WHEN YOU FIND ME (call my name and I'll come to you)
'Verse: Nostalgia 'verse.
Words: 1,927.
Summary: Dean wanted nothing more than to have his brother back, but when the phone call came, it was just too good to believe. Sam had been dead for a year. He wasn't coming back, and Dean just had to accept that. Fortunately for everyone, Bobby doesn't.
*
Dean’s not ashamed to admit that things never really worked well with Lisa. When he’d turned up on her doorstep hours after losing his brother for the second time and asked for a beer, she’d been good to him - she’d opened the door and let him in, hadn’t asked any questions or pressed him for answers. She’d let him cry, and then tucked him up in her bed.
They’d tried their best to make it work; Dean got a regular, normal job that didn’t involve any weapons. He held Lisa’s hand in public and slept in her bed at night, he drove Ben to soccer games and football practice - they even had barbeques and invited the neighbours over. To the rest of the world, they seemed like a happy little family… sometimes Dean was almost convinced.
And then he remembered that he and Lisa had never so much as kissed, that every time she’d tried, he’d pushed her away; he remembered that he’d refused to help Ben with his homework, unable to read the math problems and not think of another dark-haired boy of the same age sat next to him. Dean was broken beyond repair, and not too proud to admit that if it weren’t for the promise he’d made Sam, he’d have been long-since dead and buried.
When he got the first phone call, he’d been understandably shocked.
“Dean Winchester?” The voice on the other end of the line, warm and feminine, had asked, a hint of sadness and concern there that had him tensing. His mind searched desperately through possibilities - had something happened to Ben at school? No, they’d have called Lisa first. Had something happened to Bobby? It was unlikely - he’d phoned Dean the day before to say that he wasn’t busy that week, asking if Dean wanted to visit. “My name’s Adrianne Martins.”
“Can I help you?” He’d replied sharply, leaning against the kitchen counter and passing the lunch dishes across to Lisa.
“I hope so. My husband and I found a Samuel Winchester passed out in a ditch by the side of the road early this morning - he’s confused and very sick, was hypothermic when we found him. We had to take him to the hospital… this number was on his speed-dial. Is he your son?”
“Sam Winchester is my brother.” Dean had shot back angrily, hands shaking and distantly aware of Lisa turning quickly to look at him from the other side of the kitchen. “And he’s been dead for a year now. Don’t call here again.”
He’d hung up before the woman could say anything else, and for a moment he’d just stood there, clutching the phone in his hand until it was white-knuckled.
“Dean?” Lisa asked gently, touching his elbow.
He jumped and shoved past her, reaching for a bottle of Jack. He passed out two hours later, his phone turned off and discarded on the kitchen side, and dreamt of his brother burning in hell, Lucifer and Michael’s laughter ringing in his ears.
*
The second call came a week later.
“Dean,” Bobby said stiffly. “Have you heard from an Adrienne Martins?”
Dean frowned, anger churning hot and heavy in his gut at the thought of the woman calling Bobby, too. Dean wasn’t the only one grieving. “The bitch phoned here last week, when I was home with Lisa. Told me she had Sammy - that she’d taken him to the hospital or something. Don’t tell me she phoned you, too?”
“Dean.” He repeated, voice soft, and Dean felt like throwing up. Bobby had never sounded that gently before, he was usually gruff. Insulting, calling them - him - an idjit. “She phoned me, too. I figured it was a shifter, someone trying to mess with our heads or something - headed out to meet her, to try and kill the thing. Wanted to get it over and done with, you know? It’s… you need to get here, Dean.”
“You can handle it yourself, Bobby.” Dean snapped. “I can’t. Not if it’s wearing his face.”
“It’s not a shifter, Dean.” Bobby told him seriously. “I’m telling you. I’ve tested everything - silver, iron, holy water. You need to get here as soon as possible… I don’t know how, but it’s Sam. It’s really him, Dean. He’s out.”
“It can’t be, Bobby.” Dean said, a little desperately. He wasn’t sure why, exactly, except that he was so desperate to believe that it was true that, if it turned out not to be, he was sure that it would break him completely - that there’d be no coming back from that. “There’s no way that he could have gotten out - we buried the rings, for heaven’s sake. I’m sorry, but you’re wrong - whatever that thing is, it’s not my brother. Sam’s gone. And he’s gone for good. We just have to accept that.”
“Dean, I swear to you. You think I’d do this to you if there was even a chance that it wasn’t Sam? But it is. I’ve seen him with my own two eyes. This is your brother.”
“I can’t just leave,” It was a last-ditch attempt. A desperate man’s plea. “What about Lisa and Ben? They need me.”
“Sam needs you.”
Dean hung up the phone and scrawled a note to Lisa, heading for his duffel.
One thing was for sure - he wouldn’t be coming back here. To Lisa and Ben. It was beyond selfish, almost cruel, but if it really was Sam, Dean wanted it to go back to just being the two of them. Brothers, like he’d always wanted. And if it wasn’t, well. Dean didn’t plan on needing a place to go back to.
