like the wind needs the trees
let's get this show on the road, shall we. 55160 words is how long this motherfucker is, and i am ready to expel it from my head.
sam/dean, au. dean is a cop and sam is his no-good brother. on we go.
first second third fourth fifth
Look the Other Way
By Candle Beck
The call came in about an hour before the bars closed.
Dean was supposed to be finishing up some paperwork, but instead he was sitting in Bobby's chair, flicking his penknife into a crayon-colored drawing of the Hamburglar that some little kid had done while waiting for his mom to get out of intake. Tacked at its corners to the wall, the drawing was shredded into lace, the wood underneath chewed up and soft.
Dean left his knife shivering in the wall, reached across the messy desk to get the phone.
"Sheriff's department."
"That you, Dean?"
"Why Missus Harvelle." Dean let a drawl come on. "You miss me that much?"
Ellen snorted. "Like I'd miss a bad case of crabs, hon."
There was ruckus behind Ellen's voice, staticky and impossible to interpret, but Dean inferred the glittering sound of glass and the bone-like crack of bar stool legs snapping. He sat up straighter, smoothed a hand down the back of his head.
"Got trouble out there?"
"Only trouble I got's related to you," Ellen told him, and then took the phone away from her mouth to bark a drunk away from the pickled egg jar.
Dean sighed. "What's he done this time?"
"Drinkin', hustlin', pickin' fights--it's a regular Winchester special."
Dean made a sound that wasn't much like a laugh, though that had been what he was going for. He rubbed at the bridge of his nose, hissing between his teeth.
"Ain't hurt himself, has he? Or anyone else?"
"Not for lack of trying." There was a pause. Dean pictured Ellen at the end of the bar with the phone in one hand and her other around the neck of a bottle of scotch, dagger-sharp eyes peeling back the layers of her bar. "He's in a bad way."
"Yeah. I'm coming right over."
"You good to leave?"
"Got the kid here, it's fine."
"All right." Ellen let out a sigh that closed down the distance between them, roughened and resigned. "See ya soon then, Deano."
Dean rang off. He sat staring blankly at his knife stuck in the gnawed wall, daydreaming, but that was only for a minute. He had places to be.
The kid was minding the front, rat-faced and shiny-skinned, straightening his back as Dean came into the bullpen. His uniform shirt was ironed crisp enough that it sounded like paper when he moved. Dean was occupied getting his metal on, hands half-numb fumbling with the belt buckle. He barely spared the kid a grunt.
"You goin' out, sarge?" His voice actually cracked, and Dean rolled his eyes at the floor.
"Don't call me that, man. It's sergeant."
"Sergeant." Doubtful tone, the kid was always tasting words like they weren't to be trusted.
"Yes, I'm going out." Dean jerked his belt so it dug into his hips, gun heavy on his hip. He breathed out. "Some fuckers need to get their skulls cracked down at the Roadhouse."
"And I, I should-"
"Just sit tight, rookie. Mind the phone. You got a radio, anything happens you call somebody who knows how to deal with it, got me?"
He looked up in time to see a sullen expression pass over the kid's face, and it triggered something, a flash of Sam at sixteen when he was all sneer and vicious retort, distorted as if by acid. Dean suffered a brief spike of panic, and he rested his hand on the butt of his gun, reeled himself in.
"Watch that look," Dean said, not quite a reprimand. "I'm not the worst you'll deal with by far."
He hooked his trooper jacket off the tree by the door and shrugged into it, shoulders up against the lightly swirling snow. Breathed deep to feel the air sting like sparkling pins in his chest, and Dean noticed that it was a beautiful night, glassy black and still and cold.
He made pretty good time over to the Roadhouse, only flicked his lights on twice and never had to use the siren. The place was roiling, cherry-colored neon in the windows and steam billowing up from the vents in back. Dean spotted the Impala parked away from the entrance, taking up two spots but suffering from no visible damage, and he allowed that particular worry to settle. Big-bodied guys jawed in the dirt lot, dressed similarly in football jersey tees under insulated jackets, and Dean remembered, it was league night. Guys always went balls-out after a football game.
Dean drew some attention coming in, Ash calling "Hey Deano!" over the crowd and trying to get him a beer, but Dean kept his cop face on and made it to the bar, where Ellen awaited.
"Your family's such a pain in my ass," she greeted him. Dean shrugged.
"You keep letting us in the bar, Ellen."
"As if science has found a way to keep a Winchester out of a bar," she said, eyes flashing multicolored in the neon over the bar. "C'mon, I put him in back."
"And he stayed there?" Dean asked, but Ellen was already moving around the bar and so he followed, cowboys and retail queens stepping aside to clear a path.
In the back hallway, Ellen stopped him with a hand on his arm, gave him a particularly searching look under which Dean tried not to fidget. He cast his eyes up and to the left, not blushing anymore because he wasn't twelve years old and in love with Ellen anymore.
"You're not looking so hot, boy," Ellen said. Dean swallowed, nodding.
"Yeah, I been working a lot. You know how it is."
"Just how it's always been, huh?"
Dean jerked his gaze down, wanting to see Ellen's face so he could better decipher that note in her voice, but she was already opening the office door and again, Dean had no choice but to follow.
Sam was sitting on the floor, his head bowed. He was handcuffed and his ankles were bound together with twine.
Dean started to laugh. "Ellen, what the hell?"
She lifted one shoulder eloquently. "He wouldn't stay where I put him."
Sam's head raised slowly, a dark-dawning sun. He had bruises on his jaw and a split lip, vibrant green cue dust in his hair, and his hair was obscuring his eyes, but Dean could tell how drunk he still was.
"You didn't wanna hog-tie him just to be sure?" Dean asked over his shoulder with an engaging grin.
"Oh, I was all for it, but I wasn't the one holding him down." Ellen jingled a little pair of handcuff keys at him, and Dean took it.
