Chapter Text
“Sam?” Jack asked, standing in the doorway to the library and twisting his hands.
Sam turned towards him, lifting his eyes from the page he had been reading. “Yeah?”
The young boy looked nervous, shuffling his feet while talking to Sam.“Could you maybe help me in the kitchen for a moment?”
“Sure, bud.” Sam replied and abandoned his book. The chair creaked loudly as he got up and walked over to the nephilim. He lightly squeezed Jack’s shoulder in encouragement when he didn’t start walking. “C’mon.”
Entering the kitchen, Sam immediately spotted the mess on the counter. It was covered in sandwich ingredients but no sandwich, only a plate with two pieces of plain bread.
“So, what can I help you with?” Sam asked, surveying the mess.
“Could you maybe cut up some things for me?” Jack asked, gesturing to the cucumber and cheese on the counter. His cheeks were tinted pink and even his voice screamed embarrassment.
“You want me to make you a sandwich?” Sam asked to clarify. He tried to keep his tone neutral but inquisitive. He was still trying to figure out which things Jack already knew and which he still needed to be taught. Sam couldn't quite discern a pattern yet of which things Kelly had instilled in him and which Jack had picked up through the TV and the internet. He may have looked fifteen but in some ways he really was still the newborn that he technically was supposed to be.
“Yeah, it’s just, Dean doesn’t want me to play with knives.” Jack answered slowly, looking around the kitchen and shrugging his shoulders..
Sam was surprised that Dean apparently had had this kind of conversation with the boy. He thought his brother had been trying to avoid talking to or about Jack as much as possible.
“Well yeah, you shouldn’t play with knives, but I can show you how to safely use them.” Sam smiled at him and picked one of the chef knives out of the knife block before also picking out a smaller paring knife from the drawer. He placed them on the counter next to the cutting board, before turning back to Jack and smiling at him encouragingly.
Jack looked back, still with apprehension in his eyes but moved closer in order to see what Sam was doing. His shoulder bumped Sam’s side for a moment and Sam could see the nephilim relax slightly at the contact.
“Alright, so first up you should always be careful with knives. Ours will always be really sharp because Dean takes care of them, but blunt knives will be even more dangerous. Blunt knives rip instead of cutting and you could hurt yourself worse because of it. Secondly, never play with knives. Don’t just walk around with them and never point them at someone. Be sure that you have dry hands so that it doesn’t accidentally slip out of your hand.” Sam began his lecture with the basic information, telling Jack more about the handling of knives before diving into the different types they kept in the kitchen and what they were used for.
“That’s good.” Sam praised when Jack grasped the halved cucumber in a clawed grip. Sam had shown him how to cut the vegetable first a few times and had now encouraged him to try and slice the cucumber by himself.
After some trial and error Jack successfully cut up his lunch with Sam’s help and grinned widely at him with his mouth stuffed full. Sam beamed back at him, glad he could teach him something new and especially something useful for his everyday life. “See, I knew you could do it.”
It felt good to be able to do something good, even if it was such a small thing.
“Accidents can still happen, so if you get hurt you come find me and we patch it up. Just go slow and if you don’t feel confident or want me to do it, you just need to say so.” He offered, hoping that he made it clear to Jack that he wouldn’t need to be embarrassed about asking for Sam’s help.
…
Over the next week Sam occasionally saw Jack stand in the kitchen, carefully slicing an apple or a carrot, practicing his grip and technique.
One evening Sam had wandered into the kitchen in search of some peanuts to snack on when Jack was cutting into an apple again. The round fruit didn’t quite want to stay still for his first cut and Sam was about to offer his help when Dean came in behind him.
“What the fuck?” He asked loudly.
Sam flinched lightly, not having heard his brother come into the kitchen.
Sam turned to Dean just as his brother huffed and marched forwards, pulling the knife out of Jack’s hand. “I told you not to play with knives!”
