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Adam turned around inquisitively at his older brother who couldn't explain why his eldest brother dashed through the doors without any explanation after brandishing a gun in front of Adam's face. The hallway still rung with all of their screams consecrating the otherwise deafening silence. He had only dared to say that Dean was wrong about his father and had a right to make his own choice. But he had quite foolishly solicited the wrath that had monsters and demons quivering in their boots. And he was just a child. The young nineteen year old stood dead in his tracks, cold sweat trickling down his face, his eyes riveted to the door. He turned his crystal blue eyes to the older man he'd just known to be his brother who was himself staring at the door with remorseful eyes.
"It's okay"
He said facing him.
"Sam, is he always like this?"
Adam asked, his heart still racing.
"Nothing to do with you. He didn't mean it"
Sam responded as kindly as he could.
A tear slipped down the young boy's eye.
"Yeah I get it"
He wringed his hands staring at his feet and Sam almost felt sorry for him. He reached his hand out hesitatingly and patted his shoulder.
"Just don't call the cops okay"
"No, no I won't"
Adam nodded to himself, wiping his face furiously with the back of his hands.
"Just stay inside, cover the doors and window panes with salt"
"Why?"
"Just trust me. I'll be right back"
Sam nodded curtly before raising himself and hurrying towards the door.
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Sam hurried down the steps of the Milligan house and headed for the clearing. He looked around the yard but there was no sign of his brother nor the Impala.
"Damnit Dean"
He looked around and saw that the tracks didn't end at the road but seemed to go into the woods.
"It's going to be a long night"
Sam sighed to himself.
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He finally saw the Impala at the side parked facing the lake with his brother leaning against it.
"What the hell was that"
Sam demanded, raising his hands in the air.
"Now's not a good time Sam. I needed some air. You go stay with the kid, I'll be right back"
"No you won't. Something's up with you and you're not telling me"
"I swear to God Sam, I am gonna start throwing punches if you don't leave"
"Yeah, like that has stopped me before"
"Sam I am warning you. Don't do this"
"What happened Dean, you jealous of Adam now or something?"
Sam was anticipating the punch that came across his face and he allowed it himself to be staggered off his feet. He ate the next one that split his lower lip as Dean fisted his jacket crashing him against the car for leverage. Sam sighed and swiftly caught hold of his fist and slammed his forehead against Dean's before holding it right there. Sam used his other hand to hold Dean's hand where he had fisted his jacket as they panted raggedly in unison. Dean looked at his little brother who looked at him unsurprised reckoning. He sighed and pushed Sam off him moving away to the clearing.
"I'm just so done, done with it all"
Dean muttered clasping his hand over his tired eyes, hunching over a tree. The sorrow permeating the air pulled desperate tears from the eyes of the young hunter who slowly wrapped his arms around his brother from the back resting his chin over his head as he whispered soothingly,
"He is a good kid,….he is a good kid. That's what matters"
"I tried so hard Sam, I wanted to believe so bad"
Dean confesses his voice faltering dramatically.
"I knew he wasn't a perfect father, hell he wasn't even a good man for that matter. I knew he didn't care about his sons, but at least he cared about mom. This was what everything was always about wasn't it. This price…"
"I know"
"I mean that's what I told myself every single day when I had to wash off blood from my sleeves when I had homework to do. This a noble job, we are doing this to avenge our mom. Dad is doing all of this to avenge our mother, the woman he loved…."
He chuckled bitterly, tears streaming hotly down his face.
"How could he do it to her"
He spoke through his teeth
"How could he do it to me"
Sam nudged himself closer against his brother, pressing his mouth in a line desperately holding tears whilst he rubbed his hand soothingly over his chest
"I know"
"God I hate him. I hate him so much"
"I know"
Sam whispered in his hair, tears spilling from his own eyes.
"Sammy, I didn't mean to hurt that kid. I can't stand him I swear, I wanna rip his face off, but he doesn't deserve it either. It's not his fault dad's his dad…I"
"I know"
Dean finally eased into Sam the rage dispelling from his limbs. They closed their eyes breathing the warm night air, reeling in one of their many betrayal's from the world. Sam would lie if he didn't say that he resented their half-brother too, Now his mind was fresh with new questions. What if all the times, when their father missed their birthdays, the Christmases and their emergency calls, it was because he was cradling a baby Adam Milligan or watching the stars with his new-found wife. He remembered the framed pictures adorning the happy walls all around the house. And it was crippling and pulled angry tears from his eyes when he felt like he and his brother were the secret bastards of their father having stepped inside the sacred walls of his home. It looked like it. They were made to feel like it. The pictures told it through all the fishing episodes, the smiling faces of the lovers in various places indicating his frequent visits, the baseball game, the birthdays, the holidays. All the things that he was supposed to do with them.
Well how could he win over his greed. He got what he wanted. The uncursed perfect family with a house by the lake in a silent town like Minnesota. And it didn't break his heart that bad, he had always known his father somewhere. He had recognized the filth, the conceit, the weakness in the man which Dean had tried to disprove over and over their entire lives. And Sam felt anger tepid in his blood, almost causing the vein in his temple throb. And his heart didn't break as much for himself as it did for his brother.
