Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The morning of his eleventh birthday, Dean woke up at dawn like he always did. He ran laps around the junkyard before switching to the strength exercises Dad made him do every morning. Dean hated being up so early, and he didn’t like doing exercise first thing in the morning, especially in the twenty-two-degree weather at Bobby’s, but he did it anyway. Dad needed Dean to keep himself strong so that he could help out with hunting and keep Sammy safe.

After Dean’s morning workout, Bobby made chocolate chip pancakes as a treat for Dean’s birthday.

“Happy birthday, Dean!” Sammy exclaimed as Dean walked into the kitchen.

“Happy birthday, kid,” Bobby echoed, setting a plate of pancakes in front of Dean.

“Thanks, Uncle Bobby!” Dean told him, pouring liberal amounts of syrup over his pancakes. He and Sam ate in silence for a bit while Bobby worked his way through a cup of coffee. Dean liked it; it felt peaceful.

“Where’s Dad?” Sam asked, breaking the peaceful feel of the morning.

Dean sighed. “Dad’s traveling for business, you know that.”

“When’s he gonna be back?”

“I don’t know, Sam. Eat your breakfast.”

“He’s always traveling for work, Dean. Why can’t he get a job here?”

Dean sighed again. “Because he just can’t, alright?”

“But–”

“Sam, your Daddy’s just trying to take care of you and your brother. He’ll be back as soon as he can,” Bobby interrupted, saving Dean from having to make more excuses for Dad.

Dean had hoped that Dad would be back for his birthday, but he knew Dad had more important things to do. Hunting, keeping people safe , that always came first. It would be selfish of Dean to demand that Dad come home for his birthday, not when lives were on the line.

Dean didn’t really want to go to school, but he went anyway. Bobby drove them in one of the few cars he had working, an old Pinto that Dean always expected to literally blow up if they went above forty. Bobby dropped Sam and Dean off at the elementary school. He stopped Dean before he could get out of the car and let Sammy go on ahead.

“I’m real sorry your Daddy ain’t here,” Bobby said once they were alone. “You know he tries his best.”

Yeah, Dean knew. He sometimes wished Dad’s best was better, but he kept that to himself. Dad tried his hardest. It couldn’t be easy, raising two kids while trying to save people from threats they didn’t even know about. Dean refused to be the reason someone died because Dad wasn’t there to save them. He’d accept any number of missed birthdays if it meant Dad could save more people.

School was boring, just like it always was. Nobody really knew Dean. He’d only been there for a couple of weeks, so nobody made a big deal out of his birthday or anything, which Dean appreciated. He hated it when strangers turned that much undivided attention on him.

After school, Bobby picked up a pie from one of the local diners. They went back to the house, where Bobby put a candle in it and made Dean sit through his and Sammy’s horrendous rendition of “Happy Birthday.” Dean smiled a lot, even though Dad wasn’t around.

“Happy birthday, Dean!” Sam said, handing him a small, newspaper-wrapped gift. It was a new Ride the Lightning tape. Well, new to Dean. It was definitely a secondhand tape. Dean was happy, though. His copy of the album had worn out around October, and he’d been trying to find a new one ever since.

“Aww, thanks, Sammy! This is awesome!” Dean told him, ruffling his hair. Sam grinned at him.

“Uncle Bobby helped me find it!” Sam told him.

“Thanks, Uncle Bobby,” Dean said.

“No problem, kid. Here’s one from me.” He handed Dean another gift, this time wrapped in Christmas paper. Dean didn’t mind, though. He was happy to have gotten both the tape and something else, both of which had definitely been paid for by Bobby.

Dean unwrapped the gift to find a braided leather bracelet. On the inside were symbols that Dean didn’t recognize, engraved into the leather. “They’re Hittite. It’s supposed to keep you sharp during times of danger, but I don’t know if it actually works.”

Dean put it on. “Thanks, Bobby.”

They had dinner, even though they’d already had pie, and then Bobby let Dean put on a Godzilla movie.

Dean had hoped that Dad would show up at some point during the day, or even now, during the movie, but he knew better. If Dad wasn’t already there, then he wasn’t coming. Dean just hoped nothing too bad had happened to him.

* * *

Dad didn’t make it home until about three days after Dean’s birthday, and Dean could tell he was hungover, but he’d gotten Dean a gun, just like he asked. He gave him a Seecamp LWS .32 automatic, and Dad spent the day pouring silver rounds for it. They loaded it alternating with hollow points and silver, then they took it out and shot at cans in Bobby’s yard until Dean had a good feel for it.

Dad said he’d had a hunt that had run long, especially when the ghoul he had been hunting had gotten hold of a gun. He showed Dean the bandages covering the wound in his side. Dean knew there had been a good reason Dad hadn’t been back in time for his birthday.

* * *

Dad took Sam and Dean up to New England about two days after he got back into Sioux Falls. Dean knew Sam had wanted to stay longer. He was starting to make some friends at school, and he liked being at Bobby’s. Dean didn’t care much either way. He never bothered trying to make friends at school, so he was never too broken up about it when Dad pulled them out.

One of the other hunters Dad knew, a guy named Mike Wright, owned a cabin up in Vermont that he was letting Dad use for a month or so while Dad cleared out a wraith problem a few towns over. Dean didn’t bother putting himself or Sam in school, and instead, he talked Dad into buying a couple of homeschool books Dean found in a thrift store so Sam could study with them. They were in good shape for the most part, though a few of the pages had scribbles in the margins. They were also technically for second graders, but Sam could just ask Dean if he was having problems with them.

Dad took Dean with him when the snow that hit the day after they’d arrived finally cleared enough for them to get to the town with the wraith problem.

Dad made sure Dean had a silver knife handy and made him check that his .32 was half-and-half with silver bullets. “Remember, the hollow points won’t kill it, but they will slow it down.”

It took them three days to get the wraith. Dad did the investigation, and Dean either tailed him from a distance so he could see how it was done without Dad having to explain why a young kid was following him around, waited in the car, or stayed with Sam.

Dad finally figured out who the wraith was on the third day, and Dean was there strictly as backup. It was a nurse who did in-home care for the elderly. Dean doubted she ever would’ve been caught if there weren’t hunters in the area.

Dad went in first to draw the wraith out, and Dean waited outside to catch it if it took off towards the woods. He was hidden alongside the shrubs of the house where the wraith was working. Dean could see the back door fine, but he was hidden from view.

Dean heard screaming and the sounds of a fight coming from inside the house, before the wraith came barreling out the back, clutching a hand to where one of Dad’s silver knives was lodged into its thigh, steam rising from the wound.

Dean brought his gun up, took aim, took a deep breath, and hit the wraith dead-on in the forehead, just as Dad came out of the house. He was limping; one of his legs was hurt pretty bad.

The wraith crumpled instantly, its human disguise falling away to reveal the ugly corpse underneath. 

Dad was grinning. He looked really proud. “Nice shot, Dean!” He limped over, dragging his right leg. Dean took the round out of the chamber and ejected the cartridge so the gun was unloaded, just like Dad had taught him. Dean put the cartridge back in and put the gun back in the holster he had at his waist. Dad had made it over to Dean by then, and he put his arm around his shoulders. “You did good.”

Dean smiled. It was the first time Dad had taken him on anything other than a salt-n-burn milk run, and Dean was glad he’d made Dad proud. He’d proven that he could be useful for more than just digging graves. Maybe Dad would take him on more hunts where Dean could help him, could keep him safe.

* * *

They ended up staying in Vermont for another few days because of the snow. Dean found an old sled in the shed near the cabin, so he and Sam played in the snow, sledding and having snowball fights. Dad even joined at one point, though he had to be careful on his twisted ankle.

Dean liked that cabin up in Vermont.

* * *

After Vermont was a few days in Ohio. Dad had said that it was only going to be two nights, just a quick hunt, so he only paid the motel for three nights. Dad always paid for at least one extra night, in case he was injured or something.

“When’s Dad coming back?” Sam asked. Night was falling, and Dean needed to find cash or they would be out of luck once check-out time rolled around. Fuck .

“I don’t know, Sammy.” 

“Why does he travel so much for work?”

“Because he has to, alright. Now work on your school work and let me think for a minute.” Since Dad hadn’t been planning to stick around Ohio for more than a few days, Dean hadn’t bothered getting himself or Sam enrolled in school, so he was still using the workbooks Dean had found in Vermont.

Sam sighed but went back to working out addition problems. He’d want Dean to check them later, which Dean hated doing. Adding three hundred twenty-one to five-hundred seventy-five or whatever wasn’t Dean’s idea of fun. But it was better than Sammy missing school. He needed to learn that stuff, and Dean would help him.

Dean had no idea when Dad would be back. He could call Uncle Bobby or Pastor Jim, but he would leave that as a last resort. Dad wouldn’t be happy if Dean called someone needlessly. He could take the silver bullets out of his gun and pawn the silver, maybe. Dean knew he could win money playing poker if he needed to, but where would he go to play? Even the skeeviest bars weren’t going to let Dean in. Dean knew a couple good scams he could pull if he had a few more days. Three-card monte was always a good one. And Dean was great at hustling pool.

Dean resisted the urge to sigh. The only option he really had left was theft. He was good a breaking into places, he had a gun he could use to hold up a gas station, or, and he knew before he even finished his thought that this was what he was going to do, he could go pick pockets.

Picking pockets, it was.

Dean wasn’t much of a pickpocket for the most part. He tended to lift from stores if he was going to steal, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t good at it. The easiest marks were drunk people, usually the ones coming out of slightly nicer bars than the ones Dad usually frequented.

There was a bus stop that was about a fifteen minute walk from the motel. Dean was grateful they were in a city with public transportation, because otherwise he would have been shit outta luck.

Dean waited until Sam went to bed to head into town. Normally, the trick with pickpocketing was not to draw attention to yourself. It was usually easier to just bump into someone and then disappear into the crowd, but Dean knew he’d be even more conspicuous as a little kid hanging around bars without a good gimmick.

All it took was holding his eyes open for too long for the tears to collect, and Dean had a foolproof disguise. He had this shit down to a science . It wasn’t his first rodeo.

Dean would wait for a group of people to walk past on the street. He had a good eye for easy marks, women with easy-to-open purses and men with loose pockets. Then he’d put on his best innocent and lost expression and run up to the mark, all teary-eyed and frantic. He’d get into their personal space and tug on arms, bump into torsos, slip sticky fingers into pockets as he told them they just had to help him! He couldn’t find his little brother or his Dad or his big sister or whatever, and they’d been right there just a second ago! He’d ask about a tall man or a toddler or a teenager or whoever, and they’d tell him they hadn’t seen the family member Dean described, and then Dean would be off, frantically shrugging off attempts to get him to a police officer or payphone as he searched wildly for his family.

It worked pretty well. By the end of the night, Dean had enough to pay the motel room up for a few more days, and keep himself and Sam fed on top of it. He dumped the wallets in a dumpster a few blocks from where he’d been hanging out most of the night, and he wiped his prints off of them in an overabundance of caution. The last thing Dean wanted was to get caught for something stupid.

Dean got back to the room sometime between two and three in the morning. He’d stayed out until just after last call time. He wasn’t interested in sticking around long enough to deal with the truly drunk people. They usually didn’t have much on them anyway.

Dad still wasn’t back, and Sam didn’t stir when Dean showered the smell of the city off of him and practically collapsed into bed. Hopefully, the night had been a waste of Dean’s time. Hopefully, Dad would come back first thing in the morning, safe and sound, and Dean would be able to keep the money around for a rainy day. Hopefully, all the monsters disappear from the face of the earth tomorrow and we can all sing Kumbya .

Dad didn’t come back the next morning, or the morning after, or the morning after that. It took him five days to get back.

Dean wished he could believe him when he apologized and said that he’d do better about keeping it from happening again.

“Did ya kill it?” Dean asked. He used to ask if Dad was ok, then he’d asked if the hunt had gone well for a while, but he’d found that asking if Dad had killed it was best. Dad always killed it. He always got the monster. His hunts were always worth it.

* * *

After Ohio was a week spent near Indianapolis in a motel room that was only supposed to have been a weekend thing. At least Dad had paid the motel room up for longer this time, so all Dean had to worry about was keeping Sammy fed, which was easy enough. He still had the money he’d gotten in Ohio, so he didn’t have to try to figure out how to make more. 

Instead, Dean could take Sam to the library every day after school hours and focus on making sure the kid wasn’t falling behind, since they still weren’t enrolled in actual school. Dean would have been fine spending all of their time at the library, either working his way through comic books and magazines while Sam read novels or reading out loud to Sam, but he knew better than to get caught for truancy. He supposed he could use the homeschooling excuse on the librarian if she asked why he and Sam weren’t in school, but he didn’t want to risk drawing attention to them. So in the mornings, he entertained Sam with cartoons and the meager toys Dad allowed them to keep around, or he got Sam to keep working his way through the homeschool textbooks from Vermont. Sam was getting close to finishing out one of the smaller ones, some kind of reading comprehension thing. Dean wasn’t surprised. Sam was a good reader. Little nerd.

* * *

Dean could tell something was wrong when Dad got back to their motel room outside of Indianapolis. For starters, he was hungover, which usually happened when a hunt had gone horribly wrong, but he wasn’t injured. And then there was just something about the way he was acting that was off. Dean didn’t know what exactly it was, but it was there. Something had happened on that hunt, and it had messed with Dad.

“Did ya kill it?” Dean kept his voice low in consideration of Dad’s hangover.

“Huh? Oh, yeah, I got it.”

Dad almost seemed… distracted. But by what? Dad was never distracted. Not from the mission, at least. Saving people, hunting things, avenging Mom. Dad never wavered in his dedication to those goals. Something big must’ve happened to pull his attention away, but Dean hadn’t the faintest idea what it could’ve been. He didn’t have time to figure it out either, before they were on their way down towards South Carolina.

Chapter Text

By the time the Winchesters crossed the Mason-Dixon, it was almost March, and Sam and Dean had missed around a month of school. Dean wasn’t really worried about himself. He didn’t give two shits whether his grades were any good. But he knew Sammy liked school, so he worried about him. It wasn’t really fair to Sam that they never really stayed in one place long enough for him to get a solid education.

Dad decided they were going to stay in Charleston for a while, at least a month or two. He rented them a tiny little two-bedroom. It didn’t have great heating, but it didn’t get very cold in Charleston, so Dean didn’t really mind. Besides, he was sharing a bed with Sam, and that kid was like a little furnace to sleep next to.

Dad got a job working at a restaurant, something under the table so he wouldn’t have to pay taxes on it, and Sam and Dean started going to the nearby elementary school. It wasn’t a nice school by any means – definitely one of the worst ones Sam and Dean had attended, but it was a school, and that meant Sammy could actually learn something from someone other than Dean and something other than a secondhand textbook for the wrong grade.

Dean himself didn’t care much for going to school. He wasn’t gonna need most of it anyway. He paid enough attention in math, cause that might actually come in handy, but when was he gonna need to know how to write a good book report? He doubted Bobby would be asking him to write up a detailed analysis of his favorite parts of whatever obscure lore book Dad happened to need for his next hunt.

Regardless of Dean’s feelings about school, he was a decent student. He kept his head down, stayed out of fights and away from detention, and he got all his homework done on time, though that was mostly because the apartment didn’t have a TV in it, so Dean had nothing better to do to relieve his boredom. There were only so many times he could clean Dad’s guns in a week before those book reports started looking real appealing.

Dean didn’t know exactly what had distracted Dad after the last hunt, but it didn’t go away once they were in Charleston. It actually seemed to get worse.

He found out about the baby in early March after they’d been in Charleston for a little over a week. Dad sat Sam and Dean down at the apartment’s shitty little table. It wasn’t really big enough for three people, but they made it work.

“Dean, Sam, why don’t you boys sit down for a minute. I gotta talk to you about something,” Dad told them. He’d just come in from his restaurant job, so he smelled like food. It was making Dean hungry. “There’s no real good way to say this,” Dad said, once Sam and Dean were situated at the table. “But, uh, we’re gonna have a new addition to the family soon.”

What the fuck? What the hell did he mean that they were gonna have a new addition? Was Dad finally getting Sammy that dog he always begged for? “Whaddya mean by that, Dad?”

“Well, it seems that you and Sam are gonna have another sibling soon.”

Another sibling? What the hell?

“How soon?” Sam asked. Dean could tell that he was excited by the idea. And why shouldn’t he be? He didn’t know what having another sibling meant.

“Well, assuming nothing goes wrong, the baby will be here in late September,” Dad said. His tone was apprehensive, but he was trying his best to hide it. Dean knew how babies worked. They took nine months between being conceived and being born, and Dean could count. Late September was nine months after late January, when Dad had left Sam and Dean with Bobby so he could go hunt. Dean guessed not all of that time was spent actually hunting . How much of Dad’s time spent “hunting” was spent with women who weren’t Mom?

“Where is the baby now?” Sam asked, because, of course, Sam didn’t know anything about babies.

“Well,” Dad began, obviously unsure of how to finish that statement. He looked up at Dean helplessly.

Dean valiantly resisted the urge to sigh. Of course, he was the one who got to explain the miracle of life to Sammy. “You see, Sammy, babies come from moms, right? They have them in their stomachs for nine months, and then when those nine months are up, the baby comes out.”

Sam thought about that for a minute. “Doesn’t the food hit the baby?”

Dean laughed. “No, see, they’re in a different part of the stomach, so they stay safe from what the mom’s doing.”

“But, Dean, we don’t have a mom anymore. You said so.” Fuck . Leave it to Sam to cut straight to the heart of Dean’s problem with this development. Well, one of them at least.

Dean looked at Dad. He could explain this one to Sam. “Well, Sam, you and this baby will have two different moms.”

“So a different woman has this baby in her stomach, not Mom?” Sam clarified.

“That’s right.”

“But this mom will just be the baby’s Mom, right? She’s not gonna be my new Mom, is she?” Sam asked.

“No, Sam, she won’t,” Dean interjected. “No one is going to be your mom except Mom.” And if Dad thought that he could just replace Mom with some random woman he met on a hunt, he was dead wrong. Dean would listen to Dad on most things, like where to go and how to hunt, but Dean would be damned if he let Dad just forget about Mom.

“Dean’s right. The baby has a different mom than you two do, but I’m the baby’s dad, just like I’m your dad. It’ll go from being the three of us to being the four of us.” Thank God . If Dad had said anything else, Dean would have called Uncle Bobby or Ellen and Bill or Pastor Jim.

“But what about the baby’s mom?” Sam asked. “Is she going to die too?”

“No, she’s not going to die. She just needs us to take care of the baby,” Dad reassured him.

“So you’re just having another kid, just like that?” Dean asked, trying to keep his voice even. How could Dad just… decide that he was taking this kid?

“Dean, I didn’t exactly plan on having another kid.” No shit . Dean took a deep breath and didn’t say anything for a long minute. Sam was looking back and for between Dad and Dean, and he wasn’t saying anything either. Dean’s thoughts turned to the reality of having a baby around. They’d have to get someone to watch the kid during the day while Sam and Dean were at school. Or Dad would have to stick around more. Babies were expensive, too. They’d need to buy diapers and supplies and all of that sort of thing. They’d need everything new, or, well, secondhand new, cause they got rid of everything once Sam was old enough not to need it. No sense in keeping it around if they weren’t gonna have any more babies. Finally, Dean spoke. “Are you working tomorrow?” He needed to discuss all of this with Dad when Sam wasn’t around. No reason to worry the kid unnecessarily

Dad shook his head. “No, I’m not.”

Dean nodded. “Can I stay home tomorrow so we can talk about this some more?”

Dad agreed, as long as Dean took Sam to school first. “May I be excused?” Dean asked. He had no desire to continue sitting there in awkward silence.

As Dean started working on his homework again, he heard Sam tell Dad that he couldn’t wait to meet the baby. He seemed really excited, and Dean tried to be happy for him. It would be nice for Sam to have someone other than just Dean around.

* * *

The next day, Dean walked Sam down to the elementary school they both went to.

“What do you think the new baby is gonna look like?” Sam asked. He was practically bouncing along next to Dean.

Dean shrugged. “I don’t know. It depends on what the kid’s mom looks like.”

“Do you think the baby will look like us?”

Dean didn’t have the faintest. He didn’t even know what race the kid’s mom was. For all he knew, the baby could be half Asian. “Yeah, Sam, I bet the baby will look just like you did as a kid.”

“Do you think it’s a girl or a boy?”

“I’m not sure, Sam.”

“Well, I hope it’s a girl! I would love to have a little sister. I wonder what the baby’s name will be. Can you ask Dad?”

“Yeah, I’ll ask him.” Dean doubted he’d get around to it.

“When the baby comes, is Dad gonna be around more?” Sam asked, voicing Dean’s main thoughts about this whole thing. “Since the baby doesn’t have a mom and all.”

“I don’t know, Sam. I guess so.”

“Ok!”

They were getting close to the school. “You have all your books and everything?” Dean asked, trying to change the subject. He didn’t really want to talk about the kid. “Get all your homework done? Got your lunch?”

“Yes, Dean. I’ve got everything.”

“Good.”

Dean dropped Sam off around the corner and watched him walk into the school from behind a building. It would be best if no one at the school realized that he wasn’t actually sick.

* * *

When Dean got back home, Dad sat down with him at the table again. “Late September, right?” Dean asked. No point in pussyfooting around the conversation.

Dad nodded, and he looked uncomfortable doing it. “Yeah.”

“You know the sex yet?” Dean hoped he’d be able to tell Sam whether he was getting that little sister he was hoping for or not.

“No, not yet. We won’t know until sometime in May or June.” Dean vaguely remembered his parents not being able to tell him Sam’s sex when they first told Dean he was getting a little sibling as well.

“Ok.” Dean thought for a minute. How was he supposed to ask Dad if he’d been sleeping with the baby's mom while Dean had been celebrating his birthday without him? “What’s the woman’s name? The baby’s mom?”

Dad looked even more uncomfortable. “Her name is Kate.”

“How long have you known Kate?” He wasn’t sure whether more time or less would be better.

“Since January.” So, at least Dad hadn’t planned on going to see Kate.

“You with her?” Dean tried very hard not to sound accusatory.

Dad shook his head and cleared his throat. “No, I haven’t even seen her since January.”

“Right, ok.” So she was probably a one-night thing. Then why hadn’t Dad used condoms? Even Dean knew what they were and how to use them, and he was only in fifth grade. “Why are we taking the baby?” he asked, instead of telling Dad he had been careless.

Dad sighed and wouldn’t meet Dean’s eyes. “Kate… Kate doesn’t want to have children right now.”

“And you do?” God, Dean hoped Dad didn’t want more kids.

“Not really, no.” Good .

“So, you don’t want this baby?” Maybe Dean could convince him to give the kid up. There had to be someone out there who knew of the supernatural and could keep the kid safe without raising it to hunt like Dad was doing with Sam and Dean. 

Dad met his eyes. “Of course I want the baby, Dean. It’s my kid.”

“So you just weren’t planning on it, then?”

“No, I wasn’t planning on it.”

So he had been careless. Good to know. Dean finally decided to ask the question he’d been thinking about since Dad had announced the baby the day before. “So, when you missed my birthday…”

Dad dropped his eyes again, fixing them on his hands, which were resting on top of the table. He was spinning his wedding ring around his finger with his right hand. It was his main tell when he was uncomfortable or nervous. Dean doubted he was nervous; he rarely was. “I’m really sorry,” Dad started. “I was on a hunt, and I got shot. It wasn’t bad, but I met Kate at the ER. She’s a nurse there. I was on painkillers, and I lost track of time.”

Dad didn’t make mistakes, and he definitely didn’t admit to them. He did make excuses, though. Dean wondered whether Dad had always been planning on missing his eleventh birthday, or if he’d just decided to after he met Kate. “Ok, Dad. Sure.” Just don’t do it again . “Any other potential siblings I should know about?” On any other day, Dad would’ve had Dean’s hide for his tone.

“No.”

At least there’s that . “We’ll need to get baby stuff again, diapers and a crib and clothes and everything. It’ll have to be new since we got rid of all of Sam’s old stuff.”

Dad nodded along. “Yeah, I know. We don’t have to worry about all of that until September, though.”

Dean thought about asking him what they’d do about child care. Who would look after the kid while Dad was hunting and Dean was at school? Or would Dean just have to miss school when Dad wasn’t around? “Have you told Uncle Bobby?” Dean asked instead. He figured the baby could stay with Bobby if nothing else.

Dad looked uncomfortable again. “Yeah, I’ve told him.”

“What did he say?” Dean would bet his right arm it hadn’t been particularly nice.

“He said ‘congratulations.’”

Yeah, I bet he did. Dean thought about everything for a while before he asked the question he hadn’t even wanted to think . But he had to know. “Do you– I mean, is it– is it that you don’t love Mom anymore?”

Dad looked up from his hands, his eyes flashing. Dean braced himself for a slap, but it didn’t come. Instead, Dad just took a deep breath. He must be feeling really guilty about missing my birthday , Dean thought, then, Guilty for missing it or guilty for getting caught?

“Of course, I still love your mom,” Dad told him, conviction laced through his tone. “I’ll die loving your mom. This doesn’t have anything to do with how I feel about your mom, alright? I just made friends with Kate for a few days, that’s all.”

So it was longer than one night, then. Dean wondered exactly how long Dad had spent with Kate before deciding to come back to the family he already had. “Ok, Dad. Ok.” Dean got up. He really didn’t want to continue with this conversation. “I’m going to my room. I want to be alone for a little while. Are you going to pick up Sam, or should I?”

“I’ll get Sam,” Dad told him, and Dean almost thanked him. He really couldn’t deal with Sam’s optimistic excitement for the upcoming addition to the Winchester family.

Dean was angry at Dad. He thought about calling Bobby or Ellen and Bill. Someone who he could really talk to about this, who would understand why Dean was hurt. Someone who would understand why Dean didn’t want another little sibling. All Dean had ever needed was Sam. He’d die for that kid. He’d carried that kid out of a burning building for fuck’s sake. He’d changed Sam’s diapers, he’d kept him fed, hell, he still did keep Sammy fed. Dean didn’t want to add another kid to that. He didn’t want to have to be responsible for keeping another kid safe, for changing their diapers and keeping them fed and getting them to school and making sure they didn’t find out about the supernatural. Dean loved Sam with all his heart, but sometimes he wished he didn’t have to take care of him. And he’d carried that kid out of a burning house . How was he gonna feel about this kid who Dad had missed Dean’s birthday to create?

Dean lay down on the shitty little full-size bed he shared with Sam and tried to imagine having another kid there, sharing with them. Would Dean also have to convince Dad to buy homeschool books so that the kid could get an education? Would he have to check that kid’s math homework? Would that kid want Dean to read out loud to them on long drives? Would they like fantasy, or would Sam and the kid argue over what book they wanted to hear?

