Title: Never Underestimate
Author: MegTDJ
Category: Drama, Wee!chesters
Rating: PG
Pairing: None
Spoilers: None
Length: 1,600-ish words
Summary: Dean learns for the first time that he should never underestimate his little brother. (Wee!chester fic)
Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural. I'm doing this for fun, not profit. The only thing I own is the story itself, so please don't archive this fic without my permission.

Author's notes: Okay, so this did not turn out to be what I originally intended. I got the idea to write one of those "5 Times" fics, and this was supposed to be the first part, but it ended up being a lot longer and more detailed than I'd planned. And since there's another fic I should technically be working on instead, I figured I'd just post this part as-is and maybe write the others as stand-alones later on. So, I apologize in advance if this fic seems incomplete somehow. If it does, it's because it kind of is. ;)

Many thanks, believe it or not, to my mom for this one. She hates Supernatural, but she knows how to inspire my muse. Thanks, Mom!

Sammy had been missing for five hours.

Their dad was getting frantic. Dean knew that calling the police was the last thing he would ever want to do, but he was eyeing the phone as though considering the option. That was enough to prove just how scared he really was.

Neither of them had said it out loud, but Dean knew that it was his fault. Sammy was his responsibility. Always had been. Just because they went to separate schools now, that didn't let him off the hook. Dean had been forced to stay after school for detention, so he had been late meeting Sammy outside the elementary school. Sammy must have got tired of waiting and started walking home by himself, in a town he barely knew to a motel they'd only been staying at for a week.

He was barely eight years old. Of course he got lost. That was the whole reason Dean was supposed to meet him and walk him home. Dean was the one who'd been drilled with the street names. Dean was the one who knew where to go to wait for their dad if all else failed. He even knew how to look up the phone number for their motel and use a payphone to call their room. He could have sworn Sammy knew most of this stuff, too, but kids forget. It was up to him to make sure Sammy never needed to remember it. He couldn't believe he'd been so stupid.

"It's getting dark," his dad said after looking anxiously out the window for the millionth time. "I'm gonna try driving around the neighbourhood one last time. You stay here and sit tight until I get back."

He was about to grab the doorknob when Dean sprang forward and grabbed his arm. "Dad, wait! I wanna come, too."

"No, Dean. Somebody has to be here if he comes back on his own."

"We can just leave the door unlocked for him, can't we? We won't be gone long. He'll wait for us. Please, I wanna help."

Truth was, he felt like he'd go crazy if he had to sit around and wait for one minute longer.

The two of them set out, driving slow through the streets, stopping the car to peer down empty alleyways, following roads that Sammy might have accidentally turned down while daydreaming or disoriented. There was no sign of him anywhere.

"You don't think... something took him, do you?" Dean asked when they found themselves at the school.

He saw his dad's jaw clench, but he never uttered a word. Dean took that as a bad sign.

As they started driving back to the motel, they passed an old, run-down house with boarded-up windows and a sign on the ragged front porch that said it was going to be pulled down. Suddenly, a light bulb went on in Dean's head.

"Dad, stop! He might have gone in there!"

His dad pulled the car over and looked doubtfully up at the house through the windshield. "Sammy knows better than to go into a place like that on his own," he said.

"Yeah, but I saw some of the kids sneak around back the other day. Maybe he went in on a dare or something. It's worth a try, right?"

His dad grimaced and nodded, then pulled two flashlights out of the glove compartment. He handed one of them to Dean, and the two of them got out of the car, staring at the house with a mixture of hope and dread.

Dean knew this was the kind of house his dad hunted ghosts and stuff in. He just hoped none of them had taken Sammy.

They'd barely stepped two feet toward the house when they heard it - a dull thumping noise, and what sounded like a muffled shout.

"Sam?" their dad yelled, running down the side of the house toward the back yard. "Sammy?"

Dean hurried along behind him, not daring to believe their luck. But sure enough, as soon as they got behind the house they could hear Sammy's voice as plain as anything.

"Dad! I'm down here! The stairs are busted."

The two of them aimed their flashlights at the sound, and there he was - down inside the gaping hole that used to be the door to the house's storm cellar.

