A Life Most Ordinary, Chapter One
I was dressed for success, but success it never comes,
And I’m the only one who laughs, at your jokes when they are so bad…
Here - Pavement
CHAPTER ONE
The house was quiet when Dean finally pulled his squad car up alongside the Impala on the driveway. One light was burning in the window of the small den which meant that Sam was still awake.
He killed the engine, Bruce Dickinson’s screaming vocals dying away with it, and got out the car to walk tiredly up to the front door. Sam had left it unlocked, and Dean frowned as he simultaneously turned the handle and shoved with his hip to get the old warped door to give. He’d told his brother enough times about locking up tight when he was working late, he knew how engrossed Sam could get with his lesson plans or movie reviews or whatever else he found to do on the computer at this time of night (and Dean had a really good idea), but fuck it, anyone could get inside, and considering their family history, Sam should know a helluva lot better than that.
He locked and bolted the door behind him, leaning on it in order to get the tumblers to click into place, chastising himself, as always, for not getting the damn thing repaired already. He set the alarm and trudged down the narrow cluttered hallway, unbuckling his belt and holster as he made his way to the kitchen at the back of the house.
He snapped on the kitchen lights and moved to the counter to peer down at the plate of saran-wrapped vegetables and boiled rice Sam had left out for him. Hell, at least it wasn’t beans and rice; by his count, they’d had beans and rice three fucking times already this week. He pushed the plate away with a grimace and reached to unlock the high cabinet above the refrigerator, carefully stowing away his holster and gun. He retrieved the half-full bottle of whiskey from the cupboard by the sink and poured himself a generous glass, dimly grateful that Sam’s cheap-but-healthy food dictatorship didn’t extend quite as far as their liquor cabinet, or more accurately, their one liquor bottle.
There was a pile of neatly paper-clipped papers on the counter by the broken toaster which he eyed resignedly; more freaking bills, by the looks, some of them in ominous familiar red type. His eyes skated over the scrabble of yellow post-its stuck to the first sheet, various columns of numbers in different colors - some ridiculously complex system of Sam’s - totally fucking indecipherable to him.
“Dean?”
He started and spun around to watch Sam enter the room, padding softly in those ancient thick socks he still insisted on wearing all the damn time, always freaking complaining about his poor circulation.
“Where were you? Why didn’t you answer any of my calls? You gonna tell me how it went at least?” Sam was using the same disapproving tone he used on the kids when one of them misbehaved, and Dean set his teeth in irritation.
“How do you think it went?” he snapped.
Sam’s expression immediately fell, eyebrows drawing together into that familiar look of concern. “Shit, man, I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. Tell me about it. I thought this time -” he trailed off, jerked out his hand in an all-encompassing gesture that was supposed to explain this latest fuckup.
“Dean -“
“I aced the exam,” he interrupted. “Got nearly full marks on the fuckin’ test, it was just -“ he broke off again, shrugged. “Whatever, don’t matter now.”
“What?” Sam asked; he picked a clean glass up from the draining board, the whiskey too, his big thumb pushing the flimsy cheap cap off to pour himself a generous measure.
Dean flicked his brother a sideways glance; Sam was watching him closely, still with the sympathetic concerned face. Christ, he knew that damn face, he was going to have to give an honest answer; Sam never let him get away with anything less. He drained his drink, placed the glass back on the counter with a loud chink.
“Jesus, sometimes I wish I’d never fuckin’ joined the force. I shoulda stuck with football, Sammy, not given up so easily, not chickened out.”
“What? You didn’t chicken out and you sure as hell didn’t give up easily. You quit football ‘cause you had to, Dean. Don’t talk such crap.”
“Whatever,” he snorted.
“No, no way. Listen to me, man, you made the right decision, you’re great at your job -”
He raised his hand, cutting Sam off mid-rant; seriously, he really did not want to hear it right now. “Sam, I just failed to make detective for the third fucking time, now is not the time for one of your freakin’ pep talks!”
“You will make it.”
Sam sounded so sure, his voice underlain with all that usual Sammy determination, the same kind of single-mindedness that had gotten him that full-ride to Stanford all those years ago, and then made him give it all up, the stubborn bastard.
