SPN/DA Crossover Fic: The Wellspring (10/?)
Title: The Wellspring
Fandom(s): Supernatural, Dark Angel
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Rating: Ah, fuck. I just said fuck. I say fuck a lot. Is that considered an R or a PG-13 these days? One of those.
Summary: Sam and Dean find a tiny smartass in a barn in Montana. What are they to do?
Warnings: Crude language, cuddles, ice cream
Author's Notes: Just for kicks (if you haven't seen it) A Winchester Family Portrait.
Previous chapters and more info can be found here.
____________________________________________
Chapter Ten: Chocolate Milk
____________________________________________
They're halfway to Indiana and down to their last twenty bucks when Dean starts lighting into Sam. Alec listens to the argument with a vague kind of amusement as he nibbles on a Funyun, because this is the most exciting thing to have happened since they passed that painted caravan two hundred miles ago. Being in the car is boring as all hell, and the sad fact is that Ben isn’t entertaining at all. He just sits quietly with that book in his lap, staring at the cover with wistful green eyes.
“You wasted money on books,” Dean’s saying, and Alec giggles quietly to himself because he’s never heard the word ‘books’ said in quite this way before. Like books are the most frivolous thing ever, even more so than those abundantly awesome light-up sneakers Alec so wanted back in North Dakota. “We could’ve gotten the kids more clothes, but you go and spend money on books. And how in the goddamn hell are we supposed to get a place for the night?”
“It wasn’t a waste, Dean.” And, yeah, Alec’s been hearing this one for days. This is Sam’s diatribe about how they’re raising twins now, and how they have no freaking clue what they’re doing, so they’re probably going to require some help from experts. This is exactly what Alec hears now.
And Dean chokes on something that sounds like it’s neither a laugh nor a guffaw, but a fine mixture of both, before saying, “They’re not experts, Sammy. They’re just people who are sharing their experience and making a quick buck in the process. Hell, when Alec and Benny are all grown, I’m going to write a freaking parenting book. It’s going to be called Raising My Transgenic Clones: Memories and Parenting Advice from Dean Winchester.” Sam huffs. Dean aims a sideways look at his brother as he steers the car, smirks and adds, “I bet you’ll buy that one, too, huh, geek?”
Three hours later, it’s mid-afternoon, and Sam’s complaining that no one’s gonna buy a parenting book that involves taking two nine-year-olds into a bar. If Alec thought about it logically, he would probably think that Sam’s right, but as it is, instinct is telling him that this seedy, rundown joint with the rotting wood and the blinking neon sign? Hell, this is ten shades of unthinkable awesome.
“Alec, get back here!”
Alec didn’t even know he was running, but Dean snatches him off the ground before he can reach the steps. It’s a sad sight, that beautiful vista shrinking in the distance as Dean carries him back to the car, where Sam is trying to coerce the book out of Ben’s hands.
“I don’t wanna leave it…”
“Ben, sometimes people in these places aren’t very nice. I just don’t want someone to take it from you…”
Ben snorts. “Like someone could take anything from me.”
Alec’s placed on the trunk of the car, and when Dean backs up, he’s pleased to see the startled looks on both Winchester faces. They don’t expect something like that to come out of Ben, but if Alec can say one thing about his twin, it’s that the kid’s honest. He may be a whiny, clingy little bastard sometimes, but he’s also an X5. And X5s? They’re tough shit.
Sam tries again. “I know...Ben, I know, but you can’t let anyone see that you’re special, remember? It’s better not to instigate problems and-”
“Sammy, just let the kid bring the book with him. Ben’ll act boring and average just like you want him to."
“I’ve never said those words, Dean-”
“Benny, just don’t let anyone know that you can kick their ass without breakin’ a sweat, okay? That’s all that Sammy wants. If someone messes with you, let us take care of it.”
“Yes, sir.”
Alec grins at the superior look Dean levels at Sam. “You don’t need to give ‘em all that touchy-feely zen crap, Sam. You just gotta let ‘em know what’s up.” Sam scowls. Alec giggles. Dean shoots him a look, adds, “You don’t go around kicking any asses, either. Or running towards unfamiliar places.”
“But it’s beautiful.”
Sam blinks in amazement. A wide grin spreads across Dean’s face. Alec feels an inexplicable sort of pride.
“Yeah, kitten, I know. Dude, get their hoodies out of the back of the car, will ya?”