Jack shrunk back from Dean’s tone and turned around to stare at Sam. Moving backwards until he stood next to Sam, his shoulders hunched up to his ears. Sam quickly grasped his shoulder, letting him know that he was going to take care of this.
“Woah, Dean! It’s fine. He’s not playing with him.” The younger Winchester tried to placate,his voice was gentle but firm, no use in aggravating his brother even more.
“Like hell he is, Sammy. I told-” Dean started in on Jack again before Sam interrupted him.
Sam snagged the knife out of Dean’s hand and laid it next to the cutting board Jack had been using. “And I told him how to safely handle a knife. He wasn’t playing with it, he was cutting fruit.”
Dean scoffed and turned on his heel, marching out of the kitchen. His departure left the kitchen in an uncomfortable silence for a moment before Sam breathed deeply and turned back around to Jack. “You can keep going, Jack. Don’t listen to him.” He smiled at him but apparently it wasn’t enough for the young nephilim. Sam could see the disappointment and sadness in Jack’s eyes.
“No, he’s right I shouldn’t have.” He mumbled and grabbed the apple to put it back in the fruit basket.
“Don’t listen to him.” Sam repeated and stole the fruit from Jack’s hand. He quickly and precisely cut it into eight even pieces, offering the cutting board to Jack. “There you go. Don’t let him ruin your appetite, I’ll talk to him.”
Sam knew his brother was a stubborn bastard but that was no reason to react or talk to the boy like that. He didn’t have to immediately welcome him to the family, Sam knew that was going to be difficult, but this behavior was not acceptable. He would have to talk to Dean, make some points and make sure this wasn’t going to escalate any further.
The boy hesitantly reached out and picked up a slice of apple. He slowly chewed it, not looking too placated by Sam’s words but nodded slightly.
…
Sam found his brother in his man cave, nursing a beer. “What was that all about?” He had tried to keep his voice in check but his agitation was obvious.
“What?” Dean asked back. Leaning back in his chair all nonchalant as if he hadn’t just yelled at a child.
“C’mon, man. What was that in the kitchen?”
Dean scoffed at his brother before replying. “Oh you want Lucifer’s son to run around with a weapon? It’s not enough that he could probably kill us just by thinking about it?”
A flinch ran through Sam at the mention of Lucifer. He knew that the devil was locked in the apocalypse world, but still he couldn’t help the icy grip of fear that his mention always brought over him.
“Dean!” He complained after taking a breath and pushed himself off the door jam. “He’s not going to hurt us, he’s just a kid.”
Before Dean could get another word in, Sam continued. “I agree he shouldn’t play with knives, but he’s just a child, he has to learn somehow. So I taught him and he is really careful with it.”
This was already going to be an arduous conversation, he didn’t need Dean interrupting him at every possible moment. Sam didn’t understand why Jack helping himself, safely, to some food was such a big deal.
“Well he wasn’t before.” Dean’s tone was like that of a petulant child, not the almost forty year old he was.
Now Sam huffed, he couldn’t understand why they couldn’t just get along. “What even happened?”
Dean looked up with a surprised expression. “He didn’t tell you?” At Sam’s head shake he sighed. “One of the first days with us, I saw him in his room with one of the big chef knives. It was covered in blood and he was stabbing himself with it.”
Worry and disgust swirled in Sam’s stomach, he could feel his mouth drop open in shock. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. Jack had tried to hurt himself and he didn’t know it. Why hadn’t Jack told him and why hadn’t Dean told him.
“No.” He breathed out.
“So I told him to stop playing with them. I mean, c’mon it won’t hurt him but what if he decides to see what it does to us.” Dean continued over Sam’s shock.
“Dean!” Sam exclaimed furiously. “Jack stabbed himself and your first instinct was that? Do you even know why he did it?” He couldn’t believe his brother. A child hurt itself under their care and his stubborn older brother had nothing better to worry about than his irrational projections.
