Dean Winchester eyed the giant, iron statue in front of the Natural History Museum with suspicion; the people milling around outside, climbing the steps, reading maps, consuming hotdogs from the nearby stand with hostility.
He hated museums.
"Come on, Dean. Get your brother and get out. I don't want to sit here and have to pay the meter. Hurry up."
Dean dutifully grabbed Sammy's hand and tugged open the Impala's rear door, dragging them both out of the car. Dad leaned back over the bench seat to look him in the eye.
"Now you know what to do. Wait here for a few hours while I go research this hunt. Don't cause trouble. Don't attract attention. Watch out for Sammy." As if Dean needed reminding. He nodded soberly, carefully keeping even the tiniest bit of disrespect out of his gestures as he pulled Sammy away from the car and pushed the door shut. Dad drove away to the Impala's throaty growl and Dean stood a moment to watch him go. Then Sammy fidgeted, and Dean turned them around to face the day.
"What do you say, Sammy?" Dean had learned years ago to make his voice falsely cheerful when talking to his little brother. "Should we go to a museum?" Sammy nodded vigorously and tugged on Dean's hand. "Go, Dean!"
Sammy loved museums. Always had. This wasn't the first time Dad had dropped them off at one when he couldn't find a sitter or thought the tiny motel room they were calling home for the week was too ratty and dangerous for even his boys to be left in alone. He'd drop them off with a few dollars for lunch (maybe) and strict instructions (definitely) to lay low and watch out for Sammy. Usually there was also a promise to be back in a few hours. That one was never really kept, though. There'd been more than a few times when Dean had had to sneak Sammy not only into a museum, under the watchful eye of some hawk-nosed security officer, but also out of one at closing when there weren't any families to blend into and pretend were your own. Then he'd sit outside with Sammy huddled up against him in the dark, hiding behind fences or bushes, with just their short sleeves and jeans for warmth, and only Dean's pocket knife for protection against all the dangerous things that roamed the streets at night in a big city. The first time, Dean hadn't even had that.
Which lead to Dean's thoughts on museums. He hated them. It really wasn't so much the learning he minded, though he didn't have much use for it. There were just so many, many people to con, and so many, many things that could go wrong in a building SO HUGE that Dean couldn't even remember where he was half the time, and that wasn't even counting all the dreadful, frightening things Dean knew were out there in a city this size. Why would they keep coming back to this awful, dirty city if there weren't monsters in it? And how was he supposed to keep Sammy safe from all of those monsters (and people, he shuddered) without salt lines or protection wards or his father's shotgun? He couldn't, he just couldn't. But there he found himself anyway, time and time again, outside the National Gallery, or the Metropolitan Museum of Art, or the Smithsonian Air and Space with nothing but his strict instructions and a pocket knife.
So Dean hated museums.
Sigh.
That didn't really mean Sammy had to, he guessed. No, actually. He never wanted Sammy to have to hate museums for all those awful reasons. So Dean put on a cheerful face, and they traded counting stairs as they climbed up to the imposing doors.
"1"
"2!"
"3"
"4!"
"5"
"Wass 'at man on the horse, Dean?" Sammy stopped, pointing back down at the statue Dean had been glaring at from the car. Dean turned, too.
"That's Theodore Roosevelt" he read from the plaque. "He was the governor of New York – that's where we are, Sammy – from 1899 to 1900."
"Oh."
"Yeah. Come on, Sammy. Let's keep counting the stairs! Next one is six!"
"7!"
"8…"
The room was big. And dark. And crowded. Loaded with all the things that could turn into Dean's worst nightmare. And of course it was the only room Sammy wanted to be in just then.
"How about the butterfly room, Sammy? A girl like you surely likes butterflies more than stupid, boring old gazelles."
"No, Dean. I wanta see the animals!"
"Ooo! Sammy, what about the fish room!" Dean consulted his map. He usually tried to avoid doing that, because it always made stupid mother-ladies ask him if he was lost and "Oh, you poor little boy, where are your parents?" and he didn't like having to answer that question, mostly because the deepest parts of his memory that he tried to ignore knew that parents weren't supposed to leave their nine year old sons with their four year old brothers in crowded museums in New York City. But he was more than a little desperate. "See, Sammy? There's two whole fish rooms! And this one has a whale. A really big whale." Dean slowed his voice for emphasis and Sammy almost looked convinced. Unfortunately, in Sammy's oh-so-mathematically-precise genius brain, elephant whale, so, no cigar.
"Animals, Dean." And Dean sighed and took Sammy's right hand with his left, and wrapped his own right hand securely around the knife hidden in his pocket and led the way into the "Mammals of Africa" room.
The room was lined with windows looking into smaller rooms filled with fake trees and stuffed, true-to-life animals. There were giraffes (which even Sammy knew) and kudu (which Sammy also, somehow, knew) and weird looking things called egrets, and even some deer looking things called impalas.
