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"I'm telling you Dean, Dad is in trouble! We need to go to him now! Not tomorrow, or the next day, or after we've burned whatever bones will keep some stranger from having a heart attack, but now!" Sam paused for breath and Dean jumped right in.
"And dad gave us a new gig not five minutes ago, Sam, he's fine and we do what Dad wants us to do!"
"Please, for once in your life, Dean, just think for yourself! I've had the same vision every damned day and night for the past three days. Dad is probably going to die, and we have to stop it happening!"
"And if we don't stop this spirit, seven people are going to die in the next seven days. Look Sammy-"
"It's Sam so don't try and pull the big brother crap with me!"
"You've left a dozen messages for Dad, Sam and he still sent us this case to deal with. Don't you think he might be saying he's got a handle on whatever's going on? That he wants us to trust him to do what he has to do, while he trusts us to do what he wants us to do?"
"Just listen to yourself, Dean!" Sam broke off what he was about to say, afraid of saying anything irrevocable, but his brother got there ahead of him.
"Why, because I'm sounding like a loyal son who trusts his father?" Dean snapped, lashing out to hurt before he could be hurt. "Or were you going to use that other thing, toy soldier wasn't it?"
Sam nodded and, fuming, picked his backpack off the bed. "I'm going to find Dad. You can come with, or go find other people to save."
"You're leaving." Dean's tone was taken aback and strangely flat.
"Yes, Dean, I'm leaving. Again," Sam said. "And if you need me to pull your sorry ass out of trouble, call me and ask. It won't kill you, I promise."
"I – I just." Dean's gaze wavered between Sam and the laptop that displayed a website their father had directed them to for the case. "You're not going alone."
Sam paused, then said softly, "I'm not going to take a detour to save strangers because it never ends. There'll always be someone else and Dad'll be the one we don't save."
Dean was clearly torn. If it was a choice between himself and Sam, then Sam would win every time, but it wasn't that simple. "Do you know where Dad is? Or where he's supposed to, uh, supposed to thing?"
"Warrington, it's –"
"I know, around one hundred clicks west of here." Dean paced and Sam dropped his pack to the floor. Neither one of them wanted to leave things the way had last time they'd fought like this.
Sam waited for Dean to think this through, knowing that they both knew the answer, but that Dean needed a little time before committing to it. Finally, Dean paused by the laptop. "I'll take you to the bus depot. I should be done in a couple of days and I'll join you then."
"Sure," said Sam lightly. "We cover all bases that way."
"Just make sure you call," Dean said gruffly, making a point of putting his own cell in his front pocket.
"Jerk," Sam agreed, waving his own cell at Dean who picked his own pack and the laptop up.
"Bitch."
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Sam went to Warrington and hooked up with his Dad who was happy to see him, but upset that Sam had come alone and that his boys had split up. Nevertheless, he was quick to have Sam along for the ride when Sam assured him the Dean would be along in a couple of days.
The hunt so nearly went badly wrong that Sam thought that both he and John were going to die, but being forewarned by Sam's visions, they were able to pull a last minute save and destroy the ghoul that would have undoubtedly killed John had Sam not been there.
When it was over, they were both bleeding and broken, both incapable of walking more than two steps, each fumbling the bandages and painkillers as they tried to patch each other up. And both waiting for Dean to come and take care of them. At different points in the early part of their incoherent convalescence they each tried to call Dean, giving up when the out of service message came up.
Dean never arrived to take care of them.
Two weeks after they'd killed the monster that nearly killed them, Sam told his father that he was going to look for his brother.
John called a couple of contacts and told Sam that the people Dean had gone to save hadn't died.
Sam wanted John to come with him, asked him if he really cared. John told him if he didn't care then he would go, but he cared enough that he couldn't put his sons in danger.
Sam never felt as alone in the world as he did when he found the last traces of his brother on a lonely road in the middle of nowhere. A pair of straight skid marks that ended in the middle of the road right next Dean's crushed cell phone.