Sam's lip curled up, a junkyard dog look that fit oddly on his face. He was staring directly at his brother, best Dean could tell. Unhinged kind of darkness playing across Sam's features, and Dean took his knife out of his pocket, showing Sam that he'd come to rescue him.
"Think I got him from here, thanks."
Ellen wasn't having it. "Dean, it's the second time this month, maybe you oughta-"
"I got him, Ellen," Dean said sharply, crouching beside his brother and not looking back.
"Dean."
Dean flinched, not used to that tone in a woman's voice, and glanced at Sam's face, close to his now and full of blazing eyes, tight-pressed mouth. Dean cut the twine from around Sam's ankles, pushed the handcuff keys into his curled hands and felt Sam's sweaty fingers slide along his, and then he got to his feet, went back over to Ellen.
She lit into him soon as she could, hissing but not bothering to lower her voice much. She must have figured Sam needed to hear it as much as Dean did.
"You know what's sadder than calling an eight year old to come pick his daddy up from the barroom floor? Calling him twenty years later to come pick up his brother."
Not letting his eyes dart away like they wanted to, Dean fixed his jaw and glared at Ellen. He could hear Sam getting shakily to his feet and Dean wanted to be back over there.
"Nobody else to do it, is there?" Dean said, pitched low and rough and he hoped Sam couldn't hear. "Not a girlfriend, certainly not a wife-"
Ellen's eyes widened, startled because neither of the Winchesters ever talked about that, but she went with it, cutting Dean off.
"I know you boys been through hell, and him in particular," she told him, voice like steel. "But you gotta come back now. Both of you."
Dean shook his head, but it was only reflex. He had his teeth gritted and his jaw was starting to ache, this flickery thing happening inside his stomach. He didn't want to think about it, not tonight. He just wanted to get Sam home, make sure he got to sleep okay. Such simple basic things would make Dean happy, and he never got any of it without a bloody fight.
Ellen sighed heavily. Her eyes moved past Dean and he saw her expression change, the frank affection she'd always held for Dean hardening, drawing back protectively when Ellen looked at his brother.
"You all right there, stretch?"
Dean looked back and Sam was swaying slightly, the broken crescents of the handcuffs dangling from one hand. He rubbed at his forehead with the back of his wrist, scowling at nothing in particular.
"I just wanna go home," Sam said tonelessly.
"Yeah, Sammy," Dean said, automatic as breathing. Ellen took his shoulder, strong grip with her nails biting, and Dean was forced to look back at her, annoyed and vaguely guilt-stricken.
Ellen looked like she was gonna tell him off, brilliant anger in the fine set of her features, but the lines softened, crumpled as Dean blinked at her. Her mouth thinned and she put her hand on the side of Dean's face, shaking her head ever so slightly.
"You break my heart," she told him, pierced Dean like a bullet. "Every single time."
Dean pulled away from her, blushing bad now and feeling unsteady. He stumbled back and reached for Sam and Sam moved obligingly into Dean. Dean locked a hand on Sam's shoulder, the structure of his brother falling into place. He smelled like beer and gin and chalk.
"Thanks, Ellen," Sam said as they were leaving, his voice completely normal. Dean wanted to hit him so badly it freaked him out a little bit.
Dean put Sam in the back of the cruiser, one hand on the top of Sam's head and the other on his shoulder, and Sam didn't even make a scene this time. Some of the football players were watching, distantly familiar guys that their father had known, and surely no one actually thought Dean was going to throw his baby brother in the drunk tank, a communal suspension of disbelief accorded to the remnants of the Winchesters, but putting Sam in the back looked a little better, anyway.
Sam didn't talk, even as Dean drove past the drugstore and the apartment above it that Sam had moved into six months ago. It was just two drafty rooms, a dilapidated kitchen, and a mattress on the floor bleeding stuffing. Sam was never there except when he was asleep or hiding out. Sam rested his head on the window, his face clean and thoughtful through the wire mesh every time Dean checked the mirror. Dean drove them home, the house they'd grown up in, the place Dean had lived since he was four years old.
He let Sam out and they went up, stomping their boots on the porch and stripping off their coats in the kitchen. Sam wasn't walking quite steady, reaching for walls and counters.
"You wanna do this now?" Dean asked, running the tap and waiting for the rust to clear out of the water.
"What."
Sam sprawled at the table, stringless and morose. His huge hands scratched at the splintering table top, scabbed and bruising again across the knuckles.
"Oh, it's gonna be epic," Dean assured him. "Gonna get into all the things that make you an asshole and all the reasons I should throw you in the fucking stir and all the stuff you're never doing again or I'll beat your ass. You ready for that shit?"
He banged a glass of water down in front of Sam, tsunami over the edge splashing on his hand. Sam didn't flinch. There was a line of dark blood bisecting his lower lip, and Dean found himself staring.
"You're not really selling me on it, Dean," Sam said. He took a long drink of water. "Might be 'cause I heard it already."
"Didn't sink in too good, did it? And Ellen told you to stop hustling her bar."
"I'll stop when her drunks stop paying off." Sam dug into his front pockets, scattering wrinkled pieces of money on the table. "Lookit that. Takin' you out for steaks, big brother."
"Sam," Dean said, exhausted. Sam grinned at him. A spot of blood appeared bright red on his lip.
"You'll still be mad at me tomorrow, right?"
Dean shook his head, but answered, "Damn right."
"Well, let's do it then. I'm rich and 'm tired and kinda drunk still, and I don' wanna. Bedtime. Come on, bonzo."
Their dad used to say that when they were little. Bedtime for bonzos, and then he'd scoop them up off the carpet, one in each arm, carry them to their rooms. It was from an old movie, something about an ape, but it'd become a family thing, one of the things that only they knew about.
Sam always knew just what to say to take Dean's legs out from under him. He didn't really want to fight, anyway.
