Need

"I'm right here." I looked behind me to see Dean stepping out of the shadows in the next room.

I felt my cheeks burn as I flushed. Damn he was good at that. Snuck up right behind me and I never even suspected. "'M sorry Dean."

"Don't be. My fault. You never were much good at keepin' your promises. Should have remembered that." His eyes burned into mine, dark and intense, as he entered the room and I backed up a few steps. Great. Dad and Dean were both angry with me. Way to go Sam. I opened my mouth to respond, but nothing came out.

Bobby cleared his throat, reminding us all he was still there. "Well, there's gotta be somethin' somewhere in this damn house that needs dustin'," he muttered as he walked out and shut the door behind him. Because, really, no one in their right mind would willingly stay in a room full of angry and edgy Winchesters. None of us even acknowledge his departure.

"Sam," my head jerked around to meet my father's gaze. "Why don't you share with your brother what you overheard?"

"Mom…" I paused and swallowed hard, what I'd heard before finally sinking in. "Mom made a deal."

"What?" Dean looked from me to Dad. "Are you sayin' that she's… that…"

"She didn't sell her soul, Dean," Dad said gently.

"She didn't?" Dean frowned. "What the hell else is there?"

"Me," I said softly.

Dean looked at me and I couldn't read the expression on his face. "You?" Then he turned back to Dad, the color draining from his skin and his voice filled with disbelief. Dean would probably have a hard time hearing anything that suggested Mom may have been less than perfect. "Mom sold Sam?"

Dad sighed. "You can't sell someone else. But… if you're a parent or guardian, you can sell influence. She didn't know she was doin' it at the time, though, or she never would have made the deal."

"But why, Dad? Why would Mom make a deal in the first damn place?"

"For me."

"For you?"

"From what I can recall, he possessed your grandfather, Mary's father. Mary and I were together and her father comes out of nowhere and grabs me. I remember thinking how strong his grip was, and his eyes were yellow. And he had a knife sticking out of him, right in his damn liver. Everything happened so quickly. Next thing I know, I'm on the ground, my head in Mary's lap, and she's cryin'. Her mother was found dead in their house a little later when the police went to notify her. It was ruled a murder suicide. The cops thought her father was coming for her next but changed his mind when he realized I was with her."

"You didn't suspect that something was off," I blurted. I couldn't imagine my father being so clueless.

"Of course I did but your mother was a hunter. I never knew anything about it when she was alive. I think she just wanted a normal life and that's why she… that's why she wanted to marry me even though her father didn't approve. She really should have listened to him, found someone who could have protected her. Who could have at least realized what was goin' on when that son of a bitch showed up wearing her father's body. Back then you couldn't get any more Joe fucking Normal then me. So normal it didn't take much for her to convince me that I didn't see what I saw."

Dean took a slow step towards Dad. "That's why… why you always say what's dead should stay dead, isn't it?"

Dad nodded, his eyes haunted and staring at something no one else could see. "Son of a bitch killed me just to force her to make the deal. Everything else was gone. Her mother, her father. I was the only thing she could get back. Desperation can make people do horrible things." Dean put his hand on Dad's shoulder, giving comfort.

I cleared my throat and looked away."So… you said she sold influence? What exactly does that mean?"

Dad took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He was beating around the bush and that was completely unlike him. Dad hid things, sure, but when he told you the truth, he just told it bluntly and completely. It didn't matter if it stung or if you didn't like it. If he was stalling, it had to be bad. "He fed you… he fed you some of his blood, Sam."

"What?" Dean responded first, looking from Dad to me then back again.

It took me a couple seconds before I could put together anything resembling a coherent sentence. When I finally did, it was probably the absolute wrong thing to say. "Excuse me, I don't think I heard you right. He what?"

"He gave you demon blood."

"You son of a bitch!"

Dean's head whipped around and he stared at me in wide-eyed disbelief. "Sam!"

"Boy, watch your tongue. You might have an inch or two on me, but I will still take you over my damn knee."

I knew that I should try to calm the situation down, try to talk about this rationally, but how the hell does he justify hiding something like this from me my entire life? I did make an attempt to reign in my temper, though, because Dad didn't make idle threats. I had no illusions that I would be able to stop him if he did decide to spank me and wouldn't that just be as embarrasing as hell. "I just can't understand why you didn't think that I should know that I have some bastard demon's blood in me."

"And what exactly would you have done with the knowledge, Sam? How would that have made your life any easier? You were always the kid dying to be normal, to be just like everybody else. I couldn't give you that, and you wanted me to tell ya that on top of everything else?"

"You had no right to keep that from me!"

"I had no right? I had no right? I'm the guy who had to figure out how to keep you safe even when you constantly insisted on putting yourself in harm's way. Do you have any idea the things I've done just to keep your selfish, ungrateful ass alive, boy? I had every damn right!"

"If I'm so selfish and ungrateful, maybe you shouldn't have bothered." I regretted it the minute the words were out of my mouth. Eventually it came to that when Dad and I argued. I said something that I'd give anything to take back, but was too stubborn to apologize for.

