Summary: John finally finds a five-year-old Sam after believing he had been burned alive in his crib.
They lock him up until help arrives, but Dean isn't exactly one for good choices.
Warnings: child abuse mentions, childhood trauma, it's non-graphic and mostly kind of vague to spare you the details.
It had taken them a long time to travel from Ellen's bar in Nebraska to this rundown little safe house Dad had kept around in case of emergency — Dean knows Dad's a nervous wreck like that sometimes, that he seeks temporary reprieve by being extraordinarily cautious. Mom gets mad that he doesn't seek a lot of comfort in his family, but Dean's gotten used to his absence more and more, so it doesn't really faze him anymore.
Mary and John leave Dean in the main room that is sort-of-almost-a-normal-living-room to fidget nervously with his army men, leaving the situation vague enough when they explain it to him; they know he's nine, old enough at least that he deserves some semblence of truth about why they're here, but Mary doesn't seem sure what else to tell him other than that Sammy is alive; alive, taken away from them, but now taken back. The idea had made Dean nearly lightheaded, stomach twisting, because it meant maybe things could be better. Maybe Sammy would be okay. Maybe Dad would stay with them more, drink less, hunt less. Maybe, maybe, maybe… Maybe Sammy would like him. He had always sat in the silence with old family photos when his mind wandered from time to time, wondering what his brother would have thought of him. What toys he'd like, or… or games they could've played. Or maybe he would've pissed him off a lot. Dean's not sure.
In the other room, Mary's voice is raising, hysterical and angry.
"You locked our son in a panic room?! What is wrong with you?! He's five! He's ours!"
"Mary, please," John says, voice strained. "We don't know how much of him is even Sam. I… He was taken by evil, evil things. This isn't just… I need to perform the tests on him, make sure he's even our little boy anymore. Have him looked at. I can't even get anywhere near him without him losing it. He's got something wrong with him. "
"Something wrong with him? Are you out of your mind?!" Mary can barely contain herself, voice thundering in its reserved tremble. "Of course there's something wrong here; he was kidnapped! We don't — we don't knowwhat they could have done to him, John. They could have isolated him, left him alone, they could have — "
She cuts herself off, and Dean isn't sure what she was gonna say, but it makes his stomach hurt anyway. He peeks around the corner, willing himself to not rush in and wedge himself between Mom and Dad, when Mary begins to cry silently as she stares at John. Dad looks like he wants to cry, too. And then Dean wants to cry, because he thinks about little Jo and how she's so small and sweet, and how Sam is barely a little older than her. He doesn't want Sam to be in pain. He wants him to just… come home.
"… He won't talk," John says. He stops long enough to open a face-sized window beside the panic room door, giving himself a moment to check on what's inside there (Sammy) before closing it again. "He's not safe, Mary. Clawed me up the whole way here, wouldn't stop screamin'… tried to bite through my skin and…" He stops, swallows. "He kept screaming for blood. It's the only thing he's said the whole time I've had him. I needed to put him in the sigil room… He — he moves shit with his mind. Nearly took my head off with my own knife when I tried to scoop him up and get him out of there." The room is silent, Mary's eyes boring into John's. His father breathes through his nose. "Look. Truth is, Mary… I don't know if he's human anymore."
The truth of the matter hits them the moment Sam begins to scream, voice high and enraged.
His little fists pound violently on the door.
"Blood! Blood! Blood!"
Nothing's ever so simple.
Mom takes it real hard when she isn't able to face her youngest son yet, but Dean thinks maybe there's some part of her that's (still) like a hunter, some part that understands Dad's right and Sammy's not… someone to be around right now. Regardless of what must be done, Mary's broken up, slouched on one of the couches, carding her fingers through Dean's spiked locks to calm them both. Dean thinks about how they slid in food and water, how it feels all wrong, like the jail shows on TV. He mumbles, "We can't leave him in there… There's gotta be something we can do for him…"
Mary swallows hard. Dean can tell without looking that she's holding her tears, because she gets it often enough that he can hear it in her voice — even the slightest shake. Mom's strong, but Dean's observant, and he prides himself on that with his parents. She says, "We will. We'll help him, Dean. But we have to wait for Missouri, okay…? She'll… She'll be able to read him, tell us if it's okay. If he's…" She trails off, but forces a small smile for his sake. "We'll get him back, okay? But he might… He might need help. He might be hurt really bad, Dean."
"Like, in the heart," Dean says quietly. Mary's hand curls around Dean's tightly.
