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Title: Just Hold On
Fandom: SPN
Category: Sam/Jess, Dean
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3,181
Spoilers: None, pre-series
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue, no offense, no money.
Summary: When family calls, you answer.
Dean jerks awake to shrill buzzing and feels about for his phone on the bedside table, jamming it between his ear and the pillow and letting out a muffled, “What?” Someone is already talking on the other end, as if they started before he answered. The words run together in a desperate babble that he can’t quite make sense of.
“Hang on, slow down,” Dean tries, recognizing that it's a female voice but precious little else.
“..there’s so much blood and he won’t let me call an ambulance and I don’t-“
The words finally come together, along with the pronoun and with cold certainty, Dean just knows.
“Who is this? What’s happened to Sam?” he demands, coming off the bed and reaching for his jeans, tucking the phone into his shoulder while he yanks them on.
“…but I can’t stop the bleeding and it looks like something bit him and oh Jesus-“
“Hey!” Dean barks, hoping the whip-crack of his voice will break through the litany on the other side of the line. Dean desperately wracks his brain, trying to sort through the three times he has talked to Sam in the last six months and if he mentioned any girls, any girls at all and then it hits him.
“Jessica!” he yells and her name is what does it. She stumbles into silence and he listens to her rabbit-quick breathing for a few moments. “What’s happened?” he says carefully, trying to lend her some of his calm, even though his heart is racing. He is searching around the room for a t-shirt when she takes a shaky breath.
“He came home about an hour ago and he was covered in blood. He said it wasn’t all his but I… god.”
“Okay, here’s what I need you to do,” Dean says and then starts listing off instructions, too fast her to follow. The point isn’t to tell her what to do but simply reach that place, that line where she either panics or copes.
When she takes another deep breath, less shaky than the last and says, “Hang on, say that last part again,” there is steel in her voice and Dean is relieved as hell that she has fallen on the side of coping. Way to pick ‘em Sammy, he thinks.
“I’m about two hours away. Give me your street address.” Dean finds a pen and when he can’t find paper, merely scrawls the number and street name Jessica tells him on his forearm. “Okay,” he says, trying to jam his feet into his boots without the benefit of his hands.
“Here’s what I need you to do in the meantime.”
~~~
It’s hard but Dean gets off the phone with Jessica, hoping that his Father is closer than he is but only gets the voicemail. He hangs up without leaving a message and dials Sam’s cell phone again. On the eighth ring he starts to get nervous but then Jessica answers, sounding breathless.
“How far away are you now?” is the first thing she asks, still sounding a little shaky but no longer on the frayed edge of panic.
“Did he tell you anything? Is he conscious now?”
“No, he just said he was in a bar fight or something and he’s passed out now.”
Dean takes a beat to press his phone to his forehead. Even at death’s door, Sam is protecting their secret and since Dean doesn’t know what he’s dealing with…
“Did you say it looks like he was bitten by something?” Dean asks, cold dread settling in the pit of his stomach as he glances out the window of the Impala and sees the perfect silver circle of the moon.
“I… I’m not sure. I’ve cleaned the wound up a little and it looks more like a tear but… it could be.”
“Jessica-“ Dean starts.
“Jess. It’s… everyone calls me Jess,” she corrects and then kind of laughs, a high-pitched nervous little giggle that has Dean worried.
“Jess, it’s very important to know whether Sam was bitten by something. I know it’s hard but you need to try.” He’s using a calm, even tone and her breathing levels out to match his own. It’s an old trick his Father uses.
“I can’t… I really can’t tell. It looks more like a tear.” Her voice lowers and Dean can picture her in his mind’s eye, leaning over his brother, eyes close to a ragged wound that is gaping like a macabre smile. Dean smacks his forehead smartly with the phone again, trying to shake the image. “It’s too wide,” she’s saying when he brings the phone back to his ear. “It’s not going to stop bleeding on its own. I’m going to have to stitch it.”
“You know how to do that?” Dean asks and there is another shaky laugh, but this time the black tint of panic is gone.
“I’ve seen it on television,” she says. “Look, this is stupid. I’m just going to ring an ambulance.”
