“What is your problem?”
October 1
“I told you - I just applied for the job!”
“You just went and applied for a freaking magical job?!”
Sam sent Dean a disbelieving look out of the corner of his eye.
How was that so hard to understand? They had lived inside the magical (‘supernatural’) world their entire lives. If there were families of vampires who drank cow blood and poltergeists who ran motels to lure in victims - why couldn’t there be people who were actually paid to keep it all in check?
“Yes, Dean,” Sam said patiently, for the tenth time, at least. “I applied for a magical job.”
Kind of.
Technically, Sam applied to be an auror. After talking with Tonks, Sam figured he was more than qualified.
Truthfully, it had been the easiest thing Sam had ever done. It took some cunning, some luck, and much too minimal effort. Tonks told him where the government office for the United States magical branch was located and Sam just… waited to find someone who let him in.
Sam might have told the wizard in a suit that he was looking for his brother, Harry Potter, who told him to meet him there. Harry wasn’t there though, so thankfully he’d never know how much Sam dropped his name.
Sam had then made it through an application process and two interviews before he even had to reveal he wasn’t actually a wizard. It was embarrassing, for them, how easily Sam talked around their questions.
“Where did you complete your education?”
“My recent degree is a bachelor’s in pre-law from Stanford University.”
“And do you have any prior experience or education in this field?”
“My father taught me everything I know.”
“Was your father an auror?”
“He hunted dark creatures for my entire life.”
It was almost fun, in a way. Sam just used all his experience of telling half-truths and all of the interview practice he had when he had been applying to law schools to make it clear to the final stage of the interview process.
Then they asked to see Sam’s wand, run a ‘standard screening’ and he had to say he didn’t have one, never had.
That was when Sam maybe used his little brother’s name to not get tossed out on his ass.
“I knew the name sounded familiar.” The woman who had been interviewing Sam, the ‘Head Auror’, snapped her fingers and nodded at her two coworkers. “I thought he was related to Diana, on the educational board?”
“Harry Potter is really your brother?” The man that first interviewed Sam tried to save face. “That explains how you had so much knowledge to get through the exam.”
Sam gave him a polite smile and added a puzzled tone to top off the act.
“Sir, I only met my brother in June. I passed your exam because I’ve been doing this job since I could walk.”
When they told Sam that they would ‘discuss his qualifications’, Sam assumed he was being written off politely. It made the freaking Head of Magical Defense reaching out to Sam by showing up at the motel he rented one hell of a shock.
After the meeting ended, Sam was the first officially employed hunter. As far as Sam, or his new boss knew, Sam was the first ‘muggle’ on MACUSA’s payroll.
Would the first muggle working for the wizarding government lead a demon army? No.
It was incredibly cool, which explained why Dean was such a dick about it.
Sam got a full ride to Stanford (while attending roughly twenty different schools in his lifetime too)? Nobody cared. It was just Sam betraying the family.
Sam found a way to turn hunting in a legitimate job? One that came with direct deposits, a 401K, and freaking medical insurance? Oh, but Sam was a fed and feds sucked.
“I honestly thought you’d want to apply too,” Sam huffed at his older brother. Sam was driving and didn’t feel like extending too much energy to arguing, he just didn’t want put down for taking one thing he was good at and monetizing it.
“Me? Work for the government? I’m legally dead, Sam,” Dean said irritably. He’d been like that since Sam got home. Sam wanted to be excited for his first official case, the first one he would get paid for, and Dean was being a jerk.
It was similar to a freelance position, one that paid a salary every month as long as Sam could show he put in at least forty hours a week toward cases. If one case took all forty hours in a week, then Sam only had to do one. But his boss said that Sam closing cases ‘quickly and quietly’ would lead to a pay increase and Sam was eager to prove himself.
Prove himself outside of Harry Potter’s brother, since he was fairly certain that was at least half of the reason he got the job. Another part might have been that the Head Auror and her assistant thought Sam would ‘be a perfect fit’ right up until they discovered he wasn’t a wizard.
Man, that really had to be embarrassing for them. It had lifted Sam right up out of the funk he’d been in before then too.
Regardless of how he got the job or who had been embarrassed because of it, Sam didn’t plan on having anyone regret hiring him. He had set out to find a good first case immediately after he got home and what was better than a string of high-end bank robberies by employees?
