Chapter Text
It's not that Dean is disappointed in his brother for not saving him from Purgatory. He saved himself just fine, of course. Well, with some help from Benny, but the deal is done, Benny is alive, they've parted ways, and he doesn't expect to ever see the vampire again. Unless Benny fucks up and ends on the wrong end of a hunt, anyway.
No, it's just that if anyone could figure out how to travel alive to a different...dimension? Realm? See, Dean doesn't even have the words, and frankly he isn't even interested in them, it'd be his genius of a baby brother. Dean talked way too much about him to Benny, but then again, he's the first to admit he is slightly obsessed with that kid.
Never mind that the kid is almost thirty. Considering he can still effectively pull the puppy eyes, clearly Sam is still thirteen deep down. If Dean needs him, that's just long-honed brotherly instincts. Gotta check on Sam, make sure that his baby brother is fine, and then Dean will finally be able to relax. After a year in the role of prey – which was not fun, he'd rather stick to hunter, thanks – if he can't unwind soon, he'll snap and get himself into a mess. One Sam will roll his eyes at him for, all “you should have known better, Dean,” only right now his brother is not picking up the phone.
Is that really too much to ask? All Dean wants is to hear his voice...and okay, also to ask, “Hey dude, I'm back on earth, mind coming to get me?” But no, Sam doesn't answer, he doesn't answer any of his phones, the bitch. So Dean decides to head towards South Dakota. Jody helped them. Hopefully, she knows where Sam is, or at least will be able to help Dean track his wayward brother.
Now, going to a sheriff's house in a stolen car might not be the smartest move, but Dean wouldn't have to if his brother answered his fucking phone. Part of Dean wonders if it's just Stanford all over again. He fucks off for a year, what's stopping Sam from building himself a proper life again? Maybe that's why he's not answering. He doesn't want his brother to destroy his carefully curated life again.
It's actually only been a few months here, time always a little out of sync between realms, but it's not like Dean bothered to check the date. He needs his brother now. Then he'll bother with stupid things like the day or the month. Or the hour. It's so late it's early by the time he's parking in front of Jody's house, and maybe he would behave better – go to the nearest motel and come back in a few hours, hopefully after sleeping a couple hours himself... Only he sees the Impala peeking from behind the house. Yup, it's her, no way to mistake his baby. Even if she's lost some of her shine. He's always known that Sam can't be trusted to treat her like the lady she is.
He doesn't care why Sam is here. Maybe Jody needed help after a hunt, maybe his brother has a mommy kink and decided to hook up with her. Anyway, it means that he can see his brother and read him the riot act for turning off every last cellphone he owns. Awesome.
Dean's finger doesn't leave the bell until a somewhat wild-eyed Jody opens the door. She looks at him, blinks and tries to shut it on his face. Hell no. If she hadn't been just woken up in the middle of the night, Dean would undoubtedly have a harder time of it, but he manages to shoulder his way into the house. He's not going to be polite, not now. Thirty seconds later, she's splashing him with cleaner. “Not a Leviathan,” Dean says. “And since we're on the subject...” He takes out a silver knife and cuts himself. “Not a shifter, and please tell me you have holy water.” She nods, and he's sprinkled again not long after. “Not a demon, either,” he concludes.
He's concerned that Sam hasn't yet appeared. He can't have slept through all that, so why leave Jody to handle whatever alone? The only reason he can imagine is that his brother knows perfectly well who it is, and doesn't feel like facing him. Well, tough luck.
“Where's Sam hiding?” he asks, rather than starting to search her home. He's been rude enough for today.
Or maybe not, because she says, “I have no idea.”
“Jody, I saw the Impala.” If Sam put her up to this, told her some lie, or something, they should have planned it better.
“Yeah, about that...” She sighs. “We both need coffee.”
What Dean needs is Sam – ideally, a year ago. But something in her tone stops him. He'll listen to her for ten minutes. If his brother is in hiding here, he won't go far. Plus, Dean has spent a year being hypervigilant. If Sam decides to take the car, there's no way that Dean won't notice it.
“I thought you were...” Jody starts, while making that coffee.
“Well, clearly not,” Dean interrupts her. Didn't they just go through that?
“Sam thinks you are,” Jody explains, finally getting on topic. “He came by, just after – everything. Said that you'd died, and that he couldn't keep her. I asked if he was sure, but he insisted that she was angry at him for not bringing you back after so long apart. Honestly, I was this close to calling my friend Tara, she's a nurse, but he just said to make sure whoever got her loved her and bolted. I was – honestly, too baffled to move for a minute there. I've been holding onto the car hoping he'd change his mind.”
“And you didn't look for him?” Jody is a friend, or so Dean thought, but he's on the brink of attacking her. Her story is – not good. Not good at all.
“Of course I did, Dean. And he gave me the perfect excuse, because he didn't decide to just switch to running around everywhere like a spooked deer. He stole a car – I'm pretty sure it was him, given when and where it happened. I tracked it, but it was left in front of an abandoned warehouse. I searched the area, just in case – but nothing. No trace of him. I didn't know what else to do but hope.”
“Well, I know. We'll find him. But what use is having a police station if you don't lock him up when you have to?”
