Title: Ashes, the Rain and I
Chapter 2
About halfway to the motel, Dean had to stop the car and take a break from driving, because the constant flexing and relaxing of muscles from using the clutch was putting too much strain on his injured leg.
"You okay?" Sam asked from the passenger seat when Dean pulled the car over onto the side lane and killed the engine.
In the golden shine of the street lamp, Sam's face was scrunched up with concern as he inched closer to Dean on the leather seat of the Impala.
"It's getting worse, isn't it?" Sam asked in a low voice.
Swallowing, Dean tried to ignore the throbbing ache that shot through his bleeding calve at the merest of movements and offered his brother a reassuring smile.
The last thing he needed was for Sam to freak out over this when the kid was already guilt-ridden enough for having shot him earlier.
"I'm fine…just a little tired," he pressed out, hoping the lie would appease the younger boy until they reached the motel and could fix his leg up for good.
He should have known better, when all he got was a soft snort in response.
"You're full of shit," Sam murmured, causing Dean's eyebrows to shoot up.
"Excuse me?" Dean frowned, but instead of an answer, Sam opened the passenger door and climbed out of the Impala. "Hey! What do you think you're doing?"
Sam rounded the car and flung open the driver's door without wasting any time. "Taking over," the kid explained, holding out a flattened palm and wriggling his fingers expectantly.
Dean blinked up at the kid's determined expression in complete puzzlement. "You mean as in—"
"I mean as in driving, Dean," Sam rolled his eyes, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Want me to spell it for you? Cause I will, if that means you quit staring and hand over the keys already."
Dean's forehead furrowed in annoyance. "Okay, wait a second there, Evil Knievel. In case you have forgotten—"
He gestured towards his younger brother's considerable scrawny body before continuing. "You are fourteen. Which means you are nowhere near the legal driving age."
Sam had the audacity to laugh at that.
"Okay, first of all- since when have we ever given a crap about legal?" Sam's eyes narrowed and Dean instantly knew the argument was lost before his brother had even started hauling out the big guns.
The little shit had always been good at arguing, throwing facts at Dean like arrows, precise and down to the point.
"I've had my first fake ID with 12 and you've started drinking with what— 16? And apart from the small things—Identity and credit card theft, hustling, impersonating FBI officers – any of that ring a bell?" Sam shook his head, auburn strands of hair falling into his eyes as he looked down at his shoes with a rueful smile. "Illegal, is kind of what we do, Dean. So don't freak out over me driving, alright? Not when you're in pain."
Dean sighed.
He had almost forgotten what it was like to face off with a pissed off teenage Sam in bitch-fight-mode who had set his mind on something.
The kid had a point for sure, but Dean wouldn't give in that easily.
"And what if somebody sees you, huh? What will we tell the police if they catch a freaking kid behind the wheel of a car? Not even taking the fact into account that I'm shot. What if they sick CPS on our asses on top of everything else?"
Sam shrugged his shoulders as if he wasn't concerned about that possibility at all, -as if the mere idea that somebody could snatch him away under Dean's watch was ridiculous.
"You'll think of something," the kid explained softly, his voice full of trust as he gazed up at his older brother from behind a tousled curtain of hair.
When Dean still hesitated, the kid sighed heavily and looked around the vacant road passage in front of them. "You said the motel was just another 15 minutes, Dean… I promise we'll be careful okay? Just… "
"Just what?"
Sam met his gaze with a perceptive intensity that only his brother could muster, wide eyes slicing through every single layer of defense Dean had ever built up around himself seeping through to the core of his heart.
"Just…" Sam bit his lower lip, gaze dropping to the ground for a second before he looked up again with regained confidence. "I've been watching you wince and grimace for the past 20 minutes, Dean and no matter if you're 30 or 65-years old, I know you well enough to see signs of pain when I see them. So you're going to give me these keys and you're going to let me drive, or I'm not getting back in the car. Period."
Dean stared at his fourteen-year-old brother in total silence, eyes widened slightly with incredulity and mind trying to formulate a response.
Sam held his gaze defiantly until Dean finally gave in with a grumbled "You're a pain in the ass, you know that?"
He slid over to the passenger seat, hissing when the flesh wound on his leg got jostled, sending another spark of fire through his body.
