Chapter Text
TRIGGER WARNING: EXPLICIT DEPICTION OF CHILD ABUSE
The night their dad almost broke his little brother’s nose was the night Dean Winchester decided he was getting out, and he was taking Sammy with him.
Dean couldn’t remember what had set John off that night: he had returned to their motel room late, reeking of booze and blood and laid into Dean for…..something. The weapons that Dean had left on the table after he had stripped and cleaned them? The lack of food in the tiny motel kitchen? Sam’s boots lying in the middle of the floor that John tripped over when he’d stumbled in? Who knows. Whatever it was, John hadn’t been satisfied with Dean’s answers - maybe Dean had been talking back, being a smartass, he sometimes was, he knew that - and had shoved Dean into a wall.
Dean thought maybe he’d unthinkingly shoved his dad back, or something, and then all Dean remembered was falling to the floor in pain as John wailed on him, John yelling but Dean not hearing it over the sound of fists hitting flesh and the ringing in his ears. Then -
“Dad, no!”
Dean looked up in time to see his little brother - tall, gangly, thirteen year old Sam who looked like a strong wind could knock him over - jump out of bed to grab at their dad’s shoulder to try and pull him off Dean.
John had reacted instinctively to the attack from his rear, spinning around and throwing a punch that caught Sam straight between the eyes.
Sam had let out a cry and staggered back, his hands flying to his face, his eyes wide open as he looked at his father with surprise and hurt. John’s arm was still cocked, ready to make another strike, but the sight of his youngest son with blood pouring from the hands cupped around his nose had made him freeze.
Dean scrambled off the floor and staggered past his immobile father over to Sam. “Hey, Sammy, hey, hey, lemme take a look, it’s okay, let me see…..” He reached out and cupped Sam’s face with gentle hands.
Sam dropped his hand slightly, and Dean swallowed the bile that rose in his throat at the sight of Sam, eyes already swelling with what would be a set of spectacular black eyes in the morning, his nose, mouth and chin covered in blood.
“Okay, let’s get you into the bathroom, get you cleaned up, okay Sammy? You’re okay, let’s just get you cleaned up…..”
Dean continued to talk, his voice low and reassuring. He wrapped his arm around his brother and steered him towards the small motel bathroom.
The movement seemed to snap John out of his trance. “Sam -” he croaked, stepping towards his sons as they passed them. “Sam, I’m -”
Dean closed the bathroom door in his face.
The first aid kit was in Dean’s duffle at the end of his bed, but Dean could make do: there wasn’t much he could do for a punch to the nose anyway. He examined Sam, trying to be gentle even as Sam winced and flinched under his touch, and was relieved to find that Sam’s nose wasn’t broken. Dean stuffed wads of toilet paper up Sammy’s nose to stop the bleeding and used the motel’s shitty towels and tiny bar of soap to wash all the blood (and the tears, but Dean pretended not to notice those) off his face, all the time reassuring Sam that it looked worse that it was, that was he was going to be okay. Sammy’s pajama shirt was a lost cause, so that got tossed in the bin with the towels, and Dean slipped his own t-shirt over Sam’s head, noting absently that despite their four year age difference, Dean’s shirt fit Sam almost perfectly.
Then, he just crouched there, hugging his kid brother, waiting to hear the sounds of snores rumble through the wall to let Dean know that John had passed out and it was safe to leave the bathroom. When nothing but silence came from the motel room, Dean chanced a peek through the door.
John was gone.
Sam was finally asleep.
Dean had watched Sam toss and turn in his bed, trying to find a position that didn’t hurt his face for at least an hour before the exhaustion had hit and the boy had fallen asleep. When the snores started, Dean snuck out of the motel room and grabbed a bucket of ice from the rusting ice machine out front. He sat on the other bed - fuck John, he could sleep on the couch if he came back, it was the least he could do - the ice wrapped up in one of his t-shirts and pressed against the worst of the bruises on his face, thinking.
He’d fucked up.
