Title: A Winchester Halloween
Author: Bianca Valdez
Pairings: None
Characters: Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, John Winchester, Mary Winchester
Rating: K+
Spoilers: Up to 10.04, "Paper Moon"
Disclaimer: Rights belong to Eric Kripke and Co.
Lawrence, Kansas
October 31st, 1983
The sun was going down and Dean was about to explode.
The child was bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet, Batman cape flapping behind him and cheap plastic jack-o-lantern pail clutched anxiously in his four-year-old hands.
"Let's go-o-o-o-o!" he said impatiently, each little jump sending jolts to his diaphragm and creating tiny pulses in the final syllable. "Everyone's already outside!"
"Just a minute, Dean," said John, harried but with a small smile on his face. He was balancing a wiggly Sammy in his hands while Mary attempted to wrestle him into a pumpkin-themed fleece and a pair of socks. They'd managed to squeeze the green beanie on his nearly hairless head, but he was not cooperating very well for the rest.
"Come on, Sammy," Mary cooed, letting her son wrap his hand around her pointer finger. "Just let me get this on you, ok?"
Sammy kicked his legs harder and began to cry.
"Can we just skip the costume?" asked John as he started to bounce his youngest, making shushing noises. "I mean, no one cares if he's a pumpkin or not."
Mary shook her head and shot him one of her 'what-are-you-thinking' looks like he was the biggest moron in the world, one of the looks that had endeared her to him so well when they'd first started dating. "John, it's like forty degrees out there."
"Come on!" wailed Dean, latching onto Mary's arm and pulling on it violently. "There won't be any candy left!"
"Don't be silly, Dean," said Mary chidingly. "Of course there will. The sun's barely even gone down yet."
"But Mommy—"
Sammy took a deep breath and began wailing loudly.
Dean closed his mouth, looking indignant at the interruption.
"Here, you try," said John, handing the bawling baby over to his wife. She accepted him willingly and began to move around, bouncing him in her arms.
"Let's go!"
"Waaaaaaaaah!"
Mary glanced between her two sons and frowned. "I think he's hungry," she said to John, nodding at the crying almost-six-month-old in her arms. "I should nurse him. Maybe you should just go without us." She shot a pointed look at the ball of impatience that was Dean.
"But Mommy, I want Sammy to come with me!" shouted Dean, reaching up a hand towards his brother.
"Dean. Hey, buddy, give your mom a break, ok?" said John, putting a hand on his elder son's shoulder and gesturing with his eyes for Mary to make her escape. Shooting him a grateful smile, she quietly snuck upstairs.
Dean's lower lip trembled and his green eyes grew large. "But Sammy…" he whimpered.
"Sammy can come with us next year, how does that sound?" John bargained, unobtrusively guiding Dean towards the door. "I think he might just be too young for all this. He'll appreciate it more when he's older anyway."
Dean seemed to think on this for a moment. Then he shook his head. "What about Mommy?" he begged.
John sighed and played his final card. Gesturing towards the insignia on Dean's chest, he spoke. "Does Batman go trick-or-treating with his mommy?"
"No…"
"And you're Batman, right?"
"Yeah…"
"So are you gonna go out there and kill monsters all by yourself?"
A small grin finally split Dean's face, and he tried to hide it behind a fake pout. "Yeah…"
"Yeah," laughed John, poking Dean in the belly and making him giggle. Then he stood to his full height and pulled the front door open, revealing a world glowing with cheap decorations and orange-hued candlelight. "Then let's go get 'em!"
Dean ran out the door, cape swinging dangerously close to the open jack-o-lantern. As he reached the sidewalk, however, he slowed, a small frown creasing the space between his eyebrows.
"Daddy, is Sammy gonna kill the monsters with me when he's older?"
John laughed. "You betcha."
"He can be Superman!"
"Sounds great, pal!"
"Are you and Mommy gonna help too?"
"Sure thing."
Dean smiled. "Then let's go!"
As it turned out, the Winchesters would grow up to fight monsters. But just John and the boys. And they weren't trick-or-treating.
The monsters they hunted were real. And Mary wasn't with them because she died two days afterwards.
