Good Morning, lovely SPN Family! I promised you some silly fun, and here it is. Special thanks to my sis, Jenmm31. Go check out her stories- they're absolutely wonderful and deserve all the love!
In case anyone hasn't told you today, you are smart, you are perfect, and you look super cute in that outfit.
A/N- in this story, Natalie is two. Please see profile page for disclaimer.
Normally, Natalie was a perfect toddler. Normally, she sat in her car seat without complaining, she played by herself, keeping herself occupied during these long car rides. Normally, there was just the occasional gurgle or squeak from the backseat, usually followed by a sweet giggle.
Today was not a normal day.
Dean gritted his teeth, summoning his patience yet again as Natalie hollered her displeasure from her car seat behind Sam. He didn't know what was going on. This was weird. For a baby, she had always been just…quiet and perfect. Although Dean supposed he couldn't really call her a baby anymore- she had just turned two, and was very much a toddler now. In his mind though, he couldn't handle that. He was not ready to admit that the hyperactive little fuzzball that chased after him on chubby legs and was starting to babble actual words rather than nonsense was getting older. It was weird as hell, but the idea that his daughter was no longer a baby upset him. He thought that it would be easier when she got older- he wouldn't panic as much since she would just be able to tell him what was wrong when she was crying instead of him guessing and hoping he got it right. He missed the way that she would just fall asleep, happy as a clam, in his arms. He wasn't going to admit something that girly to anyone, though, so he kept that thought to himself.
Another earsplitting scream came from the backseat, ripping him from his musings on babydom vs. toddlerdom. He exhaled heavily, trying not to get frustrated, but also knowing his pool of patience was severely low at the moment.
"Natalie," he said in his stern, no-nonsense voice. Instead of the silence he expected, she gave a squawk of annoyance in response. He inhaled again slowly, and exhaled slowly, holding onto the fact that she was still a baby. Or a toddler- whatever. Too young to really get that he was starting to get irritated, and that she needed to behave.
When they left Colorado this morning, she had been happy as a clam. Sam had given her a bath the night before, she had slept remarkably well for a kid who hated to sleep, and they all had a good breakfast before hitting the open road. Dean was grateful that the drive from Colorado to South Dakota could easily be accomplished in a day. No problem. Natalie had done overnighters with them since she was six months old. This was no big deal.
But for some unknown reason, about four hours into the trip, a switch flipped in her little brain. She had started fidgeting and fussing, picking at the straps of her car seat, and kicking her legs. They were still too short to reach the back of Sam's seat, so the boys didn't really think anything of it initially. Sam turned around a couple times to talk to her to see if he could figure out what was bothering her, but when he did, she would calm down, stop fidgeting, and smile like nothing was bothering her. Then, after about ten minutes, the fussing would start again.
And then, for whatever reason, about thirty minutes after she started this nonsense, she decided to up the ante. She began hollering at them in short bursts, scratching at her straps, and arching her back, all in an attempt to be set free from the devil car seat. When she didn't get the desired results immediately, then came the bevy of new words she had added to her vocabulary.
"DADDY."
"SAM."
"OUT."
"DOWN!"
"DADDY!"
Neither Dean nor Sam were used to her yelling like this. She had gone through a phase a couple months ago where she had constantly demanded to be picked up or put down, but the whole yelling-about-it thing was new. Sam supposed they were getting off lightly. Every babysitter that had ever watched her had commented in amazement about how well behaved the little one was. It was like she had some inner drive to be good- some genetic makeup that kept her from being as loud and as destructive as a two year old often was. With a grimace, Sam thought to himself guess that's over.
"SAAAAAAAAM!" Natalie screeched at the top of her lungs again, causing both boys to wince as she attempted to shatter all the windows of the Impala. Sam turned around, forcing his face into a smooth façade instead of a pinched-in-pain one.
"Yes, Natalie?" he asked in a calm tone, hoping she'd replicate it.
