like they were still keeping it for her and she’d return anytime to find it.
They piled in, though Sam took the keys when he realized Dean had been shot in the arm. “JC, look at his arm while I get us home.”
“Damn it, Sammy, its fine.”
“If it is then JC will tell me that in just a minute,” Sam replied coolly. He wasn’t about to trust his brother’s word when it came to an injury
Sam ignored the way Dean continued to bitch while he pulled away from the school as JC began pulling Dean out of his over shirt. Dean’s wound was still bleeding heavily, Sam could see that much from quick glances but JC was looking him over carefully.
“Looks like the bullet went all the way through, missed anything too important,” JC finally said to Sam. “We can take care of this back in the room.”
“Alright then.”
As much as Sam wanted to run every red light between them and the motel at neck-breaking speed, he kept a few miles under the speed limit to keep from getting into any trouble. Once they got there, Dean shook his head. “Sam, I’m fine. We need to get out of here. Whoever that was could have been following JC around. We need to find a new hotel.”
As much as he wanted to argue about it, he knew he couldn’t. Dean wasn’t about to let some crazy lady come after JC again. “Alright. Yeah, alright. JC, get our stuff packed up. Dad already got his but I’ll check his room over real quick and we’ll get a bandage over your arm, Dean. Once we get settled in again I can stitch the bullet hole up for good. Got it?”
The others nodded and they were moving to the motel room with a plan. Sam was right about John. He’d cleaned the room before leaving so there were no telltale signs of the Winchesters. He went to the other room then and watched as JC efficiently packed his things before grabbing Dean’s bag and packing his stuff as well.
Dean sat on the edge of the bed with his over shirt dropped to the floor beside him. The first aid kit was sitting on the bed and Sam opened the kit quickly as Dean swiped at the wound with an already bloody wash cloth. “Okay, Dean?” he asked quietly as he stood over his brother, looking at the broken flesh. His hands were already reaching for the first aid bag.
“Fine,” Dean gritted out. “Just slap something over it and let’s get going.”
Sam didn’t bother answering, just nodded as he pulled open the bandage and gauze. He put ointment on the bandage, and then wrapped the wound up tight until they could get someplace safer. “All good,” Sam said as he stepped back.
Dean stood up just as JC dropped Sam’s pack by the door as well. “That’s everything,” JC said.
“Let’s move out,” Dean walked through the door, leaving Sam to get the bags as JC ran to the front and left the keys.
The car was silent as Sam carefully drove them out of town, grateful that the next city was close by or he’d have been pulling over on the side of the road to patch Dean up. They got into town and Sam stopped the car at a phone booth as JC jumped out to find the first motel listed. They called and got the directions and Sam pulled up into the motel a little more than twenty minutes after they’d left their last place.
Dean was the only one old enough to get them a room and Sam pulled the jeep in, out of sight of the office window so no one would notice who Dean was with. Dean just grunted as Sam helped him put on a clean over shirt, then headed in for the office.
Dean managed to get them the far room, two queen beds and a lot of privacy since no one was booked in the room next to theirs. JC grabbed their bags as Sam pulled the door open and got Dean set up on the first bed. The rest of the room was a blur, but the motel seemed nicer than they usually stayed, cleaner and the air conditioning was actually keeping the room cool without the rasping banging sounds they were used to.
JC set the first aid kit out as Sam stripped Dean of his shirts. Dean looked up at Sam, brow raised slightly at that, but Sam didn’t want Dean having to raise his arms up to remove his shirt once he got him stitched up. Both shirts were dumped onto the floor just as JC came up with a bottle of tequila. They weren’t normally allowed to drink it, but John considered the liquor part of the medical kit - the Winchester Miracle Heal-all.
Dean took two long pulls from the bottle before Sam had the needle threaded. A look over his shoulder showed JC salting the door and windows and Sam took a deep breath. His hands were steady as he brought needle to flesh and Dean didn’t so much as flinch as he began working a neat line of stitches across the back of his brother’s bicep where the bullet had passed through.
He moved around to the front then, setting the needle to Dean’s skin where the bullet had passed on the way in. Dean’s hand gripped Sam’s hip tight, bruises forming under his strong fingers, but Sam didn’t try to pull away. He didn’t know if Dean would have been different in another life, but pain and the liquor flowing through his blood - another two shots when Sam had switched sides - left him pressing against his brother, his cock a hard outline at the seam of his jeans.
He finished the stitches and put the kit away before coming back to stand over Dean. Dean pulled him down and Sam let him, knees coming up on either side of Dean’s waist to straddle him. “You feeling okay, Dean?” he asked once again.
