Chapter Text
It starts in a diner.
The diner is off I-40, and they roll in after a long, hard day of driving from Raleigh. It’s somewhere after Oklahoma City but before Amarillo, and Dad’s eyes are lined red.
Dean keeps shooting looks at him out of the corner of his eye, trying to catch Sam in the process of being annoying and nipping it in the bud, before Dad snaps. They’ve still got maybe an hour before he knows Dad will be open to stopping for the night, and if they get into it, the hour will be tense and terrible.
Sam is only eleven, but he’s already butting heads with Dad, as stubborn as a mule. Uncle Bobby always gives Sam approving nods when Dean recounts their latest spat that gets them dumped in Sioux Falls for a few weeks.
Sam is rambling about this book he just finished reading, The Outsiders, about these boys in a gang. It’s an old copy that Dean gave to him, and it usually wouldn’t be Sam’s speed, but the novelty of it being a gift has elevated the book to Literary Masterpiece status in his head.
“Can we get a slice of cake?” Sam asks, for the third time, eyeing the displayed cake on the front counter. It doesn’t even look appetizing—it’s probably been out all day, and the vanilla frosting is slowly sliding off of the lopsided side.
Dean shifts on the nylon seat, and it creaks ominously.
“Sam, Dad already—“ Dean starts, hoping that if he can cut this off, it won’t escalate. But the hours of road and Sam’s babble and the hot, sticky air of the diner seems to have finally worn Dad thin.
“Stop.” He snaps. “Sam. I have told you. More than once. We are not getting cake at eleven at night.”
His words are less harsh than Dean expected, and his own tense shoulders slide a little loose. Dean pins Sam with a hard, warning look. Sam looks to him for back-up at that same moment, and looks away, disappointed.
He pouts, but blessedly, doesn’t say anything else.
The sausages are already sitting in Dean’s stomach heavily. Too greasy, and too thick. Dean knows that it’s a good thing, even if he feels a little nauseous. The longer it takes to digest them, the longer it’ll be until he’s hungry again. Dean slides a few sausages into his napkin to tuck into his jacket for later. Sam’ll be hungry in the next thirty minutes, and hopefully this can prevent another blow-up.
“Where’s the damn waitress?” Dad says after a few minutes, dropping his wadded-up napkin onto his empty plate. Sam’s moving the shreds of his hamburger around his plate despondently, and Dean almost asks him about the book again, just to get some life back into his face.
Juggling these two will send him into an early grave.
As if summoned, their waitress—an older lady that looks like she has linty hard candies stuck to the inside of her purse—shuffles over, a plate in her hand. Dean doesn’t even see what it is until she lowers it, sliding it in front of Sam.
It’s a slice of cake. The good side, with frosting still intact.
Dean freezes.
Sam didn’t order it earlier, because Dad had shut him down hard, and he hadn’t snuck off to the bathroom, so there’s no way he ordered it secretly. Dad’s head snaps up to the waitress.
“Now, we didn’t—"
“Every cutie like this deserves a sweet treat every once in a while.” The waitress—Dot, Dean reads on her fading name tag—says, all Southern twang and orange box-dyed curls.
Dad tries a new tact. “We can’t afford—“
“It’s on the house.”
She pinches Sam’s baby-fat cheek, and Sam doesn’t even protest or wince like he usually does. His eyes go comically wide. His eyes flick over to Dad before landing on Dean, like he’s waiting for permission. The smile on his face would burn a hole through cement.
Dean can’t help his small, responding grin.
He wouldn’t be surprised if Dad returned it on principle, but it’s been a while since he’s seen Sam this…shiny.
“Thank you.” Dad says slowly, and Dean jerks his head up. Dad hasn’t taken his eyes off of the waitress, and doesn’t until she disappears back into the kitchen. He’s got this hard look in his eyes, like he’s puzzling through something mid-hunt.
“Dad?” Dean asks, fingers slipping into his pocket for his butterfly knife. Dad finally looks down at Dean, then eyes flicking over to Sam. He looks like he’s suspicious of something, and Dean is about to take the cake away from Sam. Does he think she put something in it? Does he think she’s something not human?
“Did you ask her for it?” Dad asks, still looking at Dean. Dean shakes his head, and Sam pipes up, Me either, Sir. Dad sits for a few more seconds, hands still clenched on the table.
Finally, like air being let out of tires, he starts to wilt, and he nods once at Dean. Dean smiles, and turns back to Sam.
“Go ahead, Sammy.” Dean says, trying to smile. Sam’s grin is splitting as he wolfs down the cake, snapping into a flurry of motion. Over the cacophony of Sam’s appreciative noises, Dean leans in and asks, “Nice old ladies aren’t rare, right?”
Dad’s looking at Sam with something with none of Dean’s exasperated affection. He looks wary.
“Yes.” He says. “Not rare. But I didn’t see her go over to the register.”
Dean turns his head to look, and the glass cover to the cake is unmoved. It still has five slices, all untouched. Dean looks at the cake in front of Sam. It looks the same—even a little sad and deflated like the rest of the cake on the counter. But Dad’s right. Dean didn’t see her cut a piece of it either.
“They probably had more in the back.” Dean says, shrugging it off and reaching across the table to thumb icing off of Sam’s chin.
Dean doesn’t know yet—and won’t know for two more years—what Dad is thinking. If he had, he might’ve taken Sam and run, right there. But he doesn’t.
