April, 1993
"I don't want you to go."
Sam's voice drifts into the living room from the open front door. Dean rolls his eyes, not pausing in his frantic tapping of the video game controls. Sam sounds upset, but then, he always gets clingy when their mother leaves. For his part, Dean doesn't mind much, except that he's the one who has to deal with a whiny and anxious Sam until she gets back.
Dean hears his father gruffly ordering Sam back inside, then the roar of the car engine and the crunch of its tires on the driveway, but there's no slam of the front door. Sam is probably still standing on the front steps, watching their parents pull away with that sad puppy look he always gets. Dean rolls his eyes again, and pulverizes several monsters in his video game before he hears Missouri calling to Sam.
"Get yourself back in the house, boy. Ain't no call to be standing outside on a night like this."
A moment later, Sam joins Dean in the living room. Dean casually sticks his foot out to trip him as he walks past the couch. Normally Sam is pretty good at spotting this trick, but tonight he's distracted; he trips and falls with a loud thud.
"Geez, Sammy. You're such a klutz," says Dean, grinning. He expects Sam to scowl back, to leap to his feet and go running to Missouri, but he just gets up slowly and wanders over to sit in the armchair, as if he barely noticed what had just happened.
Dean frowns. Usually Sam gets so edgy when their parents leave, Dean has to employ drastic measures to distract him; last time, he chained Sam to the table with a bike lock, to which Sam did not take very kindly, and which accounts for Missouri's presence tonight. Now, though, he looks distant, lost in thought, hardly aware of his surroundings. Dean studies him for a moment, then, with a shrug, turns back to his game. It will certainly make things easier for him if Sam is going to be calm this time.
"What's goin' on in here?" asks Missouri, poking her head into the living room to investigate the source of the thud.
"Nothing," says Dean innocently, not taking his eyes off the TV screen, where he's locked in battle with a ghost.
"What in the devil are you playing, boy?" Missouri exclaims.
"Video game," grunts Dean, defeating the ghost and moving on to a vampire.
"And your mama lets you play this?"
"Yep," says Dean vaguely.
Missouri strides forward, seizes the TV remote, and turns off the screen. "Well, you ain't playin' it while I'm around," she says over Dean's protests. "And don't you even think any nasty words at me, boy," she warns, as Dean glares. "Whyn't you go find a book to read, or somethin'? Give that brain of yours some exercise."
Dean would like nothing better than to stomp off and sulk in his room, but he's too aware of Sam, still sitting in his armchair and not reacting at all to the argument. With a sigh, he grabs a comic book off the coffee table and settles back into the couch, pretending to read, but really keeping an eye on his brother.
Sam's behavior gradually returns to its normal edginess as the evening wears on. In fact, he seems almost more anxious than usual. He fidgets, fiddling with the amulet around his neck, which Mary gave him a few days before. Then he gets up from his chair and begins pacing around the room, peering carefully out of every window as he passes it, clearly hoping to catch a glimpse of a familiar car returning. Dean starts to plan the evening's diversion tactics, hoping their parents will hurry up and get back already, so that Sam will relax and Missouri will leave. Missouri, sitting on the other side of the couch, casts him a disconcertingly sharp look, as though she'd heard that last thought.
The ring of the telephone makes all three of them jump. For a moment, they all stare, frozen, at the receiver, where it sits on a table next to the couch; then the phone rings a second time, and Missouri slowly reaches out a hand to answer.
"Hello?"
Dean hears a garbled voice talking into her ear, and then her dark face goes suddenly slack with shock. Sam, his eyes wide and frightened, the amulet clutched tightly in his hand, moves around the couch to sit beside Dean, pressing up against him and hiding his face in Dean's shirt. For once, Dean doesn't blame him for being afraid. The ringing of the telephone seems to have set a subtle chime of fear vibrating through the room, and Dean's heart is pounding. He therefore doesn't shove Sam away or poke him like he normally would; instead, Dean puts his arm around him and pulls him closer, feeling his brother's heartbeat fluttering just as fast as his own.
"Are you sure?" says Missouri into the phone, her voice shaking. She puts a hand up to her mouth.
More talking from the other end of the line, and then Missouri is saying, "Yes, I understand." She hangs up the phone and stares at it for a minute, not looking up at Sam and Dean.
