Archive of Our Own

Canoga Park, California

January 17, 1994 

4:31am

Dean was a light sleeper. He had been for as long as he could remember, given his dad’s sudden change of day job when he was only four. Maybe he had slept deeply before then. Dean figured he’d never really know. That’s not the kind of thing he would ever ask Dad, and Mom, well…

All that to say, it didn’t take much to wake him up. Sammy shifting in bed wrong, Dad’s limping footsteps coming into the motel room, even the scratch of a branch on the window that sounded just a little too much like fingernails on a chalkboard would have his eyes snapping open. He’d awoken to all of that and more, the whole spectrum of mundane to serious, in the last ten years. 

He’d never woken up to this.

From out of nowhere, the ground jolted harshly beneath him and Dean immediately awoke, heart pounding as his brain tried to register what had caused the disturbance. From what he could tell, the motel room looked the same, dimly lit by the street light that filtered in through the flimsy curtains. 

“Dean?” Sam’s voice was small and confused in the bed next to Dean’s. That was all he got a chance to observe before the floor began shaking again.

It was a series of violent rolls this time, unlike the initial jolt. The motel creaked and groaned and thundered around them.

Earthquake, Dean’s brain finally helpfully supplied through a haze of adrenaline-laced sleepiness. So this is what they were like. Or…this was worse than they were like, he realized, as the rolling refused to stop. What little light had been afforded to them by the streetlights was suddenly snuffed out, the room descending into darkness. Glasses began dancing themselves off the kitchenette table and came crashing to the floor in front of the entrance door. 

“Sam!” he finally called. It was hard for him to get out of bed amidst the shaking, but he managed to get his two feet under him and stumble across to Sam’s bed. With blind hands fumbling in the dark, he managed to grab onto Sam’s arms and tug him up out of his own bed. 

Keeping one arm secured around Sam’s shoulders, Dean felt along the wall and stumbled them to the bathroom doorframe. 

“When’s it gonna stop?” Sam’s voice was loud over the chaos of shattering glass and crumbling foundations. 

Dean braced himself above Sam and tried not to think about how that exact question was playing on repeat in his own mind. It already felt like the rumbling had been going on for minutes, when Dean knew it had to be less than that. Twenty seconds? An eternity? The doorframe was solid under his hands and Sam was secure, tucked against his chest. “Soon, Sammy,” he assured. What sounded like the television crashed to the ground in the middle of the room.

Dean counted another three seconds in his head before just like that, the shaking petered out. Dean felt Sam’s rapid heartbeat in his own chest. He slowly brought his hands down from where they had been braced against the doorframe. 

In the aftermath of the thundering, the world seemed almost quiet. That was until Dean became aware of the car alarms going off outside and the shouts of the people in the other motel rooms. The building groaned ominously around them.

“You good?” Dean asked. He quickly ran his hands down Sam’s body to check for injuries. His eyes were practically no use in the darkness.

He felt Sam nod against him. “Are you?”

“Yeah, Sammy, I’m fine.” Satisfied with his findings, Dean squeezed Sam’s shoulder and tried to will his heart to stop racing. It wouldn’t. His mind was in overdrive along with it. They needed to get out of the building. That much was certain. “Stay right here, you understand me?”

Sam nodded again and detached himself from Dean’s torso. For a split second, Dean missed the contact. Sam was getting older, in his last year of elementary school now, and his defiant streak was growing with him. Dean wouldn’t say his brother’s sense of independence was a bad thing, though pushing back against their father was starting to become one, but sometimes he missed this. 

Dean kept his fingertips along the wall and began shuffling his feet to hopefully avoid any shards of glass and other debris. They had flashlights in the duffel next to the wardrobe, if Dean could only—

Crash!

His next shaking, shuffling step was taken with too much force and the top of his left foot connected unexpectedly with a piece of sharp wood. Pain immediately began to bloom and although Dean couldn’t see, it felt like it was already bleeding. 

“Sonofabitch,” he muttered between his teeth. 

“Dean?”

