A/N: Uploading some stuff that's been on LJ but not here. This is an almost complete AU-verse, cause it goes AU before the title. Also it is not refined at all, so if it sucks, I'm sorry. I'll clean it up sometime later. The bunny wouldn't stop chewing until I'd got it out of my head.
Disclaimer: I wouldn't claim this piece of insanity as mine if I could, believe me. :P
The house sits on a corner in a quiet little subdivision just past the business district. There are yellow bricks and green shutters and it nearly makes Dean sick. There's no fence, but there's a neatly trimmed hedgerow blooming with pink and purple flowers around a stone pathway set with solar lights.
There's nearly no distinction on this block: all the houses have yellow bricks and green shutters, neat little rose bushes and SUVs in an array of colors. It blends.
He nearly gets back into the car and drives away.
Instead, he stands there a moment. Pulls out the napkin he scrawled the address on earlier that day and checks it again. No, this is the place. What did he expect, anyway? Sam's probably some big-shot lawyer by now, way past the ratty apartments and seedy hotels they used to live in.
Maybe it would have made more sense if there were a white picket fence. Maybe that would have been what stopped him. As it is, he just stands there, staring up at the dark windows.
He came by earlier, when the sun was blazing overhead in the middle of the California day, blue skies stretching as far as the mountains allowed. There was no car parked under the awning then, but a light was on in one of the upstairs windows. Sam doesn't live here alone.
That isn't what stings the most. It isn't the hulking black SUV glittering in the glow of the streetlights, isn't even the uniformity of the houses on the block, though that has to contribute somewhat. It's that despite the fact that they lived out of the back of a car when they were kids, that they jumped from town to town, criss-crossing across America chasing down the bad things, Sam blends.
Dean knows it's all wrong. Sam is as screwed up as he is, maybe more, but he's better at hiding it. Maybe that's what stings.
He should get on with it, if he's going to do it. He's not going to have the nerve to come back in the daylight (and he isn't sure Sam would answer the door if it was him on the other side, anyway). Not to mention this neighborhood of perfect houses, lawyers and doctors, probably has freaking neighborhood watch. Wouldn't that be awesome?
Sighing, he starts up the walk, sliding the lock-picking kit out of his pocket as he goes.
It's disappointing how fast the door springs open, but Dean doesn't waste time pondering it. He slips inside and closes it behind him, wincing at the snick of the latch as it shuts.
The bottom seal of the door dragged on the carpet as it opened, pulling back a corner of the small welcome mat sitting just inside. Obviously nobody ever told his brother that welcome mats were supposed to go outside. He frowns at it for a moment before he notices the unbroken white line. Grains of salt, arranged neatly in a small heaping barrier.
Something dangerously close to pride flares in Dean's gut.
He nudges the mat back over the salt with the toe of his boot and tries to focus on what he's got to do.
The house is dark, predictably enough. A small plug-in night light is on behind an armchair in one corner of what he assumes is the living room, casting the rest of the room into shadow but providing him with enough light to get by on. There's a hallway to the left, leading out of the living room, an archway that should lead to the kitchen just past where the hall begins.
It doesn't hit him until he's halfway across the living room: he's in Sam's house.
He's in the middle of this foreign revelation, wasting time he knows he shouldn't (but come on, he's in Sam's house. Nobody's gonna shoot him), when a floorboard creaks overhead. Just a soft creak, not enough pressure to belong to someone Sam-sized. Okay, that's weird.
The creaking approaches the hallway and starts down what Dean assumes are the stairs, across from the arch in the hallway. Whoever it is isn't taking the stairs too quickly, slowly hitting each one with a measured, cautious step.
Dean puts his back against the wall, around the corner from where he estimates the steps are. At the very least, he can avoid being noticed. He didn't really have a plan once he got in, which he's kicking himself for, but it's Sam. And true, functional relationships don't include breaking into your brother's house at three in the morning to tell him about your father who's gone missing on the trail of the demon that killed your mother, but hey. Considering the rest of their lives, this should qualify as normal.
The footsteps reach the bottom of the staircase and pause.
Crap.
A small head pokes around the corner, barely high enough to reach his thigh. He wishes he checked the address a third time, because what the hell? This can't be the right house.
