Fic: To End Your Suffering (2/3)
Sammy looked up from the hole he'd been digging in the sandbox and his eyes scanned the playground. He saw Dean, sitting on a bench and watching him, and Sam felt safe again.
Dean made him feel safe, just like his brother did. He was confused about a lot of things, stuff didn't make sense all the time, but he knew Dean would make sure nothing bad happened to him.
And Dean did things to make him happy. Like earlier, when they were passing through this town and Sam saw the playground. He hadn't said he wanted to go play on it. He remembered Dad would growl about no time for that or tell him to be quiet if Sam asked for something like that. So he didn't ask Dean, because he knew that it was just something he didn't get to do.
But Dean surprised him. Dean said, "Hey, Sam… saw you checking that sweet playground out. Let's take a break, huh? I could stretch my legs."
Sam had been so excited. Sometimes, Dean made him so happy about things he forgot just how much his father wasn't there and how much his brother was gone. Every day that got a little easier.
It helped that Dean could be a lot of fun.
Sam had been a little scared of all the other children on the playground when they got out of the 'Pala. Usually, his big brother would take him to playgrounds and go do all the stuff with him. This time, he was alone. He had wanted to play on the playground, but he stood next to Dean holding his hand and looking at all the kids and got scared.
But Dean made it okay. He went around with Sam to all the rides (like the little kid slide and the monkey bars), and he did just the same stuff his brother always had. Dean caught him at the bottom of the slide, and stood under him with open arms when Sam was on the monkey bars, and Dean played chase and tag with him until they both couldn't breathe and were laughing.
Sam was feeling braver then, so he said he was going to go play in the sandbox all by himself. Dean smiled and said he'd be watching if Sam needed him.
Every time Sam looked up from his pit, Dean was doing just what he'd said he would be. Watching him. Sometimes he smiled and waved, but mostly he was just there.
Sam wasn't used to being able to count on anyone but his brother like that.
Sam didn't want to make his brother mad or anything, so he'd never tell him that Sam had decided (quite grown-uply) that he loved this Dean, too.
Happy, Sam went back to digging in his pit.
A little girl next to him was trying to bury her Barbie doll but wasn't doing a good job. She didn't want to get really dirty.
Sam, shy, leaned over and tapped her shoulder. "Hey… you trying to bury your doll?"
The girl nodded. "Uh huh."
"We could use my hole, if you want."
The girl peeked over at Sammy's very impressive hole and smiled. "Okay." She plopped her Barbie, all dressed in pink, in the hole up to her neck, and Sam and the girl started to cover her with dirt.
"Did she die?" Sam asked of the doll.
The girl looked up at him, confused. "Huh?"
"Your dolly. Did she die and that's why we're burying her?"
"No… I don't like dolls, but Mommy thinks I do. I tried to get my doggy Honey to eat her so she'd go away, but stupid dog only drooled on her."
Sam giggled. "We can bury her real deep and then your mom won't ever find her."
The girl grinned and shoved more dirt in Sam's hole. She stopped and looked around a moment, then pointed. "That's my mom over there."
Sam looked at the woman the girl pointed at and asked, "Is she nice?"
"Yep, and she loves me lots, even if she gives me stupid dolls."
Sam scooped a handful of sand and covered the Barbie's head.
"Where's your mom?"
Sam frowned. "I don't have one."
"Oh… is your dad here?"
Sam, on reflex, looked in Dean's direction. He saw him talking to a woman who'd sat down on the bench beside him.
Dean wasn't his dad, but Sam didn't want the girl to think he was an ophan.
"He's over there," Sam pointed at Dean, hoping the girl wouldn't know it was a little lie.
The girl looked once then said, "My dad lets me do all kinds of stuff my mom won't. Like two scoops of ice cream after dinner. Mommy only lets me have one scoop."
Sam smiled. "My dad lets me eat candy for breakfast."
The girl's eyes went wide. "Really?"
"Yup."
"Wow!"
Sam felt really proud to be Dean's, until he remembered he wasn't. He bent his head and worked really hard on covering all of the Barbie doll.
"Jenny?" A woman was walking toward the sandbox. The girl beside Sam looked up. "Time to go home, honey."
"But I'm playing with my friend!"
Sam smiled. He was never someone's friend before… besides his brother's. Their dad didn't let them be around other kids much and it took time to make friends.
"That's lovely, sweetie, but remember your grandma's coming over later, and you want to be clean for her, don't you?"
"Gramma!" Jenny cried happily and jumped up. The mother wiped as much of the sand off Jenny as possible, then took her hand and led her away.
Jenny turned and waved to Sam. "Bye!"
Sam waved back then looked toward Dean again. He was still talking to that lady.
Sam picked a new spot in the box and started digging.
He looked up when he heard a little yip. He looked around and saw the bushes next to the playground rustle. A puppy poked its head out of the bushes and barked. It had a leash on it so it couldn't come out of the bushes far, but it wagged its tail and looked around for someone to play with.
Sam stood up and faced the puppy. It saw him and barked, wiggling.
Sam left the sandbox and moved closer to the puppy.
He stopped cold when he saw the man at the end of the leash. He was scruffy looking and dirty, but he smiled bright when he saw Sam. "Hi, sonny… don't mind Bunny there, she won't bite. Want to pet her?"
Sam nodded, hesitated, then moved closer and knelt down. Bunny squirmed at the end of her leash until the man gave her more and she stretched toward Sam. When he held out his hand, she licked it.
Sam smiled and petted her head.
"Bunny's a husky… you know what that is, sonny?"
Sam shook his head and giggled when Bunny got close enough to lick his face.
"Means when she gets big and strong she'll look like a wolf. Do you like her?"
Sammy scooted closer and grabbed the wiggly puppy in a hug. "Uh huh."
The man grinned real wide. "She has brothers and sisters, you know. I know they'd love to play with you. I have a whole box of them in the back of my car. Come with me and I'll let you play with all of them all you want."
Sam ruffled Bunny's fur but tensed at what the man said. He sure liked puppies, but going with the man didn't seem like a good idea.
"You do like puppies, don't you?"
"Uh huh…"
The man left the bushes to get close to Sam. "Well… just come with me, for just a few minutes. We won't be gone long, so you won't get in trouble."
Sam's eyes widened and he got up. He started to take a step back but the man with the puppy grabbed his arm and wouldn't let him leave.
Sam braced his feet against the man. "I… I gotta go."
"But Bunny would be really sad if you did that, sonny," the man said and moved a step back. The man was too strong for Sam and he got dragged closer to the bushes. Bunny whined. Sam thought Bunny was a much better dog than this man was a person.
Sam struggled. "Let me go!"
"Shhhh… keep quiet."
Sam started to panic. He tried to twist and look for Dean, but puppy man wouldn't let him. The man dropped the leash and put his other hand over Sam's mouth so he couldn't scream
"You do like puppies, don't you, sonny? I have a lot of puppies for you to play with."
Sam tried to jerk free but he couldn't. Bunny was yipping.
Sam was about to cry he was so scared.
"Hey!"
Puppy man looked up past Sam's shoulder and suddenly he just fell down. Like a brick. Sam was suddenly free and dropped to the ground, shaking. Sam saw Dean step around him, go to puppy man, and lift him up by the shirt. Then he hit him again. And again. Dean was really angry, and he was hurting puppy man really bad.
Sam was glad.
Then things got really confusing. Two cop men showed up… Sam didn't know where they came from. They were trying to pull Dean off puppy man… puppy man wasn't moving anymore, but Dean was still hitting and kicking him. Dean fought the cop men, too. He didn't want to stop hurting puppy man. Sam thought the cop men should just let Dean keep going.
Bunny was cowering by the bushes, big blues eyes just as scared as Sam's.
Sam, crying, crawled over to her and dragged her into his lap. He watched, bawling, as the two cop men finally got Dean away from puppy man. One was yelling at Dean, telling him to stop, but Dean was yelling, too. Sam had never seen someone so mad before.
One of the cop men came over to Sam. Sam clutched Bunny to him and flinched back, scared.
"Hey… are you all right?" the cop man asked.
Sam buried his face in Bunny's fur and wanted the cop man to just go away and leave him alone.
"Are you hurt?" the cop man asked and tried to pry Sam's arms away from Bunny.
Sam wailed and shook his head, holding on to Bunny for dear life.
When the cop man stopped talking, Sam peeked open an eye and watched. The other cop man was still arguing with Dean. The second cop man was checking puppy man, but puppy man was not moving.
The cop man with Dean turned to his friend. "Did he kill him?"
The second cop man said, "Damn… almost."
"Get out of my way and I'll finish the job," Dean said angrily.
The first cop man looked toward Sam. Sam held Bunny tighter… so tight the puppy was whining.
"Are you his father?"
Dean didn't answer right away. Sam thought if Dean said no they would make him go away. Before that could happen, Sam called to Dean, "Dad?"
Dean blinked, looked at the first cop man, then shoved past him and walked toward Sam. The first cop man let him.
Dean bent down and scooped Sam up, puppy and all, and hugged him tight. Bunny squirmed and struggled but Dean was strong and they were both just going to have to be hugged. Sam didn't mind.
"Sammy… are you okay? Did he hurt you?"
Sam tucked his head under Dean's chin, Bunny warm and squirmy against his chest. He felt safe there and never wanted to leave.
"Sam… come on, I need you to answer me. Are you hurt?"
Sam shook his head. "M' okay."
"Sir?"
Dean turned to the cop man who'd talked to him, still holding Sam tight.
"Is your son all right?"
Dean pulled Sam away from his shoulder to look at his face.
"I think he's okay, just shaken up. What the hell is going on? Who is that bastard who tried to grab my kid?"
"Charles Grumly. We've been tracking him across two counties and couldn't get a lead on him. He's done this in three other towns, snatched kids out of playgrounds using puppies to lure the kids to his vehicle."
Sam hugged Bunny closer.
"Our local department has had officers volunteering their off-time to take shifts watching the area playgrounds to try and stop this guy. Trust me, he's going to be spending the rest of his life behind bars. I'm just glad your son is okay."
Dean looked Sam over, running a hand over his face, his back, his shoulders, his arms, but Sam wasn't hurt. He just wanted to go back to the 'Pala or a motel and get away from puppy man.
Dean tugged Sam close to his chest again and said, "Asshole deserves to be hanged."
The cop man said, "Personally, I agree with you. But the next best thing is going to be life in prison. Do you need us to have a paramedic come out and look your boy over?"
"No," Dean rubbed Sam's back. It felt really good when he did that. "I just want to take him home."
"I understand… come by the station tomorrow to make a statement."
"Yeah, sure," Dean said, and Sam knew that would never happen.
Sam just wanted to leave.
"Dad?" he whimpered.
Dean paused. "Yeah, Sammy?"
"Can we go now?"
"Absolutely." Dean started walking away, Sam in his arms, and Sam holding Bunny.
They got to the car and Dean put Sam down in the passenger's seat. Dean knelt in the open car door and looked closely at Sam. "Are you sure you're okay?"
Sam, holding Bunny close to his chest, nodded. "Yeah… he hurt my arm some, but that's all. That's when you came."
Dean's eyes were scary, but they made Sam feel safe. They were dark and mad like that because Dean wanted to do bad things to the person who'd hurt Sam.
"God, I am so sorry, Sam. I was watching you, and I only looked away for a second…"
Sam nuzzled Bunny's coat. "You hurt that bad man."