“Fine, Sammy. Just gotta find some flashlights and then we can get a move on.” He grit his teeth and felt in front of him with his hands. What he knew had been open space when they went to bed was now blocked by wood, likely the wardrobe itself. Dean knelt down with a wince and felt along the bottom of the toppled furniture piece. Thankfully, it seemed to have only come down on half the duffel, and with some pulling and a fair bit of cursing, Dean was able to yank the bag free. 

“Yahtzee!” 

He had only just begun rummaging blindly through the bag when the ground began shaking again. 

“It’s an aftershock!” Sam yelled.

Dean didn’t say ‘no, duh’, but man was he thinking it. He stayed kneeling and curled as tight as he could around himself with his hands behind his neck. “Stay where you are, Sam!” 

He could barely make out a few shouts from outside above the din. Not as much crashed to the ground, probably because there was nothing left that could fall over. 

The feeling was one of the most unsettling Dean had ever experienced, and he had been flung into the air by freaking ghosts. Not knowing when the ground would stop moving, not being able to see, and not having his brother in arm’s reach left him feeling hopelessly untethered while he was forced to wait it out. 

Like the one before it, the quake eventually came to an end, only marginally shorter and less violent than the one that had preceded it. 

“Dean?” Sam’s voice had an edge of panic to it that he was clearly trying to keep in check. 

“All good, Sammy, all good.” Dean tried to keep the panic out of his own voice. He had the bag now, which meant they had flashlights, which meant they could see to get outside, and getting outside meant that Dad would find them when he got back from the hunt, and then they could all leave in one piece. Easy as pie. 

His hands shook as he rifled through the bag. When he finally felt the cool metal flashlight, he immediately flicked it on. The first place he turned was towards the bathroom, where Sam was kneeling, one hand on the doorframe, one covering the back of his neck. 

A tiny bit of the panic in Dean’s chest eased at the visual confirmation that Sam was unhurt. He looked terrified, eyes wide and wet and breaths coming too fast, but unhurt. Dean tried to slow his own breaths. He nodded at Sam and Sam nodded back, looking over Dean in a similar fashion.

Dean caught the wince on Sam’s face before he even said anything. “Dean, your foot.”

Dean looked down. The top of his foot had indeed been sliced open and was bleeding a fair amount. Dean angled the flashlight to get a better look. While it was pounding, it didn’t look deep enough to have done any real damage. Dean stood slowly to shift his weight on it, which was painful, but manageable. They had bigger things to worry about. 

“Shoes, and we’re out of here,” Dean directed. Sam seemed reluctant to loosen his hold on the doorframe, but as soon as Dean began moving through the room, Sam followed suit. Dean had to clamber over Sam’s bed to avoid shards of glass in the floor. Thankfully, they kept their boots next to the bed as a force of habit. Needing to get up and go at the drop of a hat had some upsides, apparently.

Dean winced as he pulled on a sock and laced up his boot tightly around it. They had a small medical kit in the duffel that was slung on his shoulder, but Dean didn’t want to break it open just yet without knowing if any other aftershocks or other injuries were coming their way. 

He used the flashlight to get a glance at his watch and sighed at the time. It was only 4:30. Sunrise wasn’t for another few hours. It wasn’t a lot of time in the grand scheme of things, but it was a long time to be in the dark with no idea how bad things were or what the greater situation in the area was. 

Would Dad even be able to get to them? How long would it be until they found out if he could or not? 

The questions would have to wait. For now, they had to get out of the interior of the building. He waited until Sam gave him a nod that he was ready and the two of them crunched to the kitchenette, the shards of glass on the floor glittering the light from their flashlights back to them. Dean pushed the curtains to the side and was met with a huge crack going down the height of the window. Pieces hadn’t started falling away yet, but they were likely to. The streetlights in the parking lot and around the motel were still off. Even across the street, where Dean knew there to be businesses in a strip mall, there was no light.

“Woah,” Sam said in a whisper behind Dean. 

Dean turned to him, confused. Sam’s only explanation was to point towards the top of the window, out to the sky. Above them, the stars were out in full force in a way that Dean had only ever seen in forests or parked along stretches of flat, desolate highway. The cloudy Milky Way stretched across the clear sky, so unlike the smog that had blanketed the city on their way in a few days ago. Here, in the residential cityscape that was Canoga Park, he never would’ve expected it. He doubted people that had lived here their whole lives had ever seen it. 

