![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Title: Older Than The Days He Had Seen
Wordcount: 3,743
Spoilers: None
Fandom: SPN
By:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kellifer_fic
Category: Gen
Summary: Would it have changed them, to have an older brother?
Rating/Warning: PG
Notes: Title from "Call Of the Wild"
They’ve been stuck on the roadside for four hours, nothing but fields for miles to see. Dean and Sam are sprawled in the backseat, Sam on his back with his legs up against the door at a right angle and Dean slumped so far down he’s almost in the footwell.
Joshua is in the front, by the wheel, turning the keys in the ignition whenever their dad asks him. “Try it now,” John instructs again, sounding steadily more frustrated.
“I double-dog dare you,” Dean says, tone wheedling and Josh tosses him a glare over his shoulder.
“Don’t make me come back there,” he warns. It’s hot, they’re all cranky and Dean has been working his last nerve for miles.
It doesn’t help that Sam pipes up, “You can’t say no to a double-dog dare or you’re a big chicken,” with all the authority of an eight year old.
“Okay, I’m a chicken,” Josh says, rolling his eyes dramatically.
“I’ll do it then,” Sam volunteers and snakes between the seats, his hand inches from the horn when Josh grabs his wrist.
“Don’t-” Too late Josh realises that Sam was only a distractions as Dean wedges himself between the door and the driver’s seat on the other side and slaps his hand down on the horn, hard. There is a thump and then a curse from the front of the car. John emerges from under the hood, looking furious, but by then Dean and Sam have flopped into the back seat and are looking at Josh with wide eyes and open mouths.
“I’m going to kill both of you,” Josh promises in a low growl as John stalks back to them.
000
Josh’s fallback argument has become, “But I’m sixteen.”
Dean wishes those magical four years away between him and Josh so he can try it too. He’s sick of being twelve, on the cusp of something dangerous and great, still being lumped into the child category with Sammy. There are suddenly girls and beers when their father leaves Dean and Sam in Josh’s custody and Josh even lets Dean have a beer, giving him a can and telling him he can have some if he can get it out with a spoon without tipping the can.
Dean spends a few frustrated hours trying before he realises that it’s Josh’s subtle way of getting back at him for the car thing.
Dean hears a muffled cry from deeper in the house and goes running in the direction of it, heart trip-hammering because it came from Sammy’s room. He skids to a halt in the doorway and sees Josh sitting on Sammy’s bed, Sammy cradled in his lap, looking pale and drawn.
“Just a nightmare, it’s okay kiddo,” Josh is crooning into Sammy’s sweaty bangs. He notices Dean’s presence and flicks his chin at the bed and says, “Here, you want Dean-o?”
Sammy nods against Josh’s chest and he smiles, putting Sammy back in bed and then lifting Dean in beside him. He sits on the edge, one hand on Sammy’s chest and one on Dean’s and smiles down at them both.
“Tell us a story,” Dean asks, knowing that he’s probably a little old for Josh’s stories, but because he’s asking for Sammy it’s okay.
Josh grins and cants his head, looking into the darkest corner of their room before he says, “Closet monsters were much maligned, but there was once a nice one who just wanted to play.”
“What’s maligned?” Sam asks sleepily, grasping Dean’s t-shirt in one fist.
“Look it up in the morning,” Josh said as he always did and grinned in the darkness. “Now, this monster’s name was Bruce and he knew kung-fu.”
000
Their father was angry in the morning, which was never a good sign.
“You can’t tell him thinks like that,” he was raging as Josh dumped cereal into a bowl and milk over the top.
“It was just a story,” Josh protests, catching sight of Dean and giving him a not now gesture with his hands. Dean backs into the hallway, dropping down onto his butt and drawing his legs up to his chest.
“Why don’t you get that we need to prepare them. You can’t tell Sammy that there are nice monsters.”
“There could be,” Josh snorts and there is a dull thump, which Dean guesses is his dad smacking a fist on the kitchen table.
“I need you boys to know what’s out there. You’ll just confuse him.”
“He’s just a kid who had a bad dream. What was I supposed to do? Give him a gun because he thought there was a monster in his closet?”
“Yes, goddamit,” John snaps and moments later Josh comes storming out of the kitchen, nearly tripping over Dean. Josh pauses long enough to ruffle a hand through Dean’s hair before he slams into the bathroom and the shower starts up.
“Hey kiddo, you been there long?” John asks from the doorway and Dean twists around to face his dad.
“Why do you have to yell at him all the time?” Dean asks but then claps a hand over his mouth because he didn’t mean it, he really hadn’t meant to question his father. John is chuckling though, lowering onto his haunches so he’s eye-level with Dean.