This kid was gonna be young, too. Like, obviously it was a baby, but by the time it was Dean’s age, Dean would be twenty-two. Sam would be eighteen. An adult. Dean wondered what that would be like.

Dean kept coming back to the same thought over and over again, as he lay there trying to feel tired enough to take a nap: he didn’t want another little sibling. It wasn’t fair to the kid. But it wasn’t fair to Dean either. Dad missed his birthday just to have another kid with someone who wasn’t Mom, and now, Dean knew he was going to have to be there for this kid like he was for Sam, and that wasn’t fair to any of them.

Dean was angry, he realized. He was angry at Dad, not for missing his birthday, or even for having another kid. It was that Dad was a hypocrite. He always said the two most important things in the world were hunting and family, but he wasn’t hunting when he missed Dean’s birthday. Fuck .

Dean scowled up at the ceiling as he kept trying to go back to sleep. He didn’t want to think about the baby. It wasn’t like he could do anything about it, so thinking and worrying about it was pointless. But there was nothing to do in the apartment to take his mind off of it.

Fuck . Dean got up and went over to Sam’s bag, which the kid still hadn’t unpacked. He rooted around for a bit until he found Sam’s copy of The Hobbit, which he took back over to the bed. The little book was beat up and torn in a few places, with creases along the spine and a piece missing from the back cover, like someone had taken a bite out of it. There were crayon scribbles on a page or two, but nothing bad enough to obscure any of the words. Dean liked it. It looked well-loved.

* * *

Dad took hunts whenever he had time off work while they stayed in Charleston, and he took Dean with him on a few of them. Mostly, he left Dean at the apartment with Sam, but there were a few times that he let Dean come along. Dad only really let Dean tag along if they were gonna be leaving Sam for less than a night alone. Any longer than that, and Dad wanted Dean to stay with him, to keep him safe.

Dean tried not to imagine what it would be like once the baby came. Would he be staying with Sam and the kid all the time, or would Sam have to learn how to take care of the kid, like Dean did when he was four? Dean didn’t want that for him. Sam deserved to be a kid, to be able to go to school, and to go to his friends’ houses afterwards, and to not have to worry about whether or not he was gonna have enough money to make it until Dad came back, which could sometimes be weeks after he said he would be.

Dean also tried to keep Sam from learning just how unhappy he was with the idea of a new sibling. If Sam knew that Dean was angry about the new kid, Sam might take it out on the new kid, and the kid didn’t deserve that. As much as Dean didn’t want a new sibling to take care of, he wasn’t gonna take it out on the kid. He was gonna treat the kid exactly like he treated Sam. It wasn’t fair to Dean that he was gonna have to take care of another kid, sure, but it would be even more unfair of him to be angry at anyone other than Dad for it.

As for Dad, Dean mostly tried not to be around when Dad was, but he hated it when Dad wasn’t home. He wanted to know where Dad was all the time, wanted to see if Dad was actually doing what he was supposed to be doing, or if he’d lied again. Did he spend extra days on hunts he said would only take one night, meeting some new woman and impregnating her? Or did the hunts actually run as long as Dad said they did? Dean wanted to believe that Dad was actually helping when he went out, that he was saving people, hunting things , but Dean didn’t know. Did Dad even care if they avenged Mom anymore? Dean had thought that Dad never really lied to him, not like they lied to Sam about the supernatural, but now Dean had no idea.

* * *

About a week after Dad told Sam and Dean about the new kid, Dean caved in and called Bobby. He had to talk to someone about it, someone who wasn’t Dad or Sam. Dad already knew how Dean felt about the kid, and Dean couldn’t put his shit on Sam. It wasn’t fair to the kid.

“How’d you get this number?”

“Hey, Uncle Bobby, it’s Dean.”

“Dean, how are ya?” Bobby asked, voice softening.

“I… I’m ok,” Dean told him. “Dad said he told you something big already, but if he was lying about it, then I’m not gonna tell you what it is.”

“Does it have to do with the little bundle of joy you guys have got coming along in September?” Bobby asked. Thank God, he already knows .

“Yeah, it’s about that.”

“So I’m guessing that means your Daddy told you about the baby.”

“Yeah, he did.”

“When’d he tell you?”

“About a week ago.”

“How are you feeling about it? It’s gotta be a lot.”

“He missed my birthday, Bobby,” Dean said, the words practically bursting out of his chest. “He was supposed to be on a hunt, but he was with Kate instead. When he leaves us, how am I supposed to know that he’s actually out there, saving people? I didn’t even care that he wasn’t there for my birthday ‘cause he was supposed to be saving people , but he wasn’t!”

“I know, kid.”

“ Why ? Why’d he have to lie about it? He said nothing was more important than saving people and family, but he obviously doesn’t believe that!” Dean’s voice was starting to get thick as he blinked away tears. He wasn’t gonna cry, not about this.

“Come on, Dean, that’s not fair. Your Dad loves you and Sam more than anything else.”

“Then why wasn’t he there , Bobby? Why was he with Kate on my birthday ?”

“He made a mistake.”

“Dad doesn’t make mistakes.”

Bobby laughed sardonically. “Oh yes, he does.”

“Not like that. Sure, he forgets the keys on the way out the door sometimes, but he doesn’t just forget about Sam and me like that.” Does he?

“Everyone fucks up, Dean. Even the great John Winchester.”

“Why’d he lie, though, Bobby? I thought he didn’t lie to me.”

“He lied so he wouldn’t hurt you.”

“Yeah, well, he did a great job,” Dean muttered.

“He wasn’t trying to hurt you, Dean.”

Dean was quiet for a minute, thinking. Finally, he spoke up again. “Uncle Bobby, am I a bad person if I don’t want Dad to have another kid?”

Bobby sighed on the other end, and it came across the line as a crackle. “Of course it doesn’t make you a bad person.”

“I just, I love Sammy, but I don’t want to do that for another baby. I don’t want to change more diapers and sing more lullabies and tell more lies about where Dad goes when he leaves for weeks at a time. I don’t wanna have to worry about keeping another kid fed. I don’t wanna have to check another kid’s homework. I barely even want to do that for Sam sometimes!”

“Your Dad should be the one doing those things.”

“He’s got more important things to do. He’s out there saving people. Or, at least, I thought he was. Now I don’t know, Bobby. Why am I the one at home, missing birthdays with Dad and checking Sam’s spelling while Dad gets to go out and knock some ER nurse up? Why do I always have to be the one to look out for Sam? I was looking out for both of us by the time I was Sam’s age, but he doesn’t even know how to shoot a gun .”

“Do you want Sam to learn how to shoot?”

“No! Sam doesn’t need to learn that stuff yet.”

“So you gotta look out for him, then, Dean.”

“Yeah, I know I do.”

“And you gotta look out for this kid, too, as much as it sucks.”

“I know.”

“And your Dad’s gonna keep hunting, just like he always has, but I doubt if he’ll be having any more trysts on the job, especially since this one ended with a kid.”

“So I should just believe him when he says he’s out hunting?”

“Yeah, you should. John screwed up, I won’t lie to you, but that man is one of the best and most dedicated hunters I’ve ever met. He’d rather cut off his own foot than put something ahead of a hunt.”

“Ok.”

“And, Dean, if John leaves you kids in a motel room for too long without enough money again, you call me, alright? I’ll help you out.”

Dean wasn’t gonna do that. Not unless they were in serious trouble. “Thanks, Bobby, I will.”

“You take care now, Dean.” Dean could tell that Bobby could tell he was lying.

“You too, Bobby. Bye.”

“Bye, kid.”

Dean stood next to the payphone he’d been using for a minute, just looking down at the keypad, as if the ten digits there could give him some sort of clarity. He felt better after talking to Bobby, at least, but he still hadn’t forgiven Dad. He didn’t know if he ever would.

“Fuck,” Dean said under his breath. It would almost be better when the baby came, cause at least then Dean would be too busy taking care of it to hold a grudge against Dad.

* * *

They stayed in Charleston until the end of the school year, which Dean was grateful for. Sam had gotten the chance to make a few friends and spend time doing normal kid stuff with them, like playing on the playground and going to the arcade. He even had a few people to invite to his birthday party, which Dad and Dean threw for him at a local park. Dean made a box cake that turned out a little bit dry, and Dad bought some finger food for everyone. Dad got Sam a couple of children’s books, like Charlotte’s Web and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Dean gave him a toy 1967 Chevy Impala. He’d even managed to find a black one.

From his friends, Sam mostly got toys, with a couple of books mixed in, because he was a little nerd.

Sam went around introducing Dean to all of his friends as “my big brother, Dean, the one I told you about!” which was adorable, and definitely something Dean was gonna tease Sam about when he was older.

Dean was just happy Sam’s seventh birthday went better than Dean’s eleventh birthday had, and that Dad was there and not out hunting.

Chapter Text

The Winchesters left Charleston about a week after school ended, headed west. Dad had caught wind of a chupacabra out in Texas, so Sam and Dean packed their stuff and moved out of the little two-bedroom. Dean didn’t really mind; he was getting sick of the humidity in Charleston anyway, but Sam wasn’t happy. He didn’t want to leave his friends behind, and he didn’t wanna go back to living in shitty motel rooms. Dean didn’t blame him, but there was nothing for it. Dad needed to be out there, saving people, and that meant Sam and Dean had to make sacrifices. Sam would understand when he was older, once he knew what all was at stake.

“Why’d we have to leave Charleston, Dean? I liked it there.”

“Because Dad got a new job,” Dean told him, not looking up from the comic book he was reading. He and Sam were at the public library, which Dad had said was fine, as long as Dean left a note at the motel.

“But Dad had a job in Charleston. Why couldn’t he just keep that one?”

“Because, Sam, he just couldn’t.”

“But why, Dean?”

“Because he had to, alright, Sam! Just stop asking questions. Dad had to get a new job, and we had to go to Texas. He’ll be back in a few days, ok?”

Sam started pouting and went back to his book with a huff. “Fine, don’t tell me.” Dean hadn’t been planning on it.

Dad had told Dean he’d be gone for two days at the most, but it had been almost five days since the last time Dean had seen him. Dean resolved himself to call Bobby if he hadn’t heard from Dad after a week and a half. He wasn’t gonna bother the man unnecessarily, but Dean’s funds were only gonna last for a couple more days, and Dean, once again, didn’t have a great way to make money. It looked like Dean would be picking pockets again for cash. Food was the more pressing issue, though. Dean had spent the money Dad had left on paying for a few more days at the motel, and he and Sam were down to their last can of Ravioli-Os.

It wasn’t the first time Dean had shoplifted for food, but that didn’t make it any better than the other times he’d done it. It was nerve-wracking, even more so than picking pockets. Dean could get away if he got caught picking pockets. He did it in open spaces where he could easily disappear into crowds and dart into alleys. Plus, Dean always picked people who looked like they could spare the money. The convenience stores he lifted food from weren’t rich enough to not miss the food Dean was taking. Dean didn’t really like stealing in general, but it was either that or starve. He’d pick theft over starvation any day.

Dad finally called after a little more than a week to tell Dean that he’d be gone a bit longer. He’d crossed paths with some hunter he’d known for a long time, and he owed her a favor. Dean didn’t bother asking when exactly Dad would be home. It wouldn’t matter what he said anyway. Dad would be back when he would be back, and there was nothing Dean could do to make him get back sooner.

After Dad hung up the phone, Dean counted up the money left. It was enough to pay the motel for another three days and buy enough food for Sam to eat for those days. Dean would have to go hungry for a bit, but he’d be alright. As long as Sam was ok, Dean could figure things out.

Dean started running a scam at the local Plucky Pennywhistle’s to make some extra cash. He’d charge the other kids a couple of dollars to win them whatever prize it was that they wanted. He was great at ski-ball and the shooter games, and it was easier than outright stealing, as long as none of the workers or parents were paying enough attention to notice what Dean was doing. Sam hated being there, but Dean brought him along anyway. As long as he wasn’t doing something illegal, Dean brought Sam wherever he went. He wasn’t gonna make the same mistake now that he’d made two years ago with the Shtriga. After that mishap, he’d promised himself that he’d always be there when Sammy needed him, and if that meant dragging the kid to Pennywhistle’s, then so be it. He’d rather Sam be unhappy than dead.

Dean was able to keep himself and Sam afloat without having to resort to theft until Dad came back by pinching pennies and using all of the dubious methods he knew to sucker people out of money.

When Dad finally did return, he’d been gone for thirteen days, and Dean hadn’t eaten a full meal in at least four days. He’d been eating whatever Sam had left over since the end of the first week, only allowing himself to eat real meals when his hunger had started to affect his ability to make money and protect Sam.

Dean wanted to ask Dad where he’d been. He wanted to know if Dad had actually been saving people. Was Dean’s hunger necessary? Was Dean’s theft justified? Or had Dad been spending some of the days Dean had spent worrying about keeping himself and Sam from homelessness and hunger, holed up with some woman, creating more siblings for Dean to worry about?

“Did ya kill it?” Dean asked instead.

Of course, Dad killed it; he always did.

* * *

They headed north after their stint in Texas, chasing after something that Dad said might be related to their quest to avenge Mom.

Dad called Bobby from a motel in Oregon. He made Dean take Sam outside to play tag in the parking lot so he could talk shop.

“I don’t wanna play tag, Dean. I wanna go back inside. I’m tired.”

“We don’t have to play tag, but we gotta stay out here so Dad can make a call, alright?”

Sam sighed and sat down on the curb, his face resting against one of his hands. “Why does Dad work so much?”

“He has to, Sam.”

“Why, though? Uncle Bobby doesn’t work as much as Dad does.”

“Because Dad’s work is important, Sam. And Uncle Bobby does work, he just doesn’t work as much when we’re around.” Dean really wished Sam wasn’t as smart and curious as he was sometimes. If the kid was a little dumber and asked fewer questions, Dean would have an easier time keeping him away from the supernatural world. He’d be able to let Sam be a kid for just a little longer.

Dean heard the door to their room open behind them. “Boys, you can come back inside. I’ve got news,” Dad told them.

Sam and Dean stood up and made their way back inside; Sam was almost bouncing, and Dean was trying not to drag his feet. “Is it about the baby?” Sam asked. Dean almost wished it wasn’t, but any other news from Bobby that Dad would feel the need to tell both of them would be bad news, and Dean wasn’t about to wish for that.

“Yes, Sam, it’s about the baby. Kate had an ultrasound recently. The baby is healthy and developing right on schedule.”

“That’s great, Dad.” Dean tried to sound happy. “Did she find out the sex?” Dean vaguely remembered from some health class at some shitty school somewhere that ultrasounds were how the doctors knew what sex the baby was gonna be.

“Yes, she did. You two are getting a little brother. We’re gonna call him Adam.”

Dean wanted to ask so many questions: What did Kate look like? Who picked out the name? What did the name mean? Dean knew he was named after their grandmother and Sam was named after their grandfather, both on Mom’s side, but what about Adam? Was that name from somewhere in Dad’s family, or was it from Kate’s? Or was it a family name at all? Does Dad even know? Does he even care?

“Aww. I was hoping it was gonna be a little sister,” Sam said. Dean nudged him. “Not that I’m disappointed! I can’t wait to meet Adam! I wonder what he’s gonna be like? Can they tell anything about him? What he’s gonna look like or what color his hair’s gonna be? Or do they have to wait for him to be born?” Dean tuned his brother out as he peppered Dad with questions. He tried to picture Adam, but all he could imagine was Sam as a baby, with his little tuft of brown hair and wide hazel eyes. Dean rolled everything over in his head. Sam, Dean, and Adam. Adam, Sam, and Dean. Dean, Adam, and Sam. Sam and Dean and Adam. It fit, like they were meant to all be brothers. Sam and Dean and Adam, the Winchester brothers. Sam and Adam, Dean’s little brothers.

Dean expected to feel something more, like the world had shifted in some fundamental way. Like putting a name to the baby would make it more real. Or maybe Dean was just wondering why it didn’t feel like it had when he’d learned that Sam was gonna be his little brother Samuel, instead of his little sister Samatha.

* * *

The case in Oregon went well. Dad let Dean tag along once he learned it was just a poltergeist, not a demon. After that, they spent some time in SoCal, then back north for a couple of cases in Montana. After that , it was down to New Orleans for some sort of hoodoo thing Dad wouldn’t let Sam and Dean within fifty miles of, then they spent about three weeks in a trailer park in North Carolina while Dad went and cleared out some cases he hadn’t been able to investigate while they’d been living in Charleston. Then on up into the Appalachians for a case in West Virginia, and then across to the Rockies to see Caleb out in Boulder. They made it up to Blue Earth to see Pastor Jim again, just as it was getting to about mid-August. Dad left Sam and Dean there while he made a trip up into North Dakota to chase a lead about the thing that killed Mom. Sam started second grade at the local elementary school, and Dean started sixth grade at the middle school.

Dean was pretty sure that starting middle school was supposed to feel like a big deal. To most kids, it probably did. Dean didn’t really care. What did school matter compared to what was really out there?

Pastor Jim thought Dean just wasn’t trying hard enough when he brought home Cs rather than As, but Dean didn’t care much about that either. As long as Dad was happy, Dean was happy, and Dad was just fine with Dean making Cs. Anything that was a passing grade was just fine in Dad’s book.

Sam, on the other hand, was ecstatic that Dean had started middle school. Every day, when Dean picked Sam up from the elementary school so they could walk home together, Sam would pepper him with endless questions about it. He wanted to know everything Dean was learning, wanted to see the science lab, wanted to experience going between teachers and classrooms instead of having the same one for everything. Dean tried his best to indulge Sam’s questions, but there was only so much he could tell the kid. It was a school. It mostly smelled of B.O. and dirty socks, and everyone was shallow. Dean hated them. They had no idea what the world was really like. They all thought the worst thing in life was being told they couldn’t go out because they had to do chores. They’d never shot a wraith in the head. They hadn’t watched their moms burn on the ceiling at four, hadn’t watched their dad kill a shapeshifter they didn’t know wasn’t a human at five, hadn’t learned how to shoot a gun at six. They didn’t know what digging up a grave was like. Everything for them was so easy .

Dad came back to Blue Earth after the hunt in North Dakota. It was only an hour away from Windom, so Dad would be able to get there fairly quickly if something happened with Kate and Adam.

Sam had reconnected with a few of the kids he remembered from the last few times they’d stayed with Pastor Jim, and Dean was happy for him. The kid deserved to be able to keep some friends.

* * *

Kate went into labor just after three in the morning on September 29, 1990. Her call to Pastor Jim’s had woken everyone in the house.

Within ten minutes, Dean had himself and Sam up and ready to leave. Sam was still in his pajamas, though Dean made him put a hoodie on over the top so he wouldn’t get cold, and Dean had gotten himself fully dressed.

When Dean and Sam entered the kitchen, Pastor Jim was making coffee, and Dad was tying his boots on. Dean got Sam in his light-up sneakers, a present from Pastor Jim for starting the second grade, and then pulled his own shoes on, just in time for Dad to grab a mug of coffee and rush him and Sam out the door, leaving Pastor Jim standing in the kitchen.

Dad took a gulp of the coffee and handed the mug to Dean once they got out to the car. “You can have some if you want,” Dad told him.

It wasn’t the first time Dean had had coffee. Dad usually let him have some whenever he got less than four hours of sleep, or if they had to get up and leave in the middle of the night unexpectedly, like they were doing for Kate.

Dean did his best to keep the coffee level as Dad drove well over the speed limit along the back roads between Blue Earth and Windom, drinking some whenever Dad hit a long enough straightaway that Dean could without spilling it all over himself, and handing it to Dad whenever he held a hand out for it.

In the late night/early morning, with only the Impala on the road, Dean felt as though nothing else existed in the world beyond them. There were the headlights in front of them, illuminating the dotted yellow passing zone line, and the empty fields spreading out for miles beside them, like a sea of unbroken darkness, waiting to swallow them. Next to Dean was Dad, solid and sure, behind him was Sammy, muttering quietly in his sleep. There was warm coffee in Dean’s hands, and he could smell the steam rising from it. Everything else might as well have been a fantasy, dreamt up to distract from the endless miles of dark nothingness.

The illusion was broken by the occasional orange street light or the yellow headlights of a passing car, or the glint from a mailbox or parked car, but everything was still muted, like the world was held on pause. That feeling was why Dean loved driving at night.

It should’ve taken them an hour and fifteen minutes to get to the hospital, but they made it in forty-five. Dad swallowed the rest of the coffee in one gulp before he killed the engine and headed into the hospital, Sam and Dean both rushing to keep up with him. Sam especially, since he was so much shorter than Dad.

Once they were in the hospital, the nurses in the ER directed Dad up to the maternity ward, where another set of nurses showed him to Kate’s room and Sam and Dean to the waiting room. Dean hadn’t spent much time in hospitals, but he’d spent enough to not be surprised by how uncomfortable the chairs were. Seriously, with how much hospitals cost, they could afford to buy decent waiting room chairs.

Sam fell asleep almost instantly, his head resting against Dean’s shoulder, and Dean was left to sit there and think about Adam and Kate and Sam and Dad and himself. He thought he should probably feel something. He was gonna have a new little brother in a few hours, and he should feel some way about it. He didn’t, though. He’d been so excited for Sam to be born. He’d tried to run away from the Guenthers more than once so he could go be at the hospital with Mom and Dad and be there when Sam came into the world. Having since learned exactly what happened when women gave birth, Dean didn’t care to be anywhere near Kate, and he still wouldn’t even if he did feel the same way about Adam’s birth as he had about Sam’s.

* * *

Sam woke up for real at around seven in the morning, as the waiting room was starting to get more crowded.

“Morning, Sammy.” The sun was slanting through the windows and hitting Sam, illuminating his curls like a little halo. “You hungry?”

“Is Adam born yet?” Sam asked. “And, yeah, I’m hungry.”

“No, not yet. It takes a while for babies to be born. Wait here, I’ll go get you something from the vending machines.” Dad had left Dean with some vending-machine money the last time he’d left Kate for a few minutes to update him.

Dean came back with some peanut butter crackers and a Coke for Sam and some shitty vending machine coffee for himself. “Thanks, Dean.”

“Eat up, Sammy.”

Sam ate his crackers and Dean drank his watery sludge in silence, both too tired for any amount of real conversation.

* * *

It wasn’t until around ten that Sam started really getting bored. Both he and Dean had been sitting there for about six hours, though Dean was the only one who’d been awake the whole time. Dad had come out a few times to tell him that Kate was doing fine and so was Adam, but he couldn’t give a good estimate for when the kid would actually be born other than “soon.”

“How much longer are we gonna be here, Dean?” Sam’s tone held just a hint of whine in it, and Dean wondered why neither he nor Dad thought to bring toys or a book or something.

“I don’t know, Sam.”

Sam sighed heavily, his entire body moving with it. He’d been doing that every ten minutes or so for the past hour and a half, and Dean was gonna strangle him if he did it again.

Dean walked over to the nurses’ station, keeping an eye on Sam in his periphery. “Excuse me, ma’am,” he asked the nurse. “Do you know if any of the nurses have a deck of cards or something my brother and I can borrow? See, we left in a hurry ‘cause our youngest brother is being born right now, and I forgot to grab some toys for him.” Dean endured the cooing from the old nurse as she set about finding some way for Dean to keep Sam entertained, trying not to roll his eyes at how he was such a great older brother and must be so excited to meet the new addition to the family, and such a well-behaved young man . Eventually, a deck of cards was procured from somewhere, and Dean went and bought some Skittles so he and Sam could play poker with them. He wondered if the nurse would’ve been as helpful about finding the cards if she’d known Dean was gonna use them to teach Sammy how to hustle; he explained how to fake tells and how to read other people’s tells, how to bluff, and how to make people think he was bluffing. He was gonna make sure that kid could make money if he needed to.

* * *

Adam was born just after noon on September 29, 1990, while Dean was in the middle of teaching Sam Omaha hold ‘em. He’d already gone through five-card draw and Texas hold ‘em. Sam was getting pretty good once he got the hang of betting. Kid was smart.

Dad practically ran into the waiting room to tell Sam and Dean when the kid had finally come into the world before rushing back to Kate and Adam, leaving Sam overjoyed and Dean desperately trying to feel some way about it.

* * *

The doctors wanted Kate and Adam to stay in the hospital for forty-eight hours after he was born. Dad brought Sam and Dean in to look at him through the window, pointing him out amongst all the other babies, wrapped up in his little blue blanket. Dean couldn’t really see him, and from a distance, he looked like most other babies Dean had seen in his life.

Sam, on the other hand, looked like he was trying to crawl through the glass. There were little smudges on it from where Sam had touched it with his hands and the tip of his nose, and there was a foggy spot from where he’d breathed on it. Dean was glad he was so excited about Adam. Adam deserved at least one person whose reaction to his birth was uncomplicated joy, rather than some mix of apathy, regret, or resentment.

Dad got a motel room in Windom for the three of them, since he didn’t want to drive all the way back to Blue Earth in between the long hours spent with Kate and Adam. He took Sam and Dean back there when he felt that he was no longer needed at the hospital, only a couple hours shy of twenty-four since they’d gotten Kate’s call the night before.

Dean was exhausted, and Sam had been drifting in and out of sleep since the novelty of being in the same building as their new little brother had worn off. Even Dad, who Dean had seen go five days without sleep once, looked tired.

Nobody said anything. Dean didn’t have anything to say, and it seemed like Dad didn’t either, which was a relief. Dean didn’t know what he was even supposed to say.

* * *

The next morning, Dad left as soon as the sun started slanting through the windows. He woke Dean just long enough to tell him not to leave the motel room. He didn’t tell Dean when exactly he’d be back, but Dean was too tired to really worry about it. It couldn’t be longer than a day or so anyway, even if he stayed at the hospital until Kate was allowed to leave.

Dean should be getting up and doing as much of his morning exercise as he could without leaving the room, but he hadn’t slept nearly enough for that. He’d do it later and deal with the consequences if Dad found out, though Dean doubted he actually would. He was too wrapped up in the new baby to care what the fuck Dean was up to.

* * *

Dad brought Sam and Dean back to the hospital in the early afternoon. He took them to get lunch in the cafeteria, then they all headed up to the maternity ward.

“Kate wants to talk to you boys. I’ll wait out here for you, alright?” Dad asked.

“Yes, sir,” Sam and Dean chorused before heading into the room. Dean stopped dead when he saw the woman lying in the bed, presumably Kate. She looked like Mom.

Not exactly alike. There were differences. This woman was younger than Mom had been, her nose was different, her hair was more yellow, and her eyes were blue, but from a distance, someone could easily mistake this woman for Mary Winchester. They could be sisters. And Dean hated that the only reason he knew Mom’s face well enough to tell was that Dad carried around Mary’s picture; he’d forgotten what she really looked like.

