S is for Winchester - 1/2
S is for Winchester - 1/2
Rating: R, Gen, Het
Characters: Dean, Sam/Jess, John, Bobby
Word Count: 5,555/11,342
Disclaimer: The characters are sadly not mine. I’m just sticking pins into Winchesters for fun and angst. Sorry about the holes!
A/N: Coda to 3.16 No Rest For The Wicked.
The first in The Hollow Hours series
A birthday fic for the wonderful trulybloom who requested “a weeChesters story, young Dean teaching wee Sammy a new word (or words).” I may have got a little carried away with the request. Sorry it took forever to write.
Thanks to secret-seer for chalking up another great banner and amping up the contrast in my flash cards.
Setting: Damn nigh everywhere stateside (1984-2008)
Summary: People tell a lot of stories about the Winchester brothers. Some of them are true; some of them we only wish they were. What is fact is that Dean Winchester taught Sam almost everything he knows, even if sometimes Dean didn’t realize it at the time.
Part 1 | Part 2
Part 1
‘I spy with my little eye something beginning with A.’
Dean was perched next to his younger brother repeating the same thing over and over again. He dangled one hand enticingly in front of Sammy. ‘I spy with my little eye …’
‘Dean?’
‘Yes, Daddy?’ Dean answered, not taking his eyes off his brother. Concentration fixed, as if he was sure that any minute now Sammy would get it.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Teaching,’ Dean said happily.
‘Teaching?’ John asked with a yawn, wondering what the heck he’d missed in the scant hour he’d allowed himself to sleep since they’d arrived in Lewiston.
Dean looked up at his father worriedly. ‘Uh huh,’ he nodded, before finishing helpfully, ‘Mrs. Cahill in Number 4 said I should be in school learning stuff.’
‘Stuff?’ John asked faintly.
Dean bobbed his head up and down excitedly. ‘Like reading and writing and rith … rith … how to count!’
‘But … you know your alphabet and you can write your name,’ John grasped desperately. This was one of those things the Marines hadn’t taught him. Mary…
‘I told her that,’ Dean said. ‘Mommy…’ His voice broke off and he went back to swinging something hypnotically back and forth over Sammy’s face.
‘I spy with my little eye something beginning with A.’
‘Dean?’
Dean refused to look up again. ‘I told her I didn’t need school and neither did Sammy. I can teach him!’ He said stubbornly then smiled encouragingly at his brother. ‘Come on, Sammy. What can you spy with your little eye?’
John squatted down next to them and helplessly scrubbed his hand through his hair before sighing. ‘Dean? Maybe we should wait till after his first birthday, okay?’
‘No,’ Dean said simply. ‘Sammy’s hungry now.’ He took another huge bite out of his apple.
‘Dean! Don’t even think about it!’ John said sternly, after a startled glance at the empty formula bottle lying discarded on the couch next to his sons.
‘What?’ Dean mumbled innocently through a mouthful of masticated apple. He was hovering a little too closely over Sammy’s eagerly open mouth.
‘God help me!’ John moaned as he swept a suddenly bawling Sammy out of range.
Sam couldn’t pinpoint exactly when Bobby Singer became their surrogate father.
The grumpy hunter was as much their father’s opposite as Jim Murphy was. But they all had three things in common, their battle scars from Vietnam, their lives as hunters, and their love for Dean and Sam.
Sometimes Sam felt he’d smother under the weight of all that combined love and expectations. Dean’s should have made things worse, but strangely, his annoying older brother kept him centred most of the time.
Even Sam wasn’t emo enough to tell Dean that. Dean’s head was big enough already.
When Sam was young Dean used to tell him stories about how they first met Bobby; reminded him of the mischief two unsupervised boys could get up to in one salvage yard. Over the years those tales grew to mammoth proportions. Dean undoubtedly exaggerated for comic effect, especially when he was drunk, though the one about nitroglycerin was, unfortunately, based on fact and they both had the scars to prove it.
The first memory that Sam could be sure was his own, not his brother’s, was a whole lot less exciting than Dean’s stories. That alone was enough to reinforce it as truth.
The two of them were outside, he must have been all of three or four, it was summer and the afternoon sun was reflecting off a broken windscreen into his eyes no matter how he tried to dodge it, and Dean was trying to show him how to play ball.
He was hot and dirty, he couldn’t really see and he kept missing the ball until Dean finally patiently rolled it gently along the ground until it collided and rebounded from the piece of wood Sam had tiredly let fall against his feet.
‘Yes! He hits and scores! Run, Sammy!’
And he was running in a circle in the dust to the sound of his brother’s cheers as a larger audience arrived to shout him on to victory. Dad was raising him so very high, and Uncle Bobby was clapping his over-sized cap onto Sammy’s head as a prize now that ‘You’re a proper baseball player,’ and Dean was muttering peevishly that with Sammy it had been more like a game of cricket.
‘Baseball, Sammy! Baseball! Only girls play cricket.’
‘Bobby?’ Sammy queried confused, trying to shove the cap up off his nose to look down at Dean.
‘Baseball, not Bobby.’
‘Bobby!’
And that was it; Sammy spent the following months, while Dean tried to explain the difference-and get him to keep the bat up-proudly wearing his ‘Bobby,’ and their Uncle Bobby spent that time hiding from Sammy.
Maybe it was then.
Latin was hard, and he was bored. But he needed to learn this, along with everything else he could find out from Bobby’s unsteady towers of books. He couldn’t be like Dean-Dad’s perfect soldier-who got it all right; shooting, fighting, and hunting. This, he could do. It was the one thing he could do to help.
Sammy sighed and pushed the book away. He could see Dean outside, happily hunched under the hood of Dad’s car with a wrench in one hand and a grease-stained automotive manual in the other. He certainly looked like he at least was having fun.
‘Why don’t you just take the book outside, Sammy? Best way to learn any damn thing is to practice it. You can read it to Dean, that way you both get to learn something useful, and I don’t get a crick in my neck watching you both pop up and down every five minutes to check on each other. Ya idjuts!’
Maybe it was then.
Long years later he stood there, battered and bleeding, beside the wreck of Dean’s car desperately arguing for what part of him felt was its, and more importantly, his brother’s salvation, and Bobby just gave in. Beyond all sense or reason. For Sam. For Dean.
Maybe it was then?
Sam never did pinpoint exactly when Bobby Singer became family.
Dean could have told him.
Dean had only himself to blame when they arrived at the Spring St. Kindergarten. Standing there beside the desk in Sammy’s first classroom he really should have known what would happen.
‘What’s your name, sweetie?’
‘Sammy.’
‘Sammy what?’
‘Go on, Sammy,’ Dean hissed quietly ignoring the chuckles from the teacher whose ears were obviously too big. ‘Remember? We practiced this one. Sammy …’ He knew his lips were shaping themselves into a fish-like W but he couldn’t help it.
‘Sammy …’
‘Almost there, Sammy.’
‘Sammy bang-bang!’ Sammy announced proudly to his new teacher.
‘Dean?’
Dean didn’t look up as his father’s hand fell hard onto his shoulder.
‘Like the rifle,’ he muttered as Sammy threw himself happily around both their legs.
Positively the last time he ever tried to teach his brother anything.
‘Dirigible,’ Sam whispered to himself. ‘The explosion of the dirigible The Hindenburg is famous for…’
‘What the fuck?’
