Crashing in the Same Car
Title: Crashing in the Same Car
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 5100
Disclaimer: Not my boys. Kripke broke them long before I ever got to them.
Summary: post S7 Curtain!fic with a twist? I don't know. The Winchesters have a little guest who's probably there to stay.
See that icon? Yeah, this isn't really what the icon makes you think of, I promise.
Technically written for the Curtain fic&art week on hoodie_time, but that only starts in two days and I'll be out of town for the next couple of weeks with questionable internet access, so I suppose this is just for me :)
They’ve only been here for a month, and Sam already knows his way around the Toys”R”Us. They went when they first moved in, but Dean didn’t like the looks people were giving them, so now it’s just Sam on Wednesdays, when his last class lets out at four-thirty and he can spend twenty minutes picking out toys without feeling like he’s taking too long.
He walks past the GI Joes and the BB guns and the videogames and tries to get into the aisle with the stuffed animals without crashing his shopping cart into a middle aged lady with a huge butt and three kids that are blocking his way.
“Sorry,” he mumbles, even though he’s pretty sure he didn’t actually touch any of them.
The woman nods distractedly and pulls one of her kids away from a huge, pink unicorn.
Sam bites his lips and looks around. No matter how many times he makes the trip downtown, he still can’t get used to the sheer amount of toys. Plush dogs and cats and parrots in every color and size combination but a simple teddy bear that doesn’t talk or glitter or have some slogan printed onto his belly is hard to find. The aisle crosses with Books 3-5 and continues with stuffed merchandise for the latest kids shows (something with a girl with a wild mop of red hair. An elf? Maybe?).
Sam picks up a blue dog with long floppy ears and sad eyes.
Dean’s gonna give him hell for that - why don’t you just get him a little pink bow and some ballet slippers while you’re at it? - but Dean’s suggestions have been entirely unhelpful so far and Sam figures the kid’s been through enough already, he isn’t going to make him play with toy soldiers if he doesn’t want to.
:: :: ::
Dean is in the kitchen when Sam comes back. What he’s doing there is anyone’s guess. Not cooking, if the last month is any indication. Hiding from the kid and cleaning his guns over and over again like a madman, most likely.
“I’m back,” Sam yells through the closed door even though he’s sure Dean picked up on that as soon as Sam turned the Impala into their street. Dean answers with a grunt so Sam assumes it’s safe to come in.
It’s a nice enough kitchen, as far as kitchens go. Working fridge and microwave, matching chairs and a table that doesn’t need stacks of paper to keep it even. They haven’t had all of that in one place since, hell, that time when Sam was ten and they stayed with one of Dad’s Marine buddies who was living with his mom, probably.
“Were you nice to him?” Sam asks and Dean shrugs and doesn’t look up from the shotgun he’s polishing for probably the third time in as many days.
Sam sighs and feels his lips twitch in what’s probably more baring of teeth that an actual smile. “Great…”
Sam expected this to go better. Really, he did. Between the two of them, Dean's the one who's always, always, always great with kids, but him and DJ, they just rub each other the wrong way which doesn’t even make sense because they’re literally the same person. Or maybe that’s why it does make sense. Sam’s given himself migraines trying to figure it out. He still thinks is has something to do with Dean’s weird selective memories of the awesomeness of their childhood. The one time he brought it up Dean rolled his eyes and told him to go and get a Psych degree if he had such a hard-on for Freud. Which probably means Sam’s theory is right on the money.
DJ slips through the doorway, the halting, wary movements so unlike what Sam’s come to expect from his brother. He pads across the room and grins up at Sam with a smile that at least wouldn’t look entirely out of place on Dean’s face.
“Hi,” he says and bounces on his bare toes a little.
It’s still not quite how Sam expects a five-year-old should act, but it’s better than what they had at the beginning at least. He talks almost every day now and the nervous way he shifts his weight from foot to foot like he can’t figure out if he wants to run from something or towards it only comes out when he’s tired or upset.
“You have a nice day?”
“Yess--.” DJ looks down at his feet and blushes. “Yes, Sam. I meant Sam.” He stumbles badly over the words and Sam knows behind him, Dean is making a face.
“Was he nice to you?” he asks, jerking his head in Dean’s direction.
DJ’s eyes are too big for his head as it is, big, round, haunted things that peer out at the world in distrust, but now, for a moment, it looks like they’re about to fall right out. Then he closes them quickly and nods once with a breathless, “yeah.”
Dean winces and Sam sighs, works to put a smile on his face for the kid.
“Hey, Deej, I got you something.”
The names were a problem at first. Took them forever to come up with something that worked.
They went with ‘little Dean’ for a while before it became clear that they weren’t sending him back any time soon and ‘big Dean’ - Sam’s Dean - decided that somehow it would lead to people confusing the kid with his dick. And while that was a ridiculous notion, the name was unwieldy and half the time Sam forgot to use it anyway and it just got annoying, having two people look up whenever he just said ‘Dean’.
He said ‘Dean-o’ once. Once and suddenly he was gripping the dash as the Impala went from ninety-five to zero in record time and Dean yanked the car around to the emergency lane.
“You’re not calling him that.”
He looked about ready to hit Sam in the mouth and in the backseat, the kid pressed himself into his corner and pulled his hoodie up over his head.
“What, Dean-o?” Sam almost went and pointed out that that’s probably what the kid remembered being called by Dad but managed to turn the comment into a pissy frown. “Fine. What do you wanna call him?”
Dean spared the kid a quick glance in the rearview mirror before he shrugged and said, “Why would I wanna call him anything? Call him D-Dub, I don’t give a shit.”
So Sam settled on ‘DJ’. Dean bitched that it made him sound like a character from a bad 80’s sitcom, but Dean would have bitched about any name and the kid doesn’t seem to mind too much.
Sam holds out the white plastic bag with the bright logo and watches as DJ’s face lights up with a big smile. His fingers curl and uncurl at his sides before he reaches out and pulls the blue dog out of the bag. For a minute he just holds it up to his face, little freckled nose against the dark purple one.
