Notes: Open to suggestions for extra scenes, since it turns out my draft of the next chapter is a little short.
"Dean..." Sam's voice sounded small and panicked over the phone, like he was about to cry.
"What is it Sammy?" Dean asked, pushing away from the brick wall and the small group of punk rock stoners he'd been hanging out with after school. Normally he would have waited for Sam after class and gone straight home, but today Sam had insisted that he wanted to hang out on his own for a while, so Dean had taken the invitation to go downtown. The group of kids he was hanging out with were a pathetic lot, pretending to be morbid and jaded when they'd never seen a corpse up close before. They were only moderately more interesting than the other losers at high school, mainly because of the pretty girl in the biker jacket who kept giving him bedroom eyes.
"Dean, I think I just..." Sam stops, takes a deep breath, and continues even quieter. "I think I just killed a kid in the park."
Dean is headed towards where he parked the impala before the words even register properly. "Which park?"
"The one close to school. I hit his head... Dean, there's too much blood."
"Just stay calm, Sammy. I'm on my way. Keep out of sight for me, ok? I'll be there soon."
Dean waited for Sam's ok before he hung up and quickly dialled his father's number. Mobile phones were handy little dohickeys, and Dean was suddenly very glad that John insisted his boys never go anywhere without one. Dean barely waited until his father had picked up before he spoke; "Dad, Sammy just called me. He's at the park by our high school and he thinks he just killed some kid. He said there was a lot of blood."
John was silent for a moment, then Dean heard him sigh. "Alright," his father said, his gruff voice tired but calm. "You get to him as quick as you can, Dean. I'll be there in five minutes."
Dean was there in four. He pulled up next to the park in time to see his father's truck rounding the corner. The truck was a fairly recent development, only a year old and bought when it became clear that one mode of transportation between the three of them would not cut it. The truck allowed John the mobility to keep them all safe and financially secure while Dean drove himself and Sam to school in the impala.
Dean jumped out of the car, slammed the door shut, and scanned the immediate area first like he'd been taught to. It was eerily quiet for this time of the day, early evening with barely any shadows at all. He couldn't help but wonder if Sam was unconsciously using his abilities to make people stay away.
"Sam?" Dean called, for a moment unable to see his brother or the kid he'd supposedly killed.
"Over here, Dean." Sam's voice piped up from near the playground, and Dean turned in time to see his brother stand up - dirt smudged on his clothes, a few drops of darker brown on his shirt from a bloody nose.
Dean jogged over, unsure of what he was about to see. He was half expecting the kid to just be knocked out, concussed or unconscious. He wasn't expecting to see the kid staring blankly up at the sky, face slack, blood and something thicker congealing in the dirt around his head. The kid was definitely dead alright. Dean had seen quite a few that were deader, but the look of this body - no matter how fresh - and the angle of his limbs made it pretty clear that he was a goner even if you weren't looking at his head.
"Well... Fuck. Sam." Dean looked at his little brother, impressed despite himself. "You did that with your bare hands?"
"It was an accident," Sam insisted, raising a dirty hand to dab at his nose with a strangely pristine white handkerchief. Dean noticed that his eyes were red, and there were tear-tracks on his face. "I didn't mean to hit him so hard. Dad..."
Dean turned to see John Winchester looking down at the corpse with a small, thoughtful frown on his face. John rubbed a hand over his mouth and chin. He looked up and around, then finally at Sam. He only needed the one look to see that Sam was in no state to be helping out. "Sam, go wait in the truck."
The young teen hesitated, then nodded and made his way across the open park to John's truck. Only when Sam was sitting securely in the back seat did John look at his eldest.
Dean raised his eyebrows. "So where are we going to dump this one?"
John shook his head. "We'll need to bleach the body first. There's a warehouse on the edge of town." John sighed heavily. "We can make it look like a perversion."
Dean groaned. Perversion-killings sucked. They were always gross, he'd seen enough crime-scene photos to know that. He shut up at the look his father gave him, and grabbed the kid's legs while John took the mangled top half of the body. Together they manhandled the corpse into the boot of the impala, then went back to scuff the blood and slime into the dirt so it was indistinguishable from the other clumps of dirt and grass.
