“This isn’t news, dude.”
September 20
Dean smoothed his hand down the rail of his porch and nodded. It was a bitch and a half to get the old wood just how he wanted it, but damn if it wasn’t worth it.
While Sam and Harry had been off at Magic Town, Dean had been busy actually working. Yeah, it was for his house, but that made it twice as vindicating when it was finished.
Dean thought Bobby might want to help, the old man loved building shit. Bobby turned him down and went off on a hunt, which made Dean uneasy.
Bobby had been a hunter as long as Dean had been alive, longer even. Dad had only been dead for a few months though, proving that even the best hunters could die.
Hunters had a shorter lifespan than most, Dean didn’t like Bobby going off on hunts on his own. If Sam and Harry weren’t off in no-phone, no-contact zone, Dean would have offered to go with him.
Bobby snapped off when Dean suggested he get his hunting buddy, Rufus, to go with him and so Dean kept his trap shut. It didn’t mean Dean hadn’t been real glad to see Bobby return home the day after his brothers though.
It was like a damned full time job, trying to keep track of everyone.
Everyone had been there when Dean moved his porch pieces from Bobby’s garage to Dean’s house though. Dean felt like he did when Sam graduated high school - like a proud papa.
The porch couldn’t rush off for college in Bum Fuck California though, so Dean silently checked it over every time he went outside. It was nice, kinda homey. A shit ton better than the plain stairs he started with, anyway.
Sam liked it too. Dean had found him outside on the porch, parked in a camping chair - Dean would make a bench next, maybe even a little table - both mornings since he returned from Harry’s tutoring weekend.
Sam was out there again, Harry was still asleep, and Dean snagged himself a chair to park down beside his brother.
“Pretty, isn’t she?” Dean asked Sam, rubbing his hand over the smooth wood. He didn’t stain it, leaving it light colored with some protective clear coat, because when Dean painted the trailer it would contrast real nicely.
“Hm?” Sam was hidden behind a newspaper and didn’t seem to even hear Dean.
Dean sighed. “Dude, the porch? You do like it, right?”
“What? Oh, yeah.”
Dean waited a beat and then he reached out and snatched the newspaper from Sam’s hands. He only meant to do it to get Sammy’s attention, maybe some praise for the porch Dean built for their home, but he jerked back when he caught a glimpse of what Sam had been hiding behind the paper.
Sam ducked his head, but not before Dean saw the swollen eyes, the wet cheeks.
“Sam, what the hell?” Dean asked seriously. “You good?”
It was a dumb question, cause Sam clearly wasn’t good. Sam didn’t usually sit outside crying, not for a while. Dean though it was getting better, that Sam was finally starting to heal up from the bruises life kicked all over him.
Harry even said Sam talked to a chick over the weekend. That was a big deal for Sam!
So why the tears?
“I’m fine.” Sam kept his face turned from Dean and Dean heard the hoarseness in his voice then. Dean kinda wished Harry would wake up, the kid had been practicing some magic spell the last few days where he had crap zooming across the trailer every twenty minutes.
It had been driving Dean nuts. It would be useful then though, Dean could get Sam some water without having to leave him outside to emo-spiral alone.
Nobody could spiral like Sam Winchester. Dean spent a lot of time when Sam was in high school making sure he wasn’t hurting himself when he found out some kids would cut themselves - course that was before Sam found running.
Dean fucking hated when Sam started running. The kid would call it exercise and return hours later to whatever shithole they were staying in soaked in sweat, barely breathing.
Exercise, Dean’s ass. It was just Sam’s favorite way to hurt himself, and it made him hard to catch when Dean wanted to too.
“This about Jessica?” Dean asked. That wasn’t unusual, Sam loved his girl. Maybe a few days around some other chick - Harry said the chick had pink hair, Dean said Sam and Mini-Sam had a type and nobody laughed - had brought up feelings or whatever.
“Jess? No.” Sam laughed, a hollow sound that tore at Dean’s chest. “Read the paper, Harry’s fucking article came out.”
