An alarm clock blaring through the silence of a welcomed sleep is never an appreciated sound. Dean hurriedly swings his arm up from under the covers, slamming his hand down on the snooze button only to immediately regret the action as the bruises along his ribs throb in protest.
"Sammy, get up." When Dean doesn't feel any movement letting him know that his brother heard him, he tries again, this time adding a foot to the mix with the hope of kicking his brother out of bed.
However, when all he finds is empty space, Dean lifts his head up and looks around the too bright room. Their curtains are actually old bed sheets and do nothing to block out the morning sunlight. He's alone in the room, something he should have known the moment he woke up and didn't feel his brother's arms and legs tangled around him. Sam sleeps like a fish out of water.
"Sam!" he yells. He's rewarded with the cut on his lip splitting open and a muffled ""What!?" from beyond the bedroom door.
Dean climbs out of bed and immediately notices that the change in elevation causes a deep pulse to pound across the bridge of his nose. He pulls himself up and makes it to the bedroom door just as it flies open. He has just enough time to throw up his hands in order to stop the door from hitting him in the face.
"Sorry!" Sam yells around a mouthful of what smells like bologna, "Did I hit your nose?"
Dean just shakes his head 'no' and looks at his brother. "Inside voice, Sammy." Dean's never really been a morning person, which kind of sucks when you've got a dad that insists on early mornings. Sleeping in past eight is a luxury in the Winchester household. A rare luxury. Usually when dad isn't there, Dean tries to sleep at least until ten when he doesn't have school. Sam alternates between waking up before Dad and having to be pulled out of bed by his big brother. Today is one of the former, treating Dean to the early bird special: a loud, bright eyed Sammy at six in the friggin' morning.
"You look like crap," Sam informs him, taking another bite out of a rolled up piece of bologna, the edges darkened from exposure in the fridge.
"Thanks, Sam. You're always so kind." Dean pushes past his brother and steps into the bathroom, hating the bright fluorescent light. He squints his eyes and blinks a few times as he adjusts to the brightness. Looking in the mirror, he realizes Sam was being kind. He looks worse than crap.
Both eyes are accented by darkened bruises, which had the whole night to blossom to their full glory—a mixture of blacks, purples, and reds. His nose is swollen, more on the left than the right, giving his face a lopsided, distorted look. His lip is ugly and the cut is black with a little trace of red from where it had split open again.
He doesn't look like crap, he's fugly.
"I need you to sign stuff," Sam yells through the bathroom door. Dean rolls his eyes and lifts the toilet seat. "Did you hear me, Dean?"
"Yes, Sammy. I heard you. Can't a guy pee in peace?"
"My folder's on the table," Sam yells back, conveniently ignoring the last part of Dean's statement.
"Fine." Dean yells back. When he finishes with the bathroom, he walks out to find a blue folder lying on the table, a large sticker in the shape of a pencil plastered to the front with 'Sam W.' written in bold, black letters. There's a pen lying on top, ready for Dean to use.
Opening the folder, Dean sees a stack of graded papers, mostly A's as well as a permission form. A quick glance reads it's permission for Sam to have his picture taken with the class to be in the newspaper. Something about them being featured for their creative and influential science program. All Dean remembers is Sam yapping about building a volcano in class.
Taking the pen, Dean forges John's signature on each of the graded papers as well as the permission form. He's been doing this since he first learned to write in cursive. The first thing Dean learned to write was his own signature. The second was John's.
It's not identical to his father's messy script, but it doesn't really matter. Dean signs everything so there isn't a sample of John's signature for them to compare it to.
Putting the papers back in the folder, Dean stands looks around for his brother's backpack. Finding it on the floor beneath the table, he quickly stuffs the folder inside and zips it up.
"Sammy, d'you brush your teeth?" He yells, preparing for the battle.
"Yep," comes the quick reply. Short and staccato, a telltale sign that Sam is lying. "I don't believe you," Dean says back, making his way to the bedroom to see Sam sitting on the floor focusing his attention on tying his shoes. Dean wants to laugh because Sam's face is scrunched up in a way more appropriate for disarming a bomb instead of making a shoelace rabbit run around the bush.
"I did it before you got up," Sam says, purposefully not looking up at his brother.
When Sam stands, Dean puts an arm across the doorframe, blocking Sam's path. "Why would you brush your teeth before you ate breakfast?" Dean asks, not bothering to mention stale bologna isn't a suitable breakfast.
Sam shrugs his shoulders before he attempts to dart beneath his brother's arm. Dean stops him and spins him around, ignoring the protest his ribs and back make. When Sam yells back, "Let me go, Dean!" Dean has all the confirmation he needs that his brother's lying.
