Normal 1/1
Normal
Summary: Sam is not normal. But who wants normal anyway? Pre-series AU. Powers!Sam
A/N: I can't believe that this is it, you guys. The end of Supernatural. Now that I have stopped crying long enough to be able to see again, I've consoled myself with fanfic (and I'm hoping that everyone else does, too, now that it's all we have left!). I hope you enjoy this little AU. Pre-series. Powers!Sam
XXX
John is using his serious voice. The one he uses before hunts, or during training sessions, or when he's grilling them on their Latin, or... actually, John pretty much always uses his serious voice but it gets especially serious when it comes to Sam.
“I swear to God, Sam, I am not messing around here. No more, you hear me? As far as anyone is concerned, we are a normal family. Normal.”
“Normal?” Sam looks up from the sheet of paper he's folding to raise incredulous eyebrows at their father. Not many people would consider them and the hunting lifestyle normal, even without knowing Sam's secret. John takes his eyes off of the road long enough to shoot Sam a patented John Winchester knock-it-off glare in the rear-view mirror.
“You know exactly what I'm talking about,” he snaps. “This place is going to be full of hunters-”
“I know, Dad, I know. I won't do anything to scare the big, tough hunters.” Sam, sitting in the back seat in Dean's hand-me-down jeans with rips in the knees and an old hoodie so large he has to fold the sleeves over half a dozen times to stop them from slipping over his hands as he folds paper into an origami crane on his lap, looks so incredibly not scary that Dean stifles a laugh behind his hand, hastily switching it to a cough when John's narrowed eyes land on him.
“This isn't a laughing matter, Dean.”
“Yes, sir,” Dean says quickly, hoping that will be the end of it, but-
“It could be life or death,” John continues. “And it's Sam's life I'm talking about here. I would've thought that you'd take that seriously.”
Sam glares at the back of John's head, defiant, but Dean shrinks a little in his seat. Great, a lecture with a side of guilt. “Yes, sir.” he repeats.
“Maybe I should find somewhere to drop you boys off first...” John muses, and Sam looks like he's only just resisting the urge to scrunch up his paper and throw it.
“We're in the middle of nowhere!” he exclaims. “I can control myself for half an hour. I'm not a child!”
John's eyebrows furrow even deeper as he mulls it over. “Fine,” he relents. “Just, behave, okay? None of your...” he waves a hand vaguely, like this sums up everything weird about Sam.
“Of course,” Sam promises. He settles back in his seat, satisfied, and finishes the last fold of his paper crane. He balances it carefully on the tip of his finger and shoots a furtive look around the Impala to make sure Dean is watching and John isn't.
The bird takes flight, tiny paper wings flapping gracefully across the back seat. It even does a loop before landing in Dean's lap because Sam is a show-off like that. It flutters on Dean's knee, then spreads it's wings wide so that Dean can read what Sam has written on it in bold felt-tip pen; BOO!
Dean grins. Yeah, this kid is totally terrifying.
XXX
It started with Sam's first growth spurt. They were convinced that it was a poltergeist, at first. It seemed to fit the general pattern; exploding light bulbs, slamming doors, a hormonal teenager in the house. But then the cleansing ritual had been alarmingly uneventful, and the strange occurrences followed them from motel room to rental property, no matter how many purification rituals John performed, on their current dwelling, the Impala, the weapons and gear and Sam, Sam, Sam. It always came back to Sam.
Puberty was rough.
But Sam is a lot less unpredictable at 16 than he was at 13, a lot more in control of his 'condition', as John calls it. They never did manage to figure out exactly why Sam is the way he is, which drives John crazy. The cleansing rituals and counter-curses had continued up until last year, when Sam finally got fed up and surrounded himself with some sort of force-field until John agreed to put the spell books away and give it a rest. (It took the better part of two days - only Sam can out-stubborn John Winchester.)
“Stay here.” John herds them into a booth with a grimy table-top and crackling vinyl seats, in the darkest corner of the roadhouse. “And behave. Dean, watch your brother.”