"What is it?" asks Dean. His voice comes out thin and high-pitched.
"Your parents," says Missouri, still not looking at them. "They've been in...an accident. Your mama…."
"What happened to our mom?" Sam whispers. He sounds as though he's on the verge of tears, and Dean impulsively reaches for his free hand and gives it a squeeze.
"Oh, honey," says Missouri. "I'm sorry."
*S*P*N*
The living room is crowded, claustrophobic, full of adults in black suits and dresses, talking and crying. Dean scans the room for his father, but doesn't see him. He hasn't seen much of him at all for the last few days; Aunt Cheryl and Uncle Tommy have been taking care of day-to-day business and the funeral arrangements. They've tried to take care of Dean and Sam too, but mostly it's Dean making sure that Sam eats at least a little every day and gets to bed on time. He's used to doing it; it's not very different from babysitting when their parents are gone.
Except this time, their mother is gone for good.
Dean spots Aunt Cheryl through the kitchen door, which is ajar. Their father must be in there, too. Dean gropes the space next to him for Sam's arm, finds it, and gives a gentle tug. Sam looks at him, his expression blank and distant. He's been wearing that look a lot lately.
"Come on," says Dean, jerking his head towards the kitchen. Mechanically, Sam follows him. They peer around the doorframe to where John is sitting with Cheryl at the kitchen table, a glass of amber liquid in his hand.
"I know what I saw," John is insisting, pounding his fist on the table. Cheryl jumps, and Dean winces. Sam just stares, blank. "It had these...eyes," John continues. "These black eyes. It was inside the car, Cheryl. It tore her to shreds, it—"
A shiver of fear starts at the base of Dean's spine and crawls all the way up to the back of his neck like some sort of many-legged insect. Is John saying that some sort of monster killed Mary?
"Stop it," says Cheryl in a furious whisper. "Just stop it. You have two boys, you can't just go tearing off chasing some crazy fantasy. You need to pull yourself together, goddammit—"
Dean blinks hard against the tears threatening to spill over his cheeks. Thirteen is far too old to cry, he tells himself firmly. Besides, Sam is standing there perfectly dry-eyed, and he's only nine.
John stands up abruptly, his chair scraping back, but Sam and Dean don't stay to hear more. They scramble away from the door and slip across the foyer and up the stairs, their hands clutching at each other. Once upstairs, Dean opens the door of the large storage closet in the hallway, and Sam follows him inside without hesitation. Dean leaves the door cracked, and slides down among the boxes and bins to sit on the floor with his knees drawn up to his chest. He can hear Sam rustling around on the other side of the closet, but can see only the barest outline of him in the dark.
"Dad's crazy," says Sam, in a harsh tone Dean has never heard him use before. "He thinks a monster did it."
"Or he could be right," says Dean, though he thinks this is unlikely. Monsters are only real in his video games, after all.
Of course, a few days ago, he also would have thought it unlikely that Mary could ever be separated her family. Now, who knows what might be possible?
Sam gives a snort. "Come on, Dean, even I know there's no such thing as monsters," he says, still in the same harsh tone. "But it doesn't matter. Dad thinks there is, and he's gonna ditch us."
"Well, he's gotta kill the monster, right?" Dean reasons. "I could maybe help with that, but you couldn't. You're too little."
"There's no monster, Dean!" says Sam, so loudly that Dean shushes him. "Stop being stupid."
"I'm not stupid," says Dean, stung.
"Are too."
"Am not!"
"What's gonna happen to us when he leaves?" asks Sam. He's fiddling with the amulet again as he says this, spinning it on its cord; Dean sees it gleam briefly in the narrow strip of light shining through the crack of the door. He wishes Sam would take it off; it only serves as a painful reminder of what they've just lost. He reaches out blindly to smack Sam's hand away from it.
"We'd stay with Aunt Cheryl and Uncle Tommy, probably," he says.
"We would?" says Sam, and even in the dark Dean can feel Sam watching him carefully. "You'd stay, too? You wouldn't go with Dad?"
"Why?" asks Dean sullenly. "Don't want to live with someone as stupid as me?"
But at that moment, Cheryl's voice drifts up the stairs, calling them back down to the funeral party. Sam scrambles up and goes hurrying from the closet without a backward glance. Dean follows a moment later, dragging his feet.