Title: Never on Purpose
Author: neitherxnory
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2100
Warnings: some Dean whump, minors in peril, a few f-bombs, emotional abuse/neglect
Summary: Sammy has accidents all the time. Dean knows his brother would never hurt him on purpose.
Dean scrunched up his nose, not at all happy with the baby. He usually liked Sammy, even though he was too small to do anything cool like build a fort or steal cookies from Miss Kate. He liked Sammy even though he was loud and sometimes he cried all night until even Daddy noticed. But right now the baby smelled. He was really, really icky like the trash sometimes did after Daddy forgot to take it out and it spilled all over the kitchen floor. Dean knew why Sammy smelled bad: Mo…. someone had explained it to him.
"Did Sammy have an uh-oh, Mommy?"
"No, silly nilly! This is just how babies use the potty."
"All of them?"
"Yep."
"I never!"
"You did too! It's a baby thing, honeybunches."
"Nuhuh!"
And now, Sammy had apparently done that baby thing in his pants again. Which would be fine if it didn't smell so icky. Dean knew that when Sammy had an uh-oh one of the grownups would take Sammy and fix his pants and throw away the bad-smelling bits. But right now Miss Kate wasn't here and neither was Mister Mike, so the baby had had an uh-oh for a really long time. That meant Daddy was the only grownup in the house, and even though Dean wasn't supposed to "pester" him right now, Sammy really did smell so….
Daddy was sitting on the couch when Dean poked his head into the room, looking at the TV like it was playing something super cool, even though there was nothing on the screen. Mister Mike said that Daddy was thinking really hard when he did that, so Dean should let him alone. Dean tried really hard to be quiet as he snuck around to stand in front of the couch, and he made sure not to stand between Daddy and the TV. Just in case.
Carefully, Dean reached out and poked his father on the knee. And it worked this time: Daddy looked up at him and made a funny face.
"What's up, Deano?" he asked in his scratchy voice, looking like he was maybe trying to smile. "You hungry?" Dean shook his head, looking down at the yellow couch cushions and trying to just maybe find the words this time. Daddy didn't say anything for a while, like he was waiting for Dean to say something. But after a minute the older man sighed like Dean had run out of time.
"Why don't you go back to the living room, little man," he grumbled, running one really big hand through Dean's hair. "Daddy's going to…." Daddy stopped talking, like he couldn't find any words either. Dean looked up for just a second, grabbing a fist full of his father's jeans and tugging his leg towards Sammy. Daddy didn't get up, though. He sat and patted Dean's hand a couple of times, already staring at the blank screen again.
Dean shook his head and scurried out of the room as fast as he could. Daddy was the only grownup around to clean up Sammy's uh-oh. But Daddy was busy and Dean had watched… her do it millions of times. So maybe the baby wouldn't mind if Dean took care of him. Just until Daddy was ready again.
The nurse didn't look sleepy any more, like she had when Mrs. Duvall brought Dean into the school office. Instead she looked worried and maybe even angry. Which Dean totally didn't get. It wasn't like he had decided to wake up the dumpy old lady by barging into the nurse's office like a hurricane. That was all his teacher's fault.
"…Really bothers me," Mrs. Duvall was murmuring to the nurse. The two of them were standing in the far corner of the little room, like that would keep Dean from listening to them gossiping about him.
"There's only one reason that something like this would go untreated for this long, Sherry."
"You don't think…."
"A hospital wouldn't think twice, but a guardian with… violent tendencies wouldn't want to bring attention to something like this." Dean looked down at his hand, sitting on his lap under a totally useless bag of ice. He had had his accident last night, so there was zero point in icing the fingers now. He squished the sweating ice baggie with his good hand, nervous.
"How are you doing, honey?" The nurse asked, suddenly standing inches in front of where he was sitting. Dean flinched back a few inches, rucking up the paper underneath him.
"Sorry, dear. Let's see if that's helped any, ok?" She lifted the soggy bag off and away, and Dean got a good look at his messed-up right hand. The three middle fingers were big and purple, bruised more darkly than they had been last night.
"Ooh, those look like they hurt, darling." Dean frowned. Well, duh, lady. But they weren't crooked any more: Sammy had sat with him under the blankets last night and made sure he could wiggle them and everything. So, yeah, maybe they were broken and looked like crap. But totally not worth all this drama.
"Dean," Mrs. Duvall cut in from where she was watching the nurse prod at each finger, "What happened to your hand?" Dean didn't roll his eyes, but it was a close thing.
"I told you, it was an accident," he said quickly. He looked up at his teacher and would have smiled if the stupid nurse hadn't picked that second to try bending his ring finger.
"What kind of accident, Dean?" Man, this lady was not going to let this go, he thought miserably.
"I slammed my mmmmmgh… I slammed my hand in the car door." He grunted out, pulling his hand away from the psycho-nurse. "Last night. It was just a stupid accident." Mrs. Duvall looked to the nurse, who was trying to wrestle Dean's hand back from him.
"Would that…"
"Maybe if it was a very heavy door," the nurse frowned, looking skeptical. Dean jumped on that excuse.
"My dad's car is ancient: super heavy doors. I was excited to go out and I shut the door way too fast." He pasted on his very best teacher-pleasin', totally innocent smile.
"But why didn't your dad take you to the doctor, Dean?" Mrs. Duvall asked, still riding her high horse.
"Dude, I wasn't gonna tell my dad that I slammed my fingers in the door! I'm not a baby." Man, he was good. He could practically see the teacher's hackles going down.