“He doesn’t hear me unless I yell,” John says, rubbing a hand over his face. “I do what I do to protect you boys. You know that, right?”
Dean nods solemnly, feeling torn. His father is his world but Josh is his hero.
- Fourteen -
Josh is making this awful, high, wailing sound unlike anything Dean has ever heard. Sam is pressed into a corner of their motel room, holding a battered monkey Josh won for him in a carnival in front of himself like a shield and Dean’s kinda wishing he could too.
He wants to be too young for this but unfortunately he’s not.
“Dean!” his father snaps and Dean jerks forward, a wad of motel towels in his arms. “I need you to fold two of the towels into a square and then press down,” his dad instructs, digging through the tackle box that serves as their makeshift medkit.
“No,” Josh says, sounding ragged. “Get them out of here, don’t let them see this.” His voice tails off at the end, becoming a mere whisper as he curls in on himself and there’s blood, so much blood.
“Don’t be stupid,” John grits, reaching forward to snag a fistful of Dean’s shirt and pull him the rest of the way over to the bed.
“Go into the other room, Sammy,” Josh manages to gasp out and Dean can see that there are tears leaking out of his eyes, which scares Dean badly because Josh is big and solid and doesn’t cry. Sammy merely stares at them all, eyes wide and shining and one of the monkey’s ears clasped firmly in his teeth.
“Dean! Do you want your brother to bleed to death while you just stand there?” John yells and that gets Dean moving, kneeing up onto the motel bed, folding towels as he was instructed as he goes. Josh makes another keening noise as Dean pushes down and Dean grits his teeth.
“S’okay,” Dean breathes when Josh’s gaze sharpens and centers on him. “I’m here.”
000
Josh takes them out in the mustang he’d fixed up whenever he could. Sometimes they took Sammy and would go for ice cream, but if it was just him and Josh, they would drive out to the old drive-in theatre that didn’t play movies anymore and would face the blank screen, passing a beer between them.
Dean knows he’s probably a little young for it and his dad would tan his hide, but he knows when Josh needs to relax and have a little bit of silence and Dean likes that Josh doesn’t mind his presence when, given the choice, he’d probably take off on his own.
”You don’t even try,” their father had been raging at Josh before they left and Dean didn’t understand how he could say that, why he didn’t see that Josh did try. He ran PT drills by himself and practised loading and unloading weapons until his fingers bled but it seemed he was only ever going to be a half-decent shot and okay with knives. John Winchester was expecting his boys to be savants and it didn’t help that Dean himself was a crack shot the moment he picked up a rifle and Sam knew more Latin than all of them combined by the time he was eight.
Dean digs his fingers into the hood of the mustang, knowing cars are his brother’s gift but because it doesn’t have much to do with hunting, their father doesn’t see the value in it.
“If I leave, I want you and Sammy to know it has nothing to do with you,” Josh says out of nowhere and Dean turns to him, heart in his throat.
“Don’t say that,” he says, gripping the beer bottle in his hand so tightly that he’s surprised that it doesn’t break. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“We can’t keep doing this,” Josh says, dropping his chin into one hand and staring off into the flat blackness of the sky.
“It’ll get better,” Dean tries to reassure, not really knowing how it’s supposed to, but he has to say something because Josh can’t leave. He won’t let him. He needs Josh and Sammy both and he’s going to hold onto them for as long as humanly possible.
“Give me that,” Josh sighs by way of answer, taking the beer bottle back and then scowling when he tips it up to find it’s empty. “You’re such a lush already,” he says and there’s a smirk in his voice.
000
Josh would sometimes go and visit Jim by himself and after one of these visits, the worst fight Dean had ever heard started and lasted for days.
“You want to be a priest?” Dean asks incredulously because he can’t really reconcile his image of Josh, the brother who sneaks him beer and pays him and Sammy ten dollars to stay in their room if he has a girl over, with a man of the cloth. They’re watching television and Sammy is between them on the couch, head in Dean’s lap and legs over Josh’s thighs.
“It’s not the craziest thing ever,” Josh grumbles. Dean can see that Josh is tying Sammy’s laces together and hides a grin behind his hand.
“I want to be a lawyer,” Sammy pipes up and both Josh and Dean blink at him. “Or a magician,” Sammy adds as an afterthought, face so serious that both older brothers crack up.
-Sixteen-
Dean learns to drive in the Impala because the Mustang met an unfortunate end over the side of the cliff.
Josh had sworn bloody vengeance on any poltergeist he could find.
000
At the age of twelve, it seems Sammy has discovered he has heels and their sole purpose is to dig in. He also starts talking back and Dean and Josh watch on in fascination. Dean is ever-dutiful and Josh might fight with their father but he never out and out defies him, the way Sammy is working up to.