He let out a long breath and shook his head, feeling Sam’s eyes on him, warm and concerned. Jesus, if he had half of Sam’s belief in him, then… well, he could see himself now: passing that damn exam (again), getting through that bullshit psych evaluation, Cliff the sheriff calling him into his office to deliver the good news, breaking out the good stuff at the end of his shift, it’ll be hard to lose you on patrol, Dean, but you’ll make a good detective, I’m proud of you, kid…
But that hadn’t happened.
“It was the psych assessment,” he said finally. “The moment that fucking shrink saw my name I could see it in his face. He had all my medical records, he knew all about Mom and Dad. He’d made up his mind about my mental fitness before I even opened my goddamn mouth.” He raised his hand, ran his fingers through his short hair and exhaled again, long and drawn out.
“Hey, Dean, c’mon, it’ll be okay. You’re still doing a great job, an important job, even if you’re not on the detective squad.”
He repressed the urge to scoff out loud at Sam’s words: he was a small-town cop, dealing with lost pets, parking violations and pissed-off neighbors pissing each other off even more. Most of what he did was bullshit, and Sam knew it. He could remember when he first joined the force how much he’d loved his job, how he’d enjoyed going to work, helping people, catching the bad guys and defending the good guys. But something had changed over the years, he had changed, becoming a little more jaded year after year as others were promoted over him, as he stayed doing exactly the same thing he’d been doing when he’d joined eleven years ago. And now, fuck it, he was exhausted, he’d had enough. Over the last two years, he’d worked as much overtime as was legally possible, taking every extra shift going, and even then, even with the overtime -
The pay raise he’d’ve gotten as a detective would’ve been a godsend, and more than that, it would’ve been - God - a change of scenery at least, a chance to do something he knew he could be really fucking good at.
He pushed back the surge of bitterness and turned to gather up the bottle of whiskey, carrying it and his glass to the kitchen table. He slid onto the bench seat, automatically shifting over to make room for his little - and that was a freaking joke - brother beside him.
“So, where were you?” Sam asked, taking the seat.
“Jeannie took me out. Wanted to cheer my pathetic ass up.”
“Did she succeed?”
He rolled his eyes and flicked his brother a sideways glance. “Hardly! She started gettin’ on my case ‘bout starting up dating again. Like she’s got nothing better to think about than my goddamn love life.”
“She probably hasn’t.”
He snorted, “Yeah.”
“So - what’s she say this time? She got some girlfriend she wants to hook you up with?” Sam’s voice was carefully light, an undercurrent of something in his tone that Dean couldn’t quite pinpoint but that instinctively made him uncomfortable.
“God, maybe,” he dropped his chin onto his folded arms, deliberately avoiding his brother’s eyes. “She thinks I should try internet dating. Apparently all the cool kids are doing it.”
When Sam didn’t respond after what felt like a long moment, he tilted his head, peering up at Sam’s face. Sam looked thoughtful, that familiar crease between his eyebrows, his lip caught between his teeth.
“Don’t tell me you think it’s a good idea?” he appealed.
Sam started, as if he was surprised that they were both still there - still in the middle of this conversation - he darted a quick glance at Dean, his expression weirdly conflicted. “I don’t know,” he said eventually. “My experience of dates over the internet has been, well - s’just another way of gettin’ laid. But then, I’m not looking to date anyone seriously, and luckily most guys I meet aren’t either. So, you know, it’s just a case of wham bam thank you, man. Another satisfied customer.”
“Yeah, ‘cause you’re so freakin’ irresistible,” Dean snorted.
Sam gave him a half-hearted smirk. “Hey, I call 'em like I see 'em.”
They both went quiet for a couple of minutes, sipping their drinks. Dean cast a look at his brother from the corner of his eye. Sam was playing with his glass, long slender forefinger smoothing around the rim in a deliberate, thoughtful and very Sam-ish sort of a gesture that he’d always found inexplicably soothing.
“So, do you want to start dating again?” Sam asked at last, breaking the silence.
Dean sighed heavily, and ran his hand across his jaw, aware of the scrape of stubble against Dad’s silver ring; man, he needed to shave, he’d been up way too fucking long. He could feel Sam’s eyes on him again, watching him closely, kinda too closely, almost as if Dean’s answer mattered way more than it should. He blinked, turned his head and gave his brother a weak, self-conscious smile.
