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It's when Jack stops screaming that Dean becomes concerned. For months now, ever since Jack transfigured himself into a scared little boy, the nephilim has woken up in the middle of the night, hysterical, begging for help.
Dean and Sam have been helpless. Nothing soothes the boy, not really. Dean can calm him to an extent, but there's no cure. No magical fix.
Jack sees monsters that Dean's only heard of. The boy is haunted and no salt or iron is going to change it. And nothing can convince him otherwise, even though Dean knows that the things Jack points to as evidence are his own uncontrolled powers at work.
The flickering lights, the floating objects, the blood running down his arms...
A few weeks after Jack started waking up screaming, he ran out of his room before Dean could get to him. He was chased into the armory by a shifter wearing Cas' face. Dean doesn't think it was on purpose, but in his terror, Jack had found one of their silver knives and started cutting. After getting the weapon away from the child and calming him down, Dean reversed the knob on Jack's door.
Dean's started to send Sam to do the shopping, terrified of what will happen if Jack is left alone long enough for his powers to unlock the door. It's one of the few things he trusts Sam to do lately, even if his brother always gets kale and avocados.
Dean shakes his head, trying to clear his mind. He wants to focus on scrubbing down the kitchen after lunch, but it's difficult. He'd set down Jack for a nap half an hour ago and is trying to get through as many chores as possible. He's already started a load of laundry and emptied the dishwasher. He's hoping to sweep and mop at least the kitchen before his need to check on Jack becomes stronger than his desire for Jack to sleep. The silence is getting to him though. He resists the urge to check the volume on the baby monitor clipped to his waistband. He got it the day after finding Jack in the armory. When he realized that just because the screams had stopped didn't mean the visions had too.
He's barely finished squeegeeing out the sponge when the baby monitor lights up and Jack's whimpering fills the room.
Dean sucks in a deep breath and then wipes his hands on his jeans. He casts the kitchen a final look before hurrying off. He knocks on the door to Jack's room. "Buddy, I'm coming in," he warns. His voice echoes on the baby monitor and he flicks it off irritably. Jack doesn't respond, just continuing to cry.
Dean unlocks the door. The lights are on but the switch is still in the off position.
Jack's in his toy area, back pressed into the corner.
His arms are bleeding and Dean can see blood in his nails.
"Oh buddy," he murmurs. "Jack, kiddo, it's okay. I'm here. I'm here now." He crouches down a yard or so from his son.
Jack continues to sob, his fingers digging into already bloody flesh. Dean grabs Jack's hands as gently as possible. "No buddy," he admonishes. "You're hurting yourself."
"He- hellhound," Jack whimpers, terrified eyes darting past Dean's soft look. Tears slip down his face. "Dad, run! Poppy!"
Dean shushes him, pulling Jack close to his chest. Jack's blunt nails scrabble across his back. "It's just you and me," he promises. "No hellhounds, no monsters, nothing. Just listen to my voice Jackie. Listen to me."
Jack pushes hard against him, trying to escape. His lamps flicker on and off, but none of the bulbs burst.
"I'm real, Jack." Dean keeps his voice even. "I'm real and you're real. We're the only ones here."
Jack's cries worsen and static pours out of the radio and his limbs shake and some of his picture books fall off the shelf behind Dean and he yanks weakly on Dean's shirt. "I know, buddy." Dean rubs his back and whispers reassurances as Jack slowly calms down. Sobs still wrack the toddler's frame, but he's stopped trying to scratch Dean and his head is now nuzzling into the crook of Dean's neck. "I've got you." Dean wets his lips. "Jackie, do you still see it?"
Jack whimpers and presses his face more firmly into Dean's skin. "Please buddy," he urges. "I need you to check."
The toddler resists for a while longer, but eventually he peeks up at the empty space behind Dean.
"Gone," he says quietly. The static from the radio slowly disappears.
Dean kisses the top of Jack's head and continues to hold him close as the last of his cries peter out. All the lights in the room turn off.
"Let's go take a bath," Dean suggests into the dark.
Jack nods against him. Dean effortlessly picks him up and carries him across the room. He accidentally kicks one of the fallen books and Jack flinches, but otherwise they leave unscathed. Dean deposits the baby monitor into the small basket he has hooked on the outside of Jack’s door.
When he turns, he sees Sam standing in the hallway. He's got his right thumb dug into his left palm and he looks absolutely haunted.
Dean stops, torn between his father's and lover's sons. He blinks and Sam disappears from his post, likely back toward the library.
In the bathroom, Dean starts the water for the bath and finally takes a serious look at Jack's bloody arms. He knows that if questioned, Jack will say that the hellhound did it. The blood in his nails tells a different story.
He doesn't ask.
The bleeding has completely stopped and Dean can see the beginnings of healing already. By bedtime, the wounds will be gone altogether. Still, Dean carefully cleans and bandages them. He's never sure which parts of Jack are covered by the angel in him and which parts are firmly in human jurisdiction. To be safe, he assumes human.
Periodically, he checks the temperature of the filling bath. Jack stays quiet, only answering Dean's questions with nods and shakes of his head.
Dean finishes dressing the wounds, setting aside the first aid kit "Alright buddy, which color bath do you want?" He reaches under the sink and pulls out an assortment of bath bombs and bubble bath soap.
Jack picks out a bath bomb with an orange and yellow swirled pattern and Dean's heart aches. He knows that these colors remind Jack of Cas. That the toddler misses his pops.
Dean helps Jack tug off his clothes and step carefully into the bath. Only then does he add the ball of baking soda and citric acid into the tub. Jack smiles at the explosion of color filling his tub, slowly regaining his enthusiasm.
Dean takes a seat on the toilet and watches him play.
Most of the time, really, Jack is like any other kid Dean's seen. Like what he remembers Sammy as. Rambunctious, stubborn, talkative. But then he gets these... these episodes. He sees things.
Dean likes to pin this, at least, on his angel side.
Except when he was in an adult form, he never made reference to things that weren't there. Just things Dean couldn't perceive.
