Work Text:
What do the Boy Scouts say, again?
…
Dean was four years old when Mommy left.
His neighbors said how tragic it all was, and his teachers said that he didn’t have to do the assignments anymore if he didn't want to, and Daddy didn't say anything at all.
Dean understood that. He didn’t want to say anything, either.
People brought food that piled up on their counters because Sammy wasn’t old enough to eat grown-up food yet, and Dean hated green bean casserole, and Daddy didn’t eat much anymore. Didn’t do much anymore, except for stay in his study all day on his computer. At first he held Sammy while he worked. Then he kept Sammy in his bed except for when he cried for food. Then sometimes he didn’t hear Sammy crying out for food, and that’s when Dean learned to heat up the formula for Sammy to eat.
The trash can filled with empty formula bottles, but Dean was too little to take out the bag, even when it overflowed. And Sammy ate it all, but then he cried more, and Dean didn't know what to do. He opened the bin just enough to shove the new bottle in, then smashed them all down again. It was okay. Tomorrow Daddy would take the trash out.
Tomorrow…
Sammy cried, and Daddy hid, and Dean couldn’t fix things, couldn’t bring Mommy back, couldn’t yell at the strange yellow-eyed man Daddy seemed so mad about. The casseroles kept coming, and the trash kept building, and Dean could only keep the cabinet closed for so long.
He slipped when shoving in the next bottle of formula, and they all burst out of the trash, sliding all over the floor and trailing cold formula all over the tile. It was a mess too big for Dean to clean, not when he couldn't reach the sink faucet without a stool and when Mommy kept the cleaning sprays in a cabinet as tall as Daddy. To make matters worse, the ruckus woke Sammy, and the clatter plus a baby’s wailing drew Daddy out of his office.
Dad looked at the formula bottles, at red-faced Sammy wailing in his cradle, and said, “What did we say about cleaning up after ourselves, Dean?”
…
Dean dreams that he dies, and people forget about him the way everyone forgot about Mom, and Sam wears the amulet he gave Dean, and he bleeds so much his eyes turn red.
…
Sam hated leaving the schools. He hadn’t learned, like Dean, that they didn’t matter. The people there were fleeting, irrelevant, less substantial than the ghosts Dad killed, but he clung to them for some reason Dean couldn’t grasp. After seeing the Yellow-Eyed Man, how could anyone sleep at night knowing that thing was out there?
As far as Dean was concerned, the pass his kindergarten teachers gave him on their assignments had carried on indefinitely throughout his school career. He had more important things to do—real-life, adult problems to worry about—than the Mathlete that sat next to him in Economics and stress-sweated about P.E.
Sam still kept trying to make friends. He was even penpals with a boy for a couple months until the kid gradually stopped responding, and it upset Sam more than it should have. Sam wasn’t a dumb kid, so Dean didn’t know what he’d expected. He was never going back to Elkins Middle School.
…
“Look at me, Dean.”
Dean looks at Dad.
His head spins; he can’t breathe. His hands are covered with a dark, sticky substance—red, like, blood, except it’s not like blood, it is blood—
“Dean.”
There it is—not the Dad voice, but his commanding one, and Dean snaps out of it enough that Dad’s next command: “Get a hold of yourself” actually makes a difference.
“I need to take care of this,” Dad says, and he turns away and dashes up the stairs. Before Dean can even twitch, the door slams shut.
It’s just—
The witch bleeds like he does, and her blood looks like his. It’s not like ghosts that don’t bleed at all, or the weird almost-black substance that Black Dogs ooze when they’re rabid. She was a human person whose body grew cold next to Dean’s as he crouched next to it, trembling in a cellar while Dad sweet-talked the cops into leaving without opening the storm doors to look for her.
It takes almost an hour before Dad unlocks the cellar door. “Come on,” he says. “We have to leave—we have to make it seem like we were never here.”
…
It was best, Dean learned quickly after leaving Lawrence, not to make a mess. If one was necessary, then cleaning it as quickly as possible was best.
