Chapter Text
The shit bar off I-90 somewhere in eastern Iowa smells like rotting wood, spilt beer, and old cigarettes, and not in the comforting way places like this usually did. Normally the splintering bartop, the worn out pool cues, the ashtrays that were dumped in the back alley, the rings of condensation on every surface were familiar and reliable. A place like this is supposed to feel like knowing you’d get a discount instead of convenience prices on Doritos from the gas station because every bag is at least five years old. It’s supposed to feel like knowing that the air conditioning rattles are loud now, but they’ll quiet, and they’ll cycle back on and off and on again and sometime in the middle part you’ll fall asleep. Like knowing that a PB&J on stale bread tastes a little like cardboard, but it’s something you kind of miss tasting, too. Like being a kid with a school-packed lunch in a brown paper bag full of carrots that are too wet. A place like this isn’t good for anything but a beer and maybe a game of poker in the back. Some stale nuts if you’re lucky.
“Jesus,” Dean says, flipping over the shot glass after he slammed it down. Dean was always more of a whiskey guy. Or was he? Was he just doing what he was told, agreeing with what he heard he should like? The bartender glances up at him from a few feet away, wiping away all those rings of condensation, throwing down thin paper napkins in their place. Dean meets his eye and points at the glass. “Another?”
“Sure thing.” Dean watches the guy turn around and pull out a bottle of bottom-shelf tequila. He doesn’t let his gaze wander; he knows Sam is in the corner, staring, watching, waiting for Dean to do god-knows-what. His jacket was heavy on his shoulders.
Dean takes the little glass when it is handed to him. The smell burns his nose and it is going to burn worse going down, but hey, better from cheap tequila than fire and brimstone. There is an odd sense of calm when Dean considers that he is on that track anyway. Train had left the station. Sure, Dean could jump off, but does he want to?
He tosses back the shot. He manages not to pull a face. He’ll regret it tomorrow morning, and he doesn’t care. He probably won’t care tomorrow morning. He’ll probably just go out tomorrow evening and do the whole thing again.
He turns around to look at Sam; Sam’s already looking right back, a little crease between his eyebrows. His eyes are big and sad. He looks like a kicked puppy. There is a newspaper open in front of him, still on the front page, a mostly-full beer bottle sweating on the table. Another condensation ring to be wiped away later.
Three tequila shots in ten minutes feels excessive. Dean resolves to order another beer the next time the bartender comes around.
A group of kids Sam’s age rolls in, loud and grating, giggling and stumbling already. He wonders how they drove here for half a second before deciding he doesn’t care. One of them stops by the jukebox and switches the music from Johnny Cash to Hall & Oates. He bites the inside of his lip. They congregate at the bar, just a few stools over from where Dean sits alone. He drums his fingernails against the empty glasses, listening to the dull chime, and changes his mind.
It takes the bartender more than a few minutes to return to Dean, and when he does, he orders a whiskey. He thinks about asking him to leave the bottle, but that was a surefire way to get Sam to come take it away. What a waste of money that would be. It’s just nothing fancy, but it’s smoky and familiar and Dean can smell Dad’s aftershave. His stomach falls away and plummets through his feet, through the floorboards, beneath the concrete foundation and the dirt underneath that, all the way down to wherever Dad ended up all because Dean couldn’t tell a reaper to fuck off with enough conviction.
Dad’s life for his. Dad, the Colt, the bullet, for Dean. Dad gone, the mythical demon-killing gun gone, that yellow-eyed sonofabitch is still out there, taunting them, mocking them, gathering his oncoming storm, fucking with Sam and the other kids, and Dean is sitting in a roadside bar in Iowa. Dad wanted the demon. Sam wants the demon. Dean wanted Dad and Sam. Dean doesn’t give two shits about the demon when it all comes down to it. He wanted his family. And if he couldn’t have that, why couldn’t Sam have what he wanted? In what fucking world was it fair that none of them got anything? Dad’s gone, and he screwed up shit for Sam yet again.
He rubs a hand over his forehead. The kids are loud. Their voices were like a cheese grater over his exposed spine.
One of them gets up, already stumbling, and trips on one of the legs of a stool, stumbling further. He doesn’t quite fall onto Dean, but he hits the stool next to him, and that’s more than enough for him. “Hey,” Dean snaps. “Watch it.”