Perry, Kansas
October 31st, 1984
Dean was quiet.
He sat curled up on his bed, staring at the walls and listening to the joyous sounds outside.
Except that it wasn't his bed. It was a motel bed. This wasn't his home.
He didn't have a home.
Sammy sat on the floor in between the two beds, (one for Dad and one for the boys to share) quietly playing with his toys. He was almost at his one-and-a-half year birthday, with a basic grasp on English and an insatiable curiosity.
Normally he'd be bursting with questions—what's going on out there? Are kids having fun? Why can't we have fun too?—but something about the silence must have warned him that now would not be a good time to speak.
John was drinking. He didn't do it a lot, but when he did it scared Dean. It scared him because when John drank, he wasn't his father.
He was a broken shell of a man.
This time last year, Dean had been so happy. He was trick-or-treating (his second time, then) and he'd been so excited about next year…this year. He'd said he wanted Sammy to come monster hunting with him.
Four months ago, after weeks of confusion and loneliness, Dean had asked Dad why they were moving around so much.
And John had told him.
Now Dean would give anything that Sammy never went monster hunting. He'd give anything that Sammy never even knew monsters existed.
That night, with his face turned towards the wall and Sammy slumbering peacefully at his back, Dean had let the tears flow.
He missed his home. He missed his friends. He missed his old life.
But most of all he missed Mommy.
Alfalfa, Oregon
October 29th, 1987
"Dean?"
"Shut up."
"Dean?"
Dean threw his pencil down on top of his homework and spun around in his seat to glare at his brother. "What?!"
"Ms. Anne says I have to bring candy in tomorrow. For a Halloween party."
Dean sighed and turned his gaze towards the window of the motel. There were ghost decorations in the display of the convenience store across the street.
"Dean?" Sam prodded. He was five now, and in kindergarten. This was his first Halloween in the company of other children.
Halloween for other children meant candy and costumes and fun. Halloween for the Winchesters, however, was just another reminder of what was out there in the dark. A reminder of one of their last joyous days together as a family, back when Mom was still alive.
But Sammy didn't know about the things in the dark. And he'd want to know why they didn't trick-or-treat like the other kids.
"Dean," repeated Sam. "What's the candy for?"
"Sam…." Dean sighed. "We'll stop at the store tomorrow before school. Okay?"
" 'Kay," said Sam, and went back to scribbling in his Autumn-themed coloring book. Dean closed his eyes again briefly and thanked everything that his little brother hadn't persisted with his latter question.
What's the candy for?
Dean wished more than anything that he could show Sammy a proper, happy Halloween.
But that was not to be.
And the next day, when Sam came home wondering why he didn't have a costume, well, Dean couldn't really answer that either.
He even asked Dad if maybe they could take Sam out, just to show him what it was all about.
Needless to say, the answer was not a positive one.
Rochester, Minnesota
October 31st, 1992
Halloween was, and never had been, the pinnacle of Sam Winchester's life. This year, however, was particularly miserable.
This was the first year that he actually knew why he couldn't go trick-or-treating like everyone else. This was the first year that he knew about monsters.
Sam was nine years old and he'd never once gone out for candy. Never once had he dressed up as a ghost or a zombie or a werewolf and jumped out of the bushes at his friends. Never once had they shrieked theatrically and dissolved into giggles, so high on sugar that in an hour they would crash so dramatically that they would be asleep in minutes.
No, Sam had never had Halloween. But he'd watched it happen. Just as he was doing now.
He knelt by the window, chin resting on his hands which, in turn, were placed upon the sill. He'd opened the blinds just slightly so that he could peer out, but not enough so that others could see in.
It was dark out and he could hear their laughter through the glass. That's how happy they were.
Sam had spent the first eight years of his life asking questions. Now that he knew the answers, he wished he could go back to being ignorant.
Because ghosts and zombies and werewolves—those were real. It was all real. And it was all out there.
Sam would never admit it to anyone, least of all Dean, but he was scared.
Lebanon, Kansas
October 31st, 2014
Dean was staring at his calendar.
More specifically, he was staring at the date. October 31st, and with subtext at the bottom of the square which pronounced it to be Halloween.
