“Sam and Sam Junior…”
July 19
Contrary to what a hell of a lot of people thought, Dean Winchester wasn’t a total dick. No he wasn’t all gushy and mushy like Sam and he didn’t have Bobby’s patience, but he wasn’t an all-around asshole.
So seeing the shiner on his kid brother’s face did make him feel guilty, but also… the kid just made him want to laugh every time Dean looked in the rearview mirror and saw him.
“Sammy, hey.” Dean elbowed Sam and tilted his head back to the back seat of the Impala. “Is he like a time machine or what?”
Sam couldn’t do subtle if he tried. He turned around in his seat, catching Harry’s attention. Harry looked up from the book he brought from Bobby’s house and blinked at Sam.
“What?” Harry asked, always twenty degrees warmer to Sam than he was Dean.
The right hook probably didn’t help, but damn if Dean knew he was going to duck in the wrong direction.
“No idea,” Sam told him. When he turned back around, he grinned a little bit at Dean. “It’s easy to tell you two apart, you don’t read.”
“What? Me?” Dean ignored the jab at his intelligence. Just because he never went to college… or finished high school… didn’t make him stupid. Dean had a perfectly good GED, a great smile, and a car loaded up with weapons and his family.
What more could a guy need?
“I’m talking about you, stupid,” Dean told Sam. “Hell, he looks just like you.”
“Like me?” Sam laughed and showed his dimples that Harry had as well. “Dude, you might as well have been his dad.”
“No chance,” Dean scoffed. He turned the volume down to include Harry in the debate. “Hey, Harry! Who do you look more like? Me or Sam?”
Dean could see Harry lower his book and turn his head from side to side, looking from Dean to Sam.
“Neither of you?” Harry said, his nose scrunched up just like Sam did. “I reckon I just look like my mum.”
“What? No. Sammy,” Dean slapped at Sam’s arm, “who has those old pictures of Dad? You know the one I’m thinking of? When he joined the Marines?”
“Oh, shit. You’re right.” Sam turned so faced Dean, a better angle to talk to Dean and Harry both. “I think it’s in Dad’s stuff we boxed up, probably in his truck.”
“We’ll find it when we get back,” Dean told Harry, ignoring Sam’s surprised look. Yeah, maybe Dean was the one who told Sam that he’d kick his ass if he touched Dad’s stuff, but Dad was dead and Harry wasn’t. The kid should at least know he looked more like John than either of the boys John raised did.
“Okay,” Harry said, shrugging and going right back to his book.
Which was so Sam it made Dean grin to himself. It was even funnier a few miles later when Sam picked up his own book and Dean was left to amuse himself with the radio.
It had been a damn good few weeks at Bobby’s after their vampire hunt that ended in a bust. Dean had been getting antsy though. They had a lot of shit to do before summer ended and half the work was getting Sam’s stubborn ass on board.
The two of them were up half the night the night before, arguing and trying to find a compromise that worked for them both. When Sam said that Dean should take Harry and get settled somewhere, Sam would stay with Bobby and pick up cases while he waited for a chance at Azazel, Dean got desperate.
They couldn’t split up, and God knew that Harry wouldn’t be gung-ho to separate from Sam.
It wasn’t the Stanford Argument bad, but it had gotten rough while they tried to find something that worked for them both.
Sam would look into going back to school if Dean agreed that he wouldn’t start until Azazel was dead. Dean said that could be another decade before they were close again, Sam said he couldn’t focus on anything until that one loose end was tied up. Dean said if they didn’t have so much as a lead on the demon or a way to kill him in a year, Sam had to try and move on.
They shook on it, went to bed, and Dean had both his brothers in the car four hours later to go to California.
Sam said he could get his transcripts online, but Dean wanted to check out the beaches, the houses. And if it meant stopping by a law school so Sam could sniff out the campus, maybe get all geeked out over it and actually excited for it, then that was just a happy coincidence.
Plus… Harry lived in a freaking closet and Dean and Sam grew up hunting monsters. When did any of them ever get a chance to just do summer vacation shit?
Never.
So they were going to hit up a beach, Dean was going to put his toes in the sand, and it was going to be awesome.
They had been in the car all day, only stopping for gas, snacks, and lunch. When Dean saw signs for Salt Lake City approaching, he figured it was a good enough place to pull off for the night.