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Cruising in his borrowed car into the next town, Sam spotted the Impala without even trying. The salvage yard owner, Rick Harman said the car had been found abandoned out on the road with its driver's door wide open so like any good Samaritan he'd towed it in and he'd take five hundred dollars for his trouble thank you very much.
The town sheriff wasn't much interested in the abandoned car and wasn't much interested in Sam's missing brother. After a little drinking and a little lost boy flirting, the bar maid told Sam that no one paid the abandoned car much mind because whoever the poor bastard was that had been in it, the town was just grateful that it hadn't been one of them.
Every year seven people over seven days disappeared off the lonely highway. Every year the townsfolk stayed indoors for that week. Every year the sheriff and Rick would pull seven abandoned cars off the highway. Except for this year when there'd only been the one car, and absolutely no enquiries after any missing persons and the barmaid knew that because the sheriff was her cousin. And no, she didn't know where the disappeared persons went, no one did, but gossip had it there was some beast in the woods.
Sam checked out the missing persons, the sheriff not much bothered about any cover story Sam might have tried to cook up. He was used to people trawling through his files every year and sat back with a large mug of coffee while Sam helped himself. But none of the missing persons had ever been seen again. Sometimes friends and relatives would claim a car and occasionally some would go lay flowers by the side of the road, but nothing ever brought the missing back.
Up in the woods there was an old shrine that might have been an anchor for a demon and Sam could only guess that once upon a time someone ignorant had played around with things they knew nothing about. But there was no power there now. Whether the demon had left, been exorcised or trapped elsewhere, Sam had no way of knowing. Crude symbols told him that it was a minor demon, unworthy even of its own name and worse, no longer in residence in these woods.
For days, Sam searched and researched trying to find the demon that he was sure had stolen his brother, leaving his father to continue searching for the demon that had taken his mother and his lover. Perhaps John decided that Sam had searched enough, but after the days turned into weeks, Sam's father sent him coordinates. At first Sam thought John had found a lead on Dean, but it turned out to be a poltergeist and the message Sam left for his father afterwards would have scorched the most hardened ears.
After a while Sam realised that John was trying to keep him focussed, trying to keep him away from burying himself in an obsession that might take over twenty years to solve. They already had one obsession like that and they didn't need another. Neither one of them would ever stop looking, but they needed to not be stuck in an ever-shrinking hole.
Weeks turned into months and exactly seven weeks after Sam drove the Impala out of the town where his brother had disappeared, coordinates came from his dad. But this time the coordinates were followed by four heart lurching letters. Dean.
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Dean had no concept of time, place or anything that might be relevant in the real world.
He remembered texting Sam as he was driving, something snarky and inappropriate that he never got to send. He remembered the fangs and piercing eyes that seemed to sear flesh with a just look rearing up in the road. He remembered skidding to a stop and reaching into the glovebox to grab a gun. And he remembered white hot fire and black ice snap violently over his entire being.
Since then there had only been the wall.
It wasn't made of anything in particular but it stretched endlessly in all directions, and Dean somehow knew that his job was to make sure it stayed there. He'd tried to step away once, but it started crumbling and the thing on the other side had nearly broken through. He'd patched the wall back up and concentrated on making sure it stayed patched up, and that's all he did. He had to concentrate too hard to think about anything else, but sometimes his mind would wander and then the thing would try to break through, and he would have to exhaust himself trying to patch it all back up again.
And he was very tired. Sometimes there was a feeling like he'd zoned out, like he'd been sedated, but he didn't worry about those times because the thing on the other side of the wall seemed to zone out a bit too.
He didn't know why it was so important to keep the wall from crumbling, but he didn't know how much longer he could hold it all together. The thing was constantly watching, constantly waiting for the slightest opening to break through.
He noted that even this small introspection had allowed the thing to poke a tiny bit through and Dean focussed on plugging up that hole, consciously erasing all other thoughts from his mind.
