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The grocery basket was heavy already, dragging on Dean’s arm. A drip ran down from his rain-wet hair, tickling his forehead, but he couldn’t wipe it away because Sammy was dragging on his other arm, both of his dirty little paws pulling at Dean's fingers, determined to go in a different direction to where his big brother needed to go - as usual.
“Quit it, Sammy.”
“‘nanas!”
“We’ve got bananas.”
“More ‘nanas!” Sam tugged hard, trying to pull Dean back toward the fresh produce.
“No. We’ve got enough.” Dean sighed. Not that long ago Sammy couldn’t walk or talk and didn't have much in the way of opinions of his own. There’d been a lot of bottles of milk and a lot of diaper changes, but in some ways it’d been easier.
Sammy gave up his backward drag in favour of a series of jerks as he tried to hop from one coloured floor tile to another. Dean’s arms were going to be about a foot longer by the time they’d finished.
He glanced down at the basket. It held bananas, apples, baloney and cheese. They didn’t need milk yet, because Dean had sniffed the carton before leaving the motel room and decided it was still okay. But they needed bread and breakfast cereal and they were all out of peanut butter - again.
Would they get straight back on the road again when Dad woke up? Dean could make a massive stack of sandwiches, enough to last for however far they drove this time. So… maybe he should get a jar of jelly. Would pb and j be more likely to shut Sammy up for longer than plain pb?
If Dad was in a good mood, maybe he’d help Dean make the sandwiches. He did, sometimes, when he’d only had one or two drinks instead of a whole lot. And sometimes, when they’d finished cutting the sandwiches and packing them up - together - he'd ruffle Dean’s hair and say, gruffly, "You're a good kid, Dean."
Dean couldn’t stop his lips curling up at the thought that maybe Dad might say it again - today. And that maybe, if he’d had no more than two or three slugs from his silver flask, Dad would be in the mood to let Dean talk - so that he could remind Dad of all the stuff he could do, now that he was not that far off being seven, and ask him again for the things he really wanted to be allowed to do - kind of like birthday presents which would cost nothing - without risking Dad getting angry at him.
Dean was proud that he knew how to do so many things - things that most six-and-three-quarter-year-olds couldn’t do, or wouldn’t be allowed to do.
He knew how to start the Impala (you had to pump the gas a couple times first before you turned the key, and he could reach the pedal if he kinda stood on it and leant his back against the edge of the seat.) He knew which bits of the engine were which, and how to change a wheel and could do most of it himself, fitting the jack to the right place on the chassis, putting all his weight on the lever to get it to move and lift up the car. He couldn’t undo the wheel nuts - Dad had to do that - but he could roll the tyre away and get the spare and put it on and get the nuts done up most of the way for Dad to tighten. So maybe one time Dad would sit Dean up in front of him in the driver’s seat, and do the pedals while Dean steered?
Dean knew how to sharpen the big knives and could mostly get them keen enough for Dad not to yell at him that much or have to redo them himself. He could take all the different guns apart, clean them and put them back together again. He could even shoot the little ones that weren't too heavy and didn't have much of a kick, and he could hit a target - sometimes. So maybe Dad would let him have a gun of his own and a knife bigger than the little one that fit in his pants pocket?
And, when Sammy was asleep - because one of The Rules was that he didn’t tell Sammy anything about the monsters, not ever - Dad had been teaching Dean all the stuff he'd need to know to hunt. He knew about salt and iron, holy water and silver. He knew what had to be stabbed in the heart and what you had to cut the head off. He also knew what had to be burned to kill it, even though he hated thinking about anything burning, because of their house. Because of Mom. But if he knew all that stuff, if he learned whatever Dad wanted him to about hunting, then maybe soon Dad would actually let him come on a hunt? That was what Dean really wanted - to be like Dad, who was a monster-fighting hero.
For now, though, Dean had a different job to do - hunting supplies instead of monsters. And they were out of peanut butter and maybe he could buy jelly too, if there was a really cheap jar, because he only had one crumpled bill and a few coins to get everything they needed.
