Stolen Moments
It's roque_clasique's birthday! So I wrote a little something for her based on a prompt that she gave in a comment-fic meme in her LJ, in which she gets to give all the prompts. I thought it was a really fun idea, and this prompt grabbed my attention, so there we go.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ROQUE!
Title: Stolen Moments
Prompt: From the lovely and talented roque_clasique. Dean's relationship with stealing.
Spoilers: None
Word Count: 3,822
Disclaimer: Kripke made me give 'em back.
Warning: Very bad language. Dean channels Samuel L. Jackson for a while.
Neurotic Authorial Disclaimer: As usual, no beta, no re-reading, nothing. I'm just praying roque_clasique doesn't disown and shun me after this. ANATHEMA! "You are dead to me, DEAD!" Etc. :P
*****
The first thing that Dean ever steals is a sandwich. It's one of those pre-made things that you usually find in vending machines, encased in hard white plastic and wrapped in a second layer of saran wrap. He shoves it in the front pocket of the over-large brown hoodie sweater that Dad got him at goodwill -this is the only time he's grateful that it doesn't fit him right- saunters up to the cash as though he owns the place, and buys a quarter's worth of candy. A handful of jujubes. He gives the cashier his best winning grin, the one that makes women coo over him as though he's the most precious thing ever (Dean is adorable, he's learned), and saunters out, casual. Totally frosty.
Sammy is waiting on the step outside the shop, right where Dean left him. There's a hole in the toe of his left sneaker, and he's whiling away the time by wriggling his big toe through it, in and out. With a sigh Dean realizes he's going to have to do more laundry: Sam's socks are filthy. He grabs Sam by one grubby hand.
“C'mon, Sammy, let's go sit in the park.”
They find a bench, and Dean carefully unwraps the sandwich, hands one half to his brother, takes a bite out of the other half, chews very slowly, savouring it. It's egg salad, which he doesn't especially like, but it's Sam's favourite. He hands over half the jujubes, too, counting them out carefully. There's an uneven number, and this time he doesn't cave into Sammy's whining when he keeps the extra one.
“I'm older, so I get to have it.”
Sammy glares mutinously. “Just you wait. One day I'll be older and then it'll be my turn.”
Dean smirks, doesn't bother explaining to his six-year-old brother just how much that is never going to work. Let him cling to his illusions for now. “Whatever, squirt.”
“When's Dad coming back?” Sam has managed to get his hands sticky already.
His sandwich turns to dust in his mouth. “Tomorrow, I think.” He dusts crumbs off his hoodie. Doesn't want to think about it too hard, because it's only just getting on into the evening, and he doesn't think Dad is going to make it before sundown. Sammy just nods, accepting, has stopped whining now that there's food in his stomach.
“Is he going to take us to McDonald's?”
“Maybe.”
“Can we go now?”
“No. We just ate.”
Sam huffs. “Kevin Murray got a race car in his hamburger,” he says meaningfully.
Dean rolls his eyes, ruffles Sam's hair. “C'mon, we should get back. Dad doesn't want us to leave the motel unless we have to.”
“What if he doesn't come back tomorrow?”
“He'll be back. If not, well... We'll figure something out, Sammy. Don't worry about it,” he adds, feeling his stomach clench.
*****
“Dude, did you even pay for that?” Sam doesn't bother hiding his annoyance as Dean slides into the driver's seat of the Impala, munching happily on a candy bar.
“It was a free sample,” Dean's look dares Sam to contradict him.
“It's not like we're hard up for cash, Dean. Not after you spent most of last night cheating at poker.”
Dean twists the key in the ignition, the half-undressed candy bar held between his teeth, and cranks up the sound on Zeppelin before removing the candy bar (minus a bite) and answering, mouth full. “Two words, Sammy: free and food.”
“It's Sam, that's three words, and you are really gross.”
Dean flashes him a grin. “Lighten up, Sam! We bought a whole bunch of stuff in there. They're not going to miss a one-dollar candy bar.”
Sam lets out a huff of air in exasperation. “I don't know why I bother.”
“I don't know why you bother either. It's a victimless crime, dude.”
“Do you even know what that means?”
Dean shoots him a look that tells him he stepped over the line. “I'm not stupid, Sam.”
“Never said you were.”
“Why do you have your panties in a twist over this, anyway?”
“It's the principle of the thing,” Sam says, feeling pompous and more than a little ridiculous. “Anyway, I'm not going to argue with you over a candy bar.”
“Just 'cause you're losing the argument. You started it, anyway.”
“I'm not -God. Okay, whatever. When they throw your ass in jail over a candy bar, I am not bailing you out”
“Dude, I'm wanted in, like, eight states. I don't think the candy bar is going to tip the scales.”
