Inspired by Yum

Dean's Brother
K Hanna Korossy

Oh, God, his head hurt.

He pressed fingers against his temples until it felt like he'd bore right through his skin, but the lazy, nauseating throb continued to beat against his skull. He concentrated instead on not throwing up, a possibly more hopeful endeavor, because the last time he had vomited had nearly done him in. The involuntary tears had kept falling long after his stomach queasily calmed again. Now, he just felt sick. Sick and hurt. Hurt and miserable. Wanting very badly to go somewhere quiet and sleep. Home.

Home?

"Are you feeling better now, sir?" a voice asked next to him, a voice he didn't know and didn't want to know, accented in ways that were both familiar and not.

He didn't look up at her. "Yes," he lied, because that's what she seemed to want. He was good at giving people what they wanted; the lie had rolled off his tongue.

"Okay, then. Can you tell me your name now?"

Name. "Sam," he answered automatically, the syllable coming less easily than the lie had. Sam. It sounded right. Maybe.

"Sam what?"

The distraction gave his stomach the chance to start creeping back up his throat, and he bent around it even more tightly, groaning. The change of elevation made him dizzy, but for now his center of gravity was still on the bed or gurney or whatever, and he didn't tip forward. Might not have been a bad idea, though: knock himself out, sleep, drift away from the pain savaging his head.

"Try to relax." The voice had softened. "The doctor will be here in a few minutes. We can get the details later."

Later. That sounded good. Anything but now. He wasn't liking now so much. Or the past, for that matter. The past that had dumped him in this room, alone, in pain, and struggling with the simplest questions.

Name?

Sam. That felt right. But then?

He had vague impressions. Agent. Park Ranger. Officer. Names, titles, all of them meaningless, all of them familiar. All of them him?

And at the end of his name…a black hole. Sam Fill-in-the-Blank. Winthrop. Riley. Duvall. Winchester. Feiser. Hamill.

Who was he, anyway?

Sam groaned again, tearing one hand away from his gut to rub at his aching head. It actually hurt worse in the back, but he didn't think he could reach that far. His body felt jumbled, an ungainly collection of limbs that seemed too long and didn't move right. Sam. I'm Sam. But who was Sam?

Security guard, ranger, detective. None of them seemed right. In a classroom fit, maybe, although he wasn't sure if student or teacher. But even that seemed insubstantial and distant. A gun in his hand felt more right. Law enforcement of some sort, then. Or…criminal.

Maroules. Cavanaugh. Wendigo? Heller. Frehley.

Criminal. His mouth tasted like bile, bitter, and Sam cradled his head and wondered if he wanted its secrets returned. A man with a hundred names, none of which fit, alone and injured. Who would want to know the story that went with that?

The door opened again. Probably the nurse to finish questioning him, and he had no more answers for her than he did for himself. Sam sagged a little lower on the bed, the pain a weight threatening to crush his head, and his spirit.

"Sam?"

Not the nurse. A male voice, stern and relieved.

"Next time leave a forwarding address. Took me a while to figure out which hospital they'd taken you to."

He dragged his aching bowling ball of a head up to stare into intent hazel eyes. They studied him back, the small frown line between them deepening.

"Sam? Are we communicating here?"

Dean. That was Dean, his brother; he knew it as surely as he knew he was Sam. Which was to say, mostly sure. Sam stared at him, forgot not to throw up, and started coughing again.

"Hey, easy." Risking getting splattered, Dean moved in, grabbing Sam's upper arms. Which put his shoulder at just the right level for Sam to rest his swimming head on. He couldn't resist, propping his forehead against the cool leather. He breathed out nausea in a sigh of relief, inhaled gunpowder and sweat, and felt his roiling stomach reluctantly settle.

A hand came up to rub the nape of his neck, then tentative circles on his back. It felt good, relaxing, but also gave Sam something else to focus on. He was really tired of concentrating on not hurting so badly. He was reallytired.

"Sammy?" Quietly.

He'd almost forgotten there was a person attached to this feeling of…safety? Comfort? Home, Sam decided, and wondered at the choice. His brother, whose last name was as lost as Sam's, but who was warmth and solidity and, "Dean? I can't remember."

"What, Sam?" Dean probably didn't usually repeat his name with every line, but each echo seemed to disperse a little more of the fuzziness, and he wondered if Dean knew that.

Sam swallowed, reached up to find something to hold on to, and found more leather. It bunched softly in his hand, well-worn and seasoned, like the calloused palm resting on his neck again. "Who am I?" he whispered.

Fingers contracted fractionally against his skin. "You mean for the doctor? I haven't done the paperwork yet—I was thinking—"

"No." He shook his head, wincing at how that made the ground seem to buckle, and squeezed his eyes shut. "Not the cards and the badges. Just…me. Us."

Dean was moving against him, shoulder muscles flexing. Sam realized why a few moments later when a blanket was pulled around him. He tried to sit up then, suddenly realizing what a picture they made, how much he'd assumed. Dean wasn't a toucher.

But his brother's hand was soft pressure on his back, keeping him there. Sam blinked back tears, as much simple relief as banked pain, and relaxed once more.

"You're Sam Winchester." Dean's voice was low, soothingly gruff. "You're my geek brother."

Winchester. A name stronger than he felt right now. A weapon's name. Samuel Winchester. My brother. An identity even his name didn't offer, a place and a purpose and a promise. Home, even in this sterile hospital room. Sam opened his eyes again, stared at his dangling muddy sneakers, and the even muddier boots below them.

Dean cleared his throat. "We, uh…"

The guns. They weren't for criminals, nor made them criminals. The shadows of things they fought had always been there in the back of his thoughts, studiously ignored, but Sam accepted them now in weary resignation. "I know."

A quick breath of relief. "Are we good then?"

He smiled faintly, recognizing his brother's pitch for normalcy even in their skewed world. "You're good. My head's killing me," he grumbled faintly.

"Yeah, well, that's what you get going one-on-one with a lamp post, bro. I thought…" Dean's shoulder shifted fractionally. "You're not gonna hurl on me or anything, are you? Sam?"

"No promises," he murmured.

There was a huff of displeasure, but Dean didn't budge. "They tell you when you're gonna be done?"

"No." He punctuated the word with the slightest twitch of his head. It still felt too heavy to lift off Dean's shoulder, or maybe he just needed someone to lean on a little longer. "They wanted my name…"

There was a beat. "Winchester."

"But—"

"Just stick with Winchester, Sam. They won't trace it, and we can pay for this one out of pocket. Simpler that way."

He wanted to protest, knowing why Dean was really doing this, but his brain still felt foggy and Winchester was something solid to hold on to. Sam just nodded weakly. Dean's hand traced the knobs of his spine again, teasing his attention away from the pain.

They waited for the doctor that way, Sam leaning, drifting, Dean solid and grounding. For all Sam wandered, he always seemed to come back to the one home he knew. The one person he really knew. The one that knew who he was, too, and remembered for him even when he couldn't.

The rest was just words.

The End