Alec groans. Every time. Every freaking time they leave the car, it’s “Get the hoodies, will ya?” no matter how warm it is outside.
“It’s too warm.”
“It’s sixty degrees. Stop fussin’.”
“But I don’t want-”
“I don’t want anyone seein’ your barcode. Now stop bitching and put it on.”
Alec pulls the hoodie over his head, jumps down from the car. Dean’s irritated, that much is obvious, but Alec knows he doesn’t mean anything by it. The other day at Bobby’s, Dean stayed with Alec for three whole hours. Just them. No Ben and no Sam. No Bobby, even. And they had a tickle fight.
Which Dean is totally trying to reenact now by digging his fingers into Alec’s sides. Alec tries his best not to squeal, but fails, and jerks away.
“Stop it, Dean. I don’t wanna be an emotionally unhealthy twin.”
Sam’s eyes narrow. Ben looks caught between being angry on Sam’s behalf and wanting to join in on the joke, but Dean’s emotions, for once, are clear. He laughs. Really hard.
“You hear that, Sammy? Alec doesn’t want to be an emotionally unhealthy twin.”
“Shut up, Dean.”
They go into the bar, and its smokey and crowded and too hot for hoodies. Alec starts pulling at his, but Dean slaps his hand away and gives him a look before putting one hand behind Alec’s neck and the other behind Ben’s and steering them over to the counter. Alec beats his hand down on the surface and demands a beer.
The bartender looks bemused at best. Sam shakes his head and orders up two glasses of chocolate milk, and Dean shoves over three of his last twenty bucks with an expression of absolute mourning.
He perks up pretty fast, though, when he takes in the grungy clientele at the pool table.
“Who wants to watch Daddy play some pool?”
Both Alec and Ben chime in with loud and excited expressions of positivity, because this is what Dean expects in public whenever he uses the third person whilst posing a question. They sip their chocolate milk on two stools in close proximity to the pool table, Sam looming protectively over them.
It’s really boring at first. Dean sucks, but Alec is pretty sure he’s faking this overly-tattooed meathead out, because Dean doesn’t usually look outwardly nervous like this, not even when really nerve-wracking things are happening. So Alec looks to Ben, who’s looking at the cover of his book again.
“How come you’re not reading it?”
Ben jerks his head up in surprise, then shrugs. “Her stories are both boring and false.”
“How d’you know they’re false?”
Ben shrugs again. Alec finds it kind of infuriating, actually. What’s even worse is when Ben answers his question with, “I just do” and returns to staring at the goddamn book cover again.
Alec sighs. This? Is. Boring. Dean’s looking like a nervous woman and Sam’s bouncing around on the balls of his feet, probably waiting to be tagged into the game. So Alec takes in the scenery, all these roughneck men and women wearing sleazy leather and torn fabrics, all the designs injected into their skin, most of which are absolutely meaningless. The most interesting thing about these people is that their pockets are bulging.
Alec is drawn to bulging pockets like a magnet to iron. He slips from his stool and starts wandering around, greeting people, because he somehow innately knows that this is something that works when you’re as tiny and cute as Alec is. Not to mention there’s been more than a little trial and error with Sam and Dean - hell, you put just the right amount of sadness in your eyes and those guys are more malleable than freaking clay.
So he wanders around for a good half hour, meeting and greeting and asking questions and batting his eyes and pouting and generally playing the part of the precocious child to a tee. These people are frightening-looking, but Alec’s not frightened. Alec doesn’t have to be frightened because Alec has award-winning charisma.
“Aren’t you just adorable?”
Alec nods, lets the woman run her nicotine-stained fingers through his hair. “I really am,” he tells her, and he snuggles his face into her foul-smelling shirt just long enough to reach into her purse and pull out a wallet. He tucks it quickly away, smiles at her again, before dashing off to his next customer. He can’t help but think that hoodies are good for at least one thing: stealing shit.
Sam looks worried and irritated when he finally gets a hold of Alec, drags him back to the pool table by the hand.
“What did we tell you about wandering off?”
“Uh...I’m sorry?”
Alec doesn’t really remember anything about a conversation that involved ‘wandering off,’ but okay. Besides, the fact that Dean’s eating some other guy’s fist right now seems slightly more important.
“Dea-Daddy!” Ben’s alarmed. Alec’s alarmed. Sam is alarmed.