Sam sinks down into the passenger seat, not for the first time wishing there was a little more leg room up front. “I just wish you'd be more careful about which laws you break, you know? It's an unnecessary risk for you.”
“Sammy, I spend all my life taking necessary risks. Do me a favour and allow me the luxury of a couple unnecessary ones now and then.”
“And what do we do when you inevitably get in trouble?”
Dean shrugs, swallows the last of his prize. “Don't worry. We'll figure something out.”
*****
The second time Dean steals something important, he's four months shy of his eleventh birthday, and he shoplifts a couple of geometry sets. Glinting metallic boxes with a six-inch ruler, a protractor and a compass. He shoves them both into his backpack, then wanders around the school supply shop, idly rifling through notebooks, making a show of fussing over the stationery (he hates stationery, has never understood its use when lined notepads work just as well). The shopkeeper has been keeping half an eye on him, and Dean doesn't think he can get away with buying a ballpoint pen and not getting his pack searched. Dean glances his way once, takes his measure: he's older, balding, fat, but not in a jolly-Santa-Claus way. Just the kind of fat that makes his belly hang over his belt all the way around, like a jelly doughnut. He's wearing red suspenders to keep his pants up, and his shirt has what looks like a mustard stain from lunch on it.
This guy isn't going to find him adorable. Time for Plan B. After what he judges to be a suitable length of time, he saunters down an aisle toward the front door, makes a show of turning to look at something on a shelf (some stupid knick-knack that looks like a girl would carry in her pencil case), and knocks over a free-standing display with his back pack.
“Hey!” The shopkeeper is galvanized into action, comes lumbering out from behind the counter, his face purpling with rage.
Dean backs up, allowing panic to register on his face. “I'm sorry! I didn't see it! I'm sorry... don't be mad!”
He keeps backing up, trying to look as though this slow old slob is really intimidating, then bolts out the front door, takes to his heels down the street and doesn't look back. He stops in front of the motel parking lot, sinks onto the sidewalk to catch his breath for a couple of minutes. He looks up, makes sure that the Impala is nowhere to be seen, hurries back to the room, where Sam is sitting in front of a Scooby Doo re-run, cross-legged on the floor, Indian-style, chin cupped in his hands. Dean doesn't remember ever being able to concentrate that hard on anything in his whole life, except maybe target practice.
He rummages in his bag, dumps one of the geometry sets in Sam's lap. “Here. We need them for school. Figured you might as well have one too, for later.”
Sam glances up, and his fingers curl around the box, prying it open. “Where'd you get it?”
“School supply place.”
Sam nods, unconcerned. It hasn't occurred to him that Dean didn't buy it. “Thanks. Hey, cool, a protractor!” he grins, and Dean grins back. Only Sammy could get excited about geometry instruments.
Later, in school, Dean uses the compass to carve his name and Jenna Ellis' into the side of his desk. No one catches him.
*****
“Dean...”
“Sam, there is no one here. The guy's toast, and we just poured salt and gasoline on what was left of his partner and set it on fire. You can't tell me this counts as stealing.”
“It doesn't belong to us.”
Sam folds his arm across his chest, leans against the doorjamb, legs crossed. It's a pro forma argument, and they both know it. They were too late to save the guy who ran the weapons shop, the spirit had gutted him like a fish, and secretly Sam thinks the guy kind of deserved it. He also suspects Dean thinks the same thing. Assholes who abuse kids in their basements deserve whatever comes to them, especially if it comes from their partner, murdered in cold blood and buried in the basement so they can keep their dirty little secret. It also just so happens that his shop is pretty much open for the taking now, and Sam is a little disturbed by the alacrity with which Dean is helping himself to the contents at three o'clock on a Wednesday morning. His older brother has always been pretty light-fingered, but this is the first time he's watching him... the word loot comes to mind, and it makes him uncomfortable.
“It doesn't belong to him either, now. The child molesting asshole is dead, the whole place looks like a tornado went through here. They're going to think it's a robbery gone bad. A few missing boxes of ammo? A couple of guns gone AWOL? I bet they won't even notice, or won't even care.”
Dean isn't quite meeting his eyes, but he's going through the store with the kind of brutal, ruthless efficiency that he usually reserves for hunting. Maybe he's still riding the adrenaline high from before. He's sorting through the ammunition in a broken case, shards of glass littering the floor and crunching under his feet, filling a canvas bag he liberated from under the cash register with shotgun shells, rounds for the .45s they carry with them almost everywhere. Logically, Sam knows Dean is right: ammunition is damned expensive, even if they reload a lot of their own rounds. Between that, the motels, food, and gas (the Impala is a great car except when it comes to mileage), they're always barely scraping by. So a store full of free ammo is a godsend, a gift horse which they really shouldn't look in the mouth, except that it leaves a sour taste in his mouth to watch his brother do this, for reasons he can't quite define, even to himself.