“No!” Dean barks automatically and there is silence on the other side of the line. She hasn’t hung up though. “Look, do you trust Sam?”
“Of course,” Jess says, fast. No hesitation. Dean feels a small pang because other than his Father and his brother there is no one in his life that would say that about him, he would say that about.
“He asked you not to. You’re going to have to trust him.”
~~~
Dean makes it in an hour and fifteen minutes.
Whatever providence smiled, allowing him to be so close and not on the other side of the country, allows him to drive pretty much the whole way with his foot down flat on the accelerator without incident.
Okay, nearly without incident but the motorbike cop was so ridiculously easy to lose that it hardly counts.
It actually takes more time trying to find the right place. Last time Dean was at Stanford, Sam was in a dormroom but now he’s in an apartment complex, something popular with the students because it’s close to the University and cheap. He leans on the buzzer for a few seconds and the door clicks without anyone asking who it is.
He knows it’s the right apartment.
Dean takes the stairs two at a time and nudges the front door open, peering around it.
“In here!” A voice calls from somewhere deeper in the place and Dean navigates his way to where he thinks the bedroom must be. The door is wide and Sam is sprawled on the bed.
Dean freezes. He’s seen Sam hurt dozens, if not hundreds of times but it never fails to turn his blood to ice water. There is the sound of a faucet from another door that Dean figured was a closet but proves to be a bathroom and then Jess emerges.
There is long blonde hair and tan skin and dark smudges for eyes. Dean blinks and realizes she must have been wearing makeup that she has rubbed into a mess with her fists. She’s tall for a girl, but then ever since Sam started towering over people he always attracted the tall ones. Anyone would look petite and feminine hanging off his brother’s arm.
She looks tiny though, standing in the bathroom doorway. She’s wearing what must be one of Sam’s shirts because the hem brushes her knees and she’s holding a blue bowl against her belly. There’s what looks like blood across the right side of the shirt, spattering her chest and one sleeve is completely soaked. She has a line of red across her forehead like some awful war paint and Dean knows she must have wiped her face with the back of her hand without realizing what she was doing.
“Dean?” There’s this momentary flash of panic that washes across her face because she’s standing in a bedroom covered in blood and her boyfriend is unconscious, so Dean steps forward, smiling gently and relieves her of the bowl.
“Yeah, has he come to at all?” Dean asks, shrugging off his jacket with first one hand holding the bowl and then the other. He crosses to the bed and looks down. Sam is on his stomach in only jeans although the shirt he was wearing looks to have been cut off and peeled away from him. There’s a large square of gauze, taped down over his right shoulder blade and Dean lowers himself onto the bed, trying not to jostle Sam and then peels it carefully away.
“Pink stitches?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.
Jess’s face falls like she’s done something awful. “It’s all I could find,” she says, real misery in her tone.
“No, it’s really fine. I just wish he was conscious so I could tease him,” Dean says and Jess lets slip a small, tired smile. “Anyway, if he’s… after tonight you can take him to a Doctor we both know and she’ll redo it for you.”
“I thought I couldn’t take him to the hospital?” Jess prods, biting her lip and watching Dean settle the makeshift bandage back over his brother’s shoulder.
“You can’t. There’s someone… a family friend who’ll take care of it.”
“Good! Let’s take him now,” Jess says, moving towards the bed but Dean stands, blocking her.
“Not until the morning,” Dean repeats, hating this part.
“Why the hell not? This is nuts. I should have called an ambulance as soon as he came through the door.” Despite her words, Jess doesn’t move towards the phone. Instead she meets Dean’s gaze steadily, asking him to explain it to her, justify just why they are doing what they’re doing.
“There’s… hell, there is a reason but I…” Dean rubs the back of his head. “Look, I asked you if you trusted Sam.”
“You know I do,” Jess affirms, still looking troubled.
“Well, I’m going to have to do something just plain unfair and ask you to trust me by proxy. Do you think you can do that?”
Jess studies his face for a moment, as if she’s looking for the answers he just won’t give her. Finally she sighs and drops into an overstuffed armchair in the corner. “If he… if something happens, I’ll never forgive you,” she says with finality.