They’re all very alarmed and Alec’s pretty sure that if it were in his power, Sam would have nipped this thing in the bud before it could escalate to the next level.
But it’s not in Sam’s power, and Ben and Alec leap at the huge motherfucker before Dean can get so much as a word in. And before anyone can so much as blink, Dean’s opponent is on the ground with a quickly-swelling eye and a nose that’s spurting blood.
“Oh, shit,” Dean says.
“Oh, shit,” Sam says.
Alec quickly picks the guy’s pocket before he’s hauled off the ground, into Sam’s arms. It’s about a second, and they’re out the door and rushing for the car. Alec waves a sad goodbye to the bar over Sam’s shoulder. It was awesome while it lasted.
______________________________________
Two days pass before Sam finds a plethora of wallets and loose bills inside a medium-sized hoodie. Dean’s out scoping a haunted apartment, has left Sam to look after the kids like he’s little more than a barefoot and pregnant housewife.
“Alec!” Alec’s in the bathroom. Sam’s wishing the kid had a middle name right now. And that he wouldn’t feel too abundantly weird referring to him as Winchester.
Ben looks up from his book, pen poised over a page, startled as all hell.
“What’s wrong?”
“Your brother is what’s wrong,” Sam replies tersely. He sets the wallets out on the edge of a bed, stacks the bills neatly at the end of the line. “He’s a little thief.”
Ben shrugs. “I told him stealing was bad.”
“Alec!” Sam marches over to the bathroom door, pounds on the wood a couple of times. “I know you can’t possibly still be busy in there. Get out here. Now.”
Forty minutes later, Sam’s feeling okay with his temporary solution to this catastrophe. The stolen money’s on the table, Alec’s sitting quietly on the bed, and Ben’s still absorbed in his book.
And then Dean returns, looking tired and harassed with a couple of bags of fast food in his hands. “Dude, that place is a wreck. We’re dealing with it tomorrow.” He sets the bags down on the table, shoves his hand in one and pulls out a fry which he then stuffs in his mouth. Sam observes his brother closely, waiting for the question to come. And it does come - halfway through a mouthful of Dean’s third fry. “What up with all the wallets, Sammy?”
“Your clone-”
“There’s two of ‘em.”
“Alec stole all of these!”
Dean raises an eyebrow, stuffs his mouth with yet another fry and eyes his little brother carefully before turning on one heel and looking at a particularly sulky Alec, who’s bursting with the information, “Sam’s making me sit on the naughty bed!”
Dean chokes on the fry. Gross little pieces fly out of his mouth and he’s hacking and laughing and his eyes are tearing up. Sam frowns, “It’s not funny, Dean. He stole-”
“The...The n-naughty bed? Sam? Seriously?”
“Dean.”
But Dean’s laughing so hard, he’s practically hyperventilating. Ben’s looking up from his book, brow furrowing in worry.
“Is Dean dying?”
“I’ve been on here forever!” Alec says, crawling towards the edge of the bed on his hands and knees to get closer to Dean.
“Alec-”
But Alec’s already climbed off the mattress and situated his arms around Dean’s waist. Sam’s angry and spluttering but Alec’s looking up at Dean’s delighted face with imploring eyes. “Sammy’s cruel and unusual. He labeled the bed naughty.”
Dean erupts into fresh peels of laughter and this time, Alec laughs with him. They’re going on and on like freakin’ hyenas for chrissakes and Sam’s totally about to fly into a terrible whirligig of rage when his brother finally calms himself down.
“You really steal all those wallets, kitten?”
Alec nods, grins. “Uh huh.”
Dean snorts. “Eat your dinner. You can go to bed afterwards. And no ice cream.”
“It’s only-”
“You don’t get to start stealing in this family until the ripe old age of fourteen. You’re nine. No ice cream.”
“There’s ice cream?” Ben looks hopeful. Alec looks truly devastated. Sam’s starting to feel pretty terrible about the whole ordeal.
Ben’s eating his ice cream and Alec’s in the bathroom when Dean looks at Sam quite seriously and says, “I let you watch too much Nanny 911 a few years back, didn’t I?”
“It was Supernanny, Dean. With Jo Frost.”
“We are so not related.”
Sam isn’t really sure what the hell else he was supposed to do. The book and the Internet both said things about isolation and loss of privileges, but there was no place to isolate and Alec doesn’t do isolation. Sam had made that mistake before and he’s not going to make it again. And they live in a goddamn car - it’s not like the kids have toys or friends or activities. Loss of privileges Sam’s ass.
