Fic, Supernatural: Code of the Winchesters, gen, PG13
Title: Code of the Winchesters
Genre/Rating: Gen, PG13 (preseries - Sam's about eight and Dean twelve)
Characters: Sam, Dean, a pinch of John
Words: About 3200
Notes: This is a birthday fic for the lovely girlfan1979 , who put this in my head with the words 'brotherly bonding' and 'wee!chesters', along with this note from Found. Also? Check out found_fic_spn , who does challenges from there each week and has more stories based on this note. Thanks to longhairedlady for the beta!
Disclaimer: They will never be mine. Which sucks.
Summary: All boys have codes... And some codes are better than others.
...
The first weird thing was the girl thing.
“I hate girls.”
It was so out of the blue Dean couldn’t help laughing. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. They’re stupid and they’re always giggling.”
Sam hadn’t really taken a stance either way on girls before, but there was a first time for everything, Dean guessed. “Um. Okay. Since when?”
Sam looked at him like the answer to that was the most obvious thing in the world. “Since forever! I’ve always hated girls!”
Which was so not true, because Dean knew for a fact that Sam had been pretty much crushing on his teacher, miss Markinson, for the last couple of weeks now. He wasn’t sure that pointing that out would be the best idea right now, though. Besides, not like he could blame Sam for it anyway. Miss Markinson was real nice, and pretty, too. And she didn’t get annoyed with Dean when he explained that his dad was out of town on business and really wasn’t able make Sammy’s parent-teacher meeting, no matter how much he’d been looking forward to it. Because he had been, Dean was careful to emphasize.
“What about miss Markinson?” Oh, right, he wasn’t going to mention her. Tantrum coming. Dean braced himself.
But there was no tantrum. If anything, Sam looked... Sort of guilty, Dean thought, which was weird. He shrugged and said decisively, “Her, too,” but still looked a little uncomfortable and chewed on his lip for the rest of the way home.
…
The second weird thing was the dum-dum. One morning when they were walking to school Sam suddenly dug out a dum-dum pop from somewhere in the depths of his jacket when they were just a couple of minutes from school. The candy was sticky from its stay in the pocket and there was fuzz on the stick. Nice.
“Sammy, what the - what are you doing? Where’d you get that from?”
“Saved it.” Sam started in on it happily.
“Well, tough, you can’t eat it now. Give me that.” Dean held out his hand.
“No!” Sam tried to keep the dum-dum out of his brother’s reach. “It’s mine, I saved it!”
“Yeah, I get that,” Dean said with a patience he didn’t feel, “but you can’t eat it now. We’re like, two minutes from school, you can’t eat candy in class.”
“I’ll finish it before we start!” Sam whined. “You can’t just take it, it’s mine!”
And if it had been later in the day Dean probably would have put up a much better fight, but he wasn’t a morning person - God, he wished Dad would let him have some coffee in the mornings, but oh no - and he really, really didn’t want to arrive at school dragging a screaming Sammy behind him. So he let it go. You had to choose your battles with Sammy these days, and one innocent if sticky and fuzzy piece of candy wasn’t the end of the world.
Even though it was weird.
When Sam spotted his group of friends in the schoolyard, he threw Dean a quick goodbye before rushing off to them, pop sticking out of his mouth.
Dean just hoped Sammy wasn’t planning on making a habit out of this, because in that case he’d have to find a way to get some coffee despite what Dad said.
…
The third weird thing, which wasn’t so much weird as it was freakin’ disturbing, was the crying.
“See if you can find out what’s going on with your brother,” Dad had said. Oh yeah, nothing he wanted more.
He hated it when Sammy cried. Maybe that made him the sissiest, unworthiest big brother on the planet, but he did. Well, okay, angry tears and hysterical yelling when Dean kept calling him - and referring to him as - ‘the dorkiest dork that ever dorked’ for a whole day was one thing (that had been kinda funny, actually) but Sammy being actually sad? As in this, shaking, sobbing, burying-his-face-in-the-pillow kind of sad? Sucked.
