“Where the hell is our brother?”
The problem with hunters was that they were stubborn as hell, convinced they were always right, couldn’t see shades of grey, and knew the same tricks Dean did.
Gordon Walker was a damned good hunter, but he was a dead man the second Dean broke the ropes that had him tied in place.
It was one thing to ambush Dean, knock him out, and drag him to some warehouse. It was another thing to know that he drove Dean’s baby, getting his grubby hands all over the steering wheel, his ass print where Dean’s ass print went, and he probably changed the radio station too. But then to make it personal by targeting Sam and Harry? No.
Dean could get past a lot of shit, using him as bait to trap his brothers wasn’t something he would walk away from.
“You won’t break those ropes.”
Dean thought Gordon might have been asleep, sitting in a chair across from Dean with an AR across his chest and a hunting knife strapped to his forearm. Gordon opened his eyes and looked Dean square on with the same annoyingly calm expression he’d had since Dean first came to in the warehouse.
“Why would I want to break the ropes?” Dean snarked, still trying to use his fingertips behind his back to work the knots. Most people only tied up wrists, Gordon would think wrap down the entire hand.
Bastard.
“We’re just two old friends hanging out,” Dean said. “In fact, you should go grab the beer out of my trunk, then it’ll be a real party.”
Dean didn’t think he’d break out of the ropes with Gordon out of the room, he just wanted thirty seconds without a gun in his face. And if Gordon accidentally triggered his own trap, so much the better.
Sam would be there soon, Dean was sure of it. It wasn’t a comfort, not with the way Gordon had the entrances to the warehouse rigged. If Sam took one step in any door or window, he’d be blown to pieces.
There wasn’t any fighting a fucking bomb. Sam was smart though, freakishly smart. Dean had to think that Sam knew it was a trap and that he wouldn’t get himself killed. If he did… if Sam walked in the warehouse…
Dean’s arms broke out in goosebumps at the thought. Sam was smart though, he was. If it were Dean or Harry, it might be a real concern, but Sam was diligent. And as long as Sam left Harry at home, didn’t bring the impulsive and barely trained kid with him, then they would be okay.
They had to be.
“You know, I think I’ll wait for that beer until your brothers show up,” Gordon said calmly. He flashed his teeth in a humorless smile. “Though I don’t think you’ll want to share a beer with me afterward.”
“I swear to God…” Dean snarled and tried to kick out, dislocate a wrist, something. He glared at Gordon and hoped that he knew that he pretty much begged Dean to kill him the second he had him call Sam. “If a single hair on either of their heads is so much as singed, I will rip you limb from limb.”
“In time, you’ll see that this was the right choice,” Gordon said. “They’re monsters, Dean, we’re hunters. Hunters kill monsters, that’s the way the world works.”
There were a couple of times where Dean tried, tried real hard, to picture his brothers as objectively as he could. Yeah, Sam’s visions were weird and Harry’s magic made Dean twitch on occasion. But monsters?
Sam? Who loved the Beatles and hated guacamole because the ‘texture felt wrong’? Harry? Who doted on an owl like some people did their kids and who blushed when Dean made any joke about sex?
Those goofballs? Monsters?
Dean was more dangerous than them, even with their magic powers.
“Harry’s a kid,” Dean snapped. He needed to piss Gordon off, break through that calm mask, make him make a mistake. “And you’re just pissed cause Sam made you look like an idiot on that vamp hunt.”
“Did he?” Gordon asked. “Or did I finish the job?”
Dean’s blood ran cold. Gordon wasn’t much of a comedian. A psychopath? Yeah, that fit. But Dean didn’t think he was kidding or trying to get a rise out of Dean, he was just serious.
“They weren’t fuckin hurting anyone!” Dean yelled, pissed as hell. Gordon was the damned monster, killing anything that so much as looked like a monster.
Lenore didn’t kill anyone; she drank cow blood, for fuck’s sake. Sam and Harry never killed anyone either… that Gordon knew of.
Meg killed two hunters when she took Sam’s body for a joy ride and Harry killed a plane full of people when he accidentally dropped the plane. Those deaths were all covered though, Gordon didn’t know jack about them because there was no evidence.
Gordon was on a witch hunt, pure and simple. He poked around the right circles, supposedly picked up some comments from a demon about Sam being a psychic and destined to lead some demon army from hell. He did more digging and found the magic community the same way Bobby did. Harry’s name was too big to be forgotten, it didn’t take him long to find a witch that knew who Harry was.