“We steal all the time,” Dean tells him now. “And we’re not going to be hypocritical sons of bitches about this.”
“We don’t pick pockets, Dean. We’ve never picked pockets. We don’t steal from people who have as little as we do.”
It was one of Dad’s rules. One of the few rules that Sam feels he has to uphold.
Alec comes out of the bathroom, shoots Sam a sullen look. Sam’s okay with that. He’d probably be a little bitchy, too, right now, if he were Alec. He rises from the table and pulls the covers back on the bed. Alec gets in and turns his back without sparing Sam another glance.
And yeah, Sam can’t take this. He leans down as he tucks the cool sheets up over the tiny hunched shoulders, whispers in the kid’s ear, “Tomorrow, I’m gettin’ you ice cream.”
Alec turns a little, just enough so Sam can see his smile. Sam’s stomach flutters a bit. He leans down again, presses a quick kiss to the kid’s head. Alec nestles into his pillow, reaches a hand back to give Sam a quick pat on the arm.
Yeah, that was completely worth it, even though Dean’s wearing a face that screams, “You are such a fucking girl.”
They get Ben in bed nearly two hours later. Dean has to wrangle the book from his hands, but the kid settles down pretty fast.
“Do Alec and I get to go hunting with you tomorrow?”
Sam’s about to respond with a neutral-to-negative “We’ll see” when Dean cuts him off with, “You sure do, kiddo.”
“Good.”
Ben closes his eyes. Sam glares at his brother, but Dean pretends not to notice. He buries himself inside of Ben’s book, in fact, just to keep Sam silent. Well, that’s just not going to fly. Sam reaches out a large hand to rip the book away from Dean when his brother’s eyes widen and pages start flipping frantically.
“Uh, Dean?”
Dean shushes him, slides the book across the table, gestures to it with an abrupt hand.
Sam raises an eyebrow, wondering what the fuck his brother is on about, but he picks the book up and opens it.
He’s surprised at the first page. He’s amazed by the tenth. He can’t believe his eyes by page 310.
Every single word is crossed out and scrawled over with unreadable chicken scratch.
Fucking shit.
Next
Fandom(s): Supernatural, Dark Angel
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Rating: Ah, fuck. I just said fuck. I say fuck a lot. Is that considered an R or a PG-13 these days? One of those.
Summary: Sam and Dean find a tiny smartass in a barn in Montana. What are they to do?
Warnings: Crude language, cuddles, ice cream
Author's Notes: Just for kicks (if you haven't seen it) A Winchester Family Portrait.
Previous chapters and more info can be found here.
____________________________________________
Chapter Ten: Chocolate Milk
____________________________________________
They're halfway to Indiana and down to their last twenty bucks when Dean starts lighting into Sam. Alec listens to the argument with a vague kind of amusement as he nibbles on a Funyun, because this is the most exciting thing to have happened since they passed that painted caravan two hundred miles ago. Being in the car is boring as all hell, and the sad fact is that Ben isn’t entertaining at all. He just sits quietly with that book in his lap, staring at the cover with wistful green eyes.
“You wasted money on books,” Dean’s saying, and Alec giggles quietly to himself because he’s never heard the word ‘books’ said in quite this way before. Like books are the most frivolous thing ever, even more so than those abundantly awesome light-up sneakers Alec so wanted back in North Dakota. “We could’ve gotten the kids more clothes, but you go and spend money on books. And how in the goddamn hell are we supposed to get a place for the night?”
“It wasn’t a waste, Dean.” And, yeah, Alec’s been hearing this one for days. This is Sam’s diatribe about how they’re raising twins now, and how they have no freaking clue what they’re doing, so they’re probably going to require some help from experts. This is exactly what Alec hears now.
And Dean chokes on something that sounds like it’s neither a laugh nor a guffaw, but a fine mixture of both, before saying, “They’re not experts, Sammy. They’re just people who are sharing their experience and making a quick buck in the process. Hell, when Alec and Benny are all grown, I’m going to write a freaking parenting book. It’s going to be called Raising My Transgenic Clones: Memories and Parenting Advice from Dean Winchester.” Sam huffs. Dean aims a sideways look at his brother as he steers the car, smirks and adds, “I bet you’ll buy that one, too, huh, geek?”