Sitting down on the bed, he tried, “Sammy, what’s up? Come on, don’t cry -“
To his surprise Sam sat up straight on the bed, tears streaming down his face, and shouted, “I’m not crying! I’m not a crybaby! I’m not!”
Dean lifted his hands in surrender. “I never said you were!” Okay, something was definitely going on here. Sammy wasn’t usually this touchy about Dean seeing him cry - Dad, yeah, sometimes, but not him. “Look, I know you’re not a crybaby, okay?” He actually wasn’t, not really. Sure, there were tears sometimes, but if there were, something had usually happened. Sammy hadn’t been the kind of kid who cried over nothing in years. So this… This was obviously something.
“I’m supposed to like video games.”
Dean started at the quiet, snuffling admission. The answer to that was… not there. He stared at a tear in the ugly wallpaper in front of him - and who chose a wallpaper with purple freakin' ducks, anyway? - and thought about it, but no, he had no idea what the right answer to that was supposed to be. Still, he had to say something. “And you… don’t?” he asked hesitantly.
“I don’t know, because we don’t have any!” Oh. Yeah, okay, fair enough. Neither of them had much experience with video games other than the occasional game of Super Mario at some temporary friend’s house, and he wasn’t sure those even counted, and even if they did, they were pretty stupid - like you could fly just because you got a tail and pointy ears. Every flying thing Dad or Pastor Jim had ever come across had had actual wings, not flappy tails.
And either way, that was Dean, not Sam.
“Well… Why are you supposed to like video games?” he asked, confused.
Sam turned away again. “It’s just a thing,” he mumbled.
Dean raised his eyebrows. A thing. “Uh-huh. What kind of thing?”
His brother was still for few moments, chewing the inside of his cheek, before the words came tumbling out.
“… and it’s a real club and they have real rules, and I can follow them, I can, I like candy and comics are okay, but you’re supposed to like video games, and I don’t know any video games, and I asked Dad if I could have a Nintendo and he said no and they’re talking about video games and I’m not gonna get to be in the club any more -“
“Okay, okay! Okay, Sammy, I get it.” He sighed. Great. Just great. He should have known the whole Sammy’s-making-friends thing was too good to be true. “What were the other rules?” he asked.
Sam didn’t even get up off the bed, just reached a hand under the pillow and pulled out a crinkled note, and handed it to Dean without looking at him. “Code of the boys,” Dean read quietly. “1, Always hate girls.” Okay, so that explained the sudden breakup with miss Markinson. Then came the video games and comics. So that was why he’d wanted a Superman comic the other day. “It doesn’t say what kind of comics you’re supposed to read,” he said.
Sam looked up, sniffled. “Nah. Just. You know. Comics.”
“And you chose Superman? Freak.” He kept reading. Don’t brag. Eat candy - aha. Don’t be a crybaby. Be strong.
Dean felt something rising in his throat that he guessed was anger, but he wasn’t sure if he was just mad at the other brats for shutting his little brother out, or if he was mad at Sam for being so easy that he cared so much about it, too. He didn’t need those kids.
“Forget about this. You know what? I’ve got an idea.” He got up and went to get a pen and paper. “If you can’t be in that stupid club because you don’t like video games, we can have our own. And we’re gonna change the rules and have a much better code and they’re all gonna want to be in on it, but they can’t.”
There was another small sniff, but now Sam looked slightly interested. “What kind of code?”
“You know, like this, but better. Yours and mine, buddy. Come on, what rules are we gonna have?”
First things first, though, according to Sam. “But what are we gonna call it?”
“What?”
“We have to have a name first,” Sam explained. “That’s how you do it. Then you write the rules.”
“Oh, yeah. Okay…”
They decided on “Code of the Winchesters”, since it seemed the most obvious choice. Their rules resembled the others, but differed in some important ways. To always hate girls was still the first rule, but only unless they were pretty and smelled good. Or if they were nice, which was added on Sam’s insistence. Dean didn’t mind. To like video games was left out without any discussion at all, but to read comics was included, with the corollary “except Superman”. Sam tried to protest, but Dean put down his foot on that one.