That's what he thought it was, when the screaming started. He'd checked every one of the Bunker’s wardings to make sure they were still intact and helped Sam research new ones to add. After three weeks of searching between the screams, he started to realize that Jack wasn't seeing things beyond Dean's perception. He was just seeing things.
That was when Sam started getting distant.
Jack hums to himself in his bath, splashing around with his collection of plastic dinosaurs, an ancient set of beach toys Sam had found in one of the bedrooms, and an assortment of Tupperware that Dean had given to Jack to play with when he'd first transfigured himself. The mismatched lids and tubs never make it back to the kitchen, not when Jack plays with them so excitedly.
His song grows in volume, as do the splashes of the dinosaurs into the water filled lunch meat containers turned boats. The radio flicks on. It's tuned to a channel that plays Best of the 80s from 6-7am, when Dean gets ready for the day, but now some pop-y kids music streams out of it. Disney. Moana, if Dean has to guess.
Jack's eyes shoot to Dean's, his whole body stiff again with fear.
"Real," Dean tells him and Jack relaxes, getting back to his game of dropping dinos into boats.
Eventually, Jack grows bored, so Dean pulls up the drain and gets Jack a towel. It has a hood and is meant to look like a sloth. As such, Jack moves very slowly as he climbs out of the tub, water dripping onto the linoleum. One of these days, Dean will remember to ask Sam to get a bath mat from the store.
He's taken to keeping a few spare sets of clothes in the bathroom, up on top of the mirror cabinet.
Slow as he can, Jack dries himself off. Dean waits patiently, not bothering to hide his smile. When the boy's ready, he helps Jack into jeans and a gray t-shirt with a smiling sun on it. The sun has sunglasses for some reason and the saying above it is partially peeled off. Still, Dean can read HERE COMES THE SUN . Cas had pointed it out at a Wal-Mart a few months before Jack had de-aged. He’d asked if it had anything to do with the song Mary had played him once. Dean had bought it off a clearance rack a week or so after Jack transformed, desperate to connect with Cas one more time.
Those first few weeks, Jack barely took the shirt off.
In the process of getting Jack dressed, some of the stray droplets of water have landed on Dean's shirt. He wipes at it, but his shirt is sticky. He wrinkles his nose. Right, the blood.
"Why don't you go find us a game to play?" Dean suggests.
"Candyland?" Jack asks hopefully.
"Sure, buddy." Dean finds the game kind of inane, especially when he gets sent back to the Peppermint Forest every friggin' time he gets within ten spaces of the home at the end of the game. He doesn't think it should be possible. He's toyed with the idea that the game's cursed, especially since it was there when they first found the Bunker. He doesn’t want Jack to see him as a sore loser, but he performed a purification spell on it anyway.
Jack scurries off, bare feet leaving watery prints in his wake. Dean heads to the laundry room. About a week ago, he'd given up on the idea of never having blood on his clothes again. Even if he and Sam haven't been hunting all that much... At all, really, since Jack transfigured... he still ends up with a concerning amount of blood on him most nights a week. Every hallucination Jack has seems to be an excuse to hurt himself. A reason Dean is secretly grateful that Sam's been keeping his distance of late. Dean doesn't want the pain to become a learned behavior.
Because of all the blood, Dean just keeps a tub of hydrogen peroxide sitting on the counter. He strips off his shirt and tosses it in, fishing out his soaked pajama pants from the night before. He finds a shirt of his in the dryer and yanks it over his head, then yanks a flannel over that for good measure.
He debates for a moment before deciding to pull the rest of the clean laundry into a basket, which he sets outside the door to remind himself about later, and then switches the load in the washer to the dryer.
With the frankly concerning sound of the machine starting up behind him, he goes to find Jack again.
The game is already set up in what used to be the Dean Cave and is now the living room. Jack has even taken a turn for both of them. He's flipping over another card for himself when Dean sits cross legged beside him.
"Remind me how to play?" he prompts, wanting to hear his kid's voice again. He'll never get tired of his excited speech and wide gestures.
Jack makes up at least three rules, too young to really grasp the game. As always, he's assigned Dean as the blue gingerbread man and himself as the yellow one.
The game goes quickly at first, until Dean passes the Molasses Swamp. He somehow gets sent back to the candy hearts near the start, even though he swears Jack drew that card already. Jack wins a handful of turns later. To the boy's delight, Sam walks past the living room.
"Sam!" he calls, darting toward him. "Play!"
"Oh, um..." His eyes dart around before looking at the tiny hand grasping his own. "Sure thing buddy."
Sam lets Jack lead him back to where the game is set up on the floor. Sam sits cross legged between the father and son, fiddling with the green piece Jack gifts him.
Dean shuffles the cards seven times, intent that they be truly random for this game.
Sam draws the Molasses Swamp card on his first turn, a blue card that gets him unstuck from the space on his next one, and a double green card on his final turn, taking him to the finish. Dean doesn't make it past the Gumdrop Mountains and demands a rematch, which makes Jack giggle, especially when Dean teasingly accuses the boy of rigging the game, tickling him for effect.
Sam agrees to another round, which Jack wins in about five minutes.
"It's impossible to win this game," Dean groans, slumping back against the couch in exaggerated defeat.
He can hear the contained laugh in Sam's voice as he points out, "Jack just did."
"It's impossible for me to win this game," he corrects dramatically.
Jack pats his face sympathetically, although there is no consolation in his happy "Yep".
Dean snorts, pushing himself up into a sitting position again. "Thanks buddy." He holds out his hand for a shake, which Jack returns seriously. "Good game," they chorus together.
Jack offers his hand to Sam, who repeats the ritual clumsily.
Sam gets up to go, probably to hide in the library again, but he doesn't get far before Jack protests, "You didn't shake hands."
"Oh." Sam blinks. "Sorry."
Dean gives him an amused look, standing himself.
"Good game, Sammy."
"Good game."
They shake hands quickly.
Sam disappears.
It's too early to start making dinner and he hasn't been asked to weigh in on hunting advice recently, so Dean decides to continue on with the chores he'd hoped to finish during Jack's nap.
"Hey, buddy, I've gotta do laundry, how about you pick out some toys to play with in my room?"