Sam ignored him. Dirigisme. Economic planning and control by the state. Dirigisme is a characteristic of socialist law. ‘Dirigisme,’ he made the mistake of repeating aloud.
‘Diriwhat?’
‘Shut up, Dean! I’m trying to concentrate!’ Sam hissed. He would have thought the fact that he was hanging over the foot of the bed at 2 am with his torch skimming across sheaves of carefully highlighted paper would have given it away.
‘On what?’ Dean asked warily as he sat up in bed. He squinted at the floor. ‘Please tell me that’s a copy of Playboy. I don’t even care if it’s my Playboy. Is it my Playboy? Because if that’s the March issue you better not have…’
‘Very funny, Dean. No, your porn is safe, right where you left it under your gun-cleaning kit in the second drawer.’
Dean sighed. ‘You’re going to make me get up aren’t you?’
‘No! Just go back to sleep, Dean.’ Please let him go back to sleep. Sam didn’t need his brother finding out about this. He’d never live it down. He knew he should have snuck out to the car to study.
‘Yeah, right. Like that’s going to happen.’
Dean heaved a sigh as he got out of bed and padded across the bare boards towards him.
‘Ow! What was that for?’
Dean whacked him up the back of the head again. ‘Move over, bitch.’
Fucker. Sam wriggled sideways to make space for his brother. Not quite enough it turned out when Dean landed half on top of him. ‘Geroff, Dean!’
‘Told you to move,’ Dean grumped as he rolled to the left and settled in comfortably next to Sam.
He peered down at the floor for a minute before holding out his hand. ‘Scalpel, Nurse Betty.’
Sam groaned and passed over the torch. Totally screwed.
‘Sammy? Why am I looking at words? Lots of words?’ Dean sounded puzzled and disappointed. He’d reached down and was pawing through the papers. ‘Rhodopsin? Internecion? Exponentiation? Patroons?’
I hate my life.
‘Ienteredinthestatespellingbee,’ Sam rushed out as fast as he could.
‘Hmm. Long word. Don’t think I see that one down here, Sammy. Want to back up and try it again? S.L.O.W.E.R.’
Bastard knew exactly what he’d said.
‘Spelling bee,’ Sam said miserably. ‘State-wide competition.’
I hate my brother.
‘Damn,’ Dean said, pointing to the word ‘flixweed’ which Sam had circled in pink the previous night. ‘And here I was hoping you were just doing drugs.’
‘Like you and Dad wouldn’t kill me if I looked at even a cigarette.’
‘Good point,’ Dean admitted. ‘When?’
‘When what?’ Sam asked, confused. ‘When am I going to commit suicide by taking up smoking?’
Dean bopped him none too gently on the arm with the torch.
I really hate my life.
‘When is the competition?’
Oh. ‘Three weeks from Tuesday.’
‘Three weeks.’ Dean frowned.
Shit.
‘So, are the coloured ones the words you have or haven’t learned, Sammy?’
‘Have,’ Sam muttered.
‘Son of a bitch!’ Dean swore as looked at what Sam still had left to learn.
He held out his hand again silently, raised an eyebrow at Sam who blinked in astonishment before grinning and handing over the highlighter.
‘Right. Ff…Ffrigeeyan? P.H.R.Y.G.I.A.N. Phrygian. In Rome the Phrygian cap was worn…’
Sam liked the floor best. It was flat; he could spread his stuff out forever, or at least until he ran into a wall or the leg of a bed. None of the places they’d ever lived in had come equipped with anything student friendly like a desk. The floor also beat the kitchen table by a long shot. He loved the floor. It was quiet, it was all his, and best of all it didn’t interrupt him.
‘Fuck! What now?’ Dean was peering cautiously through the half open door of their room. Judging by the way his fingers suddenly clenched around the doorframe, he was very close to running away screaming, ‘Textbooks!’ in a high girly voice. Either that or he was about to pull out a shotgun and kill Sam for disgracing the family by taking Nerd as his middle name.
‘You’re not seriously going to spend the rest of your life studying, are you, Sammy?
Sam stuck a pen in his mouth and bent back over his homework before he said something irretrievably honest like, ‘Fuck yeah! You got a problem with that?’ Maybe he needed a bigger pen.
It was a relief when his brother took the hint and left.
He told himself it was a shock when Dean came back ten minutes later loaded up with Cheetos, a giant bottle of 7-Up, a packet of Gummi worms, and plate full of his current favourites-peanut butter, mustard and baloney sandwiches of doorstop proportions. Judging from the amount of food he’d prepared, he was obviously prepared to withstand a long siege. There was more food than even Dean could eat in one sitting.
‘Close your eyes, hold out your hand and make a wish, Sammy.’
Huh? Sam couldn’t see a weapon or anything immediately harmful. But with Dean seeing was never everything.
‘Saaam.’
Sam decided to go with it for a minute. Besides, he was getting better at fighting back, and Dean was presently disadvantaged by all that food. Sam might just be able to take him, or kick him hard enough to get away if Dean really did intend an all-out tickle attack, as he was prone to occasionally. Big brothers were evil.
He tensed for action as he closed his eyes.
‘Hand!’
Sam prayed that tickling was all Dean had in mind. He had a lot of study to do that night, and this invasion wasn’t helping.
Something weirdly heavy, spongy, and disturbingly malleable was slapped on top of his outstretched hand.
‘There!’
Sam opened his eyes cautiously; he hoped it wasn’t anything really gross or recently dead.
It was worse. It was one of the sandwiches, and curled up on top of it in an S shape was one of the worms. Sammy had the feeling it was watching him.
As was Dean. Grinning smugly at him from his position cross-legged in front of him.
Oh God. One of Dean’s specials, and Sam was going to have to eat it.
‘So,’ Dean mumbled through the disgusting layers of his own sandwich. ‘What the Hell I am going to be teaching you tonight?’
‘This picture means you will use your ruler. This means that you will use your protractor,’ Dean sang. ‘Who the fuck writes these things?’
‘Dude, they have multiple choice! Even if you didn’t study you’d probably end up getting a lot of them right anyway.’
‘Dean? So not helping.’
‘Cindy made ¾ of the baskets she attempted in a basketball game. Which other ratio is equivalent to the number of baskets Cindy made? Do you suppose Cindy was hot?’
‘Dean!’
‘Uh. A. Six twelfths. B…’
‘Chemistry? Excellent! Chemistry is awesome, Sammy. Do you know what you can do with just a few drops of…?’
Dean had a certain talent for chemicals. The more flammable the better.
‘You just had to choose drama, didn’t you?’ Dean huffed with irritation.
‘You don’t have to help me with everything, Dean.’
‘Huh!’ Dean snorted. ‘Like I’m gonna let you flunk out of a pussy class like theatre.’
He tossed the script across at Sam, ‘Who is this Beckett guy anyway? Whatever happened to Shakespeare and that skull thing?’
Some explanations were better left unsaid. Sam was getting better at knowing when not to answer his brother.
‘Okay, according to this “you should use gestures, facial expressions, and body movements to fully realize your character. You should also choose blocking that will reveal your character and the conflict in your scene.” Why didn’t you tell me we needed to get blocks ahead of time, Sammy? Are we talking wood, or concrete?’
‘In pre-industrial New York, yearly agricultural activities were organized mainly around.