“Hello, boys. You must be Sam.” She smiled at Sam. “And you must be Dean,” she tilted her head at him. “It’s nice to meet you both.”

Dean forced himself to walk over to her bed, ignoring the twist in his stomach. He remembered going to see Mom in the hospital, right after Sammy was born, and he had an awful sense of déjà vu as he moved toward Kate, as though at any moment, he would be thrown into a different hospital room in a different time, walking towards Mom. He had to swallow a few times before he felt like he could speak again. “It’s nice to meet you, ma’am,” he told her, just barely managing to keep his voice steady.

“John has told me about you two. He said you boys are excited to meet Adam.”

Sam nodded, his face breaking out into a grin. “Yes, ma’am! I can’t wait to meet him!”

Kate smiled kindly at Sam. “You’ll get to soon. Now, I wanted to ask you both a question, just for my own peace of mind. I know I’m practically a stranger, but I just have to know. Is John a good father to you two?”

Sam opened his mouth, and Dean prayed he remembered all of the stuff Dean and Dad had told him about sharing their business with other adults, even Uncle Bobby or Ellen and Bill or Pastor Jim or Caleb. The last thing he wanted was unnecessary drama between Kate and Dad over his parenting style. “Yeah, Dad’s a good dad, ma’am,” Dean told her before Sam could fuck it up somehow.

“Dad’s a good dad. Better than a lot of other Dads, anyway. I had this friend in Charleston whose dad hit him when he came home drunk, and Dad’s never ever hit us,” Sam told her. Dean nodded along, even though that wasn’t entirely true. Dad had smacked Dean a couple of times when he needed to get him to focus, or when he said or did something particularly stupid. He’d only really hit him hard once, though, when Dean had almost let the Shtriga kill Sam. Dean had deserved that.

Kate smiled in relief. “That’s good. I’m glad he’s a good father. Sam, would you mind waiting outside? Your Dad will take you down to see Adam. I want to talk to Dean alone for a minute.”

“Sure,” Sam said, as he turned and walked out of the room, leaving Dean alone with this woman who could’ve been Mom’s sister.

Dean waited for Kate. He was not willing to start the conversation. “Dean.”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“How is John, really?” she asked, her blue eyes locked onto Dean’s green ones. “And don’t worry about sparing my feelings, just tell me.”

Dean kept looking into her eyes as he lied through his teeth. “Dad’s great, honest.”

She raised a brow. “I know he missed your birthday. He told me once he realized. That’s how I even knew about you and Sam in the first place. I know his job is demanding. How bad is it, really?”

Dean sighed. “He does his best. Sam and I move around a lot, but we make it work. Sometimes he leaves us to go work, but never for very long. He takes good care of us.”

“And that’s the truth?”

“Yes, ma’am. If he’s gonna leave us for very long, he has us stay with family friends,” Dean lied.
“Sam and I were at Uncle Bobby’s while he was up in Windom.” The last part was true, at least.

Kate closed her eyes and sighed, relieved. “I’m so glad his job doesn’t get in the way.”

“Don’t worry, ma’am. Nothing’s more important than family.”

“Good. I just knew from the way he talked about you boys that missing birthdays and stuff like that isn’t a regular thing for John, but I had to make sure.” Dean didn’t have anything to say to that, but Kate didn’t seem to expect anything. “Well, it was nice to meet you, Dean. Go ahead and send your father in on your way out, if you would.”

“Of course. Goodbye, ma’am.”

“Bye, Dean.”

Chapter Text

Dean met Adam on October 1, 1990, when both he and Kate were being discharged from the hospital. Dad was busy helping Kate, so he’d handed Adam to Dean. The kid was a tiny little thing; he felt smaller than Sammy had when he was born. He was sleeping when Dad handed him over, but he blinked awake once he was settled in Dean’s arms, a set of wide, blue eyes looking up at Dean. Dean smiled down at him, bouncing him gently like he used to for Sam.

Adam just sort of looked up at Dean, watching him, and he didn’t seem all that interested in doing anything other than just staring as Dean started walking with him out to the car. Dad hadn’t had time to get a baby carrier for the car, yet, so Dean had to hold him.

Walking out of the hospital, Dean felt sort of like he did all those years ago when he’d carried Sam out of the burning house; at the same time, the feelings were nothing alike at all. Dean had saved Sam. Without Dean, Sam would be dead. Adam would be fine without Dean. One of the nurses would get him. Still, it felt like, by carrying the kid out of the hospital, Dean was putting some kind of claim on him, declaring that Adam was Dean’s little brother, like Sam was. That he was Dean’s to protect, to love, to save. Dean’s responsibility. And Dean knew right then and there that, like Sam, Dean would die to protect Adam. Dean would keep them both safe, he swore it on Mom.

* * *

The first few weeks were rough with Adam. Dad threw himself directly back into hunting, and Sam and Dean both had to go back to school. Pastor Jim was willing to help out, just like he had been when Sam was a baby, but with Adam’s hastily bought crib set up in the same guest room that Sam and Dean shared, nobody was getting much sleep. Dean tried to take over in the middle of the night where he could. He still remembered how to feed and change babies from when Sam had been little, but Adam still woke Pastor Jim up more often than not.

Dean was just glad they were staying with Pastor Jim and not Bobby. If it was Bobby being woken up every few hours, he would’ve already called Dad to yell at him about being around to “raise your own damn kids, Winchester!” Pastor Jim, on the other hand, had the patience of a saint, especially when it came to Dad.

Dean groaned as Adam started fussing. It wasn’t really late, and Dean wasn’t asleep yet, but he wanted to be. He’d been trying to fall asleep for at least an hour, but it just wasn’t happening. That didn’t mean he wanted to get up and deal with a baby, though. Adam’s fussing started getting a bit louder, and Dean pushed himself up so he could get him before he woke Sam.

“Shh, shh, I’m coming,” Dean whispered, walking over to the crib and picking Adam up, bouncing him a bit as he walked, moving towards the door. As he walked in the dark, he tripped over something and stumbled, managing to catch his balance with a hand on the wall before he fell. Adam started screaming at the unexpected lurch, and Dean half wanted to join him. “Shh, shh, it’s ok,” Dean told him, not bothering to whisper. If Sam hadn’t woken up when the screaming started, he wasn’t going to.

“Dee?” came Sam’s groggy question. “‘S everythin’ ok?”

“It’s fine, Sammy. Go back to sleep. And don’t leave your stuff on the floor.”

“M’k,” Sammy mumbled, and Dean couldn’t tell if he was still awake or not. Kid tended to mumble in his sleep.

Dean made it out the door and into the hallway where Pastor Jim kept a nightlight without any more incidents, still shushing Adam, who was screaming directly into Dean’s ear. He’d always thought it’d be the guns that’d make him go deaf, but if Adam kept screaming, he might just beat them out.

Pastor Jim must’ve been exhausted, because he didn’t come down to the kitchen, even with all the screaming. Instead, Dean set the sink running so the water would warm up while he changed Adam, narrating what he was doing so the kid could learn to talk. After he’d changed Adam and washed his hands, he grabbed the bottle from the fridge and ran it under the water until it was lukewarm. That’s how Adam liked his bottles, lukewarm. Sam had always refused them if they were anything other than the perfect warmth, almost too hot for him but not quite, whereas Adam liked them at room temperature. Dean had no idea how he’d liked them as a baby, though there was a decent chance that Dean himself hadn’t been bottle-fed at all, since he’d had Mom around.

Adam finally stopped crying once Dean got some formula in him, so Dean was able to burp him and put him back to sleep without any trouble. He wondered, as he did so, whether Adam would be the last baby Dean ever did that for, or if he’d one day have kids of his own. If he did have kids, they weren’t gonna be hunters, not like he was. He’d keep them away from the supernatural until they were old enough to make their own decisions, and maybe not even then. Dean’s kids would never grow up going from motel room to motel room, school to school, place to place, never knowing a solid home other than the Impala. Dean’s kids would never learn to shoot a gun before they could even do long division. Dean’s kids wouldn’t learn how to stitch their father up before they were even in middle school.

Dean still couldn’t fall asleep, even after he got Adam taken care of. So instead, he lay next to Sam and stared at the ceiling until he could almost see the afterimage of Mom up there, burning. He decided to give up on sleep after that and went back downstairs to browse through some of Pastor Jim’s books on theology. There was one devoted to angelology that Dean found after flipping through half a dozen on demonology, written in Aramaic. Dean’s Aramaic wasn’t great, but Pastor Jim had left his translation notes in a folder next to it on the shelf, so Dean was able to read it. Most of it sounded like complete and utter bullshit, but it was still pretty cool to read. Dean had no idea if angels were real, but he was fairly certain they weren’t. Mom always said that angels were watching over Sam and Dean, but where were those angels when she died? Still, Dean told Sam the same thing, that angels were looking out for him, because he knew Mom would if she was still here.

Pastor Jim found Dean still reading the angelology book a few hours later when he brought Adam down to feed him again. Dean had been so engrossed in the book that he hadn’t even noticed Adam crying. Stupid to let his guard down like that.

“Dean,” Pastor Jim greeted him as he set about taking care of Adam. “Why aren’t you asleep?”

“Can’t sleep.”

“Why don’t you go sleep in my room? I’ll take the bed with Sam, and I’ll keep an ear out for Adam.” Dean opened his mouth to protest, but was cut off by Pastor Jim. “You need your sleep, Dean. You’ve got school in the morning, remember?”

Dean debated asking Pastor Jim to call him out sick, but he decided against it. Sixth grade was proving to be harder than fifth grade, and Dean wasn’t interested in failing it. “Ok.” He put the book down and made his way to Pastor Jim’s room, too tired to even try to snoop. Without the sound of Sam’s mumbling or Adam’s light breathing, or even Dad’s snores, Dean felt like he was the only one in the whole wide world, left alone to fade out in a sea of pillows and worn cotton sheets, until the world was emptied of life forever.

He fell asleep within minutes, too exhausted to mind the silence much.

* * *

Dad came back after three weeks of hunting around Minnesota, trying to clear out any creepy or nasty that could possibly come after Kate while he was gone. Dean thought it was overkill, but whatever. Maybe there really was far more supernatural activity in Minnesota than usual.

“Did ya get it?” They still didn’t have a carrier for Adam, so Dean was holding him. He was in the backseat with Sam, who was pouting about having to leave another school behind.

“Yeah, Dean, I did,” Dad told him, as they pulled away from Pastor Jim’s, headed… Dean didn’t actually know where they were going. He’d been too focused on placating Sam and packing for Adam that he hadn’t paid attention.

“Dean, will you read to me?” Sam asked, already pulling The Hobbit out of his bag.

“Sure, Sam. You gotta hold Adam, though.”

“Ok,” Sam said with a sigh. He’d been really excited about Adam before the kid had been born, but the novelty had worn off pretty quickly. He still liked Adam just fine, but it wasn’t the blind adoration it’d been when the kid was first born. Dean didn’t blame him. Babies were a lot.

Dean passed Adam over to Sam, making sure the kid was cradling his head and supporting him, before he started reading. They’d been about halfway through the book the last time Dean had read it aloud, but he decided to start over. He practically knew the book by heart, but he still didn’t really want to pick it up right in the middle. Sam didn’t seem to mind, since he didn’t say anything about it.

About seven hours later, they stopped in Ainsworth, Nebraska, and Dad paid the room up for four nights, so Dean assumed they were there for a hunt, not an overnight stop. The drive should’ve only taken about six hours, but they’d had to stop a few times for Adam. Dean forgot how difficult traveling with babies was.

* * *

Dad was gone for a full week, leaving Dean to try to figure out how to split his time between making enough money to keep Sam and Adam fed and, in Adam’s case, diapered. Formula was expensive, and Dean had already had plenty of trouble when it was just him and Sam.

He sighed and headed to the store with enough money for what he wanted, just in case he struck out. He waited until he saw a particularly nice-looking older lady to grab the baby formula and diapers. He made a big production of it, comparing prices and looking for the cheapest ones, eventually asking her to read the prices on the higher shelves for him.

“Excuse me, ma’am? Dad sent me to the store to get some diapers and formula for my baby brother, but I’m not sure he gave me enough money. Probably forgot how much the price has changed since my other little brother was a baby. Can you read the prices of those packs for me? I wanna try to find the cheapest.” Between Dean’s polite smile and the way he added the price of the formula to the diapers with his fingers, he had the lady hook, line, and sinker.

“Of course, dear. What size does he need?”

“I’m not really sure, Dad didn’t say. Adam’s almost a month, though.”

“Oh, how sweet! Well, you’ll want these ones, then. But you don’t want generic brand, they just don’t work as well. There’s some things brand doesn’t matter for, but when it comes to babies, it absolutely does. Oh, and that formula just won’t do. I’ll help you pick some out. And don’t worry about the price. I’ll throw it in with my stuff. Don’t even worry about it. I’ve got two of my own, you know? They’re both grown now, off to college. One of them even got into MIT, if you can believe it. She wants to be an astronaut, has ever since she was younger than you, dear,” the lady seemed like she was almost desperate to tell someone about her kids. “And the other one, he’s a bit older. He had some trouble in school, so he did a few years at the community college, but now he’s off at the University of Nebraska down in Lincoln, studying engineering, and I couldn’t be prouder of him. He’s really turned it around in the last few years. Here, take this brand of formula. It’s a bit pricey, but both my kids just loved it. Was there anything else you needed, dear?” the lady asked, once she’d exchanged the formula Dean had for the new stuff.

Dean paused, for a moment, looking away, as if he was shy. “Well, ma’am, my other little brother, Sam, he’s seven, and he loves Lucky Charms. I was gonna get him some if I had any money left over, but he’ll be ok without them.”

“Nonsense, dear. It’s no trouble. We’ll get little Sam some Lucky Charms. You know, my oldest, the boy, he used to love Cookie Crips. Never could keep enough in the house for him, he had such an appetite. Not my youngest, though. She never was one for cereal. Always wanted eggs and bacon for breakfast every morning. Used to say it was ‘cause she wanted to grow up strong so she could go to space. What about you, dear, what do you want to be when you grow up?”

Dean hated that question. What he wanted to be when he grew up didn’t really matter. He’d be a hunter, same as Dad was. But what he wanted – maybe if he had time in between hunts – was to be a firefighter, so he could save people like he saved Sam. “I wanna be a firefighter, ma’am. See, my house burned down when I was little, that’s why I have to help Dad out so much. I wanna help out other people whose houses burn down.” Dean could practically see the woman’s heart melt right out of her damn chest.

“Aww, well, isn’t that just the sweetest thing. Why don’t you pick something out for yourself, too? We’ll get the stuff for Adam and Sam, and something extra for you,” she winked at him.

“Oh, I couldn’t.”

“Of course you can, dear. There’s gotta be a candy bar or something, think of it as a treat for being such a good older brother and helping your Dad out.” She was smiling down at him, as if the idea of Dean getting a treat for just doing his job wasn’t absurd. If Dean asked for a treat every time he helped Dad out, Dad would laugh him right out of the damn motel room.

But the lady was offering. Dean thought about it for a minute. He needed something that would last for a little while, so he could keep himself and Sam fed for longer. An idea struck him. “Could I maybe get some of the fancy bread with the cinnamon in it, ma’am? I know it’s more expensive than regular bread, but I’ve always wanted to try it,” Dean lied. He’d had cinnamon swirl bread before.

“Aw, of course, we can get you some of the cinnamon bread. I need to pick up some bread for myself anyway. You don’t mind if I grab a few more things before we check out, do you, dear?”

Dean shook his head. “That’s fine with me, ma’am.”

The lady continued chatting with Dean as she filled up her basket the rest of the way, filling him in on everything her kids had ever done to make her proud. He could tell she really loved them. He’d bet they were one of those apple pie families that lived in the suburbs, and now that they’re grown, call their parents once a week. He sincerely doubted he would ever in his life call Dad just to chat, even once he was off on his own.

Eventually, the lady finished her shopping and paid for both her and Dean’s groceries. “Thank you so much, ma’am.”

“Of course, dear. You make sure and tell your Dad that the price for this stuff has gone up, alright?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Dean replied. “You have a good day, now.”

“You too, dear,” the lady told him, and Dean was able to make his escape before she pulled out the wallet pictures again.

With the food and baby stuff from the lady at the store, Dean was able to keep everyone fed and in the motel until Dad got back without having to resort to real theft. He didn’t feel too bad about scamming the lady in the store out of her money. People who were that friendly and gullible were bound to get taken advantage of eventually. Why not get taken advantage of by someone who could genuinely use it?

* * *

After the week up in Ainsworth, Dad packed them up and drove them down to Central City to stay with Ellen and Bill for a little while. Dean wasn’t sure whether he’d called ahead or not, and, judging by the sour look on Ellen’s face as she watched the Impala pull into the driveway, he guessed probably not.

“Wait here, boys,” Dad said, leaving Sam, Dean, and Adam in the car while he went to go talk to Ellen. Sam and Dean had been in the middle of a round of poker, so they just shrugged and kept going. They were betting with some of Sam’s army men, and Sam was really starting to get the hang of the game.

Dean half-watched Dad and Ellen start arguing with each other and half focused on what was going on in the car. Sam was bluffing, and Adam was watching the game with as much interest as a month-old baby could, laughing whenever Dean lost, as if he somehow knew Dean was the one losing.

Dean had a flush, so he let Sam raise it as high as he wanted. “Call.”

“Fuck,” Sam muttered, laying down his pair of threes.

“Yeah, sucks for you,” Dean told him, pulling the army men to his pile and dealing again. This time, Dean had jackshit, and Sam obviously had something interesting. He let the kid bet high again, and didn’t mind when he lost, cause it made both Sam and Adam smile, though, for the life of him, Dean had no fucking clue how Adam could tell when to laugh.

“Straight, king high,” Sam said, laying down his cards proudly.

“Yeah, yeah, you win,” Dean said. Adam giggled from where he was balanced against Dean so his head was supported, his nose scrunching up. Dean booped him on the nose. “You’re supposed to be on my side, little man.”

“I think I’m his favorite, Dean,” Sam told him, smugly. “He likes me cause I’m better at poker.”

“Oh, is that so?”

“Sure is.”

“Bitch.”

Sam smiled wide. “Jerk.”

Before Sam could collect his winnings and deal a new hand, Dad opened the car door and shut the engine off. “Alright, boys, help me unload everything and get it set up. You’ll be staying with Ellen and Bill for a little while.”

Chapter Text

Dean hadn’t seen Jo since she was a toddler, since every time he’d been to see Ellen or Bill since then had been with Dad at the Roadhouse, and Jo wasn’t allowed to go there yet. Dean didn’t blame her parents for keeping her out of there. He wouldn’t let Sammy in there either. Hunters were a rough bunch.

Jo was five, now, and she could fit a lot of sass into her three and a half foot tall body. She had just started kindergarten, and going there instead of preschool was getting to her head.

“Mom says you’re in middle school now,” she said to Dean as he was unpacking his stuff. He, Sam, and Adam were sharing the guest bedroom. Dean didn’t know how long they’d be there for; Dad hadn’t said.

“Yeah, I’m in sixth grade,” Dean replied, folding a shirt that had been haphazardly tossed into his bag and putting it in a drawer. “What about you?” he asked. He already knew she was in kindergarten, but kids liked to talk about themselves.

“I’m in kindergarten this year,” she told him proudly. “And I’m already learning how to read! Daddy is teaching me!”

“That’s great, Jo,” Dean replied, moving from his duffel to Sam’s. “What have you been reading?”

“Daddy has these old books about Dick and Jane, and there’s also one about green eggs and one about a cat who wears a hat. The ones about the cat and the green eggs aren’t like real life, but the ones about Dick and Jane are boring.”

“Books don’t always have to be like real life. One of Sam’s favorites is about magic and dragons.”

Jo raised a brow and crossed her arms. “Well, that’s dumb. Magic isn’t real.”

Dean chuckled. If only she knew. “How do you know it’s dumb? You gotta know what it says before you can really tease Sam about it,” he told her. “You probably can’t read it yet, but I’ll read out loud. Sam likes listening to it too.”

Jo furrowed her brows like she was thinking about it, but Dean could see he’d sparked her interest with the promise of being able to better torment his brother. Little kids were fun like that. “Fine, I’ll listen. But I bet it’s dumb.”

Dean hummed. “Might be.” He moved on to Adam’s stuff, folding onesies and tiny pants into the last drawer.

“Why isn’t Sam unpacking his own stuff?” Jo asked, still hovering behind Dean. “I mean, obviously Adam can’t, but Sam isn’t handicapped or anything.”

Dean snorted. Not handicapped, just stubborn . “Sam won’t unpack his clothes unless we’re gonna be somewhere for longer than a month.”

“A month is when four of the same day have passed, right? Like four Mondays?” Jo asked.

“Yeah, that’s a month.”

“A month is a long time.”

Not when you’re older than five . “Yes, it is.”

“So, how long will you be here?” Jo asked as Dean finished putting the last of the clothes away and moved to put the duffel bags in the closet.

“I’m not sure,” Dean replied. Ellen or Bill had already made up the bed, and Dean didn’t really have anything else to do. He turned to the door so he could go check on Sam and Adam. “How long are you gonna be here?”

Jo laughed. “I live here, silly.”

Dean tilted his head. “Nah, that can’t be right. I was told a nice young lady lived here.”

Jo scoffed. “Nice people are boring.”

Dean laughed, long and loud. He liked this kid. “Yeah, kid. Yeah, they are.”

Jo followed Dean down the stairs to the living room, where Sam was playing with the toy car Dean had gotten him for his birthday, Adam was asleep in Bill’s arms, and Ellen was in the kitchen making dinner.

“Don’t you gotta leave for work, Daddy?” Jo asked in what she probably thought was a very quiet whisper.

Bill shook his head. “Matt is watching the bar. Your mom and I will head out after dinner,” he said, in an actual whisper.

“Is Jenny coming to babysit?” Jo’s stage whispering still hadn’t gotten any quieter. “Or is it Daryl this time?” She made a face.

“Neither. Dean’s gonna watch you guys, as long as he’s alright with that.” Bill looked over at Dean, as if Dean had a choice on whether or not he wanted to watch the kids.

“Yes, sir. That’s fine.”

“How many times? You don’t gotta call me ‘sir’, Dean.”

Yeah, right . Uncle Bobby was one thing, but Bill Harvelle was another. Dean wouldn’t be caught dead disrespecting the Harvelles. “I’m gonna go help Ellen,” Dean said, and turned to walk into the kitchen, ruffling Sam’s hair as he passed where Sam had begun quietly showing Jo his toy car.

Ellen put Dean to work peeling potatoes and chopping veggies while she worked on the meat. “We’ll get you and Sam registered for school tomorrow, alright, Dean?”

Dean nodded. “Yes, ma’am.” Ellen didn’t bother to correct him about calling her “ma’am.”

Dinner was… Dean wasn’t exactly sure how to classify it. Adam had been put down for a nap. Ellen and Bill had a baby monitor set up for him, but he slept all through dinner, meaning that it was just Sam and Dean and the Harvelles. It felt like the family dinners Dean remembered from his childhood, with everyone sitting at a table eating a home-cooked meal and asking about each other’s lives. Jo was excitedly telling Bill and Ellen about what she’d decided she wanted to do when she was grown up, which was, apparently, a police officer this week.

“I wanna arrest all the bad people,” she declared, gesturing with her fork.

“Not all criminals are bad,” Sam replied. “Some people break the law for good reasons.”

Jo turned to him with her hands on her hips. “Why would someone break the law that isn’t bad?”

“Well, maybe they didn’t mean to,” Sam said. “Or maybe they were trying to help someone else.”

Or maybe they’re trying to keep themself and their little brothers from going hungry or getting tossed out of a hotel room before their dad returns. Or maybe they’re actually trying to kill a monster who’s killing other people, but that monster looks like a person. Hypothetically .

Jo opened her mouth to reply to Sam, but Bill cut her off. “Alright, guys, let’s not argue about this. Some people who break the law are doing it for good reasons, Sam, but most people aren’t doing it for good. Jo, not all criminals are bad people.”

“Have you ever broken the law, Daddy?” Jo asked, fixing him with her big, brown eyes. Dean resisted the urge to snort. Hunters broke the law all the time.

Bill cleared his throat. “No, I haven’t,” he lied. “And neither should you, Jo. You boys either,” he looked back and forth between Sam and Dean.

“I won’t!” Sam told him. “Not unless someone else really needs help.”

Dean didn’t bother replying. He knew Bill was full of shit. Bill broke the law, Ellen broke the law, Dad broke the law, Dean broke the law, and, eventually, Sam, Jo, and Adam would too.

Ellen looked at Sam. “What do you want to be when you grow up, Sam?”

Sam’s answer changed whenever he found something new at school that interested him. Last time Dean had heard, Sam had wanted to be a vet. He wondered what it would be this time. “I wanna be a geologist,” he told them. “We learned about them while we were in school at Pastor Jim’s, and they study mountains and volcanoes and stuff.”

Dean smiled as the conversation turned to geology, letting the sounds of the family dinner fall over him. Ellen and Bill didn’t bother asking him what he wanted to be when he grew up; they all knew he’d follow in Dad’s footsteps, hunting and running scams, until something finally took him out.

* * *

Sam, Dean, and Adam spent Halloween with the Harvelles. Dean hadn’t been out trick-or-treating since before Mom, and Sam hadn’t been at all. Halloween fell on a Wednesday that year, so everyone wore their costumes to class. Usually, when Halloween fell on a weekday, Dean would pretend he was above it all when someone asked about his non-existent costume. He’d usually try to find something for Sam, a cheap, usually stained bedsheet from a thrift store he could make into a ghost or whatever, but he never bothered with himself. This year, though, Ellen and Bill had offered to buy costumes for him, Sam, and Adam. He’d wanted to refuse, at first, but then Sam had turned on the full force of his puppy dog eyes, and, with a sigh, Dean had agreed to let Ellen put some red food coloring on one of his old, torn-up shirts and paint his face so that he looked like a zombie.

Dean didn’t wear his costume to school. He’d be damned if he was spending all day in itchy face paint, but Sam wore his Superman costume, and Dean hadn’t seen him smiling that wide in a long time.

Jo, of course, was dressed as a police officer, which she proudly wore to kindergarten, regaling them all on the drive to school with tales of her future one-woman crusade against crime. “You can help me, too, Sam, since you’re dressed like Superman. You can be my sidekick!”

Sam had the good sense not to argue with her.

After school, Ellen had to go to work, so Bill took Sam, Dean, Jo, and Adam out trick-or-treating. Ellen and Bill had given Dean Jo’s old baby carrier to put Adam in, since they’d kept it around in storage. Dean didn’t know if they’d been keeping it around cause they were sentimental or if they’d wanted to have more kids, but he suspected it was the second one; they had no problems telling Dean that they could keep Jo’s old baby stuff – her clothes, her toys, her baby carrier, her blankets, etc. The clothes were obviously for a girl, but Adam was too little and Dean was too broke to care. If Dean didn’t have to worry about keeping the constantly growing baby clothed, he wasn’t going to argue with a little bit of pink to do it.

