Chapter Text
Way back in the beginning, Dean was the largest pup in the litter. He leisurely ate his way through about half of his brothers and sisters, making room, before he found the smallest, weakest pup fighting off two medium sized ones.
Dean is a firm believer in fairplay, so he helps out by swallowing one of the other pups in one bite. Heh. He is awesome.
“I could have handled it!” the pup blusters.
“Sure,” Dean says, and goes ahead and eats the other shark too. It was blubbering. He can’t stand the ones that blubber at him. “You totally had that under control.”
“I did!”
Dean flicks his tail, as much as he can in the tight quarters they’ve got, and says, “Yeah, sure. You’re ferocious, Megalodon.”
“I’m gonna get bigger,” the pup says sullenly.
“Dude, you’re the size of one of my claspers.” Dean eyes the pup again. “Stick with me, pup.” Not that it can go anywhere. The womb wasn’t that big back when Dean was hatching. It’s only gotten smaller.
“It’s Sam,” the pup says, huffing. “And I can survive by myself.”
“Sure you can.”
Being born is kind of anticlimactic. Dean squeezes his way out, pushing Sam along ahead of him to make sure one of their two remaining siblings doesn’t get any bright ideas while Dean’s busy.
“Dude,” Sam breathes.
“What?”
“You are so small,” Sam says gleefully.
Dean looks over to snap at him that he’s the biggest damn shark they’ve ever seen and comes face to face with something that could eat him without even having to rip out a chunk first. “Fuck,” he says, eloquently.
“Relax,” the shark says. Dean would like to see it fucking relax when faced with a huge ass shark in its face. He suddenly feels kind of bad for all the siblings he ate. “I’m your mother.”
“Uh,” Dean says, “Hi?” He circles around to put himself between Sam and their mother. What can he say? He’s been looking out for the pup for months now, it’s a habit. “Please don’t eat us.”
“You’re the little bastard that’s been smacking me, aren’t you?” their mother says, sighing. “Why would I eat you after I just spent eleven months carrying you around? You take after your dad.”
“Urk?” Dean says.
“Are you the one who ate most of your siblings too?” She surveys the four of them. “All of that work and there’s only four of you left?”
“In my defense,” Dean says, “The rest of them were whiny assholes who kind of deserved to be eaten.”
Sam bumps him, swimming in tight spirals and laughing at all the space they’ve suddenly got. “Dean, I can swim,” he says.
“I think he might not have gotten his fair share of oxygen,” Dean tells their mother.
Sam snaps at him.
“How did you two manage to make it out of the womb?” their mother asks.
“I’m huge. Or I was. But Sam’s only here ‘cause I was looking out for his runty tail.”
“Oh, whatever,” Sam says, “I was doing just fine. And you’re runty now too!”
“I’m still bigger than you.”
Their mother swims back out to deep water within a few days. Dean tried to follow her for a while, but that water was cold and Sam started whining, so he turned back around. He likes the sun and warm water, and he really likes the fact that he can find stuff to eat now that doesn’t have huge teeth.
Sam’s actually way better at hunting the tiny, darting fish and never lets Dean live it down. “You’re too big,” Sam says cheerfully, “They can feel you coming.”
Their first meal after their mother left was actually one of the remaining siblings. Sam went off on his usual spiel about needing to stick together instead of ripping each other apart, but he’d taken his chunk of flesh anyway.
They eat anything they can catch. Sam’s diet is mainly fish, but Dean hauls in manta rays and other sharks sometimes, lets Sam take his pick. If they’re feeling adventurous, Sam’ll chase small fish one way and Dean will come in another way and they’ll maybe trap fish between the two of them.
Sam’s curious, though. He likes to poke around in the reef for new things to eat.
“Dude,” Sam calls one day.
Dean’s cruising around and keeping an eye out for tiger sharks, but he does a lazy circle above Sam, peering down. “What?”
“What the hell is this?” Sam says. He yanks at a long tentacle right before a freakin’ Megalodon of an octopus attaches to Sam’s face. Sam screams like a dolphin, turning rapidly and ramming his face into the reef.
“Let go of my tentacle, boy,” the octopus snarls.
