Papa's Gone a Huntin'
Sam pulled the cell phone well away from his ear in pain. Dean shook his head from where he stood, leaning against the door frame.
"I told you so."
Sam stared at him sourly. Because he had told him so. The voice on the other end of the phone continued to yell at him with great imagination.
"Now! Put Dean on!"
Even Dean heard that. Sam threw the phone over to his brother like it was a hot potato. Dean caught it, and with some trepidation brought it up to his ear.
"Your Dad's got you babysitting?" Evie asked as if she hadn't just been yelling loud enough to wake most of the county.
"Yeah, he rang yesterday and called us over."
"What did he tell you?"
"He wasn't here when we arrived." Dean couldn't quite keep the disappointment out of his voice. "Just found a note from him saying he was out with the kids' father hunting the thing that killed their mother, and we were to watch them 'til they got back."
"But of course Sam wants to completely ignore that and go find John."
"You know Sam."
"And he thought it'd be a good idea to ask me to babysit instead. You can't just find some nice local woman?"
Dean looked over at the little girl playing quietly with her baby brother. Her pigtails were still neatly in place, and she hadn't messed up her dress yet – that was weird enough.
"Well these kids are slightly different. They come with cages."
There was a startled pause before Evie answered.
"What exactly killed their mother?"
"Werewolf," Dean told her. The little girl looked over at him, her blue eyes gave nothing away. Poor kid, he thought, still, at least they know.
"You haven't taken them out of the cages, have you?" Dean didn't answer. "Dean? Have you?"
"Relax, the cages were for their protection. We're here now."
"You do know it's a full moon tonight?"
"Well, I imagine that's why Dad and his friend are hunting it tonight," he answered acidly.
"I'm just saying, you'd better be sure about those kids."
"Well," Dean began, sensing an opportunity. "You could always come and check out their auras for us."
"I'm by the Mississippi, genius, even if I wanted to, I couldn't get up there in time."
"You could try." If Dean was going to be stuck in a cabin for the next three days he could do with all the amusement he could get. "Come on, two cute kids, a couple of cages, one handsome man. And a geek," he added as an after thought. Sam rolled his eyes.
"Sorry, I'll see your kids and raise you an alligator god."
"Oh man! You get all the fun." There was no way they'd tempt her up if that's what she was dealing with. "Okay, enjoy the water."
"Did you not hear me? ALLIGATOR GOD! The only water I'm swimming in is chlorinated."
Dean ended the call and threw Sam the phone back.
"I still can't believe you actually asked Evie to babysit."
Sam didn't bother answering him.
Dean looked over at the kids. The girl, a pretty little blue-eyed blonde, was called Alice. She was eight years old and three months, as she had solemnly informed them two minutes into their acquaintance. Her brother Max was just out of diapers, Alice had told them he was two and three quarters three minutes into their acquaintance. He was a chubby, rosy cheeked boy, and like his sister, he was way too quiet.
But then, they had recently lost their mother. He could relate to that.
"You guys hungry?" He asked.
They nodded. Dean walked over to the kitchen end of the small cabin and looked for something edible. They'd only arrived an hour ago to find the note from their father telling them what to do, telling them the kids were in the basement, and not to let them out. Sam had obeyed that instruction for about thirty seconds.
Sam made for the door.
"Where're you going?" Dean asked immediately.
"It's sundown in another hour, if there's a werewolf on the prowl we might need more than food for the night."
Dean watched him go, he sounded resigned, and Dean didn't like that, for all that he hated it when Sam defied their father, he hated it more when the fire left him. His gaze dropped to the two pairs of eyes that seemed to follow him everywhere.
"Food. Let's see what I can find."
There was no way the family lived there. Not because it was so small, he and Sam more or less lived in a car for God's sake, but because the food was not what you'd find in a regular kitchen. It was more as if someone had raided a gas station. He looked at the array of chips and cookies he'd collected in front of him.
"Everything growing children need," he muttered to himself.
Sam reappeared with the hold-all and let it fall to the ground with a reassuringly heavy thump. Dean took a packet of chips, a can of soda, and a few cookies over to the children.
"Here, it'll probably keep you awake all night, but this is all I could find." He looked closer at Alice. "You okay with your brother while I look after mine?"
She took the packets from him one by one and put them on the floor between them.
"Yes."
Dean joined Sam by the bag of weapons.
"Not exactly chatty any more, are they?" He said as he opened up the case holding the silver bullets. "I'm gonna have to make more of those soon."
Sam looked up briefly at the children.
