Throwing the key on the nightstand and his bag by the bed, Sam was ready to flop down on the too firm and lumpy mattress in their newest cheap motel room. The mustard yellow drapes and smell of mold would do little to quell what would be in store for him though if he tried to sleep. He'd only have another restless night, tossing and turning with dreams of their childhood scattered between memories of hunts.
He knew why. When Dean had dropped the necklace Sam had given him so long ago into the trash can, there was no doubt in his mind that it wasn't just because it didn't mean anything to Castiel anymore. After what they'd seen in heaven, the necklace didn't mean to Dean what it used to anymore either.
Just one more thing that somehow their father had managed to take from them. The only question Sam had was, why?
"What did he do, Dean?"
Dean squinted over at his little brother as he pulled a beer out of the cooler. "What did who do?" Dean looked up and gave a chuckle. "Hoodoo. Get it?" He popped the top and took a swig.
"Dean."
"What?" He held a bottle out to his brother, eyes and arms wide with faux innocence.
But Sam wouldn't have it. Falling into the rickety metal chair with a huff, he ran his fingers through his hair. There would always be things between him and Dean that would go unresolved, arguments that would never be decided, secrets that they would never reveal.
Sam refused to let this be one of those things.
"I'm not joking, Dean. I want to know what he did. Dad."
"When?"
"Flagstaff," Sam said. "When dad came home."
It had been two days since they'd returned from Heaven and quiet moments were hard to find. But the look Dean had given him when he'd seen in Sam's heaven the time he'd run away to Flagstaff, that look still haunted him. Darkness had filled his big brother's eyes. Darkness that came not from possession, but from anger and hurt. And betrayal.
"It was nothing," Dean said dismissively.
"It wasn't nothing," Sam said. The shadow that fell over his brother's face now proved that.
"Forget about it, Sammy." Dean's voice was an order. A warning. Filled with anger that Sam recognized all too well as trying to hide his pain.
"No." Sam wouldn't let him hide this time. It was too important. "What did he do?"
"You don't need to know."
"Why?" Sam stood up. "Because it might ruin my idyllic picture of the perfect father we had? Newsflash, Dean, you're the one who worshipped him, not me." He waited. And he was met with nothing but Dean's defensive silence. Sam had been dealing with it his whole life; the deafening silence hiding the trauma inside his brother, the shouts he drowned in drink and released through sex and battle, withheld from Sam with every fiber of his being. Even when Sam was able to shake from him a few words, the dam merely cracked, never broke.
"Dean," Sam said. "I saw how much it hurt you that Flagstaff was part of my heaven. And if it hurt you that much then I don't want it to be there. But for that, I need to understand why." Dean's silence continued. "You said something happened when Dad came home. What was it?"
He could see in Dean's face the wall starting to shake. Dean looked at him, eyes pleading to let it go. "Sam."
But Sam couldn't. "Dean, please." He needed to know.
The room filled with quiet, tension solid in the air. Their eyes met, searching for whatever the other one was trying to bury deep inside. Battling for whoever's needs were greater. The silence threatened to swallow them both, but just when Sam thought he'd have to live with one more secret between them, it broke. Surrendering, Dean dropped into a chair, his beer in his hand, his eyes staring at the mouth of the bottle, the liquor inside. Wishing he could drown in it. He poured some down his throat, then set it down. His gaze was a million miles away.
"We'd fought the night before you ran, you and me. I told you to shut up and go to bed when I couldn't take it anymore. Next morning, I woke up ready to forget about it. But you were gone." Dean pinched the bridge of his nose and took a breath. "I was terrified. Terrified that you had disappeared on my watch. Terrified that someone had taken you, that something had happened to you. But most of all, I was terrified that Dad would find out that you'd disappeared on my watch and he'd know it was my fault. So I searched, on my own, for a week, becoming more and more desperate, until finally I was desperate enough to seal my fate and call him."
The door slammed and Dean looked up from where he'd been sitting with his back against the headboard, knees curled to his chest protectively. His father cleared his throat and Dean uncurled, scrambling to his feet.
There were no pleasantries, there never were with John Winchester. Dean knew the interrogation would begin immediately.
"Tell me you have not been sitting on your ass this whole time," John barked.
"No, Sir," Dean answered. He lifted his chin. He wasn't a child, he was sixteen years old, and he'd been working non-stop trying to find his little brother. "I searched the whole town. Twice. The neighboring towns too. I guarantee he's not here. There hasn't been any activity either. No EMF, no sulfur-"
"You have one job, Dean!" His father's shouted. "Take care of your brother. Keep him safe. How am I supposed to trust you on a hunt if you can't even do that?"
Dean hung his head. His father was right, he couldn't deny it. "I'm sorry, Sir."
"Sorry isn't gonna find him, son. Sorry isn't gonna keep him safe, sorry isn't going to keep him alive!"