“Wait, what?” Dean says. They’ve been hunting for weeks now and this is the first thing that’s talked to them. He didn’t know other animals were smart enough to talk.
“Are you slow?” the octopus demands. “I said let go of my damn tentacle, you idjit.”
“Let go of my brother’s face!”
“Tell him to let go of me first.”
The octopus rolls enough to slap a tentacle out at Dean when Dean cruises closer. It’s got a tentacle over each of Sam’s eyes, suckers digging into his skin, and Sam is still flailing like a feeding frenzy, throwing bubbles and white water everywhere.
“Dude, Sammy, chill.” Dean checks Sam with a tail slap to get his attention. “Let go of the freaky octopus.”
There’s a garbled noise from Sam as he spits out the octopus tentacle. The octopus gradually crawls up Sam’s face, until it’s clamped around his topline instead of his snout. Dean keeps a careful eye on where its tentacles are, but they stick well clear of Sam’s gills despite the fact that the octopus looks like it’s about twice Sam’s size.
“Damn fool babies,” it grumbles, “Can’t ever keep their goddamn teeth to themselves. What the hell are you starin’ at, boy?”
“Dean!” Sam shrills. “Get it off! Oh my God, what is it?”
“Looks like a talking octopus,” Dean says dryly.
The octopus waves a tentacle at him and rotates its eyes in a manner that is, frankly, deeply creepy. Sam belly rolls in an attempt to get it off, but it just clamps down tighter and says, “Knock it off, boy.”
“I hate you so much,” Sam says.
“Dude, I’m not the one who bit a talking octopus.” Dean is torn between wanting to tear that octopus tentacle from tentacle for touching his brother and laughing gleefully over Sam having tentacles all up in his space. He circles for a minute, trying to find a good place for him to bite.
Talking octopus probably just tastes like regular octopus, right?
“Don’t even think about it,” the octopus says, “I’ve eaten sharks bigger than the both of you. Just swim back down to my reef and I’ll get off.”
“Promise?” Sam’s voice wobbles as he asks.
Ah, now Dean feels bad. He nudges Sam with his snout, pointing him downwards. “If he doesn’t, I’ll totally eat him off,” Dean says. He could take it. Maybe.
The octopus walks grudgingly down Sam’s back, skirting around his dorsal fin and sliding down his tail until it can touch reef. “God save us all from Winchester pups,” it says, “Not like your daddy has to deal with your stupid asses.”
“Sorry?” Dean offers, exchanging a glance with Sam. They haven’t really met any other great whites. There’s Adam, their other brother, but Dean’s tried to eat him a couple of times so he stays away. Their mom’s in the deep water. He doesn’t have a clue where their father is.
“I’m sorry for biting you,” Sam says hesitantly.
“Sharks gotta eat,” the octopus says. “Just don’t gotta eat me. Keep your rows of teeth to yourself and we’ll be fine.”
Sam and Dean swim around the top of the reef, watching the octopus crawl along and poke its tentacles into various crevices. “I can’t get over it talking,” Dean confides.
“Do you think all animals talk?” Sam asks, sounding horrified. “What about all those fish I catch? Or the rays?”
“I’m surprised you idjits are smart enough to talk,” the octopus says. “Don’t worry, pup. Most of the shit you’re eating’s barely smart enough realize it’s about to get eaten.”
There’s a manta ray just cruising around in front of him. Dean snatches it by the tail when it drifts in front of his face, swallows about half of it in one jerk. Sam watches its guts trail in the water with something like horror, but whatever, Dean isn’t going to fast just because the ray might have been smart enough to talk.
When it almost swims into his damn mouth, he’s gonna eat it.
The octopus is watching him. “Damn, you’re a big pup,” it says. “What’d you do, eat all of your litter mates?”
Sam snorts and gets over himself long enough to swallow a bit of intestine. “That’s exactly what he did.”
“You’re still alive, shrimp,” Dean says, cheerfully smacking him into the reef with one swipe of his tail. They’ve been out of the womb for almost a month and Sam is still a tiny shark. He’s beginning to think he saddled himself with a genetic freak.
The octopus sighs. “Git,” it says, “You’re givin’ me a headache.”
That’s how they meet Bobby.