"I gotta go back to the station," Dean said half-heartedly. He watched Sam stretch his arms out over his head, the flattened indentations at the insides of his elbows. "You should drink some more water."
Sam bobbed his head, but brought his glass over to the sink and clattered it down with the other dishes. He slumped against the counter, stood too close to Dean.
"I didn't mean to cause any trouble," Sam mumbled. His eyes were closed.
"You never do."
"Just so many assholes out there tonight."
Dean laid his hand on Sam's shoulder, careful. "You don't have to beat them all up personally, you know."
"You gonna help me out next time?"
"Sure, Sam."
Neither of them believed it, no more than either of them believed that Sam hadn't gone out looking for a fight tonight. Dean had stopped brawling with his brother a long time ago, before Sam had left.
"Come on, bonzo," Dean whispered, and tugged Sam toward the hall. Sam went willingly, pliant and easy to steer.
There were pictures hanging in the hallway, each slightly askew when compared to the others. Dean, ten years old in a ridiculous hunting cap with the earflaps hanging to his shoulders, holding up two dead rabbits by the ears, his face split in a blinding grin. Sam, on a riverbank skinny as a board and nut-brown, shouting happily with his eyes screwed shut against the sun. Sam in their dad's arms, pushing against his chest so they could talk eye-to-eye. Dean on his mother's lap, three years old maybe with her skirt balled up in his little hand and she was laughing. Sam and Dean and their father, piled together in the front seat of a wrecked Buick, John corralling his sons and palming Sam's head, his eyes locked on his boys while they mugged for the camera. John and Mary, in black-and-white, both of them barely recognizable now.
Dean saw the pictures every day and had all his life. He knew every line, every shadow.
Their rooms were next to each other, at the end of the hall. Dean could have taken over the master bedroom, of course, but he wasn't comfortable in there and couldn't sleep. He had moved his dad's big mattress in and it took up most of the space; now most of his clothes and stuff he kept in the living room. Sam's room still had its rickety twin bed, same posters Sam had had up when he was a teenager, soft-paged stacks of books wedged up against the walls.
Sam was falling asleep on his feet, angled into Dean's back, and he groaned as Dean levered him onto his bed. Dean scooped the blanket off the floor and tossed it at the foot of the bed. He rested his hand on his gun and gave his brother a considering look.
"You be all right? I'm off in a few hours, I'll be back."
Sam waved his hand dismissively. He started picking at the buckle on his boot, face in an intent scowl.
"Not sick, just drunk," Sam muttered. He got one boot off and chucked it across the room, then flopped back on the bed. His socked foot curled toes on the carpet. "Two Fridays."
Dean pressed his teeth into the inside of his lip. Motherfucker--they'd almost made it the whole night without mentioning it. "Not yet."
"I know. I know. It was Tuesday so now it should be Wednesday and not Friday but next-"
"I know, Sam."
Dean looked at Sam splayed out. He wondered if he should take off Sam's other boot. Unbutton his shirt and strip him layer by layer. It was an unsettling thought, dark red and overheated, and Dean banished it.
"You gonna go see him?" Sam asked, already half-asleep and worse every moment. "You gonna make me come along?"
Wanting to put a hand on his brother, Dean turned out the light. Sam made a small confused noise, one arm raising questioningly before he let it fall. Dean stood in the doorway, watching him in the muffled dark, and Sam said his name, "Dean?"
"Yeah Sam."
There was a pause, then Sam said, "Put a tape in?"
Dean breathed out a laugh that was more like a sigh. "Sure."
He went to the TV that he and his dad had rescued from a junkyard fifteen years ago. Dean had reconstructed it almost completely from scratch, jerry-rigged the antenna and painted the casing swamp-thing green, gave it to Sam for his birthday. Towers of VHS tapes teetered on top, and Dean rummaged around, tilting tapes into the filtered hallway light to read the titles, until he found The Fly only half-rewound. He popped it in and Vincent Price materialized, arching an eyebrow and curling his lip.
"That good?" Dean asked. Sam didn't answer, and Dean looked over expecting to see him asleep, but Sam was silver-eyed and aware, watching the movie. Dean kinda smiled, whispered, "See ya," and left.
*
Life started with the fire.
It was just a regular fire.
Dean had wanted popcorn before he went to bed. He was four years old and if he could have had it his way he would have eaten nothing but Jiffy Pop and Milky Ways. He'd crawled over his dad's shoulders, hung on him like a scarf, and said, "Please Daddy, I'm hungry, I'm starving," until John had grunted and laughed and plucked Dean off him, swung him into his arms and said okay.
John put the Jiffy on the stovetop, wire and tinfoil and paper frying pan thing that somehow transformed into big hot popcorn thing and never failed to drop Dean's jaw, and then they went up to kiss Sammy goodnight. John picked Dean up and lowered him into the crib so he could peck Sam on the forehead, and then John flew him like Superman, Dean's arms outstretched in front of him, hands fisted and turned in.
His mom had come in, saying, "Don't get him too worked up, John," but she was smiling. She took Dean's head in her hands and kissed him on each eyelid, said, "My good boy, my Dean," and then she went to coo at Sam.
The popcorn started to make itself known downstairs, in snaps and hisses, and Dean squirmed down, punching at his father's legs happily, going "pow pow pow" and looking up to see his parents kissing on the mouth.
Dean and his dad burned their fingers, steam billowing up from the bowl. Dean held it on his lap and John held Dean on his lap, and they watched a monster movie. From time to time Dean would say, "Too scary," and John's hand would settle over his eyes and Dean would be blind for as long as he wanted to be.
They both fell asleep on the couch. Later, Dean would learn that John had forgotten to turn off the burner on the stove. Later, he would hear about the dishrag left a little too close to the flame, and the combustible properties of the wallpaper in the kitchen. Decades down the line, Dean would still be coming to grips with how stupid and run-of-the-mill it had been, all the typical insignificant things that had doomed them.