Sam ignores the way Dean puts the shotgun down on the table with a bang that’s louder than usual.
“Awesome,” he mutters, and Sam just knows he’s thinking about how little room there is in a duffel bag for big stuffed animals. Because that’s something Sam finds himself doing all the time. It’s stupid and he hopes it will go away after a while, but for now, buying things that can’t be folded and packed up in five minutes flat makes his skin itch uncomfortably. Or maybe it’s just the fact that it’s a sissy girl’s toy, Sam, thing doesn’t even have any guns. Sam’s pointed out before how insanely strange it is, this obsession Dean has with pushing every last weapon-carrying action figure on the kid when otherwise he can't be bothered to even make him lunch. Whatever.
“Thanks,” DJ whispers, biting down on his lower lip, but when Sam kneels on the kitchen floor and opens his arms, the boy leans in and lets himself be hugged for a moment. “I’m not a baby,” he mumbles into Sam’s shoulder and Sam lets him go with a look over his shoulder at Dean, who’s once again polishing his shotgun, pinching his face like he’s sucking on a lemon.
:: :: ::
Dean’s been like that, ever since the curse hit him. Them. Hell, all this time and they haven’t even been able to figure out if it’s an actual curse. Witches aren’t usually powerful enough to suck little kids out of their beds and dump them twenty-nine years in the future. Sam’s bet is still on divine intervention but Dean keeps shooting down that idea, probably so he doesn’t have to call Cas again.
“It’s part of the plan, don’t you see?” was all the angel said when he finally turned up, poking DJ in the nose every other minute like he was counting his freckles. “The timelines don’t mingle, you don’t need to worry about Delayed Ripple Effect.”
There was a beat, they both looked at Cas, then at each other, and Cas smiled good naturedly. “It’s Back to the Future. Of all people, I expected you two to get the reference."
And then he was gone and Dean spent a good two days staring at his hand, swearing he could feel it disappear.
Mostly, Dean ignores the kid as best he can and damn, DJ’s good at blending into the background and pretending he’s not there at all. Sam’s seen five-year-olds. Sees them all the time on the street, hollering and pulling their parents this way and that and generally being a noisy pain in the ass and for all Sam knows, that’s what they’re supposed to act like at that age. Not sit quietly wherever you tell them to sit and maybe ask for something to eat twice a day when him and Dean forget.
:: :: ::
“Hey buddy, do you want a racecar bed?” Sam asks him when they are first picking out their furniture. DJ just sits cross-legged on the normal bed, staring over at the bright red plastic thing with the black lightning bolts on the sides. “Hey, you listening?” Sam pokes him in the ribs and DJ giggles once before he looks up at Sam with those huge green eyes. “The racecar bed. You want it?”
“Can I?”
“I dunno. Wanna go over and look at it?”
“Yes, sir!”
Sam closes his eyes and counts to ten in his head. Because fuck it, Bobby was right all along, that is just creepy as hell. And not just because it makes him feel old.
“I’ve told you you can just say yes, right?”
DJ nods with a frown, Dean rolls his eyes and turns away from both of them, mumbling, “fuck’s sake, seriously.”
“Ignore him,” Sam says but DJ’s fidgeting again, shooting nervous glances over his shoulder before he wraps both hands around the plastic steering wheel by the foot end.
“You want it?”
DJ toots the little toy horn and smiles shyly. He turns the wheel left, then right, tilts to the side like he's taking a fast corner and Sam thinks he hears him immitate the screaching roar of the impala.
"Pretty cool, huh?" he asks, feeling something unfamiliar and warm fill his chest.
DJ nods, smiles up at Sam quickly before he looks back down.
“Is that a rocket ship?” he almost-whispers, high and under his breath. His eyes drift one bed to the right, bright blue thing with yellow and red jet engines. “Can I maybe try that one too?”
Dean groans and rolls his eyes again. “Just pick one for him, Sam.”
Sam sees something around DJ’s eyes widen and then a matching twitch across Dean’s face.
“I don’t know what your problem is here, but can you please let him spend five minutes figuring it out?”
“It’s okay,” DJ pipes up. “I don’t really care which - “
“Zip it. Not your conversation,” Dean growls and God, for a minute Sam really wants to sock him there.
“Jesus, Dean.”
Sam pulls him a couple of steps away from the kids’ beds before Dean manages to angrily shake off the grip Sam has on his shoulder.
“Could you be more of a dick right now?” Sam hisses with a look over his shoulder at DJ on the bed. All traces of color lost from his face, peering out at them from under his bangs, looking so goddamn... small.
Dean makes a face, growls once and swipes a hand over his chin.
“Trust me, he’ll be just as happy on a futon.”
“Christ, you sound like Dad.”
Dean frowns. “Well, maybe Dad had some things right.”
Sam wants to shake him. He does, but that’d only turn into a full on brawl and he doesn’t want to drive all the way to the only other IKEA in all of Illinois.
They just look at each other for a minute before Dean’s jaw twitches once. He closes his eyes and presses his teeth together so hard it’s gotta hurt. “Is it so hard to choose a fuckin’ bed?”
“Is it so hard not to be a complete ass about it?”
Dean opens his mouth, shuts it again and walks over to the orthopedic mattresses they told him would be good for his back.
Sometimes it isn’t like that. Sam hasn’t been able to pinpoint it yet, but sometimes Dean smiles and treats DJ like all the other kids that usually go crazy over him. Like when he finds Dean sitting on the front porch that evening and they’re both still sweaty from putting up the new furniture and they forgot to buy any beer so they just sit there and watch DJ climb the walnut tree that covers their entire front yard in cool shade this time of day.
“We could set up a swing for him,” Dean says quietly, leaning back against the nearest post where he can soak up the last bit of sunlight. “Right there on the tree. Oughta cut his hair first, though.”
“Yeah, what’s up with that, anyway?” Sam nudges Dean’s knee with his own. “How come I never got to hear about your Nick Carter days?”
“Fuck off,” Dean says but then he grins and his answering kick against Sam’s shin barely hurts at all. “I thought Dad had chopped it off by the time I was five. Musta been the summer after that.”
