Dude, I'm batman

[What do you have to lose?]

“You sure you’re feelin’ up to this, Sammich?”

“Yeah, I’m alright now,” Sam said. He ducked his head a little and Dean could see the shame all over his face. To counteract it he punched him in the shoulder a little.

“I just don’t you suckin’ down my blood while you’re s’posed to be watching my back.”

“Dean-I wouldn’t-“ Sam started and then rolled his eyes, exasperation taking the place of shame. Dean could handle that.

“Right,” he dismissed and prepared to get down to business, leaning forward so his elbows were on his knees. They were in the basement and it had been marked up with runes, hiding them as effectively as they knew how from everyone and everything. Castiel was helping a little on that front but he’d warned he couldn’t hide them for long, not without someone noticing. “No matter what happens we stick to the plan. You get that hurt assed puppy look on your face and I’m punching you anyways,” Dean smirked.

“Yeah, got it,” Sam smirked.

“We’ve got to sell this con and everybody’s got to buy it,” Dean reinforced. This was sort of the con of his life and if any one of them slipped up the world wouldn’t just burn, Dean, Sam and Castiel would burn with it.

“I know, Dean,” Sam assured him again.
Dean glanced down at his watch and up at the ceiling chalked with runes. “I’ll talk to your giant yeti ass when this all over, Bitch.” Oh yeah, Dean was upset and nervous. He was stringing insult after insult.

“You better,” Sam warned him. “Jerk.”

They stormed up the steps yelling and screaming at each other but Sam didn’t through the first punch until they were in the kitchen, clear of all the runes and in full sight of anyone who might be paying attention. They crashed through the living room, managing to smash the coffee table in their wake and it never crossed Dean’s mind that he was going to have to apologize for that to Brooke. Before this was over, they’d all have much bigger things to apologize for.

[Argue]

Sam’s nose is huge. Dean knows this because he is taking pictures of it close up with his camera phone. Sam grumbles, turns over and lets out a snore that would make the Impala envious. Dean rolls his eyes and moves back over to his bed. He sends the pictures to Brooke—because for some reason she wants pictures of Sam’s nose and flips through channels on the TV.

Twenty minutes later, Sam’s doing his best impression of a V8 engine and Dean is still bored. He takes some more pictures of Sam sleeping, sends them to Claire this time and then he sees the plastic spoon on the table. Dean is stealthy like a ninja—or Batman—as he slips the spoon in Sam’s mouth and takes some more pictures. Sam grunts, snorts and then wakes up flailing when Dean starts taking pictures.

“God Dammit Dean!”

There are days Dean would swear that’s Sam’s favorite phrase. He’s also faster than Dean ever gives him credit for. He’s half way across the room when Sam brings him down in a tackle and they’re rolling across the room, punching each other.

“Ow!” Sam yells when Dean catches him in the eye. “What the hell?”

“I was bored,” Dean says as he lets Sam up. He’s got a goofy ass grin a mile wide on his face.

‘What the fuck really?’ is written all over Sam’s face as he pushes himself up off the floor.

“Come on, Sammich. That was fun.” The words are a little slurred because Sam’s elbow caught him hard in the lip and it’s swelling up.

Sam just shakes his head, a chuckle coming out despite the effort to keep it to himself. “Why pictures?”

“Dude I sent ‘em to Claire. Especially that one of your-“

His words are cut off when Sam slams him into the wall and they go down to the floor, fists flying again. Dean’s laughing like an idiot.

“Christ, boney knees,” he says between gasping laughter.

Dean’s not bored anymore but then again, neither one of them are sleeping.

[Go Home]

“We gonna go closer, Dad?” Matthew asks from the back seat. Dean glances over his shoulder, hesitating before he nods. It’s like Doc Brown’s best invention yet back there. Little green and brown army men are strung all across the Impala’s back seat and Dean has to blink a couple of times to make sure it’s all real.