A. major patriotic holidays
B. celebrations of peace and war
C. cycles of work and rest
D. periods determined by nature.’
‘When will that ever be useful, Sammy? Sam? Why are you making that face? Is that your thinking face? Because you look constipated. Come on, I’m getting bored here. A, B, C, or D? I’d vote for A, cos-holidays!’
Dean snuck a surreptitious look at the answer sheet. ‘Uh, but then again…’
Sam stuck his fingers in his ears and started humming the Battle Hymn of the Republic. Loudly.
Looking back years later, Sam realised that Dean had known exactly where this was going well before he did.
Dean never did learn to stop helping Sam, regardless of the consequences.
When Sam started to study for his LSAT’s in Palo Alto he didn’t ask Jess to help him run the practice questions.
‘Duh.’
‘D.'
‘Duh duh duh.’
No luck. Back to the beginning.
‘D … A … D… Dad.’
‘D … duh … A … ah … D … duh.’
‘Dee!’
‘He got it, Dad.’ Dean cried dragging Sammy over to the bed where their father was doing his best to sleep through the lesson.
‘Go on, Sammy. Do it again. Say Dad.’
‘Dee!’ Sammy chirped, diving back into Dean’s arms with a giggle.
‘Yeah, he got it,’ John said quietly, ruffling both boys’ hair. ‘Good work.’
One of the many things Sam envied about his brother was his knack for anything mechanical. Except that when you knew Dean at all, you realized that what he had wasn’t just the one ability; it was three diametrically opposed yet interlinked talents.
He could destroy just about anything within minutes. Give him some tools and you could cut that figure in half. Sam liked to think of him as a modern day berserker. Point him at a machine and say ‘Go’ and he’d happily break it down into its component parts. Sam wouldn’t have been surprised if Dean had been able to name the model, serial number and date of manufacture of every bit of equipment he’d touched since the age of five. Maybe four.
It took Sam a while to realize that his brother viewed the things their family fought in a similar way. He analyzed and memorized their strengths, and weaknesses with a single-minded dedication that Sam had never been able to replicate no matter how hard he tried, before moving in for the kill.
Dean could put anything back together again-without any of those irritating small nuts and bolts left over that never seemed to fit anywhere-and it always ended up working better than it had before.
Toasters, phones, alarm systems, cars, you name it, he could rebuild it for you. While Sam was at Stanford he realised he could have made a fortune if he’d had Dean there to hire out to all the incoming students struggling to assemble their new lives one Ikea piece at a time.
When they used to watch The Bionic Man on television, Dean would get an interested gleam in his eyes. Sam was glad that was science fiction because the idea of his big brother getting his hands on that sort of technology scared him. He didn’t want to wake up one day to find that Dean had helpfully rebuilt him.
The final talent was the one Sam had usually tended to dismiss out of hand until those last few months.
Dean made things. He created them out of scavenged pieces of junk. When he couldn’t find a part he needed he made that too. His gadgets didn’t necessarily look sleek or pretty, but they always worked exactly the way Dean wanted them to.
Sometimes he made things they needed, and couldn’t afford to buy in places where they couldn’t take the risk of using fake credit. Other times he simply seemed to make things for the pure creative Hell of it. Things they could have bought off the shelf quicker and cheaper than the time it took Dean to patiently manufacture one virtually from scratch.
Sam never did learn what those stupid gadgets meant to his brother until it was too late and he watched his careless words kill the innocent child-like joy in Dean’s eyes.
When Sam was younger, and still thought Dean hung the moon, he’d had this silly mixed up image of Dean as a combination of Merlin and Arthur, both magically creating a sword for a future hero, and then drawing that sword in turn for the battle to come.
Deep down Sam never forgot that dream.
There probably hasn’t ever been a politician that hasn’t trumpeted “family values” as something they held sacred. The family is always held up as this mythic concept; some weirdly perfect shining light.
You weren’t supposed to admit that your family could fuck you over better than a complete stranger.
You meet someone; you have the choice about letting them into your life. And if you’re careful you get to control the degree.
The thing about families is that they’re there whether you like it or not. Forget the enemy sending a Trojan Horse in, your family is already within your defences, and they know every single thing about you. For good, and bad.
You think they won’t use that against you even if they love you?
Of course they will. Survival of the fittest if you want to get it on with Darwin. Growing up is all about learning how to adapt to and manipulate your environment.
Sam, who’s never been any less selfish than the average kid-possibly more so a lot of the time-grew up learning exactly how to use his older brother’s love to his own advantage. He might have been born with what Dean called ‘those damned puppy-dog eyes,’ but even he needed a lot of practice to hone that useful needy ‘save me’ look until it could cut through Dean Winchester’s walls like a laser through emo butter.
He knew that Dean would do anything for him. He knew all of Dean’s weaknesses, which button to press when and where, like Dean knew his. Dean never really used his knowledge the way most brothers would. Sam had it and he abused it. He was only (mostly) human, and a little brother after all.
Sam grew up with Dean buffering him against everything. They might have lived hard and poor most of the time, but if Sam had ever really wanted something badly enough, Dean saw to it that he got it.
Sam wanted to go home from school via the local public library every weekday? Dean swore, and carried his book bag.
When Sam got a yen to play soccer instead of practicing his archery. Dean was the one that stood up to Dad in the argument that followed. And he somehow managed to spend enough hours at the pool hall to buy Sam a second-hand uniform, and footwear that almost fit off Rodney Stone’s Mom. He also saw to it that Sam learnt how to damn well put an arrow where it needed to go regardless of Sam’s bitching. Dean might be a marshmallow when it came to Sam, but even he had his limits. One of those was keeping the peace between Sam and Dad.
And when Sam didn’t want to suffer the humiliation of the Prom, it was Dean who ‘accidentally’ introduced Sam to Liz Foster (little sister to the person described by Dean as the hottest chick in the whole damned county), and nudged things along unsubtly enough ahead of time that Sam not only went to the Prom with the second-hottest chick around, but Dean came up with a rented tux, flowers, and the money to cover the entire evening.
If, in the end, Liz-Bitch!-ended up making out with fucking Michael Jansen after too many (but not enough to ever get forgiven for) glasses of punch, well, that wasn’t Dean’s fault. Which he kept reminding Sam during the maudlin, drunken hours that followed.
Dean also stayed conscious long enough to break up with Karen Foster, and get them both home just inside Dad’s curfew.
He also held Sam while he puked up his stomach lining into the toilet thirty minutes later.
While Dad concentrated on his quest for vengeance. Dean concentrated on raising his brother.
For most of his life Sam was guilty of taking everything that Dean offered, and shutting his conscience to what his brother was giving up in the process.
It wasn’t till much later, and too late, that Sam realized what he’d done to Dean during those years. And the even greater harm his absence at Stanford had caused.
Family has only ever meant one person to Sam.
He was going to spend the rest of his life proving that to Dean if he was given the chance. If not? Well, he’d said it once and he meant it.
You’re my brother, and I’d die for you.
Sam had always felt a little like a ghost. Drifting through school after school, town after town, sometimes without even the benefit of having his own name outside of his family.
He always thought that ghosts were just like them. Kind of lost, and invisible, with no real home. That made him sad.
Dad never would let them have pets because they were moving all the time. So, Sammy had it all worked out. A ghost would be even better than a puppy! A ghost could come with them, and talk to him, and he could be its friend.