The pseudo silence lasted for a moment more before Dean made out dark human shapes just barely backlit by the moon and the stars outside. People were talking in the parking lot. Crying. 

“Come on,” Dean said. More glass and pieces of who knew what crunched underfoot as he made his way to the door. He flipped the lock, turned the handle and—nothing. Dean tugged a little harder, still nothing. “Come on,” he repeated under his breath, this time directed towards the door itself.

“Is the door stuck?” Sam asked as he aimed his flashlight towards the door. Dean passed off his flashlight so that he could wrap both hands around the handle. 

Dean grunted. “Must’ve shifted during the quake.” He leaned back and tugged again. With a wooden groan, the door squeaked halfway out of the frame. Dean readjusted his grip and pulled one more time. He quickly had to rebalance himself as the door flung open towards him, letting in a blast of cool night air. He took a split second to be thankful that although it was January, they were in Southern California of all places. The weather, while cool, could have been much, much worse. 

Dean took his flashlight from Sam before he stepped over the threshold and into the parking lot. A quick scan of the area revealed a woman and what appeared to be her teenage daughter, the husband and wife that ran the motel, and a few others. There was an elderly man sitting on the parking curb with his hand held to his bleeding forehead. A younger man was crouched in front of him, but Dean couldn’t make out what they were saying. 

A lone car passed by on the street, illuminating everything with its headlights before continuing along, taking the light with it. 

“You alright?” Dean asked, feeling like a broken record as he turned back to Sam.

His little brother still had a bit of the ‘deer in the headlights’ look, but being outside seemed to have immediately calmed him. 

“Uh-huh,” Sam said in affirmation. He took in the scene much as Dean had, and Dean was proud of him for it. 

A frantic tapping of glass pulled Dean’s attention away from his brother. He squinted his eyes in the darkness before bringing the flashlight up to wave at nearby rooms. A pair of hands was frantically tapping on the kitchenette window from inside of a room two down from theirs. 

Dean paused. No one seemed to have any medical equipment for the man with the head wound, and at the same time, no one else was close enough to hear the person tapping on the window. Both people clearly needed assistance. Dean’s first instinct was to keep Sam close by and check them out one at a time, but if there was an aftershock, or the man’s wound kept bleeding…

Dad would say to help as many people as they could. And they could help more people faster if they split up. Sam would always be within earshot and it would just be for a few minutes, he told himself. 

Dean took a breath and tamped down his protective nature. “Here, you take the med bag over to him,” Dean directed Sam towards the injured elderly man and slung off the duffel to hand to him. “I’m gonna see if they’re okay.” He pointed towards the room.

Sam grabbed the duffel bag, hands still shaking slightly. But he nodded. Dean could see the reluctance in his body language, but there were people that needed help. The job was the job. The danger to Sam was minimal. None of the people in the parking lot appeared to pose a threat. Now that they were outside without any overhead obstructions, nothing would fall on Sam while his back was turned. He waited until Sam walked over to the two men and began talking to them before he turned his attention to the person at the window. 

“You okay in there?” he called, trying to angle the flashlight in a way that wouldn’t make it reflect off the window but still allowed him to see inside. 

“I can’t get out, the door won’t move!” a young woman yelled from inside. 

“Is there anyone else in there with you?”

Dean could barely see her shake her head. She was a silhouette against an even darker room behind her. “I’m gonna see what I can do, hang tight!” Dean went over to the door and tried the handle. While it was clearly unlocked from the inside as the handle turned, Dean couldn’t get it to push open. “I’m gonna try kicking it in, stand back!” Dean called when he had returned to the window and gestured for the woman to move off to the side. A slight shifting of the silhouette was his only sign that she had done as he asked.

He took a step back, lifted his uninjured foot, and kicked the door in as hard as he could. He’d kicked in more than his fair share of doors, and thankfully this one was no different. While it didn’t fly dramatically off its hinges, the force of the kick was enough to unstick it from where it had become wedged in the frame. The woman let out a small yelp but quickly quieted when Dean peeked into the room with his flashlight. 

