CHAPTER THREE

Sam looked at Dean. "You stable now?"

"Yeah...sorry bout the quakes..."

"Hey, don't worry about it." He hugged him close for a moment. "I know how you react to stress." He sat the child down, keeping his hands close as Dean got his feet steady underneath him.

"Dean..." John gasped, moving to stand up. A glare from Sam, and the realisation that his 19-year-old was armed, kept him seated. "Dean...what the hell happened to you?"

Dean sat down on the floor, facing John. Sam reached out a long leg and pulled the ottoman over to himself, sitting down on it with a sigh and scooting back, patting the seat in front of him.

Dean grinned and clambered up, sitting comfortably and held in place by Sam's legs. John recognised it imediately, and a pain shot through his heart.

That was exactly the way Dean had preferred to sit with him ever since he'd been a baby. He'd stopped doing it after the fire. And to see this older child version of Dean doing the cuddle-sit with Sammy...

Who had never done it with John. But had always done it with Dean until he'd turned six and Dean had been ten...

He realised Dean was speaking and made himself pay attention. "...started in Lexington. I was there for a few weeks, nosin' around, tryin' to get my bearings after you... after you left."

"Dean..." John began.

"Stop," Sam said firmly. "This is Dean's story to tell and you're gonna let him tell it."

John stared at Sam, his jaw lowering slightly. What had happened to him? Where had this protective streak come from?

Dean smiled up at Sam, then resumed his story. "Anyway, I had the bad luck to stumble upon a coven. They weren't really hurting anyone, but still – a coven, you know? So I investigated, and found it was a bunch of teenagers who really didn't know what they were playin' around with. Managed to redirect them into other things, but one insisted on 'rewarding' me."

"Rewarding?" John asked with a frown.

Dean nodded. "I'm thinking money, you know? Or at the very least a meal or a kiss. She must've cast a curse on me, because I woke up the next morning seven years old."

John nodded slowly.

Sam took over the tale. "He tried to get some breakfast and locked himself out of the room by accident. So he went to the desk clerk and tried to charm her." He sighed. "She called CPS when she realised he was alone, and when they tried to call you and couldn't reach you, they called me. Once Dean talked to me and gave me a few code words to let me know it was really him, I flew out to Kentucky and got both him and the Impala. Drove us back here...and here we are."

John gestured at him. "This... this can be reversed, right? It's just a curse, it can be broken..."

Both shook their heads.

John nodded. "Okay...okay, then, I'll look into it-"

"Stop," Sam said coldly.

"Sammy, I am still your father-"

"Not his," Sam said.

John frowned. "That's twice you've said that. What's going on?"

"Your parental rights over Dean have been terminated in absentia. You have no say over what happens to him, Dad. None."

"And you're too young to-"

"I'm nineteen. I am old enough to drive. To vote. To have full legal custody of my child."

John recoiled. "Wait...your child? That's Dean! Your brother!"

"Oh, and here we go," Dean groaned, dropping his head into his hands.

Sam immediately stopped the argument with a glare and turned all his attention to Dean, pushing him off the ottoman and turning him around to face Sam. "Shshsh, I'm not gonna. It's okay. You need some sleep."

"Can't sleep with this goin' on," Dean muttered.

"Go back upstairs, Deanie," Sam said. "I've got this. You don't have to be in the middle anymore."

John gaped as the boy's arms flew around Sam's neck and his face buried into his shoulder. Sam's eyes closed as he held him tight, then he brushed a kiss to the part he created as he smoothed Dean's hair down. "Go on," Sam said. "I'll be up in a little bit."

"I'll try." He pointed at John. "Be good!"

John raised an eyebrow. "I'll try."

"Good. You better." Dean hugged Sam again and said, "Night, Dad. Love you."

"Love you too, kiddo." Sam released him and watched him go up the stairs. Then he turned to John. When he spoke, his eyes and his voice were ice-cold.

"You heard that right. I adopted him. He's mine.And I am not gonna get in a pissing contest with you over him. Okay? That'd just upset him and the last thing that boy needs is to be upset!"

"He's not a child, Sammy! He's your 22 year old brother!"

"Twenty-four."

John blinked. "What?"

"Today was his twenty-fourth birthday. Only now it was his eighth." Sam stood up. "And you just proved my point. You don't even know today was his birthday! Hell, Dad, you don't even know his age!"

John opened his mouth, but Sam pointed at him. "No. No, you don't get a say here. This is my house. This is my family. You were the one who said if I left, to never come back."

The pointing finger moved to the door. "There's the door, Dad. Get out of my house. And don't come back."

John stood. "You are my son-"

"Only by an accident of birth."

"Dean is my son!"

