SPN/DA Fic: The Wellspring (13/?)
Title: The Wellspring
Fandom(s): Supernatural, Dark Angel
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Rating: Ah, fuck. I just said fuck. I say fuck a lot. Is that considered an R or a PG-13 these days? One of those.
Summary: Sam and Dean find a tiny smartass in a barn in Montana. What are they to do?
Warnings: Crude language, cuddles, ice cream
Previous chapters and more info can be found here.
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The motel room is a box filled with a king-sized bed and a weather-beaten dresser. Dean yawns and blinks and tries to keep his eyes open as he shuts the door behind himself and his brood, but this is pretty much impossible. He’s just driven twelve hours straight and he’s fucking tired as all hell, and when he closes his eyes all he sees is road and when he opens his eyes, all he sees is that goddamn bed. His brain is fuzzy and the fuzz is heavy. There’s two duffels, one slung over each broad shoulder, and he dumps them at the side of the dresser.
“Dean?”
The weight pressing into his right side is like a blanket of warm bones, and so is the one that follows suit, the one that pushes into his left. Dean looks down and all he sees is wide-eyed green.
“Bedtime,” he grunts and he opens his mouth again long enough to catch a few flies. It’s most unfortunate, but his yawns aren’t contagious.
Alec nudges into Dean’s hip, preens into the hand that obediently falls onto his head. “I bet I could still catch Sam.”
Sam. Sam went to a bar. Sam’s bringing home the bacon so they can pay for this room for a few more nights.
“Sam’s long gone, kitten.”
“There’s no television in this room,” Ben notes and Dean’s lips lift in a lazy smile at the hint of disappointment that’s trying its best not to shine through.
“M’sorry, Benny. Maybe next time.”
“I wanna go to the bar,” Alec insists. “Sam’s probably in need of some aid. He’s not very devious, y’know. We’ll be lucky if he comes home with enough to feed us in the morning. I could be an invaluable asset to the garnering of more income.”
Dean snorts, lifts his hand from the boy’s head only to place it on the back of the small neck, gives the kid a delicate push in the direction of the bags. “Sam’s plenty devious, kid. Go get ready for bed.”
“But I wanna go to the bar.”
The sound that comes out of Dean’s mouth is low and rumbling with vexation. Alec’s not intimidated, though. Kid’s got his mouth hanging open, and his eyes are bright with mischief and amazement.
“Did you just growl?”
“Bathroom, Alec. Brush your teeth-”
“You did. You growled.”
“-wash your face-”
“Do it again!”
“-take a leak. Now.”
Alec sticks out a stiff finger, pokes Dean in the abdomen, repeats, “Do it again.”
Ben’s been quiet for some time, but now he groans, slides his sneakered feet over to the dropped duffels and starts rummaging through one for bathroom supplies.
“I’ll go first,” he grumbles, and Dean shoots the kid an approving and grateful look, is half-tempted to look back down at Alec and ask him why he can’t be more like his brother. Ben’s a freakin’ angel and Dean often wonders how someone so hellbent on retaining a sense of moral regard came from the same stuff as Alec. From Dean.
“Thanks, Benny.”
And Ben turns his head from where it’s bent over the bag for a moment, a gentle and toothy smile aimed in Dean’s direction. “You’re welcome.” And the kid skirts off to the bathroom, arms full of sleepwear and a toothbrush.
There’s still a small finger jabbed into Dean’s abs. Alec’s eyes are as impish as his smirk.
“I think your instincts are all whacked out,” Dean tells him, snatching the finger and maneuvering it away from his body. “Should I be worried, Alec?”
Alec blinks. “About what?”
“If a bear growled at you, would you poke it?
The boy looks at his feet and Dean thinks that the kid is actually just a tiny bit ashamed for irritating him when he’s tired as fuck. But then Alec peers back up, levels him with a serious look. “What kind of bear?”
Dean runs a hand over his face. “This isn’t cute. I’m tired.”
“But what kind-”
“Grizzly. A grizzly bear. A big one who you just woke up from hibernation. If that bear growled, would you poke it?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe? What do you mean maybe, Alec?”