“Watch where you step,” he said as he shone the light at the floor, illuminating a broken mug and a few spilled containers of takeout. 

“Thank you,” she replied in a shaky voice. She gingerly stepped around the debris on bare feet and met Dean outside the threshold. “Do you know…” she trailed off, as if unable to find an appropriate question for the amount of unknowns currently swirling around them.

Dean shook his head in answer to all of them. “I know as much as you, which is next to nothing. People are gathering over there,” he pointed towards the small congregation of people that had gathered around Sam and the two men. Only a couple of them had flashlights.

The woman nodded, thanked him, and walked in that direction. Dean kept his eyes on Sam for a few moments. His brother had a look of steady concentration on his face as he pressed a piece of gauze to the man’s forehead and reached with his other hand for the tape. Reassured that Sam had everything under control, Dean looked back at the rooms. 

Someone needed to make sure that no one else was trapped, or had been injured or knocked unconscious during the quake. Since no one else seemed to have that idea in mind, Dean would have to bring it to the table. 

He walked towards the owners, who were talking to a few of the other guests. “Do you know how many rooms were full for the night?” Dean asked.

They both turned to him. Dean stood a little straighter, trying to make himself larger than his nearly fifteen-year-old self. There was only a momentary pause before the husband said, “Twelve of the twenty-eight, I think.”

“You need to make sure there’s no one stuck inside,” Dean said the way his dad would have phrased it. Not a suggestion, no place for back talk, just something that needed to be done. 

They both nodded immediately. “We hadn’t even gotten there yet, everything happened so fast,” the wife explained. She was still in her pajamas while her husband was wearing more work-appropriate attire. Early morning shift, then. 

He rubbed his hand up and down his wife’s arm. “I have the master key, I can check the rooms.”

Dean let out a small breath of relief. “I’ll come with you,” he said, again, leaving no room for argument.

The man nodded and Dean followed him to the first room. His eyes strayed to Sam as the man unlocked the door. Sam had gotten the bandage affixed to the older man’s head and was now sitting on the ground, talking to him. He’d probably look completely at ease to anyone that didn’t know him, but Dean could see the anxiety humming under his skin, especially with his task completed. Idle hands never suited either of them well, Dean especially. 

“That your brother?” The man produced a small flashlight from his pants pocket and jerked his head towards Sam. 

“Yeah, Sam,” Dean answered. He followed the man into the room and after a quick sweep, they proceeded to the next closed door.

“He has a calm way about him. Good in a crisis,” the man said. 

More than you’ll ever know, Dean didn’t say out loud. “He’s a good kid.”

The man glanced back at him with a tiny smile on his face, as if Dean had said something funny. “Name’s Joseph,” he said and stuck out his hand.

Dean shook it firmly and looked Joseph in the eye, just as Dad had taught him. “Dean.” That earned him a real smile before they went into the next room.

“Your old man the one in the black muscle car?”

“Probably.”

Joseph paused in his sweep of the room. “He here?”

Dean shook his head but continued looking. “Working. He’ll be back.” A statement. A fact. No room for argument.

He didn’t wait to see if Joseph had a reply for him. The room was clear. Onto the next one.

In the end, all the rooms with closed doors had been uninhabited. It was a weight off Dean’s shoulders to be sure, but sooner than he would have liked, the weight of inactivity began settling chains around his ankles. 

The people that had family in the area had left to check on them. Some others were hunting down food or water. They were all lucky that everyone had escaped relatively unscathed. 

The same couldn’t be completely said for the motel itself. It was only one story, so luckily they didn’t have to worry about the higher floors crushing the lower ones. The roof was concave in places and had pieces of tile missing in others. Pieces of the building had fallen onto the sidewalk. Most of the windows were cracked or completely broken. Looking out at the quick-mart that had completely collapsed across the street, they were lucky indeed.

Dean lost track of the number of fire engines and ambulances that came hurtling down the road, lights on and sirens blaring. In the distance against a barely lightening sky, Dean could see a plume of smoke. A school bus laden with evacuees proceeded slowly down the street. 