He woke up unable to breathe. The dark was smudged, shifting, and it seared into Dean's chest and after a long terrified moment he realized it was smoke. The room was filled with smoke.
Dean didn't understand what panic was. He couldn't see and he couldn't breathe and he wanted his dad to be there but when he tried to scream it came out as a cough, came out as smoke. His whole body felt like it was breaking apart. He tried to run and banged into something and fell down. Lay crooked and trembling on the carpet and his face was slippery wet and he knew he had to get out of here but he didn't know how.
Then his dad was there, hoarsely calling Dean's name and Dean crawled over to him, weeping and terrified. John's voice broke as Dean grabbed him, and he dropped to his knees, pressing something big and soft and bulky into Dean's arms, telling him:
"Take your brother outside as fast as you can."
Dean's body curled around the bundle of Sam, his shoulders folding in and his arms locking into place. His dad's face was streaked with soot and fear and Dean had never seen him like this.
"Now, Dean, go."
And Dean went. Clutching his brother, he ran through the smoke and only looked back once. Just once to see his father taking the stairs three at a time, bellowing, "Mary!" and John was running into the fire. Dean thought he would die just from watching his dad disappear into the flames. No one could feel like this and survive.
But Sam was hollering from inside his blanket, tiny legs kicking ineffectually, and Dean thought, sammy, and it let him move again.
Dean sat on the sidewalk with his baby brother sobbing in his arms, staring at the picture of his house being slowly consumed. He wiped at Sam's face with his fingers but that only smeared the ash around. Dean was hyperventilating, trying to shush Sam but his voice wouldn't work. The harder Sam cried, the harder Dean cried.
It was years before their father emerged from the fire. A whole side of the house buckled and collapsed, a great spray of spark and glass, and Dean tucked Sam into his neck so he could hide his face as he watched, rocking back and forth. got sammy, he kept thinking, sammy's right here. They'd always been so careful with him, cupping Dean's hand around the back of Sam's head, showing him how the milk couldn't be too hot, never letting Dean give him any candy. Because Sam was just a baby and almost anything could hurt him and Dean understood all that, appreciated that he had once been little like Sam, and one day Sam would be big like him.
But Sam was okay, which meant Dean's dad had to be okay, and his mom too. If Sam, tiny Sam with his balled fists like shooter marbles, if Sam wasn't hurt then Dean's mom and dad couldn't be hurt.
Years and years, and then John came stumbling out the front, huge staggering steps, wracked by coughing, and he barely got off the stoop before pitching forward on the grass.
Dean screamed, "Daddy!" He wanted to run to him but he couldn't put Sam down, couldn't just leave Sam on the sidewalk no matter how bad his heart was clamoring.
Other people were there by then, though, neighbors in robes and fluffy slippers, and a couple of them ran and grabbed John and hauled him away from the gnashing heat. He wasn't moving and Dean knew what dead people looked like, he'd seen on TV. Dean was crying so hard it felt like being held underwater.
Holding Sam to him, Dean got to his feet and got over to his father, pushing through legs and skidding on his knees. Someone was saying, "Dean," over and over again, pressing their hand into his hair, but it wasn't Dean's mom or his dad and so he didn't care.
"I got him," Dean managed to say, trying to tug the blanket off Sam's face so John could see. His dad's shirt, well-worn army T-shirt that Dean wore as pajamas sometimes, it was smoldering, blackened and torn. "Sam's okay, Dad, I got him, see."
His dad was still for a very long time, and then he stuttered on a groan, his big shoulders shifting on the grass. Dean gasped, pressed closer on his knees as John's bloodshot eyes came open.
"Dean."
Dean nodded fast. Sirens were splitting the night, echoing and vast and everything was so scary and weird right now.
"Did like you said, I got Sam," Dean told his dad, and John's hand rose shakily, touching the top of Sam's head and leaving another fingerprint of black soot. His dad was crying too, Dean noticed, and it made something go small inside him.
"Dad?" Dean patted at his father's wrist, and John took Dean's little hand, swallowed it up inside his own. "Where's Mom?"
For some reason, that had only made his dad cry harder.
*
They left Lawrence almost immediately.
Dean had no memory of any kind of funeral service, though he assumed there must have been, he definitely wasn't gonna ask his dad for confirmation. He remembered a few days spent in other people's homes, sunny houses where he and Sam lay around on the floor watching Rocky and Bullwinkle and Dean explained to Sam why stuff was funny so that Sam would know for when he got bigger. He ate a lot of strange meals with noodles. When he thought about his mom it felt like knives were going in him, so he tried to stop.
He wanted his dad around all the time, which was no different than usual except now he couldn't move or speak or breathe if his dad wasn't. It was like getting caught in a trap, smashed-chest, frozen dry-eyed, everything whited out of him except for the fact that his dad wasn't there.
Dean hated the feeling like he'd never hated anything in his life. Fire made it happen too. The edgeless gunshot sound of popping corn. And, oddly, the whole idea of airplanes.
Terror was a word he learned later. It remained Dean's least favorite emotion, the debilitation of it, the helplessness.
But it was a few days at most, and then John finally got out of Kansas for good. Dean liked to think that he remembered the drive north, but he was probably getting it mixed up with other things. The trip in his head took place entirely at night, him and Sammy in the backseat and Dean had a flashlight to play with and Sammy was still wrapped up in that charred yellow blanket and he could see his father's hands on the wheel, his leather-jacketed arm, but that was all.
John took them to South Dakota, a spot of rural nothing called Kingston. He had a friend there, Bobby, and he left Dean and Sam with him. He didn't come back for two months.
A decade passed before Dean understood why his dad had done that.
He had never told Sam, and as far as Dean knew, neither had Bobby. Sam had enough ammunition against John as it was.