“I might poke a grizzly bear just woken from hibernation. Probably not with my finger, but with a carefully measured stick to make sure I got out of its cave unscathed. I mean, obviously I could outrun it, especially if its disoriented from sleep.” Small shoulders shrug. “It would probably be good for a few laughs and afterwards, I could break out the story to impress the ladies.”
Dean runs a startled and nervous hand through his hair. “The ladies?” Alec grins as he bites down on his bottom lip, swaying a little on his feet as he looks at Dean through long lashes. Dean’s sleepy brain tries to comprehend how the innocence in this child is somehow so wide and yet so limited. “You’re not funny.”
“Not funny? I’m hilarious.” Alec is offended.
Dean grunts and sidesteps the kid, kneels next to one of the bags to find Alec’s small amount of supplies. “Usually you are,” he says, pulling out a T-shirt which is somewhat tolerable in odor. “Tonight you’re annoying.” And he flings the shirt back, glances over his shoulder to make sure it hit its target.
Alec pulls the garment from his head, glares. “I want to go to the bar.”
Dean wonders if this is how Sam used to feel sometimes, when it was just the two of them and Sam was tired, but Dean was both not tired and unwilling to leave his little brother alone.
“Sorry, you missed your ride,” he tells Alec.
“Your face missed your ride.”
Maybe in ten years time, when the boys are all grown and Dean’s fighting to overcome the trials and tribulations of middle-age, he’ll apologize to Sam for all those years of ‘your face’ comments.
Ben comes out of the bathroom smelling of spearmint toothpaste and standard motel soap.
“I’m still not tired,” he admits, depositing a bundle of dirty clothes into Dean’s arms. “I wish we had a TV. Laying in bed is boring and we left all the books in the car with Sam.”
“There’s a bible in the dresser,” Alec tells him.
“I don’t like the Bible,” Ben replies. “It’s only good for exorcisms.”
Dean chuckles, then sobers when Alec glares at him. “What?”
“Ben’s not the funny one,” Alec informs him. “I’m the funny one.”
“Ben’s plenty funny,” Dean replies. Then, to Ben, “You’re funny, Benny.”
Ben eyes him curiously. “I wasn’t trying to be.”
“That’s good. That means you have natural comedic talents. You get that from me.”
Ben looks like he’s struggling not to point out that this is obvious, that Ben really gets most of his traits from Dean since he is in fact Dean, only small, but he doesn’t. Instead, he looks at the bed and sighs.
“Do I have to get in it now?”
This kid is so good.
“If you do, I’ll tell you a story while Alec’s in the bathroom.”
“A story?” Ben looks intrigued. “What sort of story?”
“A Dean Winchester original. You’ll love it.” And the kid nods and shuffles over to the bed. Just like that. Dean’s amazed, especially since Alec looks like he’s about to claw his tiny hands into Dean’s neck. Dean’s far too exhausted to deal with anymore clone defiance, however. “You get ready for bed and I’ll tell two stories.”
“I don’t care about your stories.”
Dean snorts. “Bullshit. You love my stories.” The kid’s eyes skitter to the side, away from Dean’s, because it’s true, Dean knows. Alec loves his stories. He listens with a slightly open mouth and rapt attention and Dean pretty much glows inside as he rambles on. “You’re not going to the bar, Alec. It’s time to let that go.”
The response is instant and unsurprising.
“I refuse,” Alec tells him, but the defeated tone belies the words and the boy grumbles and calls Dean a few nasty names under his breath.
“I’m all of those things,” Dean agrees easily. “But tonight we’re still sleepin’, aren’t we?” Alec growls. Dean pokes him in the stomach. “Do it again.”
The boy shoves him away. “We better be doin’ something fun tomorrow. Like hunting a werewolf. Or a wizard.”
“We don’t hunt wizards, Alec,” Dean says, pinching the front of the boy’s shirt and pulling him back in. “And we don’t poke growling bears.”
“Whatever. What are we doing tomorrow?”