"Okay?" Sam asked him, immediately freaked out over his big brother's pained hiss of discomfort and Dean wanted to slap himself for having let his composure slip.
"Told you I'm fine..." he grouched sullenly. "Let's just get this over with before I think better of it."
At that, Sam slid behind the steering wheel and turned the engine with a single-minded resolution and Dean couldn't help but shake his head at so much stubbornness.
When it boiled down to it, Sam hadn't really changed all that much over the years.
And in a way, Dean was glad about that, because as much as he used to complain about Sam's strong will and stolidity, he had always admired these particular traits about his brother's character.
Even as a kid, the boy had always known what he wanted, never taken no for an answer.
Always pursued his dreams.
And Dean was proud of this kid- was proud of the man Sam had grown into, even if the fourteen-year-old currently squirming on the seat next to him didn't know he would turn into a salad-eating, long-haired sasquatch in unforeseen future.
When a few seconds passed and Sam still didn't show any signs of getting the car started, Dean started to frown. "We've done this before haven't we?"
He honestly couldn't remember when he had let Sam drive his baby for the first time.
But it must have been somewhere around his current age.
Whether it was before or after the Kelpie hunt they did with John back in Maine, Dean had absolutely no idea…
The only thing he knew was that – thank god, Sam had been quite the natural when it came to driving, which meant no matter how little experience he might have at the moment—Dean had no doubt his little brother would be able to get them back to the motel with a little guidance from him.
"Sammy?" Dean prompted when his earlier question was met with silence.
Sam bit his lower lip, looking a little insecure now that his original burst of determination had simmered down. "We've… I mean, we've kinda done it before… "
Dean frowned, tapping his fingers against his jeans in a clear sign of impatience. "So... we're good to go, then?"
His leg was hurting and they needed to get behind whatever the hell had done this to Sammy and on top of everything else that was going on right now, the goddamned mark had started itching again- which was about the last thing Dean wanted to deal with right now.
His day had already been stressful enough, without him having to quench the omnipresent bloodlust that pulsed through his veins whenever he became distracted enough to let it.
Now with the mark driving his urge to hurtsmashdestroykill, and a fourteen year old kid—Sammy—sitting behind the wheel of his baby, Dean felt about ready to blow up with tension, skin crawling with the need to move.
But Sam wasn't moving; he just kept staring at Dean as if waiting for directions.
"I thought you said we've done this before."
"We have, okay?" Sam protested, fidgeting in his seat. "Just never on the road…we tried in the parking lot behind the some rundown motel. That's hardly the same."
Dean let out a sigh, before bestowing Sam with an intense look. "It's exactly the same, Sam. Now c'mon, I'll guide you through the process. Unless you want us to switch places again that is—"
"No!" Sam hastily responded. "No, I mean- it's okay. I can do this."
"Alright, listen…" Dean instructed with a smug smile, turning his body towards Sam. "Handbreak first, then you put her into first gear. Fire up the ignition. Slowly release the break, while pushing on the gas at the same time. You'll feel the slight forward momentum when you reached the magic point that gets baby going."
"Now that just sounds dirty…" Sam muttered with a grimace as he tried to follow his big brother's instructions. Then almost as if in afterthought, Sam shot him a quizzical look. "Hey which one is the gas pedal, again?"
Dean's eyes widened and his face turned pale, before he started fumbling with the handle of the passenger door. "Aw, hell no. That's it! I'm driving us back."
"I'm kidding," Sam cackled softly, eyes twinkling with the kind of childish mischief Dean hadn't seen in his brother's gaze for way too long now. "Just kidding, relax… I know which one's the gas."
Dean continued to glare at his little brother, not amused by the joke because it had been on his baby's account.
"Sorry… " Sam sent him a half-apologetic look, his own glee wearing off at the sight of his brother's grim expression before he flicked the keys and started the engine, the low rumble of the Impala breaking the tension between them.
The first two tries to get the car running were a bummer, with Sam using too much gas and choking off the engine as a result, but just when Dean was about to doubt his own memories of Sammy being a natural at driving, his brother finally got the hang of it and eased the black Chevy back onto the empty road.
After that the rest of the drive went relatively uneventful, with Dean giving Sam directions and advice about when to shift gears or how to hold the wheel.
At some point during the drive, when a particularly vicious burst of irrational edginess took hold of him, Dean squeezed his eyes shot and swallowed, hand going automatically down to the spot on his lower arm where the Mark was setting his skin on fire.