He’s gaining inches and losing puppy-fat and having a mouth that would make a sailor blush seems to come part and parcel with the other changes.
Dean or Josh find themselves alternately missing out on dates or hunts because they are supervising Sammy running through extra PT drills and early-morning training sessions. Punishment is handed out swift and decisive in the Winchester household and Sammy seems to be constantly throwing himself to the lions.
“Why don’t you give Dad a break?” Dean demands, watching Sammy struggle through two hundred push-ups in the driving rain. He’s soaked through himself, but he wouldn’t stand undercover while Sammy was drenched. He wants Sammy to know he’s suffering too so maybe he’ll think before talking back next time.
“I had a test Dean,” Sammy snaps, like it’s enough of an excuse. “I can’t just keep dropping everything.”
“We do,” Dean says. “Josh and Dad and me. Why do you deserve special treatment?”
“Because I’m not going to end up like Dad, or Josh,” Sammy snits and Dean puts a foot on his back and pushes down, slamming Sammy into the mud.
“You take that back,” he snarls. He knows Sammy didn’t mean it, couldn’t have meant it. He was just tired and pissed off and a dumb kid besides.
Sammy gets back up onto his toes and fingers and looks at Dean over his shoulder, defiant. “One,” he counts, starting again.
He apologises later, but what he’s said has left a scar between them that Dean’s not sure will heal.
-Eighteen-
Sammy is now Sam and Dean gets to drive himself crazy with worry because Josh goes on solo hunts and tends to forget to check in. Dean realises he’s been waiting for Josh to leave for good ever since their conversation when he was fourteen and finds himself surprised each and every time Josh comes back to them.
He’s gone longer than is strictly necessary for the kinds of jobs he’s pulling and Dean only finds out by accident that it’s because of a girl. He unearths photos when he’s cleaning out Josh’s duffle so he can do laundry. Five rectangles of colourful cardboard that tell Dean that Josh is having a life separate to them.
He throws them down in front of Josh like a challenge and says, “Does Dad know?”
“Does he know what?” Josh asks, not looking up from the knives he’s cleaning. His right leg starts thumping though and Dean knows that means he’s nervous, or preparing to lie.
“Are you going to marry her?” Dean asks, knowing that the question is ridiculous, but Josh goes still and Dean blinks. “You are?”
“I already have,” Josh confesses, picking up one of the photos and holding it out. Dean takes it in trembling fingers and sees that it’s Josh and a girl with dark red hair standing in front of a gawdy trellis, the kind that chapels in Vegas have.
Dean fights off the urge to throw up.
“She’s an Air Hostess so she’s away a lot too. She thinks I’m in construction with Dad and have to go where the work is. Her name’s Mandy and-”
“Shutup!” Dean yells, clamping hands over his ears. “You can’t get married, you have to stay with us!”
“She’s pregnant, Dean. I’m going to get a real job and make a real home for us. I’m sorry kiddo, I just can’t… I can’t keep doing this forever.”
“When were you planning on telling Dad?” Dean asks, voice low and Josh grimaces.
“In a few weeks, but I can understand if you don’t want to keep it secret. I’ll tell him when he gets back, okay?”
“No Josh, none of this is okay,” Dean says, voice hollow.
000
Dean tells Sam, expecting to be able to share anger with someone, but Sam is inexplicably happy. “A baby?” he breathes in a kind of astonished wonder and Dean wants to shake him, wants to make him understand that he should hate this, hate Josh for abandoning them.
Then it occurs to Dean that maybe Josh leaving is just the thing Sam’s been waiting for, like Josh going leaves the door open. “Since he’s going, it’s more important than ever that we stay, that we keep doing what we do,” Dean intones, watching some of the pleased calculation leak out of Sam.
“Why are you so mad?” Sam asks, truly curious and Dean clenches his fists, not really believing that he would have to explain the concept of family to Sam.
“We’re important and we have a job to do,” Dean says. “The demon that killed Mom is still out there. Do you think it’s okay to just give up? Let it go?”
“No, but-”
“You know what? You can both go to hell,” Dean snaps and ignores the flash of hurt that crosses Sam’s face as he slams out the door. He gets into the Impala and drives, not really knowing where he’s going, only that he wants to miss when Josh tells their father that he’s leaving.
He ends up getting ridiculously wasted and stays drunk for three days, stumbling home to aftermath. Josh is gone, clothes and a couple of books the only things he’s taken with him and Sam is shut in his room, not talking. Dean finds their father on the couch, a glass of scotch in one hand and a gun in the other.