Example: Sammy liked all kinds of baby food except mashed peas. Those were, unfortunately, the cheapest kind, and therefore the kind they had the most. Two days after Dad was supposed to come back from his research trip, mashed peas were all Dean had to feed Sammy. It took a lot of airplane noises and flailing infant fists to get even a handful into Sammy’s mouth; more than half of it ended up on their clothes, the chair, and the wall. Dean cleaned it all before Dad got back.
Example: It was not necessary for Dad to drink so much whiskey he puked on himself. It was often unavoidable. It was best when Dean had the mess cleaned up by the morning.
Example: Dean was too old to have nightmares. He was definitely too old to wet the bed from said nightmares. But he hated this new bed that felt nothing like his one at home, and these scratchy sheets nothing like the ones Mommy picked out for him, and he woke up, heart racing, thinking of yellow eyes, with his pants and the bed around him wet and smelly. He couldn’t fix the mattress, but he could bundle up the bad sheets into the motel’s closet where Dad wouldn’t see them. Dad never asked why he found Dean curled up in Sammy’s crib.
Example: The easiest hunts were the ones that didn’t bleed. Monsters that left behind bodies made Dad and Dean potential subjects. Most of the time, they had to burn, and those were the worst because burning flesh smelled like barbecue, and Dean’s stomach growled, and if he could feel hunger for a monster’s body, why couldn’t they feel hunger for his?
…
Dean dreams that Dad dies, and Sammy falls, and he wakes screaming. Sam’s up in a second, demanding what’s wrong, and Dean looks right through him, because this Sammy’s not really here, is he? He’s been slipping through Dean’s fingers for a long time, like water, and he barely has a drop left in his palm.
What he’d lost had longer hair, and a sturdier build, but it was Sam, and he felt it on his tongue, that the most important part of him was slipping away.
…
The rental home in Missouri was the first place they planned to stay longer than three weeks in. Dad thought his hunt would take months at least, so he enrolled Sam and Dean in the local middle and elementary school and set to work. Because it was a rental, he stressed to Dean, it was especially important to take care of the house, because this was when John Winchester still used credit cards in his name and worried about things like his credit score and bank account balance.
A nice family with kids Sam and Dean’s ages lived next door. Dean wasn’t sure what Dad said to them, but he sent Sam and Dean out every day of the first week with a wave to the dad, who walked them to and from school. After the first week, he didn’t bother—working odd hours investigating the case—but the dad walked them anyway. Dean held Sammy’s hand tight, even when sweat made their palms slippery, and checked every teacher’s eyes for hints of yellow before letting him go to class.
Sammy didn’t care that it was safe. He clutched Dean and wailed that he didn’t want to be left alone. Dean didn’t want to leave him alone, either, but these new teachers didn’t understand yet that he didn’t have to do any assignments he didn’t want to.
They didn’t understand even when he tried to explain it to them. But, Dean realized after the first week of sullen sulking, these assignments could be fun. Sometimes the teachers gave him word searches, and he loved finding every word in the puzzle. Sometimes they gave him coloring sheets of animals and the sounds they made, and he liked those, too. Mom was allergic to pets, so they didn’t have any, and he’d only seen cows and horses out of the car window as Dad drove past farms.
Dean wanted to pet a sheep. They looked soft. And warm.
Something went wrong with the case. Dad came back after a month, scolded Dean for how messy the house was, and packed their belongings up in a night.
“It’s better this way,” he said while fitting Sammy’s carseat into the back of the Impala. “If we leave traces, they can track us. Right, Dean?”
…
“Good shot, son!”
A heavy hand claps his shoulder. Warmth swells in Dean’s chest so quickly he might burst. He turns a gap-toothed grin on Dad. The cast-iron pot he just clipped with a salt round on his fourth try swings wildly from the branch Dad tied it to.
“You’re a natural,” Dad says and ruffles his hair. “You’ll be hitting bullseyes in a week, won’t you?”
Dean can’t center his shots before they have to leave, the sun setting and killing visibility. But he’s consistent, at least, hitting the pot almost every time.
