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The first thing you should know about the Winchesters—the thing you really have to remember—is that money was scarce. Hustling pool and filling out bogus credit card applications kept the car gassed and the roof over their heads. It kept them fed—kind of.
There was cash enough for the very basics, the things that kept well that could be reheated over a dented pan found in the back of a dusty, forgotten cupboard in a rented house, a microwave in an anonymous motel with peeling walls. There were Cheerios and cans of beans, Campbell’s soup and packs of ramen. What there wasn’t was baby food.
There was formula when Sam was little enough that he couldn’t do without and washcloths dipped in whiskey when he sobbed through cutting his first teeth—and then there were Cheerios and cans of beans and all the other things a squalling 12 month old couldn’t eat. There was no baby food.
What there was was a brother, one who’d stuff Cheerios in his mouth with a sip of milk if they had it—water, if they didn’t. One who’d chew with his tiny milk teeth until the crumbling cereal coalesced into a smooth paste. One who’d seal his lips over his baby brother’s mouth and push the food into it like a bird. If their dad blanched when he saw it, drank a little heavier and said nothing, well. It’s not like you could smash Cheerios in paper plates with dollar store forks. It’s not like he’d want to.
Sam grew older, grew upward, grew long and lean, and so did Dean. Sam grew a full set of teeth of his own, and it wasn’t long before he was happily gumming bananas and mandarin slices from tin cans. This particular quirk got left on the side of the road, like so many other parts of their childhood, outgrown and forgotten.
Except.
Sam is a rangy teenager, baby fat still clinging to his cheeks, limbs long and gangly. Except. Sam’s wrist is thin enough that Dean can wrap his hand all the way around it. His ankle is bony where it pokes out of the top of his shoes, jeans highwater already, too short to cover his rapidly stretching body. Except Sam hasn’t eaten more than a handful of peanuts and a Nutrigrain bar in two days—Dean’s watched him, peering around the edges of sports magazines, carefully cataloging everything that goes into Sam’s mouth.
He’s worried, of course he’s worried. He’s worried even if he doesn’t have the right vocabulary to put a name to it, if the feeling is more a collection of buzzing, fizzing sensations under his skin, in his brain. A kind of animal fear that doesn’t fit neatly into the words my brother is getting too thin, and I don’t know what to do about it.
This feels like his job, somehow. The ridge of Sam’s ankle bone poking out from over his sneakers feels like a kind of betrayal. The shelf of his collarbones feels like failure, like missed shots in the yard, like his little brother’s black eye that time some schoolyard fuck decided to get in a cheap shot and Dean wasn’t there.
It feels like a disruption in the natural order that makes Dean sink fingernails into palms, blood-filled half moon crescents what pass for restraint in these cloying, humid days.
“I was thinking of getting McDonald’s for dinner,” Dean says, easy, keeping his eyes trained on the magazine in front of him. He flips the page like every muscle isn’t coiled, waiting on Sam’s reply.
It comes a beat too slow, something weird and jerky in the usually easy patter of their conversation, an engine starting to sputter instead of hum. “Okay, I guess. Whatever.”
“Big Mac and fries sound good? I think they’ve got those shamrock shakes you like.”
“I’m not that hungry. Maybe just the fries?”
“C’mon, dude, you haven’t eaten all day.”
Sam shrugs, sullen rise and fall of too-sharp shoulders. “My stomach feels weird.”
And Dean lets it go, because how do you argue with that? He gets Sam a milkshake anyway—chocolate, because they didn’t have those green mint monstrosities after all—and Sam sucks idly at it, dipping the straw into the puffy cloud of whipped cream and licking it off slow. He gives the other half to Dean, who finishes it with something dense and uneasy coiling in his stomach.
Maybe he’ll feel better tomorrow.
Tomorrow comes and goes with another granola bar and several big glasses of tap water for dinner. Sam says he ate a big lunch, and Dean has no way to disprove it except by calling him a liar, which he doesn’t.
