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The laundry was done, and Dean tried to take solace in small victories as he bundled Anna into the backseat of the Impala. She was still white-faced and quiet, her hands clinging for a second every time he brushed against her as he buckled her in. “Wait here and be good, okay?” he said softly, placing Halloween carefully in his sister’s lap. “I got a few more things to grab, and we’ll get going.”
Anna nodded silently, chewing on her lower lip.
“Okay,” Dean murmured, more to himself than to Anna. He closed the back door and headed inside for the last couple duffel bags– containing a mini arsenal and their laundry.
As he put the last of their things in the trunk a minute later, Dean couldn’t help but slam the laundry bag down with extra force. He shouldn’t have done the fucking laundry today. If he’d been home when Dad and Anna had returned from that field trip, he would have been able to mediate.
Without conscious thought, he opened the back door again, wanting to check on Anna before getting on the road. “You got everything?” he asked gently. “You need something to drink before we go?”
Anna shook her head, still mute.
“You can still talk, right?” Dean teased and used the back of his hand to wipe mostly-dried tears from under Anna’s eyes.
“Uh-huh,” Anna replied faintly. She kneaded the stuffed frog in her small hands and gripped the sleeve of Dean’s flannel for a second before letting go again. As she sniffled, Dean brushed a stray curl away from her face.
“Okay,” he mumbled. “Okay, Sweetheart.”
The engine rumbling to life was usually such a comfort in their whirlwind of a life. But Dean felt guilty turning the key and backing out of his parking space.
“What should we listen to?” he asked with fake cheer. “CCR? Zeppelin? The Beatles?”
Anna’s sniffles intensified, and Dean glanced at her in the mirror to see tears spilling over her eyelids again.
“Hey, it’s okay,” he promised. “Think your tape is still in here, let me see.” He turned the volume up on the radio, and Eleanor Rigby serenaded them. But it sounded creepy and damning after such a hard day, so Dean skipped the track and prayed something more gentle would be up next. “There we go,” he crooned when the opening notes of Let It Be sounded from the radio. “You love this song, huh?”
Anna nodded, chewing harder on her lip and hugging her stuffed animal more tightly to her stomach. “Did w-we have to- have to go, Dean?” she stammered, tone so cautious it broke Dean’s heart in two.
“Yeah, Baby, we had to go,” Dean told her, then realized he was doing a shit job of making this feel more normal.
He was being too gentle. But he couldn’t bring himself not to be, so he decided to lean into it. Maybe the move wasn’t to brush this off. Maybe they needed to talk about it. He turned the radio back down so the music was mere background noise.
“Dad didn’t tell me what was going on,” Dean explained, tapping his thumbs against the steering wheel restlessly. “But he said we had to bolt and it wasn’t safe there anymore.”
“Why?” Anna cried. “It was- was nice there. Daddy- Daddy ruined it. I made him mad. I- I made him mad aga-again.” Between the sniffles and the hiccups, Dean struggled to make out what his sister was actually saying.
“I hear you, Rugrat,” he soothed. “I know you didn’t want to go. But Dad knows something we don’t, okay?”
“It’s cause- cause I was bad,” Anna whispered, voice wet with tears. “Right? I made him mad.”
“No,” Dean told her firmly. “It’s nothing to do with you, kiddo. It’s not your fault, okay? I promise. Would I lie to you?”
Anna shook her head without hesitating. “Did- did- did my teacher do something bad? She doesn’t like Dad.”
Dad instead of Daddy , and Dean wondered if that would stick. Had John damaged something irreparably tonight?
“I told her too much. D-Dean, I talked about you and Dad, and now they’re gonna take me. Dad said . Is that–” She made a frightened sound, and her breathing sped up. “Is that why he stayed? Is Ms. Liron trynta take me?”
“Woah, woah, no, Anna, come on.” Dean sat there for another minute with his mouth half-open, trying to figure out the right thing to say. “No,” he repeated, all he could come up with. “No, Anna. No one’s… No.” And maybe his sudden inability to speak had something to do with how terrifying that prospect was.