:: :: ::
They still haven’t figured out a good cooking system. Which means neither of them has the first clue how to cook, period. Sam can whip up a salad for himself when he gets home from school, but he never gets the dressing right and Dean and DJ wrinkle their noses in disgust whenever he offers to make some for them. They buy the same stuff Dad used to buy when he left them alone for more than a couple of days. Canned pasta, microwave food and sugary cereal and while Dean and DJ seem happy enough, Sam isn’t going to let his brother grow up eating that kind of shit again.
Boy, Dean would kill him if he ever heard Sam think of them in those terms.
Sam misses good salads. That’s what he says when he talks them into going out to eat and it’s not entirely wrong, so there you go.
DJ wants to bring his stuffed dog, but Dean shoots one look his way and he changes his mind. Dean’s an asshole like that. Says it’s enough that people give them weird looks when it’s just the two of them with a kid, they don’t need the extra embarrassment of the kid running around with a glorified security blanket. Sam would fight him on it, but really, he’s just glad Dean isn’t insisting DJ stay home and cook his own dinner anymore (he’s almost sure Dean was joking. Really. Almost entirely).
They go to the diner just two blocks away, where they have hand-painted menus and the waiters ask for their names in a strangely sincere, non-ironic way. It makes Sam itchy that kind of place. Like he is too big for his skin and he needs to constantly be aware of the closest exit. But Dean and DJ love the burgers there so Sam is more than willing to put up with the tingling at the back of his neck.
Sam sits next to DJ, edging the kid into the corner of their booth the way Dean used to do to him. Dean gets the bench across from them where he can watch the door. The way Dad used to. Sam doesn’t think about it too much.
“Good choice,” Dean says when DJ orders a small cheeseburger and fries like he always does and DJ smiles, blushes only a little bit.
Sam catches Dean’s gaze across the table, raises one eyebrow in silent question. Dean shrugs and settles back into his corner.
It’s easy to forget sometimes that they’re the same person. That if he hadn’t been dumped into their world, DJ would be growing into Dean without anyone being the wiser. Sam has to remind himself all the time. Because DJ isn’t anything like Dean, even the Dean Sam remembers from his childhood. Even their hair is different.
But then Sam watches them eat their burgers, Dean’s with extra bacon, DJ’s dripping ketchup, and something in Sam just - Sam doesn’t know what it does to him, but it makes him feel like he’s on a rollercoaster that’s going too fast.
The waitress comes over to get them more ice tea. “Everything okay over here?” she asks and tucks her gum into the corner of her mouth to give them a bright smile. Alice? She doesn’t have a name tag and Sam just isn’t sure. Dean’s better with those things.
“Awesome. Thanks, Elaina,” Dean says, mirroring her smile until she’s blushing.
DJ’s still chewing so he gives her a thumbs up. Dean reaches over across the table and wipes the ketchup off of his hand and where it’s slowly making its way down his forearm.
DJ smiles up at him and Dean winks back.
Sam tightens the grip he has on his fork and hopes his own smile doesn’t seem too forced.
He doesn’t get them. It’s like Dean is okay with the concept of having a kid around, shit, seems like he’s loving the idea some days. It’s just DJ he doesn’t want anywhere near them and Sam has to add that to the ever growing list of things he doesn’t think about
For now they talk about batman. DJ watched a couple of episodes today while Dean was hiding in the kitchen. They both think The Penguin is a way better villain than The Joker, even though DJ wrinkles his nose and looks rather skeptical when Dean points out that they can’t forget about Catwoman.
“She’s just a girl in a stupid suit. And she’s mean.”
Dean looks like he wants to launch into his speech about the evolution of Catwoman’s costume and her whip. Sam is almost sure he’ll tone it down for this particular audience, but almost sure isn’t enough, so he interrupts before Dean can really get started.
“Hey, maybe you two can watch some episodes tomorrow, huh? Together.”
They both stare at him like he’s lost his mind, one-hundred-percent identical expressions of thinly veiled horror on their faces.
“Or maybe not.”
Thankfully, Elaine brings their check before the awkward silence can turn too uncomfortable. Dean hands over a fifty dollar note for their check that's just over thirty-six bucks and tells the girl to keep the change. Because after all these years, Dean still just doesn’t get money. Sam figures it’s the growing up with never enough money to eat and the living off of stolen credit cards, and somehow, living in one place with a semi-steady job has made it even worse. He tips either way too much or barely at all, just hands over the bills and hopes someone else will do the math. He can spend hours arguing against steak dinner because they can’t afford it and then gets carried away shopping for a rain shower head and a designer barbeque.
:: :: ::
Getting DJ to sleep is a nightmare. Six and a half weeks they’ve been doing this and still the easiest way is to let him fall asleep on the couch, carry him upstairs and hope to God there won’t be any nightmares.
And usually there are. They leave him shaking and so pale that the smattering of freckles across his nose turns into dark splotches. His eyes are bright under soft, damp lashes, but he almost never cries which, truth be told, is the scariest part of it all. Thing is, Sam’s never really thought about it at all. How watching his little, four-year-old life burn to the ground like that may screw up a kid way worse than John Winchester ever could. It’s stupid, but he finds himself watching Dean now, when he’s dozing on the lawn chair that came with their new grill. Chances are his dreams are a lot like Sam’s, demons and hellfire and a lifetime worth of shitty memories, but still.
Still.
“I’m not that tired,” DJ says when Sam has worked his way through The Cat in the Hat with DJ curled against his shoulder, mouthing along every word with him (that’s another thing. Fucks with Sam’s entire world view).
“It’s almost midnight, buddy. You gotta sleep sometime.”
“Yess-- yeah, okay.”
And then he just sits there in his bright red racecar bed, staring down at his lap. Doesn’t even lie down.
“I’m right downstairs if you need anything.”
A sad sigh. “I know…”
He shrinks back against his pillow, presses his thin body against the headboard, eyes still firmly fixed on his batman sheets.
Sam suddenly remembers something Dean told him what feels like a hundred years ago.