"Why doesn't Sam play with me?"
Jack fiddles with the green and yellow gingerbread men. He looks up nervously at Dean.
The parent runs a hand over his mouth, unsure of how to explain Sam's situation to Jack. How both brothers are terrified of Sam's hallucinations coming back in full force. How Sam used to have powers scarily similar to Jack's. How Sam is Dean's kid too, feeling replaced by the new baby.
How Sam isn't sure if he's allowed to mourn his best friend because Dean is mourning a lover and Sam remembers attending his first civilian funeral at twenty three years old with an engagement ring in his pocket.
It would be easy to lie to Jack, to tell him that Sam's busy or tired or stressed. It would be easy. But if there's anything Dean learned from raising Sam, it's that lying means pushing your child away.
He sits on the couch. "Sam's… got a lot of big feelings and thoughts he's working through right now and sometimes that makes it hard to do the things he wants to do, like play with you."
Jack chews on that answer for a little while, helping Dean pack up the game. After putting it back on the shelf with the other board games, he asks, "What feelings?"
Dean motions for Jack to join him where sits. Jack complies easily. "A while ago, Sam was in a… not nice place. And he sometimes forgets that he's not there now. He's also really sad about your pops being gone."
"Me too," Jack whispers, pressing close against Dean.
"Me too," Dean agrees.
He closes his eyes, taking deep breaths against the tears that start to form. He'll cry after Jack's gone to bed. He's gotten good at that.
When he's certain his voice won't waver, he gently clasps Jack's knee. "Come on, laundry time."
Jack 'helps' pull him to his feet, which Dean thanks him for profusely, before retrieving a box of Rescue Heroes that Dean had bought at a garage sale two months ago. It's a bit cumbersome for Jack's short wingspan, but the toddler refuses Dean's offer to carry it instead.
They leave the living room and go the opposite direction Sam did. Dean picks up the laundry from the hallways, balancing the basket on his hip to unlock the door to his bedroom when they arrive.
Strictly speaking, Jack isn't supposed to go into Dean's room. For one, the parent keeps a small arsenal of weapons in there, ranging from wooden stakes to a flamethrower. And that’s just the decor.
For another, Dean is terrified that Jack will come in while he's asleep one of these days and in a half awake state, he'll hurt his son. Unfortunately, the rule can't be absolute, as there are times when Dean needs to be in there and Jack needs to be supervised. Like now, for instance. His bed is really the only good surface in the Bunker to fold laundry on and he's not going to take ready access to a washer and dryer for granted.
Even so, Dean is careful to leave the door wide open after he unlocks it. He remembers being too young and too uncoordinated to be able to quickly open a door. He remembers being trapped in a motel room, standing between his dad and the bathroom door that Sammy had locked behind himself. It doesn't matter how many times he vows that he will never hurt Cas' child, his son. When Jack is in Dean's room, he will always have a chance to escape. Still, if Dean had it his way, Jack wouldn't ever come in.
Jack isn't allowed in Sam's room at all.
The pair work in silence. Dean folds and smooths and hangs their clothes. Jack soars and endangers and saves his Rescue Heroes.
The laundry doesn't take long, but he doesn't want to interrupt Jack's game, as much as it itches to have the toddler in this space. He uses the time to put away some odds and ends that have become scattered around the room. A witch's journal that needs to go back to the library. Several empty cups, soda solidifying at the bottom. A rubber duck which got kicked under his nightstand. He never claimed to be clean. Sue him.
It's when he bends over to pick up the duck that he sees it. A dusty frame that he bought at a Dollar General years ago. It's the photo inside that makes it hard to breathe for a moment, his brain redirecting all energy just to look.
He sets the duck on the nightstand with shaking fingers and sits down hard on the edge of his bed. His thumb swipes absently over the frame, clearing the dust away from his and Cas' smiling faces.
Sam had taken the photo outside some gas station in between hunts. It was Texas, so of course there had been a stand for cowboy hats. Dean had stuck one on each of their heads. In the photo, Cas is looking at Dean with amusement in his eyes. Dean's mouth is open, probably telling Sam off for taking the picture in the first place, but his face is soft, not angry.
The thing about Dean is that of all the horrors that he's experienced in, he's never become an expert in grieving. Torture, yes. Dying, sure. Killing, of course.
But grief? That wave of emotion that sent his life spiraling toward this very moment? He's never known what to do with it.
"Hey, buddy?"
Jack turns Rocky Canyon and Wendy Waters, along with his own body, to face Dean.
The parent clears his throat. "Found a picture of your pops if you want to take a look."
Jack is younger than Dean was when his mom first died and he doesn't want Jack to grow up wondering what Cas would think of him. He wants Jack to feel his father's love even more than he wants to remember its warm embrace for himself.
Somedays it feels like Dean has spent his whole life preparing to be there for Jack in this moment. Every loss, every fight, every goodbye.
Jack drops his toys and comes to press himself against Dean's side, his little fingers coming to rest over Dean's. The bandages on his arm brush against Dean’s flannel.
"I miss Pops," Jack says quietly, a confession.
"I do too."
"Is he coming tonight?"
Dean tears his eyes away from the photo. "What do you mean?"
Jack understands death better than any toddler should. He's a child of Heaven and Hell. He knows that Cas isn't coming back. Not this time.
"When the monsters come, he scares them away," Jack explains, tracing his fingers over Cas' face. "He turns the lights on."
Dean detaches his grip from the frame to wrap his arm around Jack. He searches for the right thing to say. The perfect set of words to gently correct Jack, but still protect him from the horror of Cas' absence.
There aren't any.
"Let's make dinner, buddy," Dean whispers.
"Okay," Jack whispers back.
They stare at the picture together a while longer.
Eventually, Dean wipes his eyes and ruffles Jack's hair. "Come on, grab your toys."
Jack’s subdued mood dissipates for the most part when they return to the living room. He sets his Rescue Heroes back up in the formation that they were in before, Rocky and Wendy quickly starting up their argument about whether or not a unicorn would help save their friend.
Dean finds it easier to smile as he watches Jack play.
