Title: After School Special
Summary: Set during 413, John calls and tells Dean that they boys are going to have to stay in town for at least another week. Sam doesn't take the news well.
Dad called early in the morning. So early that Dean was still taking his morning shower, leaving his phone on the bedside table so he could shove it in his pocket as they left out the door. And that meant that Sam was the one who answered it and talked to Dad.
Dean hadn't heard the phone ring, so when he came out of the bathroom with a shirt and jeans on, he wasn't prepared to see the angry look on Sam's face.
"But Dad –" Sam was saying, and Dean quickly stepped in, easing the phone out of Sam's hand and pointing towards the Lucky Charms box on the counter in the tiny thing that passed for a kitchen. Sam scowled and went to pour some while he listened to Dean.
"Hey, Dad! What's up? Tell me you nailed the sonuvabitch...another week?....yeah, sure, no problem…"
Dean glanced back at Sam and then headed for the door, slipping outside. No doubt this phone call was going to turn into a conversation about Sam, and he didn't want Sam to hear it. He closed the door to the sight of Sam pulling on his shoes, getting ready for another day at school.
The phone call with Dad took longer than he thought. By the time Dad was done briefing him and then telling him that he needed to figure out what the hell was wrong with his brother, Dean was an ice cube. But he didn't want Sam to know that Dad was talking about him, so he stayed outside. Dad and Sam's relationship as of late hadn't exactly been sunshine and puppies.
Not that anything with Sammy these days is sunshine and puppies, Dean thought as he hung up the phone. Sam had become extremely sulky as of late – there had been days Dean was lucky to drag two words out of that kid. He was hoped intercepting the phone call before Sam and Dad really had it out would help make sure a sulk didn't happen.
"Sammy, you done with breakfast?" Dean asked as he went back inside and started searching his bag for one his button-up shirts to put on. When there was no answer, he held in a sigh.
Great. I wonder how long this one'll last.
"Sammy, come on –" Dean stopped abruptly when he found room empty. The bathroom door was open. Dean had been right at the door. That meant –
The window.
"Sammy?!" Dean called, knowing it was no use. Sam had taken off. For no apparent reason.
"Dammit," Dean grunted, pulling on his shoes and grabbing the room key before hurrying out the door.
Okay. Mission objective: find and throttle my 14-year-old brother. Tools: none, 'cause Dad has my freakin' car, goddamn worthless truck, I told Dad not to buy that piece of crap…target location: if I knew that I wouldn't be looking for him, would I? Dammit.
There were only two ways Sam would have gone, and Dean's money was on he didn't heads towards the school. So he took off running the opposite direction, shivering in the cold November air.
Great job, Dean. Run outside still wet without a jacket. The pneumonia's gonna be fun.
Still, Dean didn't turn to go and grab it; instead, he picked up his pace, eyes searching. Every step seemed to make his chest tighter. It was his job to look after Sam, and once again, he'd done a bang up job.
Stupid, stupid…don't even know how long he's been gone…plenty of time for some pervert to come and grab him…I mean, seriously, who knows what kind of freaks live in this town…
It had been fifteen minutes of jogging when he finally spotted Sam. His brother was huddled on the ground in the middle of a field, hugging his legs to his chest.
Relief spread through Dean. "Sammy!"
Sam jerked and scrambled to his feet, watching Dean approach him.
"Sammy, what the hell are you doing out here?"
"Just leave me alone, Dean!" Sam yelled at him, starting to back away. Dean paused, and then took a few steps forward, watching as Sam backed up.
"Sammy?"
"I said leave me alone! I'm not going back."
Dean kept walking towards his brother slowly, baffled.
"Sammy, what are you talking about?"
"I'm not going back to that school, Dean. You can't make me," Sam said, and abruptly he turned and just took off.
Dean was so stunned that for a few seconds he just stood there. Then he took off after Sam, his longer legs quickly eating up the distance Sam's head start had given him.
What the fuck is going on?
Dean raced after his brother, who seemed to be moving almost supernaturally fast. In the time between when he woke up this morning and when Dean took the phone from him, his baby brother had lost his damn mind.
