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“Hello?” she croaked, rubbing sleep from her eyes. If Frank was calling because he had misplaced the ticket books again, she swore she’d shoot him.
“Jody . . .” The muted voice jarred her awake as fast as a scream. That voice was never muted. Loud, rough, decisive, sometimes defeated even, but never, that she had heard, so soft and scared.
“Dean, what happened?” Jody demanded, mom instincts instantly kicking in, “What’s wrong?”
“Sam, he . . .,” a low cough interrupted the frightened, small voice, and it regained its usual authority. “we, ah, we got banged up a bit near your neck of the woods, hoping for a place to patch up and crash for the night.”
She considered insisting that he tell her exactly what was wrong with Sam right then and there, but his assurances that they were fine would only waste time. At least Sam couldn’t be too bad off, otherwise Dean would be telling, not asking. She hoped, at least. Instead, she simply inquired “how soon can you get here?”
“We’ll see you in an hour.” Jody was just able to make out his sigh of relief before he hung up the phone.
With Dean driving and Sam hurt, she had closer to 45 minutes before they peeled in. She gritted her teeth as she made her way toward Alex and Claire’s room to inform the teens that, yes they could spend the night at Alex’s friend’s house Alex would be thrilled, Claire would probably be disappointed. Even though Jody knew this particular friend’s parents were out of town, and the girl would probably be hosting a party, she figured better arrested for underage drinking than re-traumatized or killed by supernatural monsters, which the girls had seen more than their fair share of.
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Tires screeched into Jody’s driveway, and from her window she saw Dean limp out nursing a swollen knee and sore muscles a-plenty. After opening the passenger door, he wrapped Sam’s arm around his shoulders and pulled the taller man upright. Dean seemed to be murmuring encouragement to a barely conscious Sam as they stumbled to the doorway. Jody held it open for them, and then, as soon as they were through, ducked under Sam’s other arm and led the lurching ensemble into the living room. She already had sheets covering the couch and the professional first aid kit was waiting on the coffee table. They deposited Sam onto the fresh sheets.
“Will you please tell Dean that you’re supposed to let a concussed person get lots of rest and, yes, sleep.” Sam moaned, his eyes already closed.
Dean scoffed, “yeah, right. I’m sure-”
“Actually,” Jody interrupted, “your brother’s right. Guidelines have changed, kiddo. Sleep’s fine for concussions as long as he’s talking beforehand.”
“Ugh, see?” Sam complained, “There was no need to keep poking me through the whole car ride. I'm fine.”
“Even if he passed out for two minutes?” Dean raised his eyebrows. Somehow the severity of the younger man’s injuries was turning into a competition.
“Well Sam, if you were out for that long you really should go to a hospital to get checked out.”
“I'm fine.” He mumbled into the couch armrest.
Apparently Dean’s small “hmph” was taken as a sign of capitulation. Sam’s limbs, curled up to fit on a decent sized couch that looked minuscule under such a moose of a man, relaxed and settled against the white sheets.
After cajoling Dean into the easy chair to deal with his own injuries while she helped Sam, Jody patched up a total count of: a prominent bump on the head, a severely sprained ankle, countless scrapes and scratches on his face and arms, and a deep gash just below his right ribs. To the latter, Sam had been pressing what looked to be one of Dean’s shirts to stem the blood flow. Curious, she turned to Dean, “what happened here?”
“Garage door.”
“Oh?” Jody pressed. Continuing her ministering as she listened. She could feel Dean’s eyes on her every move, making sure she did everything just right.
“Found vamps in a home garage headed inside for the family. Male and female. Mates we think; have to be careful about that with vamps cause if the mate’s still alive, they’ll hunt you down for revenge. Sam went after the guy, but I guess he tripped on some of the junk that was there and twisted his ankle. I had the gal pinned down and was about to finish her, when the guy came to help. Backed me into a corner where I got caught on these balled up paint tarps. Sam limped in from behind them and chopped off the dude’s head before he saw it coming.” Here, the older boy’s voice filled with pride in his little brother. “but the girl threw him across the room into the garage door track. I got her. Then checked on Sam and called you.”
“Sounds like he saved your ass,” Jody agreed.
“But it was stupid. He didn’t need to charge in already hurt and make it worse. I could have handled it. He could have died.”
Jody raised her eyebrows a little, “maybe so, but seems to me like you oughta be thanking him.”
