Dean had been driving all night, and for the past 30 minutes searching desperately for a gas station by the side of the road because if he couldn't find one, he was debating begging Abby to let him have some of the snacks he was pretty sure she had stockpiled in her bag. So, when the dingy shop came into view, Dean audibly said, "Thank god," which was apparently loud enough to wake his sleeping brother up.
Sam sat up, rubbing his eyes and looking around. "Geez, how long was I out," he asked quietly, glancing back at their still-sleeping sister.
"Just a few hours." Dean pulled into the gas station. "Want anything?"
"Uh, no, I'm good," Sam answered. Dean started to get out of the car but before he could fully, Sam asked "Hey, should one of us wake her up?" Normally, Dean's answer would have been to scoff and let his baby sister sleep, but he knew that wasn't actually what Sam was asking. Sam actually just wanted to know if he had a valid excuse to wake up Abby to talk to her on his own. Which, in Dean's mind, was vaguely acceptable so he told Sam that someone probably should. Dean headed towards the gas station planning on taking plenty of time. He really didn't want to interrupt what he was pretty sure was going to turn into his 9-year-old sister yelling at Sam.
After Dean left, Sam sat for about thirty seconds, facing forward, taking deep breaths to calm his racing heart. Sam wasn't quite sure why he was so nervous to talk to Abby. Talking to Dean had been fine, so what was the difference?
"Well, the difference was that Dean didn't have to be practically pried off you when you left, and Dean was old enough that he definitely still remembered what you looked and sounded like when you left." said a little voice in Sam's head. Sam groaned and leaned his head against the seat, frustrated everything had gotten so messed up.
"You okay?" a soft voice asked from behind him took a sharp breath in before turning around.
"Hey, Abs," Sam said, turning around as far as he physically could to look back at Abby. She sat up, rubbing her eyes and trying to adjust to wherever they were.
"Dean go in to get snacks?" Abby asked, having decided she did not want to be the one to bring up the elephant in the room.
"Uhh, yeah," Sam said, unsure what to do. In his mind, Abby had remained frozen in time as a 5-year-old who worshipped her Sammy. Abby decided that she was definitely not going to be the one to bring up the fact Sam had abandoned her. After all, that would be little-girl-ish, and like her Dad always reminded her, she was not a little girl. He had been telling her that for so long, she couldn't remember if she ever had been a little girl.
Abby got out her book and started reading it again, ignoring that Sam was still turned around and looking at her. She didn't actually read though, she just looked at the page and tried very hard to not look at her brother.
"Hey, Abby," Sam said and Abby looked up at him, her big brown eyes staring into his own. "I'm sorry," he said, knowing he had a lot to be sorry for.
"Good," Abby said shortly. Abby had decided, during those long seconds when she had pretended to read her book, that she was not going to forgive Sam Winchester for leaving her. She didn't care what her Dad had maybe said to him about never coming back, she didn't care how sorry he was, she was not going to forgive him. Abby brought her feet up onto the seat, and rested her book on her sticking-up knees, slightly turning so the book hid her from view. She was definitely not going to let Sam Winchester see her cry. As the tears slid down her face, she couldn't wipe them away because her hands were needed to hold the book, so she just let them fall.
"Ab-"
"I don't care," Abby said, not moving her book. She couldn't see Sam's face, but she liked to imagine he looked shocked and sad. Abby wanted Sam to hurt just as bad as she had, and besides it wasn't like he was sticking around.
The door right next to Abby, on the driver's side, opened. "How's Percy doing?" Dean asked, handing her a bottle of water, a granola bar, and a small pack of donuts.
"Okay," Abby answered, and Dean could now definitely sense the tension in the car. Usually, Abby would give him long explanations for each plot point and character in her books, but since Sam was there she resisted.
"Want breakfast?" Dean asked, sliding into his seat.
"I'm good," Sam said, "So how'd you pay for that stuff? You guys still running credit card scams?" In the backseat, Abby pretended to continue to read while actually listening very intently to the conversation.
