God Bless Nutmeg
Chapter 1
Arrival
~liquid-time

"I'm thirteen Dad," Dean whined as the Winchesters unloaded their bags of luggage in the new motel room, "when does it get weird that I'm still sharing a bed with my little brother?"

"I'm not little!" Sam piped up, "I'm eight!"

"See?" Dean pleaded, setting his and Sam's bags on the ground beside their bed, "and he kicks me in his sleep! Plus we're not small anymore. I swear I've almost fallen out of bed more times than I can count because he hogs so much of it."

"Enough Dean," his father sighed into his hands, interrupting whatever the boy was going to say next. "Maybe next time, I just.. I can't deal with this now. It's been a long day and we've arrived later than I wanted to. I'm worried about completing this hunt before too many more lives are lost."

Night had finally fallen and all of their belongings had been emptied from the Impala and stashed somewhere in the room. Dean closed the door behind him and made sure the locks on it were functional, while John began to unpack his assortment of weapons, lining up the various guns, knives and salts on the worn table in the corner of their temporary abode. He double-checked bullets, stones, holy water, making sure his stock of supernatural hunting gear was all in order. Sam was in the bathroom already, changing into pajamas and brushing his teeth, and John assumed that Dean would unpack his clothing before following Sam in their typical bedtime routine. However Dean stood in front of the table, arms crossed over his chest.

"I mean it Dad, you said you would think of it last time and you never did. I know what you're doing is important but-"

John rounded on his son, "do you know that my job is important? Do you really understand what is at stake here? Because if you actually understood that real, human lives were riding on me completing this job, than I think you wouldn't be so ready to pester me about your sleeping conditions," John paused for a moment to let what he has just said sink in. He had enough of Dean's back-talk today. "So, do you want me to save people or do you want me to worry about getting us a different motel room just so you could have a bed to yourself?"

Dean swallowed the lump in his throat that appeared every time his father yelled at him. He was surprised this time. Usually he could see John's anger before he was in trouble, able to read and predict what was going to push his father over the edge, but his father had gone from a loving dad to John Winchester, hunter, in way less time than Dean expected, and this caught him a bit off guard. He stood up a little straighter for it and nodded, almost whispering, "I want you to save lives sir."

John smiled and mussed Deans hair up before patting him on the back. "Good. Now, get ready for bed. We have an early day tomorrow because I have to give you two the tour of the town before taking off."

John went back to his work, silently dismissing Dean who turned around with the intention of sulking off to the bathroom, but was stopped by the arrival of his little brother. Sam peaked over the top of the tall table, past a silver machete that was near the edge. He was barely tall enough to see his father over the array of tools, but smiled up at him nonetheless. He opened his mouth to talk, but a yawn came out instead, obviously tired from the long day's drive.

"What schools are we going to here?" Sam managed to get out before another yawn took over, "I don't remember."

"You're going to Parkville Elementary, and Dean's headed to West Middle."

Dean snorted. "That's a dumb name-"

"Dean, I'm warning you."

"Sorry sir," he mumbled out. While irritated, Dean didn't want to actually start a fight with their father and thought it best to simply back down.

"I'll take you both past them tomorrow so you'll know where to go come Monday."

"Thanks Dad," Sam grinned up at John, "you're the best."

Dean rolled his eyes, muttering, "yeah, the best," under his breath as he turned to make his way to the bathroom, but he was pretty sure no one heard him. Sam had already jumped into their bed, right in the middle of the mattress, taking up more space than Dean thought was possible. He sighed again and thought about complaining, but decided instead to let it go. Getting dad angry was not something he enjoyed in general. He loved and idolized the man, but he could get real scary. And that was probably one of the reasons Dean looked up to him so much. John seemed as if he had his whole life under control.

So Dean just continued into the bathroom, grabbed his toothbrush which Sam had been kind enough to unpack for him, and squirted a generous amount of bubblegum flavored toothpaste onto the bristles before shoving into his mouth and brushing vigorously. Dental hygiene was, for some reason, very important to Dean. He spit, watching the mix of saliva and paste slide down the white porcelain sink, and tried to think, tried to get a grip on his emotions.

Shoving his toothbrush back into his mouth, Dean realized that he'd been feeling more angry recently. Angry that he was still being treated like a kid, despite his age and despite what he knew, angry that he was stuck in school even though he knew that he would never need what he was learning, and angry that he had to sleep in the same freaking bed as Sam, again, who really did kick hard in his sleep.

Dean wanted to be the perfect big brother for Sam, but at the same time he sometimes wanted to leave him behind because he screwed up everything. Dean could never stay after school with friends because he had to walk Sam home, he couldn't go out at night because he had to take care of Sam, don't swear in front of Sam, don't be a bad example. It felt as if his whole life revolved around Sam and sometimes Dean just wanted to be his own person.

He spit again, turned the tap on and rinsed his toothbrush under the steady stream of water, taping the blue plastic handle against the side of the sink to knock any droplets off. He sighed again before taking a deep breath and stepping out of the bathroom, determined to keep a cool head.

It's not Sam's fault, he reminded himself, it's not Dad's fault, it's life. This is life, this is how our lives are.

After trudging over to the edge of his bed, Dean worked his laces loose and pulled his shoes off, the rest of his clothing to follow as he changed into a worn pair of black sweatpants and crawled under the covers with Sam.

"I'm excited to go back to school," Sam stated, turning towards Dean with a grin on his face.

"Scooch over," Dean responded, elbowing his brother's ribs to give himself more room. "Why would you say a thing like that? Wanting to go back to school."

"Because, at the last school we started doing multiplication with double-digit numbers, but the teacher said I was catching on really well, and so I could move on to hundreds. So now I can do stuff like, multiply twenty-seven by three-hundred."

Dean chuckled. "That might be one of the nerdiest things I've heard you say."

"Whatever Dean," Sam said, shaking his head, "you're just jealous because you don't know what eight times seven is off the top of your head."

"Do to!"

"Do not!" Sam mouthed back. When Dean gave no sign of a response, Sam whacked his brother over the top of his head with a pillow. "What is it then?" he prodded, "if you know what it is."

"I don't have to prove myself to you," Dean said while flipping over, lying down with his back to his brother and pulling up the covers so they completely covered his shoulders and started to pretend to snore.

"Your snore sounds so fake," and Dean could just imagine Sam's eye-roll as he said that, also turning around so that his back faced the center of the bed, mirroring Dean, and buried himself in the surprisingly soft quilt.

"You boys aren't fighting again, are you?" John asked, finally climbing into his own bed and extinguishing the light.

"No sir," the two brothers chimed together.

AUTHORS NOTE: I wanted to say a quick thanks for reading the first chapter, and give fair warning to potential readers that this is not going to be a romantic or relationship-centric story (since I know a lot of people look for that in their fan-fictions). Love yall lots!

The End
(of the chapter)