“This kid does not need to be dragged in our crap.”
It only took Dean one look at Sam to toss his ass in the backseat of the van they had. There had to be a silver lining to looking like a soccer mom and Sam actually having room to stretch his giant legs out to sleep would just have to be it.
Sam protested with his usual shit that he wasn’t tired, he slept fine, whatever. Dean ignored him and switched radio stations until he found a classic rock station. 94.7 didn’t even get through their early morning ballads before Dean could hear Sam snoring in the back.
“Lita Ford gets him every time,” Dean told Harry.
Dean looked over when Harry didn’t answer and he snorted to see the kid had used his backpack like a pillow between his head and the door and was just as sound asleep as Sam.
Figured.
The kid looked as tired as Sam did that morning. Dean woke up feeling like a new man, one that inhaled every bite of the bacon and sausage biscuit Sam got him for breakfast. Sam had clearly not slept much the night before and Dean doubted if Harry did either.
Which meant Dean had two pain in the ass insomniacs to deal with. Which was just freaking awesome.
Dean was used to taking care of Sammy, he’d just have to adjust to add Harry in the mix. But, hey, if a little Lita was all it took to put him out too then Dean wouldn’t complain just yet. Dean thought that Sam might be complaining, confused, something, but he had been all smiles about being a big bro that morning.
It shouldn’t have surprised Dean, he figured the kid would latch on to Sam. Sam was all emotions and hugs and chick flick moments. Harry probably didn’t get shit like that before if his story to Michaela was true (and Dean didn’t doubt it). And God knew that Sam needed something new to obsess over that wasn’t the damn demon.
They’d get to Bobby’s and Dean would convince Sam to get back to college, Harry could go to high school, they could be out of the life. Dad would roll over in his grave - if he had one - about it but he told Dean to save Sam.
“And if you can’t save him, you have to kill him.”
Dean was only following orders. Harry was just the bargaining chip that Dean needed to keep Sam safe. Sam would be safe, Harry would be safe, Dean wouldn’t lose anyone else.
Dean drove the first hundred miles with the music just loud enough to keep him from thinking too much. When he decided to pull off to get a drink, Harry woke up.
Dean took one look at him and had to hold back the laugh that immediately wanted to fall free.
“Dude, your hair,” Dean said.
Harry immediately raised a hand and tried to pat down the hair that was standing up at all angles. Dean only grinned to himself, thinking of Sam’s hair when he slept good in the car, and pulled in a gas station and figured he might as well fill up the tank while they were there.
“Can I go in with you?” Harry asked Dean after glancing quickly at where Sam was still snoozing in the back.
Dean snagged one of his credit cards from the dash and shrugged. If Rusty Galloway couldn’t buy gas and snacks for Dean and his brother then what good was he?
Harry hovered by Dean while he got the gas pump going and then fell in step beside him when they headed inside. Dean went straight to the cooler and started grabbing drinks, passing them to Harry just like he would Sam.
“How old are you?” Dean asked Harry, eyeing the cooler contents carefully.
“Er… almost fourteen?”
Too old for juice, too young to have a beer in public.
Dean grabbed him a couple of cokes.
“Beef jerky, chips, or what?” Dean asked when they moved on to snacks. Harry didn’t answer quick enough so Dean grabbed some of everything.
Sam really needed to get his new older brother act together. He couldn’t keep skipping meals and making the kid think it was okay. They were both too damn skinny to not eat.
Dean sent Harry to hit the head while he paid for everything; he didn’t want to stop again until they were at least out of Nevada. Harry took orders like a champ too, he just walked off in the direction Dean pointed and checked over his shoulder a few times as he went.
If Harry thought Dean was just going to leave him behind at a gas station, then it was because he didn’t know Dean all that well.
Family didn’t end with blood, but it started there. Harry was blood (Bobby would confirm with one of those ‘I slept with too many dudes to know for sure’ kits) and Dean didn’t turn away from family.
Dean had never left Sam’s ass behind at a gas station, not even when he’d been at his bitchiest, and Dean wouldn’t do it to Harry.
Even if the kid kept giving Dean silent looks for the next twenty miles until Dean couldn’t take it.
“What’s up?” Dean asked, turning the radio down automatically. The kid looked like Sam did when he wanted to talk, it was a little funny and a little annoying.
“Do you two live together?” Harry asked quickly, like he’d been sitting on that for a while.
