Archive of Our Own

(1.)

The first time Sam goes hunting on his own is in May of 1998. It’s also the last, for a good long while.

It happens because he overhears Dean on the phone. Something about a case he’s discovered in town — and Dad’s voice, deep and forbidding: Dean, I said no. You need to watch out for Sam, not go tearing after some hunt you’ve only half put together. If you want to do something about it, buckle down and get your ass to the library for once. There might be something in the newspaper archives.

But Dad, comes Dean’s answer, voice higher than usual and tight, if I’m right about this ritual, it’s happening tonight. Someone could die. I need to —

Dean.

It’s the only word Dad needs, always, to snap Sam’s brother into line. Contempt itches, irritable, at Sam’s ribs. If he were the older brother, he wouldn’t take that shit.

That’s where the idea comes from: Dean might knuckle under to everything Dad says, but Sam doesn’t have to. He’s a hunter too. He knows what he’s doing. He’s almost as tall as Dean now, even. He definitely doesn’t need watching out for anymore.

So he goes and snoops through Dean’s notepad, while he’s in the bathroom. Finds an address. An abandoned warehouse outside town.

By the time Dean’s done with whatever he gets up to in there, Sam’s long gone.

---

Hazy figures are swimming in Sam’s vision. Moving over him, touching his face, laughing. Are there two of them, or is his vision doubled? Fingers dance over his chest — then lower, the waistband of his jeans. He feels something slip into his back pocket — feels a hand squeeze.

He has something in his own hand: a gun. His gun.

He could kill something with it. He has before. Once or twice.

Hands again, turning him, and he’s on his back. The floor is cold and hard. Is he on the floor? His head aches. He blinks at a fan spinning above him.

“— like fucking Bambi,” says a woman’s voice, and fingers pinch his cheek. “You’re not a day over fifteen, are you?”

Sam doesn’t like that. He’s several days over fifteen. He raises the hand with the gun, wavering; he could shoot her. He wants to. Does she deserve it? He’s not sure it matters.

She laughs again and presses his hand back down. It goes, weak. Her fingers wrap around his, but she doesn’t try to prise the pistol free. “You hold onto that,” she says, “for when your brother shows up.”

Somewhere in the deepest recesses of his brain, Sam knows he has a brother.

He doesn’t hear the footfalls behind him. That might be because he’s drugged, or concussed, or — something. But then, the woman doesn’t seem to hear them either.

“Bit slow on the uptake, aren’t you?”

The voice sounds unsteady, and familiar.

And the woman bending over Sam rears upright — and goes flying. There’s a bang. The acrid scent of smoke fills Sam’s nostrils. Shotgun blast, some part of his brain supplies. The real thing. Not rock salt. Whatever that means.

Then there are hands on him again, patting him down for injury, tilting his face. They find the tender spot at the corner of his brow, the sticky blood there, and he flinches away. He still has the gun in his hand. What was he supposed to — she wanted —

“Damnit, Sam,” someone’s saying, and, “Sammy —”

The woman is levering herself painfully into his field of vision, off the floor. “You remember, Sam,” she says, with blood dribbling down her lip, “kill him.”

The gun.

For a moment, the weight on top of him — Dean, something deep underwater reminds him — goes icy still. Sam moves, dreamlike. It’s easy. He has his pistol pressed to Dean’s sternum, grip trembling only slightly as he thumbs the hammer back.

“Hey.” A face swims into focus. Nothing but Dean’s lips is moving; his hands are still where they rest on Sam’s ribs. “Hey, hey. It’s me, Dean. It’s your brother — okay? Come on, pal, don’t shoot me, you’re gonna feel like shit later if you shoot me.”

His brother?

Sam’s grip wavers.

And Dean moves — sliding sideways at the same instant his hand comes up to wrap around Sam’s. “No!” the woman screams, as Dean’s finger jams down over Sam’s on the trigger.

The bullet hits her in the chest. She slumps, suddenly motionless, against the wall.

Was there something Sam was supposed to be doing?

His brain is still floating in fog. She wanted him to — kill Dean, that was it. But he’s not sure he wants to kill Dean. He doesn’t like the idea of Dean’s face slack like that — of a trickle of dark blood at the corner of Dean’s mouth.

“Dean?” he asks, uncertain.

“We gotta get out of here, man,” Dean says, and his voice sounds tight, almost strangled. “I don’t even know if she’s dead, and there’s probably more, and — shit, Dad’s gonna be —”

He stops talking abruptly when Sam points the gun at him again.

He isn’t really sure why he’s doing it. It’s just — it’s what he’s supposed to be doing. It feels nice — easy. Point the gun, cock the hammer.

“Sammy,” says Dean, weary. “Really?”

Sam doesn’t really want to shoot him.

Why is he trying to, anyway? He can’t remember. He can remember feeling mad at Dean, sure — he was mad at Dean earlier — but he didn’t want to shoot him. And that thing Dean said about Dad — okay, maybe there’s a bit of Sam that kind of wants to shoot Dad sometimes, but this, this is —

He’s so confused.

“Sammy,” says Dean, “you wanna give me the gun?”

He does want to give Dean the gun. But he’s not supposed to.

“Sammy,” says Dean again, urgency cracking his voice. “We gotta — we really gotta go. I need you to — just — remember Poughkeepsie? Drop everything, no questions asked, and run? This is a — a Poughkeepsie situation. Please, man, I need you.”

Sam remembers Poughkeepsie.

He remembers Dean looked scared then. Scareder than now, even. Which is funny, because right now is when Sam’s about to kill him.

Maybe.

He’s not going to kill him.

Drop everything.

He drops the gun.

It lands with a clatter on the floor. “I’ll take that,” Dean says smoothly, scooping it up. Then he’s scrambling upright, hauling Sam by the arm. Sam’s legs stumble beneath him, but he finds his balance — “Come on, man, come on,” Dean’s muttering. He jams Sam’s gun in the back of his jeans.

The world still feels strange and floaty. Sam’s still not sure what he’s doing, or why. But — this is a Poughkeepsie situation, Dean said. Drop everything. No questions asked. And run.

He doesn’t ask questions. He runs.

---

It’s only once they’re back at the Impala — there’s a car Dean must have hotwired skidded into ruts in the grass behind it — that Dean stops to finish patting him down.

He finds a little leather bag in Sam’s back pocket. He doesn’t pause to check what’s in it — just lights it up.