Ghosts weren’t like puppies at all. They didn’t come when you called. You couldn’t take them for walks. They didn’t bark and lick you when they were happy.
Ghosts weren’t like people either. Sometimes you could see right through them. Sometimes they really were invisible but they were still there, and could do things. And sometimes … BANG! They were right there in front of you.
Ghosts could hurt you.
Sammy didn’t like ghosts at all.
He was crouched inside the front door of the haunted house that really was haunted, and Dean was huddled around him. Hiding him. Making sure the ghost couldn’t get to him.
And the ghost was hurting Dean.
Sammy could feel his brother flinch every time something hit him.
And Dad was roaring and yelling somewhere close and … WHOOSH! There was fire and the ghost was screaming and burning, and Dean was dragging him outside, and Dad was hugging them both and yelling even harder.
Sammy wished he’d never teased Dean about his first poltergeist. That had been mean. Dean had screamed.
Sammy felt like screaming now, but he couldn’t because it was all over and he was a Winchester.
But ghosts were scary!
Sammy wondered if tomorrow was a good time to talk to Dad about puppies again.
Dean once told Sam that they’d first gone trick or treating when ‘you were still at that nasty, squirmy, grub stage.’
Sam just hit his brother because it should have been obvious to the passing village idiot that was Dean; that even as a baby Sam had been bright enough to know that he didn’t like Halloween.
‘Dean? Did you ever stop to think that I was squirming to get away?’
Winchesters looked at the world a little differently to most people.
Life? Death? Festivals and stupid perky commercial holidays? They all had a dark side.
Sometimes it sucked to be a Winchester.
Holidays were things other families did. His classmates went on Easter Egg hunts, sat on Santa’s knee, exchanged candy valentines that said ‘Will you be mine?’ and ate whole turkeys with their entire extended families-how weird was that?
Halloween was merely the oddest custom normal people had.
Kids dressed up as fairies, elves, ghosts, and Frankenstein’s monster.
They stuck sharp objects into harmless pumpkins, then disemboweled them, and carved smiles in the skin, and they weren’t even trying to practice their knife skills.
Their parents draped fake cobwebs and rubber spiders everywhere, then hired smoke machines to make it look authentically gothic.
And let’s not forget the fake blood-ketchup, Ribena, whatever. They used gallons of it, and paid for it.
The only thing that Sammy ever understood about Halloween was candy. Dean had always been very clear about the advantages of free candy.
Girls getting dressed up in pink and wings? Sammy almost got that. Though Dean laughed himself sick when Sammy tried to explain his theory. He also called Sammy ‘My Little Barbie™’ for the rest of the week and kept grabbing him and feeling his shoulder blades for ‘any unusual growths.’
Pretending to be something out of a nightmare? That made no sense to Sammy.
Particularly after he found out that monsters were real.
However, the year that Sammy knew for sure that he hated Halloween came long before then.
‘Come on, Sammy. It’ll be sweet. I’ve got it all worked out. We can score big time!’
Dean even had a map of the neighbourhood that he’d ripped out of a road atlas at the library. He’d carefully circled the houses he thought were the best targets and had arrows pointing out the fastest route between each one. He’d obviously spent days working on his master plan.
‘Dad’s away. The old bat Mrs. Masters is as pissed as a newt already. No one will ever know, Sammy.’
Sammy had his doubts. Dad always knew everything. Even more than Dean did. Sammy wasn’t sure how Dad did it, but he wouldn’t have put it past him to plant spies in the surrounding houses.
‘Sammy?’
‘Buuut.’ Dad.
‘Candy, Sammy. Lots of candy.’
Okay. Sammy did like candy. And even though Dean did his best, sometimes even he couldn’t steal enough to keep two sweet-toothed Winchesters happy all the time. Candy.
What could it hurt?
‘Okay?’
‘Awesome! Here’s a sheet. I already cut holes in it for you. You go get changed and don’t forget to put a hoodie and thick socks on. It’s cold out there.’
Sometimes Dean sounded just like other kid’s mothers, which was kind of strange, but Sammy was used to that. Luckily he didn’t look like any of the mothers Sammy had ever seen waiting outside school for the other kids.
Dean was grinning, and bouncing up and down at the thought of a world of candy out there just waiting for them. He looked more like one of those jiggly-headed dolls people stuck on the dashboards of cars than a Mom.
‘Run, Sammy. You’ve got five minutes. I’ll be out here waiting, and I’ve got Dad’s stopwatch. Go!’
Sammy ran. Candy!
When Sammy raced back into the kitchen it was to find his brother’s body lying crumpled on the tiles, a huge carving knife sticking out of his chest, blood everywhere, and large footprints leading out the open back door into the darkness.
‘Aaaaaaaaagggggggggggghhhhhhh!’
It isn’t real. It isn’t real. It isn’t real. Please don’t be real.
‘Deeean? Oh God, Dean. Don’t die. Please don’t be dea…’
Dean’s eyes sprang open joyously. ‘Pretty cool, huh, Sammy?’
‘Sammy? Come back here!’
‘I’m sorry, Sammy. Let me in. I didn’t mean to scare you.’
‘Sammy? Please?’
Sam has always hated Halloween, almost as much as he hates his brother.
Sammy loved drawing. They gave you paper, and there were pencils, and crayons, and paints, and so many colours. Red for noses and smiles and blood, and white which was no good at all on the paper even for clouds so that was just silly, and blue for the sky, yellow for the sun and girls’ hair, and green for the grass-three different greens so if you wanted you could do grass and trees, and he didn’t know what else but he was saving that for something special. There were colours he didn’t even know the names of! One began with an M and it had a g too. It was kind of a dirty red. Then there was this one with a really long name. U… Ul… it was really, really blue and…
Miss Stuart clapped her hands loudly. ‘Okay, everyone! Have you got your paper and crayons?’
Everyone nodded and said, ‘Yes, Miss Stuart.’
Sammy sat up straight and nodded harder than anyone else.
‘Now, we’re all going to draw a special picture to hang on the walls, aren’t we?’
‘Yes, Miss Stuart!’
‘Why are we drawing special pictures?’
Sammy raised his hand really high.
‘Andrea?’
Hmpf.
‘We’re open!’ Andrea shouted excitedly.
‘That’s right, Andrea. It’s our Open Day. And all your parents are coming to see what you’ve done. So today I want you all to draw your very best pictures of your homes to make your parents proud.’
Sammy bit his lip and hunched protectively over his paper. He wasn’t going to let Andrea see what he was doing until it was up on the wall. His was going to be the best.
‘Sammy? What’s wrong?’
Dean stomped into the classroom the next morning, dragging Sammy with him.
‘Which is Andrea’s?’
Sammy pointed at the one that had pride of place and a blue crepe ribbon stapled to it. It was a stupid picture of her stupid, stupid house.
‘Samuel? What? Dean WINCHESTER! What are you doing?’
Dean ignored Miss Stuart, and Sammy just hung onto Dean and didn’t let go.
‘Stop that, right this instant!’
Dean ripped Angela’s dumb picture from the wall, pulled Sammy’s from his backpack, and pinned it carefully in place before he stuck the First Prize ribbon onto the bottom right corner.
Sammy grinned. There it was, his drawing of Dad’s car, with Dad at the wheel, a beaming Dean in the passenger seat, and Sammy in the middle. It was perfect.
Dean glared at the teacher as he walked out the door with Sammy in tow.
