A/N Thank you to everyone who is reading and reviewing. I've got a little twist for you today. Also some possibly upsetting language and violence. You are warned.
/
/
/
Sam stuffed his last two t-shirts into the top drawer of the slightly scarred plain wood dresser and then closed it with a contented sigh. Happy to be back in his familiar dorm room after three weeks of crashing at the motel that reminded him just a little too much of the vagabond existence of his childhood.
Although a significant improvement, the dorm wasn't exactly home but it was close enough that he had missed it's basic clean comforts and general feeling of stability.
He didn't have a lot of belongings to his name but he didn't have independent transportation either, so it had taken a couple of trips to haul everything back to campus from the motel. Years of living on the road had taught him to be economical with the amount of his personal possessions and Sam was an old pro when it came to packing and lugging with military efficiency.
Only on the really bad days did he let himself dwell on all of the things he had needed to leave behind in Sioux Falls.
By now their old house probably had another family living there. It was a good neighborhood, easily the best that the brothers had ever lived in. It wasn't hard to imagine that as soon as Dean packed up all of his stuff and undoubtedly threw away the rest of Sam's some other lucky family was fortunate enough to take up residence there.
They would never know just how lucky they really were. Or how safe to be honest. Whoever they were, whether they knew it or not, they slumbered under the protection of enough powerful wards and sigils to keep all the boogeymen away courtesy of Sam's father.
Sam often missed the little house, but that hadn't really been home either.
Home had always been where Dean was. Home had been first the back seat and then the shotgun of a classic muscle car that like his big brother had carried Sam around safely his entire life.
Were you still technically homeless when you didn't know where your home was anymore? Or if you would ever be welcomed there again?
Those were questions that Sam didn't allow himself to dwell on too often.
His winter break of solitude wasn't as bad as he was expecting it to be under the circumstances, once he accepted that he had been hoping for a visit from his brother more than he allowed himself to admit. An unexpressed dream that hadn't become reality.
With the exception of the painfully lonely Christmas day, with only the mother of all hangovers to keep him company along with a microwaved plate of leftover sausage and peppers that wasn't actually the worst holiday dinner he had ever eaten, Sam had managed to keep himself from having a complete emotional break down by throwing himself into his studies and dreaming of a better future.
He knew it was there within reach if he could just keep pushing himself forward long enough and hard enough to grab it. It wasn't helping him to stay mired in the past day after day because there was simply nothing he could do to change it.
Nothing would ever make Sam believe that he hadn't done the right thing for himself and his brother.
Of course his single minded father would never see it that way, and Sam would never get the man to understand why, no matter how hard he could have tried.
Continuing to beat himself up over it wasn't going to do anyone any good this late in the game.
The vacation weeks went by fairly quickly when you kept yourself occupied body and mind. The owners of Antonio's seemed curiously hellbent on making sure that Sam had as little idle time on his hands as possible.
Almost too insistent to be honest but he was more than happy with the substantial increase in his paychecks for all the extra hours he worked.
Even the grunt labor he did for his temporary landlord wasn't as terrible as he had feared it would be.
Turns out Sam had learned more than he thought he had during all those years of watching his much more mechanically inclined brother fix things in their endless stream of motel rooms while they were growing up. Sam had plenty of real world experience on how sketchy motel maintenance could sometimes be and there was comfort in knowing that he had some ability to mend basic items if he absolutely needed to.
A long list of shitty jobs that had been ignored by previous employees had naturally found their way to Sam as things tended to when you were more or less slave labor, and he was just too invested in keeping a good working relationship with the owner of a place that might turn out to be his summer home as well to try and pass them off to the next sad sack that got a job there.
The housekeepers were definitely going to miss him now that he had made his triumphant return to campus for the winter semester. That much he knew for sure by the decidedly unhappy looks on their faces when he bid them fond farewell, his bags already packed and slung over his shoulders waiting for the next bus to campus.
After spending a lifetime as John Winchester's kid, Sam could make up a bed with pristine accuracy faster than anyone, and his absence was going to put a definitive halt to the lazy hazy afternoons of hiding in empty rooms to catch up on all of the latest gossip on the inexplicably addicting chat shows.
His own double room was going to really be all his for a couple of days more thanks to the temporary absence of his roommate.
Sam hadn't wanted to wait even one second longer than he had to before moving back into Adams House but Brady was going to be skiing in Park City until the very last day before classes started again. Apparently the pristine slopes of Utah, coupled with miles of upscale shopping, made it a playground for the dysfunctional wealthy class over the holidays and of course the Brady family owned a chalet there.
Just another place where Sam's good friend could avoid the pit vipers that masqueraded themselves as his family members. Brady and Victoria had claimed it for themselves just before New Year's Eve and neither one of them were in any kind of hurry to return to the Golden State.
Sam had been just a tad envious when he heard about his buddy's holiday plans.
Skiing was one of the sports that Sam had never had the opportunity to learn but he thought he would probably like. Once when they were crashing in a ski town in Colorado for awhile Sam had begged Dean to let him take a lesson with some of the other kids at school. At the time he had been furious when his brother turned him down flat, just seeing it as another example of Sam not being given the chance to do normal things.
Now that he was older, after life had made it abundantly clear to him just how much he hadn't noticed about their unusual lifestyle as a child, it was obvious that his brother simply didn't have the disposable cash at the time to pay for an outing like that and still make sure they had food on the table.
Always the protector when he could be, Dean had never wanted to let Sam dwell on their precarious finances when he was younger. A habit which had led to many, sometimes even daily, fights between them and which Sam still harbored a lot of guilt over. He was ashamed of just how self centered he'd been as a child, but then again most kids are.
He remembers that he stopped speaking to Dean for two days when his friends went skiing without him. When his juvenile anger and resentment had him completely missing the hurt on his brother's face brought on by Sam's rebuff. The way Dean had tried to make it up to him in anyway he could that didn't involve using any of the limited funds that Dad had left behind to see them through until his return.
Sam regretted his petulant behavior now. A spoiled attitude he would like to think he wouldn't have had if Dean had just been honest with him and didn't try to shield Sam from everything.
It hadn't been fair to Dean to have all that pressure and responsibility thrust at him at such a young age. Sam would accept his share of damage done to his brother for his own thoughtlessness and unkind words, but that didn't mean that he wasn't laying the lion's share of the blame at their father's feet.
