Fic: Crazy Faith (Supernatural) - Part I
Title: Crazy Faith
Author: Ivy (ivy03)
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: R
Genre: hints of Wincest
Word count: 14,000
Warning: Remember how angsty Morning in the Evening was? This time we turn it up to eleven.
A/N: The golden trophy of beta awesomeness goes to trakkie for putting up with my endless stream of angst and making me tone it down a smidge until it's juuuust right.
Summary: Sam saw the Impala in West Texas.
Read in one file on AO3.
Sequel to Morning in the Evening.
I.
Sam saw the Impala in West Texas.
He was in a small town, like a scratch in the cracked soil of the desert-a bit of civilization clinging together against the emptiness that surrounded it on all sides. Sam hadn't found a hunt in weeks, and he'd gotten into the habit of just driving his truck at random across the middle of the country at times like this. It was easier than staying still.
He just saw the rear fins, disappearing around the corner, but he recognized them. He didn't know how, but he knew it wasn't just any Impala, it was the Impala. Dean's Impala.
He was on foot at the time, his shoes getting slowly caked with red desert dirt. He'd just been thinking about buying cowboy boots, like all the residents seemed to wear. The sun was still up but he'd called it a night anyway, figuring that if he kept driving it might be hours before he hit another place with a motel. He'd slept in his truck before, but it got cold in the desert at night and he didn't like to if he could avoid it.
He ran after the Impala, but by the time he got to the corner it was gone. It seemed to have vanished into the desert-the town should have been too small for Sam to lose it so quickly: just a truck stop with a topless bar across the street, a few stores and houses to support the people who worked there.
His heart was pounding and he felt like he'd swallowed the whole desert, dry and dusty in his throat. He'd always had Dean's number, of course, but he'd never called it. Lately keeping it on his speed dial had seemed stupid-Dean probably didn't even have the same phone anymore. Maybe he'd been driving constantly for the last four years because part of him expected to stumble across Dean cast ashore in some Smalltown, USA.
Sam stood on the corner for a moment, looking at where the Impala must have gone. He hooked his fingers in the loops of his jeans and just stood there until his heart slowed down. He turned back towards where he'd parked the pickup, thinking of where he could ask. Somebody must have noticed a vintage car like that, even if it had only been here a day or two. And a town like this couldn't have too many drifters wandering through.
He went to the topless bar. A neon sign on the pink roof declared "Nightmoves." Classy. Since it was mid-afternoon, the doors were open and the bar was serving, but the poles on the stage were empty. Fully lit, the interior looked shabby-kitschy in all the wrong seventies-porno ways. He walked up to the bar, eyeing the one man in a cowboy hat slumped down at the end.
"Can I get you anything?" the bartender asked.
"Johnny Walker Red on the rocks," Sam replied. He wanted to launch straight into an interrogation but held himself back. What was it Dean always said, that he was the one good with people? Maybe that had only been by comparison. Right now he didn't think he could sweet-talk his way into anything.
He took a few sips of his drink and waited for the bartender to walk back towards him. "I'm new in town," he said, trying for endearing.
"Knew that."
"Well, I was just wondering if you knew any way to pass the time."
"Girls don't come on till seven," the bartender said, not even looking at Sam. "Feel free to ask 'em but if they say no and you don't back off…" he pointed to a shotgun resting on a shelf among the bottles.
"No, no," Sam said, waving his hand. He swallowed a bit of the whisky wrong and spent the next few minutes hacking. This finally got the bartender to look at him, smiling a bit as Sam's face turned red. "I, uh…" His voice came out husky and strange and he cleared his throat a couple of times until it felt normal again. "Actually, I'm more interested in vintage cars."
"Then what the hell are you here for?"
"Well, when I came into town I thought I saw an old Chevy." He covered his sudden nervousness by taking a sip of whisky. "A 1967 Chevy Impala. Pretty rare car-wondering if you knew who owned it."
"That thing," the bartender said, curling his lip a little. "That's Dean Winchester's. You should hear him talk about it. He never shuts up, calls it his baby." He rolled his eyes. "Don't even bother trying to get a closer look at it. People say he keeps a gun in the glove box to scare off thieves. You've got a better chance getting a close look at a rattlesnake than at that car."
Sam couldn't get a word out for a few seconds. "Dean Winchester?" He swallowed and tried to regain an air of disinterest. "Like the gun?"
"Yup. Good mechanic, keeps to himself."
Sam's eyes bugged out a little bit. "Where does he live?"
"I told you you're never gonna get near that car, but if you want to take your chances, suit yourself. He lives outside of town, got a little house a few miles down the road."
Sam thanked the bartender for the whisky and stumbled out into the dimming light. The sunset painted the sky and the desert in magnificent colors, but the words "mechanic" and "house" just kept spinning around in his head. Dean was here. Not just passing through.
Dean lived here.
~*~
Sam got a bunk at the truck stop-just a bed in a room with a door, like a locker for people. Or a morgue. The showers down the hall were coin-operated. Sam kept a little Tupperware container of quarters in the cab for these and for laundry machines. When he'd traveled with Dean, they'd usually crashed in motels. Pay-by-the-hour places mostly, but at least a room with two beds and a shower. Now that it was just him he didn't see the point of looking for anything more comfortable than this most of the time.
He lay awake all night listening to the rumbling of big rigs pulling in to the diesel pumps and driving off on their way to Pecos. He felt like a caterpillar trapped in a chrysalis.
Dean was here.
He took a few more shots of Johnny Walker from his flask and closed his eyes, but he wasn't fooling his body into going to sleep.
~*~
He followed the directions the bartender gave him the next morning. When the morning light started slanting through the slats in the door to his almost-room he sat in the dark trying to figure the best time to drive over there. He didn't want to be too early and wake Dean up, but if he waited too long, Dean might have gone to work. If he had work to go to. Then it was late morning and Sam wondered if Dean would come home for lunch or if he should wait till evening. He didn't know what he'd do if he went over there and no one was home. Wait on the stoop? Leave a note? How would he even know he had the right place?
At about eleven he remembered it was a Saturday and hopped in his truck.
The house was back along the way he'd come into town. He hadn't noticed it at the time, but it was unmistakable now. It was small but neat, freshly-painted, like someone was taking good care of it. There was a yard in front, dry, cracked dirt and some scrub brush. Whoever lived here had no pretensions that they were living anywhere but in the desert; no expensive irrigation system to make grass grow unnaturally green the way everyone seemed to have out in Arizona. There was a split rail fence along the side of the road, the house set well back, though the trucks rolling through still probably made the windows rattle in their frames.
But the reason he knew it was the right place was the Impala. It was parked in what Sam guessed was the driveway, though there was no real delineation between that and the rest of the yard. Two pointed-tipped cowboy boots attached to lean jean-clad legs stuck out from underneath.
Sam drove straight past the first time. It was stupid, he knew, but it seemed too abrupt to just pull into the driveway. He was two miles down the road before he talked himself into pulling a U-turn and going back. This time he pulled the truck over about fifty yards from the house, throwing it into park. He walked the rest of the way, his eyes never leaving those boots sticking out from under the Impala, toes occasionally tapping against the air to an unheard rhythm.
He reached the driveway and made himself take a couple of steps beyond the fence, feet firmly on his brother's property. But he didn't know what to do after that. Had this been five years ago he would have walked right up and yanked Dean's feet, pulling him out into the sunlight. But had it been five years ago he wouldn't be standing here, looking at the house his brother owned.
After a few minutes, the feet dug into the dirt, knees bending, pulling Dean out from under the car. His brother rolled towards the house; Sam could see red dust across his shoulders and in his hair, just as short as it had been when he'd last seen it. Though Dean was still a few dozen yards away, he could hear it clearly when his brother spoke.
"Hey, Sammy, come here." Sam's heart stopped. Had Dean seen him? He took half a step forward before he saw that Dean was addressing someone else.
A little girl appeared from behind the bumper of the car, thick black hair plaited at the nape of her neck, wearing a blue jumper. She couldn't have been more than three.
