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It was their second trip to a laundromat in as many weeks, unusual for two reasons. One, because the types of laundromats that the brothers frequented only took quarters, and quarters are hard to come by when you don’t have a bank account and rely on credit card fraud to get around most of the time, and two, because they were used to wearing their clothes until they were too stiff from blood, sweat, or both to stand anymore. But this was a special occasion, and they were both beginning to see that it probably wouldn’t be their last.
Sam was tossing the worst of their jeans in the wash first while Dean pretended to read from one of the ancient magazines that littered the waiting area in the front of the building. They were mercifully alone on a Monday morning and Dean was feeling good.
“You know, I’m beginning to see a downside to this,” Sam said out of the blue.
“What, more laundry? You’re always complaining that I smell bad when we haven’t been in a while, thought you’d be grateful.”
“Well, yeah, but it’s expensive and besides…” Sam looked around, presumably confirming that they were truly alone before continuing, “It’s not like it’s the most inconspicuous thing in the world when all our stuff reeks of piss.”
“Told you we should put you in diapers.”
“You say that enough times and I’m going to start thinking you’re not joking.”
“Remember when Dad made me potty train you?”
“I guess?”
“You thought I was punishing you when I made you give up the diapers.”
“I think most toddlers think that.”
“I didn’t.”
“Oh please. You were probably twice as terrible as I was.”
“I resent that! I was a model of good toddler behavior. I know because Mom used to brag about me to her friends.”
Sam threw the last of their clothes in the second machine and sat down beside Dean. “I forget, that would have been back when you were living the apple pie life with Mom.”
“Yeah,” Dean said, remembering back with a fond smile, “She was probably a little more patient with me than I was with you.”
Sam laughed. “You think?”
“A little.” Dean put the magazine down and leaned back in the chair, lulled by the rhythm of the washing machines.
"Mommyyyyyyyyyyyy!" Dean called, running down the hallway as fast as his little feet could carry him. It was the middle of the night, and everyone else in the house was in a deep sleep. Mary woke with a start, throwing the covers off and stepping into the hallway, meeting Dean at her bedroom door.
"Honey?" she asked sleepily.
"Gotta potty!" Dean said, dancing around, grabbing himself. Mary smiled and picked him up, walking swiftly to the bathroom and elbowing on the light. She set him down on the ground, and crouched to his level. She pulled his pajama pants down, along with his overnight diaper. Mary hoisted him up and held him steady on the toilet, and no sooner than she could get him pointed in the right direction, he let loose immediately. Dean beamed at Mary while he went. "This means I get big boy pants, Mama?" he asked eagerly.
"Yes baby, first thing in the morning we can go get some big boy pants for my little man." she said, pinching his cheek, and smoothing down his bed head.
"Okay but was I really that difficult?" Sam asked, reclining back alongside Dean.
"I could've sooner potty-trained a goldfish." Dean said dryly, eyes closed.
Sam's brow furrowed. He didn't think he was that stubborn as a child. But old habits die hard he guessed, as he snorted unappreciatively at Dean's comment.
“But why!” Sam had demanded for the fifth time that day.
“Because Dad said so, alright? I thought you wanted to be a big boy.”
“I am a big boy!”
“Big boys don’t wear diapers, babies wear diapers!”
“That’s stupid!” Sam yelled at the top of his three year old lungs.
Dean took a deep breath, trying to remain patient, but Sam wasn’t making it easy for him. “Come on, Sammy, please just wear the underwear? They got Superman on ‘em!”
“No,” Sam said with an air of finality, and he sat down on the floor of the bathroom, naked as the day he was born.
Dean had waited until he was giving Sam his bath before springing Dad’s newest decree on him. Sam was to be potty trained by the time Dad got back from his latest hunt or else. Diapers were expensive and Dad insisted Sam was old enough. Dean was beginning to think Dad had vastly underestimated just how stubborn Sam could be when there was something he wanted, or in this case, didn’t want.