“Dude, Batman is way better anyway. Or the Phantom.” Seriously, you had to set some limits.
Not to brag was changed into not to brag unless you managed to shoot down ten cans in a row, or if you kicked your brother’s ass, or if you got all the answers right on a test in school. And then you could only brag to your family.
“Are you sure we should write ‘ass’?” Sam asked, his voice a little worried. “Dad says we can’t swear.”
“Don’t worry, Sammy, we’ll put it somewhere he won’t find it.”
To eat candy was also kept, with the addition “especially M&Ms - “ Sam made a face at that “ - and cotton candy if you find it and if you can afford it”. Sam had only had cotton candy a few times, but ever since the first time it had been the ultimate candy in his eyes. Dean didn’t get it - for one, it was usually pink. Two, it was sticky as hell. Three, you could actually feel your teeth melting away when you ate it. And four, it was pink. But Sam loved it, and so he put in on the list without pointing out its flaws. He could do that another time.
Number six turned out to need a bit of discussion. They both agreed that it was a good rule, but that it maybe needed a little tweaking.
“Maybe,” Sam started carefully, “maybe if you have a really, really bad dream you can be a crybaby a little, just a little.”
Dean studied him for a moment before nodding his agreement. In the end, the rule amounted to not being a crybaby unless you had a nightmare, broke a bone (or your nose), or got shot. Dean thought about it a little before adding, “or if you have to kill something”. Because when Sammy had to kill something, which he would eventually, that would be scary for him. Well, Dean hadn’t killed anything on his own yet so he couldn’t be completely sure, but it was bound to be a little scary, and Sammy should have an out just in case it made him cry.
“Be strong” was kept as it was, without exceptions or additions.
They added a couple of new rules, too. Their number eight was to not fart in cars unless it was summer and you could roll down the windows, and the corollary was that if you really had to anyway, to do it as loud as you could. It was only right to give fair warning to the others, Dean explained. Sam nodded wisely at that.
Dean wanted number nine to be, “Don’t answer questions from other people”, but that proved to be difficult.
“But teachers ask questions all the time! And you should put your hand up if you know the answer to a question,” Sam protested indignantly. The idea of not answering a question in the classroom was obviously out of the… well, question. Dean should have known. “Can’t it be to not answer questions from other people unless they’re a teacher?”
But Dean knew full well that teachers’ questions could be the most dangerous ones. They’d seem unimportant and offhanded, but they didn’t have to be.
“Okay, how about not answering questions unless they’re about school?” he suggested.
“But what if they ask me, like, what kind of ice cream I like? Or when my birthday is? Or - “
“Okay, okay! Fine, you little geek.”
So Dean ended up putting down number nine as “Don’t answer questions you don’t know if it’s okay to answer”. It was vague, and he knew it, but it was better than nothing. Because if he knew Sam right he’d be following these rules, this code, tightly for a while, better than Dad’s rules, probably, and it would at least make him think for an extra couple of seconds before answering a question about something that could be bad for them. Sammy loved talking to people, Dean knew that, and in his mind teachers were definitely the good guys. The way he saw it, they knew all sorts of stuff and were fun to talk to. And it didn’t help that the teachers always took a shine to him, either.
When they were finished, Dean wrote it all down again on another paper so that they’d have a copy each, and Sam’s face was tear-free and smiling.
“So we’re gonna do this code thing now, right?” Dean said.
“Yeah!” Sam nodded eagerly, and there was a light in his eyes that hadn't been there for a while now.
Later that night, Dean woke up when Sam got up and padded into the bathroom. He didn’t get more than a quick glimpse of his little brother before Sammy shut the door quietly, but he did catch that there was a pen and a piece of paper in his hands.