"You bet your ass I did."
"Good."
Dean kind of smiled, but it looked funny. Not very happy. Then he ruffled Sam's hair and stood up.
Dean closed the passenger door, walked around the car, got in behind the wheel, and drove away from the playground. Sam was happy to see it gone as he clung to Bunny for all his little arms were worth.
*****
Dean's heart was still pounding as he pulled into the first motel he could find in the next town over. Sam was quiet beside him, holding on to the black and white husky puppy like it was all that was holding him together. The stuffed unicorn lay abandoned on the floorboard under Sam's feet.
"Come on, Sam," Dean said once he'd stopped the car in the practically empty parking lot, "let's get us a room."
Dean and Sam (who was carrying the puppy like it couldn't walk on its own) entered the lobby of the cheap motel and found a young woman at the counter with a face more painted than a clown's. If Sam weren't so traumatized from the playground, she might have scared him.
When she set her eyes on Dean, they gleamed. Dean knew the look.
"Hi," she said sweetly. "What can I do for you, handsome?"
Dean offered a smirk on reflex. "One room."
The woman glanced down at Sam holding the puppy. Her sugary-sweet smile faded. "I'm sorry… we don't allow pets."
Sam's eyes began to water and he held the puppy tighter.
Dean wanted to reach across the counter and shake the girl. Instead, he turned on his most charming smile. "Aw, come on… have a heart."
She was won by the smile before he'd even spoken, and Dean knew it.
"I could get in trouble for this, you know."
"I swear, we'll keep it quiet and check out first thing in the morning. No one will know."
The woman smiled coyly. "All right, I guess I can make an exception for you. That'll be thirty-five ninety-five."
Dean paid for the room, got the key, and led Sam back to the car.
Their room was at the end of the row, leaving Dean to give the ditz behind the counter more credit than he thought she deserved.
Dean grabbed their stuff out of the trunk and took Sam and the puppy inside the room. It wasn't until Sam was settled on one of the beds that he let go his hold on the puppy and let it wander around the bedspread.
The puppy immediately began sniffing around intently and Dean hurried to pick it up. "I'm going to take Fido here out for a piss… I'll be right back, Sammy. Okay? Don't let anyone in while I'm gone."
Sam nodded.
Dean took a few minutes while watching the puppy, apparently a girl puppy when she squatted to pee, to calm himself down. He was still furious about what had happened. Furious and terrified. He'd been keeping such a close watch on Sammy at the playground. He'd been like a hawk with the kid. A parent had joined him on the bench and they started talking about their kids. Dean cast frequent glances toward Sam at first, but he was fine, like he had been all afternoon, and Dean let himself have an adult conversation with a very attractive and friendly woman.
Then he looked up and Sam was almost out of sight, being dragged toward the bushes by a strange man.
Dean had never run so fast in his life. He didn't clearly remember the beating he'd given the guy. He only remembered how terrified he'd been at the thought that he'd almost lost Sammy.
When the puppy was finished taking care of business, Dean took her back into the room. Sam was still on the bed where Dean had left him.
Dean dropped the leash, forgot the dog, and went over to Sam. "Sam? Hey, look at me."
Sam looked up obediently, and Dean smiled for his sake. "You sure you're all right?"
"He was a bad man," Sam said softly.
'I've known demons less despicable,' Dean thought hotly. "Yeah, he was. Listen, let's get you in the bathtub, huh? You're covered in sand." And Dean couldn't stand the thought of the man's touch still lingering on Sam's clothes or skin.
Sam followed Dean into the bathroom, undressed with Dean's help, and climbed into the tub when Dean had it full. Dean looked over every inch of Sam's body for any sign of injury. He breathed a sigh of relief when close inspection proved that Sam really was okay.
The boy was quiet while Dean took the soap and cleaned him head to toe, then took some of the hotel shampoo and washed his hair, too.
Dean paused on a second pass with the soapy washcloth when he noticed Sam had his eyes closed.
"Sam? What's wrong?"
Sam shook his head. "Nothing. I love you."
Dean's mouth popped open. It had come out so casually, so naturally, as if he hadn't been a six-foot-four adult a matter of days ago. As if he hadn't spent days as a four-year-old resigning himself to Dean when he really wanted someone else (or so Sam thought).
Dean swallowed thickly. "I love you too, Sammy."
When Sam was finished with his bath and Dean carried him, wrapped in a towel, back to the bedroom, they found the puppy with a corner of the comforter in her teeth shaking her head vigorously back and forth and growling in a ridiculously high pitch.
Sam giggled.
Dean knew in that second they were keeping the puppy.
Dean dressed Sam in his Superman pajamas and brushed his hair. Sam watched Dean's face with an attentiveness that almost made Dean uneasy. It was like Sam was looking at him for the first time and trying to figure him out.
"Sam… I'm real proud of you, you know."
Sam blinked.
"I could tell you were fighting that guy. You weren't going to let him take you anywhere without a fight. I'm real proud of you for that."
Sam gave a wan smile.
"And, uh… when the cop asked if I was your dad…" Dean sat down on the bed next to Sam. "You did the right thing when you told him that I was. You see, Sammy… when people see you and me, they're going to think certain things. And sometimes, it's good to let people think what they want to, even if it's not the truth because that way they won't ask questions." Sam was giving him a look like he was an idiot, and Dean laughed because it was the first hint of his Sam he'd seen since this mess began. "What I'm trying to say is, when we're around other people, in stores or restaurants and stuff, I want us to play pretend that I'm your dad. Just like you did today with the police." Dean braced for a tantrum to that. Dean knew, in Sam's position, he would have been livid, even at four. He would have railed at some 'stranger' trying to even fake being his father. Dean wasn't wild about the idea, but when the cop had asked Dean if he was Sam's father, he had a sudden panic that if he said 'no' they would take Sam from him. Not necessarily those cops at that moment, but somewhere else, someone else, at another time. Lying seemed the easiest, safest way to not rouse any suspicion with well-meaning meddlers who might get it in their head to call Child Protective Services if they thought too long and hard on a grown man traipsing around with a four-year-old boy that wasn't his.
Sam didn't have a fit. He looked pensive then nodded. "Okay."
Dean had not expected it to be so easy.
Sam smiled thinly at Dean's expression. "My brother says sometimes you have to lie to people."
"That's true. You think you're up for it, kiddo?"
Sam slid closer to Dean until he was snuggling against his side. "Sure, Dad."
Dean stiffened, his chest aching oddly and making him wish desperately that he had his Sam back. "Good… good boy, Sammy." He reached down and ruffled Sam's hair.
The puppy came trotting around the bed to look up at the Winchesters, her tail wagging proudly. She seemed to have completely forgotten the ordeal that brought her here.
Sam smiled down at her.
Dean smirked. "So, who's this you brought back from the playground?"
"He said…" Sam halted, and Dean understood why. "Her name's Bunny."
"Bunny? That's a silly name for a dog. We'll have to change that."
Sam looked up eagerly at him. "We can keep her?"
Dean had no idea how they were going to manage a puppy in the car, but Dean remembered seeing Sam cowering in the bushes with the puppy clutched to him like a safety blanket after he was almost kidnapped by a child molester, and knew he couldn't take the animal to the pound.
"Only if we come up with a better name for her," Dean said seriously, "because I will not have a dog called Rabbit."
Sam giggled. "Bunny."
"So that's your job, Sammy. Come up with a good name for Hare there," Dean gestured toward the puppy, who barked and spun in a circle in hopes of enticing someone to play with her.
Sam laughed again, climbed down off the bed to play with the puppy, and Dean sighed. Naming the dog would be a great distraction for Sam. Hopefully, the memory of getting a dog would become Sam's most vivid memory of this day.
*****
Bobby Singer hadn't known just what to expect when Dean finally arrived with his newly redefined 'little' brother, so it was with an anxiously held breath that he stood on his porch as he watched the familiar black Impala come up his driveway.
Dean was the first one out of the car, and he looked up at Bobby like it was damn good to see him and by god he better have some answers for Dean.
The passenger door was shoved open with effort, but instead of Sam a husky puppy jumped out of the car and immediately began darting around, exploring.
Then Sam jumped out of the car. Adorable, tiny, childish Sam Winchester, his sandy blonde hair still the same unruly mop Bobby knew and the only thing immediately familiar about the kid. Bobby hadn't known the Winchester boys when they were this young. In truth, it was hard to imagine either of them ever being that small and vulnerable.
"Jovi!" Sam called to the dog. The husky looked up at Sam, barked, then continued to romp around the derelict cars on Bobby's lawn.
"She's fine, Sammy," Dean said as he rounded the front of the car. "Come here."
Sam ran to Dean and leapt at him. Dean bent down and scooped Sam up midair in a movement that looked routine to them. He hitched Sammy up on his hip and carried him toward the porch.
Sam laid eyes on Bobby and the old hunter could see the kid suddenly turn wary. His little arms went around Dean's neck and he dipped his chin, barely looking up through his bangs at Bobby.
Dean nodded a greeting. "Hey, Bobby."
"Hey, Dean. Hi, Sam."
Sam tucked his face into Dean's neck.
Bobby smirked, finding bashful little Sam Winchester awful cute, but the older man's expression fell when he saw a very dark, angry look cloud Dean's face for a second at Sam's sudden retreat.
"Hey, Sammy…" Dean said in a measured tone, "come out here and meet a good friend of mine."
Reluctantly, Sam pulled his face away from Dean's neck and peeked at Bobby.
"This is Bobby."
"Hullo," Sam mumbled.
"Nice to see you, Sam. That's a nice dog you have there." Bobby glanced at Dean with a meaningful 'I'll be hearing that story later'.
Talking about the puppy brought Sam out of his shell a little. "Her name's Jovi. It used to be Bunny, but Dad said that was lame."
Bobby was confused. Had John met up with them at some point?
"It was lame," Dean insisted. "But Sam here came up with a really awesome name for her. And I, for one, think Jovi is really happy about that." Dean rubbed Sam's back absently. "You got some grub in there, Bobby? We're starving."
"Uh, yeah, sure, come on in."
Dean turned around and whistled. Jovi popped her head out of a pile of tires, yipped, and came bounding toward them. She managed the stairs with Herculean effort and raced into the house before them.
Bobby didn't have 'cleaning up for guests' in his vocabulary, so his home was just as riddled with stacks of papers, books, and car parts as ever. Seeing Dean weave through the junk with a kid on his hip, though, made Bobby think he probably should have cleaned up some at least in the interest of mildly 'child-proofing' the house.
Dean didn't seem to notice, but then he and Dean were motley birds of a feather.
Bobby waved at his kitchen in a general 'help yourself' gesture, then stood back to watch. He was curious as hell. He'd never heard of someone actually seeing a unicorn, much less being changed by one as Sam had been. He couldn't help the hunter/researcher in him from observing.
Bobby stood back and watched, dumbfounded, as Dean set about making Sam lunch. It ended up being a twilight zone-like moment in time watching Dean and Sam far more suited to the roles of father and son than brothers.
