Sam's had been nodding in front of the TV, only half awake as he listened to David Attenborough talk about penguins.
He jolted up, suddenly wide awake, when he heard the lock turn in the motel-room door, seconds before the door banged into the wall and his dad came in, dragging Sam's older brother by the scruff of the neck.

John almost tossed Dean onto the couch next to Sam, growling "Stay there."
He turned an intense gaze on Sam:
"Are you ok, Sammy?"
Startled, Sam answered: "Yes, Dad?"
Why wouldn't he be? He'd just been sitting here, watching TV as usual in these boring motel-rooms, while Dean had been running some sort of errand.
"Ok, then," John said, "I'll be back soon, gotta go finish the job."

When the door had closed, and the lock had given it's reassuring clank, Sam turned to his brother and asked quietly:
"Dean? Are you in trouble?"
Dean looked over at Sam. His stare was calm and heavy. He didn't say yes, he didn't nod, he didn't move at all, but the answer was there anyway.
Sam tried to think of something to say. Something helpful, anything at all, but came up blank.
He shifted awkwardly, focusing back on the tv, then reached for the remote and changed the channels, clicking through until he found an episode of Scoobydoo.

As the Scoobygang ran around on the screen chasing ghosts and real estate agents, Sam kept shooting glances out of the corner of his eyes at Dean.
It didn't seem like his brother had noticed that there was a brand-new episode of Scoobydoo on tonight.
Dean just sat there, completely still, his head down.
Sam turned his head to look fully at his brother and realized Dean's jeans were steadily getting splotched with water.
It took a beat for Sam to understand why. He felt his heart hit a double beat when the truth sank in: Dean was crying.
He was sitting there, perfectly still, tears splattering onto his jeans, turning the worn fabric dark where they landed.
Sam slid closer to his brother and leaned his head on Dean's shoulder. He still didn't know what to say, so, he kept quiet, just being there. Dean didn't say anything either, and at first Sam wasn't even sure, he had noticed him, but then he felt Dean leaning a little bit against him and a breath, he hadn't even realized, he was holding, sighed out of him.

The two brothers sat on the musty old couch in the dusty motel-room in the gathering darkness until the roar of an engine outside made Dean's head jerk up.

He hurriedly ran his sleeve down his face before he turned to Sam and in as firm a voice as he could muster said:
"Sammy, get out of here. Go to the bedroom, you don't want to be here, when he walks in."
"But, Dean..."
"Sam, just go, please."
It was the timbre in his brother's voice, more than the words, that made Sam get up and slowly leave the room.
He quickly pulled off his jeans and slid into bed under the threadbare blanket, rolling onto his side, knees curled up, almost into fetal position.

He heard the door slamming shut, then his dad's voice:

"Where's Sammy?"
He could hear his brother answering, but not the words, just the low murmur of the most familiar voice in the world, instantly recognizable anywhere.
Dad's heavy footsteps coming closer, then the door to the bedroom opening. Dad moved over to the bed and stood there for a long while.
Sam could feel the weight of Dad's eyes on him, like two heavy rocks. He lay frozen, hardly breathing, pretending as hard as he could to be asleep, not knowing why except that Dad was being really scary tonight.
When he heard the door close behind his dad, Sam curled up completely, hiding under the blanket and felt the first tears start to seep out under his eyelids.

When John had closed the door to the bedroom, he strode across the floor to where Dean stood ramrod straight next to the couch.
"I told you to take care of Sammy, while I was gone, didn't I?"
"Yes, Sir."
"But instead of following orders, what were you doing? I had to leave the hunt, to go get you from the police-station! You'd been breaking in to houses, and I want to know why! What was so important, that it was worth risking your brother's life?"
Dean's reply was too low to be heard, so John took a step closer, crowding into Dean's space.
"Speak up, boy."
"I…. I … I'm sorry Sir… I wanted to see the cage match between Gunnar Lawless and the Tower of Power on pay…ppay-perview…"

"What!? You wanted to watch a wrestling match? I told you to take care of Sammy! When I'm not here, he is *your* responsibility and you can't just go galloping off on a whim, risking your brother's life for your own amusement. How could you? You know damn well what is out there! How can you be so selfish? So irresponsible? I have to be able to trust you, trust you to look after your little brother while I save people's lives and you choose to pull a stunt like that? Not to mention using things I've taught you for hunting, for saving lives, to break into people house to steal their pay-per-view? Getting caught by the police? There's a police record with your name on it now! And while you were out there being a juvenile delinquent, where was Sammy? All alone in a motel-room, out of season, no one around – have you even given a thought to what could have happened to him?"