Three hours later, it’s mid-afternoon, and Sam’s complaining that no one’s gonna buy a parenting book that involves taking two nine-year-olds into a bar. If Alec thought about it logically, he would probably think that Sam’s right, but as it is, instinct is telling him that this seedy, rundown joint with the rotting wood and the blinking neon sign? Hell, this is ten shades of unthinkable awesome.
“Alec, get back here!”
Alec didn’t even know he was running, but Dean snatches him off the ground before he can reach the steps. It’s a sad sight, that beautiful vista shrinking in the distance as Dean carries him back to the car, where Sam is trying to coerce the book out of Ben’s hands.
“I don’t wanna leave it…”
“Ben, sometimes people in these places aren’t very nice. I just don’t want someone to take it from you…”
Ben snorts. “Like someone could take anything from me.”
Alec’s placed on the trunk of the car, and when Dean backs up, he’s pleased to see the startled looks on both Winchester faces. They don’t expect something like that to come out of Ben, but if Alec can say one thing about his twin, it’s that the kid’s honest. He may be a whiny, clingy little bastard sometimes, but he’s also an X5. And X5s? They’re tough shit.
Sam tries again. “I know...Ben, I know, but you can’t let anyone see that you’re special, remember? It’s better not to instigate problems and-”
“Sammy, just let the kid bring the book with him. Ben’ll act boring and average just like you want him to."
“I’ve never said those words, Dean-”
“Benny, just don’t let anyone know that you can kick their ass without breakin’ a sweat, okay? That’s all that Sammy wants. If someone messes with you, let us take care of it.”
“Yes, sir.”
Alec grins at the superior look Dean levels at Sam. “You don’t need to give ‘em all that touchy-feely zen crap, Sam. You just gotta let ‘em know what’s up.” Sam scowls. Alec giggles. Dean shoots him a look, adds, “You don’t go around kicking any asses, either. Or running towards unfamiliar places.”
“But it’s beautiful.”
Sam blinks in amazement. A wide grin spreads across Dean’s face. Alec feels an inexplicable sort of pride.
“Yeah, kitten, I know. Dude, get their hoodies out of the back of the car, will ya?”
Alec groans. Every time. Every freaking time they leave the car, it’s “Get the hoodies, will ya?” no matter how warm it is outside.
“It’s too warm.”
“It’s sixty degrees. Stop fussin’.”
“But I don’t want-”
“I don’t want anyone seein’ your barcode. Now stop bitching and put it on.”
Alec pulls the hoodie over his head, jumps down from the car. Dean’s irritated, that much is obvious, but Alec knows he doesn’t mean anything by it. The other day at Bobby’s, Dean stayed with Alec for three whole hours. Just them. No Ben and no Sam. No Bobby, even. And they had a tickle fight.
Which Dean is totally trying to reenact now by digging his fingers into Alec’s sides. Alec tries his best not to squeal, but fails, and jerks away.
“Stop it, Dean. I don’t wanna be an emotionally unhealthy twin.”
Sam’s eyes narrow. Ben looks caught between being angry on Sam’s behalf and wanting to join in on the joke, but Dean’s emotions, for once, are clear. He laughs. Really hard.
“You hear that, Sammy? Alec doesn’t want to be an emotionally unhealthy twin.”
“Shut up, Dean.”
They go into the bar, and its smokey and crowded and too hot for hoodies. Alec starts pulling at his, but Dean slaps his hand away and gives him a look before putting one hand behind Alec’s neck and the other behind Ben’s and steering them over to the counter. Alec beats his hand down on the surface and demands a beer.
The bartender looks bemused at best. Sam shakes his head and orders up two glasses of chocolate milk, and Dean shoves over three of his last twenty bucks with an expression of absolute mourning.
He perks up pretty fast, though, when he takes in the grungy clientele at the pool table.
“Who wants to watch Daddy play some pool?”
Both Alec and Ben chime in with loud and excited expressions of positivity, because this is what Dean expects in public whenever he uses the third person whilst posing a question. They sip their chocolate milk on two stools in close proximity to the pool table, Sam looming protectively over them.
It’s really boring at first. Dean sucks, but Alec is pretty sure he’s faking this overly-tattooed meathead out, because Dean doesn’t usually look outwardly nervous like this, not even when really nerve-wracking things are happening. So Alec looks to Ben, who’s looking at the cover of his book again.
