A/N:
Thank you mckydstarlight, mermagic8, ThatTumblrPerson, appletopine and Christine for the reviews!
It was hard for Sam and Dean to just let things go back to normal after the revelations that day. The memories it brought back. Sam had never known his mother, but he remembered John Winchester like they were cursed yesterday.
Dean, on the other hand, recalled both parents with a painful clarity. To clear his mind of his mother's warm voice and rippling blonde hair, and to rid his thoughts of John Winchester's stern voice scolding him, he left the small home behind as soon as he was certain Sam was fast asleep.
Facedown in the fabric nest, Sam didn't look like he was about to chase anyone anywhere. His shoulders had relaxed from the tension during the conversation with John and Sherlock; Dean knew that it would always be there, hanging over Sam so long as they were talking to humans. He softened at the sight of his little brother finally relaxed. He hadn't meant for Sam to get caught up in everything that morning. It was just teasing, he did it all the time with Sam and it never spiraled so far out of control before!
Hoping to work off some of his excess energy from the confrontation, Dean decided it was high time to check the perimeter of the flat. Sam and Dean had declared this place their home, after all, and that meant that they guarded it from any incursion by rats. Their silver knives came in useful when it came down to a fight, and if it was a healthy animal, cooking the meat over the hot water heater resulted in some of the better food they ever got to eat, much more filling than crackers or cookies or whatever else they scrounged up for the week.
This line of thought lead him back to the memory of the bacon Sam had brought home the other week, and despite himself, Dean hoped they might have more in the future. He didn't want to just accept handouts, but it was nice to imagine having friends who cared enough to look out for them again.
Dean checked each of the corners of the flat, carefully inspecting every entrance he knew for any new markings. Scratches, the sign of dust being dragged by a long, scaly tail, footprints. Signs that his eyes, adjusted to the low levels of light in the walls, could see as clear as day.
It took well into the evening for Dean to finish, and he arrived back at their small home to find Sam yawning his way awake, his fluffy hair a mess from sleeping all day.
"Mornin,' " Sam mumbled as he shoved himself up from the ground.
Dean had to laugh. "Morning? You mean night. You slept the day away!" He tossed one of Sam's extra shirts at him, managing to land it right on his head.
Sam glared as he pulled the shirt down, straightening it slowly. "Because someone kept me up all night finding shoelaces," he said grumpily. "And now we have to put them back."
"You'd rather I do that without you watchin' my back?" Dean asked knowingly. He knew Sam would never let him out in the open like that without backup, not if he could help it. Dean lacked Sam's ability to know if he was being watched or searched out, leaving him more vulnerable when he was out there.
Sam rolled his eyes. "Whatever. We doing this, or what?"
As it happened, they didn't return all the shoelaces, keeping the duplicates Sherlock had bought from the stores for future projects.
And for good measure, Dean decided to hang onto the original shoelaces from the first pair of shoes he'd raided. It would make a good trophy of the time he managed to completely get under Sherlock's skin.
John figured the brothers would want their space after the confrontation that morning, so he played it off like everything was normal. Trusting that Sherlock would know better than to make trouble while he was gone, John went to work, had lunch, chatted with his co-workers. He did so in a daze.
For Sherlock's part, he grabbed John's laptop the second he was out of the house. No matter how many times the doctor changed his password, Sherlock always found his way in. The exact time and place Sam had mentioned still burned in the forefront of his mind, and he had to see for himself if the lad was telling the truth.
Sure enough, the detective came across a newspaper article from Lawrence, Kansas; November 2nd, 1983. Every single detail was spot-on, from the ages of the boys who survived to the occupation of their father. A picture of their mother was just underneath one of the remains of the house. Mary Winchester: young and beautiful, practically pristine. He couldn't be sure, but from the brief time he'd spent with a good look at the brothers, Sherlock suspected that Dean had inherited her eyes.
A different local paper showed a picture of their father, John Winchester. Upon further research, this was one of very few mentions of him on the web. He seemed to go off the grid after the fire, and that made Sherlock wonder in earnest. Where would a man who had just endured the horrible death of his wife take his only remaining family? What would he do, how would he raise those children?
Children he would only lose years later.
Closing the laptop, Sherlock dwelled on this for the rest of the day, meandering about the flat doing all the things he usually did while he was thinking. Played the violin, fiddled with a Sudokube, reread The Prince for the third time that year. Hours passed without him knowing, and John came home to find Sherlock reading with his back flat on the carpet, his feet propped up onto the seat of his armchair.
"Glad you've had a productive day," John quipped as he hung up his coat and went to the kitchen to scrounge up some dinner, knowing better than to question Sherlock's antics.