‘Sammy got it right.’
Part 2
Rating: R, Gen, Het
Characters: Dean, Sam/Jess, John, Bobby
Word Count: 5,555/11,342
Disclaimer: The characters are sadly not mine. I’m just sticking pins into Winchesters for fun and angst. Sorry about the holes!
A/N: Coda to 3.16 No Rest For The Wicked.
The first in The Hollow Hours series
A birthday fic for the wonderful trulybloom who requested “a weeChesters story, young Dean teaching wee Sammy a new word (or words).” I may have got a little carried away with the request. Sorry it took forever to write.
Thanks to secret-seer for chalking up another great banner and amping up the contrast in my flash cards.
Setting: Damn nigh everywhere stateside (1984-2008)
Summary: People tell a lot of stories about the Winchester brothers. Some of them are true; some of them we only wish they were. What is fact is that Dean Winchester taught Sam almost everything he knows, even if sometimes Dean didn’t realize it at the time.
Part 1 | Part 2
Part 1
‘I spy with my little eye something beginning with A.’
Dean was perched next to his younger brother repeating the same thing over and over again. He dangled one hand enticingly in front of Sammy. ‘I spy with my little eye …’
‘Dean?’
‘Yes, Daddy?’ Dean answered, not taking his eyes off his brother. Concentration fixed, as if he was sure that any minute now Sammy would get it.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Teaching,’ Dean said happily.
‘Teaching?’ John asked with a yawn, wondering what the heck he’d missed in the scant hour he’d allowed himself to sleep since they’d arrived in Lewiston.
Dean looked up at his father worriedly. ‘Uh huh,’ he nodded, before finishing helpfully, ‘Mrs. Cahill in Number 4 said I should be in school learning stuff.’
‘Stuff?’ John asked faintly.
Dean bobbed his head up and down excitedly. ‘Like reading and writing and rith … rith … how to count!’
‘But … you know your alphabet and you can write your name,’ John grasped desperately. This was one of those things the Marines hadn’t taught him. Mary…
‘I told her that,’ Dean said. ‘Mommy…’ His voice broke off and he went back to swinging something hypnotically back and forth over Sammy’s face.
‘I spy with my little eye something beginning with A.’
‘Dean?’
Dean refused to look up again. ‘I told her I didn’t need school and neither did Sammy. I can teach him!’ He said stubbornly then smiled encouragingly at his brother. ‘Come on, Sammy. What can you spy with your little eye?’
John squatted down next to them and helplessly scrubbed his hand through his hair before sighing. ‘Dean? Maybe we should wait till after his first birthday, okay?’
‘No,’ Dean said simply. ‘Sammy’s hungry now.’ He took another huge bite out of his apple.
‘Dean! Don’t even think about it!’ John said sternly, after a startled glance at the empty formula bottle lying discarded on the couch next to his sons.
‘What?’ Dean mumbled innocently through a mouthful of masticated apple. He was hovering a little too closely over Sammy’s eagerly open mouth.
‘God help me!’ John moaned as he swept a suddenly bawling Sammy out of range.
Sam couldn’t pinpoint exactly when Bobby Singer became their surrogate father.
The grumpy hunter was as much their father’s opposite as Jim Murphy was. But they all had three things in common, their battle scars from Vietnam, their lives as hunters, and their love for Dean and Sam.
Sometimes Sam felt he’d smother under the weight of all that combined love and expectations. Dean’s should have made things worse, but strangely, his annoying older brother kept him centred most of the time.
Even Sam wasn’t emo enough to tell Dean that. Dean’s head was big enough already.
When Sam was young Dean used to tell him stories about how they first met Bobby; reminded him of the mischief two unsupervised boys could get up to in one salvage yard. Over the years those tales grew to mammoth proportions. Dean undoubtedly exaggerated for comic effect, especially when he was drunk, though the one about nitroglycerin was, unfortunately, based on fact and they both had the scars to prove it.
The first memory that Sam could be sure was his own, not his brother’s, was a whole lot less exciting than Dean’s stories. That alone was enough to reinforce it as truth.
The two of them were outside, he must have been all of three or four, it was summer and the afternoon sun was reflecting off a broken windscreen into his eyes no matter how he tried to dodge it, and Dean was trying to show him how to play ball.
He was hot and dirty, he couldn’t really see and he kept missing the ball until Dean finally patiently rolled it gently along the ground until it collided and rebounded from the piece of wood Sam had tiredly let fall against his feet.
‘Yes! He hits and scores! Run, Sammy!’
And he was running in a circle in the dust to the sound of his brother’s cheers as a larger audience arrived to shout him on to victory. Dad was raising him so very high, and Uncle Bobby was clapping his over-sized cap onto Sammy’s head as a prize now that ‘You’re a proper baseball player,’ and Dean was muttering peevishly that with Sammy it had been more like a game of cricket.
‘Baseball, Sammy! Baseball! Only girls play cricket.’
‘Bobby?’ Sammy queried confused, trying to shove the cap up off his nose to look down at Dean.
‘Baseball, not Bobby.’
‘Bobby!’
And that was it; Sammy spent the following months, while Dean tried to explain the difference-and get him to keep the bat up-proudly wearing his ‘Bobby,’ and their Uncle Bobby spent that time hiding from Sammy.
Maybe it was then.
Latin was hard, and he was bored. But he needed to learn this, along with everything else he could find out from Bobby’s unsteady towers of books. He couldn’t be like Dean-Dad’s perfect soldier-who got it all right; shooting, fighting, and hunting. This, he could do. It was the one thing he could do to help.
Sammy sighed and pushed the book away. He could see Dean outside, happily hunched under the hood of Dad’s car with a wrench in one hand and a grease-stained automotive manual in the other. He certainly looked like he at least was having fun.
‘Why don’t you just take the book outside, Sammy? Best way to learn any damn thing is to practice it. You can read it to Dean, that way you both get to learn something useful, and I don’t get a crick in my neck watching you both pop up and down every five minutes to check on each other. Ya idjuts!’
Maybe it was then.
Long years later he stood there, battered and bleeding, beside the wreck of Dean’s car desperately arguing for what part of him felt was its, and more importantly, his brother’s salvation, and Bobby just gave in. Beyond all sense or reason. For Sam. For Dean.
Maybe it was then?
Sam never did pinpoint exactly when Bobby Singer became family.
Dean could have told him.
Dean had only himself to blame when they arrived at the Spring St. Kindergarten. Standing there beside the desk in Sammy’s first classroom he really should have known what would happen.
‘What’s your name, sweetie?’
‘Sammy.’
‘Sammy what?’
‘Go on, Sammy,’ Dean hissed quietly ignoring the chuckles from the teacher whose ears were obviously too big. ‘Remember? We practiced this one. Sammy …’ He knew his lips were shaping themselves into a fish-like W but he couldn’t help it.
‘Sammy …’
‘Almost there, Sammy.’
‘Sammy bang-bang!’ Sammy announced proudly to his new teacher.
‘Dean?’
Dean didn’t look up as his father’s hand fell hard onto his shoulder.
‘Like the rifle,’ he muttered as Sammy threw himself happily around both their legs.
Positively the last time he ever tried to teach his brother anything.
‘Dirigible,’ Sam whispered to himself. ‘The explosion of the dirigible The Hindenburg is famous for…’
‘What the fuck?’