"Like in the heart," she echoes.
John watches out the window, arms folded. He looks like he's about to fall over if Dean's honest, exhaustion etched in his face, which isn't exactly a new look, but… But he looks kind of scared, too. Everyone's coiled up like Jack-in-the-boxes, itching to throw open the panic room door and see what sort of thing is left from the fire and the smoke and the tears. But Dean thinks that's kind of unfair, isn't it? Sam's still a kid. He's just a little person, and his hands probably can't even wrap around the grip of a gun properly, and he probably can't tie his shoes or brush his own teeth. He could have lost some baby teeth by now, actually, and suddenly the nagging concern strikes him that whoever took him not only hurt him, but forgot he needs to know so much in so shorta time. Dean lays there at night with his mother dozing next to him, plucking at his blanket, thinking of how much Sam's gonna have to catch up on. Did he know how to string a kite? Or how to ride bicycles? Even a tricycle would be alright. He wouldn't tease about that kind of thing, because Sam's still probably not very coordinated. He probably falls over a lot, like the other kids that show up to visit the Roadhouse. Joanna is clumsy as heck. Sam's probably fallen and scraped himself up in the time he's been locked away.
Dean doesn't like it.
Just like he doesn't like that it's Sam's birthday, and nobody's there for him. There to tell him he's been here for five whole years, that it's good he's back. He knows Mom wants to go in there, say something. He knows she's itched to rush in and hold Sammy just like she used to when he was smaller, but something scares her, holds her back. Is it because Dad thinks he could be… not Sam? What gave it away, that he'd think that? Fur? Sharp fangs? Long, ugly claws? What was it that made Sam someone else entirely?
He slides away from his mother's side, padding stealthfully through the back of the room with his backpack in one hand; he knows where all the creaks are, so he's not worried about alerting his Dad's crazy spidey senses. And after all, Dean's been here a few times, like when Dad messed up on a hunt and they needed to make sure he wasn't followed or whatever, so the layout is easier to nagivate than it could've been. By the time he's standing in front of the panic room door, he's shaking faintly for more reasons than he can really vocalize. He envisions a looming figure with red eyes and sharp, white teeth: a dark mimcry of the baby he barely remembers. But then John's voice suddenly booms in the back room — "Dean!" — and the panic is fresh enough that his resolve to move forward is instantaneous.
Dean will never say it's one of his more brilliant ideas, but he opens the panic room door, slides in, and pulls down the lock on the inside, high above his head.
"Dean! What are you doing?! Dean! Fuck!" John's muffled voice yells on the other side.
Dean turns and looks through orange-tinted light, every muscle in him locked with fear. The air is stifling; there's the (now cracked) plate of food, licked clean and white on the floor by his feet. Clutching his pack close to him, he starts forward toward the outer edge of the square room, where he finds Sam — Sam, a huddled, filthy figure, nearly as tiny as Jo, his face pressed into the corner like he's trying to melt into it. The sweaty head covered with wild, dark hair whips around as his brother looks at him, and Dean holds his breath. Sam's eyes are… not dead, but they're not much else. Watchful, but unafraid. He doesn't have long claws or fur, or red eyes. He's still got baby fat in his face, actually. His hands are really small. Dean sits down slowly in the middle of the room like a man facing a crocodile, hands uncoordinated and trembling as he opens his backpack. Mom's calling to him in a distant, other world.
"Sorry, Mom," he says with something crossed between defiant exasperation and earnesty, and then holds up a box of twinkies he'd eaten half of during the drive up. He makes quick work of tearing off the clear packaging and stacking the treats like they're Lincoln logs. He tries not to think about how Sammy's got a lot of purple marks on his arms. He instead focuses on how twinkies are a prize anyone should enjoy. Kids deserve these kinds of things, for having to put up with everything else. "Hey, um. Sammy. Happy birthday. You're five, you know. That's a good year."
He holds his breath yet again (it's easy to forget you're doing it, really), and watches as the intense gaze across the room moves from him to the food, the silence absorbed by his parents banging on the doors.
"It's okay," Dean affirms. He pulls out a toy car, too, in case Sam's into cars. Dean is, anyways. And one of those cheap foam footballs. He's got more if he needs it, if he's desperate enough for it. "You'll be alright. We're gonna help you, you know. Mom wants you to get out so she can be a mom for you, too, y'know? She never got to make you breakfast or read to you or anything. It really hurts her a lot, makes her sad sometimes. But I got you."
