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Hanging on the wall in the hallway to the kitchen was a family photograph in a dark frame. Sam had never asked about it; he knew that Dad and Dean had gone through a rough patch after Mom died and privately thought he was lucky he didn’t really remember it. Sam didn’t recognise the sign in the background, the one that said Singer Auto Salvage, but Dad always said that he worked odd jobs before they finally managed to settle down out east and he’d been a mechanic back in Kansas. The faces in the picture, though, were all smiles. They were arranged around Dad’s car, surrounded by snow and bundled to their eyeballs in parkas and snow gear.
The odd thing, though, was the hunting rifle in Dad’s right hand. When he actually thought about it, which was rarely now, Sam sometimes wondered if Dad had been into hunting before Mom died. From what Aunt Martha said, Dad had been an entirely different person then and it wasn’t until they settled down in Massachusetts, around the time Sam started school, that things really changed. She talked about a man Sam didn’t know. To Sam, Dad would always be the man who took and taught night classes at the trade school when Dean was old enough to babysit him, who joined the Scouts with him, who showed him how to build a cabinet by hand in the garage, and always made sure that, no matter what his work schedule was, he always had time for Sam and Dean. The Marine Aunt Martha and Uncle Bill talked about didn’t sound anything like Dad.
*
One of Sam’s earliest memories was of his first day of school. Any memories before that were fuzzy, unclear where his memories ended and stories began, of Dad’s car and Dean’s arms and a smoky smell he didn’t really have a name for. Dad had bought him new pants and shoes the previous week - Goodwill new - and given him a pep talk reminding him that he was a big boy now and not to let anyone bully him just because he was six and only now starting kindergarten. He had been so excited and had even proudly left his blanket in the car when Dad drove them to the small brick building he would come to call school.
But when Dad tried to drop him off, Dean wouldn’t let go of his hand. Sam was used to Dean always being there and didn’t really mind, but he wanted to play with the blocks in the corner. Dad had tried to get Dean to let him go, told him that he had his own school and class to go to, but Dean wouldn’t listen. Ms. Capasso had come over and talked to them, thinking that it was Sam who wouldn’t leave his father and big brother, but Dean still wouldn’t leave Sam.
Sam couldn’t remember how the problem was resolved, but he remembered how scared Dean had been of leaving him in that classroom. His older brother had been his shadow for the next three years, even when they were fighting or attending different schools.
*
“Dad?” Sam called, clutching Mr. Snuffles to his chest. “Dean?”
“Sammy, what’s wrong?” Dean asked, immediately turning down the volume on the television. “Did something happen?”
“There’s - there’s a monster under my bed.” Sam held the stuffed rabbit tighter, as though he could keep the monsters at bay.
As Dean got up, with wide eyes, and took a few hesitant steps toward the bedroom he and Sam shared, Dad intercepted him. “Hey, it was just a nightmare. You were just having a bad dream, weren’t you, Sammy?”
Sam looked from Dean, who looked ready to take on any monsters who had been bothering his brother with his bare hands, to Dad, who was watching Dean with big eyes that were sadder than they shoulder have been. “Yeah,” he said to the top of Mr. Snuffles’ head. “It must’ve been a dream. Monsters ‘ren’t real.”
Dean sat back down on their old secondhand couch. He watched Sam like he wasn’t sure that Sam was telling the truth. “If you’re still a little scared, you can come sit with me a while. I can wake you up again when I go to bed. We could check under the beds and in the closet for monsters, if you like.”
Sam crawled up onto the couch next to Dean and tucked his head again his older brother’s shoulder. When Dean wrapped his arm around him like that, the monsters wouldn’t be able to get him. Dean pulled a blanket up around Sam’s shoulders, but didn’t turn up the volume on the television, even though the commercial break was long over.
From his place of comfort, Sam looked up at Dad, who was settled back into his chair, reading his book. “What are you reading, Dad?”
“Sammy, you need to sleep. It’s way past your bed time. Stop bothering Dad.” Dean ruffled Sam’s hair, but Sam could feel him watching Dad.
“Could you read to me?” Sam snuggled a bit closer to Dean.
“This isn’t the kind of thing you want as a bedtime story, Sammy,” Dad warned, his voice gruff and warm.
“Please?”
Dad sighed and Sam knew he’d won the argument before it was even fought. He closed his eyed, leaned against Dean, and allowed his father’s voice wash over him, his tongue rolling over the old-fashioned words in a familiar, comforting manner like a mother singing a lullaby.