“Witches,” he grumbles as the bag burns. And the fog around Sam’s brain is ebbing, finally; the cold horror of what he almost did seeping into its place.

They don’t talk for a while after that. Dean drives; Sam sits shotgun. They get on the interstate heading west and don’t stop. Dean doesn’t hesitate when they pass by the exit for their motel.

“There are witches?” Sam asks, finally, two hours in; Dean’s showing no signs of slowing down. “You and Dad never said witches are real.”

“Yeah, well.” Dean’s jaw is tight, knuckles pale on the steering wheel. Then he turns his head: “You don’t know everything, okay? Just ‘cause you’re hunting now. You don’t fucking know everything. So don’t you ever — ever fucking — go off alone like that again.”

“Dean,” says Sam. A semi blares its horn. Dean twitches the Impala back into its lane.

Several miles pass in silence. Sam’s toe jiggles, bumping up against his math textbook in the Impala’s footwell. His biology textbook is probably still back at the motel. He probably won’t ever see it again. He wonders if his next school will use the same one.

“Where are we going?” he asks eventually.

“Meet up with Dad.”

Oh. So not quite a Poughkeepsie situation.

Sam should say something. He doesn’t know what to say.

“Witches,” he asks finally. “How do you kill them?”

Dean doesn’t take his eyes off the road. “Sometimes, like ordinary people. Sometimes — fuck if I know.”

---

“We should have code words,” Sam comments, toward dawn. The sky is turning streaky pink behind them. Dean’s not yawning, but he’s swallowed a few. “Like Poughkeepsie.”

“What?” says Dean.

“Poughkeepsie,” Sam repeats. “For ‘drop everything and run.’ Like you said.”

Dean’s jaw works for a second. Sam can’t tell what he’s thinking. “Okay. What else?”

Sam considers. “We could have — for if we get separated. A way to find each other, like an alias or something. And we could have, like — secret phrases we could use over the phone, like for witches or ghosts or the cops or if someone has a gun on us —”

But Dean’s laughing, finally. “Slow down there, tiger. You might be able to remember eight hundred SAT words or whatever, but the rest of us —”

“Dean,” Sam interrupts. “How many songs do you know the lyrics to? You were singing along to disco yesterday. You don’t even listen to disco!”

Dean scowls over at him. “There are like five words in ‘Funkytown,” Sam.”

“Fine, then we’ll use that,” Sam tells him, stubborn. “Funkytown means someone’s got a gun on you. So there.”

Another mile passes, two. Dean doesn’t comment, but he’s smiling to himself, just a little.

“Fine,” he says, eventually. “Funkytown. Poughkeepsie. What else you got?”

(2.)

Mostly Dean doesn’t tell Sam to Poughkeepsie unless he really means it. Mostly.

Sam’s got this whole code words thing going lately. Dean likes it, if he’s honest; it’s fun coming up with them. Makes it feel like the kid isn’t so permanently angry at Dean and Dad — for no reason and every reason — that he’ll never be Sammy again.

Plus, they’re useful. Cheat codes. The way — the only way, far as Dean can tell — to get Sam to do exactly what you say.

Dad doesn’t get that. The way Sam is right now, he needs an excuse for obedience. That’s all. He’s an angry teenager who has to move every few months; he’s all muddled up with hormones; he wants to be hunting more, and on his own. That’s all.

That’s all, that’s all, Dean keeps telling himself, right up until Sam’s gone and it’s just him and Dad, and the code words don’t work anymore.

(3.)

There are a couple times, in a couple pool halls. Fuck off, now, Sammy; I mean it. Poughkeepsie. Rough ones, Sam guesses, though it’s hard to tell what makes these any rougher than the others, or what Dean thinks he’s gonna get into that he doesn’t want backup in the form of his rapidly-becoming-not-so-little little brother. Sam can handle himself in a brawl. Even Dad says so.

Dean rarely comes back beat up, though, and he’s usually made plenty of cash. Still — Sam thinks later — that whole thing was shady. Everything about it. The fending for themselves in those places. The grifting together enough money to keep themselves fed when Dad fucked off for weeks at a time. Every goddamn thing about their goddamn life.

None of that stops him from doing it again when he needs extra money for textbooks.

He learns the places to go near Palo Alto. Far enough that he won’t run into anyone he knows; close enough for a bus ride or a walk. He knows what he looks like now to the sharps: cocky college kid, slumming it. He knows exactly how they’ll try to reel him in, because it’s just what Dean would do: play up how much they’ve been drinking. Lose a round. Bait the hook.

Sam lets them, then takes them for whatever it is they’re worth.

It shouldn’t surprise him — it really shouldn’t fucking surprise him — when one night, as he’s collecting his winnings off the rail, he hears a familiar voice over his shoulder: “Care to make it double or nothing, college boy?”

Sam turns. He doesn’t smile. Dean’s got his shit-eating smirk on, so familiar it feels like an ache inside Sam’s bones.

“Yeah,” he snaps. “Yeah, sure.”

(4.)

The first time Sam tells Dean Poughkeepsie, it takes him by surprise.

It isn’t on a hunt. Dad’s just being Dad; he’s not even that drunk. But Sam turns those puppy eyes on Dean and looks about five years younger than he really is, and when he says in a small voice, Dean, I — Dean, I really don’t think we should be here. Dean —

It’s okay, Dean tries to tell him. Here, if you wanna head down to the arcade — here’s some quarters. He’s been hoarding them for laundry; that’s fine. He’ll get more. Fuck off for a while, I’ll stick around and try to make him drink some water before he passes out.

No. Sam’s hand is on Dean’s wrist, tugging for a moment on his shirt cuff, then tight, like a vise. No — Dean, come with me. Please.

Dean actually laughs at that. The sound makes John stir on the couch; turn bloodshot eyes across the room toward his sons. Dean lowers his voice. Sammy, you’ll be fine. You’re fifteen — you’re a badass hunter. You can handle the arcade. Go find some other kids to hang out with, okay?

He spares another glance across the room at Dad. Seems like this bender’s already moving from its angry phase into the maudlin one; there’s gonna be stories about Mom pretty soon. Dean always likes to listen those, even if he’s usually picking broken glass out of a motel carpet at the time.

No, Sam’s whispering, even more urgently now. No, Dean, please — Dean. Poughkeepsie.

Dean turns in surprise.

