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In the last week, my little brother had been arrested for murder and I’d quit school for the semester to help with his case. In the last twenty-four hours, I’d been tied up twice, tortured, kidnapped, and had some hideous monster change into me so it could kill my friend. In the last few minutes, I’d seen that same monster, wearing the face of Sam’s brother, shot to death, and Sam lying bloody and beaten on our living room floor. By the time I was cradling his head into my lap, I couldn’t tell you what I was feeling; I didn’t know myself. But I can tell you what I saw.
Dean, Sam’s brother, was crouched beside his dead double, staring at it. Not with horror or disbelief like I’d felt looking into my own face, but tired and resigned, like he was used to this. I didn’t know what to make of that, so I concentrated on Sam, who was coughing weakly, his blood soaking through my jeans. The creature had been choking him when we’d gotten there, and he was still wheezing. Then his eyes sank shut and he slumped against me, and I looked up frantically at his brother. “Dean!”
Dean forgot about the creature, setting down his gun and striding over to us. His expression changed a little, not so offhanded now, but I wasn’t paying much attention, smoothing Sam’s hair out of his eyes while Dean checked his pulse under his jaw. Dean’s shoulders came down a little, and he barely glanced at me as he said, “He just passed out.” I might have imagined it, but it sounded like his voice shook a little.
I let out a breath. I couldn’t have taken another loss just then. “I’ll call an ambulance.” I started to slide Sam off my lap, but Dean grabbed my arm. I just barely kept from shuddering.
“No ambulance,” he said quietly. “We have to figure out our story first, and I’m not letting Sam go anywhere I can’t protect him. He’ll be okay.”
I stared at him, not so sure I agreed. I trusted Sam but barely knew his brother, and while they seemed close, I didn’t know if I could trust Dean to do what was best for him. But he’d known what he was doing so far, so I gave him a hesitant nod. I could always change my mind later.
Dean laid a hand on Sam’s head, feeling along the curve of Sam’s scalp, and drew his fingers away bloody. Mouth flattening, he lifted Sam’s eyelids and peered into his eyes.
“Are you sure—?” I began.
“No concussion,” he said tersely. I didn’t ask him how he knew.
He looked at Sam’s wrists, listened to his chest, and wiped a trickle of blood from his mouth with sure hands. Apparently satisfied for the moment, he glanced over his shoulder, then stood, looking around the room. I followed his gaze to take in the wreckage: shelves collapsed, the coffee table broken, the lights above the pool table smashed. Dean walked over to the pool table and fingered something on it, then picked up a piece of rope. There was broken glass on the couch and he examined that, too. Reading the scene, I realized, just as he had at Emily and Zach’s place, and I wondered if maybe he was some kind of cop, after all, just not the kind they gave badges to.
He glanced back at Sam a few times as he went around the room, but Sam hadn’t moved even though I’d kept brushing my hand through his hair. It made me feel better somehow, even if Sam couldn’t feel it. Once, Dean stared at me, too, but I have no idea what he was looking at. I still remembered that face bending over me last night with knife in hand, and I looked away.
Then Dean was back, crouching next to us. “He put up a good fight,” he said quietly, and mussed the hair I’d been smoothing down with a soft pride. Then he met my gaze, all business again.“We need to move him upstairs. Spare bedroom?”
I nodded. “I can show you. But shouldn’t we call the police?”
Dean glanced back at the creature. “It can wait.”
I didn’t argue. I didn’t even know what I believed anymore.
Dean started to slide his left arm under Sam’s shoulder, then hissed and pulled back, and I realized he was hurt, too, but there was something about him that made me not want to ask. I just helped lift Sam a little as Dean pulled him over his right arm and shoulder, then carefully pushed himself to his feet. He was pale, but I couldn’t believe he would drop Sam, so I quickly stood to lead the way.
I heard him laboring on the steps behind me, and glanced back once to see determination in his face, the protective way his arm was wrapped around Sam’s legs. A little reassured, I kept going.