"Dude! It smells like something died in there." He quickly lets Sam go, and points to the bathroom. "You gotta brush, Sam. That's foul."
'You're foul," Sam retorts as he shuffles his feet to the bathroom. Dean watches as Sam puts a pea-sized amount of toothpaste on his toothbrush.
"You gotta use more, Doofus. That little bit ain't gonna kill that monster."
"But it's nasty."
"Says the genius that just ate expired lunchmeat for breakfast." Dean stands his ground until Sam adds more toothpaste and begins to brush his teeth. Satisfied, Dean leaves and looks for his shoes, but finding them still in a plastic bag with his other wet and muddy clothes from the fight, he settles for having to walk barefoot.
"Dude, let's go! You're gonna miss the bus!" That gets Sam's attention and he quickly runs out of the bathroom, grabs his book bag, and follows Dean to the door.
Walking to the entry of the trailer park barefoot proves to be a little more difficult than Dean had originally thought. Every few steps his foot lands on a small rock or something sharp. The fact that they live at the far end doesn't help him either.
When they finally make it to the road, the other kids are already there and none of them try to hide the fact that they are openly staring at Dean's bruised face.
"What happened to your brother?" Dean hears Jacob, one of the kindergarteners whisper behind him. He fights back a smile when he hears Sam whisper conspiratorially in return, "He's a power ranger, but you can't tell nobody."
Jacob doesn't say anything else, but Dean notices that the little boy keeps staring at him with a new sense of awe as opposed to the morbid fascination the other students do.
As the bus pulls up to stop, the kids all step back and wait for the doors to open. When everyone else is loaded on the bus, Miss Margie, the bus driver looks at Dean, taking in his bare feet, baggy sleep clothes, and bruised face. She quirks an eyebrow and asks, "I'm guessing you're not coming today?"
"Nope. Got suspended," Dean answers, giving her that lopsided grin.
"Did you deserve it?"
"Does it matter?"
"Boy, you're kind of moody in the morning aren't ya?" She places a hand on her hip and tilts her head.
"Yeah, because you're always just a ray of sunshine," he smirks.
"Hmmph. Let's see how you like riding around with all these kids," she says as she gestures to the back of the bus with her thumb.
"I do ride around with all those kids."
"But you are a kid. Big difference," she smiles as she pulls the doors closed. Turning around Dean catches sight of Jacob tentatively waving at him from one of the windows. Dean holds up two fingers and waves back, laughing a little as the little boy smiles big before ducking down in his seat.
As Dean begins to walk away, he hears Miss Margie yell, "Everybody sit down, and shut up!"
"Yep, just a big ole ray of happiness."
Dean walks back to the trailer in silence, looking forward to the nice cool sheets and a few extra hours of sleep.
As it turns out, an alarm clock is preferable to the sound of John Winchester busting through the bedroom door at eleven o'clock asking "Why the hell are you still in bed?"
"I didn't have anywhere else to be," Dean answers, getting out of bed anyway. According to his dad, that isn't an excuse to sleep all day.
"Well you do now, so get up." Dean resists the urge to point out he was already getting up, and chooses to silently follow his dad into the kitchen.
"Where's that exactly?" Dean asks, noting that his father has yet to take off his jacket. "We're going to town. You're gonna get supplies while I'm at the library."
Dean can tell his dad's focused again, still working the job. There's a reason John only moved them to the next county: it's so he'd still be within driving distance of Goodsprings, home to a series of unexplained car accidents resulting in numerous deaths and mysterious eye-witness accounts.
"Hurry and get dressed. I'll be in the car." Dean watches his father walk out the front door. He should have known his dad would have him tagging along. Usually, when he's out of school, he's watching Sam. Weekends and summer breaks usually means watching Sam while out in the field. But being suspended has its perks. No school. No babysitting, or worrying whether or not Sammy's safe.
Dean is actually going to have some time to his self- a luxury even more rare than sleeping in. Dean loves his family, he'd do anything for them, but every now and then, he wishes for some space. Not a lot, just an hour or two where he isn't burdened with responsibility.
He never says it out loud, and he never will, but lately he's come to realize that some things just suck, that most times, life isn't fair. Never having enough money, food, or clothes. Having to explain to your brother why his friends can't come spend the night. Trying to convince their dad that the world won't end if Sam goes to play at a friend's house. Trying to make teacher's understand that his dad couldn't care less whether or not he finished his homework because half the time Dean wonders if his dad even knows what grade he's in let alone what classes he's taking.