Dean wasn’t sure what step to take next. They couldn’t get in contact with Dad, or even Bobby, not with the power and likely phones down. The only small comfort, if one could even call it that, was that the quake had been so big that however far the hunt had taken dad into the Chatsworth Nature Preserve, he would have felt it, and he’d be coming back to the motel. The best thing for them to do was stay put and wait. But how long?

He settled on the curb next to Sam, who had separated himself from the group now that the older man’s head was bandaged. His little brother had turned his doctoring skills on Dean instead.

“How’s it lookin’, Doc Winchester?” Dean asked with a grin as Sam knelt over his injured foot with the med kit in hand. Dean held a flashlight angled so Sam could see what he was working with. 

He tilted Dean’s foot this way and that, all business, before grabbing an alcohol swab and getting to work. He didn’t even give Dean a countdown before pressing it over the top of Dean’s foot. Rude.

Dean hissed between his teeth. “Hey, hey, easy! Only two feet I’ll ever get!”

Sam paused just a second too long before saying, “Not my fault they both stink. Thought the alcohol would help.”

For a moment, Dean didn’t think he had heard Sam right. Then he caught Sam’s gaze from under his floppy hair and the way the corner of his brother’s mouth had ticked upwards. If he was feeling adjusted enough—or covering with false bravado and humor the way he had been taught—to sass Dean, then Dean would dish it right back. At least it would give him something to do.

“And you would know a lot about alcohol covering up the scent of nasty foot odor because…? Personal experience?” Dean egged him on. If Sam pressed just a little harder on his next swipe of the alcohol swab, neither of them said anything, but Dean did lean forward to hit him on the shoulder. 

Sam continued with his stupid half smile. “Should probably amputate now, for all our sakes.”

Dean nudged him again. “Yeah, yeah, get to work, I don’t pay the peanut gallery for the commentary.”

Sam shook his head and reached into the med kit. The injury was more a glorified scrape than anything. It had bled a fair amount, but nowhere near enough to need stitches. So long as it didn’t get infected, Dean would be golden. Shoes in the meantime would be a pain, but such was life. In nearly no time, Sam had it bandaged up and even procured a pair of clean-ish socks from the duffel to replace Dean’s bloodstained ones.

“Thanks, Sammy,” Dean was sure to say as he pulled them on and laced up his boots. 

“Course,” Sam said with a nod. He packed things away and settled himself on the curb next to Dean. With the injury tended to, there was suddenly a lack of things for both of them to do. Most of the group was still standing or sitting in the parking lot around them. The older man Sam had helped bandage earlier was still sitting down, but he was alert and talking with the woman and her teenage daughter.

Dean caught Sam watching the three of them. “You did a good job earlier,” he said with a slight inclination of his head in their direction. 

Sam looked to him, something akin to surprise on his face. 

“You kept him calm, helped him out, even after what had just happened. It was good work,” he said. Facts. No room for argument. “Proud of you, Sammy,” Dean added. Dad didn’t say it enough, not for all the research Sam did or the good grades he brought home. It couldn’t hurt to say it a little more, especially when it was deserved.

And especially when it brought a smile to Sam’s face like the one Dean was lucky enough to see now. Sam leaned a little up against Dean’s arm. “What do we do now?” he asked.

That was the question of the hour, wasn’t it? Dean didn’t have an answer, and it terrified him more than he’d like to admit. They couldn’t just go off on their own in search of some way to contact Dad just in case he was circling back to them. They couldn’t risk missing him. They could stay here, but for how long? Where else would they go? Dad’s only contact in town was the hunter that had brought the case to Dad’s attention, and Dean wasn’t keen on tracking him down or asking him for a favor.

“Still working that one out,” Dean said honestly and in a voice smaller than he would like to admit. 

Sam’s head landed softly against Dean’s shoulder. The added warmth was nice against the cool early morning air. Behind them, another emergency vehicle sped by, sirens screeching. 

“You did a good job too, Dean,” Sam said softly under the noise of the sirens. 

