Please Don't Stand There and Watch Me Fall

A/N: I wasn't going to post this - to be totally truthful, I'd pretty much given up on posting in general. But a friend enjoyed it and asked me to post it, so I'm givin' it a go. At least with the first chapter. Let's just see if I get sacrificed, ripped apart, or completely ignored before I put the following nine up to the scrutiny, shall we? Alright . . . Enjoy!

When he had decided to drive to Palo Alto, California and beg for his little brother's help in finding their missing father, Dean Winchester had fully expected to find Sam living in the same Stanford dorm room that he'd been in the last time Dean had seen him. He knew that two years had passed, but what the hell did he know about college? Outside of a few drunken coeds in bars over the years, he hadn't really brought himself up to speed on the way things worked at America's universities. That had always been Sam's thing, not his.

But the kid that answered the door in the dorm had never even heard of Sam Winchester. Undeterred, Dean made his way to the admissions office and convinced the perky, young brunette there that he really needed to find his little brother. That there was a family emergency, and he couldn't get Sam to answer the phone. He wasn't exactly lying when he told her that he was about a step and a half away from panicking, that something could have happened to Sam, and that he would never forgive himself if he didn't find the younger man.

Address in hand, Dean had steeled himself against the onslaught of doubts that pounded through his brain as he drove the few miles between his motel and Sam's apartment. He'd driven straight there after leaving the admissions office, and there had been no sign of Sam. But the mere sight of the building was enough to make him rethink his plan of attack. Dean had seen his fair share of unsavory places in his lifetime, but knowing that his little brother was making a home in this one gave him a shiver he hadn't expected. It was so unlike Sam.

It wasn't the simple, brick facade that bothered him, or even the fact that most of the cars in the parking lot were rust-riddled and littered with dents and cracked glass. It wasn't really the chain-link fence that surrounded the structure that bothered him, either. But the shifty-looking characters that milled about the front door and various, shaded corners of the lot made him pull his pearl-handled revolver from the glove box and tuck it safely into the waistband of his jeans when he returned around midnight.

With a silent prayer to whoever might be listening that his car remained untouched by the time he returned, Dean headed toward the building. Head bowed, he felt the gravel crunch beneath his heavy boots as he kept his sights low and tried to remain as inconspicuous as possible. It irritated him more than anything that Sam would live in a place that just looked haunted. And while Dean hadn't found anything in the building's past history that would lead him to believe it was unsafe, it still spiked his 'heebie-jeebie' meter a little more than he would have liked.

Over-riding the electronic key pad on the front door wasn't hard for a guy like Dean, and he took the stairs up to the second level cautiously, as though something might jump out of a random apartment and try to suck his soul out through his ear. The ease with which he picked Sam's front door lock just pissed him off further. A child could have let himself into the apartment. And where was the salt at the door? For a kid genius, Sam could be dumb as a rock sometime.

The protectiveness he'd always felt for his little brother wasn't something that Dean liked to talk about, but in his own mind, he could admit that it was the reason for his anger. It was his job to protect little Sammy, always had been, but sometimes Sam made it so damn hard to do his job.

Casting his eyes around the small kitchen, Dean couldn't help raising his eyebrows in surprise. He had always imagined that Sam would live in some townhouse, or even some modern, ultra-douchey loft apartment. There would be bookcases and stereo equipment, and furniture made of leather. Lamps and other girlie lighting, maybe. Neat. Sam had always been a clean-freak about his side of the rooms they shared as kids, so Dean had expected a nearly sterile living environment.

But the kitchen was old, with cracked linoleum floors and peeling plaster on the walls. The edge of the sink had once been white, but was now stained an unappetizing piss-yellow, and piled high with dirty, food-crusted dishes. Beer bottles littered the table and Dean had to step over a pizza box to enter the room soundlessly. The stove was caked with grease and what he hoped was dried up pasta sauce. The state of that one room alone was enough to send Dean's anger fading into abject worry. This wasn't Sam.

He stopped at the kitchen table to thumb through a stack of mail. Bills stamped 'final notice,' were addressed to Jessica Moore, but it was the letter emblazoned with the Stanford logo that caught Dean's eye. A quick skim told him that a.) the higher-ups in the Ivy Leagues were way too damn wordy, and b.) Sam was losing his academic scholarship due to his declining grades, and lack of attending class. And the worry edged toward fear.