“Yes, sir,” Dean responds automatically, ignoring Sam's eye roll.
“What does he think I'm going to do, start levitating?” Sam grumbles as John heads to the bar to meet his contact.
“He's just worried.” John doesn't like things that he doesn't understand and worse, neither do other hunters. Sam is an uncertainty and plenty of people in this line of work have no problem shooting first and asking questions never.
“It's like he thinks I'm stupid,” Sam complains. “I'm not an idiot.”
“No, you're a teenager, and that's pretty much the same thing.”
Sam throws a napkin at him. “Can we get something to eat? I'm starving.”
He must be to want to order here. “After.” Dean looks over at the bar. John is deep in conversation with two men who look like clones of each other; scruffy beards and short salt and pepper hair peeking out beneath matching trucker caps. The bar stools look almost comically small beneath their bulky frames. “Dad doesn't want us hanging round here any longer than we have to.”
Sam sighs deeply (drama queen) and pulls his homework out of his backpack. “This is lame.”
“So's your face,” Dean fires back, keeping an eye on the two men. Whatever John is saying to them, they don't seem to like it. They're starting to throw disgruntled looks to each other beneath their caps and Dean catches the occasional hard edge of a swear word tossed in John's direction. John tends to have that affect on people.
“What do you think they're arguing about?” Sam asks. He doesn't look up from his homework but Dean can see the creeping unease in his tensing shoulders, the forced calm of his question.
“Who knows? They're probably not even arguing. That's just how Dad talks.” The last thing they need right now is Sam getting freaked out and slipping up somehow, but actually, Dean is starting to worry, too. His father's spine is stiffening, his shoulders squaring up like he's readying himself for a fight. It wouldn't be the first time John started throwing punches but usually it takes a few drinks first and usually Sam isn't there to witness it.
“Is Dad going to start a bar fight?” Sam asks.
“I hope so,” Dean lies flippantly. “I have this awesome new move I wanna try out. If I don't find a guinea pig soon I might need to test it on you.”
“Ha. You could try,” Sam scoffs, which, yeah, psychic-boy could kick his ass six ways from Sunday if he put his mind to it but the taunt seems to have the desired effect and Sam returns his attention to his homework, his concern apparently alleviated.
As surreptitiously as possible, Dean casts his gaze around the bar, squinting through the haze of cigarette smoke that hangs stagnant in the air. The bartender is rearranging glasses behind the counter, apparently deeply engrossed in this task. A woman with a blonde crew cut and a scar down her neck nurses a beer and stares down at the newspaper spread out on her table but her eyes don't move and the pages never turn. Stomach sinking, Dean glances back at the three men in the booth by the door, the largest of which has slid out of his seat and is standing within arms reach of the only exit in sight.
Dean forces himself to breathe. Maybe he's being paranoid. Maybe the bar patrons are being paranoid - they are hunters, after all. But Dean gets the distinct impression that this isn't just general wariness. It's too perfect, too planned. It's a trap.
Dean's heart is in his throat, his pulse pounding in his ears. He catalogues his weapons; handgun in his belt, knife strapped to his ankle. Salt and holy water will be useless against hunters and they'll all be armed, probably better than he is.
“Sam,” Dean starts, keeping his voice level, “I think we should-”
And then John interrupts him by standing up so fast his bar stool topples over and clangs against the floor, his gun drawn and pointed at the head of the nearest hunter in a heartbeat. Sam jumps, dropping his pen, and Dean leaps from his seat to put himself between the hunters and his brother. He draws his own weapon but he's not sure who to point it at so he just holds it ready, waiting for John's next move.
“I hear one more filthy accusation come outta your mouth, I'll blow your head off.” John's voice is deadly quiet, filled with enough sincerity to make a smart man turn tail and run, but this man isn't smart. He glares past the gun between his eyebrows with the confidence of someone who knows he has an entire bar on his side.
“If it's all lies, what's the problem with letting us check the kid out?”