Sam’s got an expectant look on his face. It fades after a moment to worry; then to bitterness. He turns his face away. You promised.

Dean did promise.

Okay, Sammy, he says quietly. He touches his brother’s hair. Okay. I’ll come with you.

He looks back one more time at Dad as they leave the room. John’s eyes aren’t on them. He’s staring at something in the middle distance; something only he can see. Mom, maybe. Dean hopes he won’t miss a new story. He hopes Dad doesn’t cut himself on the glass. He could stay for just a moment, maybe — sweep the big pieces up —

Sam’s looking back. Waiting for him. Dean follows him out into the night.

(5.)

Sam wins.

Dean’s good for it. He counts out the bills from his wallet, stacks them on the rail. When he’s turning to go, though — something inside Sam’s chest yields.

He grabs for Dean’s wrist. “Wait.”

Dean looks back at him. Challenge in his eyebrows.

Sam raises his own. “Can I buy you a beer?”

For a moment, he thinks Dean’s gonna say no.

Dean frees his wrist — reaches over to prise Sam’s fingers off with his other hand. For a moment Sam thinks he’s gone — one second longer, and he’ll be out the door, out into the anonymous neon and gasoline fumes of the night.

Instead, Dean leans in closer. “Didn’t think you were old enough to be buying anyone beers, Samuel,” he says in an undertone. “Are you telling me — you’re using a fake ID?”

Sam laughs despite himself. He punches Dean’s shoulder. “Fuck off,” he says. “Come on.”

Dean’s grinning again as he follows Sam to the bar.

---

They have a beer. They have a whiskey shot before they have a beer. Then another whiskey shot, and a third, and Dean’s laughing; Sam feels like nothing’s changed. Or maybe everything has; maybe he’s gone around the full circle and landed right here again.

“You always,” he says, and he can hear himself, a little sloppy; he slings an arm around Dean’s shoulders ‘cause that’s what Dean used to do to him. “You always kicked me out of these places. Pulled a Poughkeepsie and kept all the big fish for yourself. Like you thought I — cou — cou’n’t handle it. Well. I can handle it.”

He tries to give Dean a worldly, serious sort of look, but Dean’s kind of out of focus.

Still, he can see the hesitation, then the softness, in the corners of Dean’s eyes. The little smile he makes like it’s not even for Sam, really, like it’s mostly for himself. He tilts his beer bottle in both hands and looks down at it and says, “Nah, man. I always knew you could hold their own.”

Sam drops his arm again, mostly so he can elbow Dean in the ribs, partly so he can reach across the bar for his own drink. “Why, then?”

His brother shrugs. “You were a cute kid, Sammy. Places like these — caught a guy eyeballing you once or twice. There’s creeps and there’s creeps, if you know what I mean.”

Sam pauses to digest that. He doesn’t, really — know what Dean means — but his mind snags on something else. Cute kid. He frowns. “You been — hustling pool just as long as I have. Longer. They never eyeballed you?”

Dean just shrugs again.

And Sam’s too drunk for this; he’s disoriented. He shakes his head.

“You know.” Dean chuckles around the mouth of his bottle, lowering it without taking a sip. “Always figured — those code words, always figured they were supposed to be for hunts. But we used that one more in just — fucking life, man.”

Fucking life. They’ve got a fucked-up one. “Used it for Dad,” Sam says, and he can kind of tell his voice is too-loud, louder than the amber lights behind the bar, but he doesn’t quite know how to fix it. “I used it for Dad. ‘Til you wouldn’t listen anymore.”

But Dean smiles. “You know, I never really got that.” He sounds fond. “I always kinda liked drunk Dad. Once he got into his groove, anyway.”

Sam stares at him.

He’s drunk, but he’s not that drunk. Not too drunk to remember exactly why he’d Poughkeepsie Dean out of hanging around to take care of John Winchester on his benders, every damn time he could. Dean probably does it again, now that Sam’s not there to stop him.

“Dean,” he says, and he doesn’t give two shits how loud his voice is, “he beat you.”

But Dean doesn’t flinch away from the truth.

His chin jerks up instead. His eyes are wide and startled. “What?”

“He beat you,” Sam repeats. “You don’t — fucking — that’s how it all started, right? Poughkeepsie. The first time. You and, and Dad had that fight, and — you had that big black eye. Your arm was in a sling for weeks.”

Dean’s lips twitch, once, in silent surprise. Then again, and he’s laughing; he’s honestly laughing about this. Like he’s happy; like he’s fucking relieved. “Yeah, but that wasn’t — Sam, I was drunk. I’m the one who got into it with him, when he was fresh back from a hunt. He was just defending himself.”

Where boozy well-being was warming Sam’s veins before, now there’s just anger. Rage, white-hot; he wants to hit Dean. He wants to hit Dad, but Dad’s not here.

“I don’t believe this,” he snaps. “I don’t fucking — you’re fucking defending him. He’s fucking brainwashed you. I can’t believe I thought you might’ve changed.”

But that makes Dean’s lip curl. “Yeah? Changed from what?” He shoves his chair back from the bar. “A good son?”

“A good son!” Sam snaps. “Try a mindless fucking soldier —”

“Shut your mouth.”

“Try a — Jesus, Dean, what? Are you so far up his ass you don’t even have thoughts of your own?”

“I said shut up —”

“I mean, I don’t even know why I call him Dad. Not like he raised me. He let you do that, and you just went along with it —”

“Sam, I swear to God —”

“— because, I don’t know, you were too fucking scared of the man not to? Or maybe he’s deeper in your head than that. Maybe you really think he never hurt you. Maybe, God, you’re actually —”

Dean’s punch hits him hard in the teeth. Sends him flying.

Sam skids into a bar stool and knocks it over; someone screams. He tumbles to the floor and feels it smack, hard and bruising, against his ribs; good. He’s ready to fucking go. It’s been too fucking long since he’s had this, a chance to vent the rage that’s pounding now in his veins, in his fucking eyeballs; he’s ready. Just as soon as he can find gravity — just as soon as his limbs feel like his own —

Dean’s standing over him. In Dad’s leather jacket he looks all out of proportion; tall or short or old or young, it’s hard to tell. His face is white and furious. Sam’s ears are ringing.

“Well,” says Dean. He shakes out his fist; his knuckles are bloody. “You wanna call me Dad or something? Fine. I’ll tell you one thing — I’m a shittier one than he ever was. He never sucker-punched me.”