"Sounds about right," Sam smiled at Dean's explanation of how he and his father had been pretending to be Bert Aframian and his son, Hector. He has no reason to be smiling, why does he get to be so happy? Abby thought, adding it to the growing list of injustices in her head.
"I swear man, you've got to update your cassette tapes," Sam said, digging through Dean's box of various cassettes. As Sam berated Dean for still having cassette tapes and the said tapes only having the "greatest hits of mullet rock," Abby couldn't help but smirk at the same point she had made to Dean less than 24 hours earlier, on their way to Stanford.
"Geez, not even reunited for 12 hours and already ganging up on me," Dean said, glancing back at Abby in the mirror. Abby quickly moved the book back up to block her face, just not quick enough for Sam to not see the small smile on her face.
"Besides, House Rules Sammy, Driver picks the music, Shotgun shuts his cakehole," Dean said, pushing his chosen cassette tape in and turning on the car. Sam rolled his eyes, almost in sync with Abby, at their brother's antics.
•┈୨♡୧┈•
The rest of the car ride happened mostly in silence except for Dean's rock music. The car pulled up at the bridge close to where the disappearances had occurred and Dean rifled through the box of fake IDs. "Let's go," he said to Sam, who had a shocked expression that was a bit comical to Abby. It wasn't like the Winchester's illegal behaviors were something new that occurred after Sam went to Stanford.
"Let's go," Dean said to Sam, before turning his head back, "Stay in the car," he said, and Abby groaned and leaned back against her seat. She wanted to help investigate, but was constantly told she was "too young." But that was completely unfair! After all, Sam had been 12 when they started hunting, and 12 wasn't that much different than 9.
Abby kept reading her book, as she was almost done, and when she looked up again Sam and Dean were headed back to the car, and Sam looked pissed. Abby watched as Dean smacked the back of Sam's head, a gesture she remembered from him doing before Sam went to Stanford. She couldn't hear what they were saying, but she could tell they were arguing about something petty because Dean looked annoyed but he didn't actually look upset. Dean stopped and turned around, and his back blocked her view of Sam, so she gave up trying to figure out what they were doing. A man in a uniform and glasses that Abby thought were a bit dramatic walked by the car. She made eye contact with him through the glass, but he didn't say anything or even nod, just kept walking toward the crime scene.
When the brothers got in the car, they continued their petty argument about how Dean treated police officers and Abby found it easy to tune it out, being used to tuning out Dean and her father's arguments. When they got to the town, Dean parked his car in the small downtown and all three siblings got out. Dean briefly explained his plan of trying to find someone who knew the guy who disappeared, a plan Abby could tell Sam thought was sketchy from his dubious facial expression.
While walking around, they saw a girl with dark hair and darker eye makeup putting up posters, "I bet you that's her," Dean says, referencing his idea that the missing guy's girlfriend, Amy, was probably going to be looking for him. He then walked up to her with Sam slightly behind him. Originally, when they started walking Sam had been on the inside of the sidewalk, but he had moved the outside for some reason. It was a habit Abby had noticed Dean had too, but she wasn't sure why.
Through the use of Dean's lying skills and "charisma", he convinced Amy that he and Sam were Troy's uncles and Abby was his cousin. Amy and her friend agreed to answer Sam and Dean's questions at a closed cafe. They at first resisted letting Abby come to, saying they weren't sure a little girl should be hearing about it, but Dean wore them down.
At the cafe, Abby sat next to Sam and Dean pulled up a chair at the end of the table. She tuned out a lot of the conversation, not finding much of it interesting. Missing boyfriend, nothing out of the ordinary, town beginning to connect the dots with all the guys going missing, Abby had heard the same thing a million times. But when Amy's friend, with equally heavy eye makeup that Abby found strange, started talking about a local legend she tuned back in.
"This one girl, she for murdered out on centennial like decades ago. Well, supposedly, she's still out there. She hitchhikes, and whoever picks her up- well, they disappear forever." That was pretty cool, Abby thought to herself. The makeup of the two girls had also started to grow a bit on her, and she thought the friend's many rings and bracelets looked cool.