“I don’t get it, why do you want to keep your diapers so bad? Are you afraid of the potty?”
“I’m not scared.”
“Then why?”
Sam stuck out his lower lip and didn’t respond. Dean thought perhaps Sam was just thinking of how to phrase his answer when he noticed the puddle spreading from where Sam was sitting.
“Ew, Sammy! Are you peeing on the floor?”
Sam covered his face with his hands and began to sniffle.
Dean sighed and grabbed a towel to soak up the mess. “Stop crying, I’m sorry, okay?. I’ll give you another bath and we’ll just tell Dad you had an accident when we tried the underwear.”
Sam looked up at Dean with tear-filled eyes. “And I can wear a diaper again?”
Dean bit his lip, wondering if that hadn’t been Sam’s plan all along. “Yeah, you can wear a diaper again.”
Sam smiled and wiped his eyes as he happily got back into the tub. Dean could tell this was going to be a lot harder than he or Dad suspected.
“Even if I did rebel a little, it wasn’t you I was mad at,” Sam stubbornly insisted.
“Oh I know,” Dean laughed, “You were mad at Dad. That’s like your whole life in a nutshell. But I was the one stuck cleaning up the mess.”
Sam smiled sadly. “And that’s like your whole life in a nutshell.”
"For the last time, I'm not gonna force him into something so drastic!" Mary shouted, at her wits end.
"Mary it's not even a big deal. People can quit smoking cold turkey, our son can certainly quit diapers cold turkey." John said, putting the dishes away angrily. Mary winced every time John slammed down a plate, waiting for one of them to burst into a million pieces.
"He has to be trained, John. He needs time. You can't just push a three year old into this. No, he's just barely three! You have to ease him into it. We haven't even brought the idea up to him yet." She thrust a pot towards John after she had dried it and he begrudgingly took it.
"There you go again with the democracy method of parenting. I don't think he has a say in it. He doesn't even know what he's doing or not doing. He's obviously not going to agree to it." John said, shoving the pot under the counter.
There was a silence. Mary believed in her son. He was much more mature than John took him for. But she just didn't think he should be forced into habits. The habits should be formed.
"The thing is, we’re nearly out of money. Do you know how much diapers cost? Way too much. Why waste money on saving up shit when you could literally just flush it down the drain?"
Mary stepped closer, quieting him down by pressing her hand to his mouth gently, but still very angry with him.
Dean had been standing against the wall for the past few minutes. He knew they were shouting about him. Dean looked down, pulling out the waistband of his pants, frowning at the diaper that he saw. Dean wanted to make life easier for his parents, if it meant them being happy again. "Mommy? Daddy?" Dean asked timidly, stepping hesitantly into the kitchen. "I think I wanna potty train."
“Bet you can’t even remember a time you weren’t cleaning up one of my messes, or Dad’s,” Sam continued.
“That’s my job, isn’t it?”
“Still, I never made things easy for you.”
“Wasn’t your fault.”
"Actually......" Sam started, blushing, remembering how defiant and mischievous he was as a kid.
Sam didn’t actually need diapers. He knew when he had to go and everything, he just didn’t want to bother with the potty. For one, diapers made him feel safe. It was one less thing to worry about since he had to pee all the time anyway, and besides, he liked it when Dean changed him because he’d always make faces to make Sam laugh. The toilet was hard and cold and depending on where they were staying, flushed really loud. He was a little afraid of it, not that he’d ever admit that to anyone.
It wasn’t fair that Dad was making him give them up. Dean understood. He wanted Sam to be potty trained too, but he knew Sam wasn’t ready and respected that. Dad didn’t. One minute he’d treat Sam like a baby and then demand he grow up and be “more like your brother” the next. It was infuriating.
Dad had left again for the day, leaving Sam under Dean’s watchful eye. Dad had taken away Sam’s diapers but left him in pull-ups he hoped would encourage Sam to start using the potty like a grown up. Sam wasn’t so convinced, but Dean was being really cool today, letting him watch a movie on TV that Dad had forbidden him from watching on the grounds that it would give him nightmares. For Dean, Sam decided he would use the potty for the first time.
