Fathers and Heroes

Dean

"Dean, come here son."

"Yeah Dad?"

"We need to talk about Sam."

"Are we gonna keep him?"

John laughed. You'd think they were talking about a stray puppy the way the boy's eyes sparkled at the prospect. "You'd like that?"

Dean nodded enthusiastically. "I always wanted a little brother. I'll help take care of him."

"You don't have to do that."

"I know. But I want to. It'll be fun."

"Fun," John asked, his eyebrow cocked. He wondered if Dean would try to mimic the expression. The way the boy tried to copy his mannerisms was more than a little flattering. Not to mention amusing. Sure enough, Dean's eyebrow raised in a mirroring gesture. John wasn't sure that he was the kind of guy anybody would want a twelve year old to emulate, but seeing Dean trying to be like him filled John with an emotion that he couldn't describe. This, he thought to himself, must be what father's feel like when they see themselves in their sons.

"Yeah. I mean he will be my brother, right? Like you're my Dad now?"

"Yeah, Dean-o. Exactly like that."

"Awesome. Mom told me that it was a big brother's job to take care of his baby brother once."

John smiled and patted Dean on the shoulder. "I guess that's true. You watch out for Sam and I'll watch out for you both. How's that?"

"Good, Dad." Dean looked up at him, with bright eyes and a toothy grin that John was sure would be the undoing of a lot of women one day.

"There's somethin' else. Sammy's had a hard time of it. We have to be extra patient with him 'till he gets used to bein' safe."

"Was his first Daddy a bad man too? Like… like mine?" Dean looked away, his voice soft, hesitant.

"Yeah. He was a very bad man. Not in the same way as yours, but he was just as bad in his own way."

He looked back up, his eyes shining with pride, his voice still hushed with what John realized was reverence. He wanted to bolt, tell Dean he had the wrong guy. John Winchester might be a lot of things, but a guy who deserved that kind of awe, that kind of hero worship, wasn't one of them. "And you saved him." It wasn't a question. The boy wrapped his arms around John's neck and held on tight. "Just like you saved me."

Sam

Sam sat on the bed that Bobby had gotten for Dean. The older man hadn't said anything, but he couldn't fool John. He was wrapped around Dean's little finger every bit as much as John was. While John got the spare room whenever he was in town, Dean got his own room, with his own bed, that as far as John could tell no one else ever used. Until now. John slowly advanced towards the skittish boy, a bowl of stew held out in front of him like an offering.

"Where am I," the boy asked, his eyes darting around the room as if a monster would pop out and devour him at any moment.

"You're safe," John offered, trying to sound as reassuring as possible. Not that he was a very reassuring presence. He knew he scared most adults, he had no idea how he wouldn't scare a kid who'd spent so much of his life being afraid already. He felt Dean behind him, peering into the room from the doorway.

"My Dad will be mad that I left."

"I told you… he asked me to take you with me. He's not well."

The boy seemed to be working his way into some sort of fit. "He'll hurt me if he knew I left the closet."

"Sam… listen to me… do you remember what your father was like a year ago?" John watched the boy start to think about his question, chewing his bottom lip John had learned a lot from his extensive 'conversation' with the boy's father.

"He was nice… before he found out I was bad."

"Sometimes people get sick… not like a cold or the flu, but we get sick in our minds. And when that happens, people think things that aren't true. Do you understand what that means?"

Sam stared at him for a long minute. He could almost hear the gears turning in the boy's head. "No."

John laughed a little. He'd finally made it to the bed and sat down on the far edge of it. "It means that sick people sometimes think that other people are bad when they're really good. Or they think that people did things they didn't do. Or they forget how to love the people they should. Your daddy got sick like that, Sam. That's why he started hurting you. He started believing things that weren't true. That's why I talked to him, and why he let me take you with me."

Sam looked down at the bedspread underneath him. "My Daddy doesn't love me anymore?"

That just about did John in. The kid had been beaten, starved and locked in a closet, and he was asking if being sent away meant his father didn't love him. That was just a hundred different kinds of fucked up. Dean, who always seemed to know what John was feeling even before he did, was suddenly there, sitting next him. "That's not… that's not necessarily true. Sometimes when we can't take care of someone we love, the best way to love them is to let someone else take care of them."

"Will he come back for me when he gets better?"

"No, son. It's harder to get better when your mind is sick then when your body is sick. You're going to live with me and Dean. I'm adopting you. That means you're my son now and Dean is your brother. We won't let anything bad happen to you ever again. Right Dean?"

Dean leaned forward so he could look the boy in the eye. "Right Dad." Dean took the bowl from my hands and held it out to Sam. "We brought you food."

John

"So what the hell are ya gonna do for an encore? Pick up a woman who's bein' abused by her husband?"

"You know," John teased, "that's not a half bad idea. Boys need a mother." He nodded towards the stairs. He'd left the boys upstairs watching cartoons. Sam seemed a little less skittish, but that really wasn't saying much.

Bobby rolled his eyes. "Probably do it too, damn ijit."

"When Mary was pregnant the first time, we went to this fair just outside of town. He smiled at the memory. "She loved ferris wheels. Only thing she ever wanted to ride most of the time. There was a local psychic there. Missouri somethin'… Moss or… Mosely. That's it. Missouri Mosely. Mary talked me into going to see her at this booth she had."

After a moment or two of silence, Bobby glared at the other man. "Well, you gonna tell me what she said, or you just strollin' down memory lane for the fun of it?"

"She said I'd raise two sons. That I'd have to protect them from evil. At the time, I thought it was just a bunch of theatrical horseshit. Then when Mary was murdered by the damn shifter I thought I'd failed. Two sons, both gone before they even had a chance. For six years I thought I'd failed them. I tortured myself tryin' to figure out what the hell I coulda done different."

"That why you saved those two boys?"

"No. I didn't even think she might have meant them until just now. Dean said I'd saved them both and it just all came back to me."

"So… you suppose she was talkin' about savin' 'em from their no account fathers?"

"Don't think so. Dean's father was hunting the werewolf that took the boy's mother. How he could hold the wife so dear and abuse her son is beyond me but somehow the bastard managed it. Thing was after Dean… maybe that's what flipped Master's switch. Who the hell knows? I sure as hell don't care. But Dean's special in ways that I don't think are obvious. Then there's the younger boy. How special he is might as well be written right on his forehead. Something killed Sam's mother too. Whatever it was is still out there. I kind of have a feeling that it's still out there, and it's a danger to the boy."

"You and your feelings."

"Ain't ever been wrong yet."