Maybe Dean wanted to go skiing too when they were there. Surely he had dreams of his own that he never got to express when he had to put so much of his time and effort into keeping a little brother alive, safe and fed when still just a child himself. Sam was at least honest enough with himself now to realize that he wasn't the only one to have his childhood yanked away from him.
How did Dean not resent him for everything? Or did he, and Sam was just too blind to see that too?
Another reason why Dean was better off without Sam around.
He promised himself that one day when he was done with school he was going to take the time and learn how to ski, and mountain climb and play the cello and everything else that he had always wanted to do and was denied the opportunity. Maybe holiday trips to the mountains would become a new tradition for him once Sam was married with a family of his own.
When money wasn't as much of a problem as it had been all his life.
Fortunately money wasn't going to necessarily be the problem he had expected it to be for the new semester either.
He walked over to his desk and began to unpack the plastic bags of pricey books he had already picked up from the campus bookstore after having made sure that he was one of the first in line once it opened back up again. The first one he pulled out, a thick wire bound colorful behemoth, being the textbook for his American Sign Language class. One of the two extra classes that he had wanted to take just for the pleasure of learning and not out of need for his degree.
Classes that he had been allowed to register for only after getting approval from his advisor to increase his already exceptionally heavy course load.
Because Sam hadn't just aced his finals, he had crushed them.
All those long lonely hours in the library, sacrificing any shred of personal life and possibly a good portion of his own sanity aided by near lethal quantities of caffeine, had paid off in spades by the eye wateringly high GPA he received for his first semester.
Always the overachiever, Sam had set a brutal pace for himself that made his fellow classmates involuntarily cringe, triggering feelings of overwhelming insecurity about their own work ethics.
The reward for this single minded devotion was hopefully going to be the ability to write his own ticket when it came time to pick a law school if he could keep it up, which Sam planned on doing unless he got hit by a meteor walking across campus one day.
If there was one thing his father had taught him that was actually helpful, it was that you never did anything halfway.
His academic success had enabled him to request permission to ramp up his credit hours which meant that he needed additional textbooks and supplies to go along with them.
The cost of textbooks was always a worry for students from less financially endowed backgrounds. Each one a small fortune, even if you could find used copies which Sam had ensured he did by being quick to run to the bookstore before they were all gone.
If you were early enough and search hard enough you were able to find the good ones that were still in serviceable shape and had limited markings made by students that might not be as academically inclined as Sam was himself.
Although he hadn't really worried too much about the cost of the extras this time since he knew he would have his surplus pay from the crazy amount of hours working at his dish washing station as well as the added comfort of the Christmas money that Dean had put in his account. Sam hadn't even considered spending that cash on anything frivolous for himself, preferring to use it on his studies where it was more valuable.
It also helped that he was able to take advantage of the fact that he spent so much time at the restaurant during the break that it almost completely alleviated the need to buy food elsewhere while the dining halls were closed.
Maria seemed to have made it her life mission to keep him in carbohydrates as long as she was working him half to death.
However he was looking forward to consuming something that wasn't Italian, as grateful as he was to his generous employers. There was only just so much garlic a person could have in their life if they still wanted to be able to spend time in the company of other people again without getting the judging looks that made you feel like you were the smelly kid in grade school.
Knowing how much his father lived to prove Sam wrong about pretty much everything, it probably shouldn't have shocked him as much as it did to find another large contribution to his school account upon his return. The notification that once again Sam's monetary worries as to his student obligations were entirely covered with a big chunk left over for his personal use.
Quite frankly Sam had expected the windfall he received from his father in September to be one and done.
A gesture to soothe a guilty conscious and nothing more.
A way for John to sleep at night and not feel particularly guilty about tossing his kid out into the cold without looking back.
Because he couldn't imagine a world where his dad would continue to help finance Sam's desertion from the Winchester Army after making his thoughts on that subject perfectly clear in so many ways. He could only assume that Dean was somehow forcing their old man to do what he could to keep Sam fed and off the streets.
Knowing perfectly well that was how Dean had always operated. Doing whatever was necessary to make sure that Sam was taken care as best as he could be no matter what it took, whether Sam wanted him to or not. After a lifetime of getting nothing but crap for it from a surly little brother, Dean would continue to do it without ever expecting a thank you even when Sam was no longer speaking to him.
Again.
Whatever the reason, Sam was grateful considering it meant that he might not have to squat somewhere during the summer break which was the fear that had been living in the back of his mind for several months. Before his little windfall he hadn't been sure that he could swing enough cash and bartered labor to cover a whole summer at the motel.
He was also pretty sure that Bobby might just kick him out this time if Sam were to take advantage of one of his cabins again without asking permission.
Bobby had always been good to him and Dean, but that was before.
A scuffling noise outside his partially opened door made Sam glance up from his desk out of habit. Sam had learned quickly that keeping dorm room doors closed during the day was rare in Adams House. An accepted notion that it gave the impression of being unnecessarily unfriendly to your neighbors.
Although Sam didn't particularly like the air of vulnerability it made him feel, he was more annoyed by the second nature habit of needing locked protection against everything because it was something that his father had drummed into him since his days left alone in motel rooms as a child. Just another detested reminder of his unorthodox upbringing.
Never one to turn down a chance to rebel against John's dictates or to avoid being seen as different among his dorm mates, Sam now always made a point of having his own door at lease a few inches ajar when he was in the room.
Out in the hallway, Sam saw the arrival of that kid Mark from a few doors down. He was lugging in a couple of duffel bags, wrapped up against the cold outside in an army surplus jacket and wool cap and gave Sam a short nod of greeting when he saw him looking.
"Hey man," Sam called, returning the nod. "How was your break?"
Mark shrugged nonchalantly and threw him a small wave that may or may not have been friendly and then moved on down the hall and the conversation was over.
Sam smiled to himself and shook his head as he got back to work unloading his bags. The exchange between them wasn't out of character for Mark.
Socially awkward himself, Sam had always tried to make an effort to be nice to the nearly silent boy who seemed to live around the edges of their shared dorm life. As far as he knew Mark didn't have any friends either in Adams or outside of it. Someone who very much kept to himself at all times.
They had a few shared classes and Mark was obviously intelligent by Sam's observation over their academic interactions. There had been several times when Mark had answers to questions posed by their professors that even Sam didn't know and that impressed him. Usually the only times he ever heard Mark utter a sound.