He won’t. Not for a while yet.
~~~
It starts small.
The next time they pull into a gas station, Dad sends Dean inside to pay. Dean wanders the aisles for a second, picking out a few things he know they’ll like. He grabs jerky for Dad, and pauses in front of the drink coolers for a second. They have a grape soda and an orange one. Dean puts the snacks on the shelf behind him and pokes his head out the front doors.
They’re the only ones at the four-pump station, and Dad is bent over the back of the Impala, filling it up.
“Sam!” Dean calls. “Grape or orange?”
Sam perks up in the back-seat, cheeks flushed from the summer heat.
“Grape!” He yips. Dean nods, and is about to close the door again when Dad looks up sharply.
“You haven’t paid yet?”
Dean shakes his head and holds up the fifteen bucks that Dad had pressed into his hand. Dad looks up at the meter, and Dean can see his frown from here. He crosses the couple steps to the Impala and follows his Dad’s gaze. Paid.
“Someone must’ve paid already.” Dean says, “Or drove away before getting all the gas?”
Dad doesn’t say anything. Sam has sprawled out in the backseat, and he swings his legs out of the window. Dean rounds the back of the car and smacks his bare heel before Dad can get onto him.
Sam yelps, annoyed, and Dean smirks.
“Keep your arms and legs in the vehicle at all times, squirt.”
Sam harrumphs, scowling. He lifts his comic book up again, and Dean watches one bitten-up thumb flip through wrinkled pages until he finds the one he’s looking for.
“It filled us up.” Dad says suddenly, and Dean looks up at him, squinting through the bright light. He doesn’t sound happy about it, even though they basically just got free gas.
“Awesome,” Dean says brightly, hoping to shake Dad out of his weird reverie. “I’ll go pay for the food.”
Dean’s back at the door when he hears Sam’s voice call, “Ooh! Now that we have extra money, can I get gummy worms?”
Dean opens his mouth, about to respond, when Dad cuts him off sharply.
“No.” His voice is terse, and Dean watches as his shoulders tense up. “Pay for what you got and let’s get on the road.”
Sam slumps back in the backseat dramatically, but doesn’t say anything. Dean speeds back in, Dad’s wariness making the air electric.
~~~
Two months later, Sam finds a one hundred dollar bill on the ground. He and Dean are walking back from school, and Sam steps right on it in with his scuffed Chucks.
“Dean—Holy shit!” Sam shouts, and Dean whirls around, not even realizing that Sammy had fallen a step behind. He’s already reaching for the knife tucked under his belt, panic shoving its way up his throat like vomit.
But Sam is just beaming, holding up a Benjamin with a shoe-print across his smug face. Dean scowls.
“Watch your language.” He says, and reaches to snag it out of Sam’s fingers. He wants to see if it’s real, but Sam jerks away with a squawk.
“Get your own!” He cries, and takes off running down the street. Dean watches him shove it down his pants, like that’ll stop Dean from taking it from him anyway. When Dean finally chases his dumb-ass eleven-year-old brother down, and they decide that it is in fact real, Sam starts shouting suggestions for how to spend their new insurmountable wealth.
First, they walk into a shoe store and buy Sam new sneakers that don’t pinch at his heels. Then, they go to an ice cream shop and keep ordering cones until they’re both green. They still have over half the money left, so Dean takes Sam pants shopping at an actual retail store. Sam takes such passion in ripping off the tags that Dean’s stomach sinks a little.
He needs to get better at making sure they can afford these things. They end up in a bookstore, and Sam still has twenty bucks in his pocket and a smile so bright that Dean can’t look directly at him as they walk back to the motel.
Dad pulls him aside later that night, and Dean can see the fury in his eyes. Sam walks in mid-rant and pulls out the remaining twenty as proof that they didn’t steal it all. Dean just stands there, shaking.
Dad apologizes, and pulls Dean in for a hug. He can see Sam’s wide eyes over Dad’s shoulder. He hugs Dad even tighter, and closes his eyes.
Dad takes them out for pizza in apology with the remaining twenty, and Dean gets a medium Meat Lover’s all to himself.
Sam turns twelve, and that fall, they enroll in some school in Pennsylvania. They rented a cabin off of the highway, and Dean loves taking walks out in the woods to gather firewood, even though they don’t need it in the balmy weather. He brings his gun somedays and practices shooting cans off a wide stump about a half-mile away.
He takes Sam with him, and Sam’s pretty shit with a rifle. However, his weird little-kid hands are goddamn excellent with a knife, and he can hit knobs in trunks up to sixteen feet away.
One day, Dean comes in with a bundle of sticks under his arm. It’s November, so it’s started getting colder at night. Dean leans his back against the door to close it, and finds Sam bent over the kitchen table, head buried in his homework. Dean rolls his eyes.
Sam grunts to acknowledge him, and Dean hums in response. He drops the firewood next to the fireplace and lowers to his knees. The past couple nights, it’s been smokey in the room when they lit the fire. Dean grabs the longest of his sticks and leans into the empty fireplace, trying to knock whatever’s been blocking the chimney loose.
After a second, his stick knocks against something softer than the stone of the walls, and Dean mutters a-ha, as he tries to poke it loose.
“Dean,” Sam calls, and Dean pulls his head out of the fireplace so he can hear. “Can you grab my binder for me?”