When it’s time to leave, Dad unties the pan, reminding Dean that they shouldn’t leave traces of their training out where clueless people could see. By the time they get into the car—Dad even lets Dean ride in the front seat!—Dean’s arms feel like wet noodles from holding the heavy rifle.
Sammy’s sulking when they get back, like he usually is, and as soon as the door opens, he whines, “You were gone for hours. I was so bored.”
“Why didn’t you just do your nerd homework?” Dean asked, ruffling Sammy’s hair as he passes to wash his hands in the kitchen sink.
“I did. I finished it hours ago.”
“Sorry, Sam,” says Dad. “I had to work with Dean on a couple things.”
“Why can’t I ever come?”
“You’re just a kid, Sammy,” says Dean. There’s a pot of leftover mac-and-cheese in the fridge. He puts it on the stove to heat it up.
Sam’s nose wrinkles. “I don’t want that.”
“Too bad, Toothpick,” Dean shoots back. After Sam’s arm snapped like one from jumping off the shed in the motel’s backyard in a Batman costume, Dean hasn’t stopped teasing him for not drinking enough milk. His bones are too weak.
Sammy’s head whips around. “Dad! Dean’s name-calling again!”
Dad, engrossed with his journal, barely glances up. He just murmurs absently, “Don’t call your brother names, Dean.”
Sammy complains all the way through dinner at eating the same thing three nights in a row until Dad shuts him up—serves him right—and they eat the rest of the meal in silence. As soon as Sammy’s old enough to reach the stove, Dean vows, he’s never cooking anything else for his annoying little brother.
Dean has to share almost everything with Sam, so the excitement of having one thing with Dad just to himself keeps him smiling all throughout dinner and bedtime, when Dad reads Thomas the Tank Engine to Sammy and he reads Dad’s journal on monsters. The sooner he memorizes how to kill them, the sooner Dad takes him on a hunt. Then he can help Dad track down the Yellow-Eyed Man that killed Mom.
Sammy has an earlier bedtime than Dean, so Dad turns off the lamp by his bed. Dean follows Dad to the other side of the motel room, where Dad teaches him how to assemble and disassemble a pistol. Sammy’s eyes glare at them until he falls asleep.
…
The first time Dean ended up at Bobby’s was as a punishment.
Dad was growing angrier and stricter, and whenever Dean got mad he just said that he was acting like a kid. Which wasn’t true; Dean was thirteen, old enough to take to bars that didn’t ask for ID. Not that Dad let him drink. He just taught Dean how to hustle pool. But most of all, Dean knew he wasn’t a kid because Sammy was. He was always hanging onto Dean, in school and out of it, whining when Dean wanted to play with his friends or bribe homeless guys into buying him beer. Dean finally snapped when Sam tattled on him for sneaking out, calling him a useless brat that they should have left at an orphanage.
He didn’t mean it, even before Sam started crying.
Dad got so angry that he threw Dean into the Impala, drove for two hours without saying a single word—Dean’s anxiety mounting the whole time until he wanted to puke—then jerked to a stop in front of a long gravel road. It was dark. Dean couldn’t see what was at the end of it.
“Get out.”
He couldn’t be serious. “What?”
Dad’s dark eyes were murderous in the rearview mirror. “Get. Out.”
“Dad—”
“One last chance. Get out or I’ll drag you out.”
Dean swallowed. He got out.
Without another word, the Impala’s engine roared. Her tires kicked up gravel that spewed onto Dean’s legs as Dad peeled away.
Dean didn’t even have his pistol.
He walked down the path, acutely aware of just how many things could be hiding in the shadowed woods on either side of the road, and found a junkyard.
A junkyard with the sign ‘Singer Salvage Yard.’
Relief flooded Dean’s body. He’d never been to Uncle Bobby’s house; every time Uncle Bobby watched him and Sam, Dad called him out to their motel.
He knocked on the door, waited a minute, and knocked again. Something shuffled inside the house. The door opened a crack.
“Hi,” Dean said lamely. His eyes and nose stung, but he was too old to cry.