The kid stands up straighter, his eyes wide and bright, all early twenty-something years old and righteously indignant. He straightens his shirt. “Dude,” he says. “I didn’t even touch you.”
“Never said you did.” Dean sips his drink. “You’re already pissing me off. Don’t make it worse.”
“What’s your fucking problem, man?”
Dean sets the glass back down on the bar and raises an eyebrow. “I’m trying to enjoy my evening, and you and your buddies are makin’ that real difficult.”
The kid scoffs and gestures at Dean. “Yeah, seems like you’re having a great time.”
The bartender sidles over, placing two placating hands on the bar as he leans over it. “What’s the problem here, boys?” he asks, playing dumb, but his eyes are sharp. Dean knows damn well he watched the whole interaction.
“Idiot kids at a bar for grown-ups,” Dean mutters.
“Hey! I’m twenty-three!”
Dean smiles sweetly. “I wasn’t talking to you, pipsqueak.”
One of the other idiots appears behind the first one’s shoulder. “Listen, dude, you don’t have to be such a dick–”
“Your buddy here can learn to watch where he’s fucking going–”
The bartender sighs. “Gentlemen, let’s be reasonable.”
Dean turns to him with a raised eyebrow. “I’m bein’ perfectly reasonable, boss.”
His eyes track Dean as he tosses back the rest of his drink. “Why don’t we all just calm down before this gets uglier?”
He glances back at the two kids. “Don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m cool as a cucumber.”
Predictably, that sets them off further. “You fucking started this, dude! You’re the one–”
Dean stands up, tired of this. He’s not exactly bigger than these two, but he’s older, and he knows how to throw and take a punch, and he’s not afraid to do it, either. The first kid’s eyes go wide but the second one balls his fists, and Dean’s not thinking they’re gonna make it outside before this gets physical.
There’s a hand on his shoulder and Dean is swinging around, ready to acquaint this motherfucker’s face with his fist when he realizes a little too slowly that the hand is from behind him and not in front, so it’s not one of the rowdy kids, and then his fist is connecting. Sam apparently had the good judgement to lean away, so he only hits his shoulder instead of his nose, but he still grimaces. Dean wrenches away but Sam grabs him again. “Get the fuck off me, Sam,” he growls, jerking back as Sam’s fingers twist in the worn leather of his jacket.
“Dean,” Sam says, quietly, calmly. “What are you doing?”
“Go back to your table,” he sneers. “I don’t need a fucking babysitter.”
He shakes his head. “You’re trying to fight college kids, man. I think it’s time to head home.”
“The fuck do you know,” he grumbles, turning back to the bar, where the kids have dispersed but the bartender is watching, entirely too discerning for Dean’s taste. “I just want a drink.”
“You’ve had several,” Sam says.
“You’re a college kid too, aren’t you, Sammy? Go hang out with kids like them. I don’t need you watching me. I’m a grown ass man.”
Sam sighs, high and mighty in his infinite sober patience. “You’re drunk, Dean. Let’s go home.”
Dean grips Sam’s wrist and forcefully shoves his hand away. “You go home.”
He looks up to the ceiling like the worn support beams will give him the answers to the universe. “I’m not gonna leave you here, man.”
“Go ahead. I’ll walk.”
“That’s ridiculous–”
Sam’s hand comes down on his shoulder again and he whirls around, planting his palms on Sam’s chest to shove him back. “Leave me the fuck alone, Sam!”
Sam’s eyes widen, but not at him; he’s looking over his shoulder at the bartender. Dean watches Sam swallow and regrets it. Sam nods a little and digs out his wallet. “I’d rather drive you home from here than the drunk tank, Dean. Come on.” Only when Sam places a couple bills on the bar and Dean sees the look on the bartender’s face does he comply. Well, comply is a strong word for it; Dean rolls his eyes and shoulder-checks Sam as he presses ahead, beating him out of the bar.
The cool night air feels good, but he doesn’t want to admit that. He looks up at the stars and doesn’t feel quite so suffocated, but Sam can’t know. He kicks at the dust under his boots and wonders how long until he’s down there, too.
Where he fucking belongs.