Dean looked down at the paper he forgot he stole and couldn’t help but feel nervous. The kid had been waiting on that article since he got home. If they screwed it up badly enough that Sam was crying, and cussing, then it must be shit.
Which meant that Harry was going to be freshly pissed off at Dean.
Dean read the article. Then he read it again in case he skipped something somewhere. Sam watched silently while Dean read it a third time.
It wasn’t bad, at all.
Hell, it made every person involved sound freaking awesome. Dean couldn’t be sure, he’d have to wait until Harry read it, but he thought even the stuff about Sirius being framed was true. The only bullshit that Dean could detect was that Harry said he didn’t know where Sirius was but ‘the charming muggleborn, Hermione Granger’ was quoted by saying how unfair it was that Sirius never got a trial.
Yeah, it was a little heavy on bashing the government, but who cared about them? They screwed up, they got their asses called out for it.
And, best of all, nobody called Harry’s mom a slut.
“What? You think Sirius is going to get his name cleared and take Harry?” Dean asked Sam, guessing at what caused the waterworks.
Dean was worried that he’d try, sure, but Sam should have known that Dean wouldn’t let some dude who didn’t know his days of the week take their brother.
“What? No.” Sam scoffed and even while he was crying, his eyes were hard. “Did you read the shit about John?”
Dean raised an eyebrow at Sam’s choice of words and double checked what he already read three times.
“It said Dad hunted ‘dark creatures’ and saved a lot of lives,” Dean said as he read. “He met Harry’s parents, Harry’s mom thought he was handsome and brave and Harry’s dad ‘didn’t prescribe to ideals of monogamy’.”
That was funny, the kid was going to pop a cork when he read that. Nobody wanted to think about their parents’s sex life, but Harry was gonna have to read about it… again.
“And then it goes on and on about what a good man John was, how he was so great that Lily Potter couldn’t help but admire him.”
That was a stretch, there were three sentences that said Dad had hunted dark creatures, saved lives, and been handsome. So what?
“So what?” Dean asked. If he had a table, he’d throw the paper on it. Dean didn’t get what Sam’s issue was and it was starting to piss him off.
Who cared what someone wrote about their dad? Dad had been a good looking man, he’d saved lives and hunted monsters too. It was a hell of a lot nicer than the last article about Harry.
“So what?” Sam laughed again, sarcastic and mean. It made Dean tense up, sure that Sam was about to say something hateful that was going to piss Dean off more. “Dean, he wanted me dead,” Sam drawled slowly, like a smack to Dean’s face. “Forgive me for not wanting to see him talked about like some hero in the news.”
Sam spit the words like poison in his mouth. Like Dean forgot? Like Dean didn’t remember every freaking day that Dad - the man that Dean admired, respected, and resented in equal measure - told Dean to kill his own brother?
Like that shit didn’t weigh in Dean’s mind every time Sam even looked like he was getting a headache?
“Oh, come off it,” Dean scoffed carelessly. “He’s dead and you’re not, Sam. You win, alright? And this?” Dean held the paper up, shaking it in Sam’s face. “This isn’t news, dude. This is the same paper that called Harry’s mom a whore a few weeks ago.”
Dean thought it was even the same reporter. It made him wonder how much weight Harry’s name carried that she changed her tune as soon as Harry asked her to. It probably didn’t hurt any that she got a chance to call Harry her ‘close friend who trusted no one else with his truth’.
Vulture.
Dean liked the part where Harry’s name was recorded as Potter-Winchester though. It was a mouthful, but it was right. Dean even liked the part where Harry said he told some dude named Fudge that Sirius was innocent, but had been ignored. That matched up with the photo accompanying the article - Harry with his jacket on, a crooked half-smile, and his eyes amused - made the kid look like a rebel.
It was kind of awesome.
“It’s a newspaper for an entire community that John would have burned to the ground if he could have!” Sam yelled. He jumped to his feet and Dean hated the heat in his eyes, the hurt that was there.
