Chapter Two: Welcome Home
The house was freshly painted.
Old enough for it to no longer smell like paint, but new enough that you could trace where the walls were years old and where they were only a week or two old.
Morgan opened the backseat door for Sam, and he cautiously climbed out. The teenager felt oddly bare without any protective gear and pulled his hood on. His hands had been shoved into his pockets for the majority of the ride, and it was only after Morgan opened her trunk and handed him his duffel bag did he take them out.
He didn't know yet what CPS had stolen from him. All of his weapons, definitely. But had they taken his journals? Had they gone through them? And what clothes had they deemed acceptable for him to keep? There was a growing fear deep inside Sam's heart that his bag was actually empty.
"Come on, Sam," Morgan started, walking up to the house.
Sam followed, eyeing the short brown fence surrounding the house. The front yard was open, and there was a garden, but it was small… kind of overrun. He dug his nails into the bag strap and walked forward, head bowed down slightly.
They stepped inside the house together and were greeted by a tall woman. She wore a green cardigan, jeans, and a white shirt. Sam gave her a quick look over. The woman had sharp rosy cheeks and lighter features. She looked healthy, healthier than most women he usually saw. Her eyes were a welcoming shade of brown, and the eyeliner in her left eye was smeared just so. Sam wasn't sure if it had been accidental or was a fashion statement.
He didn't entirely care. The woman -his foster mother- introduced herself as Portia Wells, but she barely looked at Sam when he spoke. Portia had looked interested in him until she had opened the door and actually saw him. While he had been giving her a once over, she'd done the same to him.
And she hadn't been impressed.
What had she been told?
"Alice!" Portia shouted into the other room, "Come here, please!"
Sam shrunk into himself a little bit. He didn't know there were other kids. He didn't know what he was expecting, but it definitely hadn't been this tiny little girl with long curly black hair. She looked at Sam and grinned wide. Her teeth were crooked but in a way that only exasperated her youthful appearance.
"Are you Sam?" the girl -Alice- questioned. Sam glanced back at Morgan, who was chatting with Portia quietly a couple steps away. He strained to try and hear what they were saying but could catch nothing, so he gave in to his temptation and answered Alice.
"Yeah, I am," he greeted awkwardly, "Hi."
The girl gave him one of her grins and wrapped him in a tight hug. Except due to their vast height difference, she only fastened her arms around his legs. Sam fought back a hiss of pain at his bullet wound, not wanting to startle the little girl. Currently, he was torn between her age. She looked like she could be as young as five but could also be up to seven before it got surprising.
He wondered why he'd been placed with a family that had such a young child in it already. Surely that wasn't usual?
"Sam, I'm leaving, but you know my number. And I will keep you updated with your family's case, promise," Family's case. Sam's heart pounded in his chest. What did they have on Dean and John to make it a case? He didn't respond. Instead, he backed away slightly from Alice.
Once Morgan shut the door behind her, Portia turned her attention to Sam.
Her smile and eyes remained as before -friendly enough- and she outstretched her arm to point at the room Alice had come running from. "Would you like a house tour, Samuel?" Alice skipped up and down in excitement at that notion, but Sam shrugged and shook his head once.
"I don't really, uh, feel up to that right now," Sam answered under his breath. "Can I go to where I'm staying for the night?" He wasn't going to allow himself to get attached. He just wanted to be back with his actual kin. With Dean. He missed them. And they were who he wanted to be with.
Portia nodded, told Alice she could go back to playing, and led Sam downstairs. "We have two other kids here, Bentley, my biological son. And Alice, who you just met," Sam stared at the carpeted floors as she spoke. "Bentley is sixteen, about your age. And Alice is eight."
Eight. That was older than Sam's guess.
Sam was led into a boy's room, decorated in sports collectibles. There were two beds, and he realized he'd have to share a room with Bentley. Portia began explaining stuff; dinner was at seven every night and he had to be there, where all the bathrooms were, and how he didn't have phone privileges until he earned them.
