Cleanup
K Hanna Korossy

"Someone's coming." Dean snapped off the flashlight, folding them back into the shadows.

Sam whispered a curse and froze in his crouch next to the door, even the faint scritch of his lockpicks silenced.

The footsteps, a security guard making his rounds a little early, grew close, then began to fade as the man passed them, unnoticing.

Dean waited until he couldn't hear the tap of heels on sidewalk again, then clicked the light on again, illuminating Sam's pale profile. He frowned. "You okay?"

"Yeah, just…" Free to move again, Sam quickly reached down to rub his side. "Just got a cramp."

Dean's mouth thinned as he studied his brother's puffy face for the forty-third time. "You know, we don't have to do this tonight. I mean it's only been a few hours since that possessed quarterback whaled on you—you should be in bed cozying up to a couple of icepacks."

"I'm fine," Sam said tersely. He went back to picking the lock. "Took some Tylenol."

"Oh, well," Dean rolled his eyes, "then I'm sure you're peachy. Remind me again, did Casper punch you in the face eight times or nine?"

"Dean," Sam snapped, then took a breath as his arms dropped to his side. He looked up, visibly reining himself in. "Look, April and Jeremy, they're facing criminal charges at worst, psych assessments and permanent records at bestfor what Dirk made them do. If we don't get their records changed, that's all gonna be on them."

Right: civilians tended to frown on drowning classmates in toilets and feeding their hands to blenders. The only thing that sucked worse than being possessed was no one else knowing you were possessed and thinking the homicidal maniac was you. If Dean hadn't known Meg was riding Sam that time…

He made a face. Not going there now.

Dean turned instead to the door Sam was working on again. Friggin' psychiatric hospitals and their security. "So tell me again why you couldn't just work your computer mojo and get the records changed that way?"

Sam didn't stop working this time, but his voice had that over-patient tone that said he was just shy of sending Dean back to go wait in the car. Or at least trying to because, seriously, he couldn't make Dean do something he didn't want to on a good day, let alone after the hunt they'd just finished. "Because, Dean, institutions like this have everything in triplicate. They're just gonna think it's a glitch if the computer doesn't agree with the files, or what everyone remembers."

"Right," Dean said slowly. "So if the computer and the files both say the kids had been dosed with LSD from some outside source—"

"—totally not their fault—" Sam interjected.

"—then it doesn't matter if nobody actually remembers doing the test: it's official, so it's gotta be true."

Or so they hoped. It would at least give the kids a fighting chance at getting on with their lives. And that was worth a little late-night B&E for Dean's little brother, busted-up face or no. Sammy was probably identifying like crazy with the kids, between the possession and the bullying. Not to mention the recent trip down memory lane at their old high school.

"Exactly," Sam said. He looked up at Dean with a smirk as the lock surrendered and he opened the door. Well, a distorted smirk, anyway, considering his fat lip and discolored cheek. "Ready?"

"Ladies first." Dean pulled him up by the elbow. If Sam was in the lead, Dean could keep an eye on the kid.

And he loved that bitchy expression of Sam's, even through the swelling.

Sam knew the way—probably had the blueprints completely memorized, the geek—and Dean had made sure he was familiar with the security plan. Together, they made a pretty good team, Sam taking point and Dean making sure they skirted cameras, guard stations, and keycard-entry doors, even if they could get past those if needed. Both of them kept their ears and eyes—or one eye, in Sam's case—open for any of the staff coming their way, twice ducking into closets or rooms to avoid running into someone.

First stop was the records repository, and Dean silently whistled at the huge, endless shelves of files and storage boxes. As Sam focused on finding the two files they needed, Dean scanned the rows.

"You think they've got, like, Hoffa's body or Blackbeard's gold stashed down here?"

"Sure, right behind the Ark of the Covenant," Sam said distractedly as he crouched down and ran his finger along a set of folders. He pulled one out and flipped it open.

Dean snorted. "Dude, everyone knows that warehouse is in DC."

"Why, because Indiana was? They could've sent the Ark anywhere by then." Sam held a hand out, waited until Dean slid out a sheaf of papers from inside his jacket and chose the right one to give to him, then slipped it into the file. He stuck it back in place, then tried to push back up to his feet.

Dean caught him as he wobbled. "Sam…"

Sam shook his head, eyes pressed shut as one hand squeezed the bridge of his nose. "'M okay. Just stood up too fast."

Dean didn't bother arguing, but he stayed Sam's shadow this time as his brother sought out the second file.

With the stored records changed, or at least added to, the hard part remained: the working files at the nurses' stations. Technically, Sam had informed Dean in excruciating detail, the lab also had its own set of files, but they were more heavily reliant on the computer. It wasn't uncommon that they had electronic records they'd failed to print out. But the working files were the ones the doctors consulted every morning on their rounds, and if the new information wasn't added there, it might as well not exist at all.

Awesome. How had he let Sam talk him into this when it wasn't really part of their job?

