Chapter Seven

Dean pulled the Impala up in front of the bar, turned off the engine. He was humming some Godawful mullet-rock tune, off-key as usual, that Sam was sick to death of hearing. But he was always outnumbered because both Dad and Dean insisted on classic rock and metal, and referred to Sam's personal preference as panty-waisted, pansy-assed, pussified pop-shit.

You just couldn't win if you had your dad and your older brother against you.

"C'mon, wingman. Let's go get us some action." Dean grinned at him, all bright teeth, mobile mouth, and boundless confidence.

"I'm not your wingman," Sam muttered. "They don't even let me sit at the bar, Dean. I'm too young. Why didn't you let me stay at Bobby's?"

"Ah, c'mon. You gotta get out more, Sammy. How you gonna get a girlfriend if you stay put at Bobby's every weekend reading? And anyway, you got your computer." Dean reached over, thumped fisted knuckles against the laptop perched atop Sam's thighs. "We'll get a booth, and you can hang out there and surf the internet while I surf the bar, shoot a little pool—"

"—and pick up a girl," Sam finished. "You don't need me for that."

"Well, maybe tonight we'll pick up a girl for you," Dean said. "Gotta lose it some time, Sammy. Why not in Sioux Falls the summer before your senior year? Call it an early graduation present! Because the chicks always come in pairs. I'll find one for me, and she'll have a friend, and I'll just arrange—"

Sam cut him off sharply. "I don't need anything arranged, Dean!" His face was burning hot. "Can you just let it go already? And no, I don't need you telling me all over again how you 'lost it' so early—"

"Oh, I didn't lose it, Sammy. I donated to a needy charity." Dean slapped the back of his hand against Sam's shoulder. "C'mon, let's go. If you wanna sit in the booth sucking down soda all night looking up Latin conjugations, that's okay by me. But I'm not leaving you out here in the dark." Dean opened the driver's door with the characteristic squeal and scrape of hinges. "Get your ass out of the car, baby bro. Or I'll haul it out myself."

Sam knew he would. Because he'd done it. So Sam got out of the car, slammed the door closed harder than was absolutely necessary, and followed his brother into the bar.

They all knew Dean, the bartenders and cocktail waitresses. They all knew him. So he didn't even bother trying for a stool at the bar. He just made his way to a back booth, slid in, opened the laptop and turned it on.

Within five minutes Margie arrived with the anticipated soda, set down the glass with her usual friendly smile. She was mid-30s, blue-eyed, with hair an indiscriminate color between blonde and brown, and was not even remotely in Dean's age-range or on his radar. But she was nice, and Sam liked her. "Anything to eat, Sammy?"

He didn't correct her. Dean still called him 'Sammy' often enough that the people they saw regularly in Sioux Falls never did switch to the more adult 'Sam' he preferred. He'd given up. "No. We ate at Bobby's. Just the soda, thanks."

"Brother drag you out?"

"I don't know why he does this." Sam didn't bother to hide his exasperation. "He hardly says two words to me once we get here. He should just come on his own."

Margie shrugged, casting a glance across one shoulder at the bar as Dean collected his beer, made his way back toward the pool table. "He knows you're safe here."

He looked at her in surprise. "Safe?"

"He wouldn't take you into a dive," Margie told him. "Not anywhere he doesn't know people. He flies solo in those joints."

Sam frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Your brother gets around," she said matter-of-factly. "Don't you know that? People talk, Sammy. He doesn't come here when he's alone. He hits the tougher places when he's looking to hustle. But this is neutral ground. He's not above playing for a few bucks here, but he's not serious about it. He's not going to clean anybody out."

Sam snapped his head around, saw Dean concentrating on setting up a very precise rack with the balls arranged just so. He already had an opponent Sam didn't recognize; the regulars hung back, handed cash to one another. A couple of young women drifted close.

Dryly, Margie asked, "Which one do you think it'll be?"

Sam looked at her. "What?"

"The ladies, Sammy. I got five bucks says it'll be the redhead."

Sam blinked up at her. "You trying to hustle me?"

Margie grinned. "We can make it free soda, if you'd rather."

Sam looked back, noted the young women. One the redhead, the other a blonde. Maybe out of a bottle, maybe natural. He hadn't ever paid enough attention to think about such things.

He didn't know why he said it. It just popped out of his mouth. "Both."