"That really all there was to eat?"
"Guess the dad was in a hurry." He pulled out a bunch of mistletoe. "You gotta be kidding me."
"I know, it doesn't always work," Sam conceded. "But we've got kids here, anything's worth a shot. It's not going to hurt to try."
"Yeah, we can shoot it while it's laughing at us."
Sam took the bunch and started placing sprigs at every window. Dean carried on checking the guns, placing each one on the scrubbed table when he was happy. He took out the spray gun filled with a mix of water and silver nitrate, gave it a shake, and put it up along side the rest. Finally he tipped the bag, rolling around in the bottom were four grenades. Dean smiled approvingly.
Sam left the cabin and started closing the shutters. Winter was early, but still it was unusually mild for New York State at that time of year. He was glad to get out of the cabin, even if for just a little time. It was burning him up that he knew his dad was somewhere out there, among the trees, and that he couldn't go find him. He had so many questions, so many things he wanted to say – although he guessed that if, when he saw him again, they probably wouldn't get said anyway.
So instead he was playing babysitter. What did he know about children? Even Dean was better than he was at dealing with kids. Although, he thought, that probably said more about Dean than him. How many grown men still watched Godzilla movies?
And he calls me the geek.
Reluctantly he returned inside. Dean had gone through the cabinets again and found a bottle of bourbon. Sam picked it up from the table.
"You sure drinking's a good idea?"
"I'm not going to drink it," Dean replied, disgusted. "I am a professional!"
He tore a strip of cloth from one of the faded gingham curtains and pushed it in to the neck.
"Last resort," he told Sam with a grin. "Be a shame to waste it."
Sam lit the one oil lamp and placed it among the weapons. Dean looked over at the children, quietly working their way through their junk supper. Alice primly brushed a crumb from her pretty pink dress.
"They don't strike you as weird?"
Sam looked over at them, if their dad had given them a supper like that at their ages – and truth be told, he had on more than one occasion – there would have been as much food over Dean and him as inside them.
"A little. They've been through a rough time though."
Dean nodded slightly. "Maybe." He looked at them a moment longer. "We should get them down into the basement now. Just in case."
Alice meekly took Dean's hand and her brother held onto hers as he led them down. Holding the oil lamp up above his head, he looked about him. It had once been used, the lines of shelving proved that, but now the shelves were empty except for a few broken tools, and a single candle held upright by melted wax.
The two cages (and it was odd, Dean had to admit, that Alice and Max had their own cages - once you got over the fact that they had cages at all) took up most of the floor space. A bed had been made up in each, and both had a bottle of water beside them. The doors were Yale locks, not padlocks – it was all strange. Dean sighed.
"Look, I guess there's no need for me to lock you in. But if you hear anything, I want you to shut the doors behind you. Okay Alice? Can I trust you to look after your brother?"
"Yes," she replied, so quietly he could hardly hear.
Dean got down onto one knee. She was looking a little pale.
"You feeling alright?" She nodded. "Don't worry, everything's going to be fine."
He lit the candle and went back up the stairs.
"Oh," he said, as an after thought. "And I don't want you coming back up until we come and get you. That's an order."
Sam looked up as Dean closed the basement door. The mistletoe he'd hung on the handle swung a little.
"That's an order?"
"What? It worked with us."
"It worked with you," Sam replied. "They okay?"
Dean shrugged. "Hard to say. They've grown so quiet."
"It's late, they're probably just tired."
Dean agreed. He walked over to the door, which remained open for as long as the sun was still up.
"I hate waiting," he muttered restlessly.
"We could always go hunt," Sam suggested. "Take the fight to him."
"Our orders are to stay here," Dean replied predictably. "Dad and his friend are hunting it. It might not even be near by."
"Well, they clearly thought the kids were at risk," Sam answered, sitting at the table, with a semi-automatic in front of him, ready to be picked up in an emergency.
The sun went down. Dean closed and bolted the door. Then, to be on the safe side, he rechecked the shutters. Sam waited patiently until he returned to the table and sat down next to him. Together they waited in the pool of golden lamp light.
A few minutes later, Sam cocked his head.
"What's that noise?"
Dean picked up a gun without thinking, as he stood up. He circled the room trying to place where the whining and snuffling was coming from. Slowly he drew closer to the basement door. Sam's chair slid back as he rose. Cautiously Dean opened the door. He looked inside.
"Oh crap!" He slammed the door shut. At that moment the noises became high pitched growls and two large thuds nearly threw him to the floor.
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