"Down," she said, pointing imperiously to the floorboards of the car.
"No, Natalie, you can't get down now."
"DOWN!"
"I said…"
"NOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
"Natalie," Dean said again, trying to catch her eye in the rearview mirror. He used the tone that, on the rare occasion she was being bad, always knocked her right back to neutral. She instantly cut off the howl of despair, but even in the mirror Dean could see she wasn't giving up the fight just yet. "Uncle Sam said no. You need to…"
"DOWN! DOWN DOWN DOWN!"
"Natalie!"
She cut off again with a very dissatisfied 'hmph'. Dean's eyes flickered back and forth between the road and the rearview mirror, watching as she poked and prodded the belts and clips and buttons that were keeping her locked into her car seat. Well, maybe that would keep her satisfied and quiet for a minute or two.
He focused again on the road, trying to keep his frustrated sigh in. As usual, Sam could read even what he wasn't saying.
"Any idea why she's acting like this?" Sam said quietly.
"She's two. What more do you need?" Dean replied back grumpily.
"Yeah, I know she's two, Dean, but she's never been like this before. Do you think she's…I don't know…do you think something is wrong with her?"
Dean rolled his head around to look at his little brother with exasperation. "Really? You think I'm already not stressed out enough about the fact that my kid is on the verge of a meltdown back there, and then you gotta say something stupid like that?" he growled, before looking back at the road.
Too used to Dean's own meltdowns when it came to Natalie, Sam closed his eyes patiently before trying again. "I mean, do you think she needs a diaper change or something like that?"
Dean shook his head impatiently. "I changed her an hour ago when we stopped for gas. Besides, if she did, we'd smell it."
Sam nodded his head in acquiescence. Neither brother would ever get used to the noxious baby odors that came with the territory, especially in such close proximity as the Impala. So maybe that wasn't it. "Do you…think there's something in her seat? Like a bug or something? Biting her?"
There was silence for .3 seconds, then Dean suddenly whipped the car to the shoulder of the road, throwing Sam into the window. Before Sam could even sit up straight, Dean had slammed Baby into 'park', bolted out of the driver's seat, and was making his way around to Natalie's side of the car. He ripped open the door to his daughter's side of the car.
Seeing Dean there, presumably to rescue her, made Natalie squeal with delight. She held her arms open to him. "Daddy!" she shrieked with joy, pleased that he was FINALLY letting her out. Dean had the straps to the car seat unbuckled in seconds, and lifted her out.
"Sam, check the seats," he barked at his brother, while he carefully examined his daughter for bug bites or anything like that. With a heavy sigh, Sam got out of the car.
"Dean, I didn't mean that-"
"Less yapping, more checking."
With a groan, Sam did as he was ordered to. He cursed silently to himself. He never should have said that. Chances are, Natalie was just, in fact, being a two year old. And Dean's overreaction was going to make life hell on them when they tried to put said two year old back into her car seat. But there was no going back now.
As Sam checked the seat, Dean turned and twisted Natalie, making sure there was absolutely nothing. Once he was satisfied, he pulled her in close and bounced her a few times. She giggled with delight, patting both of his cheeks as he snuggled her. His heart seemed to settle, and all the frustration he was feeling slowly started draining away. "So what's up with you, huh?" he asked the toddler as she continued to pat his cheeks. "Why are you being such a crankybutt?"
Natalie had absolutely no interest in answering him, however. Once she was satisfied that she had thanked Dean enough for rescuing her, she pointed deliberately to the ground. A fear gripped Dean's heart as he realized what she wanted. Please don't let her meltdown again, he silently prayed.
"No, squirt, not time to get down," he said in a light joking manner, trying to tickle her and distract her.
She wasn't having it. She swatted at his attempt at tickling in displeasure, and pointed to the ground again. "Down," she added, giving extra emphasis to the gesture. Dean rolled his eyes and set his teeth, and just cut straight to the punch.