He hears Sam exit the bar behind him and he ignores it. He thinks about walking away from Sam to try and bum a cigarette off the loose clump of people around the side of the building, but Sam probably wouldn’t let him get that far. Jesus Christ, when had it switched from Dean taking care of Sam to Sam deciding it was his personal mission to childproof everything for Dean? He stuffs his hands in his pockets and walks to the car dutifully when Sam reaches him, but he keeps his eyes on the ground. He doesn’t look at Sam when he climbs into the passenger seat. Sam had taken his keys before they even walked inside the bar.
The purr of Baby’s (newly rebuilt) engine sounds like a lullaby, and all at once, Dean is just tired. The road noise is familiar, and so are the ridges in the leather under his fingers, and the stains on the dashboard, and the Bruce Springsteen song playing quietly from the speakers, staticky with how far they must be from the radio tower. His head is spinning a little and the burn in his chest from the second tequila shot hasn’t quite gone away, and Dean is tired. He is drunk and he is exhausted.
“Dean,” Sam starts, and Dean turns his head sharply, looking out the window rather than the windshield.
“Don’t.”
“We have to talk about–”
Dean scoffs and rubs his face. “No, we don’t.”
Sam sighs in that way that’s meant to be long-suffering, but Sam hasn’t really been around Dean long enough to have earned that. He’s only had him back for, what, a year? And that’s after four years gone, two of those with radio silence, and before that, Sam was just a kid. What gave Sam the right to be sick of Dean’s bullshit? Hell, he hasn’t seen most of it. “You haven’t been doing well, man.”
“Yeah, well, I never am, am I,” he mutters.
Sam glances at him, but just for half a second; always keeping his eyes on the road, always responsible. “What do you mean?”
“Nothing, dude. Never mind.”
Dean can see the scrunch in his brow when he chances a look over at him. His hands are firmly at 10 and 2. “Dean, if– if there’s something going on,” he says slowly, unsure. “I’m your brother, man.”
He laughs and it is harsh. It’s grating, it’s too loud, it’s mean. “Something going on? Sammy, just what the hell do you think I have going on?”
“I don’t know! I mean, Dad’s dead, you won’t talk about it, you keep saying weird shit like that, and– and I don’t know! I’m worried about you.”
He waves one hand in a vaguely dismissive gesture. “Stop reading into shit. I’m fine.”
“I don’t think you are.”
“I didn’t ask what you thought.”
Sam’s mouth tightens into a firm line, and Dean regrets it, but he can’t say anything, either. So crosses his arms and leans back in the seat, eyes closed as he tries to focus on the white noise of tires on pavement. He’s a little nauseous between the alcohol swimming in his head and the subtle movement of the car, but he’d rather pretend that he can doze off than sit up and keep talking to Sam. His mouth tastes like rubber with how often he’s been putting his foot in his mouth lately.
Dean doesn’t fall asleep, but he’s close enough to it that Sam doesn’t try to talk to him again (or maybe he’s just given up on Dean) until they reach their motel. They’re in the Middle of Nowhere, American Midwest, between corn fields and cow farms, and Sam and Dean are two of a grand total of three people staying at this shitty motel. Everything’s dusty but the beds are clean, and that’s the most important part, anyway.
When the car stops Dean sighs and sits up. He doesn’t turn to look at Sam, doesn’t want to see the pity or concern or anger in his eyes, and leads them both to the door to their room. Dean wonders how long it’ll be before Sam ditches him again. Maybe if he gets used to looking away from him now, desensitizes himself to not having Sam in his immediate field of vision, tuning him out when he speaks, it won’t hurt as bad when he goes. Sam locks the door behind them and Dean pulls off his boots. Sam goes to brush his teeth like a good little boy, like he’s supposed to, and Dean just drapes his jacket over the back of a chair and collapses into bed. Dean doesn’t sleep until he hears Sam’s breathing go slow and steady.
When Dean was fourteen, he snuck a bottle of ibuprofen from a girl’s backpack. It was easier to lift off of someone at school than from a gas station because the damn bottle rattled so much. He couldn’t take from Dad, either, because he’d know some were missing, and he wasn’t even around to steal from, either. He’d been gone a week. He wasn’t hoarding the bottle, or anything, but Sammy had a fever and though it wasn’t crazy high, it wasn’t going down, and they couldn’t exactly go to a doctor. Pills cost a hell of a lot more than food, and Sam wasn’t gonna get any better if he starved.