“Or myself,” she adds in a quieter voice and Dean isn’t sure he was meant to have heard it.
~~~
While Jess is back in the bathroom, Dean takes a vial of holy water out of his jacket pocket and sprinkles Sam’s back. He holds his breath for a second but there’s no smoke, no bubbling flesh and he lets it out again slowly.
It doesn’t mean they’re out of the woods, but at least they can see the tree line.
Sam said no to a hospital so there must have been a reason. Dean raises the makeshift bandage again and holds a bedside lamp over it, canting his head and looking hard but it’s too much of a ragged mess to tell anything.
When Jess returns, the smudge of blood is gone from her forehead and her cheeks are a little puffy. Dean realizes with a start that she must have retreated to the bathroom mostly to cry, but she’s looking tough and resolved now.
“What are we waiting for exactly?”
Jess asks the question so matter-of-factly that Dean has his mouth open to answer, with the truth no less, before he even realizes what he’s doing. He closes his mouth with a snap and makes a show of digging through his pockets. “You know, I’ve got that Doctor’s number here somewhere. I’ll give it to you now.”
Jess leans across the bed to put a small hand on Dean’s shoulder. “I’m scared for him,” she says and Dean feels something tighten up in his chest.
“I know you are. To be honest, I am too. I just… we can’t.”
Dean lost count of the number of times Sam pleaded for him in exactly the same way.
”Daddy, he’s really sick, we need to take him to a hospital…”
“Dad, he’s bleeding a lot, we need to go now!”
John Winchester always knew a guy or had a friend and now Dean was doing exactly the same thing. He was risking Sammy just in case.
He had to.
It’s what they did.
~~~
Dean jerks awake when his head slides off his hand and he nearly goes face first off the chair he’s sitting in. He looks up and Jess simply smiles at him through the gloom. She is lying beside Sam, chin propped on his good shoulder.
“Tell me something,” she says as she watches Dean resettle in the chair.
“Like what?” Dean asks and notices there is a cup of coffee on the small table next to his chair. He picks it up and cups his hands around it.
It’s hot.
“He never talks about himself, about his family. He asks questions and he listens to everyone else but he… evades.”
“Well, that’s really up to Sam.” Dean takes a long pull of the coffee.
“Please Dean, just talk to me. Tell me something… what was he like as a kid? What were you both like as kids?”
Dean sets the coffee aside and scooches down in the chair, putting his legs up on Sam’s bed so he can press his feet into Sam’s calf. He would never admit it, but it’s as much for his own comfort as for making sure Sam is still warm.
“Well, it’s funny. To look at him now, you wouldn’t think he was the shortest kid in school until he was a freshman.” At Jess’ smile, Dean continues. “He had this crazy growth spurt and went from being nearly a head shorter to having a couple of inches on me what seemed like overnight. He was all arms and legs for about a year, trying to get used to his height. Number of times he whacked his head on things, I was sure he was going to be a little dim.”
Jess grins, running her fingers through the hair at Sam’s nape. “He certainly knows how to move now. I’ve never met someone so silent. He keeps surprising me.”
Dean smiles tightly. “Yeah, being stealthy kinda runs in the family.” Dean takes a moment to finish his coffee and then looks at Jess for a beat. “Your turn.”
“What do you mean?” she asks, frowning.
“You tell me something about Sam. Is he… is he happy here?” When Jess looks a little pained, Dean shakes his head. “How about… what about him? I mean, you look more like someone who would be dating a footballer or something.”
“Am I supposed to be flattered or insulted by that?” Jess asks with a glint in her eye.
“You know what I mean. My brother… he’s not exactly the sweep off your feet kind, and you look like you need to be… swept.”
“I guess… he went so far out of his way not to be noticed, that you couldn’t help but notice him. I can’t really explain it but it’s like… people are drawn to him. I’ve never seen him actually make an effort to befriend people but he does anyway. People feel like they can go to him for help and when he looks at you, it’s like he’s looking straight in to your core.”
“Sounds creepy to me,” Dean snorts and Jess throws a small decorative pillow at his head.
“Plus, being his brother you wouldn’t notice, but Sam is a smokin’ hottie.”