Not long after the sun had risen, Joseph walked over to bring them a bottle of water. Neither of them had fallen asleep, but Sam’s eyes had been closed for a while as he leaned up against Dean. The movement of him reaching up for the bottle was enough to jostle Sam into full alertness and he pulled away from Dean’s side.

“Any news?” Dean asked as he cracked open the bottle and took a sip. He then passed it off to Sam. 

Joseph nodded, but the way he looked at Sam had Dean standing up. “Be back in a sec, Sammy.”

Sam eyed the two of them suspiciously, but said nothing. 

Dean followed Joseph a few steps over, out of earshot. “We got word that some of the freeways sustained damage and are impassable. Do you know what direction your father would be coming back from?” Joseph asked.

Static buzzed in Dean’s ears. He shook his head. “North somewhere,” was all he could give.

Joseph listened and nodded. “There’s some smaller chunks of debris in the roads, cracks in the asphalt, but the freeways are the main problem. There’s routes around, but no one’s sure how long they’ll take or where exactly they’ll go until they can get a full survey done.” Joseph paused to see if Dean was taking all this in. “Miss Nelson and her daughter and a few others are taking their cars to Lanark Park, a few streets south of us.” 

Joseph gestured over to where some of the guests had begun getting into vehicles or very carefully trying to retrieve items that had been left in their rooms. “She said you’re welcome to come with them. We’ve been told it’s a safe place to gather. Or you could stay here, me and Marnie will be keeping watch over the motel.”

Joseph cast a glance towards the building, specifically at the areas where the roof had begun to cave in around the building’s corners. “We’ll have to wait for the fire department to see if it’s safe to enter long-term and sleep here, but if you boys would simply like some company in the meantime, you’re more than welcome.”

Dean could only nod. He had so many questions, but doubted that Joseph had any answers to them. If he knew what freeways were down, he would have mentioned. If he knew how badly the streets were damaged, he probably would have mentioned. If he knew if there had been fatalities…

“I’ll talk to Sam,” he said. 

Joseph smiled tiredly at him. “Let us know whenever you decide so we don’t worry you’ve wandered off somewhere.”

Dean promised he would do so and walked back to Sam. 

“What didn’t he want to tell me?” Sam asked, still sitting on the curb. He looked up with eyes that were much too knowing and inquisitive for a ten-year-old kid.

Dean sighed as he resumed his earlier position next to Sam. “Joseph says there’s some problems with the roads and freeways. It may take Dad a while to get to us. Some people are hanging out at Lanark Park, not far away. Open sky, not a bad spot in case there’s more aftershocks.”

Sam’s face scrunched up. “How long is a while?”

“If I knew, Sammy, I’d tell you,” Dean replied, trying his best to not show his exasperation. He had been asking himself the exact same question.

The two of them were silent for a few moments. “What should we do?” Sam finally asked. His eyes weren’t on Dean, but on the door to their motel room. In the dawn light, Dean could just make out the dresser and television inside that had fallen over and the glass that still littered the floor.

What to do, indeed. Dean weighed the pros and cons in his mind. They could stay here, sitting on concrete and asphalt while they waited for the fire department to show up and possibly condemn the building. This would be the easiest place for Dad to find them. No options were likely to put them in reach of a working phone, not with all the chaos going on. Or they could go to the park, sit on grass and under trees, and leave Dad a note in the motel room. 

The decision wasn’t one he made lightly.

“I think we should go to the park. Leave Dad a note here, and if he doesn’t show up there by nightfall, we come back here. How does that sound?” He left it open for argument. Dean wanted Sam safe and comfortable, or as much of both as they could reasonably get. If he wanted to sit in the parking lot until the cows came home, Dean would sit with him. He would sit with Sam anywhere.

Sam turned away from the motel room to look at Dean, eyes searching. Searching for what? Dean didn’t know. “Okay,” Sam said quietly.

Dean took it at face value. “Okay,” he repeated. Then, he stood, extended a hand down to Sam’s small one, and pulled his brother to his feet.