With whispering steps, Dean moved into the living room as the lump rose in his throat. A small, black and white television sat on the floor near the window, an infomercial droning on from it's place amidst a protective ring of dvds and a few more beer bottles. The ratty furniture was almost as depressing as the heavy stench of smoke that curled around Dean and threatened to draw a choke from his rapidly-constricting throat. What the hell, Sammy? The thought flitted through his brain, but before it had time to settle, he heard low voices from somewhere down the hall.

Dean pressed himself against the wall, refusing to let himself think about the state of the drywall and what might be rubbing off onto his back, and inched in the direction of what he could only assume was the bedroom. His eyes caught for a moment on the bathroom, but his attention was pulled back by hushed whispers droning closer.

"I'm serious, dammit. There's something out there," a feminine voice was soft, but harsh.

A chuckle, soft but disconnected, followed the statement. "Would you relax, baby? There's nothin' out there," Sam's distinct voice dismissed the woman's fear and Dean felt his worry spike straight back to anger.

"Nothin', huh?" Dean asked as he stepped into the room, jumping slightly at the shriek from the hot, naked blonde at Sam's equally naked side. He growled and averted his eyes, after rolling them in disgust.

The only response he got was a laugh from the man who sure as hell looked a lot like his brother. But that's where the similarities ended. "Dean?" Opening one eye, Dean risked a glance back at his shamelessly nude little brother as Sam rolled his head to the blond at his side, now clutching a tee shirt to her chest and looking completely terrified. "Do you see him, too?" he asked, voice thick with humor, as though making sure he wasn't hallucinating.

The woman pulled the tee shirt over her head and smacked Sam's chest before rolling out of the bed. "Dean?" she finally asked, her jerky, jittery movements stilling as her eyes focused on the young man in the door way. "Your brother, Dean?" The fear eased a bit behind her eyes as she raked her fingers through her stringy, blond curls.

Dean just nodded slowly, his eyes never leaving the unmoving form on the bed. Sam had always been quick on his feet, especially at the slightest sound of a disturbance. Even if that disturbance just turned out to be Dad walking to the bathroom in the middle of the night. So why was he just laying there, all hazy eyed and grinning like a damn fool? "Dude, are you high?" The words blurted out of his lips before he could reign them back in.

Sam's broad shoulders just shrugged apathetically. "Probably," he answered easily, eyes drifting closed once more. "You just in the neighborhood or somethin'?"

More than a little pissed off, Dean crossed his arms over his chest. "Something," he responded coldly, causing Sam's eyes to open once more. If there was one thing that he would always recognize, regardless of how fucked up he was, it was Dean's 'I can't believe you pulled this shit' voice.

But instead of answering, Sam's eyes darted to the end of the bed where the blond was skirting the mattress, draped only in his enormous tee shirt, heading quickly toward the door. "Where you goin'?" he demanded in a tone far harsher than Dean could ever remember Sam using, at least with anyone other than Dad.

"I gotta piss," she spat back just as harshly and shuffled out of the room.

Dean could read the look on his younger brother's face as he watched his girlfriend retreat into the hallway as something akin to 'awe.' Like he was impressed with himself for finding someone so damn hot. If Dean hadn't been so concerned about Sam, he might have been a little bit impressed himself.

"Jessica," Sam wiggled his eyebrows when he finally met Dean's cold gaze. "My girlfriend," he added, as though Dean hadn't connected those dots.

But Dean was way beyond worrying about Jessica or what her relationship with his brother was. Sam was high, and judging from everything he'd found since entering the apartment, this wasn't his first time. "Man, get the hell up. And put some fucking pants on," he snapped, kicking the jeans nearest his foot toward his brother's muscular, still-too-naked body.

With a grumble, and muttering something about a 'shy little girl', Sam slowly got out of the bed and stretched to his full six foot, five inch frame. Lazily, he stepped into the jeans and fastened them low on his hips. He didn't really remember them fitting that baggy before, but what the hell did he know? He could barely remember his own name at the moment.

"What are you really doing here, Dean?" he asked as he made his way to the door, being sure to give Dean a bit of a shoulder check, just for old times' sake.

Dean rolled his shoulder to follow his brother down the hall, noting that Jessica had neither turned the light on, nor shut the bathroom door in her quest to 'take a piss' as she had so delicately put it. Instead of lingering, he continued after Sam, only to find his brother's lanky frame sprawled across the couch, his hazel eyes glued to the small television.