Dean's green eyes traveled to the picture by the bedstand of himself and Mom. He frowned.
"Mom," he said to the silence of his bedroom. "I am thirty six years old and I have never shared a Halloween with my brother."
That stated, Dean stared at the date for a moment more before spinning on his heel and high-tailing it downstairs to set things up before Sam got home from the store.
The minute Sam opened the bunker door he knew something was different.
The lighting was weird, and for a brief pause he though perhaps there was something wrong with the electrics, but then he noticed the music. Creepy to the point of absurdity, overladen with 'sinister' laughter and odd sounds.
Stated simply, it was Halloween music.
Sam narrowed his eyebrows and locked the door behind him. "Dean?" he called warily, shifting the plastic bags on his arm and moving to peer over the balcony at the top of the stairs.
Dean stood proudly in the middle of the common area, sipping a beer. When he heard his name he looked up and grinned at Sam.
"Heya, Sammy!" he called. "Come on down!"
Sam descended slowly, trying to take it all in. The hall was awash in Halloween decorations. Every banister was hung with orange and black streamers, sloppily made tissue-paper ghosts intermingling the crêpe paper. Construction paper bats littered the bookshelves, and candles burned eerily in every alcove. A large bowl of candy rested on the table, side by side with another bottle of beer and two pairs of plastic 'vampire fangs'.
"What's this?" Sam asked, placing his bags on the tabletop.
"What does it look like?" smiled Dean, tossing a bag of candy corn at him. "It's Halloween!"
Sam caught the candy corn and stared at it for a moment. Then he looked back up at his brother incredulously. "Uh…why?"
"Maybe because time's a tickin' and we have yet to share a Halloween together? I don't know what you did at Stanford, but I, personally, haven't celebrated since I was four."
"Yeah…because we know monsters are real?"
Dean snorted. "Shut up and just humor me."
"Um…okay."
There was an awkward pause.
"Where did you get all this stuff?"
"What, you think you're the only one allowed to go shopping? Also, the Men of Letter's has a surprising supply of arts and crafts materials."
Sam raised an eyebrow. "Really?"
"Yeah!" Dean laughed. "Anyway, thought we deserved it after everything we've been through. We never just relax, ya know?"
"Yeah." Sam's face dropped a little. It was true—they never got a break. Beginning ten years ago when Dean had come to pick him up from Stanford, their lives had been one thing after another, growing steadily worse as the years went by. One problem just led to another, and nothing was ever really fixed. Jake killing him led to Dean's demon deal. Dean being in Hell led to Sam hanging out with Ruby, which in turn led to the Apocalypse. The Apocalypse led to his own fall into Hell, which led to his insanity, which, when 'fixed', turned out to be nothing but a shift of the insanity to Castiel. Castiel's insanity wasn't fixed until Purgatory, which brought on more and more problems that never truly resolved.
And now, recently, Dean had died. Sam had been prepared to do anything to bring him back, which truly was the root of the issue. As it turned out, however, he didn't need to do anything, because Crowley brought Dean back to life—but as a demon.
Sam had only just found him. Only just cured the black eyes. Everything should have been back to normal, but it wasn't, because the Mark was still there. They'd had two cases since that terrible night running from his own brother, and nothing necessarily bad had happened, but still Sam could see that Dean wasn't really Dean. The Mark was poison and it was going to destroy the older Winchester.
"Sammy?" asked Dean, somewhat warily. "You in there?"
For now, though, they could pretend it didn't exist. For tonight, they could ignore all of their training and throw away years of fearing All Hallow's Eve. Tonight, on the 31st of October, they could just be two brothers celebrating a fun-filled holiday: watching cheesy cartoon specials, eating so much candy that they exploded, and just laughing for the sheer pleasure of it.
"Yeah," he said again. He smiled. "Yeah, Dean." Sam looked down at the candy in his hands and deftly tore open the bag. Scooping a kernel up in his calloused hand he tossed it into the air and caught it with his mouth. He grinned again. "Happy Halloween!"
Dean laughed and stole some candy corn from his bag. "Happy Halloween, Sammy!"