“Yeah.” Dean conceded, “S’just, ever since . . . he’s just been really reckless lately. Not just this, for a while now.” His worried gaze, going back to his brother, now seemed about more than just Sam’s current injuries.
His hand returned to its curled position in front of his mouth, as he watched her finish up. A habit, she had noticed, he seemed to fall back on whenever he was worried.
“Didn’t anyone ever teach you not to bite your nails, young man?” Jody teased, swatting his shoulder with the dangling tail of the gauze, standing up from a patched up Sam.
“Hmph,” he grunted, grimacing slightly with a brief flash in his eyes that strangely seemed not unlike fear, “wasn’t.” Still, he clasped the hand in his other between his knees before returning his death stare to Sam’s sleeping form.
“How have you two been holding up?” asked Jody.
“Well,” Dean replied, sarcasm dripping from his voice, “Sam just got back from being Lucifer’s chew toy, again, and we’re still no closer to stopping the primordial force throwing a tantrum that could destroy the world ‘cause her brother won’t talk to her. So just peachy,” he smirked.
“Sounds like a doozy.” Jody granted.
“Yep.” Dean glanced toward her then back to his still sleeping brother.
“Is Sam alright?”Jody asked, “I mean, that sounds horrible. Is he okay now?”
“Says he’s fine,” replied the hunter.
“Really?” she raised her eyebrows, “your little brother, in your own words, was the devil’s ‘chew toy,’ but it’s all just dandy cause he says he’s fine?”
“What do you want me to do?” he looked surprised that she had even questioned him, “you know how stubborn he is. If he says he’s fine, what can I do?”
“You talk to him,” Jody exclaimed, “you let him know that you’re willing to listen and that it’s okay to not be fine. You tell him that being reckless won’t make it better. And if you can’t do that or listen to him like that, you send him to someone who can.”
Dean sat speechless for a moment, then began to protest, “he knows all that. He’s the one always telling me that. I tried to keep him from having to go through any of it. I told him it was a bad idea, but he still went down there to talk with that creep, and now we have to go through this all over again.”
“Have you thought that knowing you warned him not to might be making him feel worse?” pointed out Jody, “and have you ever actually told him that you’re willing to listen?”
“Well . . .”
“How would he know if you never said anything? You need to let him know how much you care.” Jody asserted. Having said what she needed to, she stood and made her way towards the kitchen before he could respond, “are you hungry? I can whip up a sandwich.”
“Uh, sure,” answered Dean, startling a bit, then settling back into the chair for a long night watching over his brother. Glancing back, Jody thought to herself that if only the Dean could tell Sam how he felt as often as he showed it, their relationship would work a lot better. But one thing at a time. Right now, that boy needed some food after everything that had happened tonight.
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“Hey there, sleeping beauty.” Dean remarked, seeing his brother slowly blinking awake.
“Mmm, ’time s’it?” Sam started to raise himself up, but stopped with a grunt of pain. Dean half rose to help, but Sam just lowered himself back down and smirked at his brother’s attentiveness. “I’m fine, Mom.”
“Sure, you are. That’s why you slept through the whole day, you big baby.” Countered Dean, gesturing to the darkening sky outside.
“Yeah, well . . . least I'm not a jerkface.” Sam muttered, slumping his head back down on the pillow.
“Really?” retorted Dean, “‘jerkface’ is the best you can do?”
“Yeah, well-“
“‘Yeah, well’ you have a concussion.” Interrupted Dean.
Before Sam could respond, Jody walked in wearing her thickest jacket and gloves. “you boys playing nice?”
“MmHm,” Dean smiled up innocently, “ ‘course.”
Sam and Jody both chuckled at his phony sincerity. Then Sam angled his head towards Jody and said with real sincerity, “hey, Jody, thanks for letting us stay here. It was a lot closer than Kansas, and it really means a lot.”
“Sam, you know you’re welcome anytime, “ she smiled, “but I appreciate the thanks.”
“I second Sam,” Dean added, “otherwise I woulda had to deal with his complaining all the way back to Lebanon. And the less blood on Baby’s seats, the better”
Sam just rolled his eyes at his brother and looked away. Sam had to know Dean had been joking, but he had still winced, almost imperceptibly, at the dismissal. Dean didn’t seem to have noticed, but he now returned to his daylong activity of staring worriedly at the younger boy. Jody coughed to get his attention and nudged her head in Sam’s direction, then announced, “well, I'm headed out to grab some more fire wood.”