Dean had his own issues to ignore, he couldn’t always take on Sam’s. Especially not when they came to Dad. They didn’t talk about Dad because it always led to a fight, even when they were kids. Sam needed to learn to shut the fuck up on occasion.
“Those people? Calling John a hero?” Sam shook his head then smiled bitterly, not shutting up but just getting started. “He would have been happy to see them all as dead as he wanted me. He would have called them freaks or monsters and said they had to die and he would have had you help him! Then - then! He would have put a fucking bullet in my head, Dean.”
That was a lie. Dad wouldn’t have killed Sam, he would have tried to make Dean do it. Sam had always been Dean’s responsibility.
“Oh.”
Dean and Sam both turned at the same time to see that they weren’t alone anymore. And what better timing than when Sam was screaming about how much Dad hated freaky shit?
Harry stood in the doorway of the trailer, one of Dean’s old t-shirts paired up with some grey sweats. His bird, the thing that Dean actually sorta liked, looked tired on Harry’s shoulder as it peered at Dean with half-closed eyes. Harry didn’t look tired at all, he looked hurt.
Dean could not handle two brothers crying on him already. It wasn’t even nine am yet, for Christ’s sake.
“Harry, hey.” Dean forced a smile and a casual tone. “You just wake up? There’s biscuits and gravy on the stove.”
Harry didn’t answer Dean’s stupid offer, because it was stupid and Harry just heard Sam screaming about how their dad thought Harry came from a freak community and he’d happily see Harry and all his friends dead.
Awesome.
“So it’s true? If I got to meet our dad he really would have hated me?” Harry asked, looking directly at Dean.
Why Dean? Sam was the one screaming the shit!
“I don’t…” Dean ran a hand through his hair and breathed out heavily. He couldn’t lie to Harry’s face, he did it to his chest. “Dude, I’ve got no idea. He’s gone though, okay?” Dean could look up then. “He’s gone and nobody here wants you dead and nobody wants Sam dead either.”
And that was the only truth that mattered.
“Screw this.” Sam slapped the paper from Dean’s hand, knocking it to the porch floor. “And screw them for calling John some big fucking hero when HE WAS A SHITTY PERSON, A TERRIBLE FATHER, AND AN ABUSIVE PIECE OF SHIT!”
Dean’s chin was touching his chest he’d dropped it so far. Never, ever, did Sam - they didn’t…
They didn’t just say shit like that!
Sam didn’t even use the stairs Dean spent hours building after saying all that crap, he just grabbed the incredibly sturdy railing - Dean couldn’t even appreciate his own freaking craftsmanship when Sam - he - they did not say that shit!
Sam stormed across the yard, slid in his car, and Dean watched him drive away while his brain tried to catch up with what was happening. Dean’s heart was hammering away like he was being chased by a werewolf on a full moon, but his tongue was thick and useless.
Why the fuck would Sam say that?
“Dean?”
Dean looked over on automatic and saw Harry - who looked so damn much like Dad - standing beside him. Harry must have picked up the paper because it was clenched in his hand. The kid looked a little sick when he looked up at Dean and Dean needed to tell him that Sam was a liar, Sam was just making shit up to say because he was hurting.
“I’ll be in the garage,” Dean said. Meant to say? He didn’t know. Sam had him so pissed off - it was the unbroken rule between them that they didn’t say stupid shit that didn’t need said - he didn’t even know which way was up anymore.
Dean didn’t hop the railing, he walked briskly down the steps. He didn’t have shoes on, didn’t need ‘em. All Dean needed was to cross the yard, step over the salt line around the garage, and lock the door behind him.
The garage was sound-proof, it had to be with all the shit Bobby got up to in there. It was good, the sound-proofing, it meant that when Dean started screaming and throwing anything he could touch - nobody could hear him.
Dean could break shit until he couldn’t breathe - break shit until he didn’t feel so damned broken - and it was fine.