Abby just had an old friendship bracelet she had made years ago after a friend taught her how. She had made three in the same style with different colors. Purple for Abby, red for Sam, and green for Dean. She knew Dean still had his, hanging on the rearview mirror in Baby. Sam likely threw his away when he went to college, she figured. After all, why would anyone want something to remind them of home when they had done so much to leave?
•┈୨♡୧┈•
Libraries were one of Abby's favorite places in the whole world. There were just so many books, and librarians were always really nice to her. Sometimes, Dean would take Abby to a library and just let her look around for ages, while he researched on the computer. After the conversation with Amy and her friend, the Winchesters headed to the library. Dean and Sam wanted to research the girl who was murdered on the highway, and Abby was always happy to go to the library.
As the brothers looked things up on the computer, Abby looked through the shelves that seemed to go on forever, looking for a book she liked. After finding one with a cool cover of a big house on a hill, she sat down in a beanbag chair in the kid's section and started reading it. After a while her peaceful reading is interrupted.
"Let's go Abs," Sam says. Abby looked up at him, and her facial expression must be meaner than she intended, she realized, as Sam immediately added "Sorry to interrupt." Abby rolled her eyes and got up, practically dragging her feet on the way to Baby.
They went to a hotel near the edge of town, where Dean booked a room under a fake name. He said he would pay later since he and Sam were in a hurry to get to some bridge to "investigate". After making sure Abby was situated in the room and all the locks worked, Sam stood awkwardly by the door while Dean said bye to Abby.
"Don't let anyone in unless it's me or Sam, and, at some point, go to sleep," were his only instructions before he kissed her on the forehead and headed for the door. Sam followed him out, waving awkwardly at Abby. She was just glad he didn't try to hug her or something.
•┈୨♡୧┈•
Abby had been asleep for a few hours in one of the two beds in the room when she heard the door open. She sat upright quickly, before seeing that it was Sam, followed by Dean covered in mud. A lot of mud.
"Geez, what the hell happened to you?"
"Language, also I jumped off a bridge," Dean said nonchalantly as if it was something he did daily.
"Oh, okay," Abby said, lying back down. It wasn't even light yet and she decided to hold off on pestering her brothers on what they found until the morning.
•┈୨♡୧┈•
When Abby finally woke up, Dean was no longer covered in mud and instead sleeping in the bed next to hers. Sam, however, was nowhere to be found. She sat up and rubbed her face. She climbed out of bed and slipped on her shoes, old red Converse. She didn't bother changing out of her pajamas but did grab Dean's wallet which he had left on the table between the two beds. After getting two five-dollar bills out of it, she left the room, making sure to close the door behind her. She turned left, remembering a vending machine she had seen when Sam and Dean had dropped her off earlier, and almost ran into someone.
"Oh, careful Abs," said Sam.
"Hey," she said shortly, walking past him toward the vending machine. She could hear Sam pause before his footsteps quickly caught up to her. Really, it was very unfair that she was so much shorter than him.
"Hey, uh, do you need money?" he asked, looking down at his baby sister's head.
"No, I stole some from Dean's wallet." That made Sam chuckle, and Abby hated that she liked that what she said made him happy.
They were now at the vending machine, and Abby was trying to decide between Twix and 3 Musketeers when Sam interrupted her train of thought.
"Abs, I really am sorry for leaving, but I had no choice, and I wanted to come back, I really did, but Dad said I shouldn't and... I just really missed you and now you hate me and I feel terrible," Abby didn't know how to respond to Sam's jumble of words so she didn't.
"I get you're mad at me for leaving, but I'm back now and that's got to count for something?"
"Yeah, until Monday," Abby said before walking as fast as her legs could carry her back to the motel room, leaving Sam standing next to the vending machine. She was mad at Sam, and now she was mad at him without any snacks which was truly a tragedy.