According to what Sam pieced together, there had been three banks in Milwaukee that were robbed by employees. The issue was that Sam didn’t think it was a coincidence that three unrelated employees decided to rob their places of employment in the same week. The other issue was that all three of those employees were found dead not much longer after the robbery happened - not a single one with a cent to their name.
It was suspicious and reeked of something unnatural happening. Sam jumped to take it and was surprised Dean insisted that he and Harry tagged along considering how negative he’d been about Sam’s job.
Sam’s job… it still made him grin.
Dean wanted them to be normal, what was more normal than paying taxes and having to choose a dental plan? Dean should be thanking Sam, Sam added him and Harry to his medical plan as dependents.
“We could go to New York after this case, I bet White could get that cleared up if we tell him about the shifter,” Sam offered to Dean. “You’d like him, he’s been hunting for forty years.”
Before that, Sam was pretty sure that White had been in the military in some capacity, he had the look about him. Sam didn’t think he would like the man, based solely on his affect, but he was wrong. White had been a straight shooter, no bullshit. Sam told him about the cases he had done, offering a lot of newspaper and website articles as evidence.
White seemed impressed with Sam’s ability to piece together cases, but skeptical about his success in his position as a hunter. Sam would prove him wrong, his record already did.
“I don’t want to meet your boss who works for some government that we don’t even know,” Dean snapped. Sam was sure he was just arguing for the sake of it; all governments sucked equally, so Sam would happily take their $65k starting salary, with benefits.
Low for a fed, incomprehensible for a hunter.
“Fine.” Sam was annoyed and didn’t bother to hide it. If Dean went with him just to rain on his parade then Sam wished he would have stayed home. Yeah, the Impala was better on gas than Sam’s mustang - a thing to note since Sam didn’t have a check yet and didn’t want to risk his job by using scammed credit cards anymore. But Dean was tanking the mood and even Harry wasn’t helping any.
Harry had been impressed by Sam’s job, thankfully. Harry didn’t sneer the word ‘fed’ and ‘traitor’ to him. Harry said that he thought working for MACUSA would making hunting easier so Sam didn’t have to lie so much.
But Harry was asleep in the backseat and Sam was sure he would still have to lie.
Claiming he worked for a magical government wasn’t going to go over any better than claiming he was hunting a ‘dark creature’.
It was just cool that Sam could say he worked for the government and it wouldn’t be a lie.
They arrived in Milwaukee in time to get a map going on the motel wall - the times and locations of all the robberies listed - and for Sam to start trying to draw connections. Dean went to grab lunch, Harry listened to Sam think out loud.
“Shifter?” Sam murmured, ignoring the swoop in his stomach. The last shifter they ran across had been a sicko and tortured Sam’s friends and his brother. It was the reason that Dean was legally declared dead, and a serial killer to boot.
Sam would have a nightmare sometimes, the idea of Dean having a minimally marked gravestone cropping up. He skirted the thought then, focusing on the job.
Because it was a job, not just a hunt.
A shifter made the most sense, unless it was a particularly powerful spirit that was traveling over a fifty mile radius to possess employees.
“How do you figure out which is which?” Harry asked curiously when Sam verbalized that thought.
Sam stared at the board, focusing on the most recent robbery. The night security guard had knocked his partner out then made off with a quarter mill. The cops found him the next morning, dead in his apartment, money gone.
Ronald Reznick, he was the sole witness to that robbery. And, according to what Sam read, he had been good friends with the employee that allegedly did it as well.
“We talk to the witnesses,” Sam said. He checked the time and grimaced. “And we do it tonight.”
It was getting late, but Sam wanted to show he could close a case more quickly and quietly than anyone. Harry’s magic was amazing, and the magic that leaked to Sam to give him visions was… notable… but Sam could take down monsters and creatures without it.
Quickly, quietly. Sam had always been good at that.
Dean returned with a couple of bags of burgers and fries that were eaten quickly. Dean agreed with Sam that shifter was more likely than spirit, though he didn’t like the idea of going to interview a witness at eight o’clock.
“I can go alone,” Sam said, already donning his suit. Sam pinned his FBI badge to the front, briefly wondering how intermixed the magical and muggle governments were.
If Sam were arrested for impersonating a federal agent, would White vouch for him? Could he? Sam had his business card in his wallet, tucked safely behind a few small photos. How much did the two governments know of each other?