The door swung open and a shocked Uncle Bobby said, “Dean? What’re you doing here, boy?”
“My dad… he, uh…” Dean curled his hands into fists. “I got into a fight with Sam. He dropped me off.”
“Did he say when he was comin’ back?”
“No. No, he didn’t say anything.”
“Well, come in. I have a spare room, but it’s not the cleanest…”
Uncle Bobby kept talking, but the words faded into the background as Dean catalogued every part of his house. It was a real house, like the one they had in Lawrence, nothing like the motels or rentals. There were scuffs on the floor and dents in the door frames.
Dean stayed with Uncle Bobby for three weeks before Dad came to pick him up, Sam in the backseat. Dean didn’t meet Dad’s eyes, but that was okay, because Uncle Bobby was telling Dad they needed to “Have a talk,” and Dean knew what that meant.
He slid into the Impala’s backseat.
Sam wrinkled his nose and said, “I can’t believe you ran away again.”
Dean didn’t tell Sam the truth. He never ran away. If he told Sam that the last time he ‘ran away’ was actually when he was in juvie, the brat would rag on him even more, and Dean kind of missed the days when Sam thought he was someone worth being.
“While you were gone, Dad took me on my first hunt,” Sam said smugly. He held up his hand to show a long, fresh scar on his palm. “I didn’t cry at all when he gave me stitches.”
Dean felt sick.
After that, Dad dropped Dean and Sam at Bobby’s more often, until the big argument that resulted in Bobby cocking a shotgun at his chest and telling him to never, ever come back.
…
Dean dreams of fighting Sam, no holds barred, and wanting to see his brother bleed. He dreams that Sam wants to see him bleed, too, and between the fists and the teeth flying, Dean half-wants to kill him.
…
Dean didn’t listen when Dad gave him instructions, and now the hostage was dying, bleeding on the floor, guts spilling out of his stomach. All because Dad told him to leave and Dean didn’t listen, and Dad had to choose between protecting the hostage and protecting Dean.
He chose Dean.
And because of that, the phantom got away.
In the silence that followed, Dad whirled around, and Dean’s blood froze at the fury on his face. He dropped his sawed-off like an idiot, backing up as Dad came closer, and then his back hit the wall of the shack and Dad was in his face snarling, “Why can’t you follow the simplest instruction, Dean?”
“I’m sorry,” Dean said weakly. “I just thought—”
“Oh, you thought?” Dad laughed bitterly. “I don’t need you to think. I need you to follow orders.”
“I—”
“Come here. Look at him.”
Dean couldn’t. He’d seen dead people before, but he’d never seen someone die, and it almost didn’t make sense, how the man was warm and alive and scared a minute ago, and now he was still and pale on the ground. Dean couldn’t look.
Rough hands grabbed his wrists, bones grinding, and Dean whimpered.
Dad dragged him away from the wall and in front of the body. “This is your fault. And if someone else dies before I kill this phantom, that’s your fault, too.”
Through numb lips, Dean said, “Yes, sir.”
“So the next time I give you an order, you’re going to listen, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
Dean’s wrists bruised, but it was a small price to pay for avoiding getting his guts ripped out. Dad dropped him off at the motel, officially firing him from the hunt, and Dean found a bored Sam and two dollars remaining out of what Dad left.
Apparently a couple kids roughed Sam up on the playground for his lunch money, which explained his split lip. Dean got detention for giving them all black eyes, but he skipped to lift food from the grocery store at the end of the block.
He got caught, and Dad was still mad, so he told the sheriff to keep him. Instead of doing that, the sheriff took him to a troubled kids home. Dean was determined to hate it, so he told the man that ran the home that the bruises were from a werewolf, because everyone was so stupid, and no one ever believed him when he tried to tell them about monsters. He’d given up trying.
…
They’re just nightmares.
Sam with black eyes…
They’re just nightmares. They’re not visions. Dean isn’t psychic.
…
“I wish you’d never been born! I wish you weren’t my brother!”
“Well, you’re not exactly easy to get along with, either! I don’t like you—I’m just stuck with you!”