“Yeah…” Dean says slowly then nods, like he’s working himself up to something. The ‘house’ is really just some burned remains. Two house fires in twenty-five years. It’s got a bad luck rap that won’t go away.

“We don’t have to,” Brooke says quietly, her hand creeping over to cover Dean’s.

“Yeah…we do,” Dean responds. This is why he brought them here; to see where the person he is was born and to share the little bit of home he remembers with them. He opens the door and looks over at Brooke, shooting her a grin that is too cocky and too bright to be real. “Come on, we’ll walk around and then we’ll go have pie at the diner where I once had pie with my dad.”

Of course he’d had pie with John hundreds of times after that but it’s the time in Lawrence that really sticks out in his mind.

Dean picks Matthew up and sits him on his shoulders. He doesn’t want Matthew wandering around in the broken glass and debris. His boots crunch as they wander through it, everything of value taken long ago. It takes him a minute to get his bearings.

“That was the kitchen,” he tells Matthew and Brooke who’s right behind him. He knows she hates getting dirty and this is so far from her idea of how to spend a day but she’s there because he needs wants her there. “Mom used to make sugar cookies and she’d dance with my Dad while they baked.” It is a memory that is half hazy in his head. Sometimes he thinks he made it up entirely because he needs it to be real.

“Sorta like you and Mom?” Matthew asks.

Dean nods. “Yeah…sorta. I think Dad was a better dancer then than I am now.” They move on closer to what’s left of the staircase.

“Upstairs is where my room was and where Uncle Sam used to sleep,” he continues the tour.

“Why didn’t Uncle Sam come with us?” Matthew asks, his head tilted up to the sky where a second floor might have once been.

Dean shakes his head in response. “Nah…Sammy didn’t want to come. He’d rather stay and read books…or something.” This was never home for Sam anyway. He gets a little lost staring up those stairs because he can remember running down them, Sam in his arms and so afraid he was going to drop his baby brother. He knows the place is burning behind him and he’s terrified his parents are both going to die. He doesn’t know how he’s going to take care of Sammy. He doesn’t know how he can listen to his dad because he’s four years old and he can’t take care of Sammy by himself.

Brooke’s hand is light on his shoulder and he doesn’t realize until he feels it that he got lost. He clears his throat, blinking away the tears in his eyes and pastes a smile on his lips. “Ready for some pie? I’m ready for some pie.”
“With ice cream?” Matthew asks, house forgotten and pie on his mind. At five he’s easy to distract.

“Of course with ice cream,” Dean nods as they turn around and start back toward the Impala. He reaches out his hand, taking Brooke’s in his. “You guys mind to much if we just head home after pie? Don’t feel much like staying in a motel tonight.”

[What Happened?]

“Seriously, Sammy, what the hell happened here?” Dean asked as he looked around the hotel room. It looked like something had exploded in there.

“It-I-I’m sorry,” Sam stuttered through the apology.

“Oh you’re gonna be,” Dean said as he stormed around the room picking things up and discarding them to the floor again. All their clothes were scattered, pillows were ripped apart, blankets were shredded. Dean picked up a shoe that was covered in slime of some kind and chewed upon. Sam tried to sink a little deeper into the corner of the hotel room. At ten, he could still make a decent attempt at doing so.

“Sammy...did you summon up something from Hell? Because that’s the only excuse I’m coming up with right now.”

“Promise not to be mad at me?” Sam squeaked from his corner, looking up at him with a look that coined the phrase ‘puppy eyes’. If he had been doing it on purpose, Dean would have been pissed and the effect would have been null. The thing about Sammy, he didn’t even know he was doing it. Kid looked like the poster child for pitiful without even trying.

“I’m not gonna be mad at you, Sam. I just need to know what the hell happened so I can go hunt the damn thing or call Dad.”

“No!” Sam said, the expression on his face and the tone in his voice turning to outright fear. “Don’t call Dad.”