“Hey, dad,” he says, gently removing both.
Nineteen
He wants to stay mad, but Mandy is nice and stitches Sam up with no questions when he gets on the wrong end of a black dog and it takes a chunk out of his calf. Dean was frantic and only realised he was heading to the address Josh had given him when he was halfway there.
“Does she know?” Dean asks when he’s sitting on Josh’s couch later with a beer in hand. Mandy is up with the baby and Sam is passed out so they’re alone.
“Bits and pieces,” Josh admits, nodding. “I met her because I pulled her out of the way of a car with no driver. You remember the spirit of that guy Henkins, who was killing women that looked like his daughter?”
Dean nodded, remembering it vaguely. The evil tended to bleed together after a while and he wondered if maybe he should be troubled by that.
“How’s Dad?” Josh asks, trying to sound casual but his voice wobbles a little.
“Same. He and Sam are having knock-down drag-outs but other than that it’s okay.”
“Sam wants to go to college eventually,” Josh nods.
“Yeah well, he can’t now, can he?” Dean snaps, and Josh’s eyes narrow.
“He can if he wants to,” he challenges, hands gripping his knees.
“Not when you left us one man short,” Dean returns and now they’re glaring at each other and Dean remembers that this is why he doesn’t come to visit, because he knows they will have the exact same fight every time.
“Can’t we just… I mean, you haven’t even seen my kid,” Josh says, sounding defeated and Dean feels guilt slice through him, hot and bright.
“I hope it doesn’t look like you. Poor thing will have to wear a bag to school.”
Dean knows it isn’t much, but it’s his way of apologising and Josh kicks him in the shin for his trouble. “If she looked like me then I’d be worried,” Josh snorts and Dean shrugs.
“Don’t see why. You always were effeminate.”
“Hey, didn’t we make a pact to only call Sam girly?” Josh protests, but he’s grinning now and Dean thinks he can do this, he really can. He can be normal and swallow his hurt because if he does he can have Josh in his life, even if only in a very limited way.
“I just love that you called her Samantha. I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of that one.”
000
Dean wakes to his father sitting on his bed, looking ashen.
“Dad?” Dean says, rubbing a fist into one eye because his vision is still blurry with sleep.
“There was a fire,” John says, voice barely above a whisper and Dean feels stark terror spiralling through his belly. Dean’s eyes search out and find Sam in the darkness, sprawled on the bed opposite and still snoring. John’s hand clamps down on Dean’s shoulder and shakes him a little. “Josh’s house burned to the ground and he, Mandy and… none of them got out.”
“Why didn’t we go there?” Dean demands, voice a whip-crack in the darkness that has Sam blinking awake and going for the knife under his pillow. “We knew Samantha was six months old. Why weren’t we there?”
“I was,” John says and Dean realises that his father stinks of smoke, has black smudges on his face. “I was outside in the car and I didn’t… it had gotten passed the time and I thought they were going to be okay. It happened so fast that I didn’t even get to the front door before…” John breaks then, curling down onto the floor on his knees, forehead pressed into the carpet. Dean slides out of bed behind him, putting an arm across his shoulders and pressing a cheek to his father’s back, feeling the shudders through his skin.
“Dean?” Dean can feel Sam’s long fingers pressing into his scalp, circling around and down and Dean only realises he’s crying too when they drag through the tears on his cheeks.
-Twenty-Two-
He drives Sam to the bus station and shoves a wad of twenties at him when Sam steps away. “Don’t ever say I don’t do anything for you,” Dean says, trying to sound light and feeling anything but.
“Dean-”
“Don’t ask me. Please I just… don’t ask me,” Dean interrupts, knowing that Sam would take him along like a favourite teddy bear if he could, that if he’d gotten Dean to be still for long enough he would’ve packed him in a suitcase. Dean could see it when Sam was leaving, how he didn’t really care about anything he was sacrificing so he could have just the one small duffle.
Except one thing.
Dean knows that if Sam asks, if he’s able to get the words out, then Dean will say yes. He’ll put Sam back in the Impala, duffle in the boot where it belongs and he’ll drive without looking back. He just needs to make sure that Sam doesn’t.
“I’ll call you when I get there,” Sam says instead and Dean’s grateful.
How can you leave? Dean wants to ask. With everything’s that’s happened, how can you go?. Dean knows the answer to that though, it’s what Sam has wanted ever since he was old enough to want things but more importantly, it’s what he’d told Josh he was going to do.
Sam wants to go to college…
“Tell me I can do this,” Sam begs, turning large eyes to Dean and twisting the strap of his duffle in his fingers. “Tell me it’s okay?”
“It’ll be fine, Sam,” Dean says, desperately hoping.