It feels relevant that Dean doesn’t know what to do—that he’s just a kid himself, that his frame of reference for feeding Sammy when Sammy was fussy and recalcitrant and didn’t want to be fed is chewing up grainy, dry Cheerios and spitting them in Sam’s mouth like a baby bird. It feels relevant that we default to what we know in times of stress. That John cares but not enough, not about the right things and not in the right ways. It feels relevant that Dean steals the box of plain Cheerios despite thinking they taste like shit because the callback—the memory, the white-knuckle feeling of clinging to a script like a well-worn pair of shoes, even if they no longer fit you—it’s comfort even if his heart is pounding somewhere up in his throat.
Sam’s reading one of his school books when Dean comes in, toeing his shoes off by the door. He’s sprawled across the bed and doesn’t look up until Dean sits down next to him, rattling the box of cereal.
Sam quirks an eyebrow. “Yes?”
“Got some Cheerios. You used to like these when you were a baby.”
Sam snorts. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not a baby, Dean.”
Dean rubs at the back of his head. “Yeah, I know.”
Sam squints at him. “You’re acting weird.”
It’s quiet in their room, no sound but the occasional rumble of a car passing on the highway outside. Even the air is still.
“Do you want some Cheerios, Sammy?”
“It’s Sam,” he huffs. “I don’t even like Cheerios, and anyway, I’m not hungry. I—”
“Had a big lunch,” Dean finishes. “Or ate too much birthday cake because some kid in your class had a party, or the soccer coach ordered pizza again. I’ve heard it, man.” He reaches out and circles his hand around Sam’s wrist, flat and narrow and bird-bone thin. “I hear it, I just don’t see it. I worry about you,” he admits, and it feels like too much.
“Well, don’t.” Sam winces a little, maybe hearing himself. He pulls his wrist back and rubs at it like Dean gripped him too hard. “I mean, you don’t need to. I’m fine, Dean. I swear.”
“Yeah,” Dean says, wistful. Regretting this, regretting it already. “Just eat a little, Sammy, please.”
“I told you—”
Sam doesn’t see it coming, but it almost doesn’t matter. He’s been trained, same as Dean. He knows how to slip a hold, how to hit a man where it hurts. He’s still smaller than Dean, though. He still doesn’t really want to hurt his brother.
Dean gets him pinned, Sam fighting and thrashing beneath him.
“Dean, what the hell.”
He works an arm free and uses it to punch Dean in the chest, hard, jarring knock to the sternum. Dean’s got a few inches on Sam, and anyway, whatever Sam says, he hasn’t really been eating. He can feel it—can feel the lie here, more than anywhere else—in the rapidly weakening shoves, the way Sam is so quickly winded beneath him.
“What the hell,” Sam pants again.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Dean says. “Swear to god. I just. You gotta let me help you, man.”
“Help me? What the hell are you talking about?” Sam twists his hips, angling for leverage, mad as a hellcat but starting to look scared too, breath coming quick and shallow and eyes showing white around the edges.
Dean needs a hand free. He needs a hand free, so he grabs both of Sam’s, sitting on him to keep his hips pinned. Sam’s legs thrash, but it’s no use. Dean’s got him. Dean’s got him, and he’s going to help. He’s not going to let Sam go.
He digs a hand into the open box of Cheerios and shoves a handful in his mouth. They’re dry and scratchy. They taste like sawdust.
Sam twists underneath him. “Lemme go. Dean, you asshole. What the fuck, let me go.”
And Dean chews. He chews and chews, more carefully than he’s ever chewed his own food because he doesn’t want Sammy to choke. He sees the moment it occurs to Sam, what exactly he’s about to do. Sam’s eyes go wide.
“Don’t. Holy shit, don’t.”
But he’s talking, so his mouth is open, and Dean just leans down and seals their lips together. He hasn’t done this since Sam was a baby, so he’s a decade and then some out of practice. It was easier when Sam was small, easier when Sam wasn’t twisting his head away trying to get free. Sam clamps his lips shut, and most of the masticated cereal ends up smeared down the side of his cheek in a beige, gummy streak.
“What the fuck,” Sam spits at him.