*
Dean drove the six hours without stopping once.
Bobby had sent him directions to the hospital where they were keeping Sam and a message to ‘be safe’, and Dean headed towards the co-ordinates blindly. It was the first time that he’d driven the Impala since Stull Cemetery, but the comfort of her familiar leather was far outweighed by the anticipation of what awaited him.
Bobby had said that Sam needed him; Adrienne had told him that his brother was ‘confused and very sick.’ Honestly, Dean wasn’t quite sure what to expect. If the thing in there really was his brother, he could be in be in any state - whilst no-one had really implied that he was dying, there’d also been a distinct lack of reassurances that Sam was going to be okay.
The hospital was fairly small, in the middle of what appeared to be a fairly quiet time, and Dean parked the Impala with little trouble. Bobby met him at the door, looking worn-down and tired but offering him what appeared to be a genuine smile.
“I didn’t think you were going to come, for a while there.” He told the younger hunter honestly, leading him through a maze of hallways and stairways.
“For a while there, neither did I.” Dean replied evenly, stuffing his shaking hands into his pockets in an unsuccessful bid to hide just how terrified he actually was of what was happening. “How is he?”
“He’s doing alright, all things considered,” Bobby shrugged, slowing to a stop. “Just… he doesn’t exactly look like he did. Before.”
Before Stull Cemetery. Before he’d jumped into the pit. Before countless years of torture.
Dean nodded, and pushed the door open, stepping into the room as quickly as he dared. He was expecting for it all to be some kind of sick and twisted joke - an empty bed or a shapeshifter. At best, he’d been hoping for the brother who’d jumped into the pit, perhaps scarred just as much physically as he was mentally.
He wasn’t expecting to see his brother curled up loosely on his side the way he always did, looking no more than seventeen or eighteen years old.
It was like looking at a photograph of his brother when he was still just a kid, before he’d started piling on muscle and he was just tall and gangly and Dean’s baby brother. Aside from the fact that his brother had never looked so utterly broken.
The hospital-issue white t-shirt didn’t hide the way that his hip bones jutted out from the top of the hospital pants, that the shadow of his ribs were just visible and the sharp angle of his wrist bone was highlighted. The bright lights made the bags under his eyes stand out in sharp contrast from his pale complexion, and the oxygen mask over his face made him look like the vulnerable child that Dean had always longed to protect.
His outstretched arm had an IV inserted into it, various other wires and tubes connecting him to a series of machines resting between the head of the bed and the wall. He looked sickly and fragile, a far cry from the brother that had consumed demon blood by the gallon and taken down not one, but two, archangels.
“Bobby, what…?” Dean breathed, gripping the doorframe for the balance that he so suddenly seemed to lack. His head was spinning, but Bobby was there, his hand resting on the back of the younger hunter’s neck. Steadying him.
“Far as we can tell, whatever brought him back shoved him into his eighteen-year-old body. I really don’t know why, but he still has all of his memories.”
Dean nodded, and then frowned. “All of them? Even…”
“The ones from in the pit?” Bobby pressed with a slight, sad smile. “Yeah. Even those ones. That’s why he was so… confused when he first woke up. They had him in the psych ward for three days. Apparently they had to sedate him - couldn’t get him to stop screaming.”
“And now?”
“He’s better. Still skittish, but… he’s dealing.”
“And you’re sure it’s him?”
Bobby smiled, nudging him towards the bed. “See for yourself.”
Hesitantly, Dean headed forwards, sinking into the chair next to the hospital bed. Never before had he felt quite so unsure of his position at his brother’s bedside; ordinarily he took it for granted, being his brother’s protector. But that was his brother, lying small and innocent and scarily close to death, and if this was real, then Dean had failed him - truly failed him - in the worst possible way. Sam had needed him, and he hadn’t come.
Slowly, he reached out his hand, terrified that if he touched Sam the whole thing would fall apart. Turn out to be a vivid dream or something out of a djinn’s fantasy world. The skin on Sam’s arm was cool to the touch, soft and largely unscarred. But it was there. It was real.
The young boy stirred at the contact, foggy hazel eyes blinking open. It took him a few moments to focus and then, even through the oxygen mask, Dean saw him smile.
“Dean,” Sam breathed, painstakingly stretching his arm out to tangle their fingers together. His hand was shaking, but he seemed determined to hold on, as if he was worried that Dean would fade away if he let go for even the briefest of seconds. “Didn’t think you’d come.”
Only Sammy could look at him with that look, could say his name with that much meaning. Only Sammy would think so little of himself, and all of the walls that Dean had built up in the last eight hours crumbled completely.
“Of course I came, Sammy,” He breathed, leaning forwards to run his hand through his brother’s hair and kiss his forehead. “I’ll always come.”
*
As always, if anyone feels like doing any art or manips or anything for this then feel free :) There'll be a masterpost soon enough that'll need to look beautiful ;) EDIT: art by the wonderful rifle53. Many thanks to her!
Now continued in: WHEN YOU'RE LOST (trust in me to get you safely home)