Strange Bedfellows
"Dad."
John rolls over, tugging his pillow with him. Light shines through the thin, ratty curtains hanging over the window and for once, John wonders how much a better room might've cost.
"Dad, get up.", Sam whispers again.
John groans as small hands push at his pillow shield and the couch creaks as a small body climbs up to join him. Suddenly, the pillow is ripped from his hands and Sams face is near inches from his, looking frustrated and vaguely frightened.
"Dean is acting weird. You have to go make him stop."
John quickly sobers and sits up, holding back a moan as two things pop and another creaks warningly. "Weird how? 'Possession' weird or-"
"Scary weird." Sam whispers, voice shaking in silent fear.
John nods stoically, grabbing the gun from the kitchen table and sliding noiselessly to his feet. As he creeps across the living room, hand held out to prevent Sam from speeding off on his own, as he was wont to do, Sam whispers, "You-you're not gonna hurt him...right?"
John looks down at Sam, then back to his sons shared room. "If it is him." he says to himself.
Before Sam can say respond, John kicks open the door and levels his gun at Deans bed. Dean doesn't even flinch, eyes glued to Sams bed.
"Dean?"
Dean leaned forward a bit, head tilting as if intrigued by something. He whispered quickly and too softly for John to hear, but behind him Sam whimpered and clung to his legs. John took a step forward.
"Son, are you-"
Dean whipped around, head turning so fast-too fast-and a smile, clinically cold, grew.
"I'm hungry, Daddy. What's for breakfast?"
John shut the door tightly behind him, leaning on it for support as he locked both locks. He rested his head on the cheap, painted wood but didn't dare shut his eyes. Not after what he'd just seen.
He shivered at the memory and let his "work bag" slide off his shoulder and to the floor. The shouts of the dying shapeshifter echoed in the silence of the hotel room. He checked his watch; 2:15. School wouldn't let out for another hour and a half.
John rubbed at his eyes, willing the images burned into them away. His skin felt slimy and wrong, watching his own face twist and contort in the flames. A shower, he decided, that's what he needs. And maybe a beer too.
As he passed the bedroom, though, he couldn't help but feel that same, uneasy chill from earlier. He sighed, telling himself he was being paranoid, as he stepped into the room and sat heavily on Deans bed. There was nothing here. He'd cleared the room as soon as he'd gotten the keys to it, had checked every nook and cranny, had put salt onto the window seal and painted traps on the floors under the beds. This room was safer than fifty percent of America, and yet...
John shook his head and stood up again, resting a hand on the metal rails of the rusty old bed. It was probably just the job. He was letting it all get to his head again. A nice bath and he'd be calmed down enough to go pick up Sam and Dean.
He drowned the feeling of eyes watching him with another beer.
In the car, Sam told John all about his day. Apparently, it was career day at the primary. All the students had a big assembly in the cafeteria and "special guests" (mostly parent volunteers) came up, one by one, to talk about the "exciting" world of dentistry or construction. Sam said he wanted to be a marine biologist, giving him reason after reason on why it was "the best job ever, Dad!"
When asked about his day, Dean only said that they had a substitute teacher in class today. Except, that's not how he worded it. He said, "Ms. Graves went missing today. We had recess inside."
The next day, the police called his alias. Another body had been found.
"And you'll never believe where we found her!"
John hated research with a fiery passion. Had this been any other hunt, he would've called up Bobby or Caleb and had one of them do it. But Caleb was deep in strigoi territory down in Transylvania and Bobby was laid up in a hospital puking blood, last he heard; so he was basically on his own.
So, even though he was way out of his depth and nearly drowning in Arabic lingo, he managed to stay at least half awake well into midnight. By two o' clock, he thought he had what he was looking for. Marking it with a yellow highlighter and two bookmarks just in case, he packed up his books and loaded his bag so he'd be ready to go by seven.
He paused as he started to dig the blankets and pillows out though, turning to look at the bedroom. It was stupid, he knew, and maybe a little obsessive, but he had to know they were alright. He just had to check.
John leaned against the doorway, smiling warmly at the twin forms resting peacefully, separately. He swallowed a chuckle as he remembered how angry Dean had been when John had initially refused to get him his own bed.
"I'm not a baby anymore, Dad!"