Dean’s job, for as long as he could remember, had been to take care of his little brother. He’d carried Sam out of their burning home in Kansas when he was four years old and he hadn’t stopped looking after the kid since. He didn’t have such a stellar track record - Dean closed his eyes at the lick of shame the memory of the Shtriga brought up - but he tried. He tried so fucking hard.
And yet, here Sam was. Hurt.
But it was different this time.
Dean was supposed to keep Sam safe from the monsters. Ghosts. Werewolves. Witches. Things that went bump in the night.
He wasn’t supposed to have to protect him from family. Family was supposed to protect you.
And here’s the thing: Dean knew that what had happened tonight had been an accident. John hadn’t meant to hit Sam. Dad would never intentionally hurt Sam. He loved Sam. Dean sometimes thought that Dad loved Sam more than he loved him. But even so, he’d hurt Sam. And Dean knew that if he’d done it once, he’d probably do it again.
Family wasn’t supposed to hurt you.
Dean shifted the make-shift ice pack to his jaw and closed his eyes.
He wasn’t worried about himself. John’s fists were nothing new. Dean was strong: he could take it. And he was pretty sure he deserved it, most of the time. But Sam?
Dean opened his eyes again, staring at Sam’s sleeping form, watching his chest rise and fall. Sam was different. Sam was a good kid. And he was smart, way smarter than Dean was. And Dean knew that Sam hated hunting. He was good at it - Dean was both proud and ashamed of how good Sam had become at hunting - but Dean knew Sam hated it. He knew that all Sam wanted was to be a normal kid, have a normal life. A normal family.
Dad always said that family was important. They didn’t have a lot of family, the Winchester men, so they had to stick together. That was part of the rules Dean lived his life by: shoot first, ask questions later. Watch out for Sammy. Winchesters had to stick together.
But what about when the rules contradicted each other? Which rule was more important: family sticking together or watching out for Sam? Dean felt his heart start to race and the hand holding the ice pack started to shake as he thought about it. He would do anything for Sam. And he would do anything for his dad. But if it came down to Dad or Sammy, who would Dean choose? Could he choose? Dean felt like his brain was going to short circuit as it tried desperately to work out how he could follow both rules at once, and failed dismally.
Fuck. Dean squeezed his eyes shut, pushing down at the panic building in his chest, concentrating on his breathing until he felt his body calm. He could do this. He had to do this. For Sam. Dean wasn’t just some kid. He was a hunter. A Winchester. And he was going to be eighteen soon. Eighteen meant an adult.
A trickle of water down his neck interrupted Dean’s thoughts: the ice was melting. He got up and crossed the room to the small bathroom and dumped the ice in the sink, hanging the t-shirt over the shower rail to dry. Returning to the bed, Dean lay down and stared at the ceiling, thoughts whirling, stomach tied up in knots, until he too fell asleep.
Dean dreamed of monsters, of Sam and John both in trouble, both screaming at him to save them, and Dean frozen between them, unable to choose.
As Dean slept, a garrison of angels watched.
They had been ordered a millenia ago, to watch over humanity. Time was meaningless in Heaven, but it felt like very recently that new orders had filtered down through the ranks to the leader of the garrison: keep watching over humanity but watch over the Winchester family in particular.
None of the angels knew what made the Winchester family so special to warrant special angelic surveillance. Or what exactly they were watching for. But theirs was not to question why: theirs was to simply follow orders.
And so they watched.
John hadn’t returned by the time Dean and Sam woke up the next morning.
Dean called Sam’s school and fed them a story about Sam being sick with a stomach bug. He assured the receptionist that Sam was fine, but that it was probably best if he didn’t attend classes today, if she knew what he meant, and that Sam’s older brother would come by in the afternoon to pick up any homework Sam’s teachers had assigned.
Sam, watching Dean make the call through two spectacular black eyes, pouted.
“You love it,” Dean told him, snapping the phone shut. “You wouldn’t know what to do with yourself if you didn’t have your nose in a book.”