A shiver rushed through him, but it wasn't his father's anger that chilled his veins and took hold. It was the truth of his words.
He watched his father pace and pull his brother's belongings onto the empty bed. Dean had already been through them, he knew Sam had packed a bag. He waited for the realization to reach his father's eyes. The realization that Sam had gone on purpose, run away, too far for Dean to have found him on foot.
Finally, it did. "I'm going to find your brother," John said.
"I'm going with you." This was his fault, he would make it right.
"No you're not."
"I can help."
"And what happens if Sam comes back and there's no one here, you idiot?" Dean didn't say anything. John reached into his own duffle. He pulled out a handgun, a rifle, and a knife and threw them down on the motel table. "You are going to sit here, and you are going to clean these. And when you're done, you're gonna clean them again. Then you're going to make salt rounds, enough to fill all our guns five times over. And then…" His father went back to the bed, pulled out a book from Sam's bag and dropped it beside the weapons. "You're going to read this, cover to cover, so you understand every type of monster that could have taken your brother. And since you've proven I can't trust you." He grabbed a notebook and a pen and added them to Dean's pile. "You're going to copy every last word. So it's ingrained in your mind. Forever."
Dean looked at the table. His hand was going to hurt like hell when he was done, his head most likely too, but he couldn't say he didn't deserve it and he knew that it could have been much worse.
And then he heard the clink of his father's belt buckle.
"Hands on the table, Dean."
Dean's eyes opened wide and he took an unconscious step backwards. "Dad, no." His hands flew up to ward him off. But it did nothing to stop his father and the swish of the belt pulled from its loops echoed in his ears. "Dad, please."
"If you think that I am going to let you sit here without the constant reminder of the pain your brother could be going through right now because of your neglect, then you've got another thing coming."
"Dad-"
"Get your hands on the table," John ordered. "Now."
If there was one thing Dean knew how to do right, it was follow his father's orders. Walking as though he was fighting through quick sand, he went silently to the small round table, turned around and gripped the metal edges.
It wasn't the first time and Dean wouldn't fool himself that it would be the last. He deserved it. He never should have fought with Sammy the night before. He never should have let his little brother out of his sight. And now God only knew what had happened to him.
The belt came down across his backside, over and over, sixteen times for letting his brother out of his sight and sixteen times for not calling his father immediately. But it wasn't the searing pain of the lash that brought tears to his eyes. It was the disappointment, the fear. It was knowing that he'd failed his father, failed his little brother. So he kept his mouth shut and squeezed his eyes against the tears, and he let every stripe be a promise that if his brother just made it home safe, he would never let it happen again.
Sam listened in silence, his eyes never straying from his brother. He felt sick. He'd thought he'd experienced every punishment his father could think of; double cleaning the weapons, copying hundreds of pages, running the extra miles, sparring extra hard. He'd resented his father for all of it. But now he knew he'd gotten off easy. Dean hadn't.
"Dad shouldn't have done that," Sam said softly.
"Yes." Dean's voice was low, still finding its way out of the memory. "Yes, he should have."
But Sam knew his brother was wrong. "No. It was my fault. I'm the one that ran away."
"I shouldn't have fought with you Sammy and I shouldn't have let you go. You were twelve."
"You couldn't have done anything to stop me. We always fight, Dean, that had nothing to do with it. I was determined to get out, to get away. I would have found a way no matter what you did."
"Yeah, well…" Dean cleared his throat and stood up, taking a long swig of his beer. "Doesn't matter now."
"Dad punished you for my mistakes, Dean. That matters."
Dean just shrugged. "Wasn't the first time, Sammy, and it wouldn't be the last."
"What?" Sam froze. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. "I never saw Dad touch you, not like that."
"You weren't meant to see it, Sam. He only did it when you were in school, or the shower, or waiting in the car."
"Go wait in the car, Sam. Go take a shower, Sam. Dean's gonna stay home today. Your brother and I need to talk."
He remembered it, clear as day. He'd always been upset to be sent away alone. Jealous that Dean got to talk to his Dad like a grownup when he was just treated like a kid. He'd been so stupid. "I didn't know."
Dean shook his head. "I thought after Dad had picked you up in Flagstaff, that he must have…" He emptied his bottle and grabbed another one from the cooler. "But he didn't. He didn't do a damn thing to you for running away. Sure as hell wouldn't have been in your greatest hits if he had."
Sam couldn't deny that. And he could understand the betrayal that had flashed in Dean's eyes up in heaven. The realization that not only had he been punished for something Sam had done, but that Sam had been let go scot free. It wasn't right.
He couldn't turn back time and not run and he couldn't go back and change the way his father had treated either one of them. But he could make this right, and maybe understand Dean better at the same time.
Sam unbuckled his belt and stripped it off. He doubled it over, then held it out for Dean.
His brother stared at him like he was out of his mind. "What the hell are you doing, Sam? Put that thing back on."