Dean didn't eat for a week after his dad left, felt himself draw thin and pale and he kept picturing Casper the Friendly Ghost, wisp of a boy vulnerable to strong winds. He spent whole hours just watching Sam, hunched over his lap as his legs went numb. He and his brother were always in the same room no matter what.
He never knew what Bobby had done to get John on the phone at that point. John had been coarse and broken-voiced, speaking through rocks, but he'd told Dean, "I swear to you I am coming back," and Dean had been able to keep down his TV dinner that night.
Bobby started calling him runt way back then, runt and Deano, first person ever to call him that too, and taught him how to fix coffee the way Bobby liked it so that it would never taste right to Dean otherwise. He gave Dean stuff to do, hobbies to pick up for a day or two, and illuminated small corners of the world to him. He let Dean sleep in the crib with Sam for a few days, before fashioning a set of removable rails for Dean's bed and letting them both sleep there.
It was probably the perfect place to leave them, in retrospect. Bobby had certainly had Dean at "idjit," and it wasn't like John was in any kind of shape to take care of them himself.
It was a little more surprising that when John came back, they had all stayed.
Till he was about seven, Dean had honestly believed that at some point they would go home to Lawrence. He'd gotten it lodged in his head that the house was being fixed, rebuilt, and someday his dad would get a phone call saying it was ready for them again. New paint and new toys and everything would go back to normal then.
It had taken him awhile to shake the residue of that particular childhood dream.
The little town in the Black Hills where John's friend Bobby lived wasn't a terrible place to grow up, though. Kingston had a church and a couple of bars and a baseball field and Dean thought that was the bare minimum necessary for survival. He and Sam both liked tramping around the woods and they both liked playing hide-and-go-seek in the salvage yard that John bought off Bobby when Bobby decided to become a cop. Dean liked knowing the town as well as he did, all the good hiding places and most convenient escape routes. He thought that Sam had liked the quiet, when they were younger, but now Dean wasn't sure he'd been properly interpreting all the time Sam had spent off on his own.
Sam and Dean camped out for weeks at a time in the summers, 'til their hair was so greasy they could spike it up with their hands. Flashlight beams bouncing crazily off the trees stretching up above them, they lay on their backs and Dean made up stupid stories and Sam always listened. In the fall, they went hunting with their father. In the winter, they made forts out of the furniture when the whole town was snowed in.
John did what he could, but he'd never signed up to raise two small boys all on his own. He never got over the two minutes he'd been juggling Dean and hot popcorn and laughing and had forgotten to turn off the burner. Dean never got over how he'd begged for Jiffy Pop that night, how he'd talked his dad into it.
He cut his father a lot of slack.
Dean was buying the groceries by the time he was eight and forging their dad's signature on bills at nine. He was working as a shelver at the store by twelve, and by fifteen Bobby had set him up as a general gofer for the sheriff's department. Bobby got the top job six months before Dean graduated high school, and with his path clear before him he didn't even take the summer off, went right into training to join the force.
In Lawrence, Dean had wanted to be a fireman--it was being able to drive the truck, mostly. In Kingston, he was always meant to be a cop.
John and Bobby were proud of him and Sam didn't really understand but Sam didn't understand anything about Dean back then. Dean wanted a job where he helped people, never having bothered to define it in greater detail than that and taking the first obvious opportunity. In a town this size, police work narrowed down to domestic calls and drunks, generally. Dean was always on the side of right, but not once in ten years had he saved anyone's life.
Most days, Dean didn't really like the job all that much, but he still got up.
*
Sam was still staying at the house a week or so after Dean brought him back from Ellen's. Dean never expected to find him there when he came in at odd hours, resigned to the empty house, but every time: Sam.
Sam in shirts that Dean hadn't seen since his brother was in high school, smelling of must and Dean's soap, eating cereal on the couch with the spoon clutched in his fist like a five year old (only with cereal would Sam hold the spoon like that--cereal with marshmallows, most often), watching some George Romero flick and sliding his eyes over to Dean when Dean came in, catching at Dean's edges and tugging low in his stomach. Sam, barefoot and damp-haired in the middle of the night, whenever Dean made it home.
Just the two of them banging around the house, living like teenagers again, like Dad was just off on a bender. Sam was supposed to be working but he wasn't and Dean didn't want to get into it. Sam made him french toast every morning, fried in butter with honey instead of syrup. He made coffee all the time, Bobby's way because Dean had taught him, and spiked it with scotch whether it was dark outside or not.
Dean just kinda went along with it. He just wanted Sam to stay for a little while. Sam holed up at the family home meant he wasn't getting his skull kicked in somewhere. Dean was tired of getting calls about him.
But Sam seemed to be doing better. Not drinking less, god forbid Sam drink less, but not as mean from it, which was a step.
At work, Dean tormented the rookie and ate lunch in Bobby's office, sandwiches in nests of white paper, cardboard boxes with chicken and fries. Bobby had his boots up on the desk; he was the only one allowed to do that.
"You comin' over for the game tonight?" Bobby asked him.
Dean swiped a pair of fries through ketchup. "Doubt it."
"Hell, you ain't been by to clean us out in 'bout a month."
"Stealing from senior citizens, I don't know, something on it never really sat right with me."
"Senior ass-kicker, I think you mean." Bobby creaked back in his chair, giving Dean an old look. "You trick some girl into going out with you, runt?"
Dean half-smiled. "Exhausted the town. Lookin' to break into Sturgis."
"All the luck in the world on that, but meantime, whyn't you get your sorry ass to a poker game?"
Tensing slightly, not really a flinch, Dean kept his eyes on Bobby, steady and unremarkable. His fingers smudged grease on the cardboard box, hard to get a grip.
"Sam's staying at the house, you know. Kinda sick or something, I dunno. Tryin' to keep an eye."