“Fuck, dude, I don’t know. I kinda like things the way they are, but -”
“But what?” Sam’s voice sounded strained to his ear, unusual for one of their late-night brotherly chats, though, honestly, sometimes he never really knew with Sam. Even after knowing him his entire life, after practically all their lives in each other’s personal space, Sam could still surprise him, getting weirdly intense and terrifyingly earnest over what usually seemed to Dean to be the most insignificant and unimportant shit.
He raised one hand to rub the back of his neck, gaze drifting down to the table - to his nearly empty glass. “This is kinda lame,” he said with a self-deprecating roll of his eyes, “but, man, I miss regular sex. And, seriously, I never thought I’d be saying this, but even porn can get kinda boring after a while.”
“You’re obviously watching the wrong porn.”
Dean made a face, and Sam chuckled, the strange, tense atmosphere vanishing.
“It was about the boys,” he admitted finally. “Jeannie was sayin’ that I needed to think about them, about them growing up without a mom. How it’s not fair - they should have two parents. And that got me to thinking ‘bout you and me and how we grew up without a mom -“
“Yeah? So? We turned out alright.” Sam interrupted, his tone a shade defensive.
Dean raised one skeptical eyebrow, “You sure about that?”
“I’m sure!” snapped Sam. “Look, okay, so neither of us have a good track record with relationships, but that has nothing to do with us growing up without a mom. And, Dean, listen to me: starting dating again just because you think Jonah and Simon need a new mom is not a good reason.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Dean agreed with a sigh. “Anyway, they’ve got you; you’re a way better mom than any chick.” Sam stuck his tongue out at him, and Dean laughed out loud, finally feeling as if the shitty day was melting away. “Least that’s what I told Jeannie,” he added with a smirk.
He drained the contents of his glass and slid off the bench, clapping Sam on the shoulder.
“Right, well, I’m hitting the sack, I’m fuckin’ beat.”
“You not gonna eat anything?” Sam asked, tilting his head so his hair fell across his face, obscuring his eyes in that way that always reminded Dean of when they were kids, Sam squinting at his homework on the kitchen table while he cooked dinner. “Dean, you should eat something.”
“Blah, blah, blah,” Dean teased as he stalked out the kitchen. “Seriously, Sammy, some day you’ll make some dude an awesome wife.”
“Bite me!” Sam called back.
Dean laughed, and gave him the finger before he shuffled upstairs to bed.
********************************************************
“Hello, Dean.”
The voice was the same one as always; cloying and sinister, scuttling up his spine, like a spider on a shower curtain.
He cracked his eyes open. He could feel the bed around him: sheets and comforter and pillows and mattress, but it wasn’t his bed, not his bed in his room in his house, the house he’d grown up in, the house he lived in with his brother and his two sons.
Where am I?
“You know where you are,” said the voice.
Dean fisted his fingers in the sheets, stared up at the familiar ceiling, the mobile of toy airplanes floating above his head.
My old bedroom. Lawrence, the house in Lawrence. But, why, why am I here? I don’t want to be here.
“You’re asking the wrong questions, Dean-o.”
A crack of lightning and the face snapped into focus: smirking mouth and glowing yellow eyes, hunched back and arched shoulders, and Mom - beneath, her golden hair and beautiful unseeing eyes - her mouth blood-red and slack, caught on a jagged scream -
He woke with a jerk - gasping for breath - needing - clawing for air - shaking - enshrouded by sweat-soaked sheets - around and underneath him -
“Dean, Dean? It’s okay, c’mon, Dean, I’m here.”
He blinked, Sam’s face looming into focus above him, familiar eyes wide with concern.
“Sammy,” he croaked. He stretched out his hand, fingers fisting tight into his brother’s t-shirt, the solid big warmth of him - of Sam - unfreezing his locked, unwilling limbs, his sleep-paralyzed body.
“Dean, c’mon, it’s okay. Just a dream. You’re okay.”
Sam gently unlatched Dean’s fingers from their death grip on his shirt. Dean blinked and felt the mattress dip beneath him, Sam sinking to the edge of the bed.