Dean pulls the kid closer, close enough to get a whiff of the rank shirt and he thinks about how none of them have had clean underwear in a week. “Laundry. Tomorrow we’re doing laundry. And it’s gonna be kickass.” Alec groans as Dean lets go of his shirt and turns him around, pushes him in the direction of the bathroom. “Go. When you come out, I’m gonna tell you a story about the time I ate a kid because he didn’t read the warning signs.”
Alec goes. Dean tips back onto his ankles, falls onto the bed next to his more angelic clone.
“Benny, if this were The Good Son, you would be Elijah Wood and Alec would be Macauley Culkin.”
“I don’t know who those people are or what that means.”
“It means you’re the good one, kiddo.”
Ben beams, edges over just a bit. Then a bit more. It takes roughly ten seconds before the kid’s wedged into his side, smiling hopefully up at him. “Dean, did you really eat a kid once?”
“Sure did. He was delicious. We gotta wait for Alec before I tell that one, though. That one has a moral.”
“You’re not gonna tell me a story about a little prince named Ben, are you? Because Sam already tried that and it didn’t work.”
Dean snorts. “Nah. I’m gonna tell you all about a little prince named Sam who once had high hopes of being a world-renowned magician.” The sound of tiny hands clapping together brings a tired grin to Dean’s face. “That’s my boy. I knew even you couldn’t resist a little Sammy mockery once in a while.”
Dean falls asleep to the sound of his own voice while two child-shaped blankets try to their best to mold into the sides of his body. He doesn’t wake up, not even when Sam walks in and stumbles over the bags, falls into the dresser.
He does kind of hear the subsequent hiss of “motherfuckin’ ow”, however, and the tiny giggles that follow, and he smiles in what he believes to be an awesome dream.
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“They're his,” Dean tells an old woman as he unfurls a pair of tiny Batman underpants, and he smiles at her and jerks his head in Sam’s direction. Sam takes in a deep, agitated breath. Then he stomps on Dean’s foot. “Ow..”
The old woman is wearing a clean floral blouse and circular glasses with pristine lenses and the disapproval in her still vibrant blue eyes is crisp and clear when she shakes her finger at Sam and tells him to behave. Sam attempts to look shamefaced and not glare at her as she gathers her now-clean clothes from the dryer and leaves the laundromat.
Sam’s not sure why his brother feels the need to talk to random people in random situations, but it’s really irritating when they’re shoving things like little boy underwear into washing machines.
“Dean, stop talking to strangers.”
Dean smirks as he fishes through a pair of tiny jeans pockets and pulls out a few green bills and a shiny key-ring. Sam gapes at the discoveries, shoves his brother lightly in the arm.
Dean snorts and shoves him back, looks fondly at the money before pocketing it. “My little klepto.”
“It’s not cute, man.”
“It’s a little cute.”
Sam clenches his hands into irate fists and glances in the direction of the door. The laundromat is far more crowded than any small space should be and Dean had given the boys permission to hang outside on the sidewalk upon seeing the heaps of other children waiting for their parents. At this point, Sam’s pretty sure allowing the boys freedom from their invisible leash wasn’t such a good idea - Alec’s probably stealing the shirt off some poor kid’s back right now.
“You want him to grow up to be a criminal?”
Dean shrugs as he dumps the tiny jeans into the washer, picks up another pair, and pulls out a few empty candy wrappers from the back pocket. Sam’s surprised to see his brother’s face stone over, the mouth set in a firm and straight line. Because really? Candy wrappers?
“Dean?”
“I’ll have a talk with him. Kid’s been holding out on us.”
Sam hits his forehead with the palm of his hand, swipes it down his face. He can’t believe that it’s been 26 years and he still can’t get his brother’s priorities straight.
Dean toes him in the shin with a booted foot, berates, “Dude, stop standing around prissing and help me out here, will you?”