There’s a bouncer moving quickly through the tables. He levels a finger at Dean, then Sam. “You boys wanna fight, you’ll take it outside.”

Dean’s lip curls. He hitches his coat higher around his neck. “I was just leaving,” he says, as he turns; his shoulder knocks up against the bouncer’s, hard, but the man lets him pass.

Sam is still on the floor. “I don’t want to — fucking see you here again,” he yells after Dean’s retreating back. “You hear me? Don’t fucking fuck with my life, Dean.”

He expects something. A raised middle finger; a fuck you too, Sam. He doesn’t get it. Just the door swinging, and Dean gone into the night.

(6.)

The last time Sam tells Dean Poughkeepsie — for a long while, anyway — is at a bus stop on an empty stretch of road.

“Come with me,” he says. “You don’t need to — Dad, and his quest — there’s lots of schools in California. You could get your GED.”

Fuck you, Dean doesn’t say. Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.

Sam says, hesitant — “Poughkeepsie?”

Fuck you.

Dean smiles at him. It feels like he’s baring his teeth. “Knock ‘em dead out there, Sammy.”

Sam’s crying. He sniffles; he wipes his nose. But he’s smiling too. “Thanks, Dean. I — I mean it. Thanks. For everything.”

Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.

Sam gets on the bus. Dean stands there in the road for a long, long time before he remembers to stop smiling.

(7.)

Dean’s halfway through Nevada before his brain swims back to the present.

He’s been driving for — how many hours? He doesn’t know. Anger is a white-hot splinter in each of his knuckles, down the clenched line of his jaw. When he tries to switch hands on the steering wheel, his grip is stiff, unyielding; flexing his fingers sends pins and needles down his arm.

The first milepost he sees says 225. It’s light out, somehow, the morning heat already pressing against the Impala’s glass. There’s a girl he might be able to call if he rides it out to Elko, crash on her couch for the day — or, if he’s lucky, her bed.

He doesn’t much want to talk to anyone. He gets off at the next exit instead, Battle Mountain, and pulls around the backside of the truck stop to park with the semis. He knows it’s not logical, but he always feels kinda safe like this, the hum of diesel engines around him, hemmed in by the trailers and their great boxy logo-splashed walls.

Besides, he left all his cash with Sammy. No use looking for a motel.

He sleeps for a while, until the sun gets too hot and his skin starts sticking to the Impala’s leather upholstery. Then he digs some spare change out of his duffel and heads inside.

He checks his cell in the cool air conditioning of a diner booth, smiles gratitude at the waitress who brings him a coffee. There’s his usual check-in text from Dad; no new cases, though. Dean fires off a reply.

Then he scrolls to Sam’s name in his contacts. What’s he gonna say? I’m sorry? He’s not. Might wanna work on your weakside blocks?

Sam doesn’t want to hear from Dean. He said so.

Dean sighs and pockets his phone again. He’s got a few bucks left; enough for forty-five minutes at the cybercafé. When he slides into his seat, the monitor hums to life slowly. The keyboard’s grubby. Dean wonders how many guys have used this thing to search for porn.

He looks for leads. Cases, hunts; something to fucking take his mind off Sammy. He finds a big fat nothing.

And it’s not taking his mind off Sammy, either. Words are echoing through his brain, from last night, from years ago: Mindless fucking soldier. That’s how it all started, right? We should have code words. You could get your GED.

Fucking GED. Where Sam gets off —

His fingers are typing it into the search bar before he knows what he’s doing. And then there’s a string of testing locations, dates; results for Nevada. One a few days from now. That’s too soon. One in a couple weeks.

Fuck Nevada, Dean thinks. It’s too fucking hot here. He types, GED testing Poughkeepsie.

(8.)

It’s witches again — the case. In Poughkeepsie.

This isn’t again, though. This is Dean’s first hunt with witches, or at least the first one he knows about witches; his first time standing shoulder to shoulder with his dad and staring down at what they did to the last poor bastard. A kid, really, barely Dean’s age, and that’s what puts them on the right trail, as it turns out. This coven has a — demographic.

Demographic. That’s what Sammy would call it. Dumb kid with his vocab words and his college guides. Dean thinks of Wadsworth, Ohio, thinks of Sammy’s mangled body in a monster’s nest, and then he thinks, This isn’t gonna be like that.

He and Dad have their routine now, anyway. They’re hunting together more and more these days; they’re good at it. Sam even comes along sometimes. Kid’s a crack shot, though he’s still too puny to really hold his own in a fight.

Dean swallows, still staring down at the dead teenager’s body. There isn’t much blood left in it. A lot of that blood is on the outside, now. Other bodily fluids, too. Smeared in arcane symbols.

“Eternal youth spell,” John says. “Or a variant on it. I’ve seen something like this in a book at Bobby’s.”

Dean’s throat hurts. He thinks about the other day — getting home from the drugstore to find the Impala driving slow circles in the motel parking lot. Sammy behind the wheel — fucking twelve-year-old Sammy. Dad sitting shotgun and grinning.

Dean, look! Sammy’d yelled out the open window. Dad’s teaching me to drive!

And Dean had grinned back at him. Yeah, I bet I can still kick your ass at bumper cars, or something like that — he doesn’t remember. He knows he didn’t say, I was gonna do that. I was gonna do that, when you turned sixteen.

The words feel like a razorblade stuck in his throat. They’ve been stuck there for days now. It’s stupid; he knows better.

“Well,” says John, clapping Dean’s shoulder, “at least the next part’ll be easy.”

---

The next part is anything but easy.

Dean handles his fucking side. Pull over on a lonely stretch of road; get the Impala’s hood up. Blinder himself on purpose, craning over her engine like he didn’t tune it up to perfection just last week.

The metal all around him makes his breathing loud. His heartbeat churns in his ears.

Then the hands on him, spinning him. The grinning woman with her fingers a vice grip on his chin. Keep her talking, that’s Dean’s instruction, until I can get a clear shot, but there’s not one her — there are four. Two of them all over Dean, sure, but the others are still vigilant, watching the perimeter, and Dean’s gonna have to get their attention if he and Dad have a chance of taking them all out. They need the element of surprise.

Dad’s the one who blows it. Comes in blazing too early, while Dean’s still hauling back the scraps of his panic, before he’s had a chance to turn up the charm; one witch ends up shot through the ribs, but she’s still moving, makes it with the rest of them to their getaway car, and Dean’s bleeding sluggishly from a bullet graze on his bicep, shirt hanging half off his shoulders, when Dad comes to look down at him with his chest heaving and something terrible in his face.