Dean sat up further when she got closer to him. "Show me your hands," he said. She stuck out her hands, palms up, and he inspected them closely. "OK, now wash up and you can help mommy with lunch."
Sam was rooted to the spot. It was like he didn't exist at all, like he was looking through a window into a life he could never be part of. That was Dean with a baby girl. Dean had a daughter.
Dean stood up fluidly, following after the toddler as she walked towards the front porch. When she reached the steps, she turned around and stopped. Dean immediately whipped his head around to see what had caught his daughter's attention. His eyes locked on Sam.
Neither of them moved. Dean looked shocked and Sam couldn't tell if that was a good thing or a bad thing. The little girl sat down on the front step and started picking pebbles up out of the dirt, collecting them in her hand. The screen door opened, then banged shut, pulled on a too-tight spring, and a woman stepped out from the house. She was dressed in a simple floral-patterned dress. And she was pregnant.
The noise seemed to startle Dean out of his shock. He launched himself towards Sam, still standing near the edge of the property. Sam couldn't move. Before he could think, Dean had barreled into him, knocking him a step back and squeezing both his arms around Sam's chest. Sam squeezed back, relief making his breath rush out like a sob.
"Sammy," Dean said into his shoulder, then stepped back. He knocked his hand against Sam's cheek. His grin looked like it was splitting his face. His skin was darker, whether from tan or from dirt, Sam couldn't tell. Sam felt his heart stop beating. Next thing Sam knew he was being hauled back toward the house.
The woman swung the girl up into her arms, resting her against one hip. She looked at Sam dubiously. Sam suddenly remembered the two days of stubble on his chin, the clothes he hadn't changed since yesterday.
"This is my brother. Sammy," Dean said with a grin when they'd drawn even.
"I'm Sammy!" the girl protested.
"Of course you are, pumpkin," Dean said, giving her a kiss on the head. "Sam, this is my wife Deb and my daughter, Samantha."
"Uh…hi," Sam said. This wasn't the reception he'd expected, not after the way he and Dean had parted ways. And he'd never expected to meet Dean's wife. They didn't have Hallmark cards for these sorts of things: Sorry I missed the wedding, your husband and I have been estranged ever since he banged my girlfriend.
Deb continued to stare at him, not unkindly, but with trepidation, the way you'd look at a stray dog when you didn't know if it would bite you or lick your palm. When Sam looked at the girl, she tucked her face into the crook of her mother's neck.
Dean stroked her hair. "Sweetheart, say hi to your uncle Sam." She shook her head a little in the protection of her mother's arms. Sam didn't know what to say. He was looking at his niece, the next in the Winchester line. Between him and Dean he always thought he'd be the family man, but he was looking at proof that he'd been wrong. Beautiful, round-cheeked proof. He couldn't take his eyes off the girl, couldn't stop himself from wondering if Jess had lived if his own daughter would have looked like that.
Dean stared at him and took in how Sam was looking at his daughter and wife. It was one of the most uncomfortable silences Sam had ever experienced.
After a moment, Dean cleared his throat to call his attention back. "Awkward," he sing-songed, then motioned Sam to come inside.
~*~
They sat in Dean's kitchen. There was a calico tablecloth on the table with a few tomato stains. It matched the curtains, stains and all. It had taken a few minutes to get Sammy's hands washed and get her settled into her high chair before Dean and his wife took seats on either side of her, with Sam opposite. Dean held out the chair for Deb.
It was all so home-spun and normal. The last time Sam had eaten a meal like this had been when Jess had taken him home to meet her parents.
Dean reached over to Sammy's plate and cut her hot dog into bite sized chunks. She seemed content to smear them around in ketchup, studiously not looking at Sam.
"So," Deb said, clearing her throat. "You're Dean's brother."
Sam looked over at Dean, confused and, he hated to admit, a little hurt. "You didn't-"
"Oh, he told me he had a brother. He always said he'd lost you. I just figured that meant you were dead." Deb cleared her throat again. Sam looked over at Dean, but Dean was just staring at his plate, pushing his food around in a motion eerily like his daughter's. "I guess he just meant…you were lost."
Silence hung for a few moments, Sam trying to figure out what to make of this. "Uh," he said, quite sure he didn't want to tell Dean's wife about the details. "We had an argument."
"Uh-huh," she said a little disbelievingly, looking at her husband with a raised eyebrow.
Finally Sam blurted out, "You got married?"
"Looks like," Deb said, flattening out the vowels.
"Why didn't you call me?" Sam asked.
"Well," Dean finally looked up. "You said you needed space."
"Dean, you could've invited me to your wedding."
"Well, it wasn't much of a ceremony-" Dean started, clearly hedging.
"We got married in the county clerk's office," Deb cut in. She reached over to cover her daughter's ears. "It was kind of a shot gun wedding," she stage-whispered. Sammy looked up at her mom and waved with a piece of hot dog on her fork.
"Without the shot gun," Dean quickly added.
"You could've at least told me that you had a daughter."
Dean looked a little edgy. "Uh…"
"That you named after me," Sam hissed.
"Actually," Deb cut in, "Samantha's from my family-it was my grandmother's name."
Sam could feel himself blushing. "Oh."
"You could've told me you were coming into town," Dean said petulantly.
"Wasn't sure your cell phone still worked."
"Well, did you try it?" Dean asked.
"Um, actually, I didn't know you were here. I was just stopping at the truck stop, on my way to El Paso."
"Oh." It was just one syllable, but it was a whole world of disappointment.
"I…saw the Impala driving through town yesterday."
They sat in silence for a moment. Sammy started banging her fork against the plastic plate. Dean stood and gently took the plate and utensil away from her, picking up his still-full plate as well and carrying them to the sink. "Guess you'll be on your way, then. You should get to El Paso before dark if you leave now."
"Dean," Sam said, recognizing an edge of a whine in his voice that he hadn't used since the last time he'd been around his brother. "I didn't know how to call you. Wasn't sure you'd want to hear from me."
Dean banged the plates into the sink. "Of course I wanted to hear from you." He sighed.
"You could've called, too," Sam pointed out.
"Hey, you're the one who said you needed space, not me." He turned around. "Why don't you go on to El Paso, and when you're done with whatever job you have, come back for a few days." He looked cautiously optimistic.
"I don't have a job in El Paso. I'm sort of between-" he looked over at Deb, remembering, suddenly, that she was in the room with them. "Wait," he said looking back at Dean. "How did you know I was still taking…'jobs.'"
Dean grimaced guiltily. "I might have…accidentally…hacked your cell phone's GPS."
Sam started. "You've been spying on me?"
"You told me you wanted time alone," Dean said hotly. "It's not like I went and forgot I had a brother."
"OK," Deb said, looking between the two of them. "Why don't Sammy and I go into town and leave the two of you to talk."
"Ice cream?" Sammy piped up hopefully.
"Sure, honey, why not. It's not every day you find out you've got an uncle." She hoisted Sammy up and made her way to the screen door. "You boys," she said pointing first at Sam, then at Dean, "talk." The door banged shut behind her. Dean looked cowed.
"She's kind of scary," Sam said.
"No kidding."
~*~
"I need a beer," Sam said into the silence in the kitchen.
"You drink before noon?" Dean asked.
"It's after noon."
"Whatever."
"Yes, I drink before noon on days when I run into my estranged brother in bumfuck Texas and meet his pregnant wife and kid."
"I'm not estranged."
"What do you call it when we don't talk for four years?"
"I call it you having one of your hissy fits. Like Stanford."
"Stanford was not a hissy fit!" Sam snapped back, then sighed.
"So," Dean said. "Beer, then?"
"Hell, yeah."
Dean pulled two beers out of the fridge. When he turned back toward Sam a slow grin spread over his face, like he couldn't even pretend to hold it back. "I'm glad you're here, Sammy."
"Yeah," Sam said, grinning back. "Me, too."
They settled into a floral couch in the living room. The cushions sagged a bit, tilting them towards each other. Dean left the lights off, letting the bright sunlight bounce off the painted white floorboards to illuminate the room. Sam picked at the label on the beer.