Maybe that this time it will be.
Wordcount: 3,743
Spoilers: None
Fandom: SPN
By:
kellifer_ficCategory: Gen
Summary: Would it have changed them, to have an older brother?
Rating/Warning: PG
Notes: Title from "Call Of the Wild"
They’ve been stuck on the roadside for four hours, nothing but fields for miles to see. Dean and Sam are sprawled in the backseat, Sam on his back with his legs up against the door at a right angle and Dean slumped so far down he’s almost in the footwell.
Joshua is in the front, by the wheel, turning the keys in the ignition whenever their dad asks him. “Try it now,” John instructs again, sounding steadily more frustrated.
“I double-dog dare you,” Dean says, tone wheedling and Josh tosses him a glare over his shoulder.
“Don’t make me come back there,” he warns. It’s hot, they’re all cranky and Dean has been working his last nerve for miles.
It doesn’t help that Sam pipes up, “You can’t say no to a double-dog dare or you’re a big chicken,” with all the authority of an eight year old.
“Okay, I’m a chicken,” Josh says, rolling his eyes dramatically.
“I’ll do it then,” Sam volunteers and snakes between the seats, his hand inches from the horn when Josh grabs his wrist.
“Don’t-” Too late Josh realises that Sam was only a distractions as Dean wedges himself between the door and the driver’s seat on the other side and slaps his hand down on the horn, hard. There is a thump and then a curse from the front of the car. John emerges from under the hood, looking furious, but by then Dean and Sam have flopped into the back seat and are looking at Josh with wide eyes and open mouths.
“I’m going to kill both of you,” Josh promises in a low growl as John stalks back to them.
Josh’s fallback argument has become, “But I’m sixteen.”
Dean wishes those magical four years away between him and Josh so he can try it too. He’s sick of being twelve, on the cusp of something dangerous and great, still being lumped into the child category with Sammy. There are suddenly girls and beers when their father leaves Dean and Sam in Josh’s custody and Josh even lets Dean have a beer, giving him a can and telling him he can have some if he can get it out with a spoon without tipping the can.
Dean spends a few frustrated hours trying before he realises that it’s Josh’s subtle way of getting back at him for the car thing.
Dean hears a muffled cry from deeper in the house and goes running in the direction of it, heart trip-hammering because it came from Sammy’s room. He skids to a halt in the doorway and sees Josh sitting on Sammy’s bed, Sammy cradled in his lap, looking pale and drawn.
“Just a nightmare, it’s okay kiddo,” Josh is crooning into Sammy’s sweaty bangs. He notices Dean’s presence and flicks his chin at the bed and says, “Here, you want Dean-o?”
Sammy nods against Josh’s chest and he smiles, putting Sammy back in bed and then lifting Dean in beside him. He sits on the edge, one hand on Sammy’s chest and one on Dean’s and smiles down at them both.
“Tell us a story,” Dean asks, knowing that he’s probably a little old for Josh’s stories, but because he’s asking for Sammy it’s okay.
Josh grins and cants his head, looking into the darkest corner of their room before he says, “Closet monsters were much maligned, but there was once a nice one who just wanted to play.”
“What’s maligned?” Sam asks sleepily, grasping Dean’s t-shirt in one fist.
“Look it up in the morning,” Josh said as he always did and grinned in the darkness. “Now, this monster’s name was Bruce and he knew kung-fu.”
Their father was angry in the morning, which was never a good sign.
“You can’t tell him thinks like that,” he was raging as Josh dumped cereal into a bowl and milk over the top.
“It was just a story,” Josh protests, catching sight of Dean and giving him a not now gesture with his hands. Dean backs into the hallway, dropping down onto his butt and drawing his legs up to his chest.
“Why don’t you get that we need to prepare them. You can’t tell Sammy that there are nice monsters.”
“There could be,” Josh snorts and there is a dull thump, which Dean guesses is his dad smacking a fist on the kitchen table.
“I need you boys to know what’s out there. You’ll just confuse him.”
“He’s just a kid who had a bad dream. What was I supposed to do? Give him a gun because he thought there was a monster in his closet?”
“Yes, goddamit,” John snaps and moments later Josh comes storming out of the kitchen, nearly tripping over Dean. Josh pauses long enough to ruffle a hand through Dean’s hair before he slams into the bathroom and the shower starts up.
“Hey kiddo, you been there long?” John asks from the doorway and Dean twists around to face his dad.
“Why do you have to yell at him all the time?” Dean asks but then claps a hand over his mouth because he didn’t mean it, he really hadn’t meant to question his father. John is chuckling though, lowering onto his haunches so he’s eye-level with Dean.