Sam’s mouth is open and ready to snap back a retort when a pair of old brown corduroys he used to wear when he was about 8 years old smack him in the face. Ben’s been wearing them recently, though they’re a bit big on the kid and tend to slide down when he runs. Sam keeps telling Dean they need to invest in some child-sized belts, but Dean keeps buying cartoon-printed underwear instead. And when Sam brings this up, Dean looks at him quite sternly and says in his serious voice, “Dude, don’t call Batman a cartoon.”
“You’re such a jerk,” he grumbles now, and he’s not saying it light-heartedly, either. Dean’s a jerk. The jerkiest jerk of all the jerks.
“Shut up and look through the pockets.”
“These are Ben’s. Not Alec’s,” Sam snaps, but he looks through the pockets, anyway, because maybe Alec shares his stolen candy with his brother.
Not that Ben would take it, Sam muses. Ben’s moral character is as strong as a brick house, and this is a thing that never ceases to amaze the younger of the Winchester brothers.
Sam edges his hand into a back pocket and finds a hole big enough to stick one of his large fingers through. Dean barks a laugh when he see the wriggling finger and tells Sam to take up sewing, to which Sam replies with a few choice words he wouldn’t want the clones to hear.
The other back pocket is both intact and empty and Sam feels his way through the front pockets, is surprised to feel debris pooled at the bottom of the left one. He scoops it out, is aware of about four small objects in the palm of his hand as he opens his fingers and looks down.
What he sees are yellow and jagged and he blinks because he can’t quite believe his eyes, and he kind of wants to shake this shit out of his hand, and part of him wants to vomit and part of him wants to yell, but his mouth is too busy urgently hissing his brother’s name.
“Are those teeth?” Dean sounds amazed and terrified. Dean sounds amazed and terrified because these are teeth. Tiny teeth. A child’s teeth. Carelessly extracted teeth. “You pulled those out of...?” He eyes the pants, his face ashen as Sam nods numbly. “Sam...where...what...” Dean loses his voice but his mouth keeps working and Sam sees the lips form Ben’s name.
“I don’t know,” Sam mumbles, and he closes his hand around the teeth and dumps them into his own pocket. “Maybe he found them....just...let’s just do the laundry, Dean. We’ll ask him about it while we’re waiting, okay? Let’s finish up here.”
They finish up in silence. Sam doesn’t want to leave their clothes. He really doesn’t, and he’s pretty sure they’re going to get taken and that’s going to suck more than they can afford, but he follows Dean outside anyway. There’s a group of boys huddled around their boys, listening with rapt attention to a story about...about...
“And then he waved the little wooden stick he liked to call his ‘wand’ in the air while spouting off some magical junk and a woman made of plastic appeared,” Alec says and there are both gasps and jeers from the crowd. Sam exchanges a look with Dean, is amazed when Alec ignores the other boys and continues, “He told her all about how he was a world-renowned magician and how he embarked on great adventures saving innocents from evil clowns.”
“Dean.”
Sam’s voice must be loud because Alec and Ben notice them for the first time and six or seven kids Sam doesn’t even know turn to glare at him. Dean looks like he’s trying to snicker but his face is still pale and his voice is strained when he says it’s time to go.
Ben skips obediently forward and accepts Dean’s outstretched hand. Sam catches the standard pre-pubescent whispers of ‘pansy’ and ‘baby’ emitting from the other kids and he glares as Alec comes forward with a flush to his cheeks to walk by Sam’s side.
“I thought you said we were going to be here a long time,” Alec says, dragging his feet a little as they trail Dean and Ben back to the Impala.
“We were,” Sam tells him. “Change of plans.”
Alec mumbles something a little sour, but he’s quiet after that. Sam keeps looking between his brother’s tense back and Ben’s head and he sees Ben look up at Dean and hears the quiet question.
“Are you mad at me?”
And his brother’s form slouches just a little as they reach their home of black alloy and wheels. Dean’s voice is quiet and serious, and so are his words. “Nobody’s mad at you, kid.”
Alec and Ben climb in the back. Dean gets behind the wheel and Sam takes his place next to him, and he can’t help but feel like this is how it always is. It’s just like always, but without the comfort of knowing that ghosts are their biggest problem.