Dean makes a disgusted noise and drops his feet to the floor. “I ask a simple question and get scarred for life in return. Yargh!” He stands and his knees pop. “Any more of this coffee around?”
“There’s a pot in the kitchen.”
~~~
“Hey kiddo, I got held up. What’s happened?”
“It’s Sam. He… I don’t know what he did but he got messed up a little.”
“Dean, what-?”
“I think he’s going to be okay but I’m going to stay here till morning. He’s… there’s someone here that will take care of him but I just wanted to… make sure.”
“I can be there in about three hours.”
“No, Dad, I don’t think… I don’t think he’d want us here.”
“I knew I shouldn’t have let him go to that goddamn school. He needs-“
“Dad, you didn’t let him. I think you pretty much would have had to go all Flowers in the Attic on his ass to have kept him with us.”
“He’s not safe without us.”
“Dad, was he that safe with us? He’s been here for ages and this is the first time he’s been hurt.”
“I could… I could just make my way there. We have to meet up anyway.”
“Sure Dad. Call when you get here.”
~~~
Dean freezes when he hears murmured voices coming from the bedroom. He waits in the hallway, rooted to the spot until Jess emerges.
“Hey, he’s awake. He’s a little groggy but there’s no sign of a fever or anything. Do you think we could take him to that Doctor now?”
Dean looks towards the window at the end of the hall and the pre-dawn light filtering through the curtains. “Sure, let me just call Doctor Chansky and warn her you’re comin’.”
“Okay, thanks. I’ll get Sam if you want to get the door-“
“Wait, Jess? Did you… did you tell him I was here?”
Jess frowns. “I hadn’t had a chance yet. Why?”
“I just… I think he’d prefer it… he wouldn’t have wanted me here.”
“Dean, that’s silly. C’mon.”
“No, Jess, seriously. Can you manage on your own?”
“Yes, but why?”
“I can’t really-“
“Explain that? Boy, you Winchesters. Obviously being closed mouthed and stubborn runs in your family too.”
“Just give me five to get on the road. Believe me, he’ll be happier not knowing.”
“He’s going to wonder where I got the Doctor’s name from.”
Dean shrugs. “Tell him you called me. I gave you the name.”
Jess follows Dean down the hall and through the living room to the front door, standing at the landing as Dean makes his way down the stairs. When he’s at the front security door, she leans over the railing.
“I didn’t by the way,” she calls.
Dean looks up. “Didn’t what?”
“I didn’t call you. Sam did. He passed out and I grabbed the phone and you were on the other end.”
~~~
“That her?”
Dean looks across at his Father and then back at the cottage across the park. There is a blonde girl holding the door open for the unmistakably lanky frame of his brother to pass through.
“Yeah, that’s her.”
“Maybe you should go see him?” His Father is carefully not looking at Dean.
“Nah, he’s not ready to let us back in yet.”
John does look at his eldest son then, trying to gauge what is under his carefully neutral expression and not being able to.
That saddens him more than he would ever be able to explain.
“Yeah, maybe you’re right.”
Fandom: SPN
Category: Sam/Jess, Dean
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3,181
Spoilers: None, pre-series
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue, no offense, no money.
Summary: When family calls, you answer.
Dean jerks awake to shrill buzzing and feels about for his phone on the bedside table, jamming it between his ear and the pillow and letting out a muffled, “What?” Someone is already talking on the other end, as if they started before he answered. The words run together in a desperate babble that he can’t quite make sense of.
“Hang on, slow down,” Dean tries, recognizing that it's a female voice but precious little else.
“..there’s so much blood and he won’t let me call an ambulance and I don’t-“
The words finally come together, along with the pronoun and with cold certainty, Dean just knows.
“Who is this? What’s happened to Sam?” he demands, coming off the bed and reaching for his jeans, tucking the phone into his shoulder while he yanks them on.
“…but I can’t stop the bleeding and it looks like something bit him and oh Jesus-“
“Hey!” Dean barks, hoping the whip-crack of his voice will break through the litany on the other side of the line. Dean desperately wracks his brain, trying to sort through the three times he has talked to Sam in the last six months and if he mentioned any girls, any girls at all and then it hits him.