Dean turns around to see Sam’s hunched back, and a long arm pointing at the binder on the kitchen counter across the room.
“Get it yourself, princess.” He says, leaning back in to chop up this blockage. Finally, a pile of leaves fall down into the pit, and Dean coughs a few times to get the soot out of his lungs. Ugh.
Dean spits dust out of his mouth, and uses the bottom of his t-shirt to wipe his face clean.
“Thanks.” Sam says, muffled. Dean squints his eyes open, turning his head so his ear is pointed at Sam’s back.
“Huh?” He sputters. Ugh. It’s at the back of his throat.
Sam doesn’t say anything, but Dean sees movement, so he looks up. Sam is holding up his binder. Dean blinks.
He looks over at the counter, and sure enough, it’s gone. But Dean didn’t hear Sam get up. The floorboards are so creaky that Dean would’ve heard Sam even if he were standing all the way in the chimney.
How did he get it?
Dean shrugs it off uneasily, and starts stacking up some kindling. But he doesn’t forget it.
~~~
Three months later, Dean almost dies.
There’s a werewolf hunt in Dallas, and they stumble upon it while they’re driving back from a diner. A semi has been pulled onto the shoulder of the road, and the trucker is lying in the road, head twisted at an unnatural angle.
Dad slams on the breaks in the middle of the road, and Sammy—who had been drifting off in the backseat—slips forward into the footwell with a cry.
Dean’s heart is in his throat, as he registers the hulking, horrific, black silhouette bent over the corpse, claws sinking into his sides with a crack of ribs that Dean can hear from inside the car.
Werewolf.
“Dean, with me. Sam, stay.” Dad hisses, and Dean is already opening the car door, sliding around the side of the car to get at the trunk.
Not even five minutes later, it’s a free-for-all. Dad manages to get one shot off into the thing’s side, but it barely does anything but piss it off. It hunches territorially over its prey, chomping and tearing at him like Dean and Dad are here for a cut of his meat.
Dean takes his first shot, but it just clips the beast in its furry shoulder. It growls, not even a cry, and whirls on him.
Just as the werewolf starts towards Dean, Dad lets off a volley of shots that get closer and closer to the heart every time. It takes off into the woods, and Dad goes chasing, telling Dean to stay behind and protect Sammy.
Sure fucking enough, Dad isn’t gone for thirty seconds before something hits Dean from behind, hard. The gun skitters out of his hands, and he hears a scream—Dean! Dad come back, it’s here, it’s here!—Sammy’s hands banging against the side of the Impala to make as much noise as possible. Dean blinks the sparks out of his eyes and gasps desperately, trying to get air into his lungs.
The only light on the scene is the Impala’s headlights, and the harsh lights and shadows make Dean’s eyes hurt as he whips around to see the beast towering over him, at least ten feet tall. Dean’s never seen one this fucking big before.
He tries to get his arms under him, reaching for the gun, shining in the Impala’s yellow lights five feet away. But he knows, with crippling certainty, that he will not reach it in time.
Dean stares up into the eye of the thing that’s about to kill him, snout slick with gore, and thinks, I hope Sam’s not watching. Dean’s not ten yards from the Impala and its lights, and knows that if Sam hasn’t kept his head down, he’s going to watch Dean’s insides come out.
Dean’s still grappling for the gun, finally tearing his eyes away from his impending doom to find it on the asphalt. His fingers wrap around the warm, clammy metal, and he spins, finger already pulling the trigger.
But…
The werewolf is not where Dean thought it was. It’s fifteen feet away, swaying on its feet. Dean has the half-second thought of Is it confused? before he looses the rest of his mag into its hide, six holes right in its furry chest.
It falls.
Now that the immediate danger has passed, Dean’s confused. That thing was practically on top of him. Dean could feel its breath. But now it’s fifteen feet away? Dean was scared shitless, but he’s pretty sure he remembered that distance correctly. Did the werewolf step back? Ten steps back? Why?
Dad comes out of the woods, sprinting. He slows to a stop when he sees it on the ground, and Dean with only scrapes on his palms, blood streaking the gun.
“What the hell happened?” He pants. Dean realizes that he’s got tears in his eyes, and has to clear his throat.
“Werewolf doubled back. Lost my gun. Got it back. I think the silver we pumped into it must’ve slowed it down.” Dean pants. Dad looks over to the Impala, and Dean follows his gaze.
Sam is standing outside of the Impala, hands still on the door, like he froze in the process of stepping out.
“Sammy, you okay?” Dean asks, because Sam is pale, eyes wide and terrified. God. That must’ve been an ugly sight. Dean’s been trying to keep Sammy off the hunts this young, and Dad—for the most part—has agreed. Sam’s eyes fall to Dean, and Dean realizes just how sickly he looks, a second from passing out.
“Sit back down in the car,” Dad says. “Head between your knees."
Sam nods dazedly. Dean and Dad trade a look. Then they finish the job.
That night, Sam curls up in Dean’s bed, fingers wrapped around his arm. Dean breathes in sharply, jerked from a dream at a baseball game. Dean’s never been to a baseball game. The pain meds that Dad gave him earlier must’ve fucked with his head. It takes him a second to realize that the cold feet against his calf are Sammy’s, and he reaches up and ruffles a hand through his hair, breathing slow.
Sam is breathing fast, breaths puffing against Dean’s naked shoulder. Dean fell asleep in a tank top, and the thin fabric is doing nothing to shield from the heat of Sammy’s torso, the rabbit-fast heart rate, and quick, frantic breaths.