He stayed awake, waiting for Sam to come back out, and tried to punch his lumpy pillow into a more comfortable shape. Stupid kids and their stupid rules about stupid video games, he thought. Who needed them, anyway? Not Sam, and not him. Winchesters didn’t need stupid clubs and half-assed codes like that one; they were better off having their own. And it wasn’t like those kids knew what was important stuff, either. Video games… His pillow still wouldn’t cooperate, so he gave it another punch.
Sam came out of the bathroom after a few minutes, and proved to Dean what an amateur he was by not even flushing the toilet to explain his detour. Through half-closed eyes, Dean watched him pad back to his bed and put the paper under his pillow. Then he just stood there, but right when Dean was about to ask him what he thought he was doing he took a few hesitant steps towards Dean’s bed instead. A couple more, and then he snuck underneath the blanket as carefully as he could and crawled in beside his brother.
‘Code of the Boys’ wasn’t mentioned the next day, or any day after that.
…
Three weeks later, they left town. When they stopped for gas a couple of hours down the road, it was discovered that the gas station also held a store with more candy than any store that wasn’t a candy store should be allowed to have. Dean held on firmly to Sam’s arm, knowing it was a really, really bad idea to go in there if they weren’t going to get anything. He looked up at his dad, who sighed.
“All right, boys. But just one thing each or one bigger bag of something to share, you hear me?”
Before Dean knew it, Sam had tore himself loose and run into the store. He followed quickly, and - wow. That was a lot of candy.
Sammy stood gaping in front of one of the shelves, and when Dean went up to him he realized why. Cotton candy. In buckets. In actual buckets. Sam’s eyes were completely round, and he looked like he hadn’t seen anything so fantastic in his entire life. Which, granted, he probably hadn’t.
It amazed him how easy it was to make Sam happy sometimes.
Dean sighed. “Okay, Squirt, grab one and we’ll pay,” he said. The buckets were big enough that it meant one to share, but Sammy’s eyes were freakin' shining.
But Sam didn’t move. He stood there, staring at the buckets for another few seconds, then shook his head. “Nah,” he said in a small voice and took a step back.
“Come on, let’s - what?”
“Nah,” Sam repeated, voice stronger now. “I don’t want cotton candy.”
“What do you mean, you don't?” Dean was utterly bewildered. Of course Sam wanted cotton candy. “Yes you do. And the code, it’s - “
Sam interrupted him. “I don’t want it.”
Dean couldn’t do anything but stare at his little brother, who so obviously wanted one of those buckets and looked like it was all he could do not to reach out and grab one. “You don’t want it.” Sam shook his head. “Fine. Okay, fine. What do you want?”
“I want M&Ms.”
Dean opened his mouth. Then he closed it again.
“They have those big bags over there, see? Dad said we could get one big bag of something to share, so we can share one of those.” He scrambled over to lift one down, and grinned at Dean over the top of it.
“Sammy, you don’t even like - “ Dean started, but Sam was already hurrying towards their dad and the checkout counter.
Back in the car, they both sat in the backseat with the bag in between them. On his side, Sam had dug out a familiar looking piece of paper from his pocket and was studying it with a small smile. Dean leaned ever so casually towards him - just reaching for the bag, really - and glanced at the paper. Yup, it was the rules, but there was something else, too, a couple of lines scribbled at the bottom with a different pen.
He leaned back again. Swallowed carefully.
Don’t be a really big pain in the youknowwhat.
Do nice stuff back to Dean.
Okay, so, sometimes being a big brother was a sort of crappy job. But other times it was… not so bad.
Dean cleared his throat. “Hey, Sammy?”
“Mmm?” Sam looked up and quickly folded the paper into a little square that he put back in his pocket.
He hesitated, and then said, “Next time we see cotton candy, I’ll get you some.”
“You will?”
“Promise. Even if it’s pink.”
“Cool.” Sam smiled happily at him and rooted around in the bag until he found a red M&M to pop into his mouth.
They rode in quiet for a while, the rain on the windows and the Doors from up front accompanied by the crunching sounds of candy being eaten the only sounds in the car, until Sam started squirming. After a minute or two he said, with a slightly guilty lilt to his voice, “Dean?”