“Sammy, a little help here, or do I have to scrounge all by myself?”
Sam can feel his mouth scrunch into what Dean would definitely classify as a “bitchface,” can't quite school his expression into one of neutrality. He shrugs, holds out his hand and lets Dean hand him the canvas bag, goes to toss it -carefully- in the trunk of the car. A few minutes later, another full bag slung over his shoulder, Dean comes to join him, dumps the ill-gotten gains next to the first bag.
“Dude, relax already. You know we need this stuff, and it's not like we're rolling in cash. We run out of ammo, we can't stay safe.”
It's not hard to hear the unspoken “I can't keep you safe.”
Sam huffs a sigh, accepts the keys of the Impala as a peace offering, starts driving before the police can find them.
*****
When he's thirteen years old, Dean gets caught stealing. He's mastered the art of “helping” people with their groceries, and snagging whatever he needs while they're taking their cart back. He doesn't do it much, certainly not more than once per town they're in, but he's come to enjoy the rush that runs through him every time he does swipe something and get away with it. It feels illicit, thrilling in a small way, almost like when Dad takes him on a hunt and he does well. Almost. This time his mark is a young woman with a basketful of groceries that immediately tells him she's got kids. He's got his eye on the bag with a carton of eggs and a bottle of milk, and he's pretty sure he spotted a bag of M&Ms in there. It's perfect. Except this time he doesn't count on his mark's husband coming back from running a totally different errand, and this guy isn't old or fat or slow. In fact, he's got “military” written all over him (tattooed on his arm, as it happens), and the next thing he knows he's being hauled painfully by one arm -practically pulling his shoulder out of its socket- and handed over to security, who then hand him over to the local sheriff.
He's not too young to be charged with the crime, and the sheriff lets him stew by himself on a chair, handcuffed to the desk for effect for what seems like forever but is more like five minutes while he fills out paperwork.
“Your parents know what you're up to?”
“No, sir.” Dad's training coming to the fore.
“They know where you are right now?”
“No, sir.”
“You think this sort of thing is funny, son? Taking people's possessions from them? Playing them for fools in a parking lot?”
“No, sir.”
“You're awful polite for a delinquent all of a sudden. Your Daddy military?”
“Yes, sir. Marines, sir.”
“Yeah, I figured. Your family doesn't live here, do they?”
“No, sir.”
“You're going to have to be more forthcoming than that with me, son.”
He squirms in his chair. Can't think of a way to get out of this without involving his Dad. Sammy's still at home, all by himself, while Dean was stupid and got himself caught. Dad is going to kill him.
“We're here for a couple of weeks. Dad's on business.”
“What about your mom?”
He ducks his head, feels heat creeping up the back of his neck, his stomach doing funny flip-flops the way it always does when he thinks of Mom. “She died.”
He doesn't look up, misses the look of sympathy that crosses the sheriff's face, the sudden flash of understanding. “I'm sorry to hear that, son. Where are you and your Daddy staying?”
“Motel, sir.”
“I need your Daddy's number now, son. Don't make this harder than it has to be, you hear?”
When John Winchester comes to pick him up three hours later, his face carefully neutral, Dean keeps his gaze locked on the floor, wants the earth to open up and swallow him. He's messed everything up: the hunt Dad was on, taking care of Sammy, everything. He can feel disapproval and disappointment radiating from his father like the heat from a forest fire. John catches him by the shoulder, thanks the sheriff for agreeing to let this one slide, steers him back outside to the car. They drive back to the motel in silence, and neither of them answer Sam's demands for an explanation, his queries about where they were and why is Dad back a whole day early?
Dean wishes that Dad would just yell at him already and get it over with. The waiting is making his chest hurt, sharp pains that lance outward from his heart and make him want to double over and curl up on the floor until it all stops. He stands straight, forces himself to keep his shoulders back, waits for the inevitable. Finally Dad speaks, his voice deceptively quiet.
“Five miles, no stopping. Start now, and you'll do the same tomorrow, and the day after. Every day this week, before school.”
He nods, swallows hard. “Yes, sir.”
“Sammy, go brush your teeth.”
“But Daaaad...”
“Now, Samuel!”
“Yessir.” Sam scurries away, knows when their father isn't negotiating.
“I know I don't need to tell you that stealing is wrong, stupid and dangerous, do I?” Dad's voice is just as quiet as before, and a chill runs up Dean's spine.
“No, sir.”
“Go put on your track shoes. Get started, I want you back in forty minutes. I'll take Sammy, and go for groceries.”