"You okay?" Sam glanced over with concerned eyes, his voice gentle and sympathetic as if he somehow instinctively knew he needed to tread carefully around Dean right then.
The Impala swerved slightly and Dean hastily reached out to steady the wheel, keeping them from slipping onto the lane with the oncoming traffic.
"Damnit, Sam. Eyes on the fucking road!" Dean snapped at his brother and then regretted the harshness of his words the next second when they caused Sam to flinch back and looked at him with obvious hurt in his eyes, visibly embarrassed by his dangerous slip-up.
Clenching his jaw, Dean blamed his lack of composure on the pain and blood loss that came from getting shot instead of the influence the mark held over his actions.
That didn't stop him from feeling guilty, though.
After all, Sammy wasn't used to driving.
It was normal for him to make mistakes.
And on top of that, he had no clue what was going on with the mark. The kid didn't deserve to be on the receiving end of his anger.
In fact, nobody did.
But Dean was a ticking time bomb ready to go off. And sooner or later somebody was going to get hurt because of him. It was only a matter of time.
"I'm sorry," he sighed after a few seconds of tense silence between them. "That was uncalled for, I shouldn't have yelled…"
"No it was my fault..." Sam pressed his lips together, but didn't take his eyes off the windshield this time. His fingers were wound around the steering wheel so tight, his knuckles were turning white.
"What's up with you?" the teenager asked after a while, spotting the soft yellow neon glow of the Motel sign that lured them closer from the distance."You seem… different..."
Dean snorted softly, rubbing a hand over his beard stubble.
His little brother had no idea what he- what they had been through the past 20 years of their lives.
He didn't know about their father's death, or the demon deal, or the demon blood pumping through his veins, or the freaking Apocalypse.
Hell, the kid had no clue his life would turn out to be even more of a nightmare than it had been back when he was still in his teens.
And if Dean had any say in the matter, Sam wouldn't find out about it either, not for a long time.
"I guess I'm bound to be a little different from my 18-year-old self, Sammy. It's called growing up, you know?" he offered up with a humorless smile when Sam steered the car onto the parking lot.
"Yeah but it's more than that," the younger brother gave back quietly and neither of them knew where to take the conversation from that, so they stayed quiet instead.
Sam pulled up in front of their motel room, switching off the headlights as he let the engine idle, the soft purr of the Impala thrumming through the otherwise silent night.
He looked unconvinced by Dean's answer, mouth slightly opened and about to protest, when Dean dug the room key out of his pocket and tossed it into his little brother's lap, not giving him a chance to say anything else.
Because the kid was perceptive and clever enough as it was, no need to give him further food for thought by letting something slip about the mark.
Opening the passenger door, Dean couldn't help the grimace as he dragged his injured leg over the metal frame of the car and made contact with solid cement for the first time in half an hour.
"Le'mme…" Sammy was by his side the next second, taking hold of Dean's arm and wedging his scrawny body beneath it, until his narrow shoulders were holding up some of his big brother's weight.
Dean staggered slightly and hissed in pain, trying not to shift too much weight onto Sammy's fourteen-year-old self because the kid's small frame seemed so much more fragile than the six-feet four inches tall mountain of muscle his brother presented nowadays.
If Sam noticed his hesitancy, he didn't say anything as they made their staggering way towards the motel room.
"You gotta lay of the burgers, dude," Sam panted softly, struggling under Dean's weight, as he pushed the door open. "You've gotten heavy."
Dean huffed out a shaky exhale as he used the doorway to support himself, releasing Sammy from his heavy cargo. "Yeah well, you're one to talk, Hulk Hogan…"
Sam's eyes lit up with excitement at the jab, a slight smirk creeping onto his young face. "Dad was right then, wasn't he? I'm gonna be taller than you?!"
Dean rolled his eyes and hobbled towards his bed, not dignifying the question with an answer.
"Oh my god, I am!" Sam exclaimed gleefully, flopping down on the bed next to Dean and bouncing with excitement. "By how much am I taller?"
"By nothing," Dean griped back, even when he couldn't quite hide a smile of his own at his brother's exuberant reaction to the fact that he was going to grow into a beanstalk.
Trust Sammy to find the silver lining in a situation as fucked up as theirs.