Mark also seemed to be around a lot whenever Sam was in his dorm, although he didn't speak to any of their shared neighbors. Sometimes Sam got the feeling that the other boy just needed someone to notice him every now and then, and that was something that Sam himself had felt on occasion at one of the many schools they had been dragged through.
It didn't mean that Mark was stalking him or anything. He might just be trying to maintain a little simple human contact.
It was probably just Sam's imagination that had him reading into things that weren't there. Most likely amplified by the fact that Sam had also concluded that the quiet boy was either a local, considering how many times Sam had seen him out and about during winter break, or possibly in the same boat he himself was in with not having a family to go to during the recent vacation.
Sam could always find time to make sure that he was approachable for a kindred spirit. Someone else who may not have a home of their own either.
/
Ellen was sixteen the night she met William Anthony Harvelle.
There was a carnival in the area. Just one of those small pop up things that mysteriously sprouted like a vibrant exotic weed against the backdrop of a tired and colorless Nebraska town.
Randomly dropped in the middle of a rented barren field owned by a former farmer that had grown too old to toil in the soil anymore and would take whatever cash he could get. Shamelessly promoted by fliers cheaply printed on white paper that had the telltale smudges of an ancient mimeograph and then nailed up on every telephone pole in town and shoved under the windshield wiper blades of every car parked along Main Street.
A couple of nights of fun that could be had for a few bucks paid to the sketchy looking characters that stood a post at the hastily erected rusting entrance gate. Ones that were never quite impenetrable enough to stop the town miscreants from finding a way in around their defenses.
A few dollars more for the obscenely wide variety of fried foods that assaulted your nose as soon as you crossed the magical line into the kaleidoscoped chaos. Sausages and funnel cakes and sticky cones of spun sugar that were served out of trucks that somehow managed to stay one town ahead of any health inspector that might get nosy but always seemed to have long lines.
A couple more for the opportunity to lose those guilty pleasure contents of your stomachs after a dizzying turn or two on the creaking rides that made you wonder more than once just how many extra parts might be laying around that were missed during the assembly. When you would soar so high above the makeshift midway that you didn't care whether or not they had any kind of safety guards in place as your hair flew into your eyes while you defied gravity all to the sounds of amplified music that set your pulse racing.
Not a lot happened in their small town, so it didn't take much convincing on Ellen's part to talk her best friend Trudy into going with her that night.
Growing up as a farmer's daughter, Ellen had been raised to work hard, love Jesus and to always act like a lady by her God fearing parents who either didn't know or didn't want to admit that their young daughter was a little more on the wild side than they would have liked. When the carnival arrived Ellen knew that her parents would only allow her to go out if she was accompanied by the significantly more introverted Trudy who had practically grown up in the kitchen of their family farmhouse and was like another daughter to them.
The fact that it was being held at the old Rafferty farm only made the situation a little harder to sweet talk permission from Ellen's parents.
The community they lived in was small and close knit. Mostly made up of families that had been friends for generations and who stuck together and helped each other out in the difficult times.
There was a lot of loss among them now due to the Vietnam war that was still keenly felt by everyone in town whether it was a direct family member or not. The ensuing recession that had plunged their livelihoods into a death spiral had also left its mark on the area with the high number of foreclosures and the sadness of every street corner sporting the boarded up windows of closed businesses.
The Raffertys had been close friends with Ellen's family as far back as she could remember. Their only son Walter, who had been sweet on Ellen's older sister Beth since they were children, was killed in the battle of Khe Sanh and became one of many that eventually came home in a flag covered box. With their entire future obliterated in a blink of an eye his parents collectively lost their reason to get up in the morning and their farm was now falling into ruin from neglect.
No amount of persuasion or offers of assistance from their neighbors could keep the brokenhearted couple in the area and they had finally moved to Kansas to live with Mrs. Rafferty's sister over two years ago.
Ellen's parents couldn't bring themselves to spend an evening of frolic at a place where there had once been such happiness for people they dearly cared about.
Ellen herself remembers all the time she had spent sitting at Mrs. Rafferty's table as a little girl. Snapping beans, rolling pie crusts and helping with the canning of pickled vegetables and fruit preserves that would be sold at the summer fair. Mama and Mrs. Rafferty would do the work of six women as they cooked and gossiped and pretended to not notice how much time Beth spent sneaking out to the fields to flirt with Walter. The wedding of their children already planned in their heads.
But that was another time. A lifetime ago with dreams and plans that would never happen.
After Walter's death, Beth shed her light hearted spirit and inherent trouble making tendencies in her grief to evolve into a much more mature woman devoid of either a sense of humor or adventure and who frowned at her little sister's mischievous streak. That night she had argued hard with their parents to keep Ellen from going to the carnival, but everyone knew that it was more because of the location itself than a real desire to keep Ellen out of harm's way.
No one blamed Beth for not wanting to see the grounds where she had fallen in love and planned to raise her children sullied by tire tracks and deep divots and trash.
The Rafferty place was close enough to her own house that Ellen and Trudy could walk the distance, sure that by the time it was closing up for the evening one of their friends or neighbors would be more than happy to give them a ride back so they didn't have to make the return trek in the dark. Although it was supposed to be a full moon tonight so there would be plenty of ambient light to find their way if they had to.
Knowing that she would be far from her parents' prying eyes, as they made their way out past the entrance to the long driveway that led to Ellen's house she ran off to the side and pulled a bag from where it had been hidden tucked into the hollow of a low branch of her favorite climbing tree. With Trudy standing guard, Ellen shrugged out of her mother approved blouse and her bra and slipped on a decidedly more risque halter top that emphasized all her best attributes.
Out in the open plains of Nebraska where sound easily traveled the girls could already hear the music wafting in the air with another quarter mile of distance still between them and the entrance. The weather was warm, and they were young and ready to have some fun and their excitement grew as they drew nearer.
There were rows upon rows of cars parked in the open fields surrounding the main attractions. The two of them were pleased to see a large crowd of lively people already in attendance. After paying their money to get in they happily strolled around the carnival for almost half an hour before Ellen saw him for the first time.
They had bought sodas and eaten corn dogs and chatted with some friends from school who were playing games on the midway. The night was starting to fall, making the technicolor lights on the booths and rides glow across the field. He was leaning casually against a wooden booth set up for a ring toss, his head of thick blond hair catching flashes of colors from The Sizzler ride behind him. Ellen blushed when she realized that he was staring at her, but he was cute and she liked it so she smiled back which only pulled his mouth up wider.