“Yeah?”
“I have to fart.”
...
Genre/Rating: Gen, PG13 (preseries - Sam's about eight and Dean twelve)
Characters: Sam, Dean, a pinch of John
Words: About 3200
Notes: This is a birthday fic for the lovely girlfan1979 , who put this in my head with the words 'brotherly bonding' and 'wee!chesters', along with this note from Found. Also? Check out found_fic_spn , who does challenges from there each week and has more stories based on this note. Thanks to longhairedlady for the beta!
Disclaimer: They will never be mine. Which sucks.
Summary: All boys have codes... And some codes are better than others.
...
The first weird thing was the girl thing.
“I hate girls.”
It was so out of the blue Dean couldn’t help laughing. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. They’re stupid and they’re always giggling.”
Sam hadn’t really taken a stance either way on girls before, but there was a first time for everything, Dean guessed. “Um. Okay. Since when?”
Sam looked at him like the answer to that was the most obvious thing in the world. “Since forever! I’ve always hated girls!”
Which was so not true, because Dean knew for a fact that Sam had been pretty much crushing on his teacher, miss Markinson, for the last couple of weeks now. He wasn’t sure that pointing that out would be the best idea right now, though. Besides, not like he could blame Sam for it anyway. Miss Markinson was real nice, and pretty, too. And she didn’t get annoyed with Dean when he explained that his dad was out of town on business and really wasn’t able make Sammy’s parent-teacher meeting, no matter how much he’d been looking forward to it. Because he had been, Dean was careful to emphasize.
“What about miss Markinson?” Oh, right, he wasn’t going to mention her. Tantrum coming. Dean braced himself.
But there was no tantrum. If anything, Sam looked... Sort of guilty, Dean thought, which was weird. He shrugged and said decisively, “Her, too,” but still looked a little uncomfortable and chewed on his lip for the rest of the way home.
…
The second weird thing was the dum-dum. One morning when they were walking to school Sam suddenly dug out a dum-dum pop from somewhere in the depths of his jacket when they were just a couple of minutes from school. The candy was sticky from its stay in the pocket and there was fuzz on the stick. Nice.
“Sammy, what the - what are you doing? Where’d you get that from?”
“Saved it.” Sam started in on it happily.
“Well, tough, you can’t eat it now. Give me that.” Dean held out his hand.
“No!” Sam tried to keep the dum-dum out of his brother’s reach. “It’s mine, I saved it!”
“Yeah, I get that,” Dean said with a patience he didn’t feel, “but you can’t eat it now. We’re like, two minutes from school, you can’t eat candy in class.”
“I’ll finish it before we start!” Sam whined. “You can’t just take it, it’s mine!”
And if it had been later in the day Dean probably would have put up a much better fight, but he wasn’t a morning person - God, he wished Dad would let him have some coffee in the mornings, but oh no - and he really, really didn’t want to arrive at school dragging a screaming Sammy behind him. So he let it go. You had to choose your battles with Sammy these days, and one innocent if sticky and fuzzy piece of candy wasn’t the end of the world.
Even though it was weird.
When Sam spotted his group of friends in the schoolyard, he threw Dean a quick goodbye before rushing off to them, pop sticking out of his mouth.
Dean just hoped Sammy wasn’t planning on making a habit out of this, because in that case he’d have to find a way to get some coffee despite what Dad said.
…
The third weird thing, which wasn’t so much weird as it was freakin’ disturbing, was the crying.
“See if you can find out what’s going on with your brother,” Dad had said. Oh yeah, nothing he wanted more.
He hated it when Sammy cried. Maybe that made him the sissiest, unworthiest big brother on the planet, but he did. Well, okay, angry tears and hysterical yelling when Dean kept calling him - and referring to him as - ‘the dorkiest dork that ever dorked’ for a whole day was one thing (that had been kinda funny, actually) but Sammy being actually sad? As in this, shaking, sobbing, burying-his-face-in-the-pillow kind of sad? Sucked.