Dean groaned and put his head back, staring up at the ceiling. Something there caught his attention and he narrowed his eyes, cocking his upturned head to the side as he studied the goop on the ceiling. “Sam….is that…” A glop of it plopped down on his head. Dean made a disgusted face as he wiped it off his forehead, the scent of some kind of flowers tickling his nose. In response he sniffed his fingers. “…shampoo?”

“Yeah,” Sam confessed in a whispery voice.

“Sam, I’ve never beat your ass in my life but I’m gonna start unless you tell me what the hell happened here.”

“There-“ Sam started and stopped then stood up. He edged along the wall, watching Dean as he did. “This dog…I’ve been feeding him and-“ He was choking back tears, watching Dean warily as he continued to creep along the wall. “I got him to come in the room today and he let me pet him but he smelled bad. I knew you and dad wouldn’t let me keep him if he smelled bad so I-I tried to give him a bath.” Sam looked around the room, face falling as if he were realizing for the first time what a mess had been made of the room. “He didn’t like it very much.”

Dean kind of wanted to be pissed. He wanted to yell and ask Sam what the hell he was thinking. He wanted to warn him about rabies and bites. Instead he laughed and the laugh grew until he was doubled over laughing, leaving Sam staring at him like he’d lost it.

“I just wanted a dog.” Sam was still trying to wiggle his way out of the recrimination he was pretty sure was coming once Dean finished his hysterical fit.

Dean finally looked up at him, tears streaming down his face, breathless from the laughter. “Next time…just let the dog stink.”

Sam looked a little like Dean imagined a confused puppy would, his head tilted to one side, mouth slightly agape. “I’m not in trouble? Are you gonna tell Dad?”

“Nah…I’m not gonna tell dad, but we gotta get this room cleaned up and I’ve gotta grab some pillows and crap,” Dean chuckled. “You clean, I’ll nab.” He started toward the motel room door, stopped and turned to look over his shoulder. “And Sammy, you don’t have to be afraid to tell me about anything you did. You won’t ever be in trouble with me.”

[What were you thinking?]

Brooke is asleep on the bed while Sam and Dean sit up cleaning guns. They came home from a hunt too wired to sleep.

“It’s not that I don’t like her,” Sam whispers to avoid waking the girl in question up. “But what were you thinking?”

Dean shrugs in response and doesn’t look up from his gun.

“Dean, she’s a fashion designer. She packed high heels and dresses. She belongs in Tree Hill, not in some crappy motel room in Kennedy, Texas.”

“She’s doing pretty good out here. She bitches less than you and she lights those candle things that make the room smell less like your feet,” Dean defends the girl he dragged out of Tree Hill.

“I didn’t say she’s not doing alright. I said she doesn’t belong here. She’s going to get hurt, Dean and you know it,” Sam points out as he snaps the gun back together and runs a cloth over the barrel of it.

Dean finishes cleaning his gun, turning Sam’s words over in his head. His lips are pursed as his considers everything his brother said, dwelling in particular over the part where she’s going to get hurt. He’s in this to save people, not condemn them.

“I don’t know why, Sam. I can’t give you an explanation that will satisfy that giant, logical, freakish brain of yours. She was there when I needed her. I-“ he stops short of saying something that Winchesters don’t and then continues. “She’s a hot ass and she wanted to come. Like I was gonna say no?”

Whether she wakes up because she’s heard them or she just wakes up, Dean doesn’t know but she gives him this adorable, pouty, perhaps slightly annoyed look. Her voice is that deep, scratchy, sleep-thick one that drives him crazy.

“Dean Winchester, are you ever gonna come to bed with me or are you gonna sit up with your brother all night long?”

Dean grins at Sam, his eyebrows shooting up as the grin settles over his face. He looks back at Brooke and jumps into the bed, almost bouncing her off. She laughs first but it’s quickly followed by Dean’s laugh. Answers don’t always come in words.