With Sammy still tugging on one hand and the basket-handles digging into the other, Dean reached the aisle where there were jars of jelly and chocolate spread and, yeah - there was the peanut butter. He let go of Sammy’s hand.
“Ten steps, yeah, Sammy?”
His brother nodded and toddled away. Dean counted his steps - one, two, three, four, five, six, (getting slower and more deliberate), seven, eight, nine… ten. Sammy stopped and looked around, a wicked smirk on his little poochy face. Dean watched him, without speaking and then his brother laughed, and came back a few steps and jumped up and down a couple of times, just to show he was definitely back in the safe zone and not going to break the rule. Not yet, anyway. He would, though. One day soon. He was always pushing at the boundaries, too clever and independent for his own good. He’d stick with Dean’s ten-step rule for now, because Dean had made a big fuss of him for being able to count up to ten, which was pretty amazing at his age, but he’d be kicking against it all too soon.
Still, there was always the rope in the back of the Impala to threaten him with if he got really out of line. Dean would tell Sammy he was gonna tie him up outside with the dogs waiting for their owners. And he could too. He could tie up his brother with the knots Dad had taught him. He’d actually done it once, just for practice, and Sammy had gone along with it until some of the knots were so tight Dean couldn’t get them undone again and, yeah, Dad hadn’t been pleased with having to deal with a struggling, crying, tied up Sammy.
Dean set his basket on the floor and stretched out his aching arm. Then he had a good look at all the different brands and prices, working out the best bargain, counting out loud or on his fingers, because real-world, grocery shopping math was always way harder than the simple numbers they taught in school.
Normally, he’d rush Sammy around the grocery store military-style, ticking off his objectives - bam, bam, bam - like taking out enemy combatants. Dean would scope out each aisle every time they turned a corner, watching out for any authority figures who might think Dean’s six-and-three-quarter years were too young to be out grocery shopping alone with his little brother. He was teaching Sammy the military hand signals Dad had taught him, and they’d be in-and-out like they were on a commando raid or maybe even taking out a nest of vamps.
But today he was going to spin the supply run out as long as he could - as long as Sammy would stand it for - because, after a couple of worrying days at the tail end of a week's absence, Dad was actually back from his latest hunt. Worrying, because the motel manager had started snooping around, and Dean had had to stand outside the open door of their room and have one side of an imaginary conversation with Dad just to make it look like they hadn’t been left unsupervised, which, of course, as usual, they had.
John Winchester had woken them up just before dawn, stumbling across the salt line at the threshold (which Dean had immediately leapt out of bed to repair). He’d grunted at Dean, “Your brother okay? You kept your heads down?” and barely waited for Dean’s nod and, “Yes, sir,” before he’d passed out, exhausted and a bit banged up, on top of the bed Dean had just got out of. Dean hadn’t bothered with making Sammy budge over and share his bed, because his brother was already whining about being woken up so early and Dad was never so exhausted that he’d be able to sleep through restless, whiny two-and-a-half year old Sammy. Especially not once Sammy really kicked off, which he would, because he always did when he was supposed to be being quiet.
Dean had got his brother up and dressed as quick as he could, shoved a cookie into his hand that he’d been saving for emergencies, and they were out the door before Dad’s disturbed grumbling had built into any more than a couple of mild curses.
It had been raining hard, so the playground down the road a way was a no go, but Dean had decided the grocery store across from the motel would keep them out of the rain and mostly out of trouble for a good while.
Dean huffed over his calculations. There was a brand of peanut butter he didn’t recognise, but it worked out cheaper than the others. He picked it up - although there wasn’t any point getting it if it tasted like shit. Dean’d eat it no matter what, but Sammy wouldn’t. Unless there was nothing else and Dean made him, which he had to sometimes. But then Dean would probably end up saying something like, ‘Yeah it tastes like shit - so eat up your shit sandwich, Sammy!’ And then Sammy’d come out with ‘shit sammich’ in front of Dad and Dean’d get in trouble for teaching his brother bad words. Again.