“Enough!” Dad bellowed, and Dean and Sam bit off their next retorts, red-faced and glaring. Somehow another one of Sam and Dad’s fights turned into a fight between Sam and Dean when he intervened because Sam was being stupid. Missing his PSAT was a lot less important than helping out on this case.
It wasn’t even the real SAT.
“That’s it,” Dad said. “You boys have been cooped up inside for too long. Get outside. We’re doing conditioning.”
He made them sprint up and down the motel’s nearly empty parking lot until Sam and Dean resented him more than each other.
In the end, Sam took his PSAT, and Dean reamed him out because Dad got his shoulder dislocated while Dean grappled with the second banshee. It meant he had to do all the cleanup by himself, but at least Dad used his good arm to clap his shoulder and tell him good job.
It looked like they’d never been there at all.
…
Hunters shouldn’t leave anything behind. They live like roaches, scuttling under the people living their mundane lives. It’s bad when they’re noticed. That’s why they burn bodies. That’s why they keep things quiet. Because when things get loud, they get loud. Like, oh yeah, FBI’s-Most-Wanted-loud.
It’s terrifying, like, shit-your-pants scary, but Dean also has to admire the efficiency of River Grove. Completely empty, without a single trace of what happened to its inhabitants. If they find the demon that did this, Croatoan or whatever, he might ask it for a few tips on how to make people disappear before he bags it. He misses the days of anonymity.
Then they realize that the people didn’t really disappear. Something’s even more wrong with this town than they thought, and Dean doesn’t know what to do. It’s all tied up with Sam, who keeps alternating between wanting to kill Dean and wanting to kill himself, and there’s no Dad to call because Dad killed himself for Dean and told him that he might have to kill Sam while he did it. Dean wants a fucking moment to take a breath without thinking about Mom, or Dad, or what it felt like to stare down a Reaper, or Sam’s creepy-ass visions and what Dad told him, because he’s tired, okay? He’s fucking tired.
This is all wrong. Dean knows that it’s all wrong. Dad would know what to do. He should be here; Dean’s a poor imitation. Dad, after all, always cleaned up his messes.
And Dean… Dean’s a little worried that there’s no way to clean up this one.
…
The principal called him into the office the day after.
Dean knew he should have worn longer sleeves. Her eyes lingered on his busted knuckles, lips pursing with disapproval. Judging him like he had any other option. Those fucking punks called Sam some shitty things, what was Dean supposed to do, just let them?
She asked what he was thinking, and he said nothing. Anything you say can and will be held against you, right?
He got in-school suspension.
Sam was outside when he walked out of the office, holding a backpack in his lap that was nearly the size of his whole torso. He jumped up and demanded, “Well?”
Dean grinned. “What do you think?”
Sam’s shoulders slumped. “You’re expelled.”
“I wish.”
“You’re not?”
“In-school suspension.” Dean gently slugged Sam in the shoulder. “Unfortunately. Not everyone wants to study all day, you freak.”
…
Dean’s world ends on May 2nd, 2007.
…
Dean was so, so fucked.
He was playing with his butterfly knife, practicing the twirl he’d seen Sam do a thousand times. It looked so easy. How could his stupid kid brother do it and he couldn’t? But he was walking toward the Impala, sent by Dad for more microwavable meals since they were all out, and tripped over the sidewalk.
He caught himself on the car.
With the hand holding the knife.
And now there was a scratch as long as his palm on her paint.
He was so, so fucked.
The scratch didn’t disappear when he rubbed at it with his sleeve, and Dean groaned. If they were closer to Uncle Bobby’s place, he could whirl Baby over there for a last-minute patch job. Uncle Bobby would do it, no questions asked. But they were sweating their balls off in Florida chasing down a selkie that drowned five people in as many months; no way he could get to South Dakota and back before Dad woke up.
There wasn’t a chance that Dad wouldn't notice. The scratch was on the driver’s door.
Dean lasted two days.
Selkie killed, they were loading up the Impala when John suddenly paused. His split eyebrow raised. “What happened here?”