“Dean?”
“Yeah?”
“I gotta go potty.”
“Oh, okay, Sammy.” Dean held out his hand and helped Sam to the bathroom, lifting him by the armpits and setting him on the seat of the toilet after Sam had pushed the pull-up to his ankles.
He relaxed and did his business and afterwards Dean gave him a highfive. He even let Sam leave the bathroom before Dean flushed the toilet so the noise wouldn’t be so scary. Sam was feeling good.
That night, Dad got home later than usual. He went straight to the bathroom and began soaking towels in the sink. Dean gave Sam a look that meant “sit down and shut up” but Sam wanted to tell Dad he’d finally used the potty.
“Dad, Dad!” he said excitedly as he skipped into the bathroom, “Guess what I did today?”
“Go talk to your brother, Sam,” Dad said. He sounded sad but Sam wanted to cheer him up.
“I went to the potty today,” he said proudly.
“I’ll be out in a minute, just go play with Dean.” Dad lifted his shirt and pressed one of the soaked towels to his side. When he pulled it away a minute later the cloth had gone from white to red.
“Are you hurt?” Sam asked.
“Not now, boy!” John pushed Sam out of the bathroom and shut the door.
Sam felt a familiar fear bubbling in his chest, and his lip began to quiver as tears tickled his eyes.
“Told you to leave him alone, Sammy,” Dean said.
Sam stared at Dean, his big brother who’d been so nice to him all day until the moment Dad got home. He stared at the closed bathroom door which was hiding horrors Sam didn’t understand and Dad would never explain. The unfairness of it all threatened to overwhelm Sam.
“You’re not the boss of me!” he shouted at Dean.
“Am too, ‘cause I’m older and ‘cause Dad said so, and there’s nothing you can do about it, so just sit down and shut up!” Dean hissed back at him.
Sam didn’t budge. He suddenly had an idea. He’d show them both. He walked over to the bathroom door and pushed his shorts and the pull-up to the floor. Then he began to pee.
“Stop it, Sammy, what are you doing?” Dean rushed over once he realized what Sam was doing, but he was too late to stop him now.
“I have to go potty,” Sam said defiantly. A small puddle was forming around his shorts, soaking into the carpet.
“What is going on here?” Dad bellowed as he opened the door. He stopped and stared and for a moment all three of them stood in silence while Sam emptied his bladder on the floor. None of them moved or said a word until Sam was finished. Then Dad handed the one clean towel left to Dean. “Clean this up and get your brother ready for bed.”
“Yes, sir,” Dean said, “Come on, Sammy, bedtime.” Dean sounded scared.
Dad shut the door again and didn’t open it until after Sam was already dressed in clean pajamas and tucked into bed.
“Sorry, Dean,” Sam said in a quiet voice.
“It was just an accident, Sammy,” Dean whispered, “Go to sleep.”
Sam knew he should feel guilty, but mostly he just felt relieved. Dad would let him wear diapers again now, he was sure of it. Just as he was sure that Dean would always make everything better. That’s just how the world worked. It was comfort enough to make him temporarily forget why Dad was bleeding in the bathroom, and lull him off to sleep.
“That wasn’t your fault either,” Dean insisted.
“It so was. Pretty sure all of my so-called ‘accidents’ were on purpose. That’s how I remember it, anyway.”
“Even that time I almost spanked you?”
Sam laughed. “I forgot about that. Yeah, that was definitely on purpose.”
“Huh.” Dean sat in shock at the realization.
Sam had been out of diapers now for months, and out of pull-ups for weeks, but he was still having accidents. It always seemed to happen in those rare moments when Sam was out of Dean’s sight. Dean would be making sandwiches for them in the kitchen while Sam watched cartoons on the TV and when he got back to join Sam he’d find him sitting in a puddle with a guilty look on his face. Dean would go down to the gas station to buy more peanut butter and when he got back he’d find a wet spot in the corner and Sam hiding in the cupboard with wet shorts.