Dean sighs, trying to wake himself up a little more. Nightmare. If the kid had even gotten to sleep.
“‘ssokay.” Dean slurs. He’ll make fun of Sam any day of the week for being scared, but after hunts, it’s all on the table. Dean doesn't know what it is—maybe left-over adrenaline, maybe Dean’s just stripped-down to his most basic parts after he’s killed something. He doesn’t know.
But he usually can’t sleep after a hunt without Sam’s thin body tucked against his, pressed under Dean’s protective arm. He loves Sam like this, shaking and nervous and unsure. It makes him sick to his stomach that he likes it so much.
It’s like Dean’s finally fulfilling his purpose.
“I moved him.” Sam says, sounding wide-awake.
“Moved what?” Dean murmurs, breath ghosting through Sam’s shaggy hair. Sam shudders against him, and Dean blinks awake, trying to focus. Sam’s Pavlov’ed Dean so hard that as soon as he slips into Dean’s bed, Dean’s entire body relaxes and he’s already half-asleep.
It’s an embarrassing effort to claw back to consciousness.
“The werewolf.” Sam says, quick. Hushed. Scared. “I don’t know how. I was—He was standing above you and then he wasn’t, and I think I did that.”
Dean sits in silence with that for a few seconds. He snorts.
Sam tenses all along his side. He braces his hands against Dean’s stomach, and Dean knows that he’s about to pull away. He knocks Sam’s hands away and pulls him back in, shushing him.
“How’d you do that, Professor X?” He says, but his stomach is tense, heavy. He’s cold all over, veins washed white with it. Sam squirms, and his kicks are vicious against Dean’s thighs.
“Shut up.” Sam spits, waling against Dean’s bicep with his fists.
“We’re gonna have to shave this whole thing off if you develop freaky brain powers.” Dean keeps going, ruffling Sam’s long hair. “Until you’re nice and shiny.”
Sam snorts despite himself, but Dean feels something wet against his cheek as Sam collapses against him. He pretends not to cry until he falls asleep, breaths falling deep and even against Dean’s neck.
Dean doesn’t know if he believes it. There’s no way that Sam—all four-foot-six of him—did that.
But that werewolf was going to kill him. And it moved.
Dean’s arms flex, bringing Sam’s body impossibly closer, until his bony shoulders hurt the inside of Dean’s forearm. He closes his eyes tight.
Sam has always had weird things happen around him. Dean’s always been able to easily explain them away. But this? It’s harder. It’s almost impossible to come up with an explanation for this that leaves Sam out of it. They were the only two living things there.
Dean keeps whispering stuff to Sam, banal reassurances that Sam soaks up like a sponge, but he feels sick.
Sammy did something impossible. Sammy’s been doing impossible things. For years.
~~~
“Dean, did you put chili powder in this?” Sam asks, exhaling from his mouth as he chews. Dean winces as he watches the bright-orange mac-and-cheese mix around in Sam’s mouth.
They’re in a motel that actually has a hot-plate this time, and Dad started the water while Sam and Dean were taking turns in the shower. Dean had come back and worked his magic with the bright-orange flavour powder and just a touch of the powdered coffee creamer that the motel stocked free next to the ancient coffee maker.
They’re all huddled around the chipping motel kitchen table, and Sam had immediately dug in like no one feeds him. Dad is watching Sam with an unreadable expression on his face, probably as disgusted as Dean is.
“Ugh. No.” He says, “You see chili powder money around here?”
“Why?” Dad asks, eating another spoonful of it. Sam shrugs, chewing with an open mouth as if to get rid of the heat.
“Ionknow.” Sam says, muffled by food. “’s hot. Spicy.”
Dean rolls his eyes. “Yeah, you grabbed it straight outta the pot. That’s why it’s a million degrees.”
Sam sticks his tongue out, but eats the rest of the food without complaint. Dad doesn’t say anything for the rest of the meal, and Dean sees him tuck the top of a flask into his waistband.
~~~
“Ugh!” Sam cries, and Dean looks up in enough time to see a half-chewed mess of potato fall out of Sam’s mouth onto his plate. He glares up at Dean, like it’s his fault. “Not cool, dude.”
Dean holds up a hand, “Woah, what? What’s your problem?”
There’s a middle aged woman in the booth across from their table that glares at Dad’s back like it’s his fault for raising such heathens.
Sam shoves his plastic basket of fries across the table to Dean. Dean makes no move to take it.
“You put like a pound of salt on those.” Sam complains, and takes a large sip of water. The little bitch even gargles before swallowing with a grimace. Dean rolls his eyes at the theatrics.
He looks down at the fries suspiciously. He picks one up and puts it in his mouth, chewing slowly, and ready to spit it out at the first sign of trouble. Dean raises a brow.
“Sammy, these are barely salty.”
“Whatever, jerk.” Sam spits, chewing down on his sandwich. He looks disbelievingly at Dean like he thinks he’s faking. Dean shoves a handful of fries into his mouth, smacking his lips loudly and jutting his chin out at Sam.
“Bitch.” Dean responds, and dodges the wadded-up napkin that Sam throws at his head.
Dean doesn’t see Dad’s tense fist under the table. Or the set of his jaw as he looks at his younger son.
