Work Text:
The phone is clasped in his hand, and Sam knows he's gripping too tight, and he's going to break it the rate he's going. But he’s called dean 5 times, voice mail reaching his ears every time, and he knows Dean would pick up. Even when they’ve screamed their throats raw at each other as kids, and Sam would storm out, disappear for a few hours, when one of them cooled down enough to call, they'd answer. They'd always answer.
(Sam never called after the fight about Stanford, after he left - for good this time - and he’s not sure he would have answered if Dean had called then. It feels weird now, like college life is a distant memory despite having left only six months ago, it’s like that life is almost untouchable now.
He hopes Dean would pick up the phone. He needs Dean to pick up the phone.)
He breathes in, holds it for a second, lets it out. The screen on his phone is still the same. No missed calls in the split second Sam took to breath - just the phone in his hand, and Dean’s name staring back at him.
He knows something is wrong.
He presses Dean’s name again, putting it to his ear - and there's still no ring, just the voicemail which means Dean let the phone run out of battery - which he wouldn’t - or he turned it off - which he wouldn’t.
He keeps the phone pressed to his ear a second longer than he needs, and then shoves it into his pocket. Dean was following up on the hunt, and now he’s not answering his phone. It’s not hard to put two and two together.
Meg is watching him from a few feet away, light lines forming across her forehead, lips pressed into a thin line like she knows what he’s going to say before the words are out of his mouth.
“You’re not coming,” she says. It’s not a question.
“My brother,” Sam says. “He’s not answering his phone. I think he’s in trouble.” And she looks pissed at him - she steps closer eyes bright and her hand finds his jacket, a small fist taking hold, and she has to strain her neck to look up at him this close.
“You- the way you talked about him,” she says, and her voice is quieter this time. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
Sam hesitates - she meets his eyes.
“Just come with me,” her hand moves from his jacket, presses her palm to the back of his hand, cold fingers wrap around his, soft and unblemished and so tiny.
“Me and my brother, we,” he starts, and he’s trying to let her down easy, trying to explain it, but he just sounds like a dick, apologising for leading her on.
“What we do; he could be hurt. If he’s hurt...” he trails off, and he thinks he doesn’t need to say anymore, hopes that she understands. Her eyes shine, all bleeding hurt and god Sam wants nothing more than to just disappear on some bus, kiss a girl he doesn’t know, vanish in a city full of people, so he doesn't have to worry about trying to be a person for a while. But there’s no real contest.
If Dean’s in trouble, Sam will save him.
“Be careful,” she says. Her hand falls from his and Sam immediately misses the sensation, only just stops himself from reaching back out.
“Sorry,” he says and knows his words are empty, even if he means it.
It’s not the first time he’s stolen a car, but he does hope it will be the last, but also knows that until he plugs the demon, he’ll steal as many fucking cars as he needs too.
He moves through the motions with a little too much ease since it’s been four years since he’s done this; but it’s like muscle memory. He moves through the actions like he’s brushing his teeth and not committing a crime.
Sam gets the door open, sliding inside and casts a quick glance around the parking lot, and doesn’t spot anyone, and he pretends to be more bothered by the whole thing than he really is.
Old habits die hard, as Dean would say.
He gets the car to start quickly, and he drives.
Burkitsville is in the middle of nowhere. A blink and you miss it town, but it’s easy enough to find when you’re looking for it. He’s lucky it’s 1am in no man's land, no cops, no prying eyes to watch Sam drive 30 miles above the speed limit in the dark like a maniac. Sam isn't sure what he would have done if he’d been pulled over, but he probably would have had to add assault on an officer to his list of offences for the night.
Sam ditches the car on the side of the road a couple of hundred metres from the Impala once he spots it, parked just outside the orchard. You’d have to be looking over the side of the road to see the stolen car, down the embankment, and he allows himself just enough time to wipe down the car for fingerprints before he runs back to the impala.
It’s locked, because Dean’s not a fucking idiot, but Sam also doesn’t have a key and all he has on him are a couple of knives and a .45 which will do exactly nothing against a fucking pagan god.
He curses, whispering, but it’s loud in his ears. There’s no one else around except him. He looks into the orchard. It’s dark, oppressively so, and he can’t see more than 50 feet in before it’s just black. He shoves his duffle bag under the impala, keeping it out of view and pulls out his gun. It may be useless against their particular brand of supernatural today, but Sam's not taking ant chances - he doesn't know what's in there, afterall.
Dean mentioned the god was a scarecrow, and he mentioned that the town was sacrificing couples. Not much to go on, and going in blind was the stupidest thing a hunter could do - and he can hear Dad’s voice in his head, grilling him through all the shit that can get him killed, and jumping into a situation with little to no information is a death sentence served to you on a silver platter - but it was all Sam had to go on.
He moves into the orchard, and the second he’s over the threshold, the air changes, it’s crisp, running along his skin, and making the hairs on his arms stand up. He has a torch in his duffle, but he doesn’t want to announce his presence to the literal god in the forest before he finds Dean, so he snakes through.
Despite the darkness of the orchard from the outside of it, the moon’s bright enough that Sam’s not worried about walking into a tree or tripping over a log, still the wrongness feeling persists, and Sam doesn't know if that means he shouldn't be here, if something bad is about to happen, or anything at all.
He sticks to the sides of the path, unwilling to walk out in the open, but there are only so many places to hide in here for a human, and there’s no wading through the mass of the orchard, so Dean has to be somewhere out in the open, somewhere along the paths.
There’s an area, after Sam's walked for a few minutes and is chilled right to the bone where he finds the path converges, meeting up with other paths to the most open area Sam’s seen so far.
In the middle is a wooden pole sticking in the ground, another smaller pole is nailed just below the top, rope dangles off the ends. There’s something about it that captures his attention, like he’s being repelled but can’t look away, can’t take a step closer. It’s wrong and Sam has no idea why.
He side steps around it to get to the other side, where there are a set of trees, big and old and Sam feels that these are okay, safe. He knows he needs to get to them, like he knows that there’s something about the clearing with the pole is wrong, and that there’s something in this forest that’s older than Sam can possibly understand.
Dean would call it his ESP shit playing up.
Sam’s not sure what he would call it.
Only that as he approaches the trees, he hears a rustle, the soft voice of a woman, high and panicked and Sam rounds the trunk, and Dean looks up at him, legs splayed in front of him, hands tied above his head.
“Dean?” Sam says, and his brother stares back up at him, eyes huge and skin white in the hollow moonlight.
“Sam,” he breathes out, and oh. Sam couldn't have spared a minute if it meant saving Dean.
He spares a glance at the woman, runs his eyes over her, but a she’s not bleeding out or dying, so he moves to Dean first, bending down, hands reaching for the knots - they’re only basic knots, shit that Sam learned how to tie by the time he was 10.
“Fuck,” Dean says, letting the emphasis do the talking for him. “It’s so fucking good to see you, man.”
Sam doesn’t smile, but it’s a near thing, a quick upturn on his lip that no one sees.
Maybe there’s hope for the two of them yet.