While Ellen did Dean’s makeup before they went out, Bill had wrestled an unhappy Adam into the dinosaur costume they’d bought for him.

“Jo, be good for your father,” Ellen told her, after she’d taken pictures of them all and kissed Jo on top of her fake police officer hat. Then she turned to the rest of them. “And you kids have fun.” She turned to her husband. “Don’t let them have too much candy, Bill. They have school tomorrow, and they don’t need to be up half the night or get sick.”

“Sure thing, Ellen. Don’t worry, we’ll be just fine,” Bill told her, kissing her as she headed out the door. The rest of them waited a bit longer for it to get dark before they headed out, a bowl of candy with a “Take one, please,” sign sitting in front of the door.

Dean wondered, as he walked alongside an excited Jo and an even more excited Sam up to each house, why it was that people were so willing to just hand candy out for free. Like, normally, Dean had to scrape and scrounge for every last penny he had. Hardly anyone was willing to give him anything for free, the lady from Ainsworth notwithstanding. But on Halloween, everyone was just giving shit out to anyone. It was wild.

They didn’t stay out too late, because both Sam and Jo had to get up for school in the morning. Dean did too, technically, but he’d done far more strenuous things on far less sleep, so he wasn’t worried about himself.

The next morning, after Dean’s morning exercise regimen, he woke Sam up and listened to him joyfully recount the night before, as if he’d forgotten Dean was right there. “Remember when we saw that guy with the chainsaw?”

“Yeah, Sam, I remember,” Dean replied as he got Adam up and changed.

“That was so scary! Did it scare you?”

No, it didn’t. I’ve shot and killed a wraith. Even if he had been trying to hurt us, not just scare us, I wouldn’t have been scared of him. He’s just a man . “Yeah, Sam, that was intense.” He said, as he put the new diaper on Adam, booping him on the nose to make him giggle. “Let’s go get breakfast so we can get to school.”

“Can I have candy for breakfast, Dean?” Sam asked, bounding along behind Dean and Adam like an overgrown puppy. “It’s the day after Halloween, and I don’t want it to go bad. Pleeeeaaasseeee?”

Dean rolled his eyes. The only way Sam would ever get candy for breakfast was if Dean literally couldn’t put any other food in front of him. “No, Sam, you can’t have candy for breakfast. But if you finish all of your food, I’ll let you pick out one small piece, alright?”

Sam huffed and sighed. “Fine. You’re such a jerk.”

“Yeah, yeah. Bitch.”

Sam giggled, slipping his hand into Dean’s unoccupied one. Dean smiled back. He’d miss when Sam and Adam were both too big for that sort of thing.

* * *

The day after the day after Halloween was November 2, 1990, seven years exactly since Mom had burned on the ceiling of Sam’s nursery while Dean ran outside with Sam, leaving her there to die. Dean didn’t want to go to school. He didn’t want to face all those kids with their perfect parents and their perfect suburban homes and their apple pie lives. He didn’t wanna see all the smiling moms dropping off and picking up their ungrateful middle-schoolers, who whined about being embarrassed to receive the affection Dean hadn’t gotten since he was four. Dean wanted to scream at them all.

Dean also wasn’t particularly interested in explaining all of that to Ellen and Bill. They were great, really, but what was Dean gonna do if he wasn’t in school? Just sit in his room and obsess? Watch Adam sleep? Dad had all the guns except Dean’s, so it wasn’t like Dean could sit down and clean all of them to occupy himself. It wasn’t like Bobby’s either, where Bobby would let Dean fuck around with the cars until he felt better. Or even Pastor Jim’s, where Dean could go clean the entire church top to bottom if he felt like it. Ellen and Bill were great, but they would want to talk about it. Dean had no intention of discussing Mom with someone else’s mother.

So Dean went to school. And he sat through mind-numbing hours of English and Social Studies and whatever the fuck else. He hadn’t gotten his homework done, and he didn’t bother with excuses. Who cared? Dad wasn’t even around to get on his case. The only class Dean found even the slightest bit interesting was math. They were doing shit with basic algebra, which was stuff Dean could apply to his real life. If Dean had seven bullets, and Dad had x bullets, and together they had seventeen bullets, how many bullets did Dad have? Nine more than he’d need to gank the bastard that killed Mom .

Dinner was subdued. Ellen and Bill tried to start a conversation a few times, but nobody was all that interested in talking. Dean didn’t know why Jo wasn’t, but he was – as awful as it was – grateful for whatever made her day suck bad enough to make her sullen and quiet.

After dinner, Dean asked Ellen and Bill if one of them could watch the kids while Dean went with the other to the Roadhouse. Bill looked like he was gonna refuse, but Ellen agreed before he could.

“Sure you can, Dean. Bill will stay here, with the kids, if that’s alright.”

“Yes, ma’am, that’s just fine.” Ellen smiled at him.

Dean didn’t say anything on the ride over to the Roadhouse, and Ellen didn’t try to make him talk. She just let the radio play some old country song while she hummed along, tapping her fingers lightly against the steering wheel.

She didn’t press him once they got to the Roadhouse either. She let him hustle pool and poker for a little while, before she made him go to the back and wash dishes. Everyone was starting to get drunker, and she didn’t want anything to happen to Dean. She didn’t know he’d been with far worse people in far worse places with Dad, and she probably didn’t need to. Dean was fine washing dishes.

When Dean got back, he found Sam still awake, waiting for Dean.

“Why’d you leave, Dean?” Sam asked, whispering so he wouldn’t wake Adam. “You know what day it is, right?”

“Yeah, Sam, I know.” Dean suddenly felt both selfish and guilty. He should’ve been there for Sam, instead of running away to the Roadhouse. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left.” He changed out of the clothes he’d worn to work and crawled into bed beside Sam, letting the kid drape himself over Dean’s chest, even though he was getting too old for it.

“Dad always leaves, but you don’t. Why did you? Is it… is it for the same reason Dad leaves?”

“No, of course not.” Dad always went to get blackout fucking drunk on November 2, and, when he was that out of it, he was usually a jackass, especially towards Sam. Dean would never let Dad hit Sam, or Adam for that matter, but there wasn’t much Dean could do about Dad’s drunken snipes at Sam for being useless or more trouble than he was worth. Dad didn’t mean it. Dean knew he didn’t mean it. But, as much as he tried to reassure Sam, he wasn’t sure the kid ever truly knew how much Dad loved them. How much he sacrificed to keep them safe and avenge Mom. He’d understand when he was older. “It’s got nothing to do with you, Sam, I promise,” Dean told him. “I, just, I needed a break from Adam and Jo. I love ‘em both, but they’re a lot, and I haven’t had much time to myself since Adam was born. It’s not your fault, alright, and I shouldn’t have left.”

“Will you tell me about her?” Sam asked. November 2 was the only day Dean would ever talk to Sam about Mom. Dean wished he could do it more, but forcing himself to talk about Mom was just too painful, most days. Not about her death or her killer; that stuff he’d been over with Dad at least a hundred times since he was four. What he couldn’t talk about was her . What she’d been like. How she’d smiled and made lunch and been there for Dean’s t-ball games. It hurt, knowing that Dean would never have that again, and that Sam never got to have it at all.

“Sure, Sam. I’ll tell you about Mom. She was beautiful, you know? Blonde hair and green eyes.”

“Like you.”

“Yeah, like me. You’ve got her smile, though,” Dean told him. He didn’t remember Mom’s smile well enough to know if it was true, but what else was he supposed to say? Sam took after Dad, Dean took after Mom. It wasn’t fair, but that’s how it was. “She used to sing to me when I couldn’t sleep. She did it for you, too.”

“What song did she sing?” Sam already knew the answer, but it was tradition for him to ask so that Dean could tell him. Their own little ritual.

“She used to sing Hey Jude. She had the nicest singing voice, Sammy. She sounded just like Stevie Nicks.” Dean had no idea if that was true. She’d sounded nice singing when he was little, but it’s not like he’d have been able to recognize good singing over bad, back then. “And she used to tell me that angels were watching over us.”

“Are they?”

“Sure, they are. But whaddya need angels for anyway?” Dean asked, a teasing lilt to his voice. “You’ve got me.”

Sam laughed. “What else?”

“She used to wear a lot of pink. It looked really good on her. And she used to make these fantastic pies. They were the best I’ve ever tasted. Nothing has ever come close. You’d’ve loved her cooking, Sam. She was a great cook. She used to make something called ‘Winchester surprise’, and I don’t know what was in it, but it was great. If I ever figure it out, I’ll make some for you.”

“That sounds really nice, Dean.”

“Yeah, it was.”

Sam and Dean spent the rest of the early morning talking about Mom, until Dean had worn out every single thing he remembered about her, and had told Sam at least a few things that he’d definitely made up. He just didn’t remember her very well. Not anymore. He didn’t remember what she smelled like or what it felt like to be held in her arms. He remembered the sound of her voice, but not the sound of her laugh or the shape of her mouth when she smiled. Dean missed her so, so much sometimes. He hoped she was up there, somewhere, watching over him, but he didn’t really believe that she was. If there was anything good out there, looking out for them, why hadn’t it looked out for Mom?

Once Dean had exhausted every story he had about Mom, true and made up, he sang both Sam and Adam, who’d woken up wanting to be fed and changed, to sleep with Hey Jude, his voice moving over the familiar tune as both Sam and Adam drifted off.

Dean couldn’t sleep, though. Not yet. He could still see Mom on the back of his eyelids, frozen in time seven years ago. Her features weren’t as clear as they once were, and Dean couldn’t picture the wound in her stomach properly anymore. It could’ve been vertical or horizontal, could’ve been deep or shallow, could’ve been narrow or wide, jagged or smooth, straight or curved. Dean just knew it was there, that it had dripped blood onto Sam. He’d been the one to wipe it off after he’d gotten Sam out of that house.

Dean was bone-tired. He’d been up since sunrise the morning before, and the gray pre-dawn light told him it would be up again soon, but still he couldn’t sleep. He lay in bed, Sam back on top of him, watching the ceiling fan spin lazy circles while he tried desperately to quit seeing Mom in place of the blades.

* * *

Sam, Dean, and Adam stayed with the Harvelles for almost a month. They headed out only a few days before Thanksgiving, when Dad came back without warning to pick them up. He had a new hunt up in Idaho, and apparently, he felt that was too far to leave Sam, Dean, and Adam for.

“But Daaaaad, why can’t we stay for just a few more days?” Sam asked, putting more whine into his voice than Dean would’ve dared. “I wanna have a real Thanksgiving dinner! Just this once!”

“No, Sam. We have to go. I have business.”

“You always have business, but we never have any money! Why can’t we stay, just for a couple more days? You get new jobs all the time, surely you can get another one!”

“Sam! That’s enough!”

“No, I want to stay!”

Dean sighed and gently bounced Adam as he began to cry. He was sick and tired of lying to Sam, but telling him the truth would be far worse. Dad could handle lying this time. “Sam! We are not staying, and that’s final. Now, get your ass in the Impala.” So much for lying .

“No.” Sam crossed his arms and stamped his foot in a way he hadn’t since he’d been a toddler.

Dean sighed again, still bouncing the screaming Adam. “Sam, c’mon. Let’s just get in the car.”

“No, Dean. He always does this! I’m tired of moving around all the time and never having any friends. I’m always the new kid! I just wanna be like everyone else! Don’t you want that?” he asked, his puppy-dog eyes turned up to a ten. Dean could never say no to Sam when he did that, but Dad never had any issues with it.

“No, Sam, I don’t want to be normal. We aren’t normal. Now, get in the car.” Dad was starting to get angry. Great .

Sam’s eyes started to fill with tears. “We could be normal! You just don’t want to! Why won’t you even try?!”

“Get in the car, Sam.”

“No! I won’t! I’m done!”

“Car. Now.”

“No!” Sam was fully sobbing, and Dean couldn’t believe they were really doing this in the Harvelles’ driveway.

Dad opened his mouth to say something, which Dean was sure would only make things worse. He stepped in between Dad and Sam, shifting Adam into one arm so he could put the other around Sam. He hoped the baby screaming in his ear wouldn’t make things too much worse. “Sam, c’mon, man. We’ll have a great Thanksgiving, alright? Just the Winchesters. Dad will be there, and we’ll have turkey, right, Dad?” Dean gave Dad a look that he hoped conveyed how desperately he needed Dad to actually be there for Thanksgiving.

“Sure, Sam. We’ll have a great time,” Dad told him, clearing his throat.

“I don’t wanna switch schools again, Dee,” Sam told him through his tears, falling back on the old nickname he’d had for Dean before he could pronounce his name right.

“I know, buddy. But come on, think of all the cool things you’ll learn that all those kids who only ever have one school won’t learn.”

Sam continued crying, but he nodded. “Fine.”

“It’s alright,” Dean told him, moving the hand that wasn’t holding Adam up from Sam’s back to cradle the back of his head, stroking his hand over Sam’s hair as he cried into Dean’s shoulder. “You’re ok, Sam.”

Dean slowly started maneuvering himself, Sam, and Adam over to the Impala, taking care to keep from jostling either of them, shushing them both the whole way. Dean would deal with Adam once he got Sam in the car so they could get on the road. Dad gave Sam a look of gratitude once Dean had turned enough that he could see him. “C’mon, Sam. Let’s sit down,” Dean told him, pulling open the car door. Sam nodded and detached himself from Dean for just long enough to crawl into the car before burying his face right back into Dean’s shoulder, screaming baby be damned. Dean didn’t bother trying to get anyone in the backseat buckled up; instead, he just held both his brothers close while they cried and Dad backed out.

By the time both Adam and Sam had fallen asleep, Dean was exhausted, and his shirt was covered in snot and tears. Adam was still cradled in his right arm, which had gone numb, and Sam was tucked into his left side, head resting on Dean’s thigh. Night had fallen sometime between when Adam tired himself out and Sam did the same, so there was nothing for Dean to look at, really. Dad hadn’t said anything since his argument with Sam in the driveway, and Dean was glad. He really didn’t wanna talk to Dad right then. He understood. There were lives at stake. Still, Dad could’ve sent some other hunter. They could’ve spent Thanksgiving with the Harvelles, who had reassured Dean at least seven times that the Winchesters were welcome.

The job came first, though. It always did.

“Did ya kill it, Dad?” Dean asked. He hadn’t had a chance yet, with all the crying.

“Yeah, son, I did.”

They didn’t speak again for the rest of the ten-hour drive across Nebraska and most of Wyoming, where Dad finally decided to stop for the night at around two in the morning.

* * *

They spent about three days up in Idaho, all four of them sharing the same hotel room. Dad was actually there for Thanksgiving, bearing turkey TV dinners. They all ate crowded around the table, which shook really bad. It was one of the best damn Thanksgivings Dean had ever had.

Chapter Text

Dad spent the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas dragging Sam, Dean, and Adam across the US. He didn’t really seem to care that there were still a few weeks of school left, and Dean wasn’t going to argue with him. He’d found another homeschool book for Sam, and he cared very little for his own grades.

Dad spent Christmas day hunting a black dog, leaving Dean to reassure Sam that he would be back, promise, as it got later and later, with no Impala in the motel parking lot. Dean was just glad he still had money left over from when he’d hustled at the Roadhouse. It meant he didn’t have to brave the cold to make sure Sam and Adam stayed warm.

Dad got back just before midnight, bearing a nice spread from the nearest twenty-four-hour diner. His smile was subdued, but he wasn’t drunk, so Dean knew the hunt couldn’t have gone too bad.

“Merry Christmas, Dean,” Dad said, giving him a hug.

“Merry Christmas, Dad. Did ya kill it?”

“Yeah, I did.” He sounded tired. Dean wondered how many people it killed before Dad put it down.

* * *

The weeks between Christmas and Dean’s twelfth birthday were spent bouncing around the American southwest, until, around a week beforehand, Dad found them an apartment in Albuquerque. He got a job in construction while Sam and Dean went to school, and he found a daycare for Adam. Dean liked it. It reminded him of living in Charleston the year before.

For his birthday, Dad got Dean a nice watch with a sturdy leather band. It just barely fit his wrist at its tightest, but Dad said he would grow into it.

Dean tried out for the baseball team and made it, and Sam was signed up to be in the school play later in the semester. Adam was doing well, too. He’d started being able to hold onto toys and hold his head up on his own, and his hair was filling in more, blonde like Dean’s. He and Dean both took after their moms more than Dad. With the blonde hair and blue eyes, Adam was the spitting image of Kate. Dean wondered if he’d still look like her when he was older, or if more of Dad’s features would appear as he aged.

* * *

Things were great until April, when Sam’s teacher, Mrs. Lyle, tried to kill him. Dean had seen her around a lot. She was blonde and pretty, and Dad seemed to like her. Dean kept his remarks about condoms to himself.

Mrs. Lyle was supposed to take Sam to the science fair he’d qualified for, but she didn’t. Dean and Dad caught them before they could get to wherever they were going, and Mrs. Lyle’s eyes went black as she fought Dad. Dean knew what he had to do. He wasn’t gonna fail Sam. Not again.

He found Dad’s journal as the fight raged behind him. Sam was standing frozen in the middle of it, obviously under some kind of compulsion. Dean prayed to those angels Mom was always talking about that the spell or whatever it was would break once the demon was gone.

The exorcism made Mrs. Lyle even more aggressive. Dean wanted to help Dad, who was losing, but he knew better. The exorcism was more important than keeping Dad from getting injured.

Once Dean finished the first half, black smoke poured out of Mrs. Lyle’s mouth and began attacking Dad, wrapping around his neck and choking him. Dean read the second half as fast as he could, and as he continued, the smoke peeled away from Dad and headed towards him, intent on stopping him. Dean kept reading. He finished with Gloria Patri as the smoke touched his face. It didn’t feel like smoke. It felt oily and wrong, as if tar was able to float. Dean shuddered as it screeched and was wrenched away from him, hopefully back down to hell.

After the Mrs. Lyle incident, they picked Adam up from daycare and hightailed it out of New Mexico, up to Uncle Bobby’s. Dad was shaken – his wrist was either broken or sprained – and Dean didn’t know what to think. Why was a demon after his brother? Did it have something to do with the thing that killed Mom? Or was it just coincidence?

At least Sam was alright. He didn’t remember anything, and the compulsion had disappeared once Mrs. Lyle had been sent away, which Dean was immensely grateful for. How was he supposed to explain what had happened otherwise?

As it was, Sam knew something was going on. He didn’t know what, but he knew enough to know better than to bitch to Dad about leaving Albuquerque, which Dean thanked God for. The last thing they all needed was another fight between Sam and Dad.

They stayed at Bobby’s while Dad went to go see some old soothsayer friend of Bobby’s about Mrs. Lyle. Dean didn’t know what the soothsayer told Dad, but when he got back, he looked troubled. He couldn’t stop staring at Sam, either, the way he stared at monsters. Like he was watching him, assessing him. Like he could be a threat. Dean had no idea what the hell brought that on. Sam wasn’t even eight yet, and he was the sweetest kid. Better than Dean had been at his age, anyway. He was smart, too. Maybe that’s what was bothering Dad. Maybe he thought Sam was too smart. But that couldn’t be it. He was just a kid. Dean didn’t know, and he knew asking Dad would be pointless. If Dad wanted him to know, he’d say something.

* * *

They spent the rest of the school year up at Bobby’s, and Sam and Dean both started wearing protective talismans on their wrists. They looked like leather cuffs, but the insides were warded with more sigils. Dean wore his on the same wrist as the Hittite bracelet Bobby gave him for his birthday the year before, and on the opposite wrist as the watch Dad gave him that year. Sam didn’t care much for his, Dean could tell, but he wore it anyway.

Sam’s eighth birthday was much more subdued than his seventh had been. There were no friends and no party, just Sam, Dad, Dean, Adam, and Bobby gathered in Bobby’s living room, singing Happy Birthday while Sam blew out candles on the cake Dean made him. The store was out of chocolate cake mix, so it was strawberry. Dean hoped Sam would like it anyway.

Dean had gotten Sam a Rubix Cube the last time he’d been in town, to give the kid something to do on long drives. Dad gave him a new book, and Bobby got him another protective talisman. Sam seemed to enjoy the strawberry cake, even though he liked chocolate better, and they mashed a little bit of cake up so Adam could take a bite. Bobby got a picture of them all, Sam smiling, wearing an old birthday party hat, and Dean holding Adam, who was in the process of wiping his frosting-covered hands all over Dean’s face; they were both smeared with a mix of pink cake and the blue and white icing Dean had written “Happy Birthday Sam!” with. Dean asked Bobby to get him a copy of the picture so he could keep it in his wallet.

Dean could tell Sammy missed the birthday party of the year before, but he hoped the kid had fun anyway. It was Dean’s favorite of every birthday either he or Sam had ever had, just them and Dad and Uncle Bobby, smiling and laughing. Even Dad had stopped staring at Sam like he was a bomb waiting to go off. It felt perfect.

* * *

The summer was spent hopping between motel rooms, abandoned places they could squat, and even one storage unit Dad rented out. Dad took Dean on a few hunts, but he mostly left him with Sam and Adam, each time leaving him with the instruction to “look out for your brothers, boy,” as though Dean would do anything else.

Dad was more paranoid than Dean had ever seen him, even immediately after Mom died. They never stayed in any place for longer than a week, and, if Dad felt they were getting predictable, they’d spend a few nights in the Impala or park the Impala in one city and take a Greyhound to the next one over for the night.

No one was dealing with the constant moving around very well. Dean was used to moving around a lot, but usually Dad spent long enough in each town to at least get a motel room. Half the time, they’d arrive in a town, Dad would complete the hunt in a day, and they’d be back on the road before night fell. It was wearing them all down, Dean could tell. He didn’t know what they were going to do when school started back up. Would Dad even put them in school, or would he just keep driving them around until he was sure he’d outrun whatever he thought was chasing them?

* * *

Dean got his answer at the end of July, when school was starting back up. Dad rented out a trailer down in Georgia for a few months, with a space in the local trailer park to go with it. It was a tiny town, the sort of place where everyone knew better than to ask questions about anything that was happening in the trailer park. Dean was fairly sure at least one of his neighbors was cooking meth, though he had no way of knowing. He kept his .32 loaded, though he didn’t carry it with him unless he was going down to the local dive bar to hustle. Dad had cleared out a vengeful spirit for the owner when they’d first moved down there, so he let Dean come by and beat the local drunks at poker, pool, darts, or anything else they wanted to try, provided he didn’t so much as think about ordering alcohol. The sheriff thought Dean was amusing, so he didn’t care much either.

“You shouldn’t be in here, kid,” he’d said, beer in one hand and the other pushing his jacket aside to show off his badge.

“Don’t worry, officer. I’m not drinking. Just trying to make a few bucks beating drunk guys at darts.” Darts had been Dean’s game of choice for that evening.

The sheriff had laughed. “Well, son, how about this – if you can beat me at darts, you can stay.”

Dean had agreed and easily kicked the sheriff’s ass. The sheriff wasn’t bad, but he hadn’t had Dad training him how to kill monsters and protect his family since he was a kid. Besides, throwing darts was a lot like throwing knives, and Dean was pretty good with knives.

Now, every time the sheriff or one of his deputies came into the bar while Dean was there, they’d check to make sure he wasn’t drinking and then play him at darts, always betting way more than they should so that Dean could have the money. They probably thought he spent it on comic books or whatever, not on shoes and clothes for his constantly growing brothers, food for Sam, baby food for Adam, and daycare for Adam so that he and Sam could actually go to school.

The trailer next to Sam, Dean, and Adam’s was inhabited by a girl named Lauren and her older sister, Chrissy. Lauren was in Dean’s grade. She sat two rows ahead of him, cattycorner, in history, and she was his writing partner for English class. She and her sister both had the same dirty blonde hair that Dean did, though Chrissy’s was closer to brown. Lauren always wore her hair pulled up in a French twist, no matter how nice or ratty her clothes looked. She said it made her look professional. Dean thought it made her look pretentious.

Chrissy was nineteen and a stripper. Dean saw her coming to and from work when he left late at night to go hustle drunks at the bar, and he usually gave her a nod. Sometimes he saw her at the bar itself on her nights off from the club, batting her eyelashes up at men she’d disappear with for anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours before returning, using her compact mirror to fix her hair and makeup before going after someone else. She and Dean pretended not to notice each other on those nights.

Dean liked Chrissy and Lauren. Lauren was smart, the way Sam was, but she wasn’t smug about it. She was great in English, and she was usually willing to help Dean get his assignments finished, unless she was in one of her moods. Sometimes, Lauren would get really distant and cold to everyone. It wasn’t depression; Dean had seen Dad depressed, just after Mom died. It was more that she wanted everyone around her to just fuck off for a while. Dean could sympathize.

Because Dean was Lauren’s writing partner, he spent a good amount of time at Chrissy and Lauren’s trailer. He always brought Sam and Adam along. He left them alone as little as possible, especially after the demon incident in Albuquerque. Lauren helped Dean with his English, Dean helped her with math, and both Dean and Lauren helped Sam with his homework. When Chrissy was around, she’d usually be willing to keep an eye on Adam, but if not, Dean was used to juggling homework and taking care of a baby.

One night, Dean and Chrissy happened to leave the bar at the same time. They weren’t really walking together, but they also weren’t not walking together. Dean wasn’t sure if he should say something to her. Did the ignoring each other thing last until morning, or was it just until they were out of the bar?

When they got back to the trailer park, Chrissy didn’t go back to her trailer. Instead, she went to the playground, and Dean followed. Sam and Adam would be ok for another few minutes. Chrissy lit a cigarette, and she didn’t seem surprised when Dean sat down next to her.

“When’s your daddy comin’ back?” she asked, her voice rough and accent heavy from working all night. “You even know?”

Dean shrugged. “He’ll be back. He’s gotta take care of some business first.”

Chrissy looked over at him. “He ain’t abandon you, did he?”

Dean was too tired to get indignant. “He’ll be back. And I’ve got people I can call if he stops checking in.”

“Why ain’t ya called those people yet?” Chrissy asked, taking a puff of her cigarette.

“Don’t need to. If something happens to Dad, or if things get real bad, then I’ll call.”

“You’re makin’ money playin’ poker and shootin’ pool. Things ain’t bad yet?”

“Not until I’m making money like you,” Dean said, then immediately winced. “Sorry, that was mean.”

Chrissy laughed and waved him off with the hand she was holding the cigarette in. “Don’t worry about it, honey. I’ve heard a lot worse from a lot worse.” She took a drag of her cig, exhaling smoke into the warm Georgia night. “You’re a good kid, Dean. You’re good to Sam and Adam, and my sister likes you. I know she’s got her moods, but she really does like you.”