~~~
Dean wakes up, blinking a surprising amount of sun from his eyes. He didn’t think he would sleep this late. A hand on his feet, a smack. Dean jerks to attention, almost falling out of the bed.
“Hey,” Dad’s voice. Dean turns around, having to wrestle with a pillow unexpectedly in his way. Dean blinks his eyes open further, and realizes that he’s not in his bed. He’s in Sam’s bed, and the twerp is surprisingly absent.
“Sam?” Dean asks, and Dad crosses his arms over his chest.
“Sent him on a gas station run.”
Dean shakes his head, rubbing a hand over his face.
“God, s’time is it?”
“Nine.” Dad says, tone sharp. Dean opens his eyes, and tries not to squint up at his father, the light making his eyes water.
Something’s wrong. Dad’s jaw is tense, and he’s clearly searching Dean’s face for something.
“’sthamatter?” Dean asks, and clears his throat once he realizes how thick with sleep it sounds. Dad doesn’t say anything for a long minute, and Dean scans the motel room. Nothing looks amiss. Dean’s bed is mostly unrumpled, the salt lines in the window and door look intact, and Dean’s Taurus is on the table.
“You slept here last night.” Dad says, flat. Dean looks down at Sam’s bed under his hands.
Sam had been sitting at the head of his bed last night after Dean got out of the shower, small hands twisting against the sheets. Dean, he had blurted, just as Dean flicked the covers down.
Dean had grunted in response.
Can you. Um. Sam had started, and Dean just flopped back against Sam’s bed.
Yeah, whatever, Sammy. Dean had slurred, goddamn Sam Pavlov’ed again, kicking the covers free so he could pull them over his shoulders. Sam hadn’t said anything in response, just immediately suckered himself to Dean’s side like kudzu clings to highway trees.
“Yeah.” Dean admits to Dad, shrugging as best he can while propped up on his elbows. “He hasn’t been sleeping well. I think the spirit last week got to him.”
“He ask you to do that?” Dad asks, and the way he says it makes Dean’s skin prickle. He looks up into his dad’s face, and now they’re both searching for something.
“Yes, sir.” Dean says.
“And you were fine with that?” Dad asks, words loaded with meaning that Dean can’t parse. He gets a sharp stab of something, something that rabbits must feel when wolves sniff at the entrance of their burrows, and he says, quick,
“Nah. Little twerp asked.” Dean shrugs, and hopes it doesn’t look as suddenly panicked as he feels.
“He ‘asked.’” Dad repeats, quietly. Dean hums, noncommittal. He kind of did, right? He was about to, anyway.
The motel door opens, and Sammy shuffles in. He holds up a plastic bag.
“They were fresh outta jerky, but I got some—Dean!”
Dean leans around Dad, and grunts in response, not trusting his voice to be four octaves too high.
“Got you some peanut M&Ms.” Sam reports, swooshing up to the side of the bed in his too-big pair of laundry-day jeans. He picks up on the weird tension between them, and his eyebrows raise into his bangs. “Everything okay?”
Dad nods. “Fine.”
And he walks away, leaving Dean’s heart in his throat as Sam regales him with a step-by-step of his trip down the road, kicking his shoes off and hopping up on the mattress next to him.
~~~
“That isn’t fucking funny, Dad.” Dean says, taking a step away from his father.
The room is too small. Dean feels each square foot of it, how the lack thereof compresses the two of them into a pressure canister that will surely explode any second. Dean’s back almost hits the wall with his step back.
The room didn’t feel this small when Sam left that morning, but it does now.
“Watch your tone with me, boy.” Dad snaps, but Dean’s still shaking his head, having to turn around because suddenly he can’t breathe.
“I’m telling you, I’ve done the research on this,” Dad says, and his hands are at his sides, Dean notices, ready to grab Dean at a moment’s notice. If what? Dean starts throwing punches? Dean reaches for his gun?
Dean also notices that Dad’s between him and the door, so Dean can’t leave.
“What research? On Sam?” Dean asks, incredulous. “He’s out at A/V club, Dad! He’s not some—some—“ Dean can’t even say it. A case. A hunt. A monster. A—
It’s just Dean and Dad in the motel room this afternoon. It’s September already, and Sam turned thirteen over the summer. Dean had gotten back from school early today because he had skipped eighth period—math, his worst subject—and swears, distantly, that he’ll never come back early again.
Dad had cornered him as soon as the motel room door had closed. And he said—he said—
“I know, son. I know. Listen to me, okay? Just listen.” Dad is so placating, so rational, that Dean falls silent despite himself. He wants to rail against this. He wants Dad to shut up and never talk again. How could he even think—
But he inhales shakily and braces himself. Maybe Dean misunderstood. Dad can’t be saying what Dean thinks he’s saying. It’s an impossibility.
“The night of the fire—“ Dad continues. Dean groans, putting his head in his hands. He doesn’t want to hear this. Dad is serious. He’s really fucking serious. Dad continues over him, plowing on indomitable like he has been since Dean could spell his own last name. “—there were one thousand, one hundred, seventy-three house fires across the U.S.”
Dean sits down hard on the bed, and the springs squeak in protest. They could only afford one motel room in this town, so the room had two queens. Dad’s back had gotten thrown out of the last hunt (a selkie in Oregon), and needed his own bed—couldn’t sleep on the raggedy couch. Sam and Dean were sharing this one.
Dean feels hyper-aware that his thigh is pressed against Sammy’s pillow.