It was actually my parents’ room I took him to because that was the closest to the stairs and had the most comfortable bed in the house. I don’t know if Dean noticed but he didn’t comment on it, just eased Sam down on the bed when I pulled back the covers. Sam tensed, mumbled something I couldn’t make out, and with a frown, Dean turned him on his side. I stared at them, thinking about the fact that the house was about to turn into a crime scene for the second time in two days and I was hiding an injured friend in one of our beds. A week ago, life had been incredibly normal, and I couldn’t believe how fast it had changed.
“Can you get me some first aid supplies? Anything you’ve got. And some water and a towel.”
I nodded. “All right.” I brought him the water and towel first, and when I returned with the first aid kit from the hall closet, he was cleaning the blood off Sam’s face.
I stood and watched him work, my arms wrapped around myself, and it began to sink in just how different this Dean was from the creature that had pretended to be him yesterday. He was as silent and efficient as his double, applying butterfly bandages, soaking dried blood off the lump on the back of Sam’s head, then looking for where else he was hurt. But there was a real gentleness in how he handled Sam that I hadn’t expected, and quiet words of comfort that surprised me. His face was turned away from me, but the brief glimpses I got of it showed pain for his brother. While I was pretty sure he wasn’t usually that transparent, I could see now why Sam had known twice the creature wasn’t his brother, while I had been fooled.
Dean remembered me long enough to ask for an ice pack. By the time I came back with it, Sam was stripped and Dean was leaning over to look at his back. I winced at the anger that flooded his face and the words he said under his breath, reminded again of the creature’s rage, but the anger never translated to what he was doing. He rolled Sam carefully onto his stomach and covered him before I could see more than a hint of forming bruises.
“Thanks,” Dean said curtly as he accepted the ice pack, like it took effort to not snap at me. I pulled back into myself, a little afraid still of the changing moods of this relative stranger and of my memories of a monster with his face. Still, I was starting to realize you had to watch what he did, not how he looked or what he said. His hands expressed only worry for his brother and real kindness, and that didn’t change despite the anger and frustration rolling over him sometimes. And that was someone I could trust Sam and this whole mess to.
Dean nestled the ice pack against Sam’s throat with it’s already visible finger marks, and the cold roused Sam. I took a step forward, relieved to see him moving and waking up, and Dean leaned in, the first smile I’d seen on him that day straining his face.
Sam’s eyes focused on his brother, inches from him, and suddenly flinched away.
Dean jerked back as if slapped. I think I did, too. Sam, obviously not too aware to begin with, slipped back into sleep without realizing what had just happened. I guess we’d all been through a lot those last twenty-four hours. Dean uncurled a fist and maneuvered the ice pack back into place, and I pretended I didn’t see that his hand trembled, or hear his whispered, “Sorry, Sammy.” I’d never heard Sam called that before.
Dean straightened, looking down on Sam for a long minute, then turned back to me.
“Now, we call the police.”
I bet he was really good at poker when he wanted to be.
By the time the police arrived, we’d worked out our story. We’d toyed with telling them I’d shot Dean Winchester when he’d returned to kill me and finish the job, but the problems that would cause later weren’t worth the easy way out now, even though I could see Dean glancing repeatedly upstairs, wanting to go check to Sam. We took a chance instead, or rather, Dean did, introducing himself to the detectives who arrived. Ten seconds later he was in handcuffs. Ten minutes after that, they took them off.
Simple plans were the best, Dean had insisted with the voice of experience I hadn’t even wanted to think about. A killer had been masquerading as different people, down to the fingerprints, using the weird fake skin that lay in disgusting puddles around the living room. He’d been the one, not Dean, to attack me yesterday. There was plenty of evidence in his lair where it had held us both hostage, and if the police checked they’d probably find break-ins preceding the other victims’ deaths, too, the killer collecting personal items for its masquerade. Maybe it looked like Dean Winchester now, and though they knew no better name for him, he wasn’t the original. That Dean had shot the imposter when he’d returned to kill me, after an impressive fight. He had the bruises to prove it, too, and I turned away when he showed the officers. I already knew he and Sam had gone through a lot with the double I hadn’t heard about, and that was enough for me.