“Yeah, a book,” Sam whined. “Not homework.”
Smirking a little, Dean shoved his hand into his jean’s pocket and pulled out a depressingly thin wad of cash. He quickly counted it and made a few calculations, then shoved the notes back into his pocket and waved at Sam.
“C’mon kid, get up.”
“Why? I can’t go anywhere,” Sam said, gesturing to his face. “Look at me.”
“You can’t go anywhere there are people,” Dean corrected. “However,” he said, reaching into the weapons bag still lying on the table and pulling out one of the pistols, “the Winchester School of Monster Hunting is 100% people free.”
Sam grimaced, but hauled himself out of bed and stomped to the bathroom. Dean stared at the closed door for a long moment, and then carefully put the pistol back in the bag and zipped it shut.
Dean drove around the outskirts of town until he found what he thought was the perfect spot: a relatively flat clearing in the forest, close enough to the road that the sound of gunshots could be explained by cars backfiring, but not so close that someone would easily stumble across them and wonder what the boys were doing.
Dean considered the array of weapons in the duffle and decided to go easy on Sam. After Sam had proved he could load and unload the .45 caliber pistol Dean handed him, Dean set up a line of cans that he’d rescued from the trash for target practice. He watched Sam shoot, occasionally stepping forward to adjust Sam’s stance or correct his aim. When Sam could hit every can dead centre on the first try, Dean started tossing the cans in the air, because hitting a stationary target was one thing, but hitting a monster running towards you at full speed was something else.
Seeing Sam’s arms start to shake from the strain of holding the pistol, Dean switched to hand-to-hand and self-defence, making Sam put up a high guard over and over again until he could avoid a punch to the face. The “next time” remained unspoken, but they both knew it was there.
Finally, when both he and Sam were both sweating and shivering in the cold air, Dean called a halt to the lesson. He drove them to the Piggly Wiggly and, leaving Sam hunched down in the car in case anyone looked through the windows and started worrying about the kid with the black eyes in a car all by himself, tried to buy as much food as he could with his meagre supply of cash. Bruised bananas, day-old bread, off-brand peanut butter, a carton of milk with quick-sale stickers on them. Dean stared far too long at a display of strawberries before slowly putting a carton in his basket: Sam deserved something nice for once, Dean decided, and Dean could handle missing a meal or two if it meant he could make Sam smile. The way Sam had lit up when he’d bit into a bright red berry, juice trickling down his chin, had been worth it.
On the way back to the motel, they swung past Sam’s school and Dean picked up the homework the receptionist - Marjorie, she told Dean with a sweep of her eyes and slow smile - had collected for Sam.
When they walked into the motel room, Dean laughing at the bitch-face Sam had just pulled in response to something Dean had said, both of them froze at the sight of their father sitting at the little table in the kitchenette, back straight, eyes fixed on Sam and Dean.
“Where have you been?” he asked, his voice flat. Dean pulled the door shut behind him and automatically straightened to attention.
“School,” Dean said, and Sam held up the packet of papers he was holding. “Picked up Sammy’s homework.”
“That took all afternoon?”
Dean saw John eye the weapons bag over Dean’s shoulder. “Took Sam out for some target practice,” he confessed quietly.
John nodded. “Hope you didn’t waste too much ammunition,” he said. “Bullets don’t grow on trees.”
“No sir,” Dean said, feeling the sick burn of guilt as he thought about how many rounds they had gone through.
John stood. Slowly, he walked over to Sam, grabbing his chin and tilting Sam’s head back, twisting it side to side as he silently examined Sam’s bruised eyes and swollen nose.
“You okay?” he asked Sam. Sam nodded.
“You need to get your guard up quicker,” he said finally, dropping his hand to Sam’s shoulder.
Sam nodded. “Dean showed me,” he said.
John nodded, apparently satisfied. He slid his hand around Sam’s shoulders and steered him over to the table. “You hungry? I picked up some food. I got some Lucky Charms, I know they’re your favourite. There’s milk in the fridge.”