“I’m sorry,” Dean says automatically, “I’m sorry, Dad — I fucked up,” and if there’s something else John was going to say, it fades from his eyes a minute later.

Dean stoops to collect his jacket from the ground. He’s acutely aware, suddenly, of the rents in the fabric of his t-shirt; of the night air brushing over bare skin.

He should bandage his shoulder before he puts his jacket on. He doesn’t want to get it bloody.

John’s eyes are still on him when Dean turns back. He’s still standing very still in the same spot, watching him. “You all right?”

Something in the question makes Dean uneasy; he fires a smirk off by instinct. “Yeah, dude, I’m fine.”

John studies him a moment longer — then nods and cuffs him, light, across the head. “I’m your dad, I’m not ‘dude’. Here.” He’s holding one hand out for the Impala’s keys; Dean digs in his pocket. “I’ll see if I can track them. Get back to Sam and brief him. We might need a reset; they know your face, but he could still play fresh meat.”

Dean freezes with his hand half-extended, moonlight reflecting off the metal of the keys.

Dad doesn’t seem to notice, just closes the gap and takes them out of his fingers. He reaches in the backseat to toss Dean his duffel — his weapons go bag, his med kit. And then he’s sliding in behind the wheel; he’s peeling out, tires wailing on the asphalt, leaving Dean standing alone in the chilly night air.

---

It takes an hour to find a car he can hotwire. He walks mostly out of sight of the road; doesn’t want anyone thinking he’s looking to hitch a ride. He stops at one point to sit at the bottom of the bank and field dress his shoulder. It isn’t bad; won’t need stitches. His body keeps trembling, which is weird; he doesn’t feel cold.

Stealing a car means he needs to drop it somewhere inconspicuous. Check the seatback, make sure he hasn’t left any blood. Then he doubles back half a mile, wades through swampy water at the bottom of a culvert to get under the highway, and hops the chain link fence at the back of the motel.

When he opens the door to their room, Sam’s curled up into a tight ball at one edge of the far bed, lamp still on. He blinks one hazy eye open, then asks in a sleep-muddled voice, “How’d it go?”

Dean’s stomach curdles without warning. His tongue feels like chalk.

“Shitty,” he snaps, then pushes into the bathroom and slams the door behind him, duffel bag and all.

He stares at himself for a moment in the mirror. He looks shitty; dark circles under his eyes, blood staining his ripped t-shirt. The bag clanks loudly when he lets it slip from his shoulder to the floor. He feels exhausted, suddenly; he feels like sinking to the tiles. He feels like crying. He feels like throwing up.

It’s dumb. He’s fine. He’s fine —

Get back to Sam. We might need a reset. He could still play fresh meat.

Dean’s stomach lurches — roils — and he does throw up, barely scrambling in time to the edge of the toilet bowl. His body heaves once, twice, three times, out of his control. Puke splatters against the white porcelain.

He hates this. He hates this. His body feels cold all over, clammy, and when he presses his forehead to the toilet seat it’s damp with sweat. It’s one thing, playing bait himself. He’s fine with it. Always has been. He’s good at that shit, at smiling and playing it up, at the performance. It’s fine —

It’s just not Sammy’s gig. Sammy’s gonna hate it. That’s all, that’s all.

He retches again. His body’s shaking. He realizes, after a moment, that it’s with laughter; he’s laughing. Hiccuping hysterical gasps, spasming out of him just like the vomit, just like the stupid, unanswerable, unforgivable question —

If it’s not okay for Sammy, then why —

A knock sounds on the bathroom door.

Dean doesn’t answer. But Sam pushes it open anyway, slow, then faster. His voice is small when he asks, “Are you okay?”

Dean breathes in. Breathes out. “Yeah, I’m fucking fine, kiddo. Just rattled, ‘sall. Nothing to worry about.”

It’s a lie.

This shit is Sam’s to worry about.

But Sam just hesitates and nods, then asks, “Is — Dad okay?”

Dean almost pukes again. He doesn’t. “Yeah, he’s — he’s chasing down a lead. Don’t worry about it. I’ll tell you more in the morning.”

Sam doesn’t look satisfied. But he retreats; lets Dean clean himself up in peace. When Dean finally drops into bed beside him, he can feel Sam’s muscles shivering a little through the bedsprings, still tense; then he feels them ease. Sam shuffles an inch closer. Not enough to touch. Just enough for Dean to know that he’s there.

---

John gets in around five in the morning.

Dean didn’t think he’d be able to sleep, but he has; he sits up and blinks, disoriented, his mouth feeling like sandpaper. “Any luck?” he whispers.

Dad doesn’t look at him, just shakes his head. “Lost ‘em. Get some rest. Gonna try traffic cams in the morning. They can’t go long without a source, though, not with that many of ‘em; they’ll be looking again soon.”

Looking for Sam.

Dean lies motionless in bed as he listens to Dad move through his rituals: shower, weapons check, salt lines. He hears the cheap mattress groan under Dad’s weight as he finally crawls into bed. He hears Dad’s breathing deepen and even, scrape on the edge of a snore.

Then he waits another half hour, just to be sure, and then he rolls over and puts a hand on Sam’s mouth.

Sam blinks awake slowly. His eyes find Dean’s, and when Dean presses a finger to his lips, Sam hesitates, then nods. Dean pulls his hand away.

They pack in silence. Not everything — just what’s easy to grab. Wait by the car, Dean mouths, and his heart almost stops when the hinges creak as Sam opens the door, but — John doesn’t stir.

Dean hesitates. Waits ‘til Sam’s almost out of sight. He could hotwire the Impala if he has to, but —

He creeps a few steps closer to Dad’s bed. His jeans are discarded next to his duffel; they’ve got flecks of blood on them. Dean winces as he reaches to still the belt buckle, first, to keep it from clanking as he rifles through the pockets of the jeans.

John lets out an enormous, snuffling snore.

Dean freezes.

His dad rolls over in bed, covers heaving. Then he settles, his breathing evening again.

The Impala’s keys clink a little as Dean pulls them free. No further movement, though. And Dean’s setting the jeans down carefully; he’s moving backward, ever so slowly, to the door.