Dean sags with relief, wills himself not to cry like a girl. “Yes sir.”
When he finally gets out onto the road and starts running, he feels like he's just sprouted wings.
*****
They run out of money just outside of Delaware, about three hours before they venture to an abandoned homestead to clear out a nasty couple of spirits who've been luring in unsuspecting real estate brokers and anyone else trying to make a profit off the sale of their property and cracking open their skulls. It's yet another one of those cases that falls under the category of “Wasn't-this-supposed-to-be-an-easy-one?” They find the remains in the barn, drag them out into the open so they can salt and burn them without setting the whole building on fire (hay and dry wood spell out disaster when exposed to open flame and accelerant, even they know that), and one of the spirits -it's always the women who are the most vicious- loses her shit and sends Dean flying at least three dozen yards.
Only he doesn't land on the ground, no, of course not. It's just his damned freaking bad luck that he lands right on top of the rotting cover of the abandoned well and goes right through. Then he's falling for what feels like forever, heart in his mouth, and lands so hard his vision greys out. When he opens his eyes it's dark everywhere, and for a second he thinks he's gone blind. Then he realizes he can just make out daylight filtering in above his head, a tiny lopsided circle of whitish light.
“Dean!” Sam's voice echoes weirdly in the well. “Dean, can you hear me?”
It takes another second to get enough air to yell back. “Sammy? You okay?”
“One of these days you're going to have to stop asking me that right after you've gotten your ass kicked.” He can hear the annoyance in Sam's voice. “I'm fine. Are you hurt? I can't see you.”
He tries to sit up, and that's when every single inch of his body screams out in pain. “Sonofabitch motherfucking ow!” He slams his hand against the side of the well, almost bites clean through his lip, eyes screwed shut.
“Dean?”
He takes as deep a breath as he can manage. “I think I fucked myself up, Sammy.”
“It's Sam. How bad?”
Gingerly he tests. His back is on fire, and so is his right leg, but everything seems to be moving about right. Overall, he may have gotten lucky. Hah. Lucky. That's rich. He can feel his legs (although right now he kind of wishes he couldn't), and he can wiggle his fingers and toes.
“Nothing permanent, but I've fucked up my back and I think I sprained my knee.”
“All right. Hang in there, I'll find some rope.”
Getting out of the well is only a little less pleasant than getting a root canal with no anaesthetic, and Sam makes it worse by quoting Archimedes, and Dean threatens to use the goddamn fulcrum to shove the lever where the sun don't shine if he doesn't shut up, already. Sam practically has to carry him to the car -he's limping too badly, his back seizing up with every step. He can't even sit up, has to let Sam stretch him out in the back seat of the Impala before they get back to the motel. Of course they've got no money and no insurance -not even the fake kind- and it was Dean's turn to restock the painkillers last time and he forgot because he's been distracted, and the whole situation sucks like a fucking hoover.
Sam stretches him out carefully on the bed, gently pulls at his clothes, starts applying cold compresses, and Dean bites into the back of his own hand so hard he draws blood, trying not to whimper or scream with pain and pretty much failing. Sam gives him a handful of Tylenol, but they both know it's not going to do anything, and he can see Sam's expression, tight and pinched, as he tries to manage injuries that are kind of a little too serious for home first-aid but not really serious enough to warrant a trip to the E.R. It's a fine line.
“I'll be back soon, okay?” Sam gives him a gentle pat on the shoulder. “Try not to move.”
“Sammy, where you going?” He can hear the note of panic in his voice, hates himself for it, for the cringing please-don't-leave-me tone that always creeps in unheeded when he's hurting.
“I've gotta take care of those remains, remember? They weren't burning properly when we left. And it's Sam.”
He doesn't remember, but that doesn't mean it's not true. He nods, and Sam vanishes, leaving water and Tylenol next to him, except that he can't even lift his head because his back is screaming, and it feels like he's about to come apart at the seams. He stares at the ceiling, tries to breathe through the pain, feels like he's about to pass out or maybe just die, and just as suddenly Sam is beside him again, a reassuring hand on his arm.
“Hey, Dean. How you doing?”
He wants to say “fine,” except what comes out of his mouth is a litany of curses, and Sam rubs his arm.
“Just relax, let me help you sit up.”
He barely stifles a moan as Sam props him up, presses pills to his lips, holds a glass of water for him to wash them down. “What're those?”
“Vicodin. Just swallow them already, would you?”
He doesn't need to be told twice, winces as Sam lays him back down, props pillows around him to keep his back from hurting too badly. “Where'd you get 'em?”
Sam's lips quirk in a funny half-smile. “Stole 'em for you.”