It was just a winter bug, and Sam got better with lots of water, soup, and Advil, but it still scared the hell out of Dean. He’d never forget that witch stooped over his baby brother in that motel room in Wisconsin, after Dean got back from the last night he ever spent being selfish. He’d never forget the fear on Dad’s face when he held Sam, and the disdain in his eyes when he looked at Dean. Dean had one fucking job and he didn’t even do that. So Dean sat by Sam’s bed until he got better, watching all the doors and windows, even when Sam told him to give him some space.
Dad came back and everything was fine. Sam told Dad about how he’d caught something but Dean took care of him, and Dad just let his eyes slide to Dean with his mouth in a flat line. They moved on, to a different town, different school, different hunt. Dean kept the stolen bottle of pills in his backpack, wrapped in two layers of socks to muffle the rattling.
There was a ghost in some hunter’s (actual hunter, like deer and hogs and rabbits kind of hunter) cabin in Indiana. Sam was keeping watch outside, while Dad and Dean went in to find the sonofabitch. Turns out their stiff had been the victim of some not-so-friendly fire, and was supposedly buried in the floorboards. He and Dad went in armed with iron crowbars, shotguns with salt rounds, and enough salt and gasoline to burn down the whole cabin. Sam shined a flashlight through the window twice every ten minutes to let them know he was alright.
They pried up the boards for what felt like hours (and maybe was), and Dad was getting angrier and angrier with each new board that came up without bones to follow. Dean kept his mouth shut; he knew better than to try to offer explanations or to calm him down. Dean pried up one board and then the next, and soon the floor was more foundation than floor. Dad had stopped, though, and when Dean finally looked up at him he was frowning. “What?” Dean asked, wiping sweat from his brow.
“I’m gonna go check on Sammy,” Dad said. “Keep at it. Bastard’s gotta be here somewhere.”
“Yes, sir.”
Dad slipped out the front door and Dean frowned at the torn-up cabin around himself. The bricks were wobbly, sure, but they hadn’t found a good place for a body to be stashed yet. Maybe it was the walls, not the floor? The cabin had been mighty quiet, too. It wasn’t like a ghost to let people tear up its home uninterrupted.
“DEAN!”
Every part of him jumped to attention when he heard his dad’s yell. He scrambled up and out the door, and when he glanced around, neither Dad nor Sam were anywhere to be seen. “Dad?” he called out, frantic.
There was some rustling around the side of the house, and when Dean snuck around, he saw his Dad at the treeline, his own crowbar stuck in something as he tried to pry it open. “It’s got Sammy,” he said, and Dean felt that like a punch to the gut. “Bring the stuff, Dean!”
Dean dashed back into the house and grabbed the salt, the gas, and his own shotgun. He skidded to a halt by his father’s side, where he saw two rusted metal doors in the ground; a hidden cellar. Of course. He stuck his own crowbar between the doors and leaned on it with all his weight, panic making his hands slip on the warm metal. “Dad!” They heard Sam’s muffled cry from within, and Dean’s stomach roiled.
The doors made a promising sound as Dean and Dad tried to work them open together, but then a flickering figure with holes in its chest and a gaudy deerstalker appeared behind a bush, just a few yards away, a thick hunting knife in hand. “Fuck,” Dean muttered, dropping the crowbar and fumbling for the shotgun. “Dad, get down.”
Dad complied without question, thankfully, and Dean aimed and shot, and the ghost dissipated with an angry screech. The cellar door finally gave in with a similar sound, and Dad didn’t even look before throwing the doors aside and heading in. Dean looked around wildly, seeing if the ghost would return, before snatching up the supplies and following.
The cellar was filled with rats and shelves of supplies. Dad was ducked by a workbench underneath which Sam had squirreled himself. “Find the fucking bones,” Dad growled, and Dean nodded. The cellar was mostly concrete and metal shelving; he looked around, trying to find anywhere a body could be stashed. Nothing looked broken or cracked and there were no floorboards to be pried up. The ghost flickered to life in the corner of the cellar and Dean despaired. “Soon, Dean!” Dad was laying a salt line down around Sam, glaring at the ugly thing as it approached.