The little girl's eyes sweep the room, big and glittering, scared. They're some color Dean can't make out in the dim light, but when they reach the place he's still glued to the wall, she lets out a high-pitched wailing sound that isn't quite a scream. It echoes in the silent house.
Shitshitshit. He kneels down, heart thudding out a broken rhythm against his ribs. There's nothing else to do. He could run, but the thought doesn't even cross his mind until there's already thudding footsteps upstairs, and her parents are awake. Freaking wonderful.
"Hey," he whispers to the little girl, "Hey, shh. It's okay, I'm not gonna hurt you."
She whimpers, eyes glistening with tears in addition to fear now, lower lip wibbling alarmingly.
This was so not the way he envisioned his night going.
A woman comes running down the stairs first, blonde hair whipping across her face as she grabs the girl (her daughter?)'s shoulders and drags her back into the shadows of the hallway, pushing her back behind her own body. The little girl grabs onto her leg and buries her face in her hip, whimpering and hiccupping.
"What do you want?" she croaks, voice thick with sleep and fear as she backs down the hallway slowly. He stands again, opens his mouth to reply that he doesn't want anything, that he… well, what was he going to say? 'I'm sorry, ma'am, I was looking for my brother, but obviously I broke into the wrong house'? Oh, yeah. That'd go over well. Before he can formulate a response that won't get the cops called on him (which, for the record, he was pretty much beyond anyway), a third figure comes down off the stairs and levels a shotgun at his chest.
And oh.
Not the wrong house.
What the hell? "Sammy?"
The barrel of the gun shakes incrementally. Suddenly, the hall light is on, and Dean blinks the superimposed darkness away before he can focus again on his brother, who's still holding the gun to his chest. Sam's eyes go wide and he finally lowers it, releases it entirely and it falls with a heavy thud onto the carpet.
"… Dean?"
The woman speaks up from behind Sam. "You know him?" He can't tell if it's indignant or just shocked, maybe a mixture of both. But his brother's still wide-eyed, standing there with his hands useless at his sides.
"I – yeah. Yeah, he's my brother."
"Dude, were you gonna shoot me?" It's the only thing he can think of, really, because this whole night's gone beyond screwed. At least he's not having the cops called on him.
Sam's eyes narrow. "What are you doing here?"
He wants to reiterate, wants to ask Sam the same question, because of all the lives Dean thought Sam would have? This doesn't even make the bottom of the list. It's so far out of the park that it totally floors him. He peers past his brother's form into the hallway, where the blonde still isn't relaxing her death-grip on her kid's shoulder, and the kid is still sniffling.
Dean kind of wants to know what the hell is going on.
"Can I, uh. Talk to you?" It's kind of not his place to be asking favors when Sam's probably just as floored as he is, but Jesus. It's a lot to process. He suddenly knows that he shouldn't have come here. He should have known that Sam would have his own life, his own little slice of the American dream, and he's wrong to ask this of him. He should leave now and go look for Dad on his own.
But something prevents him from turning on his heel and stalking back out the door. Now that he's here, he might as well know, right?
Sam bites his lip, indecisive. Dean isn't sure how much he's told the woman, but he knows he wouldn't want to let a kid in on this particular conversation.
"Yeah, all right." He starts across the living room, brushes past Dean and toward the front door. Dean offers the woman and the kid a smile that hopefully comes across as apologetic instead of creepy before following.
His brother's leaning against the back bumper of the SUV when he gets outside, arms crossed over his chest and eyes focused on some point in the neighbor's front yard.
Neither of them say anything for a while.
"Dean… why'd you come here?"
And now it's his turn to be indecisive. "I wanted to see you." It's not a lie, it's just not all of the truth either.
"Bullshit. It's been years."
And that ives him pause, because of course Sam doesn't know about the times he and Dad would drive up here on the way to whatever hunt they'd be pursuing, out of the way but always an unspoken pit stop. To check on him, just to see him on his way too and from classes to make sure he was still whole. Of course, the last time they'd actually been able to find him was three years ago, but that didn't stop them from coming. Or, at least, that didn't stop Dean from coming. Dad pretty much did his own thing these days.
"Yeah, well. It's not like you couldn't have picked up a phone."