“Uh,” Sam said, and shot a panicked look at Dean over his shoulder. Dean gave a small encouraging nod. “Thanks, Dad,” Sam said, carefully putting Dean’s pathetic-looking groceries down behind the brown paper sacks before pulling out the cereal and staring down at the box.
John walked over to Dean, cupping one hand on the side of his face and staring down at him, face inscrutable. Dean wondered what his dad saw, what he was thinking. Would he apologise for last night? Thank Dean for taking care of Sam? Finally, John patted Dean on the cheek.
“Don’t forget to clean the guns,” he said, and turned back to Sam, helping him to unpack all the food he’d bought. Which, Dean could see, was all Sam’s favourite food.
“Yes sir,” Dean said quietly.
The morning of Dean’s eighteenth birthday, Dean woke expecting to feel different. He was an adult now. Older. Wiser. More responsible. Supposedly.
Dean didn’t feel older. Or wiser. But he did feel more responsible, the weight of adulthood heavy on his shoulders.
John had been on his best behaviour for the past few weeks, but Dean had kept a watchful eye on him, waiting for the other shoe to drop. It always did. Eventually. But Dean didn’t want to be there when it did. He still wasn’t sure that he’d made the right decision, or even when he’d made the decision, but Dean had decided: he couldn’t stay. They couldn’t stay. He couldn’t spend the next few years on tenterhooks, ready to throw himself between Sam and John at the first sign of trouble. So, Dean had decided he had to leave. And he had to take Sam with him.
The problem, Dean had realised, was the ‘how’: how to get away. Dean knew he could leave on his own, could just slip away in the middle of the night, but it would be harder to do it with Sam in tow. Two strange teenage boys would stick out like sore thumbs in the kind of small towns John usually dragged them to. Dean didn’t have a car, and while he probably could steal one, eighteen meant adult prison if he got caught, and he couldn’t risk abandoning Sam by getting sent away for grand theft auto. Bus tickets were expensive and too easy to track, and two boys hitch-hiking would draw too much attention. So Dean watched, and waited for something. A sign, maybe. He wasn’t sure.
When Sam noticed that Dean was awake, his face lit up with excitement. “Happy birthday Dean!” he exclaimed, and Dean felt a pang in his heart for this kid who had had so much of his childhood taken away, and yet still acted as though birthdays were the best day in the world.
Dean let Sam hug him, and then pushed him away. “Alright, alright,” he grumbled half-heartedly.
Sam shot an impatient look over to John, who was sitting at the table in the kitchen, nursing a cup of coffee. John smiled. “Let Dean get dressed first, Sammy,” he said affectionately. “A man can’t go to his birthday breakfast in his skivvies.”
Sam rounded on Dean. “Hurry up, Dean!” he urged.
Biting back a smile at Sam’s enthusiasm - you’d think it was the kid’s birthday, the way he was acting - Dean hurried to the bathroom, grabbing up some clothes from his duffle on the way.
John didn’t tend to make a big deal out of birthdays, but the Winchesters did have one birthday tradition: pancake breakfasts. When they were younger, they would go to the diner in whatever town they were in and John would proudly announce that it was his boy’s birthday, and ask the waitress if they had any candles to put on top of a short stack of pancakes. Nine times out of ten, the pancakes would come out with a candle on top, or ‘happy birthday’ written in chocolate sauce on the plate. Once, Dean remembered, a busty red-headed waitress had upgraded Sam’s order to a full stack and told John that it was “on the house,” while giving him a suggestive wink.
They hadn’t had candles on their pancakes for a while now.
It was a Tuesday, and Sam should have been in school, but neither Dean nor Sam said anything as they climbed into the Impala and John drove them to the nearest diner. The diner was busy, but they were able to grab the booth in the corner of the room. John slid onto the bench against the wall, and Dean pushed Sam to slide in on the other side, and then sat next to him. His skin crawled having to put his back to the door, but his dad was watching it, and Dean trusted him.