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Somehow the state mental institution somewhere in the mid-west was anti-climatic, Sam thought. It was just an ordinary facility in an ordinary town several hundred miles away from where Dean had disappeared.
The polite but tired receptionist was expecting Sam and sent him straight on up to see Dr Askew. Apparently John had already been in touch and told them Sam would try to identify the John Doe they had in residence.
Askew was tired and worn too, but seemed to care about his patients. "If this young man is your brother," he warned, "then you should be aware that he's not really with us, as it were." He guided Sam to an observation window overlooking a common room where a handful of patients were engaged in a variety of activities, and others were just sitting and watching the world outside the barred windows. "Do you see him here?"
Sam's heart fell as he failed to spot Dean and he came close to giving up. Until he realised that one of those sitting impossibly still was his brother. "Yes," he said excitedly, turning to push past the doctor and charge in there, "that's him, that's Dean."
Askew blocked him and asked Sam to let them bring Dean out to them. It wouldn't do to disturb the other patients. Sam paced the visitors' area restlessly as Askew tried to explain that Dean had been found awake but unresponsive and without ID in the doorway of a local Seven Eleven and the hospital had promptly referred him to the institution.
That had been exactly seven weeks ago.
Since then, Dean had periodically broken his catatonia with violence and seizures, mostly minor, but he'd broken an orderly's jaw on one occasion and stabbed himself with a rogue pen on another. Hence the precautionary straight jacket.
When Dean was escorted into the visitor's room, Sam wanted to hug him with joy, but hung back in the knowledge that Dean didn't like spontaneous acts of affection very much. And then Sam decided that he wasn't sure that finding Dean was such a good thing, because his brother really wasn't home. Big empty hazel eyes in face pale and drawn focussed somewhere in the middle distance.
"Um, drugs?" Sam asked, but Askew shook his head.
"Only sedatives when he has an attack. We have no real diagnosis and therefore no real treatment program. We've tried some therapies, ECT for example, but they simply escalated the attacks and while some theories suggest that to be an acceptable course to take, I don't believe that in this case the patient would survive the cure. Therefore, we can only deal with the symptoms as they happen, try and build a profile of his illness."
Sam didn't know what to do. "Dean, look at me." There was no response although much as he hoped and willed it, he didn't really expect one, but he kept talking anyway, kept touching his brother, a hand on a shoulder, the other gently pushing Dean's head back, trying to force him look. "It's Sam, you know me. I need you to focus on me, I need you to give me some sign that you're still in there, I need some clue, Dean, I need you to help me here, tell me how to fix this. I want to help you Dean, but I can't unless I know what we're dealing with."
Sam glanced at Askew who was looking on thoughtfully, and turned back to Dean who was still firmly out of touch, shadowed eyes elsewhere. "I'm sorry, man," he told Dean, "but I have to try. Christo," he whispered.
The effect was instantaneous. Hazel eyes turned black as a shudder ran through Dean, and if his brother's hands had been free, Sam was certain he would have been in trouble. As it was, he was forced to block a seething Dean who seemed to be trying to rip his throat out with his teeth, pushing Sam down hard against the wall.
Which suddenly stopped as black and hazel mixed in swirling chaos and Dean fell away, spine bending backwards as an inhuman wail escaped silent lips and all the visible muscles stood proud with the increasing tension. Tremors racked the rigid body as paralysed lungs fought to draw breath.
And then it was all over. Askew stood back with the now empty syringe as Dean relaxed with the abrupt limpness of a rapidly deflating balloon. Sam had a glimpse of hazel eyes clear of both the blackness and the blankness that told him that Dean was still in there before his brother's eyes closed in enforced slumber.
Sam wanted to check Dean out of there and perform the exorcism in the nearest motel room or even the back of the car, but until he could get everything together, remaining under Askew's care was the safest place for him. As they took Dean away, Sam promised Askew that he would be back and almost ran from the building.