It was strange and hard to believe, but it also made sense. I could see the detectives recognized that, too. It would have gone against everything they relied on in fingerprint evidence to deny there was a fake Dean, and with my insisting Sam’s Dean wasn’t my attacker, they had even less to go on. They kept asking Dean the same questions over and over, but I could tell after a while they’d decided to believe us.
Dean kept shifting while he talked to them, restless for the first time since I’d met him. He wanted to get back to Sam, I knew. It had been at least an hour and I was worried about him, too. I finally caught Dean’s eyes, nodded toward the stairs, and he gave me a fraction of a nod back.
“Detective,” I cut in, “could I go upstairs and rest now? It’s been a really long night.” I know I looked the part, still smelling of the sewer and my hair in my face. It wasn’t an effort to appear pathetic, and it worked, the detective’s face softening. He was the one who’d talked to me in the hospital the night before, too.
“Go ahead, Miss Warren. We’ll call if we need anything else.”
A grateful Dean was an intriguing sight, too.
I turned away, hearing them start their questions again.
Night was falling, and with the drawn curtains, the room was dim. I had to creep almost all the way to the bed to really see Sam. He was still on his stomach, sleeping in the same position Dean had left him in, the ice pack now a soggy mess on the pillow. I pulled it out and threw it away, replacing the pillow with a fresh one. Sam never stirred. My conscience bugged me again for how I’d talked to him before when he’d only been trying to help, before he almost got killed for it. And he had helped, because I’d seen Zach’s watch in the creature’s lair and knew almost for certain my brother would be cleared soon. I was still all tangled up inside, not sure how I felt about a lot of things, but one thing I did know: I owed a lot to the two brothers.
I borrowed some clothes from Mom’s closet and went to take a long, hot shower to wash the monster off me.
Sam was still asleep when I came out, and I cracked the door open to hear what was going on downstairs. Dean was still talking. He sounded tired, I thought, and while he knew I was there with Sam, he didn’t know how Sam was. I couldn’t think of a way to tell him, though, so I shut the door with regret and went to curl up on the loveseat under the window, just a few feet from the bed.
Bone-tired but not sleepy, I watched over Sam until I finally saw him stir. He opened his eyes, only the bloodshot whites visible in the now-dark room, and I unspooled my aching body and leaned forward, clicking on the bedside lamp. “Sam?”
He frowned, blinking. “Becca?” The rasp to his voice would have been sexy if I hadn’t known what it was from.
“Hi.” I smiled at him, just a little.
His eyes shifted around the room, but I noticed he knew better than to try to move. More experience I didn’t want to know about. “Where’s Dean?” he finally asked.
Not What happened? or Am I okay?, but Where’s Dean? And I knew then at least I’d been right about Sam’s brother. “He’s downstairs talking to the police.”
Sam started at that, and tried to push himself up, gasping with effort. Appalled, I tripped toward him, trying to figure out where I could touch him that wouldn’t hurt. I finally took his arm. “Shh, it’s okay. The police know he didn’t do it. He just needs to convince them a little more.” I smiled again. “I get the feeling he’s good at that.”
Sam relaxed by degrees, as if that were painful, too. “He is,” he groaned, then blinked at the wall past me. “But he’s a good guy.”
“Yes, I got that feeling, too.” As Sam’s eyes moved my way, questioning, I added with a small shrug, “He was worried about you.”
Sam’s mouth twitched into a smile. “Yeah. I’m twenty-two and he still thinks I’m his baby brother.”
“You are,” I said softly. “You think Zach’s ever going to stop being mine? Not in this lifetime.”
Sam moved a little, winced. “I know.” And despite how tired we both were, I could hear an affection in his voice I’d never heard the few times he’d talked about his family. I wondered if it was new or remembered.