Sitting down on the bed, he tried, “Sammy, what’s up? Come on, don’t cry -“
To his surprise Sam sat up straight on the bed, tears streaming down his face, and shouted, “I’m not crying! I’m not a crybaby! I’m not!”
Dean lifted his hands in surrender. “I never said you were!” Okay, something was definitely going on here. Sammy wasn’t usually this touchy about Dean seeing him cry - Dad, yeah, sometimes, but not him. “Look, I know you’re not a crybaby, okay?” He actually wasn’t, not really. Sure, there were tears sometimes, but if there were, something had usually happened. Sammy hadn’t been the kind of kid who cried over nothing in years. So this… This was obviously something.
“I’m supposed to like video games.”
Dean started at the quiet, snuffling admission. The answer to that was… not there. He stared at a tear in the ugly wallpaper in front of him - and who chose a wallpaper with purple freakin' ducks, anyway? - and thought about it, but no, he had no idea what the right answer to that was supposed to be. Still, he had to say something. “And you… don’t?” he asked hesitantly.
“I don’t know, because we don’t have any!” Oh. Yeah, okay, fair enough. Neither of them had much experience with video games other than the occasional game of Super Mario at some temporary friend’s house, and he wasn’t sure those even counted, and even if they did, they were pretty stupid - like you could fly just because you got a tail and pointy ears. Every flying thing Dad or Pastor Jim had ever come across had had actual wings, not flappy tails.
And either way, that was Dean, not Sam.
“Well… Why are you supposed to like video games?” he asked, confused.
Sam turned away again. “It’s just a thing,” he mumbled.
Dean raised his eyebrows. A thing. “Uh-huh. What kind of thing?”
His brother was still for few moments, chewing the inside of his cheek, before the words came tumbling out.
“… and it’s a real club and they have real rules, and I can follow them, I can, I like candy and comics are okay, but you’re supposed to like video games, and I don’t know any video games, and I asked Dad if I could have a Nintendo and he said no and they’re talking about video games and I’m not gonna get to be in the club any more -“
“Okay, okay! Okay, Sammy, I get it.” He sighed. Great. Just great. He should have known the whole Sammy’s-making-friends thing was too good to be true. “What were the other rules?” he asked.
Sam didn’t even get up off the bed, just reached a hand under the pillow and pulled out a crinkled note, and handed it to Dean without looking at him. “Code of the boys,” Dean read quietly. “1, Always hate girls.” Okay, so that explained the sudden breakup with miss Markinson. Then came the video games and comics. So that was why he’d wanted a Superman comic the other day. “It doesn’t say what kind of comics you’re supposed to read,” he said.
Sam looked up, sniffled. “Nah. Just. You know. Comics.”
“And you chose Superman? Freak.” He kept reading. Don’t brag. Eat candy - aha. Don’t be a crybaby. Be strong.
Dean felt something rising in his throat that he guessed was anger, but he wasn’t sure if he was just mad at the other brats for shutting his little brother out, or if he was mad at Sam for being so easy that he cared so much about it, too. He didn’t need those kids.
“Forget about this. You know what? I’ve got an idea.” He got up and went to get a pen and paper. “If you can’t be in that stupid club because you don’t like video games, we can have our own. And we’re gonna change the rules and have a much better code and they’re all gonna want to be in on it, but they can’t.”
There was another small sniff, but now Sam looked slightly interested. “What kind of code?”
“You know, like this, but better. Yours and mine, buddy. Come on, what rules are we gonna have?”
First things first, though, according to Sam. “But what are we gonna call it?”
“What?”
“We have to have a name first,” Sam explained. “That’s how you do it. Then you write the rules.”
“Oh, yeah. Okay…”
They decided on “Code of the Winchesters”, since it seemed the most obvious choice. Their rules resembled the others, but differed in some important ways. To always hate girls was still the first rule, but only unless they were pretty and smelled good. Or if they were nice, which was added on Sam’s insistence. Dean didn’t mind. To like video games was left out without any discussion at all, but to read comics was included, with the corollary “except Superman”. Sam tried to protest, but Dean put down his foot on that one.