Sam ignored him. Dirigisme. Economic planning and control by the state. Dirigisme is a characteristic of socialist law. ‘Dirigisme,’ he made the mistake of repeating aloud.
‘Diriwhat?’
‘Shut up, Dean! I’m trying to concentrate!’ Sam hissed. He would have thought the fact that he was hanging over the foot of the bed at 2 am with his torch skimming across sheaves of carefully highlighted paper would have given it away.
‘On what?’ Dean asked warily as he sat up in bed. He squinted at the floor. ‘Please tell me that’s a copy of Playboy. I don’t even care if it’s my Playboy. Is it my Playboy? Because if that’s the March issue you better not have…’
‘Very funny, Dean. No, your porn is safe, right where you left it under your gun-cleaning kit in the second drawer.’
Dean sighed. ‘You’re going to make me get up aren’t you?’
‘No! Just go back to sleep, Dean.’ Please let him go back to sleep. Sam didn’t need his brother finding out about this. He’d never live it down. He knew he should have snuck out to the car to study.
‘Yeah, right. Like that’s going to happen.’
Dean heaved a sigh as he got out of bed and padded across the bare boards towards him.
‘Ow! What was that for?’
Dean whacked him up the back of the head again. ‘Move over, bitch.’
Fucker. Sam wriggled sideways to make space for his brother. Not quite enough it turned out when Dean landed half on top of him. ‘Geroff, Dean!’
‘Told you to move,’ Dean grumped as he rolled to the left and settled in comfortably next to Sam.
He peered down at the floor for a minute before holding out his hand. ‘Scalpel, Nurse Betty.’
Sam groaned and passed over the torch. Totally screwed.
‘Sammy? Why am I looking at words? Lots of words?’ Dean sounded puzzled and disappointed. He’d reached down and was pawing through the papers. ‘Rhodopsin? Internecion? Exponentiation? Patroons?’
I hate my life.
‘Ienteredinthestatespellingbee,’ Sam rushed out as fast as he could.
‘Hmm. Long word. Don’t think I see that one down here, Sammy. Want to back up and try it again? S.L.O.W.E.R.’
Bastard knew exactly what he’d said.
‘Spelling bee,’ Sam said miserably. ‘State-wide competition.’
I hate my brother.
‘Damn,’ Dean said, pointing to the word ‘flixweed’ which Sam had circled in pink the previous night. ‘And here I was hoping you were just doing drugs.’
‘Like you and Dad wouldn’t kill me if I looked at even a cigarette.’
‘Good point,’ Dean admitted. ‘When?’
‘When what?’ Sam asked, confused. ‘When am I going to commit suicide by taking up smoking?’
Dean bopped him none too gently on the arm with the torch.
I really hate my life.
‘When is the competition?’
Oh. ‘Three weeks from Tuesday.’
‘Three weeks.’ Dean frowned.
Shit.
‘So, are the coloured ones the words you have or haven’t learned, Sammy?’
‘Have,’ Sam muttered.
‘Son of a bitch!’ Dean swore as looked at what Sam still had left to learn.
He held out his hand again silently, raised an eyebrow at Sam who blinked in astonishment before grinning and handing over the highlighter.
‘Right. Ff…Ffrigeeyan? P.H.R.Y.G.I.A.N. Phrygian. In Rome the Phrygian cap was worn…’
Sam liked the floor best. It was flat; he could spread his stuff out forever, or at least until he ran into a wall or the leg of a bed. None of the places they’d ever lived in had come equipped with anything student friendly like a desk. The floor also beat the kitchen table by a long shot. He loved the floor. It was quiet, it was all his, and best of all it didn’t interrupt him.
‘Fuck! What now?’ Dean was peering cautiously through the half open door of their room. Judging by the way his fingers suddenly clenched around the doorframe, he was very close to running away screaming, ‘Textbooks!’ in a high girly voice. Either that or he was about to pull out a shotgun and kill Sam for disgracing the family by taking Nerd as his middle name.
‘You’re not seriously going to spend the rest of your life studying, are you, Sammy?
Sam stuck a pen in his mouth and bent back over his homework before he said something irretrievably honest like, ‘Fuck yeah! You got a problem with that?’ Maybe he needed a bigger pen.
It was a relief when his brother took the hint and left.
He told himself it was a shock when Dean came back ten minutes later loaded up with Cheetos, a giant bottle of 7-Up, a packet of Gummi worms, and plate full of his current favourites-peanut butter, mustard and baloney sandwiches of doorstop proportions. Judging from the amount of food he’d prepared, he was obviously prepared to withstand a long siege. There was more food than even Dean could eat in one sitting.
‘Close your eyes, hold out your hand and make a wish, Sammy.’
Huh? Sam couldn’t see a weapon or anything immediately harmful. But with Dean seeing was never everything.
‘Saaam.’
Sam decided to go with it for a minute. Besides, he was getting better at fighting back, and Dean was presently disadvantaged by all that food. Sam might just be able to take him, or kick him hard enough to get away if Dean really did intend an all-out tickle attack, as he was prone to occasionally. Big brothers were evil.
He tensed for action as he closed his eyes.
‘Hand!’
Sam prayed that tickling was all Dean had in mind. He had a lot of study to do that night, and this invasion wasn’t helping.
Something weirdly heavy, spongy, and disturbingly malleable was slapped on top of his outstretched hand.
‘There!’
Sam opened his eyes cautiously; he hoped it wasn’t anything really gross or recently dead.
It was worse. It was one of the sandwiches, and curled up on top of it in an S shape was one of the worms. Sammy had the feeling it was watching him.
As was Dean. Grinning smugly at him from his position cross-legged in front of him.
Oh God. One of Dean’s specials, and Sam was going to have to eat it.
‘So,’ Dean mumbled through the disgusting layers of his own sandwich. ‘What the Hell I am going to be teaching you tonight?’
‘This picture means you will use your ruler. This means that you will use your protractor,’ Dean sang. ‘Who the fuck writes these things?’
‘Dude, they have multiple choice! Even if you didn’t study you’d probably end up getting a lot of them right anyway.’
‘Dean? So not helping.’
‘Cindy made ¾ of the baskets she attempted in a basketball game. Which other ratio is equivalent to the number of baskets Cindy made? Do you suppose Cindy was hot?’
‘Dean!’
‘Uh. A. Six twelfths. B…’
‘Chemistry? Excellent! Chemistry is awesome, Sammy. Do you know what you can do with just a few drops of…?’
Dean had a certain talent for chemicals. The more flammable the better.
‘You just had to choose drama, didn’t you?’ Dean huffed with irritation.
‘You don’t have to help me with everything, Dean.’
‘Huh!’ Dean snorted. ‘Like I’m gonna let you flunk out of a pussy class like theatre.’
He tossed the script across at Sam, ‘Who is this Beckett guy anyway? Whatever happened to Shakespeare and that skull thing?’
Some explanations were better left unsaid. Sam was getting better at knowing when not to answer his brother.
‘Okay, according to this “you should use gestures, facial expressions, and body movements to fully realize your character. You should also choose blocking that will reveal your character and the conflict in your scene.” Why didn’t you tell me we needed to get blocks ahead of time, Sammy? Are we talking wood, or concrete?’
‘In pre-industrial New York, yearly agricultural activities were organized mainly around.