Sam coughed, groaned. I wanted to do something to help him but this was a little out of my league, and I wished Dean were back. But Sam was already drifting off, so I just reached out and stroked his hair until his breathing evened. I guess older sibling urges are universal. At thirty-two, going back to school for my PhD, I’d been the oldest in all my circles of friends there, and I’d teased Sam like a little brother then, too. He seemed to enjoy it, like he’d missed that. I had an idea why now.
I went back to the corner of my loveseat and tried to think about Sam instead of what had happened to me. It worked some, at least.
I didn’t realize I’d fallen asleep until someone touched my arm, and I opened my eyes to the face that had lurked in my nightmare. I gasped and pulled away, and saw remorse in Dean’s face. He didn’t quite pull off a smile. “Sorry. Guess I’m scaring everybody tonight.”
“I’m sorry.” And I was, especially when he moved back a respectful distance from me. I covered my discomfort by sitting up, pushing at my limp hair and pulling myself together. “Are they gone?”
“Yup. Living room’s a mess, but no more look-alike corpse, so points for style there.” He glanced at the bed. “Sam wake up at all?”
“Yes, once.” I wasn’t going to add what we’d talked about.
“Lucid?” Those eyes were disconcerting when they peered at you, even without my memories.
I nodded. “Completely.”
“Good.” His hand idly skimmed Sam’s head, nothing diagnostic about his touch this time, and I was curious if he even realized he did it. “Can you stay with him a little longer? I’d like to clean up, maybe grab a bite.”
And even in the dark, I could see right through him. “He’s not scared of you, Dean.”
Again with that piercing stare. Then it deadened into something deceptively blasé. “He is gonna be scared of me if I don’t take a shower soon. Please, Becca?”
Usually only my friends called me that, but he’d earned the right. I nodded, hesitantly. “All right.”
“Thanks. I’ll just, uh, go get some stuff from the car.” He walked out stiffly, like a coiled spring.
“Dean?” came a mumble from behind me.
Great, I sighed, turning back to the bed. Now if I could just get the two of them in synch, maybe we could all get some rest. “He’s not here, Sam,” I told him.
“Thought I heard…Need to…” It was more a groggy ramble than anything coherent, and I wasn’t surprised when it tapered into sleep. I pulled the blanket back up to his chin and waited for his brother.
It wasn’t fifteen minutes before Dean returned, and for the first time we could all be in the same room without it smelling like a backed-up toilet. I got up. “I need to get some sleep.”
He wanted to argue it, I could tell, but didn’t, just nodded uncomfortably. His eyes had been on Sam at least a half-dozen times since he’d walked into the room, but they kept slipping away, like he was unsure of his welcome.
I wasn’t sure I believed what the creature had told me, about only looking for love in its own twisted way. But I think it deliberately picked Dean to mimic because although he loved someone very much, he was also lonely. Maybe at some level, the double had been able to relate.
And I did something that surprised even me. I leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek, softly and gently and with gratitude. He stared at me in surprise, and I smiled at him. “Sam was asking for you.” I left then before he could say anything, or felt he had to. What was left to work out would be between him and Sam.
I went next door to my bedroom, and cried myself to sleep.
I woke to voices.
It was still dark, and part of me knew I was safe even with those masculine tones nearby, but another part was easily afraid now and wanted to be sure. I slipped out of bed and into the hallway, stopping next to my parents’ door.
“It said I should appreciate you more.”
“Just ’cause it was evil doesn’t mean it was stupid.”
“It also said you resented me and were jealous of my friends.”
“Well, don’t forget the ‘evil’ part. I kinda think that includes ‘liar.’”
I knew I shouldn’t be listening in, but these two intrigued me. The room was dark once more, Sam and Dean only silhouettes in the gloom, but I could see Dean was sitting on the floor leaning against the bed, his head about where Sam’s arms would’ve been curled.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Maybe.”
“Do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Resent me?”
There was a pause. “A little, sometimes. So, how’d you know it wasn’t me?”
“Besides tying me up and wanting to kill me and knocking me out twice?”
I smiled. I think this was the first time I was hearing “Sammy.”
“Yeah, besides that,” Dean answered, deadpan.