“Wanna see if we can sneak Harry in a bar?” Dean asked his brothers when he took the exit for the city.
Sam, because he just couldn’t help himself, huffed at Dean. Harry perked up and gave Dean his complete attention.
“Like a pub?” Harry asked. “Could I try alcohol that isn’t terrible?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
Half the fun in teasing Harry was getting Sam all riled up over it.
“Dean, he’s fourteen,” Sam said with full force bitch-face. “Quit trying to get him drunk.”
“Oh, c’mon, Sammy, he can have one of your girlie drinks and he’ll probably be out cold,” Dean said, tossing a wink in the mirror for Harry.
“You think anything that isn’t straight whiskey is girlie,” Sam said. “Which one of us had the piña colada with the pink umbrella though?”
“Hey! That was delicious!” Dean defended himself. “And you like IPA’s, Sam. I-freakin’-PA’s.”
“What does any of that mean?” Harry asked.
Dean wouldn’t be a good brother if he just let Harry wander out in the world one day and fall victim to IPA’s. Dean tried to explain the differences in beers, different liquor, all of it while he scouted out the city for a motel close to a place for dinner.
He did kind of doubt that Harry could be smuggled in a bar, but compromise won again when Dean found a Dave & Buster’s.
Arcade games, food, a full bar? What more could a guy ask for on a summer road trip with his brothers?
Dean had a flashy new credit card that he hadn’t spent a dime on yet and used it to book a suite at a hotel, spending twice as much as they usually did on cheap motels.
“You’re going all out,” Sam commented when they carried their bags up to their room.
“Yeah, well.” Dean shrugged, hardly trying to hide his excitement. All Dean and Sam had together were childhood memories tainted by hunts and monsters, fear and often anger.
They lost their dad, Sam lost his girl, Dean lost his fire.
Could a guy be blamed for thinking that gaining a brand new little brother was like being offered a second chance? One that Dean only got because his dad gave him his first second chance?
Dean didn’t want Harry to have all his memories of his brothers wrapped up in injuries or arguments or hunts. Hell, Dean already gave him a black eye, he thought it was fair to give him something a little more cheerful too.
“Was your dad very rich?” Harry asked when Dean let them all in their room for the night.
It was swanky, two queen beds and another full sized pull out sofa bed. Dean tossed his bag on the couch first, doing his brotherly duty to take the shittiest bed. The rest of the room was nice too, clean, probably no bug, a stocked mini-fridge.
“Dad? No,” Sam laughed. He tossed his bag on the bed by the door, leaving Harry in the bed that used to always be Sam’s - the furthest from the door.
“Er… is it rude to ask how you have money and no jobs then?” Harry asked, sitting on his bed with his backpack on his lap and big eyes looking at Sam for an explanation.
Dean smirked at Sam before calling dibs on a shower before they hit the town. If Sam wanted to explain the world of credit card scams to Harry, then Dean was happy to leave him to it.
Actually, it kind of smacked Dean in the face while he whistled to himself in the shower… Dean was just happy.
Something he hadn’t been… in months? Years?
Damn.
It figured that Sam would ruin it for him; maybe Dean should have traded him for a sister.
“This place is awesome,” Dean said that night.
First off, arcade games kicked ass. Secondly, anywhere with burgers and wings and beer was a good time. And third, Dean got a chance to play pool with Harry who didn’t look like he hated it.
Part of that might have been the drinks Dean snuck him when Sam was distracted by Pac-Man, but Dean liked to think maybe the kid was warming up to him.
“You’re good at this,” Harry said after Dean won their second match. When Harry paired his compliment with a blatant glance at Dean’s piña colada (Sam could bite him, they were delicious), Dean laughed and nodded at him.
They lost Sam to a frogger machine an hour ago when Dean spotted the pool table. There were some dart boards Dean wanted to check out too, but not before kicking Harry’s ass again.
“I play a lot,” Dean told him. “I won a contest for it once, five thousand bucks.”
It had been a fluke when Dean entered. It wasn’t long after Sam left for Stanford and Dean spent a lot of time in bars, pissed off at the world. He went to a college bar in some part of Arizona he and Dad were hunting a shifter in.
Dean had been six beers in his evening when he realized there was a tournament happening that night. So, he said screw it, coughed up the fifty dollar entry fee, and won.
