I do not nor shall I ever own Supernatural. All of that belongs to Kripke, etc. However, when I give the word, we will kidnap Jensen and Jared, powerless against this massive fandom. Totally kidding. I'm not super into felonies.
WOW. Okay, I'm doing two updates in one day because I have finals all this week. So, as per usual, read and review. Thanks to all who have been reading!! It's really exciting to see those numbers grow, but reviews are also greatly welcome, except no flames please Heere you go:
Sam creaked open the apartment door after once again readjusting the number 21 which seemed to swing of its hinges every time he touched the doorknob. He saw his brothers still in his classy detective attire, his most recent Busty Babes issue tossed aside, and leaning imposingly on the windowsill.
"Dean?" His brother looked around and frowned. He dropped carelessly into the nearest chair.
"Well, Sammy, no luck so far. And there's a drug deal going on right outside our apartment building," he nodded toward the window. "I'm guessing your day went awesome." Dean was not pleased, but there seemed to be something more going on. There was some sort of unspoken tension in him that Sam couldn't decipher. And since when was Dean hard to decipher?
"Actually, I have a lead," Sam smiled with superiority at Dean. "But, please, go on about your day," he smirked. Dean's pride and indignity fought for eminence upon his face.
"Nothing new. The family was too absorbed in their grief to answer a few questions, and the police weren't doing anything except drinking coffee and slipping dollar bills to the kids."
"Well, Dean, I mean, you gotta understand what kind of a position you're putting them in. Give it a couple of days."
"Sammy, we don't have shitloads of time, here. I just want to finish this job and get the hell out of dodge. I'm sick of the glares I get when I step out of the apartment." He paused. "Those four kids, though," he swallowed. "I don't know what I would've done if that had been us. It could've been. I mean, we deal with so much supernatural shit, and we're still alive? It doesn't seem fair, you know, Sammy?" Sam thought back to the last few hunts they had been on. Nearly all of them had been near-death experiences. Fair? Life wasn't fair, he echoed his father with that last thought. They remained silent for a few minutes.
"…So I think I found its next target."
"Seriously, Sammy? Damn, kid. I spend a few hours at the source of the problem, and you find the solution after a couple of minutes on the street. So, who are we saving now?"
"It's a kid, Dean. A fourteen year old. I mean, I don't know how this Dark Man's picking its victims, but it's not logical. The school's on the same street as the Healys' house, though."
"So, where does he live? Last name? There's gotta be some centuries old family feud going on." Sam looked with uncertainty at his disgruntled brother.
"I haven't got anything else but the face and the first name: Joe. But, Dean…"
"You're kidding me, right, Sammy? You find out that this kid's got a spirit after him, and no follow up? You know, if Dad were here…"
"Well, he's not, Dean, so shut up," Sam replied angrily. "Anyway, I'm not gonna find out anything from the kid. He didn't even see the thing. His friend did. Tommy Lynch. And I did a hell of a lot more follow-up than you think. He's coming over tomorrow to tell me about it."
"The kid's coming here? Godammit, Sammy, you can't just give people our address!" Dean was yelling now.
"Dean, what the hell? Calm down, we're not even staying here all day tomorrow. It's not like I went up to him and said 'Hey, I hunt the supernatural, and my family has run hundreds of illegal credit card scams over the past seventeen years, and—'"
"No, Sammy, but dammit, you know better. Dad taught you better!" At that point, Sam broke and screamed back at his brother.
"Dad's not here! I don't give a fuck what he taught me! I'm not stupid and I acted on good instinct! So stop flipping out!"
"You don't care what he taught you, huh?" Dean spoke with a level voice now, although Sam could sense the bubbling anger beneath his words. "Do you not give a fuck about this family, either? Huh, Sammy?" All of a sudden, Dean pulled out a wad of papers from under the magazine on his bed. Sam's college applications. Oh, shit. He'd never meant for Dean to find out this way.
"Dean…" he tried to placate him with a softer tone. "Dean, I'm sorry, okay? I never meant for you to find out like this. I just…" Dean was looking at him like a pleading child. No matter what tough façade his brother wore, his loved his family fiercely, and to find out that his baby brother was leaving him was the more painful than anything. Worse than the few times in the hospital he'd watched Sam lying still and pale, as if death had already taken him after a dangerous hunt. Worse because Sam was leaving him voluntarily. He felt the tears burning in his eyes, but he refused to let them fall.
"Sammy, I'm sorry. Just…just please don't leave us," he beseeched in a low voice.
"I…I haven't even sent them in yet. I was just…" Dean could hear the similar plea in his brother's voice. Please let me go. Dean sighed.
"Listen, Sammy. It hurts, okay? It hurts to say this, but if this is what's gonna make you happy, finally happy, then I'm gonna let you go. But," he smiled through his distress, "when you make it into some genius-ass school and become "Joe College", don't leave us, okay?" And Sam understood what he meant by leaving. Don't abandon them. Don't forget them. Don't act like you're dead to the Winchester name, Dean was trying to say.
"Come here, kid," Dean nodded his head to the side and opened his arms. Sam moved forward, and Dean stepped toward his brother to hug him. He pulled back at the last second and swatted him on the head with the heavy stack of applications. Sam shook his head and smiled. Same old Dean, no matter how pissed he got. He rubbed the back of his head. There was something else…
"Don't worry, kid. You're gonna be the one to tell Dad," Dean said from the other room, and Sam could almost hear his ironic smirk in the reassurance. His brother knew him all too well.
"Tommy Lynch!" Tommy's mother was screaming from the kitchen. Her son was nearly 20 minutes late when she heard him slink upstairs.