There was a tug at his sleeve, so that he nearly dropped the jar.
“Get off, jerkface.”
“Hungwy, Dean.”
Sammy tugged his sleeve again and looked up at his brother, his brown eyes huge and pleading - when weren’t they pleading for one thing or another?
“Yeah, yeah. In a minute.” The cereal aisle was coming up. He’d open up the box of Cap’n Crunch and Sammy’d hug the damn thing all the way to the checkout, shoving handfuls of the junk into his mouth and leaving a trail behind them - a trail to follow to the motherless unsupervised children.
“Hungwy now, Dean!”
“Jeez, Sammy. Okay. Uh. Here.” Dean picked at the corner of a plastic pack, tore the film and pulled out a slice of baloney, which he handed to his brother. His own empty stomach rumbled. But he could wait.
Sammy eyed the pink meat doubtfully. Then snatched it, screwed it up in his fist and toddled away to plop down onto the floor where he leant against the bottom shelf, stacked with Cheez Whiz jars. He began to tear the meat into shreds, eating some and dropping others. Whatever.
Dean put the cheap brand of peanut butter into his basket, trying, and failing, to ignore the cheery label of the jars that Mom used to buy.
He remembered when he was little enough to ride in the cart when Mom took him to the grocery store, just about, even though the memory was a bit hazy. He was sure he remembered riding in the seat, though, with his bear tucked on one side of him and his bottle of juice on the other and when they came to the peanut butter - this he definitely remembered - his Mom would let him hold the jar. And Dean would hold it carefully, like the treasure it was, and he never dropped it, not once - and Mom would talk to him all the way around the store and it was just him and her doing an ordinary thing on an ordinary day - a happy, precious memory.
Dean let himself look, just for a bit, at the jars, just like the ones he used to hold. He let himself sink into the memory, which seemed so far away - so very far away from what his life was now - just for a minute, even though it hurt - really hurt, more than it did if he got into a fight at school, more than it did if Dad tanned his hide for teaching Sammy bad words or whatever.
“Oh my! Don’t do that, sweetie! Where’s your Mommy?”
Dean suppressed a weary groan. Not again. Why couldn’t people just leave them alone?
He turned around, and sure enough, there was one of the usual stick-your-nose-in-where-it's-not-wanted types, bending over to get an eyeful of all the gross stuff Sammy got up to whenever Dean’s back was turned. This time, one of the kid's chubby paws was occupied picking up bits of baloney off the floor and posting them into his dribbly mouth, while the other hand was carrying out a survey of which finger would fit best up his nose.
Dean wouldn't bother calling time on either activity. If Sammy wanted to stick his fingers up his nose it was his business, wasn't it? And as for the baloney - well, the kid had the immunity of a Sherman tank. He never got sick. Probably because he was used to dirt, inside and out.
The plump, floral-clad, no doubt church-going woman was tutting and clucking and delicately picking up scattered bits of baloney off the floor with a lace-edged handkerchief. She plucked a bit out of Sammy's grasp. It tore and he took the opportunity to shove the remaining shred in his mouth and chew determinedly.
"Oh dear, you poor dear! Don’t eat that!" She was looking around for whichever adult was responsible for this abandoned child. Her eye fell on Dean and his skin prickled under the scrutiny.
Adult attention, and all of its possible consequences, had been explained to Dean, forcefully and at length, by Dad. The basic message was that it was to be avoided as much as possible, or bad things could happen - really bad, like Dean and his brother being taken away from Dad to some strange place and maybe even separated from each other. Dad had taught Dean to identify escape routes wherever he went, covering his eyes with his large, work-roughened, dirt-ingrained hand and growling, "Point to the exits, Dean.” By now Dean’s awareness of such things was instinctive. Sam had drawn this woman’s attention, and Dean was immediately ready with his options, if it came down to making a run for it - the front door of the store, the door between the bakery and the chillers which led out the back, and the narrow corridor to the restrooms, where there’d probably be a window that he could, if he had to, push Sammy through and climb through himself.
