"Agnatus" Part Four

[kellifer]

Title: Agnatus - Part Four
By: kellifer_fic
Fandom: SPN
Rating: Adult themes
Category: Dean/Sam
Words: 2,022
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue, no money!
Spoilers: None
Notes: Thanks to my beta *superfox* and to lyra_wing for Americanisation and beating my grammer into some semblance of recognition.
Summary: Two sons were born to John Winchester, years and miles apart. They grew up strangers but fate had other plans for them, and a black sense of humour.

Prologue | Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five



Dean woke up with a bark of protest when he received a bony elbow to the solar plexus.

“Dude, what the-?” he started to complain when the sounds that had been invading his dreams resolved themselves. Sam was making a small whining gasp and clawing at his throat with his hands, feet thrumming on the end of the bed.

“Sam!” Dean cried, coming up and swinging a leg over Sam’s flailing body, trying to pin him with his own weight. He grabbed Sam’s wrists and attempted to wrench his hands away from his already abused throat, seeing that Sam was digging bloody furrows to go with the already vivid bruising he had received on his first hunt.

As Dean wrestled with him, Sam’s lips turning blue, his flailing slowed and finally ceased, body going lax under Dean.

“Sam?” Dean prodded, leaning forward. “Oh hell no! Sam!” He couldn’t feel a breath and only the vaguest echo of a heartbeat. He moved to the side and angled Sam’s head to make sure his air passage was clear before lacing his hands together and starting compressions.

He lost track of how long he worked, but when Sam’s eyes flew open and he dragged in his first lungful of unaided air, Dean rolled him onto his side, listened to him breathe for a few moments and then dropped his head onto Sam’s shoulder.

It was a while before he stopped trembling.

000

Sam sat by the window, a cup of water next to his elbow. He had a blanket wrapped around his shoulders and, as Dean watched, he winced and brought a hand to his chest.

“I think you cracked a rib,” he said, grimacing.

“I’m going to crack your skull if you don’t tell me what’s going on,” Dean warned, nursing a coffee of his own. Sam had asked for one and Dean had just glared at him. “That thing you were talking about, with the dreams? That was you, right?”

“Dean-”

“If you lie to me right now, I’m walking away,” Dean interrupted, locking gazes with him.

“Okay, yes. It was about me,” Sam admitted, draining his glass of water and setting it back on the table. “I have these nightmares and sometimes…”

“Sometimes you get hurt?” Dean guessed and Sam nodded, dropping his head into his hands.

“About a year ago, I started getting these headaches. The nightmares followed but I just thought… I don’t know. That maybe it was just a way of processing guilt or something.”

“Guilt? Just what have you been reading?” Dean huffed.

“I know what’s out there, what’s in the shadows and the dark. Mom can try and protect us all she wants, but me and Jo…. we should be out there.”

“It’s not like inheriting a family business. You have a choice here,” Dean said, shaking his head.

“Did you?”

Dean blinked, taken aback. His grip tightened on his coffee cup and he put it down a little too hard, so a piece chipped off the bottom and went skittering across the floor. “That’s different.”

“How?” Sam asked, standing. He shrugged the blanket from his shoulders and crossed the room, fists balled. “Tell me how it’s different for you?”

“Something murdered my mother. Some evil son of a bitch stole into our house, right under our noses and killed her. I can’t rest until it’s dead and you have no idea what that feels like.”

“I have no idea?” Sam scoffed, slapping a hand to Dean’s shoulder and shoving when Dean stood. “What do you think killed my dad?”

“That’s different!” Dean insisted, voice rising, skirting the bed so he could put a little space between himself and Sam. “My mom was innocent. She didn’t do anything to deserve what happened to her.”

“Are you saying my dad deserved it?” Sam yelled, color staining his cheekbones, bright spots of angry red.

“He was a hunter, Sam. He knew what he was doing and knew the risks.”

“Just… shut up,” Sam ground out, the urge to strike out and end the words setting his nerves on fire.

“If you would stop being such a fucking brat for two seconds-”

Whatever Dean was going to say next was cut off when Sam launched himself forward, striking out. Dean evaded easily, stepping sideways, but Sam was already following up his first punch with a second and Dean moved right into it. There was a cracking sound as Dean’s head whipped back, and then silence.

Both men stared at each other, breathing hard.

“Okay, ow,” Dean snapped, touching fingers to his jaw.

“I hit you.”

“I kinda noticed.”

Sam couldn’t help the smirk that washed over his face. “Maybe not such a fourteen year old after all, huh?”

Dean dropped his hand from his jaw and cocked an eyebrow. “Pure luck. You won’t land another blow.”

“Oh yeah?” Sam’s smirk grew into a large smile as he brought his hands up into a classic fighter’s pose and did a little air-punch. “How much you wanna bet?”

Dean cast an eye about the room and then shrugged. “Maybe we should take this outside?”

“Are you kidding me?” Sam laughed, dropping his hands. “Do people actually say that outside of movies?”

“Shut up, bitch,” Dean said, but he couldn’t help his answering grin. “Everything I learned, I learned from the movies.”

000

“Why are we stopping?”

Dean had packed his stuff and loaded the Impala as Sam watched, steadfastly ignoring any questions thrown at him. Sam had stopped protesting and had gotten into the passenger seat when Dean had pointed at it and glared.