Right, as if helping out two innocent kids wasn't enough. Sam's dewy eyes at his friend's graveside had pretty much wrapped Dean around his brother's ginormous finger, and that was before Sam had gotten himself beaten up, twice, by possessed high-schoolers.

Dean had known a job at their old high school was a bad idea. Even if he got to look up Amanda tomorrow while Sam was busy playing school with his old teacher…

"Dean."

Sam's whisper yanked him back to the here-and-now. Oh, right. They were just around the corner from the station where the working files were kept, but where a nurse and a guard were also sitting. And didn't look likely to budge anytime soon.

Sam exchanged a look with him, and Dean nodded and moved off.

It wasn't hard to find a janitor's closet or set up the diversion they needed. What was a little trickier was making it look like an accident, like the ammonia just happened to have been left open and the bleach had spilled on the shelf and slowly began to trickle down into the open bottle below it. Dean quickly backed out of the closet ahead of the reactive gas that was already forming and hurried back to Sam's side.

It didn't take long for the cloudy vapor to steal out into the hallway, its acrid smell making the nurse look up. With a yell of alarm, she and the guard ran down the hall toward the closet.

Dean grinned at his brother, then led the way to the emptied station.

A minute later, they were heading out. No alarm had been sounded, either over the "chemical spill" or from their little visit. Back at the room, Sam would make sure both the psychiatric hospital and police records reflected the new findings in April's and Jeremy's cases. Dean had already cleared the possessed bus driver and college student with a bluff about fumes in the bus causing disorientation. They'd ganked Dirk's spirit, but they'd also done their best to clean up the mess it had left behind. If that wasn't going above and beyond, Dean didn't know what was.

They were nearly at the door when Sam stumbled.

Dean grabbed him by shirt front and jacket back—his hands had already been hovering, waiting for something like this—and hauled him along the last few steps, out the door, behind the bushes along the side of the building to where they'd left the Impala just beyond the perimeter. It was only there he released his brother, long enough to shove Sam into the car.

Dean waited until they were a good mile away before he finally pulled to the side of the road and stopped. He eyed Sam, who'd had his eyes closed since he'd gotten into the car. "I'm not even gonna ask if you're okay."

"Good," Sam murmured. He was a little too sweaty and pale, even under the bruises, and lines of silent pain marked the corners of his eyes and mouth.

"But," Dean continued forcefully, "I need to know, Sam—you gonna be okay?" When they weren't battered to the point of unconsciousness or impaired judgment, they'd always relied on each other's honest self-assessments for when injuries were too serious for motel-room care.

Sam controlled his breathing, silent for a while. Too long.

Dean reached for the key in the ignition.

"Mr. Wyatt said there were three or four choices you make that shape your life."

Dean frowned. Was this a sign Sam had gotten his bell rung a little too hard? He hadn't lost consciousness the night before…

Sam's head rolled along the back of the seat to slant toward Dean, his good eye opening. "I thought going away to school and maybe coming back to hunt with you were two of mine, but I don't think so anymore. I don't think they've even been my decisions to make."

Oh. Sam was answering his question, just not the way Dean had meant it. He stared at the dash, not knowing what to say, or even if he should say something.

"And sometimes it feels like the decisions I do make, other people pay for."

Dean grimaced. "You'd better not be talking about Jessica and Dad again, Sam," he warned.

"Actually, I was thinking about you. About turning my back on Jake, and not working on my abilities to save you from Hell, and then being so out of my mind when you were gone that…" He broke off with a wince.

They'd had this conversation not long ago, all of Sam's regrets from the summer Dean was gone: Ruby and working on his powers and almost getting himself killed. But Dean suspected there was more Sam hadn't told him. "That…?" he prompted, not unkindly.

Sam looked at him, the pain Dean had been keeping an eye out for thus far now clear in his face…but no hospital visit or drugs would help this hurt.

Dean cleared his throat. "We're not psychic, Sam. Or, you know, you're not anymore. We don't know what's coming up the pike. All we can do is make the choices in front of us, now, today. And this day, we did some good. Maybe saved a couple of lives, tried to make a few others less crappy. Best we can do with what we've got."

"And if it's not enough?" Sam whispered. "What if we're winning the battles but losing the war?"

"Then we go down fighting," Dean answered without hesitation. A beat. "And I rip the lungs out of anything else that comes after you."

Sam was startled into a laugh. It made Dean's mouth soften, enough that when his brother gave him a sidelong smile, he could return it. "Yeah, that sounds about right for us," Sam admitted.

"Good," Dean said, the constant weight on his chest lightening just a little bit. But he'd always been a take-what-he-could-get kind of guy. "Okay. So, no hospital?"

"I think I've had enough of white coats and white walls, man," Sam answered around a yawn.

"Motel it is." Dean nodded, turning the engine over and pulling back out onto the empty road. Sam was asleep before they made it to the first intersection, but Dean noted with satisfaction that at least his face didn't look so pinched anymore.

There were, after all, a lot of ways big brothers looked after little ones.

The End