Sam’s waiting, like he promised, by the car. Dean unlocks the doors and winces at the creak of their hinges. “Dean?” asks Sam, tremulous. “What — what are we doing?”

“We gotta get out of here.” Dean shuts his eyes; if he thinks too long on this, he’ll fucking fall apart. “Just — trust me, Sam, okay?”

His brother climbs into the passenger seat without further question.

Dean breathes out through his nose. Okay. He can do this. He is doing this. He slides behind the wheel, shuts the door behind him.

He half-expects Dad to come tearing out of their room when the engine roars to life — to chase them down. But he doesn’t. They get on the highway. They cross the Hudson River.

Sammy keeps glancing over at him. “Where are we going?” he asks eventually.

Dean bites down on the inside of his cheek. “Somewhere safe.”

(9.)

Poughkeepsie’s pretty much like what Dean remembers, which is to say, barely anything at all.

That’s not fair. There’s a downtown; there’s a college. Plenty of strip malls on the outskirts, the sort of places he and Dad and Sam might have found a motel, though Dean can’t for the life of him remember which one they stayed in. It feels weird — not knowing where all that went down.

So he picks a place at random. He sweet-talks the guy at the desk into giving him a weekly rate, and he holes up with the study guide he got from a used bookstore in Nebraska.

The GED test isn’t easy. He’s pretty sure it’s harder than actual school ever was; he’s pretty sure he’ll never use it in his life. On check-in calls, he lets Dad think he’s shacked up with a girl. Dad’s usually pretty indulgent about that sort of thing.

Dean studies for three weeks. He takes the test, gives them a PO box in Illinois to mail him his results.

And that’s it. He hits the road; says goodbye to Poughkeepsie once and for all.

(10.)

It only takes an hour to get from Poughkeepsie to Sonny’s.

Only an hour; it’s another universe. The sun is coming up, reluctantly, and the house looks the same as it always did in the early morning light. The maple leaves on the tree by the mailbox are starting to turn. In the shotgun seat, Sammy’s quiet, but his eyes are wide, taking everything in.

It’s early, too early, but by the time Dean puts her in park, the screen door’s already opening; Sonny’s shouldering on a jacket against the chill, squinting into the sun.

“Stay here,” Dean whispers to Sam, and levers himself out the door.

Sonny’s expression clears a little when he recognizes him. “Dean!” he says, and before Dean’s squared his shoulders at the top of the steps, Sonny pulls him into a hug.

Broad hands on his shoulderblades, steady and warm; the familiar leather scent of Sonny’s jacket. Some glass eggshell in Dean’s chest threatens to crack. He clears his throat and steps back.

Sonny’s looking at him kind of like Dad did, last night by the hood of the car. Dean swallows down on an emotion he doesn’t have time for. “Hey, Sonny.”

Sonny’s hand is still on his shoulder, steadying him at an arm’s length. “What brings this visit on? Your old man with you?” Then, glancing at the wound dressing peeking out from under Dean’s t-shirt sleeve — “Everything all right?”

“I, uh.” To his own ears, Dean’s voice sounds childishly deep. “It’s Sam.”

“He okay?”

“Yeah, he — I just wondered if he could stay here a while.”

He can feel Sonny’s scrutiny, careful eyes on his face. “Why don’t you boys come in for some breakfast and a cup of coffee? Then we can talk and see what’s what.”

There’s a lump in Dean’s throat. “You’ll let him stay, though? And — and go to school and stuff, like — like me?”

“Dean.” Sonny’s voice is gentle. “You know that’s not how this works.”

The look in his eyes is too kind, and there are tears on Dean’s face, suddenly — he doesn’t know how they got there. His lungs feel tight and sharp. “You said you’d fight for me. You said — I’m asking you to fight for him. I’ll, I’ll have him go rob a gas station if that’s what you need —”

“He’d go into the system,” Sonny interrupts gently. “No guarantees we’d get him. If you need me to start negligence charges against your dad —”

“He’s not fucking negligent,” Dean spits.

Sonny raises his eyebrows.

Language isn’t allowed here; Dean knows that as well as anyone. Funny how Sonny never needed to come down hard on it, though. He’d just give you that look — eyebrows up, just like that — and you’d feel bad for disappointing him. You’d feel ashamed.

Not this fucking time.

“You know what? Fuck you,” Dean snaps. “Fuck you and fuck your — fuck you.” He swipes a hand across his nose as he turns away. He clatters down the steps and doesn’t look back; doesn’t let Sonny pull him up with his “Dean, wait —”

He just slides back in the driver’s seat of the Impala. She’s the only home they need. He jams her into reverse, and drives.

---

They grab a few hours’ sleep near Buffalo, pulled up on a gravel shoulder, because Sam’s fretting about it and Dean has to admit his vision is starting to double the road. Then they keep driving.

Sam tries to ask a couple times. Dean, are you, and Dean, did Dad do someth—

“Shut up, Sammy,” Dean snarls each time, and then he feels bad about it, ‘cause it’s not like this is Sam’s fucking fault. It’s Dean’s, all Dean’s, ‘cause he couldn’t — close the deal with those witches. ‘Cause he couldn’t do his fucking job.

“Dean,” Sam bursts out around sunset, “you’ve got to talk to me, all right? Tell me what we’re running from at least!”

“Actually,” Dean bites out, “I don’t.”

“Is it the hunt? Do you think — is Dad —”

“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

Sam huffs a world-weary sigh and runs his hand through his hair. “Well, at least can we stop for food? We haven’t eaten all day.”

They haven’t. Dean’s not sure he noticed. He doesn’t answer, but the next exit with a sign for a diner, he pulls off.

Sam picks at his salad like he never wanted it anyway. Dean sure as hell doesn’t want his burger, but he eats it as if he does; every last bite. When he gives Sam a pointed glare, Sam sighs, and cleans his plate.

“You are the weirdest twelve-year-old I know,” Dean tells him.

“I’m the only twelve-year-old you know,” Sam fires back.

“Point.” Fuck; what’s Dean’s plan? Keep running with Sam forever? Get to Bobby’s, or someplace else Dad’ll track them down? Sooner or later, all roads lead back to that motel room. All roads lead to — He could still play fresh meat.

There’s a bottle of Jack tucked in among John’s stuff in the trunk. Dean’s never cracked one of those open, not on his own, but Dad gives him a swig or two on hunts sometimes. When they stop for the night at a park on the shore of Lake Erie, he pulls it out.