“Dude, Batman is way better anyway. Or the Phantom.” Seriously, you had to set some limits.
Not to brag was changed into not to brag unless you managed to shoot down ten cans in a row, or if you kicked your brother’s ass, or if you got all the answers right on a test in school. And then you could only brag to your family.
“Are you sure we should write ‘ass’?” Sam asked, his voice a little worried. “Dad says we can’t swear.”
“Don’t worry, Sammy, we’ll put it somewhere he won’t find it.”
To eat candy was also kept, with the addition “especially M&Ms - “ Sam made a face at that “ - and cotton candy if you find it and if you can afford it”. Sam had only had cotton candy a few times, but ever since the first time it had been the ultimate candy in his eyes. Dean didn’t get it - for one, it was usually pink. Two, it was sticky as hell. Three, you could actually feel your teeth melting away when you ate it. And four, it was pink. But Sam loved it, and so he put in on the list without pointing out its flaws. He could do that another time.
Number six turned out to need a bit of discussion. They both agreed that it was a good rule, but that it maybe needed a little tweaking.
“Maybe,” Sam started carefully, “maybe if you have a really, really bad dream you can be a crybaby a little, just a little.”
Dean studied him for a moment before nodding his agreement. In the end, the rule amounted to not being a crybaby unless you had a nightmare, broke a bone (or your nose), or got shot. Dean thought about it a little before adding, “or if you have to kill something”. Because when Sammy had to kill something, which he would eventually, that would be scary for him. Well, Dean hadn’t killed anything on his own yet so he couldn’t be completely sure, but it was bound to be a little scary, and Sammy should have an out just in case it made him cry.
“Be strong” was kept as it was, without exceptions or additions.
They added a couple of new rules, too. Their number eight was to not fart in cars unless it was summer and you could roll down the windows, and the corollary was that if you really had to anyway, to do it as loud as you could. It was only right to give fair warning to the others, Dean explained. Sam nodded wisely at that.
Dean wanted number nine to be, “Don’t answer questions from other people”, but that proved to be difficult.
“But teachers ask questions all the time! And you should put your hand up if you know the answer to a question,” Sam protested indignantly. The idea of not answering a question in the classroom was obviously out of the… well, question. Dean should have known. “Can’t it be to not answer questions from other people unless they’re a teacher?”
But Dean knew full well that teachers’ questions could be the most dangerous ones. They’d seem unimportant and offhanded, but they didn’t have to be.
“Okay, how about not answering questions unless they’re about school?” he suggested.
“But what if they ask me, like, what kind of ice cream I like? Or when my birthday is? Or - “
“Okay, okay! Fine, you little geek.”
So Dean ended up putting down number nine as “Don’t answer questions you don’t know if it’s okay to answer”. It was vague, and he knew it, but it was better than nothing. Because if he knew Sam right he’d be following these rules, this code, tightly for a while, better than Dad’s rules, probably, and it would at least make him think for an extra couple of seconds before answering a question about something that could be bad for them. Sammy loved talking to people, Dean knew that, and in his mind teachers were definitely the good guys. The way he saw it, they knew all sorts of stuff and were fun to talk to. And it didn’t help that the teachers always took a shine to him, either.
When they were finished, Dean wrote it all down again on another paper so that they’d have a copy each, and Sam’s face was tear-free and smiling.
“So we’re gonna do this code thing now, right?” Dean said.
“Yeah!” Sam nodded eagerly, and there was a light in his eyes that hadn't been there for a while now.
Later that night, Dean woke up when Sam got up and padded into the bathroom. He didn’t get more than a quick glimpse of his little brother before Sammy shut the door quietly, but he did catch that there was a pen and a piece of paper in his hands.
He stayed awake, waiting for Sam to come back out, and tried to punch his lumpy pillow into a more comfortable shape. Stupid kids and their stupid rules about stupid video games, he thought. Who needed them, anyway? Not Sam, and not him. Winchesters didn’t need stupid clubs and half-assed codes like that one; they were better off having their own. And it wasn’t like those kids knew what was important stuff, either. Video games… His pillow still wouldn’t cooperate, so he gave it another punch.