Dean quickly scanned the laminated menu, his eyes flicking up to John.
“Order whatever you want,” John said, raising a hand to flag down the waitress.
Dean happily ordered a short stack with bacon, scrambled eggs and a black coffee, and added on a side order of home fries because Sam almost always wanted them but would never order them for himself.
Sitting next to him, Sam was almost vibrating with anticipation, looking between John and Dean. “Can we -?” he asked John.
Chuckling, John nodded, waving for Sam to go ahead. Grinning, Sam reached behind him and pulled out a package, holding out for Dean. “Happy birthday!” he said.
Surprised - how had Sammy kept that hidden from him? - Dean took the package from Sam and looked at it. It was lumpy, wrapped in letterbox circulars and far too much sello-tape, but Dean could see that Sam had tried to make it neat. “You got me a present?” he asked, quickly looking at John. John shook his head, his face telling Dean that he had nothing to do with it.
“Open it!” Sam said.
Smiling at Sam’s eagerness, Dean said “alright, alright!” and carefully ripped the paper open.
Inside, he found a green-and-black flannel shirt carefully folded around an AC/DC cassette tape with a crack on the back of the case and a dog-eared copy of “Fight Club.”
“The man at the shop said that if you liked “Slaughterhouse Five” then you’d like “Fight Club,” Sam explained.
Dean looked up from the pile of offerings and saw Sam looking at him anxiously, worried that Dean didn’t like the presents. With a smile, he reached out and pulled Sam into a hug. “C’mere,” he said, and squeezed his brother tight.
“I love it, thank you,” he whispered into Sam’s ear, and smiled back at Sam when the kid pulled back.
“Happy birthday, Dean,” Sam said, no embarrassment, no awkwardness, just happiness that he’d made his brother happy.
Dean sat back, and looked over to see John place a brown paper bag on the table in front of Dean.
“For me?” Dean asked, and grabbed the bag when John nodded.
“Don’t take it out, though,” John warned, so Dean unfolded the top of the bag and peered inside.
“Oh, uh, thanks, Dad,” Dean said awkwardly, staring into the bag to see three boxes of .45 caliber ammunition.
“Maybe you’ll think twice about wasting them if they’re your bullets,” John said, and Dean felt his stomach sink.
Thankfully, right at that moment the waitress arrived with their food, and Dean was able to focus on helping her pass the plates around the table, and not on the rather shitty present his dad had just given him. Not that he had expected anything from his dad, not really. And it was practical. But c’mon.
The pancakes were good, though.
After the last of the food disappeared from Dean’s plate, John cleared his throat. “There’s one more thing,” he said. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small cardboard box, placing it gently in the middle of the table.
Dean looked at it.
“Go on,” John encouraged, and with a quick look at Sam, who beamed at him, Dean picked up the box and lifted the lid.
Inside was a key. A key, dull with wear, hanging to a simple keyring, a shiny silver bullet hanging next to it. Dean frowned, not understanding what it was. The key looked familiar though, like…..
The Impala.
It was the key to the Impala.
“Dad?” Dean stared at John in shock.
“You’re a man now, Dean. A man needs a car. So she’s all yours. Take good care of her.”
“Are you serious?”
Dean knew how much the Impala meant to his dad. John must have told them the stories a thousand times: how he’d come home from ‘Nam and intended to buy a VW bus because he wanted to impress their mom with how serious he was about starting a family, but changed his mind after he'd seen the Impala in the lot. How he’d proposed to mom in the car, and how he was pretty sure that one of them was conceived in the back seat (Dean and Sam always screwed up their faces and cried “ew” at that part of the story). The Impala had been a part of Dad’s life for more than twenty years, and now he was giving it to Dean?
“Happy birthday, son,” John said softly, as though pleased with Dean’s reaction.