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Dean knew that Sam was around, but worked hard to ignore that. He was able to take some strength from the knowledge that Sam would be trying to end this, but he was still tiring, finding it increasingly difficult to maintain concentration on the wall. Some of the holes he'd patched up didn't look as strong or complete as his earlier attempts and he was surrounded by a constant non-specific ache that was pressing in on him.
He heard the incoming whistle of the bomb that he couldn't see and heard the explosion behind the wall, the screams of the thing tearing at his eardrums and the holes he'd worked so hard to fix ripping open again. He threw himself at the wall, pushing the razor sharp extremities of the thing back through the holes, building barricades the keep the thing in, emergency repairs until he could fix the crumbling wall before cracks could set in.
And then that zoned out sensation slowed everything to a stop.
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Chapter 2: Chapter 2
Walls, Barricades and Other Fortifications 2/2
The first thing Sam did when he returned to the car was to call his father and let him know the situation. The empty sound of the usual voicemail aggravated and Sam couldn't help but snap 'if you care,' at the end of his message. Intellectually he knew that John was only doing what he thought was best even if Sam didn't agree, but emotionally it was a whole other thing.
Sam had barely taken a few deep breaths to calm himself down when the business cards started arriving. His technophobe father seemed to have got a handle on using cell phones, and Sam's contact list suddenly bloomed with people who may be able to help.
After a long conversation with Caleb, Sam was left with two problems. This type of demon wouldn't dissipate or go back to wherever it came from; it needed somewhere to go. It was no use forcing it out of his brother if it was just going to slide into the next available body.
When he asked Caleb what had made the demon stop with Dean, why it hadn't gone on to abduct another six people, why it had left its power base, Caleb was silent for a long time.
"People like us don't freak when we see the unusual," he said eventually. "That fact right there will have disabled the demon's first method of attack. As for the other, your brother is a master at blocking."
"Blocking what?"
"Anything. Physically, mentally, emotionally, he's a walking blockade. Now think irresistible force meeting immovable object."
"Ouch."
"Now you're getting it. I have a box that might do."
"Might? What good is might?"
"Same as consecrated ground. Nothing is ever certain."
"Where are you? I'll come and get it."
"Take too long. I'll FedEx it overnight. You get a good night's sleep and figure out exactly where you're going to perform an exorcism when your brother's locked up in a nuthouse without getting yourself committed. They don't just let any old nut go free you know."
"I know. And thanks Caleb, you've been a great help."
Sighing, Sam leaned back in his chair, and tried to put his tired brain into gear.
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Dean knew without a doubt that he was in trouble. Whatever that bomb had been, it had spurred the thing into action and damaged his wall beyond his ability to keep it under control.
He couldn't keep the wall in place and fix the holes and battle the bits of the thing that were trying to push through all at the same time although he was giving it his best shot. There was a lot of zoning in and out going on and the thing didn't seem to be as affected by it as it had been before and Dean found himself fighting that on top of everything else.
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Despite what Caleb had said, Sam decided that trying to check Dean out of the institute had to be the best option. He could make up a referral to a private clinic and take Dean to the motel. Unfortunately when he arrived, Askew put paid to that idea.
"Your brother's condition seems to be deteriorating," the doctor told Sam without any preamble as he led the way to one of the tiny private rooms. "He hasn't stabilised after the seizure he had yesterday."
Even Sam's long legs had trouble keeping up with the shorter man's clipped pace. "What do you mean?" He knew he sounded scared and worried but didn't care.
"He seems locked in a cycle of aggression and fits and the sedatives we've given him are having an unprecedented minimal effect. I'm at a point where the administration of any more is as likely to be as detrimental as doing nothing and I'm inclined let him ride it out, but either way, I'm concerned that his body won't be able to continue functioning at its current pressure levels." The doctor came to an abrupt halt outside one of the rooms. "Quite frankly I'm at a loss as to why this should happen so suddenly and can only speculate that you might have triggered something. Can you think of anything that might help? Anything at all?"