Dean and Sam had been noticed by social services a couple times as kids. They’d ducked and run so fast each time that the threat of being taken away from their father– and maybe more importantly, each other– had always felt like something of a myth. Terrifying, always breathing down their necks, but always behind them, always stuck chasing.
His mouth went dry at the thought of Anna living with that same fear. But he lost the ability to breathe at the thought of that fear being realized.
“No one’s taking you away,” he told her firmly. “No one ever could, okay?”
Anna’s small face met his eyes in the mirror. She offered a very quiet, “okay,” but didn’t look as comforted as he’d have hoped. Her cheeks were pink and wet from crying, her eyes ringed red and bloodshot, and her nose running. The car was brimming with somber energy that Dean could have suffocated in.
“Listen, Sweetheart, we’re gonna drive through the night, find a town with an awesome playground, and then you and me are gonna have the best day ever tomorrow, okay?”
Anna finally perked up a little bit. “Like with ice cream?”
“Wouldn’t be the best day ever without ice cream,” Dean confirmed with a wink in the mirror. His confidence grew more genuine as Anna actually smiled back at him. “See if you can get some sleep back there, kiddo. You need it.”
It didn’t take long for Anna to drift off in her carseat. Dean snuck glances frequently, watching as the tears and snot dried into tracks on her skin. He was itching to wipe her face clean, but they didn’t keep baby wipes anymore, and he knew Dad didn’t want them stopping until they were at least fifty miles out of town. It was a small failure by comparison to the rest of this day, so Dean tried to let it go. But with every glimpse he got of her sad, sleeping face, anger stirred with a building warmth in his gut.
He wasn’t accustomed to being so mad at their father. He was, instead, used to empathizing and compartmentalizing. He couldn’t afford to be at odds with John. The guy was the only parent he and his siblings had.
With Anna restlessly sniffling in her sleep, Dean wondered whether forgiveness was something their father had ever deserved.
()()()
Dean drove through the night, listening to the same 12 songs on repeat because Anna loved the Beatles. Poor kid couldn’t seem to stay asleep for more than a half hour at a time, which was unfortunate considering how long their drive was. Dean didn’t stop until late morning as he wanted to put as much distance behind them as he could. But around 11am, he was simply too tired to keep moving.
They were in another state, and that was enough to help him shake off thoughts of social workers and cops. So Dean found a nice little bed and breakfast where he could sleep for a little while and then give Anna her promised best day ever .
Said little girl was awake and sullen in the backseat, petting her stuffed frog and looking out the window.
“Ready to get out of that carseat, Rugrat?” Dean asked with forced cheer as he parked the car.
Anna nodded, her gaze sluggishly moving to meet his in the rearview mirror. Once the engine was off, she unbuckled herself and waited there for Dean to open her door. Once he had, she let him help her out of the car and then paused again, standing quietly next to him as he picked up her uneaten drive-thru breakfast off the backseat.
“Alright,” Dean told her and reached down to take her hand. “Let’s go inside, and we can get our duffels later, huh? I’m beat.”
Anna didn’t have anything to say to that. She just held Dean’s fingers with one hand and Halloween with the other, looking every bit as tired as Dean felt.
Inside, the receptionist was sipping an iced coffee and playing some sort of mobile game on her phone. “Morning,” she said without looking up as they walked in. “Chase left early again. I did the laundry, and-” She glanced up as a victory sound erupted from her phone. “Oh… my god. I’m sorry,” she said, standing up from her seat and pulling the keyboard toward herself. “I thought you were my coworker.”
“No problem,” Dean told her tiredly and fished his wallet out with his left hand. Anna hadn’t let go of his other one.
“Just the two of you?”
“Yeah,” Dean said. “Whatever you have is fine.”
“Let me check,” the woman said. “I’m Halle, by the way. Sorry to be on my phone. Please don’t leave me a bad review. I got obsessed with this new match three game, and it’s, like, a little unhealthy how much I’ve been playing it. But I promise I’ll be super helpful while you’re here. Anything you need.”