As she picked her way towards the wood pile, thoughts swarmed through her head like fireflies dancing through dusk. The girls had asked to stay one more night at their friend’s because, it turned out, there had not been a party, but the friend was just scared of staying by herself. Jody was secretly grateful for how well it had all worked out. It wasn’t that she was trying to hide the Winchesters from Claire and Alex, she had just noticed that danger and mayhem seemed to follow those boys wherever they went, and she would like to protect her girls from that as much as possible.
Lost in her thoughts, she reached the wood pile and almost didn’t notice the shift in the shadows behind it. Almost, but she hadn’t been sheriff for this many years for nothing.
“Damn raccoons,” she muttered to herself, grabbing the wood ax and making her way around the wood pile to scare it away.
Rather than a small nocturnal creature though, she was greeted instead by a full grown man. Her “who are you?” was cut off abruptly as his gloating smile revealed a mouth full of fangs.
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The door thudded shut behind her, leaving a sudden silence. Sam looked like he might try to go to sleep again, but Dean spoke up, “hey, not yet, Sammy. You need to eat something before you check out for another day. Jody’s cooking us dinner, she said it’ll be ready soon.”
“M’not hungry,” Sam wiped his hand down his face and cleared some of the sleep from his eyes.
“That’s the concussion talking. Don’t make me feed you with a spoon-plane like when you were little, in front of Jody,” threatened Dean.
“Ugh, fine,” Sam capitulated.
They lapsed back into silence for a moment. Then Dean spoke, “I, uh . . .you should know, uh . . .well, about, about , you know, the cage, uh-”
“I know already, Dean.” Sam interrupted.
“You do?” asked Dean.
“And I know you’re going to chew me out for it,” he continued, “just, do we have to do this now?”
“Wait, what?”
“I screwed up. Again.” Sam admitted, “once again you warned me not to and I did it anyway and I ended up helping Lucifer. I thought, maybe, with the trials, I was done. I was purified and I could be more than the guy who started the apocalypse. I even thought God would want to talk to me. Like I've ever been anything more than an abomination to that righteous bastard. I just, and I know this is no excuse, but I just really wanted to believe that for once I could, I could- God, I don’t even know- be of interest to something good, instead of just demons and the like for the rest of my life. So yeah, Dean, I know. Just maybe could we wait to have this conversation till I'm not concussed?”
For the second time in as many days, Dean sat speechless. Sam had turned his head towards the couch back, hiding his face.
Dean briefly cleared his throat, and then, “no,” his voice rang out clearly, “no, we can’t have this conversation later.”
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The vamp advanced towards Jody. Maybe it was just because of Alex, but she really thought she hated vampires the most of all the monsters she encountered. Zombies were of course worse, but she still couldn’t quite consider them full monsters.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,” he leered, “just wondering, have you seen two guys, smell like gun powder and flannel, just murdered my love?”
“Wait, you’re the mate?” Jody asked.
“What, you thought that reckless bitch was with Joshua?” he scoffed, “She’s the one who put him in harm’s way. It was her thoughtlessness that left a body trail for hunters to find in the first place. I warned Josh not to trust her, but ‘a sleeping family, what could be easier’ and ‘come on, Nathan, what’s the worst that could happen?’ And now he’s gone. He’s all I had, and he’s gone.”
“Oh, I feel so sorry for you,” Jody sassed.
“Of course you don’t. You hunters are all the same,” he declared, “bloodthirsty monsters.”
“You’re one to talk,” she retorted.
“Doesn’t matter what you think. You’ll be dead soon anyways,” he jeered, “the question is whether afterwards I’ll hunt down anyone who ever set foot in that house of yours, or just be satisfied with you. Tell me which one of those monsters killed my husband, I have something special planned for him. Tell me and I’ll leave those two girls alone. I can tell just from the smell of this place how good they would taste.”
“You don’t need to worry about that,” Jody informed him, “you’ll be dead before you get anywhere near any of them.”
His leer morphed into a snarl as he lunged.
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Dean briefly cleared his throat, and then, “no,” his voice rang out clearly, “no we can’t have this conversation later.” Sam’s shoulders drooped further into the couch, and he turned back to Dean, his face resigned. “or ever, for that matter,” Dean continued, “because that is not what I was going to say. That is the freaking opposite of what I was going to say. I was trying to say that . . . that whenever I go through something, you always tell me that I can talk about it, and I-I guess I wanted to let you know that you can too, if you want to.”