“Only until Sam goes back to school,” Dean said, his eyes ticking up to check on Sam in the rearview mirror automatically. Sam had shed his flannel at some point and was snuggling it under his head while he slept.
“Oh.”
Dean looked over and saw Harry had his lower lip pinned between his teeth and his eyebrows scrunched up. It wasn’t a bad likeness to Dean when he had a million questions and wasn’t allowed to ask a single one.
“Because I’m in charge, that’s why.”
Sam got to ask Dean his question, Dean didn’t get to ask his. Not when he was a kid, not when he grew up. Dean had been twenty-one and still never questioned Dad. Dean still had no one to ask his questions to, but that didn’t have to be Harry’s problem.
“Anything Sammy didn’t tell ya, I can,” Dean said casually, watching the highway fly at them. “This station is crap anyway.”
And it wasn’t like Dean didn’t have some questions of his own for the kid as well.
“How old are you?” Harry asked. He pulled one leg up to tuck beneath him and turned to face Dean from his seat.
“Twenty-six, Sam’s twenty-two. Who bought you that plane ticket?”
Because there was no record of Harry being on that flight that went down. There were no minors left to be identified and no evidence that Harry Potter was a passenger. The only proof came from the chick with pink hair that wasn’t as crazy as everyone made her sound in the news.
“My parents friend,” Harry answered him. “Sam said I wasn’t listed, I’m not sure why.”
“The convict?” Dean asked. He scoffed when Harry nodded. “He probably used a different name…”
Dean had no idea how foreign customs worked. Maybe the convict bought the kid a ticket and claimed he was eighteen. The bodies were still being identified, they had only started with minors because of Michaela’s claims.
“No more planes,” Dean told Harry sternly. “And no more flying under fake names.”
“How can I fly under a fake name if I’m not allowed on a plane?”
Dean looked over and saw the tiny grin that confirmed what Dean should have known already.
The kid was a smartass.
“Smartass,” Dean said.
“Sam said it’s genetic and I get it from you.” Harry was full on grinning at Dean and it lightened the weight Dean always carried. It just reminded Dean of the long days spent in the Impala with nothing more than a smartass little brother to entertain him while they traveled to a new hunt.
“I’m a delight,” Dean told Harry, relaxing. They were on the road, Dean could keep his brothers safe, nobody was killing Sam, life could be good.
“Who do you have looking for you?” Dean asked when the only roadblock on his path made itself known in his thoughts. Harry got real quiet and Dean raised an eyebrow without looking at him. “You show up with just a backpack, I’m guessing your aunt and uncle didn’t help you pack.”
Dean didn’t care that Harry obviously ran away from home, Dean cared that the freaking FBI wasn’t going to get involved in an international kidnapping situation. Dean didn’t even know if it was kidnapping, he had as much of a claim on the kid as the aunt and uncle did.
“They would have helped me pack if they could,” Harry said, all sunshine and joy. “If they knew they had a choice, it would have been your dad’s doorstep where I was dumped when my parents died.”
Dean sensed a story there and he went ahead and muted the radio so Harry would give it up. The kid was chatty enough, but Dean felt like some shit he was making up on the fly.
Dean spent enough of his life telling lies that he was practically a human freaking lie detector.
“Wait, backup, who left you on your aunt’s porch?” Dean asked. He didn’t think Harry was lying then, but what kind of person dropped a baby off on a porch?
“The headmaster for my school, he was - er… close to my parents, I guess,” Harry said.
Ding, bullshit.
“I was meant to live with their friend—”
“What’s his name?” Dean asked. “The convict you got all this information from?”
“Er… Star.”
Ding, bullshit.
Harry finished explaining how ‘Star’ totally let the headmaster (principal?) of Harry’s boarding school his parents attended drop him off on his aunt’s porch. Then, more bullshit, Dean was sure, the same man went and got himself arrested instead of taking care of the kid he was left. Which didn’t actually sound like bullshit, but the crime did.
“He blew up a city street in London?” Dean repeated. He actually looked over at Harry with a deadpan expression. “Dude, you’re joking.”
“I mean I was busy being left on a doorstep to be sure, but that’s what I was told,” Harry said. He raised his chin and didn’t even blink at Dean, all bravado while spewing crap.