Sam slowly twists his scrawny figure around until he's on his knees, crawling over slowly, and — maybe that's why Dad's worried he's not human, because he moves like a nervous animal. His heart feels like it's gonna leap out of his chest when Sam eventually sits back with his legs tucked under him, grabbing for the half-assed pastries and tearing into them ravenously; he must be hungry, because they gave him a full plate earlier. "Don't get sick," Dean winces. "Gettin' sick on your birthday is all kinds of jacked up."
Sam's eyes glance up suddenly, all stone-hard and sharp, like he's peering right into Dean's mind, and it takes everything in Dean not to look away from it. Now that Sam's nearly close enough to reach out and touch, Dean sees little flashes of the baby in the boy's face. He also sees flecked, dry blood on Sammy's chin and gray under his eyes. And he can't help but feel his stomach lurch a bit, when he realizes it's a lot like when Mom had the flu. He might be sick. They left him in here all alone. Sick and alone. "I'm sorry. I'm real sorry, Sam. You wanna, um. Play?"
He doesn't particularly expect Sam to friggin' lunge instead of answer— then fiery pain rips through his face and arms when Sam screams and scratches him, dirty fingernails leaving red marks over pale skin; the keening, angry yelling rattles Dean's eardrums, but Sam's shockingly light and weak as he attacks him. It's just a little kid freaking out, Dean thinks. His brother is in the middle of trying to pull his hair and poke him in the eyes when he takes one of Sam's wrists in each hand and holds him firmly still. One of the lightbulbs pops, glass pouring down to the left of them and piling into gleaming sharp piles, but Dean doesn't let himself think about that right now. They can replace a lightbulb later. Could go to Walmart.
"No," Dean lectures. "No. No scratching. Scratching is bad. No, Sammy. No." And Sam just growls in frustration, kicking Dean as hard as he can in the stomach, and yeah it definitely hurts a little, but Dean just keeps his grip steady while his brother whines and spits on his shirt and keeps that strangely blank expression all the while. It's so blank, it's hard to even tell Sam's angry, if Dean's honest. Maybe they broke his brother a little, made him unable to show how he feels now. Or maybe Sam's not angry. Maybe he just thinks it's normal to scratch and bite and hurt people. Dean tries not to think about how someone who shouldn't have been a brother or a dad or a mom to him might have showed him how to do that, how to feel that. So he smooths his hand softly through Sam's hair like Mom does for his, as Sam sags a bit into Dean's lap, drained and breathing heavy through his nose. Dean's cheek throbs a bit.
"Good boy, Sam. That's good. No hitting. Look at the car. See the car?" He knows how to talk to make Jo like him. Maybe Sam'll like him, too. Maybe Sam sees he's a kid, and he's okay, that he's not gonna hurt him; the tuckered out boy nestles himself close to Dean, body too warm as he buries his face in Dean's shirt and closes his eyes. One of the hands fisted in Dean's shirt fumbles to grip at the toy car, though Sam just sort of flings it into the nearest wall the moment he realizes he's not into cars, like it's all a second thought. "Wow. Don't gotta throw my wheels around." That's alright, though; he's just jokin' around. Dean curls his legs and arms around his brother just like Joanna likes, frowning into Sam's hair.
He smells like smoke and copper.
"It's okay, Sammy," Dean breathes. They stay like this for a while.
When he finally unlocks the door and steps out, his parents are nearly running into him in a blind panic, but he just side-steps them with a frown, because he's got Sam wedged around him like a puzzle piece, and if they go flying in all crazy, they're gonna wake him up and freak him out. And then Dean'll be pissed, 'cus he got him calmed down. "Are you — what happened? Are you…" Mary starts, but maybe the sight of it catches up with her. They both sort of stare in disbelief at him for a moment like they're trying to read potential mirages in a desert, Mary's eyes full of tears and John's full of distrust (and something else that's more vulnerable, but Dean doesn't have time to figure that out right now). They both look down and take in the pink welts on Dean's face and arms as he half-heartedly shrugs.
"He had a tantrum. S'okay. I think he's just not feeling good."
Sam's face shifts against his collarbone, eyes shifting behind thin lids as he dreams.
Dean smiles, gives Sam's goodness his blessing. "It's gonna be fine. He's not a monster; he's just a dirty kid with lots of crappy manners."
And nobody is gonna be putting him back into the dark room again, unless they're gonna throw him in there with him.