Chapter 10

Dean

Sammy woke up at around nine o'clock- that's what the clock on the bedside table said, anyway. Dean wasn't very good at telling time, but the little hand was close to the number nine and that seemed close enough. It looked plenty dark outside through the thin curtains, so it was still nighttime- so why was he awake

Sammy was tugging on his arm gently, whispering "Dean," every couple of seconds, that was why.

It wasn't a whine. Not yet. If he pretended to be asleep any longer though, Sammy would quickly go from a quiet beg, to a whine, and then to a cry. So Dean got up.

"Hey, Sammy,"

"Hey Dean."

"Can't sleep?" He asked, rubbing his eyes. He'd fallen asleep in the car, but they were both on the big bed of a motel room. Usually Dad woke him up to help carry stuff into the motel; he hadn't woke up in a different place than he'd fallen asleep since Mom died. It was a funny feeling, and even though it used to seem so normal now it kind of made him feel weird.

"Mm-mm," Sam shook his head in response to Dean's question, big grey eyes pleading up at him for attention.

"Okay." Dean got up and stretched. He turned on the lamp by the bed, looked at the clock, then walked over and took his backpack from the place Dad had left it by the door. "Are you hungry?"

Sammy's mouth twitched and he shrugged.

In Sam-land, that meant yes. Ever since Sam had started to notice how little Dad and Dean ate, he didn't ask for food. It wasn't like they didn't eat at all- they had food every day, but it was food from gas stations or diners, when they could pay for it. And some times when they couldn't. In a way it made Dean mad, because if anyone should get to eat it was Sammy. He was so little and Dean was always worried that he would be too small to ride big kid rides at fairs and stuff forever. He asked Dad about it once, and he just said it was Sam being in the "terrible two's" but Dean didn't think so. Sam wasn't the kind to be terrible anything.

He reached into the backpack and pulled out two cup-cakes, a big bag of chips, and two cans of soda that Dad had put in there earlier. He brought the backpack over and sat on the bed, cross legged across from his brother, and laid out the meal. Sammy reached for one of the cup-cakes and Dean brushed his hand away.

"Chips first." He said.

Sam pouted, but waited for Dean to open the bag and pulled out a handful of chips.

"Be careful, okay? " Dean said, watching his little brother with a weary eye. Dad warned him once that sometimes little kids choke on food that bigger kids don't, and Dean was always worried that he would feed Sammy the wrong thing.

They ate without talking for a while. Dean went to the sink in the bathroom and put water in Sam's sippy cup. He poured a little bit of his soda in, too, and brought it back to Sam.

"Nightmares?" Dean asked when Sam was done drinking.

Sam shook his head and took the cup-cake.

"Good."

Dean reached into the backpack and pulled out his and Sam's dreamcatchers. He knew Dad didn't like Dani, but he'd let them keep the dreamcatchers anyway, which was good for Dean because he hadn't had nightmares at all since they made them.

He ran his fingers over the feathers, and then put the dreamcatchers away to look for something Sam could play with. This motel didn't look like it had a TV, so he was going to have to find something else to keep Sammy busy while their dad was out. The bag was mostly empty, though, only some trash and one action figure that had been Dean's but was Sammy's now. He took it out and held it up for his brother to see.

Sammy made a face and shook his head.

"Okay."

Dean got up and started searching the drawers in the room. The bedside table on what would be Dad's side (he always slept on the side closest to the door) had a deck of cards in it.

Sammy was too young to play things like go fish or anything, so instead Dean made houses out of the cards and let his little brother go Godzilla on them. He always thought it was funny that Sammy never went full destroyer on the little houses. He always knocked them over with a finger, or blew them down. When Dean got to smash a house of cards, he liked to body slam it. Cards would go flying everywhere and get all bent and it was a big mess, but then he thought it was just more fun that way.

Sammy tried to help Dean all that he could in the building part, telling Dean how tall the buildings should be and how many and how much space between them and Dean decided that Sam should have been the older brother, because he wanted to get to make the card houses and Dean just wanted to smash them. He let Sammy try to make a few, but it seemed to just make Sam sad that his hands couldn't make the towers he saw in his head, so Dean stuck with trying to make Sammy's ideas himself.

They were in the middle of building one giant tower of cards when they heard keys in the door. For Dean, it was instinct to jump up and face the door while putting his whole body in front of Sam, just in case there was something bad on the other side of the door.

When it opened, though, it was just their dad.

"Daddy!" Sammy squealed, and tottered over to hug their dad's leg.

"Hey, Sammy."

Dad seemed to be too tired to even really stand up, so Dean took his place at his father's side and let him lean on his shoulder. The three of them made some kind of lopsided monster-walk to the bed in the middle of the room and Dad fell onto it heavily. He sighed and rustled Dean's hair. "Thanks, Deano."

Dean smiled up at his him, but his father was already lying on his back, falling into a deep sleep.

"C'mon, Sam," Dean said, leading his little brother back to where they had been sitting just before. The breeze from the opening of the door must have knocked their tower down, because now where it had stood so big and tall, there was just a flat pile of cards. "Let's make it again."

And so they started over, building one layer after another of their house of cards.

The next morning when they woke up, Dean found Sammy lying on the floor next to him, curled up like a cat. They had both been too sleepy to make their way up to the bed, and had just fallen asleep next to their pile of cards. Sam was still asleep, but Dean woke up with the sound of the bathroom door closing. That meant that Dad was up, and Dad being up meant it was time for Dean to get up.

It wasn't something that Dad wanted, he never got Dean up with him early in the morning, but after a while Dean developed a habit and habits made him happy- he liked knowing what was coming next. Dad would shower and while he did that Dean would pack up all of their things, and sometimes take stuff from a mini fridge if the motel had one. He also got to wake Sammy up so that as soon as Dad came out of the bathroom they would be ready to get in the car and go. Sometimes Dad even ruffled the hair on Dean's head and thanked him for being so grown up.

This wasn't one of those mornings.

Dean could tell as soon as his dad came out of the bathroom that he wasn't going to get any pats on the head today; Dad was ruffle-haired himself and his eyes looked droopy. He looked like that sometimes when he was really sad, and sometimes when he said he had bad dreams. Dean wished that he could make him a dreamcatcher, but he knew that Dad would never use it, and anyway Dean had a feeling that his dad's flinchy, droopy condition was probably more from staying out all night than because of bad dreams.

"Ready?" he asked, looking at Sam and Dean through still sleepy eyes.

Dean didn't reply, but picked up his backpack and followed his dad out the door to the car. He climbed in the back seat with his brother and stared out the window, ready for one more day out of the hundreds spent living on the road.

A/N : Yes I have been long gone. Yes I am an asshat for doing so. Yes, over Winter Break I plan to get back on track. Sorry, gaiz.

And don't forget to tell me what you want to see from WeeChester fun times- I've got Halloween and First Day of School shizzles coming your way, tell me what else you want! Less than three (Fanfiction won't let me make the little heart. Ees le dissapointing.)