Sam was staring at him with those too wide puppy eyes and looked about to cry. God, why’d the kid always have to turn everything into a chick flick. Not that Dean hadn’t started it, but still.
Seeing Dean’s discomfort, Sam spoke up, “uh wow, thank you Dean. That, uh, that means a lot.”
Staring down at his hands, Dean muttered, “wasn’t finished. S’also gonna say . . . ugh god, Jody’s turning me into a girl- like you,” he smirked back up at Sam.
Sam smiled back and offered, “it’s all right. I know you’re not good at this. You don’t have to-”
“Yes, I do,” interrupted Dean, “this is important, and clearly you need to hear it.”
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Jody raised the ax like a baseball bat and swung. For a moment she thought maybe it would be that simple. Next thing she knew, the ax’s arc was cut short by a palm catching the handle just below the blade.
The vamp yanked the weapon from her and threw it to the ground. He sneered as she stood defenseless. Maybe vampires wouldn’t be killed so easily if they’d just stop gloating so much.
He reached for her throat, but she grabbed his hand in a wrist lock. Guess those worked on vamps as well as humans. She used her leverage to push him to the ground, then let go to grab for the ax.
Just as she reached it though, hands wrapped around her torso and tossed her into the old ash tree. The ax slipped from her fingers when she made impact and a yelp escaped as she slumped to the roots.
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“I never actually thanked you for coming in when the vamps had me cornered back there. So thank you,” Dean began.
“Well you’ve changed your tune. What happened to ‘that was reckless and stupid?’ Besides, we do that kind of thing on a weekly basis,” Sam observed, “you don’t need to thank me.”
“Yeah, well, when someone saves your life, its polite to thank them. You can make it up by thanking me for the dozen times I've saved your ass this week,” countered Dean, “and I was just scared because you’ve been acting super reckless lately, and we both remember what that reaper told you about no more second chances.”
“You-you do it becwause you care?” Sam mocked incredulously.
“Shut up, asshat,” he tossed a throw pillow at the younger man who caught it with only a small “oomph” of pain.
“And you’re the one saying I have bad comebacks,” teased Sam.
“Seriously, Sam,” Dean added, “what’s up with you lately. Ever since you got back, you’ve been acting like, well almost like I did the year before I went to hell.”
Sam winced at the memory, even after all these years. Now it was his turn to stare awkwardly at his hands.
“C’mon, Sam, Just talk to me,” Dean begged.
“You keep warning me about stuff and,” Sam started to mumble. Picking up pace, he continued, “and I keep thinking I know better and not listening and making everything worse. And I guess I just wanted to prove to you that I could do some stuff right and still be a good hunter sometimes, even though I keep screwing everything up.”
“Sammy, we’ve both screwed up.” Dean reminded him, “Horribly. Over and over again. But we keep going and we fix the mistakes we make. I was only mad at you because I want you to be safe. You know that. I want you to be alright, but I need you to know that it’s-it’s okay to be, uh, not alright, and it’s okay if you want to talk about, about any of it. Not promising I won’t threaten to rip Lucifer’s lungs out while you do, but you know.”
That last part finally got a hint of a smile from Sam’s solemn face.
“And hey,” Dean continued, “I’ll make you a pact, I’ll forgive you for going down there if you can forgive me for not picking up my goddamn phone. Deal?”
Wiping away the remaining tears in his eyes, Sam smirked a little. “Deal,” he agreed, “now come help me up.”
“What, where do you think you’re going?” Dean walked toward his struggling-to-rise little brother, not yet sure whether to help him up or push him back and insist he get more rest first.
“To hug you,” Sam stated.
Dean froze for a moment, then locked eyes with his determined sibling. He clasped Sam’s outstretched hand in his own and pulled him straight into a patented Winchester hug.
Just then, a thud followed by a yelp sounded from outside.
Simultaneously, the boys stepped apart, “Jody.” They quickly hobbled towards the door and yanked it open, pulling out their pistols and ready for a fight.
“Thwomp,” they arrived just in time to see a very pissed Jody stand up with an ax and slash it through the vampire’s neck.
“Wha- Jody, what happened?” asked Sam.
“Next time, boys,” she called, “make sure the vamp isn’t gay before you assume you got the mate.”