Without questioning himself, Dean ditched Dad the next morning to drive to an electronics store. He asked for the best laptop for a college kid and picked the one in red, Sam’s favorite color. It cost him four grand, another sixty to have it delivered to Stanford.
Dean didn’t sign the card, Sam didn’t call.
Life went on.
“That’s… that’s sad,” Harry said after Dean told him about the tournament and his winnings. Harry was holding up decent that game, Dean had been distracted by talking the first two turns, but he scratched on his turn.
“Why didn’t you two talk while Sam was at college?” Harry asked, stepping away so Dean could take a turn. “I thought you wanted him to go to college?”
“I do.” Dean was trying to avoid a sappy moment, but the booze and general good time had his tongue loose. He knelt down to line up his shot and tried to explain in a way that would make sense to anyone else.
“Sam didn’t just leave hunting, leave Dad, he left me.” Dean hit the balls just right, sending two of his stripes in different pockets. When Dean straightened up to give Harry shit, he saw Sam standing across the table from him.
Sam stood there with a cellphone in his hand and a look of apprehension on his face.
“Dean…” Sam started, his voice thin.
“Hey, you want to take my next turn?” Dean asked quickly, cutting off whatever Sam wanted to say.
It was old shit, they didn’t need to rehash it. Dean was just trying to explain some of it to Harry.
“No, I…” Sam held up the phone and shrugged his shoulders up while he looked at the floor. “Ash called, wanted to give us a case.”
“You told him no?” Dean asked sharply. He had sank two balls, getting another turn, and he took it while Sam made little nervous-Sam noises.
“I told him that we’d do it…”
“God damn it.” Dean missed the shot and didn’t miss the way that Harry mumbled something about a loo before darting off in the crowded building, leaving Dean to glare at Sam and Sam to avoid his glare.
“Sam, what part of ‘Azazel related shit only’ did you not understand?” Dean demanded. It was part of the freaking compromise they made not even twenty-four hours ago.
“It might be,” Sam said, a weak excuse. He looked at Dean through his messy ass bangs and a kid that was four inches (okay, maybe five) taller than Dean shouldn’t be able to look so small. “Ash thinks it’s hellhounds.”
“Hellhounds?” Dean grabbed his drink - freaking Harry drank most of it - and finished it off. Hellhounds did indicate demon… but that didn’t mean Azazel.
Dean should have made his side of the ‘compromise’ a little more clear.
“And where are these hellhounds?” Dean asked, just knowing they wouldn’t be in California.
“Uh… just outside Baton Rouge.”
So the opposite direction of where they were headed… awesome.
“And they’ve killed two people already…” Sam added.
“Sam, damn you.” Dean groaned and slapped his pool stick on the table, messing up the game in progress.
Those people weren’t Dean’s problem, not his responsibility. Sam and Harry, they were Dean’s responsibility.
But Dean’s responsibility didn’t include beach trips… not if there were freaking hellhounds destroying a town and Dean could do something to help.
“Ash said that Ellen said we could drop Harry off with her, so we don’t have to waste time backtracking to Bobby’s,” Sam said, seeing the defeat in Dean’s glare. “What do you wanna do?”
“Can I go?”
Dean and Sam turned at the same time to see that Harry just happened to return in time to butt in the middle of a conversation right when he was mentioned.
That kid was so a Mini Sam and Dean was screwed.
Dean flat refused to check out of the hotel early. Compromise, his ass. If they were pushing the vacation part of the road trip off to go take down some hellhounds, then Dean was at least going to enjoy one night in a hotel.
Also they didn’t offer refunds and they already paid for the room.
“Dean? Dean?”
Dean had passed out on the bed - if Sam was ruining his plans, then he could have the lumpy ass couch-bed - and startled awake when someone shook his shoulder. Dean flipped around, pulling his knife from beneath his pillow, only to drop it on the bed when he saw who woke him.
And half a second after seeing that Harry woke him, Dean heard why.
Sam was curled up small on the pull-out bed, his shoulders shaking, quiet cries spilling from his mouth.
“Damn it, Sam.” Dean jumped out of bed and zeroed in on Sam. Sam had been better, when they were at Bobby’s and nobody was bringing up old shit or taking new cases, but Sam always bottled his shit up while he was awake, letting it break free when he slept.
Dean sat on the edge of Sam’s bed and started rubbing his back, trying to wake him up without freaking him out.