"Look, I know you want down, okay? I got the message. But it's not happening. We're going to be home soon, and then you can get down and play with Bobby. How about that?" Dean said, refusing to think about the fact that he was attempting negotiations with a two year old. "You can play with Bobby all you want. That's fun, right?"
Natalie just stared at him for two seconds, then screamed at the top of her lungs. "DOOOOOOOWN!" She put her tiny hands on his chest and pushed away from him, wriggling like mad to try to break his grip on her. Dean struggled to hang on to the squirming toddler while leaning in the direction of the backseat.
"Almost done there?" he asked Sam, his words slightly distorted as Natalie put her hands on the side of his face and pushed away with a wail. Upon hearing his niece start up again, Sam quickly pulled himself out of the way. He shook his head.
"Nothing. She's just…" Sam was cut off by another sudden scream from the two year old. He winced for a moment, then opened his eyes back up and looked at his brother. "…screaming to scream," he finished limply.
Dean paced on the side of the road, far from the traffic, for a hot second. Natalie obviously wasn't going to calm down any time soon. It was stupid to keep pretending that she would. His heart twisted at her cries. Even though she was clearly throwing this tantrum just because she wasn't getting her way, it still hurt him to hear her so distressed and upset. She had never acted like this, so he didn't know what to do.
Should he be stern with her and demand that she stop? Would she even listen? Dean remembered all too well what used to happen when he and Sam would get loud and obnoxious in the car on road trips. His dad would have pulled the car over to the side of the road for an entirely different reason. But there was no way he was doing that to Natalie. She was still just a baby, for crying out loud. She just wanted to be down and run around, and she didn't understand that it wasn't an option.
Should he just strap her into her car seat and deal with the screaming for the next three hours? Even if his eardrums and patience could withstand that, he didn't think his heart would be able to. As she continued to cry and push away from him, he also felt his temper starting to rise. If he was being honest, he hated himself a little for it. It was so easy to get angry and frustrated with a child who was just screaming because she could. He had to have more patience than this. He had staked out werewolves, waited while Sam was weaned off demon blood, and been in a thousand scenarios that required way more patience than this. Why was this getting under his skin?
He shoved the thought aside. He wasn't deal with this now. He had a screaming two year old in his arms on the side of the road in some backwater asphalt stretch in the middle of freaking nowhere. Not the time to psychoanalyze anything.
He instantly made a snap decision. Knowing that the next couple minutes were REALLY going to suck, he gritted his teeth and marched back to the car, determined to get it over with as fast as possible.
Dean leaned down, gently putting Natalie back into her car seat. Upon realizing that she was about to be trapped again for who knows how long this time, she sent up an earsplitting wail and grabbed Dean's shirt with both her fists. "Noooooooo Daddyyyyyyyy!" she cried, holding on with all her might. Not for the first time did Dean wonder how the fuck a two year old could be so freaking strong. He gently pried one little fist off his shirt, and before she could flail it out of his grasp, he quickly thrust it through one of the arm straps of her seat. She screamed again and suddenly arched her back, almost succeeding in sliding right out of the contraption. Dean still had her arm trapped, however, but he couldn't get her back into the seat one-handed, and he didn't dare let go of the small ground he had.
"Sam!" he hollered over his shoulder. Sam spun around, reaching in immediately to help. He put his hands on either side of the squirming toddler and hoisted her back up. Natalie roared in anger this time, seeing that she was outnumbered. She tried to bite at Sam's arm, and nearly succeeded.
"Hey!" Dean scolded loudly. "No biting Uncle Sam!" Hearing his firm tone, Natalie instead settled for bawling again. Between Sam's grip on her and Dean still holding her arm, there was no way she could wriggle out of this. But she could still make her displeasure known worldwide.
"UNCA SAM!" she screamed as loud as she could. Sam froze for a second, then looked at Dean.
"That's the first time she's called me that," he said, his face an odd mixture of despair and joy.