A pause. “I dunno. I just knew.” Sam’s breathing hitched as he shifted, trying to get more comfortable. Dean lifted an arm back and gave him a consoling pat, and I noticed Sam didn’t flinch away from him this time.
“Get some sleep. We should leave in the morning.”
“You too, then. I wasn’t the only one who got knocked out last night, and I know your shoulder’s still bothering you.”
“Thank you, Alison Dubois.”
“She sees dead people, Dean, she doesn’t read minds. And it doesn’t take psychic powers to see you’re favoring that arm.”
Dean deliberately reached back with his left to deliver a soft smack to his brother, who ouched even as Dean rubbed his shoulder out of Sam’s line of sight. I rolled my eyes and stepped away.
Behind me, the drowsy conversation continued with a comment that almost made me stop and listen for the response.
“I’m not going to leave you, Dean. At least not before we find Dad.”
But I could tell a line with a lot of history behind it, and that I really would be intruding if I stayed for the answer.
I couldn’t help but question, though, as I climbed into bed, before I fell back to sleep, what kind of life it was that Sam had left school for, and if regaining his brother was worth it.
It was an awkward breakfast.
Something had changed in the light of day, the intimacy of nursing wounds in the dark gone with the bright sunshine. Sam moved cautiously and Dean watched him covertly, and I acted as though I was feeling better from a single poor night’s sleep. All of us pretending, and I finally excused myself to go call Zach’s lawyer.
At least the news was good—really good, actually—and as I came back into the kitchen, I saw Dean had moved over next to Sam and they were engaged in quiet conversation, the two heads, light and dark, almost touching. So, the discomfort was just because of me, and I gave Dean a limp smile as he caught sight of me and flashed one my way, then excused himself to go out to the car.
But Sam was just…Sam again, smiling at me warmly as I sat down across from him. “What did the lawyer say?”
“The police found the thing’s lair and they’re probably going to be dropping charges against Zach and that guy Alex soon. They’re convinced ‘Dean Winchester’ was responsible for the murders.”
Sam snorted. “Great. You’d think they could switch to ‘John Doe’ or something.”
I hesitated. “Would you tell him, later, that I really am grateful for everything he did?”
Sam glanced at the door Dean had just gone through. “Oh, no, he knows that. He just figured it might be easier for you if, you know.”
I did, unfortunately, and I couldn’t completely disagree even if I didn’t want it that way. I knew better, but the damage went deep and I wasn’t sure I could ever look at Dean Winchester and not remember. And I was sorry for that.
Sam touched my hand. “Becca, it’s okay. He understands.”
I smiled sadly. “Yeah, well, maybe I don’t. All of this, it wasn’t fair, Sam.”
His smile nearly broke my heart. “It usually isn’t, Beck.”
I’d forgotten about Jess. And I had a feeling there was more I didn’t know and, honestly, didn’t want to.
But we were starting to get maudlin and it was really a good day, one in which Zach would go free. I brightened with some effort. “So, can I fix you some food for the road?”
I could see the understanding in his eyes. “That’s okay, I think we’re set. Tell Zach hi for me, okay?” He stood, and I did, too, to walk him out.
“I will.” I stopped him with a touch. “Don’t forget, little brothers are always supposed to listen to their older siblings.”
He laughed. “Did Dean put you up to that?”
“And our job is to look after you guys.”
I wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t know, but he nodded, face softening, and went out the door.
I followed him out and saw them off, giving Dean a wordless wave and getting one back in kind. I watched them talk before they got in the car, the comfortable way they interacted even though something that looked like Dean had nearly choked the life out of Sam the day before, the way Dean still kept an eye on his brother’s careful movements and Sam still watched Dean’s reactions. And I knew what I’d seen, knew the same rules applied to them as to Zach and me, maybe even more so.
And, yeah, I think maybe that was worth the life Sam had given up for the one he’d gone back to.
I watched them drive away until I couldn’t see them anymore, wondering if I ever would again. Then I finally turned and went back inside.
I had to go see my brother.