Everything came crashing down about Sam's shoulders just then. Askew looked at him doubtfully and Sam couldn't help but read blame there, blame that he knew he deserved. He tried to rationalise it with the knowledge that he'd had no way of knowing the results of testing out the possibility of possession, but that didn't stop the suffocating guilt or growing fear. He shook his head slightly and Askew opened the door with a slightly disappointed look.
Dean was in five point restraints, a nurse sitting to one side keeping constant watch. But what tore at Sam was the physical manifestation of the war that was so clearly being waged inside his brother. Compared to the day before it was muted, no doubt due to the drugs, but the spine bending writhing was now constant with small animal noises croaking from what had be a ravaged throat. Dean's breathing was labouring like that of a long distance runner nearing the end of a marathon and sweat coated a face far too pale and drawn over the clenched muscles.
Sam looked down into Dean's continually fluttering eyes as the nurse informed Askew there had been no change, and saw the blackness swirling heavily among the hazel. There wasn't much time left, of that Sam was certain. If he was going to do something, it had to be very soon.
Time for plan B.
Taking a deep breath and hoping that he wasn't about to commit himself, Sam turned to the doctor. "Do you believe in the supernatural?" he asked.
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Sam skidded back into Dean's room with Caleb's box and the texts he needed, thanking his lucky stars that Askew was being quite open minded, although he had the distinct feeling that the doctor was quietly assessing Sam's sanity.
Fortunately Askew had some very limited experience with voodoo and seen first hand what could happen if a person believed strongly enough. Sam had then sold him the story that if Dean believed he was under some influence, and Sam could make him believe he'd exorcised it, then that might solve the problem. With doubt-tinged platitudes such as 'the mind is very complex' and 'we really don't know that much about it', Askew had agreed to let Sam try.
Privately, the doctor believed that Sam needed to make the attempt, as misguided as it was, in order to come to terms with his brother's state when it failed, and it was on that basis that he'd agreed. The boy was clearly distressed, but so long as his ritual didn't involve bodily fluids, drugs or destructive devices it couldn't do any harm.
He was concerned but not surprised when Sam's Latin phrases seemed to draw a reluctant groan from Dean whose muscles were pulled so tight the ridges of taut ligaments stood proud under sweat covered skin. He was a little more surprised when Dean spat Latin back at Sam through tightly clenched teeth.
And he was completely astounded when a dark shadow with distinct teeth and claws rose up out of Dean's violently shaking body. It screamed, a bone piercing sound echoed by Dean whose voice cracked with overuse and strain and Sam kept speaking calmly and rhythmically, touching the plain dark red wood box he'd brought up and then backing away.
With both the demon and Dean crying out in protest and pain, Sam's complete calm as he continued with the words and drew the thing down to the box spoke volumes to Askew. He realised that what the boy, the young man who suddenly seemed much older than his years, was doing was too practiced and experienced for this to be anything but normal for him.
The final shriek that the demon and Dean both gave out was almost ear shattering in pitch and volume, but the silence when the box snapped shut was completely deafening.
The texts slipped from Sam's hands as he dropped to his knees and quickly bound the box in a curiously knotted green cord. Askew ran to the nurse's side where she had fainted unnoticed at some point and then checked his patient.
Dean had reverted back to the fugue that he'd been living in for the last few weeks, body thankfully relaxed and eyes clear, but stubbornly blank. He tried to get some response, tapping and calling, but nothing was forthcoming. Sam joined him, his tone desperate, and Askew was afraid of what it would do to Sam if his brother didn't show some sign of lucidity. He let Sam continue while he ran the usual mundane tests in the hopes that he may be able to pinpoint some improvement, but that hope died as the tests remained the same.