It made Dean sick when Gordon told him all that when Dean first woke up from being knocked out in his own home. Gordon described the witch like she had been scum, something to be used for information then dispatched like she wasn’t some innocent woman just going about her day.
Gordon wasn’t anything special, just a John Winchester type of hunter who thought anyone a little different needed put down.
“Dean, they were—” Gordon went silent, the same as Dean when tires on gravel could be heard.
Dean’s heart started racing so hard that he thought he might have a heart attack. It was about the right time for Sam to be there. He would have driven from home, an eight hour drive. It had been about nine hours since Dean called him though, so Dean hoped the extra time was spent getting back up.
Planning.
Something.
“Damn.” Gordon picked up a small and portable monitor from beside his boots and shook his head at whatever he looked at. “I hoped to finish this today, Dean. I truly didn’t want to drag this out, I’ve got no fight with you. But Sammy didn’t bring Harry and that’s a problem.”
There was a part of Dean’s mind that was relieved by that. Dean had worried that if Sam thought his life was on the line that he would bring Harry with him.
It didn’t mean Dean could relax though, not with the building set to blow and Sam on the property.
“Sammy doesn’t look so hot,” Gordon went on, his eyes busy with the monitor and offering Dean another chance to try and break the ropes. “It looks like someone got to him before I could… ah, here we go… Sammy’s found the camera…”
“SAM!” Dean went for broke and started screaming. Dean was in the basement of the warehouse, far enough from the explosives for Gordon to feel content and too far for Dean to hope that Sam could hear him. “SAM! RUN!”
Gordon gave commentary on what Sam did while Dean struggled and screamed.
“He’s going for the power… oh, Sammy, you don’t want to walk in here in the dark, how will you see the trip wire?”
There was a series of beeps that accompanied the sudden darkness Dean was plunged in. Gordon must have guessed Sam would cut the power first… Gordon knew the same damn tricks they did and he planned around each one.
“SAM!” Dean screamed his brother’s name until his throat tore and he swore he could taste his own blood. “SAM, RUN!”
Dean wanted to claw his arms off, rip his ankles from his legs, anything, anything at all to get out of the fucking chair. If Sam walked in —
The sudden explosion was deafening. It might as well have happened inside Dean’s chest- he could feel it clear to his teeth that clicked when the building shook and a second bomb exploded.
No. God, no. No, no, no, no, no…
Dean’s mind went haywire, shaking as much as the room did. His ears were ringing and there was no sound of anything above his head, where Sam should be. The aftershocks knocked his chair on the side and Dean couldn’t even think how to use that to his advantage when Sam - no - Sam…
Not Sam, please, God, not Sam…
“One down, one to go.”
Dean could hear Gordon standing up, going to check to make sure Sam was good and gone. But Sam couldn’t be gone, he couldn’t.
“Sam…” Dean groaned his brother’s name when Gordon’s footsteps echoed away, up the stairs, to the wreckage.
All the stupid shit between them recently hurt Dean in fresh waves as he struggled against the ropes- shied away from the thought of Sam coming to Dean’s rescue and being blown apart. It couldn’t be Sam, it couldn’t…
Dean used his upper body to scoot the chair across the floor. He could hear Gordon returning and he needed to hurry because it was going to be Harry next and Dean couldn’t even think of Sam and he couldn’t think of —
“Dude, seriously?”
Dean’s chest froze and he knew he stopped breathing. It was pitch black in the room, but Dean still squinted to try and find his brother.
“Sam?” he whispered, choking on his own desperate hope. “Is that you?”
“Barely.”
Dean had been looking upward and he could have bawled like a big ol’ baby when he suddenly saw Sam’s head appear out of nowhere, just like Harry did in the Milwaukee Bank.
The invisible blanket. It had been in the trunk of the Impala since Milwaukee.
“Oh, thank fuck,” Dean breathed. He couldn’t tell with how dark it was, but he could hear Sam’s breathing then - shaky, unsteady. Either he was shaken up from the blast or from whatever Gordon mentioned before about Sam not looking so hot.
“We need to hurry.” Sam crouched down and immediately went to work on freeing Dean’s hands with a knife, bringing him close enough that Dean could squint and see he did look roughed up. Even in the dark, Dean could tell Sam was limping some, babying his right wrist too.
Dean had to bite his tongue though, they had to get the fuck out of there before Gordon realized Sam played him. Thank God Sam thought to grab the blanket, thank God he had gotten the brains out of the two of them.
Thank God Sam convinced Dean to take the blanket from Harry in the first place.