"FOCUS, SAM!"
"Right!"
Between the two of them, they wrestled the screaming child back into her seat. As they extracted themselves from the car, she reached out desperately towards them, making Dean afraid to shut the door. What if she suddenly moved her hand and he slammed her little fingers in the door? He turned to Sam.
"Dude, get on the other side of her. Hold her hands while I shut the door." Not wanting to argue, Sam quickly obeyed. He ran around the car and slid into the backseat with his crying, angry niece.
"Hey sweetheart," he tried in a soothing tone, but she was so far gone by that point it didn't even register. Huffing in his own frustration, Sam grabbed her hands. She thrashed about wildly at being even more constrained, but Dean was watching carefully. He made sure Sam had a good grip on the little demon, and, not daring to blink, shut the door carefully. His internal organs all settled back to their usual spots when he realized he hadn't shut her hands in the door. However, it did nothing to temper her screams.
Dean bolted back to the driver's side, sliding in quickly. "Buckle up, Sammy, you're staying back there for now," he said as he slammed the door and turned the ignition.
Sam was surprised, to say the least. "Wait, what?" he got out, just before Dean peeled off back onto the road.
Natalie felt the car moving again, and stopped fighting. She simply wailed, tossing her head back and sounding more and more like an ambulance siren, with occasional gasping coughs. Annoyed, Sam buckled up quickly, then reached back to Natalie, stroking her hair as she cried. "Dean, what are we doing?" he said loudly over the wails. "Me being back here isn't going to calm her down."
"We're finding the next motel we can and packing it in."
Sam was stunned into silence. "We…but we're only-"
"I know, Sam."
"You don't wanna-"
"I know, Sam."
"But Dean-"
"Shut UP, Sam."
Dean pressed the gas pedal. He called over his shoulder. "Hey Natalie, we're gonna let you down soon, okay?" The only word she registered was 'down'. Through her sobs, she managed to take a breath and ask once.
"Down?" she said, her voice still heavy with tears and anger. Dean nodded.
"That's right, down. Just sit tight for a little bit more, okay?"
"Down!"
"Soon, I promise."
"DOWN NOW!"
"Well, that backfired," Dean muttered to himself as Natalie screamed again. Sam tried his best, but no song or story or anything could reach her. She actually began roaring in anger, gritting her teeth at them and yanking at her confining straps, trying to free herself. Neither of them had seen this much stubbornness and defiance from her yet. Praying this wasn't a preview of her teenage years, Dean took the next exit, his eyes scanning the road for a nearby motel. According to the sign, the closest one was 4.3 miles east. Damn, it was going to be a long 4.3 miles.
A couple moments later, Dean wondered if his hearing loss from his daughter's temper tantrum was going to be permanent as he screeched to a halt to the motel's front lobby door. Leaving the motor running, he darted out, practically sprinting to the front counter, knowing he was leaving Sam to certain doom.
Sam, in the meantime, tried to reason with the toddler. "Look, Natalie, we're almost to a room, okay?" he said, pointing past her out the window, hoping she wasn't going to try to take another bite of him again. "Then you can get…" he stopped himself before he said the dreaded word that would set off another even louder screaming fit. "…run around, okay?" Natalie hollered something wordlessly and tried to kick the seat in front of her.
For a brief second of insanity, Sam considered letting her loose in the car, but quickly ruled it out. In the state she was in, she was likely to destroy the entire interior in five seconds. Sam wondered who'd be screaming louder then- his niece or his brother.
An eternity later, Dean raced back to the car, slamming into the driver's seat. Upon seeing her father, Natalie screamed wordlessly at him for not letting her out of the car, but he couldn't focus on that now. Sweet relief was on the way. He hoped.
Cursing out loud as he struggled to see the numbers on the doors, he sped around the motel. Of course, their room was at the back. The clerk must have heard Natalie all the way from the parking lot.