"So," he said. "Guess you know what I've been doing."
"Sorta." Dean shrugged. "I know where you've been. I can make an educated guess as to what you've been doing. Except for the few times you made the papers-those I read about."
Sam smiled.
"What I don't know is why. I thought you wanted the whole…white picket fence thing. I thought that was why you…" He let the sentence hang there, but Sam could hear the rest of it. That was why you left me.
Sam stared out across the room. "Didn't really take."
"Yeah?" It was clearly meant as a question but Sam ignored it.
"What about you? I thought hunting was your life. Didn't figure you for the 'white picket fence' thing."
"Hey, did you see a picket fence?" Dean asked.
"No, really, Dean. You were always the one who said we couldn't do normal. So what's all…" he gestured around at the living room, with its end tables and knick-knacks on the bookshelves.
"I didn't exactly plan it," Dean said defensively. "I kept hunting for a while, and then I stopped for a while, and then I was married."
"What, like you got drunk and woke up in Vegas with a wedding band? How do you just get married?"
"Hey, it's not like a caught the plague." Dean took another swallow. "We were fooling around and she got pregnant. It just sort of happened."
"Are you…" Sam had meant to ask are you happy, but halfway through he thought better of it. What if Dean was? He wanted his brother to be happy, of course he did, but thinking of him here, comfortably settled with his happy little family, made thinking about all those miles he'd spent on the road hurt.
"So…" Dean spoke into the silence. "You still keep in touch with Ellen and Bobby and them?"
"Yeah," Sam said. Ellen never talked to him about Dean, but he didn't know if that meant that Dean had dropped off the radar or if Dean had asked her not to tell him. Though if it was the latter, Ellen had a way of letting confidences slip when it suited her purposes.
"How are they?"
"You haven't talked to them?"
"No," Dean said. "Figured you didn't want to have to keep hearing about me from other people. Salt, wound, all that."
Dean said it like it was nothing, but-it was like Sam had won some sort of weird custody battle for their friends. Dean hadn't said anything, just capitulated, let Sam have the support he needed. He suddenly thought back to an argument he'd had with Dean a long time ago, when he thought he'd be the one going back to a normal life. He'd told Dean he could hunt on his own. Yeah, well I don't want to.
"You have to give Ellen a call," Sam said. "She'll flip. I bet Jo'll cry."
"Jo," Dean said, leaning back into the cushions. "Don't tell me she still-"
"No," Sam said. "She's made quite a name for herself. Last I heard she'd taken up with another hunter. I think she always sort of wondered about you, though."
"Bobby?"
"Same old, same old."
They were silent for a few minutes, nursing their beers. "It's funny," Dean said, looking up at the ceiling. "When I looked over and saw you standing there, at first…I thought it was Dad."
~*~
When Deb and Sammy returned, Sammy had speckles of chocolate ice cream all down the front of her jumper. She ran right up to Dean and made little grabby motions with her sticky hands until he picked her up. "Cone?" he asked his wife.
"With sprinkles."
After Dean got her cleaned up and changed into a fresh jumper, he brought her out to the yard, motioning Sam to follow.
"Hey, girl, want to show your uncle how smart you are?" he asked, walking toward the Impala. He propped Sammy on one hip and reached through the driver's side window to pop the hood. Sam followed behind, bemused, and propped the hood up with the support strut.
Dean walked around to the front, holding Sammy so she could look down at the engine.
He pointed then asked her, "Is this the battery?" She shook her head. "Is it…the windshield wipers?" She shook her head again. "Alright. I know-it's the exhaust, right?" This earned a giggle and a drawn-out, "No!" "Is it the gas pedal?" Sammy pushed at his mouth and said, "Silly."
"Yeah, you're right. You're dad's being silly." Sammy nodded in agreement. "You know, I just don't remember what it is. Do you know what it is?"
"Spark plugs!" Sammy crowed in triumph.
Sammy had a little trouble with her r's, but she was unmistakably right. Sam rolled his eyes. "Dean, what are you doing to that poor girl?"
"Don't listen to him, pumpkin." Dean leaned in close to his daughter's face. "Your uncle's just jealous 'cause he's never known that." He blew a raspberry against her cheek and she laughed.
"Sammy wants to be a mechanic, just like her daddy," Deb said to Sam. She'd been watching the whole scene indulgently. "I can't tell you how many of her jumpers I've had to throw out 'cause she got engine oil on them."
"Aren't you starting her a little young?" Sam asked.
"Never too young to appreciate fine American craftsmanship, ain't that right?" Dean said.
"Right!" Sammy piped up.
"Dean," Sam laughed. "You sound like a Texan." Sam had been noticing a particular twang in his brother's speech since he arrived-not quite as pronounced as his wife's, but still there.
"Well," Dean shrugged. "I guess I am a Texan."
"Don't let any of the boys at the shop hear you say that," Deb interjected. "They'll never let me hear the end of it."
~*~
Deb retired to the porch to get out of the sun for awhile, still close enough to keep an eye on her daughter. Dean stood around awkwardly for a few minutes as if he knew he should be playing host but didn't know how, then went back to fiddling with his engine. Sam just stood there, watching his brother, thinking about seeing Dean doing the exact same thing many times over the years.
Sam felt a tug on his pant-leg and looked down. Sammy was standing there, one hand holding Sam's jeans, the other stretched upward with a pebble. "Gift!" she said, then repeated it until Sam took the pebble. Sam was a bit puzzled, but Sammy toddled away, mission accomplished.
A little bit later she came back and tugged on Sam's pant-leg again. "Gift!" Sam took the new pebble.
Dean looked at him over his shoulder and smiled. "I see you've found Sammy's favorite game."
"Bet she loves Christmas," Sam said. Dean laughed and turned back to the engine.
Sam sat down cross-legged in the dirt when Sammy came back, which seemed to satisfy her. She started a steady babble of words that Sam mostly couldn't make out-something about lipstick and flowers. It was like she was talking in code and Sam didn't have the decoder ring. He bet Dean understood every word out of her mouth. He wondered, if he'd been here since she was born, if he'd understand her too.
They amassed a small collection of stones between them. Sam started laying them out in a pentagram-earth, air, fire, water, spirit-but Sammy picked them up and rearranged them at random. He looked at her pudgy little hands and wispy black hair, her round legs, still softened by baby fat. She was a marvel. He found himself smiling at the wonder of it.
He'd never told Dean, but he'd always wanted kids. For awhile he had allowed himself to dream about blond-haired babies with Jess. That was one of the things he'd loved most about Jess-that when he was with her he could think about the future. There was no uncertainty, no dread that his father would yank him away just when he was getting comfortable, no fear that the people he depended on would leave in the middle of the night and never come back. He felt rooted, felt like he could plan for their future together. And that was one of the hardest things about losing her. He didn't just lose Jess, he lost the clapboard house and two and a half kids and golden retriever in the yard.
It had taken a long time after Stanford, but he'd started allowing himself to think about the future again. This time it was hunting and motels and the Impala and Dean. But he'd still allowed himself to think that in their lifestyle there was some sort of permanence. He'd lost that too.
Sam hesitantly brushed his hand over Sammy's fine hair. She smelled like baby powder. She looked up at him and smiled, then went back to systematically disassembling the pentagram. Dean had found a future for himself here, he'd found his own permanence. Sam wanted to believe he could still be a part of it.
~*~
Dean grabbed another beer for Sam after dinner. It had taken a while to get Sammy into bed; Sam had sat in the living room listening to the noises of a bath and two bedtime stories, and-Sam was surprised to hear-a prayer. All told, it took until 6:30 to get her settled.
Sam was shell-shocked by the domesticity of it all. He couldn't remember ever having a bedtime like this one, though he must have, before his mother died. Dean had usually been the one responsible for getting him ready for bed, and having an older brother corralling you led to a lot of disorder and frequent battles over toothbrushes and bath toys. Dad had stepped in to mediate sometimes, but he wasn't always there.