“What aren’t you telling me?” Dean finally asked bluntly. There was something there, something fishy, but fuck if Dean could put his finger on it.
“I’m not lying!” Harry said with pink offended cheeks.
“You’re not telling me everything either,” Dean said. He only glanced at the road before turning back to the kid. “Whatever it is, I’m sure I’ve heard worse.”
Dean had heard worse, seen worse, handled worse. And he thought Harry looked ready to cave, then Sam yawned in the back and the kid clammed up immediately.
“We should use this van all the time,” Sam said after Dean saw him stretch out in the back. “It’s more comfortable than the Impala.”
Dean gave Sam a death glare in the rearview mirror. “Don’t even joke about that,” he snapped. Everything about the van sucked. The radio sucked, the gas mileage sucked, it made them look like douche bags.
“Do you travel a lot then?” Harry had spun around in his seat and handed Sam one of the drinks Dean bought at the gas station. The kid was all smiles for Sam- everyone liked Sam.
But if Sam didn’t shut the hell up then Dean was going to mess him up.
“Dad traveled a lot for work and we went with him,” Sam said. Dean watched him in the mirror and tried to silently tell him to shut his pie hole.
“That sounds… fun,” Harry said slowly. “What- er… What did he do for work?”
“Hunting.”
“Salesman.”
Sam caught Dean’s eye in the mirror and Dean made the tires squeal as he crossed three lanes of traffic to get on the exit.
“Who’s hungry?” Dean asked loudly, ending the conversation before Sam could stomp all over Dean’s plan anymore. “Harry, lunch?”
“Er…”
“Great. Sam?” Dean stared hard in the mirror while he randomly chose a direction to turn on the exit. Sam met his eyes and pinched his eyebrows together before conceding with a shrug.
“Sure, alright.”
Dean pulled in to a McDonald’s and sent Harry to order food with his card while he dragged Sam’s ass to the bathroom.
“What the hell?” Sam asked as soon as they checked that they were alone. “What’s your problem?”
“My problem is that you need to shut up,” Dean said. “Dad was a salesman, we traveled. End of story, Sam.”
The bathroom door swung open and Sam kept quiet until they could be alone again, since apparently he had common sense when he felt like it. When nobody entered the bathroom, they got right back in it.
“What? You don’t trust him?” Sam asked Dean. “Why can’t we tell him? He should be prepared.”
“Prepared for what?” Dean demanded. “All the hunts he’s not going on?”
“Why can’t he go?”
Dean stared at his brother and suddenly wondered if his scholarship had been a mistake. Surely there was no way that Sam was that freaking stupid or that obsessed with the damn demon. Sam only crossed his arms and stared right back at Dean with his bitch face set.
“He’s a kid,” Dean reminded Sam. He spoke real slow so there wasn’t any confusion on what the plan was. Dean wasn’t his dad, but he wasn’t running a democracy either. Dean was older and not so stupid, he was calling the shots on the kid.
“We were kids,” Sam shot right back.
“And you hated it!”
“I hated not having a choice!”
“You had a choice and you walked away!” Dean yelled. Sam blanched and Dean took a breath to reign in his temper. He pointed a finger in Sam’s face once he knew he wouldn’t yell. “We are not doing this, Sam. This kid does not need to be dragged in our crap.”
Harry didn’t need to be in danger. Dean couldn’t help it when Sam was a kid, but he could then. Harry didn’t get to become Dean, he could be Sam instead.
A Sam with some damn common sense.
“So, what? We dump him with Bobby when we get a drop on Yellow-Eyes? How about finding whatever took that plane down? We’re leaving Bobby in charge then too?”
Sam said Dean’s exact plan nearly word for word with as much sarcasm as he could fit in. The part he missed was that Sam would be staying with the kid while Dean dropped Yellow-Eyes.
Dad’s last orders were to protect Sam, he didn’t say jack about getting the rest of the Winchester family dead for a vendetta that didn’t even matter anymore. Mom was dead, Dad was dead, Jessica was dead.
They weren’t coming back.
Dean would love to put a bullet between the demon’s eyes, but Dean would rather keep the family he had left.
“That’s exactly what we’re doing,” Dean told Sam calmly. “In fact, I’m going to call Bobby and tell him we’re bringing back our normal kid brother while you go eat. Got it?”
Sam glared at Dean with the same stubbornness Dean had dealt with his whole life. Dean glared right back because he wasn’t about to have his entire plan wrecked because Sam wanted revenge.