The next day was John's day off from the clinic, so he took advantage of his extra time and slept in. When he finally had the energy to drag himself downstairs, he found Sherlock settled at the kitchen table surrounded by each and every pair of shoes he owned, meticulously re-lacing them one by one. The pile of strings on the counter was slowly dwindling, as were the number of unlaced shoes. John had to admit it was a little mesmerizing to watch, and a little cathartic as well. It marked the end of a huge source of grief for everybody in the flat.
However, when Sherlock grabbed his last pair of shoes and reached blindly for the counter, he found that he'd run out. He shot John a flat look, and the doctor had to chuckle at that. Clearly it wasn't the end of Dean Winchester's shenanigans.
It wasn't until Sherlock had stalked off with his shoes that Sam made himself known. He was naturally leery of the taller of the two humans, while with John he felt as relaxed as he could, considering the man had gone to great lengths to avoid laying a hand on either brother.
Sam stepped past the appliances that masked their entrance into the walls, the one that lead directly back to their home. Dean was driving him up the walls. Without a case to mull over or Sherlock to prank, he had entirely too much extra time on his hands and the result was a harried Sam, though he tried to not let it show.
"S-so, John?" Sam called, a half foot back from the edge of the counter. His voice stuttered, showing his nerves that he was actually approaching a human willingly, and not on spur of the moment. He'd come to the decision that he wanted to make sure everything had gone over okay after their 'talk.' "Did Sherlock find his shoelaces okay?"
John blinked and looked up from the paper he'd been reading when Sam's small, timid voice cut through the silence. He was honestly a little surprised to be hearing from either brother so soon.
"Hey, Sam!" John greeted, turning in his chair to face the lad. "Yeah, he, heh. He found them alright. Of course, the fact that he was missing a set didn't escape his notice. Don't worry about it, though," he shrugged in an attempt to be reassuring. "As long as he has others, we won't have a repeat of last week. He'll probably buy another set sometime, but I'm sure Dean can rest assured that Sherlock is safely annoyed.
"Speaking of," added John after a brief pause, "how are you and Dean? Y'know, after yesterday. Hope I didn't throw off your sleep schedule."
"Oh, ah, no." Sam was thrown by John's worry, and his hand twitched with the urge to brush away the tingle on the back of his neck. "We don't really have a sleep schedule we follow, not like you at least. We're just… up when we need to be. And asleep when we have time."
Sam took a step away from the edge of the counter. "I- I should go. I didn't mean to interrupt anything." His eyes fell on the paper in John's hands, and a part of him wished he could pick it up like that and read. The part of him that had yearned for a steady school every year and dreamt of going to college one day. "I just wanted to make sure everything was okay after yesterday and I know Dean won't."
"Yeah, alright," John nodded. "Whatever you're… comfortable with, yeah? Though, honestly, you're not interrupting much, I'm afraid." Placing the paper in his lap, John leaned back in the chair.
"Between you and me, I'm bored out of my skull," the doctor chuckled. "And I'm pretty sure you and Dean are the only reason Sherlock is so even right now."
"Yeah?" Sam said. In spite of himself and his determination to leave the human alone, he inched closer to where John was sitting. He couldn't hide his curiosity, and now that the excitement of their capture and the following prank war was over, it seemed safer to indulge. "He's… even?"
Sam turned the word over in his mind and considered it compared to what he'd observed between John and Sherlock in the last few months. He didn't have as much experience as Dean with the more human side of things, since he was only ten when the curse fell on them, but he did his best to work through things on his own.
"Does that have something to do with the patches he puts on?" Sam asked. "I've seen him with them before."
John's brow shot up, and his relaxed grin widened into a hopeful smile. Sam wasn't rushing off anymore. That was something.
"Well, ah, yes and no," he answered, deciding to roll with it. "Really, what I meant was that he's not just bouncing off the walls, causing a big fuss over not having a case right this second. But those do seem to mellow him out quite a bit. They're nicotine patches, an alternative to cigarettes. He doesn't really smoke unless he's desperate, but he says the patches help him think." He shrugged. "It keeps the smell off everything, and it keeps him from venturing into more… recreational forms of concentration."
"Recreational," Sam repeated. "Like drugs?" That he'd heard of. And cigarettes, too. He might not be the best at interacting with humans, but he picked up on the facts easy enough. "Makes sense. I never really knew anyone that smoked, though."