"First time she slept through the night," Dean said, walking into the living room. "Happiest night of my life." He threw himself backwards into the sofa, jostling Sam. Sam noticed that his sleeves were rolled up, but still slightly dampened. Dean laid his head against the back of the couch, closing his eyes.
"Don't get too fond of your sleep, honey," Deb said, following him. "You're the one who wanted another one. That means you get midnight diaper duty." Dean curled his lip but didn't open his eyes.
"I'm the one who has to get up for work in the morning."
"And I'm the one who has to watch your kids all day." Deb kicked him lightly in the shin with her bare foot.
Sam sat silently, watching. It was like watching a fifties sitcom that someone had mistakenly dropped his brother into. It wasn't just that Dean had a kid-he was a dad.
"So," Sam said. "How did you two meet?"
Dean laughed. "Well," Deb drawled out. "You pass Nightmoves on the way into town?"
"Nightmoves?"
"Kind of hard to miss-has a pink roof? Only place in town with beer on tap?"
"Oh," Sam said, blushing. "You were a waitress?"
"No, honey," Deb said, laughing at Sam's discomfort. "I was a pole dancer."
"Oh my god," Sam said, leaning forward and covering his face with one hand. He could feel his cheeks burning. Typical, he thought. So, so typical.
"You should've seen her," Dean said. "She was hot." Deb smacked his knee with her palm. "But she's hotter now," Dean amended.
"Your brother came in three nights in a row, didn't look up at the girls once. Just kept staring into his beer. So on the fourth night, I asked him out."
"I don't believe this," Sam groaned. "You get picked up when you're not even trying."
"What can I say, Sammy," Dean said with a grin. "Some of us have just got it."
"Dean," Sam whined. He leaned in closer and hissed through his teeth. "I can't believe you married a stripper."
Deb was laughing whole-heartedly. "You are so cute when you're embarrassed," she said to Sam. "Just like your brother."
"Hey," Sam said, looking speculatively at Dean. "When's he been embarrassed?"
"Hmm…" she said. "I seem to remember at the county clerk's office-"
"Don’t you dare!" Dean tried to interrupt her.
"When your brother asked Ruby Broadchest to be his lawfully wedded wife. Both he and the judge turned a nice shade of red."
"Hey, you never told me it wasn't your real name!" Dean protested.
"You thought Broadchest was her actual name?" Sam said incredulously.
"Doesn't matter, though, does it," Dean said. "She's a Winchester now." He smiled and looked adoringly at his wife. Sam suddenly felt uncomfortable, the ease of the past few minutes evaporating. Dean was right-she was a Winchester. Sam didn't know why he was so upset about that. It wasn't like it was some secret club that had to have a group vote to approve a new member. It was Dean's choice to give his name to whomever he wanted. He looked at the two of them and thought about what Dean had told him when he'd left Stanford. The family business. Well, he thought. Guess it wasn't anymore.
"Still kind of like the name Ruby," Dean continued. "Has a certain ring, at times…"
"OK, whoa, that is definitely too much information," Sam cut in.
Dean sat up suddenly and set his beer on the table. Sam followed his line of sight and saw Sammy standing in the doorway, rubbing her eyes and wearing footie pajamas with frogs on them. Dean swiveled around the coffee table and crossed to her. "Hey baby, we wake you up?" he said, crouching down.
Sam couldn't make out the reply, but could hear the sleep-cracked voice of his niece, unmistakably cranky. Dean hoisted her up and made some quick signal to his wife that Sam couldn't decipher.
When he'd walked her back to her bedroom, Deb leaned conspiratorially close to Sam. "She's still adjusting to sleeping in a bed. We switched her from the crib a few months ago because of the baby, but she gets nightmares. And Dean being Dean won't tell her there's nothing in the closet to be afraid of. He just sleeps on the floor in there instead. Must be killing his back, but he doesn't complain about it."
Sam remembered his own childhood nightmares and how Dean's presence had been the only thing that calmed him down, too. Then he thought back to what Deb had said: Dean being Dean…
She must have noted the way he was looking curiously at her. "I know, Sam. Your great big family secret," she waved her hands. "I know all about it."
"He told you?" Sam asked. He hadn't expected that. Dean had seemed so sure about that after Cassie-hunting and normal life just didn't mix. He'd just assumed that Dean had turned his back on the supernatural, hidden all that from his wife. That Dean would tell her and still stay here being Joe Normal-it didn't make sense.
"He didn't really have a choice. He started pouring salt all over the place, carving things into the walls-I thought he was nuts." Sam huffed out a laugh. "I have to admit, even after he told me, I thought he was nuts."
"What changed your mind?" Sam said. He figured she'd seen something-a spirit or a creature. He'd had plenty of experience opening people's eyes to the true world around them. Some people were ready to believe as soon as anything got hinky; some people it didn't matter if they saw a fully-manifested demon, they'd still never believe.
"He was just so frantic about it. I remember the day exactly-it was May second." She looked at Sam. "Sammy was born on November second."
Sam felt a jolt go through him. Sammy was born on the anniversary of his mother's death. And on May second she was six months old exactly. It hadn't even occurred to him, but of course Dean would be terrified. That had been over two years ago. Why hadn't Dean asked him for help?
"I understand that's an important date for you boys."
"Yeah," Sam said. "Yeah it is. Did anything…"
"Nothing at all. Except your brother staying up the whole night with a small arsenal in his lap."
Sam looked at her. "Then why did you believe him?"
Deb smiled. "I may not know much about what all you do, but I know my husband. He was scared of something real. I don't need any more proof to believe than that."
"Look," she said after a moment. "I don't know what happened between the two of you, and I'm sure you've had your reasons not to talk to him. But he's a good man. And a good father."
"I know," Sam said quietly. His eyes drifted to the doorway where Dean had disappeared with his daughter. "Our dad…left us alone a lot when we were little. Dean pretty much raised me." He hadn't thought too much about it growing up-that was just what Dean did. But now, seeing Dean with his daughter, he could see all the same things Dean had done for him, and when Sam had been that age, Dean had only been seven years old. Jesus.
"I think he needs to have somebody to take care of," Deb said, smiling softly. "Can I ask you something?"
"Sure," Sam said hesitantly.
"April, three years ago. Did something happen to you then?"
"I'm not sure… Why?"
"Dean disappeared for about a month around then. I'd just found out I was pregnant, hadn't told him. I was upset, started giving him the brush-off, and then one day he was just gone. I thought he got tired of me, went on to find greener pastures." Sam winced. She talked about it casually now, but Sam could imagine what it would have been like, finding out she was pregnant, then being abandoned by the father. He didn't know about back then, but the way Deb looked at his brother-she clearly loved him. She took a deep breath then smiled. "But then he came back. Asked me to marry him. I never asked him where he went, but-it was you, wasn't it?"
Sam thought back. "Three years ago… That would've been-that was a black dog. I was banged up pretty badly. I landed in the hospital, for about-" even as he said it, the pieces fit together, "a month."
Deb nodded.
"I-I didn't know. He didn't come to see me."
"Maybe he did."
Sam couldn't stop thinking about it. He'd cut Dean out of his life and even so he'd almost ended Dean's marriage before it started. When he'd first seen Dean here it had hurt to think that Dean had moved on with his life without him, not when he still thought about Dean every day. But that wasn't true. Even when he wasn't there he affected Dean's life.
Deb sat forward, breaking into Sam's thoughts. "You know, he spends about an hour on the computer every single night, always has. He must be looking after you, then, too."
"You never asked him?"
"No." Deb smirked. "I just figured he was watching porn."
Deb headed to bed after that, pulling out clean sheets for Sam to use on the couch. He lay in the dark for a long time thinking. His whole life, Dean had always been there for him. Even when he didn't want him to be, when he wished he were an only fucking child, when he ran away, pushed Dean away, he always knew that if he came back Dean would be there. It was just something he took for granted. Dean was his older brother, he belonged to Sam. He'd do anything for Sam. But looking up at the ceiling of the house where his brother lived with his wife and kid, Sam realized that wasn’t true. Dean didn't belong to him anymore. He belonged to them.