“What?” Sam asked, scowling, obviously preparing to get yelled at again. Sometimes it felt like that’s all Sam and Dad did—yell at each other—and sometimes it felt like it would tear Dean apart.
“This scratch.” Dad pointed. “Wasn’t there two days ago. Not a scuff from getting side-swiped, and anyone looking to key her wouldn’t have stopped there. So what happened?”
“I didn’t do anything!” Sam immediately protested, voice rising. It would be a shout in the next minute, so Dean interjected wearily. His shoulder ached from getting kicked by the selkie’s horse form. There would be a nice horseshoe-shaped bruise later.
“I did it, Dad.”
“Really, Dean?” Dad shook his head. “I expected better from you. Did you really think you could hide it?”
Dean said nothing. Sure, he’d hoped…
“You do know what this is, right?” Dad didn’t wait for an answer. “This is an identifiable mark. Do you know what that means? It means we might get noticed. And what’s the sloppiest thing a hunter can do?”
“Get noticed,” Dean said hollowly.
“So how do we avoid that?”
“Leave no trace.” Dad’s face twisted, so Dean added, “Think about what you’re leaving behind.” It was impossible to leave no trace, but you could be smart about it.
“Good.” Dad threw his duffel in the backseat. “You’re fixing this when we get to Bobby’s.”
…
What Sam doesn’t get is that this is just a reset of the natural order. Dean should have died a long, long time ago, on a regular hunt. It was fate, or whatever counted as fate in their fucked-up world. But Sam’s death shouldn’t have happened. It was orchestrated by the Yellow-Eyed Demon.
It made sense that Dean should set things right.
He couldn’t live without the kid, anyway.
Sam’s pissed. He’s pissed at the world, and he’s pissed at Lilith, and he won’t admit it, but he’s pissed at Dean, too.
Dean knows it’s a shit deal. But they were always going to have a shit deal in life, so he did what he did to give his brother a slightly better hand. Cashed out early so Sam’s payout would be bigger.
The thing is, Dean doesn’t have a lot of loose ends. There’s a long line of women he’s loved and lost, from Cassie to Lisa, but none of them have ever been under the impression that he would come back. He’s killed every monster he’s come across that needed killing. Dad’s dead, Mom’s dead, but Sammy won’t be alone; he’ll have Bobby, and he’ll find a nice blonde and settle down somewhere as long as he does as he’s told and ditches Ruby.
The problem is that Sam doesn’t want to do as he’s told, which means that the only loose end Dean has is the worst one. There’s no way for him to leave no trace when he dies, because there’s no bigger proof of his own life than Sam’s, and his little brother’s burning bright, burning hot, angry enough after Jess and Dad to burn the entire world down. Dean’s only going to be kindling added to the fire.
…
It wasn’t fair that when Sam messed up, it wasn’t a big deal.
Dean loved the kid, don’t get him wrong, but, well… When Sam messed up, Dad wasn’t exactly surprised.
Dean, though, had expectations. Dad expected him to live up to them. That was why Dean had to be the best. The fastest, the best shot, the most reactive, to keep them all safe. Dad was getting more obsessed by the day, playing fast and loose with self-preservation, and for all Sam’s begging to be included, he wasn’t happy while hunting, either. He glared, slammed doors, and it seemed like at times he was actively trying to sabotage their investigation. Sometimes it seemed like he didn’t just hate their life, he also hated them.
When Sam screwed up the latest hunt, he should have just taken the scolding like a man. It’s what Dean did, and then he got better, and Dad didn’t yell at him anymore. That’s how things worked. It wasn’t hard to figure out.
But Sam argued, so Dad raised his voice, and Sam yelled back louder.
Meanwhile, Dean was on the bed with a concussion.
Their voices blended together until he couldn’t tell who was saying what. Neither of them could compromise. Neither could agree.
Why didn’t Dad just shut Sam up? He would never let Dean talk back like Sam did.
By the time the argument ended, Dean knew that Sam was going to leave. Not today, not tomorrow, maybe not for another year or two. But he would fly away, and Dean couldn’t leave the nest.