The living room is only a little ways away from the kitchen and there’s a second baby monitor in there that Dean set up. The receiver is always in the kitchen, so he leaves Jack to play.
It’s been a tradition since before Jack was born to have pizza on Fridays and today is no different. Sometimes, on a good day, he and Jack will ride into town and pick up some fresh ones from a local pizzeria that must be popular to stay in business for such a small town. By no means does Dean try to keep Jack trapped in the Bunker but now that he’s little and has less control over his powers, he and Sam are more choosy about when they go out.
Today was not a particularly good day. He doesn’t typically hallucinate during nap time, and the monster from the night before had been his biological father.
Maybe that’s why Jack had been crying out for Cas when he was seeing the hellhound.
Besides, Jack not even asking if they were going out was proof enough that they should stay in.
Dean stews on it some more as he pre-heats the oven, mostly tuning out the sounds of Jack playing. It is strange that the overhead lights don’t flicker when Jack’s unfocused powers are pulsing out to the room. The lamps and the radio react how Dean would expect, but the overhead lights are steady. He turns the lights on.
Dean shakes his head, dismissing the thought as the oven beeps that it’s ready. The idea that some piece of Cas is here, taking care of Jack but not reaching out to Dean? It hurts too much.
Taking a deep breath, he slides in the four pizzas—three pepperoni Totinos flatbreads for him and Jack and one cauliflower crust veggie lovers for Sam.
He sets a timer for the pizzas and swipes up the kitchen’s baby monitor.
Time to check on his other kid.
It took Dean a long, long time to admit to himself that much of his brotherhood with Sam has been parenthood. That he will never be able to see Sam as his complete equal.
It took even longer to express that to Sam, who hated it at first, yelled at Dean to just stop it, but ultimately, thankfully, came to accept that it wasn’t something his brother could change. Not without a whole lot of time travel.
In some ways, their relationship is easier now. Without the world in the balance, they can say things to each other that they’ve both long buried. In other ways, it’s never been more difficult. Without the world in the balance, they can process every lie, every betrayal, every death, every frantic search to bring the other back.
Dean thinks this overthinking might be why Sam spends so much time in the library now. It’s certainly why Dean spends so much time with Jack.
At the very least, Sam seems to have found a purpose again in the Bunker. He’s re-cataloged the whole system and has been working to digitize their records and share it with other hunters. He also set up some new phone lines for hunters to call into. Last Dean heard, he had new FBI, CIA, and New York Times personas, as well as a general helpline.
People still call his and Sam’s personal numbers, but it feels right to have a more standardized system. Between Sam and Garth, they’ve got the hunter networks running smoother than when Bobby was at it.
Sure enough, Sam is on the phone when Dean gets there. He nods to Dean, but doesn't stop jotting down what the person on the other end is telling him. Dean flips the chair across from Sam around and leans against its back, content to wait.
"Okay. Okay, yeah, sounds like a Chupacabra, but you're right, weird for them to be that far north. But with climate change… '' Sam listens for a bit then snorts. "I'll make a few calls, see if anyone's got BSE-infected cow blood lying around. Might have to ship it in from the UK. In the meantime, you keep an eye on things in town… Yep, you got it. I'll call you when I've got something... Yeah, bye." Sam hangs up the call and smiles briefly at Dean before lowering his eyes to his laptop. "Claire caught scent of a Chupacabra up in Wyoming."
Dean's chest feels tight at the mention of Claire out there, hunting. She isn't Cas' kid in the same way that Jack is, but Dean still feels fiercely protective of her, the same bone deep desire to keep her safe that fills him when he thinks of Sam and of Jack.
"She got back up?"
"Eileen's in the area, so I'm going to send her Claire's way. Only way to kill one as far as I’m aware is blood from a cow that was infected with mad cow disease, so they’ll be doing damage control until I can get some Fed-ex’d to her. Only one dead so far, ‘side for the livestock."
"Good." Last case Claire had been on, there had been a witch who used magic on images of her victims to draw their souls to her before killing them. There was nothing much in the way of spell work, which was surprising. Just photos acting as a focus for her stores of power and anger. She’d snapped a photo of Claire when the young hunter started sniffing around her antique store. Dean himself had driven out to Denver to find Claire and kill the witch. Longest he’d been away from Jack since the boy had transfigured.
Sam nods and starts typing.
The near silence, Jack’s chattering on the baby monitor giving only a brief reprieve, that stretches between them is familiar in its discomfort. Dean can promise himself no more secrets between the pair of them and Sam can promise it right back. Doesn't mean they'll ever be able to follow completely through.
For once, Dean can't think of anything he needs to get off his chest. After Cas… Dean told Sam everything, even if that everything was just the beginnings of what could have been. But God, he never felt lighter after. There's still things Dean doesn't think Sam will ever know, things that trace back to their childhood that make Dean feel nauseous at the thought of sharing. Things no parent should tell their child.
But they’re both trying, and right now, that’s enough.
Dean clears his throat. "Anything else weird going on?"
Sam shrugs, making a ‘Not really’ face. "Garth started taking ballroom dance lessons."
"‘Course he did." Fucking weirdo. They both share an amused smile. "Hey, what were you doing in the hallway earlier?"
His brother stops typing. "What do you mean?"
"Earlier… When Jack- I saw you in the hallway when I took him to take a bath, but you disappeared before I could ask."
"Oh." Sam is quiet for a while, staring at his screen. "I heard screaming, but you had it covered."
Dean suspects it’s more than that, but he chooses to trust Sam. "Kid hurt himself again." It’s hard to admit. Even though he knows it’s not his fault, he still feels guilty.
"I saw."
They both go quiet again, unable to look the other in the eye. Dean isn’t completely sure how Sam feels about Jack, but he’s pretty sure he knows how Sam feels about Jack in relation to Dean.
On the baby monitor, Jack makes cartoonish explosion noises and then giggles.
"I can hang onto that tonight," Sam offers, nodding to where the device is clipped to Dean’s waistband.
Pushing down his gut reaction to deny the offer, Dean takes a deep breath. "You don’t have to if you don’t want to."