John freaking Winchester Junior over there…
Dean smirked when Sam scoffed loudly and then turned on his heel, storming out of the bathroom. Sam didn’t have to like it, he just needed to keep his trap shut.
Bobby was a hell of a lot easier to convince. Not easy, Bobby never made anything easy, but he wasn’t as against Dean’s plan as Sam was.
“So, let me get this straight, you idjits go to investigate a plane crash and find your half-brother that nobody ever knew about?”
Dean leaned his back against the side of the van and watched Sam and Harry through one of the windows in the restaurant.
“Yup.”
“And this don’t strike you as a coincidence seeing as we just burned your dad’s body a few weeks ago?”
Sam said something to Harry that made the kid grin at him. Then Harry said something and Sam was laughing his ass off.
“Coincidences can happen,” Dean told Bobby. It was shit timing, but no kid could fake the disappointment that Harry had signaled loud and clear when they told him John was gone. Harry had no idea until then, Dean was sure if it.
Bobby was skeptical.
“Right, so you decide that you’re bringing this kid we don’t know is even your brother across about five state lines?” Bobby asked. “What exactly is the plan here, Dean? Cause I’m not followin’.”
Dean felt a corner of his mouth curl up when he watched Sam throw a fry at Harry. Harry didn’t even hesitate before he threw one right back and then it was a full on fry war.
“You confirm it any way you want,” Dean told Bobby, only giving the phone half his attention. “But when that test says he’s our brother, he’s staying with us. And,” Dean focused long enough to make sure Bobby was on the same page he was, “he doesn’t know shit about Dad or demons or any of it and that’s how it’s going to stay.”
“For the love of…” Bobby sighed loudly in Dean’s ear. “Alright, but he better be house-trained, ‘cause you’re cleanin’ up the mess when it happens.”
There wouldn’t be a mess. If everyone could just shut up about demons and ghosts and shit then Dean could pull it off.
Dean warned Bobby that he had about ten hours before they would be at his place then hung up. Bobby could complain and grumbled all he wanted, Dean knew he’d let them stay with him until Dean could figure out something more permanent.
Maybe a place near Stanford… Sam could go back to school, they’d put Harry in high school. Hell, maybe Dean would get a real job.
Mechanics never had to worry about watching their brother get killed or possessed by a demon. They were never framed for murder by dickface shapeshifters. They didn’t burn their dad‘s corpse or have dreams about their dead mom. They didn’t watch their brother lose the girl they loved or have their own soul traded like a bad hand for their dad’s.
Yeah, the more Dean thought about it, the more he liked it.
A normal, apple pie, life.
Dean’s sudden cheer must have infected Sam because he sat up front and rolled the windows down while Dean blasted the radio for them.
The sun was shining, it was warm enough to shed their jackets. Harry was in the middle row of the back of the van, watching and listening while Dean and Sam sang along to the songs they knew.
When one of Sam’s old favorites came on, Dean turned the radio as loud as it would go.
“C’mon, Sammy.” Dean looked over at his brother and grinned as he yelled over the opening notes of the Beatles. “Let’s hear it.”
Sam laughed and shook his head and Dean snatched his phone from the cup holder to hold it out in front of Sam like a microphone.
“C’mon,” Dean teased him, “‘Here comes the sun…’”
Sam rolled his eyes and sighed, because he was the pain in the ass little brother, but then when Dean didn’t relent, he caved.
Dean didn’t even like the Beatles, they were overrated and crap, but Dean liked the way that Sam liked them. Dean liked that Sam sang like every dumbass twenty-two year old in the world when the Beatles came on and he didn’t look stressed or pissed or like he was one bad day away from throwing himself on the fire.
Sam was belting out the chorus when Dean glanced up in the mirror. Harry grinned when he caught Dean watching him, but Dean spent his whole life telling enough lies to recognize one when he spotted it.
So the kid had a shady past and wasn’t warming right up to Dean, it didn’t matter. Dean was pissed at his Dad three quarters of his life, but Dean was still alive because of the man.
Harry could be all warm and gooey with Sam and Dean would keep him safe. It wasn’t any different than how Dean spent his entire life.
With the wind in his hair, the road under his tires, and Sam singing along to the radio, Dean wasn’t worried.
They’d figure it out.