Dean tried to smile patiently at the lady, but her perkiness was truthfully too much for him to deal with at the moment. He was running on no sleep, and his kid was standing next to him, emotionally wrought and in a similar state of fatigue. “Yeah, I hear you,” he said a little more tersely than he meant to. “Look, uh, our dad is supposed to show up at some point today. You point him to our room if you see him? Middle-aged guy, dark hair, little taller than me?”
“Sure thing,” Halle agreed and typed something into her computer. “Uh, okay. I have a full and a twin. That work for you two?”
“Perfect,” Dean said and handed over his credit card.
He had to fight not to cringe when she recited the price to him. One night, and it cost three times what he was used to paying. Admittedly, though, he’d known from the second he saw the building that this place was outside their price range. He just hadn’t been able to resist the urge to give his little sister something nice. Even if all that meant was a quiet, clean hotel room and a decent meal or two.
“Okay,” Halle said absently and handed Dean a key. “Here you go. First floor, end of the hall.” She reached under her desk for a second and came up with a basket of stickers. “ You can pick one of these if you want, Sweetie,” she told Anna, holding the basket down so she could reach.
Anna flinched at first, hiding behind Dean’s leg. But she looked up into the woman’s smiling face and then glanced to Dean for his permission. When he nodded at her, she leaned forward around his leg and picked a Spongebob sticker out of the basket with the same hand she was using to hold Halloween. “Thank you,” she said softly.
“You’re very welcome,” the woman told her cheerfully. She replaced the basket and looked at Dean again, pointing at the door separating the lobby from the hall. “That’s the hall where your room will be.” She pointed to the other side of the room and a set of double doors that was propped open. “Restaurant’s through there. They’re still serving breakfast if you’re hungry. Otherwise lunch is at noon. Any questions?”
“No, thank you,” Dean said, eager to get away from the social interaction. He gave a tight smile and gently tugged on Anna’s hand to get her moving down the hallway.
In their room, Anna finally let go of his fingers and walked over silently toward the smaller of the two beds. Dean watched her peel her sticker carefully off the paper and stick it to the back of her own hand. She didn’t let go of Halloween the whole time. He threw his jacket onto his bed from a few feet away and watched Anna climb up onto the twin across the room. She just sat on the end, not kicking off her shoes or jacket like he expected.
“Hey,” he called, walking over just far enough to sit on the edge of his own bed facing her. “Take your coat off, Rugrat. Stay awhile.”
He untied his boots and kicked them off. When he looked up from his sweaty sock-clad feet, he saw Anna staring down at her own arms with tears in her eyes. It didn’t take him long to understand why. “Woah,” he breathed in anger and surprise. He knelt in front of his sister and took both her small wrists very gently in his hands.
“Did Dad grab you yesterday?” he asked seriously. He tried to see Anna’s face, but she was looking resolutely down at her feet. So all Dean could see was the top of her blonde head. “Hey, come on,” he pushed, trying his best to be patient. But dammit this was serious, and he wasn’t about to let this one go without getting a straight answer.
His regret was that Anna was the only one around to interrogate.
As it was, the little girl ground her toes into the carpet, one rubber boot squeaking in protest.
“Hey,” Dean said again, then sighed when she didn’t say anything. He felt her pulling on her arms and let go, not wanting to re-traumatize her.
Fuck, but Dean was so far out of his league here. When Dad pulled this kind of shit with Sam, Dean had genuinely believed it was normal. And by the time he’d understood, Dad had wisened up enough to save that treatment for Dean himself. Only once or twice had Dean actually tried to talk to Sam about this kind of crap. And he hated himself now for the things he’d said. He was not about to make the same mistakes with Anna. She was six years old, for crying out loud.
Dean eased himself lower until he was sitting on the remarkably clean carpet, back against his bed. “Sweetheart, c’mere,” he offered, arms open wide enough that he was going to feel like a real dunce if Anna left him hanging. Fortunately, the kid was quick to crawl into his lap. Less fortunately, she started sniffling shortly thereafter, while Dean was still trying to come up with a way to start this conversation.