Next
Fandom(s): Supernatural, Dark Angel
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Rating: Ah, fuck. I just said fuck. I say fuck a lot. Is that considered an R or a PG-13 these days? One of those.
Summary: Sam and Dean find a tiny smartass in a barn in Montana. What are they to do?
Warnings: Crude language, cuddles, ice cream
Previous chapters and more info can be found here.
_________________________________
The motel room is a box filled with a king-sized bed and a weather-beaten dresser. Dean yawns and blinks and tries to keep his eyes open as he shuts the door behind himself and his brood, but this is pretty much impossible. He’s just driven twelve hours straight and he’s fucking tired as all hell, and when he closes his eyes all he sees is road and when he opens his eyes, all he sees is that goddamn bed. His brain is fuzzy and the fuzz is heavy. There’s two duffels, one slung over each broad shoulder, and he dumps them at the side of the dresser.
“Dean?”
The weight pressing into his right side is like a blanket of warm bones, and so is the one that follows suit, the one that pushes into his left. Dean looks down and all he sees is wide-eyed green.
“Bedtime,” he grunts and he opens his mouth again long enough to catch a few flies. It’s most unfortunate, but his yawns aren’t contagious.
Alec nudges into Dean’s hip, preens into the hand that obediently falls onto his head. “I bet I could still catch Sam.”
Sam. Sam went to a bar. Sam’s bringing home the bacon so they can pay for this room for a few more nights.
“Sam’s long gone, kitten.”
“There’s no television in this room,” Ben notes and Dean’s lips lift in a lazy smile at the hint of disappointment that’s trying its best not to shine through.
“M’sorry, Benny. Maybe next time.”
“I wanna go to the bar,” Alec insists. “Sam’s probably in need of some aid. He’s not very devious, y’know. We’ll be lucky if he comes home with enough to feed us in the morning. I could be an invaluable asset to the garnering of more income.”
Dean snorts, lifts his hand from the boy’s head only to place it on the back of the small neck, gives the kid a delicate push in the direction of the bags. “Sam’s plenty devious, kid. Go get ready for bed.”
“But I wanna go to the bar.”
The sound that comes out of Dean’s mouth is low and rumbling with vexation. Alec’s not intimidated, though. Kid’s got his mouth hanging open, and his eyes are bright with mischief and amazement.
“Did you just growl?”
“Bathroom, Alec. Brush your teeth-”
“You did. You growled.”
“-wash your face-”
“Do it again!”
“-take a leak. Now.”
Alec sticks out a stiff finger, pokes Dean in the abdomen, repeats, “Do it again.”
Ben’s been quiet for some time, but now he groans, slides his sneakered feet over to the dropped duffels and starts rummaging through one for bathroom supplies.
“I’ll go first,” he grumbles, and Dean shoots the kid an approving and grateful look, is half-tempted to look back down at Alec and ask him why he can’t be more like his brother. Ben’s a freakin’ angel and Dean often wonders how someone so hellbent on retaining a sense of moral regard came from the same stuff as Alec. From Dean.
“Thanks, Benny.”
And Ben turns his head from where it’s bent over the bag for a moment, a gentle and toothy smile aimed in Dean’s direction. “You’re welcome.” And the kid skirts off to the bathroom, arms full of sleepwear and a toothbrush.
There’s still a small finger jabbed into Dean’s abs. Alec’s eyes are as impish as his smirk.
“I think your instincts are all whacked out,” Dean tells him, snatching the finger and maneuvering it away from his body. “Should I be worried, Alec?”
Alec blinks. “About what?”
“If a bear growled at you, would you poke it?
The boy looks at his feet and Dean thinks that the kid is actually just a tiny bit ashamed for irritating him when he’s tired as fuck. But then Alec peers back up, levels him with a serious look. “What kind of bear?”
Dean runs a hand over his face. “This isn’t cute. I’m tired.”
“But what kind-”
“Grizzly. A grizzly bear. A big one who you just woke up from hibernation. If that bear growled, would you poke it?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe? What do you mean maybe, Alec?”