Dad took half a step forward and stopped. He let out a bitter laugh as he turned away from me and ran his fingers through his hair. He moved his shoulders in a gesture that I'd never seen him make before. It looked like he was letting something go, surrendering. "I used to have so many dreams for you and Dean. Proms, graduations, successful careers, wives, children. Not this. Never this. Then your mother died and the only hope I had left was that you'd both live through another day. That I could be good enough, strong enough to keep you safe until you could keep yourselves safe. The day you told me about Stanford, I panicked. I just kept thinking that you'd be in one place too long, that the son of a bitch would find you and I'd lose you. I used to go to the campus and spend a day or two just watching you. Checking for sulfur. We never talked about it but I know Dean did to. Fuck, Sam."

"You could have told me the truth then," I said, my voice softer, almost pleading. My anger was gone and now I was just scared. I had fucking demon blood. I was officially a freak.

"And you would have believed me?" Okay. So he had a point there. I probably would have just thought he was making it up to keep me from leaving.

"Sam."

I looked at Dean, the sound of his voice cutting through my thoughts. I could see what he wanted. He wanted me to come clean. I begged him silently not to make me. His eyes said that he wouldn't, but that he'd be damned disappointed if I didn't tell my own secrets. Dad had noticed, realized that we were hiding something of our own. The man knew us both too well. He was the only one that ever came close to being able to interpret our wordless conversations.

"What," Dad finally asked, his voice gruff.

I took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. The man was like a dog with a bone. Now that he knew we were hiding something, he wouldn't rest until he knew what it was. Just like he'd gone through our room and found my journal. "I've been having visions."

"Visions. What kind of visions?"

"Death visions. I see how people are gonna die. Sometimes I can stop them and sometimes…" I shrugged and looked away. I hated admitting my failure to my father almost as much as I hated confirming that I was a freak.

"You've been having precognitive visions and somehow you didn't think you should tell me?"

I gave my father a tight smile. "Hello pot, I'm kettle. Nice to meet you."

Dad huffed out an unamused laugh. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"'Cause… I had no idea you already knew I was a freak."

"Sammy… Son. You're not a freak." He stepped forward and I involuntarily took a step back. "What," he asked, obviously confused by me keeping distance between us.

"If it's supernatural kill it, right Dad?"

"You're not supernatural, Sam."

"I can see the future. And there's the telekinesis."

"Telekinesis?"

I nodded still avoiding his eyes. "But I only moved something once."

John nodded. "You're still not supernatural."

"What is it, Dad." It was Dean this time, watching Dad's face closely.

"All the others… all the other kids that Yellow Eyes did this to went dark after they discovered their powers. I only found one exception. But even he abuses it."

"All the others? You mean there are more?"

"Yes. There are more. The ones that haven't figured out that they're different are going about their lives as normal. But they didn't have it as rough as the others. I think that has something to do with it. Where you angry or scared when you used the telekinesis, Sammy?"

I looked at my father and swallowed hard. I nodded, thinking better of using my voice.

Dad huffed out a laugh. When he spoke again he sounded like his thoughts were a thousand miles away, like he was a scientist studying some fascinating occurrence. "I always thought there was a connection to strong negative emotions, mostly fear and anger. But these visions. I never saw that one. What the hell's the point of it? What do you do when you get one?"

I shrugged. "Usually try to get there as soon as possible, try to stop it."

"Without researchin'? Without tryin' to figure out what you're rushin' into?"

"Dad, I see people die. I thought the whole point of what we do was to save people."

"Yeah. But trustin' somthin' you don't understand might not be exactly the best way to go about it."

"So, we just let people die?"

"No. We send someone else. Shake things up. See what happens."

"If you want to figure out how deep the water is," Dean offered, "throw a stone in it."

Dad looked at Dean in approval. "That's right. Unexpectedly introduce a foreign element and see what happens."

"So you think… you think he's been using the visions to manipulating us?"

"It's a possibility. I'd like to make sure that he's not before we trust 'em."

Dean closed his eyes briefly and shook his head. "Damn. I didn't even think of that. 'M sorry."

"What the hell do you have to be sorry for, Dean," I asked in exasperation. "I'm a big boy, I made my own decisions. You're not my keeper."

"Actually, he is," Dad said. "And you're his. Whenever you go into battle with someone, you're responsible for their safety. So you should be sorry too boy. 'Cause you dragged your brother into danger right along with you."

I flinched at that and just stared at him. "It wasn't… I didn't think…"

"That's exactly the problem, boy. When you get all worked up, you don't think. You just act. We need to make sure that this son of a bitch isn't usin' that against you. For what it's worth, I'm sorry too. Still not sure that I shoulda told you everything, but I coulda handled things better. Just remember what I taught you. When you make a mistake, don't waste your time on sorry. Make it right where you can, and where you can't learn from it. In the mornin', we'll go over everything Bobby and I learned about Azazel. Get some sleep boys."

"Sammy. Thought I told you to get some sleep."