Sam knew how loyal Dean was to their father and how he loved and believed in the man he was. It was Sam that always questioned, rebelled and fought, never Dean. Dean was always the perfect child, the unyielding, loyal sentinel for his father. Dean fought for that man in every path.
He tried to protect the father that couldn't protect their sons.
Sam felt a sickening feeling bloom in his stomach when he remembered all the times Dean lied to him to protect their father from Sam's inevitable hatred.
"Our dad is the coolest dad in the world"
"He brought these for Christmas"
"Dad remembers, don't worry"
"He is looking out for us don't worry"
"Dad never hated you, dad was proud of you"
Sam felt his jaw lock in rage, tears scalding from his eyes when he remembered calling John that night in Illinois when Dean was in the hospital. Of the one time when they had needed him the most, one deed that could've purged his father for him…John didn't turn up.
And as much as Dean tried to protect John and save his relationship with his one other son, he failed. Their father had masterfully solicited Sam's anger and disappointment over the years which then transformed into an inexorable hatred and rage that Sam knew he would carry to his grave. Dean closed his hand around where Sam held him and tightened his grip around the fingers which had been trembling.
"I got to tell you Sammy, you dealt with this much better than I did"
He chirped in a voice hoarse and saccharinely sardonic.
"You know Dean, I never forgave dad for what happened in Illinois"
Sam confessed his hold around his brother tightening momentarily. Dean smirked as he looked at the dark waters ahead, remembering the fateful incident from what seemed like eons ago.
"I bet he knew everything that ever happened to us, every danger we ever stepped in"
Dean smiled ruefully.
Sam smirked
"You loved him too much. You tried to keep things from me, but I already knew dad was no monk. I am not exactly surprised that Adam exists. I don’t know if there are more of them, honestly I don't even care. I loved the man in my own way. And I get it. Dad didn't know shit about demons or of the hunter's life and then mom's death"
"We all have our vices and I mourned him too. But that's all that is there to it. He is gone and he has ruined lives. Including ours and now this kid?"
They pondered silently over the last sentence. They had seen evil. Real evil. From the time when they were toddlers fit for playing in the fields and causing trouble, they had wielded baptized rifles and axes to decimate the nightmarish beasts of the night. Vampires, werewolves, ghouls, spirts and even the monsters from Hell.
Dean closes his eyes to the insidious roars of hell from his memory, the incinerating heat of the flames surfacing back along with the scratchy feeling of a parched throat. He falters momentarily closing his hand tightly around Sam's warm one. Dean could take a million punches and whips from the world and won't break. But betrayal, betrayal could destroy him. And he felt it, felt it every single second from the fated phone call from Adam, in every morsel of food in that café, every second inside the house and in the very existence of Adam. But this rage, this rage could subside for now. And it slips away from his fingers as easily as grains of sand. Because this hatred seemed so insignificant for a moment, or perhaps it did because both the boys had a heart too big and kind. And Adam was an innocent child, catapulted into this quagmire of suffering that he didn't deserve. And his disgustingly blue and sorry eyes had earned Dean's sympathy, but oh he couldn't. He just couldn't. Sam felt Dean shudder and go impossibly stiff within his embrace. Sam sighed, dropping his chin over his head holding him closer.
"Forgive him. I forgave him too"
"It's hard"
Dean smiles, tears slipping from his eyes.
"But you can"
Dean sighed smiling bitterly. A silent tear slipped from his eye as he looked into the great distance. He had gotten through hell, he would get through this as well. And this was just another nightmare which will end once the case is over and they'll put this shitty town in their rear-view. He nodded to himself. He was sure for whom he was doing this. And it wasn't for John.
"Right now we gotta head back and make sure that kid doesn't get sucked up a vent"
Dean retorted breaking free from the hug.
"Yeah"
Sam croaked triumphantly turning around to reach for the door of the car when Dean caught hold of his chin abruptly, to inspect his face with a frown. He turns his brother's hesitant face to look at him and his eyes find a revolting purple bruise along his left cheekbone and a split lip.
Sam hated this part.
Hated it because he would feel horribly guilty of pushing his brother over the edge, compelling him to do something that later he would absolutely hate himself for. Dean thumbed at the blood, his eyes softening for a moment just like they do when he looks utterly defeated, helpless, hurting and burning in his love for his little brother.
"Sam"
Dean calls to him, almost beseechingly, lifting his gaze to meet his inquisitive one. Sam's jade eyes swirl in the dark as he leans carefully in his brother's touch.
He tries to read him.
Dean opens his lips in speech but finds he has lost his voice. His loving fingers turn sudden violent when he digs it gently into the flesh, cradling Sam's jaw and Dean grimaces in sudden defeat, the unspoken words being ushered blindly to brim his emerald eyes and Sam has barely caught hold of them before he loses them. And the grip is gone with the grimace and the tears. And the calloused fingers caress the abused jaw with an incomprehensible tenderness before it gets lost in a flash and his brother is back. Sam gulps down the thick knot in his throat urgently when he finds the stoic hardness back in brother's face, the suave cheer sparkling in his eye, the casual morbidity in the curve of his lip…and they were back again. Dean smears the thin rivulet along Sam's jaw and gently pats his face.
"Next time you try and play these tricks on me punk, I am gonna kill ya"
"No promises"