"Sammy, thank God," their dad said as he dropped to his knees to get a closer look at him. "Are you hurt?"

"Not too bad," Sammy said. "Fell funny on my foot, that's all. But there's another kid down here who smashed his head on something. I heard him banging down here when I walked past, and I tried to get him out, but the stairs gave out, and I was stuck down here, too, and I knew you guys would come looking for me, and I figured if I waited till I heard the car to start yelling my voice wouldn't give out like his did, 'cause I knew you guys would come!"

"Nothing wrong with your mouth, eh, Sammy?" Dean said when the kid finally took a breath. He moved closer to the opening when their dad hurried back to the car for some rope, and he shone the flashlight in Sammy's eyes just to hide how relieved he was to see that the brat was okay. "You know you should'a gone for help instead of trying to be a hero, right?"

"You would'a done it."

"I wouldn't'a fallen in after him."

"Yeah, you would."

"Would not."

"Would, too, the stairs were busted."

"I would'a known they were busted and not busted my ass trying to get down 'em."

"He didn't want me to leave him alone, okay?"

Dean pointed his flashlight further into the room where the other kid was lying on the floor with his bloodied-up head cushioned by Sammy's jacket. He seemed to be unconscious, and he sure didn't look so hot, so Dean could see why Sammy hadn't wanted to just leave him there. He might only have been eight years old, but he already had more compassion in him than anybody Dean had ever known.

"It was still a dumb move," Dean said to save face. But deep down, he knew Sam had done what he thought was right.

Within minutes, their dad had fished both Sam and the other kid out of the storm cellar and taken them off to the hospital. The other kid had a concussion and a broken arm. Sammy had broken his ankle.

Dean couldn't believe it when the doc told them that. Sammy hadn't seemed like he was in pain at all. Their dad had carried him to the car, but Dean had figured that was just to get him there faster for the sake of the other kid. Turned out his baby brother was a lot tougher than he'd given him credit for.

After a couple hours, Sammy's leg had been set in a cast, the other kid's parents had been tracked down, and everything seemed to be okay... except that Sammy had to stay alone in the hospital overnight. Dean couldn't remember a night that he'd been separated from the kid, and he wasn't about to let it happen now. He snuck into the ward when nobody was looking, and sure enough, Sammy was still wide awake.

Dean quietly pulled Sammy's curtains around so as not to wake up his roommates and get himself caught. "Want a game of gin?" he offered in a whisper, pulling a deck of cards out of his jacket pocket.

Sammy nodded eagerly, snapping on his lamp and pulling his bed tray over to use as a table.

Dean climbed up on the end of the bed and made himself comfortable. "I bet you cried like a wussy," he said as he dealt their hands.

Sammy sat up straighter against his pillows, a look of defiance on his face. "Did not. I bet you were scared Dad would kill you when I didn't come home."

"Was not. We were having a party, 'cause we thought you'd finally gone back to the circus where we found you."

"Were not."

Dean snickered and picked up his cards, holding them up in front of his face so Sammy couldn't see how right he'd been. Dean had been dead scared, and not just of what his punishment would have been. As snot-nosed and annoying as his kid brother could be, he didn't know what he'd do if anything ever happened to him.

"Dean?"

"Yeah?"

"That kid's okay, right?"

Dean looked at him over his cards. "I thought Dad told you he was."

Sammy sighed, his face all scrunched up with worry. "Yeah, but I don't know if he was just saying that to make me feel better."

Dean smiled, though he didn't know why. "He wasn't, Sam. The kid's fine."

Sammy's face relaxed in relief. "Okay, good."

Dean watched him as Sammy turned his attention onto his cards, looking as calm and comfortable as if they were sitting in their motel room like any other night, rather than in a creepy hospital ward with his leg all busted and bandaged up. It was like Dean was seeing his brother for the first time or something - he didn't know when it had happened, but Sammy wasn't a little kid anymore. The thought kind of freaked him out a little.

But behind that, there was another feeling - one he couldn't quite put his finger on at the time, but that in years to come he would remember vividly and finally understand - he was downright proud of him.

And for as long as he lived, Dean would never underestimate Sammy's backbone again.

The End