"You look exhausted, Dean. I can handle one night."
Dean intertwines his fingers, pushing away the memory of his recent unintended all-nighter. "You sure?"
Sam rolls his eyes, but he seems hurt. "Yes, Dean," he insists.
"Hey, no skin off my back," Dean soothes before becoming more serious. "He’s… he’s still waking up pretty much every night. Usually only once, but the last couple days have been especially bad." He waits for Sam to nod his understanding. "Keep the monitor on high volume. Make sure to knock on his door before you go in. And if he’s hurt himself, you come get me."
If Sam has something to say about Dean’s protectiveness, he keeps it to himself. "I will," he promises instead. He holds out his hand for the monitor, eyes serious.
"This is for the living room," Dean explains. It feels weighty, for some reason, that Sam doesn’t already know this. He wonders if a person can hoard responsibility. "I’ll get you the one for his room after he goes to bed."
"Thanks."
Dean knows the gratitude is not for the logistics of the baby monitor exchange, but instead for the trust. He thinks about how Cas would have trusted Sam with his child and feels his smile drop. "Well, I better go check on the pizzas and you’ve got mad cow blood to track down." He starts to exit the library, flipping the chair back in its original position as he does, but he pauses as he reaches the hallway. "Come to dinner, will ya? The kid misses you."
"Okay," Sam agrees, sharing a genuine look with Dean.
"Okay."
The pizzas turn out just fine and he prepares a side salad to go with them, one of those pre-made mixes from the store. It has pumpkin seeds in it, which the kid goes wild for for whatever reason. The human side of Jack needs veggies, so Dean doesn’t question it.
Dean pretends that he just eats the salads to set a good example, but honestly, they've grown on him too. Sam doesn’t say anything about it, probably scared that Dean would stop eating them if he made fun. Which… fair.
Sam does join them at the table for once. Lately, he’s been eating in the library while he works. Dean didn’t think there were really all that many hunts to be keeping him busy, but in their line of work, everything is always an urgent matter of life and death.
Jack spends the entire meal giving them a run down of his day. It’s mostly directed at Sam, but Dean loves hearing all about Jack’s perspective on what happened. He never really mentions his hallucinations after they’ve happened, so Dean doesn’t know much of what Jack thinks of them, other than that to him they’re real. The rest of the day though? Dean gets a play by play recap.
Sam is a little tense at the start of dinner, but he loves Jack and quickly gets caught up in the kid’s excitement. Even a lazy day at home is an adventure when you’re a toddler.
After they finish eating, Jack ‘helps’ put the dishes in the dishwasher after Dean rinses them off. Sam lingers in the kitchen for a while, watching another ritual that he hasn’t integrated himself into.
"You want to join us for some Miraculous Ladybug, Sammy?" Dean asks as he finishes rearranging the dishes Jack had haphazardly placed inside the dishwasher. Jack has already run ahead to prepare the living room for their viewing. As he’d passed Sam on his way out of the kitchen, he’d hugged his leg tightly.
One of the parenting blogs Dean had read when he was searching up ways to prevent nightmares suggested watching something happy before going to bed.
He’s not entirely sure Miraculous would qualify as ‘happy’, what with the constant danger, painful secrets, and looming villain. It makes him question the choices he’s made up until this point when some of the character arcs make his chest ache and his nightmares considerably more bleak. But Jack seems to like it so they watch an episode or two before his bedtime. The fact that Jack can easily follow the plot of a show targeted for six year olds is proof enough to Dean that the kid is still wise beyond his years.
Jack’s going to end up smarter than Dean, he knows. Just like Sammy has. His pride feels like a living thing when he thinks about it, flushing out all the blackness that lingers in his veins.
"Not tonight, sorry. I’m going to facetime with Eileen," Sam replies a minute after it would have been casual.
Jack will be disappointed, and Dean’ll commiserate with him. Privately, he’s excited that Sam and Eileen are still talking. Their relationship has been a bit jumbled since she continued hunting and Sam stayed behind. Sam hasn’t opened up to Dean about it too much, and Dean hasn’t pushed him.
Trust is a choice, he tells himself. Trust is an action.
He worries sometimes that he doesn't know how to anymore. Or that, with Sam, it’s just too late.
Tonight, he returns the baby monitor to its hook beside the sink and he clicks the dishwasher shut. It’s not full enough to run again, even though it’s one tiny enough to fit in the Bunker’s already small kitchen. He and Sam had gone all the way to the Ikea in Kansas City to pick one out while they’d been waiting for a bead on Abaddon all those years ago. It was one of the few afternoons that Dean remembers clearly while he’d had the Mark. It’s the only one he remembers fondly.
As he passes Sam on his way out of the kitchen, he clasps Sam’s arm briefly.
Sam’s eyes snap to his own and neither of them seem to know how to leave that moment. Dean thinks about the day Sam got on that bus, heading for Stanford. The final hug they’d shared. That brief contact had felt just as endless as this one does.
Then, Sam had muttered something about not wanting to miss the bus before shuffling off.
Now, Dean squeezes Sam’s arm a final time before letting go. "I’ll get you the baby monitor in a bit," he promises, searching Sam’s face for any indication that his brother no longer wants it.
"Sounds good."
Jack’s fiddling with the remote when Dean finally joins him in the living room. The TV is on, but if Dean had to guess, Jack achieved this by accident.
"Dad!" he cheers when he sees Dean and as always, the breath leaves Dean’s lungs when he hears that title. These days, he has no problem admitting that he was the one who raised Sam. Still, he can’t quite connect the concept of a father to himself.
"Hey, buddy. Ready?"
Jack smiles, holding the remote out for Dean. "Yep." The word is gummy and carefree and everything Dean wants for Cas’ child.
Tonight, Jack has piled up a blanket featuring Anna from Frozen, a purple Snuggie, and a scratchy knitted throw with alternating dark and light blue strips. He’s also got a stuffed purple unicorn clutched in his arms, but detaches one hand to absently trace the seam of Dean’s jeans when he sits beside the boy. Jack snuggles close, humming a song Dean doesn’t recognize.