First of all, Sam was calling Dean 'Dad', which was just too weird, and Dean was answering to it like it was the most natural thing in the world. Sam was seated at the kitchen table in front of the one moderately clean spot, animatedly talking about an episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles he'd seen that morning on the television in the hotel, and Dean was nodding and adding in all the right noises like he was listening and interested while he fixed Sam a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, naturally cutting off the crust that was diabolical and the kryptonite of every child. Jovi was on her puppy elbows, butt in the air, working her way along the line of the bottom lip of the kitchen cabinets where the cabinets met the tile. No telling what food Bobby had dropped down there and no telling how far back the scraps of food went. The pup probably thought she'd won the lottery. When she ran into Dean's legs, Dean absently gave her a nudge and resumed his meal preparations.
Dean turned and put the sandwich, a helping of chips, and a coke (all given the meager stores in Bobby's cupboards and fridge) on the table in front of Sam. "Eat up, Sammy. I'm going to talk to Bobby for a minute."
"Kay, Dad."
Dean looked up at Bobby and ticked his head in a clear and unspoken 'in the other room' gesture.
The two men moved into the living room, still in sight of Sam but out of earshot.
Bobby had a million questions on his mind, but Dean was the first to ask one. "Have you heard from my dad?"
Why did it always seem to be the same question with Dean? Sometimes Bobby wished he'd shot John Winchester when he had the chance. The man could be a real burden to put up with and he didn't even have to try at it. The best thing about John was his boys. "No, I haven't."
Dean sagged visibly.
Not one for dancing, Bobby said, "Sam's been calling you 'Dad'."
"Yeah," Dean sighed and perched on the arm of an armchair. "I told him we should act like he was my son. Fewer questions that way."
Even though it made sense, it seemed, ridiculously enough, a bit like a betrayal of their actual father to Bobby. "But he remembers John, right?"
Dean frowned. "To be honest, I don't know if he remembers him or remembers the idea of him." Dean looked up at Bobby. "It seems like his memories are… fuzzed out. Generally, he remembers, but he doesn't remember any of the specifics. He knows who he is and that he has a brother and a father and he knows what me and Dad are like, but much beyond that…" Dean pinched the bridge of his nose. "Bobby, please tell me you've found something to reverse this."
Bobby sank down on his loveseat. "Dean… I'm sorry, kid. I've been researching my ass off, but I haven't found anything that can counteract unicorn magic."
Dean closed his eyes and let his chin sink toward his chest. "Ah, damnit."
Bobby felt sorry for Dean. The kid looked haggard, worn out and in desperate need of some good news, and Bobby wished he had a better answer.
"I've been calling everyone in the business I know," Bobby continued. "After I'm told unicorns are extinct, I'm told there's nothing more powerful than their magic and certainly not anything that's going to outdo it."
Dean looked toward the kitchen, in the direction of Sam, but in his eyes he looked like he was a million miles away.
"I won't give up looking for something, but you're going to have to start getting used to the idea that Sam's going to relive his life."
Dean nodded vacantly, still distracted and distance.
"So… what now?" Bobby asked.
"I don't know… could we crash here a few days? Give me a little time to think?"
"Sure thing."
"Thanks, Bobby."
Dean lapsed into another silence that was so out of character for smart-mouth Dean that Bobby felt uncomfortable and worried.
"So, how's Sam doing?" Dean turned his eyes to Bobby. "He kind of looked like he was scared of me for a minute there on the porch. Should I take that as a hint to shave?" Bobby teased, hoping to get a smile out of Dean.
Instead, Dean's face went dark and dangerous again.
"What's wrong?"
For a minute, Dean didn't answer. He clearly didn't want to. "A couple of days ago," he said with obvious effort, "some sick bastard tried to kidnap Sam."
Bobby gaped. "A demon?"
Dean snorted. "No. A human. A twisted, sadistic, fucking insane human." Dean scowled. "That's where Jovi came from. The pervert tried to lure Sam off with the puppy."
"Son of a bitch," Bobby hissed.
"Tell me about it… you know, there are a fair number of people out there that hunters would do the world a favor if they took those bastards out instead of ghosts."
"Did you kill the man, Dean?" Bobby suddenly asked in concern. He wouldn't shed a tear for the sick bastard, but murder came with some nasty criminal charges he didn't want tangling Dean up.
"No… but not for lack of trying. I would have killed him, but there were some cops staking out the playground. They pulled me off him before I could waste him."
"Well, much as I'd love to see that guy six feet under, I'm glad they did."
"Yeah… would have been really satisfying to pound him to death, though."
It was a very dark thing to say, and Bobby knew Dean absolutely meant it.
"Anyway," Dean said, "since then, Sam's been… I don't know. Before, he was almost too guarded to really get close to me. He wanted his brother, the way he remembered me when I was a kid. After that asshole… it's like Sam just stopped doubting everything about me. He's gotten really attached. It's almost like when we were both kids and I couldn't get one moment's peace without my little brother tagging along after me." Dean smiled faintly at the memory.
They heard Jovi bark and Sam laughed.
"At least he seems happy," Bobby noted.
"Yeah."
Dean frowned as a thought obviously occurred to him.
"What?" Bobby asked.
"I don't know," Dean mused, "it's just that… when we were growing up, there were so many things we couldn't do or couldn't have because Dad couldn't make it work with the hunt. The hunt meant everything, and childish things weren't allowed to get in the way. I didn't think about it before, but I guess I've sort of been making up for that with Sam now."
"Like the dog," Bobby noted.
"Yeah… like the dog."
Bobby eyed Dean closely. "You think that maybe this was the unicorn's intent the whole time?"
Dean looked up, puzzled. "What?"
"I mean, Sam getting a chance to have the very things he was denied the first time around. Like having a dog. I don't know, maybe this is what she meant for him when she changed him."
"You're saying she shrank him just so he could have a dog?" Dean asked sarcastically.
Bobby narrowed his eyes. "Don't be thick with me, boy. I know you understand me perfectly."
Dean flinched and looked away. "I just want him back, Bobby. I don't really care what that freaking unicorn meant or intended. I want my brother back."
"You may have to learn to love Sam like he is."
"Hell, Bobby's it's not that I don't…" Dean stood and paced a few steps. "I just want things back to the way they were. When things made sense."
"And I'd love to help you, Dean, but I have dug down to the rind and found nothing that can do it."
Dean looked on the verge of meltdown.
"Look," Bobby stood. "You're staying with me at least a week. I won't have you here any shorter than that and there's no point arguing about it. So get comfortable, chill out, and give all this some serious thought. I know you try to shove that job off on Sam," Bobby smirked, "but you'll have to pull your own mental weight on this one."
Dean nodded mutely.
Bobby stood and put a reassuring hand on Dean's shoulder. It felt tense under his touch.
"Dad?"
Dean turned away from Bobby's touch as Sam came wandering into the living room, Jovi bounding left and right behind him. "What is it, Sammy?"
"Jovi wants to go outside and 'slpore… can we?"
"Sure, kiddo," Dean moved toward Sam and held out his hand. Sam took it readily and Bobby watched the three, man, boy, and puppy, head for the front door.
When they were gone, Bobby sat down on his chair and sighed.
When he was younger, he'd always wished he'd had someone with him on the hunt, family to keep him company, but after knowing the Winchesters he'd never ask for that again.
Family made the job three times as complicated.
*****
Bobby liked dogs well enough, but after Jovi left a few 'surprises' in his house (one of which Bobby stepped in), he declared the puppy would have to stay outside. Sam had looked at him with wide, teary eyes like Bobby had shot Jovi instead of banished her outdoors. In true Winchester fashion, Sam didn't launch into a drama-filled chick moment. He didn't say anything. He just looked disapprovingly at Bobby and hugged Jovi like she was the victim and he wanted to comfort her.
Feeling bad for earning the baby-Sam eyes of reproach, Bobby spent the majority of the next morning outside cobbling together a doghouse just short of the puppy Taj Mahal to get him back into Sam's good graces.
As Bobby stood back and admired his work, he had to admit it was a damn fine doghouse. Dean was going to love it, at any rate. Bobby didn't have a lot of wood lying around, but what he did have was car parts. Jovi's doghouse looked like it was a transformer, hot rod by night, doghouse by day. Bobby had welded together parts of hoods, doors, trunks, fenders, and an assortment of engine parts into a house for Jovi that not even wounded Sam Winchester could dislike. The inside walls were double-thick with upholstery and floorboard carpet to keep the inside warm, and as a finishing touch Bobby placed floorboard mats down inside. It was a puppy paradise, and it would mean no more piles of presents on Bobby's kitchen floor.
Just as Bobby was sitting back on an old engine block to bask in his achievement, his cell phone began to ring.
Suspecting it was Dean in the house asking where something or other was, Bobby picked it up without looking at the number and said, "Yeah."
"Bobby?"
Bobby sat upright but quick. "John?"
The broody silence was answer enough.
"Where the hell have you been? Did you even notice I called you three times?"
"Why do you think I'm calling you now? I was in the middle of something. What did you want?"
"Have you talked to Dean yet?"
There was yet another silence that made Bobby's teeth grind against each other. "No."
"Damnit… what is it with you?"
"You've talked to him?"
Bobby resisted the urge to just hang up. Let John have a taste of his own medicine. But good sense won out. "Your boys are here with me right now."
John paused a second. "Is Sam all right? Dean's message said Sam had turned into a kid… what the hell is going on?"
"Why don't you have it from your boy?"
"Because I'm asking you."
"You're a grade A dick, you know that, Winchester?"
"Singer… you and I have had our differences, but I won't have you questioning the way I deal with my sons. I'm their father, and I know them a hell of a lot better than you do. For your information, since I got Dean's message, every spare second I've had has been researching what could do this to Sam and what, if anything, can undo it."
"Find anything?"
John's fire went out in an instant. "No… I'm guessing a unicorn did this?"
Bobby had to hand it to John, if nothing else the man knew his weird shit. "That's right."
"What in the hell were my boys doing messing with a unicorn? Leave it to them not only to find a creature that should no longer exist, but then to piss it off enough to screw up Sam's life like this."
Bobby brought up a hand and rubbed at his forehead. "It wasn't a trickster, John. The unicorn didn't do this as a sick joke. If you even cracked a legit book on unicorns, you know they're not malicious. It's impossible for them to be. She did this to make Sam's life better."
"How does making it as though he had never even led his life accomplish that?"
Bobby snapped back, "Don't you think the question is 'how doesn't it'?"
That struck John silent, and Bobby almost felt sorry for what he'd said. Almost.
When John spoke again, his tone was much milder. "I always did the best I could for my boys."
"I know you did," Bobby said, thinking to himself 'but that was pretty piss-poor and everyone who knows you knows it'.
"I know it wasn't always ideal or 'normal', but I would never think the life I gave my boys was so bad that it deserved to be erased."
Dean was living proof that the life of the hunt from a tender age didn't necessarily doom a person to unhappiness. Both John and Dean embraced the life of the road with a trunk-full of weapons to fight the darkness.
"Maybe Sam just needed something more than you and Dean ever did," Bobby offered. "He must have felt something big missing in his life if he took off for college against your wishes like he did."
For a moment, John was silent.
"How… what about Dean? How's he doing?"
Bobby rubbed at his forehead. "Misses his brother like hell. He's pretty wired, honestly. Poor kid's lost his best friend in the world and you can tell it when you look at him."
"You've been researching this too, I take it?"
"Course I have."
There was a heavy pause on the other end of the line. "We aren't going to get our old Sam back, are we?"
Bobby closed his eyes and sagged. "No. I've been trying to talk up the 'never give up searching' line with Dean, but I know we're looking for a fix that doesn't exist. There's not one bit of information on unicorn magic that even hints at a loophole or out to it. That shit is iron-clad."
