Title: Spider in My Room
Summary: Nobody likes bugs in their room. But the ones that spark uncomfortable conversations at 2 a.m. are the worst. Oneshot. Wee!chester.
Rated: K
Feedback: Do you mean it? Oh, aren't you thoughtful!
"Dean? De-ean…."
Truth be told, Dean had heard him the first six times but hoped that if he feigned sleep long enough, Sam would eventually give up and leave him alone.
He should have known better, the nine-year-old pound-puppy never gave up on anything he set his mind to. But why, in the middle of the night, did he have to set his mind on this?
"De-e-e-e-e-e-ean!" Sam whispered so loud, it could scarcely be called whispering. He tugged, with mounting insistency, on his brother's over hanging arm once with every "e".
Dean groaned and pulled his arm away. "Sam, come on, it's like two in morning. Go back to sleep."
"It's only one thirty. There's a spider on my wall. Can you come and get rid of it?"
"Can't you just do it yourself?"
"I hate spiders." Dean groaned again and rolled over. "C'mon, please? What if it crawls in my bed an' bites me? It might be a poisonous one, an' I'll get effected. Please, Dean?"
He sighed and turned back over slowly. "Fine." He sat up, fighting the vertigo. "And it's infected."
Sam grinned, showing off the gaps where his last two baby-teeth once were. He skipped a little into the doorway and took off down the hall, his bare feet making sticky noises against the wood floor.
Dean sat up and swung his feet over the side of the bed. Sam had bothered to put on pajamas. Dean however had once again fallen asleep in his jeans and as he stood up, he kicked his foot a few times to straighten out the fabric.
Still trying to blink sleep out of his eyes, he made his way to the door and down the hall to Sam's bedroom.
It was dark inside and Dean could barely make out Sam's shape by the door. "So…where is it?"
Sam flicked on the light switch and Dean squeezed his eyes shut, jerking backwards. "Jeez, Sammy!"
"Sorry."
He sighed again. "Well, shut the door so we don't wake Dad with the light. Where's the spider?"
"Over there." Sam pointed with his finger by his face as if afraid of getting any closer by pointing with his whole arm.
Dean could see it now that he'd focused a little. It sat on the wall a few feet above Sam's disheveled bed. It was small, black, and totally harmless. But not to an nine-year-old.
"Alright." He walked over and picked up a Highlights magazine off Sam's nightstand, twisting it in his hands. Climbing on the bed, he sat up on his knees and swung back to smack the little pest.
"Dean wait!" Sam ran over and grabbed his arm, startling his brother into dropping the magazine. "Don't kill it."
"Ugh! Sam, would you make up your mind already? You said you wanted it off your wall."
"Yeah but -" He swallowed, glancing over Dean's shoulder at the motionless spider.
"What's wrong? It's just a bug."
"It's just…I don't like it when…" His eyes had become big and round and he bit his lip. "I just don't want you to."
"Sammy -"
"I don't wanna see it die! I don't want to see you kill it! Please, Dean? Don't kill it, okay?"
Sam's hands were clamped so tightly on his brother's arm, Dean was starting to lose circulation.
"Sam, hey." He closed the fingers of his other hand around Sam's wrist. "What's going on?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing. Right." He raised an eyebrow. "You've been practically mute for three days. C'mon, man, just tell me what's bug -"
"Killing is bad!" Sam burst out, startling the spider two inches up the wall.
"Sam, shh -!"
"And Dad killed the man with the black eyes, Dean, he just killed him, just like that!"
Dean exhaled in slow realization. "O-oh…. Sam - you don't get it."
"Yes I do! I know -"
"No, you don't!" Dean flinched at his own voice. He tried again in a quieter tone. "Sammy, That man was trying to hurt you."
Sam let go of Dean's arm and jerked away. "But why'd Dad have to kill him? He could've just knocked him out or something! He could have called the police or - he didn't have to…" he trailed off, pressing his fist into his eye and rubbing hard.
Dean watched him silently. The last thing he wanted to do was explain. The last thing he wanted was for Sam to understand.
There was glass of water Sam had taken to bed with him, that was now sitting on the shelf, empty. Dean reached over and picked it up. He dried out the leftover water droplets in the bottom with the corner of his tee-shirt and placed it against the wall over the spider. Sam was watching him now.
"Sammy… there are bad people in the world. But Dad isn't one of them. He wants to stop them from hurting other people." Turning up the cover of the magazine, he slid it under the glass and lifted the spider off the wall.
"Dad doesn't want to kill anybody but that time he had to in order to save someone else. Someone he loves, you know?"
He got down off the bed and Sam followed him to the window. He popped open the window and set the glass down on the sill, behind the salt line, sliding the magazine out from under it. "Whenever he can, he saves even the bad people. But the guy with the black eyes?" He looked down into Sam's round face. "It was too late to save him. But it wasn't too late to save you."
Dean gave his brother an odd half-smile and bobbed his head toward the glass. Sam hesitated, then lifted the glass slowly off the spider.
Almost immediately, the little creature darted towards the edge, scrambling over the salt line and disappearing off the sill.
Dean closed the window, and looked at Sam seriously again. "Sam? Dad saves people. He can't save everyone, but he does his best. Being a hunter is like being Batman. And Dad's the best hunter in the world."
Sam stared down into the glass, and shifted uncomfortably. "Then… are you going to be a hunter when you grow up?"
Dean looked away, then at the floor, without answering.
"You should get back to bed, Sam."
Sam did as he was told and lay down with his back to Dean. If a hundred spiders had been on his wall, Dean doubted he would have noticed anymore.
He knew his brother had a lot on his mind, and to be honest, Dean didn't like it when that happened. The kid was only nine, he shouldn't have "a lot on his mind" already.
Dean walked to the door, opened it, and flicked off the light.
"Dean?"
He stopped in the doorway. "Now what?"
"Um…" Sam sighed quietly. There was a rustle of clothes and sheets as he rolled over. "Just… you know …uh…"
Dean smiled. "No problem, Sam."
"But Dean!"
"What?"
"Dean if - when you're a hunter… don't always kill the spiders, okay?"
He laughed under his breath. "Sure, Sam."
"Dean…?"
Dean closed his eyes to the dark and leaned his head against the doorjamb. "I'll try, Sammy. I promise."
...The End...
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