“Hey,” he says, working his fingers through the boy’s light curls. “Angels are watching over you,” and feels DJ tense up.
His eyes widen and he shrinks even further into his pillows, suddenly looking impossibly small.
Sam swallows hard against the lump that’s pushing for his throat and ignores the part of himself that wants to yell, because he’s such a goddamn idiot sometimes.
He has no idea what to say at all, so he tries, “sorry.”
Wrong.
DJ’s head comes up. Somehow he manages to look even more terrified.
Fuck. Sam’s not supposed to be good at this part. Sam’s never had to take care of anyone before.
He pulls his hand back slowly until it’s not tangled up in DJ’s hair anymore. Maybe he should just leave. Clearly he’s freaked the kid out enough for one night, but then again, he can’t leave him alone like this either and Sam tries not to think about how this is Dean and Dean’s not supposed to be like this.
DJ shifts until he’s lying down flat, curling around his new blue doggy and Sam just watches him breathe shakily around his constricting chest.
“She was on the ceiling,” he says so quietly, it’s not even a whisper, mostly just moving of his lips. “I can smell it, sometimes.”
Sam’s heart stutters. DJ’s blond curls fall into his eyes when he looks up and wipes an angry fist over his eyes. “Tell me a story about Mommy, Sammy?”
Christ. Sam tries to take a deep breath, but his throat is still closing up and he finds his thumb stroking over the welted scar on the inside of his palm before he balls both hands into tight fists by his sides.
“Sure,” he forces out and tries to imagine the chocolate chip cookies with M&M’s that Dean used to tell him about when they were kids and Sam couldn’t wrap his head around the whole concept of mothers.
:: :: ::
Dean is sitting on the porch when Sam finds him. He’s got a six pack and two empty bottles by his feet, a third one close to empty in his hand. He keeps looking up at the sky and then back down at the white paint that’s falling off the wooden steps in soft flakes.
“No calls?”
“Nope.”
They only call for emergencies. Five so far, Sam thinks. Broken down cars in the middle of the night and it’s not nearly enough money in the long run, but maybe it’ll be enough for another month or two, before they can get DJ enrolled in school and Dean won’t have to babysit anymore. And Sam’s been asking around on campus. He worked in a small pizza place back in Stanford for his second semester. Hated every minute of it, but in hindsight, it’s probably better than hunting Leviathan.
Sam sits down next to Dean, winces. Dean reaches back and pushes a beer into Sam’s hand, pretending neither of them heard his bad knee pop.
“You could take him with you sometime,” Sam suggests carefully. “When they offer you a steady job. Kid’s bound to love cars, right?”
Apparently Sam can't say a damn thing right today, because Dean gets that sour look about his mouth again and slams his third empty bottle down on the porch, sending new flakes floating out into the night. There is a nervous twitch in his cheek, quickly followed by an angry shift of his jaw before he reaches back without looking and opens himself another beer.
“Right. And he digs guns and shooting shit and he does that stupid little kid dance when I put in my Van Halen tapes. Fuckin’ awesome, isn’t it?”
Sam takes the last beer out and puts it down by his feet, mostly so Dean can’t have five. “What’s your fucking problem?” he mumbles against the neck of his first bottle, plenty loud enough for Dean to hear.
“I don’t know, Sammy, maybe it’s that kid following me around, begging me to teach him how to use a fuckin’ gun so that when he gets back he can help Dad find the thing that set our goddamn house on fire.”
“He said he wants to go back?”
“Blow me, Sam.”
“When?”
“When should you blow me?”
Sam takes a deep breath. “Christ, Dean, why’d you always have to be so difficult?”
Dean rolls his eyes and clicks his short nails against the neck of his bottle. “I’m an asshole. How’s that so hard to get?”
Sam closes his eyes and drinks his beer. He watches a cat jump onto one of the trash cans across the street. It stares over at them, eyes big and yellow, ears pulled back like it’s not quite made up its mind on whether or not it wants to chase them off. Beside him, Dean relaxes ever so slightly and methodically starts peeling the wet label off his beer.
“You never told me,” Sam says quietly. “About Mom.”
“I told you plenty about Mom.”
Sam rubs the heel of his free hand over his eyes and thinks about letting it go, but now that he’s come this far without getting hit in the mouth or Dean storming off, he can’t stop himself.
“No. No, I mean the night she died. I thought you just ran, man. You never told me you saw all that. He saw all that.”
Dean meets his eyes for a second before he goes back to peeling the label off his beer. He presses his lips together until it almost looks like he’s smiling.
“And then you turn around and wonder why I don’t like having him around. Dude.”
Sam breathes out, long and slow. Sets his beer down carefully so it doesn’t foam over.
He wonders when that quiet kid turned into the big brother he remembers. He thinks back and can’t remember a time when Dean wasn’t loud and brash and smarting off at everyone. He wonders if Dad could have pinpointed the day, the week, hell, the year that stuffed little blue dogs that you could hug at night turned into target practice. That the kid who knew Dr Seuss by heart and was proud of knowing the entire alphabet song, even if he sometimes stumbled over the H-I-J part decided he couldn’t be bothered to learn anything that didn’t involve weapons and monsters.
And then he wonders if maybe it wasn’t a subtle shift at all, maybe it was all Dad and his mind games, blackmailing a little kid into obedience and Sam shuts down that line of thought right there because it never leads anywhere good.
Across the street the cat jumps off the trash can. The tin lid tumbles to the ground after it with a loud crash that sends the cat running off into the dark.
“I’m gonna hit the sack.”
Sam heaves himself to his feet, again ignores the electric shock that’s not quite pain that shoots up his right leg.
“Next week, just don’t get him any Bambi shit, okay?”
Sam’s hand stills on the flimsy screen door. Dean’s voice is so low, it’s almost enough for Sam to convince himself he was imagining it.
“What? Why?”
“Or anything from that movie with the dinosaurs babies. Stuff’s only gonna upset him.”
“Oh,” is all he manages to say and suddenly he’s glad he’s only talking to Dean’s back.
“Yeah, better stay away from everything Disney.”