“No, man. He was just stabbing away and realized it didn’t hurt him. I think he finally got that he isn’t like us.” Dean continued on, now looking up at Sam. Dean’s expression faltered slightly at seeing Sam’s shock before he steeled his face again.
“Jesus Christ!” The younger Winchester turned around, breathing heavily for a moment and trying to compose himself before briefly turning back to his brother. “We’re not done talking about this. I’ll just - I gotta check if he’s okay.”
Dean opened his mouth again and reached a hand out towards Sam but he had already turned around and was leaving the room.
On his way towards Jack’s room Sam tried to reign in his rampant emotions. He was pissed at Dean for keeping this from him. He was scared and worried for Jack, but overall he was just overwhelmed at how to handle this. He could take care of monsters and talk to witnesses but he never really had to handle something like this. Something so personal and crucial for one child, he wasn’t a parent goddamnit, even if he was starting to care for the nephilim more than he maybe should.
Jack was sitting on his bed, a video was playing on Sam’s old, spare laptop in front of him. He looked up when Sam knocked on the open door. A wry smile was directed at him while Jack stopped the video.
“Can I bother you for a moment?” Sam asked, only entering the room after Jack nodded.
Sam sat down at the desk chair, facing the bed. He braced his elbows on his knees and just looked at Jack for a moment. Jack looked fine, no blood or scars or anything to indicate what had happened. Even though his eyes betrayed that he still must have felt slightly shaken from Dean’s outburst, he was behaving like his regular self.
“Dean told me about the knife incident.” Sam began slowly.
Jack shrunk on his bed, knees drawing him up. It was the opposite of what Sam had hoped for, but he could understand the reaction.
“I’m not mad at you or anything like that.” Sam quickly added. “But I think we should talk about it.”
Jack raised his head slightly and looked at Sam, slowly nodding when the older man stopped talking.
“Can you tell me why you did it?” Sam asked gently.
It took Jack a while to answer him. “I just wanted to know what I am. I don’t understand what is wrong with me.” His voice was small and hesitant.
Sam could feel his stomach drop further and he had to take a deep breath before reacting to Jack’s words. He didn’t want Jack to misinterpret his reaction to his answer.
“You’re Jack. You’re a nephilim, part angel and part human. So yes cutting yourself won’t physically hurt you like it would a full human, but that doesn’t mean that it is a good way to figure things out about yourself.” Sam replied and scooted the chair closer to the bed.He hoped it made sense to the boy, but really there was only one question that was burning at Sam. “Did you do it because you wanted to hurt yourself?”
Jack’s eyes widened at Sam’s question and he shook his head. “No. I was just confused I guess. I remember my mother telling me I shouldn’t be a child. I shouldn’t be like this, right?”
The slight tremble in his voice and the confusion made Sam move again. A hand came to heavily rest on Jack’s knee. “You’re exactly who you are supposed to be, Jack. If that is in the body of a fifteen year old that is good, if it is as a baby that would also be fine.”
The smile that Sam got in return looked far more genuine than before.
“We’ll teach you whatever you don’t know and whatever you want to know. Just please talk to me or Dean if things are confusing again, we don’t want to see you hurt, even if it doesn’t affect you as much.”
The young nephilim gripped Sam’s hand and squeezed it. “Okay.”
Sam could see that it was a lot for the boy to take in and think about. He slowly got up and gripped Jack’s shoulder before ruffling his hair affectionately. “Don’t stay up too late and come get me if you need anything, and I mean anything, Jack.”
Sam smiled at Jack again before pulling the door mostly closed again, leaving it cracked like it had been the last few nights.
He would assure Jack as much as he could that there was nothing wrong with him. Just because his genetics weren’t the best didn’t mean that he had to turn out like his biological father. Sam was going to make sure that Jack felt comfortable to come to him with any- and everything he could need. He was going to give that boy all the assurances he had never had in his childhood or when he figured out he had demon blood in him. There was no way he was going to leave him to figure all of this out on his own.
Now he just had to convince Dean of the same notion.