Dean feels himself relax ever so slightly, chuckles. It's too early for the meds to be kicking in, but he feels like he might be floating already.
“That's my boy.”
*****
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ROQUE!
Title: Stolen Moments
Prompt: From the lovely and talented roque_clasique. Dean's relationship with stealing.
Spoilers: None
Word Count: 3,822
Disclaimer: Kripke made me give 'em back.
Warning: Very bad language. Dean channels Samuel L. Jackson for a while.
Neurotic Authorial Disclaimer: As usual, no beta, no re-reading, nothing. I'm just praying roque_clasique doesn't disown and shun me after this. ANATHEMA! "You are dead to me, DEAD!" Etc. :P
*****
The first thing that Dean ever steals is a sandwich. It's one of those pre-made things that you usually find in vending machines, encased in hard white plastic and wrapped in a second layer of saran wrap. He shoves it in the front pocket of the over-large brown hoodie sweater that Dad got him at goodwill -this is the only time he's grateful that it doesn't fit him right- saunters up to the cash as though he owns the place, and buys a quarter's worth of candy. A handful of jujubes. He gives the cashier his best winning grin, the one that makes women coo over him as though he's the most precious thing ever (Dean is adorable, he's learned), and saunters out, casual. Totally frosty.
Sammy is waiting on the step outside the shop, right where Dean left him. There's a hole in the toe of his left sneaker, and he's whiling away the time by wriggling his big toe through it, in and out. With a sigh Dean realizes he's going to have to do more laundry: Sam's socks are filthy. He grabs Sam by one grubby hand.
“C'mon, Sammy, let's go sit in the park.”
They find a bench, and Dean carefully unwraps the sandwich, hands one half to his brother, takes a bite out of the other half, chews very slowly, savouring it. It's egg salad, which he doesn't especially like, but it's Sam's favourite. He hands over half the jujubes, too, counting them out carefully. There's an uneven number, and this time he doesn't cave into Sammy's whining when he keeps the extra one.
“I'm older, so I get to have it.”
Sammy glares mutinously. “Just you wait. One day I'll be older and then it'll be my turn.”
Dean smirks, doesn't bother explaining to his six-year-old brother just how much that is never going to work. Let him cling to his illusions for now. “Whatever, squirt.”
“When's Dad coming back?” Sam has managed to get his hands sticky already.
His sandwich turns to dust in his mouth. “Tomorrow, I think.” He dusts crumbs off his hoodie. Doesn't want to think about it too hard, because it's only just getting on into the evening, and he doesn't think Dad is going to make it before sundown. Sammy just nods, accepting, has stopped whining now that there's food in his stomach.
“Is he going to take us to McDonald's?”
“Maybe.”
“Can we go now?”
“No. We just ate.”
Sam huffs. “Kevin Murray got a race car in his hamburger,” he says meaningfully.
Dean rolls his eyes, ruffles Sam's hair. “C'mon, we should get back. Dad doesn't want us to leave the motel unless we have to.”
“What if he doesn't come back tomorrow?”
“He'll be back. If not, well... We'll figure something out, Sammy. Don't worry about it,” he adds, feeling his stomach clench.
*****
“Dude, did you even pay for that?” Sam doesn't bother hiding his annoyance as Dean slides into the driver's seat of the Impala, munching happily on a candy bar.
“It was a free sample,” Dean's look dares Sam to contradict him.
“It's not like we're hard up for cash, Dean. Not after you spent most of last night cheating at poker.”
Dean twists the key in the ignition, the half-undressed candy bar held between his teeth, and cranks up the sound on Zeppelin before removing the candy bar (minus a bite) and answering, mouth full. “Two words, Sammy: free and food.”
“It's Sam, that's three words, and you are really gross.”
Dean flashes him a grin. “Lighten up, Sam! We bought a whole bunch of stuff in there. They're not going to miss a one-dollar candy bar.”
Sam lets out a huff of air in exasperation. “I don't know why I bother.”
“I don't know why you bother either. It's a victimless crime, dude.”
“Do you even know what that means?”
Dean shoots him a look that tells him he stepped over the line. “I'm not stupid, Sam.”
“Never said you were.”
“Why do you have your panties in a twist over this, anyway?”
“It's the principle of the thing,” Sam says, feeling pompous and more than a little ridiculous. “Anyway, I'm not going to argue with you over a candy bar.”
“Just 'cause you're losing the argument. You started it, anyway.”
“I'm not -God. Okay, whatever. When they throw your ass in jail over a candy bar, I am not bailing you out”
“Dude, I'm wanted in, like, eight states. I don't think the candy bar is going to tip the scales.”
Sam sinks down into the passenger seat, not for the first time wishing there was a little more leg room up front. “I just wish you'd be more careful about which laws you break, you know? It's an unnecessary risk for you.”