I didn't look when I heard my father's voice. Or when I felt the old beat up Ford I was stretched out on dip under his weight, or when I felt his side pressed against mine. I couldn't handle facing Dad right now. The more I thought about it, the dirtier I felt. The whole reason I came outside was to avoid him, avoid the disgust I knew I'd find in his eyes. So I just kept staring at the stars. "I wanted to be alone."

"Yeah, well, we don't always get what we want, do we Greta?"

I snorted out a laugh despite myself. "Is that why you treat me different then Dean? 'Cause I have demon blood in me?"

"Boy, I treat you different then Dean 'cause you're a different person. That has nothing to do with Yellow Eyes. I'm no less proud of you then I am of Dean. I love you just as much as I love him. Didn't think that was possible when he was born, until you were."

"But I know I disappointed you. All I wanted was to be normal. I never wanted to hunt like Dean."

"You didn't disappoint me. I was scared for you. And I felt like a failure because I couldn't give you what you wanted the way I could with your brother. But with that son of a bitch breathin' down our necks, I couldn't allow it. It was just easier for Dean. We were all he needed and he learned how to settle for that."

"He needed more."

"No. There's a difference between want and need. I've spent the past twenty some odd years learnin' it. I want your mother back. I want a place to settle down, to just sit and rest. I want to go through an entire day without worrying about what type of danger my boys are in. But I need you and Dean. I need to end that Yellow Eyed bastard before he takes more from us then he already has."

"This is all my fault, isn't it?"

"You think the rape was Dean's fault?"

I sat up and stared down at him. His face was open, honest. He looked tired too and I wondered if he always looked that tired and I'd just missed it. I felt a sudden wave of compassion when I considered how all the secrets he'd been keeping must have weighed on him, how he probably agonized over every decision. The only thing I recognized about the look he was giving me was the intensity of his eyes. They could still bore a hole through steel. "No, of course not!"

"Then what's been done to you isn't your fault either. You have to see the parallels. You didn't sign up for this. None of us did. But we gotta do what needs doin' or we lose everything."

I huffed out a frustrated breath. "I'm tainted Dad. And if I go dark you'll have to kill me."

Something dark flashed across his face and was gone in an instant, replaced by a familiar look of stubbornness as he rose up on his elbows. "You're not tainted and that son of a bitch can't have you." Dad sat up and wrapped his arms around me. "You're mine. Ours. He'll have to come through both of us first. He'll think Hell was a fucking cake walk when we get through with him."

I pressed my face into his neck and let his rumbling voice and the finger tips rubbing circles on my scalp at the back of my head sooth me. It was almost obscene how safe I felt despite everything. Maybe because of everything. Dad. Dean. Family. Maybe I'd learned a few things about the difference between want and need myself. Because even though I may want my father to change, may occasionally want to strangle the man, and couldn't stand to be in the room with him for more than ten minutes without arguing with him about something, I still needed him as much as I needed Dean. And wasn't that just seven different kinds of fucked up. I couldn't live with it if I got either – or God forbid both – of them killed. "But you'll kill me if I go darkside? Promise me Dad."

He was silent and his arms pulled me almost imperceptibly closer to him. "I know I should, but I don't know if I can, Sammy. I can put down anybody on this earth, but you and Dean? I just don't know."

Dad's voice had an odd quiver and I knew he was crying. I gripped handfuls of his over shirt as I felt something inside me break. "You might have to."

"I know that too," he said softly, his voice filled with sadness.

A/N: I know that was fast. I wrote most of this at the same time as the last one. It was all intertwined and took a while to separate. Anyway, I hope you all like it!

I'm glad you like it, NongPradu. And thanks so much for the heads up. Anytime you catch something like that just let me know.

Glad your still with me deangirl1. I love that phrase… thrown from pillar to post. It just sounds so dramatic. I really have to find somewhere to use it. At any rate if you can count on John for anything (other than being totally obsessive about protecting his boys) it's research. As for Sam, when the boy gets it right he usually hits it right out of the park. Poor kid's all or nothing. I don't think the story will let me rush it. LOL.

I hope you liked the reveal and the fall out, babyreaper.

I'm glad you love it EtainAnigeal. I tend to focus more on the effect of events on the characters then the events themselves. Sometimes it works a lot better than at others. I think that approach really suits this story.

Hi Ashley. Glad you love it, hope you enjoyed this update.

Yep, riquitv. John's spillin' it all. He's sort of all or nothin' too. Dean keeps saying he and Sammy are alike.

I'm happy you thought I kept them all in character, stndabvthcrwd1! Hope you enjoyed John's explanation.

That's the one thing that always disappointed me, redgriffin7. Not nearly enough John! But he still lives in my mind. Glad to be your source for a John fix.

Sam's definitely too stubborn for his own good, LuckyMe1, and it does make him a great protector. But just like with everyone else, the thing that makes you want to hug someone is usually also the thing that makes you want to bludgeon them to within an inch of their lives. Like now on the show… I'm really starting to want to beat Sam about the head and shoulders with a really heavy object. I haven't felt that way since he stopped belittling Dean every five minutes in the first season. Don't get me wrong, I still love the boy and all, but gee whiz!

-Angie