Margie's laugh ran free and loud. It cut through the rumble of mostly male voices and reached to the pool table. Sam saw Dean's head come up from concentration as he lined up a shot, saw the green eyes light first on Margie, then on his brother. Dean's brows twitched and his mouth pursed thoughtfully as if he contemplated something. Then he gave Sam a long, slow look of amusement and consideration, tipped his head toward Margie, raised his brows in so obvious a question even Sam got it.

Heat rose up in his face. He couldn't even look Margie in the eye.

"He's incorrigible." Margie's tone was something akin to wry fondness. "Don't you worry about it, Sammy. I'm not hitting on you. And I'm not asking your history, either, though I think from his expression I know what it is." When he flicked a quick, startled glance up at her, he found calm friendliness in her eyes. "You'll find the right girl, Sammy. Don't let the man with that stray cat strut push you into anything you're not ready for, just because he can't keep it in his pants. " Her mouth flattened briefly, and he wondered if maybe there was more to the story than he was hearing. "Now, how about a slice of pie? Or did you have dessert at Bobby's, too?"

"No, no, thanks."

"You let me know if you change your mind. I'll keep the refills coming." She gave him another smile, then departed.

The laptop had gone to sleep. Sam woke it up, had started to type in the URL he wanted when Dean arrived.

"Sammy—"

He cut him off. "Don't start with me, Dean." He knew, he just knew what his brother was going to ask him. He could even hear in his mind the suggestive tone of voice before anything was said.

But Dean didn't say anything of the sort. He dropped his cellphone on the table. "Here. Dad keeps calling, and I don't have time to deal with it in the middle of a game. You call him back, tell him I'm busy."

And he was gone, just like that, while Sam stared after him in surprise. Dean always took Dad's calls. It was one of Dad's rules. He almost never called when Dean took his brother into town; he'd said it was fine if they saw a movie, whatever. So if he did call, it meant something.

Dean was turning his back on Dad's call?

Sam switched his look to the redhead and the blonde. Maybe it wasn't pool Dean was thinking about. Maybe it was the chicks.

Then the phone rang, and the screen announced it was Dad. Sam took the call.

The tone was clipped. Angry. And ice-cold. There was no room for Sam to talk, and what he heard was such a shock that he had nothing to say or ask anyway. He just mumbled "Okay," hung up, closed and picked up the laptop, and went to get his brother.

Dean was not happy. Dean finished his shot, gave Sam a look that most distinctly declared, in an ineffably Dean-like statement: 'No freakin' way," and 'Do you want to die?' And moved on to the next ball.

"We have to go," Sam said tautly. "Now. Dad said so."

"Is he dying?" Dean asked.

"No, but—"

"Is Bobby?"

"No, but—"

"Then I can finish this damn game." He dropped the ball, had two solids left.

Sam stepped close. "Dean—"

Dean's opponent, a big sandy-haired guy with a beer gut, asked, "You playin,' or yappin'?"

"Sammy, move."

"We have to go, Dean."

"You wanna forfeit this game?" Beer Gut asked. "Because you're about to."

"Move, Sammy!"

Sam didn't. "Bobby's holding a loaded shotgun on Dad. He's throwing him off the property."

Dean's head snapped around and he straightened from his posture over the table. "What?"

"Dad says we're leaving. As soon as we get there. He wants us there yesterday."

"Bobby's got a gun on Dad?"

"Hey, Pretty Boy—you shootin' pool, or arrangin' for a hook-up?"

Dean tossed the cue stick across the felt and told the man what he could do with himself. He didn't bother with the money; Sam knew he was forfeiting. Under a full head of steam Dean strode out of the bar, pulled the keys from his jacket pocket even as he motioned for Sam to return his cell.

Sam yanked open the door as soon as Dean reached across and unlocked it from the inside, scrambled into the Impala. "You calling Dad?"

"I think I got the gist. Bobby. Shotgun. Dad. We'll see when we get there." He cranked the engine, hit the gas, sprayed gravel as they departed the parking lot. "Did he say why Bobby was holding a loaded gun on him?"

"No."

"Holy crap," Dean muttered. "What the hell did Dad do to piss off Bobby like that?"

"How do you know it wasn't Bobby pissing Dad off?"

"Because Bobby's holding the gun, moron. If Bobby'd pissed off Dad, it'd be the other way around, though I guess then it would be Dad leaving rather than getting kicked off the property. Besides, of the two of 'em, who's more likely to do the pissing off?"