Sam didn't think he liked that.
continued in Part II
Author: Ivy (ivy03)
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: R
Genre: hints of Wincest
Word count: 14,000
Warning: Remember how angsty Morning in the Evening was? This time we turn it up to eleven.
A/N: The golden trophy of beta awesomeness goes to trakkie for putting up with my endless stream of angst and making me tone it down a smidge until it's juuuust right.
Summary: Sam saw the Impala in West Texas.
Read in one file on AO3.
Sequel to Morning in the Evening.
I.
Sam saw the Impala in West Texas.
He was in a small town, like a scratch in the cracked soil of the desert-a bit of civilization clinging together against the emptiness that surrounded it on all sides. Sam hadn't found a hunt in weeks, and he'd gotten into the habit of just driving his truck at random across the middle of the country at times like this. It was easier than staying still.
He just saw the rear fins, disappearing around the corner, but he recognized them. He didn't know how, but he knew it wasn't just any Impala, it was the Impala. Dean's Impala.
He was on foot at the time, his shoes getting slowly caked with red desert dirt. He'd just been thinking about buying cowboy boots, like all the residents seemed to wear. The sun was still up but he'd called it a night anyway, figuring that if he kept driving it might be hours before he hit another place with a motel. He'd slept in his truck before, but it got cold in the desert at night and he didn't like to if he could avoid it.
He ran after the Impala, but by the time he got to the corner it was gone. It seemed to have vanished into the desert-the town should have been too small for Sam to lose it so quickly: just a truck stop with a topless bar across the street, a few stores and houses to support the people who worked there.
His heart was pounding and he felt like he'd swallowed the whole desert, dry and dusty in his throat. He'd always had Dean's number, of course, but he'd never called it. Lately keeping it on his speed dial had seemed stupid-Dean probably didn't even have the same phone anymore. Maybe he'd been driving constantly for the last four years because part of him expected to stumble across Dean cast ashore in some Smalltown, USA.
Sam stood on the corner for a moment, looking at where the Impala must have gone. He hooked his fingers in the loops of his jeans and just stood there until his heart slowed down. He turned back towards where he'd parked the pickup, thinking of where he could ask. Somebody must have noticed a vintage car like that, even if it had only been here a day or two. And a town like this couldn't have too many drifters wandering through.
He went to the topless bar. A neon sign on the pink roof declared "Nightmoves." Classy. Since it was mid-afternoon, the doors were open and the bar was serving, but the poles on the stage were empty. Fully lit, the interior looked shabby-kitschy in all the wrong seventies-porno ways. He walked up to the bar, eyeing the one man in a cowboy hat slumped down at the end.
"Can I get you anything?" the bartender asked.
"Johnny Walker Red on the rocks," Sam replied. He wanted to launch straight into an interrogation but held himself back. What was it Dean always said, that he was the one good with people? Maybe that had only been by comparison. Right now he didn't think he could sweet-talk his way into anything.
He took a few sips of his drink and waited for the bartender to walk back towards him. "I'm new in town," he said, trying for endearing.
"Knew that."
"Well, I was just wondering if you knew any way to pass the time."
"Girls don't come on till seven," the bartender said, not even looking at Sam. "Feel free to ask 'em but if they say no and you don't back off…" he pointed to a shotgun resting on a shelf among the bottles.
"No, no," Sam said, waving his hand. He swallowed a bit of the whisky wrong and spent the next few minutes hacking. This finally got the bartender to look at him, smiling a bit as Sam's face turned red. "I, uh…" His voice came out husky and strange and he cleared his throat a couple of times until it felt normal again. "Actually, I'm more interested in vintage cars."
"Then what the hell are you here for?"
"Well, when I came into town I thought I saw an old Chevy." He covered his sudden nervousness by taking a sip of whisky. "A 1967 Chevy Impala. Pretty rare car-wondering if you knew who owned it."
"That thing," the bartender said, curling his lip a little. "That's Dean Winchester's. You should hear him talk about it. He never shuts up, calls it his baby." He rolled his eyes. "Don't even bother trying to get a closer look at it. People say he keeps a gun in the glove box to scare off thieves. You've got a better chance getting a close look at a rattlesnake than at that car."
Sam couldn't get a word out for a few seconds. "Dean Winchester?" He swallowed and tried to regain an air of disinterest. "Like the gun?"
"Yup. Good mechanic, keeps to himself."
Sam's eyes bugged out a little bit. "Where does he live?"
"I told you you're never gonna get near that car, but if you want to take your chances, suit yourself. He lives outside of town, got a little house a few miles down the road."
Sam thanked the bartender for the whisky and stumbled out into the dimming light. The sunset painted the sky and the desert in magnificent colors, but the words "mechanic" and "house" just kept spinning around in his head. Dean was here. Not just passing through.
Dean lived here.
~*~
Sam got a bunk at the truck stop-just a bed in a room with a door, like a locker for people. Or a morgue. The showers down the hall were coin-operated. Sam kept a little Tupperware container of quarters in the cab for these and for laundry machines. When he'd traveled with Dean, they'd usually crashed in motels. Pay-by-the-hour places mostly, but at least a room with two beds and a shower. Now that it was just him he didn't see the point of looking for anything more comfortable than this most of the time.
He lay awake all night listening to the rumbling of big rigs pulling in to the diesel pumps and driving off on their way to Pecos. He felt like a caterpillar trapped in a chrysalis.
Dean was here.
He took a few more shots of Johnny Walker from his flask and closed his eyes, but he wasn't fooling his body into going to sleep.
~*~
He followed the directions the bartender gave him the next morning. When the morning light started slanting through the slats in the door to his almost-room he sat in the dark trying to figure the best time to drive over there. He didn't want to be too early and wake Dean up, but if he waited too long, Dean might have gone to work. If he had work to go to. Then it was late morning and Sam wondered if Dean would come home for lunch or if he should wait till evening. He didn't know what he'd do if he went over there and no one was home. Wait on the stoop? Leave a note? How would he even know he had the right place?
At about eleven he remembered it was a Saturday and hopped in his truck.
The house was back along the way he'd come into town. He hadn't noticed it at the time, but it was unmistakable now. It was small but neat, freshly-painted, like someone was taking good care of it. There was a yard in front, dry, cracked dirt and some scrub brush. Whoever lived here had no pretensions that they were living anywhere but in the desert; no expensive irrigation system to make grass grow unnaturally green the way everyone seemed to have out in Arizona. There was a split rail fence along the side of the road, the house set well back, though the trucks rolling through still probably made the windows rattle in their frames.
But the reason he knew it was the right place was the Impala. It was parked in what Sam guessed was the driveway, though there was no real delineation between that and the rest of the yard. Two pointed-tipped cowboy boots attached to lean jean-clad legs stuck out from underneath.
Sam drove straight past the first time. It was stupid, he knew, but it seemed too abrupt to just pull into the driveway. He was two miles down the road before he talked himself into pulling a U-turn and going back. This time he pulled the truck over about fifty yards from the house, throwing it into park. He walked the rest of the way, his eyes never leaving those boots sticking out from under the Impala, toes occasionally tapping against the air to an unheard rhythm.
He reached the driveway and made himself take a couple of steps beyond the fence, feet firmly on his brother's property. But he didn't know what to do after that. Had this been five years ago he would have walked right up and yanked Dean's feet, pulling him out into the sunlight. But had it been five years ago he wouldn't be standing here, looking at the house his brother owned.
After a few minutes, the feet dug into the dirt, knees bending, pulling Dean out from under the car. His brother rolled towards the house; Sam could see red dust across his shoulders and in his hair, just as short as it had been when he'd last seen it. Though Dean was still a few dozen yards away, he could hear it clearly when his brother spoke.
"Hey, Sammy, come here." Sam's heart stopped. Had Dean seen him? He took half a step forward before he saw that Dean was addressing someone else.
A little girl appeared from behind the bumper of the car, thick black hair plaited at the nape of her neck, wearing a blue jumper. She couldn't have been more than three.