Slowly, he pulled his hand away from his brother, and swallowed again, feeling suddenly foolish. He shifted onto his elbows, moved to lean back against the headboard, hand going up to ruffle through his hair.
“Was I making a lot of noise?” he asked sheepishly.
“Doesn’t matter, man. It was a nightmare. Not like you could help it.”
“Jonah and Simon?”
“Both asleep, they didn’t hear anything.”
Dean nodded slowly and let out a long, relieved breath. He slumped back into the bed, feeling his heart rate gradually start to slow down, the blood beating in his brain start to quiet.
“Was it the one - the one with Mom?”
He flinched, turned his head away from Sam’s penetrating gaze. “Yeah.” He bit his lip, said bitterly, “Hey, maybe that fucking shrink was right.”
“No, he wasn’t right,” Sam insisted, sounding almost stern. “Don’t you dare think that.”
Sam was quiet for a moment while Dean took in his words, feeling inexplicably better, made warm by the utter certainty in Sam’s voice.
Sam shifted and prodded him. “Hey, move over.”
“Huh?”
“I’m getting in. Only way either of us is going to get any sleep tonight. Move over.”
“No, no freakin’ way, if you wanna get in, then you’re getting in the cold side.”
Sam rolled his eyes and Dean gave him a faint grin, watched his brother circle the bed, throw aside the covers to climb in the other side. Even now, after Jess had been gone for nearly three years, he still kept to only one side of bed, unwilling and unused to spreading out all over it, still seeing the left side as enemy territory.
“You remember when we were kids?” Sam whispered as he made himself comfortable, smacking the pillows and pulling the covers away from Dean to cover his ridiculously huge body. “When I used to get bad dreams? You used to let me climb in with you and you’d tell me all those stories about the Marvelous Winchester Boys, about us killing all the bad guys and saving the world.”
Dean half-smiled. “Yeah? You remember that?”
“Uh-huh. Course I do.” Sam turned onto his side so their eyes met, the reflection of the porch light outside glinting gold and orange in his pupils, Dean’s brain flipped back to his dream, the face with yellow eyes, and he flinched, quickly pasting on a bullshit grin. “That shit was good, Dean. Seriously. You should write it down, make real stories of it. You could be the next JK Rowling.”
“Yeah, sure,” Dean scoffed. “Me writing a book? You’re the reader and writer in this family.”
“Bullshit! You always put yourself down like this, but that’s bullcrap. I know you read, then like to make out like you don’t. You forget how well I know you.” He was staring at Dean with that wide-eyed, intense look, the doe-eyed, shiny faced sincerity that was sometimes too much to cope with; like looking at the sun too long, it made Dean want to hold his breath, the sensation of warm bubbles breaking inside him like his insides were melting chocolate.
He blinked and turned away, shifting onto his side so Sam’s face was out of view.
“Whatever. If you wanna sleep here, then keep your ginormo legs to your side, okay? I wanna get some sleep.”
“You mean like this?” Sam asked, sniggering like a fucking teenager, and pushing his stupid big feet over to Dean’s side of the bed to scrape against his calves. “’Cause this is so comfortable, Dean. I could sleep for the rest of the night like this.” He tossed out one of his fiendishly long arms, flopping it over Dean’s chest, pinning him to the bed.
Dean pushed him away irritably, “No! Fuck off! And, Jesus, Sam, your feet are like freakin’ ice blocks! Get ‘em off me!”
“Aw, man, you’re no fun,” Sam complained, removing his freakishly cold feet from Dean’s poor calf.
“Jesus, go to sleep already.”
Sam sighed manfully and shifted around some more, the whole damn bed shaking with it. Finally, he let out a long breath, whispering, “Night, Dean.”
Dean felt his mouth curl up into a smile despite himself, remembering their old night-time ritual. “Night, Sammy,” he whispered back.
********************************************************
The second time Dean woke up, someone else was leaning over him, prodding him in the chest with tenacious wriggling fingers, and jabbering: “Dad! I made you some coffee. You gotta get up and drink it. Uncle Sammy said you were awake!”