"By that same accident of birth. But you know what, Dad? He is my son by choice. His choice, Dad. Not mine. His."

"What do you mean, his choice? If you had to do it over again, you wouldn't?"

"I mean, he asked me to take care of him. We've built a life here, Dad. And if I had to do it over again? I wouldn't change a single thing. Not one. That is how much I love that boy."

John stepped forward. "That boy is a grown man living under a curse! Now, we need to get him back to norm-" He'd surged forward as he spoke, only to be brought up short by Sam's gun back in his hand and pointed square at his forehead. "Sammy..."

"He never really got to be a child, Dad. He's got that chance now. Don't screw it up for him." John opened his mouth, and Sam gestured with his head. "Leave. Now."

"This isn't over, Sammy. I'll be back."

"No, you won't. And you don't get to call me Sammy. Far as I'm concerned? You don't have any children. And I sure as hell don't have a father."

John swallowed hard. But he nodded and moved slowly toward the door.

Sam turned with him, keeping the gun level. His hand didn't so much as twitch.

That, more than anything else, told John he was facing a pissed-off father facing down a threat to his family.

"I'll...I'll be in touch," he whispered.

"Rather you didn't," Sam said levelly.

John sighed. "I guess I deserved that. Sammy- Sam. Answer me this. Is he... is he really..."

"He's happy. He's brilliant – and hungry to learn more. He's curious and active – we've kept up the training. He's got friends. He's on the youth softball team – he's a hell of a pitcher. He's happy, Dad. Don't take that away from him."

"Can I say goodbye?"

"You know I won't leave you alone with him."

"I know."

Sam lowered the gun and gestured with his head. Painfully, because of the brace on his left leg, John climbed the stairs and knocked on the door that Sam indicated was Dean's room.

Dean turned and sat up in bed.

"Hey, sport," John said as he sat with a groan on the edge of Dean's bed. "I'm headin' out."

Dean nodded warily. "When are you gonna try to change me back against my wishes?"

John took a deep breath. "You really want this, Dean-o?":

"I really want this. This isn't a curse, it's a blessing. A second chance. And I really want this."

"Does he take good care of you?"

Dean smiled. "He's a great dad. Has been from the minute he saw me in the CPS office."

John nodded. "You both want this. You're willing to fight me to keep it." He sighed. "All right. If I stumble across a cure, I'll send it to Sammy- Sam – and he can use it or not. But I won't actively search for one. Deal?"

"Deal," Dean smiled and they shook hands on it.

John stood with a groan and ran his head over Dean's soft blond hair. "You need a haircut, boy."

"My hair's fine," Dean laughed.

A squeeze to the back of the child's neck, and John moved to the bedroom door. "Bye, Dean-o."

"Bye...Gran'pa." He gave a smirk and a wink, and laid down.

John chuckled all the way down the stairs and to the front door. "No doubt at all. That's Dean in there, all right."

Sam chuckled as well. Then he sobered. "Did you mean that? What you told him up there – about the cure – did you mean that?"

"Yeah. I meant it." He sighed. "I will be back. I won't be cut out of your lives."

"Just don't come in with guns blazin'."

John chuckled. "How about with teddy bears and pie?:"

"G-d, no, he hates teddy bears," Sam winced, then they found themselves sharing a laugh.

John's hand curled around the back of Sam's neck. "Take care, son. Of both of you."

"I will." He walked to the front porch behind John and watched him walk to his truck. "Hey...Dad?"

John turned at the door.

"Next time? Don't pick my lock."

"Are you happy, Sammy?"

Sam smiled. "I am. I'm doin' well in school. I have a part-time job. And I have Dean."

"Girlfriend?"

"Nah, too busy for a girlfriend. My best friend's a girl, though. She helps out with things. Her name's Jessica."

John nodded. "You still..."

"Hunt? Yeah. Small things. Relatively safe things. I've got a son who needs me more than I need to hunt."

John took a deep breath. "Priorities, huh?"

"Priorities." Sam nodded.

"Take care."

"You, too."

Sam stood there in the night and watched the headlights of his father's truck fade away. He stood there, gun in his hand and by his leg, until he felt Dean's small hand creep into his.

"Dean, what are you doing still up?"

"You still have homework to do, Dad."

Sam huffed a laugh and they went inside. "Still taking care of me, huh?"

"We take care of each other, Dad. Remember? That's how it is now."

"Yeah, Dean." Sam closed the door and locked it. As Dean put down the salt lines, Sam put away the gun. He then stood in the doorway and watched the boy put away the salt before stretching and cracking a wide yawn.

"That's how it is now," Sam whispered around the lump of gratitude and love that seemed to have lodged in his throat. "Wouldn't have it any other way."

END