"Sam, get her out of there," Dean snarled as he bolted out of the car again, heading for their room door, key in hand. Sam's protestations were left hanging on his lips as he watched Dean fumble at the motel door. How was it left to HIM to deal with the screaming, squirming mass of child?
Sam reached in towards the buckles of her car seat. Natalie was still too lost in her own flailing about to notice, but once he hit the release and she felt the pressure of the straps lift from her shoulders, she began trying to wriggle her way out at once. She flung her arms around, getting angrier and angrier that they weren't releasing her from her prison, hollering louder and louder.
"Natalie!" Sam said loudly, trying to get her attention as he grabbed one of her arms. She shrieked at him, but he tried to free her as quickly as possible, thrusting her arm back through the strap, praying he wasn't hurting her as she flung herself around. Finally, he succeeded in releasing her. She pushed herself forward out of her chair, but before her little feet could hit the floorboards, Sam scooped her up and began the arduous task of trying to back out of the car with a screaming, thrashing-about toddler.
Realizing that she was still, in essence, trapped, Natalie began wriggling like a cat confronted with water, throwing all her words at him as she struggled. Sam tightened his grasp, gritted his teeth, and finally extracted himself from the car. He stood up just in time for Natalie to back hand him square in the nose.
"ARH," he yelled in pain, while desperately trying to keep the Tasmanian Devil in his arms. He was grateful she didn't have much more power behind that fist- that hurt enough already. Dean was holding open the door to the motel for him. Sam ran as fast as he safely could through it and into the darkened room, Natalie still fighting his grip on her. Dean snapped on the lights, slammed the door and yelled.
"Set her loose!"
Sam quickly stooped and released his hold on his niece, then stepped back as if he expected her to explode. The brothers watched with apprehension as the toddler suddenly registered that she was, in fact, 'down'.
And then a whole new chase began.
Screaming at the top of her lungs, Natalie began tearing around the room like she was on fire. "Flank her!" Dean hollered, taking off to the left. Sam immediately understood, and took off to the left. As she continued to tear around the room, letting off all the pent-up energy in her little chubby legs, she continued a long, uninterrupted stream of screaming. Dean barely made it in time to snatch the lamp that she had knocked over on her race past the end table. Anticipating that she was going to make a hard right after encountering the back wall, Sam managed to yank the small throw rug with the curled-up corner that would be sure to trip her out of her path, flinging it behind him. Natalie heaved herself onto one bed, tearing across it, leaving the blankets and sheets a crumpled up mess, before literally swan diving onto the other bed and sliding to the floor, taking the comforter with her. Dean's heart had stopped for a split second on that one.
She continued her race around the room, continuing to scream in an unbroken breath for another good solid two minutes, as the boys continued to fling things around the room to clear her path of terror. Finally, she stopped suddenly in the middle of the room, causing the boys to almost collide into each other in surprise. She threw her hands out to the sides and squealed one long, incredibly high pitched note for as long as she could, and then just as suddenly as she had begun, she stopped. She looked at Sam and Dean, staring at her, wondering what she was going to do next as she panted from exhaustion. After a moment of silence, she bent her chubby little knees, put her hands flat on the ground, stretched out full length on her tummy, and instantly fell asleep.
Sam and Dean just stared at her. How the hell had she gone from hair-raising screaming demon to sleeping baby in five seconds? What- what had just happened? In tandem, their eyes wandered around the room that she had managed to utterly destroy in just less than three minutes. They just stared, wordlessly, as her breathing became slow and rhythmic.
Finally, in the near silence, Dean spoke quietly. "Sam."
Pause. "Yeah, Dean?"
"I need you to do something for me."
"Sure, Dean. What?"
"I need you to lie to me."
"About what?"
"Tell me she's not gonna go off the deep end like that again. Tell me this was a one-time thing. Tell me it's gonna get easier."
Pause. "Well, I will, but I can't do it with a straight face."
Dean just sighed and hung his weary head.