“Sammy, I spend all my life taking necessary risks. Do me a favour and allow me the luxury of a couple unnecessary ones now and then.”
“And what do we do when you inevitably get in trouble?”
Dean shrugs, swallows the last of his prize. “Don't worry. We'll figure something out.”
*****
The second time Dean steals something important, he's four months shy of his eleventh birthday, and he shoplifts a couple of geometry sets. Glinting metallic boxes with a six-inch ruler, a protractor and a compass. He shoves them both into his backpack, then wanders around the school supply shop, idly rifling through notebooks, making a show of fussing over the stationery (he hates stationery, has never understood its use when lined notepads work just as well). The shopkeeper has been keeping half an eye on him, and Dean doesn't think he can get away with buying a ballpoint pen and not getting his pack searched. Dean glances his way once, takes his measure: he's older, balding, fat, but not in a jolly-Santa-Claus way. Just the kind of fat that makes his belly hang over his belt all the way around, like a jelly doughnut. He's wearing red suspenders to keep his pants up, and his shirt has what looks like a mustard stain from lunch on it.
This guy isn't going to find him adorable. Time for Plan B. After what he judges to be a suitable length of time, he saunters down an aisle toward the front door, makes a show of turning to look at something on a shelf (some stupid knick-knack that looks like a girl would carry in her pencil case), and knocks over a free-standing display with his back pack.
“Hey!” The shopkeeper is galvanized into action, comes lumbering out from behind the counter, his face purpling with rage.
Dean backs up, allowing panic to register on his face. “I'm sorry! I didn't see it! I'm sorry... don't be mad!”
He keeps backing up, trying to look as though this slow old slob is really intimidating, then bolts out the front door, takes to his heels down the street and doesn't look back. He stops in front of the motel parking lot, sinks onto the sidewalk to catch his breath for a couple of minutes. He looks up, makes sure that the Impala is nowhere to be seen, hurries back to the room, where Sam is sitting in front of a Scooby Doo re-run, cross-legged on the floor, Indian-style, chin cupped in his hands. Dean doesn't remember ever being able to concentrate that hard on anything in his whole life, except maybe target practice.
He rummages in his bag, dumps one of the geometry sets in Sam's lap. “Here. We need them for school. Figured you might as well have one too, for later.”
Sam glances up, and his fingers curl around the box, prying it open. “Where'd you get it?”
“School supply place.”
Sam nods, unconcerned. It hasn't occurred to him that Dean didn't buy it. “Thanks. Hey, cool, a protractor!” he grins, and Dean grins back. Only Sammy could get excited about geometry instruments.
Later, in school, Dean uses the compass to carve his name and Jenna Ellis' into the side of his desk. No one catches him.
*****
“Dean...”
“Sam, there is no one here. The guy's toast, and we just poured salt and gasoline on what was left of his partner and set it on fire. You can't tell me this counts as stealing.”
“It doesn't belong to us.”
Sam folds his arm across his chest, leans against the doorjamb, legs crossed. It's a pro forma argument, and they both know it. They were too late to save the guy who ran the weapons shop, the spirit had gutted him like a fish, and secretly Sam thinks the guy kind of deserved it. He also suspects Dean thinks the same thing. Assholes who abuse kids in their basements deserve whatever comes to them, especially if it comes from their partner, murdered in cold blood and buried in the basement so they can keep their dirty little secret. It also just so happens that his shop is pretty much open for the taking now, and Sam is a little disturbed by the alacrity with which Dean is helping himself to the contents at three o'clock on a Wednesday morning. His older brother has always been pretty light-fingered, but this is the first time he's watching him... the word loot comes to mind, and it makes him uncomfortable.
“It doesn't belong to him either, now. The child molesting asshole is dead, the whole place looks like a tornado went through here. They're going to think it's a robbery gone bad. A few missing boxes of ammo? A couple of guns gone AWOL? I bet they won't even notice, or won't even care.”
Dean isn't quite meeting his eyes, but he's going through the store with the kind of brutal, ruthless efficiency that he usually reserves for hunting. Maybe he's still riding the adrenaline high from before. He's sorting through the ammunition in a broken case, shards of glass littering the floor and crunching under his feet, filling a canvas bag he liberated from under the cash register with shotgun shells, rounds for the .45s they carry with them almost everywhere. Logically, Sam knows Dean is right: ammunition is damned expensive, even if they reload a lot of their own rounds. Between that, the motels, food, and gas (the Impala is a great car except when it comes to mileage), they're always barely scraping by. So a store full of free ammo is a godsend, a gift horse which they really shouldn't look in the mouth, except that it leaves a sour taste in his mouth to watch his brother do this, for reasons he can't quite define, even to himself.