John gave Dean the address of the warehouse, then wiped his large hands on the back of his worn jeans. "I'm going to take Sam home. Don't get out of the car until I meet you there, Dean. I mean it."
"Jeez, dad." Dean rolled his eyes as he got into the car. "I know the drill."
"I know you do, Dean. Just be careful." John patted the hood of the impala, then turned and slouched off to the truck.
He didn't need to say that this was different. This was the first time Sam had killed anyone, and accidents needed to be taken care of with much more delicacy than the semi-planned killings that happened with guns and knives carried in John's gloved hands.
Dean drove to the warehouse and parked the car as close to the building as he could without looking suspicious. It was clear from the start that the place was empty, its few broken windows hadn't even been boarded up, the rusty gates blocking off the parking lot from the road hanging open and in ill repair. Dean sat in the car, tapping his fingers against his thigh as he listened to the radio, unconcerned about the body in his boot. He had a tarp spread out for just these occasions.
This wasn't the first time he'd helped his dad dispose of a corpse.
Dean waited a full half an hour before he saw his father's truck arrive. He didn't get out of the car until he could actually confirm that it was John hopping out of the truck, loaded down with gallon bottles of industrial grade bleach. The inside of the warehouse was dark and empty. They found an old barrel drum in place of a bathtub or vat, filled it just half full with the bleach and added stale water from a broken cooler to top it off to three quarters.
Rigor mortis had already begun to set in by the time they got the dead kid jammed into the barrel, which was easier said than done without slopping bleach all over the place. Between the two of them they managed it, and sat back to wait just long enough for the chemical to eat away all relevant evidence, but not enough time for it to start peeling back the skin and eating at the exposed tissue.
They dragged the corpse out of the barrel, soaking wet, clothes and hair faded to a greyish colour, skin bloodless and pale. The slightly brownish barrel full of bleach was tipped down the drain. Gloves made sure no fingerprints were left behind.
Then the body was stripped and wrapped up in a plastic sheet - really just a shower curtain that John had picked up on the way over - and stuffed back into the boot of the impala. Dean drove further into the industrial area of town, John's truck following close behind, and dumped the plastic-covered corpse into some scraggly bushes near a parking lot. The clothes were bundled up into a garbage bag and dumped several blocks away - close enough to be connected if found, far away enough that it wouldn't immediately be pegged as suspicious behaviour.
Dean followed his father's truck back home to the shabby little two bedroom house they were living in. Neither of them spoke until they were inside, leather gloves stripped off and Sam waiting anxiously at the kitchen table with his homework spread out untouched in front of him.
Sam bit his bottom lip, all puppy dog eyes and unshed tears.
John sighed and went over to ruffle his son's hair with a heavy palm. "We cleaned it up, Sam," he said softly, the same way other fathers might reassure their sons after a failed exam or sporting disaster. "Everything's going to be ok. Alright? Nobody is ever going to know."
Sam nodded, looking down at the paper and books strewn out in front of him. "Thanks..."
"Sam," John continued, a heavy hand falling to rest on his son's shoulder. "I know that was an accident, but you need to promise me you won t do anything like that again. Not unless you're in danger."
"My social life was in danger," Sam muttered rebelliously.
"You knock over liquor stores and kill the night shift if they call the cops," Dean pointed out, not exactly taking his brother's side but definitely throwing a spanner in the works.
"You know why I do that," John frowned, looking between both of his sons.
"Cops are bad," Sam replied, still pouting with as much conviction as a young teen could summon. Which was quite a lot. "Cops would split us up and put you in jail. Where you belong, because you kill people. And commit fraud, and larceny."
"Killing someone for money is different than killing someone because they piss you off," John ground out, his eyes narrowing. Sam had just killed a kid, supposedly because the kid had done or said something to make Sam feel as though he was an outcast. While John felt for his son, he was just a little ticked off that Sam's first instinct was to kill first and think about the consequences later; And worse, to get snippy with him about it. It would only occur to him later that he hadn't thought to be concerned about Sam's lack of remorse.