It's always Dad with those two, never Daddy or Papa. It almost made him sad to see other kids racing to their parents after school, shouting, "Daddy! Mama!", and then see his own sons walking side by side, heads down and whispering like some two-person cult of secrets. Sometimes, they didn't even look at him.
Today, though, had been different. Sam had been waiting at the door, letting other kids knock his shoulders or push past him, and never taking his eyes off the main hall.
"What're you doin', son?" John had asked, only to be met with a worried glance and silence. "Why don't you go wait in the car while I go get your brother, okay?"
Sam had only nodded and walked sullenly to the car, looking back every few seconds as if Dean would suddenly appear next to John. It had been odd, to say the least. After all, Sam was never that easy, always so stubborn and loyal. In a lot of ways, he reminded John of Mary.
After another minute or so of waiting, he'd walked into the school and started searching the classrooms, asking the teachers if they'd seen Dean. Eventually, he'd found the kid outside, on the playground, just standing there.
"Dean?! Son, what in Sam Hell are you doin' out here?"
"I'm looking for Ms. Graves, Daddy."
John had paused at that. It was the second time today Dean had called him 'Daddy' instead of 'Dad' (and he'd do it again at dinner). He laughed it off, though.
"Oh yeah? And didja find 'er?"
Dean had just given that same, emotionless grin. It was a grin John saw everyday in the mirror but he'd never, ever seen it on Dean. And the weirdness hadn't stopped there. In fact, now that he was really thinking about it, it seemed like Dean had been acting weird all day-all week, really. Ever since they arrived in Winston, Ohio, Dean had been acting odd.
John rubbed his eyes and sighed, deciding he'd wake the boys up early and have a 'talk' over breakfast. It'd be hard, driving all the way to Churchill on only four hours of sleep, but he'd done worse on less. He'd get by. They always did.
"Dad."
John spun around, looking back into the room. It was too dark to see anything, but a ruffle of covers proved that the voice he had heard was real.
"Sam?" he called out, taking a step into the room. "Dea-"
"Shh!" someone whispered and as he got farther in, a hand grabbed his, tugging him down with surprising force. "You'll wake it up!"
As Johns eyes slowly adjusted to the dark, he could make out Sam, tiny fist wrapped tightly around his wrist. He wasn't looking at John, though, but behind him. At Dean. He looked terrified. It was a look John hadn't seen in a long time.
"Who, Dean?" John whispered, looking back at his other son. "Sam, get up off the floor and back into bed. We've got an early morning ahead of us and-"
"It's not Dean, Dad."
And for one solid gold moment, time slowed down and sound died in his ears. Sammy whimpered quietly and clung to him desperately, but the only thing he could hear was ten year old Dean, breathing lazily behind him. It was so natural, so peaceful...
Sam was shaking in his arms, tears streaming down his face as he hid in his fathers shirt. "I'm sorry, I didn't know...I-I was scared and Dean told me there was nothing there! He said so!"
Suddenly, John remembered something. He'd been so busy; how could he have noticed? "Sam, did you and Dean switch beds?"
"It was hiding under the bed." he whispered chillingly.
John stood up numbly, putting a hand out to keep Sam back. "Stay here."
"Don't wake it up!" Sam whispered. "It doesn't like being woken up..."
As John got closer to the bed, Dean turned in his sleep, whimpering as if he was having a bad dream-as if he dreamed. John clenched his fists and looked hard at his sons face, willing a flaw, a defect, anything but that small, relaxed smile he somehow managed to keep all these years. He was happy, he was young...
He was Johns son and he would do anything to keep him safe.
Suddenly, a hand grabbed his ankle and it was all John could do to keep absolutely silent. He grabbed the knife he kept tucked in his belt loop and crouched down. He followed the hand to a small boy with soft brown hair and green eyes.
Sam pointed a quivering finger behind him, at his bed. The covers shifted again.
"Daddy? Where's Sam?"
A/N: I feel like shapeshifters should've been much scarier than the show made them out to be. I mean, imagine if you spent months, maybe years with a person, then one day you woke up, staring yourself in the face and having every detail from that time repeated back to you. It's the perfect monster.
I got the idea for this from Pinterest:
I begin tucking him into bed and he tells me, "Daddy check for monsters under my bed." I look underneath for his amusement and see him, another him, under the bed, staring back at me quivering and whispering, "Daddy there's somebody on my bed." - justAnotherMuffledVo
-Cath