Not liking the predatory look of the guy who was sizing up her friend so indiscreetly, Trudy dragged her off to the Ferris Wheel and Ellen allowed herself to be led although she really wanted to stay close to the boy with the beautiful smile and deep blue eyes that said a million things without saying a word. After they were loaded into one of the cars and lifted higher in the air she was pleasantly surprised to see that he had followed them and was looking up at where she was swinging, an enigmatic smile on his face.
He stood there right next to the carny operating the wheel during her entire ride, that little smile of his never faltering and making Ellen sure that the motion of her rocking car wasn't the reason for the swooping feeling she felt in the pit of her stomach.
After that it was all over for her.
Dismounted from the ride, Ellen immediately took his outstretched hand, completely ignoring the concern she heard in her friend's voice as she allowed the beautiful blond boy to spirit her away. They walked along the carved pathways of trodden down grass between the attractions and shared carefully scripted snippets of themselves with each other. Cautiously flirtatious as they tested out the boundaries of the electrical spark they both felt between them. Bill bought an ice cream cone for them to share and as he held it out for Ellen to take a lick he yanked it away at the last second and caught her open mouth with his instead.
They found a quiet place away from the bright lights and swarming crowd. Shadowed in darkness on the outskirts of the festivities, but still close enough for Bill to visually sweep the area around them every few minutes. Ellen accepted his kisses, her tongue curiously exploring his mouth that tasted of Marlboros and Juicy Fruit gum and she didn't even flinch when she felt the bulge of the revolver at his back.
A lot of boys in Nebraska carried, after all.
But all good things must come to an end as she found out when out of nowhere Beth furiously grabbed her by the back tie of her halter top and pulled her away from the strange boy that had his tongue down her little sister's throat.
The sisters squabbled at high volume all along the moon lit path back to their farmhouse. Ellen trying futilely to remove her arm from the iron clad grasp that her sister had around her wrist, while Beth scolded and vehemently promised that she'd see to it that their daddy made Ellen cut a switch when they got home.
The bickering continued right up the point that the werewolf appeared in front of them.
As Ellen wiped down the bar, cleaning away the residue of spilled pint glasses and cigarette ash, she watched her daughter mop under the tables and smiled softly at the resemblance the girl had to both her deceased father as well as the deceased aunt that she had been partially named for. Joanna Beth Harvelle, born after thirty hours of hard labor that Ellen knew should have been a warning about how difficult a child she would be, was every bit the looker that both Bill and Beth had been, but unfortunately she also had her mother's pig headed stubbornness and mischievous streak.
Ellen couldn't look at her daughter and not see the faces of the two people she had loved most in the world and then lost to the monsters in it. Jo was the only one that Ellen had left and she would fight to the last to keep her baby girl safe and healthy with her no matter how much her headstrong daughter wanted to follow in her father's footsteps.
Like many, Ellen's introduction into the supernatural world began with blood and death that night of the carnival. To this day she blamed herself for being the reason that her sister was even out that night.
Worry for her was the cause of the slaughter of a protective older sibling that had put herself into harm's way to keep her little sister safe. After being confronted by the nightmare of sharp teeth and claws of a horror movie come to life and instinctively shoving Ellen behind her own body, Beth's heart had been ripped out of her chest while it was still beating. The spray of its brutal destruction fanning Ellen's contraband halter top in a red mist as she screamed.
She barely remembers the sound of the gunshots behind her, or the look of surprise on the face of the monster than had murdered her beloved sister as it dropped to the ground next to the dead girl. It was only Bill's arms around her, holding her together as she shook violently, that grounded her enough mentally to watch as the beast's face morphed back into something that resembled human.
Ellen learned a lot that night that she didn't really want to know.
She didn't really want to know that the beautiful boy she spent a few pleasurable hours with grew up in a family of monster hunters. She didn't really want to know about monsters period, to be honest.
And she certainly didn't want to know that they were sentient enough to come up with complex schemes like operating traveling carnivals that basically served as mobile all-you-can-eat buffets.
Bill and his father, brother and sister had been tracking this particular pack for a while before they landed in Ellen's hometown. Finally identifying their quarry after spending months trying to figure out the kill pattern and the common denominator that tied together all of the reported suspicious mountain lion deaths in the neighboring states.
His reassurances that they had all been taken care of did nothing to comfort her on the day of her sister's funeral. When she couldn't even be honest with her devastated parents about how their oldest child died.
But as time went on and Ellen climbed out of the worst of her grief to realize that the world she thought she lived in didn't exist, she made her peace with the life that Bill led and the good work that he was doing. He had been just as infatuated with her as she was with him, and even as he continued to travel around the country doing his thing he never stopped calling her or dropping in to see her whenever he could.
They were married two years later on what would have been Beth's twenty-fourth birthday.
Because the accepted story was that a rabid mountain lion had attacked the sisters, she couldn't come out and admit that Bill and his family hunted werewolves for a living without sounding like a crazy person. So Ellen's parents weren't particularly thrilled with their daughter's choice of a groom being a polite but unknown drifter with no real prospects.
But after losing one daughter they weren't taking the chance of losing another.
They gave her their grudging consent on the condition that Bill settle down with her someplace close by where they could still watch out for her in case things went downhill, and then made it easier for the young couple to plant roots by gifting them with the money that had been scrupulously squirreled away for both of their children.
Ellen walked down the aisle on her father's arm in a dress that had been started for Beth's wedding to Walter, with the deed for a plot of land with a vacant building on it that would one day become Harvelle's Roadhouse in her white satin purse.
It had been Bill's dream to have a place where hunters like himself could find food and shelter when they needed it. Somewhere they could trade stories and intel and just let their guards down for a little while around people like themselves who didn't get a lot of chances to relax. Ellen cooked and tended bar, usually with Joanna Beth on her hip, and became a mother figure for a lot of the orphans of the hunting world.
A year after Jo was born the Rafferty farm was sold to another family, and Ellen would often drive by on her way to town to pick up supplies, a smile on her face as she imagined Beth and Walter walking hand in hand through the tall grass of the fields.
Forever young and forever beautiful in a place where the bad couldn't hurt them anymore.
She was in the middle of cleaning one of the beer taps when she heard a heavy truck engine rumble into the parking lot. It was early in the day, too early for the Roadhouse to be open, but that didn't always stop the tourists from trying to come by and gawk at a building that looked like it might be an oddly interesting place to stop for some lunch.