But he had other options to explore first - various responses to unwanted busybodies. The woman was older than most of the little-kid Moms. But was she the soft type who'd be easily manipulated by a shy smile and innocent eyes? Because if she thought Sammy was cute… huh. She ain't seen nothing yet - Dean knew he could pull off angelic well enough to make anyone think there was a halo tucked in the blonde lights in his hair.
But, no. This broad had the air of a school teacher or a vicar's wife - a bit of extra edge. He’d have to be brutal. And she was reaching forward with both hands, ready to actually pick Sammy up. And no one touched his brother.
"Sammy."
Just his name was enough, snapped out quickly in the same tone as Dad when he was dead serious and even Sammy knew he'd better hop to it.
The kid scrambled back against the Cheez Whiz. A jar fell and rolled away. But Sammy was on his feet and next to Dean, a filthy hand sliding into his brother’s and holding tight.
Dean turned his face into a blank-eyed mask. A glare might be enough to get rid of her. But it wasn’t.
"Where’s your Mommy, dear?"
Dean wasn’t her dear. And the way she said it told him his hard-eyed stare had done its job. Dean was no one's dear.
"Mom's gettin’ Dad out," he said, flatly.
"Out?"
"Outta jail," said Dean. He left a pause and tilted his head slightly to one side, narrowing his eyes. Because yeah, he could do cute, but he could also do sinister pretty damn well. "He said he didn't do it. But that's crap, cos I saw the blood on his shirt."
She took a step back.
"And my Dad said, 'don't no son-of-a-bitch touch my kids.'" He left another pause. "'Or they get what's coming to ‘em.'"
That did the trick. One hand crept to her throat, she gave a tremulous attempt at a smile and then took her shopping cart and fled toward the cleaning supplies.
Dean smirked.
"Snuvva-bitch," said Sammy.
“Yeah, you’d better shut up, bitch-face.”
“Juk,” responded his brother and Dean laughed. Because no, he didn’t want Sammy copying everything he said, but it was damn funny that he could teach the kid to stick up for himself when provoked.
“Come on, Sammy. Hey, no - wait.” Dean let go of his brother’s hand, grabbed another jar off the shelf and dropped it into the basket - jelly, red in colour with a picture of a strawberry on the front, although it probably didn't have much in the way of fruit in. “Pb and j for the road?” asked Dean.
“Peebee-jay,” agreed Sam. “Yummy-yum.”
Dean took his little brother's hand again, warm and greasy from the baloney. They’d get the rest of what they needed and pay for it with the crumpled bill and the few coins that Dean had found by crawling under the beds in the motel room and searching all the way around where the thin, faded carpet met the wall. And back in the motel room, Dad might be stirring already, so they'd better head straight back.
Dad never slept long, even when there was no one to disturb him. He’d be impatient to pack up and get them all back on the road soon - back on the road to the next hunt.
So Dean would make the sandwiches, because Dad would want to drive and drive and not pull over unless he had to. And Dean would pack up all of his and Sammy's stuff into one bag, and make sure his brother had been to the bathroom and hadn’t left anything behind. And Dean would make sure too, that the salt lines were all swept up, in case they came back this way and had to stay here again. And then they’d leave. They’d leave the motel and the small town behind them, just another place in the long chain of places that made up the moving background to Dean and Sammy's childhood.
It was like the background moved around them and they stayed still, thought Dean as he guided his little brother over the road and across the motel parking lot. The background of towns and cities, rooms that were never anyone's home and the endless passing highway - they all blurred into a stream that didn't really matter.
Because what was really important to Dean stayed the same - Dad and Sammy and the Impala. What really mattered, the only thing that really mattered, was his family. They were his whole world - and they were all he needed.