Dean silently cursed his brother and eased his eyes open, seeing the familiar face of his oldest son, Jonah, peering down at him with big, brown eyes. He grabbed one of the boy’s skinny arms and pulled him to the bed beside him. Jonah screamed and squirmed and dissolved into helpless giggles as Dean leaned in and proceeded to tickle him mercilessly, the boy kicking and wriggling and protesting in the tangled comforter. Eventually, Dean gave up, panting for breath and flopping back down into the mattress, leaving himself wide open for Jonah to crawl on top of him and start playing with his hair - the boy’s new favorite pastime.
“You have a good day yesterday?” he asked, catching Jonah’s wrist in one hand in an attempt to get him away from his poor hair, which he could tell without looking the kid had teased into a truly terrifying state of bed-head. Jonah’d developed this recent fetish for styling his father’s hair; he’d taken to watching him in front of the bathroom mirror in the morning, commenting and critiquing Dean’s efforts like a freaking stylist off America’s Next Top Model. It was faintly disturbing.
Jonah’s face immediately transformed, a starry-eyed grin sliding across his mouth. He always reminded him of Sam at those moments, the dimples either side of his mouth, big white teeth and infectious enthusiasm, that goddamn deadly Sammy smile.
“An awesome day! I’m gonna be the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz,” he announced proudly.
“Hey, dude, that is awesome. You showed ‘em, huh?”
Jonah nodded enthusiastically. He’d been babbling on about the school performing The Wizard of Oz for the end-of-year play for practically the past month. Even Sam had mentioned it, suggesting the two of them volunteer to paint scenery or distribute flyers, though fuck knew when Sam thought Dean would ever have the chance to do that when he was working practically sixty hours a week, every damn week.
“Yeah, it’s like totally the most important part for a guy,” Jonah continued excitedly, “The kid who’s the wizard just stands behind a screen most of the time, he hardly gets any real stage-time, not like me, I have 72 lines to learn. Oh, and you have to help me with my costume.”
Oh, for the love of God…
He masked his annoyance, saying, “I thought the school handled that sort of stuff.”
“Nah, not this year. This year we’ve gotta, like, do it at home, like our own special project. We get graded on it too, so you gotta help me out, Dad, if I have a lame costume then I’ll get a sucky grade and I’ll look like a dork!”
Dean stifled the laugh threatening to come up; the kid was playing a singing and dancing Scarecrow for fuck’s sake, he was gonna look like a dork.
“Yeah, well, talk to your Uncle Sammy; you know that girly stuff is his department.”
“He’ll get mad if I tell him you said that.”
“Well don’t tell him,” said Dean, raising one sly eyebrow. “It can be our secret.”
Jonah grinned, delighted, and Dean felt the warm feeling in his chest expand; Jesus, it was pathetic how much of a sucker he was for his son’s approval.
“So, you and Uncle Sammy are gonna come watch me?”
“Of course. Try and keep us away.”
“And you’re gonna help out and stuff? I think they need, like, scene painters?” He raised his eyebrows pleadingly. “I told Miss Marshall how you painted the garage real good. It would be so cool if you could be there and help out, Dad. Lots of the other parents are, but mainly the moms, but I don’t have a mom, so -” he broke off, heaved out a huge sigh, eyes trained on Dean from under half-lowered lashes. Dean repressed the urge to laugh; Jonah had been using the but I don’t have a mom like the other kids card for way too long for him to be taken in by that particular strand of emotional blackmail.
“Uh-huh, well, we’ll see, kiddo. I might have to work.” He took one careful sip of his coffee, masking the grimace of disgust with a smile. Jesus - how much damn sugar had the boy put in it?
“You’re always working,” sighed Jonah.
He swallowed over the guilty lump in his throat and placed his barely drunk coffee on the nightstand. He snagged his hand in Jonah’s belt loop and tugged the boy in closer, looking up in his face, the scattering of freckles over his nose and cheeks, his long dark eyelashes, almond-shaped brown eyes and delicate high cheekbones. His oldest boy was an extremely attractive kid, but then again, with him and Cora as parents, he pretty much had to be.
“Hey, listen, we should celebrate your big news,” he said. “You wanna go to McDonalds?”
Jonah shook his head decidedly, pulling a face. “Nah not that, Dad, that stuff’s gross and really bad for you. It’s full of the wrong kind of starches which make you fat. And they kill rain forests.”
“Oh, right, I forgot that,” Dean answered, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. Sam had really done a number on his oldest. “So, what else would you like to do?”