A. major patriotic holidays
B. celebrations of peace and war
C. cycles of work and rest
D. periods determined by nature.’
‘When will that ever be useful, Sammy? Sam? Why are you making that face? Is that your thinking face? Because you look constipated. Come on, I’m getting bored here. A, B, C, or D? I’d vote for A, cos-holidays!’
Dean snuck a surreptitious look at the answer sheet. ‘Uh, but then again…’
Sam stuck his fingers in his ears and started humming the Battle Hymn of the Republic. Loudly.
Looking back years later, Sam realised that Dean had known exactly where this was going well before he did.
Dean never did learn to stop helping Sam, regardless of the consequences.
When Sam started to study for his LSAT’s in Palo Alto he didn’t ask Jess to help him run the practice questions.
‘Duh.’
‘D.'
‘Duh duh duh.’
No luck. Back to the beginning.
‘D … A … D… Dad.’
‘D … duh … A … ah … D … duh.’
‘Dee!’
‘He got it, Dad.’ Dean cried dragging Sammy over to the bed where their father was doing his best to sleep through the lesson.
‘Go on, Sammy. Do it again. Say Dad.’
‘Dee!’ Sammy chirped, diving back into Dean’s arms with a giggle.
‘Yeah, he got it,’ John said quietly, ruffling both boys’ hair. ‘Good work.’
One of the many things Sam envied about his brother was his knack for anything mechanical. Except that when you knew Dean at all, you realized that what he had wasn’t just the one ability; it was three diametrically opposed yet interlinked talents.
He could destroy just about anything within minutes. Give him some tools and you could cut that figure in half. Sam liked to think of him as a modern day berserker. Point him at a machine and say ‘Go’ and he’d happily break it down into its component parts. Sam wouldn’t have been surprised if Dean had been able to name the model, serial number and date of manufacture of every bit of equipment he’d touched since the age of five. Maybe four.
It took Sam a while to realize that his brother viewed the things their family fought in a similar way. He analyzed and memorized their strengths, and weaknesses with a single-minded dedication that Sam had never been able to replicate no matter how hard he tried, before moving in for the kill.
Dean could put anything back together again-without any of those irritating small nuts and bolts left over that never seemed to fit anywhere-and it always ended up working better than it had before.
Toasters, phones, alarm systems, cars, you name it, he could rebuild it for you. While Sam was at Stanford he realised he could have made a fortune if he’d had Dean there to hire out to all the incoming students struggling to assemble their new lives one Ikea piece at a time.
When they used to watch The Bionic Man on television, Dean would get an interested gleam in his eyes. Sam was glad that was science fiction because the idea of his big brother getting his hands on that sort of technology scared him. He didn’t want to wake up one day to find that Dean had helpfully rebuilt him.
The final talent was the one Sam had usually tended to dismiss out of hand until those last few months.
Dean made things. He created them out of scavenged pieces of junk. When he couldn’t find a part he needed he made that too. His gadgets didn’t necessarily look sleek or pretty, but they always worked exactly the way Dean wanted them to.
Sometimes he made things they needed, and couldn’t afford to buy in places where they couldn’t take the risk of using fake credit. Other times he simply seemed to make things for the pure creative Hell of it. Things they could have bought off the shelf quicker and cheaper than the time it took Dean to patiently manufacture one virtually from scratch.
Sam never did learn what those stupid gadgets meant to his brother until it was too late and he watched his careless words kill the innocent child-like joy in Dean’s eyes.
When Sam was younger, and still thought Dean hung the moon, he’d had this silly mixed up image of Dean as a combination of Merlin and Arthur, both magically creating a sword for a future hero, and then drawing that sword in turn for the battle to come.
Deep down Sam never forgot that dream.
There probably hasn’t ever been a politician that hasn’t trumpeted “family values” as something they held sacred. The family is always held up as this mythic concept; some weirdly perfect shining light.
You weren’t supposed to admit that your family could fuck you over better than a complete stranger.
You meet someone; you have the choice about letting them into your life. And if you’re careful you get to control the degree.
The thing about families is that they’re there whether you like it or not. Forget the enemy sending a Trojan Horse in, your family is already within your defences, and they know every single thing about you. For good, and bad.
You think they won’t use that against you even if they love you?
Of course they will. Survival of the fittest if you want to get it on with Darwin. Growing up is all about learning how to adapt to and manipulate your environment.
Sam, who’s never been any less selfish than the average kid-possibly more so a lot of the time-grew up learning exactly how to use his older brother’s love to his own advantage. He might have been born with what Dean called ‘those damned puppy-dog eyes,’ but even he needed a lot of practice to hone that useful needy ‘save me’ look until it could cut through Dean Winchester’s walls like a laser through emo butter.
He knew that Dean would do anything for him. He knew all of Dean’s weaknesses, which button to press when and where, like Dean knew his. Dean never really used his knowledge the way most brothers would. Sam had it and he abused it. He was only (mostly) human, and a little brother after all.
Sam grew up with Dean buffering him against everything. They might have lived hard and poor most of the time, but if Sam had ever really wanted something badly enough, Dean saw to it that he got it.
Sam wanted to go home from school via the local public library every weekday? Dean swore, and carried his book bag.
When Sam got a yen to play soccer instead of practicing his archery. Dean was the one that stood up to Dad in the argument that followed. And he somehow managed to spend enough hours at the pool hall to buy Sam a second-hand uniform, and footwear that almost fit off Rodney Stone’s Mom. He also saw to it that Sam learnt how to damn well put an arrow where it needed to go regardless of Sam’s bitching. Dean might be a marshmallow when it came to Sam, but even he had his limits. One of those was keeping the peace between Sam and Dad.
And when Sam didn’t want to suffer the humiliation of the Prom, it was Dean who ‘accidentally’ introduced Sam to Liz Foster (little sister to the person described by Dean as the hottest chick in the whole damned county), and nudged things along unsubtly enough ahead of time that Sam not only went to the Prom with the second-hottest chick around, but Dean came up with a rented tux, flowers, and the money to cover the entire evening.
If, in the end, Liz-Bitch!-ended up making out with fucking Michael Jansen after too many (but not enough to ever get forgiven for) glasses of punch, well, that wasn’t Dean’s fault. Which he kept reminding Sam during the maudlin, drunken hours that followed.
Dean also stayed conscious long enough to break up with Karen Foster, and get them both home just inside Dad’s curfew.
He also held Sam while he puked up his stomach lining into the toilet thirty minutes later.
While Dad concentrated on his quest for vengeance. Dean concentrated on raising his brother.
For most of his life Sam was guilty of taking everything that Dean offered, and shutting his conscience to what his brother was giving up in the process.
It wasn’t till much later, and too late, that Sam realized what he’d done to Dean during those years. And the even greater harm his absence at Stanford had caused.
Family has only ever meant one person to Sam.
He was going to spend the rest of his life proving that to Dean if he was given the chance. If not? Well, he’d said it once and he meant it.
You’re my brother, and I’d die for you.
Sam had always felt a little like a ghost. Drifting through school after school, town after town, sometimes without even the benefit of having his own name outside of his family.
He always thought that ghosts were just like them. Kind of lost, and invisible, with no real home. That made him sad.
Dad never would let them have pets because they were moving all the time. So, Sammy had it all worked out. A ghost would be even better than a puppy! A ghost could come with them, and talk to him, and he could be its friend.
Ghosts weren’t like puppies at all. They didn’t come when you called. You couldn’t take them for walks. They didn’t bark and lick you when they were happy.