"Sammy, stop!" he yelled, finally beginning to gain ground on his brother. Sam didn't listen, didn't even appear to hear him. They were quickly approaching a wooded area that Dean wanted no part of, so in a burst of speed Dean managed to come up behind Sam, wrap an arm around his chest, and use Sam's own momentum to whirl him around. Sam ended up facing the opposite direction of the one he'd been running in, back pressed tight to Dean's chest.
Sam's legs gave way under him and Dean followed him down, arm still tight around him. For a minute, there was no sound other than their panting breaths.
"Sammy," Dean finally ground out. "What the hell was that about?"
Sam turned abruptly and shoved at Dean's chest, clawing at his arm, desperately trying to wiggle away.
"I said to leave me alone!" Sam yelled at him.
"Sammy, stop it!" Dean yelled back, wincing as Sam's nails dug into his skin. He let go of Sam's chest and instead used both of his arms to draw Sam hard against him, hands grabbing his arms to stop his scratching.
"I can't go back there, Dean, I can't," Sam said desperately, voice ragged. He turned in Dean's arms and buried his head in Dean's chest, shuddering. "Please, please don't make me."
"Sammy," Dean said softly, arm going around Sam's back and his hand going up to rest against the back of his head. Sam was a bit big to be sitting in Dean's lap these days, but he made no move to push him off. "What's wrong?"
"I can't do it anymore, Dean. I can't take always being the new kid, always…always being alone."
"You're not alone, Sammy. I'm here. And what about that kid Barry? You've been talking to him, haven't you?"
"No, Dean, you don't under–" Sam pulled away from his chest to look at him. His eyes were large and wet, and dammit, if Dean was a sucker for the puppy eyes he had no chance against the sad, wet puppy eyes. "I'm not like you, Dean. I can't just be friends for a little while and then move away like it's nothing. It hurts too much."
And what was Dean supposed to say to that? "Don't care so much, Sammy"? Sam had always been like that. Maybe it would have been better for Dean to teach Sam to be like himself and their dad. Both of them had learned early on not to care for people outside the hunting world too deeply, because it would just never work out. Not for them.
"I'm sorry, Sammy. It's hard, I know, but high school isn't forever. A few more years, and you're done. Then we can start hunting full-time, leave all this behind us."
"I can't do this for three more years," Sam said softly. "I can't."
"It'll be okay, Sammy, I promise." Dean told him, trying to think of anything he could say that could make his brother feel better. But he couldn't.
"Why did you take off like that?" Dean asked instead. "I mean, what the hell? You have any idea how freaked out I was, coming inside and you weren't there? And then having to chase you down in the middle of a friggin' field? What were you thinking?"
"I don't – I don't know. I didn't even realize…all of a sudden it just felt like – I couldn't take another day at school. Like I was going to explode if I didn't get away. So I ran."
"From me." Dean said flatly.
"No, it wasn't – it wasn't about you, Dean. It was just…everything."
Dean sighed and pulled Sam a little closer, not knowing what to say. Sometimes, he really didn't understand his brother.
"Come on," he said softly after awhile. "Let's go home. We're late by now anyway, we'll just skip school today."
"Yeah?" Sam asked, rising to his feet when Dean did. The kid looked wrung-out, exhausted and overheated, and it wasn't like Dean really felt school was important.
"Yeah. Let's go." Dean would worry about punishing Sam later. Right now he just to spend some time with his little brother.
It was just after dinner that Dean decided to bring it up. They'd had mac and cheese, and were going to be having mac and cheese for the next few days, now that Dad was going to be late; Dean didn't want to risk running out of money too soon. This happened every time Dad was gone for longer than he planned – Dean would ration out their money carefully, earn some if he could, and then, the day before Dad came back, he'd take Sam out for some real dinner, or buy him a book he'd been eying, as a way of apologizing for having things so rough the previous week or so.
"Sammy," Dean called, sitting down on the bed near the door. "Come here."
Sam looked up from whatever he was doing in his notebook, and Dean could tell from the look on his face that he knew what was coming.
Dean had only spanked his brother maybe three times in his entire life. He didn't enjoy it, not at all, but this time he couldn't just let Sam off. What he'd done had been too dangerous.