Dean wasn’t sure what this meant, that his dad was handing over his pride and joy to Dean. Was this John’s way of saying that he recognised that Dean had grown up? That Dean could be trusted? Or was it a test, like last year, just one more way that Dean could fuck up and disappoint his dad again?
Dean moved to pull the key from the gift box, and looked at his dad. John looked back, his gaze steady and warm.
“Go on,” John said, chuckling at Dean’s hesitancy.
Fuck it. It might be a trap, but Dean wasn’t going to look a gift Impala in the hood. “C’mon, Sam!” Dean said, grabbing up his birthday presents and sliding out of the booth, Sam scrambling to join him.
As Sam ran for the door, Dean stopped for a moment, and turned back to the table. “Thanks, Dad,” he said, trying to put everything he was feeling into those two words. It must have worked: John nodded and then waved his hand. “Well? What are you waiting for?”
Dean grinned and ran out of the diner.
Sam was waiting next to the Impala, almost vibrating with excitement. Quickly Dean unlocked the car and slid behind the wheel, taking a moment to run his hands reverently up and down the steering wheel.
“Hello, beautiful,” he whispered.
“Should I leave you two alone?” Sam said snarkily from the passenger seat.
“Shut up, bitch,” Dean said, not even looking at Sam. He took his time: moving the bench seat to suit his legs (and ignoring Sam’s groan as he had to bend his beanpole legs up), adjusting the mirrors so he could see what was behind him with just a flick of his eyes.
Finally, Dean slid the key into the ignition and started the engine over, closing his eyes at the rumbling purr he could feel in his bones.
“Here,” Dean said, grabbing the AC/DC tape that Sam had given him and tossing it at Sam. “Put that on.”
“Really?” Sam complained, even as he opened the case and pulled the cassette out.
“Driver picks the music, Sammy,” Dean said happily, double checking his surroundings before backing the Impala out and driving towards the parking lot exit. “Shotgun shuts his cake hole.”
As the sound of church bells reverberated through the car’s stereo, Dean steered the car towards the highway.
“Where are we going?” Sam asked.
“Wherever we want, Sammy,” Dean said, smiling at his younger brother. “Wherever we want.”
And they could now, Dean realised. He had a car. He had a way to get Sam away.
Now all Dean needed to do was wait for the right time.
The ‘right time’ came a month later.
Right when Sam’s school let out for spring break, John got a call about a case and took off. He didn’t tell them where he was going, just that he was going and that he’d be back in a week. He threw a wad of notes on the table, told Dean to look after Sam, and stalked out the door.
The door had barely snicked closed behind their father when Dean was on his feet, grabbing his duffle and throwing his things into it.
“C’mon, Sam, get packing,” he told his brother.
“What? Where are we going?” Sam asked, confused. “Dad told us to stay here.”
“It’s Spring Break, Sammy. Let’s have some fun!”
Sam hesitated.
“C’mon, Sammy. You really want to sit around this dump of a motel all week? I got the car, we got some cash, let’s go!” Dean dangled the Impala keys invitingly and then shoved them back into his pocket, turning back to packing.
Dean watched out of the corner of his eye as, uncertainty radiating from his gangly frame, Sam quietly gathered up his clothes and books and shoved them into his own army surplus duffle. At Dean’s “grab the food, too,” Sam moved to the small kitchenette and efficiently stripped the cupboards of all the snacks, making sandwiches with the last of the bread and fixings and filling their thermoses with coffee.
“Okay, I’m ready,” Sam said, holding a plastic grocery bag with the food in one hand and his duffle in the other.
“Go throw those in the car,” Dean told him. “I’ll be right out.”
As Sam walked out, Dean turned to survey the room. It was empty: not the empty of people going about their business, intending to return at the end of the day, but the empty of people leaving and never coming back.