“How would you even know that?” Dean asks, baffled.
“The US Fire Administration has public records. Stop interrupting me.” Dad’s voice has gotten more tender, despite the harshness of his words. He looks like a doctor telling a patient they have a terminal diagnosis—sympathetic, disappointment, doting. “So far, I’ve been able to track seventy of these cases that have had fatalities. Of just the ones I’ve checked, in seventeen cases the mother died in the nursery. Of her six-month-year old.”
The blood in Dean’s veins freezes. He can’t even blink.
“What?”
“I think…” Dad clears his throat. “I think that the yellow-eyed demon is doing something. Planning something.”
“Planning something with thirteen-year-olds? ” Dean clarifies. What danger could a thirteen-year-old possible posit? Painting their nails too gloomily? Listen to emo pop too emotionally?
There’s a pause. Dad doesn’t say anything for a long moment. And when he does, Dean’s stomach clenches, hard.
“Sam’s not normal, Dean.” The words are soft.
Dean is propelled to his feet again, unable to sit here for a second longer. He had thought Dad had dropped the original thread of their conversation, when Dean had first walked through the door, and Dad had said, We need to talk about Sam.
“No. No.” There’s nowhere to go in this shoebox room, so Dean paces the lengths of the beds, the thin aisle between queens. He’s going to be sick. He’s actually going to be sick.
“I’ve been testing him.”
Dean whirls on him. “Testing—“
“He can taste holy water in his food. He’s sensitive to pure rock salt. He gets lethargic when drawing demon traps.” Dad is listing these facts about his son like he’s listing chores for Dean to do later. Matter-of-fact. Inarguable.
Dean frantically scans his memories for ways to prove Dad wrong here. But instead, horribly, realization dawns on him.
When did Dad put holy water in his food? Did Sam react differently to food, recently?
“The mac-and-cheese.” Dean is numb. He didn’t boil the water that night. Dad did. Dean came in and the pot was already full. He remembers Sam being extra-sensitive to temperature lately. Like food burned him.
Food—holy water—burns him.
Dad nods solemnly. Dean realizes he’s stopped pacing. He wants to start again, just to get some of this goddamn energy out, but he’s paralyzed.
“Yes. I think…I think he has rudimentary telekinesis. And a form of light psychic persuasion. He can turn events in his favor. Get what he wants out of people.”
Dean’s face screws up. “Oh come on, Dad! It’s Sam! ”
“He’s not…a full-blooded demon. But he has powers , Dean. You can’t deny that. I think the demon did something to him the night of the fire.”
And there’s that word again. We need to talk about Sam. I think he isn’t human. Not fully. I think he’s demonic.
“‘Did something to him?’” Dean repeats. He remembers that night in snatches and bursts.
He remembers walking up to Sam and kissing him goodnight. Dean remembers Mom reading Goodnight Moon before tucking him in. He remembers hearing Dad yelling, the thunk of something hard hitting the carpet, and scrambling out of his race-car bed.
He doesn’t remember the nursery. The next thing he remembers, he’s standing in the lawn, grass wet with dew, Sammy in his arms. Then he remembers sitting on the Impala while a firefighter stands over him, trying to get Sammy out of his arms while Dean screams and screams and screams.
He doesn’t remember seeing Mary on the ceiling. But he remembers the smell.
If the demon did something to Sam, how? When? Was Dean to blame? Did he not get Sam out of the house fast enough?
Dad suddenly looks years older. Decades older. He looks devastated, haunted. Dean swallows thickly.
“I don’t know what.” Dad admits. The room is shaking, and Dean realizes it’s because he’s shaking his head.
The room is too small.
“I don’t believe this shit. I won’t, okay?” Dean says, because the words Sam and Baby Brother and Wrong, don’t fit together in his head. Sammy is Home and Responsibility and Mine. And Mine and Demon is an oxymoron.
Sam is Mine, Dean thinks. He looks up at his father and shakes his head again.
Dad is quick to reassure.
“I’m not asking you to do anything with this information, okay? He clearly doesn’t know what to do with his…powers. Yet. Just…keep an eye on him, yeah?”
His powers.
Dean thinks of the werewolf. He thinks of the binder. He thinks of the money that Sam finds on the streets and tucked into school desks and caught under park benches. He thinks of how pretty much everyone loves Sam, immediately. How adults do what he says.
Keep an eye on him. Dad means keep an eye on him in a different way, now.
Take Your Brother And Run, Dean remembers. Years later, Take Care of Sammy.
Dean tucks his shaking fingers into his fists.
“I always do.”
~~~
Dean lands hard in a crouch behind the shipping crate, his knees slamming into concrete so hard that it rattles his teeth.
They were fucked. They were completely fucked.
Dad had tracked a shifter to outside of Hagerstown, Maryland, and managed to corner it in a warehouse near a railroad. The boxes seemed to be filled with straw and boxes of engine parts, and Dean had nearly taken his arm off on a wicked seven-inch nail protruding from an opened lid.
The shifter didn’t react to silver at all.
The witness was wrong. The reason her neighbor’s eyes were so “bright” was because they were reflecting light. From their pitch-black depths.
It’s a demon.
A smart-as-shit demon.
Dad had insisted on hauling Sammy along with them because three-against-one on shifters were pretty good odds when they had so many weaknesses. They only had human strength, after all.