Sam came out of the bathroom after a few minutes, and proved to Dean what an amateur he was by not even flushing the toilet to explain his detour. Through half-closed eyes, Dean watched him pad back to his bed and put the paper under his pillow. Then he just stood there, but right when Dean was about to ask him what he thought he was doing he took a few hesitant steps towards Dean’s bed instead. A couple more, and then he snuck underneath the blanket as carefully as he could and crawled in beside his brother.
‘Code of the Boys’ wasn’t mentioned the next day, or any day after that.
…
Three weeks later, they left town. When they stopped for gas a couple of hours down the road, it was discovered that the gas station also held a store with more candy than any store that wasn’t a candy store should be allowed to have. Dean held on firmly to Sam’s arm, knowing it was a really, really bad idea to go in there if they weren’t going to get anything. He looked up at his dad, who sighed.
“All right, boys. But just one thing each or one bigger bag of something to share, you hear me?”
Before Dean knew it, Sam had tore himself loose and run into the store. He followed quickly, and - wow. That was a lot of candy.
Sammy stood gaping in front of one of the shelves, and when Dean went up to him he realized why. Cotton candy. In buckets. In actual buckets. Sam’s eyes were completely round, and he looked like he hadn’t seen anything so fantastic in his entire life. Which, granted, he probably hadn’t.
It amazed him how easy it was to make Sam happy sometimes.
Dean sighed. “Okay, Squirt, grab one and we’ll pay,” he said. The buckets were big enough that it meant one to share, but Sammy’s eyes were freakin' shining.
But Sam didn’t move. He stood there, staring at the buckets for another few seconds, then shook his head. “Nah,” he said in a small voice and took a step back.
“Come on, let’s - what?”
“Nah,” Sam repeated, voice stronger now. “I don’t want cotton candy.”
“What do you mean, you don't?” Dean was utterly bewildered. Of course Sam wanted cotton candy. “Yes you do. And the code, it’s - “
Sam interrupted him. “I don’t want it.”
Dean couldn’t do anything but stare at his little brother, who so obviously wanted one of those buckets and looked like it was all he could do not to reach out and grab one. “You don’t want it.” Sam shook his head. “Fine. Okay, fine. What do you want?”
“I want M&Ms.”
Dean opened his mouth. Then he closed it again.
“They have those big bags over there, see? Dad said we could get one big bag of something to share, so we can share one of those.” He scrambled over to lift one down, and grinned at Dean over the top of it.
“Sammy, you don’t even like - “ Dean started, but Sam was already hurrying towards their dad and the checkout counter.
Back in the car, they both sat in the backseat with the bag in between them. On his side, Sam had dug out a familiar looking piece of paper from his pocket and was studying it with a small smile. Dean leaned ever so casually towards him - just reaching for the bag, really - and glanced at the paper. Yup, it was the rules, but there was something else, too, a couple of lines scribbled at the bottom with a different pen.
He leaned back again. Swallowed carefully.
Don’t be a really big pain in the youknowwhat.
Do nice stuff back to Dean.
Okay, so, sometimes being a big brother was a sort of crappy job. But other times it was… not so bad.
Dean cleared his throat. “Hey, Sammy?”
“Mmm?” Sam looked up and quickly folded the paper into a little square that he put back in his pocket.
He hesitated, and then said, “Next time we see cotton candy, I’ll get you some.”
“You will?”
“Promise. Even if it’s pink.”
“Cool.” Sam smiled happily at him and rooted around in the bag until he found a red M&M to pop into his mouth.
They rode in quiet for a while, the rain on the windows and the Doors from up front accompanied by the crunching sounds of candy being eaten the only sounds in the car, until Sam started squirming. After a minute or two he said, with a slightly guilty lilt to his voice, “Dean?”
“Yeah?”
“I have to fart.”
...