Dean’s smirk was slow and sweet. “Alright. You all done now, Doctor Sam?”
Dean grabbed Sam around the neck with his good arm and pulled him in close. Sam didn’t hesitate to bring their lips together, his hands wrapping around Dean’s shoulders to pull him closer. He needed to feel Dean around him, to know his brother was alright. It was the same whenever he got hurt. The years hadn’t made it any easier. Sam sucked at Dean’s bottom lip and was rewarded with a smile from his brother. He didn’t let him speak though, instead licking his way into Dean’s mouth and turning the words into moans.
Dean shifted under Sam, trying to get better leverage but a pained groan broke free as he moved his injured arm the wrong way.
“Idiot,” Sam heard from the other bed. JC was shaking his head as he moved over to Sam and Dean. “Shove off, Sammy,” JC said as he pushed at Sam. He might have been offended if it had been anyone else, but JC knew all their secrets, just like they knew his. Instead, Sam got up and grabbed Dean’s bag, ruffling through the contents until he came across the lube. He tossed the bottle on the bed beside his brothers as he watched JC help Dean struggle out of his clothes. When he was done, Dean dropped a kiss onto JC’s forehead and JC snuggled into Dean’s chest for a second before bounding up off the bed. “What would you two do without me?” he asked as he flipped the light beside the bed off. It wasn’t dark outside yet, but with the motel blinds closed the only light in the room was from the bathroom. Sam didn’t know why JC preferred the lights dark that way, but neither Dean nor Sam protested as JC settled into the other bed, turning onto his side to watch as Sam dropped his pants and climbed up the bed to Dean.
Dean grabbed the bottle of lube and smiled up at Sam. “You got plans for the afternoon, Sammy?”
“If you’re not in the mood I could just go to the bathroom and take care of myself,” Sam offered, even as he watched Dean flip open the lid and coat his fingers. Normally, Dean would put him on his back and kiss him senseless until he barely even noticed the burn but this time had to be different since Dean couldn’t use his left arm. Sam crawled up his brother’s chest until Dean’s wet fingers were pressing against his entrance.
“Damn, Sammy,” he moaned as the first finger pushed in. Sam closed his eyes and let out a deep breath, relaxing into the feel of his brother’s movements. He opened Sam up quickly, each thrust of his fingers bringing Sam closer and closer to the edge. When he finally pulled out, Sam was begging for more.
“Come on,” Dean whispered as his hands gripped Sam’s hips tightly. “Ride me, Sammy.”
Sam reached back and gripped Dean’s cock, positioning him just right as he sunk down onto the thick length. Sam bit his bottom lip to keep from moaning, but Dean didn’t bother trying to be quiet. Filth flew from his mouth and Sam had to lean in to kiss him silent.
Neither of them were going to last long, it wasn’t about that, and Dean started stroking his cock as soon as he was fully seated on Dean’s lap. “Dean, please,” he begged as Dean brought his knees up for leverage. When he thrust up, Sam couldn’t stop the moan even if he’d wanted to. He worked himself up and down his brother’s cock while Dean pistoned into his ass, never letting his hand motion falter in the slightest. “Fuck, Dean, Dean,” Sam whimpered, but his words were too late and he was coming all over his brother’s hand.
“Jesus, fuck, Sammy,” Dean cried out, thrusting up hard twice before his hands gripped Sam’s hips tight, burying himself deep in Sam as he came inside him.
Sam collapsed forward, kissing Dean until the tremors subsided. He pulled away then, flopping onto the bed beside Dean for a minute before he went into the bathroom to get something to clean them up with.
He cleaned himself up quickly, but by the time he came back in, Dean was sitting up, his back against the headrest. JC sat at his side, knees pulled up under his chin as if to make himself smaller than he was. Sam didn’t hesitate to throw the blanket back and clean his brother up, but when he threw the wash cloth back into the bathroom, Dean pulled the sheet up for Sam to join him. He did, settling against his brother, pulling the blanket up to Dean’s waist before letting his head fall into Dean’s lap.
“I don’t know who she was, or why she was after me,” JC said quietly as he leaned against Dean’s side. Sam looked up at the two of them and watched the way JC’s guilt played over his face. “She said I betrayed her, but who the hell is she?”
Dean let out a deep breath as he looked at his youngest brother’s face. “Go get a shower, JC, clean up your face, then come talk to me.”
JC nodded and it was only then Sam realized his little brother still had dried blood on his face. JC got up and hobbled into the bathroom and Sam started to rise before Dean pushed him back down into his lap.
“I should help him, Dean.”
“You will, when he gets out, Sammy,” Dean assured him. “Let him deal with her taunts, then he’ll be ready for you.”