"It's barely recognizable, so don't get all smug about it, alright?" Dean chided in a tone that was half amused-half annoyed.
Sam gave him a shit-eating grin, clearly not believing his attempted brush-off for a second.
Shaking his head, Dean lightly shoved his brother's bony shoulder, urging him towards the bathroom. "Go and make yourself useful, Samantha. First aid kit's under the sink. Get some towels as well."
Instantly growing serious again, Sam gave Dean a tight-lipped nod before scampering off to the bathroom. He returned a moment later, hugging to threadbare towels, the first aid kit and a glass of water to his chest.
Dean straightened up with a bit-off groan and leaned against the headboard until he felt gentle hands against his injured calve, causing him to tense up and go still.
"These jeans need to go…" Sammy concluded, motioning towards the blood-drenched fabric that clung to Dean's leg like a second skin. "Got your knife on you?"
Sliding a hand beneath his pillow, Dean pulled an ivory-handled dagger from beneath the bedding and held it out towards Sam, who snitched it easily from his grasp and proceeded to cut tattered jeans fabric from his older brother's leg.
"Careful," Dean warned when he felt the tip of the blade against his skin, but Sam only shot him an annoyed bitch face that clearly translated to 'Shut up, I know what I'm doing' or some variation of that.
Sam peeled away the remains of his jeans to reveal the jagged slash that ran across the lower half of Dean's calve and was still bleeding sluggishly, despite the makeshift tourniquet Dean had tied around it earlier.
Sam sucked in a quick breath at the sight; finger's shaking slightly until Dean covered one of his trembling hands with his own, causing the boy to look up at his big brother with no small amount of insecurity shining from his watery gaze.
"It's okay," Dean comforted in a gruff voice, not wanting Sam to relapse into a surge of self-reproach over having shot him. "It looks worse than it is, alright? Stop beating yourself up for this."
With a shaky nod, Sam turned back to the task at hand, fingers no longer shaking quite as much as he reached for the bottle of antiseptic and some gauze.
'Good boy' Dean silently praised in his mind, encouraging his teen brother with a small smile, despite the sharp sting of pain that came from having the wound disinfected.
"Sorry…" Sam murmured in a rushed breath even as he continued to hold the soaked pad of cotton against the flesh wound.
Dean clenched his fingers into fists and squeezed his eyes shut against the torturous burn of the antiseptic until the pain subsided again.
"'s'okay…" Dean pressed out between clenched teeth, knowing he had to hold on for what was about to come next.
"You need some Whisky for this part?" Sam asked gently, as if reading his thoughts.
And maybe it should have been a weird question to come from the mouth of a four-teen-year-old.
But it really wasn't.
"Nahw, 'm gonna be fine…" Dean rasped out, thinking about the bottle he had drained three states from here and never replaced with a new one.
A decision he regretted dearly in that moment.
But seriously, who could have known he would get shot by a fourteen-year-old version of his little brother?
"You sure?" Sam asked, voice wavering slightly and Dean didn't know whether it was with emotion or the vocal change that came as a side effect of puberty.
He pressed his lips together, sending another fleeting glance at the flesh wound in his calve and then at the needle in Sam's hands.
His kid brother shouldn't have to do this.
Sewing him back together like some rag doll and driving a car when he wasn't even big enough to see over the steering wheel.
But this was their life.
And Dean had to remind himself— like he had done so many times before during their childhood— that they weren't left with another choice.
"Yeah, yeah I'm sure. You got this, Sammy."
No doubt about it.
Sammy was good at stitches.
Hell, the kid had probably sewn him and their dad back together too many times to count, always working with the kind of tenderness and patience that Dean himself had never really possessed.
"Okay…" the teen sighed, settling the head of the needle against the frayed skin on the side of the gaping slash in Dean's lower leg. "Brace yourself…"
"Hey, Dean?" Sam piped up quietly from where he was mindlessly zapping through the few flickering channels the ancient TV-station in the corner of the room offered.
Dean looked up from where he was browsing the Internet for the strange yellow flower he had spotted beneath the dumpster back at the parking lot- his only indication for Sam's weird transformation so far and met his little brother's wistful gaze over the distance.
"'s up?" he slurred, still slightly out of it from the pain killer he had taken after Sam had stitched up his leg, vision slightly blurry from having looked at the computer screen for so long.