“Jessica!” he yells and her name is what does it. She stumbles into silence and he listens to her rabbit-quick breathing for a few moments. “What’s happened?” he says carefully, trying to lend her some of his calm, even though his heart is racing. He is searching around the room for a t-shirt when she takes a shaky breath.
“He came home about an hour ago and he was covered in blood. He said it wasn’t all his but I… god.”
“Okay, here’s what I need you to do,” Dean says and then starts listing off instructions, too fast her to follow. The point isn’t to tell her what to do but simply reach that place, that line where she either panics or copes.
When she takes another deep breath, less shaky than the last and says, “Hang on, say that last part again,” there is steel in her voice and Dean is relieved as hell that she has fallen on the side of coping. Way to pick ‘em Sammy, he thinks.
“I’m about two hours away. Give me your street address.” Dean finds a pen and when he can’t find paper, merely scrawls the number and street name Jessica tells him on his forearm. “Okay,” he says, trying to jam his feet into his boots without the benefit of his hands.
“Here’s what I need you to do in the meantime.”
It’s hard but Dean gets off the phone with Jessica, hoping that his Father is closer than he is but only gets the voicemail. He hangs up without leaving a message and dials Sam’s cell phone again. On the eighth ring he starts to get nervous but then Jessica answers, sounding breathless.
“How far away are you now?” is the first thing she asks, still sounding a little shaky but no longer on the frayed edge of panic.
“Did he tell you anything? Is he conscious now?”
“No, he just said he was in a bar fight or something and he’s passed out now.”
Dean takes a beat to press his phone to his forehead. Even at death’s door, Sam is protecting their secret and since Dean doesn’t know what he’s dealing with…
“Did you say it looks like he was bitten by something?” Dean asks, cold dread settling in the pit of his stomach as he glances out the window of the Impala and sees the perfect silver circle of the moon.
“I… I’m not sure. I’ve cleaned the wound up a little and it looks more like a tear but… it could be.”
“Jessica-“ Dean starts.
“Jess. It’s… everyone calls me Jess,” she corrects and then kind of laughs, a high-pitched nervous little giggle that has Dean worried.
“Jess, it’s very important to know whether Sam was bitten by something. I know it’s hard but you need to try.” He’s using a calm, even tone and her breathing levels out to match his own. It’s an old trick his Father uses.
“I can’t… I really can’t tell. It looks more like a tear.” Her voice lowers and Dean can picture her in his mind’s eye, leaning over his brother, eyes close to a ragged wound that is gaping like a macabre smile. Dean smacks his forehead smartly with the phone again, trying to shake the image. “It’s too wide,” she’s saying when he brings the phone back to his ear. “It’s not going to stop bleeding on its own. I’m going to have to stitch it.”
“You know how to do that?” Dean asks and there is another shaky laugh, but this time the black tint of panic is gone.
“I’ve seen it on television,” she says. “Look, this is stupid. I’m just going to ring an ambulance.”
“No!” Dean barks automatically and there is silence on the other side of the line. She hasn’t hung up though. “Look, do you trust Sam?”
“Of course,” Jess says, fast. No hesitation. Dean feels a small pang because other than his Father and his brother there is no one in his life that would say that about him, he would say that about.
“He asked you not to. You’re going to have to trust him.”
Dean makes it in an hour and fifteen minutes.
Whatever providence smiled, allowing him to be so close and not on the other side of the country, allows him to drive pretty much the whole way with his foot down flat on the accelerator without incident.
Okay, nearly without incident but the motorbike cop was so ridiculously easy to lose that it hardly counts.
It actually takes more time trying to find the right place. Last time Dean was at Stanford, Sam was in a dormroom but now he’s in an apartment complex, something popular with the students because it’s close to the University and cheap. He leans on the buzzer for a few seconds and the door clicks without anyone asking who it is.
He knows it’s the right apartment.
Dean takes the stairs two at a time and nudges the front door open, peering around it.
“In here!” A voice calls from somewhere deeper in the place and Dean navigates his way to where he thinks the bedroom must be. The door is wide and Sam is sprawled on the bed.