"Here, Ma!" she heard him yell back, avoiding the face-to-face confrontation that would come at dinner. Tommy ran up and threw his backpack into the bedroom his shared with his twelve year old brother, Jack. He walked across the hall and cracked the door ajar an inch. Molly was awake and grinning from ear to ear when she caught a glimpse of Tommy's face. He smiled back and walked in, kneeling by the side of the frilly pink bed. Her smile nearly took up the entirety of her small face. She looked sicker today, he thought. Her pale blonde hair nearly shone out in contrast with her paper white skin. She was so small, he thought. Smaller than a seven year old should be. Happy, he thought. She wants happy, he reminded himself and pulled out the reason for his 20 minute absence.
"Ma's really mad, Tommy," she giggled. It was all a joke to her when either he or Jack got into trouble. Tommy had a good chance on betting that she had never been scolded by their parents. But how could they? Any harsh word against her would be met by the most heart-wrenching pair of eyes he'd ever seen. Any harsh word against her could be their last words to her. At least, that's how it seemed lately.
"Yeah, well, I think I can handle her, Moll-Doll," he smiled. It's not her I should be scared of, though, he thought. Her tiny lips pouted in curiosity, spotting the object behind her brother's back.
"Hey, what's…" She reached toward him and he pulled it away with a playful smirk.
"Ah, ah, ah. Magic words," he demanded.
"Please and thank you," she laughed and reached again.
"I'm sorry, what?" He put his hand up to his ear in mock confusion. "I don't think I heard you quite right?"
"Ohhh," she said in her small, high-pitched voice. She opened her mouth to speak but instead giggled herself into incoherence. Then she whispered, trying to control her laughter, "Higgledy-piggledy and Robert Plant." And the giggles started all over again. Tommy smiled. His heart seemed to grow every time he saw her laugh. He really had no idea why that name made her laugh so much, but one day he'd brought in some Led Zeppelin music for her. And she'd been hooked on Robert Plant ever since.
"Thank ya, ma'am." He handed over the small doll to her. It was just a Barbie, but gifts were few and far between for the Lynches. The money was totally drained by the medical expenses. Molly didn't know that, though, and none of them would tell her. She thought everyone lived like they did. Granted, she'd barely made it out of her bedroom lately. He watched her tiny fingers comb through the fake blond hair.
"She looks like you, Moll."
"No, she doesn't," she frowned. "I don't have these." Her hands moved toward the plastic breasts of Malibu Barbie, and Tommy smirked, blushing. "And her skin is dark." Her face furrowed even more at the tan complexion of the doll, and Tommy's grin went away. He swallowed.
"Well, you're prettier than her, anyway," he said dismissively and tried to change the subject. "Ya know, Molly, I saw a ghost today." He saw her eyes pop open to the size of golfballs.
"No way, Jose."
"Hey, the name's Tommy," he remonstrated with a smile and proceeded to paint a very different picture of his supernatural encounter this morning. He was haunted by the image in his mind, but he couldn't tell his baby sister that. So he changed the Dark Man to the Pink Princess. Hey, he wanted her to have a positive view of the afterlife. In the middle of his story, he noticed the seven year old drifting off. She had even taken to prying her eyelids open with her forefinger and thumb. He gently moved the Barbie to her bedside table.
"Go to sleep, Moll-Doll. I'll tell you the rest tomorrow." With a soft kiss on the forehead, he left the sleeping angel amid her pink heaven. But that night he would have nightmares of blackness and isolation, the sole witness to the Dark Man's terror.
"Alright, Tommy, where were you today? You said you'd be home." His mother stood before him, nothing but commanding despite her stout stature.
"Calm down, Ma. I, uh, got a little gift for Molly. That's all, I swear," he assured, his tone rising in his defense.
"Sure. What'd you get her, some candy?"
"No, it was a Barbie doll." Mrs. Lynch paused on her way back to the stove.
"I'm sorry, I must have heard that wrong. Because last time I checked we couldn't afford Barbie dolls or dolls of any kind. And neither could our fourteen year old son. 'Fess up, Tommy, where'd you get the money?"
"It doesn't matter, Ma. I got the money, okay? And Molly's happy, so that's all that matters, right?" She looked askance at him.
"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Tommy, if you keep doing this, you are gonna end up in jail."
"Ma, what are you implying? Can't you just trust me? I'm not robbing banks, Ma. I'm being a Good Samaritan, okay? Just think of it that way," he replied, taking one step backward. "It's not like that sleazy Thompson needs the extra money," he muttered, not able to escape his mother's Alsatian ears. She stepped forward and slapped him, an angry red mark left across his face. She held his chin in place.
"Thomas Michael Lynch," she said with quiet fury. "If you steal anything, be it a penny or a hundred thousand dollars, ever again, you are out of this house and working on your own time. You got it?" He nodded miserably. "Good." Her tone was decidedly softer now. "Now come help me with dinner." Tommy felt subdued and his voice showed it.
"Did you go see the Healys today?" he asked timidly. His mother's face turned downward.
"Yes," she nodded sadly. "Sarah's devastated. I didn't stay for very long; the police were getting everyone in and out like a well-oiled machine. Then some private detective showed up, and I didn't hear what he said to her, but Sarah just flipped. She is a strong woman when she needs to be. Needless to say, he got out of there real quick. Some people just don't get it, huh, Tommy?" she smiled down at her son.
"Yeah, what a bastard." He paused. "Ma?"
"Yes, honey?"
"Are you gonna tell Dad?"
"About what, Tommy?"
"Ya know, Molly's doll."
"No, dear," she said. "You are."
A/N: I apologize for anything out of character you might see, especially in the whole Sam & Dean interaction in this chapter. I'm a bit unsure about it. Maybe a bit too much melodrama, but hey. Thanks for reading!