“I like your sister, too,” Dean told her.

“You two be careful if you get together, alright? I ain’t gonna pull the overprotective sister act and tell you to stay away from Lauren, ‘cause that won’t do shit, but be careful. I don’t wanna see either of ya get hurt, but especially her. You know how to use condoms?”

Dean choked on air. “Whoa, condoms? We aren’t even going out or anything.”

Chrissy shrugged. “Can’t hurt to make sure you know what you’re doing. I’m not sayin’ you gotta date her, or that you oughtta or nothin’ like that. And I definitely ain’t encouragin’ you to be havin’ sex with my sister, but if you do, you gotta be safe, alright? Promise me. I can’t deal with somethin’ bad happenin’ to her, alright?”

“Alright, I promise,” Dean told her. He would’ve been safe anyway, especially after Adam. The last thing Dean needed was to leave another Winchester baby running around. “Lauren and I aren’t like that, though.”

Chrissy hummed. “Do you wanna be?”

Dean thought about it. He’d never really… like liked a girl before. He wasn’t sure how it was supposed to feel. He knew he liked Lauren. She was pretty, she was smart, she was funny. Dean liked spending time with her. But did he like her like that? He didn’t know. “I don’t know,” he told Chrissy. “What’s liking someone, you know, like that supposed to feel like?”

Chrissy giggled. “Christ, sometimes I forget how young you and Lauren really are. Well, when you like someone like that ,” she put a comical amount of emphasis on the words, “Then you wanna be around them all the time. When you look at them, you feel ridiculous, ‘cause just seeing ‘em makes you smile. You suddenly wanna know everything about ‘em, what they like, what they don’t like, what they think of random shit you normally wouldn’t even think twice about. You wanna hold their hand and kiss ‘em and take ‘em out to the movies. Real cliché shit like that.”

Dean thought about it. Did he like like Lauren? He wanted to be around her all the time, but that could be because she was one of the first friends Dean had made in years. He didn’t know if he’d like taking her to the movies or holding her hand, but maybe he would. He’d see if she wanted to go out with him. He probably didn’t have enough money for movie tickets, but they could go to the diner after school sometime. Dean could spare enough for dinner, and he could bring something home for Sam that Dean didn’t have to cook. Dean was glad to be able to feed the kid real, home-cooked food again, but sometimes Dean got sick of cooking every single night . “I think I do like Lauren,” he told Chrissy, watching as she dropped her cigarette butt and ground it out underneath her shoe. It probably wasn’t great to leave it on the playground, but Dean didn’t care enough to say anything. It was a trailer park.

“Aww, that’s sweet. If you ask her out, I’ll watch Sam and Adam for ya.”

“Thanks, Chrissy.”

Chrissy ruffled Dean’s hair. “Not a problem, darlin’.”

They sat in silence for a while, and Chrissy lit another cigarette. Eventually, Dean asked, “How come you don’t get a day job, Chrissy?”

Chrissy laughed derisively. “Didn’t finish high school, and I ain’t got the time to get a GED. ‘Sides, strippin’ and hookin’ pays more on a good night, and I gotta take care of Lauren.”

“What did you wanna do, you know, when you were little?” Dean asked, studying her makeup-covered face.

“Don’t matter what I wanted.”

“Matters to me,” Dean told her. He wanted to know what her dreams had been, before reality set in. Maybe she wanted to be a firefighter like he did.

Chrissy sighed. “I wanted to be a ballerina. I took lessons when I was a kid and Mama was still around. Got pretty good, too. Probably could’ve done somethin’ with it if it weren’t for Lauren.” She shrugged. “Guess it helps me now that I got a background dancin’.”

Dean nodded. “I wanna be a firefighter,” he told her. “But I can’t.”

“How come?”

“I gotta do what Dad does.”

Chrissy nodded. “That sucks, kid.”

She didn’t bother asking what Dad did, which Dean appreciated. He didn’t really feel like coming up with a clever lie about why Dad was always gone. He’d dropped back by the week before to drop off some money and check on Sam and Adam, but he stayed for less than a night before he was gone again. Dean missed the overprotective, paranoid way he’d hovered around them over the summer. It was annoying, having Dad constantly looking over Dean’s shoulder, but at least he was there . At least Dean didn’t have to worry about putting food on the table every night.

* * *

Dean asked Lauren out the next time he saw her, and she agreed. He took her out to see a movie with some money Chrissy gave him. She made him take the money, telling him that he had better treat her sister to something nice. Dean took her out to see Point Break . The guy selling the tickets obviously didn’t care enough to keep them out of the R-rated movie. Dean thought the whole age thing was stupid. He’d seen his mom die. He’d killed things that looked human. He carried a gun. Who gave a fuck if he saw a little bit of fake violence?

After the movie, Dean and Lauren went out to get ice cream. They took their cones back to the trailer park and ate them on the swing set at the playground, where Dean had had that conversation with Chrissy a few nights before. “What did you think of the movie?” Dean asked, pushing himself back and forth on the swing without actually swinging.

“I liked it a lot.”

“That’s good.”

“What about you?”

Dean licked his melting ice cream cone before answering. “I liked it too. Keanu Reeves is a great actor.”

“Have you ever been to the beach?” Lauren asked. “I went to Atlanta once, but that’s as far as I’ve traveled. I bet the beach is great.”

Dean had been to the coast a bunch, but he’d only really been to the beach a few times. The first was when Dean was around Sam’s age. Dad had taken them to the beach after a particularly brutal case in San Diego that wound up being a human serial killer, instead of something supernatural. Once Dad figured out who it was, he’d alerted the authorities, but Dean was pretty sure they hadn’t had enough evidence to convict. It was times like that were Dean wondered what really made someone a monster. Could humans be monsters, too? And, on the flip side, could monsters be anything other than their nature? Dean hated cases like that one.

The other times Dean had been to the beach were scattered. A few days here and there if they didn’t have any pressing hunts, especially while they’d been living in Charleston, or that one summer they’d spent near Salt Lake when Dean had been nine. “Yeah, I’ve been a couple of times. We move around a lot, and we’ve lived near the coast more than once.”

“What’s it like?”

Dean shrugged. “Depends on the beach. Some are crowded, some aren’t. Sometimes the ocean is really cold, other times it isn’t. The Gulf is really clear and warm, and the Pacific is really, really cold. You can’t swim in it without a wetsuit. Some places have nice sand, some have sea glass or rocks. The waves always sound the same, though. It sounds like the blood rushing in your ear when you cover it. And it’s always windy.”

“That sounds nice.”

Dean nodded. “Yeah, it is.”

“It’s crazy. You’ve been to all these places, and I’ve never even left Georgia.”

“Sometimes I miss staying in one place. I usually don’t get to know anyone before I have to move again. You’re the first friend I’ve made in a long time.”

“So we’re just friends, then?”

“I’m hoping we could be more,” Dean told her.

She smiled. “Ok.” She leaned in and kissed Dean, a quick peck on his lips, leaving the taste of her butter pecan ice cream on his lips.

Dean leaned over and kissed her again, longer this time, but still just pressing his lips to hers. She giggled, licking her lips after he’d pulled away. “You taste like mint chocolate chip.”

“You taste like butter pecan.”

She giggled again. “I like you, Dean. Don’t hate me when I get cold.”

“Ok, I won’t,” Dean told her.

They finished their ice cream, then sat on the swing set for a while, talking and laughing. Dean gave Lauren another kiss goodnight after he walked her back to her trailer, and he picked Sam and Adam up from Chrissy when he did.

* * *

Dad came back a few days after Dean’s date with Lauren. He pulled Dean out of school for the day and took him over to Alabama for a rawhead case. Dad claimed it was so Dean could be backup, but they both knew he was really there to be bait. Rawheads went after kids, not full-grown adults.

Dad sent Dean into the basement of the abandoned house the rawhead was inhabiting first to draw him out. He’d given Dean a taser, which he clutched like a lifeline in his right hand, while his left hand held the flashlight. Dean hated rawheads. They looked ugly, and they moved faster than the eye could track. It was almost impossible to get them unless they were distracted, with, say, a twelve-year-old kid. As an unrelated and hypothetical example.

“Here monster, monster, monster,” Dean called, resisting the urge to laugh. He knew it was just the adrenaline. “Come out and play.”

Dean heard movement behind him and turned to face it, swinging the beam of light around. It was gone before he could get a good look at it, and he swore as he heard movement coming from where he’d just been facing. It had taken his invitation to play seriously, and it was toying with him. Dean turned back to where he’d heard it. The best thing to do would be to play along and hope Dad got there in time.

After he spun again, seeing nothing but empty basement, he heard the thing groan directly in his ear. He turned and tried to jab the taser into it, but it moved too quickly, leaving a scratch along his back in the process. Dean hissed in pain, but he didn’t scream. That would only distract Dad.

Dean saw movement out of the corner of his eye and spun again. Nothing. He turned back towards the stairs leading out of the basement and came face-to-face with the rawhead, its leathery skin mere inches from Dean’s face. Dean tried to jab it with the taser and, again, it dodged, taking a chunk out of Dean’s wrist that made him drop the flashlight and cry out in pain. Fucking rawheads.

In the shitty, flickering light provided by the half-broken flashlight that was rolling across the basement floor, Dean saw the rawhead off to his left. He rushed it, the taser held out in front of him, but he was met with nothing but empty air. The air at the back of his neck moved, and he felt claws scrape over his lower back before the thing was gone again. Dean wanted to cry in frustration. Where’s Dad?

The thing appeared off to Dean’s right, and as he turned to jab the taser into it, it moved around behind him and tackled him to the ground, apparently done playing with him. Dean bucked, trying to get it off his back, but it was no use. The thing easily had a hundred pounds on him. Dean tried to get his feet underneath him, ignoring the way the rawhead had his right arm pinned to the ground at a bad angle and the breath on the back of his neck. He had to do something . He twisted and fought, crying out when something in his wrist snapped and he felt teeth digging into the back of his neck. He wondered if this was it. Am I really getting taken out by a stupid rawhead?

Suddenly, the weight on his back was gone, and the teeth were torn from his neck, taking a hunk of Dean’s skin with them. Dean heard the crackling of a taser going off, and the scream of the rawhead dying. Then Dad was kneeling next to Dean, checking over his injuries with gentle, worried hands.

“Dean, can you hear me?”

Dean nodded and whimpered as he remembered the chunk of skin missing from the back of his neck. “I can hear you,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Did ya kill it?”

“Yeah, Dean, I got it. You’re safe now. We’re gonna get you to a hospital, alright? Just stay awake.”

Dean opened his mouth to reply, but all that came out was a hoarse scream as Dad rolled him onto his back and picked him up in one movement, jostling his broken wrist. Dean felt his vision start to go black, but he did his best to hang on. Dad gave him an order. Stay awake .

A blink, and the basement was replaced by the front seat of the Impala. It was idling, and Dad wasn’t in the driver’s seat. Dean wasn’t sure where he was. Stay awake . He blinked, and suddenly they were driving, Dad’s hands gripped tight around the steering wheel. Dean looked down and saw his left wrist, the one the rawhead had taken its claws to. It was bleeding a lot. Enough that Dean was fairly sure he was fading in and out from blood loss rather than pain from the broken wrist. That would make more sense anyway. He’d broken bones and stayed awake through it before. Right, stay awake . Another blink, and the gravel road was replaced by nurses. Hospital . When Dean felt himself drifting off again, he let himself. Dad could talk to the doctors.

* * *

Dean was in the hospital for a few days. He’d needed a blood transfusion, and Dad had gone to pick Sam and Adam up once it looked like Dean was stable enough. He was there under the name “Ethan Jefferson.” Dad was “Frank,” Sam was “Jesse,” and Adam was “Seth.” Dad had even called Uncle Bobby, though it took him a few days to get down to Alabama.

The official story was that Dean had been attacked by a bear, but the nurses didn’t seem to buy it.

“The bite mark is too small,” he overheard one of them say.

“But then what could’ve made it? The teeth are too sharp to be human. And what about the claw marks? No human made those.”

“Not unless someone filed their teeth and nails to points.”

“Maybe it really was a bear.”

“We don’t get bears. If this was Georgia or Tennessee, maybe. But Alabama?”

“Maybe it was a dog that looked like a bear.”

“Maybe.”

Dean decided to go with the big dog lie if someone really questioned him about it. No way was anyone other than that one nurse gonna think it was a human who’d sharpened their teeth and nails to points, no matter how close to the truth that actually was.

Bobby showed up on the second day of Dean’s hospital stay, after Dad had already left to pick up Sam and Adam, who’d apparently been staying over at Chrissy’s since Dean hadn’t come back. Dean was grateful that Chrissy had been willing to watch them. Dean doubted Sam even knew how to change a diaper. They definitely owed her.

“How you feelin’, kid?” Bobby asked, sitting down in the chair next to Dean’s bed. “Nasty things, rawheads.”

Dean shrugged and winced when it pulled at his stitches. “I’m alright. Dad got it, so it was worth it. Better me than some other kid.”

Bobby frowned but didn’t disagree. “Your daddy went to pick up your brothers, so you’re stuck with me for now. I’m currently your ‘Uncle Russell,’ if anyone asks.”

“Right. Well, Uncle Russell , how about some gummy worms?” Dean asked, trying to give Bobby his best puppy dog eyes. His weren’t nearly as effective as Sam’s, cause Bobby didn’t look even a little bit swayed by them.

“You can eat the healthy, shitty hospital food for a few days, Ethan .”

Dean sighed. Bobby was probably right, but that didn’t make things any better.

Dean talked to Bobby for a while before falling asleep again, tired from the drugs in his system.

* * *

The next time Dean woke up was about ten minutes before Dad came back with both Sam and Adam. Adam babbled happily and reached for Dean as soon as he saw him, while Sam ran to Dean’s bedside and only remembered at the last minute that jumping on Dean would do more harm than good.

“Dean!” He gave Dean a hug and sat down on the bed beside him gingerly. “Dad said you got attacked by a bear! Are you ok?”

Dean smiled. “Yeah, Sam, I’m alright.” He reached up with his right arm to ruffle Sam’s hair and let the kid hold onto his fingers around the cast when he let it back down.

Adam had started crawling a few weeks before, just after the last time Dad had been by to see them. As soon as Dad set him on Dean’s bed next to Sam, he crawled over Dean’s legs and sat down on his belly, touching his chubby hands to Dean’s face like he was checking him for injuries. Dean steadied the kid with his bandaged left arm, since Sam was still clinging to the right one. Once both Adam and Sam were situated, Dad stepped out to talk to the doctors about getting Dean discharged.

“What happened, Dean?” Sam asked, playing with the fingers on Dean’s right hand. “I thought you were only gonna be gone one day.”

“Sorry, Sam. I didn’t mean to make you worry. Dad and I were just gonna go fishing, but then when Dad went back to the car to get some more bait, this big black bear came out of nowhere and attacked me. Dad fought it off, though,” Dean said, wondering how much longer Sam would buy his and Dad’s bullshit before he figured out that they were lying. “I didn’t see him do it, but I bet it was really badass.”

Sam’s eyes filled with tears as he kept staring at Dean’s hand. “You could’ve died, Dean,” Sam said, his voice breaking.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Dean said, bringing his hand up to clumsily wipe Sam’s tears away, doing his best not to whack him in the face with the cast. “I’m alright, Sammy. Just a little banged up is all. Besides, chicks dig scars.”

Sam sniffled and laughed, shaking his head. “You’re an idiot.”

“Bitch.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Jerk.”

Dean started to say something else, but Adam chose that moment to stick his entire hand inside Dean’s mouth and try to grab his tongue. Dean quickly but gently pulled Adam’s arm away from his face as he started gagging and Sam started laughing, which made Adam start laughing, which in turn made Dean start laughing through his coughing. “Adam,” Dean sighed once he could talk again. “You can’t grab my tongue. It’s attached to my head.”

Adam just laughed again and babbled, making grabby hands at Dean’s face again. Dean kept him back away from it, though, not wanting another hands-in-mouth incident.

Dean looked over at Sam once he got Adam settled. “How was school?”

Sam perked up. “It was great! We got to watch Mrs. Perry dissect a sheep’s heart in science class! It was super cool!”

“I bet it was,” Dean told him.

“And then, in math class, we learned about fractions! I like fractions, they’re really cool. In English, I got to read a story out loud to the class! Mr. Johnson says my reading is really good.”

“That’s great, Sammy.”

Sam kept telling Dean about his day, and Dean made the appropriate noises at the appropriate times. He wondered if they’d be going back to Georgia and the trailer park once Dean was out of the hospital, or if they’d move on. He hoped he’d at least be able to say goodbye to Chrissy and Lauren, but he doubted he’d get the chance unless they stayed in Georgia for a while longer.

“After school, I picked Adam up from daycare like you said, but then you didn’t come home, and it was getting late, so I went over to Chrissy and Lauren’s. Was that alright?” Sam asked, looking nervous, like Dean would yell at him if it wasn’t.

“That was just fine, Sam. I’m glad you went to her instead of trying to deal with Adam yourself.”

Sam sighed in relief, and Adam started babbling when Dean mentioned his name. He was making sounds that started with the ‘duh’ sound. Dad walked back into the room as Adam poked Dean in the face and said, “Dee.”

Dean smiled so wide his face hurt. “That’s right, Adam. I’m Dean.”

“Dee!” The kid said again, laughing and giggling. “Dee, Dee, Dee!”

Dean felt like his heart was gonna burst from how much he loved the kid in that moment. His first word was the same as Sam’s had been. “Listen to that, Sammy,” Dean said.

Sam was smiling too, and so was Dad. “That’s great, Dean!” Sam said. “Good job, Adam!”

Dad picked Adam up off of Dean and tossed him in the air, making him squeal with laughter. “Great job, kid,” Dad said, pride coloring his voice.

Even though Dean was in the hospital with a broken arm and a fuck ton of stitches, he was happier than he’d been in months. Probably since Sam’s birthday.

* * *

Dad took Sam, Dean, and Adam back to the trailer park in Georgia once they let Dean out of the hospital. Everything was normal for a little while, or, well, as normal as it got for the Winchesters. Sam was making more friends, and Dean kept going out with Lauren. She’d been in one of her cold moods when Dean first got back, so he didn’t get to see her until he went back to school that Monday.

“Hey, Lauren!” Dean called, jogging to catch up with her as she walked towards her first class. Dean never saw her on the walk to school even though they came from the same place cause he had to leave early enough to drop Adam and Sam off first. “Sorry I haven’t been around,” Dean told her. “I got attacked by a bear.”

Lauren barely glanced at him. “Fuck off, Dean.”

Dean tried not to feel hurt by it. “Right, yeah. Come find me when you’re feeling better.”

Lauren didn’t say anything as Dean walked away.

School was boring without Lauren to talk to, and Dean felt pathetic as he watched the back of her French twist in history class, wishing she would turn around and look at him. All the shit Chirssy had said about feeling ridiculous when you had a crush was true. It was bad how much he wanted Lauren to acknowledge him. To talk to him.

By Wednesday, Lauren was back to normal. She held hands with Dean during school, and she offered to come over and work on homework with him after school. Dean agreed, since he didn’t have to hustle for money at the bar now that Dad was around.

When Lauren and Dean got back to the trailer, Dad took Sam and Adam to the nicer playground across town so that Lauren and Dean could have some time to themselves.

For a while, they actually worked on homework. Dean’s grades were better than they’d ever been since he’d been hanging around Lauren. “You wanna make out?” Dean asked, once they’d finished with math for the day. He really didn’t want to do history, and that was up next.

Lauren nodded, and then they were kissing, but with tongue this time. It was kinda… wet, but it also felt really good. They broke apart after a few minutes and Dean smiled. “You wanna do that again?” Lauren asked, and they did. Lauren even let Dean put his hand on her chest over the top of her clothes. It was great.

* * *

Dad stuck around until Dean got his cast off in early September, only taking hunts between August and September that took him away for less than a day. Mostly milk runs, salting and burning little old ladies hanging around nursing homes and stuff like that.

Dean was glad to have him around, even though he gave Dean disapproving looks every time he went out with Lauren, probably convinced he could do better than trailer trash, as though they weren’t also living in a trailer park.

Dad headed out almost immediately after taking Dean for a follow-up to get the cast cut off his right wrist, leaving Dean with more money than usual. That made Dean nervous. Adam’s first birthday was coming up, he was learning to talk, and Dad was gonna miss all of it if he left for very long. He’d at least been around , if mostly drunk, during Sam’s early childhood. It wasn’t fair.

* * *

Dad did make it back for Adam’s birthday, but just barely. Dean made a cake, which Adam got all over himself. Dean had sent Sam to the gas station to buy a disposable camera as soon as he’d started frosting the cake, so he’d have pictures to embarrass the kid with when he was older.

Dad arrived just after Dean finished getting dinner into a fussy Adam. He hadn’t felt like cooking after he’d made the cake, so Sam’s dinner was made up of Hot Pockets and Lucky Charms. Dean was just glad he’d been able to get them both to eat something other than cake. Dean offered to make something for Dad too, but he said he’d already eaten.

Nobody bothered getting Adam any gifts for his birthday, since he wasn’t old enough to know the difference and already had as many toys as they could feasibly carry around in the Impala.

* * *

Dad pulled Sam and Dean out of school in the second week of October, right as Dean and Lauren were starting to get more serious.

The day before Dad came back, Dean told Lauren he loved her. She didn’t say anything back, and Dean never got the chance to find out why she didn’t say it back, whether it was one of her cold moods, if it was surprise, or if it was something else. He liked to think that she loved him too, but he never found out. Dad showed up the next morning before Dean had a chance to see either Chrissy or Lauren, and Dean had the trailer packed up and ready to go before the sun was even fully up, a sleeping Sam and Adam both carried out to the car – Sam by Dad and Adam by Dean. They were on the road before Chrissy and Lauren were even out of bed. Dean never got the chance to say goodbye.

Chapter Text

Dad rented out a motel room in western Wyoming for the rest of the school year. It was colder up there than it had been in Georgia, especially at night.

Dean didn’t bother making new friends. He’d liked Chrissy and loved Lauren, and he didn’t want to miss anyone else when they left again. Dad didn’t even bother telling Dean what was so important up in Wyoming that they had to leave Georgia, and Dean knew better than to ask. Sam was as happy about moving as he always was, and Adam seemed to pick up on the tension between the rest of them enough that he was also miserable.

At least Dean managed to avoid another argument between Sam and Dad. He could tell Sam was itching for it, but he managed to keep him happy enough.

The school in Wyoming sucked about as much as the one in Georgia had, but this time Sam and his teacher didn’t get along. The old bitch seemed to have it out for Sam, though Dean had no fucking clue why. Dean was the one who had issues with teachers, not Sam. Usually, teachers loved the little nerd.

“Come on, Sam, we’re gonna be late!” Dean called from where he was scrambling eggs in the motel room’s shitty kitchenette. Dad got the eggs from a grateful farmer after he’d cleared out the ghost that had been haunting his barn, and he’d left them with Dean the last time he’d come to check on them. He’d actually stayed for three days then.

“Do I have to go?” Sam asked, whining. “I hate Mrs. Tiller.”

“Yes, Sam, you have to go. Education is important.”

“You don’t always go,” Sam pointed out.

“Yeah, but I’m kinda dumb. Don’t you wanna be smarter than your big brother?” Dean asked with a teasing grin.

Sam rolled his eyes and stomped over to the table, huffing as he threw himself into one of the uncomfortable chairs. Little drama queen. “Mrs. Tiller hates me,” he pouted, sullenly taking a bite of his eggs.

Dean rolled his eyes, set the orange juice down in front of Sam, and went to deal with Adam, who had started throwing his cereal at the wall and giggling. He used to give the kid applesauce for breakfast, but then he’d figured out how hilarious it was to chuck his food at walls and people.

“C’mon Adam, you gotta eat the food, not throw it.”

“No!” Adam said, throwing a piece of cereal at Dean. “Dee!” he giggled when it hit Dean in the center of his forehead. At least the kid had good aim.

Sam sulked about having to go to school while Dean pleaded with Adam to get the kid to actually eat his breakfast. Here comes the airplane could only go so far.

It was a fight to get both Sam and Adam fed, dressed, and ready for the day, and once Dean was finally done with them, he didn’t have any time to deal with himself. He’d just have to go to school wearing pajamas and some of the orange juice Adam had spilled on him by trying to reach for his sippy cup while Dean was refilling it.

Dean got Adam to daycare and Sam to the elementary school on time, but he was late for his own class. He didn’t even bother with an excuse, just a muttered apology.

* * *

They were in Wyoming for Thanksgiving. Sam kept asking if Dad was gonna be back in time for the baked chicken Dean was making. He’d wanted to bake a turkey, but he couldn’t afford one. An income made of washing cars, raking leaves, and painting the occasional fence didn’t leave much left over for making fancy meals. Dean was just glad Dad had paid up the motel room for long enough that he didn’t have to worry about it yet. It was hard enough to keep Sam and Adam fed.

“Do you know when he’ll be back?” Sam asked, staring sullenly down at the table. His hair was starting to get pretty long. Dean would need to talk him into cutting it. No reason to leave his hair long enough for something to grab hold of.

“I don’t know, Sam,” Dean told him, trying not to snap. When would he finally get it ? Dad came back when Dad came back. Trying to guess when that would be was useless. “He’ll be here, alright? He always comes back for Thanksgiving.”

“Are you sure ? He’s never around, Dean. Why isn’t he ever around? Everyone else at school gets to see their dads.”

“Fuck, Sam, I don’t know, ok? He’ll get here, alright?”

Adam, of course, took that moment to learn his sixth word, which came after classics like “Dee”, “Sham” (for Sam), “Dada”, “Yesh”, and “No”, which was “fuck!”

Dean resisted the urge to bury his face in his hands. “Don’t say that, Adam.” He looked over at the kid who was happily chewing on a plastic ring in his playpen.

“Fuck! Dee, fuck!” The little shit exclaimed, clapping his uncoordinated, chubbly little hands together. “Fuck!”

“Great.” Dean couldn’t wait to explain that one to Dad. “Look, Sam, Dad will be here when he can, alright? He’s gotta work.”

Sam sighed heavily and went back to staring down at the table.

Dad made it home a little after nine, when Dean had already started getting Sam and Adam ready for bed. Adam probably needed a bedtime of, like, seven, but there was no way Dean was gonna be able to make that happen.

“Dad!” Sam exclaimed, running over to give him a hug. “Happy Thanksgiving!”

“Dada!” Adam exclaimed from where Dean was holding him. “Fuck!”

Dad raised an eyebrow at the language but didn’t point it out as he hugged Sam back. “Hey there, boys. Happy Thanksgiving.”