Dean sat up further when she got closer to him. "Show me your hands," he said. She stuck out her hands, palms up, and he inspected them closely. "OK, now wash up and you can help mommy with lunch."
Sam was rooted to the spot. It was like he didn't exist at all, like he was looking through a window into a life he could never be part of. That was Dean with a baby girl. Dean had a daughter.
Dean stood up fluidly, following after the toddler as she walked towards the front porch. When she reached the steps, she turned around and stopped. Dean immediately whipped his head around to see what had caught his daughter's attention. His eyes locked on Sam.
Neither of them moved. Dean looked shocked and Sam couldn't tell if that was a good thing or a bad thing. The little girl sat down on the front step and started picking pebbles up out of the dirt, collecting them in her hand. The screen door opened, then banged shut, pulled on a too-tight spring, and a woman stepped out from the house. She was dressed in a simple floral-patterned dress. And she was pregnant.
The noise seemed to startle Dean out of his shock. He launched himself towards Sam, still standing near the edge of the property. Sam couldn't move. Before he could think, Dean had barreled into him, knocking him a step back and squeezing both his arms around Sam's chest. Sam squeezed back, relief making his breath rush out like a sob.
"Sammy," Dean said into his shoulder, then stepped back. He knocked his hand against Sam's cheek. His grin looked like it was splitting his face. His skin was darker, whether from tan or from dirt, Sam couldn't tell. Sam felt his heart stop beating. Next thing Sam knew he was being hauled back toward the house.
The woman swung the girl up into her arms, resting her against one hip. She looked at Sam dubiously. Sam suddenly remembered the two days of stubble on his chin, the clothes he hadn't changed since yesterday.
"This is my brother. Sammy," Dean said with a grin when they'd drawn even.
"I'm Sammy!" the girl protested.
"Of course you are, pumpkin," Dean said, giving her a kiss on the head. "Sam, this is my wife Deb and my daughter, Samantha."
"Uh…hi," Sam said. This wasn't the reception he'd expected, not after the way he and Dean had parted ways. And he'd never expected to meet Dean's wife. They didn't have Hallmark cards for these sorts of things: Sorry I missed the wedding, your husband and I have been estranged ever since he banged my girlfriend.
Deb continued to stare at him, not unkindly, but with trepidation, the way you'd look at a stray dog when you didn't know if it would bite you or lick your palm. When Sam looked at the girl, she tucked her face into the crook of her mother's neck.
Dean stroked her hair. "Sweetheart, say hi to your uncle Sam." She shook her head a little in the protection of her mother's arms. Sam didn't know what to say. He was looking at his niece, the next in the Winchester line. Between him and Dean he always thought he'd be the family man, but he was looking at proof that he'd been wrong. Beautiful, round-cheeked proof. He couldn't take his eyes off the girl, couldn't stop himself from wondering if Jess had lived if his own daughter would have looked like that.
Dean stared at him and took in how Sam was looking at his daughter and wife. It was one of the most uncomfortable silences Sam had ever experienced.
After a moment, Dean cleared his throat to call his attention back. "Awkward," he sing-songed, then motioned Sam to come inside.
~*~
They sat in Dean's kitchen. There was a calico tablecloth on the table with a few tomato stains. It matched the curtains, stains and all. It had taken a few minutes to get Sammy's hands washed and get her settled into her high chair before Dean and his wife took seats on either side of her, with Sam opposite. Dean held out the chair for Deb.
It was all so home-spun and normal. The last time Sam had eaten a meal like this had been when Jess had taken him home to meet her parents.
Dean reached over to Sammy's plate and cut her hot dog into bite sized chunks. She seemed content to smear them around in ketchup, studiously not looking at Sam.
"So," Deb said, clearing her throat. "You're Dean's brother."
Sam looked over at Dean, confused and, he hated to admit, a little hurt. "You didn't-"
"Oh, he told me he had a brother. He always said he'd lost you. I just figured that meant you were dead." Deb cleared her throat again. Sam looked over at Dean, but Dean was just staring at his plate, pushing his food around in a motion eerily like his daughter's. "I guess he just meant…you were lost."
Silence hung for a few moments, Sam trying to figure out what to make of this. "Uh," he said, quite sure he didn't want to tell Dean's wife about the details. "We had an argument."
"Uh-huh," she said a little disbelievingly, looking at her husband with a raised eyebrow.
Finally Sam blurted out, "You got married?"
"Looks like," Deb said, flattening out the vowels.
"Why didn't you call me?" Sam asked.
"Well," Dean finally looked up. "You said you needed space."
"Dean, you could've invited me to your wedding."
"Well, it wasn't much of a ceremony-" Dean started, clearly hedging.
"We got married in the county clerk's office," Deb cut in. She reached over to cover her daughter's ears. "It was kind of a shot gun wedding," she stage-whispered. Sammy looked up at her mom and waved with a piece of hot dog on her fork.
"Without the shot gun," Dean quickly added.
"You could've at least told me that you had a daughter."
Dean looked a little edgy. "Uh…"
"That you named after me," Sam hissed.
"Actually," Deb cut in, "Samantha's from my family-it was my grandmother's name."
Sam could feel himself blushing. "Oh."
"You could've told me you were coming into town," Dean said petulantly.
"Wasn't sure your cell phone still worked."
"Well, did you try it?" Dean asked.
"Um, actually, I didn't know you were here. I was just stopping at the truck stop, on my way to El Paso."
"Oh." It was just one syllable, but it was a whole world of disappointment.
"I…saw the Impala driving through town yesterday."
They sat in silence for a moment. Sammy started banging her fork against the plastic plate. Dean stood and gently took the plate and utensil away from her, picking up his still-full plate as well and carrying them to the sink. "Guess you'll be on your way, then. You should get to El Paso before dark if you leave now."
"Dean," Sam said, recognizing an edge of a whine in his voice that he hadn't used since the last time he'd been around his brother. "I didn't know how to call you. Wasn't sure you'd want to hear from me."
Dean banged the plates into the sink. "Of course I wanted to hear from you." He sighed.
"You could've called, too," Sam pointed out.
"Hey, you're the one who said you needed space, not me." He turned around. "Why don't you go on to El Paso, and when you're done with whatever job you have, come back for a few days." He looked cautiously optimistic.
"I don't have a job in El Paso. I'm sort of between-" he looked over at Deb, remembering, suddenly, that she was in the room with them. "Wait," he said looking back at Dean. "How did you know I was still taking…'jobs.'"
Dean grimaced guiltily. "I might have…accidentally…hacked your cell phone's GPS."
Sam started. "You've been spying on me?"
"You told me you wanted time alone," Dean said hotly. "It's not like I went and forgot I had a brother."
"OK," Deb said, looking between the two of them. "Why don't Sammy and I go into town and leave the two of you to talk."
"Ice cream?" Sammy piped up hopefully.
"Sure, honey, why not. It's not every day you find out you've got an uncle." She hoisted Sammy up and made her way to the screen door. "You boys," she said pointing first at Sam, then at Dean, "talk." The door banged shut behind her. Dean looked cowed.
"She's kind of scary," Sam said.
"No kidding."
~*~
"I need a beer," Sam said into the silence in the kitchen.
"You drink before noon?" Dean asked.
"It's after noon."
"Whatever."
"Yes, I drink before noon on days when I run into my estranged brother in bumfuck Texas and meet his pregnant wife and kid."
"I'm not estranged."
"What do you call it when we don't talk for four years?"
"I call it you having one of your hissy fits. Like Stanford."
"Stanford was not a hissy fit!" Sam snapped back, then sighed.
"So," Dean said. "Beer, then?"
"Hell, yeah."
Dean pulled two beers out of the fridge. When he turned back toward Sam a slow grin spread over his face, like he couldn't even pretend to hold it back. "I'm glad you're here, Sammy."
"Yeah," Sam said, grinning back. "Me, too."
They settled into a floral couch in the living room. The cushions sagged a bit, tilting them towards each other. Dean left the lights off, letting the bright sunlight bounce off the painted white floorboards to illuminate the room. Sam picked at the label on the beer.