When he finally gets Netflix to cooperate and actually pull up their show, both of them sing along with the theme song.
The episode starts out fine, and Dean’s quickly intrigued to see a part of the universe that the show rarely focuses on. Quickly, however, the typical plot begins and Jack tenses beside Dean. The episode’s villain is spreading nightmares, causing hallucinations eerily similar to those Jack experiences.
Dean debates ending the episode, but Jack clutches his arm when he reaches for the remote, stopping him. As always, the heroes save the day and the nightmares disappear with a cheer from Jack. Still, the boy has tears in his eyes as the credits roll. Dean considers starting up the next one just to give them a palette cleanser, but the title indicates that it’s a two parter. Dean’s invested enough in the show that he wouldn’t want to wait for the second part and he doesn’t want to set a precedent of watching that many episodes a night with Jack.
A stricter bedtime is another suggestion from the parenting blogs.
Jack is still snuggled close to Dean, his eyes not leaving the screen even after Dean shuts the TV off.
"That was pretty scary, huh bud?" Dean says quietly.
Jack nods into his side.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
The toddler shakes his head, bunching up Dean’s flannel in his fists.
"Okay, Jackie. You never have to talk about something you don’t want to. But I’m always here to listen."
"Okay," Jack whispers.
Dean squeezes Jack’s shoulder, just holding him close for a little while.
He hates that Jack has triggers, period. It hurts even more that Jack can’t even enjoy his favorite show all the way through.
There are episodes of Dr. Sexy that Dean just can’t watch. When there’s a shooting in the hospital. When Dr. Piccolo can’t save Dr. Wang after he gets his stomach ripped open by a rottweiler. When a patient has their spinal cord severed. He still hasn’t finished the show. The whole last season follows the arc of the ghost Johnny Drake haunting the hospital as a metaphor for budget cuts. It’s stupid but it feels too real for Dean to laugh off.
Jack isn’t even four. He shouldn’t have seen so much shit that a kid’s show makes him feel scared.
Maybe he shouldn’t let Sam have the baby monitor tonight…
Dean takes in a deep breath and lets it out slowly. "What story do you want to read tonight, buddy?"
Jack shrugs.
"How about we go pick one out together, huh?"
Instead of answering, Jack takes Dean's hand. The parent peels off all the blankets covering them and leads Jack to the bedrooms. He sends Jack into his bedroom, promising to join him after a quick detour to his own.
"What looks good tonight, buddy?" Dean asks when he meets Jack at the short bookshelf that rests beside the door. On top of it, there are a few of Jack's favorite stuffed animals and some of the cooler rocks he's found on their walks around the property. Dean keeps a container of salt on there as well. The shelves are overflowing with picture books. Sam buys a new one almost every time he goes to the store and anytime Dean sees a yard sale, he buys what he can find.
Jack browses his shelves with a seriousness that makes Dean uncomfortable. Or maybe it's just the silence.
While Jack looks, Dean gathers up the books that still clutter the floor from when Jack's powers knocked them down before, sliding them back onto the shelf.
Eventually, Jack pulls out one that Sam had bought when he realized that Dean and Jack weren't able to talk about their grief, not for a lack of trying, but instead because they didn't have a shared language to discuss it. The story is about how loved ones are connected by invisible strings that never go away. They read it once a week, at least, and every time Jack tells him with absolute certainty that his connection with Cas is yellow and his connection with Dean is blue.
Jack climbs into his bed—recently upgraded to a twin size that Dean took the opportunity to strap an iron rod to the bottom of—and Dean settles down beside him, making room for Jack to curl into his side. He reads the story in a soft voice, letting Jack trace each of the threads connecting person to person on the pages. When they finish, Dean presses a gentle kiss on the crown of Jack’s head before sweeping up a plastic spray bottle that he’d picked up from the store soon after they’d realized that Jack’s visions weren’t true visions. It’s filled with a mixture of holy water, salt, and some granulated iron. Dean sprays his concoction around the room, concentrating it especially around Jack’s bed.
The parenting blogs call for lavender essential oil and witch hazel, but Dean and Jack both know how to protect themselves from real monsters.
“Alright, buddy, time for bed.”
Jack nods silently, pulling his stuffed bumble bee into his arms.
“Do you-” Dean reaches behind himself and hands Jack the photo frame that he’d retrieved from his bedroom. “Would you like to keep this picture of your pops in here?”
Jack’s small fingers wrap around the frame and he looks up at Dean with wide eyes. He throws his arms around Dean whispering, “Thank you Dad.”
“‘Course, buddy,” he says around the tightness in his throat. Every time he hears Jack’s terms for himself and Cas, it’s like his grief begins anew. Mourning the life he could have had if he’d been able to get the words out sooner. He sets the photo on Jack’s bedside, gives Jack another kiss goodnight, and flicks off the lights in his room.
Sam is coming out of the bathroom as Dean grabs the baby monitor from the basket on Jack’s door.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
They meet in the middle of the hallway. Sam reaches out for the monitor, but Dean pulls it back at the last second.
“High volume, knock before going in, get you if he's hurt himself. I know Dean.”
“No, well yes, that.” Dean huffs out a laugh. “I was going to say ‘thank you’.”
“Oh,” Sam looks genuinely surprised, but his smile grows quickly. “No problem.”
Sam grabs the monitor and Dean claps him on the arm gratefully.
His brother retreats to his room and Dean heads to the bathroom.
Since before he could drive, the beginning and end of his days have been his rare pockets of routine. That routine has shifted over the years, with unstable finances and hitting puberty and the Bunker and his ever changing companions. Now, in what feels like his retirement, he's drifted back to the routine he'd found with Lisa and Ben. A full half hour to himself in the mornings, showering and shaving and getting dressed. Back then, it would be another half hour in the evening. Now, he finds himself in the bathroom for over an hour some nights. Now, his nighttime routine is interrupted with sobs and pleas, begging for Cas to come home, to give him another chance.
Tonight is no different.