“Whatever becomes of the Observation which we have hitherto been making, there has been too much cause to observe, that the Christians who were driven into the American Desart, which is now called New England, have to their sorrow seen Azazel dwelling and raging there in very Tragical Instances. The Devils have doubtless felt a more than ordinary Vexation…”
*
When Sam was ten and they’d just moved out of the crowded apartment with the noisy neighbors in the dull mill city and into the little brick-red house in Phillipston, his class went on a field trip to Salem. In September, they’d started a whole section on the history of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the field trip was supposed to give them a better idea of what they had been reading about for almost two months. Since Dad was working weird shifts again, he volunteered to help chaperone the trip. Sam had never been to Salem before. Dad was definitely more of a camping-and-enjoy-the-great-outdoors sort of guy than a books-and-museums geek, so, while they had gone camping and fishing in Vermont and the western part of the state, they’d left the museums around Boston well enough alone.
Of course, he knew about the Salem Witch Trials. Everybody did. One of the first chapter books they’d ever read for school was about the slave Tituba. Dad had lots of books written by and about the Mathers around the house and sometimes, when Sam was bored, he’d go through them and try to figure out what they were trying to say. They wrote a lot about evils and spirits and deserts, but Dad seemed to like them well enough and that was good enough for Sam. Dean had told him frightening stories of possessed women and berserker men going mad in Salem, but Sam told him he didn’t believe in witches. The magazines in the library said that the hysteria in Salem was caused by bad bread and that was good enough for Sam.
As the class moved through the Salem Witch Museum and followed their costumed guide down the street, with some of the girls shrieking loudly when the guide spoke of the torturous death of the silent Giles Corey, Sam hung back and fell into step with his father. “Dad, they’re talking about Cotton Mather like he’s a terrible person. Did he really hurt all those people like that?”
Dad wrapped his arm around Sam’s shoulder. “They’re not all right, but sometimes good people, even great people, do bad things or make mistakes. The Mathers were a great family and did many good things, but it does look like they hurt some people quite badly.”
“But…” Sam bit his lower lip and watched Alex and Mark jostle for space on the sidewalk. “I don’t get it.”
Dad didn’t say anything for a moment or two. “You know how Dean means well and we know he loves us, but sometimes, when he’s scared, even though he’s smart, he’ll do something that’s kind of stupid and maybe someone else will accidentally get hurt or scared?”
“Like when he brought the steak knife trick-or-treating and wouldn't let me eat any of the candy last year?”
Dad sighed deeply. “Yeah. Like that. What do you think about not dressing up with the other kids this year? I know you like the fun, but your brother gets so wrecked up and…”
“Yeah,” Sam agreed as they stepped in the cool shadows of the Witch Dungeon Museum. “I’m getting a little old for it anyway.”
“I’m working that evening, but I’ll make sure to order you pizza.” Dad smiled. “Maybe you can convince him to watch the Twilight Zone marathon with you? Have a little Halloween fun?”
Sam laughed. “Come on! You know he hates that stuff. He wouldn’t sleep for a week!”
*
“Sam?” Dad asked. “Can you come help me with the stuffing?”
“Dad,” Sam groaned from the couch. “You just gave me the Nintendo. I’m in the middle of a game.”
Dean jumped up from where he’d been watching Sam play and flipping idly through one of his books. “I can help.”
“Dean, you’ll set the kitchen on fire and we’re not even using the stove yet.” Dad stared at Sam impatiently. “I need your help in the kitchen, Sam, and you’re going to come and do it if you want me to let you keep playing those games today.”
“Fine, fine.” Sam set his game on pause and turned to Dean, warning, “If you even touch my game, I’m going to kill you dead.”
“I don’t want to play your stupid Donkey Kong,” Dean protested, making a big show of picking up his new John Grisham novel. “Go help Dad so you can get your ass back in here sooner and play it.”
Sam grumbled as he walked down the hall and into the kitchen, but stopped as soon as he saw the look on Dad’s face. It wasn’t going to be that bad; it looked like Dad had been telling the truth about wanting help with making stuffing, but he also looked furious. Silently, Sam went to the drawer, picked out one of the chopping knives, and went for the onions.
Dad took a deep breath as he began to tear up the bread with precise, sharp motions. “Why’d you do it, Sam?”
“I’m not going to take it back,” Sam said, as he blinked back onion-tears.