He can feel Sam watching him as he beelines for the water. It’s already dark; somewhere in the distance, city lights haze the horizon. The grass under Dean’s boots is short-cropped. He moves mechanically, without looking down, and his heel squelches on goose poop.

“Dean,” says Sam, behind him.

Dean ignores him.

“Are you just gonna keep ignoring me?” Closer now.

“Looks like.”

“Are we gonna keep driving forever? What’s the plan, Dean? Are we — are we running away from Dad?”

Dean presses his lips together and stares straight ahead.

After several minutes, Sam sighs. “Okay, well, I’m gonna get some sleep. Don’t get so drunk you fall in the lake.”

“Cheers.” Dean toasts him with the bottle, hears Sam make a pissy exhale through his nose, then footsteps retreating again.

---

Dean doesn’t get so drunk he falls in the lake, though it’s a near thing.

He crawls into the Impala somewhere around one in the morning. Sam’s sprawled out in the back seat; Dean’s already barfed once, and he’s pretty sure he can avoid doing it again all over the upholstery. Pretty sure. The bottle’s a lot lighter than it was; he takes a brief swig to wash the taste of vomit from his mouth, then leans over to spit in the grass, pulls the door closed behind him.

He wakes not long after — it can’t be long after at all, his head is still swimming, wooziness tugging at his gut — with the feeling that someone is watching him.

Dean tries to blink. His eyelids stick together. The bottle slips from his chest and lands on the footboard with a thunk.

There’s a silhouette outside the window. A man, in a heavy jacket; high collar around his neck.

He’s very still. Not even a fleck of light glimmering off his eyes.

John Winchester.

Dean swallows twice — once, in fear, and the second time against the nausea that rises in his throat. He sits up quietly and slides across the leather seat.

John stands back to let him open the door. Dean braces himself on the handle as he closes it, leaning against solid metal. He’s not gonna start crying again.

“I took care of the coven,” John says. “No thanks to you.”

He smells like blood and gun oil, familiar; he’s standing a little lopsided, like something hurts. There’s a dark patch on his shirt. He could have died because Dean wasn’t there to back him up.

“You gonna tell me what you think you’re playing at?”

And Dean’s still drunk, still drunk and fearless enough that the words in his head spill right out his mouth. “You don’t ever try and use Sam as bait.”

It doesn’t feel real. It’s too easy. A secret in the dark.

“Don’t you get smart with me. I should be busting your ass.”

“Yeah?” The alcohol is buzzing in his veins.

The punch doesn’t feel real either, until it does.

It’s not the best punch Dean’s ever thrown. He’s sloppy; almost stumbles on the follow-through. But it does the job.

He catches his dad right in the ribs. Catches him off guard; first time for everything — John lets out a surprised oof of pain and yeah, something’s already cracked in there, and Dean doesn’t think. Brings in his other fist, and again. He wants John to hurt; wants him to scream —

“Dean,” his dad’s saying, and, “dammit, Dean,” as he catches a block, stumbles backward; Dean laughs. John’s got one hand up protecting his face, falling into a heavy boxer’s stance, breathing like it hurts. Dean launches another attack for his ribs.

John sidesteps — dodges — and hits him with a hard right cross.

The next thing Dean knows he’s on the ground. His ears are roaring, vision splitting light. John’s looking down at him, stance wary. Ready.

Dean scrambles up and flings himself at him again.

They fight across the darkened lawn, tripping over tree roots, over their own feet. Dean can feel blood on his face, and maybe snot; he can feel his breath sobbing in and out through his teeth. He wants to make a pulp of John’s face. He wants to knock him straight into the fucking lake —

He throws his whole weight into a punch, and again, John sidesteps it. This time, he catches Dean’s arm and spins him — checks into him, all the solid iron of a forty-year-old fighter’s hips — and flips him down to the ground.

There’s a knee in Dean’s back. Hand grinding his face into the dirt. Strong grip on his forearm, wrenching it back, and John’s voice in his ear: “Do you yield?”

No. No, he isn’t gonna fucking yield. Not this time.

John shifts minutely. Enough to open up a breath of space.

Dean throws his weight into it — and feels something go wrong . Pain reverberates, distant, up and down his shoulder; shocky at the back of his teeth. John yells and lurches back, and Dean staggers upright; he’s got one good arm still. He nearly falls as he swings back toward his father, pummeling his face, his chest, anything he can reach —

“Dean,” John’s saying, “Dean, stop —”

And then there’s a hand on his dislocated shoulder, squeezing, and this time the pain is anything but faraway.

Dean screams; he sees white. The ground hits his knees again, hard, and gravity tilts. There are hands on him, holding him up, and he’s retching; folding over to puke up thin bile.

His head feels like a swarm of bees when he’s done. Hands are rearranging him, efficient, careful of the throbbing mess of pain that is his right shoulder. “Lie still. I’m gonna pop that arm back in.”

Dean doesn’t think there’s much he could do but lie still. There are stars overhead, faint and hazy. He hears footsteps move away and come back.

Then hands are guiding his arm out to the side; touching Dean’s neck like a reminder: relax. Dean’s been here enough times before. He sucks in a breath, shudders, and makes himself loosen his muscles. Imagines he’s floating. He’s just one of those constellations. Orion with a death wish and a janky arm.

John moves with painstaking gentleness. Guiding Dean’s arm up, pivoting it — if he’d just get it over with. If he’d just jam the damn thing back into place —

There’s a pop, and Dean yells, and it’s done.

He’s aware that he’s sweating when he sits slowly back up. He accepts the water his dad tilts to his mouth.

There’s a wry look on John’s face. “I’d offer whiskey for the pain, but —”

Dean nearly barfs again. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and hands the bottle back. “I’m good, thanks.”

“Are you?”

He’s looking at Dean like he actually wants to know the answer. There’s a small smile, for some reason, on his face.

Dean swallows. “Sam,” he says, experimentally. “You’re not gonna use him as bait?”

John tips his head back. For a moment, he just looks up at the sky; then he says, “Guess not.”

Dean doesn’t have any idea what to say to that. After a while, he nods.

“So there’s a girl, huh.” Dean startles, and John seems to misinterpret it; when he turns, his face is creased in a sad sort of smile. “I talked to Sonny. He was surprised you never told me about her. Robin, right?”

It’s Saturday. Dean had forgotten. Guitar lessons are on Saturdays at Sonny’s.