“Oh, Sammy’s a fed now and he can go alone,” Dean huffed. He rolled his eyes then grabbed his own suit off the table with more dramatic force than the situation really warranted. “Shut up.”
Harry shrugged when Sam gave him a questioning look. So Harry didn’t know what Dean’s issue was either. Sam expected some fed jokes, he didn’t expect Dean to really take Sam’s job so badly.
A small part of Sam hoped that Dean would be impressed, that he would have thought it was brilliant to find a way to get paid for something they had done for free for so long.
Whatever the issue was - maybe Dean was really pissed about the stuff Sam said before he left? Was John really going to come between them again, even in death? - Dean would spit it out eventually.
In the meantime… Sam grinned when he looked Harry over. With his bright eyes, oversized jacket, jeans, and boots he really did pull off Dean Junior almost to a T. If Sam cut his hair short, he’d really make it work.
“You ready to play Dean’s son again?” Sam asked. He checked himself, remembering that Harry was fourteen. “Unless you’d rather stay here?” Harry brought homework, a backpack full of it, maybe he wanted to stay and work on it.
“And miss this? What would I do? Work on homework?” Harry scoffed and, yup, Dean Junior through and through.
“How is the homework going?” Sam asked. Sam had seen the list, it was a lot. And Harry seemed to need prodded to work on it, which was fine. Sam did that for Dean for years.
“Fine,” Harry said. He didn’t look like he was lying. “Professor Dumbledore said I could make notes on things I don’t understand, but it’s mostly potions.”
“Yeah?” Sam had devoured the books that Harry bought him, an issue they were going to eventually need to talk about.
It was one thing if Harry loaned Sam the wizard currency he didn’t carry, but Harry had seemed genuinely confused and Sam only let Harry’s friends strong-arm him into buying the books because of it. It wasn’t a big deal, Sam just didn’t want Harry thinking he or Dean were keeping a tally of money they spent on Harry.
Sam really didn’t want Harry trying to pay him back with books or something. Even if the books, what Sam read of them before that damned article came out, had been fascinating.
Once Harry realized that Sam had picked up a very basic understanding of potions from the books, he started describing every issue he was having. What Sam thought seemed to be the main issue was that Harry himself didn’t have a basic understanding of potions.
“That’s because of Professor Snape,” Harry explained. They were on their way to the witnesses house and Harry was leaning between the front seats to talk to Sam. Dean was driving, silently, in about as sullen a mood as he sunk to.
“Tonks didn’t like him either,” Sam assured Harry. Sam had heard Harry’s rants against the teacher enough and Tonks had backed those rants when Sam and her had been talking.
“Tonks?” Typical Dean would choose then to jump in the conversation. “Who or what is a Tonks?”
Sam clamped his mouth shut.
Harry didn’t.
“Tonks is this pretty auror that was called because Sam looked suspicious,” Harry told Dean. “She totally asked Sam out.”
“Harry told Hermione how pretty he thought Jo, Natalie, and Tonks were after Ron told Harry that Hermione liked him,” Sam said quickly.
Harry’s jaw dropped, but fair was fair. And they managed to make Dean laugh for the first time since Sam handed him his ID.
“Wowww, you two are hopeless,” Dean said happily, smirking away like a dick. “You’re Winchesters, chicks and dudes are gonna hit on you. Sam, nut up and go out with pretty chicks that are willing to deal with your ugly mug. Harry, dude, you can’t talk about other chicks to Hermione.”
Sam grew up with Dean and his half-assed dating advice. Sam knew better than to argue. Poor Harry launched right in, outlining the entire conversation he had with his friends for Dean. Sam had heard it all before, but Dean’s face was fun to watch.
Dean grimaced, sighed, laughed, and smirked with more animation than he had shown in days. It wasn’t really a big deal, Sam was an adult, but it didn’t mean Sam didn’t feel jealous that Harry’s girl-problems got Dean talking again.
Harry and Dean needed to bond… they should be close. It wasn’t a big deal.
Sam had given Harry advice about his Hermione problem, he told him to decide how he felt about her before doing anything else. But Dean’s advice - that Harry either man up and kiss her or make her jealous enough to kiss him - made Harry look thoughtful.
It was terrible advice.
Dean was smug when they arrived at Reznik’s house. He popped his jacket out and smirked at Sam when Harry scrambled to keep up with them striding to the door.
“What’s wrong, Sammy?” Dean asked, clapping Sam’s back. “Fed training didn’t cover chick problems?”