Jonah paused for a moment, widening his eyes in this disingenuous way that Dean knew well, his expression getting almost coy as he dragged his toes against the carpet. “Well, I, uh, you’ll probably say no, ‘cause you always say no, but I really wanna go see this concert.”
“Jonah, concerts are expensive -“
“Yeah, yeah, I know that, Dad! But Uncle Sammy says he has a friend at the Forum and he can totally score us some cheap tickets, like, real cheap.”
Yeah, and he could totally guess what sort of a “friend” that was. He repressed a grimace, instead asking warily: “Who do you want to go see?”
“Um, well, Lady Gaga’s playing in August, and tickets go on sale, like, on Monday and -“
“You want to go to a Lady Gaga concert?” Dean interrupted, not quite believing what he was hearing.
“Oh, man, I really, really do! She’s so awesome, like a total genius! Did you see that show she did at the MTV awards? It was so amazing, like the most awesome thing ever. There were all these dancers and they were all dressed like robots and then they disappeared and there were these other dancers dressed like cats...” Dean felt his eyebrows climb up his face as Jonah’s eyes got wide and pleading, the total puppy dog look that he’d probably learned from Sam, and thanks so much for that Sammy. “So, you’ll say yes then? Please, Dad.”
He blinked again, trying to find some piece of sanity from somewhere. “We’ll see.”
Dean showered, dressed in his uniform, and made his way downstairs, pausing in the kitchen to pour himself a fresh (drinkable) cup of coffee. He could hear the sound of Lady Gaga coming from the big den and he shuddered, instead sliding a couple of slices of bread into the dirty, gassy-smelling oven to toast.
“Hey,” Sam greeted him, coming into the room with Simon trailing after him.
“Hey,” he answered distractedly. He leaned back against the counter, watched his youngest boy climb painstakingly onto the old bench-seat, his regular spot at the kitchen table, and take the ever present Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets out of his ever-present Transformers backpack, thumbing the book open with fumbling fingers.
He placed one hand gently on the boy’s shoulder and Simon’s head instantly jerked back, big, hazel eyes blinking behind his glasses as he stared up at his father.
You want toast? Dean asked, signing the words.
Simon nodded and held up two fingers; Dean gave him a smile and crossed back towards the oven to add a couple more slices of bread. They were running low, he noted with a twinge of irritation, but then, when weren’t they running low on something? Sometimes it seemed that the only staple they never ran out of was Sam’s disgusting protein powder. And speaking of… Sam was blending up one of those revolting things right now, heaping spoonfuls of the grey powdery shit into the blender along with that cheap long-life milk. Gross.
Sam caught his eye, giving him one of the many concerned looks he had in his repertoire. He was dressed in his post morning run outfit: old grey sweats and torn sleeveless t-shirt complete with sweat stains and frayed sleeves, damp tendrils of dark hair still glued to his forehead and neck, face still flushed. Dean felt exhausted just looking at him.
“You okay?” Sam asked.
“Yup, fine, why wouldn’t I be?”
“I dunno, man, you just look - stressed.”
Dean ground his teeth and snapped: “Why’d you tell Jonah that it was okay for us to go see Lady Gaga?”
“Hey, I didn’t say that exactly -“
“Lady Gaga, Sam? Seriously? He’s nine! I can understand you - a freakin’ gay dude - wanting to go, but Jonah is...” he broke off, sighed, “I have a gay kid, don’t I?”
“Dean, you know better than anyone that it’s bad to generalize. Jonah’s his own person, who’s not afraid to like what he likes and enjoy what he enjoys. You should be proud to have such a creative, unique kid.”
“I am proud of him! You know that. But c’mon, man, creative? Unique? Next thing is you’re gonna be talking about how freakin’ sensitive he is.”
Sam huffed out a long breath, one of his my brother’s so immature breaths, and shook his head at Dean.
The slight whiff of burning distracted him and he turned his attention back to the toast, gathering up the well-browned slices and cursing under his breath as the burning bread met the sensitive pads of his fingers. Jesus, had Sam ever even seen a Lady Gaga video? Shit was fucking deranged, not to mention totally unsuitable for a nine year old boy. He cut the toast into small strips and carried it over to Simon who lowered his book, and took it, signing a quick thank you with his small hand, the expression on his face causing something to clench up in Dean’s chest as he leaned to press a kiss to the boy’s forehead. He slid onto the bench seat and slipped one arm around his skinny shoulders, letting Simon cozy up to him as he ate.