Ghosts weren’t like people either. Sometimes you could see right through them. Sometimes they really were invisible but they were still there, and could do things. And sometimes … BANG! They were right there in front of you.
Ghosts could hurt you.
Sammy didn’t like ghosts at all.
He was crouched inside the front door of the haunted house that really was haunted, and Dean was huddled around him. Hiding him. Making sure the ghost couldn’t get to him.
And the ghost was hurting Dean.
Sammy could feel his brother flinch every time something hit him.
And Dad was roaring and yelling somewhere close and … WHOOSH! There was fire and the ghost was screaming and burning, and Dean was dragging him outside, and Dad was hugging them both and yelling even harder.
Sammy wished he’d never teased Dean about his first poltergeist. That had been mean. Dean had screamed.
Sammy felt like screaming now, but he couldn’t because it was all over and he was a Winchester.
But ghosts were scary!
Sammy wondered if tomorrow was a good time to talk to Dad about puppies again.
Dean once told Sam that they’d first gone trick or treating when ‘you were still at that nasty, squirmy, grub stage.’
Sam just hit his brother because it should have been obvious to the passing village idiot that was Dean; that even as a baby Sam had been bright enough to know that he didn’t like Halloween.
‘Dean? Did you ever stop to think that I was squirming to get away?’
Winchesters looked at the world a little differently to most people.
Life? Death? Festivals and stupid perky commercial holidays? They all had a dark side.
Sometimes it sucked to be a Winchester.
Holidays were things other families did. His classmates went on Easter Egg hunts, sat on Santa’s knee, exchanged candy valentines that said ‘Will you be mine?’ and ate whole turkeys with their entire extended families-how weird was that?
Halloween was merely the oddest custom normal people had.
Kids dressed up as fairies, elves, ghosts, and Frankenstein’s monster.
They stuck sharp objects into harmless pumpkins, then disemboweled them, and carved smiles in the skin, and they weren’t even trying to practice their knife skills.
Their parents draped fake cobwebs and rubber spiders everywhere, then hired smoke machines to make it look authentically gothic.
And let’s not forget the fake blood-ketchup, Ribena, whatever. They used gallons of it, and paid for it.
The only thing that Sammy ever understood about Halloween was candy. Dean had always been very clear about the advantages of free candy.
Girls getting dressed up in pink and wings? Sammy almost got that. Though Dean laughed himself sick when Sammy tried to explain his theory. He also called Sammy ‘My Little Barbie™’ for the rest of the week and kept grabbing him and feeling his shoulder blades for ‘any unusual growths.’
Pretending to be something out of a nightmare? That made no sense to Sammy.
Particularly after he found out that monsters were real.
However, the year that Sammy knew for sure that he hated Halloween came long before then.
‘Come on, Sammy. It’ll be sweet. I’ve got it all worked out. We can score big time!’
Dean even had a map of the neighbourhood that he’d ripped out of a road atlas at the library. He’d carefully circled the houses he thought were the best targets and had arrows pointing out the fastest route between each one. He’d obviously spent days working on his master plan.
‘Dad’s away. The old bat Mrs. Masters is as pissed as a newt already. No one will ever know, Sammy.’
Sammy had his doubts. Dad always knew everything. Even more than Dean did. Sammy wasn’t sure how Dad did it, but he wouldn’t have put it past him to plant spies in the surrounding houses.
‘Sammy?’
‘Buuut.’ Dad.
‘Candy, Sammy. Lots of candy.’
Okay. Sammy did like candy. And even though Dean did his best, sometimes even he couldn’t steal enough to keep two sweet-toothed Winchesters happy all the time. Candy.
What could it hurt?
‘Okay?’
‘Awesome! Here’s a sheet. I already cut holes in it for you. You go get changed and don’t forget to put a hoodie and thick socks on. It’s cold out there.’
Sometimes Dean sounded just like other kid’s mothers, which was kind of strange, but Sammy was used to that. Luckily he didn’t look like any of the mothers Sammy had ever seen waiting outside school for the other kids.
Dean was grinning, and bouncing up and down at the thought of a world of candy out there just waiting for them. He looked more like one of those jiggly-headed dolls people stuck on the dashboards of cars than a Mom.
‘Run, Sammy. You’ve got five minutes. I’ll be out here waiting, and I’ve got Dad’s stopwatch. Go!’
Sammy ran. Candy!
When Sammy raced back into the kitchen it was to find his brother’s body lying crumpled on the tiles, a huge carving knife sticking out of his chest, blood everywhere, and large footprints leading out the open back door into the darkness.
‘Aaaaaaaaagggggggggggghhhhhhh!’
It isn’t real. It isn’t real. It isn’t real. Please don’t be real.
‘Deeean? Oh God, Dean. Don’t die. Please don’t be dea…’
Dean’s eyes sprang open joyously. ‘Pretty cool, huh, Sammy?’
‘Sammy? Come back here!’
‘I’m sorry, Sammy. Let me in. I didn’t mean to scare you.’
‘Sammy? Please?’
Sam has always hated Halloween, almost as much as he hates his brother.
Sammy loved drawing. They gave you paper, and there were pencils, and crayons, and paints, and so many colours. Red for noses and smiles and blood, and white which was no good at all on the paper even for clouds so that was just silly, and blue for the sky, yellow for the sun and girls’ hair, and green for the grass-three different greens so if you wanted you could do grass and trees, and he didn’t know what else but he was saving that for something special. There were colours he didn’t even know the names of! One began with an M and it had a g too. It was kind of a dirty red. Then there was this one with a really long name. U… Ul… it was really, really blue and…
Miss Stuart clapped her hands loudly. ‘Okay, everyone! Have you got your paper and crayons?’
Everyone nodded and said, ‘Yes, Miss Stuart.’
Sammy sat up straight and nodded harder than anyone else.
‘Now, we’re all going to draw a special picture to hang on the walls, aren’t we?’
‘Yes, Miss Stuart!’
‘Why are we drawing special pictures?’
Sammy raised his hand really high.
‘Andrea?’
Hmpf.
‘We’re open!’ Andrea shouted excitedly.
‘That’s right, Andrea. It’s our Open Day. And all your parents are coming to see what you’ve done. So today I want you all to draw your very best pictures of your homes to make your parents proud.’
Sammy bit his lip and hunched protectively over his paper. He wasn’t going to let Andrea see what he was doing until it was up on the wall. His was going to be the best.
‘Sammy? What’s wrong?’
Dean stomped into the classroom the next morning, dragging Sammy with him.
‘Which is Andrea’s?’
Sammy pointed at the one that had pride of place and a blue crepe ribbon stapled to it. It was a stupid picture of her stupid, stupid house.
‘Samuel? What? Dean WINCHESTER! What are you doing?’
Dean ignored Miss Stuart, and Sammy just hung onto Dean and didn’t let go.
‘Stop that, right this instant!’
Dean ripped Angela’s dumb picture from the wall, pulled Sammy’s from his backpack, and pinned it carefully in place before he stuck the First Prize ribbon onto the bottom right corner.
Sammy grinned. There it was, his drawing of Dad’s car, with Dad at the wheel, a beaming Dean in the passenger seat, and Sammy in the middle. It was perfect.
Dean glared at the teacher as he walked out the door with Sammy in tow.
‘Sammy got it right.’
Part 2