Dean threw open a shoddy wooden cabinet; nothing but a few boxes of shells. He felt behind a shelf full of cans; no secret doors or recesses. His eyes landed on a deep-freezer, under some dangerous-looking wiring, and he swallowed hard. He opened the chest and there was nothing, just water the color of old coffee and a few dead bugs. “Fuck!” He swore and kicked it, then felt it move. It wasn’t as heavy as it could be, since it was mostly empty, and it sat on dirt.
He heard the discharge of a shotgun and ignored the ringing in his ears from the close quarters. He wrenched the freezer away from the wall but only moved it a fraction. He tried to tilt it over, to get it over the few inches of difference between dirt and concrete. It took a few tries, but it tipped over, and sure enough, it had sat on a patch of dirt just about the right size for a human body. He only hoped the grave was shallow.
“Dean, I’m getting Sam out of here,” Dad called, and he felt ice in his veins. He agreed, of course, that they should get Sam as far away from this nasty bastard as possible, but Dean had found the bones, so that meant it was coming after him.
“We gotta dig,” Dean called back. He hit the ground with his crowbar, thankful the dirt wasn’t as hard as he thought, but it wasn’t exactly a digging implement. Predictably, the ghost appeared on just the other side of the overturned freezer, and Dean swung at it with the crowbar. “Dad!”
“I gotta get Sammy out!”
Dean ignored the clenching in his chest as he listened to Sam cry out for him, and he got back to digging. He was at least able to loosen the dirt, and he scraped it out of the way as best as he could. He didn’t have enough salt on him to drop a line and have enough to salt the bones, so he had to settle for the crowbar for now; it wasn’t a great defense, since he had to stop digging every few moments to swing at the ghost. He was never going to dig up the bones, not alone. He was fucked.
He was lucky to have dug as much as he had, but Dean’s luck was never that good. When the ghost appeared eight inches behind him, there was nothing he could do but go limp when it grabbed him. He crumpled to the ground, narrowly missing the blade of its knife, but he wasn’t able to rip loose and the damn thing was strong. “Dad!” he yelled again, swinging wildly behind himself with the crowbar. He heard footsteps rushing down the stairs, but the ghost had Dean now. He was fucked.
Dean tried to roll away but there wasn’t much space between the freezer, the wall, and the ghost itself. He ducked when he heard his Dad yell, and the ghost dissipated after its back was pumped full of salt. He blinked up at his father, eyes dark and angry, shovel at his feet. Dean scrambled up and got back to work on the ground, and Dad joined him. Thankfully the grave was shallow, and they dug up a dirty sheet. “How’s–”
“In the car behind a salt line,” Dad said tersely.
Dean took up the crowbar again when the ghost kept coming and coming, but Dad worked fast to unearth as much of the body as was necessary. The bones were bleached and bare. Dad covered them in salt, gasoline, and lit a match. Dean didn’t need to be told twice (or even once) to haul ass out of there. He had to see Sam for his own eyes, never mind the remnants of the angry ghost.
Dean got to the car first, jumping over the salt line with ease. Sam looked up at him through the window in the backseat of the Impala, and Dean grinned to see him. Sam opened the door, but did not exit the car; he was careful to stay behind the salt line. “Did you do it? Did you get the ghost?”
“Yeah, Sammy, we got it,” Dean said.
Dad came marching up behind them. “Dean, put the stuff in the trunk. Grab the first aid.” Dean turned and took the supplies that were shoved into his arms. He blinked, and when he looked back at Sam, he saw that he was clutching one forearm. Dean couldn’t see the wound in the dark, but he didn’t doubt that there was blood. “Now, Dean.”
“Yes, sir,” he muttered, and tucked all their supplies and guns away in the false bottom of the trunk. He pulled out a faded white and red box, which Dad took from him without a word. He climbed into the passenger seat and stared ahead, trying not to flinch in sympathy when Sam hissed as Dad disinfected his wound.
Dad talked quietly with Sam as he cleaned and wrapped his arm– a cut from one of the cellar shelves, it seemed, from when he went skidding across its floor. Sam assured Dad that he was fine, and Dean thought about how Sam was ten and he was trying to brush off an injury from a ghost. Most ten-year-olds would be hiding under their beds right about now. Dean hadn’t even seen that Sam was hurt. His mouth tasted like ash.
