"Dean, why can't you just let me go on a hunt on my own?!" Sam yelled at his brother, throwing his things into a duffel bag.
"Because, we can finish off a hunt twice as fast when we work together." Dean argued, packing his own bag.
"No, you won't let me hunt on my own because you think I can't handle it." Sam argued back.
Dean shook his head, throwing the keys to the Impala to his brother. He followed him out to the car, throwing his bag on the backseat beside Sam's before climbing into the passenger seat. He leant back, closing his eyes. Without calling for it a memory slammed to the front of his mind.
Sam eight months, Dean age four
Sam woke crying, waking Dean. The young boy was beside the baby in an instant. With the touch of Dean's hand on Sam's chest the baby quieted.
"Dean, hurry up and check on your brother. Feed him or something." John spoke harshly from the table, flicking through books. He failed to notice that his eldest had already gone to his brother.
Dean bent close to Sam. "Don't worry Sammy, I got you. I'll take care of you." He kissed the baby's forehead before changing his nappy.
Sam could take care of himself, Dean knew this. But for as long as he could remember he had been watching over Sam, his guardian. He made no conscious decision to watch out for Sam, he never had. It just happened.
xxx
"Dean, we have no family! We're alone in this world. No one knows about us. No one will miss us!" Sam hissed angrily at his brother. Not seeing the pain he caused. He remembered only the bad times. Dean remembered the times when they were alone.
Sam age three, Dean age seven
"Dean? Why don't we have a mommy? Everyone else has a mommy, why don't we, Dean?" Sam's sad voice asked when Dean walked into the motel room.
"Well, buddy, someone took our mommy away from us. She didn't want to go but they made her. She loved you so much, Sammy, you know that…right?" Dean answered, sitting on one of the two beds and pulling his little brother into a hug.
"Yeah…"
Alone? They were never alone, they had each other. Maybe no one would be there to remember them, but they would remember each other wherever their souls ended up.
xxx
Sam looked up at Dean from where he sat at the bar. "They never liked me at college. I never quite fit in, no matter how normal I acted." Dean glanced over the empty glasses sitting in front of his brother; he was drunk.
Sam age five, Dean age nine
"What if they don't like me, Dean? What if they're mean?" Sam asked, trying to tie his shoes. It was his first day in preschool. His first day with any child other than Dean.
Dean squatted down in front of his little brother, tying his laces. "They'll like you Sammy. And if they don't I'll have a word or two."
"But I'm not normal. I'm not like them." Sam argued. Dean picked up his bag, checking that he had packed the kid's lunch and books.
"Sammy, you aren't like them. You aren't normal. You are my little brother and the smartest person I know. If they give you grief, just remember that most of them can't read." He smiled down at him, handing the bag over. "You got your pentagram?" Sam nodded. "Don't let the teachers see. They don't understand it."
Of course he never fit in; he was a Winchester. There was no chance he could have passed as normal, he wasn't. Normal people couldn't like him because deep down they feared him. Sensed how dangerous he could be.
xxx
"You always get me in trouble with the authorities, Dean." Sam argued, staring out the window of the Impala. Dean had just talked Sam out of trouble with the police.
Sam age seven, Dean age eleven
Dean walked into the classroom, glancing around for his brother. Sam nodded slightly, afraid to draw the teacher's attention. Dean approached the woman, outwardly calm.
"What's Sam in trouble for?" he asked her, his chin held high. He was proud of his little brother no matter what they said.
"He's too far ahead in his work. I told them to read one chapter and Sam finished the entire book." She was almost yelling at Dean now.
"Well, maybe you should reward a kid who's interested instead of knocking him down? What's it matter if he's ahead? Give him another book that isn't planned in. He'll read anything you give him until the rest of the class is up to the next book." Dean answered.
"That's not the point. I specifically told him-"
"To learn. He likes to read. He learns when he reads. Aren't teachers supposed to encourage kids who show initiative?" Dean cut her off. "Come on, Sammy, we're going to talk to the headmaster."
Was he always getting his little brother into trouble or was he just always there in time to pull him out of it? Had Sam confused Dean's always saving him with the idea of Dean always starting it?
xxx
Dean shook his head, trying to clear the fog. The guy who stood in front of him was big enough to be a champion weight lifter. Sam always chose the worst guys to offend.
He copped a beating but the guy was eventually unconscious and Sam was leading Dean out of the bar.
"Honestly, Dean, you've got to stop getting in fights." Sam's incredulous voice wormed its way through the fog.
Sam age eight, Dean age twelve
Dean walked into the headmaster's office, his head held high. His knuckles were bruised and scraped, he'd been fighting. Sam was sitting in the corner, his nose bloody.
"Dean Winchester. Six children have to see the nurse because you took matters into your own hands." The headmaster's voice was unsteady with anger.
"Well maybe if a teacher would stop six kids from ganging up on my brother I wouldn't have taken matters into my own hands." Dean argued back. He felt Sam looking at him and threw him a smile. Everything was okay between them.
"You should have gone for a teacher instead of beating up someone else." The headmaster glared at Dean.
Dean raised his eyebrows. "And leave them kicking the crap out of Sam? They've been bullying him for weeks. I told every teacher, even you. No one did a thing. I beat them up. How many kids do you think are going to touch Sam now?" he glared at the headmaster. "Come on Sammy, we'll get you some ice for that nose."
