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It was Friday, which means chill night at Stanford. This week it was Sams turn to host, so they were all sat on his tiny couch watching some bad movie. It was fun, calm, relaxed and, more importantly, normal.
Then the lock started jingling, Sam was the first to notice. He picked up the remote and stopped the movie as he got up while frowning at the door. He didn’t expect anyone and whoever was trying to get in, wasn’t doing it the normal way. He crept closer to the door and his friends all shared a look, but no one dared to say a thing.
The door flew open and a man with dirty hands and a shovel ran in and closed the door. Sam was on him in seconds, grabbing the shovel and using it to pin the man to the door. The man didn’t fight back, instead he just put his hands up and said: “Hey, dude, it’s me.”
Sam identified the man, which was made obvious by his eyes widening in shock and him dropping the shovel. He asked: “Dean? What the hell are you doing here?”
“Long story,” the man said, Sams friends now could take a better look at him, he was handsome, not that much older than Sam with sandy hair and green eyes, his lips could be called mesmerizing and they watched them as they moved: “I was doing a simple salt ‘n burn, cops busted me. You have to hide me.”
That snapped Jane out of her trance as she said: “No, Sam, don’t! You can’t hide a criminal here, what if the cops come? What if they catch you? You want to study law, don’t jeopardize that for some random guy.”
Sam cringed as he looked back to the stranger, apparently named Dean. Dean said: “Some random guy? Ouch Sammy, I’m hurt.”
“Dean.” Sam pulled his original Bitch FaceTM.
“No, no, I get it, don’t worry.” Dean said, though there was a bit of hurt in there, “I mean, being an only child would have been great, right?”
“Come on, man. Don’t be like that.” Sam said, “It wasn’t as if I had that many nice family memories to take with me, or even a picture of you for that matter.”
Tom cut in: “Wait, he's family?”
Sam looked at his friends and saw all their curious faces. He sighed and let his shoulders sag as he explained: “Yeah, this is my brother, Dean.”
There was an uproar as all of them rushed to ask things like: “Why didn’t you tell us you had a brother?” “How are you so different?” “You aren’t going to let that cloud your judgment, right? He’s a criminal.”
Sam yelled: “Shut up!” a deep breath, “Thank you. Now, questions later, I hear footsteps.”
And sure enough, heavy boots echoed through the halls and doors were knocked on. Sam looked between the door, his friends and his brother a few times, before shoving his brother alongside his shovel behind the couch and telling his friends: “Don’t say a word.”
He ignored their protests and opened the door as someone knocked on the door. It was a police agent, who asked: “Have you seen a man in his twenties wearing a leather jacket, denim jeans and working shoes with dirty hands and carrying a shovel?”
Easily Sam lied: “Oh no, sir. But I thought I heard some ruckus on the fire escape, but with a dorm full of drunk students you hear a lot of random sounds, so I didn’t think much of it. Can I ask what he’s done? Should I be scared?”
The officer reassured him: “Nothing to worry about, young man. We caught the guy digging up some poor womans grave and burning her. The working theory is necrophiliac sex offender, so nothing to worry about for a living boy like you. Thank you for your time.”
“No problem officer, good luck out there. I hope you catch the guy.” Sam told him, managing to sound sincere.
The officer smiled and waved his goodbye as Sam closed the door. Once it was closed Dean got up from behind the couch with a small pout on his face and Sam started laughing. He was doubling over and gasping for air. Dean sulked some more and said: “Ha, Ha, Ha, very funny. Yeah, laugh it up.”
Between gasps Sam said: “They, they think, they think you're a nerco-, a necrophiliac, oh god.”
Then he dissolved back into giggles. Dean tried to stay upset for a few more seconds, but in the end he had to laugh as well. Sams friend didn’t understand why it would be so funny, Sam just casually lied to a police officer, while his brother had dug up a grave and was a suspected sex offender and wanted to for grave desecration.
Dean said: “This reminds me of that time they thought dad was into fucking cows, you remember that?”
“Oh yeah!” Sam exclaimed, “They took him in and everything. He had to try and explain to that lady officer that he was trying to shoot a wolf that was hunting them, which had ruined his pants. Aah, good times.”
“Then I had to sneak him the cell keys, while you pretended to be lost.” Dean reminisced, “I don’t think we ever set foot in Cherry County again.”
Jane couldn’t take it anymore, she exploded: “Sam! Why are you laughing at this? He has been caught red handed, if they ever find out that you hid him from the police, your law career is over. You might believe him when he tells you he’s innocent, but your relation is clouding your judgment. You’re over here, joking about your dad getting arrested and having to lie to police to illegally bust him out. That’s not funny, that is insane and seriously fucked up.”
