In which six year old Dean, has to take two year old Sam grocery shopping... And, little Sammy wanders off.
Late evening time, some time during 1985.
Sam sits patiently at the rickety motel table, tapping his hands on the top of it – he can barely even touch the surface, despite Dean having to use two pillows so that he can reach. "Ugh," Dean grumbles, stepping down from the chair that he was using to look inside the cupboard.
He looks over at his younger brother, and then sighs. He can't leave him alone to go and get food, but what will anyone who's watching him take his toddler brother shopping say, exactly? "Sammy, we gotta go to the store real quick." He wanders over to where Sam is now folding his arms, and pouting grumpily up at him.
"No. I hungry!" Sam protests, not understanding the situation.
"Come on," he holds his arms out for Sam to jump into them, but he won't.
"Don't wanna," he huffs adamantly.
Dean rolls his eyes, before simply lifting him up without giving him a choice. "Fine, be like that." He shrugs, placing Sam on the bed and putting his shoes on.
Seeing the small tears appearing in the corners of Sam's green eyes, Dean starts to feel bad. He quickly runs to his duffel bag, and pulls out a blue pacifier. "Don't tell Dad," he gives it to Sam, who's face immediatley lights up.
Picking up the scruffy hoody for Sam, he pulls it over his head. "Right, we'll be quick." He instructs, grabbing the emergency funds that John always leaves for him in the bedside drawer. He takes Sam's hand, and then they walk outside. It's dusk – about half past six, in the evening – and, the motel grounds are quiet.
Dean knows that there's a grocery store nearby, because he saw it when they drove past on the way to the motel – four days ago. He carefully leads Sam through the parking lot, and then they make sure to cross the road at the right place. "We don't jaywalk, do we Sammy?" Dean says to his toddling brother, who's too busy staring at a dog from across the street to be conversing with him right now.
"What's a jaywalk?" He frowns, his voice muffled from the pacifier.
Dean chuckles, shaking his head. He doesn't say anything, but he just sighs with relief as the sign for the grocery store comes into view ahead of them. There's a few late night shoppers wandering around – taking double glances as Dean walks past them, holding Sammy's hand.
He picks up a basket, and then finds his way to the cereal aisle. "This one!" Sam grabs the lucky charms, trying to throw them into the basket. Dean let's him, but then draws the line as he sees his little brother trying to grab some chocolate wheaties.
"We don't have enough for it all! We need some proper food," he tries to explain, quickly holding Sam by the wrist before he runs off.
He leads him to the soup aisle – swiftly guiding him away from any candy or chocolate ones. Going on his tiptoes to reach one of the cans on the middle shelf, Dean then turns around and places it into the basket. "Is tomato okay, Sammy?" He turns to his left – where Sam was standing just a few moments ago.
"Sam?" Frantically turning his head to look around the now empty aisle, Dean feels the feeling of panic setting in.
He yanks the basket from its resting place on the floor, and then tears into a run out of the aisle. "Sam?!" He yells, looking up and down every single one. He isn't even in the candy aisle... Which is extremely worrying. When he makes his way down the bread aisle, he suddenly tunes in to a small whimpering noise. "Sammy?" Spinning on his worn out sneaker heels, Dean follows the source of the noise, all the way to the end of the aisle.
The youngest Winchester is sat on an empty shelf, tears staining his rosy red cheeks. "Sam, why did you do that?!" Dean scolds loudly, dropping the basket so that he can pick the sad tot up from the ground.
"I – I wanted candy, and I got lost!" He wails into Dean's shoulder, as his elder brother pats his back.
"You never run off again, okay?" He says sternly, and feels Sam nodding in agreement.
Reaching down to pick up the basket, Dean mentally prepares himself for twenty questions from the cashier. He has a recurring excuse for all of them though – the one where his single Mom is sick, and Dean bravely walked from a few houses away to get his brother some dinner.
They were always heading into a different town by the time anyone could chase their case up with the police, or social services. So, the little Winchesters always managed to get away.