"No."
"Yes," Dean said, swiping it from him.
And now that it was in Dean's hand, Sam stepped away.
Dean looked down at the belt in his hand. And then back up at Sam. "And what the hell do you expect me to do with this?"
"Use it." Sam lifted his chin high, swallowing down his nerves. "Give me what Dad gave you. What I deserved."
Dean's mouth nearly dangled open. "This is insane. You are insane, you know that, right? That was half a lifetime ago and I am not your father."
"No," Sam agreed. "You're my big brother, and I ran away under your watch."
"I'm not gonna beat your ass, Sam."
"Why? You have no trouble punching me in the face every time I piss you off."
Dean couldn't argue that. "I just-"
"Look, Dean. You can pretend that nothing hurts and that everything Dad did was right. But he wasn't right to punish you for what I had done and it wasn't right that I never knew you took a belt for me all the time, and it wasn't right that I never knew what it felt like. Those first two I can't fix. But the last one I can."
"This is crazy," Dean said. Sam just shrugged. Dean stared at him. "You're an idiot asking for this. You know that right?"
Maybe he was. Maybe he wasn't. But he was determined to find out. "Don't hold back Dean. Do it for real. I want what you got."
Sam turned to the table. The cheap green plastic that stared back at him was the same as had been in every other crappy motel they'd stayed at throughout their childhood. He closed his eyes. He wondered how many times as a kid Dean had looked down at a table just like this one, his father looming over him, belt in his hand. As he leaned over and gripped the edges, he wondered how much it must have hurt, knowing at the time that Sam would never find himself in the same position. Knowing that he would always be the one to take the pain for both of them.
"You really want me to do this?" Dean asked, but the question had lost its steam. Sam was waiting in position. "Fine. I'm not giving you sixteen each, you were only twelve. So twelve for slipping out on me. And twelve for not calling to say you were okay."
"Whatever you say."
He stood there, waiting. The anticipation of the first strike sent butterflies to his stomach in a way he didn't understand. He'd been punched, and sliced, and beaten, and bruised, and even killed over the years but this was something entirely different. For Dean too, he imagined. He feared that his brother would chicken out and he almost turned around when the wait seemed to be forever, but then there was a whistle, and a crack, and a stripe of fire that erupted across his ass.
Sucking in a breath, squeezing his eyes shut, Sam breathed through it but another was close behind. His knuckles quickly turned white gripping the table and suddenly Sam understood. The real punishment wasn't in the pain, he and Dean had taken so much more before, even back then. The punishment was in the humiliation of not fighting back. Of standing there, ass in the air, head hanging in the shame of taking each blow, knowing he deserved it, that he'd deserved it for a long time now. Knowing how much it hurt his brother to be doing this.
When the twelfth blow was over, he heard Dean shuffle behind him. "Sammy?" Dean asked. Sam could almost feel the anguish through the gruffness of his voice.
"Keep going," Sam told him.
"Sam-"
"Keep going, I said!"
The next stripe caught him hard, on the underside, where he'd feel it each time he sat down. He imagined being sixteen, his father wailing on him, not knowing where his brother was, knowing only that he'd be sitting on that pain until his father brought his brother home. Thinking he deserved it but knowing that Sam had deserved it far more.
Twelve stripes later, Sam heard the belt buckle crack against the floor as Dean threw it down and he slowly stood up, his head spinning from staying in the position so long. He turned, his eyes glancing at the leather sprawled on the linoleum like a snake before he looked up at his brother. Dean stood with his back to him, arms folded across his chest.
"Dean-"
"Don't."
Sam nodded, wiping his eyes of tears he hadn't even realized he'd shed. His skin burned. He was still trying to wrap his head around the fact that Dean had suffered through this, who knew how many times. He couldn't imagine being a father and…
"If you ever had a kid, do you think you would-"
"I did have a kid, Sammy. I had you. And I never did."
"Dad wouldn't have let you touch a hair on my head."
"Dad never would have known if I had."
Sam thought about it. "No, I suppose not." He'd never known about Dean and their dad was gone far more than he was there. "I'm sorry. That I got you in trouble."
Dean turned around at that and Sam was grateful to see the hurt washed from his eyes. "You were just a kid, Sammy. I would have done anything for you."
"Would have?" Sam smirked, leaning back against the wall. "Not anymore?"
"Well I just whipped your ass for you, so I'm gonna say that answers that question."
"More than going to hell for me?"
"Let's just say I don't want to do either of those things ever again." Dean raised a brow. "Capiche?"
Sam laughed and nodded his head. "Capiche." He took a step toward his brother. "Thank you."
"Don't you dare-" Dean tried, but Sam swept him up in a hug before he could finish. He felt Dean stiffen at first, then melt into it. "You're an idiot, you know that right."
"Yeah," Sam said. "Yeah, I know."