Mostly, he hates seeing Sam struggle to throw a knife straight or hold a gun steady. It means his dad's getting him ready to help out, the same way John did with Dean when he turned nine. Dean knows he won't be able to watch Sam twenty-four seven, won't be able to keep him safe all of the time. It sucks having to put five stitches in your dad's back. Dean doesn't even want to consider what it will feel like putting even one in his brother's.
Slamming the door behind him, Dean jogs to the car. He climbs in to find his dad using the car's horn as a writing desk, quickly scribbling down last minute items to the uniquely Winchester shopping list. "Make sure you get all of this."
Dean doesn't even look at it when his dad hands it to him. He just takes it and sticks it in his pocket. "We need groceries," Dean says, knowing his dad didn't put any on the list. "And a few other things."
"Get food. Cheap food." Dean just nods, knowing he's going to get the other things, too. Some things you can't live without, and toilet paper's one of them.
They drive to the small grocery store in the center of town. It's only a few blocks from the library, making it convenient to leave the car at the store. Dean's grateful because he doesn't think he could carry all of the supplies all the way to the library with bruised ribs. He's already feeling the strain just getting out of the car.
"Here." John hands Dean a wad of cash. "Make it go far," he adds unnecessarily, Dean's been shopping for the family since he was ten. He knows how to stretch a dollar.
When John tosses Dean the keys to the car, Dean turns and heads for the grocery store, feeling a little excited because this is the first time since Goodsprings that his dad's trusted him to be by his self.
All the excitement drains away the moment John yells out, "Dean, you come straight to the library when you're finished."
"Got it." Dean mumbles, feeling familiar feelings of embarrassment and anger.
"Loose the attitude before you get there," he hears his dad yell, but he doesn't stop to acknowledge that he heard him. He just keeps walking towards the automatic sliding doors advising shoppers to watch their step.
Most of the items on the shopping list are pretty straightforward: batteries, non-scented candles, a suspicious amount of salt, and a few gallons of water. Nothing too difficult. Other things though, require more time to find and have a tendency to be expensive. Sage, Rosemary, and a few other herbs Dean's almost certain most thirteen year olds don't even know exist.
Dean knows when he reads that his dad wants him to buy a full chicken, that it isn't just for dinner. He remembers a couple of weirdo witch doctors that had shown his father the benefits of chicken bones. He had been too young to really understand, but Dean thinks it had something to do with a protection spell. Either way, it means they're having chicken tonight.
Shopping for actual groceries turns out to be a little depressing. Mostly because Dean can't afford what he really wants, because eighty-three dollars can only get you so far. They can't buy any meat, at least not any kind that doesn't come in a can. Sam's turning out to be one picky eater, and there's only so many ways a guy can cook noodles.
When he starts unloading his cart onto the conveyor belt at the check out counter, Dean expects the cashier to say something about the odd assortment of items he's purchasing, most of them usually do. What he doesn't expect is for the twenty-something year old to look at him like he's something gross she's just discovered on the bottom of her shoe and ask, "Shouldn't you be in school?" Her tone is completely void of any friendly salesmanship.
"Shouldn't you be ringing up my stuff?" Dean asks, mirroring her tone.
"There's no reason for you to be an ass, you know," she says as she starts loading cans of Vienna sausages into a paper bag.
"I'm sorry," Dean lies, "It's my go to response when someone's being a bitch." She stops ringing up the items long enough to level him with a surprised glare, but doesn't say anything in response until she finishes bagging the last item. "Seventy-nine dollars and thirty-two cents," she tells him, holding out her hand impatiently.
Dean hands her the money and waits for his change. When he leaves, she doesn't wish him a nice day.
Despite only having been in the grocery store for an hour, when Dean finds his dad sequestered in the small library, he already has several pages of handwritten notes and even more photocopied images of pages from various books.
His dad doesn't really say anything to him except to put him to work practicing Latin and running to the front desk to ask the librarian to make a copy. Since his dad isn't allowing him to look around, Dean busies himself with reading his father's notes once the Latin starts getting redundant.
There are several references to different forms of demons, along with a few printouts of unexplained phenomenon believed to cause accidents. When the notes start to merge into quantum physics, Dean gives up and resumes writing out the different phrases in Latin.
Dean keeps an eye on the clock, watching as the big hand slowly makes its way around twice before he moves to interrupt his father.
"Dad, it's almost three o'clock."
"So?" his father asks as he sketches out a roughly drawn map from the libraries atlas.
"Sammy'll be getting' home in a little bit," Dean informs him. He tries not to notice when his dad looks put out about having to leave so soon, if you call sitting for almost four hours in one spot soon.