"Sam's different." Dean shrugged. "Sam's part demon."
"So you think he's got a right to kill someone for - for what?" John demanded, eyeballing Sam in a way that made the teen squirm. The same way that usually preceded an order to clean the bathroom from top to bottom with a toothbrush and sickly-smelling detergent.
Sam couldn't look him in the eye, instead he remained staunchly staring down at his unfinished homework. "... For calling me a freak in front of Becky Gates. Now she wont talk to me."
"Dude, that sucks. What a dick."
"Dean."
The warning growl made Dean shut his mouth firmly and keep it that way.
"Sam," John said firmly, his tone even and controlled as he stressed the lesson. "You don't kill people because they annoy you. It's sloppy and a quick way to get caught."
Sam's pout grew more pronounced, then faded with a deep, long-suffering sigh. "Ok, dad. Sorry."
John nodded, accepting that as the best he was going to get from a moody teenager. He went to the fridge and pulled out a soda - it was too early for beer, and John always took it upon himself to set a good example. "Good job calling Dean," he said, popping the cap off the soda bottle. "You know I wont always be there to bail you out."
"I've got Sam's back, dad," Dean said, and put a hand on his brother's shoulder.
John had absolutely no doubts about that.
-
The first time social services caught up with John Winchester and his sons was when Sam was nearly fifteen. It was already years too late, they'd had plans in place ever since John had learned the lengths which hunters would go if they ever heard of a child with unnatural powers. It wasn't the first time child services had been on their tail, but John was usually there to smooth things over or to move his kids out before a proper investigation could be conducted.
This time was different. This time the social workers had used a different method of investigation. His name had been flagged on the system, so they had struck when John was at work - a legitimate job, held down under a false name and paid in cash - and Sam at school.
From what John would later learn he knew that Dean had tried charming the caseworkers who showed up on their doorstep, and politely refusing entry when the charm had failed. A blue piece of paper, a threat to call in the police, and Dean had been forced to let them in or throw up even more warning signs.
"I couldn't shoot them dead on the doorstep, dad," Dean had said, agitated and nervously running his hands through his hair. "Someone would've seen, or heard. Middle of the fucking day, two smarmy cunts with their goddamn paperwork. Blood on the fucking footpath."
John just sighed. He knew what it would have looked like. Guns and knives all over the place, Dog-eared books on the occult, on demons and rituals. A spare pair of blood-stained leather gloves sitting right on top of the TV.
He shoved Dean towards his truck. "It's time to move on," he told his son grimly. "We stake out the house until we have a clear opportunity, then we pack up and go."
Dean's jaw tightened. For a moment he looked like he wanted to argue, but in the end he nodded. "Yes, sir."
"Just lucky you're too old to be shoved into foster care," John muttered. He sat in the driver's seat, hands tight against the wheel. As much as he wanted to stay - as much as every paternal fibre in his body was telling him to stay - he knew it would only make things worse. The evidence they would find, even after he and Dean grabbed the worst of it and lit out of town, would be damning. Sam knew the drill, he knew what to say and how to act. He would lay low, then get word to them when he could, so they could come and get him.
John just hoped his youngest son could control his temper. They didn't need any unusual accidents to occur to the people working his case. A high turnover would only prolong the process.
It was two in the morning before they could get close enough to the house to sneak under the crime scene tape that had popped up across the front door and pack up what was left inside. The guns were gone, as were a couple of the knives. Most of the books were missing, the gloves, and a few miscellaneous articles about the place; Including a small stack of expired credit cards and the two fake IDs Dean had been forced to leave behind when he'd left to get to John at work.
They packed up what they could, mostly clothes and what few bits and pieces the cops had left behind. Left through a different way just in case, and dumped the bags in the back of the truck before taking off again. The impala was still at a parking lot a couple of blocks away from the auto shop John had been working at. He dropped his son off at the car and waited until he saw the headlights in his rear-view before he took off, headed for the next town over before sunrise, and the next state as soon as possible.
Experience had made it very clear that the faster you got away, the easier it was to stay away.