“Sammy, a little help here, or do I have to scrounge all by myself?”
Sam can feel his mouth scrunch into what Dean would definitely classify as a “bitchface,” can't quite school his expression into one of neutrality. He shrugs, holds out his hand and lets Dean hand him the canvas bag, goes to toss it -carefully- in the trunk of the car. A few minutes later, another full bag slung over his shoulder, Dean comes to join him, dumps the ill-gotten gains next to the first bag.
“Dude, relax already. You know we need this stuff, and it's not like we're rolling in cash. We run out of ammo, we can't stay safe.”
It's not hard to hear the unspoken “I can't keep you safe.”
Sam huffs a sigh, accepts the keys of the Impala as a peace offering, starts driving before the police can find them.
*****
When he's thirteen years old, Dean gets caught stealing. He's mastered the art of “helping” people with their groceries, and snagging whatever he needs while they're taking their cart back. He doesn't do it much, certainly not more than once per town they're in, but he's come to enjoy the rush that runs through him every time he does swipe something and get away with it. It feels illicit, thrilling in a small way, almost like when Dad takes him on a hunt and he does well. Almost. This time his mark is a young woman with a basketful of groceries that immediately tells him she's got kids. He's got his eye on the bag with a carton of eggs and a bottle of milk, and he's pretty sure he spotted a bag of M&Ms in there. It's perfect. Except this time he doesn't count on his mark's husband coming back from running a totally different errand, and this guy isn't old or fat or slow. In fact, he's got “military” written all over him (tattooed on his arm, as it happens), and the next thing he knows he's being hauled painfully by one arm -practically pulling his shoulder out of its socket- and handed over to security, who then hand him over to the local sheriff.
He's not too young to be charged with the crime, and the sheriff lets him stew by himself on a chair, handcuffed to the desk for effect for what seems like forever but is more like five minutes while he fills out paperwork.
“Your parents know what you're up to?”
“No, sir.” Dad's training coming to the fore.
“They know where you are right now?”
“No, sir.”
“You think this sort of thing is funny, son? Taking people's possessions from them? Playing them for fools in a parking lot?”
“No, sir.”
“You're awful polite for a delinquent all of a sudden. Your Daddy military?”
“Yes, sir. Marines, sir.”
“Yeah, I figured. Your family doesn't live here, do they?”
“No, sir.”
“You're going to have to be more forthcoming than that with me, son.”
He squirms in his chair. Can't think of a way to get out of this without involving his Dad. Sammy's still at home, all by himself, while Dean was stupid and got himself caught. Dad is going to kill him.
“We're here for a couple of weeks. Dad's on business.”
“What about your mom?”
He ducks his head, feels heat creeping up the back of his neck, his stomach doing funny flip-flops the way it always does when he thinks of Mom. “She died.”
He doesn't look up, misses the look of sympathy that crosses the sheriff's face, the sudden flash of understanding. “I'm sorry to hear that, son. Where are you and your Daddy staying?”
“Motel, sir.”
“I need your Daddy's number now, son. Don't make this harder than it has to be, you hear?”
When John Winchester comes to pick him up three hours later, his face carefully neutral, Dean keeps his gaze locked on the floor, wants the earth to open up and swallow him. He's messed everything up: the hunt Dad was on, taking care of Sammy, everything. He can feel disapproval and disappointment radiating from his father like the heat from a forest fire. John catches him by the shoulder, thanks the sheriff for agreeing to let this one slide, steers him back outside to the car. They drive back to the motel in silence, and neither of them answer Sam's demands for an explanation, his queries about where they were and why is Dad back a whole day early?
Dean wishes that Dad would just yell at him already and get it over with. The waiting is making his chest hurt, sharp pains that lance outward from his heart and make him want to double over and curl up on the floor until it all stops. He stands straight, forces himself to keep his shoulders back, waits for the inevitable. Finally Dad speaks, his voice deceptively quiet.
“Five miles, no stopping. Start now, and you'll do the same tomorrow, and the day after. Every day this week, before school.”
He nods, swallows hard. “Yes, sir.”
“Sammy, go brush your teeth.”
“But Daaaad...”
“Now, Samuel!”
“Yessir.” Sam scurries away, knows when their father isn't negotiating.
“I know I don't need to tell you that stealing is wrong, stupid and dangerous, do I?” Dad's voice is just as quiet as before, and a chill runs up Dean's spine.
“No, sir.”
“Go put on your track shoes. Get started, I want you back in forty minutes. I'll take Sammy, and go for groceries.”
Dean sags with relief, wills himself not to cry like a girl. “Yes sir.”
