John Winchester locked gazes with his youngest. He gave Sam a glare that even a year ago would have cowed him like a kicked dog. But now... now Sam just squared himself toward his father and set his jaw.
"You want to say that to me again, Sam?" John closed the gap between them like a lion circling his pride.
At seventeen, his youngest was now actually taller than his father, a bit thin, with considerably boyish features, but still all muscle beneath his Carhartt jacket. Sam's brown hair was disheveled and he had dirt smudged down one cheek and mud drying down one side of his jacket where he had taken a spill in the grass. Sam narrowed his eyes, met his father's gaze with a mute challenge. John watched the muscles in his jaw jump. Dean backed off a step, looking from one to the other, sensing the impending confrontation. His discomfort palpable.
"I said I'm done. This is my last hunt. Next time you and Dean and can go salt-and-burn whatever you want but it won't be with me."
"You'll do whatever I tell you to do." John's tone brooked no room for argument. "Now go grab the rest of the gear."
"I hurt my leg. Go get it yourself."
John raised a dark eyebrow. "I said go get the gear." He was giving Sam a way out, being generous.
"I'll get it, Dad." Dean volunteered.
John shot him a dark glare. "Dean, stay out of this. I asked your brother to do it."
Dean looked abashed. "Yes, sir."
John's hazel eyes tracked back to Sam. "Do you want to reconsider your words before this goes somewhere you don't want it to, kid?"
Sam didn't waiver. "No."
John blinked, genuinely taken aback by Sam's subordination. "What did you just tell me?"
This time there was the slightest flinch in Sam's expression but he steeled his resolve. "I said... no."
John caught his son across the face with a backhanded slap. A "bitch slap" as Dean would have described it. It wasn't hard, probably barely stung, but Sam's head rocked sideways with the unexpected blow and he seemed stunned for a moment. Out of his peripheral vision John saw Dean start to instinctively take a step forward before he halted himself. Sam's eyes welled with tears briefly. He pushed them back down and then indignant anger rose to the surface.
"I have never wanted to be part of these hunts, Dad! I got hurt today. Dean almost got killed... and why? Because you're obsessed with catching something we've been chasing for sixteen years! My whole life. There is no point to this."
John grabbed Sam's collar and hauled him closer. "I am teaching you boys how to survive. I am giving you the skills no one taught me so that you are prepared when these things come for you."
Sam's brows knitted together. "Maybe they won't come for us if we don't go searching them out all the freaking time!"
"Maybe you should reconsider your tone before I kick your ass. I can still take you, Sam Winchester. I don't care how tall you've gotten." He gave Sam a small shake to emphasize this point. Sam dropped his gaze in submission. Finally. John released him and Sam took a step back. His youngest was stubborn. Sullen. Recalcitrant in a way that Dean never was. John felt at an impasse in getting through to him. He doggedly refused to learn any of the lessons John tried to drill into them. Whereas Dean... well Dean learned them almost too well.
"I want out." Sam said petulantly.
"There is no out, son."
"Yes there is! Normal people don't live this way."
Dean's eyes moved to both of their faces. John was aware of how distressed his eldest became when Sam and his father locked horns. Dean was the mediator. Or he tried to be. His torn loyalties made him bounce back and forth in an argument like a ping pong ball. Instinctively protecting the losing party. Sam seemed oblivious to this, but then again at 17, he would be. He only noticed when Dean tried to defend his father, taking Dean's gentle verbal support as a betrayal.
"We are not normal people."
Sam snorted. "No kidding." It seemed that there might be a lull in the conflict until Sam started again. "It doesn't have to be this way. We could be normal. You choose to live this way. You choose for me and Dean to be put in danger night after night. To have no friends, no stability. To jump schools every three weeks. You chose is this, Dad, not me. "
Dean inhaled audibly. His eyes chased to evaluate John's expression. John stood stunned for a moment. His instincts warring. He wanted to be furious at Sam's impudence. Part of him was. But he also heard the pain behind the words. "Son," he said softly. He shook his head and ran a hand over the stubble on his face. "It can't be that way. I wish that it could but it can't. There's so much you don't know. Don't understand."
"Yeah," Sam snapped back. "Because you don't tell us! You don't tell us anything!"
John felt his anger rising again. "Mind your tone," he said warningly.
Sam, as was typical of him these days, ignored the warning. "We're just supposed to do everything you say like we're in the freaking military."