He looked down at her head and noticed the way her little body was shaking. It made his stomach hurt like hell. Still worse were the bruises on this little girl’s arms. Dean could not for the life of him understand how Dad was able to grab a tiny kid so hard. It wasn’t easy to leave bruises like that.
Dean took a deep breath, struggling not to let his anger out. This was not the time or place. No, the anger was for Dad. Not for Anna.
“Dad did that to your arms, huh?”
Anna finally nodded, but her head stayed lowered to where Dean couldn’t see her face. “I m-made him m-mad,” she stammered, and Dean’s heart broke all over again at the fear in her voice.
“Hey, easy,” he soothed, wrapping both arms snugly around his sister. He pressed his lips to the top of her head and spoke into her hair, “Nobody’s mad at you anymore, Anna.” He rubbed one hand up and down her arm, hoping to get her to calm down enough to sleep. They would talk about this more later. They would have to. But for now they were both so unbelievably tired that Dean wasn’t sure a productive conversation was even possible. “Just breathe for me, okay?” He listened as she tried her best to follow his lead and breathe more evenly.
Her fear seemed to ease, but Anna didn’t stop crying. Dean’s instincts would normally tell him she was overtired. But the truth was, even her fatigue was wrapped up in sadness this time. He had a feeling she was going to have to cry herself out.
To his surprise, Anna hiccupped a couple more times and then went silent. It was so startling that Dean paused and leaned down to make sure the kid was breathing. Right in his ear, she spoke suddenly, making him jump, “Can we play legos?”
Dean took a second to even register the very normal question she’d asked him. But she had finally turned her face up toward him, and there was simply no possible way he could say no to her when she had tear tracks drying on her face.
So he played legos for almost an hour, trying his best not to doze off or think too hard. Eventually he must have failed, because he woke to a text message coming in on his phone a couple hours later. He was still sitting up, but his chin was at his chest, and there was a blanket wrapped around his shoulders.
For the briefest moment, he thought John must have arrived. But he checked the time and knew that couldn’t be true. Good thing, too, because they had a lot to talk about before Dean would let that man in the same room as Anna again.
But that did mean that Anna had covered him up with a blanket after he’d dozed off playing legos. Which was sweet if a little embarrassing.
“G’morning,” Anna told him sweetly, and Dean jerked up straight to see her still sitting across from him. But she had put away her legos and was playing instead with Halloween and a single Barbie doll dressed in Ken clothes.
“S’not morning,” Dean corrected and yawned. “But hey.” He shrugged the blanket off his shoulders. “I think it’s lunchtime, Munchkin.”
Anna shrugged, “Okay. But I can bring Halloween, right?”
“Always,” Dean agreed as he got to his feet with a groan. He felt in his pants pockets and found that his wallet was there. The food downstairs would probably be a little pricey, but at least they wouldn’t have to put their coats on and get back in the car. Hell, they wouldn’t even have to leave the building. “Put your shoes on, okay?” he instructed and trusted that she would do just that while he went to use the bathroom.
When he came back out, Anna was sitting on the floor again, looking blankly at Halloween. But she did have her shoes on.
“Come on,” Dean urged, holding out one hand for her.
Anna scurried to his side and let him put his hand on her head to guide her out of the room and down the hall. The dining room wasn’t exactly crowded. But there were enough people to make Dean extremely wary. He wasn’t at the top of his game– distracted and exhausted equaled sloppy– so he hoped to hell nobody here meant them any harm.
“Um, Dean,” Anna whispered to him after their waiter had given them menus. She was sitting across from him with Halloween bunched in her fist.
“What?” he asked, trying to find a comfortable position in a wooden chair that was a little too small for him.
“Can I sit on your side?”