When Dean first picked Sam up, after Jessica died, it was a nightly occurrence. It got better, then Dad died. It got worse, then Harry showed up. It got better, and now they were going after hellhounds.
There was a reason that Dean liked to drink before bed, it kept his mind clear.
Sam quieted down after a few minutes of Dean saying nothing of importance and Harry watching silently from the foot of his bed.
“Sam sleeps like shit,” Dean said, standing up and stretching his back when it seemed like Sam was through whatever shit he’d been dreaming about. “Go back to bed, kid. He should be good now.”
“Er… alright,” Harry said. When the kid raised his hand to rub at his forehead, Dean narrowed his eyes at him.
“Dude, you were not already awake,” Dean said tiredly, recognizing eyes that were too clear to be freshly woken. “Tell me you weren’t.”
“Okay, I wasn’t,” Harry agreed too easily.
“Fuckin’ insomniacs,” Dean groaned. He collapsed face-down on his bed and checked the alarm clock, ten til five. “Go to sleep, kid, we only have a couple more hours of nice beds and air conditioning.”
“Okay. Night, Dean.”
Dean grunted, “Night, kid.”
When Dean woke up to the alarm at seven, he was pretty sure Harry didn’t go back to sleep and Sam was already showering.
If they were Dean’s responsibility, he was screwing up big time.
Hunt the hellhounds or drag dumb and dumber to California, saying fuck duty? Get the insomniac, nerdy, tall-and-short duo to a nice sunny beach or maybe get one step closer to finishing off Azazel and being done with the whole family business?
Damn Sam for bringing up the people killed already, and damn Dad for raising Dean to be a soldier first, brother second. And damn Harry for- for…
“You need to start sleeping,” Dean snapped at Harry over his shoulder.
They had packed up the hotel that they didn’t even get a chance to really unpack in and hit the road first thing that morning. Sam had been on his phone the whole drive so far, researching to make sure it was hellhounds and not a werewolf or something. Dean had been pissed the whole time, warring with himself and making it the other two’s problem.
“I do sleep,” Harry said, crossing his arms and snapping right back at Dean. “Sorry you snore loud and Sam- er… you two are loud,” he finished weakly, giving the back of Sam’s head a concerned look.
Sure, Dean got insulted and Sam got tiptoed around. That was just the sort of thing Dean expected from Sammy Junior in the back.
“No, you stay awake because you’re filled with freaking secrets and can’t sleep,” Dean corrected him, taking his frustration out on the wrong brother. Not that Sam deserved it either really, but Sam could shoulder it better than Harry.
“Filled with secrets?” Harry demanded, sounding just as offended as Sam always was. “That doesn’t keep people awake! And I didn’t realize you were such an open book!”
“I AM THE ONLY OPEN BOOK IN THIS ENTIRE CAR!” Dean yelled.
Sam looked up from his phone, relaxed and calm, and raised an eyebrow at where Dean fumed in the driver’s seat.
“You wanna talk about when I left for Stanford?” Sam asked sarcastically, knowing damn well Dean didn’t.
“No, I don’t wanna talk about when you left for Stanford,” Dean growled, gripping Baby’s steering wheel a little harder than necessary.
“Will you tell us why you were apologizing to your dad in your sleep last night?” Harry asked. He smiled when he caught Dean’s eye. “Since you’re such a bloody open book.”
“Were you?” Sam asked, surprised and concerned and nosy all at once.
Dean glared at Harry in the rearview mirror and decided that Harry was literally Samuel William Winchester 2.0, shorter and British-er. From the smirky look in his eyes, to the crossed arms, to the complete bitch-fest attitude he had - that kid was pure Sam.
Dean had to remind himself that he wasn’t actually Sam though, because if it was Sam - the kid he practically raised - Dean would tell him to shut up before he blacked his other eye. There was no way that Dean and Harry were close enough for Dean to say that to and not have the kid twitching all the time, even if Dean totally thought he had nailed bonding the night before.
“New rule,” Dean announced, “Sam and Sam Junior shut the hell up, I drive, and when we get there, nobody get attacked by demon-dogs, got it?”
Dean didn’t even wait for an agreement from either of them. Knowing Sam - yep. Sam rolled his eyes and went back to his phone. And Sammy Junior in the back - yep. He huffed, uncrossed his arms, and snagged the book he’d been reading out from under the seat and shifted around to lean on the door, stretch his legs out, and went right back to reading.
Bitches, both of ‘em.