…
“You need to stop.”
Sam’s shoulders hunch. Without turning around, he says, “Shut up, Dean. You know that’s not going to happen.”
Damn, but he’s walking fast. Dean puffs to keep up with him. He hisses, “And I already told you that if you try to find any loopholes, the deal is void. You’ll die, Sam. Again.”
Sam whirls around and snarls, “I should be dead!”
Dean glances around nervously. It’s early, but there are still a couple people on the sidewalk between their motel room and the half-decent diner they’ve eaten breakfast in the past two days.
“You know what I am, Dean. If Dad were alive, he would agree. I was better off dead and you know it.”
“Shut up, man.”
“No, you shut up.”
For a moment they stand, staring at each other and breathing heavily.
“You don’t get an opinion,” Sam says, voice intentionally measured. “Not after your colossally stupid decision. It revoked your powers of command, so now I’m in control, and I’m telling you, man, that I’m not letting you go to hell. Do you hear me?”
Dean was going to hell anyway. The kiss just sealed the deal.
“Do you hear me?” Sam presses.
“Yeah, man, I hear you.”
Dean just isn’t listening.
…
“He’s keeping secrets,” Dean complained beneath the junker Bobby was supposed to be fixing up for one of his neighbors.
A foot nudged his leg. He grunted and pushed out from beneath the car.
Bobby held a cold bottle out. Dean popped off the cap and took a long sip.
Everything tasted better now that he was twenty-one.
“Who is?” Bobby asked. “Your daddy or your brother?”
“Well, both,” Dean admitted, leaning against the junker’s tire. Dad kept getting a weird look on his face when he looked at Sam, and the kid was acting even more squirrely than usual. Shit, he’d been downright pleasant. After near three years of almost constant shouting, Dean’s ears were practically ringing.
He always knew when Sam was hiding something, but all his usual methods of interrogation had failed. He’d hoped that a couple weeks at Bobby’s would loosen the kid’s tongue, but so far there had been no success. Of course, that was only half the reason he dragged Sam along. After spraining his ankle, Dean was benched, and honestly wasn’t sure that Sam and Dad wouldn’t kill each other if he wasn’t there to mediate them.
Sam was always happier at Bobby’s, but there was still something missing, and it was driving Dean nuts.
“Well, you can’t force it outta him,” Bobby said. “If it’s really important, he’ll come to you. You know that.”
“Yeah, I guess,” Dean muttered. He hated not knowing.
“You’ll lose your mind worryin’ about your daddy and brother both,” Bobby said. “How ‘bout you worry ‘bout this car before Jerry comes to get it tomorrow?”
Dean rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah.” He rolled back beneath the car.
By the time he was done with it, the car was basically brand-new.
…
“He’s keeping secrets,” Dean mutters when Sam’s in the next room.
Bobby nods.
Sam’s been suspiciously agreeable the past couple of days. At least when he’s around. Half the time Dean can’t find him anywhere in the house or the yard, but whenever Sam turns up, he insists that he’s been around the whole time. He’s lying, but Dean can’t tell what he’s lying about yet.
He hates not knowing.
…
Shit, out of the three of them, Sam was truly the best at disappearing without a trace. Part of it was John’s aggressive pretending that he didn’t have another son. It was all too easy to fall into line and try to forget that Dean once had a brother he would have died for.
He kept tabs on Sam, of course. The kid switched dorms between his freshman and sophomore years, then moved off-campus and, in a supremely Winchester fashion, set up a fake bank account to pay rent for a tiny one-bedroom apartment. He kept his nose clean, his grades good, and pretended that he didn’t have a family.
Dean was pretty sure that he was the only person that missed how things used to be.
…
The clock hits midnight, but it wasn’t supposed to happen like this. Dean was supposed to be far, far away from Sam when the hounds arrived.
His blood is going to stain the floorboards.
So much for not leaving a trace, Dean thinks sardonically when the first claws rip into his stomach.
The last thing Dean sees—what he’s leaving behind—is Sam.
...
Leave no trace.