Dean freezes. He’s seen Sam hurt dozens, if not hundreds of times but it never fails to turn his blood to ice water. There is the sound of a faucet from another door that Dean figured was a closet but proves to be a bathroom and then Jess emerges.
There is long blonde hair and tan skin and dark smudges for eyes. Dean blinks and realizes she must have been wearing makeup that she has rubbed into a mess with her fists. She’s tall for a girl, but then ever since Sam started towering over people he always attracted the tall ones. Anyone would look petite and feminine hanging off his brother’s arm.
She looks tiny though, standing in the bathroom doorway. She’s wearing what must be one of Sam’s shirts because the hem brushes her knees and she’s holding a blue bowl against her belly. There’s what looks like blood across the right side of the shirt, spattering her chest and one sleeve is completely soaked. She has a line of red across her forehead like some awful war paint and Dean knows she must have wiped her face with the back of her hand without realizing what she was doing.
“Dean?” There’s this momentary flash of panic that washes across her face because she’s standing in a bedroom covered in blood and her boyfriend is unconscious, so Dean steps forward, smiling gently and relieves her of the bowl.
“Yeah, has he come to at all?” Dean asks, shrugging off his jacket with first one hand holding the bowl and then the other. He crosses to the bed and looks down. Sam is on his stomach in only jeans although the shirt he was wearing looks to have been cut off and peeled away from him. There’s a large square of gauze, taped down over his right shoulder blade and Dean lowers himself onto the bed, trying not to jostle Sam and then peels it carefully away.
“Pink stitches?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.
Jess’s face falls like she’s done something awful. “It’s all I could find,” she says, real misery in her tone.
“No, it’s really fine. I just wish he was conscious so I could tease him,” Dean says and Jess lets slip a small, tired smile. “Anyway, if he’s… after tonight you can take him to a Doctor we both know and she’ll redo it for you.”
“I thought I couldn’t take him to the hospital?” Jess prods, biting her lip and watching Dean settle the makeshift bandage back over his brother’s shoulder.
“You can’t. There’s someone… a family friend who’ll take care of it.”
“Good! Let’s take him now,” Jess says, moving towards the bed but Dean stands, blocking her.
“Not until the morning,” Dean repeats, hating this part.
“Why the hell not? This is nuts. I should have called an ambulance as soon as he came through the door.” Despite her words, Jess doesn’t move towards the phone. Instead she meets Dean’s gaze steadily, asking him to explain it to her, justify just why they are doing what they’re doing.
“There’s… hell, there is a reason but I…” Dean rubs the back of his head. “Look, I asked you if you trusted Sam.”
“You know I do,” Jess affirms, still looking troubled.
“Well, I’m going to have to do something just plain unfair and ask you to trust me by proxy. Do you think you can do that?”
Jess studies his face for a moment, as if she’s looking for the answers he just won’t give her. Finally she sighs and drops into an overstuffed armchair in the corner. “If he… if something happens, I’ll never forgive you,” she says with finality.
“Or myself,” she adds in a quieter voice and Dean isn’t sure he was meant to have heard it.
While Jess is back in the bathroom, Dean takes a vial of holy water out of his jacket pocket and sprinkles Sam’s back. He holds his breath for a second but there’s no smoke, no bubbling flesh and he lets it out again slowly.
It doesn’t mean they’re out of the woods, but at least they can see the tree line.
Sam said no to a hospital so there must have been a reason. Dean raises the makeshift bandage again and holds a bedside lamp over it, canting his head and looking hard but it’s too much of a ragged mess to tell anything.
When Jess returns, the smudge of blood is gone from her forehead and her cheeks are a little puffy. Dean realizes with a start that she must have retreated to the bathroom mostly to cry, but she’s looking tough and resolved now.
“What are we waiting for exactly?”
Jess asks the question so matter-of-factly that Dean has his mouth open to answer, with the truth no less, before he even realizes what he’s doing. He closes his mouth with a snap and makes a show of digging through his pockets. “You know, I’ve got that Doctor’s number here somewhere. I’ll give it to you now.”
Jess leans across the bed to put a small hand on Dean’s shoulder. “I’m scared for him,” she says and Dean feels something tighten up in his chest.