It was all fine.
They didn’t say shit like that.
Dean didn’t know how long he spent trashing the garage, but it was taking him a hell of a long time to fix it all. He hobbled along, limping with the gash on the bottom of his foot, trying to clean the shit up.
The place wasn’t as bad by the time Bobby showed up. If the scrap metal pile was bigger than usual and there were a few busted windshields, well Bobby must have decided they weren’t worth commenting on.
Bobby watched Dean clean the wound on his foot and wrap it with some gauze in an old first aid kit. Dean didn’t need to say anything to him, Bobby would say what he wanted when he was ready.
It didn’t take long.
“I don’t get involved in your business cause I know you can handle it,” Bobby said. He had a shoulder leaning against one of the support beams and Dean didn’t look at him. Dean knew what he would see - Bobby would be hiding all his warm and fuzzy feelings beneath a stiff posture and gruff act of tough love.
“But it’d be damn stupid of me to think that you’re handlin’ this, Dean.”
“Nothing to handle,” Dean muttered. Dean was calm then, collected. It wasn’t any different than a hunt - Dean’s adrenaline had gotten jacked up, he destroyed something to fix it. The adrenaline was gone and Dean was playing clean up.
It was a routine as old as Dean himself was.
“That so?”
Bobby went silent then and Dean knew he was being baited. Bobby wanted Dean to unload all his feelings and they would talk about it and then maybe hug - a violin would play and someone would cry. They’d go skipping off in the sunset and everyone would live happily ever after.
Dean didn’t do chick flicks and he didn’t look at Bobby either.
“You want to hear this the hard way? Fine.” Bobby shifted and crossed his arms, Dean could see it from the edge of his vision even though he was focusing hard on the bandage he wrapped around his foot. It was fine, he didn’t need to keep going, there was just nothing else to do with his hands.
“Your daddy did his damage to you boys, good intentions or not,” Bobby said firmly. “Sam’s allowed to be feeling any way he wants, God knows that boy didn’t have it easy when it came to John. And you can sit there and tell me that you’re fine till you’re blue in the face, but you got your scars too, Dean.”
Dean’s head snapped up and he glared at Bobby.
“My dad never put a scar on me,” Dean told him, growling with the effort to not scream. “Not once, Bobby.”
Dean had plenty of scars, but none of them came from John Winchester. Not a single one.
There were fights, Dean wouldn’t say it never turned to blows, but Dean could hold his own when he got old enough. Those fights were rare, few and far between. They’d be over just as quick as they started too, Dean and John usually sporting a busted lip, a bloodied nose, one black eye between them.
Sam got smacked a few times when he ran his mouth, but Dean laid Dad out the one time he saw him actually swing a fist at Sam. It had been a shitty choice on his part after a hunt that killed a hell of a lot more people than were saved. Dad had been drunk, Sam had been sullen, and Dean stepped in before anything went too far.
So Sam could take his abuse bullshit and shove it up his ass. Nobody abused him.
“Dean.” Bobby had Dean’s gaze and he wouldn’t drop it and Dean couldn’t back down. “I ain’t just talkin’ about scars on the outside.”
Dean licked his lips, imagined he could taste blood. If everyone around him didn’t stop saying shit they weren’t supposed to then Dean was going to die real young with a heart attack.
A stroke? Something.
“He traded his life for mine,” Dean said, whispering it without meaning to. Someone had to get it, someone had to understand that Dean’s problems with his dad died when Dad did.
That man made a deal with the demon he’d dedicated two decades to tracking for Dean. If that didn’t make up for almost anything, Dean didn’t know what did.
“He loved you boys, I ain’t debatin’ that. In his way, John loved ya. But, Dean,” Bobby shook his head and there was pity on his face, “love ain’t always enough. Get some damn shoes on and come get your brother, I can’t take the hootin’ and feathers in my kitchen.”
Dean watched Bobby walk away and he didn’t say a word. Not one damn word. Not until the door closed and the crack in Dean’s chest splintered him right in half.