For a long moment, neither man said anything. Then, with a thick voice, John asked, "You believe in second chances, Bobby?"
Bobby shook his head at the irony. "I've got a four-year-old Sam Winchester in my house. I'd say I'd be a damn fool to say I don't."
John sighed. "I could have done better by Sam… I made mistakes, I realize that now. I always tried to treat him like Dean, to make him like Dean, but he's not like him. Never was. Dean made sense to me, I understood him. Sam… he needed Mary the most."
When he wasn't mad at John, Bobby could feel incredibly sorry for him. After all, John Winchester wasn't hatched from an egg an intransigent son of a bitch. Events in his life made him that way. "You could be here putting your money where your mouth is instead of spilling your regrets to me. I'm not the one you should be confessing your shortcomings to, because I'm not the one who needs to hear it. You should be here. They're your boys, for pete's sake."
"I had to find something first… I couldn't come to Dean empty-handed. He always expects me to have the answer to everything, to know how to fix everything. Soon as I showed up, he'd ask me to fix Sam. To have to see that look on his face when I tell him I can't…"
"Don't be so afraid of disappointing your son that you avoid them both. Dean will just have to accept that you're not superhuman this time."
John didn't answer right away, leaving Bobby to silently implore John to just to the right thing for the boys. To hell with whether it was the right thing for John or the good of the all-mighty hunt.
"I can be there in a day or so."
Bobby almost smiled. "Good."
"Bobby?"
"Yeah?"
"… Thanks for looking after them."
"Don't get sappy on me."
John chuckled then hung up.
Bobby dropped his phone into his pocket, stood, and turned toward his house. He rounded the side and mounted the stairs to the back porch, where Jovi was solemnly tethered to an engine block sans cylinders. She looked up at Bobby with cold regard in her blue eyes, like she knew Bobby was the reason she wasn't inside with her boy.
Bobby reached down and pet her momentarily anyway before going into the house.
He found Dean and Sam on the couch, asleep. Dean was stretched out on his back, legs akimbo, with the television remote loosely gripped in one hand overhanging the cushions. Sprawled face-down across Dean's chest was Sam. The two were dead to the world while a music video retro-hour was playing on MTV in the background, emitting a hissing and snowy Van Halen thanks to the crummy pair of rabbit ears sticking out the back of the set.
Bobby stood a moment and just looked at the Winchester boys. Sam was holding on to Dean even in sleep, his little arms spread wide to grasp as much of Dean as possible. One of Dean's arms was draped over the boy, undeniably possessive and protective.
It broke Bobby's heart to think that Sam never had this from John growing up. John slept when he crashed. He went down when the stress and exhaustion of a hunt dropped him. When he was up, he was a papa bear. Protective of his children, no question, but affectionate and caring toward them? John's idea of loving them was teaching them everything he knew about surviving a dark and dangerous world. It was important, but it wasn't enough. It wasn't everything, but it was everything John had had to give. That extra bit of attention and affection had been precisely what young Sam Winchester had needed and not gotten.
And then there was Dean, the poor kid stuck in the middle between an obsessive father and needy baby brother.
If the unicorn had really been looking to give someone a rightful chance to live their life over, she might have done the same to Dean, too.
Bobby had gone inside to tell Dean that John was on his way, but on seeing the boys napping on the couch Bobby left the way he'd come instead. He'd let them sleep. In the meantime, Bobby would introduce Jovi to her new house, hoping that any wariness she might have toward it would be gone by the time Sam came to pass judgment on the new home for his puppy.
*****
Dean figured he'd gotten more sleep in the last two days than he usually got in a week. While it didn't fix any of his problems, he found being rested did make them seem less insurmountable.
He'd moved from desperate to contemplative, a workload that he usually pawned off on his brainiac little brother.
He was sitting on the hood of his baby, watching his other baby play with his puppy. The Impala beneath him, in top shape and fine condition, Sammy running around happily, laughing and giggling… it wasn't the life Dean knew, but maybe it wasn't all bad, either.
He missed Sam. Missed him like hell. So much of his world he gauged by the way it played off Sam. Dean lived by life's reflection off his younger brother, the life he'd been charged with keeping safe when Dean himself was only four years old. But the longer Dean was with Sammy, the boy, the more he realized that if they found a way to reverse this, he'd miss the kid, too.
In true Winchester fashion, it had turned into a real shitty, damned if you do, damned if you don't, scenario.
Dean watched Sam chase Jovi around the sweet doghouse Bobby had made her. Sam was happy. He'd been confused and leery for a long time when he first changed, but Dean could see none of that trepidation in him anymore. Sam had accepted his fate. He embraced it.
Maybe Dean had to learn to do the same. According to Bobby, this wasn't going to be undone. Bobby Singer knew the supernatural inside and out (sometimes, Dean suspected, even more than his dad did), and if Bobby was convinced this thing with Sam was permanent, it was time Dean face that possibility realistically.
Dean's thoughts were interrupted by the ring of his cell phone. He fished it out of his pocket and brought it to his ear. He'd given up hoping it would be his dad.
"Yeah?"
"Is this Dean Winchester?" a woman asked shakily.
"Yeah… who's this?"
"My… my name's Katrina. Katrina Walters. I… I need help."
Dean sat up straighter. "What is it?"
"It's… it's my… my sister. She's… I know it sounds crazy, but she's not my sister."
"How do you mean, exactly?"
"She's… she's someone completely different. She just started acting like a totally different person a week ago. I think…"
Dean knew the drill. It was the loved one of someone possessed who couldn't bring themselves to actually say it. Like that made it less hideous somehow.
"I know someone who knows someone who had a phone number for… for someone who handled things like this," Katrina said in a thin, nearly broken voice. "When I called the number, a recording of a man gave me your number. The man said you could help."
His father's message. Dean had heard it himself before, John Winchester offering his son's services to any desperate person who reached his number.
"Can you help me?" Katrina asked in a frightened voice.
Dean was already off the hood, moving on reflex, mind racing. Wondering where the job was, what kind of possession they were dealing with, what kind of tools might be needed to do the exorcism, what he might need to find to finish the job that he didn't already have in the trunk of his car…
Then Dean's eyes cut to Sam scuffling happily in the dirt with the ball of black and white fur, and he stopped. His heart was still pounding, rushing with the adrenaline of the hunt. His body was impelled to go, to move, to pick up the scent and get down to business. He was a bloodhound with a scent and the leash had just come off.
Sam untangled himself from Jovi, grinning ear to ear, and looked toward Dean. He waved excitedly. "Did you see, Dad? Did you see me? I used that hold you taught me!" Jovi was looking at Sam, almost wounded she'd been bested by her small boy.
Sam was beaming proudly at Dean.
Dean turned his back to Sam and took a deep breath.
"Hello?" Katrina asked at his silence.
Dean swallowed. "I'm sorry… I can't help you."
"But… but the message… he said you could…"
Dean gritted his teeth. "I know. I can't. I'm sorry." Dean fought to control his breathing. "Let me give you some numbers of some friends of mine. If they can't help you, they'll find someone who can."
Katrina was crying on the line.
Dean clenched the phone in his hand. "Katrina… you'll get help, I promise. I just… I can't."
Katrina took down the numbers Dean gave her. Bobby's. Caleb's. Pastor Jim's. Between the three hunters, Katrina would find someone who could deal with her possessed sister.
When Dean hung up the phone on the weeping woman he sank to the ground. He didn't know he was going to fold until he was sitting, his shoulders pressed against the comforting body of his car. Its side paneling was reassuring and solid as he let it take his weight.
He knew he'd done the right thing by Sam, the choice their father never made when they were kids, but Dean felt like a coward for it. Like a weakling.
Like a civilian.
"Dad?"
Dean looked up and found Sam standing in front of him, clearly worried to find Dean on the ground.
"Hey, Sammy," Dean croaked.
Sam fidgeted and edged closer. "Are you hurt?"
Dean smiled and lied for Sam's benefit. "No, I'm okay."
Sam looked doubtful of that, and Dean couldn't blame him. With effort, he heaved himself off the Impala and stood up. Brushing off his clothes, he asked, "Where'd Jovi go?"
"She went in her house and fell asleep." Sam's eyes shifted to a spot beyond Dean's side and Dean turned to see Bobby coming toward them.
"Hey, sport," Bobby said to Sam when he was near them. "You like Jovi's house?"
Sam wanted to still be affronted at his puppy's banishment from the house, but he really couldn't. "Yeah, it's pretty good."
"You know the one thing that could make it better?" Bobby knelt in front of Sam and held out a magic marker to him. Sam took it and looked up at Bobby, curious.
"See, I'm thinking it would be even better if it had some pictures on the inside. You know, like how people hang pictures on their walls?"
Sam blinked. He didn't know. Dean winced at that.
Bobby, realizing Sam's confusion, hurried to say, "I thought Jovi might really like some drawings to look at. You know, of the things she likes. Only thing is, I'm too huge to fit in there and do it. Think you could crawl in there and put some pictures on Jovi's walls?"
Sam nodded eagerly.
Bobby nodded toward the house. "Have at it, bucko."
Sam smiled and trotted over to the doghouse. When he reached it he got down on his hands and knees and crawled inside.
Bobby stood up beside Dean.
"He's going to be a complete mess, you realize that," Dean noted, imagining Sam would come out looking like he'd wrestled with the marker rather than used it on the inside walls of the doghouse.
"Your problem, Dean, you're the one who has to bathe him," Bobby answered smugly.
Dean snorted half-heartedly and looked away.
"You all right, boy?"
Dean sighed. "Not really." He didn't say anything more than that.
Bobby frowned. "Well… I don't want to kick you when you're down, but… I talked to your dad this morning."
Dean's head jerked around to look at Bobby.
Bobby looked warily at Dean.
Dean schooled his expression, made it so neutral it would do John proud. "What did he say?"
"From the message you left him, he figured out what did this to Sam."
"And?" Dean asked eagerly, "Did he find a way to reverse it?"
Bobby's heart broke for the kid, it really did. He hated to be the one to be the bearer of bad news. "No… I'm sorry, Dean."
Dean didn't look crushed or angry, he just looked resolute. Determined to remain impassive, to gather all the information before he reacted. It was Dean of the hunt more than Dean the son. Bobby had to wonder at the absence of Dean, John's ever-loyal and devoted son.
"He said some stuff…" Bobby said slowly, "about making mistakes with Sam when he was young the first time… talked about second chances."
Dean turned his eyes to the doghouse. His jaw set. His eyes narrowed. He shifted tensely and said in a terse voice without looking at Bobby, "He wants to take Sammy."
Bobby wasn't sure how Dean was taking the news. The kid had himself locked down tight. "Sounded like it to me. He didn't out and say so, you know your dad… but that was what I got out of it, yeah. Makes sense, I figure. I mean, he is Sam's father."
Dean moved a few measured, controlled paces away from Bobby and stopped with his back turned. Bobby had to read Dean's body language in the lines of his back. The unnatural silence was deafening.
"He's on his way," Dean said. It wasn't a question.
"Should be here in a day or so," Bobby confirmed.
Dean nodded imperceptibly and turned to Bobby. Dean's eyes were unreadable. "Could you stick around and watch him for me? I need to take a walk."
"Sure… take as long as you need."