Normally Ellen would brush the dust off her better manners to meet them outside and direct them to a more appropriate venue but now she resumed her work after recognizing this particular engine just like she had always known the sound of the earlier version of the muscle car he used to drive.
She wished she could hate John Winchester as much as she should. She wished it with every waking breath she took in the empty bed where her husband used to lie next to her before his young death. The love in his blue blue eyes warming her even on the coldest mornings.
Once upon a time John had been like family to them. A grief stricken young man just trying to make some sense of the horrendous curves that life had thrown him. Someone else who found purpose and solace in facing down the dark things that hurt others, just like Bill always had.
The two man had become fast friends when they were introduced by a mutual acquaintance and Ellen had spent hours loving on John's poor little motherless boys who had needed some more tender affection than their gruff father seemed capable of providing at the time.
But John was more driven than Bill. A little darker in his quest, and Ellen didn't fault him for it. Bill had lost his mother Joanna at a young age and it was her death that propelled the Harvelles to hunt. Ellen lost her sister. Both had seen the monsters that caused them pain put down.
John had lost the love of his life to something he didn't know how to identify or fight and no one could rightly blame him for being more adrift than others who had been given the chance to exact their revenge.
Ellen had watched as he grew into a very different man over the years.
It had started with his extreme protection of his children. Very few people knew where the Winchester boys were at any given time, the Harvelle's included. She herself hadn't seen them since they were tiny although she would have loved the chance to dote on them occasionally. John spoke of them often, a note of pride in his voice as he shared stories of their growth, but Ellen wouldn't know them if she passed them on the street.
A fading photograph taken years ago of them sitting on the hood of a car in John's arms that he kept in his wallet was the only outdated image she had of them to go by.
John would swing by often, both to offer and receive assistance on a hunt. Like Bill he preferred to hunt alone, not being someone that innately trusted his fellow man, but all hunters need the information and connections that the Roadhouse could provide on occasion. In the evenings during the infrequent periods of down time, Bill, Ellen and John would share a bottle of whiskey and just forget for a little while. All of them eager to grasp just a few short minutes of normalcy in a world of continuous violence.
But that had all been a long time ago.
Years had passed since the day John had brought her Bill back to the Roadhouse to be given a proper hunter's funeral. Torn to shreds under the stained blanket he was wrapped in.
There weren't enough tears in the world to adequately encompass her despair when she saw the Impala pull in and only John in the front seat looking as wrecked as he had the day she first met him. He didn't even need to speak the words that ended her happiness like the swift cut of a guillotine's blade.
With her mama's help, Ellen had kept herself together long enough to care for her love one more time as she readied his body for the pyre. Her movements were soft and gentle on his ravaged skin as she bathed him with all the devoted affection she had bestowed upon him in life. She took her time, committing every freckle and scar to memory.
A last worship of the body that had brought her joy and helped create their perfect baby girl.
As he burned, Ellen's eyes were dry. Knowing in her heart that her Bill wasn't really there anymore and she had already said her goodbyes to the love of her life. Shrouded in guilt, John Winchester left as soon as the fire died, and he never bothered to say goodbye either.
Ellen wasn't sure what exactly brought John back into her life this past year after such a long absence. Who knows. If things had gone differently, she may have never seen him again and she didn't really know how she would have felt about that.
What she did know for sure was that while she may have forgiven him for the part he played in the death of her beloved, John didn't seem capable of forgiving himself. It showed in every careful word he said to her and in the way he couldn't make eye contact with Jo as she flitted around the bar. A huge heavy guilt that lingered in the dark pools of brown that didn't have the guts to meet blue of Bill's daughter that matched his own.
All she did know is that with Ash's assistance, John seemed closer to being able to exact his own revenge and she was more than happy that her old friend had finally been able to find his way home.
/
Sam was attempting to get some work done at his desk when his door was flung open, hard enough that the knob probably scuffed the paint of the wall it crashed into. Startled, he jumped a little in his chair from the loud noise, immediately cataloguing the handful of potential weapons he had subtly scattered around the room out of habit.
The larger than life figure burst into the room and strode across to Sam's bed where he flopped down with enough force to make the box springs squeak in protest. Mollified by the sight of his good friend instead of a random intruder, Sam immediately turned his thoughts from his potential safety to how he would fix the possibly chipped paint without losing any of his room deposit money at the end of the semester.
"I am SO fat!"
Returning to his book, Sam shook his head affectionately and began to absently twist the anti-possession bracelet that he still wore out of habit.
"Hello to you too, Luis. Did you have a nice visit with your mom?"
Luis rolled to his side and propped himself up on one elbow, his new Louis Vuitton loafers swinging back and forth off the end of Sam's bed.
"Yes! That's why I'm so fat now. Can't you see?" he snapped, pinching a tiny amount of imaginary flab from his flat abdomen with his fingers. "Mama fed me like a pig going to slaughter all weekend, and now my beautiful man is going to be repulsed by my hideousness."
Sam rolled his eyes, used to his friend's dramatics. Ever since Luis had met his 'beautiful man' at the end of November, he had been more insecure of his good looks than usual.
"You're not fat, Luis," he comforted, knowing that was the only response that his vain friend would allow. "Besides, you don't want to be with someone that only cares about looks."
Luis' eyes popped wide open in horror as he clutched an imaginary set of pearls. "Yes I do. I wouldn't want to be with some chico feo either!"
"That makes you very shallow, buddy," Sam pointed out as he chuckled and reached into his bag for his highlighter.
"That's okay," Luis said as he abruptly got up from Sam's bed and pulled the book away from his friend. "Better shallow than wider than my Tia Gabriella. That woman is as big as a casa!"
"C'mon, man. I'm trying to work," Sam protested, reaching out one of his long gorilla arms to try and grab the book back from where Luis was holding it behind his back.
"Come to the fitness center with me," Luis whined, fending Sam off by slapping his hand away repeatedly. "They're having pick up basketball games all afternoon and you're the tallest person I know. I may have to work out but I want to be on the winning team if I do."
Sam waited patiently for a moment until he saw his opening and then struck like a cobra. Snatching his book back and playfully shoving Luis away from his desk, he shook his head and tried to find his page again. "Not today, man. I have a lot of reading that I want to get done by the end of the week. I'm working crazy hours this weekend and I won't have time."