“Listen.” John’s looking down at his hands. “Dean, I — I’m sorry for the way your life has turned out, I am. I wanted — this isn’t what I wanted for you. I wanted you to be a regular kid; to have high school dances. Girlfriends. If your mom could see you —” He shakes his head. “I bet she’d tear me a new one.”

For a moment, just a moment, Dean wants to hit him again.

Instead, he grins at his dad. “What, are you kidding me? Trade for that stuff? I’m a fucking superhero.”

John laughs. When he stands, he extends a hand to Dean, pulls him to his feet. “What d’you say, kiddo? Want to find a real bed to sleep in?”

Dean holds his bad arm snug against his chest. For a moment he just stands there and watches John start back for the Impala — limping, still.

Then he follows. “Yeah, Dad.” His voice comes out quiet. “Yeah, that sounds nice.”

(11.)

Dean doesn’t say Poughkeepsie when he goes back to Stanford. It’s been two years; Sammy told him to stay away, and he’s stayed away.

He doesn’t say Poughkeepsie. He does say, Dad’s missing. He does say, I can’t do this alone.

Yes, you can, Sam counters, and Dean doesn’t say Poughkeepsie. He says, Yeah, well, I don’t want to.

It’s a while before they’re back in Illinois. Dean swings by the post office while Sam’s researching a case; incredibly, when he inserts his key into the PO box, it still opens. There’s a mountain of junk mail inside; a slip that says there’s more to be collected from behind the counter. A slim envelope, bent in half, its corner crumpled where more and more mail has been forced in behind it.

It’s a pretty simple document. Dean Winchester, it says. High School Equivalency Diploma.

He folds it back into the envelope before he tucks it inside his jacket. No use showing Sam; it won’t mean anything to him. The kid aced his fucking LSATs. Dean’s more than half pissed at him for the stunts he’s been pulling lately, but he’s still — proud. He’s fucking proud.

In the end, it doesn’t mean much; not Sam’s LSATs, not Dean’s GED. The qualifications they need are in Dad’s journal — a lifetime of accumulated lore, with all its gaps and misfires. How to kill witches, for instance; Dad must have figured out something that worked, though it’s years before Sam and Dean do the same. The credentials they carry are invented ones, until they aren’t — the destinies bound in their bloodlines that neither of them asked for. Their admission, in the end, is to a legacy, passed on unknowing; father to father to son.

“When did you get your GED?” Sam asks, a decade and change later.

They’re sitting at the library table. They’ve got a library, now; a whole damn underground bunker. They’re the heirs to a secret society. They have friends — a home. These days when they tell each other Poughkeepsie, it’s usually because someone’s sold them a bill of goods; a life good enough to be true.

Dean says, “What?”

Sam shrugs. “You mentioned it one time. I didn’t ask, ‘cause I — I dunno, I’m an ass. When did you get it?”

Dean studies his beer bottle. There’s a warm-lit bar inside his head that serves this brand; the bar that Dean owned. A place the people he loves could come and find him. A place he might have stayed in, maybe forever, if Sam hadn’t Poughkeepsied him out.

“Remember when I visited you at Stanford? The first time?”

Sam nods.

“It was a little after that.” Dean feels his mouth twitch. “Kind of a fuck you, I guess.”

That startles a laugh out of his brother. “Lot of work for a fuck you, Dean.”

“Yeah, well.”

“You ever think of — using it?” Sam’s eyes are careful, searching his face. “I mean — I dunno, for college or whatever?”

“Nah.” Dean takes a pull of his beer. It’s good; damn him, but these IPAs are pretty fucking awesome when you get down to it. “Not really. It’s just —”

He thinks of a woman in a suit, walking into his bar again and again from the storm. Of the offer inside her briefcase. Of the title he kept in the imaginary safe.

“It’s just nice, sometimes, to — I dunno. To have a piece of paper that says you could if you wanted. Y’know?”

Sam nods, thoughtful. He’s quiet a while, turning his bottle in his hands, and then he says, “What really happened, in Poughkeepsie?”

It’s strange to hear the word out loud without weight on it. Just the name of a place they stayed once, where they did a hunt or two.

“Why’d it work?” Dean counters. “The first time, I mean — when you were all hexed up by those witches. It’s what snapped you out of it. Why?”

For a moment, Sam looks blank; then something folds inside his face. He rubs both palms over his eyes and drops them again. He looks tired; he looks — almost — old.

“You were scared,” he says, simply. “In Poughkeepsie. I don’t remember much about it, but it was — I always thought you were fearless, when we were kids.”

“I’m scared all the time, Sam.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I get that. But back then — you were a superhero to me, man. I thought — if something could scare you, it must be —” He stops.

Dean nods. He looks down at his knuckles; they’re a lot less scarred, since Cas came along. “Dad wanted to use you as bait.”

Sam darts him a look, swift and searching. “He used you as bait all the time.”

“Yeah.”

“Oh,” says Sam, after a long, long pause.

(12.)

Poughkeepsie’s pretty nice, before the witches.

Dean takes Sam fishing. Dad taught him once, and there’s still a couple busted-up poles hidden deep in the Impala’s trunk. It takes about three hours to unsnarl all the fishing line, but it’s worth it when Sam gets his first bite. When he promptly jumps up laughing and the fish slips the hook.

Poughkeepsie’s beautiful, in its way. The highway bridge soaring over the Hudson River. The marshes and the floodplain forests tucked away beneath the pylons, where no one pays attention to you; the kind of place two kids can get lost in, chasing frogs and watching herons flush up from the cattails on majestic, almost-silent wings.

Poughkeepsie’s one more place among many. Dean and Sam have seen their share of towns. This one’s a nice one; the girl at the other end of the hall lets them play Mario Kart with her. The pizza place two stoplights down makes good pizza, real pizza, New York style, and they’ve got enough money to buy it twice a week.

It’s chance, sometimes, the places that make you and break you. Dean’s learned that lesson well enough in his life. A thousand different homes for different slivers of who you are, and then, sometimes — a passport.

Poughkeepsie isn’t anything. A small city, eighty miles from a big one. It isn’t a watershed, it isn’t the key to some forsaken past.

It’s just a place, where a few things happened. A place Dean could go back to any day.

He could. He doesn’t. He mostly doesn’t want to. It’s a long drive, and they’ve got pretty good pizza at home.