Quickly, Dean grabbed the complimentary notepad and pen that the motel had left in the room, and wrote a quick note. He didn’t want to - part of Dean just wanted to run, disappear without a word - but the sensible part, the grown up part, knew that leaving without a note would just cause John to panic, to think something had got them, and that he would tear the world apart trying to find Sam. And maybe him too, Dean thought hopefully. And while he didn’t think there was anything that he could write that would convince John not to look for them, Dean hoped he could slow him down a little.
Dad,
I’m leaving, and I’m taking Sam with me.
Don’t look for us.
I’m sorry.
- D.
Propping the note up on the small kitchen table, Dean laid the motel key in front of it and then walked out the room, pulling the door shut behind him before he could change his mind.
Sam was already in the front seat when Dean climbed behind the wheel and slammed the car door shut. He put his hands on the steering wheel and let out a breath.
“So. Where to first, Sammy?” Dean said, turning to look at Sam expectantly.
“What?” Sam looked at Dean in confusion.
“It’s your Spring Break. We got five days before you gotta be back for school. Where do you want to go?”
They went down to Houston, and Dean spent a day watching fondly as Sam geeked out at the NASA Space Centre. They drove across to New Orleans, and Sam laughed as Dean got powdered sugar from beignets all over his face and shirt. Then they slowly meandered their way up north, Sam consulting a tourist guide he’d picked up at a gas station and begging Dean to go and see “must see” sights like Dinosaur World in Arkansas.
As they drove through Missouri, Sam straightened. “Where are we going?” he asked Dean. “This isn’t the way back.”
Dean didn’t answer for a long moment, his eyes carefully tracking the road in front of them. Finally he said, “We’re not going back.”
Sam stared at Dean. “What do you mean, we’re not going back?”
Dean chewed on his lip, eyes still on the road. “We’re leaving Dad, Sammy. Well, I’m leaving, and I’m taking you with me.”
Sam’s eyes went wide. “You can’t just - Dean! We can’t -”
"Why not, Sam?” Dean shot back. “I’m eighteen, now. I’m an adult, and I’m not sticking around to watch Dad turn you into his punching bag! You can’t stay there, so like it or not, you’re coming with me.”
Sam sputtered next to him. “But - what -"
“What, you want to go back? Dad hit you, Sam!” Dean said, incredulous.
“Once!” Sam exclaimed. “It was an accident! And he hits you too! All the time!”
“Yeah, but - “
“But what? It’s okay when he hits you?”
Dean shook his head. “That’s different, that’s -”
“It’s not different,” Sam argued.
“It is, Sammy, you don’t deserve to be treated like that!”
“Oh, and you do?” shot back Sam, and for a moment, Dean couldn’t speak, didn’t know how to answer. Because how do you tell your thirteen year old brother that yes, sometimes you did feel like you deserved it?
He stole a glance at Sam out of the corner of his eye, and saw Sam staring at him, horrified.
“Dean -”
“I promised Dad that I would take care of you, Sammy,” Dean said gruffly. “I know I haven’t done such a bang up job of that in the past, but right now? This is how I take care of you. By getting you out of there.”
“But - Dad! We can’t just leave Dad -”
“Why not? He leaves us, Sam. All the time.”
Sam was silent.
In the face of Sam’s silence, Dean was torn. In all his worrying and planning, he’d never thought that maybe Sam would fight him on leaving. He’d thought he was doing the right thing, that he’d made the right choice, choosing Sam over Dad, choosing to keep Sam safe over family sticking together. But now…..Dean took a deep breath. It was fine. They could still come back from this: Dean could just drive them back to the motel, Dad would never know they’d been gone. He could just be more vigilant, keep a closer eye on John, do his job better. No fucking up this time.
But as Dean looked over at Sam, the memory of his brother with blood pouring out of his nose, his eyes almost swollen shut flashed through his mind, and a voice inside Dean’s mind said No. You got him out. Now finish the job. Keep him safe .
“Look. Just….I have a plan, okay? We’ll get a place, I’ll get a job. Settle down somewhere. No more hunting. Just a normal life. You want that, right? A normal life? School, friends, a bedroom of your own you can plaster with posters of Leonardo DiCaprio?” Dean pleaded, glancing at Sam.