“I might poke a grizzly bear just woken from hibernation. Probably not with my finger, but with a carefully measured stick to make sure I got out of its cave unscathed. I mean, obviously I could outrun it, especially if its disoriented from sleep.” Small shoulders shrug. “It would probably be good for a few laughs and afterwards, I could break out the story to impress the ladies.”
Dean runs a startled and nervous hand through his hair. “The ladies?” Alec grins as he bites down on his bottom lip, swaying a little on his feet as he looks at Dean through long lashes. Dean’s sleepy brain tries to comprehend how the innocence in this child is somehow so wide and yet so limited. “You’re not funny.”
“Not funny? I’m hilarious.” Alec is offended.
Dean grunts and sidesteps the kid, kneels next to one of the bags to find Alec’s small amount of supplies. “Usually you are,” he says, pulling out a T-shirt which is somewhat tolerable in odor. “Tonight you’re annoying.” And he flings the shirt back, glances over his shoulder to make sure it hit its target.
Alec pulls the garment from his head, glares. “I want to go to the bar.”
Dean wonders if this is how Sam used to feel sometimes, when it was just the two of them and Sam was tired, but Dean was both not tired and unwilling to leave his little brother alone.
“Sorry, you missed your ride,” he tells Alec.
“Your face missed your ride.”
Maybe in ten years time, when the boys are all grown and Dean’s fighting to overcome the trials and tribulations of middle-age, he’ll apologize to Sam for all those years of ‘your face’ comments.
Ben comes out of the bathroom smelling of spearmint toothpaste and standard motel soap.
“I’m still not tired,” he admits, depositing a bundle of dirty clothes into Dean’s arms. “I wish we had a TV. Laying in bed is boring and we left all the books in the car with Sam.”
“There’s a bible in the dresser,” Alec tells him.
“I don’t like the Bible,” Ben replies. “It’s only good for exorcisms.”
Dean chuckles, then sobers when Alec glares at him. “What?”
“Ben’s not the funny one,” Alec informs him. “I’m the funny one.”
“Ben’s plenty funny,” Dean replies. Then, to Ben, “You’re funny, Benny.”
Ben eyes him curiously. “I wasn’t trying to be.”
“That’s good. That means you have natural comedic talents. You get that from me.”
Ben looks like he’s struggling not to point out that this is obvious, that Ben really gets most of his traits from Dean since he is in fact Dean, only small, but he doesn’t. Instead, he looks at the bed and sighs.
“Do I have to get in it now?”
This kid is so good.
“If you do, I’ll tell you a story while Alec’s in the bathroom.”
“A story?” Ben looks intrigued. “What sort of story?”
“A Dean Winchester original. You’ll love it.” And the kid nods and shuffles over to the bed. Just like that. Dean’s amazed, especially since Alec looks like he’s about to claw his tiny hands into Dean’s neck. Dean’s far too exhausted to deal with anymore clone defiance, however. “You get ready for bed and I’ll tell two stories.”
“I don’t care about your stories.”
Dean snorts. “Bullshit. You love my stories.” The kid’s eyes skitter to the side, away from Dean’s, because it’s true, Dean knows. Alec loves his stories. He listens with a slightly open mouth and rapt attention and Dean pretty much glows inside as he rambles on. “You’re not going to the bar, Alec. It’s time to let that go.”
The response is instant and unsurprising.
“I refuse,” Alec tells him, but the defeated tone belies the words and the boy grumbles and calls Dean a few nasty names under his breath.
“I’m all of those things,” Dean agrees easily. “But tonight we’re still sleepin’, aren’t we?” Alec growls. Dean pokes him in the stomach. “Do it again.”
The boy shoves him away. “We better be doin’ something fun tomorrow. Like hunting a werewolf. Or a wizard.”
“We don’t hunt wizards, Alec,” Dean says, pinching the front of the boy’s shirt and pulling him back in. “And we don’t poke growling bears.”
“Whatever. What are we doing tomorrow?”