"Every order I give you two is for your protection. You need to trust my judgment so that I can keep you safe."
Sam turned away. "Oh yeah. You've done a freaking bang up job of that so far."
John was on Sam in the blink of an eye. He grabbed Sam's arm, twisted it behind is back in a wrist lock and slammed him against the wall.
"Dad!" Dean cried.
John placed his face close to his younger son's ear. "You wanna reconsider that statement?"
He watched the muscles in Sam's upper lip twitch. His son gritted his teeth and remained silent.
"Answer me." John put a slight bit of pressure on the hold and Sam hissed, his body rising onto it's toes of it's own accord.
Sam's voice was a low growl of pain and anger. "This is for my protection, huh?"
John instinctively tightened his grip. Sam let out a pained cry and squinted his eyes closed.
"Dad stop!" Dean's voice. He ignored it.
"You're unbelievable you know that? Unbelievable. I have no words." John leaned closer. "What do you I have to do to get through to you, Sam?"
"I don't know...maybe abuse me some more?" Sam's voice was tight. "That always works."
John's mouth gaped open. "Really, Sam?" He let his grip slacken a little and felt Sam's body relax under him in response. John had to shut his eyes against the sudden swell of tears. No one could wound him with quite the ease of Sammy. "That's really what you think of me?"
Sam huffed a laugh and rolled his eyes to look at his father. "Do you even see the irony of this situation?" He said, cheek still pressed against the wall.
John paused. He did, suddenly. He released his grip and Sam turned around to face him, shaking his arm to get the feeling back.
John shook his head. "I don't know what to do with you, Sammy."
His youngster's gaze was fierce. "My name is Sam."
John let it slide, put his hands on his hips. "Everything I do is because I love you boys."
"Oh my god! Are you serious?"
"I'm trying to raise you to be able to protect yourself. To be strong. To be adaptable. To be independent." He paused, evaluated the young man before him. "Maybe I taught that one too well." Sam was still watching him with angry resolve. Dean was off to the side with such a look of pained agony that John felt tears prick the corners of his eyes again.
"There's a war out there Sammy. I want you two boys to be ready. You need to have discipline. You need to have morals. You need..."
"I need to be my own freaking person!"
John closed his eyes wearily. "You need to listen to your father." He said in measured tones.
"I am so out of here the minute I turn eighteen," Sam replied.
"Until then you are my child under my roof."
"What fucking roof?" Sam looked up at the cracked motel room ceiling.
John's hands found Sam's jacket in a flash and suddenly Dean was between them. "Dad! No!" He begged "No." The green eyes were desperate, pleading. "Both of you." Dean stepped between them, prying John's hands off of Sam's collar. "Stop. Just stop."
He met John's gaze again. "Please, Dad. Sammy's hurt. He's not thinking straight."
"I'm thinking very clearly." Sam said behind him.
Dean whirled on him. "Shut up, Sam! Why can't you ever just stop?" His green eyes filled with unshed tears. "Leave Dad alone. Just stop."
"Sure, take his side."
"I'm not taking anyone's side! But you need to quit. Now."
Sam averted his eyes and his brown bangs flopped down to cover his expression. John sometimes swore his son used his hair as a shield from the world. Sam limped over to the farthest bed and sat down on the edge, shoulders hunched, hands between his knees, avoiding John's gaze. He looked a child suddenly. He was in a way. On the unnameable cusp between the kid and the adult.
Dean walked over and crouched down in front of him. He placed a gentle hand on Sammy's knee and talked to him lowly. John couldn't hear the whispered conversation. He saw Dean's earnest expression, the kindness shining out of those handsome features. He was such a good man. Clever, obedient, resourceful, compassionate. John felt the stirrings of pride. Sammy shook his head in response to something Dean said and John saw a tear course down his cheek. He scrubbed it away with his sleeve.
He saw Dean smile brightly as he cracked a joke and heard Sam's answering huff. They leaned closer to each other. So close that their foreheads were almost touching. Dean, still crouching, rocked back on his heels, Sam leaning forward from his spot on the bed.
John smiled and turned away, his jaw trembling. He was to the door before he heard Dean call "Dad, where are you going?"
"Be back soon, son," he said, sure not to let the emotion through to his voice. John left the two alone to recover like he always did.
I was originally intending this to be a one-shot, but I think there may be more to the story.