Sam slunk over, the beginnings of a scowl on his face. "Do I have to?"
"You really think you don't have this coming, little brother?" Dean asked seriously. Sam bit his lip, hiding for a second under his too-long hair before he titled his head back up and nodded sullenly.
"You know the drill."
Sam pulled his jeans off and stepped out of them, and then, after one last scowl at Dean, put himself over Dean's lap. Dean rested a hand on his back and did his best Dad impression.
"Why are you here, Sammy?"
"'Cause you're a jerk," Sam muttered, and then he yelped when Dean brought his hand down hard. "OW!"
"Wrong answer, little brother. Why are you here?"
"I ran off this morning," Sam said.
"And?"
"And what?" Sam asked. "That's all I did."
"You ran off, and scared the shit out of me," Dean added. He felt Sam slump a little over his knees.
"I didn't mean to," Sam said softly. Dean nodded even though Sam couldn't hear him, pressed Sam more firmly against him, and started spanking. Not too hard, because honestly, he wasn't not interested in drawing this out when his little brother had basically had some kind of breakdown.
"Ow! Dean! OW!" Sam started yelping almost immediately. Whenever Dad spanked Sam, he kept quiet as long as possible, but the few times it had been Dean, he'd start yelping and squirming right away, for some reason. It wasn't like the noise was going to make Dean let up any sooner, but Sam still did it.
"You don't ever run away like that again, Sammy," Dean said, raising his voice to cover the sound of his swats. "Do you have any idea what could have happened to you?"
"Ow – Dean – nothing happened –" Sam cried, bringing his hand back to try and protect his backside. Dean had never spanked Sam this hard before, but those moments of terror he'd felt when he realized he didn't know where Sam was made his swats harder.
"But it could have!" Dean countered, shifting his legs to accommodate Sam's squirming frame. He slowed his swats somewhat, but to Sam, it actually felt like he was spanking harder even though he wasn't.
"Dean," Sam gasped when Dean grabbed the arm he had reached behind himself. "'m sorry, I'm sorry –"
"I know you are," Dean said, softer than before, giving Sam's back a comforting stroke. "We're almost through here. Are you ever going to run off like this again?"
"No, I won't, I promise –" Sam gasped out immediately, and Dean finished up with a flurry of hard spanks that echoed in the room. Sam stayed over Dean's knees for a minute, but when Dean tugged him up he went willingly, hiding his head against Dean's chest.
"I'm sorry, Dean," Sam whispered again, voice hoarse. Dean hugged him close, realizing how long it had been since they'd hugged each other. When Sam had been real little, he couldn't go a day without cuddling up to either Dean or their Dad. But as Sam had gotten older, he'd gotten shy about it, shrugging off arms thrown around his shoulders or hands messing up his hair. Dean missed cuddly Sam sometimes.
"No problem, Sammy. Just don't do it again." Dean hugged Sam to him one more time and ran a hand through his shaggy hair affectionately. Sam sniffed and rubbed at his eyes like he had when he was three, and then slipped off Dean's lap, rubbing at his butt before going to find sweats to change into. Dean watched him go, and then turned to clean up the remains of dinner, hiding a smile when Sam came out to help, dressed for bed, face washed. They spent the rest of the night in easy silence and turned in early.
They didn't make it to school the next day, either. Dean would probably catch hell from John later for it, but he couldn't bear to force his brother to go, not after the huge breakdown he'd had today. Instead, the two of them stayed in the motel room together, eating hot dogs and nachos they'd bought at the nearby gas station and watching bad daytime TV.
Frankly, it was as close to perfect as Dean felt like he was ever going to get without his dad around. He and Sam and Dad, they couldn't have normal. It would just never work for them. But they could make their own version of normal, and be happy. All they needed was each other.
Sam would see that, too, once he got a little older. Once he put all this school stuff behind him. Dean just had to wait.
A/N: I fail, you guys. This title sucks, so if you can up with a better one, please hit me with it. I'm begging you. This part is all for aliaseverus, who prompted me with "Sammy sneaks out to sulk - scaring Dean." minx999 – your prompt will be part two of this! I hope you guys like it.