Great. So even if Sam wanted to call Morgan, he wouldn't be able to. He took a seat on the empty bed. Its black sheets and blankets were dull compared to Bentley's orange blankets and football-themed pillows. Portia explained the bed situation next, "We weren't expecting a placement so quickly. We only learned about you an hour ago. We can go shopping for some belongings soon, alright? We'll make this space yours," and then she smiled.
He didn't smile back. Because Sam didn't want his own space in a stranger's house. He wanted to go home.
The conversation got heavier, "Because of your… situation," Which part? "You won't be allowed into most of the cabinets. If you need something, you just have to ask and me or Bentley can get it for you. We will have to keep any… sharp objects away from you. We don't want you hurting yourself or anybody else." Oh, that part. "Any questions?"
"Can I be alone?"
Portia smiled again. Then she nodded and left the room. Sam was almost expecting the door to lock behind her, but instead, the door was simply clicked shut. The teenager waited until he heard her footsteps on the stairs to allow tears to glisten down his features. God… what had happened? Less than a day ago, everything was good.
And now… he was staying in a stranger's house with no contact with the outside world.
It felt like the vampires all over again.
They took him in the middle of the night.
Dean had been sleeping in the bed next to Sam, and John had been out. The job was a nest of vampires, and they'd been working it for three days now. Sam was spent, the first half of his day was at school, and the second half was full of research. Dean was spent too, but Sam didn't know the details of why.
His brother had been out with their dad all day, the only time he and Sam had actually talked that day was right before Dean had collapsed asleep on the bed.
That had been about an hour ago.
Neither Winchester had heard the door unlock. And how would they have? The vampires were slick, trained in silence. Sam had closed his eyes and relaxed into the motel bed when cold hands covered his mouth. His first instinct was to scream. But he couldn't through the creature's grip.
It was his kicking that awoke Dean. But it was too late by then because Sam had been dragged from his bed and was already out the door by the time Dean could get ahold of his blade.
Sam jolted away, sweat sticking to his forehead and his skin flushed with horror. Bentley was asleep in the bed next to him, and the young man clasped his hands over his mouth and sobbed silently into them. He needed Dean.
The vampires had held him for two hours before his rescue.
And it had been Dean who saved him.
This was his first night in the foster care home, and he already couldn't take it. Sam was used to things not feeling like his; the blankets, the walls, the smells. But Dean had always been his constant. Quietly, to not wake up Bentley, Sam unzipped his duffel bag and slipped Dean's jacket on. Despite the heat of the tiny room and jacket, he managed to curl up into a loose ball.
Dean's scent encompassed him.
"Can you please explain your relationship with Samuel Winchester?"
Dean took a breath, "I'm his older brother. We're close,"
The young woman seated in front of him -Morgan- was staring at him with a clipboard. They were meeting in a police station so Dean could be thoroughly background checked while they spoke. Personally, Dean thought it was fucking bullshit.
First, they make him wait three days to schedule a meeting. Then, Morgan shows up an hour late. So now he was at five days and ten hours without any contact or even an update on Sammy, and it was killing him.
"Do you live with Samuel and your dad?"
She knew the answer already, "Yup. Have my whole life."
Morgan wrote something down, and Dean felt anxiety flame in his chest. What was she saying about him? Was he being too informal? Could she see he was nervous? She didn't make any move to explain what she'd written, and instead, she simply moved on to the next question on her apparent list. "How is John as a dad? In your best words, please explain,"
What the fuck kind of a question was that? "He's a good dad. Caring, attentive, a veteran," Dean gave the woman a phony smile. "We travel a lot for his work. He's a traveling salesman, y'know? That's where he's at now. Stuck in Kentucky doing business," The young man had begged John to come back early, but the kills in Kentucky were only growing, and their father had explained he wouldn't be able to live with himself if they let the monster go.
"That's very interesting," Morgan sounded like a bitch. "Is Samuel left home alone a lot?"
"No," Dean answered smoothly. "He's fifteen, so he's either at school or hanging out with his friends, but we try to have at least one of us home with him every night,"
She didn't seem totally impressed, and Dean knew why. Sam had been alone in that motel for eight days. "And what about these surprise trips you take with your father? Do these happen often?" Morgan was moving fast, trying her best to catch Dean in a lie. He hated her. Just give him his brother back, bitch.