Great, Dean thought as he crossed his arms over his chest and considered the young man carefully. Not only did he have to worry about Dad's drunk ass, wherever it was in the lower forty-eight, but now he had to figure out a way to get Sam off of whatever junk he was on. His eyes drew to a purple bruise on the inside of his Sam's left elbow, and his head dropped between his shoulders. This was not how this day was supposed to go.

"Sam, Dad is missing," he breathed, almost more to himself than to his brother. He knew he could search for his father without Sam's help, but he didn't want to. He had allowed himself to hope that Sammy would see the urgency in the situation, pack a bag, and head out with him. He had allowed himself to think that it might actually be easy. But, then, when had his life ever been easy?

Taking a deep drink from the beer bottle on the end table, Sam's face twisted in disgust as he realized the liquid was warm and had, quite possibly, been there for a couple of days. He stuck out his tongue, allowing the bitterness to slide back into the bottle, or around the lid, and over his bare chest. "Dude," he gagged slightly and then replaced the bottle before looking up at his brother. "What do you want me to do about it?"

All of the worry, concern, loneliness, and helplessness Dean had been feeling since his father stopped returning his phone calls bubbled to the surface with Sam's nonchalant response. They were a family, dammit. They were supposed to stick together. Not run off to college, or to hunt something evil alone. They weren't supposed to splinter and separate. Not when Dean had worked his ass off for the better part of his life to keep them together.

"I want you to sober the fuck up and help me find him!" he roared, crossing the room to hoist his brother up by his forearms. It wasn't easy, and it certainly wasn't graceful, but Sam was on his feet before Dean shook him and then punched him square in his angular jaw. "Wake up and look at yourself, man!" he pleaded.

But all he received in return was the blank stare of a young man who was too far gone to care, even if he had wanted to. Dean had been sure that Sam's running off to college was just a phase, and that he would return to the fold without provocation in a year's time, maybe less. The longer that he stayed away, the more Dean convinced himself that it was for the best. Sure, Dean couldn't protect him when he was away, but he told himself that Sam was safer where he was, even without Dean to watch over him, than he would have been running headlong into danger at his brother's back.

Of course, that was before Sam had turned out to be a college drop-out and a junkie. "Jess!" Sam's voice bellowed as he glared at Dean from beneath a slowly furrowing brow, his hand gingerly touching the place his brother had just slapped. When his girlfriend appeared in the hallway, timid and unsure of stepping into the ring with the pair of them, he spoke specifically to her, "We got any ice?" without ever dragging his eyes from Dean's angry face.

While Jessica fumbled in the kitchen, Dean continued to stare at his younger brother, desperate for a sign that his little Sammy was still in there somewhere. He had to be. The only other option was . . . not an option at all. Dean could still save him, still protect him. He just needed to get him out of this apartment, away from all this bull shit.

"Sammy, come on," his voice sounded foreign to his own ears in the tense silence that had settled between them. "You gotta help me find Dad, man." He knew that he was begging, but desperate times called for desperate measures. And the times were looking more and more desperate by the minute.

Sinking back to the couch, Sam wrapped his arm around Jessica's waist as she sat beside him, pressing the ice to the red mark on his cheek. He winced at the sudden chill, but then settled into her side and revelled in the feeling of her body against his arm. "I don't gotta help you do anything," he finally responded. "I told you I was done with all that bull shit back when I left, and I meant it, Dean," he added, pulling away when the cold began to burn against his skin.

Jessica lowered the pack, and her eyes, to her lap, but didn't move from Sam's side. Dean just shook his head, a mirthless chuckle stuck in his throat. Dad was still missing, every day cooling the trail of his whereabouts that much more. But before he'd even driven into town, he had vowed that he wasn't leaving Palo Alto with Sam ridin' shotgun, and he was more determined now than ever.

Holding his hands out in a psuedo-surrender, Dean took one last painful look at Sam. "Tell me that when you're sober, Sammy," was all he said before turning and letting himself out of the apartment.

He knew that he needed to be searching for Dad, that it was important. But as he climbed into the front seat of the Impala, he couldn't help remembering something that his father had told him about six years ago, when Sam was sixteen. "I don't care how old he gets, and I don't care how big he gets, Dean. Watching your brother's back is always your number one priority, you understand me?" Though he'd questioned at the time why Sam couldn't just look after his damn self, especially when he had grown to tower over his older brother, Dean knew that Dad never gave an order without a reason.

So Dad was going to have to fend for himself and hold out for a little while longer. Because Dean had to save Sam. After all, it was his number one priority.