The phone rang and he watched Sam finish off his shake, and pull up his shirt to wipe his mouth, giving him a glimpse of his stomach with his alarmingly well-defined abs and perfect sculpted chest. Dean swallowed, feeling that customary heated surge of envy and something distressingly close to appreciation in his gut. Sure he was pretty trim himself, but next to Sam he was downright scrawny. Then again, Sam worked really fucking hard to look that good, way harder than Dean ever would, though admittedly, Sam did have a lot more free time than he ever did.
He finished off his toast, got up to pour himself more coffee and fetch Simon a glass of juice. He placed the glass on the table directly in front of the boy and glanced up to see Sam watching him with that customary thoughtful crease between his eyebrows, holding the hung-up phone in one hand.
Sam cocked his head and Dean followed him into the hall.
“What?” he hissed. “Who was on the phone?”
“Reiko,” Sam answered. “She wants to come see Simon this summer.”
“Well, she can’t, we’re going on vacation.”
“We’re on vacation for ten days. We’ll be here the rest of the time.”
Dean gritted his teeth, “And you told her that of course?”
“She’s his mom. She wants to come visit him. What could I say?”
Dean glanced back over his shoulder at Simon sitting at the kitchen table, obliviously munching his toast and sipping his juice, eyes riveted to his beloved Harry Potter book. He felt his insides knot up again, irritation and anxiety and a fierce possessiveness.
“She just confuses him,” he said flatly.
“I agree. But, like I said, Dean, she is his mom. She has a right to see him.”
“As far as I’m concerned, she lost that right when she walked out on him when he was three months old,” he bit back.
Sam gave him one of the other favorite looks in his repertoire, the patient and sympathetic one this time around.
“What?” Dean hissed.
“Just - I think if you decide that right now then you might regret it later. Simon’s young now and you’re right, he doesn’t understand and Reiko does confuse him, but if we prevent his mother from seeing him, he might resent us for it later in life. Think about us, Dean, we never knew our Mom, and I’ve always regretted that more than anything.”
“That’s different; our Mom died. She would never have walked out on us.”
Sam sighed, “Yeah, well, point still holds.”
“Okay, fine, whatever. But you can arrange it. And you can explain it all to him.”
“Don’t I always?” Sam shot back, raising his eyebrows in appeal.
It was a fair comment. Sam was the one who’d always taken on the lion’s share of the “difficult conversations” over the years, but then, Sam loved that sort of shit, openness and communication being two of his favorite words, the enormous weirdo. In Sam’s opinion, children should always be told the truth by their parents. They should know the reality of the world around them, that way they were informed and prepared to confront all things that life would later throw at them, which all meant that Sam always answered any and every question Jonah or Simon ever put to them with complete honesty and a level of detail only Sam was capable of giving.
“They deserve to know the truth, Dean,” Sam would insist urgently, and Dean, well, he just let Sam get on with it. Sam was the one who read parenting manuals, Dean just sort of muddled along and hoped he wasn’t fucking his kids up for life; his job offered him plenty of examples of what happened when parenting went wrong.
He could only recall one occasion when Sam had let his policy of complete honesty slide: when they’d explained to Jonah how his mom, Cora, had left to pursue her dreams of an acting career in LA, and how baby Jonah’d stayed behind with his Dad, his Uncle and his Grandpa because they'd loved him far too much to let him go. The reality was that Cora had never intended to be involved in Jonah’s life; in fact, Dean'd had zero idea she was pregnant when the two of them broke up. She’d just appeared on their doorstop one day, six months after he’d thought she’d left town, looking fit to pop and declaring that a) the baby was his, b) she wanted nothing to do with it, and c) if he - and the rest of his family - didn’t want it, it was going up for adoption and that was that.
Cora hadn't been prepared to be a mother, she'd had plans, future stardom had beckoned, and a baby would not fit in. As for Dean, he'd been horrified at first, terrified by the entire concept of a baby. Sure, he’d always taken it for granted that he would be a father one day, but not then, not at 22, and not right then - not with Dad so sick and Sammy still in high school - how were they going to deal with a baby when they could barely manage already?