They hightailed it away from the cabin. Sam leaned forward between the seats, over Dean’s shoulder. “You okay?” Sam asked, quietly, as if their father wasn’t driving the car two feet away from where they were speaking.
“‘Course,” Dean said easily, turning around to show Sam his wide smile. “Takes more than a ghost to get either of us, huh?”
Sam grinned back and settled in his seat. No one spoke much after that. By the time they pulled into their motel, Sam was curled up against the window, legs tucked up onto the bench seat. Dean scrambled out of the car before Dad could and opened Sam’s door gently, shaking him awake. He muttered sleepily and followed Dean. Dean ignored the weight of Dad’s gaze on him. They all went to bed without any more words exchanged, and Dean was at least able to take comfort in Sam’s sleeping back curled up against his.
The next morning, when Dean woke, Dad was already dressed. He glanced at Dean as he sat up. “I’m taking Sammy to a doc,” Dad said, going through the practiced motions of cleaning a .45. “Don’t want him gettin’ lockjaw.”
“Oh,” Dean said. “Yeah, that makes sense.”
Dad raised an eyebrow at him, then glanced back down to the gun on the table. “You didn’t notice Sam didn’t check in.”
He blinked. “No, I mean, I didn’t notice at ten minutes on the dot, but neither did–”
“Dean, ten minutes is the point,” he put the gun down and leaned forward in his chair, his eyes hard. “More than enough can happen in all the minutes in between. You see where that got ‘im last night.”
“Yeah, but you noticed, and you got to him.”
“I noticed, but you didn’t. That’s my point, Dean. You gotta notice shit like that.” He sighed. “What if it had been just you and him? Who knows what would’ve happened then?”
Dean’s brows furrowed, dread creeping up his stomach like heartburn. “But– but you were there. I don’t go on hunts without you. Why would I go on one with just me and Sammy?”
“Because I’m not always around, Dean,” Dad growled. “It’s your job. I’m supposed to be able to trust you with him.”
He swallowed, hard. “You can. I do look out for him, Dad.”
Dad didn’t often laugh, so it sounded more like a bark, like a gunshot, when he did. It was humorless and cruel, like the bang of a gavel. “Not well enough. Not like I need you to.” Dean looked down at the ugly bedspread. Of course he’d talk around the shtriga in Wisconsin. That was four fucking years ago.
“I– I’m sorry. Sir.”
Dad sighed again. “Tighten up, Dean. This can’t keep happening.”
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry.”
“Wake him up. I wanna go before the wait gets too bad.”
Dean sat on the edge of the bed and watched Dad treat Sam like he was something fragile, something precious. And Sam was, there was no contesting that; but Dad rarely treated them like they were truly breakable, and this was just one scratch. Then again, it was Sam, and he was usually little enough to be too far from the line of fire to be any sort of casualty. Maybe the wound was worse than Dean had assumed. He hadn’t seen it, after all. He listened to the rumble of the Impala’s engine as Dad drove off with Sam. He was going to get Sam a vaccination and Dean had been left alone with a ghost in the very cellar Dad had dragged Sam out of.
If Dad wanted Sam taken care of so badly, why didn’t he do it himself? Dean was fourteen. He was a kid. Sure, he knew about all the things that went bump in the night and the things that hid in closets and shadows and mausoleums, but he was supposed to be learning how to skateboard and copying someone’s homework on the back of a school bus. He’d do absolutely anything for Sam, including die and then some, but why was Dad so angry that Dean couldn’t take care of him right? Dean was doing his fucking best. Sam was his brother, not his kid, so why was it his job? Why wouldn’t Dad be angry at himself for not taking care of Sam like he should?
Dean felt guilty for even thinking it. Of course taking care of Sam was his job. Mom was dead and Dad was never going to. He’d take care of Sam even if he hadn’t been asked. It was his job whether he was told or not. He should’ve noticed Sam hadn’t shined the flashlight. He should’ve rescued him from the cellar. He should’ve realized the bones weren’t in the floorboards before the ghost even got to Sam, and he should’ve found and burned the bones before the bastard had had a chance to corporealize. Sam didn’t seem to hold it against him, but he should.
Wallowing never changed anything, so Dean set about cleaning the knife he kept under his pillow.