"Please," Luis begged, batting his eyelashes at his friend and clasping his hands in front of his chest like a manipulative toddler. "Please, please please. C'mon Sammy, pleeeeeeease..."
"Don't call me that," Sam snapped harsher than he meant to as his shoulders involuntarily tensed. "It's Sam."
Luis' eyebrows shot up in surprise at his friend's unusual tone and he sobered up quickly realizing that some invisible line had just been crossed. "Sorry, Sam," he said apologetically as he sat back on the bet. "I didn't mean to offend you, man."
Knowing that he had wildly overreacted, Sam seemed to deflate and he waved away his friend's concern. "It..it's fine, man. I didn't mean to bite your head off. Thats.." He took a deep breath and waited until he could swallow the enormous lump that had suddenly manifested itself in his throat. "That's what my brother calls me."
He shrugged and turned his gaze away from his friend back to the book that he no longer felt like looking at.
Thinking about Dean was hard enough. Talking about him was painful, and hearing the nickname that he had always used was excruciating.
Luis frowned in concern at his friend's sudden air of melancholy. As far as he knew Sam and his brother were close, so he couldn't imagine why the other boy looked so wrecked over the use of a nickname.
"Are you okay, man?"
"Yeah," Sam insisted as he turned to give Luis a small watery smile. "Yeah, I'm fine. I just, you know. I just miss him, is all."
"Yeah, okay," Luis said unconvinced, but dropping the subject because his friend already looked too much like a kicked puppy.
None of the other boys had summoned up the courage to ask Sam exactly why he didn't go home for the holidays, respecting their friend enough to let him tell them if he wanted them to know. Although it was no secret to any of them that Sam and his father had issues.
Enough clues had been dropped in enough random conversations since they met in the fall that made it perfectly clear that all was not right in the Winchester family.
But that awkwardness and barely suppressed anger had never manifested itself when Sam talked about his brother. It was all 'Dean this' and 'Dean that' and it was also common knowledge that the brothers spoke every evening. Something that none of the rest of them did with their own siblings no matter how close they were.
It made them wonder why Sam didn't make the effort to see his brother even if he didn't want to see his father. Although they also knew that the two older Winchesters worked together so maybe it was more a matter of them being a package deal.
Whatever the reasons were, Luis, Brady and Zach had decided long ago not to press the issue.
With a groan, Luis pulled himself back up from the bed and decided that his friend probably wanted to be left alone, so he was surprised when Sam stood as well and grabbed his Puma sneakers from under the desk.
"Just give me a minute to put some sweats on, okay?"
It was a long cold walk to the fitness center and Sam was starting to regret his decision to leave the warm coziness of his dorm room with his books in favor of his second workout for the day that he really didn't have the time or the need for, but he genuinely felt bad about snapping at Luis whose only crime had been to accidentally use a nickname that Sam had never told his friends he didn't like.
There were more people in the indoor basketball facility than he would have readily believed. You would have thought that there was a tournament going on with all of the guys milling around waiting for their turn on the courts. Luis may not have wanted to fit some exercise into his life, but once committed he was an unmovable force of nature. It wasn't long before he bullied both his and Sam's names onto the waiting list.
Unfortunately, they were eventually paired onto opposing teams by mistake, but neither of them really cared at that point. Always a bit on the competitive side, Sam was actually looking forward to playing against his buddy just for the fun of it.
With so many strangers playing on the court, it didn't seem at all unusual to employ the shirts vs skins method of team delineation. A veteran of dozens of strange schools over the years, Sam didn't even think twice about yanking his shirt off right before the game started and completely missed the troubled look on his friend's face as they took the ball out.
The two of them spent the whole afternoon at the fitness center, and once Sam started to play he actually began to enjoy the camaraderie of the atmosphere. His own teammates were thrilled by the advantage that his superior height gave them, even though he wasn't especially talented at the game. Although he was very good at blocking and dunking.
When it was over and Sam's team had kicked some serious ass all up and down the court, the two friends walked back to their dorm in silence, with Sam wondering why his normally very chatty buddy was so unusually quiet. Almost nothing other than a sharp look from Luis' mama kept his mouth closed for two minutes altogether.
When they arrived back at Adams House, Sam just wanted a hot shower and something to eat to replace all the burned calories. Hell, he might even make it to the dining hall tonight since his plans for the day were shot to hell anyway. So he was more than a bit surprised and a little annoyed when Luis pushed his way into Sam's dorm room. Firmly closing the door behind them before checking Brady's room to make sure it was still empty.
When he turned back around to the now confused Sam, Luis pursed his lips and exhaled deeply before removing his own shirt.
"You're not the only one, Sam."
It didn't occur to Sam that he had never seen his friend in less than perfect dress, putting it down to how fastidious and fashion conscious Luis always seemed to be. His friend had an overly stuffed closet full of designer clothing that any runway crazed fan would give an eye for, so why should anyone have been surprised that the handsome and charismatic boy would want to show them off as often as possible?
But as he took in the raised lines of scars zigzagging their way up and down Luis' torso, it was clear why his buddy kept himself carefully concealed.
"Courtesy of my sperm donor," Luis said matter-of-factly to Sam's stunned face when he couldn't stop himself from staring. "You'd be amazed how cranky an intolerant emotionally repressed bastard can get when he realizes that his only son is a fag."
"Luis," Sam muttered with pain in his voice, his eyes pinched as he felt like crying for his friend.
The other boy just shook his head and waved away Sam's concern as he began to map out the trauma to his skin. "This is from a belt buckle when he caught me trying on my mama's makeup at her dressing table," he said conversationally as he traced a line that curved around to his back. "Cuban cigars," he said as he pointed out a row of several large circles just under his collarbone. "I was the ashtray."
Sam looked ready to vomit, especially when Luis suddenly smiled wide as he proudly pointed out a horrible looking pucker just above his left hip as if he was Vanna White presenting the next big prize on Wheel of Fortune.
"I call this one the Trust Fund," he gloated merrily, the smile on his face not reaching his eyes. "This is the only one that actually landed me in the hospital. Once Mama saw it, she finally decided to divorce that miserable pendejo no matter what the church said. She got the house, the villa in Marbella and custody of me and my sisters, and I got a fat non-revocable trust to keep his sorry ass out of jail." Luis' eyes squinted viciously as he shook his head in disbelief. "Stupid fucker did it with a Mont Blanc pen. Can you believe that shit?"