Dean just jerked his head toward the chair next to him and rolled his eyes as Anna clambered underneath the table and appeared beside him. He reached across the table to grab the kids’ menu she’d left there and placed it in front of her. “Pick something good, Rugrat. You didn’t eat last night or this morning. You aren’t careful, you’ll stay this short forever.”
Anna wrinkled her nose at him for the teasing but obliged by opening her menu. “Can grilled cheese be good enough?” she asked.
“Get something with it,” Dean requested, lazily scanning his own menu. He’d probably just end up asking for a cheeseburger when the waiter came back.
Anna sighed beside him and slouched in her chair. Dean looked down at her and couldn’t help but feel jealous for a second at how much space she had. These stupid chairs were tiny. His ass hurt already and they hadn’t even ordered their food yet. When he actually looked at Anna’s face, though, he recognized that she was unhappy with him.
“Come on, Rugrat. Just get applesauce or french fries. You love those.”
“I don’t want ‘em,” Anna told him in a near whine.
“Well, that’s fine, but you gotta pick something,” Dean pressed. Before he’d even finished speaking, he wondered whether this was a battle he ought to have picked. Anna was clearly nearing the end of her rope, and he knew precisely why. It was a little late to back down, though, so he just offered, “You want me to pick something?” as inoffensively as he could.
Anna huffed. But when he gave her another moment, she nodded and leaned her head back against her chair.
“Atta girl,” Dean praised, hoping to improve her mood. He felt like the attitude had come on a little suddenly. But there was no real use in pointing that out to a first grader.
The waiter came back to their table with drinks, and Dean ordered meals for the both of them. Anna was quiet beside him the whole time.
“Hey,” he called, watching Anna stare sullenly at something across the room. “You want your juice?” he offered, nudging the cup the waiter had delivered toward her.
Anna barely glanced at the cup. “Dean,” she asked in a tiny voice. “Is Dad really not gonna let me go to school anymore?”
Dean swallowed. That was a topic he’d been hoping to avoid. He wasn’t sure he would be able to change their father’s mind if it was something John turned out to be truly set on. “I don’t know, Honey,” he admitted. If he was honest with himself, that was not his biggest concern out of their current debacle anyway. “We’ll see when he gets back, okay?”
Anna was quiet for a minute. She still wasn’t looking at him when she spoke again. And her voice was somehow even smaller. “Is he… still gonna be mad?”
Dean took a deep breath. He wanted to put this little talk off indefinitely. But he knew he couldn’t. “No, Anna. He’s gonna be calm before he comes to see us, okay? I promise.”
In reality, Dean was absolutely positive that John had spent the entire time they were apart stewing in his anger. But it didn’t matter. Because Dean was going to make damn sure that the man was perfectly calm before letting him into the same room as Anna. Didn’t matter that John would be even more pissed when he heard Dean give him an order. Didn’t matter that there was a real risk he would try to shove Dean out of his way. If Dean was good for one thing, it was protecting. John had made sure of that.
Anna sighed shakily beside him. “Pinky promise?”
Dean reached his pinky out without looking and felt Anna’s much smaller one hook it. “Pinky promise,” he told her.
“What happened?” Anna asked a second later, when Dean was just managing to focus on a wall-mounted TV nearby where a football game was airing.
“What do you mean?” he replied tiredly, gaze shifting over to his sister again. She had bags under her eyes, and she was still staring across the room. Kid needed a nap, and Dean was not looking forward to trying to get her down.
“Why did we have to go?” Anna repeated. Her tone was nearing a whine again, and Dean had never been fond of that sound. But he was inclined to let it go given the circumstances. “How come Dad isn’t back?”
Dean closed his eyes. Nothing like a game of twenty questions with a vulnerable kid he’d failed to protect… totally didn’t remind him of Sammy. Totally didn’t hurt to think about his little brother. Totally didn’t hurt to look at Anna’s eyes and see her still spacing out, gaze fixed away from him. Totally didn’t make him wonder how long it would take for her to realize there was something better out there for her– how long it would take for her to leave him too.