“He asked for you again today,” he says quietly, waiting for the water of the shower's spray to heat up. He flicks his hand back and forth under it. It's useless to check, the water's always slow to warm. “Thought there was a hellhound tearing him open and he begged for you, Cas.” Dean takes in a sharp breath and can't help but laugh. “But apparently you've been answering his prayers.” He discards his clothes, tossing them just far enough away that they won't get wet from the water that spills over the edge. Still no bath mat. His skin is hot and he knows it's the mixture of disappointment and anger and hope and longing making him feel that way. The water is still more cold than warm but Dean gets in anyway. At least then there will be something else to blame his tears on.
“He said that you turn on the lights for him. When he's scared, you turn on the lights and I'm thinking to myself, that's it? Cas I knew would tear the world apart, would kill God, if his kid was scared.” He tilts his head back, letting the water wash away his next few thoughts. He wipes at his eyes but they still burn.
“I just, I don't get it.” He grabs his shampoo and squirts some into his palm and tries not to think about how it would feel to have Cas' fingers in his hair. “How would you even be here? Jack's powerful, more than I will ever understand. But is that not enough? What more do you need?” What more am I not able to give you?
He can't bring himself to say anything else for a while, just washes himself clean, lets all this day's grief out of his system knowing that it will build back up again tomorrow.
As the last bits of soap run off his body, he whispers, “If it's really you, Cas, if it's really you, then why are you just turning on lights? Why aren't you home? Why am I not enough for you to stay?”
The tears don't linger after his shower tonight. A relief he can't bring himself to appreciate.
His mind still swims with why why why and his heart still pounds in his chest and his fingers still buzz as he pries on a too-big t-shirt and soft sweatpants.
He avoids his own gaze in the mirror and brushes his teeth with the same brutal efficiency that makes the bristles flatten out. He flosses, spitting out blood and missing the pain that usually accompanies the action. At least it would be something else to focus on.
Dean glances at the ceiling, pausing before he unlocks the bathroom door. “If you can't come back for me, I understand,” he says quietly. “But you've gotta come back for Jack. He needs you, Cas. He needs you.”
He shoves his hands into his pockets as he walks across the hall to his bedroom, not stopping outside of Jack or Sam's doors. He doesn't know if he'd knock on one or punch a concrete wall if his hands were loose. He's not certain either would make him feel anything right now.
Thankfully, his lack of sleep from the previous night's nausea seems good for one thing because he falls asleep immediately once he's horizontal.
In his adult life, he hasn't slept through the night more than ten times without the influence of drugs or head injuries, or both. As he gets older, he wakes up more frequently and for longer. Unless it's from a nightmare, he's usually able to go back under without too much trouble.
Tonight, he wakes up slowly, but becomes fully aware instead of remaining half asleep. It doesn't take long for him to realize what's wrong: it's quiet.
This is enough to propel him out of bed, tripping slightly as his sheets move with him and fumbling to get the locked door open. He's in the hallway before he remembers that Sam is meant to be on Jack duty. He lets out a breath, shaking his head. Before he can make himself return to bed, he sees that Jack's door is slightly ajar.
With the way this week's been going, he's unsurprised that Jack's already needed Sam. He knocks on the door twice and announces that he's coming in. The sight that greets him is unexpected.
Jack is curled up against the far wall, tears in his eyes, and Sam is right beside him, trembling in fear. Of course, the overhead lights are on and the lamps flicker.
Sam has an arm cast in front of Jack in what would feel protective if Dean didn’t know what Sam was capable of.
“Sammy,” he calls, voice deep and firm.
“Stay away,” Sam begs, not looking at Dean. “Stay away from us!”
Jack is muttering stop over and over and every time he does, a book falls off his shelf, only serving to further scare the two. At the very least, Jack doesn’t seem to have hurt himself.
Dean moves toward them cautiously, having more then enough experience to know what happens when either of his charges are startled. With his brother and his training tackling him to the ground and his child and his powers throwing him across the room.
Neither of them seem to have noticed him though and he realizes that there's no calm way to get their attention.
Easing into Sam's space, Dean breathes once, finding his calm, before yanking Sam's arm behind his back and restraining the rest of his brother's body as he tries to fight him.
"Sam, it's me. There's nothing there," Dean says evenly. Thankfully, the pain is enough to jerk Sam out of it because he stops fighting, but Dean doesn't let up until he knows what he's hallucinating.
"There- there are these- Jack saw these three ghosts, these elementary school aged girls."
"Do you still see them?" Dean presses.
Sam shakes his head no and Dean releases him. "Go to the kitchen. Make some tea. I'll be there in a minute."
His brother nods shakily, stumbling out of the room, shocked, and Dean turns his attention to Jack, who still looks terrified. The bookshelf has nearly emptied and the lamps are still flickering.
Dean speaks softly to Jack, finally gaining his attention now that Sam is gone.
There’s a large butterfly-patterned hula hoop hanging on Jack’s wall and Dean pulls it down around them. Jack relaxes slightly once they’re encircled by it. He was there when Dean filled it with salt and then re-sealed the plastic ring with a lighter. It was one of their first visits to the park in town.
Dean cards his fingers through Jack’s hair, whispering promises of safety and comfort. The child melts in his arms, tears drying up, and breath evening out. He nods when Dean asks if the ghosts are gone.
He convinces Jack to go back to sleep after only reading him one more story. This time a beaten up Dr. Suess hardback that Dean picked up from a Goodwill. Are you my mother? the small bird asks. He spritzes another layer of their homemade monster spray around Jack’s bed, tucks him in, and leaves the boy to drift back to sleep. The overhead lights turn off just as Dean closes the door. He retrieves the baby monitor from Sam's bedside table and then meets his brother in the kitchen.
The incongruity of seeing Sam at this table makes Dean's heart ache. Sam didn't grow up with a nice, wooden dining room table, just a series of stained particle board surfaces. Dean hates that raising Jack feels like redemption, like absolution for all he failed when raising Sam. Sam doesn't look like the sort of person to have a real dining room table to sit and that's Dean's fault.