Dean nodded faintly, glanced at the doghouse once, then strode off into the salvage yard and its mountains of junk cars.
Next
Dean made him feel safe, just like his brother did. He was confused about a lot of things, stuff didn't make sense all the time, but he knew Dean would make sure nothing bad happened to him.
And Dean did things to make him happy. Like earlier, when they were passing through this town and Sam saw the playground. He hadn't said he wanted to go play on it. He remembered Dad would growl about no time for that or tell him to be quiet if Sam asked for something like that. So he didn't ask Dean, because he knew that it was just something he didn't get to do.
But Dean surprised him. Dean said, "Hey, Sam… saw you checking that sweet playground out. Let's take a break, huh? I could stretch my legs."
Sam had been so excited. Sometimes, Dean made him so happy about things he forgot just how much his father wasn't there and how much his brother was gone. Every day that got a little easier.
It helped that Dean could be a lot of fun.
Sam had been a little scared of all the other children on the playground when they got out of the 'Pala. Usually, his big brother would take him to playgrounds and go do all the stuff with him. This time, he was alone. He had wanted to play on the playground, but he stood next to Dean holding his hand and looking at all the kids and got scared.
But Dean made it okay. He went around with Sam to all the rides (like the little kid slide and the monkey bars), and he did just the same stuff his brother always had. Dean caught him at the bottom of the slide, and stood under him with open arms when Sam was on the monkey bars, and Dean played chase and tag with him until they both couldn't breathe and were laughing.
Sam was feeling braver then, so he said he was going to go play in the sandbox all by himself. Dean smiled and said he'd be watching if Sam needed him.
Every time Sam looked up from his pit, Dean was doing just what he'd said he would be. Watching him. Sometimes he smiled and waved, but mostly he was just there.
Sam wasn't used to being able to count on anyone but his brother like that.
Sam didn't want to make his brother mad or anything, so he'd never tell him that Sam had decided (quite grown-uply) that he loved this Dean, too.
Happy, Sam went back to digging in his pit.
A little girl next to him was trying to bury her Barbie doll but wasn't doing a good job. She didn't want to get really dirty.
Sam, shy, leaned over and tapped her shoulder. "Hey… you trying to bury your doll?"
The girl nodded. "Uh huh."
"We could use my hole, if you want."
The girl peeked over at Sammy's very impressive hole and smiled. "Okay." She plopped her Barbie, all dressed in pink, in the hole up to her neck, and Sam and the girl started to cover her with dirt.
"Did she die?" Sam asked of the doll.
The girl looked up at him, confused. "Huh?"
"Your dolly. Did she die and that's why we're burying her?"
"No… I don't like dolls, but Mommy thinks I do. I tried to get my doggy Honey to eat her so she'd go away, but stupid dog only drooled on her."
Sam giggled. "We can bury her real deep and then your mom won't ever find her."
The girl grinned and shoved more dirt in Sam's hole. She stopped and looked around a moment, then pointed. "That's my mom over there."
Sam looked at the woman the girl pointed at and asked, "Is she nice?"
"Yep, and she loves me lots, even if she gives me stupid dolls."
Sam scooped a handful of sand and covered the Barbie's head.
"Where's your mom?"
Sam frowned. "I don't have one."
"Oh… is your dad here?"
Sam, on reflex, looked in Dean's direction. He saw him talking to a woman who'd sat down on the bench beside him.
Dean wasn't his dad, but Sam didn't want the girl to think he was an ophan.
"He's over there," Sam pointed at Dean, hoping the girl wouldn't know it was a little lie.
The girl looked once then said, "My dad lets me do all kinds of stuff my mom won't. Like two scoops of ice cream after dinner. Mommy only lets me have one scoop."
Sam smiled. "My dad lets me eat candy for breakfast."
The girl's eyes went wide. "Really?"
"Yup."
"Wow!"
Sam felt really proud to be Dean's, until he remembered he wasn't. He bent his head and worked really hard on covering all of the Barbie doll.
"Jenny?" A woman was walking toward the sandbox. The girl beside Sam looked up. "Time to go home, honey."
"But I'm playing with my friend!"
Sam smiled. He was never someone's friend before… besides his brother's. Their dad didn't let them be around other kids much and it took time to make friends.
"That's lovely, sweetie, but remember your grandma's coming over later, and you want to be clean for her, don't you?"
"Gramma!" Jenny cried happily and jumped up. The mother wiped as much of the sand off Jenny as possible, then took her hand and led her away.
Jenny turned and waved to Sam. "Bye!"
Sam waved back then looked toward Dean again. He was still talking to that lady.
Sam picked a new spot in the box and started digging.
He looked up when he heard a little yip. He looked around and saw the bushes next to the playground rustle. A puppy poked its head out of the bushes and barked. It had a leash on it so it couldn't come out of the bushes far, but it wagged its tail and looked around for someone to play with.
Sam stood up and faced the puppy. It saw him and barked, wiggling.
Sam left the sandbox and moved closer to the puppy.
He stopped cold when he saw the man at the end of the leash. He was scruffy looking and dirty, but he smiled bright when he saw Sam. "Hi, sonny… don't mind Bunny there, she won't bite. Want to pet her?"
Sam nodded, hesitated, then moved closer and knelt down. Bunny squirmed at the end of her leash until the man gave her more and she stretched toward Sam. When he held out his hand, she licked it.
Sam smiled and petted her head.
"Bunny's a husky… you know what that is, sonny?"
Sam shook his head and giggled when Bunny got close enough to lick his face.
"Means when she gets big and strong she'll look like a wolf. Do you like her?"
Sammy scooted closer and grabbed the wiggly puppy in a hug. "Uh huh."
The man grinned real wide. "She has brothers and sisters, you know. I know they'd love to play with you. I have a whole box of them in the back of my car. Come with me and I'll let you play with all of them all you want."
Sam ruffled Bunny's fur but tensed at what the man said. He sure liked puppies, but going with the man didn't seem like a good idea.
"You do like puppies, don't you?"
"Uh huh…"
The man left the bushes to get close to Sam. "Well… just come with me, for just a few minutes. We won't be gone long, so you won't get in trouble."
Sam's eyes widened and he got up. He started to take a step back but the man with the puppy grabbed his arm and wouldn't let him leave.
Sam braced his feet against the man. "I… I gotta go."
"But Bunny would be really sad if you did that, sonny," the man said and moved a step back. The man was too strong for Sam and he got dragged closer to the bushes. Bunny whined. Sam thought Bunny was a much better dog than this man was a person.
Sam struggled. "Let me go!"
"Shhhh… keep quiet."
Sam started to panic. He tried to twist and look for Dean, but puppy man wouldn't let him. The man dropped the leash and put his other hand over Sam's mouth so he couldn't scream
"You do like puppies, don't you, sonny? I have a lot of puppies for you to play with."
Sam tried to jerk free but he couldn't. Bunny was yipping.
Sam was about to cry he was so scared.
"Hey!"
Puppy man looked up past Sam's shoulder and suddenly he just fell down. Like a brick. Sam was suddenly free and dropped to the ground, shaking. Sam saw Dean step around him, go to puppy man, and lift him up by the shirt. Then he hit him again. And again. Dean was really angry, and he was hurting puppy man really bad.
Sam was glad.
Then things got really confusing. Two cop men showed up… Sam didn't know where they came from. They were trying to pull Dean off puppy man… puppy man wasn't moving anymore, but Dean was still hitting and kicking him. Dean fought the cop men, too. He didn't want to stop hurting puppy man. Sam thought the cop men should just let Dean keep going.
Bunny was cowering by the bushes, big blues eyes just as scared as Sam's.
Sam, crying, crawled over to her and dragged her into his lap. He watched, bawling, as the two cop men finally got Dean away from puppy man. One was yelling at Dean, telling him to stop, but Dean was yelling, too. Sam had never seen someone so mad before.
One of the cop men came over to Sam. Sam clutched Bunny to him and flinched back, scared.
"Hey… are you all right?" the cop man asked.
Sam buried his face in Bunny's fur and wanted the cop man to just go away and leave him alone.
"Are you hurt?" the cop man asked and tried to pry Sam's arms away from Bunny.
Sam wailed and shook his head, holding on to Bunny for dear life.
When the cop man stopped talking, Sam peeked open an eye and watched. The other cop man was still arguing with Dean. The second cop man was checking puppy man, but puppy man was not moving.
The cop man with Dean turned to his friend. "Did he kill him?"
The second cop man said, "Damn… almost."
"Get out of my way and I'll finish the job," Dean said angrily.
The first cop man looked toward Sam. Sam held Bunny tighter… so tight the puppy was whining.
"Are you his father?"
Dean didn't answer right away. Sam thought if Dean said no they would make him go away. Before that could happen, Sam called to Dean, "Dad?"
Dean blinked, looked at the first cop man, then shoved past him and walked toward Sam. The first cop man let him.
Dean bent down and scooped Sam up, puppy and all, and hugged him tight. Bunny squirmed and struggled but Dean was strong and they were both just going to have to be hugged. Sam didn't mind.
"Sammy… are you okay? Did he hurt you?"
Sam tucked his head under Dean's chin, Bunny warm and squirmy against his chest. He felt safe there and never wanted to leave.
"Sam… come on, I need you to answer me. Are you hurt?"
Sam shook his head. "M' okay."
"Sir?"
Dean turned to the cop man who'd talked to him, still holding Sam tight.
"Is your son all right?"
Dean pulled Sam away from his shoulder to look at his face.
"I think he's okay, just shaken up. What the hell is going on? Who is that bastard who tried to grab my kid?"
"Charles Grumly. We've been tracking him across two counties and couldn't get a lead on him. He's done this in three other towns, snatched kids out of playgrounds using puppies to lure the kids to his vehicle."
Sam hugged Bunny closer.
"Our local department has had officers volunteering their off-time to take shifts watching the area playgrounds to try and stop this guy. Trust me, he's going to be spending the rest of his life behind bars. I'm just glad your son is okay."
Dean looked Sam over, running a hand over his face, his back, his shoulders, his arms, but Sam wasn't hurt. He just wanted to go back to the 'Pala or a motel and get away from puppy man.
Dean tugged Sam close to his chest again and said, "Asshole deserves to be hanged."
The cop man said, "Personally, I agree with you. But the next best thing is going to be life in prison. Do you need us to have a paramedic come out and look your boy over?"
"No," Dean rubbed Sam's back. It felt really good when he did that. "I just want to take him home."
"I understand… come by the station tomorrow to make a statement."
"Yeah, sure," Dean said, and Sam knew that would never happen.
Sam just wanted to leave.
"Dad?" he whimpered.
Dean paused. "Yeah, Sammy?"
"Can we go now?"
"Absolutely." Dean started walking away, Sam in his arms, and Sam holding Bunny.
They got to the car and Dean put Sam down in the passenger's seat. Dean knelt in the open car door and looked closely at Sam. "Are you sure you're okay?"
Sam, holding Bunny close to his chest, nodded. "Yeah… he hurt my arm some, but that's all. That's when you came."
Dean's eyes were scary, but they made Sam feel safe. They were dark and mad like that because Dean wanted to do bad things to the person who'd hurt Sam.
"God, I am so sorry, Sam. I was watching you, and I only looked away for a second…"
Sam nuzzled Bunny's coat. "You hurt that bad man."
"You bet your ass I did."
"Good."