Dean pulls the kid closer, close enough to get a whiff of the rank shirt and he thinks about how none of them have had clean underwear in a week. “Laundry. Tomorrow we’re doing laundry. And it’s gonna be kickass.” Alec groans as Dean lets go of his shirt and turns him around, pushes him in the direction of the bathroom. “Go. When you come out, I’m gonna tell you a story about the time I ate a kid because he didn’t read the warning signs.”
Alec goes. Dean tips back onto his ankles, falls onto the bed next to his more angelic clone.
“Benny, if this were The Good Son, you would be Elijah Wood and Alec would be Macauley Culkin.”
“I don’t know who those people are or what that means.”
“It means you’re the good one, kiddo.”
Ben beams, edges over just a bit. Then a bit more. It takes roughly ten seconds before the kid’s wedged into his side, smiling hopefully up at him. “Dean, did you really eat a kid once?”
“Sure did. He was delicious. We gotta wait for Alec before I tell that one, though. That one has a moral.”
“You’re not gonna tell me a story about a little prince named Ben, are you? Because Sam already tried that and it didn’t work.”
Dean snorts. “Nah. I’m gonna tell you all about a little prince named Sam who once had high hopes of being a world-renowned magician.” The sound of tiny hands clapping together brings a tired grin to Dean’s face. “That’s my boy. I knew even you couldn’t resist a little Sammy mockery once in a while.”
Dean falls asleep to the sound of his own voice while two child-shaped blankets try to their best to mold into the sides of his body. He doesn’t wake up, not even when Sam walks in and stumbles over the bags, falls into the dresser.
He does kind of hear the subsequent hiss of “motherfuckin’ ow”, however, and the tiny giggles that follow, and he smiles in what he believes to be an awesome dream.
________________________________
“They're his,” Dean tells an old woman as he unfurls a pair of tiny Batman underpants, and he smiles at her and jerks his head in Sam’s direction. Sam takes in a deep, agitated breath. Then he stomps on Dean’s foot. “Ow..”
The old woman is wearing a clean floral blouse and circular glasses with pristine lenses and the disapproval in her still vibrant blue eyes is crisp and clear when she shakes her finger at Sam and tells him to behave. Sam attempts to look shamefaced and not glare at her as she gathers her now-clean clothes from the dryer and leaves the laundromat.
Sam’s not sure why his brother feels the need to talk to random people in random situations, but it’s really irritating when they’re shoving things like little boy underwear into washing machines.
“Dean, stop talking to strangers.”
Dean smirks as he fishes through a pair of tiny jeans pockets and pulls out a few green bills and a shiny key-ring. Sam gapes at the discoveries, shoves his brother lightly in the arm.
Dean snorts and shoves him back, looks fondly at the money before pocketing it. “My little klepto.”
“It’s not cute, man.”
“It’s a little cute.”
Sam clenches his hands into irate fists and glances in the direction of the door. The laundromat is far more crowded than any small space should be and Dean had given the boys permission to hang outside on the sidewalk upon seeing the heaps of other children waiting for their parents. At this point, Sam’s pretty sure allowing the boys freedom from their invisible leash wasn’t such a good idea - Alec’s probably stealing the shirt off some poor kid’s back right now.
“You want him to grow up to be a criminal?”
Dean shrugs as he dumps the tiny jeans into the washer, picks up another pair, and pulls out a few empty candy wrappers from the back pocket. Sam’s surprised to see his brother’s face stone over, the mouth set in a firm and straight line. Because really? Candy wrappers?
“Dean?”
“I’ll have a talk with him. Kid’s been holding out on us.”
Sam hits his forehead with the palm of his hand, swipes it down his face. He can’t believe that it’s been 26 years and he still can’t get his brother’s priorities straight.
Dean toes him in the shin with a booted foot, berates, “Dude, stop standing around prissing and help me out here, will you?”