“I’m not asking you to. It’d break his heart and besides, it’s Christmas Eve.” He sighed heavily, sounding older than he was. “But you know what he’s like and he’s been better lately, especially since he got into St. Bernard’s. I really don’t think giving him some crazy luck charm you found in a New Age pawn shop is going to help him any.”
“He hasn’t been better,” Sam hissed, keeping his voice low as he chopped the onions with a vengeance. “He just knows when to keep his mouth shut now. He doesn’t want you to send him away.”
“What?” Dad had stopped tearing up the bread to stare at Sam.
“Dean’s not dumb, Dad, no matter what his teachers say. He knew that Ms. Price didn’t call you in for parent-teacher conferences because he was a goddamn pleasure to have in class. He figured out that maybe he should keep his mouth shut a little bit more.” Sam finished with the onions and reached for the celery.
“So he’s lying?” Dad asked, with a deep sigh.
“He’s not lying.” Sam put the knife down angrily. “He figured out what your game was and is working around it. It doesn’t mean he still isn’t scared of vampires or ghosts or whatever the hell it is that he’s scared of. It just means that he’s not telling people about it. He’s been working his way through a Latin copy of the Malleus Maleficarum at night. You know how he helped you make those bookshelves out of that verawood? He’s got a stick of it under his pillow, sleeps on it, got a cross carved into it. Did you know it’s called palo santo in Spanish?”
Dad frowned deeply, the lines marking his face, and picked up the piece of bread again. “I’ve heard of it. I didn’t think he had.”
“I’m not going to take back a necklace that’s going to make him feel safe, Dad.” Sam started chopping the celery with vigor. “I know that it’s just a cast metal head and that there are probably thousands like it, but…” He sighed. “I don’t know why he’s scared of the dark. I don’t get why he thinks these things are real. But if I can help feel even a little bit safer, even even it’s just by giving him a trinket, then, then that’s good enough for me.”
“You think I don’t want him to feel safe?” Dad asked, mixing the bread and chopped vegetables in a bowl. “I just want him to know it, not depend on a necklace for it.”
“Whatever.”
“Having super-secret cooks’ conversations?” Dean wandered into the kitchen and grabbed a glass from the cabinet. “Ones not for the likes of me?”
“Whatever,” Sam repeated, watching Dean touch the charm on the leather thong around his neck as he poured himself some water.
*
Sam sat in his room fairly quietly and tried to pretend he wasn’t listening to his dad yell at Dean. Again. Sam had his own opinions about what was going on, that it wasn’t Dean’s fault he’d had a panic attack during the exam and totally bombed his SATs. Dean didn’t get them often, but Sam had seen him, sometimes, when he had, and they were terrifying. Really, Sam wished that he’d been there to help calm Dean down and figure out what had caused it, that Dean hadn’t been surrounded by a bunch of strangers like that.
“I don’t know what you want me to do!” Sam could hear the desperation in Dean’s voice. “I got a job down at the garage. I can try retaking the SATs again this year. It’s not like colleges are going to say, ‘Oh, look, he’s twenty, we can’t accept him as a freshman!’”
“Don’t take that tone of voice with me.”
“I’m trying here, I really am, but I don’t get it! I know you want me to go to college like you never did! And I’m going to, I’m going to try. But I can’t right now and I’m doing the best that I can!”
“I don’t get it, son. You’re smart and you can do so much better than this! Why do you keep throwing your life away?”
“Throwing my life away?” Sam winced at the bafflement in Dean’s voice, like Dad hadn’t brought this up a hundred time before. “I’m trying here.”
“You’re nineteen and you’re still afraid of the dark!” Sam winced again; Dean hated that fact possibly more than he hated the dark. “Don’t think I haven’t found those books under your bed or the knives in your desk! And I’d bet money that whatever the hell happened during that test had something to do with those things, too!”
“I wonder why the fucking hell I’d be scared of the dark, Dad! It’s not like there’s anything out to get me! It’s not like I’ve never seen anyone else reading books like that! Not like I learned it from anyone!”
“You learned those things during a bad time, Dean Winchester! Things have changed. You’re old enough to know that - to know better. Can’t you see that you’re safe!”
Sam sighed heavily and put down the book he’d been pretending to read, reaching instead for his portable CD player. If he knew anything, he knew that Dean and Dad would be at each others’ throats for another hour yet and then they’d both leave in a huff. They wouldn’t speak to each other for three days and then they’d pretend nothing had ever happened, until Dean had another panic attack or got caught with his knives or his books and then it would be round two. As he put on his headphones and listened to U2 rage, he wondered what it was that Dean was throwing in Dad’s face whenever they argued like this, why Dean thought it was Dad’s fault that he was scared of so much.