"Oh, Dean. What are we going to do with you?" She asked, but it sounded more like an exasperated grownup thing than a gonna-call-social-services thing now. Dean smiled, tucking his purple hand under his good arm where psycho-nurse couldn't get at it.
"How about extra credit?" he asked, like his hand was nothing more than a cute attention-grabber.
Three hours later, with his hand taped tight and the nurse's note to Dad left in a trashcan back at school, Dean walked next to Sammy. The little bugger next to him was quieter than normal, which Dean was not ok with.
"Sammy, dude. Chill. I got it taken care of, easy-peasy." The kid giggled, stormy face brightening a bit.
"So we don't need to tell dad?" He asked, looking guiltily at Dean's still-purple fingers. His big brother smiled and tweaked Sammy's nose with his good hand.
"I'll tell him some kid slammed it in my classroom door. He'll buy, it no sweat."
"Dean…"
"Relax, Sammy," the bigger boy said, smiling and studiously not thinking about his baby brother angrily shoving the heavy car door closed on Dean's hand. Not thinking about spending five minutes curled on the Impala's back seat, watching Sammy's petrified face through the window and knowing Dad was gonna come back out if they weren't inside the motel soon. And then pulling himself up and shaking it off.
"Relax, Sammy. I know it was an accident."
"And now, Honeymoon sex!"
"Dude," Sam sniffed indignantly, "Not appropriate." Dean giggled.
"Allus wanted a lift across the thres… thur…"
"Threshold, Dean." Sam helpfully filled in. "Now hold still for like, twenty seconds while I find the key." Dean wriggled helpfully, but stopped when something in his stomach twinged.
"Owwww," he whined, trying to dig his arm out from between his side and Sammy's chest.
"Hold still, idiot," Sam snapped, finally locating the motel key and shoving it jerkily into the motel door. Dean smiled big, drawing his lips back over his teeth and snickering a little.
"Think my face fell off, Sammy. Can't feel it right now." Sam ignored him, muttering to himself.
"Just get your brother back in the room, Sammy. I'll go back to the site and finish her off, Sammy. He won't be any trouble, Sammy. Right, Dad, sure. No trouble at all." Dean smiled goofily.
"I'm always trouble!" He stated proudly as Sam finally jerked the door open with a forceful shove. The sudden movement tugged at the gash across Dean's stomach and he squirmed a little in Sam's arms.
"Just because I'm finally bigger than you doesn't mean I'm superman, Dean. If you don't hold still I'm gonna…" Sam stopped talking abruptly, and Dean's world bottomed out for a few seconds. Still smiling, Dean opened his eyes to see his little (bigger) brother's face, wide-eyed under his ridiculous haircut.
"..EAN! DEAN!" the big kid was shouting, hands twitching like they wanted to shake his brother. Or maybe pat him on the head. Dean giggled again.
"Dude, did you just drop me?"
"Oh, god, Dean! Are you…"
"Sammmmmy, she's such a bitch." Sam momentarily stopped freaking out long enough to look confused.
"Huh? Dean, did you hit your head when you fell?" Dean smiled.
"Karma, Sammy-boy. And didn't fall. You totally dropped me." He nodded, making the motel room and Sammy's head do a cool, flickering acid-trip spin.
"Dean! I…. I'm sorry! There was a towel on the floor and I didn't see it and you know I would never drop you on purpose and it was just an accident…." Dean cut off the rambling before it got even more pathetic.
"Sammy, stop it or I will drop kick your karma in the face." Sam sat for a moment, looking like he couldn't find the words to express how stupid he thought Dean was.
"Man, whatever Dad drugged you up with, you are flying. You're not even gonna remember this in the morning, are you?" He snorted out something that could have been a chuckle and patted Dean's face gently.
"Forgive and forget, bitch," Dean mumbled, already drifting away from the pain in his stomach and Sam's blood-tacky hand rubbing through his short hair.
The seat was high-backed and not particularly comfortable, but Sam settled into it like it was a fucking throne. The greyhound bus rumbled beneath his feet, the engine mumbling a surprisingly familiar vibration that reminded the eighteen-year-old of… well, that was irrelevant. All that mattered now was that the bus was three minutes away from its scheduled departure time and Sam was on it.
What absolutely did not matter was that the bus felt awfully big and the one person who would have made the forty three hour trip to California bearable wasn't on it. He was, in fact, sitting thirty feet away on the hood of the Impala, drinking a beer.
"The idiot," Sam mumbled to himself, drawing back from the smudged bus window and staring resolutely at the back of the seat in front of him. "Drinking and driving, no biggie for you, huh?"
"You say something?" The kid next to him asked, a shade too loud for normal conversation. Sam hoped the death metal coming from the kid's headphones wouldn't be blaring the entire way to NorCal. If there had to be music it might as well be something a little more….
"Nope, sorry," Sam replied, never looking away from his study of the seat back.
He didn't look up until he felt the bus lurch underneath him, backing slowly out of the parking lot. Then he risked one last glance out the window. Dean was still there, still drinking, still looking like someone had…
"… perfect little solidier? Or another brainwashed robot like Dean? That's what you want from me!"
"Goddamnit, Sam! You think I need two of your brother?"
"Both of you! Stop it!"
"You stay out of this, Deano."
"Just go, Dean! I don't need you to fight for me anymore!"
And Dean's face now looked just like Dean's face then. Like Sam had ripped out his heart and spit on it. And for all that Sam was off to a new world and a life of normal, all he wanted at that moment was to tell Dean that he never meant to break his heart like that.
At least, not on purpose.