Stop getting into fights? How could he not fight the people who tried to pick on his little brother? That was never going to happen.
xxx
Sam frowned at Dean across the café table. "Dean, why did you keep the truth from me for so long? Why didn't you tell me?"
Sam age nine, Dean age thirteen
"Dean, why did Dad give me a gun for the monster?" Sam's scared voice woke Dean. John was out hunting.
"To make you feel safe, Sammy. Don't worry; you won't have to use it. Every time we go to a new place, first thing I do is check for monsters. Chase 'em away if they're there. There has never been a monster under any bed you've slept in Sammy." Dean answered.
Sam rolled onto his back, looking at the ceiling. Dean said there was no monster, he checked. So…there was no monster. Dean wouldn't lie about that.
Why had he kept the truth from Sam? All he'd wanted to do was let the kid continue to sleep without nightmares for that little bit longer. To protect him for another moment.
xxx
Sam age twelve, Dean age sixteen
Sam threw his bag onto his bed, stomping into the bathroom. Dean glanced over his shoulder, curious. He picked up a chocolate bar he had bought for himself and followed his little brother. "Hungry Sammy?" he threw the chocolate to Sam who smiled at him gratefully.
"Dean I've got all this homework I need to do and Dad told me to clean the guns tonight. I'm in deep no matter what I do…" he frowned at himself in the mirror.
"Aren't you lucky that you have a big brother who has no homework? You kick back, eat your chocolate and do your homework. I'll have the guns clean before Dad gets back and he won't know the difference." Dean walked out of the bathroom and put the guns over Sam's bed. Better to make it look like Sam had done the work.
The next morning on assembly. "Dean Winchester, come up here please?" the headmaster said, reading a note Dean's teacher had handed to him.
Dean walked to the front, ignoring all of the kids laughing at him. What did they matter, they'd be in the past again in a week or so.
"You have homework due in today for several different classes, do you not?" the headmaster spoke into the microphone.
Dean nodded. "Yeah, it's light reading for the teachers today. Sorry, had to watch this really cool movie that was on TV." His voice carried across the entire area. They couldn't shame him.
"You have detention for the next week, Mr Winchester, and I hope you will learn your lesson." The headmaster dismissed him.
Sam visited him at his first detention. "Dean, you told me you didn't have homework. I could have figured something out…"
Dean grinned. "What kind of big brother would I be if I didn't show you how to get a detention every now and then?" he ruffled Sam's hair. "I had nothing planned for my lunch breaks anyway."
xxx
"Honestly Dean, don't you have a life of your own?" Sam asked, staring at his brother. Dean was standing in the middle of the five unconscious bodies lying on the ground. They had been trying to pick a fight with Sam.
Sam age fourteen, Dean age eighteen
"Aw, look, he's babysitting his little brother." A guy Dean's age laughed at Dean as he walked Sam into the library. "Probably his retarded little brother."
Dean waited until Sam was organized at a table before looking out of a window at the three guys. "Sammy, I need you to stay here for a minute, right?" Sam nodded absentmindedly, reading a new book.
He glanced out of the window a moment later to see Dean fighting all three guys. "NO ONE calls my brother retarded."
He came back in with a bruise rising on his cheek but otherwise unharmed. "Dean, you don't have to fight everyone who teases me, you know?"
Dean shrugged. "Sorry, brother, but I'm not going to stop. Teasing you is the worst thing they could do to set me off." He gave him a lopsided grin before going over to a picture book section.
Sam shook his head. Unless there were books on demons or Latin, ghosts or other evils, Dean wasn't interested in libraries but he came anyway. To mind Sam. And then he pretended that he was stupid, playing with toys or reading picture books. Sam remembered how much Dean had taught him before he got to school. He was so much smarter than he let on.
Sure, he had a life of his own. It was just a fact that that life was centred around his little brother. That in every moment of his own life he had protected Sam's.
xxx
Tears swelled up and overflowed in Sam's eyes. "Dad and I never got along, Dean, never. He never once was proud of me."
Sam age eighteen, Dean age twenty-two
"Dad, I'm going to college! You can't stop me from going, I'm eighteen!" Sam yelled at John.
"Fine, but if you go out that door, don't you ever walk back through it!" John yelled back, throwing an already packed bag at Sam.
Dean glanced between his father and his brother. "Guys, calm down for a minute. Come on, think." But they were through, Sam marched out the door and John went back to his beer and TV. "Don't even think about taking him anywhere, Dean. He made his choice."
Dean walked into the cool air and saw Sam standing on the footpath, unsure of what to do now. He had heard John yelling at Dean and was surprised to find his brother there. "You need a lift, Sammy? I'll drive you all the way if you want." His voice was soft, gentle. He didn't want to see his baby brother leave. Not at all, especially not like this.
"Bus station, please." Sam got into the passenger seat of the impala.
They were silent for the fifteen minute drive to the bus station. As Sam was about to get out of the car Dean caught the sleeve of his jacket. "Sammy, you ever need anything you ring me, right? I don't care what Dad says, I'll come from across the country if you need me. For anything. Money, hunting, anything."
"Thanks Dean…I'll see you…I guess." Dean let go of his jacket and he stepped out of the car.
John had never been proud of Sam, had never loved him quite right. What did that matter, though? Dean had always been there for him. Had always tried to help, no matter the cost to himself.