Dean kind of smiled, but it looked funny. Not very happy. Then he ruffled Sam's hair and stood up.
Dean closed the passenger door, walked around the car, got in behind the wheel, and drove away from the playground. Sam was happy to see it gone as he clung to Bunny for all his little arms were worth.
*****
Dean's heart was still pounding as he pulled into the first motel he could find in the next town over. Sam was quiet beside him, holding on to the black and white husky puppy like it was all that was holding him together. The stuffed unicorn lay abandoned on the floorboard under Sam's feet.
"Come on, Sam," Dean said once he'd stopped the car in the practically empty parking lot, "let's get us a room."
Dean and Sam (who was carrying the puppy like it couldn't walk on its own) entered the lobby of the cheap motel and found a young woman at the counter with a face more painted than a clown's. If Sam weren't so traumatized from the playground, she might have scared him.
When she set her eyes on Dean, they gleamed. Dean knew the look.
"Hi," she said sweetly. "What can I do for you, handsome?"
Dean offered a smirk on reflex. "One room."
The woman glanced down at Sam holding the puppy. Her sugary-sweet smile faded. "I'm sorry… we don't allow pets."
Sam's eyes began to water and he held the puppy tighter.
Dean wanted to reach across the counter and shake the girl. Instead, he turned on his most charming smile. "Aw, come on… have a heart."
She was won by the smile before he'd even spoken, and Dean knew it.
"I could get in trouble for this, you know."
"I swear, we'll keep it quiet and check out first thing in the morning. No one will know."
The woman smiled coyly. "All right, I guess I can make an exception for you. That'll be thirty-five ninety-five."
Dean paid for the room, got the key, and led Sam back to the car.
Their room was at the end of the row, leaving Dean to give the ditz behind the counter more credit than he thought she deserved.
Dean grabbed their stuff out of the trunk and took Sam and the puppy inside the room. It wasn't until Sam was settled on one of the beds that he let go his hold on the puppy and let it wander around the bedspread.
The puppy immediately began sniffing around intently and Dean hurried to pick it up. "I'm going to take Fido here out for a piss… I'll be right back, Sammy. Okay? Don't let anyone in while I'm gone."
Sam nodded.
Dean took a few minutes while watching the puppy, apparently a girl puppy when she squatted to pee, to calm himself down. He was still furious about what had happened. Furious and terrified. He'd been keeping such a close watch on Sammy at the playground. He'd been like a hawk with the kid. A parent had joined him on the bench and they started talking about their kids. Dean cast frequent glances toward Sam at first, but he was fine, like he had been all afternoon, and Dean let himself have an adult conversation with a very attractive and friendly woman.
Then he looked up and Sam was almost out of sight, being dragged toward the bushes by a strange man.
Dean had never run so fast in his life. He didn't clearly remember the beating he'd given the guy. He only remembered how terrified he'd been at the thought that he'd almost lost Sammy.
When the puppy was finished taking care of business, Dean took her back into the room. Sam was still on the bed where Dean had left him.
Dean dropped the leash, forgot the dog, and went over to Sam. "Sam? Hey, look at me."
Sam looked up obediently, and Dean smiled for his sake. "You sure you're all right?"
"He was a bad man," Sam said softly.
'I've known demons less despicable,' Dean thought hotly. "Yeah, he was. Listen, let's get you in the bathtub, huh? You're covered in sand." And Dean couldn't stand the thought of the man's touch still lingering on Sam's clothes or skin.
Sam followed Dean into the bathroom, undressed with Dean's help, and climbed into the tub when Dean had it full. Dean looked over every inch of Sam's body for any sign of injury. He breathed a sigh of relief when close inspection proved that Sam really was okay.
The boy was quiet while Dean took the soap and cleaned him head to toe, then took some of the hotel shampoo and washed his hair, too.
Dean paused on a second pass with the soapy washcloth when he noticed Sam had his eyes closed.
"Sam? What's wrong?"
Sam shook his head. "Nothing. I love you."
Dean's mouth popped open. It had come out so casually, so naturally, as if he hadn't been a six-foot-four adult a matter of days ago. As if he hadn't spent days as a four-year-old resigning himself to Dean when he really wanted someone else (or so Sam thought).
Dean swallowed thickly. "I love you too, Sammy."
When Sam was finished with his bath and Dean carried him, wrapped in a towel, back to the bedroom, they found the puppy with a corner of the comforter in her teeth shaking her head vigorously back and forth and growling in a ridiculously high pitch.
Sam giggled.
Dean knew in that second they were keeping the puppy.
Dean dressed Sam in his Superman pajamas and brushed his hair. Sam watched Dean's face with an attentiveness that almost made Dean uneasy. It was like Sam was looking at him for the first time and trying to figure him out.
"Sam… I'm real proud of you, you know."
Sam blinked.
"I could tell you were fighting that guy. You weren't going to let him take you anywhere without a fight. I'm real proud of you for that."
Sam gave a wan smile.
"And, uh… when the cop asked if I was your dad…" Dean sat down on the bed next to Sam. "You did the right thing when you told him that I was. You see, Sammy… when people see you and me, they're going to think certain things. And sometimes, it's good to let people think what they want to, even if it's not the truth because that way they won't ask questions." Sam was giving him a look like he was an idiot, and Dean laughed because it was the first hint of his Sam he'd seen since this mess began. "What I'm trying to say is, when we're around other people, in stores or restaurants and stuff, I want us to play pretend that I'm your dad. Just like you did today with the police." Dean braced for a tantrum to that. Dean knew, in Sam's position, he would have been livid, even at four. He would have railed at some 'stranger' trying to even fake being his father. Dean wasn't wild about the idea, but when the cop had asked Dean if he was Sam's father, he had a sudden panic that if he said 'no' they would take Sam from him. Not necessarily those cops at that moment, but somewhere else, someone else, at another time. Lying seemed the easiest, safest way to not rouse any suspicion with well-meaning meddlers who might get it in their head to call Child Protective Services if they thought too long and hard on a grown man traipsing around with a four-year-old boy that wasn't his.
Sam didn't have a fit. He looked pensive then nodded. "Okay."
Dean had not expected it to be so easy.
Sam smiled thinly at Dean's expression. "My brother says sometimes you have to lie to people."
"That's true. You think you're up for it, kiddo?"
Sam slid closer to Dean until he was snuggling against his side. "Sure, Dad."
Dean stiffened, his chest aching oddly and making him wish desperately that he had his Sam back. "Good… good boy, Sammy." He reached down and ruffled Sam's hair.
The puppy came trotting around the bed to look up at the Winchesters, her tail wagging proudly. She seemed to have completely forgotten the ordeal that brought her here.
Sam smiled down at her.
Dean smirked. "So, who's this you brought back from the playground?"
"He said…" Sam halted, and Dean understood why. "Her name's Bunny."
"Bunny? That's a silly name for a dog. We'll have to change that."
Sam looked up eagerly at him. "We can keep her?"
Dean had no idea how they were going to manage a puppy in the car, but Dean remembered seeing Sam cowering in the bushes with the puppy clutched to him like a safety blanket after he was almost kidnapped by a child molester, and knew he couldn't take the animal to the pound.
"Only if we come up with a better name for her," Dean said seriously, "because I will not have a dog called Rabbit."
Sam giggled. "Bunny."
"So that's your job, Sammy. Come up with a good name for Hare there," Dean gestured toward the puppy, who barked and spun in a circle in hopes of enticing someone to play with her.
Sam laughed again, climbed down off the bed to play with the puppy, and Dean sighed. Naming the dog would be a great distraction for Sam. Hopefully, the memory of getting a dog would become Sam's most vivid memory of this day.
*****
Bobby Singer hadn't known just what to expect when Dean finally arrived with his newly redefined 'little' brother, so it was with an anxiously held breath that he stood on his porch as he watched the familiar black Impala come up his driveway.
Dean was the first one out of the car, and he looked up at Bobby like it was damn good to see him and by god he better have some answers for Dean.
The passenger door was shoved open with effort, but instead of Sam a husky puppy jumped out of the car and immediately began darting around, exploring.
Then Sam jumped out of the car. Adorable, tiny, childish Sam Winchester, his sandy blonde hair still the same unruly mop Bobby knew and the only thing immediately familiar about the kid. Bobby hadn't known the Winchester boys when they were this young. In truth, it was hard to imagine either of them ever being that small and vulnerable.
"Jovi!" Sam called to the dog. The husky looked up at Sam, barked, then continued to romp around the derelict cars on Bobby's lawn.
"She's fine, Sammy," Dean said as he rounded the front of the car. "Come here."
Sam ran to Dean and leapt at him. Dean bent down and scooped Sam up midair in a movement that looked routine to them. He hitched Sammy up on his hip and carried him toward the porch.
Sam laid eyes on Bobby and the old hunter could see the kid suddenly turn wary. His little arms went around Dean's neck and he dipped his chin, barely looking up through his bangs at Bobby.
Dean nodded a greeting. "Hey, Bobby."
"Hey, Dean. Hi, Sam."
Sam tucked his face into Dean's neck.
Bobby smirked, finding bashful little Sam Winchester awful cute, but the older man's expression fell when he saw a very dark, angry look cloud Dean's face for a second at Sam's sudden retreat.
"Hey, Sammy…" Dean said in a measured tone, "come out here and meet a good friend of mine."
Reluctantly, Sam pulled his face away from Dean's neck and peeked at Bobby.
"This is Bobby."
"Hullo," Sam mumbled.
"Nice to see you, Sam. That's a nice dog you have there." Bobby glanced at Dean with a meaningful 'I'll be hearing that story later'.
Talking about the puppy brought Sam out of his shell a little. "Her name's Jovi. It used to be Bunny, but Dad said that was lame."
Bobby was confused. Had John met up with them at some point?
"It was lame," Dean insisted. "But Sam here came up with a really awesome name for her. And I, for one, think Jovi is really happy about that." Dean rubbed Sam's back absently. "You got some grub in there, Bobby? We're starving."
"Uh, yeah, sure, come on in."
Dean turned around and whistled. Jovi popped her head out of a pile of tires, yipped, and came bounding toward them. She managed the stairs with Herculean effort and raced into the house before them.
Bobby didn't have 'cleaning up for guests' in his vocabulary, so his home was just as riddled with stacks of papers, books, and car parts as ever. Seeing Dean weave through the junk with a kid on his hip, though, made Bobby think he probably should have cleaned up some at least in the interest of mildly 'child-proofing' the house.
Dean didn't seem to notice, but then he and Dean were motley birds of a feather.
Bobby waved at his kitchen in a general 'help yourself' gesture, then stood back to watch. He was curious as hell. He'd never heard of someone actually seeing a unicorn, much less being changed by one as Sam had been. He couldn't help the hunter/researcher in him from observing.
Bobby stood back and watched, dumbfounded, as Dean set about making Sam lunch. It ended up being a twilight zone-like moment in time watching Dean and Sam far more suited to the roles of father and son than brothers.
First of all, Sam was calling Dean 'Dad', which was just too weird, and Dean was answering to it like it was the most natural thing in the world. Sam was seated at the kitchen table in front of the one moderately clean spot, animatedly talking about an episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles he'd seen that morning on the television in the hotel, and Dean was nodding and adding in all the right noises like he was listening and interested while he fixed Sam a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, naturally cutting off the crust that was diabolical and the kryptonite of every child. Jovi was on her puppy elbows, butt in the air, working her way along the line of the bottom lip of the kitchen cabinets where the cabinets met the tile. No telling what food Bobby had dropped down there and no telling how far back the scraps of food went. The pup probably thought she'd won the lottery. When she ran into Dean's legs, Dean absently gave her a nudge and resumed his meal preparations.