Sam felt gutted as he watched his friend spill his painful truth in the middle of a college dorm room. Luis had never given even a teeny clue that he was recovering from such a horrible ordeal at the hands of one of the two people who should have loved him most in the world.
"Man, I...I don't even know what to say," Sam started sadly as he crossed over to where Luis was standing and pulled his friend into a hug. "I'm so sorry you had to go through that."
Returning the hug with equal force, Luis let out a heavy breath and tried to compose himself as he felt the tears he thought had long dried up start to fall. "I just wanted you to know that you weren't alone, man."
Confused, Sam pulled back a little and frowned at the weird statement. "What are you talking about?"
Luis dropped his arms and tugged Sam down to sit next to him on the bed. His eyes were red and wet but softly kind, like he was about to approach a scared animal that he didn't want to spook.
"I saw them, Sam," he said as he put an arm around Sam's shoulders. "When you took your shirt off for the game. I saw them. I just wanted you to know that you're not the only one with a bastard for a father."
Oh. Oh God.
Sick to his stomach, Sam didn't even know how to begin to explain the scars that he never even thought about anymore to his friend that had endured such abuse. Luis had exposed his vulnerable side because he cared enough about Sam to share his painful past and now Sam could do nothing but lie to the well meaning boy he was so fond of.
"Luis, no," he began, shifting uncomfortably on the bed. "That's...that's not from my dad."
Unconvinced, Luis gently grabbed Sam's arm and lightly shook it. "You don't have to protect him, man. Not here. Not with me. It's okay. I got you."
Sam pulled away from Luis' grasp as smoothly as he could and stood up, backing away from the bed and feeling very uncomfortable with his impending dishonestly.
"It wasn't him. Really, Luis," he insisted when he saw his friend shaking his head. "I had a rough childhood, that's all. We grew up in some pretty bad places, and there are some real monsters out there."
If Sam was counting on his friend to not take his words literally then that was the best he could do under the circumstances. It was technically the truth although it didn't make him feel any better about himself to phrase it like that.
He could see that Luis wasn't buying what he was selling either, but he wasn't about to conjure up tragic tales of torture that he hadn't experienced. Pulling out his desk chair, he straddled it and looked his friend straight in the eye to try to convince him that his words were true.
"Look, I appreciate you sharing this with me. I do. It really means a lot that you trusted me enough to tell me. But that's not what happened to me. Not even close. My dad is a controlling bastard, but he would never do that to me or my brother. That's not who he is."
Luis snorted in disbelief as he wiped his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest, subconsciously protecting his scarred body without realizing it. "So you're trying to tell me that the father that you don't see or speak to never laid a hand on you, and you expect me to believe that after seeing what I saw today?"
Sam shook his head sadly as he leaned closer, desperate to make his friend understand. "No. I'm telling you that my father is stubborn dick with a bad temper who would whip my ass if I didn't ask how high when he said to jump. But he also wouldn't hesitate to kill anyone that did to me what your father did to you."
Luis sniffed and shifted closer to Sam's chair, nudging his friend's shoulder. "So what happened to the 'monsters' that fucked you up?"
Sam shrugged as he smiled sadly, brushing up against Luis's side to give what comfort he could. "Payback," he said simply. "My big brother has a temper too."
The two damaged friends ordered in a pizza and spent the evening talking about happier things that took their minds off the darker parts of their past. Sam felt good that he could be a support for his buddy who seemed to emotionally shed a lot of the baggage he was carrying. Maybe it was a good thing that Luis had decided to talk things out instead of putting on a facade all the time.
It was a lot like Dean, Sam realized as he was lying in bed later that night.
Just before he belatedly remembered that he'd missed his brother's birthday.
/
Dean might have woken up with a hangover, but at least he had woken up in the soft, clean smelling sheets of his own bed.
Time was growing short until he returned to his life on the road and Dean was going to be damn sure to enjoy his home for as long as he could until then.
Nights out at the local bars with some pretty girls and some good home cooking in Dean's kitchen had persuaded Lee to stay longer than he had originally planned, although he had eventually returned to Oklahoma during the first week of January. The two young men brought in the New Year together in the company of several accommodating young ladies just looking for a handsome face to kiss as the ball dropped and of course Dean and Lee were happy to oblige them.
After his new friend finally took his leave, Dean came to the conclusion that he needed some down time for his own sanity. Bobby offered him all the work he could handle at the salvage yard and Dean would be less than honest if he didn't admit that he was growing more attached to making legit money rather than all of the hustling that he did to keep his belly and the Impala's tank full.
Once upon a time he had considered hustling to be fun and easy compared to the drudgery of a daily grind, but his work at the salvage yard had never felt like that to him and he did miss it more than he realized. It was unsettling to feel like that, because Dean had never seen himself as a domesticated animal but there was now no longer denying that he was a creature that enjoyed his comforts.
It was on days like that when he felt his anger and resentment of his little brother slip away a bit more, knowing how Sammy always craved a stable home life.
It only took a day to have his house back in clean order the way he liked it after his return to Sioux Falls. It didn't feel like home on his arrival, so he was determined to change that as quickly as possible. Because Dean wanted his home back now that he had one to return to.
A home that he had missed during all that time away flopping on questionable beds with their weird smells and scary stains and mattresses that sadly didn't remember him.
He missed his warm cozy kitchen with all the unnecessary appliances he had acquired to make decent meals instead of gas station sandwiches that tasted vaguely of diesel exhaust. Now knowing in his heart that no diner was ever going to make a better bacon cheeseburger than Dean could on his own stove.
Although Sammy's bedroom was made up and empty, Lee didn't seem to mind crashing at Bobby's for the first few days they were back in town. While his new buddy was neck deep in lore books at the salvage yard, Dean took the opportunity of having his place to himself to strip all the beds and run the linens through the washer even though they had been clean when he left for the road in August. Still too cold outside to air out the rooms with open windows, he settled for moping the floors and vacuuming the throw rugs, being careful not the scuff the painted devil's traps that they covered.
By the time he was done wiping down all the surfaces of his furniture and appliances, the house once again smelled like home.
There was some mail to sort through that had been collecting inside the little wrought iron box that was mounted outside next to the front door. Nothing exciting because Dean had arranged to manage all of his monthly bills via his bank card. Just a bunch of junk mail and some fliers from stores where they had shopped occasionally. Along with a cheerful Christmas newsletter from the staff of Holy Rosary as well as a letter from Stanford University addressed to The Family of Samuel Winchester inviting them to take part in the Parents Weekend activities last October.