Most of his life was spent in various motels, so Sam was all too familiar with the lingering presence of cigarette smoke. He supposed that if he had to be cursed to live at a fraction of his height, at least he hadn't been trapped in a place that could stink of booze and smokes, with old bedsheets and cat fur clinging to everything. 221B Baker street wasn't the worst place to live, not by a long shot.
Dean didn't agree, but he didn't think they should have to live anywhere like this in the first place. His heart yearned for their old lives more than anything else. The Impala. Learning how to fight with their dad and studying up on various monsters and different types of weaponry. He was a fighter, and now anyone would take one look at him and laugh. A man under four inches in height could do nothing against a full-grown human.
The thought of Dean lead Sam right back where he started. "Dean likes having a case to work on," he said with a grin, crouching on the counter to let his satchel rest on the surface. "It keeps him busy when we have to stay in."
John nodded, glancing briefly down the hall. No one ever spoke of it, but when times got rough John was always sure to have two eyes on Sherlock and his brother Mycroft on speed-dial. Luckily, those times were few and very far in between. It had been ages since the detective had given them a fright like that.
"Yeah, same with Sherlock, but I'm sure you've gathered that." John gave a chuckle as a thought occurred to him. "I suppose that's why they butt heads so much. They're so different, but they're just similar enough to clash."
Sam winced at the reminder. "Yeah… about that. Dean's pranks usually don't get so far out of hand, really," he swore. "He'll prank me, I prank him back… things escalate until we call a truce and a few years later it starts all over again."
With things so peaceful, Sam decided to let his guard down a little, and sat down next to his satchel, briefly rubbing at his neck before settling. The marble countertop wasn't the most comfortable, but Sam was used to sitting on hard surfaces. The last time he'd sat in a chair made for his size and not cobbled together out of wood blocks and fabric scraps by Dean was over a decade ago, and he could barely remember the feeling.
"Dean's pretty hard headed when he gets going," Sam admitted. "I'm surprised you got him to stop arguing with Sherlock long enough to get me from… our place." He flushed a little, knowing he should avoid mentioning where they lived at all times. It was where they were at their most vulnerable.
"Okay, er… Sam?" John sighed, leaning forward. He had to know once and for all what was up with the younger Winchester's neck. Finally, there was nothing else going on to distract him.
"Sorry, quick subject change, but. Well, I can't help but notice you seem to rub your neck quite a bit when you're around me, and I just worry that given our… height difference, that perhaps having to look up more often is putting a strain on your neck. Again, sorry if this is blunt, but y'know, I'm a doctor. If you're in pain, I'd rather find a solution than let you go on hurting."
If anything, Sam turned redder. He stilled his hand to keep it from going back to his neck, feeling uneasy with his strange knack being pointed out. It was one thing to have his brother know about it, they had no choice but to use any ability of theirs for survival. Other humans might not see it the same way. Especially hunters like their dad.
A psychic ability like his, where he could feel if he was being watched whether he saw the person or not, was made for survival. So was Dean's, able to track down any food or supplies that they needed- Or Sherlock's shoelaces, Sam remembered ruefully, as a few of the times Dean had snitched them they'd been placed into odd hiding places.
"I- I'm not in pain," Sam explained truthfully. "Not with you, at least. It just- itches if you're looking at me, and I'm still getting used to it. You're not as bad as Sherlock, though. He kind of burns when he sees me. I think from how intent he always is."
John's brow pinched in concern as Sam seemed to be reacting in embarrassment, and it deepened into a thoughtful frown after the lad's explanation. What Sam was describing wasn't a common sensation for humans, which caught the doctor by surprise since he knew for certain that before they'd been… altered, they'd been just as human as he was. Unless-
"That's a part of the curse, isn't it?" John blurted before he could catch himself. Then it was his turn to flush, staring at his lap where his hands were folding and unfolding themselves over his forgotten newspaper.
"Which is none of my business," he amended at length, refraining from glancing back at Sam. "Is there, ah, anything I can do to make you more comfortable? Or Dean, if I affect him the same way I do you."
Sam had to smile. "We think it's part of the curse, yes," he confirmed, seeing no reason to hide that fact. John had already guessed it on his own. "I never felt anything like this when I was a kid. It's why I'm always lookout when we're together. Dean's ability is… a little different."
He noticed that John was trying to avoid looking at him, and didn't want the man to worry so much about it. "It doesn't hurt," Sam explained, "at least not from you, so don't worry if you're looking at me. Sherlock can get a little sharp, but he's usually preoccupied with Dean. And the most you'll manage if you stare at Dean is pissing him off, as I'm sure you've noticed."
A/N
Things return to normal... well, mostly normal
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Next: April 19th 2017 at 9pm est.