As soon as they're home, John helps Dean unload the groceries before he jumps back in the car. Dean's standing on the cement steps, getting ready to walk to the bus stop when John leans out the window. "Cook and de-bone that chicken. You know the drill," and with that he leaves with a promise to be back before morning.
Dean doesn't worry. He knows the drill, and not just where the chicken is concerned. Since he was seven years old, his dad's been keeping weird hours on the parent front, leaving Dean to hold down the fort.
As he starts walking to meet Sam, he remembers their landlord in Wyoming. She was an old woman, and was very vocal in her opinions. And boy was she opinionated. She had kept constant tabs on John's comings and goings, something the Winchesters usually try to avoid.
One morning when John got home after being gone for three days, the woman had met him on the front porch, screaming about how she should call child services, and report him for being such an awful father.
It wasn't the first time someone had mentioned John's questionable parenting skills. Even Dean had thought it a time or two, but that didn't mean John didn't love his kids. Where was it written that not knowing the proper way to raise children translated to not loving them?
Sitting on the curb of the street, Dean thinks his Dad's doing the best he can, all things considered. He knows things won't be so bad once Sam's a little older. Dean doesn't think about the fact that their dad had started leaving them alone when Dean was younger than Sam is now, because it's not the same.
Sam's the baby, always has been. He should get to be a kid. Dean tries not to think that sometimes, he wishes he could just be a kid, too.
It isn't long before the bus pulls around, dropping off the remaining seven of the trailer park's school aged kids. Sam's one of the first to get off the bus, and Dean doesn't waist any time ushering him back towards their home.
Jacob runs up along side Dean and looks at him with oversized eyes. "Hi Dean," he whispers, almost as though he's too scared for Dean to actually hear him.
Dean looks down at the kid but doesn't slow his pace. "Hey, Jacob. How was school?"
"It was okay. Mrs. Tanner fell out of her chair and Matt says she broke her butt." Dean just smiles, "Sounds like a fun day."
"What did you do?" Jacob asks, nearly jogging to keep up. Dean's a little caught off guard, because what can he say? He can't tell a five year old that he restocked their ghost busting kit and helped his dad look up info on demonic possession and weird physics, but then again, Sam did tell the kid that Dean was a power ranger…
"I bought a chicken." The statement causes Jacob to give Dean a thoroughly confused look, sort of like the ones that Dean makes when he isn't sure he heard someone correctly. Sam, however, lights up at the news of Dean's day.
That means they won't be eating eggs, or noodles, or something out of a can for the first time in a long time. Sam has a very limited list of things that he believes qualifies as 'real' food. Dean's come to learn anything that is easily identifiable as having once been an animal is on that list, chicken being one. Spam on the other hand, is not and Sam will only eat it when there is absolutely nothing else in the house.
Even when Sam was a toddler Dean could only get him to eat it by making up silly rhymes using the words Spam and Sam. After the incident with the potted meat, Dean learned not to tease his brother about food companies putting 'special' ingredients in various products. His dad had stocked up on potted meat and Dean had made the mistake of saying it was made of ground up rat-tails and chicken feet.
Sam didn't eat for almost two whole days, and he only ate then because Dean stole a package of hotdogs from a truck stop's deli. He didn't dare tell Sam that he couldn't list the ingredients in a hotdog either.
Dean can't help noticing that Sam's picked up the pace, suddenly eager to get home. With a quick goodbye to Jacob, Dean leaves the kid behind, hurrying to unlock the front door before Sam gets it in his head to knock it down.
"Chill, kid. I haven't even cooked it yet," Dean tells him, pushing open the door. "You have to help me put up everything."
Dean puts the chicken in a pot of water and sets it to boil while Sam starts emptying the numerous grocery bags piled near the front door. He's sitting Indian style, stacking canned goods like pyramids on one side while sorting hunting supplies on the other.
"What are you gonna do with the chicken?" Sam asks, his excitement evident in the dimpled grin. Dean doesn't answer him, but reaches into one of the bags instead and holds up a small bottle of generic Bar-B-Q sauce.
Sam's eyes light up much like Jacob's had minutes before.
"I got you something," Dean says as he begins searching the remaining bags. "You can't tell dad though. We didn't really have the money." When Dean pulls out an economy sized bag of snicker bite sized candy bars, Sam's eyes look like they might actually pop out of their sockets.
"You do realize you're awesome, right?" Sam asks as Dean hands him two of the candy bars.
"Duh, Haven't I been tellin' you that all along?" Dean takes one of the candy bars and sticks it in his mouth whole. Every now and then, they get to have candy. Either because Dean steals it, or John's managed to get another credit card. But in between cards when they have to rely on cash, Sam and Dean know not to ask for anything that's not needed.