When Dad and Sam returned, they packed up their car and checked out. Dad barely spoke to him. Sam chattered away in the backseat. They were going to visit Bobby, apparently, and it was going to be a long drive. They stopped once for food, and Dad only spoke to Dean to ask him what he wanted to eat. Only when it was dark, about an hour out from Sioux Falls, did Dad speak to Dean directly.
“You gotta take better care of him,” he said.
Dean crossed his arms. “I do what I can.”
“Not good enough, Dean. You gotta do all the things you need to do to keep him safe when I’m not around.”
His fingernails dug into the flesh of his palms. “Why?” he asked, the question slipping out like the first rush of water in a cracked dam. “Why does it have to be me? Why can’t you just take care of him?”
Dad’s eyes were sharp when he turned to glare. “You know why.”
“He’s your kid.”
“You watch your fucking tone, son.” He could hear Dad’s grip tighten on the steering wheel. “I can’t do my job with Sammy around. He’s too little. So you gotta be there for him.”
“Why do you want me to be there for him? You said I’m not doing it right!”
“He’s your brother, Dean.”
Dean groaned and wiped his hands over his face. “I know that. Jesus, I know that.”
“Watch your mouth.”
He laughed at the irony. “I don’t– I don’t understand– you said I’m not good at taking care of Sammy. If you do a better job, then do it, like today!”
“Oh, trust me, Dean, when I can, I do.” His voice was dark and deep, deadly. “You’re not my first choice, son, but beggars can’t be choosers.” That hurt perhaps more than it should have; it wasn’t surprising to hear in the slightest, but Dean’s spent the last ten years hearing that it’s his job to take care of Sam and most of those years doing it, so hearing that Dad didn’t even want him to was a knife to the gut. Dad wasn’t around enough to take care of Sam. The only one that was there for Sam, ever, was Dean, and this random show of fatherly affection was out of left field. It was unfair. If Dean was old enough to take Sam to a doctor without the nurses calling Child Protective Services, he fucking would.
Dean’s throat was raw. “Why then?”
“Because if I have to watch out for Sammy, then I can’t do my job. There are things that need killing, bad things, like the thing that killed your mother, and I can’t do that with a ten-year-old around.”
He bit the inside of his cheek. “You did it with me.”
“Maybe if I hadn’t, you’d be better for Sam.” Dad sighed bitterly. “But I needed someone to watch my back.”
That stung just as much as a slap to the face. Dean grit his teeth and looked out the window, arms folded up and still as a statue. What more to say was there, really? He was a little soldier his dad had trained to fight monsters just well enough so he could play backup when no one else was available, and Sam wouldn’t be totally defenseless when they were dropped off on the doorstep of some roadside motel. He wasn’t a good enough hunter or babysitter, but he was the only option Dad had. And even then, he wasn’t the option that Dad wanted. He wondered how far down on the list he was.
Dad glanced at him again. “Nothin’ more to add?”
His teeth squeaked, his eyes trained on the moon outside. “No, sir.”
“That’s what I thought.”
By the time they pulled into Bobby’s, Dean was half-hysterical inside his own head. If Dad wanted him to take care of Sam, why didn’t he let him do just that? If he wanted him to be a competent hunter, why didn’t he train him like he wanted? Why the hell did Dad bother to have Dean do anything if he didn’t really want him to? He was stuck in this strange in-between where he was doomed to never be good enough at anything and it didn’t make any damn sense. He wasn’t a good brother, he wasn’t a good hunter, and he wasn’t a good anything else. Dean wasn’t even sure he could pass whatever grade he was supposed to be in.
Sam climbed out of the car, rubbing sleep out of his eyes with a yawn. “How long are we gonna stay at Bobby’s?” he asked, taking his duffel bag without complaint when Dean handed it to him. He ducked away when Dean ruffled his hair, but he was smiling.
“You’re gonna stay here a while, Sammy,” Dad said, glancing back at them as he walked up to Bobby’s front door. “Me and Dean are gonna keep on keepin’ on, then we’ll swing back and get you.”
Sam frowned, and Dean felt like he’d been shot. Now Dad couldn’t even trust him to be around Sam at all? “What?”
“Yeah,” Dad said, nonchalant, as he knocked on the door. “We’ve got some training to do.”