Sam still didn’t say anything, just stared out the passenger window. For a few minutes the only sound was the rush of the tires on the road. Clearing his throat, Dean tried again.
“Let’s just go to Bobby’s, okay? Just for a bit. We’ve still got a few days before school starts again. We’ll go to Bobby’s, I’ll sort a few things out, and if you really want……” Dean took a breath. “If you really want, then I’ll take you back.”
“Bobby?” Sam said. “Are you sure Bobby’s gonna want to help us? Last time…..” Sam’s voice trailed off.
Dean nodded. He remembered the last time they’d been at Bobby’s. Watching from the front seat of the Impala as Dad stormed up to the house, coming back a moment later with his hand locked around Sam’s upper arm, dragging the kid to the car, Bobby chasing John out the door, yelling at him, shotgun cocked and aimed right at Dad’s head. They hadn’t seen Bobby since.
“What about Pastor Jim? Why can’t we go there?” Sam asked plaintively.
“Because Pastor Jim and Dad are friends. What’s the first thing Pastor Jim’d do if we showed up on his doorstep?”
“Call Dad,” Sam answered immediately.
“Exactly. He’d call Dad. Bobby on the other hand, there’s no love lost between him and Dad. I don’t know if Bobby’ll help us, but I’m thinking, if he does, he’d be way less likely to turn around and call Dad on us.”
Sam was silent. Dean chanced a quick look at him. Sam was still staring out the window, watching the countryside fly by.
“I don’t know, Sammy. I don’t know if Bobby’ll help us. But I gotta try. I gotta do something,” Dean confessed quietly.
"Alright,” came the unenthusiastic reply from Sam, and Dean sighed in relief, turning his attention back to the road.
“So. Where’s the next place that guidebook of yours says we should go?”
Two days later, Dean drove slowly through the tower truss archway decorated with exhaust pipes proclaiming “Singer Auto Salvage”. It had been years since he’d last seen this place, but to Dean it looked like it hadn’t changed a bit.
Carefully navigating the Impala down the drive and around the stacks of rusted out car bodies, Dean pulled up in front of an old Ford tow truck parked in front of a house and cut the engine.
For a moment, he and Sam just sat there, staring at the house. It was two storeys: once upon a time the weatherboard might have been blue, but time and the weather had aged the paint to a dull grey. There were rusted hubcaps hung haphazardly on the side of the house, and the windows on the upper storey were boarded up. It didn’t exactly look welcoming.
Suddenly, a large dog jumped at Sam’s window, making the boy shriek and jump. Paws scrabbling on the glass, the dog barked and snarled at them, showing its teeth. Dean flinched, eyeing the dog, when over the dog’s intimidating growl came a sound that Dean would know anywhere: the cocking of a shotgun.
“Rumsfeld,” a gruff voice called, and Dean looked toward a house to see a grizzled older man in a trucker’s cap standing on the small porch. His relief at seeing Bobby Singer was immediately lost in the realisation that Bobby was pointing the shotgun at the window of the Impala. At them.
“Down,” Bobby commanded, and the dog - Rumsfeld - dropped from view.
Dean exchanged a look with Sam, and slowly opened the car door.
“You got a lotta nerve showing…..” Dean heard Bobby say, and then his voice trailed away, the shotgun dropping to his side. “Dean?”
“Hey Bobby,” Dean called, keeping his hands on the top of the car door and roof where Bobby could see them. “Sorry we didn’t call first.”
Bobby took a step forward, squinting at the Impala’s front window. “Sam?”
Sam pushed the door open slowly - Dean guessed in case Rumsfeld was still sitting there - and stumbled to his feet. “Hi Bobby,” he said nervously.
“What in the tarnation are you two doing here?” Bobby asked, looking between Sam and Dean. “Where’s your daddy?”
Dean looked at Sam and took a deep breath. “We need your help, Bobby.”