Dean learned to spot the signs that meant Sam had to go: he’d get fidgety, and his hands would clench into fists or drum patterns on his knees. When he noticed these, he’d ask if Sam had to go and drag him to the toilet no matter what he said. Sam always went without trouble, but the next time Dean was too busy to notice, like if he was watching something on the TV while Sam was in the other room, Sam would have another accident, without fail. It was maddening.
“You gotta stop having accidents,” he told Sam as he cleaned up another wet patch, this one on the carpet next to their bed.
“I can’t help it!” Sam whined.
“Yes you can! I know you can! You go to the potty just fine when I tell you to!”
“But you were in the shower forever!”
“I was only in there a little while, and I left the door open so you could come in if you needed to.”
“I didn’t know I needed to go.”
“Yes you did.”
“No I didn’t!”
Dean stood up, dropping the towel he’d been using to scrub the floor. “Yes you did, Sam! You always know. You just hold it until I notice and if I don’t then you just pee yourself on purpose.”
Sam took a step back, fear creeping into the defiant look on his face. “That’s not true,” he said in a quiet voice. His nose twitched the way it often did when he was lying, usually to Dad.
“Is so. And you know it. You know what happens to little boys on TV when they do bad things on purpose?”
Sam shook his head, looking more fearful now.
“They get spanked, Sammy.”
“No, Dean!” Sam squeaked, making to run from Dean but Dean was faster, grabbing him by the hand. “Let me go!”
“Tell me the truth or I’m gonna have to spank you!”
“No!”
Dean sat on his knees, pulled Sam over them face down so his butt was on Dean’s lap. Sam squirmed, trying to get away. “Tell me!” Dean repeated.
He hadn’t actually planned to spank Sam, but when Sam went still, he figured he might have to keep his word if Sam still wasn’t going to admit to anything. Before he could make up his mind, however, he suddenly felt his legs go hot. He rolled Sam off him when he realized what was happening, but it was too late. Sam had already soaked them both.
When he looked at Sam, crying face down on the carpet, Dean felt a wave of guilt rush over him. He’d almost hit Sam, something he never thought he would ever do. Something he never thought he could do. Watching out for the kid was his job, and he’d almost gone and hurt him himself. He felt horrible.
“I’m sorry, Sammy,” he pleaded, pulling Sam into sitting on his lap. “I’m sorry, okay? I never would have spanked you, promise.”
Sam sniffled and wiped his face on Dean’s shirt. Dean could feel tears at the corners of his own eyes, but blinked them away. “Sorry I had another accident,” Sam said.
Dean shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. Just means we both need a shower now.”
Sam perked up at the mention of a shower. “If I have to pee again can I pee in the shower?”
Dean rolled his eyes. “You just peed twice in two hours you won’t have to pee in the shower.”
“But if I have to?”
Dean laughed at the look of hope on Sam’s face. “Yeah, if you have to, you can pee in the shower.”
“Cool. Last one there’s a rotten egg!” Sam clambered off Dean’s lap and raced to the shower as Dean followed.
“I felt guilty about that for years, you know.”
“What?” Sam asked, “For not spanking me?”
“Yeah! I thought I literally scared the piss out of you!”
Sam shook his head. “No, I just thought if I pissed on your lap you wouldn’t spank me.”
“Coulda fooled me.”
“Well, maybe I was a little scared. Doesn’t matter now, though. It’s ancient history.”
“Yeah, now when you piss on me it’s for fun.”
Sam elbowed Dean in the arm but he had a smile on his face. “You enjoy it.”
“I do. Gonna mean more trips like this to the laundromat, though.”
Sam shrugged. “Guess it’s not so bad, right?”
“Right,” Dean agreed, and they both sat in comfortable silence as they waited for their clothes to wash.