Fic: With Empty Hands Extended 3/5

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Sam and Dean stick around, letting Adam get used to the idea of having brothers- “Brothers! I’ve never even had a pet goldfish! Holy crap!”- before cramming whatever information they can on the supernatural into his head. It takes up residence right next to how to properly thread a suture needle; right under the little subcategory in Adam’s mind that holds all the information that he knows will one day save a life.

Maybe even his own.

Dean doesn’t sit back this time, tempering Sam’s almost manic training regime with quiet lessons in how to properly clean a gun so that it doesn’t jam when Adam needs to shoot right the hell now.

He hopes he never has to shoot anything ever again. He remembers the feel of the trigger when he squeezed and recites the Hippocratic Oath under his breath. Outdated and sentimental as it is, the well-intentioned words soothe the accusing whispers in his head that he’s learning things a doctor never should.

Sam teaches him about vampires, how they like to hunt in big groups, for protection and family. He says they’re bloodthirsty and that they hoard away trinkets and gifts like crows. Then, Sam tells Adam about a vampire woman named Lenore and how she and her clan defy everything Adam’s just learned. How things are never what they seem.

Dean takes over when they come to the pages on werewolves. Sam’s jaw goes tight with some foreign emotion Adam thinks is grief and anger. He excuses himself from the kitchen as Dean runs a blunt finger over their father’s scribbled words and tells him just how tragic werewolves really are.

Demons are a whole other subject.

“You find a demon and I don’t care how tough you think you are, you turn tail and you run, got it?” Dean growls at him as Adam stumbles over the last verse of the exorcism. “You find the nearest phone and you call us in to deal with it. Demons are nasty bitches and I don’t want another Winchester involved in their games.”

Sam doesn’t say a word after that, scowling and stomping outside for some air. Adam doesn’t have the courage to ask. Later, he’ll wish he had.

&&&

They laugh at him when Sam sets up the target and Adam hits the tree on the far left instead of the off-center bull’s-eye.

“Shut up.” He pouts, his face hot with embarrassment. Sam shows him how it’s done, again, easily popping three holes into the center of the target. He makes it look like pre-school.

“Both eyes open,” Dean comments from his right, sipping a beer in the warmth of the sun. He’s already promised to teach Adam how to throw a proper punch.

Sam swears he’ll keep an eye on them. Dean’s not known as a fair fighter- the way his oldest brother smirks at Sam’s glare tells Adam all he needs to know.

He takes hold of the gun again, hating the way the warm metal sticks to his sweaty palm. He’s a healer, not a hunter. He wants to help people, make them better. Not hurt them.

Then he remembers the cool, damp scent of death, sting of teeth and blade and the striking contrast between the cold stone floor of the crypt and the hot, sticky flow of his own blood and Adam never wants to be that helpless again.

He hits the target this time, the ping of bullet striking metal far more frightening than the noise from the gunshot or the recoil of the power in his hands. Two holes- between the two outer most rings has Sam clapping a solid hand on his back, grinning from ear to ear.

It looks like a paltry effort next to the three neat little holes of Sam’s attempt but Adam feels the thrill of pride as he looks over his shoulder and grins at Dean, who’s digging in his wallet with a wry twist of his lips.

“He didn’t hit the bulls eye, Sam.” He grouches, handing over a crinkled twenty anyway. Sam pockets the cash with a smirk, snorting with laughter at Adam outraged expression.

“You bet on me? Nice- classy.”

“Hey, I’ll buy you a happy meal. My treat,” Sam teases. “Dean can watch us eat from the window.”

“Ha, ha, ha,” Dean deadpans, finishing his beer.

Adam clicks the safety back on, pointing the muzzle at the ground. “What were the terms?”

“I bet it’d take you twice to hit the target, first time.” Sam says, pulling out a shotgun this time. The one Adam had used against the ghouls. He feels his eyebrows migrate up at the idea.

“That was a pretty big chance.”

Sam grins, “Dean said you’d hit it on the first try.”

“Fucking ghoul did.” Dean grumbles good-naturedly, scowling down at his beer. Adam ignores him, setting up his shot again.

Sam doesn’t have to explain anything to him this time- Adam hits the bull’s-eye, first try.

&&&

When Dean takes his position, knees slightly bent, hands up but relaxed, Adam feels like he’s facing down a WWE pro-wrestler.

He’s only ever been in a drunken fistfight before this, his opponent too hammered to do much more than fall over and piss on himself.