“He was sad, Dean, not murderous.”
“Yeah, well. When my brother is sad, he's dumb. And sometimes, the only way to make him see sense is to stop him and make him wait it out. You'd better hope that he's not done anything irreparable.”
“Of course I do, Dean.” But she's glaring at him, which she's definitely not entitled to after messing up that royally.
“Just let me use your computer and tell me what's the first car he stole, I'll track him down.” He's sharp, but there's no time to lose. God knows what Sam could have gotten himself into in the meantime.
Jody sets him up and leaves, perhaps back to bed. Dean is only vaguely aware of that – it'll take him a long time to stop being aware of everything, no matter how safe he is – fingers already flying. At least she has automatic access to all the police reports, which makes things easier.
There's a weird thing. Sam keeps swapping cars. Maybe just to make sure he won't be tracked. Maybe because no car will ever feel right now that he's left Baby behind. Maybe to get them back to the owners earlier. His baby brother can be considerate like that. The places where he dumps his latest pick are often similar, though, and something rings familiar. Dean starts digging on other reports. Missing people, found again after his brother went by. Some alive and hospitalized, some dead. Sam is taking cases, which is a relief. Sam is taking all djinn cases, which is confusing. They've always hunted anything they came across. Djinns, sure, but interspersed with ghosts, werewolves, shifters, and anything else with a taste for hapless people. Other hunters specialized, like Daniel Elkins and vampires. Not the Winchesters.
Sam's newfound taste is a blessing in disguise, though. His latest car hasn't been found yet, so Dean checks the news from where it was stolen, and starts looking for hints of djinns in a concentric ever-spreading area from there. When he sees what Sam saw – he's sure – well, there's no time to waste. He's turning Jody's house upside down in search of Baby's keys (perhaps the random box decorated with a golden retriever's head was supposed to be a clue, but come on) and only barely remembering to leave her a note saying he's gone to help Sam. Maybe she'll hate him for his attitude, but right now, he doesn't care. He only cares about not being late.
He shoots out of the door and peels out a second later, tires screeching, headed east. At least Purgatory honed him – there's no question of stopping for more than the few unavoidable minutes required by human nature. He's not pissing the car, passing out, or – right, he needs lamb's blood, and they can't store it long-term like salt or bullets. Eighteen hours later he's in some little village in upstate New York, hunting himself down a djinn. Or Sam, whichever he finds first.
His brother's latest car (a pathetic little thing, it's a miracle he fit in) is parked in front of an old, abandoned slaughterhouse. Djinn with a sense of humor? It doesn't matter, Dean grabs his knife, dips it into lamb's blood, and breaks in. The fucking monster almost gets the drop on him, because seeing his brother hung like a literal slab of meat, tubes attached to dry him out, means Dean's focus is now on him and nothing else – but Purgatory taught him well, and so at the last second he notices and turns, stabbing the blue fucker in the gut. “He won't say thank you, you know,” are the monster's last words, but Dean doesn't care about his nonsense. He's already taking Sam down, disconnecting everything, mumbling gently, “Come on, baby brother, wake up, Sammy, you gotta...”
Sam doesn't. He doesn't wake at Dean's begging, and he doesn't wake at a sharp slap, because sometimes you do what you have to. The dead bastard must have pumped him full of poison, and with Sam's size, Dean even understands why. But he's not leaving Sam's brain to melt and leak from his ears, he's not. He'll just find a way to wake up his Sleeping Beauty of a baby brother. There has to be one. Failure is not contemplated.
Dean drags him back outside – it doesn't matter how big or bulky his baby brother grows, Dean will always be able to carry him – and, after some deliberation, pushes him into the back seat. He hates doing so with a passion, awful memories roaring up – Sammy's place is at his side – but then again, the last thing he needs is taking a curve too sharp and having Sam coming down on him while he's driving. The resulting accident could kill them both. Dean finds them the closest motel, and then, at least, things start being a little more normal. Sam is just asleep, in the bed by the window, like always. Only he's not going to wake up, with a dimpled smile and a thank you, when Dean brings him one of these stupid froufrou coffees his brother likes.
Fine. It's obvious, really, isn't it? If Dean can't wake him up from the outside, he'll have to do it from the inside. He only needs a little dream root, then – Sam's right here, and Dean can shave him bald if he wants to, not only take a little biological sample. He's not going to, of course, because his brother will bitch for the prank when he wakes up. But he's still tempted because it would have been Dean's turn to be saved, but here he is, with Sam on the brink of death – again. And he's wasting time because he can't bring himself to leave the boy alone, but then again, the djinn is dead, and the kind of shops that have what Dean needs don't deliver.
“Be back before you know,” he promises – not that Sam reacts, of course – and he's already on his way. Thank God they're not that far from a nice little shop whose owner found Dean very agreeable a couple of years ago. The place is technically still closed, but she lives just above it, and mentioning it's literally life and death – and honestly, a refusal to hear anything else but a “Yessir, right now” – soon sends him back with his prize. It's only when he's about to toast with dream root that he realizes how fucking exhausted he is, even without the thing, and takes a couple of steps back from Sam to make sure he'll crash on his own bed when it takes effect. A sip, and Dean's eyes fall shut.