Sam nods, files that away for later and walks back inside.
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 5100
Disclaimer: Not my boys. Kripke broke them long before I ever got to them.
Summary: post S7 Curtain!fic with a twist? I don't know. The Winchesters have a little guest who's probably there to stay.
See that icon? Yeah, this isn't really what the icon makes you think of, I promise.
Technically written for the Curtain fic&art week on hoodie_time, but that only starts in two days and I'll be out of town for the next couple of weeks with questionable internet access, so I suppose this is just for me :)
They’ve only been here for a month, and Sam already knows his way around the Toys”R”Us. They went when they first moved in, but Dean didn’t like the looks people were giving them, so now it’s just Sam on Wednesdays, when his last class lets out at four-thirty and he can spend twenty minutes picking out toys without feeling like he’s taking too long.
He walks past the GI Joes and the BB guns and the videogames and tries to get into the aisle with the stuffed animals without crashing his shopping cart into a middle aged lady with a huge butt and three kids that are blocking his way.
“Sorry,” he mumbles, even though he’s pretty sure he didn’t actually touch any of them.
The woman nods distractedly and pulls one of her kids away from a huge, pink unicorn.
Sam bites his lips and looks around. No matter how many times he makes the trip downtown, he still can’t get used to the sheer amount of toys. Plush dogs and cats and parrots in every color and size combination but a simple teddy bear that doesn’t talk or glitter or have some slogan printed onto his belly is hard to find. The aisle crosses with Books 3-5 and continues with stuffed merchandise for the latest kids shows (something with a girl with a wild mop of red hair. An elf? Maybe?).
Sam picks up a blue dog with long floppy ears and sad eyes.
Dean’s gonna give him hell for that - why don’t you just get him a little pink bow and some ballet slippers while you’re at it? - but Dean’s suggestions have been entirely unhelpful so far and Sam figures the kid’s been through enough already, he isn’t going to make him play with toy soldiers if he doesn’t want to.
:: :: ::
Dean is in the kitchen when Sam comes back. What he’s doing there is anyone’s guess. Not cooking, if the last month is any indication. Hiding from the kid and cleaning his guns over and over again like a madman, most likely.
“I’m back,” Sam yells through the closed door even though he’s sure Dean picked up on that as soon as Sam turned the Impala into their street. Dean answers with a grunt so Sam assumes it’s safe to come in.
It’s a nice enough kitchen, as far as kitchens go. Working fridge and microwave, matching chairs and a table that doesn’t need stacks of paper to keep it even. They haven’t had all of that in one place since, hell, that time when Sam was ten and they stayed with one of Dad’s Marine buddies who was living with his mom, probably.
“Were you nice to him?” Sam asks and Dean shrugs and doesn’t look up from the shotgun he’s polishing for probably the third time in as many days.
Sam sighs and feels his lips twitch in what’s probably more baring of teeth that an actual smile. “Great…”
Sam expected this to go better. Really, he did. Between the two of them, Dean's the one who's always, always, always great with kids, but him and DJ, they just rub each other the wrong way which doesn’t even make sense because they’re literally the same person. Or maybe that’s why it does make sense. Sam’s given himself migraines trying to figure it out. He still thinks is has something to do with Dean’s weird selective memories of the awesomeness of their childhood. The one time he brought it up Dean rolled his eyes and told him to go and get a Psych degree if he had such a hard-on for Freud. Which probably means Sam’s theory is right on the money.
DJ slips through the doorway, the halting, wary movements so unlike what Sam’s come to expect from his brother. He pads across the room and grins up at Sam with a smile that at least wouldn’t look entirely out of place on Dean’s face.
“Hi,” he says and bounces on his bare toes a little.
It’s still not quite how Sam expects a five-year-old should act, but it’s better than what they had at the beginning at least. He talks almost every day now and the nervous way he shifts his weight from foot to foot like he can’t figure out if he wants to run from something or towards it only comes out when he’s tired or upset.
“You have a nice day?”
“Yess--.” DJ looks down at his feet and blushes. “Yes, Sam. I meant Sam.” He stumbles badly over the words and Sam knows behind him, Dean is making a face.
“Was he nice to you?” he asks, jerking his head in Dean’s direction.
DJ’s eyes are too big for his head as it is, big, round, haunted things that peer out at the world in distrust, but now, for a moment, it looks like they’re about to fall right out. Then he closes them quickly and nods once with a breathless, “yeah.”
Dean winces and Sam sighs, works to put a smile on his face for the kid.
“Hey, Deej, I got you something.”
The names were a problem at first. Took them forever to come up with something that worked.
They went with ‘little Dean’ for a while before it became clear that they weren’t sending him back any time soon and ‘big Dean’ - Sam’s Dean - decided that somehow it would lead to people confusing the kid with his dick. And while that was a ridiculous notion, the name was unwieldy and half the time Sam forgot to use it anyway and it just got annoying, having two people look up whenever he just said ‘Dean’.
He said ‘Dean-o’ once. Once and suddenly he was gripping the dash as the Impala went from ninety-five to zero in record time and Dean yanked the car around to the emergency lane.
“You’re not calling him that.”
He looked about ready to hit Sam in the mouth and in the backseat, the kid pressed himself into his corner and pulled his hoodie up over his head.
“What, Dean-o?” Sam almost went and pointed out that that’s probably what the kid remembered being called by Dad but managed to turn the comment into a pissy frown. “Fine. What do you wanna call him?”
Dean spared the kid a quick glance in the rearview mirror before he shrugged and said, “Why would I wanna call him anything? Call him D-Dub, I don’t give a shit.”
So Sam settled on ‘DJ’. Dean bitched that it made him sound like a character from a bad 80’s sitcom, but Dean would have bitched about any name and the kid doesn’t seem to mind too much.
Sam holds out the white plastic bag with the bright logo and watches as DJ’s face lights up with a big smile. His fingers curl and uncurl at his sides before he reaches out and pulls the blue dog out of the bag. For a minute he just holds it up to his face, little freckled nose against the dark purple one.
Sam ignores the way Dean puts the shotgun down on the table with a bang that’s louder than usual.