“Hey, Dad,” Dean said, bringing Adam over to him. Dad took the smiling baby from Dean, who was babbling happily at Dad, throwing in an occasional “fuck” or “Dada” to keep things interesting. “I baked some chicken for Thanksgiving dinner. You wanna eat?”

Dad smiled. “Sure, Dean. That sounds great.”

Dean went to get the chicken but was stopped by Dad putting a hand on his shoulder and pulling him in for a hug. The hunt must’ve gone bad. “Did ya kill it?” Dean asked in a low voice so Sam wouldn’t hear.

“Yeah, I did.”

“I’m glad you’re here, Dad,” Dean told him, before pulling away. He looked more closely at Dad and could see the tiredness pulling at the corners of his eyes, the stress held in the set of his jaw.

Dean didn’t say anything else and instead went to get dinner ready. Sam had insisted that they wait on Dad, so the chicken was still in the oven with a towel over it to keep it warm. Dean had also heated some frozen veggies and some instant mashed potatoes. He plated everything up and warmed each plate in the microwave for a few minutes before setting it down at the table. He gave Adam a plate of veggies and mashed potatoes, but left the chicken on his. He’d try to get a few bites in the kid, but he doubted he’d be all that successful.

“How’s work, Dad?” Sam asked, immediately digging in.

“It’s good. I’m making some real good money right now,” Dad lied, eating his dinner at a much more sedate pace than Sam was. Poor kid hadn’t eaten since breakfast, since he’d skipped lunch to make room for Dean’s dinner. “I’ll be with you guys for a while, though. How’s that sound?”

“That’s great, Dad,” Dean told him, right before feeling a bit of frozen veggies hit him in the cheek.

“Dee! Fuck!” Adam giggled, picking up a handful of veggies and throwing them at Dean with his left hand while his right hand found its way into the mashed potatoes. Dean didn’t know why he even bothered trying to get the kid to feed himself.

“C’mon, buddy, let’s not throw our food,” Dean told him, using Adam’s bib to wipe up the mashed potatoes smeared all over his face.

“Here, let me feed him,” Dad said, reaching out for the baby spoon lying on the tray of Adam’s highchair.

Dean happily let Dad take over Adam duty, instead turning his attention back to his own food. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast either, but he was far more used to going hungry than Sam was. That didn’t mean that he wasn’t hungry, though, only that he was used to it.

Their family usually didn’t do the whole “giving thanks” part of Thanksgiving, but Sam seemed really into the idea that year. “What are you thankful for, Dad?” he asked, once he’d finished his first plate and moved on to his second. “Since it’s Thanksgiving and everything.”

Dad hummed as he thought about it, most of his attention still focused on getting Adam’s food in his mouth rather than smeared on his bib or face. “I’m grateful that my children are all safe and sound.”

“What about you, Dean?”

“I’m grateful that you don’t snore,” Dean told him. He wasn’t gonna ruin Thanksgiving dinner by telling Sam that the thing he was most grateful for in the whole entire world was being able to pull Sam out of their burning house in time.

“You’re such an asshole, Dean,” Sam told him.

Dean shrugged. “Hey, you asked, bitch.”

Sam gave him a bitchy eyeroll. “Jerk.”

Dean smirked and started giving Sam a noogie, which made the kid shriek and try to shove Dean off. “Quit it! Dean!” Dean let Sam get him with the next shove, allowing himself to fall off the chair and land on the floor so Sam could win. “Ha!” Sam exclaimed as soon as Dean landed on his ass. Sam crossed his arms smugly. “Well, I’m grateful that we’re all here together.”

Dean dusted his butt off and climbed back into his seat just in time to see Adam upend the rest of his veggies onto the floor and then promptly begin screaming for no discernible reason. Dean sighed and went to grab some paper towels. He’d deal with the mess and let Dad deal with the kid.

* * *

Something was up with Sam. Dean didn’t know what it was, and he didn’t know how to ask. The kid had been in a worse mood than usual, switching between irritable and sullen, and distracted and sullen. He was getting lost in thought more than usual, and he was spending a lot of time scowling at walls, tables, and floors as if they’d insulted his honor. Usually, Dean had a pretty good idea of what was bugging the kid – and therefore a good idea of how to help – but this time he had no clue. He didn’t think it was the teacher Sam didn’t like, but he wasn’t sure what else it could be.

His theory about it being something other than Mrs. Tiller was proved right when, after school ended, Sam’s funk continued. He was acting weird all the way across Wyoming and South Dakota to Bobby’s. Dean had no idea how he was while he was actually at Bobby’s, cause Dad took Dean up into North Dakota to deal with what he’d originally thought was a vengeful spirit.

* * *

There were already three women dead, all found in the exact same way as a woman from the 1940s, hanging from the ceilings of their houses by their ankles, sawed almost completely in half from groin to neck, leaving the head untouched, other than the word “whore” written across the forehead in blood and the hair the original killer had yanked off in clumps.

Dean almost puked when he saw the crime scene photos. He wasn’t anywhere near old enough to get into the morgue with Dad to see them in person, thank God. The pictures were bad enough.

All of the women were within three inches of each other in height and within ten pounds in weight. They were all pretty brunettes with blue eyes.

The original woman from the 40s was named Carolyn Lewis, and the three modern-day victims were Shelby Wallace, Kristin Newcomb, and Faith Wesley. All were twenty-four years old. Carolyn Lewis had been married to a man named Walter Lewis, but the rest were unmarried. Kristin Newcomb was engaged to a man named Trevor Nelson, Faith Wesley was single, and Shelby Wallace had been living in a one-bedroom apartment with her “roommate” Jessica Hartford for five years.

Dean would’ve guessed the original murder was the husband, except that he was deployed in France when it happened. Dad’s guess was that it was some lover she had taken on while her husband was away, but no one from back then had ever seen her with anyone.

Another issue was the location. Carolyn Lewis had been found in her own house, but the other three were found in empty houses, one empty because the family was out of town, one empty because it was for sale, and the other empty because it was condemned. A homeless guy had found the one at the condemned house. Vengeful spirits were almost always tied to a location, usually where they died, but EMF came back clean at the house where the original murder had taken place.

Dean’s guess for the spirit itself would’ve been Carolyn Lewis, but she’d been cremated. And, if it was her, why hadn’t she killed before? It was probably the spirit of the original killer, though that lead wasn’t panning out either. None of the guys who were old enough to have killed Carolyn had died violently recently, and none of the guys who’d died violently were old enough to have killed Carolyn. Dad and Dean were at a dead end, especially when EMF came back clean at all of the houses where the victims were found.

The victims had been appearing every week on Mondays, killed on Sunday nights, but hung on Monday mornings. The girl in the condemned house had actually been found on a Tuesday, but she’d been put there on a Monday.

Dad and Dean arrived in the town on a Thursday. They spent the weekend researching everything to do with the case, tracking down everyone who was still alive who remembered it. Dad thought that if they solved the original murder, they might get some clue about the current murders, but they made very little headway.

On Saturday night, Dad threw up his hands and told Dean they were gonna go salt and burn every single body of anyone who even might have been connected to the original Lewis murder.

Sunday was miserable. Dad and Dean were both tense and stressed, and Dean had blisters on his hands and a bad cough. Turned out that digging in the snowy, frozen ground all night hadn’t done Dean any favors. Dean and Dad spent Sunday night sort of driving aimlessly around the small town, trying to do something to prevent another killing.

They continued into Monday morning, patrolling around the town until the old church bell chimed noon. Then they switched from trying to prevent another killing to trying to find the body. Dad had a list of all the empty houses in town, and they started with the ones the tiny sheriff’s station hadn’t had enough people to guard, which was most of them.

Dad and Dean spent almost all of Monday searching houses. It took them five hours to finally find the dead woman. Dean was the one who stumbled onto her. She’d been hanging in the bedroom, as close to dead center of the house as the spirit could get her.

It was even worse in person. She smelled like piss and shit and fear and so, so much blood. She smelled like death. Her blue eyes were open and filled with the fear she’d been experiencing in her last moments, fixed on nothing. Her brown hair was uneven and tangled, missing great clumps that lay in the blood pooled beneath her, soaking it up. “Whore” was written in capital letters across her forehead, barely legible since some of the blood had dripped down towards her hairline. Her ankles were both broken from holding her weight, twisted at unnatural angles, and they had an ugly bluish-gray color to them. Her arms hung limply from her shoulders, her fingertips leaving streaks through the pool of blood, and there were dried rivulets from where the blood had run down her arms. The worst, though, was the main part of her body. A jagged, gruesome cut ran from between her legs up to where her collarbones were holding together her neck. Pieces of her broken pelvis, spine, and ribs jutted out, as though they were still trying to bridge the distance between the two halves of her body, and her intestines had spilled out the back. They’d been punctured, and the fluids from them were dripping onto the floor, the brown feces and yellowish bile mixing with the red blood.

Dean would never forget the sight for as long as he lived.

He knew he should go get Dad, but he couldn’t move. He was frozen, looking at this woman that he and Dad hadn’t been able to save. If they’d been smarter, better , then they could’ve saved her. She didn’t have to die.

Dad walked in after some indeterminate amount of time. He said something, but Dean couldn’t hear him. He was fixed on the woman hanging in front of him, dead because they couldn’t stop the spirit in time. Dean vaguely felt hands on his shoulders, and he was aware that Dad was shaking him. Nothing really pierced through, though. He was too fixed on the woman. He wondered what her name was. Who her family was. Who was missing this woman? Who was gonna have to learn to live without this woman like Dean lived without Mom?

Dad said something else. That was Dad’s drill sergeant voice. Dean felt himself straighten up.

“Yes, sir,” he felt his mouth say.

“Go wait in the car. Do not leave until I get there, do you understand?” It was like Dad’s voice was coming from underwater, barely reaching Dean, but he heard the order anyway.

“Yes, sir.” Dean could follow orders. Dean had to follow orders. Why did Dean follow orders? Right, they were on a hunt. Follow orders on a hunt. What were the orders? Car, right. Dean walked through the house in a haze and sat numbly in the passenger seat of the Impala. What do I do in the car? Right, wait. He was waiting. He could wait. He sat up straight, hands folded in his lap like Dad showed him once, for when he needed to be still and silent. Dean knew how to wait. He could wait.

The longer Dean sat there, the more he began to be aware of his surroundings. He was… where was he? He was sitting in the Impala. Why? Dad said so. He was trying to remember. It was… dead woman. Suddenly, everything came to Dean with an acute clarity, the fog lifting from everything as though he’d suddenly been slammed back into his body. He was cold, he realized. The car was off, and it was in the thirties outside. He was crying, he realized next, silent tears slipping from his eyes. He wiped them away and realized he’d been sitting in one position for so long his ass and feet had both gone numb. He shifted, curling up against the Impala’s door, using his hands to scrub the tears from his cheeks.

Dean sat in the Impala until Dad came back, doing his best not to think about the dead woman in the house. He didn’t move, even when the police showed up to investigate, bringing with them the wail of sirens and the flashing lights of cop cars and a firetruck.

When Dad came back, he slumped into his seat, exhausted, and rested his head on the steering wheel for a minute. He looked more defeated than Dean had seen him in a long time. “They’ve IDed her. Julia Sanders, twenty-four years old. She left behind a husband, Carl Sanders, and a little girl, Alison. Alison is two.”

Dean uncurled himself as Dad started the car. There was still a case they had to solve. “EMF pick up anything?”

“No.”

“What if it’s not a vengeful spirit?” Dean asked.

Dad raised a brow. “What else could it be, then?”

Dean shrugged. “Maybe a shifter? We haven’t found any real connection between the women who are being killed right now and Carolyn Lewis.”

Dad’s face changed, becoming more thoughtful. “I’ve gotta call Singer,” he said, starting the car. He drove back to their motel room faster than he probably should’ve, and he used the phone in the room to call Bobby.

“Singer. It’s John Winchester.” Dean assumed Bobby had answered the phone with his customary greeting.

Dean couldn’t hear Bobby’s half of the conversation, just Dad’s.

“Do you know anybody with access to databases?”

Bobby said something.

“I want to find every woman in this town matching the pattern.”

Bobby again.

“Twenty-four years old, between 5’2” and 5’4”, brown hair, blue eyes, around 120lbs. Marital status and children don’t matter, neither do living arrangements.”

Bobby.

“Yeah, I’m sure you’ll get more results than we can use, but we don’t have anything, and women are dying.”

Bobby.

“It’s bad, Singer. Dean found the most recent one. Hasn’t hit the news yet, but it will.”

Bobby, this time it sounded like he was yelling.

“Don’t tell me how to handle my affairs, Singer,” Dad growled out. “Either help me or don’t.”

Bobby.

“I appreciate it, Singer. Call me when you get something.” Dad gave Bobby the number for the motel and hung up, looking annoyed. Bobby and Dad tended to have that effect on one another.

Dean had been sitting on his bed, watching Dad as he spoke on the phone, and he stayed there as Dad ran a hand over his face, the gold of his wedding ring catching the orange light of the setting sun that was slanting in through the blinds.

Dad sat down heavily on the other bed, directly across from Dean. “We’ll figure this out tomorrow,” Dad told him. “I’ll go pick up something for dinner, and then we’ll sleep.”

Dean nodded. He didn’t feel much like talking if it wasn’t for the case.

“Burgers sound good to you?”

Dean nodded again. Burgers were just fine.

Once Dad was gone, Dean got up and took a shower, as hot as the shitty motel water heater could get it. He stayed in there until the water went from lukewarm cold to cold cold, which was making his cough worse. He got out of the shower and put on his pajamas, wrapping himself in Dad’s leather jacket over the top of that. It smelled like coffee, gunpowder, and Dad’s cheap aftershave. It made Dean feel safer, no matter how stupid that was.

After dinner, Dean didn’t bother to take the jacket off before crawling into bed, wrapping the threadbare motel sheets and quilt around himself, and lying down on his stomach so that he could reach his hand under his pillow and hold on to the knife he always kept there.

* * *

Bobby got back to them with a list of all the women in the area who fit Dad’s description the next afternoon. There were three of them left, and Dad called the sheriff to get them all some sort of protection. In the meantime, Dad and Dean went over every inch of the case again, this time looking for connections between only the modern victims. If it wasn’t a vengeful spirit, then it could just be a copycat, in which case Carolyn Lewis’s murder was unconnected.

Three days later, Dean and Dad had nothing. Every possible connection between the women beyond the obvious was a dead end. They weren’t born in the same place, or on the same day, or at the same time. They didn’t all go to the same school or church or even grocery store. Some lived in town, others were just visiting. There was nothing connecting them outside of the fact that they all fit the profile.

“There’s gotta be something,” Dad muttered, studying the wall that he and Dean had turned into an investigation board. Pieces of red string ran between church groups and daily routines, but nothing could connect more than two victims to each other, outside of their deaths. Adding Carolyn back in or taking her out didn’t help. They had nothing, and it was already Thursday. If they didn’t come up with something soon, they were gonna have another dead woman on their hands.

Dad had expanded his search to include demons, witches, and shifters. Those were the only options other than a vengeful spirit that would murder for fun instead of eating their prey. Dad had been checking security cameras around where the women lived, the places where they might have been abducted, and around where they’d been dumped. So far, nothing. No sulfur, no hex bags, and no camera flare. Nobody in common, either. Whatever was killing those women was good.

* * *

It was Sunday again, and they still had nothing. Dean was on the phone with Bobby while Dad went back down to the station to talk to Julia Sanders’ family again. As if the fourth time was the charm.

“And you’re sure there’s nothing that can go invisible?” Dean asked, ignoring the note of desperation in his voice.

“Nothing I’ve found. And you’re sure it isn’t a demon?”

“No, Bobby, we’re not sure of anything. We still haven’t even fully ruled out vengeful spirit, but there’s no EMF. For all we know, counting Carolyn Lewis out was a mistake and we’re missing something big.”

Bobby sighed, which came across the line as a crackle. “Ok, take me over the case again.”

Dean did, recounting the murders before they’d arrived, the desperate night of salting and burning graves from the 1940s, and the discovery of Julia Sanders the next day. He told Bobby every detail they’d uncovered, every habit the women did and didn’t share, every person they came into contact with, every unusual and usual thing they’d done in the hours, days, weeks, months leading up to their deaths.

Bobby was quiet for a long moment. “They get anything delivered? Newspaper, milk, mail?”

“Different mailmen, different paper boys, and nobody gets milk delivered anymore, Bobby.”

Bobby grunted. “What clothes were they wearing when they disappeared?”

“Uh, let’s see.” Dean rifled through the notes Dad had made. He was pretty sure Dad had asked that question at least once during his interrogations of the families. “Shelby Wallace was wearing black slacks, a light green blouse, and a black peacoat. She worked as a hostess at a local restaurant and never came home from work. We think she was abducted from there, because her car is still in the parking lot. It’s a 1977 Firebird, black and gold, in great condition. Her roommate, Jessica, said she’d never intentionally leave it anywhere.

“Kristin Newcomb was wearing jeans, a Motley Crüe t-shirt, and a blue windbreaker. She works at the record shop in town. After work, she went grocery shopping, and her car was also left in the parking lot there, the groceries already packed into the backseat. It’s a 1972 Ford Pinto, snot green.

“Faith Wesley was wearing work boots, jeans, a t-shirt, and a pink jacket. She works construction, but she got a ride to the site from a coworker. That coworker said that he thought she got a ride from someone else back to her apartment.

“Julia Sanders was wearing a purple and white tracksuit. She and her family were visiting her mother, and she went for a run and never returned.”

“So, none of them were wearing the same color?”

“No, not really.”

“How was their hair done?”

“Shelby wore hers loose and flat, no product or nothing. Kristin had hers all teased up. Faith and Julia both had their hair pulled back.”

“How loose were their clothes?”

“Most of them were wearing something pretty loose, why?”

“If they had on their jackets, would you be able to tell what their body type was?”

Dean considered it. “Not really. Especially Shelby and Kristin. You definitely couldn’t get precise enough to know they were all A-cups.”

“Were any of them wearing heels or platform shoes?”

“Yeah, Shelby was wearing heels, and Faith’s work boots gave her at least two inches.”

“And they’re all within two inches of each other?”

“Between 5’2” and 5’4”.”

“And within ten pounds?”

“Yeah.”

“The killer had to have some way of knowing that. There’s no way it could’ve gotten that precise just by lookin’ at ‘em.”

“So, what, a doctor or something?” Dean asked. “But Julia doesn’t live here.” Bobby started to say something, but then it hit Dean. The search Bobby’s government friend had run on the women in town that gave him a list of everyone matching the victim specifications. Anyone on the police force could’ve gotten that information. “Fuck, I think it’s a cop,” Dean said. That’s why there was no EMF, no sulfur, no hex bags, no camera flare. The killer was human.

Dean said his goodbyes to Bobby and called the station, asking if “Special Agent Nick Mason” was still there. He wasn’t. Dean swore quietly, then started dialing the numbers of the people closest to the other victims.

“Hello, is this Jessica Hartford?”

“Yes, this is Jessica.”

“Hi, Ms. Hartford. This is Special Agent Roger Waters. I work with Special Agent Mason. Did Shelby Wallace mention having any contact with the police before her death? A routine traffic stop, anything like that?”

Jessica Hartford was silent for a moment, thinking. “Yes, she did, actually. About a week ago she got pulled over.”

“Did she tell you who the officer was?”

“No, she didn’t.”

“Thank you so much for your time, Ms. Hartford. We’ll contact you if we have any additional questions.”

Dean hung up before she could say anything else. He dialed the number for Trevor Nelson, Kristin Newcomb’s fiancée. “Hello, is this Trevor Nelson?”

“Yeah. Whaddya want?”

“Hi, Mr. Nelson. This is Special Agent Roger Waters. I work with Special Agent Mason. Did Kristin Newcomb mention having any contact with the police before her death? A routine traffic stop, anything like that?”

“Yeah, some cop came into the record shop last week and didn’t buy anything.”

“Did she mention the name of the officer?”

“Nah. She did say he was tall, though. She didn’t say anything else, just that he was tall.”

“Thank you so much for your time, Mr. Nelson. We’ll contact you if we have any additional questions.”

Dean hung up again. His hands had started to shake. He dialed the number for Faith Wesley’s friend and coworker, Jim Reeding. Same thing. She’d been asked out on a date by a tall cop with brown hair. And Dean finally got a first name. Donny, most likely short for Donald. Dean didn’t remember if he’d heard of a Donny working in the Sheriff’s department. He would’ve known better if he’d actually been able to meet the cops, but he was too young. Dad had gone by himself. Shit . He dialed the number for Julia Summers’ mother’s house, but there was no answer. Her family had been down at the station talking to Dad. Fuck .

Dean called Bobby again. “Bobby!” He yelled over Bobby’s question about how the caller had gotten the number. “I need you to get me a name! You have a computer, right?”

“Yeah, I’ve got one,” Bobby replied.

“I need to know if there’s someone in the Sheriff’s department with the first name Donald.”

“Oh, is that all?”

“Bobby! It’s important!”

“Alright, alright, kid. Hold your horses. Take a deep breath.”

Dean inhaled, held it for a few seconds, and breathed out. “Ok, I’m calm.”

“I’ll call dispatch. You stay by the phone, alright?”

Dean took more deep breaths while he waited for Bobby to call back. Dad should be back by now , he thought, standing up to start pacing. What if the cop got him, too? But he didn’t fit the pattern. He was too tall, too heavy, and too male. Dad would be alright, but another woman might die, especially since Dean and Dad had handed the killer the rest of the women who fit the pattern all wrapped up in a bow. Dean glanced out the window. The sun was starting to go down. Another woman was going to die.

He jumped when the phone started ringing. “Bobby?”

“Yeah, it’s me. It’s Deputy Donald Scott. Go get a pen, I’ll give you his address.”

Dean wrote the address down, thanked Bobby, and hung up. Fuck, Dad should be back by now . He ran over to the city map on the wall and found the address. He circled it in red, just in case Dad came back. Dean didn’t think he would. He had a really bad feeling. He took the other city map off the table and circled the address again so that he could find it easily.

The Impala wasn’t in the parking lot, but Dean knew how to drive, and he knew how to hotwire cars. There was a gas station across the street with no security or traffic cams. Dean went for the shitty-looking sedan he was pretty sure belonged to one of the employees. He hated stealing, but he had to get to the cop before he killed someone else. He knew he should verify with witnesses that he had the right guy, especially since he was a cop, but he didn’t have time . If he was wrong, he was good at spinning bullshit to keep himself out of trouble.

It took three tries to get the engine on the sedan to turn over, but Dean got it. He checked his .32 to make sure it was loaded, and started the drive over to the Deputy’s house, one hand on the steering wheel and the other glued to the gearshift. The Impala was automatic, so Dean’s experience with manuals was limited. He barely made it to the house in one piece, and he stalled at least twice.

He parked the sedan a few houses down and ran to the house, staying low so he wouldn’t be seen. He crouched next to the bushes and gripped his gun. “Think, think,” he muttered aloud. He was too small to break the door down, and he had no proof. This wasn’t a creature; this was a human. A cop. Dean couldn’t treat this like a normal case. He had to be careful. He stood up, still keeping his head low, and peeked in through the window. Normal living room. Nothing. Maybe he was wrong. He ducked back down and noticed the basement window by his foot, hidden from sight by the bushes. He glanced in, and he saw Dad tied to a chair, facing away from him. Fuck .

Dean knew how to pick locks. It would be better around the back door, so some nosy nellie neighbor wouldn’t see him and call the cops.

It took Dean longer than it should’ve to pick the lock. His hands had stopped shaking, now that he had something to do with them, but it still took too long. At least the door wasn’t chained.

Once Dean got inside the house, he crept through the kitchen, looking for a way to get to the basement. Unfortunately, none of the doors were helpfully labeled “murder den this way!”, so Dean had to very carefully open door after door, just wide enough to peek in but not wide enough to start squeaking.

It took a bathroom, a pantry/closet thing, and another closet before Dean found the stairs. Who the fuck puts stairs in the middle of the house like that? As he got the door open, he could hear voices coming from down below. One was female, the cop’s latest victim, one was male, and the last one was Dad. Dean descended the stairs at a snail’s pace, checking each for creaks before putting his weight on them, his gun held out in front of him. He was halfway down when he heard the woman scream, and thump, followed by the sounds of a struggle. He gave up stealth and ran the rest of the way down the stairs to find that Dad had escaped from where he was tied up and was fighting with Deputy Scott. The woman, one of the women Dad and Dean had identified as a potential victim, was huddled in the far corner of a padlocked dog crate, crying. She was completely naked, but she didn’t look very injured.

Dean ran to the woman. Dad could handle the Deputy. The lock was thick. Dean would need bolt cutters or something for it. He looked around to see what he could use. There was a chainsaw lying on a nearby table. Dean would bet that’s what he’d been cutting the women up with. He tucked his gun into his belt and grabbed the chainsaw, pulling the cord to start it and revving it to make sure it worked. It did.

“I’m gonna cut through the cage,” Dean told the woman. “Stay back.”

The chainsaw was heavy, and it threw off sparks as he brought it to the metal at the front of the cage. The padlock dropped to the floor with a heavy thunk, and Dean put the chainsaw down and turned it off so he could pull the door open, freeing the woman.

She crawled out of the cage and took the flannel Dean offered her. She opened her mouth to say something, but before she could, she was cut off by the sound of Dad grunting in pain. Dean turned to look at the fight and saw Dad on the ground, with the Deputy straddling him. One of Dad’s arms was trapped at his side, and the other was pinned to the floor by a knife driven through his palm. The Deputy raised his hands over his head, and Dean saw another knife clutched in between his palms. Dean didn’t even think. One second, Deputy Scott was alive and trying to kill Dean’s father, and the next, he was dead with a hollow-point bullet through his temple.

Dean was a killer.

He didn’t think about that, just ran over to Dad so he could help shove the Deputy’s body to the side and pull the knife out of his hand.

“Dad! Are you ok?” Dean asked, running his hands across Dad’s body to check for injuries.

Dad grunted and pushed him off. “I’m alright, Dean. I’m alright.” Dad held out his uninjured hand, reaching for Dean’s shoulder. Dean practically tackled him, pushing him back down to the ground in a hug. Dean killed someone. A human someone.

“I killed him, Dad,” Dean said, his voice cracking. He wouldn’t cry. He’d already done that once for this case.

Dad’s uninjured hand was stroking through Dean’s hair. “I know, son. It’s gonna be just fine. We’ll figure it out. You gotta let me get up, now. We gotta call an ambulance.” Dean nodded and pulled away.

Dean let Dad do the talking when the cops pulled up. Normally, they’d burn the corpse and skip town before the cops could figure out that it hadn’t been animal deaths or whatever, but not when it was a dead human. Especially a dead cop.