"So," he said. "Guess you know what I've been doing."
"Sorta." Dean shrugged. "I know where you've been. I can make an educated guess as to what you've been doing. Except for the few times you made the papers-those I read about."
Sam smiled.
"What I don't know is why. I thought you wanted the whole…white picket fence thing. I thought that was why you…" He let the sentence hang there, but Sam could hear the rest of it. That was why you left me.
Sam stared out across the room. "Didn't really take."
"Yeah?" It was clearly meant as a question but Sam ignored it.
"What about you? I thought hunting was your life. Didn't figure you for the 'white picket fence' thing."
"Hey, did you see a picket fence?" Dean asked.
"No, really, Dean. You were always the one who said we couldn't do normal. So what's all…" he gestured around at the living room, with its end tables and knick-knacks on the bookshelves.
"I didn't exactly plan it," Dean said defensively. "I kept hunting for a while, and then I stopped for a while, and then I was married."
"What, like you got drunk and woke up in Vegas with a wedding band? How do you just get married?"
"Hey, it's not like a caught the plague." Dean took another swallow. "We were fooling around and she got pregnant. It just sort of happened."
"Are you…" Sam had meant to ask are you happy, but halfway through he thought better of it. What if Dean was? He wanted his brother to be happy, of course he did, but thinking of him here, comfortably settled with his happy little family, made thinking about all those miles he'd spent on the road hurt.
"So…" Dean spoke into the silence. "You still keep in touch with Ellen and Bobby and them?"
"Yeah," Sam said. Ellen never talked to him about Dean, but he didn't know if that meant that Dean had dropped off the radar or if Dean had asked her not to tell him. Though if it was the latter, Ellen had a way of letting confidences slip when it suited her purposes.
"How are they?"
"You haven't talked to them?"
"No," Dean said. "Figured you didn't want to have to keep hearing about me from other people. Salt, wound, all that."
Dean said it like it was nothing, but-it was like Sam had won some sort of weird custody battle for their friends. Dean hadn't said anything, just capitulated, let Sam have the support he needed. He suddenly thought back to an argument he'd had with Dean a long time ago, when he thought he'd be the one going back to a normal life. He'd told Dean he could hunt on his own. Yeah, well I don't want to.
"You have to give Ellen a call," Sam said. "She'll flip. I bet Jo'll cry."
"Jo," Dean said, leaning back into the cushions. "Don't tell me she still-"
"No," Sam said. "She's made quite a name for herself. Last I heard she'd taken up with another hunter. I think she always sort of wondered about you, though."
"Bobby?"
"Same old, same old."
They were silent for a few minutes, nursing their beers. "It's funny," Dean said, looking up at the ceiling. "When I looked over and saw you standing there, at first…I thought it was Dad."
~*~
When Deb and Sammy returned, Sammy had speckles of chocolate ice cream all down the front of her jumper. She ran right up to Dean and made little grabby motions with her sticky hands until he picked her up. "Cone?" he asked his wife.
"With sprinkles."
After Dean got her cleaned up and changed into a fresh jumper, he brought her out to the yard, motioning Sam to follow.
"Hey, girl, want to show your uncle how smart you are?" he asked, walking toward the Impala. He propped Sammy on one hip and reached through the driver's side window to pop the hood. Sam followed behind, bemused, and propped the hood up with the support strut.
Dean walked around to the front, holding Sammy so she could look down at the engine.
He pointed then asked her, "Is this the battery?" She shook her head. "Is it…the windshield wipers?" She shook her head again. "Alright. I know-it's the exhaust, right?" This earned a giggle and a drawn-out, "No!" "Is it the gas pedal?" Sammy pushed at his mouth and said, "Silly."
"Yeah, you're right. You're dad's being silly." Sammy nodded in agreement. "You know, I just don't remember what it is. Do you know what it is?"
"Spark plugs!" Sammy crowed in triumph.
Sammy had a little trouble with her r's, but she was unmistakably right. Sam rolled his eyes. "Dean, what are you doing to that poor girl?"
"Don't listen to him, pumpkin." Dean leaned in close to his daughter's face. "Your uncle's just jealous 'cause he's never known that." He blew a raspberry against her cheek and she laughed.
"Sammy wants to be a mechanic, just like her daddy," Deb said to Sam. She'd been watching the whole scene indulgently. "I can't tell you how many of her jumpers I've had to throw out 'cause she got engine oil on them."
"Aren't you starting her a little young?" Sam asked.
"Never too young to appreciate fine American craftsmanship, ain't that right?" Dean said.
"Right!" Sammy piped up.
"Dean," Sam laughed. "You sound like a Texan." Sam had been noticing a particular twang in his brother's speech since he arrived-not quite as pronounced as his wife's, but still there.
"Well," Dean shrugged. "I guess I am a Texan."
"Don't let any of the boys at the shop hear you say that," Deb interjected. "They'll never let me hear the end of it."
~*~
Deb retired to the porch to get out of the sun for awhile, still close enough to keep an eye on her daughter. Dean stood around awkwardly for a few minutes as if he knew he should be playing host but didn't know how, then went back to fiddling with his engine. Sam just stood there, watching his brother, thinking about seeing Dean doing the exact same thing many times over the years.
Sam felt a tug on his pant-leg and looked down. Sammy was standing there, one hand holding Sam's jeans, the other stretched upward with a pebble. "Gift!" she said, then repeated it until Sam took the pebble. Sam was a bit puzzled, but Sammy toddled away, mission accomplished.
A little bit later she came back and tugged on Sam's pant-leg again. "Gift!" Sam took the new pebble.
Dean looked at him over his shoulder and smiled. "I see you've found Sammy's favorite game."
"Bet she loves Christmas," Sam said. Dean laughed and turned back to the engine.
Sam sat down cross-legged in the dirt when Sammy came back, which seemed to satisfy her. She started a steady babble of words that Sam mostly couldn't make out-something about lipstick and flowers. It was like she was talking in code and Sam didn't have the decoder ring. He bet Dean understood every word out of her mouth. He wondered, if he'd been here since she was born, if he'd understand her too.
They amassed a small collection of stones between them. Sam started laying them out in a pentagram-earth, air, fire, water, spirit-but Sammy picked them up and rearranged them at random. He looked at her pudgy little hands and wispy black hair, her round legs, still softened by baby fat. She was a marvel. He found himself smiling at the wonder of it.
He'd never told Dean, but he'd always wanted kids. For awhile he had allowed himself to dream about blond-haired babies with Jess. That was one of the things he'd loved most about Jess-that when he was with her he could think about the future. There was no uncertainty, no dread that his father would yank him away just when he was getting comfortable, no fear that the people he depended on would leave in the middle of the night and never come back. He felt rooted, felt like he could plan for their future together. And that was one of the hardest things about losing her. He didn't just lose Jess, he lost the clapboard house and two and a half kids and golden retriever in the yard.
It had taken a long time after Stanford, but he'd started allowing himself to think about the future again. This time it was hunting and motels and the Impala and Dean. But he'd still allowed himself to think that in their lifestyle there was some sort of permanence. He'd lost that too.
Sam hesitantly brushed his hand over Sammy's fine hair. She smelled like baby powder. She looked up at him and smiled, then went back to systematically disassembling the pentagram. Dean had found a future for himself here, he'd found his own permanence. Sam wanted to believe he could still be a part of it.
~*~
Dean grabbed another beer for Sam after dinner. It had taken a while to get Sammy into bed; Sam had sat in the living room listening to the noises of a bath and two bedtime stories, and-Sam was surprised to hear-a prayer. All told, it took until 6:30 to get her settled.
Sam was shell-shocked by the domesticity of it all. He couldn't remember ever having a bedtime like this one, though he must have, before his mother died. Dean had usually been the one responsible for getting him ready for bed, and having an older brother corralling you led to a lot of disorder and frequent battles over toothbrushes and bath toys. Dad had stepped in to mediate sometimes, but he wasn't always there.