"Boy," Bobby sighed, and Dean looked at him sharply, but Bobby wasn't saying it to scold, just a general expression of ineffable emotion. "The two of you back in that house, it'll never stay standing."
Bobby's favorite stories to dredge up were the various times Dean and his brother had almost burned the place down. Considering most of the times had perfectly reasonable explanations and the most recent was fifteen years ago, it was getting kind of old. Dean settled for rolling his eyes, taking a sip of Coke.
"Just for a little while. He's just gettin' his head on straight."
"No offense or nothing, but that might take a little longer than a little while."
"Um, offense taken." Dean fired a grin to show that he was kidding, but it hung strange and he doubted the truth of it. "Don't talk shit about my brother."
Bobby scoffed. "How 'bout I limit myself to direct quotes from you?"
Dean waved his Coke dismissively, something sour biting under the sweetness. "How 'bout you just keep your damn mouth shut?"
"Hey." Stone lines carved across Bobby's face. Hard cutting tone, don't-fuck-around-with-me-boy. "We ain't always friends in here, sergeant."
Dean flushed. He poked at the box with a fry. "Sorry, sir."
There was a pause. Dean could hear the rookie's uneven cadence stumbling after the lilt of the secretary, a truck backfiring outside. He was sick of everybody talking about Sam like this. Everybody knew what had happened, they couldn't expect him to just bounce back like nothing.
"Bit on edge, there, Deano?"
Exhaling, Dean glanced up and found Bobby's usual look of long-suffering aggravation. It was reassuring, the same look Bobby'd been giving him for a quarter-century, but Dean still didn't want to talk about it.
"I'm fine. Little tired, maybe."
"Shouldn't be takin' all those swing shifts-"
"World runs on money, sheriff," Dean reminded him. Bobby snorted, shaking his head.
"And here I still remember you trading in army men." Bobby balled his wrapper up and pitched it into the bin next to the bookshelf. He cleared his throat. "You know I can always help you boys out if it's-"
"No," Dean said quickly. He flashed an insincere smile that Bobby visibly read as bullshit. "We're all right. Sam's going back to work soon, so."
Bobby kept his expression skeptical, but didn't say anything else about it, and for that Dean was thankful. All these people in this town who thought that just because they'd watched Sam and Dean grow up, they had license to intrude. Sometimes Dean didn't know why he even bothered making friends.
"Friday," Bobby said instead. "You goin' down?"
Dean sighed, rubbing at his shoulder. "Yeah."
"No-good brother goin' with you?"
"'Course."
"Awright, well, you be sure to tell him to mind the limit. I got no pull in Iowa."
Dean nodded, got to his feet. He dumped the chicken bones and grease-printed cardboard box into the trash, wiping his fingers on his shirt.
"Don't mess up your uniform," Bobby complained gruffly. Dean shot him a salute, left the office.
The afternoon and evening slid past, tattered pieces like the snow falling out the window. A pair of pick-up trucks smashed up near the ravine, no injuries but one of the drivers was swaying drunk and Dean hauled him in. Steve Wandell shot a rabid dog on the outskirts of his property and Dean had to go out to collect the carcass. There was a collar buried in matted, bloodstained fur, a numbing silver tag in the shape of a bone. Dean called the number, over in the next county, and the man who answered broke into tears when Dean told him his dog was dead.
Dean picked up some boxes of macaroni and cheese and a couple sixers on the way home. He ran into Troy Malachy and some of the other guys he'd played football with in high school and got into a discussion about the best rifles currently available for purchase in a two hundred mile radius. They invited him out to the Spoke and Dean begged off, condensation soaking through the paper bag and making his fingers freeze in claw-like shapes. His mind was stuck on his brother, wondering if Sam would still be there when Dean got home.
Sam was.
He was watching one of the Child's Play movies--Dean probably could have figured out number, but he wasn't in the mood--and cleaning one of Dean's guns.
"Dude," Dean said in disgust as he unbuckled his uniform belt and hung it up. "Who the hell said you could touch my stuff?"
Sam flicked his head to get his hair out of his eyes, and Dean wished he'd get it cut already. Sam looked falsely accused, wide-eyed and innocent.
"I'm helping you out."
"I keep 'em plenty clean, Sam. Gimme that." He made a snatch for it but Sam fell back into the couch with the gun, a Colt, a hard gray backslash across his shirt.
"Just lemme, c'mon Dean, you never let me play with the guns anymore."
Dean snorted against his will. Sam gave him a big encouraging grin, fingers long and bent over the barrel, holding the gun to his heart like some kind of promise.
"Don't fuck it up," Dean warned, and put the beer on the coffee table before crashing down next to Sam. "Kick your ass."
"Yeah yeah." Sam sat up, bent contentedly over his task again. He hummed along with the cheesy swelling strings in the background that meant some hairsprayed mom was about to get wasted, and Dean looked at the back of Sam's neck, the careful angle of it and the clean stretch of skin.
He reached for a beer, pulled off two and passed one to Sam, who set the gun down to take it. "So what'd you do today?"
They cracked their beers in unison--lots of practice.
"Got fuckin' Mikey to pay me back for the transmission I spotted him back in July, you remember that?"
"'Course, Sammy, you brought it up every frickin' night for like a month." Dean held out his can, spitting carbonation, and Sam thocked his against it and the night was officially on.
"Yeah, but a long time ago, right? Haven't in awhile 'cause I basically gave up on him and was planning how to, you know, break his kneecaps like I promised, but then I'm out at the yard today just screwing around with this old Mustang and who should come by?"
Sam tipped his head Dean's direction, lifted his eyebrows and Dean supplied readily, "Fuckin' Mikey."
"Fuckin' Mikey, exactly right. Flush from the timber bonus and he just pulled out this stack, thick as a deck a cards. Man, I 'bout dropped."