When Dean’s hands were free, the blood rushed in them and Dean couldn’t flex them fast enough. They were sore as hell, tingling from being tied up so long. Sam worked silently on Dean’s ankles and had him freed in no time.
“My hero.” Dean grinned when Sam grabbed his hand and yanked him to his feet. On his feet, face to face with Sam, Dean really didn’t think he looked good. Someone had beaten the hell out of him, leaving Sam with a bloodied nose, bruises wanting to blossom on his face, and some sort of hurt that had his eyes flickering away from Dean’s.
“Sam…” Dean stayed quiet, but there was something wrong with Sam and it put Dean on an immediate and sharp edge. “What’s going on?”
“I’ll tell you in the car, come on.” Sam lifted up the blanket and Dean crowded beneath it with him. It pissed Dean off to sneak away from Gordon, hidden like a coward, but Gordon had the advantage in the dark while Sam was working hurt.
And Dean needed to get the fuck out of there, make sure Harry was safe and Gordon couldn’t get to him.
Dean and Sam crept silently through the warehouse, moving on instinct instead of sight. When they made their way up the stairs, Dean could hear Gordon sifting around on the main level.
There was an acidic smell on the floor where the explosion had happened. There was also enough smoke and small fires to mask any footstep or flashes of ankle that they might have shown.
Sam kept his hand on Dean’s elbow and guided him to what used to be a doorway, it must have been the one he already set the bomb off for.
Dean wanted to throw a punch at Gordon when they passed him, but common sense told him to wait. Dean wasn’t a real patient guy, but he could be. Dean could make sure his brothers were safe, then he could track Gordon down and show him that he had targeted the wrong Winchesters.
Sam and Harry weren’t monsters, but Dean could be.
The second they touched grass, Sam gave Dean a shove to get him running toward the Impala. Dean only gave the car Sam drove a cursory glance - some shitty little Dodge - before he slid across his hood and put his ass right where it belonged - in his baby.
Dean smirked and raised his middle finger when the roar of the engine had Gordon flying to the blasted doorway. If the dickbag didn’t want Dean to take back his own car, maybe he shouldn’t have left the keys in the ignition.
“See you soon, Gordo!” Dean shouted. He had to drive fast when Gordon aimed the gun at Baby - another personal attack that Dean wouldn’t forget - but Dean was invincible behind the wheel of his car.
With Sam in the passenger seat, Dean behind the wheel… there wasn’t anything they couldn’t take on.
Dean let out an adrenaline fueled whoop when there were three shots fired and he whipped the car hard enough to avoid them all. After sitting like a freaking damsel in distress for the last day, it felt good to do something productive.
“Way to go, Sammy!” Dean laughed. He slapped Sam’s shoulder, forgetting he was hurt. Sam hissed and when Dean peeled out on the nearest service road he took a chance to look him over.
“Fuck.” Dean winced in sympathy when he saw how beat his brother was. “You look like you got hit by a fuckin’ train, Sammy.”
“An SUV, actually.” Sam wouldn’t look at Dean and it might have been embarrassment but Dean thought it was guilt.
“Yeah?” Dean looked him over and could match the injuries to a wreck, it explained why Sam didn’t have his car either. “What happened? Where’s Harry?”
“Uh…” Sam was definitely being evasive and Dean’s quick excitement at fucking over Gordon again began to simmer down to worry.
“So… you know how there’s other people like me?” Sam started, the worst possible lead up. “I met one today, Ava. She has visions, like me…”
Dean just knew he wasn’t going to like where Sam’s story ended up. It made him press on the accelerator harder, in more of a rush to get home.
“She saw me dying, Dean, getting blown up.”
Dean gripped the steering wheel hard and pushed Baby as fast as he could go.
“How?” Dean asked shortly. There was a big chunk of Sam’s story that was missing and it had Sam acting twelve years old again, hesitant and guilty.
Sam started to shrug then went entirely still, bad shoulder too then.
“How do any of us have these powers?” Sam said.
“No.” Dean flexed his fingers, held the wheel hard as he pushed Baby past one-ten. That wasn’t the question he’d been asking and Sam knew it. “Sam, how’d she find you to tell you?”
Cause Dean could start to see a picture, one he didn’t like at all. Sam’s injuries, his behavior, the way he still hadn’t said where Harry was…
One-fifteen and climbing… Dean could make it to Sioux Falls in five and a half hours… so why’d it take Sam nine?