“He doesn’t hear me unless I yell,” John says, rubbing a hand over his face. “I do what I do to protect you boys. You know that, right?”
Dean nods solemnly, feeling torn. His father is his world but Josh is his hero.
Josh is making this awful, high, wailing sound unlike anything Dean has ever heard. Sam is pressed into a corner of their motel room, holding a battered monkey Josh won for him in a carnival in front of himself like a shield and Dean’s kinda wishing he could too.
He wants to be too young for this but unfortunately he’s not.
“Dean!” his father snaps and Dean jerks forward, a wad of motel towels in his arms. “I need you to fold two of the towels into a square and then press down,” his dad instructs, digging through the tackle box that serves as their makeshift medkit.
“No,” Josh says, sounding ragged. “Get them out of here, don’t let them see this.” His voice tails off at the end, becoming a mere whisper as he curls in on himself and there’s blood, so much blood.
“Don’t be stupid,” John grits, reaching forward to snag a fistful of Dean’s shirt and pull him the rest of the way over to the bed.
“Go into the other room, Sammy,” Josh manages to gasp out and Dean can see that there are tears leaking out of his eyes, which scares Dean badly because Josh is big and solid and doesn’t cry. Sammy merely stares at them all, eyes wide and shining and one of the monkey’s ears clasped firmly in his teeth.
“Dean! Do you want your brother to bleed to death while you just stand there?” John yells and that gets Dean moving, kneeing up onto the motel bed, folding towels as he was instructed as he goes. Josh makes another keening noise as Dean pushes down and Dean grits his teeth.
“S’okay,” Dean breathes when Josh’s gaze sharpens and centers on him. “I’m here.”
Josh takes them out in the mustang he’d fixed up whenever he could. Sometimes they took Sammy and would go for ice cream, but if it was just him and Josh, they would drive out to the old drive-in theatre that didn’t play movies anymore and would face the blank screen, passing a beer between them.
Dean knows he’s probably a little young for it and his dad would tan his hide, but he knows when Josh needs to relax and have a little bit of silence and Dean likes that Josh doesn’t mind his presence when, given the choice, he’d probably take off on his own.
”You don’t even try,” their father had been raging at Josh before they left and Dean didn’t understand how he could say that, why he didn’t see that Josh did try. He ran PT drills by himself and practised loading and unloading weapons until his fingers bled but it seemed he was only ever going to be a half-decent shot and okay with knives. John Winchester was expecting his boys to be savants and it didn’t help that Dean himself was a crack shot the moment he picked up a rifle and Sam knew more Latin than all of them combined by the time he was eight.
Dean digs his fingers into the hood of the mustang, knowing cars are his brother’s gift but because it doesn’t have much to do with hunting, their father doesn’t see the value in it.
“If I leave, I want you and Sammy to know it has nothing to do with you,” Josh says out of nowhere and Dean turns to him, heart in his throat.
“Don’t say that,” he says, gripping the beer bottle in his hand so tightly that he’s surprised that it doesn’t break. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“We can’t keep doing this,” Josh says, dropping his chin into one hand and staring off into the flat blackness of the sky.
“It’ll get better,” Dean tries to reassure, not really knowing how it’s supposed to, but he has to say something because Josh can’t leave. He won’t let him. He needs Josh and Sammy both and he’s going to hold onto them for as long as humanly possible.
“Give me that,” Josh sighs by way of answer, taking the beer bottle back and then scowling when he tips it up to find it’s empty. “You’re such a lush already,” he says and there’s a smirk in his voice.
Josh would sometimes go and visit Jim by himself and after one of these visits, the worst fight Dean had ever heard started and lasted for days.
“You want to be a priest?” Dean asks incredulously because he can’t really reconcile his image of Josh, the brother who sneaks him beer and pays him and Sammy ten dollars to stay in their room if he has a girl over, with a man of the cloth. They’re watching television and Sammy is between them on the couch, head in Dean’s lap and legs over Josh’s thighs.
“It’s not the craziest thing ever,” Josh grumbles. Dean can see that Josh is tying Sammy’s laces together and hides a grin behind his hand.
“I want to be a lawyer,” Sammy pipes up and both Josh and Dean blink at him. “Or a magician,” Sammy adds as an afterthought, face so serious that both older brothers crack up.
Dean learns to drive in the Impala because the Mustang met an unfortunate end over the side of the cliff.
Josh had sworn bloody vengeance on any poltergeist he could find.
At the age of twelve, it seems Sammy has discovered he has heels and their sole purpose is to dig in. He also starts talking back and Dean and Josh watch on in fascination. Dean is ever-dutiful and Josh might fight with their father but he never out and out defies him, the way Sammy is working up to.