After they had talked to Joseph, Marnie, and Miss Nelson about their decision, Sam stood outside their motel room while Dean ventured a few steps inside. He paused, noting the large cracks spiderwebbing through the paint on the walls. He grabbed the motel stationary pad and a pen from where they had fallen off the kitchenette table and onto the floor, careful to avoid the glass and pieces of broken mugs and plates.

He didn’t have a map handy to put down location coordinates. In handwriting that was slightly shakier than his usual penmanship, he simply put, ‘OK. Lanark Park. Back by sundown. D+S’

Dean left it on the table. Everything belonging to them that wasn’t in the Impala was already in the duffel on Dean’s shoulder. He took one last look at the destroyed room and joined Sam outside. 

Miss Nelson and her daughter, Sophie, both still obviously shaken, smiled in greeting at them before they all piled into the car and made a left out of the parking lot down the boulevard. There were fewer cars on the road than Dean had been expecting. It didn’t take long for him to see why.

All around were signs of destruction. Buildings in shambles or completely collapsed, firefighters working on blazes, people sitting on the curb with their heads in their hands. Several plumes of smoke drifted over the city. There was a man on the corner handing out water bottles to whoever passed by. The 7-Eleven behind him was only recognizable by the stripes of color on its collapsed awning that lay in front of a pile of rubble.

Miss Nelson slowed the car at an intersection that was flooded. The stoplights were down. Cars proceeded one at a time through the few inches of water that was flowing down the street, likely from a busted water main, since Dean didn’t see any broken hydrants. The asphalt was cracked in places and the sidewalk was upended in others.

It was indeed just a few streets down to the park. They could walk back to the motel if they had to. When they arrived, Miss Nelson paused for a few moments before maneuvering the car up onto the grass just how dozens of others were already positioned.

As soon as the car was off, they thanked her for the ride and promised to come to her if they needed anything. 

“What do we do now?” Sam asked after they had parted ways.

Dean was getting tired of that question, both from his own mind and from Sam. “Find a nice tree to hole up under until Dad gets here,” Dean said, already eyeing the trees that bordered all sides of the park. The tennis court in the corner was empty and likely to remain so. The jungle gym was similarly abandoned. Dean started limping in the direction of the tennis court, Sam next to him. He picked a tree with a sturdy trunk that put their backs to the court so that they could face out and hopefully see when Dad arrived. 

After that, all they had to do was wait. The temperature had slowly started to warm with the sun, which was a relief. Dean kept his left leg outstretched to avoid putting weight on his injury, which either throbbed dully or pulled no matter how he tried to position it. Sam would probably know how many bones and ligaments were in his foot. He loved random fun facts like that. But Dean didn’t ask.

Sam spent the time glued to his side in a way he hadn’t done in years. He still watched insects crawl up blades of grass and kept his eyes on people milling around, but he didn’t leave Dean’s side.

After several hours, someone came around with sandwiches and bottles of water, which they both took gratefully and ate in silence. When they finished, Sam lay down with his head on Dean’s thigh and stared up at the tree leaves above them.

Dean wished he could say something to fill the silence. There was still the noise of the people around them, some speaking in hushed or panicked tones, and of course sirens that would pass up and down the boulevard. 

Dean checked his watch. It was almost noon. The park had filled up even more considerably since the morning. Dean didn’t know exactly where Dad was, just that he was investigating something in the Chatsworth Nature Preserve. It was closed to the public, but that had never stopped a hunter before, not with suspicious “animal attacks” in the area. He shouldn’t have needed to get on the freeways to get there. But who was to say that the roads there and back weren’t blocked by a tree or flooding or a fire? That a tree hadn’t fallen on the Impala? He didn’t even entertain the idea that maybe something had fallen on Dad, all the way out there by himself in the pre-dawn darkness.

He could feel the tension in Sam’s body and had no way to remedy it.

“So what kind of tree is this?” Dean asked out of the blue. He tilted his head up to look at its leaves, much like Sam was doing. He had been hoping his brother would’ve dozed off at some point, but that didn’t seem to be happening. The only other trick Dean had in his big brother arsenal after a natural disaster was ‘distraction’.

