A/N: I sheepishly bring you a new chapter, with no excuses for the wait, lol.
Warnings: bleeped swearing, and a bit of questionable treatment of a minor.
4:00 certainly did come early, and loudly. Mark shouted from downstairs that he was to get up, get ready, and bring his phone down with him when he came for breakfast. Sam was proud of himself when he made it to the dining room in four minutes. He gave his phone to Mark, who was seated at the head of the table, then sat at the other place setting.
"Did I give you permission to sit, Samuel?" Mark questioned sternly. Sam stood immediately.
"No sir," he didn't want to start a fight over something so small so early in the morning. Even if it was stupid. "May I sit, sir?"
"Not anymore," was Mark's reply. "You just lost that privilege. You can eat standing up this morning."
"What?" Sam's disbelief covered his face.
"Half breakfast for questioning me," Mark spoke as though that sentence was perfectly ordinary. Sam, In order to keep from losing rights to all of his breakfast, snapped his mouth shut. "Grab one slice of bacon and one slice of toast." Sam obeyed, depositing the items on his plate.
"May I eat, sir?" Sam hoped he was allowed that question.
"Yes," Mark picked up his phone, flipping the screen open. He began scrolling through the phone, his actions causing Sam to hold his breath in anticipation. If the man opened his text history, he would see that there had been an exchange between Sam and his brother. Sam's bacon was suddenly tasteless, and his toast, which had no condiments on it in the first place, was dry and stuck in his throat. It wasn't long before Mark placed the phone on the table and methodically began eating his eggs. The silence was worse than shouting.
Sam did as he was instructed to clean up from breakfast, and then followed the older hunter outside.
"Ten minutes, Samuel," Mark growled once they reached the training ground. "It took ten minutes before you blatantly disobeyed me. First, you used your cell phone. You sent a text message in which you used a swear word. On top of that, your message was completely disrespectful. What was it you said? 'Mark's a hard-a**?' Me giving you a list of rules is not hard-a**. I can show you hard-a** if you'd like." In a lightning-quick motion, his fist flew out and caught Sam on the side of the mouth. "You are here to learn respect, and you will learn it," was all he said. After that, training started. A five-mile run was followed by a hundred push-ups with no break in between. By the end of the push-ups, Sam collapsed on the ground in exhaustion.
"Get up, Samuel," Mark commanded. "Trust me. By the end of this week, a little run and a few push-ups will be nothing." Sam did as he was told the entire day. He fired bullets at targets until his arm wanted to fall off, dug a 6-foot deep trench that was large enough to bury a giant in, and carved wooden stakes until his hands were blistered and bleeding. Lunch, if you could call it that, consisted of an apple and a slice of stale bread. He wasn't given dinner. After dark, they went inside where Sam researched exorcisms and devil traps until his eyes swam. It was after midnight by the time Sam was allowed to go to bed. The last thing Mark told him was to go straight to sleep because today had been easy and tomorrow would be much harder. Mark needn't have worried. Sam was asleep almost before his head hit the pillow.