“Awesome,” he mutters, and Sam just knows he’s thinking about how little room there is in a duffel bag for big stuffed animals. Because that’s something Sam finds himself doing all the time. It’s stupid and he hopes it will go away after a while, but for now, buying things that can’t be folded and packed up in five minutes flat makes his skin itch uncomfortably. Or maybe it’s just the fact that it’s a sissy girl’s toy, Sam, thing doesn’t even have any guns. Sam’s pointed out before how insanely strange it is, this obsession Dean has with pushing every last weapon-carrying action figure on the kid when otherwise he can't be bothered to even make him lunch. Whatever.
“Thanks,” DJ whispers, biting down on his lower lip, but when Sam kneels on the kitchen floor and opens his arms, the boy leans in and lets himself be hugged for a moment. “I’m not a baby,” he mumbles into Sam’s shoulder and Sam lets him go with a look over his shoulder at Dean, who’s once again polishing his shotgun, pinching his face like he’s sucking on a lemon.
:: :: ::
Dean’s been like that, ever since the curse hit him. Them. Hell, all this time and they haven’t even been able to figure out if it’s an actual curse. Witches aren’t usually powerful enough to suck little kids out of their beds and dump them twenty-nine years in the future. Sam’s bet is still on divine intervention but Dean keeps shooting down that idea, probably so he doesn’t have to call Cas again.
“It’s part of the plan, don’t you see?” was all the angel said when he finally turned up, poking DJ in the nose every other minute like he was counting his freckles. “The timelines don’t mingle, you don’t need to worry about Delayed Ripple Effect.”
There was a beat, they both looked at Cas, then at each other, and Cas smiled good naturedly. “It’s Back to the Future. Of all people, I expected you two to get the reference."
And then he was gone and Dean spent a good two days staring at his hand, swearing he could feel it disappear.
Mostly, Dean ignores the kid as best he can and damn, DJ’s good at blending into the background and pretending he’s not there at all. Sam’s seen five-year-olds. Sees them all the time on the street, hollering and pulling their parents this way and that and generally being a noisy pain in the ass and for all Sam knows, that’s what they’re supposed to act like at that age. Not sit quietly wherever you tell them to sit and maybe ask for something to eat twice a day when him and Dean forget.
:: :: ::
“Hey buddy, do you want a racecar bed?” Sam asks him when they are first picking out their furniture. DJ just sits cross-legged on the normal bed, staring over at the bright red plastic thing with the black lightning bolts on the sides. “Hey, you listening?” Sam pokes him in the ribs and DJ giggles once before he looks up at Sam with those huge green eyes. “The racecar bed. You want it?”
“Can I?”
“I dunno. Wanna go over and look at it?”
“Yes, sir!”
Sam closes his eyes and counts to ten in his head. Because fuck it, Bobby was right all along, that is just creepy as hell. And not just because it makes him feel old.
“I’ve told you you can just say yes, right?”
DJ nods with a frown, Dean rolls his eyes and turns away from both of them, mumbling, “fuck’s sake, seriously.”
“Ignore him,” Sam says but DJ’s fidgeting again, shooting nervous glances over his shoulder before he wraps both hands around the plastic steering wheel by the foot end.
“You want it?”
DJ toots the little toy horn and smiles shyly. He turns the wheel left, then right, tilts to the side like he's taking a fast corner and Sam thinks he hears him immitate the screaching roar of the impala.
"Pretty cool, huh?" he asks, feeling something unfamiliar and warm fill his chest.
DJ nods, smiles up at Sam quickly before he looks back down.
“Is that a rocket ship?” he almost-whispers, high and under his breath. His eyes drift one bed to the right, bright blue thing with yellow and red jet engines. “Can I maybe try that one too?”
Dean groans and rolls his eyes again. “Just pick one for him, Sam.”
Sam sees something around DJ’s eyes widen and then a matching twitch across Dean’s face.
“I don’t know what your problem is here, but can you please let him spend five minutes figuring it out?”
“It’s okay,” DJ pipes up. “I don’t really care which - “
“Zip it. Not your conversation,” Dean growls and God, for a minute Sam really wants to sock him there.
“Jesus, Dean.”
Sam pulls him a couple of steps away from the kids’ beds before Dean manages to angrily shake off the grip Sam has on his shoulder.
“Could you be more of a dick right now?” Sam hisses with a look over his shoulder at DJ on the bed. All traces of color lost from his face, peering out at them from under his bangs, looking so goddamn... small.
Dean makes a face, growls once and swipes a hand over his chin.
“Trust me, he’ll be just as happy on a futon.”
“Christ, you sound like Dad.”
Dean frowns. “Well, maybe Dad had some things right.”
Sam wants to shake him. He does, but that’d only turn into a full on brawl and he doesn’t want to drive all the way to the only other IKEA in all of Illinois.
They just look at each other for a minute before Dean’s jaw twitches once. He closes his eyes and presses his teeth together so hard it’s gotta hurt. “Is it so hard to choose a fuckin’ bed?”
“Is it so hard not to be a complete ass about it?”
Dean opens his mouth, shuts it again and walks over to the orthopedic mattresses they told him would be good for his back.
Sometimes it isn’t like that. Sam hasn’t been able to pinpoint it yet, but sometimes Dean smiles and treats DJ like all the other kids that usually go crazy over him. Like when he finds Dean sitting on the front porch that evening and they’re both still sweaty from putting up the new furniture and they forgot to buy any beer so they just sit there and watch DJ climb the walnut tree that covers their entire front yard in cool shade this time of day.
“We could set up a swing for him,” Dean says quietly, leaning back against the nearest post where he can soak up the last bit of sunlight. “Right there on the tree. Oughta cut his hair first, though.”
“Yeah, what’s up with that, anyway?” Sam nudges Dean’s knee with his own. “How come I never got to hear about your Nick Carter days?”
“Fuck off,” Dean says but then he grins and his answering kick against Sam’s shin barely hurts at all. “I thought Dad had chopped it off by the time I was five. Musta been the summer after that.”