God damn everyone for saying shit they weren’t supposed to.
Dean made his way back to the trailer to get a shower and shoes before he went to track down Harry. Chances were, the kid was confused by the screaming, hurt by the shit Sam said.
It wasn’t like it mattered, that was what Dean decided he would tell Harry. It didn’t matter if John would have shot down his wizard son or not because John wasn’t there. Dean was there, Sam was there, Bobby was there.
And none of them were shooting either of the Winchesters that were a bit different, Sam or Harry.
Dean stalled some after his shower by making a cup of coffee. Dean didn’t drink the shit with a straw, like Sam could, but he figured he’d need the caffeine if he was bone tired and it wasn’t even noon yet.
And if Dean added two shots of whiskey to the cup, he’d damn well earned it.
Sam’s mustang wasn’t in the drive when Dean crossed the yard to get to Bobby’s. That car had been a bad idea, Sam could drive himself to all sorts of trouble with it. If he’d been stuck on two feet, there was only so far he could get.
It wouldn’t be a bad idea to invest in some sort of tracking system, like the used car lots used for sales on payments. Then Sam could go clear his head all he wanted and Dean would still know where he was.
An idea for when Sam made it back, anyway. Dean knew he would come back eventually. Sam might be a little worse for the wear, there was no telling how he’d choose to work off his shit, but he’d come home eventually.
They had a home and a kid brother and Sam had to return to all of it, to Dean. Sam would return to Dean cause he always did.
Harry sat in Bobby’s kitchen with his back tense, looking like every muscle in his body was tight. Dean could see him through the window he passed to get to the back door and he finished off his Irish coffee before he went inside.
Dean kept himself loose, setting the example, and nodded at his brother when he walked in the kitchen.
“What a day,” Dean chuckled, pointedly not commenting on the paper or mirror on the table in front of Harry. “You eat something yet?” he asked, turning his back to drop the dirty mug in the sink.
It was probably Bobby’s anyway, they had their dishes mixed together so much that Dean didn’t bother keeping track.
“Harry?” Dean braced himself on the counter and turned to face the kid. Harry didn’t answer him, only shrugged when he could feel Dean looking at him.
“I’m fine.” Harry looked up and, yeah, he seemed fine. There weren’t any tears or anger in his eyes, just a shadow of curiosity. It was curiosity that was going to go unsatisfied though because Dean had screamed in the garage until his throat tore and he ran out of sounds.
The whiskey helped, it soothed Dean’s throat and coated his raw nerves, but Dean wasn’t feeling overly chatty.
“Where’s Bobby?” Dean asked. He figured he’d be in the kitchen with Harry, talking or whatever.
“I think he’s impersonating an FBI agent on the phone.” Harry’s eyebrows scrunched down and Dean grinned.
At least the kid didn’t seem to want to jump in some big talk.
“C’mon then.” Dean looked around until he found Hedwig on top of the fridge and he clicked his tongue at her. “You too, bird brain. You’re shedding on Bobby’s cereal.”
“Hedwig does not shed,” Harry said hotly as he stood up and started to gather his crap. It only took a short whistle for Harry to have Hedwig flying to him and resting on his shoulder. Harry smiled and pet her feathers affectionately with his free hand. “You don’t shed, do you? No. You molt.”
Dean snorted and felt the sickness crawling in his stomach lighten at Harry’s normalcy. If they made a quick exit, if Sam worked his shit off before he returned, then it could be a normal day.
A lazy day, Dean decided. He wasn’t going back in the garage, Harry wasn’t doing homework, Sam wasn’t going to look for cases. They had plenty of freaking excitement for one day and Dean didn’t feel like doing jack for the rest of it.
There were some frozen meals in the freezer, snacks in the cabinets, booze above the sink. Dean still didn’t have a TV for the living room, but Bobby gave him an old box TV that Dean put in his room.
They could just veg out and cool it.
Cool everything.