He doubts Dean will do either.

“Hands up, kid, relax. I’m not going to beat you black and bloody.”

Sam watches them from his spot on the ground, rubbing his fingers over the pink scars on his wrists. He’s the unofficial referee and mediator all at once.

“Make a fist- Jesus have you ever been in fight before?” Dean straightens up and grabs Adam’s hand, uncurling the fingers to pull his thumb out of hiding. “Best way to break your thumb, right there. Gotta keep your fist loose. Putting the thumb there doesn’t let you get your knuckles up.”

He fixes Adam’s fingers, squeezing them together to show him the difference. “This way you learn to throw your body into it. Don’t rely too much on the hardness of your hand. Even bones break.”

Certain Adam isn’t going to end up making another trip to the hospital Dean takes a step back and asks, “Ready?”

He doesn’t wait for an answer, throwing a very huge looking punch for Adam’s jaw. He jumps back, feeling the way the air displaces where his brother’s fist nearly knocked him over.

On the ground, Sam laughs. Dean kicks a rock at him but a glimmer of pride sparks in his green eyes as he smirks back at Adam. “Well, you’re quick. I’ll give you that.”

Adam shrugs. “Good looks and intelligence- it seems I have it all.”

Sam’s dying on the ground, shaking his head in amusement. His hair gets in his face as he looks at Dean and grins, “God, he’s just like you.”

Dean quirks an eyebrow at that, his eyes shifting over to Adam, silently asking something of him. Think we can take him?

Adam feels the smirk spread across his lips as he thinks, oh yeah.

Sam doesn’t catch on that the one-on-one training has turned into a two-on-one ambush until it’s too late.

&&&

Two weeks fly by so quickly, Adam feels like he’s only just blinked and it’s time for Sam and Dean to leave.

The testosterone-fueled goodbye is full of manly back-slapping and gruff voices. Adam watches the Impala pull away, hoping this won’t be the last time he sees his brothers.

He leaves for the university that afternoon- because his scholarship will be on the line before he can blink and the charger to his cell seems to have vanished from his duffle bag. Isaac was going to kick his ass.

He’s only been back at school a week and a half before the first postcard shows up.

It looks like any normal postcard, bright red with the words ‘Death is a once in a lifetime experience’ scrawled across the front in comic font. Adam flips it over to read the message crammed into the available box on the back.

‘Adam, pretty sweet card huh? I think it’s kind of awesome but SOMEONE is being a bitch about it. Whatever.’

Squeezed into the tiniest margin Adam’s ever seen is the word ’JERK!’ in blue ink. He smiles and continues to read the message from his brothers.

‘Read the front and learn, young grasshopper. You’re only young once- go out and get drunk, get la-’ Here, the writing squiggles off the page, arching right across the address part of the postcard. The word ‘laid’ looks like it’s been scratched out and gone over so many times Adam can feel the indents in the glossy front of the postcard.

‘Go out and get reasonably drunk. Study hard and don’t worry about us. We’ll be fine.’ The blue ink from before continued the message in neat, almost formal handwriting. Adam can’t stop grinning like an idiot as the postcard shows more signs of being high jacked for a second time.

‘Don’t be a little bitch. Go get pissed and drunk dial someone. Have fun and stay safe. Don’t sleep with any demons.’

The postcard isn’t signed but it doesn’t take a genius to figure it out- even if there hadn‘t been that strange parting advice. Adam sticks it between the pages of his biology book but gives the advice some thought. The next time his room-mate, Isaac, invites him out to find a senior desperate enough to buy them illegal booze, Adam goes.

&&&

Two more postcards show up (‘Life is a sexually transmitted disease and it’s 100% fatal.’ and ‘It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.’) in the next month

The first is nice and short- ‘Laid up in Oklahoma. Currently plotting Sam’s painful end. Go be smart and have fun or something.’- making Adam wish he had more than just his father’s old cell phone number to contact his brothers with.

Despite their short time together, Adam misses Dean’s smart ass attitude and Sam’s quiet strength. Everything seems dull in comparison to the two weeks he spent learning about demons and monsters and ghosts. Not even his most interesting classes can stem the thirst to know more about the life his brothers live.

His dream hasn’t changed though. Adam still wants to be a doctor more than anything, but he wonders if he can’t be both, if he can’t offer his brothers and anyone like them a place to come to for help.