Sam makes a little indignant noise at that but doesn't move.
"So, what's all this?" he continues, nodding toward the house and the people within.
"It's my house, Dean."
"Yeah, I pretty much got that. Who're they? And what are you, a doctor or something?"
Sam uncrosses his arms and braces himself against the bumper, casual now instead of standoffish. Dean isn't fooled.
"Lawyer," he mutters. "Well, not yet. I've got an apprenticeship that pays well and I'm still going to school."
Which still doesn't explain the woman and the kid, but it makes sense. Dean waits, joins Sam on the bumper.
"Jessica is…" he pauses, like he can't believe what he's going to say and can't find the words. "Jessica's my wife and Sarah's our daughter. We –" he wants to say something else, chokes off the words because he's not sure how Dean will take them. Probably something to do with their incredible, perfect life that has no monsters in the closet.
But for the first time since Sam told him he was leaving, that he had a scholarship to Stanford, Dean is speechless.
There are a million things he could say. He could chastise his brother for not calling, because he's pretty sure that having a kid is a huge thing. Getting married is a huge thing. And he's pretty sure that Sam knows that he'd want to know. He could congratulate Sam on his wonderful life, get back in the car and drive until he was out of California or ran out of gas, whichever happened first. He could tell his brother the gods-honest truth, that he hadn't heard from Dad in longer than was safe.
When he finally finds his voice, what he does say is none of these things. "They're beautiful," he breathes on the exhalation of a breath he didn't know he was holding.
Sam smiles, crooked and happy. "Yeah, I know."
There's another stretching silence, and he knows that Jessica and Sarah must be getting curious from inside the house. Something dark and unbidden inside him says that they can wait, because Sammy was his before he was theirs, and they've got the rest of forever with him. He's only got the next few moments, as long as he can stretch them. It's a lot like jealousy, and isn't that a screwed-up thought? He pushes it down and clears his throat.
"Nice house."
Sam finally lifts his eyes from the ground, looks straight at Dean and looks straight through him.
Ah, well. He always was a horrible liar, especially where Sam was concerned. "It's not important." And it wasn't, not anymore. He could do this on his own. In fact, he didn't know why he'd come here in the first place.
"Where's your car?"
"Around the block. I figured it didn't exactly fit in with the fancy soccer-mom cars." This earns him a snort. He tries to smile, really he does, but it feels like it's going to split his face in two.
"You could… you know. You could stay for a day or two." And this is where he draws the line. Yeah, he'd love to get to know Sam's family… but the part of his brother's life where Dean was important is obviously over; he's just the baggage left and he doesn't want Sam to feel obligated.
"Nah," he says, too quickly. Sam frowns. "I've got stuff to do. There's a harpy up in Oregon and--" he feels mean, slipping it in like this. It isn't fair. "—and I've got to go find Dad."
Sam's head snaps up faster then Dean thought possible, or healthy. He fixes him with one of his wide-eyed stares.
"Wait… what about Dad?"
Dean feels tired. "I haven't heard from him in about three weeks. He was on the trail of something big, I know. Maybe… maybe the thing that killed mom. I don't know." He eyes his brother as he divulges this information, because this is maybe veering into the territory of something Sam doesn't want to touch anymore and maybe he's being a little selfish mentioning it.
But Sam just sighs and crosses his arms again. "Where was he headed, do you know?"
"No, but there was a case in Jericho he said he wanted to check out before he left, but it'd have to wait. I'm gonna start there."
"Jericho's only… what, four hours from here?"
"Yeah." Dean doesn't even want to sound hopeful. He doesn't want to be blamed for pulling Sam away from his perfect life.
Sam's thinking for a long time, crossing and uncrossing his bare feet on the concrete of the drive. There's a light on in the living room now. He's going to have a lot to answer for when he finally gets back inside.
He sighs and starts back toward the house. "Come on. I want you to meet them." And this is so random that it makes Dean pause for a moment before following. Meeting Sam's new family is a little beyond anything he wants to be doing right now, but who knows? He can do it for Sammy.
Jessica is curled up in a huge armchair in a corner of the living room, holding Sarah. She's calmed down by now, one thumb disappeared into her mouth. She starts to shake a little when Dean comes back into the room.