“He’s taking care of things,” Dean answered, all too conscious of how vague and unsatisfying that was.
Anna sighed again beside him. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I just wanna know.”
Dean swallowed and clenched his jaw. Their waiter was walking toward them, and he could see a grilled cheese on one of the plates balanced on her arms. Save me , he thought. But the waiter stopped at another table and set the plate down in front of a kid about Anna’s age. A kid with a backpack hanging off the back of her chair and a mother smiling brightly at her.
And fuck. That table was where Anna had been staring for the last ten minutes.
“I don’t know yet,” Dean confessed, feeling utterly useless.
The little girl across the room was bouncing gleefully in her chair, her mother laughing at her excitement.
Dean reached an arm over and hooked it around Anna’s neck, hoping it didn’t suffocate her when he pulled her in against his side. It comforted him some just to hold on. “But I’ll find out, okay?” he told her in exhaustion. “I promise it’s not your fault.”
Anna nodded against his side. “Okay, Dean,” she whispered shakily. In her right hand, Halloween’s front legs were crushed together. Dean was watching when she let the frog go for the first time in almost 24 hours. And she did it so she could hug him back.
()()()
John was pissed as he pulled into the too-expensive inn Dean had texted him about earlier that day.
It was pitch dark outside. He’d had an entire day to sit in his anger and let it fester.
Anna might be little, but she was old enough to take simple instructions without talking back. He knew for damn sure that Dean had listened better at her age. Maybe Sam hadn’t, but that only served as further proof that Anna was getting spoiled. He had to nip this shit in the bud before it got worse.
Which meant he needed to talk to Anna. He wasn’t going to yell. He figured he’d scared her straight yesterday. But he would certainly be talking to her, driving some points home. Preferably without Dean there. Dean coddled that kid too much.
There was a lanky teenager manning the front desk when John entered the lobby. Kid was wiry and shy and all around reminded John too much of his younger son. He spent as little time as possible at reception. Dean had given him their room number already anyway. He just needed to know which way to go.
He was right outside the door when it swung open, nearly hitting him in the nose. “What the hell, Dean?” he demanded, anger stirring in his gut at the greeting.
“Dad, lower your voice,” Dean snapped at him and closed the door behind himself. He started down the hallway, and John was so confused by the unexpected behavior that he followed Dean’s lead. His son led him outside where the parking lot was dimly lit by a couple of street lamps.
Dean paced a couple times beside the Impala before stopping and fixing John with a serious glare. One look at the boy’s face told John he would not like this interaction if he let it continue. “Dean, I’ve been driving all day, I do not have the energy for whatever the hell this is.”
“Well, find it,” Dean spat. He stalked closer to his father, and John realized that he wasn’t the only one whose anger had grown exponentially over the course of the day. “Cause we’re talking.”
John narrowed his eyes. “Watch your tone with me, Dean.”
Dean just shook his head, practically sneering in John’s face. “No, sir, not this time,” he said with so much anger his voice seemed to vibrate.
“What the hell is this about?” John barked. “Nobody listens to a damn thing I say anymore, is that it?”
“Not blindly,” Dean shot back. “Not anymore, Dad. You got any clue how bad you fucked up last night?”
“Why?” John snapped, stepping into his son’s space with every intention of intimidating him. He wasn’t used to this kind of lip from Dean, and he did not care for it. “Because I made your sister leave town when she didn’t want to? She’s a big girl. She’s gotta learn she won’t always get her way.”
Dean’s eyes lit up with anger bright enough to blind his father. “No,” he said simply, voice lower than John had ever heard it. “Do not talk about her like some brat,” he growled. He searched John’s eyes, and by the look in his green ones, Dean did not find what he was looking for. “That is a good kid in there, Dad,” he said, voice softening but losing none of its rage, “and you don’t deserve her.”
John took a physical step back at the force of those words. He couldn’t think of anything to say, but he felt his face heating up.
“You left bruises on her arms,” Dean informed him. “Did you know that?”