Dean turned and put the sandwich, a helping of chips, and a coke (all given the meager stores in Bobby's cupboards and fridge) on the table in front of Sam. "Eat up, Sammy. I'm going to talk to Bobby for a minute."
"Kay, Dad."
Dean looked up at Bobby and ticked his head in a clear and unspoken 'in the other room' gesture.
The two men moved into the living room, still in sight of Sam but out of earshot.
Bobby had a million questions on his mind, but Dean was the first to ask one. "Have you heard from my dad?"
Why did it always seem to be the same question with Dean? Sometimes Bobby wished he'd shot John Winchester when he had the chance. The man could be a real burden to put up with and he didn't even have to try at it. The best thing about John was his boys. "No, I haven't."
Dean sagged visibly.
Not one for dancing, Bobby said, "Sam's been calling you 'Dad'."
"Yeah," Dean sighed and perched on the arm of an armchair. "I told him we should act like he was my son. Fewer questions that way."
Even though it made sense, it seemed, ridiculously enough, a bit like a betrayal of their actual father to Bobby. "But he remembers John, right?"
Dean frowned. "To be honest, I don't know if he remembers him or remembers the idea of him." Dean looked up at Bobby. "It seems like his memories are… fuzzed out. Generally, he remembers, but he doesn't remember any of the specifics. He knows who he is and that he has a brother and a father and he knows what me and Dad are like, but much beyond that…" Dean pinched the bridge of his nose. "Bobby, please tell me you've found something to reverse this."
Bobby sank down on his loveseat. "Dean… I'm sorry, kid. I've been researching my ass off, but I haven't found anything that can counteract unicorn magic."
Dean closed his eyes and let his chin sink toward his chest. "Ah, damnit."
Bobby felt sorry for Dean. The kid looked haggard, worn out and in desperate need of some good news, and Bobby wished he had a better answer.
"I've been calling everyone in the business I know," Bobby continued. "After I'm told unicorns are extinct, I'm told there's nothing more powerful than their magic and certainly not anything that's going to outdo it."
Dean looked toward the kitchen, in the direction of Sam, but in his eyes he looked like he was a million miles away.
"I won't give up looking for something, but you're going to have to start getting used to the idea that Sam's going to relive his life."
Dean nodded vacantly, still distracted and distance.
"So… what now?" Bobby asked.
"I don't know… could we crash here a few days? Give me a little time to think?"
"Sure thing."
"Thanks, Bobby."
Dean lapsed into another silence that was so out of character for smart-mouth Dean that Bobby felt uncomfortable and worried.
"So, how's Sam doing?" Dean turned his eyes to Bobby. "He kind of looked like he was scared of me for a minute there on the porch. Should I take that as a hint to shave?" Bobby teased, hoping to get a smile out of Dean.
Instead, Dean's face went dark and dangerous again.
"What's wrong?"
For a minute, Dean didn't answer. He clearly didn't want to. "A couple of days ago," he said with obvious effort, "some sick bastard tried to kidnap Sam."
Bobby gaped. "A demon?"
Dean snorted. "No. A human. A twisted, sadistic, fucking insane human." Dean scowled. "That's where Jovi came from. The pervert tried to lure Sam off with the puppy."
"Son of a bitch," Bobby hissed.
"Tell me about it… you know, there are a fair number of people out there that hunters would do the world a favor if they took those bastards out instead of ghosts."
"Did you kill the man, Dean?" Bobby suddenly asked in concern. He wouldn't shed a tear for the sick bastard, but murder came with some nasty criminal charges he didn't want tangling Dean up.
"No… but not for lack of trying. I would have killed him, but there were some cops staking out the playground. They pulled me off him before I could waste him."
"Well, much as I'd love to see that guy six feet under, I'm glad they did."
"Yeah… would have been really satisfying to pound him to death, though."
It was a very dark thing to say, and Bobby knew Dean absolutely meant it.
"Anyway," Dean said, "since then, Sam's been… I don't know. Before, he was almost too guarded to really get close to me. He wanted his brother, the way he remembered me when I was a kid. After that asshole… it's like Sam just stopped doubting everything about me. He's gotten really attached. It's almost like when we were both kids and I couldn't get one moment's peace without my little brother tagging along after me." Dean smiled faintly at the memory.
They heard Jovi bark and Sam laughed.
"At least he seems happy," Bobby noted.
"Yeah."
Dean frowned as a thought obviously occurred to him.
"What?" Bobby asked.
"I don't know," Dean mused, "it's just that… when we were growing up, there were so many things we couldn't do or couldn't have because Dad couldn't make it work with the hunt. The hunt meant everything, and childish things weren't allowed to get in the way. I didn't think about it before, but I guess I've sort of been making up for that with Sam now."
"Like the dog," Bobby noted.
"Yeah… like the dog."
Bobby eyed Dean closely. "You think that maybe this was the unicorn's intent the whole time?"
Dean looked up, puzzled. "What?"
"I mean, Sam getting a chance to have the very things he was denied the first time around. Like having a dog. I don't know, maybe this is what she meant for him when she changed him."
"You're saying she shrank him just so he could have a dog?" Dean asked sarcastically.
Bobby narrowed his eyes. "Don't be thick with me, boy. I know you understand me perfectly."
Dean flinched and looked away. "I just want him back, Bobby. I don't really care what that freaking unicorn meant or intended. I want my brother back."
"You may have to learn to love Sam like he is."
"Hell, Bobby's it's not that I don't…" Dean stood and paced a few steps. "I just want things back to the way they were. When things made sense."
"And I'd love to help you, Dean, but I have dug down to the rind and found nothing that can do it."
Dean looked on the verge of meltdown.
"Look," Bobby stood. "You're staying with me at least a week. I won't have you here any shorter than that and there's no point arguing about it. So get comfortable, chill out, and give all this some serious thought. I know you try to shove that job off on Sam," Bobby smirked, "but you'll have to pull your own mental weight on this one."
Dean nodded mutely.
Bobby stood and put a reassuring hand on Dean's shoulder. It felt tense under his touch.
"Dad?"
Dean turned away from Bobby's touch as Sam came wandering into the living room, Jovi bounding left and right behind him. "What is it, Sammy?"
"Jovi wants to go outside and 'slpore… can we?"
"Sure, kiddo," Dean moved toward Sam and held out his hand. Sam took it readily and Bobby watched the three, man, boy, and puppy, head for the front door.
When they were gone, Bobby sat down on his chair and sighed.
When he was younger, he'd always wished he'd had someone with him on the hunt, family to keep him company, but after knowing the Winchesters he'd never ask for that again.
Family made the job three times as complicated.
*****
Bobby liked dogs well enough, but after Jovi left a few 'surprises' in his house (one of which Bobby stepped in), he declared the puppy would have to stay outside. Sam had looked at him with wide, teary eyes like Bobby had shot Jovi instead of banished her outdoors. In true Winchester fashion, Sam didn't launch into a drama-filled chick moment. He didn't say anything. He just looked disapprovingly at Bobby and hugged Jovi like she was the victim and he wanted to comfort her.
Feeling bad for earning the baby-Sam eyes of reproach, Bobby spent the majority of the next morning outside cobbling together a doghouse just short of the puppy Taj Mahal to get him back into Sam's good graces.
As Bobby stood back and admired his work, he had to admit it was a damn fine doghouse. Dean was going to love it, at any rate. Bobby didn't have a lot of wood lying around, but what he did have was car parts. Jovi's doghouse looked like it was a transformer, hot rod by night, doghouse by day. Bobby had welded together parts of hoods, doors, trunks, fenders, and an assortment of engine parts into a house for Jovi that not even wounded Sam Winchester could dislike. The inside walls were double-thick with upholstery and floorboard carpet to keep the inside warm, and as a finishing touch Bobby placed floorboard mats down inside. It was a puppy paradise, and it would mean no more piles of presents on Bobby's kitchen floor.
Just as Bobby was sitting back on an old engine block to bask in his achievement, his cell phone began to ring.
Suspecting it was Dean in the house asking where something or other was, Bobby picked it up without looking at the number and said, "Yeah."
"Bobby?"
Bobby sat upright but quick. "John?"
The broody silence was answer enough.
"Where the hell have you been? Did you even notice I called you three times?"
"Why do you think I'm calling you now? I was in the middle of something. What did you want?"
"Have you talked to Dean yet?"
There was yet another silence that made Bobby's teeth grind against each other. "No."
"Damnit… what is it with you?"
"You've talked to him?"
Bobby resisted the urge to just hang up. Let John have a taste of his own medicine. But good sense won out. "Your boys are here with me right now."
John paused a second. "Is Sam all right? Dean's message said Sam had turned into a kid… what the hell is going on?"
"Why don't you have it from your boy?"
"Because I'm asking you."
"You're a grade A dick, you know that, Winchester?"
"Singer… you and I have had our differences, but I won't have you questioning the way I deal with my sons. I'm their father, and I know them a hell of a lot better than you do. For your information, since I got Dean's message, every spare second I've had has been researching what could do this to Sam and what, if anything, can undo it."
"Find anything?"
John's fire went out in an instant. "No… I'm guessing a unicorn did this?"
Bobby had to hand it to John, if nothing else the man knew his weird shit. "That's right."
"What in the hell were my boys doing messing with a unicorn? Leave it to them not only to find a creature that should no longer exist, but then to piss it off enough to screw up Sam's life like this."
Bobby brought up a hand and rubbed at his forehead. "It wasn't a trickster, John. The unicorn didn't do this as a sick joke. If you even cracked a legit book on unicorns, you know they're not malicious. It's impossible for them to be. She did this to make Sam's life better."
"How does making it as though he had never even led his life accomplish that?"
Bobby snapped back, "Don't you think the question is 'how doesn't it'?"
That struck John silent, and Bobby almost felt sorry for what he'd said. Almost.
When John spoke again, his tone was much milder. "I always did the best I could for my boys."
"I know you did," Bobby said, thinking to himself 'but that was pretty piss-poor and everyone who knows you knows it'.
"I know it wasn't always ideal or 'normal', but I would never think the life I gave my boys was so bad that it deserved to be erased."
Dean was living proof that the life of the hunt from a tender age didn't necessarily doom a person to unhappiness. Both John and Dean embraced the life of the road with a trunk-full of weapons to fight the darkness.
"Maybe Sam just needed something more than you and Dean ever did," Bobby offered. "He must have felt something big missing in his life if he took off for college against your wishes like he did."
For a moment, John was silent.
"How… what about Dean? How's he doing?"
Bobby rubbed at his forehead. "Misses his brother like hell. He's pretty wired, honestly. Poor kid's lost his best friend in the world and you can tell it when you look at him."
"You've been researching this too, I take it?"
"Course I have."
There was a heavy pause on the other end of the line. "We aren't going to get our old Sam back, are we?"
Bobby closed his eyes and sagged. "No. I've been trying to talk up the 'never give up searching' line with Dean, but I know we're looking for a fix that doesn't exist. There's not one bit of information on unicorn magic that even hints at a loophole or out to it. That shit is iron-clad."