“She- she saw me get in a wreck at an intersection, she saw the ambulance that arrived and figured out where I’d be,” Sam said. “She didn’t realize that she would be the reason I crashed… limited visions, I guess.”
Dean inhaled deeply and tried real hard to remember how not thirty minutes ago he thought his brother was dead. If Dean didn’t remember that crushing weight, that shock and hurt that went deeper than the after shocks of the bomb, then Dean was going to kill Sam himself.
“You didn’t call an ambulance for yourself,” Dean said, so calmly it scared even himself. The picture was clear, Dean could see it in too many details.
Sam’s voice dropped from twelve years old to eight, “No.”
One-twenty-two… Baby couldn’t go any faster and Dean couldn’t let up on the pedal for a second.
“Sam, where the hell is our brother?” Dean asked, his jaw was clenched so hard it ached.
“Sioux Falls General.”
Turned out, Baby could hit one-thirty with enough motivation.
Dean made it to the hospital in what he considered to be record time. He would have been there faster, but some trooper thought Dean was the guy to fill his quota with. Sam shot out the front tires on the police car and Dean flew down back roads until they hit the state line.
Sam filled Dean in while he drove- giving him all the details.
Sam had Harry in the car, headed to Dean (they were gonna have a real talk about that when Dean had the ability to speak again). They took a corner hard, smashed head on with the other psychic chick, Ava. That bitch had an SUV, Sam had a Mustang and unrestrained passenger.
And Dean was pissed about that too. Sam had bitched at Dean since they were kids about wearing a seatbelt, but he let Harry go without when Sam had been pushing ninety on a back road?!
Harry went through the windshield - Harry went through the windshield. Sam was hurt, but he didn’t mention that, Dean just wasn’t blind. The chick was fine and told Sam that she saw him triggering a trip wire and dying in a warehouse explosion while they waited on the ambulance for Harry.
“How bad is it?” Dean managed to ask.
Sam hesitated and that was all Dean needed to know.
Bobby had been set to beat them back from a bullshit case in Jersey that Gordon sent him on. Sam had called him off Ava’s phone and told him to meet Harry at the hospital while Sam went to get Dean.
A fucking series of bad choices.
Dean wasn’t the damn target, Sam and Harry were. Dean could have sat in that warehouse for another day or two and been just fine. Sam could have sent Bobby, hell, he could have called up Ellen or Jo.
Though a pretty large part of Dean thought that the Roadhouse was where Gordon picked up on the story of Sam being psychic. Gordon said he heard it from a demon, but Dean thought that was bullshit. Demons lied and even if they made Gordon look like a dumbass on the vamp hunt, Gordon probably hadn’t been interviewing demons about them.
If it was true, that there were rumors being swapped about his brothers at the so called ‘hunters safe place’, Dean would burn the building to the ground. And anyone who had shit to say about a Winchester could go with it.
Dean saw Bobby’s truck in the hospital parking lot and he parked the Impala right behind it. There wasn’t time to find a parking spot, not when Dean had called Bobby and only been told to ‘hurry the hell up’.
That sounded bad, real bad. It made Dean think of the last wreck he’d been in - the one that should have killed him. If Dad hadn’t made his deal with Azazel, Dean would have been dead.
Dean could remember exactly what it felt like, not inside his body - trying to run from the Reaper that told him his time was up - and that couldn’t be Harry. It couldn’t be.
Sam told Dean that he used Harry Singer for the first responders who arrived at the wreck. It was the only good idea Sam had all freaking day, it made it easier for Dean to flash his fake license and be taken to ‘his son’s’ room.
It was in the ICU. The nurse leading them to the room said a lot of shit that Dean couldn’t understand.
Surgery… skull fracture… shattered femur… internal injuries… ‘extensive’…
Sam limped along behind Dean with as much speed as he could. He would remember the details later, when Dean wanted them. The only thing Dean wanted at the moment was to see Harry…
“If he wakes up, he’s going to be in a lot of pain,” the nurse said just before opening one of the doors that lined the hallway.
She said ‘if’.
She said ‘if’.
Dean walked in the room with his shoulders squared and his game face on. It was the only way he could do it. Sam made a terrible noise that cut Dean, but Sam’s pain was a shadow of the concern threatening to burst out in waves.
Harry - God, Dean couldn’t even tell it was Harry - laid on a bed that was huge compared to his body. Even with a blanket covering him, Dean could tell there were casts, wraps, and tubes hooked up pretty much everywhere.
There was a thing people said, about people in hospitals looking peaceful. Harry didn’t look peaceful, his face looked busted six ways to Sunday and Dean knew if he was conscious that he’d be screaming.