Grin like that on Sam's face, Dean lost the thread of the plot for a moment. It was like a curtain thrown aside, Sam's face just opened up, and Dean couldn't help but wonder how buzzed he already was. There were different stages to Sam's drunk and one of them was talkative and charming and Dean had a bad feeling he'd walked right into it.
"So you got it all back?" Dean asked.
Sam nodded, his head loose on his neck. "And I told him no worries about interest, but me and my brother get free lemonade at the cafe for a year."
"Really?"
"Damn right. Lookin' out for you, Dean, you know."
"Good man." Dean reached forward and scrubbed Sam's hair, Sam ducking away like he always did. "You actually made legal money today, Sammy, I don't even know what to say."
Sam made a scorned sound. He was back at work cleaning the Colt and he might have been half in the bag but his hands never faltered. It was second-nature to him as much as it was to Dean, all those Sundays spent at the kitchen table watching Dad dismantle and reconstruct his collection. Dean could strip a rifle quicker than a Marine. Sam could probably do it blindfolded.
"'Thanks' wouldn't be totally out of line," Sam told him. Dean flicked him between the shoulder blades and watched Sam jump. "Or you might wanta quit while you're ahead."
"I'm ahead?" Sam looked back to roll his eyes, and Dean grinned at him. Everything was so depressing these days, and a night like tonight, an easy beer-drinking slasher-film night, it was like finding an arrowhead in mud.
They drank their beers. Sam finished with the guns and arranged them neatly on the table, handguns in a row with the rifle and shotgun above. Every gun Dean owned had once belonged to his father, except for his service revolver and that wasn't really his.
Sam slumped back next to Dean on the couch, one foot up on the coffee table and his leg stretched out impossibly long, bridgelike. He rolled a can of beer on his thigh, left little hooks of wet on his jeans.
People were dying quicker the later it got in the movie. Sam was blinking foggily, messing up when he tried to say the dialogue along with the characters. A cottony haze had settled over Dean's mind, and he thought with relief that his obligations were at an end; they had made it through another day. Sam was okay, warm next to him on the couch and not bleeding in any discernible way.
"So," Dean said, and let it hang there for a moment, pulling his thoughts together. "You were down at the yard?" Sam made an affirmative sound, gnawing absently on the lip of the can. "Gonna let Mattias put you to work again?"
Sam's shoulders hitched in a shrug. "I like this Mustang."
"Is it for somebody or just for fun?"
"Just for fun. I got this, this image of her, what she's gonna look like once I get her fixed. How she'll sound."
"Yeah." Dean folded his arm under his head, remembering when he was maybe eight and he'd pressed himself flat to the side of the Impala as his dad turned her on, his cheek on cool black metal and the whole car coming to shuddering life under his body. "You're gonna grease-monkey anyway, you should get paid."
Huffing out a little breath, Sam tapped the edge of his beer on his teeth, tick-ticking. He wasn't looking at Dean, movie light reflected chaotically on his eyes.
"I don't know," Sam answered after a long moment. "I don't think I wanna go back yet."
"Come on, man," Dean said without thinking, and then bit his tongue. Sam's jaw tensed; he'd heard the exasperation in Dean's voice and he evidently didn't appreciate it.
They'd both grown up in the salvage yard, rolling on their backs on the miniature dollies Bobby'd made for them, painted with grease and getting taller alongside sunbursts of broken glass and the mean slice of daylight off chrome. The rusted hulks and burnt-out shells, Dean was as at home among them as he was among the family photographs. A couple times when he was a kid, Sam had made as if he'd run away without actually going, and twice Dean found him curled up in trunks with busted latches, each time looking so astonished that Dean had tracked him down.
Dad had had to sell the yard four years ago, when he kept getting too tired to put in a full day and they didn't know he was sick yet. Mattias was a decent guy and kept the place further in the black than John had ever managed, but Dean didn't really feel at home there anymore. It was just a place that was no longer theirs.
Sam came back after John went into the hospital for the first time, and he'd signed on at the salvage yard just because it was still there. He'd worked for Mattias steadily for a few months, coming home black-handed with his hair in stiffened clumps, surgical-neat cuts on his forearms. They needed the money. Dean's insurance didn't come anywhere close to covering all of John's medical expenses; trying to stay afloat, they were drowning in slow-motion.
After their dad was gone, Sam had gone a little crazy and beat the shit out of an old Cadillac with a crowbar, and Mattias got kinda scared of him (everybody was kinda scared of Sam, back then), and started letting him work whenever he wanted. And so Sam had done for two years now, on and off and mostly on when he was living with Jess, mostly off since he'd lost her.
Dean shouldn't be bringing it up, but they were gonna have to eat Kraft mac and cheese until his next paycheck and while Dean loved him some Kraft, he wasn't trying to base his diet around it.
"You ever planning to go back to work for real?" Dean asked, trying to keep it non-confrontational.
"Eventually." Short enough that Dean knew Sam didn't want to talk about it, but that had never stopped him before.
"Just sayin'. It's been what, ten months?"
Sam narrowed his eyes, passing a glare over to his brother. "Ten months, one week, four days. But who's counting?"
Dean smirked at nothing. His stomach was trying to crawl up his throat and he shoved it down. He didn't like this conversation and was frustrated because he'd been the one to start it, all his good intentions gone to hell.
"Just, you know. Think maybe it'd be good for you."
Dean winced as the words left his mouth, already regretting them. Sam's face contorted, the corner of his lip trying to curl into a sneer.
"I don't need you telling me what's good for me, Dean. What, I get a job or you kick me out? Heard that shit before."
"You don't even live here," Dean muttered at his beer. Sam made a strange choked noise, all anger and grief, but Dean didn't look up.
"Fine." Finality in it, Sam slamming his beer on the coffee table and getting to his feet. "I'll just get the fuck out of your house, then."