Sam's hands were either side of Dean's face now, gripping too hard and Askew had to use some force to pull Sam back. He thought about calling security, but the young man abruptly let go, running the sleeve of his jacket across his damp face.
"I've gotta get rid of this," Sam said abruptly, picking up the box and disappearing out of the door.
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With the wall cracking and crumbling around him, Dean knew he was losing the battle to keep the thing on the other side, and the more the wall fell apart, the more intense the ache grew, pushing in on him until he thought he would suffocate.
But then burning bombs he couldn't see whistled through the air and the thing started screaming, the noise vibrating straight through the wall and straight through him until he was screaming too. The wall was beyond repair now, great chunks falling away as the thing continued screaming, its limbs flailing and grabbing, ripping through the wall and into him as the bombs rained down. The razor sharp claws dug deep as the thing tried to pull him through the wall into the room within which it was trapped. Dean couldn't help but cry out as the claws raked through him when he resisted, scoring bloody furrows through his mind.
A dark red wood door had opened in the opposite wall of the thing's prison and the thing shrieked as the bombs battered at the grip it had on Dean while the dark red wooden doorway glowed and sucked the thing towards it. It's grip tightened as it tried to hold on to Dean to stop itself from being dragged out. The bombs were growing in force and intensity and Dean put everything he had left and more into keeping himself behind his wall, screaming out his pain as the thing was ripped away gouge by bloody gouge.
And then the thing was gone and the red doorway faded quickly away along with the room that had held the thing. Dean was left alone with his wall with the very large hole and cracks spiderwebbing away into the distance.
He could hear voices far away but couldn't make them out. He wanted to just give up and sink into oblivion he was that tired and hurt, but he wasn't safe and never would be safe until that wall was fixed. But he was so hurt and exhausted that he didn't have the energy.
The voices were persistent and annoying and he didn't have the energy to deal with them either. They would have to wait until he was ready. Everything would have to wait until he was ready.
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Sam had to drive a fair distance to find a suitable resting place for the box, and even then he knew that one day someone would open it. But with warnings written all over the outside and heavily weighted, with luck no one would open the box that now lay at the bottom of a deep water filled gorge for at least an age.
He spent a long time clearing his head in the open countryside and trying to think up plans B, C and D if Dean didn't recover. It hadn't occurred to him that the exorcism might not work and the guilt was trying its damndest to eat away at him. But he wouldn't let it. Not until he knew for certain what his brother's fate was to be.
Out here he felt detached from it all, a feeling of freedom that he hadn't had anytime except at Stanford. Out here, that feeling was an illusion and the longer it took to track down Jess' killer, the more it seemed like Stanford was just an illusion.
Sam stared out at the horizon and stayed like that until he was certain he wouldn't crack, and somewhere on the drive back, the determination to help Dean kicked back in. He found an old cassette recorder in a cheap antiques shop of all places, got batteries and grabbed the box of tapes from the car.
Askew just shook his head and walked away when Sam set it up in Dean's room.
Highway To Hell was barely halfway through when Dean suddenly blinked and frowned.
"Dean?" Sam asked, leaning over him. "You there? Come on, Dean, wake up."
Dean looked at him with confusion. "'M tired, man. Later."
Sam was about to demand he wake up, but the way Dean turned his head to the side, closed his eyes and started up a gentle buzzing, told him that his brother really was just sleeping.
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Dean looked at his wall proudly. It was finally all fixed, unmarked and generally in one piece. He was beyond exhausted and the going had been slow, but he was safe now. The only problem now was finding his way out. He could stay where he was, but it was too uncomfortable with all the things he knew where waiting to trip him up now that the things was gone and he wouldn't sleep well.
There was music playing somewhere, sounded like AC/DC and he decided to step away from the wall and into the dark to follow it. Soon he came to another wall identical to the other, but this one had a reinforced steel door. Picking his car keys off the hook on the wall next to it, he used them to open the door and hesitated.