Sam let out a deep breath. “I’m never gonna be as a good a big brother as you are,” he said wistfully. “You always know when he needs me and when he doesn’t.”
Dean smiled fondly at him as his fingers tangled in Sam’s hair. “Maybe I do, but it’s always you he wants to hold onto, Sam. You’re an awesome big brother. We just do things differently. JC is lucky to get us both.”
Sam smiled against his lap, but the adrenaline was gone and they were all safe again and the last thing he remembered hearing before falling asleep was the soft sound of Dean and JC’s laughter.
**
Sam didn’t have much to say to the cops or the fireman when they finished. He told them there was a burglar and the place caught on fire, but he didn’t mention seeing Jessica dead. He didn’t mention the killer’s knowledge of his brother or the fact that she’d come after his family six years earlier. The type of things that came after JC wouldn’t be stopped by mere police anyway.
He was sitting in a hospital room, staring down at his hands as his feet dangled over the edge of the bed. He wanted to get up and run, to do anything that would get his mind off Jess’s body but the staff wanted to keep him close. He’d started having trouble breathing earlier and they were worried about the amount of smoke he’d inhaled. He’d have taken off already but he had nowhere to go.
He closed his eyes and lost himself in the beat of his heart. Sarah had taught him that, a long time ago, the first time Dean had gotten seriously hurt on a hunt and Sam had been unable to sleep. Sarah had sat down beside him in the uncomfortable hospital chairs and told him to rest while he could, that Dean would need him to be strong when he woke. Sam didn’t know how so she’d told him to close his eyes. Then she’d talked to him about the importance of the heart, not just the function of the body but as a driving force for the soul. She reminded him that humanity was just a step away from the horrors they hunted and the heart was what kept them all from becoming monsters. She’d told him to listen to his heart then, to always - always - listen to his heart. He’d focused on that, the sound of the beat, and he’d been able to relax enough to sleep. He was pretty sure Sarah would have been appalled to know what else her lesson had meant to him, but Sarah had disappeared without ever finding out that listening to his heart had led him into his older brother’s arms. That her words had not only given Sam the courage to love his brother, but they had also given JC the ability to accept that Sam and Dean were lovers without batting an eye.
“Sammy?”
He had no idea how long he’d been out, but when he opened his eyes, Dean was standing in front of him, concern and fear warring with the anger that always riled Dean up when one of his brothers got hurt.
“Dean,” his voice sounded dried and cracked but Dean didn’t make him say anything else. Instead, he was wrapped in his brother’s arms. He took comfort in the strength of Dean’s presence until his brother pulled back slightly, one hand cupping Sam’s face as he kept their foreheads together.
“You ready to get out of here?”
Everything was the same as it had always been between them, no matter that Sam had worried about how Dean would react. Sam was the one who’d walked away after all, left and then asked Dean to stop contacting him. Dean just accepted him back, in ways that Sam always knew he would. He’d be angry later, maybe, hurt, and Sam worried about the fall out, but Dean’s unconditional love and acceptance were just part of who he was. That Sam didn’t deserve him was one of the things he’d had run from. “Yeah.”
“You need to get anything?” Dean asked, stepping back to give Sam space.
“No,” Sam whispered. “I just need to see that my other brother is safe too.”
Dean gave him a tight smile as Sam looked him over; checking for any physical signs of what the last few years had been like for Dean. Dean signed as he handed Sam a bag of clothes from God only knew where. “I know what you mean, Sammy. I know what you mean.”
**
“How’s JC?” Sam asked as they stopped in front of the Impala. Dean wanted to force Sam into the seat, needed to put a million miles between Stanford and Sam, but his brother looked at the car with a mixture of fear and awe. It’d been two years since Dean had last talked to Sam and he had no idea what this meant to him, what getting into the front of the car would do to Sam. He knew what Sam sitting in the passenger side meant to himself and he tried to push those emotions down.
Sam wasn’t his anymore, not the way he once had been and Dean wasn’t about to do anything stupid on the night he lost his girl, no matter how much Dean needed to tangle his fingers in Sam’s hair, kiss his mouth bruised, and keep him right the fuck where he was supposed to be.
“Good. He was doing some recon when you called. He was going back to the motel and heading up to the next town to wait for us.”
“You told him about-“
“Yeah, of course I did. He wanted to come with me but I convinced him if that crazy bitch was after him, heading to you was a sure fire way of getting you shot at again.”
“Low blow, man,” Sam said softly.
“Yeah, well a big brother’s gotta do what a brother’s gotta do, right? JC’s just as stubborn as Sarah and he’s got Dad’s patience. If I didn’t go below the belt he’d be riding shotgun right now and we’d probably have a psycho following us.”