:: :: ::
They still haven’t figured out a good cooking system. Which means neither of them has the first clue how to cook, period. Sam can whip up a salad for himself when he gets home from school, but he never gets the dressing right and Dean and DJ wrinkle their noses in disgust whenever he offers to make some for them. They buy the same stuff Dad used to buy when he left them alone for more than a couple of days. Canned pasta, microwave food and sugary cereal and while Dean and DJ seem happy enough, Sam isn’t going to let his brother grow up eating that kind of shit again.
Boy, Dean would kill him if he ever heard Sam think of them in those terms.
Sam misses good salads. That’s what he says when he talks them into going out to eat and it’s not entirely wrong, so there you go.
DJ wants to bring his stuffed dog, but Dean shoots one look his way and he changes his mind. Dean’s an asshole like that. Says it’s enough that people give them weird looks when it’s just the two of them with a kid, they don’t need the extra embarrassment of the kid running around with a glorified security blanket. Sam would fight him on it, but really, he’s just glad Dean isn’t insisting DJ stay home and cook his own dinner anymore (he’s almost sure Dean was joking. Really. Almost entirely).
They go to the diner just two blocks away, where they have hand-painted menus and the waiters ask for their names in a strangely sincere, non-ironic way. It makes Sam itchy that kind of place. Like he is too big for his skin and he needs to constantly be aware of the closest exit. But Dean and DJ love the burgers there so Sam is more than willing to put up with the tingling at the back of his neck.
Sam sits next to DJ, edging the kid into the corner of their booth the way Dean used to do to him. Dean gets the bench across from them where he can watch the door. The way Dad used to. Sam doesn’t think about it too much.
“Good choice,” Dean says when DJ orders a small cheeseburger and fries like he always does and DJ smiles, blushes only a little bit.
Sam catches Dean’s gaze across the table, raises one eyebrow in silent question. Dean shrugs and settles back into his corner.
It’s easy to forget sometimes that they’re the same person. That if he hadn’t been dumped into their world, DJ would be growing into Dean without anyone being the wiser. Sam has to remind himself all the time. Because DJ isn’t anything like Dean, even the Dean Sam remembers from his childhood. Even their hair is different.
But then Sam watches them eat their burgers, Dean’s with extra bacon, DJ’s dripping ketchup, and something in Sam just - Sam doesn’t know what it does to him, but it makes him feel like he’s on a rollercoaster that’s going too fast.
The waitress comes over to get them more ice tea. “Everything okay over here?” she asks and tucks her gum into the corner of her mouth to give them a bright smile. Alice? She doesn’t have a name tag and Sam just isn’t sure. Dean’s better with those things.
“Awesome. Thanks, Elaina,” Dean says, mirroring her smile until she’s blushing.
DJ’s still chewing so he gives her a thumbs up. Dean reaches over across the table and wipes the ketchup off of his hand and where it’s slowly making its way down his forearm.
DJ smiles up at him and Dean winks back.
Sam tightens the grip he has on his fork and hopes his own smile doesn’t seem too forced.
He doesn’t get them. It’s like Dean is okay with the concept of having a kid around, shit, seems like he’s loving the idea some days. It’s just DJ he doesn’t want anywhere near them and Sam has to add that to the ever growing list of things he doesn’t think about
For now they talk about batman. DJ watched a couple of episodes today while Dean was hiding in the kitchen. They both think The Penguin is a way better villain than The Joker, even though DJ wrinkles his nose and looks rather skeptical when Dean points out that they can’t forget about Catwoman.
“She’s just a girl in a stupid suit. And she’s mean.”
Dean looks like he wants to launch into his speech about the evolution of Catwoman’s costume and her whip. Sam is almost sure he’ll tone it down for this particular audience, but almost sure isn’t enough, so he interrupts before Dean can really get started.
“Hey, maybe you two can watch some episodes tomorrow, huh? Together.”
They both stare at him like he’s lost his mind, one-hundred-percent identical expressions of thinly veiled horror on their faces.
“Or maybe not.”
Thankfully, Elaine brings their check before the awkward silence can turn too uncomfortable. Dean hands over a fifty dollar note for their check that's just over thirty-six bucks and tells the girl to keep the change. Because after all these years, Dean still just doesn’t get money. Sam figures it’s the growing up with never enough money to eat and the living off of stolen credit cards, and somehow, living in one place with a semi-steady job has made it even worse. He tips either way too much or barely at all, just hands over the bills and hopes someone else will do the math. He can spend hours arguing against steak dinner because they can’t afford it and then gets carried away shopping for a rain shower head and a designer barbeque.
:: :: ::
Getting DJ to sleep is a nightmare. Six and a half weeks they’ve been doing this and still the easiest way is to let him fall asleep on the couch, carry him upstairs and hope to God there won’t be any nightmares.
And usually there are. They leave him shaking and so pale that the smattering of freckles across his nose turns into dark splotches. His eyes are bright under soft, damp lashes, but he almost never cries which, truth be told, is the scariest part of it all. Thing is, Sam’s never really thought about it at all. How watching his little, four-year-old life burn to the ground like that may screw up a kid way worse than John Winchester ever could. It’s stupid, but he finds himself watching Dean now, when he’s dozing on the lawn chair that came with their new grill. Chances are his dreams are a lot like Sam’s, demons and hellfire and a lifetime worth of shitty memories, but still.
Still.
“I’m not that tired,” DJ says when Sam has worked his way through The Cat in the Hat with DJ curled against his shoulder, mouthing along every word with him (that’s another thing. Fucks with Sam’s entire world view).
“It’s almost midnight, buddy. You gotta sleep sometime.”
“Yess-- yeah, okay.”
And then he just sits there in his bright red racecar bed, staring down at his lap. Doesn’t even lie down.
“I’m right downstairs if you need anything.”
A sad sigh. “I know…”
He shrinks back against his pillow, presses his thin body against the headboard, eyes still firmly fixed on his batman sheets.
Sam suddenly remembers something Dean told him what feels like a hundred years ago.