But a demon…
Dean lost track of Dad about five minutes ago. Sammy was with him, so Dean can only hope that they’re both safe.
The demon took a liking to him almost immediately, and Dean had led it away from them as soon as he could.
Dean couldn’t be sure, but he was almost positive the thing had hissed shiny as Dean had run past. Dean shudders to think of it.
Demons are tricky fucking bastards.
Dean tilts his head up over the shipping crate, hoping to see if he can spot where it went. They hadn’t had time to lay any demon traps in the room, and Dean has no idea if he’s close enough for the demon to hear it if he shouts the exorcism.
He hears footsteps landing on concrete, coming at him from the opposite direction, and closes his eyes tight. He only has a silver knife on him in ways of weapons.
But they always keep a couple of rounds of salt on them, so Dean wiggles it out of his picket, puts the shell up to his mouth, and tears the paper end off with his teeth.
His mouth fills with sharp, acrid salt, and he spits the damp paper to the ground. If he can catch the demon off guard, maybe he’ll be able to tackle it and pin it long enough to exorcise it.
Dean closes his eyes tight.
“Hey!”
Dean freezes. Sammy. That was Sammy’s voice.
“Get back here!” Dad’s voice.
“Over here!” Sam’s voice again. Dean hears the footsteps coming at him slow. Then stop.
“Is that baby Sammy?” The demon says. It’s wearing a woman that would be about Mom’s age, and Dean’s stomach roils. He wants to jump up and shout Get away from him, but then he’d lose the only strategic advantage any of them have, here.
Dad already gave his position away. Sammy’s apparently out in the open.
How does the demon know Sam’s name?
“Don’t call me that,” Sam spits. Dean creeps forward, being careful not to spill his cartridge of salt. He makes a reach for the other in his pocket but realizes he’ll have no way to maneuver that without dropping his knife.
He prefers the knife.
He also wants to shout Not the time, Sam! but stays quiet. Where the fuck is Dad? Why isn’t he getting him out of there?
“Y’know,” the demon says, and Dean hears her voice get quieter as she steps away from Dean’s crate. “Where I come from, you Winchesters are kind of a big deal.”
Dean adjusts his grip on his knife. He runs, bent low, to hide behind the crate next to his. He holds his breath, but the demon makes no sound.
Dean does it again.
“Yeah, we’ve smoked your asses more than once.” Sam notes loftily. Dean cringes. Don’t taunt it!
He runs to the next crate.
“Aw, does Baby have teeth?” The demon coos. “You’re gonna need those, Sammy.”
Dean ducks and gets to the next crate. His heart is hammering in his chest. He’s closer than before. Maybe two more crates and he’ll be level with them. If he can get between them, he might be able to get Sam out of here. Dean holds his breath.
“Yeah, I’ve got teeth.” Sam says. “Do you? Or are you just gonna talk all night?”
What the fuck is he doing? Dean almost jumps out—fuck it—but he’s so close! He runs to the next crate.
He’s now level with them, and pokes his head around the edge of the crate to see Sammy standing in the middle of the warehouse, the demon a few yards away. Not close enough to make Dean immediately sweat, but definitely too close for fucking comfort.
Dean adjusts his grip on his knife.
The demon looks delighted by Sam’s taunts. It’s about to open its mouth to respond, when Dean takes action.
Dean lunges.
He pushes himself in front of Sam, corralling him behind his back, eyes on the demon. The demon has raised its eyebrow, like it’s not surprised, but Dean doesn’t really care what it thinks.
“Sammy, get outta here.” Dean says, lowly. He pushes against Sam with his back. He feels Sam wrap a hand around the back of his jacket, and the stubborn little asshole does not move.
“I’m counting two of Mary’s little lambs,” The demon says. Again, not surprised. It looks, if anything, frustrated that Dean has spoiled its riveting conversation. “Where’s the shepherd, little ones?”
“Go to Hell,” Dean says, smirking. He hopes he looks dangerous. He feels like a child.
“So prejudiced,” The demon clucks, disapprovingly. “And such language, too. Your mother would be so disappointed.” The demon shakes its head.
Dean back-checks Sammy again, but Sam is holding onto him with a vice grip. Dean wraps a hand around his hand, trying to wrestle the fingers free, but Sam won’t move.
Doesn’t he realize that means Dean can’t go forward to kill this thing either? Where the fuck is Dad?
“But I think—and I know more than most—“ The demon says, still fucking talking, “that she would be more disappointed that she died for that thing.”
Dean freezes. She’s pointing a long, French-tipped, manicured nail at Sam’s head. Sam falls still. Dean hears a whisper that sounds like his name, but he can’t move.
“Get gone,” Dean tells Sam, again, but Sam doesn’t move.
“What do you mean?” Sam asks, voice defiant. But Dean can hear that tremble. He knows Sam too well to be fooled by the bravado.
“Sam—“ he warns, low. But it’s too late.
“Oh, you know what I mean, pet.” The demon says. “That much blood, I’m surprised if you haven’t felt the changes already. Unexplained things. Things you can do that no one else can.”
Sam goes as stiff as a board, all of his limbs locking up. Dean tries to see if this makes him more likely to move, but Sam just sways with him, like they’re standing on a boat.
“Shut the fuck up!” Dean snarls, but can’t move forward without exposing Sammy. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t I?” The demon asks. It flips its hair out of his face. “I know little Sammy over there is a freak.”