“De…”
It didn’t matter that Sam fucked up, not then. When Sam had to grab Dean’s wrist just to make it to Harry’s bedside and the childish name he used to use for Dean fell from his lips… it didn’t matter.
Bobby sat on the far side of the bed, hunched over and holding Harry’s hand. He didn’t say anything, or maybe he did and Dean just couldn’t hear him over the water rushing in his ears.
“Kid…” Dean reached out with the hand Sam wasn’t clenching and touched a single patch of clear skin on Harry’s face. He was warm, that was good.
The nurse said ‘if’.
Dean couldn’t look away from Harry - he fucked up so badly. That kid was his responsibility, his brother. Sam shouldn’t have put him in the car, he should have made him wear a seatbelt, but Harry was Dean’s responsibility the same way Sam was.
“Sam, you gonna be able to stand another twenty minutes? I know you’re hurtin’, but someone’s gotta watch Dean.” Bobby let go of Harry - how could he do that? - and got to his feet.
Dean could hear him if he focused hard, but he was trying to watch Harry’s chest rise and fall, assisted by the tube in his throat. Dean looked past the swelling and dried blood to try and find fluttering eyelashes, looking for any sign of life.
Sam said something, Dean could hear his voice if not his words, and then Bobby touched Dean’s shoulder on his way out the door.
“Sam…” Dean’s voice didn’t shake, there weren’t any tears choking him up. It was flat, emotionless. Everything Dean felt - everything tearing him up from the inside out - stayed locked down, only for Dean to feel.
There was a plastic bag on the foot of Harry’s bed that wanted to rattle the box where Dean locked everything at. It was a standard hospital bag; clear with a label saying ‘Singer, Harry’ on it.
The bag wasn’t anything special, but Dean had seen Harry’s belongings inside of it… Dean had seen the Def Leppard shirt pressed to the side of the bag, as bloodied and cut up as the kid who stole it from Dean.
Dean swallowed hard.
“She said ‘if’, Sammy.”
Sam’s hold on Dean’s wrist was tight enough to bruise; Dean needed it to be tighter. There had to be someone holding him in place, cause Dean was ready to run to a crossroad.
Was that why Dean got to live? It wasn’t what Dad intended, but maybe Dean had been given an extra five months of life so that when it mattered, he could trade his soul for something. There were only two people that Dean would burn in Hell for, and the nurse said ‘if’.
A doctor checked on Harry at some point. He tried to get past Dean to reach the monitors and realized almost immediately that no monster or man was going to move Dean from where he stood.
Sam signed some forms for Dean, paperwork that was left to fill out. Dean didn’t know about it, didn’t care. He cared that Harry’s eyelashes didn’t move, his fingers didn’t twitch.
Dean was ready to run to a crossroads by the time Bobby returned. Dean even made himself turn away from Harry - he’d find a demon, trade his soul - and Bobby blocked the doorway with his body.
“Move,” Dean ordered him. It wasn’t the time for talks or tears.
Bobby didn’t move and Dean didn’t want to hurt him, but he would. He would when he moved Bobby out of his way and he would when he sold his soul to the first demon he could call.
“Don’t be stupid, boy,” Bobby said quietly. “I know what you’re thinkin’ and we ain’t there yet.”
The lid on all the shit Dean was keeping shoved down cracked and Dean shook Sam off him so he could point at Harry behind him. Dean didn’t know how Bobby knew what he planned, but Bobby had always known Dean too well.
It was why he had to know that Dean wouldn’t be stopped, not with his brother’s life on the line.
That kid loved Dean, Dean loved him. They were family and that was that.
“We damn well are!” Dean said, only just not yelling. “We’re about two surgeries past ‘there’!”
“Not yet we ain’t.” Bobby shifted to cover the side of the door that Dean had spotted as a weak area where he could shove through. “That boy’s got more options than most, Dean. You let one of those options come and give their opinion then I’ll drive you to the damned crossroads if we gotta.”
Sam sucked in a breath and Dean couldn’t look away from Bobby’s eyes. Dean didn’t get what Bobby was saying, it was only the word ‘if’ bouncing around in his head.
Sam got it instantly.
“You called Sirius,” Sam guessed, shocking Dean.
Magic.
Bobby didn’t look to Sam, he only watched Dean, making sure his words couldn’t be misunderstood.
“I didn’t trust him one bit,” Bobby told them. “That man ain’t right in the head. I told him that Dean wanted to talk to the old man, the one teaching Harry. I told him it was important as hell and to send him to your place immediately.”