Sam flinched a bit and Dean immediately went into protective brother mode. He said: “Hey, why don’t you keep your opinion to yourself, lady. You don’t know his story, maybe there’s a reason he never told you. I haven’t seen my brother in almost two years, so maybe you could let him have a moment with family that loves him before you start pushing your judgment down his throat.”
Sam put his hand on Deans arm and said: “It’s alright, she doesn’t mean anything bad by it. Jane is very good at coming up with doom scenarios, alright? You know we look fucked up from the outside, don’t ruin the friendships I’ve build here since I got away.”
Dean shot her one more angry look, which made her flinch, before looking back at Sam. Jane felt terrible, she knew she was quick to judge and to think the worse, but this really wasn’t the time, probably. She didn’t know, on one hand Sam having a fucked up youth explained so much about him and the way he acted, like how he would always look over his shoulder or know details about everyone and would comment on a car that he had never seen before, like he knew which cars drove by every day, on the other hand she didn’t know how dangerous this made him, he could be perfectly lovely, sure, but he could also be a ticking time bomb waiting to explode and when it did his friends would be the first to die!
Tom said: “This might not be the time, but what really happened? If, you know, the necrophilia stuff isn’t true.”
“Well,” Dean began, “grave desecration, is true, I did do that, but I had a good reason. You see, I knew the person next to this ladies grave, she was a close friend of mine, but her grass was wilting and I knew it was because that old hag next to her was treated by some budget mortician. So, to save my friends grave I tried to destroy hers.”
It was quiet for a second, then Jane asked: “Then why didn’t you try to take it up with the people of the grave yard or something?”
“I did, but it was a no go.” Dean lied.
Sam almost rolled his eyes at his brother’s story, Dean always had a way of coming up with a story on the fly, while Sam just tried to awkwardly get away. It felt nice to hear Dean make up bullshit stories again, like he used to when they were kids and Sam couldn’t sleep.
He was pulled out of his musings by Jess who asked: “Then you must have been into town for a few days, why didn’t visit Sam sooner?”
Both got big eyes as they looked at each other. Sam opened and closed his mouth trying to find an excuse for his brother, but nothing could come out. He felt everyones eyes on him like this was some sort of moment of truth where they would assume that Dean hated Sam and only used him for this sort of thing and they would angrily chase him away or something and he would never see his brother again. Right as he was about to have some sort of break down Dean found his words: “I didn’t think it would have been the smartest idea with how everything ended.”
Sam knew what Dean looked like when he lied, this was a truth. He said: “That was always just between me and dad, I never held anything against you, man. You were stuck just like me.”
“Yeah, but I’m still with dad, this is one of the first times we split up. Ever. He’s gonna be mad as fuck if he knows I saw you, you know that. In dads eyes I picked a side when I didn’t leave with you and if I see you, I betrayed him.” Dean replied.
Sam knew this was true, but he didn’t want to let Dean go, he wanted to argue, scream, swear, hold his brother until he knew the other would never go, but he knew that none of it would help. So he just nodded sadly.
“Hey, don’t be such a downer, Sammy.” Dean said.
Automatically Sam responded: “It’s Sam.”
Dean rolled his eyes and said: “Sure, Sammy” then he pulled him into a quick hug and said: “Until the next emergency, eh.”
Sam smiled weakly and waved at him as he watched Dean grab his shovel and climb out of the window. He looked at his friends and said: “That was a weird evening for everyone, I guess.”
“Did we make a mistake, Sam?” Jane asked.
“No, he’s trying his best and he would never hurt anyone without a very good reason.” Sam said, “It’s hard to understand when you weren’t there, but Dean, Dean is one of the best people out there, he was my mom since he was four, gave up meals for me and went to my school plays while dad never went. He’s just a good guy in a bad situation.”
Jess went up to him and said: “Sam, I don’t mean anything with this, but don’t you ever think you have to talk with someone about what happened to you, because this doesn’t sound healthy.”
“Yeah, maybe...” Sam trailed off and kept staring out of the window where Dean had disappeared, his friends sensed that this might not be the time to continue movie-night or the interrogation, so they silently left.
The next day Sam was old Sam again, when they asked about his family or brother he answered with short answers or not at all, until they stopped trying, but no one completely forgot. So, when Dean showed up some years later and taking Sam with him on a trip to find their dad, the first thing Jess did was tell everyone who had been there the first time they had met the older Winchester.
And none of them forgot that Dean had been there the night Jess died and none of them were really that surprised when Dean showed up on wanted posters all through America, but all felt guilty that they had been convinced by Sam's sad eyes and every single one of them could never let it go that they allowed that man to walk free when they could have stopped him long before he hurt anyone.