(Dean couldn't decide if he was offended by the comparison, or pleased that there was an animal that bore such a sacred name. Either way, he thought it was ironic that a deer-like animal could be called an impala considering the number of deer his father had hit with the car last time they were in Jersey. Like some weird kind of destiny, he thought. He wondered how many impalas-the-deer had been hit by Impalas-the-car…)
Dean would have been content to breeze through these displays, chuckling at some of the stupider names and getting Sammy to aw at the baby animals and roar like a lion or tiger or whatever was in that particular room. But Sammy already must have been some stupid genius kid, because he was far from content with this arrangement. At every display, he would point to the long, complicated-looking plaques with maps and diagrams of animals skulls (okay that was kind of cool), and – "Say, Dean?" – insist on knowing what it said. And Dean would read it to him, big complicated words and all, and when Sammy's head started to tilt to the side, cocking just precariously above confusion, Dean would go back and make himself explain it again, breaking it down, as best a very independent nine year old thank you very much could, so Sammy's eyes would glow with the thrill of curiosity and understanding, and he'd ask more questions and Dean would try his best to answer them, even though he really didn't know anything about golden-bellied mangabeys, because Sammy wanted to know, and Sammy was his little brother. What else was he supposed to do?
It was dark when the museum closed, and Dean was forced to either slip out of the museum on his own, or end up like those kids in a book he'd heard a couple middle schoolers talking about once – Frankweiler something or whatever – where the kids sneaked into museum and hid in the bathrooms and lived there for whole weeks. And while the idea was tempting, Dean figured he'd take his chances waiting outside where he was sure Dad would find them eventually, when he finally realized how late it was, rather than inside this huge freaky building with all those dead things, because dead things make ghosts and Dean didn't have enough salt to protect Sammy from ghosts.
Sammy was good at the sneaking thing, actually. Dean made it a game and they sneaked "without looking like we're sneaking, Sammy. You have to be absolutely quiet shhhh but pretend like you're walking normally. See?" past the hawk-nosed guards out into the night and they ducked behind a low wall on the far side of the museum entry way. And Dean let Sammy prattle on about his favorite animals.
"Was 'at one owl with the pointy ears, Dean?"
"A Great Horned Owl, Sammy."
"It was scary."
And Sammy would snuggle up close and Dean would find himself relaxing again despite himself, melting into the warmth of his trusting, enthusiastic, innocent little brother and he could almost convince himself that this day hadn't been so bad after all. It's not every day you get to see real lions, even if it was just their skins, or you get to learn that some gazelles can go their whole lives without drinking. And when Dad would pull up to the curb again, a little frantic, and would spot them huddled up, and grip Dean's shoulder and grin like he'd found a treasure and gather them up and tuck them in the Impala and Dean would fall asleep to the thrum thrum of the rolling engine and Sam's mid-sleep, breathy sigh, Dean could almost let himself admit that he didn't really mind museums after all. Yeah, maybe they weren't actually so bad.
Sam would always remember those Museum Trip days very differently from Dean. Even after he turned teenager and had the charmed wool Dean has so carefully preserved for years yanked from his eyes, he never quite pieced together what those days had really been to their father, or Dean. What they had really meant. As far as he was concerned, those were some of the best days of his childhood. Just him and Dean, exploring the world, learning new things, swiping ice cream cones from the vendor trucks, and watching stars and drawing pictures in the dirt late at night when their feet hurt from walking and their hearts ached pleasantly from too much talking. He forgot most of what he learned in those trips, though he credits them – and Dean – as the roots of his deep love of learning. The random facts have all been covered over with more detailed knowledge of biology. And despite his intelligence, teenager Sam was never very wise with decisions about learning his brother, so most lessons in that have been lost. Sam still treasures those memories, though; holds them to himself sometimes late at night when they're facing yet another impossible task, or when they've spent yet another long night fighting over stupid things. Times when it was just him and Dean and happiness and nothing but the thickness of their t-shirts between them.
Dean definitely remembers those days. Somewhere along the line, he'd taken it upon himself to be not only his brother's father, mother, protector, and best friend, but also his history keeper. Dean remembers more of those days than any anxious, scared, lonely nine year old should be able to remember about some stupid museum trip. But still sometimes he'll pull out random facts about the gazella dorcas beccarii or the myotis lucifungus (You think I eat a lot? Did you see the bat exhibit in that museum? 1,200 flies in an hour. Dude, I'm a lightweight in comparison!), which always pulls a puzzled stare from Sam. But the truth is, Dean, in that same deep dark place in himself that knows his father shouldn't have left them there all those years ago, also knows that Sam's the only reason he ever turned into anything worthwhile. That without Sam to beg for him to explain things, he would have wandered through that museum without a second look. Without Sam to befriend, respect, and smile at them, he would have become harsh and bitter and angry toward the kids and the old ladies and the guards. Without Sam's cheerful "Look, Dean, I drew a fire truck!" to keep him company at night, he would have sat and cried the dirt under his fingers to mud, and never learned to love the stars or spot the constellations.
They say your parent is the one who teaches you to love things. If your parents teach you to love learning when you're young, you'll love it all your life. If they teach you to respect and love authorities, you'll do it to your dying day. If they show you how to pick the bright and beautiful stars out of a dark, cold, night sky, you'll never be alone. They also say that Dean was Sam's parent. And he was, there's no denying it. And he takes pride in knowing he taught Sam all those things. But the way Dean sees it, Sam's kind of been his parent, too.