"Super rare. Sam just wanted to stay behind and do school. He's an A student," he proudly mentioned. "We weren't planning to be gone this long. We thought it would be three days tops. You can understand things not going as planned sometimes, right?" Dean was searching desperately for a hint of understanding in Morgan.
He needed her to give him Sam back.
Dean was shut down, "Not really. Not when it comes to my kids," And then he hated her all over again. "Was there nobody to stay with Samuel? Family? Friends?"
They should've had someone watch him. He was only staying behind because he wasn't over the vampire attack, and they -because Dean- didn't want to push him into hunting so soon. He'd been really shaken up, and selfishly, Dean didn't think he could handle putting his kid brother in danger so soon after the whole incident… But they still should've taken him. None of this would've happened if they'd just taken him with them.
"Most of the time, yeah. This was just an emergency…"
Dean felt like he was ruining this.
Still, Morgan showed no emotions, "Is your father abusive?"
A gut punch. The young man stared at Morgan in surprise. "No," he scoffed out honestly. Dean had been expecting that question ever since the meeting had started, but how could you prepare truthfully for that question. It was downright disrespectful. His dad was a hero. "My dad would never hurt me or Sam."
"Then can you explain his… extensive bruising?" Morgan pulled a bundle of photos out of her folder and passed them to Dean. His stomach dropped so low in his chest that he felt nauseous.
It was pictures of Sam's skin, gnarled and colorful. Dean gritted his teeth and found it near impossible to look away from them. He hated those goddamn vampires for ever laying a hand on his brother. He'd known they'd hurt Sam, but he hadn't known this bad. How had Sam hidden the bruising from him?
He realized he wasn't talking, "Sam… has had a hard time,"
Dean didn't realize that he was close to tears until he had to stop talking. Morgan leaned forward, looking sympathetically towards him for the first time. He continued after he had gotten hold of himself. "He's a small kid, scrawny, with a big mouth. Kids at school are mean… maybe you don't understand that, but he's always been a magnet for bullies. I just didn't know it was this bad…"
It felt like he was telling Sam's deepest darkest secrets to a total stranger. That wasn't even the cause of the bruises, but Sam did struggle with bullies.
"Morgan, please," Dean blurted out before she could speak. "Sammy's my baby brother. I've looked out for him my entire life, and he's my world. I would never lay a hand on him, and neither would our dad. And I need to see him…" desperation pleaded with the woman in front of him. "Please. Let me meet with him. Or, or at least call him. His entire world's in a tailspin right now."
Dean cut himself before he actually started crying. His chest heaved slightly with emotion, and his hands were trembling.
A sigh, "I can schedule a meeting for you two. I just want what's best for Sam…" Morgan placed a gentle hand on Dean's arm. It was meant to be comforting, but Dean didn't want anyone but his brother near him. "I just have one more question before I can do that." She seemed significantly more friendly now than she did five minutes ago.
"Go for it," he sputtered out.
"We found a lot of… concerning things when we searched your motel. Two guns, multiple knives," Morgan's face twisted in confusion as she continued her list. "Spiritual memorabilia and a personal notebook filled with talk about… monsters? We believe it belongs to Sam, and it has some very concerning things in it. Does Sam often bury himself in fiction like this?"
Fiction. Dean sighed slightly and laughed awkwardly. "We hunt… big game, that's why there's the knives and guns. We have licenses for those-" That was a lie. But they could get fake licenses. "-and as for the notebook... Sam's got a big imagination. He loves learning, and his current obsession is that type of stuff; ghosts, vampires, zombies. Teenagers, huh?"
He begged whoever was out there that Morgan would accept his answers. And she might've, or might not have, because she just nodded, wrote something down, and closed her folder. "I can try to get you a meeting with Sam tomorrow. Hang in there, Dean."
Relief rushed through Dean's veins, and he gave Morgan the first genuine smile of the afternoon. "Thank you…"
Tomorrow, Sammy. I'm coming to get you.
A/N: Let's just ignore the fact that this chapter is months late. I'm on a huge supernatural hyper fixation kick right now and I'm practically breathing in fanfiction at the moment. Review if you can please! I appreciate everyone who has stuck around thus far!