Panic jabs sharply at Dean's gut. Sam. They're talking about Sam. They know about him and his powers, or at least they think they do. Dean widens his stance, his finger twitching towards the trigger of his gun.
“No one is touching my boys,” John growls.
“We're not going to hurt him,” the blonde woman speaks up, a shotgun now stretched across her newspaper. “We just want to put these rumours to rest.”
John is frozen, trapped in the sights of half a dozen weapons, but he won't back down and Dean doesn't want to find out what these hunters will do when they realise that. If only he could think of something, anything, to do...
“All right, kid.” One of the men by the door steps towards Dean, slow, gun raised, and Dean jerks his own gun up in response. “Just move aside and everything will be okay. No one needs to get hurt.”
“I think you're wrong about that,” Dean says. Sam's hand twists in the back of his shirt.
“Dean-” he says quietly.
“I don't care what bullshit you've heard,” Dean speaks over him, leaning back to press Sam further into the booth, like maybe if he distracts these guys enough, they'll forget that the kid's there. “You aren't coming near my brother.”
“We're not asking,” the hunter warns. He's missing an eye, the empty socket sunken and scarred. “Put the gun down, kid, come on now.”
“Stop!” Dean barks, “Or I'll shoot you, I swear.”
“Dean!” Sam gasps.
“Get away from them!” John growls.
“What do you want to do?” Sam asks, peering out from behind Dean.
“Sam, be quiet,” John orders.
“I don't want anyone to get hurt,” Sam says, because he never can just take Dad's orders and he's such a damn goody-good that he really doesn't want anyone to get hurt, not even the people pointing guns at him.
“We just want to check a few things,” the man to John's right says. “Salt, silver; nothing that won't heal up in time.”
“No one is touching my kids!” John roars.
“It's okay-” Sam starts.
“Sam, be quiet!” Dean and John snap together.
“Listen to the kid, Winchester,” the blonde woman says. “Just give us an hour with him and we can set all these rumours straight.”
The man in front of Dean motions him aside with his weapon. “Move.”
Dean draws himself up as tall as he can. “No.”
“Dean, please,” Sam implores. “It's fine.”
“No, it's not,” Dean grinds out. “No one is putting their filthy hands on you, no way.”
“Anyone trying to touch my boys is going to have to go through me first,” John rumbles.
“You think we have a problem with that?” sneers the one-eyed man.
There's a click as the safety is flicked off of one of the many guns. Dean's heart seems to stop beating - how many can he take out before he goes down? Not enough, not enough to save his brother - and, behind him, Sam jumps to his feet.
“Stop it!” Sam yells. “Everyone just stop!”
The air quivers. He doesn't mean to but Dean finds himself lowering his weapon. A glance around the roadhouse reveals a group of puzzled hunters doing the same. John glares at his hand as though it were purposefully betraying him.
“It's okay,” Sam says. “Everything's okay.”
Somehow, it is. Dean can't even remember why he was so worried a moment ago. The hunter in front of him smiles goofily as he slips his gun back into it's holster - it takes him three attempts.
“You already checked me,” Sam says. His voice is quite lyrical, Dean realises. How has he never noticed before? “There's nothing weird about the Winchesters.”
“Yeah,” the one-eyed hunter agrees, nodding dreamily. “Nothing weird.”
The bar murmurs it's agreement and, a moment later, everyone has returned to their drinks and their conversations as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Sam packs up his homework.
“C'mon,” he murmurs, nudging Dean out of the booth and towards the door. Dean glances over to make sure John is following - he is - and lets his feet move the way they seem to want to; out of the bar, unchallenged, through the parking lot, to the Impala. John gets into the drivers seat. Sam and Dean slide into the back. For a moment, they sit in silence.
“How did I do?” Sam asks finally. “Pretty normal, right?”
He has to duck the cuff to the head that John aims at him, which makes him an easy target for the headlock and noogie that Dean has prepared, but they're all laughing as they drive away.
Screw normal. Sam is better than normal. Sam is awesome.
END