“How come you’re not reading it?”
Ben jerks his head up in surprise, then shrugs. “Her stories are both boring and false.”
“How d’you know they’re false?”
Ben shrugs again. Alec finds it kind of infuriating, actually. What’s even worse is when Ben answers his question with, “I just do” and returns to staring at the goddamn book cover again.
Alec sighs. This? Is. Boring. Dean’s looking like a nervous woman and Sam’s bouncing around on the balls of his feet, probably waiting to be tagged into the game. So Alec takes in the scenery, all these roughneck men and women wearing sleazy leather and torn fabrics, all the designs injected into their skin, most of which are absolutely meaningless. The most interesting thing about these people is that their pockets are bulging.
Alec is drawn to bulging pockets like a magnet to iron. He slips from his stool and starts wandering around, greeting people, because he somehow innately knows that this is something that works when you’re as tiny and cute as Alec is. Not to mention there’s been more than a little trial and error with Sam and Dean - hell, you put just the right amount of sadness in your eyes and those guys are more malleable than freaking clay.
So he wanders around for a good half hour, meeting and greeting and asking questions and batting his eyes and pouting and generally playing the part of the precocious child to a tee. These people are frightening-looking, but Alec’s not frightened. Alec doesn’t have to be frightened because Alec has award-winning charisma.
“Aren’t you just adorable?”
Alec nods, lets the woman run her nicotine-stained fingers through his hair. “I really am,” he tells her, and he snuggles his face into her foul-smelling shirt just long enough to reach into her purse and pull out a wallet. He tucks it quickly away, smiles at her again, before dashing off to his next customer. He can’t help but think that hoodies are good for at least one thing: stealing shit.
Sam looks worried and irritated when he finally gets a hold of Alec, drags him back to the pool table by the hand.
“What did we tell you about wandering off?”
“Uh...I’m sorry?”
Alec doesn’t really remember anything about a conversation that involved ‘wandering off,’ but okay. Besides, the fact that Dean’s eating some other guy’s fist right now seems slightly more important.
“Dea-Daddy!” Ben’s alarmed. Alec’s alarmed. Sam is alarmed.
They’re all very alarmed and Alec’s pretty sure that if it were in his power, Sam would have nipped this thing in the bud before it could escalate to the next level.
But it’s not in Sam’s power, and Ben and Alec leap at the huge motherfucker before Dean can get so much as a word in. And before anyone can so much as blink, Dean’s opponent is on the ground with a quickly-swelling eye and a nose that’s spurting blood.
“Oh, shit,” Dean says.
“Oh, shit,” Sam says.
Alec quickly picks the guy’s pocket before he’s hauled off the ground, into Sam’s arms. It’s about a second, and they’re out the door and rushing for the car. Alec waves a sad goodbye to the bar over Sam’s shoulder. It was awesome while it lasted.
______________________________________
Two days pass before Sam finds a plethora of wallets and loose bills inside a medium-sized hoodie. Dean’s out scoping a haunted apartment, has left Sam to look after the kids like he’s little more than a barefoot and pregnant housewife.
“Alec!” Alec’s in the bathroom. Sam’s wishing the kid had a middle name right now. And that he wouldn’t feel too abundantly weird referring to him as Winchester.
Ben looks up from his book, pen poised over a page, startled as all hell.
“What’s wrong?”
“Your brother is what’s wrong,” Sam replies tersely. He sets the wallets out on the edge of a bed, stacks the bills neatly at the end of the line. “He’s a little thief.”
Ben shrugs. “I told him stealing was bad.”
“Alec!” Sam marches over to the bathroom door, pounds on the wood a couple of times. “I know you can’t possibly still be busy in there. Get out here. Now.”
Forty minutes later, Sam’s feeling okay with his temporary solution to this catastrophe. The stolen money’s on the table, Alec’s sitting quietly on the bed, and Ben’s still absorbed in his book.
And then Dean returns, looking tired and harassed with a couple of bags of fast food in his hands. “Dude, that place is a wreck. We’re dealing with it tomorrow.” He sets the bags down on the table, shoves his hand in one and pulls out a fry which he then stuffs in his mouth. Sam observes his brother closely, waiting for the question to come. And it does come - halfway through a mouthful of Dean’s third fry. “What up with all the wallets, Sammy?”
“Your clone-”
“There’s two of ‘em.”
“Alec stole all of these!”