The second postcard comes from Sam. Adam suspects Dean bought a whole mess of them somewhere, if the humorous quotes on the front are anything to go by. Sam’s message isn’t as cheerful, his neat, steady handwriting slanted with something that gave the message a manic tone.

‘We might be busy for a while. Don’t worry. It’s nothing we can’t handle. Practice your Latin and room-mate or not, lay down some salt lines. Exorcisms and holy water only work when you’re wake to use them. Stay safe and study hard.’

Adam doesn’t think much of the message, filing away the curiously worded postcard for later- but weeks turn into months and before he can blink it’s Spring Break and Sam and Dean have all but vanished off the face of the Earth.

&&&

Sometimes he forgets the house is his.

Mom’s will left him everything; ownership of the house and property, access to her bank account and savings, the papers to her car, she even named him the beneficiary to the life insurance he hadn‘t even known she‘d had. His mom made sure that if anything happened to her Adam would be taken care of.

He goes home for Easter and sits in the driveway, simply staring up at the dark, empty house for so long his fingers go numb against the steering wheel. Fear sweat clings to his hair as he reaches for the handle of the door. He hasn’t been alone in his home since Dean found him in the crypt. He’s not sure he can do this.

The devil’s trap Sam painstakingly etched into the ceiling above the door makes his spine melt with relief. He flicks the lights on, pulling a dried out piece of police tape from the door before slamming it shut.

His duffel hits the floor with a thump as Adam crouches low and pulls out the first of the canisters of salt. Taking account for the swing of the door, he tips the canister up, watching with sharp eyes as the white crystals pool on the tiles.

He doesn’t let his guard down, not truly, until each and every crack is lined with salt. Then Adam pulls his bags upstairs and curls up on his bed, sleeping fitfully.

Then Dean’s there, above him, hands curling into the hard muscle of his shoulders. Adam knows he’s going to have bruises, his mind hazy and scattered with sleep. Dean’s talking too fast, too breathlessly, his eyes blown wide and dark in the dead of night.

Adam wants to check for demons, for monsters and evil things but this is his brother, panicked and frantic and-what did he just say?

“Dean, slow down. What’s wrong?”

“It’s Sam. He hit his head, man. Hard. I can’t get the bleeding to stop and- just get downstairs.”

He’s up and out the door before the words really register, his brain pulling up anything and everything it can remember on head injuries and what in the hell are they doing here? Adam hasn’t heard from them in weeks.

“What are you doing here?”

Dean’s too busy pushing them both down the stairs, kicking Adam’s calves in his haste. Sam’s sprawled across the couch, one arm dangling limply onto the carpet. His left temple is coated with drying blood, the hair sticky and crusted.

“Head wounds bleed a lot,” he tells Dean as his fingers gently probe the edges of the wound. The skull under his fingers doesn’t shift or buckle- no breaks; that means Adam doesn’t have to watch his brother’s brains leak out of his head.

It doesn’t tell him a thing about what might be scrambled where he can’t see.

“He needs a hospital-”

“No.” Dean’s say is final. He looks like a mess; his eyes dark-ringed with exhaustion and too bright with hysterics. There’s a gash on his arm and his hands are spotted with fresh and aging blood. “We- we just can’t go to a hospital now.”

We’re in trouble, Adam hears, and you’re the closest thing we’ve got to a real doctor.

He sighs. “I’m a fucking pre-med, you do know that right?”

“Yeah but I‘m not. Fix him.”

He’s not a toy, Adam wants to snap, going over everything he knows about head injuries again and again.

Sam’s pupils react to light, his ears and eyes are clear of any discharge. Sam’s brain isn’t swelling, which is a relief.

“He’s just unconscious as far as I can tell.” Adam says, rubbing his face tiredly. He wants to add ‘as far as I can tell without any kind of equipment or medical expertise’ but it’s no fun kicking Dean when he’s down.

The best Adam can do is keep an eye on Sam, make sure he doesn’t up and die on them in the middle of the night. He leaves his brothers in the dark living room for a moment, hunting down the first aid kit he’d bought just before returning to school.

He cleans the wound on Sam’s temple and the sticky smeared mess of his too long hair before gently taping a square of gauze over the wound. He wants his brother to wake up before he starts stitching.

“We’ll keep watch until he wakes up- you do know how to check his pulse right? His breathing?”

Dean rolls his eyes, some of the tension in his shoulders disappearing as he snarks back, “Yes, Doctor Boy. Not everyone has to be a med-school student to see if a guy’s heart is still beating.”