John had to look away from his son’s eyes at that. He hadn’t known. He had a hard time believing it. His instinct was to deny. He fought it for a second but couldn’t stop himself from saying the words he didn’t even believe, “She’s lying.”
He saw Dean’s fist coming but wasn’t quick enough to duck. Half his face was numb, and under other circumstances he might have been proud of Dean’s right hook. Instead he stared in shock at his most reliable son. He wanted to hang onto his ire. But the fact of the matter was, Dean didn’t act like this. John had provoked him. He’d pushed his son too far.
John’s anger vanished, and in its place he felt fear take hold. He wasn’t afraid of being punched again, though. He’d have taken a hundred more hits if it would have been considered sufficient penance. “Don’t take her away from me,” he said quietly. His voice shook, but it was shamefully apparent that the emotion there was not anger anymore.
Dean didn’t waver at John’s change of heart. He wasn’t as soft as John had been thinking just a few minutes ago.
“Dean. Don’t.”
“You scared the hell out of her,” Dean said. He crossed his arms over his chest, knuckles red on his right hand. Anyone would have been afraid of him. “You grabbed her so tight, her arms bruised overnight, and you scared her so bad she could barely talk. Why, Dad? Because she didn’t want to quit school? You never told her why!”
John inhaled deeply through his nose. Feeling was returning to his face, and it hurt like a bitch. Time to plead his case. “You know how important it is,” he argued, “for her to listen. What if something had followed us? Seconds count, Dean.”
“Your daughter counts,” Dean snapped. “She’s not a soldier, Dad. And you’re not makin’ her into one either.”
John reared back. “Excuse me?”
Dean shook his head, and John swore he could see the moment the boy’s anger evaporated. But his wasn’t replaced by fear. No, Dean was left looking drained and sad. “Anna is six years old,” he recited slowly. “And you talk about her like a soldier who can’t take orders.”
John wanted to defend himself. But he knew Dean was right. Most of the time, he thought about his kids in terms of training and hunting ability. It took a special sort of moment for him to remember Anna wasn’t even ten yet. His boys were adults now, sure. But he wasn’t sure he’d ever treated them like kids. Certainly not Dean.
“You do what you want to me,” Dean said tiredly. “You push me around, you yell in my face, you bruise me all to hell. But don’t lay a hand on that little girl again,” he ordered. He was still so calm, but it was eerie if anything. “Or I swear to God, Dad, you will never see her again. Do you hear me?”
John stared into Dean’s eyes, trying desperately to think of a way to reclaim control. But Dean was giving him no wiggle room. John was still searching for a weakness in his son’s eyes when the motion-sensing street lights turned off and left them in total darkness. Imprinted in his vision was Dean’s violent glare.
“I hear you,” John conceded.
“Get your own room tonight,” Dean suggested. “And we’ll see you in the morning. Calm.”
John waited in the dark for Dean to walk far enough that the lights caught him and came back on. His jaw would bruise overnight. He would deserve it.
()()()
Dean stepped into their room and shrugged his jacket off, only half-surprised to see Anna sitting up in bed, wide awake. “Come on, Rugrat. It’s bedtime. I’m not playin’ this game.”
“Did he hurt you?” Anna asked nervously.
“Nope,” Dean said with feigned cockiness. He wasn’t entirely sure Dad wouldn’t clock him one the next time they were alone together. But he didn’t care, really. He’d made his point. Violently. He didn’t regret it. “I’m fine, worrywart.”
“Ew,” Anna complained. She notoriously hated that phrase– worrywart.
“Dad’s gettin’ his own room tonight,” Dean explained. “So go back to sleep, alright? I don’t want you actin’ like a cranky-pants tomorrow.”
Anna huffed and lay back down, pulling her blankets up to her chest and resting her arms on top of them. “ You’re the cranky-pants,” she insisted and rolled onto her side, away from him.
Dean swallowed and nodded at her back. He’d won the important fight tonight. He could be the resident cranky-pants. “Yeah, you got me,” he said softly. “I’m cranky as hell.”
La Fin