“Did he?” Sam asked.
“He’ll be here soon.” Bobby reached in his pocket slowly and pulled out a thick piece of paper, like the shit Harry’s friends sent letters on. It was offered to Dean, but he couldn’t reach for it.
Sam got it - Sam got Dean.
Sam reached out and took the crumpled and singed paper and read it out loud.
“‘I have received your message and will be with you within the hour. Sincerely, A. Dumbledore.’”
“I got that ten minutes ago in your living room,” Bobby told Dean. “You wait fifty more minutes, you hear me?”
Fifty minutes.
Dean could wait fifty minutes.
Bobby took Sam to get his injuries checked out, get his wrist x-rayed and set anyway, and Dean took Bobby’s chair by the bed.
“You hold on, kid,” Dean murmured while he just touched Harry’s arm, not willing to touch or grab him more than that.
“Someone’s coming for you,” Dean told him. “They’re gonna come and wave a magic wand and you’re gonna be just fine, alright? You’re gonna be fine, Harry. You can - can go back to summoning my shit and eating all the good snacks in no time.”
Dean traced a soft and soothing pattern on Harry’s arm. It wasn’t stupid to talk to him, Dean could hear Sam talk to him when Dean had been the one laying in a hospital bed. It kept him sane, kept him running from the Reaper.
“You’ll probably have a few new scars,” Dean told him, looking at the gashes from the glass, the road rash, thinking of the surgery wounds. “But chicks dig scars, alright? You can show ‘em to your girlfriend and I’ll teach you how to play the sympathy card just right. The trick is to be real brave about it, don’t be a baby, but make her think you might need someone to kiss ‘em all better.”
Dean paused, considered that.
“Maybe you’re too young for that,” he said, almost grinning. Harry was younger than Dean had been at his age in some ways. “But still… you can show your Hermione all your new scars next month, okay? You will, Harry, I swear.”
One way or another.
Dean had his head bowed over Harry, just breathing and wishing Harry was doing it too, when the door for the room opened up. Dean lifted his head, thinking it might have been Sam and Bobby back already.
It wasn’t. It was Harry’s teacher, the wizard that set Dean up as Harry’s guardian and found a way for Harry to still go to the school he loved so much.
Dumbledore walked in the room with his blue eyes wide and locked on where Harry laid. Dean took in his weird ass outfit - Harry would have laughed, like they did at the Quidditch thing when they saw how wizards tried to wear normal clothes and failed - and the way that he seemed to age ten years with every step he took.
“How did this happen?” Dumbledore asked Dean. He stopped by the bed and reached out to touch his fingertips to Harry’s shoulder. Dean had to stop himself from snapping at him, telling him to not touch his brother.
“Car wreck,” Dean said instead. He watched Dumbledore and focused everything he had on him, looking for bullshit to his immediate question. “Can you fix him?”
“I? No.” Dumbledore didn’t bullshit Dean and Dean could respect that - but it still felt like a punch to the gut.
“Harry needs a magical hospital, we have many capable witches and wizards trained who can fix him.”
There had been a hundred and ten pound weight on Dean’s chest that lightened some. Dean looked hard for any bullshit or magical fuckery at all when Dumbledore looked to him and he didn’t see it. Dean saw concern, he saw honesty.
“Yeah?” Dean couldn’t get hopeful, but he wanted to. Dean wanted to think that if magic got them in that mess - made Gordon target Harry and Sam and flip the first domino that led to Harry being so hurt - that it could help them get out of it.
“Yes,” Dumbledore said firmly, no bullshit. “If you would pick your brother up and allow me to take your hand, we can go now. We should, in fact.”
Dean had never complied with an order so quickly in his life. Dumbledore waved his hand, disconnecting all the tubes and wires hooked up to Harry. There was a horrible split-second where it sounded like Harry was choking, he couldn’t breathe on his own, then another wave of Dumbledore’s hand had that cleared up too.
“Here we go, little brother.” Dean carefully scooped Harry up in his arms, holding him tight and holding him close. Harry’s head lolled on Dean’s shoulder and it would have been sweet if Harry wasn’t unconscious and dead weight in Dean’s arms.
Dumbledore grabbed Dean’s arm and pulled on him hard as he turned in place - there was a hospital room in front of Dean and then there was nothing.
And then there was a freaking riot when Dean and Dumbledore popped up in the lobby of a magical hospital only God knew where with the unconscious and beaten body of Harry Potter-Winchester.