“I’m not sure that’s a bad idea,” Sam said, his head bowed as he stared at his hands.
“Excuse me?”
“She… she knows what happened to Sarah. For all we know, she killed Sarah, and she killed Jess. Maybe I wouldn’t mind getting my hands on her.”
“Yeah, well maybe I don’t plan on using either of my brothers as bait,” Dean spit out. “What the hell?” He didn’t mean to be harsh but, Jesus. Sam was talking about using JC to draw her out and while he knew Sam was hurting, neither of them would ever really put their little brother in danger.
“Dean-”
“We’ll find her, Sam,” he cut his brother off before he could say anything else. He didn’t think he could listen to his brother’s defeated tone. “Whoever she is, if she was waiting for 6 years to get to us, we’ll get another chance. Don’t you start thinking stupid on me now.”
Sam didn’t answer but he looked up, staring out the window instead. The silence thickened around them and Sam finally spoke, his voice still thick and bruised from smoke and grief. “I’d never put him in danger, Dean. I just … I loved her.”
“I know, Sammy.” He didn’t know how he had the voice for this conversation. For two years he’d left his brother alone, not calling or stopping by. No gifts sent to his dorm or apartment and no postcards from the strange places they passed along the road. Just the suffocating need Dean had to know Sam was safe, with no way to find out. JC made his calls and he offered to share what he knew, but Dean couldn’t listen. Sam had asked for a clean break, for a chance at a different life without him in it and Dean had given that distance to him. If he heard about Sam’s classes or his job or the girl he was banging, he’d never have been able to let him go.
What terrified him the most was that if he’d shown up, demanding his place in Sam’s life, Sam would have given it to him. They both knew that, which was why Dean had given him the space in the first place. Sam hadn’t needed to tell him all the reasons he wanted to leave home and even though he knew their relationship was a part of it, he knew it wasn’t the only thing either. If that’s all his leaving had been about Dean would have fought Sam tooth and nail. It wasn’t and Sam had finally gotten the things he wanted in life. Dean wasn’t sure he had it in him to speak about it now, his pain at being close to Sam was too damn near the surface and Sam was wrapped up in a whole other grief.
Sitting across from his brother in the Impala, trying to make comforting words over the death of the woman Sam loved - when what he really wanted to do was pull over and fuck his brother senseless in the backseat until he remembered what love really was - was nearly impossible.
“Just get some sleep. We’ll get back to JC and go from there.”
“Dean? What about Dad?”
Dean tensed because he was trying real hard not to think about his father. The crazy woman who’d attacked JC when he was fourteen years old, who’d just killed Sam’s girl, had also claimed to have taken Sarah all those years ago. They’d never heard from her since and Dean, in all his years hunting, had never met anyone else as capable as Sarah was. The crazy lady was back and John was missing. He really didn’t like the picture the puzzle pieces were starting to give him.
“Dad’s missing.”
“Dean.”
There was recrimination in his brother’s voice but Dean couldn’t deal with Sam’s emo bullshit. Not about this. Sam didn’t want to talk to Dean, did he really think he was gonna call when John went missing? If he wanted to reprimand someone he could talk to the brother that still mattered to him.
He ignored his anger and just gave Sam the facts in a tight, clipped voice. “About three weeks back he went on a hunt and didn’t come back. JC and I took care of the hunt, a woman in white, but Dad was gone. His journal was left behind with a set of coordinates on a page in the middle. We were gonna leave tomorrow to check the location out.”
Sam looked back out the window into the night and Dean let the silence fall between them. His mind wouldn’t be quiet though. As much as Dean kept telling himself it didn’t matter, that Sam’s choice to leave him behind meant he didn’t matter to Sam anymore, he couldn’t stop the thought that Sam had called him when he needed someone, instead of JC. That choice didn’t mean anything. It couldn’t.
But it did.
**
John Connor stared at the dark man, eyes filing away everything he knew about the stranger. His clothes were rough and stained; the type you bought cheap or second hand so you could wear them in the middle of nowhere and know they’d hold up. Heavy boots, even in the summer heat, were made for long travel and wear. He gripped the shotgun in his hands loosely but with finger placement that made it easy to pull up and shoot. He held the gun with the ease of familiarity and the set of his shoulders screamed soldier in ways John didn’t know how to describe but had seen in hundreds of men growing up as his mother had taken him off to whatever training she felt he needed next. The man’s eyes were hunted, pained, the way his mother’s were when he asked about his father, or his future. He looked up at his mom then, her eyes flicking back to John where he stood right behind her, his own gun held at the ready in case he needed to protect her. She didn’t make a move but when her eyes flicked across the clearing he understood what she was trying to say and he focused his attention on the two boys who were standing opposite them.