“Fuck off,” Sam muttered. He shoved at Dean, getting a quick frown back.
“What’s your problem?” Dean asked, shoving Sam back.
“I’m not the one with the problem.” Sam shoved Dean, nearly knocking him off the walkway that led to the door. “Quit shoving.”
“Quit being a bitch,” Dean snapped.
“Quit being—”
“I lied, I’d rather wait in the car.” Harry turned on his heel and strode directly back to Dean’s car. Sam and Dean watched until Harry had thrown himself in the backseat to scowl at each other.
“Way to go,” Sam muttered.
“Me? You started it.” Dean knocked on the door and then glared hard at Sam. “Fed.”
Sam scoffed derisively. Next time he heard Dean say that he was going to lay him out.
It didn’t take long.
Sam and Dean interviewed the paranoid witness, Reznik. The guy seemed a little not all there, but he was sharp enough to notice something was off anyway. There was something almost childish about him, which was wild considering the guy was Sam’s height with a bulky build and a head of wild dark curls. Reznik still thought to steal the security tapes and he shared his theory with the ‘FBI Agents’.
“Watch! Watch!” Reznik had the video playing on his tv and he pointed excitedly at it. “Here it comes!”
Sam watched closely while the guard smacked Reznik in the back of his head, knocking him unconscious. Then he turned his head, getting his full face on screen and —
“Laser eyes!” Reznik cried. “See?!”
Sam did see. He saw the flare of the camera where the man’s eyes were captured on screen, confirming his theory of it being a shifter.
“You want to know what I think?” Reznik asked. He took a deep breath. “Alien.”
“Alien,” Sam repeated. “Riiiight. Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to give these tapes over and I won’t arrest you for interfering in a federal investigation. You’re going to stop watching Men in Black. And, if you work really hard on your social life, you can even move out of your mom’s basement.”
Reznik was quick to escort them to the door, but Sam remanded all the tapes he had. Reznik had also drawn the dots between the robberies and had a tape for each one. Sam was sure that what Reznik said about the ‘laser eyes’ in each tape would definitively prove the shifter theory and they could start tracking it.
After Dean finished his shit.
“Man, you play a fed so well it’s almost like, oooh, yeah.” Dean slid in the driver’s seat of the Impala and smirked at Sam. “Guess you were born for this role, huh?”
Sam clenched the box of tapes he had and kept his mouth shut. He wasn’t going to hit Dean while he was driving… not while Harry was in the backseat, anyway.
It was a tense drive from Reznik’s place back to the motel. Harry must have picked up the tension because he kept quiet while Dean continued to crack his stupid jokes the entire time.
Sam was going to hit him, he really was. Dean was being a jerk, a stubborn and stupid jerk. Sam did something cool, Dean didn’t have to trash him for it.
Sam was able to wait until they made it to the motel, then that was it. In the twenty mile drive, Dean had said ‘fed’ seven times and not a single one was kind.
“We’ll be in in a minute,” Sam told Harry. He handed the box of tapes over to him and nodded to the motel door. Dean stopped when Sam did and winked when Harry looked between them.
“Is this a fight or a conversation?” Harry asked, taking the box reluctantly.
“Everything with Sammy is a conversation,” Dean said glibly. “It’s going to be a lot of feelings, kid. Save yourself while you can.”
Sam should have gotten a medal for the patience he showed. He kept a pleasant and calm look on his face while Harry slowly went inside the motel room. The instant the door closed behind him, Sam turned and swung a fist at Dean’s stomach too quickly to he dodged.
“What is your problem?” Sam asked, dodging away when Dean grunted and tried to tackle him.
“My problem?” Dean managed to grab Sam’s arm when Sam swung on him again. Dean twisted it hard and Sam kicked out at him. “You are my problem, Samantha.”
“Screw you.” Sam escaped Dean’s hold and grabbed him by the back of his suit jacket so he could slam him against the car. Sam locked his arm around Dean’s neck and squeezed, not really hurting him. “Why can’t you ever be proud of me? Ever?!”
“I am - always—” Dean reached back with his free arm and elbowed Sam in the stomach, causing Sam to lose his breath and loosen his hold on Dean. Dean didn’t hesitate, he never did, he shoved Sam hard, knocking him on his ass when Sam tripped over a parking block.