After Cas' death, Dean bought a real dining table at a garage sale and moved the old one into one of the storage spaces in the Bunker. The cafeteria-style table had been bolted to the wall and the floor, and it had taken Dean two days to find the right tools to remove it without breaking any of the concrete. He’d even filled the remaining holes with expanding foam. The new table stood out against the Cold War look of the kitchen, with its light wood finish. Jack spilled blue and green paint over it within two days of it being in the Bunker and Dean still hasn’t found the right mixture of chemicals to get the stains off. The finger painting he’d made when he’d spilled the paint, a portrait of his family, still hung at the center of the pin board above the table. Dean had taken down all the reminders to the dead Men of Letters and slowly, Jack’s art has rotated through.
He wonders if this is what home is supposed to look like. Not the motel rooms, not Baby. Not Heaven, or Hell.
He remembers how hard he worked as a kid to give Sam the taste of home he held in his own mind. How he would always drape the same blue blanket on Sam’s bed no matter what hunter’s cabin, motel room, or tent they were staying in for the night. How he always made Sam clean the dishes because he was pretty sure kids should have chores. How he invented little rituals for him and his brother—watch a movie the first night their dad abandons them, build sculptures out of junk left around the parking lot of whatever school they get pulled out of wherever their dad returns.
Sometimes, Dean misses those quiet activities, the way Sam looked up to him with bright, hopeful eyes.
Now, Sam has his hands clasped over the green stain, a faint tremor running through his body. Although his gaze is pointed exactly at his hands, Dean doesn’t think he notices the way his thumb digs sharply into his palm.
"Sam."
His brother flinches hard and faces Dean. He recognizes the emotion in Sam’s eyes as the same one he’d had during the Trials and Dean shoves his hands in his pockets.
Whatever it was in his tone that made Sam feel prepared to face death, Dean pushes it out of his voice. "Jack’s back in bed," he says softly. He sits across from Sam and places the baby monitor beside the two mugs of steeping tea resting between them. His hands come together in front of him, resting over the blue stain and for just a moment, it feels like the last thirty-seven years never happened and it’s just him and Sam saying grace.
The moment breaks when Sam whispers, "I don’t know what happened. He was crying and I went in and there was nothing there and- and then there was."
Dean keeps his gaze on Sam’s clenched hands and his voice steady. "Sometimes shit comes out of nowhere. Hell, the episode Jack and I watched last night almost made me throw up."
It’s a testament to how messed up Sam is about this that he doesn’t look up in shock at Dean’s admission of not being perfectly okay. Privately, Dean’s grateful for it. He doesn’t think discussing how a story of an older sibling trying to protect a younger one kept him glued to a toilet for the night would help Sam feel any better.
"No, Dean. It’s… I saw those ghosts and I did nothing. I knew there was salt on the bookshelf. I knew there was an iron bar under his bed. But I was…" Sam blinks back tears. "I was just scared. I haven’t been genuinely scared of a ghost in almost fifteen years."
Dean almost laughs at the implication that Sam has gone soft. Clearly, this is bothering his brother, even if neither of them can place why. It hasn’t been a year since the last time the world almost ended. It hasn’t even been a full month since Sam’s last hunt.
"You were at home," Dean says eventually.
"Don’t… make excuses." His eyes flick up for just a moment.
For want of something more, Dean sips the tea Sam prepared. It’s nasty, in his opinion. But he listens to Jack breathe through the baby monitor and Sam breathe right in front of him.
He used to do that when he and Sammy were both still little. Wake up in the middle of the night, Dad nowhere to be seen, Sam asleep on the bed across from him. His small chest would rise and fall, slow and even. With that sight, Dean could always slip back to sleep.
Now, he listens to the pair of them and his shoulders loosen.
Sam’s gets more tense.
Dean sets his mug down with a soft thud when it's empty. "You know," Dean says quietly. "You’ve been doing that more lately." He motions to where Sam’s thumb is still crammed into his palm. His brother yanks his hands apart in realization. His mouth opens but he doesn’t say anything. "Back when everything was non-stop demons and angels, you’d almost stopped completely." Sam grabs his cooling tea, not looking at Dean. "Do you think…" Dean clears his throat. "Do you think that now that you’re relatively safe here, all that crap is coming up?"
Sam’s eyes get a faraway look in them. One that speaks of the Cage and the Trials and, oddly, Tuesdays.
Dean taps on his mug. "It is for me, anyway," he admits finally. "I’ll see you in the morning, Sammy. Try to get some sleep."
He wants to do more, but honestly? He doesn't have anything left in him.
Maybe… A few more hours of sleep and he’ll find words that are worth something.
He swipes the baby monitor off the table and returns to his bedroom, leaving Sam with his thoughts.
His door is still open and he pauses for a moment in the hallway before he locks it behind himself.
Jack’s calm breaths fill the room as Dean cranks up the volume on the monitor. He’s never been able to sleep without the sounds of another person blanketing him.
He drifts off restlessly, waking up periodically to the sounds of Jack shifting around.
On the fourth or fifth time he wakes, it’s quiet again. He panics briefly before he realizes that the volume has been turned to its lowest setting above mute. He can’t imagine he did it in his sleep, but stranger things have happened. It’s muscle memory that allows him to grab the monitor in the dark, dialing the volume back up.
Jack is babbling quietly. Glancing at his alarm clock, it’s too early in the morning for Jack to have already woken up for the day. Aside from the nightmares and the hallucinations, Jack does sleep through the night.
Unease rising in Dean’s chest, he grabs his gun from one drawer of his side table and the clip from the other. He slides them together as he creeps down the hallway to Jack’s room.
The door is still locked from the outside and he knocks on it twice in warning before going in.
The lights are on, but once again the switch isn’t flipped. Across the room, Jack looks to Dean and he isn’t the only one.
Dean aims his gun on instinct but lowers it just as soon.
"Dad," Jack greets, grabbing onto the tan sleeve of the other man. "Poppy came."
Dean’s eyes slide to the man kneeling beside his son. He almost collapses at the sight.
Everything—the stable lights above them, the longing heavy in his chest, the hope in Jack's voice, the photo on Jack's side table—comes into focus and he has no doubts.
He's real. He's home.
"Cas," he breathes.
"Hello, Dean."