The room of walls he was leaving contained absolutely everything he held important, memories both good and bad, feelings he cherished or despised, parts of himself that he been abandoned by the wayside. He couldn't see them, but he knew they were there, things that would never see the light of day. Most of him would forever stay in that room, but for now, the little piece he allowed out into the world had things to do.
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Dean had been making inroads in to his third day of sleeping soundly, responding to gentle attempts to wake him with a slap or a muttered curse or invective before turning over and burrowing into the pillows.
Askew was more bemused than worried and had reduced the restraints to just wrists on the second day, and removed them altogether on the third. It seemed to him that his patient was simply exhausted on a level that beyond natural.
And so Sam nearly dropped his coffee when he walked into Dean's room on that third day.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Sam asked incredulously as Dean finished tying his second boot and turned his attention to getting the hydrating IV port out of his arm.
"Sammy!" Dean grinned at him and then winced as he pulled the port free. "Come on, we gotta get out of here. Got a job to do."
"A – a job?" Sam asked, ignoring how his voice was rising along with his incredulity.
"My car, man!" Dean glanced at Sam as if he were suddenly retarded. "I gotta find my car!" he explained like it was the most obvious thing in the world while he turned his tee the right way out.
"Your car?" Sam squeaked.
Dean paused and gave Sam a long look. "Dude, you sound like girl. You should get something for that." He went back to getting dressed, grimacing as he pulled at abused muscles while Sam recovered his wits.
"Dean, do you even know where you are, or how long you've been here, or what happened to you?"
"Uh," Dean seemed to consider for a moment while he strapped on his watch. "No, don't care, and not really thinking about that right now."
"Well, you know, maybe you should," Sam said, marvelling at the depths of denial that Dean seemed to attain. "The possibility of PTSD and the like isn't something to be messed with."
Shrugging on his jacket, Dean gave Sam that half-smile he wore when he was being deliberately ambiguous. "PTSD, huh? If that was going to be a problem for any of us it would have happened a long time ago, don't you think?"
"Look, at least talk to Doctor Askew about it."
"Who?"
Sam was rapidly looking patience with his brother who was bouncing around like he'd just taken a short nap. "The doc that's been wiping your sorry ass for the last eight weeks, Dean, the doc who probably won't let you out of the cuckoo's nest without a full psyche evaluation."
Dean stopped and blinked owlishly. "Eight weeks?" he said, slowly as if considering how much importance to attach to that. He looked around at the tiny grey room as if realising for the first time that this wasn't a normal hospital and seemed to have a short internal debate. "Huh. Thought I recognised the cheery atmosphere," he grinned eventually, and Sam found it scary that he actually had no idea if Dean was kidding or not. "There any court orders keeping me here?"
"Not that I know of," Sam answered retreating to his rapidly cooling coffee.
"Then you just sign me out under your recognizance and I don't get my head poked. I need to find my car and I need to do it now so I suggest you get your ass moving Sammy."
"Sam. And I suggest that the inmate at the asylum might want to keep his baby brother sweet if he wants to get out." Sam had regained his equilibrium. "Especially as this baby brother knows exactly where your car is and has the keys."
Dean looked at him through narrowed eyes and held his hand out, but Sam put his best evil grin on and threatened to push the call button and insist that Askew give Dean the most thorough evaluation possible. "You wouldn't," Dean said and Sam knew he was going to win, because no way in hell would Dean ever voluntarily let a shrink get within a mile of him.
"Try me," Sam's grin grew wider.
"You realise this will be war," Dean scowled dangerously and Sam thought about rethinking his strategy, but decided it was too much fun.
"Whatever man, just ask me nicely already."
When Askew returned after grabbing a bite to eat, he was dismayed to find that the brothers had left. He would have loved to find out more about them, explored Dean's mind after his ordeal and perhaps even see if Sam's expertise could help any of his other patients. But perhaps with their unique lifestyle he'd come across them again.
FIN