Dean raises an eyebrow, stuffs his mouth with yet another fry and eyes his little brother carefully before turning on one heel and looking at a particularly sulky Alec, who’s bursting with the information, “Sam’s making me sit on the naughty bed!”
Dean chokes on the fry. Gross little pieces fly out of his mouth and he’s hacking and laughing and his eyes are tearing up. Sam frowns, “It’s not funny, Dean. He stole-”
“The...The n-naughty bed? Sam? Seriously?”
“Dean.”
But Dean’s laughing so hard, he’s practically hyperventilating. Ben’s looking up from his book, brow furrowing in worry.
“Is Dean dying?”
“I’ve been on here forever!” Alec says, crawling towards the edge of the bed on his hands and knees to get closer to Dean.
“Alec-”
But Alec’s already climbed off the mattress and situated his arms around Dean’s waist. Sam’s angry and spluttering but Alec’s looking up at Dean’s delighted face with imploring eyes. “Sammy’s cruel and unusual. He labeled the bed naughty.”
Dean erupts into fresh peels of laughter and this time, Alec laughs with him. They’re going on and on like freakin’ hyenas for chrissakes and Sam’s totally about to fly into a terrible whirligig of rage when his brother finally calms himself down.
“You really steal all those wallets, kitten?”
Alec nods, grins. “Uh huh.”
Dean snorts. “Eat your dinner. You can go to bed afterwards. And no ice cream.”
“It’s only-”
“You don’t get to start stealing in this family until the ripe old age of fourteen. You’re nine. No ice cream.”
“There’s ice cream?” Ben looks hopeful. Alec looks truly devastated. Sam’s starting to feel pretty terrible about the whole ordeal.
Ben’s eating his ice cream and Alec’s in the bathroom when Dean looks at Sam quite seriously and says, “I let you watch too much Nanny 911 a few years back, didn’t I?”
“It was Supernanny, Dean. With Jo Frost.”
“We are so not related.”
Sam isn’t really sure what the hell else he was supposed to do. The book and the Internet both said things about isolation and loss of privileges, but there was no place to isolate and Alec doesn’t do isolation. Sam had made that mistake before and he’s not going to make it again. And they live in a goddamn car - it’s not like the kids have toys or friends or activities. Loss of privileges Sam’s ass.
“We steal all the time,” Dean tells him now. “And we’re not going to be hypocritical sons of bitches about this.”
“We don’t pick pockets, Dean. We’ve never picked pockets. We don’t steal from people who have as little as we do.”
It was one of Dad’s rules. One of the few rules that Sam feels he has to uphold.
Alec comes out of the bathroom, shoots Sam a sullen look. Sam’s okay with that. He’d probably be a little bitchy, too, right now, if he were Alec. He rises from the table and pulls the covers back on the bed. Alec gets in and turns his back without sparing Sam another glance.
And yeah, Sam can’t take this. He leans down as he tucks the cool sheets up over the tiny hunched shoulders, whispers in the kid’s ear, “Tomorrow, I’m gettin’ you ice cream.”
Alec turns a little, just enough so Sam can see his smile. Sam’s stomach flutters a bit. He leans down again, presses a quick kiss to the kid’s head. Alec nestles into his pillow, reaches a hand back to give Sam a quick pat on the arm.
Yeah, that was completely worth it, even though Dean’s wearing a face that screams, “You are such a fucking girl.”
They get Ben in bed nearly two hours later. Dean has to wrangle the book from his hands, but the kid settles down pretty fast.
“Do Alec and I get to go hunting with you tomorrow?”
Sam’s about to respond with a neutral-to-negative “We’ll see” when Dean cuts him off with, “You sure do, kiddo.”
“Good.”
Ben closes his eyes. Sam glares at his brother, but Dean pretends not to notice. He buries himself inside of Ben’s book, in fact, just to keep Sam silent. Well, that’s just not going to fly. Sam reaches out a large hand to rip the book away from Dean when his brother’s eyes widen and pages start flipping frantically.
“Uh, Dean?”
Dean shushes him, slides the book across the table, gestures to it with an abrupt hand.
Sam raises an eyebrow, wondering what the fuck his brother is on about, but he picks the book up and opens it.
He’s surprised at the first page. He’s amazed by the tenth. He can’t believe his eyes by page 310.
Every single word is crossed out and scrawled over with unreadable chicken scratch.
Fucking shit.
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