“I know you are. To be honest, I am too. I just… we can’t.”
Dean lost count of the number of times Sam pleaded for him in exactly the same way.
”Daddy, he’s really sick, we need to take him to a hospital…”
“Dad, he’s bleeding a lot, we need to go now!”
John Winchester always knew a guy or had a friend and now Dean was doing exactly the same thing. He was risking Sammy just in case.
He had to.
It’s what they did.
Dean jerks awake when his head slides off his hand and he nearly goes face first off the chair he’s sitting in. He looks up and Jess simply smiles at him through the gloom. She is lying beside Sam, chin propped on his good shoulder.
“Tell me something,” she says as she watches Dean resettle in the chair.
“Like what?” Dean asks and notices there is a cup of coffee on the small table next to his chair. He picks it up and cups his hands around it.
It’s hot.
“He never talks about himself, about his family. He asks questions and he listens to everyone else but he… evades.”
“Well, that’s really up to Sam.” Dean takes a long pull of the coffee.
“Please Dean, just talk to me. Tell me something… what was he like as a kid? What were you both like as kids?”
Dean sets the coffee aside and scooches down in the chair, putting his legs up on Sam’s bed so he can press his feet into Sam’s calf. He would never admit it, but it’s as much for his own comfort as for making sure Sam is still warm.
“Well, it’s funny. To look at him now, you wouldn’t think he was the shortest kid in school until he was a freshman.” At Jess’ smile, Dean continues. “He had this crazy growth spurt and went from being nearly a head shorter to having a couple of inches on me what seemed like overnight. He was all arms and legs for about a year, trying to get used to his height. Number of times he whacked his head on things, I was sure he was going to be a little dim.”
Jess grins, running her fingers through the hair at Sam’s nape. “He certainly knows how to move now. I’ve never met someone so silent. He keeps surprising me.”
Dean smiles tightly. “Yeah, being stealthy kinda runs in the family.” Dean takes a moment to finish his coffee and then looks at Jess for a beat. “Your turn.”
“What do you mean?” she asks, frowning.
“You tell me something about Sam. Is he… is he happy here?” When Jess looks a little pained, Dean shakes his head. “How about… what about him? I mean, you look more like someone who would be dating a footballer or something.”
“Am I supposed to be flattered or insulted by that?” Jess asks with a glint in her eye.
“You know what I mean. My brother… he’s not exactly the sweep off your feet kind, and you look like you need to be… swept.”
“I guess… he went so far out of his way not to be noticed, that you couldn’t help but notice him. I can’t really explain it but it’s like… people are drawn to him. I’ve never seen him actually make an effort to befriend people but he does anyway. People feel like they can go to him for help and when he looks at you, it’s like he’s looking straight in to your core.”
“Sounds creepy to me,” Dean snorts and Jess throws a small decorative pillow at his head.
“Plus, being his brother you wouldn’t notice, but Sam is a smokin’ hottie.”
Dean makes a disgusted noise and drops his feet to the floor. “I ask a simple question and get scarred for life in return. Yargh!” He stands and his knees pop. “Any more of this coffee around?”
“There’s a pot in the kitchen.”
“Hey kiddo, I got held up. What’s happened?”
“It’s Sam. He… I don’t know what he did but he got messed up a little.”
“Dean, what-?”
“I think he’s going to be okay but I’m going to stay here till morning. He’s… there’s someone here that will take care of him but I just wanted to… make sure.”
“I can be there in about three hours.”
“No, Dad, I don’t think… I don’t think he’d want us here.”
“I knew I shouldn’t have let him go to that goddamn school. He needs-“
“Dad, you didn’t let him. I think you pretty much would have had to go all Flowers in the Attic on his ass to have kept him with us.”
“He’s not safe without us.”
“Dad, was he that safe with us? He’s been here for ages and this is the first time he’s been hurt.”
“I could… I could just make my way there. We have to meet up anyway.”
“Sure Dad. Call when you get here.”
Dean freezes when he hears murmured voices coming from the bedroom. He waits in the hallway, rooted to the spot until Jess emerges.