Dean didn't think, just hooked his foot around Sam's ankle as Sam tried to leave, a hard yank and a startled cry and boom, Sam was on the floor. He seemed unnaturally big, laid out on his stomach with his shoulders up, his head dropped down. He was cursing, calling Dean a sheepfucker and saying his arm was fuckin' broke, but he was still here.
Dean hopped on Sam's back before Sam could get his hands under himself, felt the air whoosh out of his brother and Sam kinda groaned. Fisting a hand in Sam's hair, knees wedged under his shoulder blades and legs pinning Sam's arms, Dean said conversationally:
"Not goin' anywhere, Sammy."
"Asshole," Sam wanted Dean to know, bucking and wrenching under him. "Lemme up."
"Nope." Thick soft hair at the base of Sam's head, Dean's fingers completely hidden from view, and he had to remember, pressure but not too much, keeping Sam in place. "I asked a perfectly innocent question, like, out of brotherly concern and all and you, you fuckin' flip."
Sam had his head turned to the side, half his face visible gnashing and spitting, single eye rolling to find Dean. "I didn't wanna talk about it."
"I can see that now."
Dean leaned down, letting his forearm fit against the dent of Sam's spine. The inside of his wrist pressed flat to the bare skin at the back of Sam's neck, his pulse hammering. Sam fell quiet, his face impossible to read with only half available to Dean. Sam was chewing on the inside of his lip, Dean could tell, and the thought did unprecedented things to him.
"Just tell me to shut the fuck up," Dean said, proud of his voice for staying even. Sam was mind-numbingly warm, up close like this. "Don't need to pitch a damn fit and storm out, ya little brat."
Sam bared his teeth, a whole-body shiver spurring through him first and then Dean. Dean's head was coming apart, deeply aware of every place he was touching his brother, and he could see that this was going somewhere very bad.
He didn't let up. Couldn't. He felt like he'd been welded to Sam.
Dean was careful exhaling, his chest rising against Sam's back. He tried to remember what he'd been trying to say, feeling feverish and vaguely delirious.
"If, if you don't wanna get a job yet then fine, it's okay. We're not, like, about to go on Alpo diets or something."
Sam made an airless sighing sound, face scrunched. "If you'd let me fuckin' hustle-"
"No." Sam's hair got a twist for that, dangerously satisfying to hear him hiss. "You lose any more teeth and no one's gonna think you're pretty no more."
"Hustling and brawling are not interchangeable, I can just do the one."
"Well, all my past experience tells me different, but if you wanna believe it."
"Dean-" And Sam cut himself off, a sharp intake of air that forced his shoulders up. Dean was staring at the line of Sam's jaw, his concentration totally fixed until Sam said, "Get offa me."
Something in Sam's tone, warning and dark, and Dean was scrambling off him, pieces of Sam's hair clinging to his fingers. He sat on the couch, wired suddenly, drunker than he had ever anticipated. Sam took a minute, elbows on the floor, head bowed, before he pushed himself up.
Dean wondered if he should apologize, but Sam beat him to it.
"Sorry." Sam got to his feet with the care of a habitual drunk used to waking up on the ground. "Sorry about that."
Nodding, saying, "It's okay," those were both reflexes.
"You're probably right, anyway." Sam dug his hands into his pockets, tottering only slightly. The carpet had left a thatched red mark on his cheek. "I just, I don't think I'd be very good at a job right now."
"No, that's true," Dean allowed. "Kind of a fuckin' train wreck, Sam."
"I know." Sam sighed. "I really do know."
ten months, Dean thought. Ten months watching his brother get decimated, self-immolating at a hundred miles an hour down the mountain roads, greedy for a sheer drop, and Dean flinched every time the phone rang at the station. Sam was altered in fundamental ways, all his sweetness gone, all his ambition, and it couldn't be normal for grief to do this to a person.
Dean would have done just about anything to have kept this from happening to Sam.
"Look, you'll work when you can," Dean said. "We'll be all right 'til then." He rubbed his knuckles on his kneecap, looking up at his brother as the credits ran in the background. "And you should stay here. I mean. Get rid of your place 'cause you only live there in name and we could buy food with the rent."
Dean's throat closed up, tried to choke off what he was saying and he thought that must be his battered sense of self-preservation, kicking in once again. It was probably not the best idea he'd ever had, asking Sam to move back in, but Sam was better like this. His bruises were almost all the way faded, and Dean hadn't found him passed out in the hallway or bathroom in four days, and he hadn't been rolled from any of the bars in better than a week. Sam was getting better, Dean had to believe.
Sam gave him a narrow-eyed look, suspicious. "You just want me around so you can keep an eye on me."
"That is one hundred percent correct."
Sam's mouth twitched. "The hell do I get out of it?"
"Room and board. Pay attention, Sammy."
And there it was, a smile from Sam, quick as an open-handed slap and stinging in the same way. A white flag passing over Sam's face, and Dean felt something in his chest loosen, a give in the tense set of his shoulders. It had been a while since he'd gotten Sam to smile.
"Well, hell, you asked so nice." Sam tried to play it off, but there was color on his face and he kept looking at his feet like he did when he was pleased and trying not to show it.
"I got no wish for this to be just my house," Dean told him, and he meant it to be joking although in retrospect he couldn't see anything funny about it. It was kind of awkward, a flash of confusion on Sam's face, and Dean coughed, dug for another beer so he wouldn't have to meet Sam's eyes.
"I'll stick around," Sam said, slow like each word had to be planned out. "Long as you want me to."
Dean looked up at him, blinking warily and knocked off balance a bit because he'd thought it blindingly obvious that Sam could stick around forever if he so chose. Sam gave him a small, tired smile, and Dean heard a traitorous old voice start up in his head again, a sinister hiss that only ever had one word to say, an endless plea only when Dean was looking at his brother: stay.
*
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