"Jess… this is my brother, Dean."
She doesn't look amused. She doesn't even look happy to meet him. She looks tired and frazzled and slightly angry, like she still doesn't want him in her house after he obviously broke in and nearly scared her daughter to death. Dean deliberately doesn't step back from her gaze.
"Hello," she says, like she's struggling to be polite for Sam's sake. He smiles at her a little awkwardly, considering.
"We've got some stuff we've got to take care of down in Jericho… I'll be back in a few days, but it's kind of important."
And okay, he wasn't expecting that. He half wants to tell Sam no, don't worry about it. Stay with your family. But he doesn't, because it's been almost six years since he looked over in the passenger seat and saw his brother looking back, and that's six years too long.
Jessica's jaw tightens. "Oh." She says, tight, and Sam is so going to be in the doghouse when he gets back.
Dean deliberately looks away when they're saying their goodbyes, not wanting to intrude on the family atmosphere that he's obviously not part of, but Jessica throws her arms around him anyway.
"I don't know what you're doing," she says, soft, so only he can hear. "But you keep him safe." There's an unspoken threat underlying those words, but he suspected as much, so he nods. "And don't get yourself hurt, either," she adds. He figures that when they get back, maybe he will stay a few days.
Sarah waddles over, thumb still stuck in her mouth, and hugs Dean's leg.
~*~
In Jericho, California, they find a Woman-in-White and no sight of Dad past an old hotel room that's been long vacated but obviously not cleaned yet.
It's kind of odd, nostalgic, to have Sam with him on a case again. Without him, it would have taken him a lot longer to find out about Constance Welch. He's not the only one doing the footwork for once, and it feels good. It feels right, and it's scary.
They settle the spirit and get Dad's journal back, coordinates scrawled across one of the only blank pages in the back. Somewhere in Montana. Dean decides to look into it when he gets Sam back to Palo Alto. He won't drag his brother into this more than he already has.
"I hope you find him," Sam says as he climbs out of the Impala and onto the sidewalk in front of his perfect house. It's late again, and Dean won't stay now that he has a viable lead. It's too risky, and he doesn't want to miss Dad.
"Yeah, me too." He looks at Sam for a long time, and Sam looks back. He's still standing on the curb when Dean drives away, deliberately trying to avoid the rearview mirror. He knows he won't come back.
~*~
Halfway out of the subdivision, the radio spazzes, lights flickering and static the only sound. Dean turns the car around.
~*~
Fifteen minutes later, Sam's sitting on the hood of the car, watching firefighters put out the flames engulfing his perfect life.
The smoke hurts Sarah's eyes, gets into her throat and makes her cough. She buries her face against Dean's neck, breathing the smell of sweat and leather and smoke. She can't get away from it. She shakes against him, and he rests a hand on her back for lack of anything better to do.
Sam just stares, numb, as the last of the fire is put out and the firefighters go in to recover anything they can. Which means that they're going to pull Jessica's body out. Dean doesn't think seeing that is going to be particularly helpful to either of them, so he walks around and puts Sarah into the passenger seat. She wouldn't want to be in the back.
"C'mon," he mutters to his brother, pulling him up and pushing him bodily back toward the open door, the passenger seat. "We've got to get out of here."
Sam doesn't protest, doesn't respond, just curls himself into the car, holds Sarah as she crawls up into his lap and clings to him. He's on autopilot. Dean would be worried about that, only he's got about fifty different things on his mind right now and its imperative they get away from the house. One step at a time.
~*~
He drives until they're out of California, into the wilds of Nevada. Sarah fell asleep a long time ago, exhaustion setting in on her little body. She really didn't have a choice. Sam, however, is a different story.
When Dean finally pulls them over on the shoulder of some depopulated desert road, Sam's eyes are closed. He might be sleeping; he might be faking it so Dean won't worry. The sun came up a while ago, but he hasn't been keep track of time. He doesn't have the energy to worry about anything else.
He gets as comfortable as he can and tries to sleep, even though it's a long time before he actually gets there.
~*~
When he wakes up hours later it's dark again and there's a four-year old asleep in his lap. The smile hurts, but he smiles anyway, rests a hand on his niece's shoulder and listens to Sam's even breathing next to him.
They are so screwed.