He’d sat mutely as Dean had drove, but when they’d sailed passed the turn off to the Roadhouse, Sam had started up with the questions again. Dean had merely turned up the radio and when that didn’t slow Sam down, he had started singing along at the top of his lungs.

Sam had lapsed into moody silence and hadn’t tried again until they’d pulled up at a gas station two hours later.

“I need to take a piss and you need to call your mom,” Dean said, digging his cell phone out of his jacket and tossing it into Sam’s lap.

Sam stared at the phone for a moment before picking it up with his fingers like it was a dead animal. “Why?”

“Because my bladder’s full from all the coffee.”

“Not… Christ! Why am I calling my mom?”

“To tell her you’re fine and you’re with me and there’s someone we gotta see. Whether you want to tell her why I’ll leave up to you, but she deserves to know.”

“Why didn’t we stop at the Roadhouse on the way out of town?” Sam asked, and Dean rolled his eyes.

“Because Ellen would have locked you in a closet and ran me off with a shotgun.” Dean shrugged. “This sucks, but you’re being Freddy Krueger’d and there’s someone I know who might be able to help.”

“Really?”

“No, not really. I’m just yankin’ your chain.” Dean smirked when Sam’s mouth dropped open. “Just call your mom and tell her I’ll have you back in a few days, hopefully footloose and nightmare-free.”

Dean turned, but stopped dead when Sam asked, “Am I just a case to you?”

“If you mean the basket kind, yes, absolutely,” Dean nodded, trying for a light tone, but frowned when Sam blinked large, liquid eyes at him. “Aw hell, do you think I make it a practice to make out with every pretty damsel in distress I meet?”

“Yes,” Sam answered simply.

“Well, yeah okay, you got me there,” Dean admitted, rubbing the back of his neck and grimacing. “But no, you’re not just a case.”

“You’re going to save the day and ride off into the sunset though, right?” Dean couldn’t be entirely sure, but it looked as if Sam’s eyes just got bigger and darker. He was a man and a little boy lost all at the same time, and he brought forth such conflicting emotions that Dean wasn’t sure what to do with them. There was definite want there, but also a fierce protectiveness that he just couldn’t quantify or explain.

It made him want to run for the hills and stay as close as possible to Sam all at the same time.

“Call your mom, we’ll go see my friend, and everything else can be later, okay?” Dean hated the note of pleading in his voice.

“Alright, sure,” Sam nodded, still looking glum, and it took all of Dean’s strength to turn and walk away from him.

He’d done this. He’d made the first move and it had gotten messy. If he could, he would kick his own ass. He wanted to save the kid, look after him, and do him – all at the same time.

He went into the gas station’s grimy bathroom and stuck his head under the faucet, turning the cold water on full.

000

“Did you fall in?” Sam asked with a smirk when Dean re-emerged, shaking water out of his hair.

“Not another word,” Dean growled, and then noticed the phone Sam was holding out to him. It was open, and Sam wasn’t meeting his eyes. “What?” he asked slowly.

“She wants to talk to you.”

“What? No!” Dean jerked his hand away and backed up a step. “I’m not in the mood to be yelled at for the next hour. She can ream me out when we get back.”

“She insisted,” Sam said, pushing the phone at Dean.

“Hang up.”

“No,” Sam snapped, looking scandalized.

“Why not?”

“I’m not hanging up on my mom.”

“You’re a giant girl,” Dean sighed and took the phone, treating Sam to a baleful glare. “Hi Ellen,” he greeted, trying to sound contrite.

“You bring my boy back here right now,” Ellen said with no preamble. Dean had been expecting yelling, but the level tone Ellen was using was somehow worse, like she’d streaked passed mad and had gone to some other place that couldn’t be measured.

“Look, I’m not sure what Sam has told you, but there’s something happening to him, something that isn’t good, my kind of not good if you get my drift.”

“Dean, you bring Sam back right now, I mean today or so help me God-”

“Ellen, listen to me. I’m trying to save your kid here.”

“If he needs help, we’ll take care of it. We take care of our own.”

“I’m not arguing with you about this. I’ll bring him back, hopefully in a few days.”

“Why are you doing this?” The question, asked plain, caught Dean off guard.

“I honestly don’t know,” he admitted. “Just, I need to help. I can help. I know I have no right to ask, but I need you to trust me.”

“Just… there’s things you don’t know,” Ellen said, sounding tired and resigned. Dean frowned and looked at Sam, who had moved to the front of the Impala and was tracing patterns on the hood with a finger.

“Okay, how about you tell me?” Dean invited, frustration bleeding through his voice.

“I can’t do that.”

“You can’t or you won’t? If it’s something that can help-”

“It won’t help. It’s just…there’s a lot you don’t know. A lot that isn’t my place to tell you.”

“That’s bullshit, Ellen. If it’s that damn important you should spill it.” Dean waited, hearing the vague clinking of glasses in the background that was probably Jo washing up from the night before.

There was silence for a moment and then Ellen let out a long, defeated-sounding sigh. “You think your friend can really help him?” Dean heard both reluctance and a small amount of hope in Ellen’s voice.

“I really do.”

“Three days, Dean. I mean it. If he has so much as a bruise on him when he walks back in here, the only way they’ll be able to identify you is by the dental records, if they ever even find the body.”

“Understood,” Dean agreed, snapping the phone closed.

It was only after he’d hung up that he realized that Ellen had skirted his questions neatly.