When he finally gets out onto the road and starts running, he feels like he's just sprouted wings.
*****
They run out of money just outside of Delaware, about three hours before they venture to an abandoned homestead to clear out a nasty couple of spirits who've been luring in unsuspecting real estate brokers and anyone else trying to make a profit off the sale of their property and cracking open their skulls. It's yet another one of those cases that falls under the category of “Wasn't-this-supposed-to-be-an-easy-one?” They find the remains in the barn, drag them out into the open so they can salt and burn them without setting the whole building on fire (hay and dry wood spell out disaster when exposed to open flame and accelerant, even they know that), and one of the spirits -it's always the women who are the most vicious- loses her shit and sends Dean flying at least three dozen yards.
Only he doesn't land on the ground, no, of course not. It's just his damned freaking bad luck that he lands right on top of the rotting cover of the abandoned well and goes right through. Then he's falling for what feels like forever, heart in his mouth, and lands so hard his vision greys out. When he opens his eyes it's dark everywhere, and for a second he thinks he's gone blind. Then he realizes he can just make out daylight filtering in above his head, a tiny lopsided circle of whitish light.
“Dean!” Sam's voice echoes weirdly in the well. “Dean, can you hear me?”
It takes another second to get enough air to yell back. “Sammy? You okay?”
“One of these days you're going to have to stop asking me that right after you've gotten your ass kicked.” He can hear the annoyance in Sam's voice. “I'm fine. Are you hurt? I can't see you.”
He tries to sit up, and that's when every single inch of his body screams out in pain. “Sonofabitch motherfucking ow!” He slams his hand against the side of the well, almost bites clean through his lip, eyes screwed shut.
“Dean?”
He takes as deep a breath as he can manage. “I think I fucked myself up, Sammy.”
“It's Sam. How bad?”
Gingerly he tests. His back is on fire, and so is his right leg, but everything seems to be moving about right. Overall, he may have gotten lucky. Hah. Lucky. That's rich. He can feel his legs (although right now he kind of wishes he couldn't), and he can wiggle his fingers and toes.
“Nothing permanent, but I've fucked up my back and I think I sprained my knee.”
“All right. Hang in there, I'll find some rope.”
Getting out of the well is only a little less pleasant than getting a root canal with no anaesthetic, and Sam makes it worse by quoting Archimedes, and Dean threatens to use the goddamn fulcrum to shove the lever where the sun don't shine if he doesn't shut up, already. Sam practically has to carry him to the car -he's limping too badly, his back seizing up with every step. He can't even sit up, has to let Sam stretch him out in the back seat of the Impala before they get back to the motel. Of course they've got no money and no insurance -not even the fake kind- and it was Dean's turn to restock the painkillers last time and he forgot because he's been distracted, and the whole situation sucks like a fucking hoover.
Sam stretches him out carefully on the bed, gently pulls at his clothes, starts applying cold compresses, and Dean bites into the back of his own hand so hard he draws blood, trying not to whimper or scream with pain and pretty much failing. Sam gives him a handful of Tylenol, but they both know it's not going to do anything, and he can see Sam's expression, tight and pinched, as he tries to manage injuries that are kind of a little too serious for home first-aid but not really serious enough to warrant a trip to the E.R. It's a fine line.
“I'll be back soon, okay?” Sam gives him a gentle pat on the shoulder. “Try not to move.”
“Sammy, where you going?” He can hear the note of panic in his voice, hates himself for it, for the cringing please-don't-leave-me tone that always creeps in unheeded when he's hurting.
“I've gotta take care of those remains, remember? They weren't burning properly when we left. And it's Sam.”
He doesn't remember, but that doesn't mean it's not true. He nods, and Sam vanishes, leaving water and Tylenol next to him, except that he can't even lift his head because his back is screaming, and it feels like he's about to come apart at the seams. He stares at the ceiling, tries to breathe through the pain, feels like he's about to pass out or maybe just die, and just as suddenly Sam is beside him again, a reassuring hand on his arm.
“Hey, Dean. How you doing?”
He wants to say “fine,” except what comes out of his mouth is a litany of curses, and Sam rubs his arm.
“Just relax, let me help you sit up.”
He barely stifles a moan as Sam props him up, presses pills to his lips, holds a glass of water for him to wash them down. “What're those?”
“Vicodin. Just swallow them already, would you?”
He doesn't need to be told twice, winces as Sam lays him back down, props pillows around him to keep his back from hurting too badly. “Where'd you get 'em?”
Sam's lips quirk in a funny half-smile. “Stole 'em for you.”
Dean feels himself relax ever so slightly, chuckles. It's too early for the meds to be kicking in, but he feels like he might be floating already.
“That's my boy.”
*****