It was like taking a bullet.
Dean didn't just throw the mail into the kitchen trash can, he bundled up the entire barely used trash bag and hauled it outside to the curb a full two days before his scheduled pick up. At that point he really didn't care if it pissed off the neighbors or not.
After that he decided that he really could use a beer, so he invited Lee over to take a tour of the place and join him in an evening of getting shit faced in front of the TV where they devoured an entire pan of beef noodle casserole with extra cheese between them.
Dean cooked and Lee ate. They spent the days sleeping in after long nights out on the town. Sometimes Lee crashed on the couch in Dean's house. Other times Dean crashed on Bobby's. It was a good time for a while.
Being back at the salvage yard restored a piece of Dean's heart that he didn't even know he was missing. There was simplicity and pride in the work he did there. A sense of accomplishment that he didn't get from the hunt.
Not that hunting didn't fulfill certain needs for him, but the mechanic work gave him satisfaction and pleasure. Pleasure wasn't really an emotion one got from killing something unless you were truly a twisted individual, and unfortunately Dean did know some hunters who were like that.
It's not who he wanted to be.
With Bobby also being a solitary creature, the two of them often found themselves in quiet companionship as they worked under hoods. Not really needing to speak to each other to enjoy the company of the other man. Exhausted from months of taking one job after another, especially after the twin heartbreaks of New York and Cassie, Dean wasn't in any hurry to abandon the places where he felt his physical and mental batteries recharging.
The cold gray days of January slipped by before he even realized it. Only the occasional phone calls from his father checking in gave Dean any indication of the passing of time. He ate when he was hungry and slept when he was tired. He worked on cars in the light of day and the dark of night. They all just blended into each other seamlessly one after another and he didn't care.
He sat at his excessively large kitchen table one morning as he waited for coffee to brew and pondered the idea of getting rid of the cumbersome piece of furniture that took up the majority of the space in a room that wasn't particularly big. It didn't really hold any fond memories for him anymore and a change was probably in order. Originally obtained to provide more space for the ever growing number of kids in Sammy's study group, it was a solid wood reminder of better days that would never happen again.
Not to mention being the setting of that last harsh punishment his little brother received before walking out of their lives forever.
Yeah, it was time to do a little shopping.
When the coffee was ready, he stood and grabbed a mug and filled it, savoring the rich dark flavor of the gourmet beans that he would never admit to specially obtaining even under threat of torture. A bit more fortified to start his day, he pulled eggs and bacon from the refrigerator and set two pans on the stove to warm. By the time the bacon was just beginning to sizzle, his father's big black truck was pulling into his driveway.
It said something about Dean's state of mind that he hadn't even realized that it was his birthday.
Dad burst into the door with a big smile on his tired face, like it hadn't been weeks and weeks since they had last seen each other. He pulled his first born into a huge hug and held him close for a moment longer than was usual for them and Dean felt his mending spirits improve even more from the warmth of the unaccustomed affection. Dad's wool winter coat was cold and dusted with wet drops from the falling snow that tickled his face as Dean took a second to inhale deeply enough to soothe his soul with the comforting scent of his father home safe and sound from the battlefield.
That was the only gift he needed.
But it wasn't the only one John brought.
Never one to make a big deal of his kids' birthdays and holidays, Dad unexpectedly produced a bottle of Jose Cuervo and a paper bag that contained a vinyl copy of Metallica's Black Album for Dean's growing record collection. Then he turned his attention to the kitchen and took over the preparation of breakfast for the both of them while his son stood in shock in the living room.
Dean needed a moment to get his wits back from the wholly out of character gesture before his father was calling him into the kitchen to eat the food he had finished preparing. It didn't even give him time to remember that it was on this day last year that Sammy had also given him a record as a gift.
Later on that evening, after being deep in the tequila, Dean would remember and he would also feel a sharp stab to his heart when reminded of just how alike his father and brother really were.
The two of them perfectly capable of being loving and considerate but usually choosing not to be, even when Dean desperately needed his family to act like a family.
There were times when he resented them just as much as he loved them.
John and Dean didn't spend the day doing anything particularly special. It was special enough, he supposed, that they were together in the first place. Something that was not only not guaranteed but actually pretty rare in their world.
While Dad scribbled away in his journal Dean spent a few minutes to wonder what it said about himself that he was inordinately pleased that his own father had bothered to take the time to be with him on his birthday.
It wasn't as if he didn't understand that his father's passion was important and the work he did saved lives. Dean did understand that, probably better than anyone who knew John, including his younger son.
And Dean himself had never been an overly needy child, accepting from a young age that there were more important things in the world than his own happiness when it came down to how his father parsed out his time.
So why now, at the ripe age of twenty-three, did he suddenly find himself vaguely resentful of the fact that his father had basically ignored the milestones of his childhood and yet apparently could manage to make it home for Dean's birthday as an adult if he really wanted to?
Then of course, he immediately felt ashamed of himself and ungrateful and all that guilt trip accomplished was another poured shot from the bottle of Jose.
Dean made them some steaks for dinner and they watched some crap cable together and the bottle John brought with him was long shot along with the remainder of the one that Dean kept in the cupboard for his father's visits before the night was gone. Both of them were in bed by midnight when Dean finally let go of the hope he had been harboring all day that maybe, just maybe, Sammy might find a few moments in his precious Ivy League time to call the brother that still loved him.
Sitting on the couch the next morning with his fancy coffee and nursing both the mug and the throbbing pain in his head, Dean groaned when he heard the sounds of his father bounding up the front stairs. Because hang over or not, snow, rain or shine, John Winchester worked out every morning and sometimes his father's stamina was too hard for his oldest son to stomach that early in the day.
Rubbing the scruff on his face as he forced himself to his feet, Dean shuffled into his kitchen and grabbed a second mug, filling it and returning to the living room where his father was pulling off his sweat jacket and wiping his face with a towel grabbed from the downstairs bathroom. He smiled when he saw his son bearing the java he needed, the boy looking a little green around the gills.
Taking the mug to warm his hands, he might have even made a snarky comment about his son being a lightweight if it wasn't for the flash of bright light that suddenly emanated from the entryway closet right before the door burst open and a man in a tailored cerulean blue suit tumbled out, his wild eyes searching the room around him as he barked at John and Dean.
"Which one of you is John Winchester?"