“It’s okay,” Dean says. “It’s fine, relax. Just let me—”
He shoves another handful of cereal in his mouth. He isn’t sure how that sentence ends. He chews and chews, and Sam looks up at him and says things like don’t and Dean and permutations of those words smashed together.
When Dean leans down this time, Sam bites him, hard, a bright bloom of pain. He still manages to get some of the cereal into Sam’s mouth, clamping his free hand over Sam’s lips to make him swallow while his lip drips red and bloody. He licks his lips and tastes copper, feels the burning drag of crumbs.
His voice is ragged around an indrawn breath, unsteady and uneven. “Don’t,” he says, an echo of Sam. “Don’t—don’t bite me, okay? Sam? Please?”
Sam whimpers and shakes his head. When Dean moves his hand, he clicks his teeth around the space where Dean’s fingers were, missing by just inches. Dean doesn’t know what to do. He’s got a hand on Sam’s wrists. He gets his other hand around the collar of Sam’s shirt and shakes him just a little, murmuring, “It’s okay, it’s okay. C’mon, chill out. Please.”
He reaches for the cereal box again, and Sam’s crying now. It wrenches something in Dean’s chest, wrenches it straight broken, but Dean—he just has to help. He’s helping, he thinks as he leans down again. He pries Sam’s mouth open, gentle as he can be, and Sam—Sam lets him. He cries, tear tracks streaking down his cheeks, but he lets him, and when Dean pushes the glob of chewed food in Sam’s mouth, he swallows it down.
“Good,” Dean says. He rubs his thumb against Sam’s cheek, cleaning away tears and the residue of Cheerios. “That’s real good, Sam. That wasn’t so bad, right?”
Sam turns his head. He won’t look at him.
“Can you eat a little more?”
Sam shrugs, shoulders heavy and much too sharp, eyes trained on the wall. They manage a few more bites. Dean chews the Cheerios smooth, running out of spit fast. Next time, he thinks wistfully. Next time maybe there could be a glass of milk. It doesn’t have to be this bad.
He starts to find nuances in the flavor around the fourth mouthful. There’s a certain sweetness to the grain, something plain and comforting underpinning the bland taste. There’s something comforting about the slurry, the smoothness of it against his cheeks, the way he can feed it into Sam’s mouth, tongue pushing in to help it along. He brings up his hand to feel the way Sam’s throat works as he swallows, the bands of cartilage there bobbing and rising. Sam doesn’t fight him, so he keeps it there, palm resting flat against his brother’s throat. There’s something miraculous in it. He’s never believed in God, but this, here—this might be something close.
He licks the residue away from the edges of Sam’s lips. He tastes like flour and grain, salty with both of them—Dean’s blood and his tears. Dean presses a chaste kiss against the corner of Sam’s mouth and thinks maybe it isn’t his imagination that Sam kisses back.
Sam’s fingers flex, the tendons in his bird wrists sliding beneath Dean’s outstretched palm. He could trace them, he thinks. Trace them all the way down to the place where they begin, the body built through careful tending and a lifetime of feeding. He offers Sam another mouthful of cereal, and this time when Sam turns away, face pushed toward the wall and breath coming in shallow pants, Dean lets him. He swallows it himself and pushes the hair out of Sam’s eyes.
He realizes with new awareness all the places they’re pushed together. The sharp cut of Sam’s hipbone digs into the skin of his belly. The knob of Sam’s ankle pushes into his skin. They’re butted right up against each other, closer than close, and he wants to bury his face in the curve of Sam’s neck to just breathe him in.
He lets go of Sam’s hands, finally. Because he has to, not because he wants to. He moves to the edge of the bed, giving Sam space but unable to go too far. He feels tethered, stuck. He expects Sam to deck him, but he doesn’t. Sam sits up slowly, rubbing absently at his wrists. He scrubs his mouth against the sleeve of his shirt, scrubs it until it’s pink as lipstick. He scoots to the edge of the bed, close but not close enough to touch, and sits with Dean.
Neither of them say anything, but for a minute the distance between them doesn’t feel quite so wide. They sit together in the humid air and breathe.