“Quit your damn—“
“No,” A quiet voice. Distant. Dean cuts himself off, and looks down over his shoulder at Sam. His eyes are locked on the demon. The word was barely a whisper.
Sam straightens.
“No, I’m not.” His brow is furrowed, but more like he’s afraid than he’s defiant. Dean flips the knife in his grip, ready to rush forward—damn the consequences.
“You and I are the same, Sam.” The demon says. Its eyes are glinting. “Filled with rot. With things that should scare us. But they don’t, do they?”
“Stop.” Sam says, voice stronger now.
“Sammy—“ Dean says, but Sam is leaning forward into him, now.
“You don’t even know what you can do yet. You wanna find out?”
“I’m not like you!” Sam shouts, and suddenly, Dean is having to press Sammy back. Instead of keeping the demon away from him, Dean is keeping him away from the demon.
“You already are me!” The demon crows. Sam shoves Dean forward, hard. Dean whirls on him, about to pick him up kicking and screaming if he has to.
Sam’s eyes are locked on the demon. His lips curls. His eyes are vortexes of flame, burning so brightly with hate-hate-hate that it brings Dean up short. It turns Dean’s legs to jelly. He’s never seen Sam like that, never.
And…even as he hates to think it, Sam looks…different…in the low light of the warehouse. He looks…powerful.
“I’ll never be anything like you.” Sam spits.
The demon opens its arms wide, like it’s ready to embrace Sam in a hug. Its face is serene.
“You will be.”
Dean starts forward—to stop it, to save him, to ask him to come with Dean and never return here where something is clearly possible that had never been before—but it’s already too late.
It was always going to be too late.
“No—I— Won't!” Sam screams, and the world explodes.
Dean doesn’t register anything for a moment.
He doesn’t even realize that he feels weightless until he crashes back to Earth—hard. For one, blessed second, nothing.
And then—
Blazing agony across his chest, down his right arm. Dean can’t feel the ground, he can’t feel the air in his lungs, or his legs, or his face. He can just feel pain, where it shoots through him like an arrow.
Dean gasps for air, but it doesn’t come. He’s going to pass out. He’s going to die.
Someone’s saying something.
Multiple people. The words clash.
Dean’s head rings.
He wants to close his eyes. His eyes are already closed. Then he should open them, right?
He wants…He wants…
“—een—et secta diabolica. Ergo, omnis—Dean, wake—satana, inventor et magister—Dad, he’s not—contremisce et effuge—too late, John! He’s rotted from the inside, you can feel it!—Please, oh, God, please, he’s my brother—You think this stops it? You think you can run from what he is?—quem inferi tremunt—i’m begging You, let him wake up—There are millions more of me, Winchester. We’ll be back for him! We will!—Ut Ecclesiam tuam secura—Dean, can you hear me? Please, Dean, please!—rogamus, audi nos!”
A sound, like someone just rolled down the Impala window on the interstate, gallons of air beating against his eardrums. Sam probably did, little fucker. He wants Dean to wake up.
Are they almost to a motel? Dean lifts his head.
“—mmy,” Dean groans, wanting to tell him to knock it off. Something hits him, hard, making it hard to breathe.
The siren in the building is going off, Dean realizes. He blinks his eyes open. In the bottom left corner of his vision, there’s fur. Hair—Dean realizes. Sammy. He wraps his arms around him. Sammy’s wrapped around him. Okay.
His right arm won’t move. Okay.
Dean is sitting in the guts of a shipping crate. Okay.
His head is throbbing, and he’s propped up against a shattered plank. He’s almost in a sitting position, which makes it easy for Sam to crawl almost into his lap, which he now does. Dean tries to do a check, like a good hunter does.
Scan the surroundings, and all that.
The warehouse looks different. Dean squints and blinks again, finding that it looks like a bomb’s gone off. Crates that weighed easily a ton apiece have been thrown and emptied about the room, as if tossed. There’s a blast radius in the center, like something sitting there had done it.
Dad is supporting a figure on the ground a couple dozen feet away. A woman. Dean remembers the demon. She’s holding her head, but sits up. She’ll be okay. Dean tries to inhale, but a sharp pain shoots across his chest. He winces.
The siren’s still going off. Dean looks for flashing lights—maybe they had tripped an alarm?—but the rafters are dark.
Dean lifts his left arm into Sammy’s hair, ruffling it. It pulls at…something…but Dean does it anyway, wincing. The kid’s shaking like a damn leaf, but Dean counts all four of his limbs, can feel his heart pounding away in his chest.
He’s fine.
Sammy’s fine.
Dean exhales, and that hurts, too.
Dad is standing, now, pulling the woman up with him. They turn to look at the two of them, and Dean smiles, though it feels weak.
“We’re okay!” He says, carding his hand through Sammy’s hair.
“No—you’re—not,” Sammy wails, weakly, through sobs.
Dean realizes that the siren is Sammy. The screeching is from his throat. He shushes him appropriately, and realizes that the wetness on his neck is Sam’s tears and snot and spit. Dean’s head pounds.
He looks down at his right arm. There’s something sticking out in his chest, warping the skin oddly around it. There’s no broken skin, but it looks like he grew a new bone, and his body is still trying to find a way to grow around it.
Dean leans down, to look closer, and sees the skin visibly throb, as it reddens darker and darker.
Dean does what any rational person would do in this situation, and passes out.