For a long moment, neither man said anything. Then, with a thick voice, John asked, "You believe in second chances, Bobby?"
Bobby shook his head at the irony. "I've got a four-year-old Sam Winchester in my house. I'd say I'd be a damn fool to say I don't."
John sighed. "I could have done better by Sam… I made mistakes, I realize that now. I always tried to treat him like Dean, to make him like Dean, but he's not like him. Never was. Dean made sense to me, I understood him. Sam… he needed Mary the most."
When he wasn't mad at John, Bobby could feel incredibly sorry for him. After all, John Winchester wasn't hatched from an egg an intransigent son of a bitch. Events in his life made him that way. "You could be here putting your money where your mouth is instead of spilling your regrets to me. I'm not the one you should be confessing your shortcomings to, because I'm not the one who needs to hear it. You should be here. They're your boys, for pete's sake."
"I had to find something first… I couldn't come to Dean empty-handed. He always expects me to have the answer to everything, to know how to fix everything. Soon as I showed up, he'd ask me to fix Sam. To have to see that look on his face when I tell him I can't…"
"Don't be so afraid of disappointing your son that you avoid them both. Dean will just have to accept that you're not superhuman this time."
John didn't answer right away, leaving Bobby to silently implore John to just to the right thing for the boys. To hell with whether it was the right thing for John or the good of the all-mighty hunt.
"I can be there in a day or so."
Bobby almost smiled. "Good."
"Bobby?"
"Yeah?"
"… Thanks for looking after them."
"Don't get sappy on me."
John chuckled then hung up.
Bobby dropped his phone into his pocket, stood, and turned toward his house. He rounded the side and mounted the stairs to the back porch, where Jovi was solemnly tethered to an engine block sans cylinders. She looked up at Bobby with cold regard in her blue eyes, like she knew Bobby was the reason she wasn't inside with her boy.
Bobby reached down and pet her momentarily anyway before going into the house.
He found Dean and Sam on the couch, asleep. Dean was stretched out on his back, legs akimbo, with the television remote loosely gripped in one hand overhanging the cushions. Sprawled face-down across Dean's chest was Sam. The two were dead to the world while a music video retro-hour was playing on MTV in the background, emitting a hissing and snowy Van Halen thanks to the crummy pair of rabbit ears sticking out the back of the set.
Bobby stood a moment and just looked at the Winchester boys. Sam was holding on to Dean even in sleep, his little arms spread wide to grasp as much of Dean as possible. One of Dean's arms was draped over the boy, undeniably possessive and protective.
It broke Bobby's heart to think that Sam never had this from John growing up. John slept when he crashed. He went down when the stress and exhaustion of a hunt dropped him. When he was up, he was a papa bear. Protective of his children, no question, but affectionate and caring toward them? John's idea of loving them was teaching them everything he knew about surviving a dark and dangerous world. It was important, but it wasn't enough. It wasn't everything, but it was everything John had had to give. That extra bit of attention and affection had been precisely what young Sam Winchester had needed and not gotten.
And then there was Dean, the poor kid stuck in the middle between an obsessive father and needy baby brother.
If the unicorn had really been looking to give someone a rightful chance to live their life over, she might have done the same to Dean, too.
Bobby had gone inside to tell Dean that John was on his way, but on seeing the boys napping on the couch Bobby left the way he'd come instead. He'd let them sleep. In the meantime, Bobby would introduce Jovi to her new house, hoping that any wariness she might have toward it would be gone by the time Sam came to pass judgment on the new home for his puppy.
*****
Dean figured he'd gotten more sleep in the last two days than he usually got in a week. While it didn't fix any of his problems, he found being rested did make them seem less insurmountable.
He'd moved from desperate to contemplative, a workload that he usually pawned off on his brainiac little brother.
He was sitting on the hood of his baby, watching his other baby play with his puppy. The Impala beneath him, in top shape and fine condition, Sammy running around happily, laughing and giggling… it wasn't the life Dean knew, but maybe it wasn't all bad, either.
He missed Sam. Missed him like hell. So much of his world he gauged by the way it played off Sam. Dean lived by life's reflection off his younger brother, the life he'd been charged with keeping safe when Dean himself was only four years old. But the longer Dean was with Sammy, the boy, the more he realized that if they found a way to reverse this, he'd miss the kid, too.
In true Winchester fashion, it had turned into a real shitty, damned if you do, damned if you don't, scenario.
Dean watched Sam chase Jovi around the sweet doghouse Bobby had made her. Sam was happy. He'd been confused and leery for a long time when he first changed, but Dean could see none of that trepidation in him anymore. Sam had accepted his fate. He embraced it.
Maybe Dean had to learn to do the same. According to Bobby, this wasn't going to be undone. Bobby Singer knew the supernatural inside and out (sometimes, Dean suspected, even more than his dad did), and if Bobby was convinced this thing with Sam was permanent, it was time Dean face that possibility realistically.
Dean's thoughts were interrupted by the ring of his cell phone. He fished it out of his pocket and brought it to his ear. He'd given up hoping it would be his dad.
"Yeah?"
"Is this Dean Winchester?" a woman asked shakily.
"Yeah… who's this?"
"My… my name's Katrina. Katrina Walters. I… I need help."
Dean sat up straighter. "What is it?"
"It's… it's my… my sister. She's… I know it sounds crazy, but she's not my sister."
"How do you mean, exactly?"
"She's… she's someone completely different. She just started acting like a totally different person a week ago. I think…"
Dean knew the drill. It was the loved one of someone possessed who couldn't bring themselves to actually say it. Like that made it less hideous somehow.
"I know someone who knows someone who had a phone number for… for someone who handled things like this," Katrina said in a thin, nearly broken voice. "When I called the number, a recording of a man gave me your number. The man said you could help."
His father's message. Dean had heard it himself before, John Winchester offering his son's services to any desperate person who reached his number.
"Can you help me?" Katrina asked in a frightened voice.
Dean was already off the hood, moving on reflex, mind racing. Wondering where the job was, what kind of possession they were dealing with, what kind of tools might be needed to do the exorcism, what he might need to find to finish the job that he didn't already have in the trunk of his car…
Then Dean's eyes cut to Sam scuffling happily in the dirt with the ball of black and white fur, and he stopped. His heart was still pounding, rushing with the adrenaline of the hunt. His body was impelled to go, to move, to pick up the scent and get down to business. He was a bloodhound with a scent and the leash had just come off.
Sam untangled himself from Jovi, grinning ear to ear, and looked toward Dean. He waved excitedly. "Did you see, Dad? Did you see me? I used that hold you taught me!" Jovi was looking at Sam, almost wounded she'd been bested by her small boy.
Sam was beaming proudly at Dean.
Dean turned his back to Sam and took a deep breath.
"Hello?" Katrina asked at his silence.
Dean swallowed. "I'm sorry… I can't help you."
"But… but the message… he said you could…"
Dean gritted his teeth. "I know. I can't. I'm sorry." Dean fought to control his breathing. "Let me give you some numbers of some friends of mine. If they can't help you, they'll find someone who can."
Katrina was crying on the line.
Dean clenched the phone in his hand. "Katrina… you'll get help, I promise. I just… I can't."
Katrina took down the numbers Dean gave her. Bobby's. Caleb's. Pastor Jim's. Between the three hunters, Katrina would find someone who could deal with her possessed sister.
When Dean hung up the phone on the weeping woman he sank to the ground. He didn't know he was going to fold until he was sitting, his shoulders pressed against the comforting body of his car. Its side paneling was reassuring and solid as he let it take his weight.
He knew he'd done the right thing by Sam, the choice their father never made when they were kids, but Dean felt like a coward for it. Like a weakling.
Like a civilian.
"Dad?"
Dean looked up and found Sam standing in front of him, clearly worried to find Dean on the ground.
"Hey, Sammy," Dean croaked.
Sam fidgeted and edged closer. "Are you hurt?"
Dean smiled and lied for Sam's benefit. "No, I'm okay."
Sam looked doubtful of that, and Dean couldn't blame him. With effort, he heaved himself off the Impala and stood up. Brushing off his clothes, he asked, "Where'd Jovi go?"
"She went in her house and fell asleep." Sam's eyes shifted to a spot beyond Dean's side and Dean turned to see Bobby coming toward them.
"Hey, sport," Bobby said to Sam when he was near them. "You like Jovi's house?"
Sam wanted to still be affronted at his puppy's banishment from the house, but he really couldn't. "Yeah, it's pretty good."
"You know the one thing that could make it better?" Bobby knelt in front of Sam and held out a magic marker to him. Sam took it and looked up at Bobby, curious.
"See, I'm thinking it would be even better if it had some pictures on the inside. You know, like how people hang pictures on their walls?"
Sam blinked. He didn't know. Dean winced at that.
Bobby, realizing Sam's confusion, hurried to say, "I thought Jovi might really like some drawings to look at. You know, of the things she likes. Only thing is, I'm too huge to fit in there and do it. Think you could crawl in there and put some pictures on Jovi's walls?"
Sam nodded eagerly.
Bobby nodded toward the house. "Have at it, bucko."
Sam smiled and trotted over to the doghouse. When he reached it he got down on his hands and knees and crawled inside.
Bobby stood up beside Dean.
"He's going to be a complete mess, you realize that," Dean noted, imagining Sam would come out looking like he'd wrestled with the marker rather than used it on the inside walls of the doghouse.
"Your problem, Dean, you're the one who has to bathe him," Bobby answered smugly.
Dean snorted half-heartedly and looked away.
"You all right, boy?"
Dean sighed. "Not really." He didn't say anything more than that.
Bobby frowned. "Well… I don't want to kick you when you're down, but… I talked to your dad this morning."
Dean's head jerked around to look at Bobby.
Bobby looked warily at Dean.
Dean schooled his expression, made it so neutral it would do John proud. "What did he say?"
"From the message you left him, he figured out what did this to Sam."
"And?" Dean asked eagerly, "Did he find a way to reverse it?"
Bobby's heart broke for the kid, it really did. He hated to be the one to be the bearer of bad news. "No… I'm sorry, Dean."
Dean didn't look crushed or angry, he just looked resolute. Determined to remain impassive, to gather all the information before he reacted. It was Dean of the hunt more than Dean the son. Bobby had to wonder at the absence of Dean, John's ever-loyal and devoted son.
"He said some stuff…" Bobby said slowly, "about making mistakes with Sam when he was young the first time… talked about second chances."
Dean turned his eyes to the doghouse. His jaw set. His eyes narrowed. He shifted tensely and said in a terse voice without looking at Bobby, "He wants to take Sammy."
Bobby wasn't sure how Dean was taking the news. The kid had himself locked down tight. "Sounded like it to me. He didn't out and say so, you know your dad… but that was what I got out of it, yeah. Makes sense, I figure. I mean, he is Sam's father."
Dean moved a few measured, controlled paces away from Bobby and stopped with his back turned. Bobby had to read Dean's body language in the lines of his back. The unnatural silence was deafening.
"He's on his way," Dean said. It wasn't a question.
"Should be here in a day or so," Bobby confirmed.
Dean nodded imperceptibly and turned to Bobby. Dean's eyes were unreadable. "Could you stick around and watch him for me? I need to take a walk."
"Sure… take as long as you need."
Dean nodded faintly, glanced at the doghouse once, then strode off into the salvage yard and its mountains of junk cars.
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