Lucky for him—or maybe Sam was looking for a distraction of his own and more willing than usual to take Dean’s random olive branch—Sam squinted up at the leaves. “It’s an evergreen,” he started. No duh, even Dean knew that one, but he didn’t say anything. Sam squinted a little harder before he lifted his head up from Dean’s thigh to look for something on the ground. 

When he found what he was looking for, he leaned back against Dean’s leg with a smile on his face. “Probably a coast live oak. Tons of them around here,” he said and passed an acorn up to Dean.

“Oak, huh?” Dean said with a nod as he took the acorn and spun it between his fingers.

Sam nodded. “There’s a ton of books about them in the library. The native Americans used acorns a lot for food.”

“Should we pick some up for trail mix?”

“Nope.” Sam then launched into what he had learned about the process of making the acorns safe to eat and grinding them into flour. Dean was honestly impressed with how much Sam had learned while Dean had been busy scouring the library shelves for anything that would help figure out what Dad was hunting. Even with them not being in school for a time—no point when we’ll only be here a week, Dad had said—Sam was still learning whatever he could.

Dean listened with rapt attention not just to how much Sam knew, but how much he was growing up right before Dean’s eyes. Much too fast, if you asked him. It wouldn’t be long before Dad would be asking Sam to research more so Dean could tag along on more hunts, Dean could see it coming. 

There wasn’t much of a point in worrying about the inevitability of it, and yet Dean worried all the same. It was too easy to worry, where Sam was concerned. 

He was so focused on looking at the leaves of the tree and the remaining acorns that Sam had been pointing out that he completely missed the figure approaching from in front of them. 

“Boys!” The familiar tone had both of their heads immediately turning from the leaves above them to the man in front of them. 

“Dad!” Sam exclaimed as soon as he had raised his head. He stood up as fast as he could, and while he didn’t run into Dad’s arms, it was a near thing. Dean stood up slower and kept weight off his foot and watched the exchange. Dad’s arms had immediately gone around Sam and his eyes were closed. Dean couldn’t see Sam’s expression, but his arms were tight around Dad’s waist. 

“Are you boys alright?” Dad asked, extricating himself from the hug only enough to get a good look at Sam and run his hands up and down his son’s shoulders. Apparently seeing that Sam wasn’t hurt, his eyes turned to Dean, immediately settling on the way he was unevenly dispersing his weight.

Sam sniffled a little when he pulled back but he nodded. “Dean hurt his foot.”

“I’m alright,” Dean said, reassuring both of them. He took a few limping steps to be closer and Dad’s hand snaked out to grab his shoulder and jostle him gently. His gaze searched Dean’s own. “Really.”

Dad let out a sigh of relief and didn’t relinquish either of them from his hold. “I got here as soon as I could, I’m so sorry.”

Dean shook his head a little. Apologies didn’t matter. “Are you okay?” he asked, not noticing any visible injuries but also unable to get a good look.

“I am. I was outside when it hit, and had one hell of a hike back to the car. That’s what took so long.”

The barely-restrained panic brought on by the amount of unknowns about the situation was slowly tempering down behind Dean’s ribcage. Dad was fine. He was here. They were all together and okay.

Dad looked down at Sam before turning his attention to Dean. “You did good,” he said in the kind of proud voice that only reared its head when Dean bullseye-d beer cans on a fence or dispatched his first ghost. “Both of you.” He squeezed their shoulders for emphasis and began leading them out of the park. Dean waved at Miss Nelson and Sophie on their way out.

When Dean finally saw the Impala parked down the street, another piece of the tension he held in his chest eased. Their home was okay. They were all okay. 

Dad took the duffel from Dean and put it in the trunk with the rest of their gear. Instead of getting in the front seat like he had been doing more often, Dean slid into the back with Sam. He caught Dad’s gaze in the rearview mirror. There was a softness to it, an absence in the lines around his eyes that Dean hadn’t seen in a while.

Baby started up in the same comforting rumble as always. Dad turned on the heat, eliciting a soft rattle from the vents. As soon as Dad put her in drive, Sam leaned in next to him and Dean put an arm around his shoulders. He wasn’t sure where Dad was taking them or how they were going to get there or what the conditions of the roads were. But they would go there together. That was all that mattered.