But Jonah didn’t need to know any of that, he just needed know how much he was loved and adored and wanted by his family once he finally made it into the world after a dramatic 36 hour labor. Dean could still remember that first glimpse of his oldest son, how strange and purple and slimy he'd looked when the midwife had held him out, how small his little fingers with their tiny perfect nails had been against Dean’s own big hand. He'd loved him straight away, Jonah Samuel Winchester, his boy. It’d been the same the second time around, the same burst of love and protection and adoration overtaking him when he’d held his youngest son in his arms, Simon John Winchester, smaller than his big brother, but just as perfect.
He watched Sam slide onto the bench seat beside Simon, half-turning to face the boy as he started to sign. Dean watched them for a moment, recognizing: “Mom”, “Dad”, “Summer”. Of course Sam wouldn’t wait to explain to Simon about Reiko’s upcoming visit, Sam had never been one for procrastinating, he liked to face things head on. Dean bit his lip, the familiar guilty irritation churning in his gut as he turned around and padded off to the big den.
Jonah looked up at him as Dean slid onto the couch beside him, heaving out a dramatic sigh complete with that martyred expression that was a carbon copy of Sam’s martyred expression and just as annoying.
"I’m not turning it over!" he declared.
Dean glanced at the TV: freaking Glee for fuck’s sake. Man, he hated that damn show. If it were up to him, he’d throw those fucking DVD’s in the trash right now. But it wasn’t up to him, and for some unfathomable reason, Sam, Jonah and Simon all loved the soul-sucking plastic crap, despite the fact, he was sure (or at least he hoped) that the boys only got about half the “jokes”.
"Whatch what you want," he told Jonah, slumping back into the couch and letting his eyes fall closed.
A couple of minutes later, he felt the cushions beside him dip, then a warm body fall against him. He opened his eyes, seeing Simon’s little face peering at him. Obviously the talk with Sam had gone well, definitely no evidence of tears. Dean smiled and pulled him onto his lap, winding his arms around his waist as Simon made himself comfortable and turned his wide unblinking eyes to the TV.
He pressed a kiss to the top of Simon’s head, and looked up, feeling someone’s eyes on him; Sam was standing in the doorway, watching the three of them with this strange, unreadable expression on his face. Dean raised an eyebrow at him, and Sam blinked, reddening slightly, his eyes skating away from Dean.
Join us, Uncle Sammy, Jonah signed. The family rule was to only use sign-language when Simon was in the room, except when Dean and Sam were fighting, Simon didn't need to know about that. It’s the Madonna episode. You like that one, Jonah added.
Sam nodded and smiled at Jonah, and Dean resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He totally blamed Sam for this; Sam was the one who’d gotten the kid hooked on this terrible show, and Simon just followed where Jonah led. It was one of the biggest disappointments in Dean’s life that he’d never managed to get Jonah interested in any decent music, the kid actively disliked everything Dean loved, calling it “lame ancient Dad music”, to Dean’s consternation and Sam’s amusement. And Simon, well, his little boy would never know the joy of hearing an awesome Jimmy Page solo or Keith Richards hook. It was one pleasure that would always be denied to him.
He swallowed over the lump in his throat, pulling Simon in reflexively, pressing his lips to his warm, wavy hair. He watched Sam come into the room, unfold his enormous body onto the floor; his back was against the couch, long legs stretched out in front of him, feet brushing against the broken fender. Jonah nudged Sam’s shoulder with his toes; Sam turned his head, made a face at him, then bowed his head obediently, Jonah shifting along the couch so he could lean over to play with Sam’s hair. He was possibly even more obsessed with Sam’s hair than he was with Dean’s; but then again, Sam did have a lot more of it, the big girl.
He watched Jonah carding his fingers through Sam’s hair through half-lidded eyes, tuning out the obnoxious blare of the TV, Simon’s solid weight on his lap warm and soothing even as he squirmed around, trying to get comfortable.
His shift started at midday, but for the moment, he was a free man, he could relax, savor this time with his family. This was what it was all about.
On to Interlude One