Dean had no answers to the barrage of questions. He just stood there. Letting his Dad's voice roll over him, into him, silent tears gliding down his cheeks.

Words can do as much damage as fists or whips. Actually, sometimes words can leave even deeper wounds, scars that might be invisible, but which never really heals.

John stepped closer to his son.
Dean looked up at his Dad, then quickly down again, unable to meet his father's eyes.
John reeked of booze, iron and rage.
His eyes were blank with fury as he grabbed Dean by the shoulder, put a foot on the couch and dragged Dean over his thigh, the boy barely able to reach the floor with his toes, dangling helplessly as his Dad's work hardened hand slammed into his backside over and over again.

Dean didn't try to resist, but he couldn't help kicking his feet as his body reacted to the pain. His silent tears soon turned into deep hitching sobs and he grabbed onto his dad's leg with all his strength.
It wasn't the first time his dad's hand had landed on his butt, but it was by far the worst spanking he'd ever gotten.
Then, suddenly, it was over. He almost fell, would have crumbled to the floor, if Dad hadn't caught his upper arm, holding him up.

He started to turn towards his dad, hoping for a hug, or some other sign of forgiveness, when he was yanked off his feet, dragged scrambling around to the side of the couch and pushed down over the armrest.

The next thing he heard was a metallic jangle, a weird hissing sound, the whistle of something moving through the air and a loud smack.
It took a beat before the pain registered.
As he choked, unable to make a sound, he heard the whistling again, didn't have time to brace before the new line of pain landed, and then the world receded as Dean focused on trying to catch whatever desperate air he could between the whistle and the crack of leather hitting his worn jeans, sending one shockwave after another through his body.

In the bedroom, Sam had been trying not to listen, while at the same time frenziedly trying to hear what was happening to his brother.
He heard his dad's voice, then the sounds of smacks.
He'd seen Dean get smacked by Dad before, had felt Dad's hand for a smack or two himself, and knew the sound well enough. As well as he knew the smothered sounds of his brother trying to sob without making too much noise.
But then the sounds from the living room changed. They got louder, sharper, somehow more painful and Dean's voice changed too, the quiet sobs disappearing, replaced by something else, something that wasn't louder, but was somehow much, much worse.

Sam curled into himself, shrimped up as tight as he could. He should go in there, he should save Dean, help him, but he was too scared to move. So, he lay there under the blanket and hated himself for being too weak, too afraid, for letting down his brother, who was the center of his young world.

After a while, the sounds died. There was the murmur of Dad's voice, and moments later, the bedroom door creaked open.
Knowing, without knowing how he knew, that it was Dean coming into the room, and that Dad wasn't there, Sam stuck his head out from under the blanket.

Dean was slowly peeling his jeans off, leaving them crumbled on the floor.
He looked for a moment at the second bed, then turned towards the bed, Sam was in.
Sam slid towards the wall, a silent invitation, which Dean accepted wordlessly, gingerly crawling into bed, onto his stomach. Sam put a sweaty hand on his shoulder.
"Are you ok, Dean?"
"I'm fine, Sammy, go to sleep, ok?"
"I'm sorry, Dean."
"Not your fault, Sammy, now let's sleep, ok?"
Sam wanted to say something, anything, to take that new peculiar flat tone out of his brothers voice. He didn't know the word "exhausted", and he was too young to use the word "broken" in connection with a human being, but if he had been old enough, those are the words that would have come to his mind.

Instead he rolled closer, wrapping his arm over Dean's back, as Dean used to do, whenever Sam had a bad dream, and closed his eyes.