Harry didn’t argue with Dean’s plan after they escaped Bobby’s without some dramatic speeches. In fact, Dean was pleased that Harry seemed relieved with the idea.
Clearly the kid didn’t want to talk about any of it almost as much as Dean didn’t.
Dean grabbed the bottle of whiskey for himself, a bottle of coke for Harry. Harry grabbed a half-empty bag of chips and a plate of pizza rolls he nuked in the microwave.
There weren’t many channels they could pick from, but Dean settled in when an old western movie was found.
“I always wanted to be a cowboy.” Dean grinned and chased down the pizza roll with a swig off his bottle. He and Harry were laid back on Dean’s bed - crumbs be damned - and it was good.
It was all good and would be even better when Sam got back.
“Why?” Harry asked. “It doesn’t look very fun.”
“Course it is!” Dean argued, still grinning. “Look, they show up, they kick ass. Then they save the chick and ride their horse in the sunset.”
There were no gray areas. There weren’t any good vampires or asshole hunters. No demons, no brothers with powers.
John Wayne just showed up, kicked ass, and looked damn good doing it.
“I’d make a great cowboy,” Dean bragged. He nudged Harry playfully with his shoulder. “You can be my deputy.”
“I’m a terrible shot,” Harry said, nodding at where a shootout happened on the TV. “Sam would be a better deputy.”
“Pft.” Dean waved that off. “Sam’s been deputy long enough.” He winked at Harry, teasing him. “There’s a new sheriff in town, partner.”
Harry laughed and handed Dean another pizza roll from the plate on his knee.
“Not many British cowboys,” Harry pointed out.
“Eh, you’re American now, it’s fine.”
Harry laughed and it made Dean laugh. It was stupid; hell, they were stupid. Harry had his two liter of coke, Dean had his fifth of jack. It was almost eight years ago, when Dean had been freshly eighteen and Sammy had been an innocent fourteen.
They used to hang out, they used to be friends and brothers. More days than not, they only had each other and, more days than not, it was enough.
“Sammy hates westerns,” Dean told Harry while stealing another pizza roll. “Anything without aliens or technology in it bores the hell out of him.”
“Those are good too,” Harry said, easily taking the place of peacekeeper. “I liked the race car one we watched, it was good.”
“Fast and Furious?” Dean asked. “Atta boy,” he ruffled Harry’s hair when he nodded, getting an elbow to the side. “Remind me when I’m sober that you gotta start learning to drive. Your totally not girlfriend will be more impressed by a classic car than a broomstick.”
Harry turned red as a tomato and Dean felt nostalgic again. The kid was so much like Sam had been at his age, it was like Dean was reading the same script with a new partner.
Why’d Sam have to go and bring up all that shit? Why couldn’t he just - just keep thoughts like that in his head? It didn’t fix anything by screaming it, it just made everything worse.
Dean had to knock back half the bottle before he stopped feeling like he was on a tricky hunt. Bobby surely had his own thoughts on the matter. And even if Harry was laughing about dumb stuff and blushing over his little girlfriend, Dean was sure he had questions.
And sure enough…
“I do not have a girlfriend,” Harry said with a Sam-like toss of his eyes. He was quiet for a few seconds, lulling Dean in a sense of peace before he struck. “Hey, Dean? Can I ask you something?”
Dean propped his arm on Harry’s head so he could take a drink before agreeing.
“Was Sam right?” Harry asked. He turned his head to try and catch Dean’s skittering gaze. “Er… about your dad? And him not - not really being very nice… to you?”
Dean opened his mouth to tell Harry to shut up, same as he would if it were Sam. But whiskey that had been soothing his nerves, calming him, made him slow, gave him time to think.
Dean didn’t have to tell Harry to shut up, he could get him to do it voluntarily.
“Your uncle you lived with, was he a real nice guy?” Dean asked, knowing he wasn’t. Harry told the Michaela chick that he bullied Harry, Dean could do basic addition. Happy teens didn’t run from home to meet a family they didn’t know based on the word of a crazy guy. And loving relatives who cared about their nephew’s safety would have reported it, went nuts trying to find him.