Adam sits down on the far end of the coffee table and gestures to the recliner in front of him. “Good, I’ll make us some coffee after I stitch up your arm.”

“It’s fine.”

“It’s bleeding- that’s nowhere near the vicinity of fine.” Adam hates the way his brothers shrug off any kind of physical injury like it’s a mosquito bite. He’s pretty sure Dean could stumble into an ER holding his severed arm and still say it’s ’Just a scratch.’

As far as Mexican stand-offs go, it’s pretty lame. Dean’s exhausted and worried about Sam and his arm hurts. Adam can see the lines of pain around his bruised eyes. Besides having just poked at his brother’s head, Adam’s practically refreshed and wonderful in comparison.

He huffs in annoyance, circling around the coffee table to search in the dusty old trunk behind the couch. Adam pulls out a bottle of tequila and shakes it in his brother’s direction.

“No booze until you agree to let me help.”

“That’s blackmail.”

“Actually it’s closer to extortion.”

Dean shrugs. “Whatever- Sammy’s the law-school guy. Gimme the bottle and you can go all Operation on me, Dr. Frankenstein.”

Adam thrusts the bottle into Dean’s arms, smirking at the ‘oof!’ as he heads towards the kitchen to wash his hands. Blood doesn’t even make him twitch- not even after watching something with his mother’s face suck it down like it was the finest brew- but there’s something about Sam’s blood, the way it flakes off his skin in dark broken pieces, that makes him eager to rinse clean.

Dean’s already stripped down to his t-shirt, pulling back gulps of tequila like it doesn’t burn all the way down.

Adam sits back on the edge of the coffee table and threads the needle with calm, steady hands. Dean’s already prepped the wound- impatient bastard- but he checks it out anyway, poking and prodding gently, measuring the depth of the wound and remembering how many nerves run up and down this specific area.

“Ready?” He asks. His brother’s only answer is to tip the bottle back up for another pull.

Stitches, without some kind of local anesthetic, suck. Dean winces at each tug, each time the needle pokes through his skin. Adam tries to be quick and neat but the two hardly ever go hand in hand.

Securing the gauze with a strip of tape, Adam’s reminded of the time when he was on the other side of sure and gentle hands, the blood smeared across his finger his own. He shoots a quick, taunting smile at Dean.

“I’m so much better at this than you were.”

That familiar flare of ‘oh really?’ brightens Dean’s face for a moment, the passive competition between them a soothing balm compared to the unstable co-dependence between Dean and Sam.

The flare dampens as Sam twitches on the couch- but doesn’t wake- and Adam misses it. He likes the prideful, in-your-face boldness of his oldest brother the most. He wonders what happened to Dean to turn him into the quietly, cracked pieces of the man Adam can still see glimpses of.

“Whatever. Go get us some coffee, brat.”

&&&

It takes Sam ten hours to wake up on his own. Dean doesn’t sleep, barely eating the toast and scrambled eggs Adam makes for them.

When Sam finally comes to, it’s to throw up all over the front of Adam’s shirt.

“Sorry,” He mutters, reaching up to touch his head. Dean grabs his wrist and Sam pulls away, his eyes flashing open. Adam pulls his shirt off, eyeing the vomit darkly as he watches his brothers stare each other down, tense and unfamiliar.

“Glad you’re back with us,” Dean finally says into the heavy silence. Sam shrugs, wincing at the sudden movement.

“I’m not one for just giving up.”

Adam watches Dean’s face close off with the kind of rapt attention usually reserved for car crashes. Sam winces again his face almost apologetic.

“Dean…” He starts, looking lost. Dean raises a hand up and shakes his head.

“Yeah, I know.” He bites out, turning away. “Let the brat get a look at your head.”

Adam and Sam watch him leave, both speechless.

&&&

Two days later Adam wants to kill them both. Painfully.

It’s worse than that time he got caught drinking by the cops. His mom had been silent for days, letting Adam stew in her disappointment. By the end of the third day he’d sworn off all alcohol ever again.

Mostly.

This time it’s like watching two magnets repel each other. Whenever Dean walks into a room, Sam backs out, looking for pain pills or yawning impressively. If Sam’s already occupying the room, Dean’s already working on something else he has to check out.

In the whole four hours he’d been able to get his brothers to spend together in the same room with him, the tension’s so unbearable Adam comes away from the whole experience with a raging headache and a sour taste in his mouth.