“Hey,” he says, working his fingers through the boy’s light curls. “Angels are watching over you,” and feels DJ tense up.
His eyes widen and he shrinks even further into his pillows, suddenly looking impossibly small.
Sam swallows hard against the lump that’s pushing for his throat and ignores the part of himself that wants to yell, because he’s such a goddamn idiot sometimes.
He has no idea what to say at all, so he tries, “sorry.”
Wrong.
DJ’s head comes up. Somehow he manages to look even more terrified.
Fuck. Sam’s not supposed to be good at this part. Sam’s never had to take care of anyone before.
He pulls his hand back slowly until it’s not tangled up in DJ’s hair anymore. Maybe he should just leave. Clearly he’s freaked the kid out enough for one night, but then again, he can’t leave him alone like this either and Sam tries not to think about how this is Dean and Dean’s not supposed to be like this.
DJ shifts until he’s lying down flat, curling around his new blue doggy and Sam just watches him breathe shakily around his constricting chest.
“She was on the ceiling,” he says so quietly, it’s not even a whisper, mostly just moving of his lips. “I can smell it, sometimes.”
Sam’s heart stutters. DJ’s blond curls fall into his eyes when he looks up and wipes an angry fist over his eyes. “Tell me a story about Mommy, Sammy?”
Christ. Sam tries to take a deep breath, but his throat is still closing up and he finds his thumb stroking over the welted scar on the inside of his palm before he balls both hands into tight fists by his sides.
“Sure,” he forces out and tries to imagine the chocolate chip cookies with M&M’s that Dean used to tell him about when they were kids and Sam couldn’t wrap his head around the whole concept of mothers.
:: :: ::
Dean is sitting on the porch when Sam finds him. He’s got a six pack and two empty bottles by his feet, a third one close to empty in his hand. He keeps looking up at the sky and then back down at the white paint that’s falling off the wooden steps in soft flakes.
“No calls?”
“Nope.”
They only call for emergencies. Five so far, Sam thinks. Broken down cars in the middle of the night and it’s not nearly enough money in the long run, but maybe it’ll be enough for another month or two, before they can get DJ enrolled in school and Dean won’t have to babysit anymore. And Sam’s been asking around on campus. He worked in a small pizza place back in Stanford for his second semester. Hated every minute of it, but in hindsight, it’s probably better than hunting Leviathan.
Sam sits down next to Dean, winces. Dean reaches back and pushes a beer into Sam’s hand, pretending neither of them heard his bad knee pop.
“You could take him with you sometime,” Sam suggests carefully. “When they offer you a steady job. Kid’s bound to love cars, right?”
Apparently Sam can't say a damn thing right today, because Dean gets that sour look about his mouth again and slams his third empty bottle down on the porch, sending new flakes floating out into the night. There is a nervous twitch in his cheek, quickly followed by an angry shift of his jaw before he reaches back without looking and opens himself another beer.
“Right. And he digs guns and shooting shit and he does that stupid little kid dance when I put in my Van Halen tapes. Fuckin’ awesome, isn’t it?”
Sam takes the last beer out and puts it down by his feet, mostly so Dean can’t have five. “What’s your fucking problem?” he mumbles against the neck of his first bottle, plenty loud enough for Dean to hear.
“I don’t know, Sammy, maybe it’s that kid following me around, begging me to teach him how to use a fuckin’ gun so that when he gets back he can help Dad find the thing that set our goddamn house on fire.”
“He said he wants to go back?”
“Blow me, Sam.”
“When?”
“When should you blow me?”
Sam takes a deep breath. “Christ, Dean, why’d you always have to be so difficult?”
Dean rolls his eyes and clicks his short nails against the neck of his bottle. “I’m an asshole. How’s that so hard to get?”
Sam closes his eyes and drinks his beer. He watches a cat jump onto one of the trash cans across the street. It stares over at them, eyes big and yellow, ears pulled back like it’s not quite made up its mind on whether or not it wants to chase them off. Beside him, Dean relaxes ever so slightly and methodically starts peeling the wet label off his beer.
“You never told me,” Sam says quietly. “About Mom.”
“I told you plenty about Mom.”
Sam rubs the heel of his free hand over his eyes and thinks about letting it go, but now that he’s come this far without getting hit in the mouth or Dean storming off, he can’t stop himself.
“No. No, I mean the night she died. I thought you just ran, man. You never told me you saw all that. He saw all that.”
Dean meets his eyes for a second before he goes back to peeling the label off his beer. He presses his lips together until it almost looks like he’s smiling.
“And then you turn around and wonder why I don’t like having him around. Dude.”
Sam breathes out, long and slow. Sets his beer down carefully so it doesn’t foam over.
He wonders when that quiet kid turned into the big brother he remembers. He thinks back and can’t remember a time when Dean wasn’t loud and brash and smarting off at everyone. He wonders if Dad could have pinpointed the day, the week, hell, the year that stuffed little blue dogs that you could hug at night turned into target practice. That the kid who knew Dr Seuss by heart and was proud of knowing the entire alphabet song, even if he sometimes stumbled over the H-I-J part decided he couldn’t be bothered to learn anything that didn’t involve weapons and monsters.
And then he wonders if maybe it wasn’t a subtle shift at all, maybe it was all Dad and his mind games, blackmailing a little kid into obedience and Sam shuts down that line of thought right there because it never leads anywhere good.
Across the street the cat jumps off the trash can. The tin lid tumbles to the ground after it with a loud crash that sends the cat running off into the dark.
“I’m gonna hit the sack.”
Sam heaves himself to his feet, again ignores the electric shock that’s not quite pain that shoots up his right leg.
“Next week, just don’t get him any Bambi shit, okay?”
Sam’s hand stills on the flimsy screen door. Dean’s voice is so low, it’s almost enough for Sam to convince himself he was imagining it.
“What? Why?”
“Or anything from that movie with the dinosaurs babies. Stuff’s only gonna upset him.”
“Oh,” is all he manages to say and suddenly he’s glad he’s only talking to Dean’s back.
“Yeah, better stay away from everything Disney.”
Sam nods, files that away for later and walks back inside.