Sam wasn't tired. He was too busy thinking. He was thinking about what Dean had said, what he had done. The thing that Sam had missed, that little slip of the tongue, that minor indiscretion that had gotten his brother so worked up. He wanted to know what it was.
He closed his eyes, concentrating on the day, on the park, on the little heart that beat in a perfect rhythm with his own.
He could remember seeing Bobby, could remember the world going suddenly silent, but not before Dean could say something. More like an ecstatic shout, really. A plea. A plea to their father. To the boy's daddy.
But that was impossible. John was dead. And even when he'd been alive, he wouldn't have been at the playground, wouldn't have been pushing his son on the swings.
Of course, it could have been mistaken identity. Except that Sam looked nothing like his father.
No, Dean had simply slipped. He'd made a mistake, just like he'd said. Hadn't they all?
What scared Sam was the nature of the mistake, though. Maybe Bobby had been right. Maybe the curse had addled Dean's mind, made him something other than Dean Winchester, something weak and scared and small.
But if it had, he wouldn't have apologized. He wouldn't have asked for permission without asking. He wouldn't have admitted to thinking of Sam as a father, as someone who could provide, even though he knew they were running low on food and money. He just trusted Sam to get them both out of it.
And trust was a dangerous thing. They had both found that out the hard way.
Sam tried not to dwell on the past, though. He had a decision to make. To father, or not to father. That seemed to be the question.
His mind flashed back, unbidden, to his own childhood, to a random scene at a playground. He had been uncharacteristically persistent., had actually forced Dean off of the bench and to the woodchips. He begged his brother to push him on the swings, as his own stumpy little legs were too weak. Dean grudgingly agreed.
As Sam, who couldn't have been older than three or four, soared into the air, he called out to his brother to push him higher. Only he called out to his daddy.
Dean hadn't skipped a beat, had told him that if he went any higher, he would fly over the bar. Sam hadn't caught his own slip, not until later. He'd felt horrible about it, had even apologized, and Dean had told him that it was all right. He was as good as a dad anyway, right? Maybe even better.
o0o0o0o0o0o
Sam had needed the break. He'd needed time to himself, time to get away from the hectic role of day care provider. He'd left Dean in Bobby's capable hands and gone out to grab a quick bite to eat and catch a movie.
He walked through the door of the familiar house, feeling refreshed and willing to give child-rearing another shot. He was surprised by the silence in the home. Even when he wasn't five, Dean tended to make a lot of noise.
"Hello?" Sam called out, gazing around the abandoned entry, every muscle in his body tensing for a fight. "You guys all right?"
His only response was a muffled scream and soft Latin chanting. He was running in an instant, running toward the sound, toward the unknown threat to his family and friend.
He burst into the bedroom that he and his brother shared, the one they'd always shared, and gasped. Dean had been tied up, his wrists bound firmly behind his back, and laid sideways on the bed. A piece of silver duct tape sealed his mouth shut. Bobby was sitting beside him, a large, dusty book open in his lap.
"What the Hell are you doing?" Sam demanded, marching into the room.
"Fixing this," Bobby replied.
"I thought I told you not to."
"It's not right and you know it." He set the book down and got to his feet, gazing at Sam with threatening eyes.
"It's not your choice," the younger man muttered, crossing the room with wide strides and scooping Dean up into his arms. For the first time in a week, the kid didn't struggle, just curled in closer to the taller man's chest, shaking.
"He can't be in his right mind."
"He's happy."
"So you keep telling me."
Sam sighed, tightening his grip on his brother. "I shouldn't have come here." He spun on his heels and walked from the room. He never looked back.
o0o0o0o0o0o0o
Tiny hands fisted around his light t-shirt. Sam wrapped an arm around the kid and sighed. They couldn't stop running. They would never be safe. Not if Dean wanted to stay the way he was, not if he wanted a second chance.
Sam had tried to call Bobby since leaving the house in South Dakota, had tried to explain everything, but Bobby was stubborn and truly believed that Dean was better off as the adult that he had been.
And maybe he was.
But, then again, maybe he wasn't. It wasn't for Bobby to decide, wasn't even for Sam to decide. It was Dean's choice, and he had made it. Nobody had forced his hand.
He really did seem happier.
o0o0o0o0o0o
"He's never gonna stop," Dean said as soon as Sam had pulled off to the side of the road a good deal from Bobby's house and stripped the tape from the boy's mouth. "He's gonna hunt us down."
"He won't," Sam argued, glancing over his shoulder to make sure they hadn't been followed. "He'll come around. You'll see."
Dean sighed, turning tired eyes out the window as Sam untied the roped binding his hands. "What if he doesn't?"
"I'm not gonna let anything bad happen to you."
"What if he comes when you're gone?" Those wide eyes turned back to him, questioning, begging.
Sam stared back, unable to come up with a decent response. He couldn't stay with his brother 24/7. It would be impossible. He couldn't leave, either. "What do you want me to do, Dean?" he asked, but he already knew the answer.
"I want you to stay with me. Forever."
Sammy sighed. It seemed so simple coming from the child's mouth, so innocent. That was what Dean had wanted all along, wasn't it? A family. Someone to stick around, no matter what. Forever. No fires, no hunting, no college, no death. It was easy, right?
"Dean-"
"Please? I promise I'll be good."
Good. Right. Because that made such a difference. Who would want to put up with a bad kid when you could have a good one, one who followed orders like a soldier and kept house like a mother and stole Christmas presents for you when daddy didn't get home on time? Why would you ask for a kid when you could have an adult in a little body, an adult that took on so much responsibility so early in life that he went behind the back of everyone he knew just to feel safe and loved once in a while? Why take a kid when you could get someone who would lose his virginity before starting high school because some slut had told him that she loved him? Why would you want a kid who wouldn't take orders when you could have one that believed anything?
"Sammy?" Sam shook his head to clear it, noticing instantly the way his brother's eyes dropped and his shoulders slumped. "What if I stop pretending? Then can I stay with you? What if nothing changes? What if we go back?"
"What?"
Dean looked back up at him. "You don't have to take care of me anymore."
And Sam's heart broke. Because things weren't supposed to be like this. Dean wasn't supposed to sound so hopeless, so depressed, so determined to give everything he'd ever wanted growing up just to hang on to the remaining shreds of his family.
"No," Sam said, "no, don't… don't do that. We'll figure something out. We'll find a house out of the way of everything and we'll lay low and nothing bad is gonna happen to you."
The boy's eyes got even wider. "But, I thought-"
"Don't think, kid, you'll hurt yourself."
"So, you…?"
"I'll pretend," Sam grinned, wrapping his arms awkwardly around the boy, "if you will."
And that was that.