They found evidence in Deputy Scott’s house linking him to all of the murders, except for the Carolyn Lewis one. They didn’t know why he did it, but it was obvious he had. They made Dad stay in the hospital overnight after they fixed his hand, but they were able to get out of there far more quickly than Dean had expected.

* * *

After North Dakota, everything was weird. Bobby knew Dean had killed the Deputy, but he didn’t say anything about it. He just gave Dean an extra-long hug when he and Dad showed up.

Dad kept looking at Dean, and Dean didn’t know what it meant. He didn’t seem disappointed. He kept reassuring Dean that he’d had no other choice. That it wasn’t his fault. But still, he was acting weird. Like he could see the blood on Dean’s hands.

Something was still bugging Sam. His temper was short, and he was frequently distracted. The week and a half Dean and Dad had been gone hadn’t helped his attitude. If anything, it was worse now.

Adam was still fine, thank God. He was still happily learning new words, and he’d expanded his arsenal from just throwing food to throwing anything he could get his little hands on.

Dad didn’t let them stick around Bobby’s when he and Dean got back from the hunt. They didn’t even spend the night before they were on the road again, off towards Nebraska. Ellen had called with something in Broken Bow. Dad stopped by the Roadhouse on the way, just long enough for Ellen to give Dean a hug and some food to go, then they were in a motel room in Broken Bow, and Dad was gone.

* * *

Dean was having nightmares about the case in North Dakota. He kept seeing Julia Summers and Deputy Scott; sometimes they were chasing him, other times asking him why. Sometimes it was Mom he shot instead of Deputy Scott, other times it was Julia burning on the ceiling. Dean had learned a long time ago how to keep himself quiet when he woke up in the middle of the night, heart pounding and skin clammy, so Sam didn’t notice that something was wrong.

There wasn’t much to do. School was over, and there was no snow for Dean to offer to shovel for money. Dean took Sam to the public library a few times, but, for the most part, they were all trapped in the motel room trying not to climb the walls.

Adam had been teaching himself to walk for the past month or so, toddling a few steps at a time while holding onto the side of his crib or the playpen they’d gotten from the Harvelles. He hadn’t taken any on his own, yet, but he was almost there.

Sam spent most of his time reading, but that was par for the course. He was still being weird, but he seemed to have figured something out, because he was less distracted than he had been since they left Wyoming.

* * *

Christmas Day dawned bright and freezing-ass cold. Sam started asking about Dad almost as soon as he woke up, and Dean could only give him the same answers he’d given him at Thanksgiving. Yes, Dad will be home; No, I don’t know when; No, he won’t miss Christmas; He’ll be back, he always comes back .

Then Sam asked about monsters. He’d been reading the journal, and Dean had to be the one to tell him that the world was a dangerous place, that monsters were real, and that Dad was out there fighting them. Sam was scared, rightfully so, and Dean didn’t know how to make it better. The kid was only eight.

Dean heard Sam sniffling as he cried himself to sleep, but he didn’t try to comfort him. What was he supposed to say? Something supernatural had killed Mom, and Dad still hadn’t even figured out what exactly did it. It was probably a demon, but they didn’t know. They were no closer to ganking that sonuvabitch than they had been eight years ago. He couldn’t tell Sam that it was all ok, because it wasn’t, was it? Dad was always gone, Mom was dead, and Dean had killed a man. How was that supposed to make Sam feel better?

Dean accepted that Dad wasn’t gonna make it back for Christmas once it hit a quarter to midnight. Dad needed to be there, to reassure Sam, but he wasn’t . Dean had to do something . The kid just had his whole world upended, he’d cried himself to sleep, and now he wasn’t gonna get anything for Christmas. Dean slipped out of bed, silent, like Dad taught him, and stole some Christmas gifts from the big house up the street. Stupid rich people with their lack of security.

He woke Sam up after he’d gotten everything set up, told him Dad had been back, and watched him unwrap the… Barbie doll. Fuck . How was he supposed to know they were girl toys? They’d been addressed to an “Aidan” for Chrissake.

Dean admitted to Sam that Dad hadn’t been back and that he’d stolen the Christmas gifts, and Sam gave him the amulet he’d intended to give Dad. Dean promised himself that he’d never take the thing off. He’d keep Sam safe, and he’d wear the necklace until the day he died.

Chapter Text

Adam took his first steps on New Year’s Day, 1992. Like Sam, they were towards Dean, but, unlike Sam, Adam fell on his ass rather than his face. Dean couldn’t have been prouder. Dad wasn’t around to see Adam’s first steps. After he’d finished the case in Broken Bow, he’d dragged them down to Utah for some water spirit thing. Dean hated Utah. Too many Mormons.

Adam was now a mobile force of destructive chaos, even more so than he had been before he could walk, and Sam was… Sam was adjusting. He wanted to learn everything he could – about the supernatural world, about fighting, about first aid, everything. Dean should’ve guessed that would be his reaction. Dad let Sam read through the journal again while he drove them from Nebraska to Utah, and he put up with Sam’s endless questions about what he encountered in the book. Adam, thankfully, didn’t know enough English to interject with questions of his own.

Dad was still looking at Dean, but he still wasn’t saying anything. Dean didn’t know what it meant. Was Dad angry at him for killing the Deputy? Or was it something else?

They were only in Utah for a couple of days before they were headed back east, up to Flint, Michigan. Dad took them out to a diner for Dean’s thirteenth birthday, then he was gone, hunting shapeshifters. They didn’t stay in any one place for very long through the rest of January and February. Dad was cutting his way back and forth across Montana, North Dakota, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, that area, looking for shapeshifters. Dean wondered if they were having a convention or something, laughed harder than he should’ve, and then resolved himself to get some sleep soon. The constant travelling had left him sleep-deprived and a bit delirious, especially since Adam had caught some kind of bug. He was alternating between wailing and puking, and Dean could only give him so much ibuprofen.

“Hurts, Dee!” Adam said, sniffling and pointing at his head.

“I know, buddy,” Dean replied quietly, setting the kid on the bed so he could strip them both of their puke-covered clothes and get them both in the shower. There was puke in his hair, and he wasn’t interested in cleaning up with baby wipes again . “You’ll feel better soon.”

“When?” Dean shushed him so that he wouldn’t wake Sam up. It was the middle of the night, Dean had heard Adam start to fuss, and he’d picked him up just in time to get thrown up on.

“A few days,” Dean told him, carrying him into the bathroom and starting the water up. The motel’s water heater was shit, so it took a while for the water to get above lukewarm.

“Bath time?”

“Yeah, buddy we’re gonna have bath time.” Dean didn’t feel like explaining the nuances of showers versus baths when they were both still covered in foul-smelling vomit.

Dean cleaned them both up, running a soap-covered washcloth over Adam and himself with one hand while holding the kid with the other hand. It was a juggling act he’d perfected when Adam was still a newborn. He’d started letting the kid stand on the floor while they showered, sometimes, but not this time. He just wanted to get them clean and get out.

Dean always kept his boxers on when he brought Adam into the shower with him. He’d done it with Sam too. He dried himself off and wrapped a towel over his lower half before gently rubbing a towel over Adam to get him dry as well. Dean took the kid back into the main room of the motel and got him diapered and dressed before setting him in his crib so Dean could get changed. Sam was still asleep in the other bed. After Dean put on a new set of pajamas, he took the old clothes into the bathroom so he could wash them in the tub. He didn’t have any detergent, so he just scrubbed them with the bar soap that was already in there.

He was almost done washing the clothes when he heard a noise coming from the other room. It sounded like… ah shit . Dean rushed into the main room just in time to watch Sam sit up and hurl all over his clothes. He must’ve caught whatever Adam had.

“Dean?” Sam asked, tears in his voice. “I don’t feel good.”

Yeah, Dean would bet he didn’t. “That’s ok, Sammy. Come on, we’ll get you cleaned up, and then you can take my bed.”

Dean got Sam out of his PJs and into the shower. While Sam showered, Dean got him a change of clothes and started washing the soiled ones. He stripped the bedsheets and piled them in the corner, next to the door. He’d need to get housekeeping to come by tomorrow and bring more towels and linens.

Once Sam was out of the shower and everyone’s clothes were hanging from the shower rod to dry, Dean got Sam to drink some Pepto and get into his bed. By then, Adam had started fussing again, and Dean went over to find that the stomach bug he’d contracted had also given him diarrhea. He got the kid cleaned up, trying his best not to breathe so he wouldn’t puke. It was disgusting.

As soon as he got Adam taken care of, Sam started dry heaving. Dean barely got a trash can under the kid before he’d tossed his cookies again. The puke was streaked with Pepto-Bismol pink. Guess that didn’t help , Dean thought, sighing.

Adam started crying almost as soon as Dean set him down, so he had to pick the kid back up. He set him on his lap as he sat on the bed next to Sam, so he could rub the kid’s back. Sam groaned, slumped over the trash can, then he heaved again. Dean rubbed small circles in between his shoulder blades and bounced his knees to entertain Adam.

Sam was up for a while, groaning and crying in misery, while his stomach tried to exit his body through his throat. Adam alternated between napping lightly on Dean’s lap and also crying in misery.

Once it hit about two in the morning, Dean was about ready to join them in the whole crying in misery thing. He was exhausted, he was running out of clothes that hadn’t gotten snot or puke or shit on them, and neither of the kids could actually sleep. Dean kept checking them both throughout the night, but neither developed a very high fever, so he just kept trying to get them to drink water. He’d give them both more medication once they could keep it down.

Sam finally fell into an uneasy sleep sprawled over Dean’s stomach at around three. Adam was lying on Dean’s chest, like Sam used to, also asleep, and Dean was still awake. He was staring at the ceiling, trying to get Mom to disappear. He couldn’t even see her face. It had been too long since he’d seen Dad’s picture of her. He could just see her figure on the ceiling, in a white nightgown, stained dark red across the stomach. He couldn’t remember any longer whether or not he’d been able to see the wound, or if it was hidden. She had long, blonde hair, but Dean couldn’t remember if it had been up or down. He couldn’t remember if she’d been wearing slippers or a bathrobe or anything, just the white nightgown with a spreading red stain and the flames surrounding her like a halo. Dean wanted to get up; he wanted to go do something to make Mom disappear, to put her in the past where she belonged, but he couldn’t disturb Sam and Adam.

The longer he lay there, the more vivid it became, until Dean could smell smoke and burning flesh, and he could hear the crackle of burning flames and Dad’s voice yelling at him to take his brother and run.

Dean started humming to drown out the noises in his head. He didn’t even try to pick a tune at first, just something to cover the distant sounds of the sirens – the neighbors had seen the fire and called 911. A few notes in, and Dean realized it was Hey Jude that he was humming, just like Mom used to use to get him to sleep.

Sam woke up about the time Dean had finished running through every Billy Joel song he knew. He was going alphabetically through every artist he could think of, since he couldn’t sleep.

“M’head hurts, Dee,” he said, mumbling and half-awake.

“If you eat something and keep it down, I’ll give you some ibuprofen,” Dean told him in a whisper, trying not to wake Adam. Thankfully, the kid seemed to have worn himself out with all the screaming and pooping and puking earlier. Dean was able to shift Adam from lying on his chest to lying on a pillow without any trouble, so he could get up to microwave some tomato soup for Sam. He doubted the kid would eat all of it, but Dean didn’t mind eating the rest. Either he’d already caught what Sam and Adam had, or he wasn’t going to catch it. He doubted eating after Sam would be what got him, especially after Adam had sneezed directly into his mouth when he’d yawned earlier. “Here, use this so the clinking doesn’t wake Adam,” Dean said, handing Sam one of Adam’s rubber-tipped spoons. It would help the kid pace himself, too.

Sam didn’t bother with arguing or even a bitchface; he just started eating the soup with the baby spoon. He must be pretty out of it . They sat in silence until Sam had eaten his way through about a quarter of the soup. “That’s all I can eat.”

“That’s fine, Sam,” Dean told him, pulling the bowl of soup to himself. He poured some of the liquid ibuprofen into a spoon for Sam, then he made the kid go brush his teeth. He should’ve made him do it earlier, after the puking, but they’d all been too exhausted. Dean didn’t bother with the spoon; he just drank the soup. He hadn’t eaten anything since dinner the evening before, which would be fine if he hadn’t also been awake practically all night.

Dean brushed his own teeth, then crawled back into bed. He got Adam situated across his chest again, and he put his arm around Sam, who was trying to curl up into his side. Dean was glad it was the middle of winter, because if it wasn’t, he would’ve been way too hot.

Adam’s fussing woke Dean up from a light doze about an hour later. If there wasn’t a digital clock in the room glowing a bright red that told him it was almost five, he’d think he hadn’t slept at all. Sam was still out, and he didn’t wake up when Dean eased himself and Adam out of bed to change the kid.

Once Dean had a fresh diaper on Adam – luckily without any diarrhea this time – he eased them both back into bed. He should probably put the kid in the crib, but he couldn’t remember whether it was clean or not.

It took another hour before Dean was woken up again, this time by Sam muttering and kicking in his sleep. Poor kid always got nightmares when he was sick. Dean was too tired to wake the kid up again, so instead he just started petting his hair and humming Hey Jude until Sam quieted down enough for Dean to drift off again.

* * *

The next morning, Dean packed everything in the motel room into duffel bags, told housekeeping about the state of the room, and walked Adam, Sam, and all of their belongings down to the laundromat.

He read The Hobbit out loud to both kids while their clothes were washing, though he doubted Adam got much out of it.

* * *

Almost as soon as Dean got back to the freshly cleaned motel room, he started feeling nauseous. If there was a god, he was laughing.

In between his time spent praying to the porcelain god, Dean still had to take care of Adam and Sam. Sam still had a headache, Adam’s nose had started running, and both were whining about it. Dean wanted to cry. He wanted Dad. Or Uncle Bobby. He could barely keep Sam and Adam taken care of when he wasn’t sick, but now he was rushing back and forth between the sick, whining kids and the bathroom.

Sam threw up a few more times, but he managed to get all of it into a trash can. Adam seemed to be done with the puking, but he was still sick. Dean just wanted to curl into the fetal position until his stomach felt better.

Adam spiked a fever, and Dean gave in and called Bobby. Pastor Jim was probably closer, but Dean wanted Bobby.

“How’d you get this number?”

“Bobby, I need help.”

“Dean?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s wrong, kid?”

“Adam was sick and then Sam got sick and now I’m sick but Adam’s still sick and he’s got a fever and Sam’s sick too and I don’t know how high Adam’s fever is but he feels too warm and I’m really tired because I barely slept last night and now Sam’s asleep but Adam’s crying again and I don’t know if I should take him to the hospital or if I’m overreacting but I’ve already given him as much ibuprofen as I can and he’s still too warm and I just don’t know what to do,” Dean said in a rush.

“Calm down, kid,” Bobby said. “Take deep breaths. You’ll be just fine. Where are you right now?”

Dean gave him the address of the motel.

“It’ll take me about five hours to get up there, ok? For now, douse a washcloth in cool water and put it across Adam’s forehead. Do the same thing for Sam if he starts feeling feverish, alright?”

Dean nodded, even though Bobby couldn’t see him. “Ok.”

“Alright, good. I’ll let your Daddy know he needs to come home if he calls me, yeah?”

“Thanks, Uncle Bobby.”

“Don’t mention it, kid.”

Dean hung up the phone. Just five hours . Dean could last five more hours. As soon as the phone was back in its cradle, Adam’s crying turned into screaming, and Sam started thrashing in his sleep. Dean hadn’t even realized he’d started napping.

Dean bounced Adam on his hip and shushed him. “Hurts!” Adam told him in between hiccupping sobs. “Hurts, Dee!”

“Shh, shh, I know it does. I know.” Dean’s own headache had just started up. “I know.”

The screaming woke Sam up, who burst into tears of his own as soon as he was up. Dean wanted to join him. “My head hurts really bad, Dean,” Sam told him through his own tears.

Dean sat down next to him, one arm around Sam and the other holding Adam, like he’d done the night before. “I know, I know.”

Adam and Sam cried themselves to sleep, again, and Dean left them to snuggle on Sam’s bed while he ran to the bathroom to puke again once he started feeling nauseous.

* * *

Bobby arrived with the clanking of a half-busted engine. It was the best sound Dean had ever heard.

“Hey, Bobby,” Dean rasped. His throat was all messed up from puking so much. “Thanks for coming.” Dean was holding Adam, who was trying to get the cool washcloth Dean had taped to his head off.

“No problem, kid,” Bobby said. He walked into the room with a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. He pulled a thermometer out of it and handed it to Dean. “Here, check yourself first, then we’ll check the kids.”

“Ok.” Dean stuck it in his mouth while Bobby set about waking Sam up. Dean’s temperature was a little raised, just over 100. Sam’s was up around 101.1, which was still fine, but Adam’s was up at 103.2.

“Shit, alright, we’re going to the ER,” Bobby said, looking between the crying baby and the thermometer. “Dean, can you get everyone ready to leave while I go talk to the manager? And write a note for your Daddy so he knows where you are.”

Dean got both Sam and Adam both dressed in something semi-presentable before pulling on his own clothes. Adam wasn’t particularly interested in shoes, so Dean put him in a couple extra pairs of socks so his feet wouldn’t get cold. He felt too shitty to fight with the kid. He took the washcloth off of his head, peeling the tape off carefully so it wouldn’t hurt him, then he wrote a note telling Dad that they were going to the ER cause of Adam’s fever.

* * *

When Dad got back, they were still in the hospital. They’d admitted Adam to monitor him for the night since his fever had climbed up to 103.7. It was late, and Sam was curled up into one of the chairs by Adam’s bed, asleep. Adam had conked out a few hours before, Bobby was making notes on some old Russian grimoire, flipping between the leather-bound book, a Russian-English dictionary, and the notebook he was using to make his annotations and notes. It was never a good idea to write in a grimoire if you didn’t know what magic had been involved in making it, if any. Dean was watching some HBO show with the sound muted and the captions on so the noise wouldn’t disturb either of the kids. They’d given him and Sam some meds for the nausea, headaches, and congestion, so Dean was feeling a lot better.

Dad rushed into the room, looking between Dean, Sam, Adam, and Bobby like he wasn’t sure who to go to first. He settled on Adam, giving him a kiss on the forehead, then he did the same to Sam. He motioned for Bobby and Dean to follow him out into the hallway.

“Dean, report,” Dad told him.

Dean felt himself straighten up on instinct. “That stomach flu Adam had got worse. I tried to deal with it, but his fever felt too high and I was getting sick myself, so I called Uncle Bobby. He brought a thermometer with him. It showed Adam with a high fever, so we brought him here. They’re keeping him here overnight to monitor him, but he should be fine.”

Dad nodded. “You made the right call, Dean. Good job. Singer, thanks for driving down. Can you take Sam and Dean back to the motel for the night? I’ll stay with Adam.”

Dean wanted to argue with him. He wanted to stay with Adam, but the rational part of him knew he needed to go and get a real night’s sleep. The kid couldn’t be any safer than surrounded by Dad and a bunch of doctors.

“Sure, Winchester,” Bobby agreed. Dean could tell from his tone that he also wanted to start an argument with Dad, but Dean was fairly sure that argument wouldn’t be about who got to spend the night in the hospital with Adam. “Call the motel if anything happens.”

Dad nodded and walked back into the room. Dean followed him and shut off the TV before walking over to Sam and shaking him gently. “C’mon, buddy, we’re going back to the motel.”

“Dee?”

“Yeah. Dad’s back, so we’re gonna leave him here with Adam, and you and I are gonna go with Bobby.”

Sam yawned and stretched, uncurling himself from the chair. He blinked a few times, then his brain finally seemed to kick itself into gear. “Dad, you’re back!” he exclaimed in his best whisper-shout. He ran over to Dad and hugged him.

“Hey, Sammy,” Dad said, kneeling down so he was on the kid’s level to return his hug. “How you feeling, bud?”

“They gave us medicine downstairs, but before that, it was awful.”

“Yeah, I bet,” Dad said, ruffling Sam’s hair. “You go on with your Uncle Bobby, now. Go get some real sleep.”

“Ok, Dad,” Sam said, letting Dad go and heading over to Bobby. Dad stood up, and Dean gathered his and Sam’s coats before turning to go.

“Did ya kill it, Dad?” He asked, and he found he didn’t really care what the answer was. He was too tired to care; he’d asked out of habit.

He didn’t even know why he bothered asking. Dad always got it. The hunt was always his priority, even if his family wasn’t. Dean would bet that even if there had been some way to get in touch with Dad, Dad wouldn’t have come back any earlier than he had, not with lives on the line.

Chapter Text

Dad stuck around until Sam, Dean, and Adam all felt better. Bobby had left the day after Adam got out of the hospital, but not before having a yelling match with Dad in the parking lot. Once they were ready to get on the road again, Dad headed down towards Boulder so they could stay with Caleb for a couple of weeks. Dean liked Caleb. He was young; he’d been seventeen the first time Dean had met him, back when he was five. Caleb had been on his own after his parents were killed by a werewolf in 1983. Both he and Dad had been getting into hunting at the same time, and they’d become friends even with the age difference.

Caleb had agreed to babysit for a couple of weeks while Dad went demon hunting further up in the mountains. He was squatting in an abandoned hunting cabin, which meant Sam, Dean, and Adam were also squatting. Dean doubted anything would happen to them, though. Caleb had been using the place as a home base since the 80s. He’d hooked the place up to a generator so they had electricity, and the well the cabin was on gave them running water. The place had a wood-burning stove, which kept it warm without a central heating unit. It wasn’t bad, all things considered.

Caleb knew how to care for a baby about as well as Sam did, so Dean was still the one who had to change diapers and shove food down Adam’s gullet; at least he didn’t have to worry about affording the food, though. Caleb could worry about money until Dad got back.

“If demons are real, does that mean hell is?” Sam asked once he’d finished working his way through one of Caleb’s demonology books. It was one of the few Caleb had that was written in English, but even so, Sam had been reading it with a dictionary open next to him. It was definitely more advanced than Charlie and the Chocolate Factory had been.

“I don’t know, Sam,” Dean told him, not looking up from where he was changing Adam. He got the new diaper situated and poked Adam in the stomach lightly a few times, making him giggle. “I know when you exorcise demons, they go somewhere,” he thought of the black smoke pouring from Mrs. Lyle. “But I don’t know if that’s actual hell, or if it’s something else.”

“Can people go to hell?”

“I don’t know, maybe.” Dean hoped not. After killing the Deputy, he doubted he’d be taking the great up escalator in the sky. He picked Adam up from the table and bounced him on his hip. The kid had taken to chewing on the collar of Dean’s flannel whenever he held him, but he didn’t really care. Dean had gotten far worse substances than Adam’s spit on his clothes before.

“What about heaven, then? And angels? If demons are real, does that mean angels are?” Sam looked excited. Dean didn’t know how to answer. Mom would tell him that heaven and angels were real, that there was good in the world, that he was safe. Dad would say no. He’d say that angels were a fairytale. Dean didn’t think angels were real. None of the hunters Dean had met believed in them, and hunters were pretty open-minded when it came to myths. But Dean didn’t wanna take Sam’s hope away. “We can’t be sure, Sam. No one’s ever seen an angel.”

“But that doesn’t mean they aren’t real, does it?”

Dean shrugged and set to untangling his amulet from where Adam had wrapped it around his wrist. Dean had to start remembering to tuck the thing into his shirt. “I just don’t know, Sam.”

Sam looked put out, but he recovered pretty quickly. “Ok, so this book says that demons can walk among humans once they’re powerful enough, but I read one at Uncle Bobby’s that said that they have to possess a human. This one said they’re fallen angles, but that doesn’t make much sense, because–” Dean let Sam ask question after question, even though he didn’t know any of the answers. If the kid really wanted answers, he’d be asking Caleb, not Dean.

* * *

Dad started training Sam whenever he was around, like he had trained Dean. The kid now joined Dean for his morning workouts, and Dad started teaching him how to fight and shoot in earnest. He’d already taught the kid the basics of self-defense and firearm safety, but now Sam was learning how to be a hunter. A soldier.

Dean wished he could go back in time and stop Sam from reading the journal. He could see how the knowledge of the supernatural weighed on him. What had been annoyance whenever Dad would leave for a hunt became worry. He still bitched every time they moved around, but he quit asking why they were moving.

They reached a delicate sort of equilibrium by the end of February. Dad had found a job on a ranch up in Montana for the spring and summer, so they were staying in one place for a while. One of Bobby’s hunting buddies owned a two-bedroom condo about two hours away from the ranch that he let them rent for cheap while they were up there. He usually rented it out to college kids or vacationers, but since no one was renting it when Bobby called to ask about Dad staying there, they got it.

Dad was gone a lot that spring – he had to drive two hours each way every day to get to the ranch – but at least he was around. It wasn’t on Dean to figure out how to keep food on the table, and he knew how to get a hold of Dad if something was wrong. He liked when they stayed in one place long enough for Dean to get his sense of normalcy back.

Sam was still messed up about the existence of monsters. He, Dean, and Adam were sharing a room with two beds, so Dean could hear it when nightmares woke him up in the middle of the night. More often than not, he and Dean would end up crammed together on one of the little twin beds while Dean hummed Hey Jude until Sam fell asleep again. Dark circles had made a home on the kid’s face, and his grades were suffering. Where before he’d been a straight-A student, now he was making mostly Bs. Dean didn’t care what grades Sam was making, and neither did Dad, but Dean knew Sam took pride in his academics.

Dean tried to do what he could to help, but there wasn’t much he could do. He worked with Sam at every opportunity, showing him strikes and throws and holds so the kid could defend himself, and he let the kid start carrying a knife at school, but it didn’t seem to help. The kid was all but jumping at shadows.

Adam, at least, seemed to be doing just fine. He was smart for his age, like Sam had been, picking up new words every day. Kid was starting to get the hang of colors, which Dean was proud of him for. He was fairly sure most kids were supposed to learn colors in preschool or whatever. The daycare workers all seemed to like him, and he seemed to be coming along great for his age. Dean had had to spend the first few days they were at the condo moving everything out of reach, since Adam was in a putting everything in his mouth phase.

Dean was… Dean was fine. He was great, even. His grades were fine enough, and there was a girl in his grade, Brooke, who was really pretty. Dean started taking her on dates about two weeks after they’d moved to Montana, but he didn’t let himself get attached like he had with Lauren. He’d just have to leave eventually, so what was the point? Adam’s daycare lasted until five, so after school, Dean would take Sam to the arcade, the library, or the mall and leave him there while he hung out with Brooke. The kid could defend himself, and he knew what he was supposed to be on guard against. Dean didn’t feel bad leaving him alone. He spent virtually all of his time with the kid when they weren’t in school. Sam could let Dean have some time with Brooke.