Sam’s mouth is open and ready to snap back a retort when a pair of old brown corduroys he used to wear when he was about 8 years old smack him in the face. Ben’s been wearing them recently, though they’re a bit big on the kid and tend to slide down when he runs. Sam keeps telling Dean they need to invest in some child-sized belts, but Dean keeps buying cartoon-printed underwear instead. And when Sam brings this up, Dean looks at him quite sternly and says in his serious voice, “Dude, don’t call Batman a cartoon.”
“You’re such a jerk,” he grumbles now, and he’s not saying it light-heartedly, either. Dean’s a jerk. The jerkiest jerk of all the jerks.
“Shut up and look through the pockets.”
“These are Ben’s. Not Alec’s,” Sam snaps, but he looks through the pockets, anyway, because maybe Alec shares his stolen candy with his brother.
Not that Ben would take it, Sam muses. Ben’s moral character is as strong as a brick house, and this is a thing that never ceases to amaze the younger of the Winchester brothers.
Sam edges his hand into a back pocket and finds a hole big enough to stick one of his large fingers through. Dean barks a laugh when he see the wriggling finger and tells Sam to take up sewing, to which Sam replies with a few choice words he wouldn’t want the clones to hear.
The other back pocket is both intact and empty and Sam feels his way through the front pockets, is surprised to feel debris pooled at the bottom of the left one. He scoops it out, is aware of about four small objects in the palm of his hand as he opens his fingers and looks down.
What he sees are yellow and jagged and he blinks because he can’t quite believe his eyes, and he kind of wants to shake this shit out of his hand, and part of him wants to vomit and part of him wants to yell, but his mouth is too busy urgently hissing his brother’s name.
“Are those teeth?” Dean sounds amazed and terrified. Dean sounds amazed and terrified because these are teeth. Tiny teeth. A child’s teeth. Carelessly extracted teeth. “You pulled those out of...?” He eyes the pants, his face ashen as Sam nods numbly. “Sam...where...what...” Dean loses his voice but his mouth keeps working and Sam sees the lips form Ben’s name.
“I don’t know,” Sam mumbles, and he closes his hand around the teeth and dumps them into his own pocket. “Maybe he found them....just...let’s just do the laundry, Dean. We’ll ask him about it while we’re waiting, okay? Let’s finish up here.”
They finish up in silence. Sam doesn’t want to leave their clothes. He really doesn’t, and he’s pretty sure they’re going to get taken and that’s going to suck more than they can afford, but he follows Dean outside anyway. There’s a group of boys huddled around their boys, listening with rapt attention to a story about...about...
“And then he waved the little wooden stick he liked to call his ‘wand’ in the air while spouting off some magical junk and a woman made of plastic appeared,” Alec says and there are both gasps and jeers from the crowd. Sam exchanges a look with Dean, is amazed when Alec ignores the other boys and continues, “He told her all about how he was a world-renowned magician and how he embarked on great adventures saving innocents from evil clowns.”
“Dean.”
Sam’s voice must be loud because Alec and Ben notice them for the first time and six or seven kids Sam doesn’t even know turn to glare at him. Dean looks like he’s trying to snicker but his face is still pale and his voice is strained when he says it’s time to go.
Ben skips obediently forward and accepts Dean’s outstretched hand. Sam catches the standard pre-pubescent whispers of ‘pansy’ and ‘baby’ emitting from the other kids and he glares as Alec comes forward with a flush to his cheeks to walk by Sam’s side.
“I thought you said we were going to be here a long time,” Alec says, dragging his feet a little as they trail Dean and Ben back to the Impala.
“We were,” Sam tells him. “Change of plans.”
Alec mumbles something a little sour, but he’s quiet after that. Sam keeps looking between his brother’s tense back and Ben’s head and he sees Ben look up at Dean and hears the quiet question.
“Are you mad at me?”
And his brother’s form slouches just a little as they reach their home of black alloy and wheels. Dean’s voice is quiet and serious, and so are his words. “Nobody’s mad at you, kid.”
Alec and Ben climb in the back. Dean gets behind the wheel and Sam takes his place next to him, and he can’t help but feel like this is how it always is. It’s just like always, but without the comfort of knowing that ghosts are their biggest problem.
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