He’s gaining inches and losing puppy-fat and having a mouth that would make a sailor blush seems to come part and parcel with the other changes.
Dean or Josh find themselves alternately missing out on dates or hunts because they are supervising Sammy running through extra PT drills and early-morning training sessions. Punishment is handed out swift and decisive in the Winchester household and Sammy seems to be constantly throwing himself to the lions.
“Why don’t you give Dad a break?” Dean demands, watching Sammy struggle through two hundred push-ups in the driving rain. He’s soaked through himself, but he wouldn’t stand undercover while Sammy was drenched. He wants Sammy to know he’s suffering too so maybe he’ll think before talking back next time.
“I had a test Dean,” Sammy snaps, like it’s enough of an excuse. “I can’t just keep dropping everything.”
“We do,” Dean says. “Josh and Dad and me. Why do you deserve special treatment?”
“Because I’m not going to end up like Dad, or Josh,” Sammy snits and Dean puts a foot on his back and pushes down, slamming Sammy into the mud.
“You take that back,” he snarls. He knows Sammy didn’t mean it, couldn’t have meant it. He was just tired and pissed off and a dumb kid besides.
Sammy gets back up onto his toes and fingers and looks at Dean over his shoulder, defiant. “One,” he counts, starting again.
He apologises later, but what he’s said has left a scar between them that Dean’s not sure will heal.
Sammy is now Sam and Dean gets to drive himself crazy with worry because Josh goes on solo hunts and tends to forget to check in. Dean realises he’s been waiting for Josh to leave for good ever since their conversation when he was fourteen and finds himself surprised each and every time Josh comes back to them.
He’s gone longer than is strictly necessary for the kinds of jobs he’s pulling and Dean only finds out by accident that it’s because of a girl. He unearths photos when he’s cleaning out Josh’s duffle so he can do laundry. Five rectangles of colourful cardboard that tell Dean that Josh is having a life separate to them.
He throws them down in front of Josh like a challenge and says, “Does Dad know?”
“Does he know what?” Josh asks, not looking up from the knives he’s cleaning. His right leg starts thumping though and Dean knows that means he’s nervous, or preparing to lie.
“Are you going to marry her?” Dean asks, knowing that the question is ridiculous, but Josh goes still and Dean blinks. “You are?”
“I already have,” Josh confesses, picking up one of the photos and holding it out. Dean takes it in trembling fingers and sees that it’s Josh and a girl with dark red hair standing in front of a gawdy trellis, the kind that chapels in Vegas have.
Dean fights off the urge to throw up.
“She’s an Air Hostess so she’s away a lot too. She thinks I’m in construction with Dad and have to go where the work is. Her name’s Mandy and-”
“Shutup!” Dean yells, clamping hands over his ears. “You can’t get married, you have to stay with us!”
“She’s pregnant, Dean. I’m going to get a real job and make a real home for us. I’m sorry kiddo, I just can’t… I can’t keep doing this forever.”
“When were you planning on telling Dad?” Dean asks, voice low and Josh grimaces.
“In a few weeks, but I can understand if you don’t want to keep it secret. I’ll tell him when he gets back, okay?”
“No Josh, none of this is okay,” Dean says, voice hollow.
Dean tells Sam, expecting to be able to share anger with someone, but Sam is inexplicably happy. “A baby?” he breathes in a kind of astonished wonder and Dean wants to shake him, wants to make him understand that he should hate this, hate Josh for abandoning them.
Then it occurs to Dean that maybe Josh leaving is just the thing Sam’s been waiting for, like Josh going leaves the door open. “Since he’s going, it’s more important than ever that we stay, that we keep doing what we do,” Dean intones, watching some of the pleased calculation leak out of Sam.
“Why are you so mad?” Sam asks, truly curious and Dean clenches his fists, not really believing that he would have to explain the concept of family to Sam.
“We’re important and we have a job to do,” Dean says. “The demon that killed Mom is still out there. Do you think it’s okay to just give up? Let it go?”
“No, but-”
“You know what? You can both go to hell,” Dean snaps and ignores the flash of hurt that crosses Sam’s face as he slams out the door. He gets into the Impala and drives, not really knowing where he’s going, only that he wants to miss when Josh tells their father that he’s leaving.
He ends up getting ridiculously wasted and stays drunk for three days, stumbling home to aftermath. Josh is gone, clothes and a couple of books the only things he’s taken with him and Sam is shut in his room, not talking. Dean finds their father on the couch, a glass of scotch in one hand and a gun in the other.
“Hey, dad,” he says, gently removing both.