Brooke was nice. She and Dean spent most of their time either hanging around the mall away from wherever Dean had left Sam or down at the skate park. Dean didn’t skate, but Brooke did. She was good, too, able to do all the tricks and shit. Brooke’s older brother, Travis, was also a skater, so they saw him hanging around a lot, too. Travis was sixteen, and he seemed to like Dean pretty well. He gave Brooke and Dean the occasional sip of beer, and he never tried to bust them when they were obviously making out behind the half-pipe.

Travis was pretty cool. He looked a lot like his sister, both with long brown hair and wide brown eyes. Travis’s hair was shorter than Brooke’s, only down to his shoulders, but it just made him look like one of those grunge stars rather than a girl or a hippie or something. His eyes were cool, too. He liked to wear eyeliner sometimes – but in a rockstar way, not a queer way – and it made his eyes really stand out. They were a deep brown, almost black. Brooke’s eyes were a little lighter, more milk chocolate than dark chocolate, and Dean secretly thought Travis had nicer eyes. Both were absolutely covered in freckles, but Dean liked that. It gave them character.

When Dean wasn’t spending time with Brooke, trying to teach Sam how to fight, taking care of Adam, or doing the basic household things Dad needed him to do, like cooking and cleaning – which was very rarely – Dean was trying to fix an old Walkman he’d found at a garage sale. He had been working on it in starts and stops for a while. It was good to fuck with on long car rides when Sam wasn’t demanding to be read to and Adam wasn’t being demanding in general. Dean liked doing that sort of thing, working with his hands, like when Dad would show him how to work on the Impala or Uncle Bobby would let him fuck around with the cars in the salvage yard.

* * *

Once it looked like Dad wasn’t gonna be dragging them away from Montana for a while, Sam started trying to make friends at school again. Dean was fucking thrilled. Maybe having someone other than just Dean to talk to would get the kid out of his funk about monsters. Maybe he’d be able to see that just because monsters were real didn’t mean that everyone was in constant danger all the time.

Sam made a little friend called Joel, who was, like, the exact opposite of how Sam was. Sam liked studying and reading, and Joel was big into sports. Sam wanted to make As as much as he could, and Joel was, like Dean, perfectly content with Cs and Ds. Sam was quiet and a little shy, and Joel was loud and friendly. Both kinda reminded Dean of puppies, but in completely different ways. They seemed to get along really well, though, so Dean wasn’t gonna question it. Sam started hanging with Joel whenever Dean was going out with Brooke, which worked out just fine. He was also spending his free time playing soccer instead of constantly studying and reading under Joel’s influence. Kid was finally acting his age. It was great.

Dean finally met Joel’s mom after she invited Dean, Sam, and Adam to dinner. Dean and Sam had walked across town to Joel’s house, with Dean carrying Adam. The kid wanted to walk part of the way, so Dean let him, holding his hand to keep him from face-planting into the concrete.

The house was pretty nice. It was in a decent, middle-class neighborhood, with a yard and a basketball hoop over the garage door. Dean was suddenly nervous. This was what he and Sam could’ve had, if not for Mom’s death. This was what Dean did have before Mom’s death.

Dean let Sam run ahead and ring the doorbell. Adam had given up on walking about three minutes after he’d insisted on walking, so Dean was carrying him again.

After a few seconds, the door opened to reveal a middle-aged woman wearing jeans and a blue turtleneck. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail, and she was smiling. If Dean were asked to picture a suburban mom, this would be the image that came to his mind.

“Hi, Mrs. Watts!” Sam exclaimed when he saw her. “Is Joel in his room?”

Mrs. Watts smiled at him fondly. “Hello, Sam. Yes, he’s in his room.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Watts!” Sam exclaimed before darting away into the belly of the house to find his friend, leaving Dean standing alone on the doorstep.

Mrs. Watts smiled at Dean. “You must be Dean and Adam, then. It’s so nice to meet you. Sam’s told me so much about you! My name’s Justine. I don’t mind if you use it, but you can call me Mrs. Watts if that’s more comfortable. Come on in.”

Dean followed her inside the house, already regretting his decision to accept her dinner invitation. He didn’t belong in a place like this. Not anymore. Probably not since he’d carried his little brother out of a house like this. Definitely not since he’d killed a man. “It’s nice to meet you, too, ma’am,” Dean told her, following her into the living room. There were family pictures on the walls, two smiling kids with their two smiling parents, and the floor was littered with children’s toys and dog toys. There was even a damn golden retriever napping on a cushion in the corner. Nobody could be that perfect. Dean wondered what skeletons were hiding in the Watts’ closets.

“I’m sorry about the mess. I asked the kids to clean up, but you know how that goes.”

Dean nodded, even though he had no fucking clue how that went. If Dean told Sam to clean his shit up, he did. “It’s no problem, ma’am.”

Mrs. Watts sat down on one end of the sofa and motioned for Dean to sit on the other end. “Dinner’s almost done, and my husband will be home in about fifteen minutes, so we’ll eat then. I’m so glad you were able to make it. It really is too bad your father had to work, though.”

“Yes, ma’am, it is a shame,” Dean replied. “He really appreciates this invitation, though, and he gives his apologies.” Dad hadn’t said any of that, just an “I’m working that night” and a request for Dean to let him watch the game in peace.

“Oh, of course. I’m always happy to meet Joel’s friends’ families. Sam talks about you a lot, like I said. Is it just you boys and your father? He’s never mentioned anyone else.”

“Yes, ma’am, it’s just the four of us.” Dean didn’t bother to elaborate. If she wanted to ask him what happened to Mom, she could ask point-blank. “He has to work a lot, but we get by.”

Mrs. Watts nodded along. “That must be tough. Has the adjustment been difficult?”

“Adjustment, ma’am?” What the fuck is she on about?

“Well, Adam’s only, what, a year and a half? That’s not a lot of time to adjust to not having a mother.” Her eyes were full of shallow sympathy, and Dean kinda wanted to rip them out of her skull. Fuck her and fuck her assumptions about Dean’s life.

“My mom died when I was four. Adam’s mom couldn’t take care of him, that’s why he’s with us. It was a hard adjustment eight years ago, ma’am, but I think we’ve moved past it.” Ok, so, they hadn’t actually moved past it. Dad was still trying to avenge Mom, and if he never managed it, Dean would spend his life trying to do the same. But Mrs. Watts didn’t need to know that.

“Oh! I’m so sorry! This is what I get; you know what they say about assumptions.” She laughed awkwardly, trying to clear the tension.

Dean took pity on her. “It’s alright, ma’am. Our situation is pretty unique.”

“Sam said that you all just moved here, is that right?” she asked, making a super-duper subtle attempt to change the subject.

“Yes, ma’am, we did.”

“How are you liking the area?”

“It’s beautiful up here.”

“Yeah? How’re you liking the school?”

“It’s just fine, ma’am.”

For most of the conversation, Adam had been content to sit quietly and twist Dean’s amulet back and forth, but then he noticed the dog. “Doggie!” Adam squealed, pointing at the golden retriever in the corner. “Dee! Doggie!”

“Yes, that is a doggie, Adam. Great job.”

“Want doggie,” Adam told him, a serious expression on his little face.

“We have to ask Mrs. Watts first.” Dean turned to her. “Is the dog safe for Adam to pet?”

Mrs. Watts nodded. “Oh, yes, he’s very friendly.” She whistled and called the dog – Rover, apparently, as if this family couldn’t be any more fucking stereotypical – over to the couch. He woke up from his nap, yawned, and trotted up to them, his tail wagging lazily behind him.

“Now, Adam, how do we ask Mrs. Watts if we can pet the dog?” Adam was still too young to really get it, but Dean was trying to teach him the value of saying “please” and “thank you.”

“Doggie?” Adam asked, looking over at Mrs. Watts pleadingly.

“What’s the magic word?” Dean asked.

“Thank you?” Adam tried.

“We say ‘please’ when we want something. ‘Thank you’ is for after we get it.”

“Please?” Adam said. “Doggie? Please?”

Dean smiled. “There you go. Good job, Adam.”

Mrs. Watts was smiling down at Adam in a way that made Dean think her husband was about to be in for a “let’s have another baby” conversation later that evening. “Of course, you can pet the dog, Adam. Thank you for asking me so nicely.”

Dean helped Adam hold out a hand for the dog to sniff, and Adam shrieked with laughter when the dog licked the hand. Dean let the kid pet the dog however he wanted, then, keeping half an eye on him to make sure he wasn’t gonna start yanking on the dog’s fur or ears, and he turned back to his conversation with Mrs. Watts. He didn’t pet the dog himself. He’d had too many close calls with various canine-shaped monsters over the years to care much for dogs. “You have a beautiful dog, Mrs. Watts.”

“Oh, thank you, Dean. That’s so nice of you to say. Now, where were we? Oh, yes, school. What grade are you in, again?”

And on it went until Mr. Watts finally made it home from work and took over for his wife on the small talk front so she could set the table and plate up dinner. If Dean had to answer one more question about restaurants he had or hadn’t tried around town, he’d pull out the 9mm Dad had given him to replace the .32 he’d outgrown and shoot himself.

Dinner itself was fine. Mrs. Watts was a serviceable cook, and Mr. Watts seemed perfectly content to ask his children about their days and let Sam, Joel, and Joel’s little sister, Gabby, ramble on about what they’d been doing, instead of trying to pull Dean into more meaningless conversation about the weather or whatever. Dean had Adam on his lap, since he hadn’t wanted to carry the highchair halfway across all creation, so most of his dinner was devoted to trying to keep Adam from throwing any food or getting into any of the stuff Dean had added hot sauce to.

Thankfully, Dean had the great excuse of needing to get home when Dad did to get himself out of there before he was sucked into more small talk by Mr. and Mrs. suburban perfection. Maybe the only skeleton hiding in their closet was that they were both really fucking boring.

Chapter Text

Dad had originally planned to stay in Montana until the summer was over, but then Ellen called with a lead on the thing that killed Mom less than a week before Sam’s birthday, and they were off. Dean didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to Brooke, but unlike with Lauren, it didn’t bother him. They hung out, they had fun, there were no feelings, so no one got hurt. It was a whole lot easier like that.

Ellen’s lead took them up into rural West Virginia, then the trail they were on just kept heading north, all the way up into Canada. Dad left Sam, Dean, and Adam in a motel room fairly close to Niagra Falls while he went to go chase it. Sam was sulking about having to leave Wyoming, and his nightmares had come back, even worse than they were before.

Dad was still in Canada the day before Sam’s ninth birthday, and Dean was gearing up to handle the fallout. He’d already made a cake and wrapped up the book he bought the kid, and he was thinking through what he could say to make Sam feel better. Dean knew what it was like to have Dad miss a birthday.

Dean was having trouble falling asleep again. The motel room Dad got for them only had one bed, but for once Sam wasn’t laying on top of Dean, leaving him free to toss and turn to his heart’s content.

At around three, Dean heard the rumble of the Impala in the parking lot. Apparently, Dad had made it back for Sam’s birthday after all. Dean slipped out of bed, silent, like Dad taught him, and waited by the door for him to get back.

“Hey, Dean,” Dad said, voice a whisper. He clapped Dean on the shoulder, but didn’t pull him in for a hug. The hunt went well.

“Hey, Dad. Did ya kill it?” Dean asked.

“Yeah, I got it. It wasn’t the thing that killed Mom, but it gave me information, got me closer to what really did. I might be able to get it before the year’s out.”

Wouldn’t that be something? An end to the hunt Dad had been on for almost nine years. What would they even do then, without that seemingly endless quest keeping them going? Dean wondered if they’d settle down somewhere, or if they would keep hunting. Saving people, hunting things, that was the tag line. But would Dad care about the first half if he’d gotten his revenge? Or was it just his justification for all the things he’d done in pursuit of his goal? A lot could be justified with the excuse of saving people. Dean had killed a cop. A human. And he was considered “justified” in his actions. Sam was terrified of the dark now, Dad was never home, and Adam hardly even knew Dad. Dean had been sleeping with a weapon – sometimes a gun, sometimes a knife, but always a weapon – under his pillow since he was six. Dean had no friends, Sam had no friends, and Adam wouldn’t have any friends once he was old enough to grasp the concept. But it was all justified because Dad was saving people.

Dean made up the shitty little sofa for Dad while he was in the shower, careful to stay quiet so he wouldn’t wake Adam or Sam. By the time Dad got back into the main room, Dean had already climbed back into bed. He was trying hard not to think about how Dad had made it all the way back from another fucking country to be there for Sam’s birthday, but he couldn’t have made the two hour drive from Windom down to Bobby’s back when he missed Dean’s eleventh. Dean had forgiven him for that, really, he had. But sometimes he wondered why Dad seemed to love Sam more. Dean did everything he was asked. He followed orders. He was a good soldier. Dean gave everything, but it was like Dad only had eyes for Sam a lot of the time. He still hugged Sam when his hunts went well; he hadn’t done that with Dean since he was seven.

Dean sighed and rolled onto his stomach. If he was thinking that sort of shit, it was time for bed. Dad didn’t have favorites. Sam was just more sensitive than Dean was, and Dad recognized that. Sam was still a kid, but Dean hadn’t really been one since he was four. Dad treated them differently because they were different people. They had different needs. If Dean had needed Dad to give him more hugs, Dad would’ve.

Sam rolled over in his sleep, muttering something that sounded a lot like “son of a bitch,” and kicked Dean in the shin before curling himself up so close to Dean he thought the kid was trying to merge their bodies together or something. Dean smiled and didn’t bother moving the arm Sam had trapped against his body. It would probably go numb, but it was fine. He didn’t wanna wake the kid.

* * *

Dad left almost as soon as they were done celebrating Sam’s birthday. People had started inexplicably killing themselves by walking out onto i-90 at exactly the same spot each time, which was a case that might as well have had a flashing neon sign advertising its connection to the supernatural. Before he left, Dad gave Dean some money, but Dean could already tell it wasn’t gonna be enough. Dad knew it too, if the apologetic wince he gave Dean once he’d counted it was any indication. Great.

“What do you think it is?” Sam asked, flipping back and forth through the pages of a book he’d found on witchcraft at a local thrift shop. It was mostly bullshit fake-Wiccan stuff, like dancing naked in field to focus healing energies or whatever, but there were a few simple white-magic spells in there that Dean knew would work as intended if performed by a witch. He’d told Sam that some of the spells in there were valid but not which ones, so the kid had taken it as a personal challenge to figure out which was which. Dean was just glad he was distracted from both the jumpiness he’d been feeling about the supernatural and the fact that they were missing the last few weeks of school. “Do you think it’s a possession of some kind?”

“I don’t know, Sam.” Dean was in the middle of cooking dinner. It was Mac-n-cheese surprise again, this time with hot dog bits, and – Dean glanced in the cabinet – marshmallows, a few ketchup packets, and some salt. Super. “It could be.”

“I don’t think it’s demonic if it is.”

“How come?”

“Because it doesn’t really fit with a demon’s MO. It’s probably a ghost possession if it’s anything.”

“Yeah, it does seem more like a ghost than anything else.” Ghosts were pretty notorious for having a pattern like that. Adam started fussing from where he’d been stacking and knocking down blocks. “Hey, Sam, can you come stir this while I change Adam?” Dean asked.

The kid rolled his eyes but got up and did it anyway. Sometimes, Dean debated the merits of smacking the kid and asking if he wanted to go change diapers.

* * *

Dad called after the suicide case was over to tell Dean that he’d found another case, which almost perfectly coincided with Dean running out of money. He almost told Dad to come back, but he couldn’t do it. There were lives on the line. Besides, they were staying close enough to Niagara Falls for there to be lots and lots of tourists with lots and lots of money ripe for the taking. Dean felt a little bad pick pocketing idiot tourists, but not that bad. If they didn’t wanna get robbed, they shouldn’t have been so stupid. Seriously, c’mon, who just carries around six hundred dollars in cash?

The score with the six-hundred-dollars guy meant they were set for a good long while. Dean was able to get some actual fruits and vegetables for Sam, which he knew was important, and he was able to get some more diaper rash cream for Adam. They’d been out since before Dad headed up to Canada, but Dean hadn’t had enough cash to buy him any more. When it was either no rash cream or no food, Dean would choose the rash any day. And if Adam was old enough to understand the dilemma, Dean was sure he would take the rash too.

* * *

When Dad finally made it back to the motel room to get Sam, Dean, and Adam, it was almost the end of June. He’d been calling regularly to check in, but he hadn’t physically made it back in about seven weeks. Dean had wondered a few times over the course of those weeks if Dad was coming back at all, or if he’d just decided it was easier to hunt alone and keep tabs on Sam, Dean, and Adam from afar.

Dad’s extended absence hadn’t done much to help Sam. The kid was still having nightmares almost every night, and Dean had switched from singing Hey Jude to Stairway to Heaven after Sammy got sick of Hey Jude. Dean could tell he was almost over Stairway to Heaven too, so Dean would have to find some other lullaby for him. Maybe Kansas’ Dust in the Wind or another one of the Beatles’ gentler songs, maybe Blackbird or something.

Sam had also created an imaginary friend for himself, some dude named Sully, which Dean thought was about as stupid as it got. Kid was nine, not three. On the occasions where Sully seemed just a bit too real to Sam, Dean wondered if the kid wasn’t actually seeing things, but every time he asked, Sam assured him that he knew Sully was just in his head. As long as the kid could tell fiction from reality it was all good in Dean’s book, even if it was fucking ridiculous to talk to a guy who didn’t exist.

After they’d left Upstate New York, they’d headed down towards a town near Baltimore for a haunting that wound up being nothing more than a stupid prank put on by some high school kids, then it was over into Kentucky to see about some mysteriously un-bear-like maulings. After that, it was the suburbs of Cincinnati, then some truck stop killings near Columbus, a werewolf case in the middle of Cleveland, another haunting in a little town about two hours from Pittsburgh, then down to Roanoke for a skinwalker case that turned out to be an outbreak of rabies. Then Dad left Sam, Dean, and Adam at the Harvelles’ for a few weeks while he checked out a demon thing in Iowa.

“Your brother is stupid,” Jo informed Dean as he unpacked his, Sam’s, and Adam’s stuff into the drawers in the guest room, a perfect mirror of their conversation about The Hobbit from last time. “He has an imaginary friend.”

“Yeah, he does have one of those,” Dean replied. “And he’s not stupid. Plenty of smart people have had imaginary friends.” Yeah, Dean might think the whole Sully thing was fucking stupid, but that didn’t mean Sam was stupid. He was nine for fuck’s sake.

Jo looked skeptical. “Why imagine friends? Why not just make them?”

Well, you see, kid, Dad hunts monsters out of myths and fairytales in order to save people, which kinda puts a damper on Sam’s social life. “We move around a lot, Jo. He doesn’t always have time.”

Jo rolled her eyes. “We have phones. He can call people.”

Dean loved Jo but she was starting to get on his nerves. “If you think Sam needs more friends, why don’t you go be his friend?”

Jo huffed. “Fine, I’ll go be his friend. But I’m not gonna pretend to talk to his imaginary friend.”

Dean chuckled as she ran off, presumably to find Sam and inflict herself on him. Dean finished getting the room set up for himself, Sam, and Adam, then headed down into the living room. Ellen was on the phone with someone, and Bill was napping on the couch. Jo and Sam were drawing on him in permanent marker, which Dean should probably have put a stop to, but he didn’t bother. At least the kids were getting along.

* * *

Dad came back two days later to pick Dean up for a werewolf hunt, leaving Sam and Adam with the Harvelles. Once the hunt was over, Dad heard about something else going on down in Kansas, sounded like a witch thing. Dad took Dean with him. Bodies were dropping too fast to take the time to drive him back up to the Harvelles’. Dad didn’t bother calling, but Dean found a payphone outside their motel room.

“How long will you be gone for?” Sam asked. Dean could tell he was trying not to whine.

“I don’t know, Sam. A few more days, maybe. That’s if Dad doesn’t find something else; you know how he is.”

“Can I come with you next time?” Sam asked. “I’ve been getting better at fighting, and I know how to kill everything in Dad’s journal. You know I almost beat you the last time we sparred.”

“Yeah, Sammy, I know. I’ll talk to Dad, alright?”

“Ok, Dean.”

“How’s Adam?”

“He keeps asking about you. It’s adorable. He hasn’t quite gotten to-be verbs down so it’s always ‘Where are Dean?’”

Dean chuckled. At least the kid was too young to stop accepting “not here” as the answer to that question. It had worked on Sam until he was about five, then he’d wanted to actually know where Dad was. “Tell him I’ll be back soon.”

“Will you? Be back soon?”

Dean resisted the urge to make a mean comment about Sam’s imaginary friend. “I already told you, I don’t know.”

“Yeah, ok.”

“Keep working on your aim, Sam. Maybe Dad’ll let you come along next time. And be good for Ellen and Bill.”

“Bye, Dean.”

“Bye, Sammy.”

Dean hung up the phone and sighed. He wasn’t gonna ask Dad if Sam could come along on hunts, because Dad might actually agree. Sam wasn’t getting anywhere near a hunt until he was at least in the double-digits. Dean had already been shooting for a year by the time he’d gone on his first hunt at seven, and Sam hadn’t learned to shoot until after this past Christmas. It was too early. Besides, he was too young. He was only nine. He didn’t need to face the things Dean had faced, to see the things Dean had seen. Not yet. Preferably not ever, but Dean knew better.

* * *

The witch’s curse of choice was a hex bag with some STD planted on a cheater or rapist. Fumbling drunk mistake cheaters got something mild, but the worst offenders were getting cases of HIV that progressed to AIDS within hours, leaving the victims dead within days. Medical intervention could do nothing for them. Dean secretly wondered why they were even bothering with this hunt. As far as he could tell, the witch was doing everyone a public service. But, rationally, he knew that she was killing people and still needed to be stopped.

Dad was the one who took the shot against the witch. She was in the middle of summoning a succubus demon, and black smoke was already starting to appear.

They hadn’t been planning on killing her, but they didn’t have a choice at that point. Killing a few child predators hardly even counted as murder, but fucking with demons was a sure way to get innocents killed.

* * *

After the witch, there was a black dog hunt further east, over in Missouri. Thing had already eaten two kids – that seemed to be fido’s favorite snack – and severely injured another one. The lore around black dogs was super vague, but from what Dean could tell, they seemed to be like regular dogs except bigger, stronger, faster, smarter, and meaner. More like grizzlies than dogs. And Dean was the perfect bait.

After almost getting his head taken off by the black dog, Dad took Dean down to a hunter bar about an hour from where the hunt had been. The place was dilapidated and worn-down, like the sort of place that probably didn’t have a valid liquor license. It made Dean’s skin crawl just looking at it, and inside was no better. While the roadhouse had a boisterous, friendly atmosphere to it, the sort of place hunters sometimes brought their older teenagers to, the place in Missouri was full of hard, mean-looking people who were eyeing Dean like he was a slab of meat. Or a mostly-naked stripper. It depended on the person. At least one of the men there was one Dean recognized from Ellen’s lifetime ban wall back in the kitchen. She put up names and pictures of everyone she gave a lifetime ban to so that she’d be sure they stayed out.

Dad found a hunter he knew named Noah Scott sitting at the bar. The guy was drinking with a couple of other guys, definitely more hunters. Last Dean had heard, Noah Scott was a solitary hunter, but the last time Dad had mentioned him had been at least six years ago. Things could have easily changed in that time.

“John Winchester, as I live and breathe! And, no, don’t tell me. That can’t be your boy, John. Kid’s almost up to your shoulder!”

“Scott, good to see ya.” Dad put a heavy hand on Dean’s shoulder, shaking him lightly. “Dean and I just finished up a black dog hunt about an hour and a half out of St. Louis. We’re celebrating.”

“Well, in that case, let me buy you a beer.”

Dad made the customary sounds of protest, but took the offered beer anyway. He was all smiles until Scott handed a beer to Dean. “He’s thirteen, Scott.”

Scott laughed. “C’mon, Winchester. What’s one beer gonna hurt? You’re celebrating.”

Dad shrugged and let Dean have it.

Dean drank it nice and slow. This wasn’t the sort of bar he wanted to get drunk in, even though Dad didn’t seem to be adverse to the idea. Dean kept quiet, letting the conversation Dad was having with the other hunters rise and fall around him. It was a lot of dick-measuring and posturing, claims of single-handedly clearing entire werewolf packs or witch covens that made Dean roll his eyes. It was like the fish that got away; he’d believe it when he saw it.

Then the conversation turned from hunting to more personal shit, Scott’s niece’s nursing school applications, Herrera’s kids’ dance recitals and hockey games, Dunlap’s little brother’s next deployment, Combs’ daughter’s engagement, and finally Dean. Dad recounted a few of Dean’s hunts, proudly declaring that he’d shot a wraith right between the eyes with a silver bullet when he was only eleven.

“Nah, you’re making that up. I couldn’ta made that shot and no way is that kid better’n me,” Combs declared, waving his bottle around.

“You callin’ me a liar, Combs?” Dad asked.

“Now, he ain’t sayin’ he didn’t shoot no wraith, Winchester, just that he ain’t as good a shot as you been sayin’,” Dunlap added. He was already a few too many drinks deep, somewhere between tipsy and drunk.

“You wanna put money on it, Dunlap? I’ll bet you how ever much you want that my boy can out shoot any of you,” Dad said. Dean had been expecting him to start a bar fight. He had not been expecting that. Fuck.

“Oh, you’re on, Winchester!” And then they were tossing cash at the bartender and filing out of the bar so they could set bottles up on a nearby fence. Dad walked next to Dean, swaying a bit, but not drunk enough that Dean needed to help him.

Dad put a hand on Dean’s shoulder, squeezing just a little bit too hard. “Don’t worry, Dean. It’s just like hustling pool.”

Yeah, except with drunk hunters and firearms. Dean didn’t say anything as Dunlap set up the first round of cans and then counted back his paces. “Alright, fifty bucks says I can get more cans from here than your boy can,” Dunlap told Dad, pulling out his wallet. “Is everyone shooting tonight?”

“Nah, man, I’m so drunk I’m seeing double the bottles,” Herrera said. “I’ll hold the money.”

“We’ll use your gun too. Ain’t none of us ever shot it before. Levels the playing field,” Dunlap said.

“You’re just saying that cause a wendigo ate your 9mm,” Scott said, shoving Dunlap.

There was more bickering and arguing, but it was finally decided that they would use Herrera’s .357. Dunlap shot first, and he hit five out of six of the bottles. Pretty good with how drunk he was. They reset the bottles, and Dean shot next. Six out of six. The money went to Dad.

They kept going like that, upping the paces, changing the targets, adding obstacles or movement. Dean hit every target except one. None of the others could make either, so Dad didn’t lose out on his money. They made almost seven hundred dollars doing that.

Dad clasped Dean’s shoulder again, grip even heavier as they made their way back to the Impala, the smell of alcohol heavy on his breath. “I’m proud of you, Dean. Hey, why don’t you drive for a little while? I gotta sleep it off.”