Bobby let them in and exchanged his own grouchy version of pleasantries with them. Dad took him aside and they spoke in hushed tones, and Dean ignored them in favor of getting Sam tucked into a proper bed. He knew Dad would take the couch in the living room, so Dean laid out his stuff on the floor, ready to sleep right by Sam. Sam fell back asleep fairly quickly, but Dean sat up in his makeshift bed of pillows and blankets for a long time, listening to the muted sounds of Dad and Bobby talking in the other room. He couldn’t make out words, but he could piece things together based on Dad’s tone. Relaying everything he’d said to Dean to Bobby, surely, and probably using far harsher words.
Dad made it abundantly clear that he didn’t trust Dean. Didn’t think he was capable of much, if anything, and worthy of even less. Dean had thought himself a decent hunter, but he cared much more about his first job (Sam), and apparently he was even worse at that than he was at hunting, so what was the point? What good was it to keep Dean around? Wouldn’t it be better to drop him here at Bobby’s instead of wasting the effort to drag him around the country and try to refine his hunting skills? That way Dad could take Sam with him where he could keep an eye on him, since apparently he was so much better at watching out for him than Dean.
What a fucking joke he was.
Sam didn’t need Dean, apparently, or was at least equally better off without him as he was with him, and Dad certainly didn’t need him. Dean’s truest purpose was watching over Sam, and Dad didn’t want him doing even that, so what was Dean good for? He combed through everything he could think of, everything he liked, everything he enjoyed, everything he thought he was good at, everything he knew, and came up empty each time. Dean was just as good here as he was buried in a cellar under a deep-freezer. He was just another mouth to feed on not enough cash.
The voices in the other room had stopped. Dean didn’t know what time it was, but was probably on the far side of midnight. Sam was tucked away in bed, safe at Bobby’s house, surrounded by books on monster lore in the house of the most well-read hunter probably in history. Dad was presumably asleep on the couch in just the other room, ready to jump into action to save Sam the second he needed to, and was capable of taking care of him in all the ways that Dean was not. And Dean was sitting on the floor, good for and capable of absolutely nothing.
He unzipped his backpack, and dug out the little bottle wrapped in socks, still there at the bottom. He tiptoed out of the guest room and into the little bathroom, and only there did he unwrap it. He didn’t want Sam to have to see or hear this.
The little bottle was more empty than it was full, and Dean didn’t know how the doses worked for this kind of thing, but he figured why not try. It’s not like it really mattered what happened to him anyway. He turned on the tap and poured the little orange pills into the palm of his hand. He blinked down at them, thinking what the fuck am I doing for a half a second before his own father’s voice echoed in his head, Not good enough, Dean. You’re not my first choice.
He tossed the pills back and stuck his head under the faucet to wash them down. Dad would still have a son, right? Maybe even one who could be his first choice someday. Dean sighed and turned off the faucet, then sat down on the shaggy bathmat. He didn’t know how this was supposed to work, but he just hoped that it did.
He stared at the ugly yellow wallpaper in Bobby’s guest bathroom for longer than he cared to admit. As the minutes ticked by, his ears started to ring, a twisting and tightening in his gut, and the worst headache of his life throbbed behind his eyes. He closed them and he sat there, counting his breaths, feeling each millimeter of each inhale and exhale. His breath was slow and he felt his pulse beat in his fingertips. His stomach tossed like a capsizing ship, and he wasn’t sure how long he stuck it out for, but eventually he scrambled over to the toilet and lost all the pills and the meager dinner he’d had.
He blinked into the toilet bowl for longer than he probably should have, trying to understand what just happened. He probably should have been more upset; either that he had truly tried to do this, or that it hadn’t worked, but he was just stuck staring at the meager volume of his stomach contents. He really didn’t eat enough. He was fourteen; he should be eating too much.
After too many minutes spent staring at his own vomit, he stood and flushed. He washed out his mouth. He splashed water on his face. He didn’t feel fantastic; he was weak and shaky and his head fucking killed, but he figured nothing else was going to happen tonight. He stuffed the empty bottle back into the socks and returned to the guest room. He shoved it back in the bottom of his backpack and curled up on the floor, right next to Sam’s bed. He pulled the thin blanket up over himself and listened to Sam breathe.
He was an idiot. He was an idiot.
He wiped away the tears as they wet his pillow. “I’m sorry, Sammy,” he whispered.
The next morning, he and Dad left to check out a poltergeist in Colorado.