He doesn’t know what happened between that last postcard and now but he knows something has to give and it just might be one of his brothers.

Sam’s playing a game of what looks like Spider Solitaire on his phone while Adam’s gleefully watching reruns on Comedy Central. Dean’s clanking around in the kitchen doing God knows what to avoid the awkwardness and Sam. Adam’s fed up with it. They haven’t seen each other in months and now it’s almost as if he’s a kid stuck in the middle of a joint-custody agreement.

He stands up and snags his glass off the coffee table, shaking it at Sam as he leaves the living room.

Dean’s sitting at the kitchen table clanking away half-heartedly at the keys. He sits up straight when Adam cocks an eyebrow at him. The crowd laughs loudly back in the living room as Sam curses softly at his cell.

Adam stares Dean down until the hunter scowls darker at him and bites out, “What?”

“Okay, this is getting stupid,” he snaps in frustration. “How long are you and Sam going to avoid each other? What happens when I leave and the two of you hit the road? In case you’ve forgotten you both came here in the same car!”

“No I didn’t forget, brat.” Dean replies turning to stare back at the computer screen.

Which helps Adam in absolutely no way whatsoever. He frowns, scratching his cheek idly. “What are you even doing out here?”

Dean tries to look superior. “It’s important hunter business, kid. I-”

Adam takes a step behind his big brother and snorts. “It’s Minesweeper, you dork.”

Dean viciously stabs at the touch pad and hit’s a mine, killing his player. “Hey, I’ve got like all of the ten top scores.”

“Wow, I’m impressed,” Adam deadpans but Dean’s frown doesn’t disappear. “Look, why don’t you just come in and watch some TV with us? I’ll even let you pick the channel.”

Dean opens his mouth but Adam cuts him off with a roll of his eyes. “We don’t get any porn.”

“That’s a really convincing argument there, brat.” He mutters but doesn’t move. Adam flicks him in the arm.

“Come on,” He wheedles and God, he really does sound like a little brother. “Minesweeper will be able to survive without you for a couple of hours….”

“Alright, alright- stop that already,” Dean relents, closing off the game window. “Jeez, you’d swear we were related or something…”

Adam hides a smirk as he follows Dean into the living room. He nearly walking into his back as his brother stops dead in his tracks.

There’s a snap of a phone closing and nothing but heavy, horrible silence until Dean asks, voice brittle and cold, “Who was on the phone, Sam?”

“Wrong number,” Sam bites off, his expression blank and challenging all at once. Adam backs away from the simmering anger between his brothers with utter confusion. There’s something wrong here, between them. It’s in the way Dean flexes his fists and grinds his teeth. It’s how Sam doesn’t try to explain, just sits there and let’s their brother come to the worst conclusions.

Adam doesn’t know these strangers in his brothers’ skins and he‘s not sure he wants to.

His brothers leave when Sam can move freely. They don’t wait to say their good-byes this time. Adam finds another postcard- ‘If all the world's a stage, I want to operate the trap door.’- pinned to the front of his fridge with a phone number etched on the back.

‘Call for emergencies only, brat’ is the message scrawled at the bottom.

Well, it’s certainly more than he had before this whole mess.

Adam spends the last two nights in his home curled up in his bed, every light on. The world’s a dark and scary place when Sam and Dean just aren’t Sam and Dean anymore.

&&&

The weeks between Spring break and finals are chillingly silent. Adam takes to waiting for the post like some kind of old time soldier’s wife but nothing ever shows up from Sam and Dean.

There’s a sudden out break of crime on campus- two students go missing three days before exam week, three guys are mugged on the way back from the library and Ashley Ryan goes crazy and breaks into the Biology Lab to set fire to the university.

Everyone is on edge, from stress and studying and the idea that campus isn’t as safe as they were hoping.

Then, at long last, a postcard shows up.

Adam flips it over to read the message with his heart pounding in his ears. His throat tightens. The message is foreboding enough, Adam breaks his ‘no calling unless it’s an emergency’ rule and listens as no one picks up. He stares down at the overly cheerful coloring and the phrase ‘May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.’ with trepidation.

The only message is scratched out in black ink, Dean’s favorite. ‘World’s ending- wish you were here.’

Adam hangs up without leaving a message of his own. Maybe he’s just being an idiot. For the short while he’s known his brothers, neither of them showed much tact being around normal people. It doesn’t mean anything.

It doesn’t.

Part Four