Sam was squirming a little on his seat, clearly unsure about how to formulate his question and Dean instantly noticed the way his little brother's forehead scrunched up—a clear sign that something was bothering him.
"You okay?" the question came automatically—a quick-fire response that was ingrained in him, because if his little brother was upset about something, Dean needed to make it right again.
Sam swallowed uncomfortable, muting the TV and Dean sat up a little straighter in bed.
"Dad's dead, isn't he?"
Dean blinked, mouth falling open.
For a second, time seemed to stand still between them.
"Wha—" Dean fumbled for words, trying to ignore the way his heart was thundering away in his chest all of a while the older Winchester had definitely expected for Sammy to start asking questions at some point, he certainly hadn't expected the boy to get to the bottom of things this quickly.
Swallowing, Dean closed the laptop and sighed. "What makes you think so?"
Sam's lips wobbled, his eyes growing impossibly wide and filling with tears.
"Oh god…" the boy choked out, obviously able to read the answer to his question from his older brother's startled reaction. "H-he really is, isn't he?"
Dean swore under his breath as he carefully got up from the bed, ignoring the way his leg protested at the movement and hobbling over to where his brother sat like a picture of misery, shoulders quivering beneath his far too big hoodie and fat tears rolling down his pale cheeks.
"Sammy…" he breathed, sinking down beside Sam on the other bed and wrapping an arm around the boy's small frame.
"How-how d-did it happen? I mean… did he—was it a hunt, or—"
Dean took a deep breath, his heart constricting painfully in his chest. How was he supposed to tell Sam that their father died, making a deal with the same yellow-eyed son of a bitch that was responsible for their mother's death?
How was he supposed to say that their father made a deal for his life and ended up in hell for it?
Knowing the younger boy wouldn't be able to deal with the news, Dean's gaze dropped to the floor.
"Uhm… no. He… actually, it was a—a stroke," Dean lied easily, thinking back on the Djinn-induced dream world he had woken up in about 10 years ago and about his own relief at finding out that their father had gone from this world peacefully instead of accepting the unfair gruesomeness of his actual death in the real world.
"A stroke?" Sam breathed disbelievingly; eyebrows furrowed as if the idea that their father died by something so trivial was ridiculous, especially after the man had laughed into the face of death at so many occasions and constantly endangered his own life on his various hunting jobs.
Dean nodded, not letting his act slip. "Yeah. Who would've thought, huh?"
Sam sniffed, tears brimming over and spilling from his eyes once more, because as comforting as the thought of his father going peacefully might have been for Dean at age 27, it still meant their father- and only parent, had died and would be gone forever to a fourteen-year-old Sam.
"Hey, it's okay," Dean tried to comfort, rubbing his hand up and down his little brother's arm in an attempt to calm the boy down.
"'m s-sorry—" Sam choked out miserably, causing Dean to swallow around the lump in his own throat. "I-I mean I knew he w-wouldn't be around f-forever but—"
"It's okay, I get it," Dean gently assured, tightening his hold around Sam's shoulder and pulling his little brother closer against his side. "You got every right to be sad. God knows, I wasn't dealing well with his death either… He always seemed so... invincible."
Truth was Dean tried not to think about his father too often for various reasons- the most obvious being that the memories of his old man were still too painful.
Sometimes all he had to do to get reminded of him was looking at his brother.
Or at his own reflection in the mirror.
Or at the pile of broken shards that was their lives.
The man had left more wounds on his heart and soul than Dean was willing to acknowledge and even the good memories were too painful to be dug out of the corners of his mind if he hadn't been numbing his own heart down with alcohol before.
So sitting here with his younger brother in his arms and thinking about John's death was more than a little strange- even for their kind of crazy.
But Dean would hold on forever if that's what Sam needed at that moment.
Because fourteen- or not, Sammy would always be his priority and he would always do anything to ensure the kid was okay.
TBC…
So what do you guys think? :) I know not a lot happened in this one, but I promise more action in the coming chapters ;) Does anybody have any particular scenes they want to have played out between younger Sam and older Dean? I'm up for suggestions if you have any. Have some ideas of my own already, but I figured maybe you wanna share yours :D Other than that, please tell me your thoughts on the new chapter! Would love to hear your opinions :) Reviews make me happyy!