The taller of the two stood, back ramrod straight, gun held in the same easy way the other man held it. He couldn’t be more than sixteen, but his eyes told another story. He and the kid behind him were dressed the same as the older man and there were enough similarities in the three to make him think family. The younger kid leaned back against a tree trunk, just behind his brother, maybe two years older than John himself. He stood behind the other boy the way John stood behind his mother, willing to protect if need be, but knowing that the first shot, however it had to come, was the other’s domain.
John found his eyes drifting back to the man again, noticing the slight nod of approval, as if he expected the older boy to protect the younger. It made him angry, for reasons he couldn’t really explain, except his mother had just spent two years in a mental institute for trying to protect him and this man barely spared a glance for his oldest son except to see he was protecting the younger.
“You look like you’re a long way from home,” the man said to John’s mother.
He could see her tense as she stared at the man. Her body was as rigid as she’d let her muscles get when she might need to fight, a slight change in her stance let him know she was ready and he shifted slightly to give her room, ready to run to find a better advantage over their greater size and numbers. He hated the idea of leaving her, but he knew his training.
“We’re just out hunting,” his mother said lightly. “A coyote’s been bothering some friends and we decided to check the area out.”
Her story was mostly the truth. Jose and Manuella said there was a chupacabra but he and his mother didn’t believe in that sort of thing. She’d whispered that night that whatever was bothering their farm was probably just a sick coyote, too weak and tired to go after its normal game.
“You decided to hunt a coyote through the forest with a ten year old kid?” The guy asked, not bothering to hide his disbelief.
“Says the man standing in the forest with two boys of his own.”
The guy smiled. “What’s your real story?”
He saw his mother’s shoulders relax a little; something about the man’s smile brought her out of fight mode. John looked back at the two kids and saw their stance hadn’t changed at all and he took their attitudes as a sign, not letting himself relax no matter that his mother had.
“We’re … survivalists.”
The guy looked her up and down, his smile broadening. “Sure you are. This might not be the hunt for you and your boy though. I’ve heard things about this … coyote.”
“You mean you’ve heard it’s a chupacabra.”
The guy just nodded and he knew his mother was smiling at that. “I think we’ll be alright.” She looked back at him and nodded towards the path they’d been heading down when the newcomers had shown up. “Move out, John.”
John nodded, looking towards the two boys as he started following his mother. They were looking back at the other man and he was rolling his eyes as the youngest crossed his arms over his chest, bottom lip out in a sullen pout.
“Wait,” the guy called out. “Sounds like we’re hunting the same thing. Why don’t you stay with us? No use in putting the boys in danger of stray bullets if we both find this thing at the same time.”
His mom looked at the guy for a second and then back to him. John dropped his eyes and then looked back up, a silent agreement to pairing with the others that they wouldn’t be able to see. He was intrigued by the two boys and wanted to know more, even if he was wary. He trusted his mom to make the final call though.
She straightened up to look at the guy then, reaching out her hand to shake his. “Sarah Reese.”
“John Winchester. These are my boys, Dean and Sam.”
John looked at the boys as they came forward, Dean was the oldest and he stood between the newcomers and his brother right up until Sam smiled and reached a hand out to shake John’s. John couldn’t help but smile at the friendly grin directed at him. “Hey,” the boy said softly, almost shyly.
“Hi, I’m JC,” he said, aware that his mother had left his name off the introductions. John Connor wasn’t a name that was safe anymore, not now that terminators were actually trying to come back in time to stop him from surviving Judgment Day. He wasn’t really comfortable being John Reese either, taking the name of the father he’d never known and would someday meet. Instead, he went with JC. Besides, he knew his mother. This guy had something to teach and he saw the way she was looking at him, protection mode falling away to training mode and he figured this guy was going to be around a while. Two Johns was just confusing and the less people who knew his real name the better. A trail of bodies in Los Angeles and Pescadero State Hospital could attest to that.
“Boys, make nice,” John Winchester said as he began leading the way down the path his mother had been about to take.
“Yes sir,” John intoned with the other two, already too entrenched in following orders not to hear the command in John Winchester’s voice.
Dean smirked at him as he watched Sam start after their father. Dean dropped his arm and spread it wide, gesturing for John to follow after Sam and he did, realizing as he did so that Dean was both putting him in a protected position in the group but also cutting him off from his mother. It was a smart tactic and John realized the father wasn’t the only one they could learn from.
John moved on, following Sam, knowing Sarah was at the back of the group, weapons trained on John Winchester if anything should go down wrong.
On to Part Two