He wants to stay mad, but Mandy is nice and stitches Sam up with no questions when he gets on the wrong end of a black dog and it takes a chunk out of his calf. Dean was frantic and only realised he was heading to the address Josh had given him when he was halfway there.
“Does she know?” Dean asks when he’s sitting on Josh’s couch later with a beer in hand. Mandy is up with the baby and Sam is passed out so they’re alone.
“Bits and pieces,” Josh admits, nodding. “I met her because I pulled her out of the way of a car with no driver. You remember the spirit of that guy Henkins, who was killing women that looked like his daughter?”
Dean nodded, remembering it vaguely. The evil tended to bleed together after a while and he wondered if maybe he should be troubled by that.
“How’s Dad?” Josh asks, trying to sound casual but his voice wobbles a little.
“Same. He and Sam are having knock-down drag-outs but other than that it’s okay.”
“Sam wants to go to college eventually,” Josh nods.
“Yeah well, he can’t now, can he?” Dean snaps, and Josh’s eyes narrow.
“He can if he wants to,” he challenges, hands gripping his knees.
“Not when you left us one man short,” Dean returns and now they’re glaring at each other and Dean remembers that this is why he doesn’t come to visit, because he knows they will have the exact same fight every time.
“Can’t we just… I mean, you haven’t even seen my kid,” Josh says, sounding defeated and Dean feels guilt slice through him, hot and bright.
“I hope it doesn’t look like you. Poor thing will have to wear a bag to school.”
Dean knows it isn’t much, but it’s his way of apologising and Josh kicks him in the shin for his trouble. “If she looked like me then I’d be worried,” Josh snorts and Dean shrugs.
“Don’t see why. You always were effeminate.”
“Hey, didn’t we make a pact to only call Sam girly?” Josh protests, but he’s grinning now and Dean thinks he can do this, he really can. He can be normal and swallow his hurt because if he does he can have Josh in his life, even if only in a very limited way.
“I just love that you called her Samantha. I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of that one.”
Dean wakes to his father sitting on his bed, looking ashen.
“Dad?” Dean says, rubbing a fist into one eye because his vision is still blurry with sleep.
“There was a fire,” John says, voice barely above a whisper and Dean feels stark terror spiralling through his belly. Dean’s eyes search out and find Sam in the darkness, sprawled on the bed opposite and still snoring. John’s hand clamps down on Dean’s shoulder and shakes him a little. “Josh’s house burned to the ground and he, Mandy and… none of them got out.”
“Why didn’t we go there?” Dean demands, voice a whip-crack in the darkness that has Sam blinking awake and going for the knife under his pillow. “We knew Samantha was six months old. Why weren’t we there?”
“I was,” John says and Dean realises that his father stinks of smoke, has black smudges on his face. “I was outside in the car and I didn’t… it had gotten passed the time and I thought they were going to be okay. It happened so fast that I didn’t even get to the front door before…” John breaks then, curling down onto the floor on his knees, forehead pressed into the carpet. Dean slides out of bed behind him, putting an arm across his shoulders and pressing a cheek to his father’s back, feeling the shudders through his skin.
“Dean?” Dean can feel Sam’s long fingers pressing into his scalp, circling around and down and Dean only realises he’s crying too when they drag through the tears on his cheeks.
He drives Sam to the bus station and shoves a wad of twenties at him when Sam steps away. “Don’t ever say I don’t do anything for you,” Dean says, trying to sound light and feeling anything but.
“Dean-”
“Don’t ask me. Please I just… don’t ask me,” Dean interrupts, knowing that Sam would take him along like a favourite teddy bear if he could, that if he’d gotten Dean to be still for long enough he would’ve packed him in a suitcase. Dean could see it when Sam was leaving, how he didn’t really care about anything he was sacrificing so he could have just the one small duffle.
Except one thing.
Dean knows that if Sam asks, if he’s able to get the words out, then Dean will say yes. He’ll put Sam back in the Impala, duffle in the boot where it belongs and he’ll drive without looking back. He just needs to make sure that Sam doesn’t.
“I’ll call you when I get there,” Sam says instead and Dean’s grateful.
How can you leave? Dean wants to ask. With everything’s that’s happened, how can you go?. Dean knows the answer to that though, it’s what Sam has wanted ever since he was old enough to want things but more importantly, it’s what he’d told Josh he was going to do.
Sam wants to go to college…
“Tell me I can do this,” Sam begs, turning large eyes to Dean and twisting the strap of his duffle in his fingers. “Tell me it’s okay?”
“It’ll be fine, Sam,” Dean says, desperately hoping.
Maybe that this time it will be.
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Hee... ah oops! I do have shiny fic... I promise. It's just... this is where my stories go more often than not.