“Er… not particularly, no,” Harry said. He cleared his throat and quickly popped a pizza roll in his mouth. “Westerns aren’t bad, maybe I’d be a cowboy after all.”
Dean smirked as he settled in to watch the movie with Harry.
As much as Dean called him Mini-Sam, there was something to be said about Harry taking after Dean a decent amount.
Poor kid.
Sam didn’t return home for a while, but he was good at checking in. Dean got a phone call twice a day for eight days before Sam finally dragged his ass home on the ninth day.
Dean and Harry had a good productive few days without him. Which was a dick thing to think, but still true.
Dean started building the bench and table he wanted for the porch with Bobby and Harry helping. When Dean would get fed up with his own ‘measure once, cut once, fuck up twice’ methods, he switched to working on one of the junk cars on the lot.
Bobby had a ‘86 Buick that needed a new cat, a few replaced tires, and a power steering pump to get back in driving shape. As soon as it could be on the road, Dean started teaching Harry to drive.
And the kid was a damned riot behind the wheel of a car. Harry clutched the steering while like their lives were on the line at the whopping thirty he would max himself out at. If Dean so much as touched the radio or breathed too loudly, Harry would start yelling.
“DO YOU WANT TO WRECK?!”
They only had half a bench, a crooked table, and two driving lessons in before Sam returned.
Dean looked up from the homework Harry asked him to proofread - Dean was so not the person to ask to check grammar, but the right person hadn’t been home at the time - and Dean looked his brother over as he walked in the door and took off his boots.
Sam looked tired, but he always looked tired. There wasn’t anything too different, just an unexpected hesitance to the curl of his shoulders.
“Sam!” Harry sat at the dining table with Dean and looked up from the other essay he worked on with a big smile for Sam. “You’re back!”
“Yeah,” Sam returned Harry’s smile, though Dean knew he was looking at him for a reaction.
Dean didn’t have one give him. Sam was an adult; if he needed a few days to cool off, then whatever. All Dean had wanted was to know Sam was safe and Sam checked in every day so Dean had nothing to bitch about.
“Where you been?” Dean asked casually.
“Uh…” Sam walked toward them and rocked back on his heels. “New York, actually.”
That caught Dean’s attention.
“Oh yeah?” Dean shoved Harry’s essay toward him with a shrug. Dean didn’t see any issues with it, but Sam proofread Dean’s shit for as long as Dean could remember.
“Yeah…”
Sam had his nervous puppy act going on. He wasn’t looking square at either of them, he was rocking still. Sam never could hide shit from Dean, not really.
“Sammy, what’s going on?” Dean asked slowly.
“I… I got a job.”
Sam went to New York and got a job? In New York?
“You did what?” Dean blurted out. If Sam drove clear back to South Dakota to tell Dean that he was moving to New York because Dean hadn’t jumped up to ride the ‘We Hate John Winchester’ bandwagon with him then Dean was kicking his ass.
“Here, look.” Sam pulled a hand out of his pocket and tossed an ID card on the table. Harry, little shit, tried to take it, but Dean was quicker.
Dean picked it up and nearly grinned at the horrible picture of Sam in the corner of it. Then he read it. Then Dean scrubbed his eyes with one hand so he could read it again.
And, like he did with the paper that started everything, Dean even read it a third time to be sure he read it right.
“‘Sam Winchester, dark creature hunter’,” Dean read the large print. There was smaller print too, in black letters across the bottom of the card. “‘Employee of the Magical Congress of the United States of America’.”
Dean looked from the card he held to his brother and he didn’t even know what to say to that. Honestly, he didn’t think Sam had ever done something so fucking stupid in his life.
“You turned hunting into a government job?!”
Clearly Dean was going to have to help Harry with that grammar after all, cause Sam was out of his fucking mind.