"Dad."

"Dad. He pisses you off enough."

"He says we're leaving," Sam said. "Leaving, leaving. That we'll hit a motel tonight, then move on down the road. Look for a new town. Not even stay in Wyoming."

It was dark outside as they departed the city limits, but in the reflection of the dash lights Sam saw his brother's head turn sharply. "He wants to leave Cheyenne? But you've got a year to go before graduation."

Sam stared out the windshield and felt the tightness in his chest, felt the anger beginning to well up into his throat. This had happened so many times. But he'd thought they'd stay in Cheyenne long enough for him to finish a whole year in one place, in one school. That he'd graduate while knowing some of the students, instead of being a complete stranger, the new kid no one cared about except to rag on. That he'd stand up and collect his diploma in front of teachers who'd encouraged him to go to college, who were helping him prepare for the placement tests, the applications.

"Sammy?"

It was hard to speak around the tautness of his throat. "He can't do this."

Dean sighed. "Yeah. He can. Legally speaking."

"It's not right."

Dean was quiet a moment. He hadn't even turned on the radio. "I'll talk to him, Sammy."

"Will you?" Hope suddenly shoved anger and devastation right out of his body. "He'll listen to you!"

"I can't swear to that, Sammy. But I'll talk to him."

Sam's mind was working rapidly. "I could go to court. File for emancipation. You could be my legal guardian."

Dean stared at him, astonished. "Sammy—"

"I'll be eighteen in a few months."

"And that means you can wait. You don't have to file anything. Just wait it out. But I'll talk to him, see if I can get him to agree that we'll stay in Cheyenne until you graduate. I mean, just because Bobby's tossing him off the property doesn't mean we need to move to a whole 'nother state. "

"He said he wants to hit the road again."

"We can't do that when you've only got a year left."

"Then Dad can hit the road again, and I'll stay with you."

Tension rode Dean's voice. "He needs me sometimes, Sammy. We take a lot of two-man jobs. You know that. We need to just stay put another year. Then we can figure this out."

Sam had it figured out. His senior year, and then he was gone. But if they pulled up stakes again . . . "It'll set me back," he said tightly. "Too much time, too much classwork. I could lose a whole semester."

"Crap," Dean muttered.

Bobby's salvage yard was only fifteen minutes out of the city limits, and Dean didn't waste any time. He swung off the blacktop onto the cinders of Bobby's long drive, aimed the car to the house through the canyons of junkers and stacked, squashed steel rectangles that bore little resemblance to the shiny new automobiles that had once rolled off the assembly line, driven away from car lots by happy new owners.

He and Dean had spent portions of every summer at Bobby's, and now and then if a hunt brought them close. They'd played among those steel canyons and cliffs. Bobby was family, as much as anyone ever could be who wasn't a Winchester.

Sure enough, as they pulled up to the front of the house, Dad was standing in the gravel before the porch steps. Duffels stuffed full were stacked beside his feet.

"Sammy, stay put," Dean said, and opened the car door.

Bobby's porch light was on, as was practically every light inside the house. It wasn't easy to see John Winchester's face with the illumination behind him, but the posture was unmistakable.

Sam didn't stay put. He got out of the car, but went no further. Instinct told him to let Dean handle it. He stood beside the car and watched across the top, saw his father reach down, grab up a duffel, hurl it at his eldest.

"Load it up," Dad said tautly. "We're leaving."

"Dad," Dean began.

"You heard me."

Dean dropped the duffel to the ground. "We have to talk about this."

"Nothin' to talk about, Dean. Pick that up, put it in the car."

"Not until I know what's going on. You drunk, is that it? You and Bobby hit the bottle a little too hard? Whipped out the junk and started measuring? Because you need to think about what you're doing."

"Singer kicked my ass off his property, and what I'm doing is getting the hell off it!" John shouted.

"And when everyone sobers up you can talk about it, hug it out, settle all the big dog hackles, have a couple of drinks. But whatever's got both of you old men up on your hind legs has nothing to do with Sammy, and it's not fair to screw him over. I won't let you."

Sam stopped breathing.

John's tone was incredulous. "You won't let me?"