"Help me put all this crap up so you can do your homework," Dean orders, standing to hide the candy in their room.
They put away the food, shampoo, and soap and Sam sits down to work on his vocabulary and math. When the chicken finishes cooking, Dean starts to de-bone it while he quizzes Sam on his spelling words, promising another piece of candy if he gets them all correct.
Sam ends up missing two, but Dean still gives him one of the snickers, taking another for himself.
Once all of the chicken bones are cleaned and placed in the fridge, Dean spreads the sauce over the meat and he and Sam dig in, smearing as much as they can on pieces of bread and enjoying the sickenly full feelings their stomachs take on after three sandwiches each.
"When's Dad coming home?" Sam asks while he washes the chicken pot, letting the hot water run over his hands as the soap blends with the grease.
Dean puts away the rest of the chicken, sticking it in the fridge beneath the bones. "He said before morning, and before you even ask, no, you may not stay up and wait for him."
"I wasn't gonna ask," Sam says indignantly. He flicks his fingers towards Dean, covering his brother with droplets of soapy water.
"Watch it, Runt or you won't eat again for a week," Dean threatens, failing to back up the words with any menace due to the smile on his face. Good food and a happy brother tend to be good reasons to smile.
"I saw all those Vienna sausages. I might not want to eat."
"Aren't you a little young to be such a smart ass?" Dean wipes off the table, spinning the towel around so he can pop it against the back of his brother's legs. Sam laughs as he runs out of the way, letting the cleaned pot fall in the sink.
They end up falling asleep on opposite ends of the couch, using an old quilt they usually keep in the back of the car for warmth.
It's almost four in the morning when Dean's awoken by the sound of movement outside. He quickly looks to Sam, who had stolen most of the quilt at some point in the night. Seeing that his brother's still asleep, Dean climbs off the couch and starts walking towards the door to see if it's their dad.
A shadow passing behind the sheet covered window stops Dean in his tracks. It had only been for a second, but Dean knows the shadow had not belonged to his father; it was too small and too fast to be John.
Dean turns and picks up his brother, biting his lip to keep from crying out at the protesting in his ribs. Sam barely even stirs as Dean lays him on the bed, pulling the cover up to his chin before reaching under the pillow for the spare gun.
Back in the living room, Dean stands in front of the door, one hand resting on the doorknob, thumb poised to unlock it the moment he gets his nerves under control.
He grips the gun tighter in his other hand as he wriggles his toes against the bristly texture of the welcome mat. When the familiar sound of the Impala's engine can be heard in the distance, Dean sighs and rests his forehead against the door in relief.
He waits until he hears the tires running over the gravel immediately outside and he can see the headlights illuminating the room through the windows before he unlocks the door and pulls it open.
John takes one look at his son standing in the doorframe, gun in hand before he's reaching for his own gun tucked away in the waistband of his pants. "Dean, what's wrong?"
"I saw something. It was too fast to—"
"Get inside with Sam. Lock the door and don't open it until you know it's me." John doesn't wait for Dean to respond before he's walking around the back of the trailer, he's depending on Dean to do as he's told.
Dean locks the door, and checks the gun to make sure the safety's off. He walks back to the bedroom, cracking the door so he can keep one eye on his brother and an ear out for their dad.
As the minutes slowly tick by, Dean starts to worry. The first five minutes aren't a problem, there's a lot of places something could hide. After ten minutes, Dean reminds himself that his dad likes to be thorough. Don't bother doing something if you're only gonna do it half-assed. But after fifteen minutes, Dean's starting to consider going outside.
A familiar rhythmic knock on the front door has Dean abandoning his post near the bedroom to quickly let his dad in.
"Did you see anything?" Dean asks before John can even get inside. Dean quickly locks the door, moving to the kitchen to get some salt for a salt line, despite the repelling symbol beneath the mat.
"Nothing," his dad tells him, and Dean feels grateful when John doesn't question whether or not he could have been seeing things. Instead, John takes the canister of salt from his son and lays the line his self. "Whatever was there is gone now. Where's your brother?"
"Bed."
"Good, you should join him." John hands Dean the salt and squeezes his shoulder before making his way to the trailer's other bedroom.
Dean sees his dad run his hand over the back of his neck before he shuts the door, leaving Dean alone in the darkened living room.
Dean brings the salt with him. He puts the gun back under his pillow and proceeds to pour a circle of salt around the bed, stretching his arm to lay it along the wall beneath the headboard.
He lies back down next to his brother, but he doesn't fall asleep again. Instead, he alternates between watching Sam breathe and keeping an eye on the window for any more shadows.