“Hey, he’s awake. He’s a little groggy but there’s no sign of a fever or anything. Do you think we could take him to that Doctor now?”
Dean looks towards the window at the end of the hall and the pre-dawn light filtering through the curtains. “Sure, let me just call Doctor Chansky and warn her you’re comin’.”
“Okay, thanks. I’ll get Sam if you want to get the door-“
“Wait, Jess? Did you… did you tell him I was here?”
Jess frowns. “I hadn’t had a chance yet. Why?”
“I just… I think he’d prefer it… he wouldn’t have wanted me here.”
“Dean, that’s silly. C’mon.”
“No, Jess, seriously. Can you manage on your own?”
“Yes, but why?”
“I can’t really-“
“Explain that? Boy, you Winchesters. Obviously being closed mouthed and stubborn runs in your family too.”
“Just give me five to get on the road. Believe me, he’ll be happier not knowing.”
“He’s going to wonder where I got the Doctor’s name from.”
Dean shrugs. “Tell him you called me. I gave you the name.”
Jess follows Dean down the hall and through the living room to the front door, standing at the landing as Dean makes his way down the stairs. When he’s at the front security door, she leans over the railing.
“I didn’t by the way,” she calls.
Dean looks up. “Didn’t what?”
“I didn’t call you. Sam did. He passed out and I grabbed the phone and you were on the other end.”
“That her?”
Dean looks across at his Father and then back at the cottage across the park. There is a blonde girl holding the door open for the unmistakably lanky frame of his brother to pass through.
“Yeah, that’s her.”
“Maybe you should go see him?” His Father is carefully not looking at Dean.
“Nah, he’s not ready to let us back in yet.”
John does look at his eldest son then, trying to gauge what is under his carefully neutral expression and not being able to.
That saddens him more than he would ever be able to explain.
“Yeah, maybe you’re right.”
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That was sad. Awesome but sad. Those angsty Winchester boys.
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Thanks!
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Awww. SAMMY! *sniffle* I like seing Dean and Jess interact. I was a bit confused because they are all "who are you?" in the Pilot but I think they would certainly be the type of people to act like they've never met. Heh.
Very nicely done. :)
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But honestly, it's sooo good, I don't know what to say...
Great work! And thanks for sharing your talent with us!
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Great confident tone. I was enjoying this but then not telling Sam! Oh! That was painful and good. Nice visit, thanks.
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that family. i mean really. c'mon boys. jeez.
hehe. liked your story. great job!
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oh DEAN! you enormous DORK! ... and you, too! amongst all the angst and the non-wincestyness (as much as dean and sam can be non-wincest...), the rabid fangirls/bois among us still get a little shout out. (thanks!)
“I didn’t by the way,” she calls.
Dean looks up. “Didn’t what?”
“I didn’t call you. Sam did. He passed out and I grabbed the phone and you were on the other end.”
THIS, on the other hand. oh, my heart. *aches* because if sam remembers calling dean, and dean's not there when he wakes up, and jess never tells him that dean came to help... oh god! Teh Angst! brilliant!
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:D
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Fabulous!
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Don't feel that you have to reply to any of my comments at all, I'm just reviewing because I wanted to let you know that people are still reading and enjoying. And I'm a serial reviewer. I can't help it.
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Here's an all-encompassing thanks! You've made me grin like a mad grinning thing today... :)
Thankyou so much for your kind words and hell, I think we need more serial reviewers! I'm one myself... *grin*
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Poor Winchesters. *sniffle* Gotta love 'em.
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Wow... i mean Wow, that was fantastic. ***i'd give you three thumbs up if i could***
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This is so sad! Why couldn't Dean stay now?? *sniff*
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Oh. So sad. I love Sam/Jess, and Dean all worried and protective, and injured Sam and this hit all those buttons perfectly. When Jess said that Sam had been the one who called Dean I swear I actually clutched my chest in embarrassingly cliched emotional reaction. Oh boys. Those four years awkward not talking, and now in S4 they might be drifting apart again... And both the characters they have to individually lean on in this are long dead! It's all too heartbreaking!
Also, Dean has read Flowers in the Attic? How completely untopical. *whistles innocently*
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