"That kid deserves to stay put for one more school year until he graduates. You want to pack us up then and move us down the road, fine. We leave Bobby's tonight and never come back, fine. But you're not screwin' with Sammy. He's your son, Dad, not a robot, not a soldier, not a dog you pat on the head now and then when you feel like it—if you remember—then send him off to sit outside at the end of a chain. You've been dragging us from pillar to post for years, and we've done the best we could under the circumstances, but it's one freakin' year, Dad. No more than that. You owe Sammy that much."

Sam couldn't even recognize the tone in his father's voice. He'd never heard it before. It was a mix of astonishment, disbelief, and something akin to challenge combined with slow realization. "No son of mine talks to me like that."

Dean said, "I just did."

Sam shivered, swallowed down the lump in his throat. This was everything he'd ever wanted, what he'd hoped for, what he'd wished for, so many times, when Dad went on a tear. That Dean would stand up to him. And now he had, but Sam suddenly felt that the whole entire world had gone off its axis.

He didn't know this world. He didn't comprehend this world. He had no place, no Sam-shaped space, in this world.

Dad, he knew. Dean, he knew. Sam and Dad fought; Dean and Dad never did. And he realized, in that moment, that for all he'd longed for this, it wasn't so easy after all to jettison everything he'd known all of his life. To discover that hopes and wishes and wants and desires were very, very different than a new reality, when that new reality would alter the only universe he'd ever known.

Be careful what you wish for.

Going away to college was how you started the rest of your life. It was right, it was natural. It was growing up. But watching what you'd always had, when you've had so little; watching what you expected to have for at least another year simply dissolving before your eyes when you weren't quite ready, was impossibly painful. And suddenly terrifying.

In a world where they had no permanent home, no kid down the street to play with, no classmates he'd known through multiple years of school, the only touchstones, the only life buoys Sam had clung to, were Dean, and Dad.

Dad was, he realized, like Mount Rushmore. And Sam didn't want any of those big presidential heads to slide off the side of the mountain. He wanted them whole. He wanted them to peer out across the plains as they always had, ever since Gutzon Borglum had dynamited and sculpted them out of a granite hillside in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

"Dean." It didn't travel. He tried again, more loudly. "Dean, it doesn't matter. Let's just go."

It mattered. It did matter. But right now, in the midst of all of this, he couldn't let it.

The voice came from the porch. It was the dry, raspy grit and gravel Sam had known all of his life. The voice that had told him his father had been through hell, had lost everything but his two boys. The voice that told him growing up was hard.

"You heard him, John," Bobby Singer said. "Time for you to get the hell off my property. Now, your sons are welcome any time, but you?—I'd say you're done."

"Bobby—" Dean began.

But Bobby was looking at Dad, and a shotgun was in his hands. "Do I have to fill your ass full of buckshot?"

Dad didn't say anything. He picked up a duffel, threw it at Dean, then grabbed the other two and strode to the car, dumped them through the open window into the back seat. Then he slid into place behind the steering wheel and pulled closed the door.

"Bobby," Dean said, "don't do this."

"It's done, boy. You and Sam are welcome any time."

Dean shook his head. His tone was raw. "Bobby—he's my dad."

"I know that, son. I know what you gotta do. And I wish you both the best. As for Sam . . . look after your brother, Dean. You do right by him, just as you always have."

Sam stared across the top of the car. Too much light behind Bobby; he couldn't see his face. He couldn't see Dean's, either. This wasn't what he wanted. This was never what he'd wanted.

Sam opened the back door and climbed in, closed it.

Dean turned from Bobby. Took the few steps to the car, thrust the remaining duffel through the open window to rest atop the two Dad had already placed. And then he rounded the car, climbed into the shotgun position, thudded home the door on the grind and creak of hinges, and never said a word as John Winchester drove his sons away from Bobby Singer.

Sam felt the sting in his eyes. He knew. He just knew what Bobby and Dad had argued about. A son leaving a father. A brother leaving a brother. Leaving family.

This wasn't what I wanted. Not like this.

Sam scooted forward until he sat on the edge of the seat. Dean sat facing forward, but his head was turned to the window and the darkness beyond. In the light of passing cars, Sam saw the too-bright sheen in Dean's only visible eye.

He reached forward over the seatback, put his hand on his brother's right shoulder. Knotted it into his coat. Clung to the Dean-shaped life buoy.

Dean still gazed fixedly out of the window. But after a moment he reached up his right hand, patted the back of Sam's twice.

Sam released a trembling breath.

This much of the world is good. This much of the world is right.

This was all he needed of it. All he needed in it.