“I am always proud of you, you god damned moron!” Dean kicked Sam in the ribs with half the power Sam knew he had. It still hurt like a son of a bitch though.
“We were done!” Dean yelled. He backed up so Sam could roll on his side to press against his ribs and catch his breath. “You were going to go to law school! I was going to go get my automotive degree! HARRY WAS GOING TO GET THE CHILDHOOD YOU DIDN’T, SAM!”
“What?” Sam pushed himself to his feet and stared dumbfounded at Dean. All of Sam’s anger was gone, melted away in shock. Dean looked suddenly self-conscious. Dean’s eyes dropped, his shoulders went soft.
Dean was talking about Harry’s childhood? That was what he was worried about?
“Don’t look at me like that,” Dean snapped, glaring at the ground. It was almost enough for Sam to grin, Dean knowing he was giving him a look without even seeing it.
Sam couldn’t grin though because he was confused and suddenly hurt and he - why was Dean…?
“You wanted to give up hunting so Harry could have a normal childhood?” Sam asked, a little wheezy, but still coated in incredulity.
Dean shrugged. “Dad’s dead, hunting is just going to kill us early. We got a house now, I just- I thought you wanted to be done too, Sam.”
Sam opened his mouth and couldn’t find the right words. His brain just kept going back to—
“You love hunting, and you would give it up for Harry,” Sam said. Sam’s eyes pricked and he wasn’t going to cry. “So Harry, the wizard, can have a normal childhood.”
Dean wanted to give up hunting for Harry. Dean wanted to - to go to college for Harry.
Dean lifted his head and stared at Sam through narrow eyes that were always too good at reading Sam. Could he see Sam’s hurt? The wave of jealousy that wanted to knock him down?
“You hated our lives,” Dean said. He swung an arm out and pointed to the motel. Sam looked over and saw Harry standing in the doorway, shifting from foot to foot, silently watching them.
“I thought you’d be happy to give it up, do something normal,” Dean said. “Then you went and made it a fucking career? Seriously? I mean, what the hell, Sam? You hated this shit and you hated Dad for pushing us in it!”
“Guys, can we—”
“AND YOU SIDED WITH HIM!” Sam screamed with his hand pointing at Dean accusingly. Harry’s quiet protest went unheard, not when the dam had broken between himself and Dean. “HE MADE ME CHOOSE FAMILY OR COLLEGE AND YOU LET HIM! YOU DIDN’T SAY A DAMN WORD!”
“Seriously, please—”
“YOU LEFT ME WITH HIM! YOU PLANNED IT OUT, DIDN’T SAY ANYTHING ABOUT APPLYING TO COLLEGE! THEN YOU LEFT!”
“YOU STAYED!” Sam couldn’t believe Dean was saying that. Sam left him? Dean could have left at any time! Sam would have followed Dean right out the door at any point! “YOU STAYED BECAUSE YOU WANTED THAT LIFE BUT YOU’LL GIVE IT UP FOR HARRY?!”
Sam loved Harry. Sam would die for him, kill for him, protect him at any costs. Sam was happy to know Dean cared about him so much, Harry was their brother and their family.
Why didn’t Sam deserve Dean caring about his life back when they could have done something together to change it? Change both their lives?
Dean wanted to get a degree?!
“Sammy…” Dean went soft and sad as he shook his head at Sam. “It’s just - I don’t know… don’t make me say it, dude.” Dean ran a hand through his hair and looked over Sam’s shoulder, just missing his eyes. “That’s what people say, right? That - y’know… you do better the second time around? When it comes to raising kids or whatever?”
Sam didn’t know if he wanted to laugh then or curl up in a ball somewhere and actually cry. Was Dean serious? Dean thought Sam had been - what? His kid to raise?
“That’s nice, Dean, that’s really nice.” Sam deflated and he curled his shoulders up. Sam didn’t even know how to respond to that - what to think. Dean had to raise Sam because John just sucked that much? But Dean still wouldn’t stick up for Sam back when it counted?
Dean wanted to go to college then though, the same place Sam wanted to go five years ago and had to choose between his family and his dreams for.
For Harry, who Dean wanted to do better for.
Sam stormed back inside the motel, bypassing his entirely silent younger brother. Dean being Dean aside, Sam still had his job to do.
It was a mild balm to the wound in Sam’s chest to know that Dean had said he was proud of Sam. Clearly Dean didn’t screw up with his practice kid too much.