"First time she slept through the night," Dean said, walking into the living room. "Happiest night of my life." He threw himself backwards into the sofa, jostling Sam. Sam noticed that his sleeves were rolled up, but still slightly dampened. Dean laid his head against the back of the couch, closing his eyes.
"Don't get too fond of your sleep, honey," Deb said, following him. "You're the one who wanted another one. That means you get midnight diaper duty." Dean curled his lip but didn't open his eyes.
"I'm the one who has to get up for work in the morning."
"And I'm the one who has to watch your kids all day." Deb kicked him lightly in the shin with her bare foot.
Sam sat silently, watching. It was like watching a fifties sitcom that someone had mistakenly dropped his brother into. It wasn't just that Dean had a kid-he was a dad.
"So," Sam said. "How did you two meet?"
Dean laughed. "Well," Deb drawled out. "You pass Nightmoves on the way into town?"
"Nightmoves?"
"Kind of hard to miss-has a pink roof? Only place in town with beer on tap?"
"Oh," Sam said, blushing. "You were a waitress?"
"No, honey," Deb said, laughing at Sam's discomfort. "I was a pole dancer."
"Oh my god," Sam said, leaning forward and covering his face with one hand. He could feel his cheeks burning. Typical, he thought. So, so typical.
"You should've seen her," Dean said. "She was hot." Deb smacked his knee with her palm. "But she's hotter now," Dean amended.
"Your brother came in three nights in a row, didn't look up at the girls once. Just kept staring into his beer. So on the fourth night, I asked him out."
"I don't believe this," Sam groaned. "You get picked up when you're not even trying."
"What can I say, Sammy," Dean said with a grin. "Some of us have just got it."
"Dean," Sam whined. He leaned in closer and hissed through his teeth. "I can't believe you married a stripper."
Deb was laughing whole-heartedly. "You are so cute when you're embarrassed," she said to Sam. "Just like your brother."
"Hey," Sam said, looking speculatively at Dean. "When's he been embarrassed?"
"Hmm…" she said. "I seem to remember at the county clerk's office-"
"Don’t you dare!" Dean tried to interrupt her.
"When your brother asked Ruby Broadchest to be his lawfully wedded wife. Both he and the judge turned a nice shade of red."
"Hey, you never told me it wasn't your real name!" Dean protested.
"You thought Broadchest was her actual name?" Sam said incredulously.
"Doesn't matter, though, does it," Dean said. "She's a Winchester now." He smiled and looked adoringly at his wife. Sam suddenly felt uncomfortable, the ease of the past few minutes evaporating. Dean was right-she was a Winchester. Sam didn't know why he was so upset about that. It wasn't like it was some secret club that had to have a group vote to approve a new member. It was Dean's choice to give his name to whomever he wanted. He looked at the two of them and thought about what Dean had told him when he'd left Stanford. The family business. Well, he thought. Guess it wasn't anymore.
"Still kind of like the name Ruby," Dean continued. "Has a certain ring, at times…"
"OK, whoa, that is definitely too much information," Sam cut in.
Dean sat up suddenly and set his beer on the table. Sam followed his line of sight and saw Sammy standing in the doorway, rubbing her eyes and wearing footie pajamas with frogs on them. Dean swiveled around the coffee table and crossed to her. "Hey baby, we wake you up?" he said, crouching down.
Sam couldn't make out the reply, but could hear the sleep-cracked voice of his niece, unmistakably cranky. Dean hoisted her up and made some quick signal to his wife that Sam couldn't decipher.
When he'd walked her back to her bedroom, Deb leaned conspiratorially close to Sam. "She's still adjusting to sleeping in a bed. We switched her from the crib a few months ago because of the baby, but she gets nightmares. And Dean being Dean won't tell her there's nothing in the closet to be afraid of. He just sleeps on the floor in there instead. Must be killing his back, but he doesn't complain about it."
Sam remembered his own childhood nightmares and how Dean's presence had been the only thing that calmed him down, too. Then he thought back to what Deb had said: Dean being Dean…
She must have noted the way he was looking curiously at her. "I know, Sam. Your great big family secret," she waved her hands. "I know all about it."
"He told you?" Sam asked. He hadn't expected that. Dean had seemed so sure about that after Cassie-hunting and normal life just didn't mix. He'd just assumed that Dean had turned his back on the supernatural, hidden all that from his wife. That Dean would tell her and still stay here being Joe Normal-it didn't make sense.
"He didn't really have a choice. He started pouring salt all over the place, carving things into the walls-I thought he was nuts." Sam huffed out a laugh. "I have to admit, even after he told me, I thought he was nuts."
"What changed your mind?" Sam said. He figured she'd seen something-a spirit or a creature. He'd had plenty of experience opening people's eyes to the true world around them. Some people were ready to believe as soon as anything got hinky; some people it didn't matter if they saw a fully-manifested demon, they'd still never believe.
"He was just so frantic about it. I remember the day exactly-it was May second." She looked at Sam. "Sammy was born on November second."
Sam felt a jolt go through him. Sammy was born on the anniversary of his mother's death. And on May second she was six months old exactly. It hadn't even occurred to him, but of course Dean would be terrified. That had been over two years ago. Why hadn't Dean asked him for help?
"I understand that's an important date for you boys."
"Yeah," Sam said. "Yeah it is. Did anything…"
"Nothing at all. Except your brother staying up the whole night with a small arsenal in his lap."
Sam looked at her. "Then why did you believe him?"
Deb smiled. "I may not know much about what all you do, but I know my husband. He was scared of something real. I don't need any more proof to believe than that."
"Look," she said after a moment. "I don't know what happened between the two of you, and I'm sure you've had your reasons not to talk to him. But he's a good man. And a good father."
"I know," Sam said quietly. His eyes drifted to the doorway where Dean had disappeared with his daughter. "Our dad…left us alone a lot when we were little. Dean pretty much raised me." He hadn't thought too much about it growing up-that was just what Dean did. But now, seeing Dean with his daughter, he could see all the same things Dean had done for him, and when Sam had been that age, Dean had only been seven years old. Jesus.
"I think he needs to have somebody to take care of," Deb said, smiling softly. "Can I ask you something?"
"Sure," Sam said hesitantly.
"April, three years ago. Did something happen to you then?"
"I'm not sure… Why?"
"Dean disappeared for about a month around then. I'd just found out I was pregnant, hadn't told him. I was upset, started giving him the brush-off, and then one day he was just gone. I thought he got tired of me, went on to find greener pastures." Sam winced. She talked about it casually now, but Sam could imagine what it would have been like, finding out she was pregnant, then being abandoned by the father. He didn't know about back then, but the way Deb looked at his brother-she clearly loved him. She took a deep breath then smiled. "But then he came back. Asked me to marry him. I never asked him where he went, but-it was you, wasn't it?"
Sam thought back. "Three years ago… That would've been-that was a black dog. I was banged up pretty badly. I landed in the hospital, for about-" even as he said it, the pieces fit together, "a month."
Deb nodded.
"I-I didn't know. He didn't come to see me."
"Maybe he did."
Sam couldn't stop thinking about it. He'd cut Dean out of his life and even so he'd almost ended Dean's marriage before it started. When he'd first seen Dean here it had hurt to think that Dean had moved on with his life without him, not when he still thought about Dean every day. But that wasn't true. Even when he wasn't there he affected Dean's life.
Deb sat forward, breaking into Sam's thoughts. "You know, he spends about an hour on the computer every single night, always has. He must be looking after you, then, too."
"You never asked him?"
"No." Deb smirked. "I just figured he was watching porn."
Deb headed to bed after that, pulling out clean sheets for Sam to use on the couch. He lay in the dark for a long time thinking. His whole life, Dean had always been there for him. Even when he didn't want him to be, when he wished he were an only fucking child, when he ran away, pushed Dean away, he always knew that if he came back Dean would be there. It was just something he took for granted. Dean was his older brother, he belonged to Sam. He'd do anything for Sam. But looking up at the ceiling of the house where his brother lived with his wife and kid, Sam realized that wasn’t true. Dean didn't belong to him anymore. He belonged to them.
Sam didn't think he liked that.
continued in Part II