*
Alex grinned as he and Sam walked home from school. “Come on, it won’t be that bad. We can study together for that stupid French test and play video games all night. And your dad said he didn’t mind me staying the weekend.”
“It’s not that,” Sam said, scuffing his sneaker in the dirt. “Dean, he came home last night and, well, he and Dad aren’t getting along all that well right now.”
“Your brother’s back?” Alex asked incredulously. “I thought he was actually trying to do some kind of college thing.”
“Yeah, but thing’s aren’t working out with his roommate or something,” Sam explained. “So he’s back home. Dad’s upset, thinks he needs to get along, shouldn’t have gotten kicked out. Whatever.”
“Can't say I blame his roommate, man.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sam voice was sharp as he glared at his best friend. He knew that Dean wasn’t always the easiest person to get along with, but he’d be damned if he let someone who didn’t even know Dean insult his brother.
“You know my cousins went to Bernard’s with him, right?” Alex made a face; he never bothered to hide his disdain for his Catholic cousins. “Said he wasn’t really all there. Saw one of the nuns take a couple of knives off him once and said that he talked shit about demons and Satan and shit.”
Sam shrugged uncomfortably. That sounded like Dean. His tendency to carry knives scared Dad. “It’s not like he’d hurt someone. He… just gets confused sometimes. That’s all.”
“Whatever, man. Charlie and Alice say he’d have joined a gang if anyone would have actually taken him.”
“Shut up.”
“What? People say it.” Alex looked sideways at Sam. “Christ, Sam, it’s a small town. People talk. Your brother isn’t exactly normal, run-of-the-mill. Any kid who pulls a knife on a cop because he’s dressed up like a vampire for a costume party… He was damn lucky everyone knows what he’s like.”
“Just shut up. That was years ago.”
Alex did as he was told and they walked toward the Winchester house in relative silence. This part of town was already looking like something out of a picture book, with the quiet New England houses and the broad trees already turning shades of red and gold. Sam liked living here more than he had like living in the city, even though he knew Dean had jumped at every shadow and nighttime sounds when they’d first moved. It felt cleaner, more open here than it had back in Fitchburg, even though the apartment had been closer to Dad’s jobs and there had certainly been more to do there.
When they got to the house, they quickly made their way to Sam’s bedroom, the same one he’d shared with Dean until he’d moved out only a month earlier. “Come on, I bet I can beat your ass at Mario.”
“You have got to be kidding me.” Alex laughed. “I can’t believe you still use this old system.”
“Come on, you know you love it,” Sam teased, picking up one of the old controllers.
“It beats French. Come on, you be Luigi.”
“Just because I’m taller than you…”
“You got any of those kick-ass cookies?” Alex asked, after their first round. “I’m starved.”
“Naw,” Sam told him. “I think Dad and Dean devoured them all last night after they stopped fighting.”
“So where’re they now? And is your Dad going to be making any more awesome food this weekend or am I going to starve on your cooking?” Alex grinned.
“Dad’s teaching one of the night courses tonight and Dean’s in class, I think.” He shoved Alex. “And if you’re going to make fun of me, damn straight you’re going to fucking starve!”
“Hey, hey!” Alex protested. “It’s not my fault your dad’s got such a pansy hobby!”
Sam laughed and grabbed the video game.
*
“Dad! Dad!” Sam yelled as he ran into the house. “I got in!” He slowed down when he saw that Dad was on the phone and his face was serious.
“What?” Dad said, his voice low and hoarse. “He’s where?” He nodded against the phone as though the person on the other end could see him. “Is he okay” There was a long pause and Sam watched his father’s mouth thin to a narrow line. “We’ll be there as soon as we can.”
Sam gently put his book bag on one of the kitchen chairs. “What’s going on?”
“Dean’s in the hospital.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know.” Dad grabbed the keys and headed for the door. “Come on. He’s out in Greenfield. It’ll take at least an hour to get there.”
Sam was silent as Dad pulled the Impala onto Route 2 and headed west. “He’s in the hospital? But I talked to him on Friday!”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t look like the doctors do either. They only figured out who he was by checking his wallet.” Dad’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel and Sam was pretty sure they were speeding.
“He - he’s unconscious?”
Dad shook his head, but kept his eyes on the road. “The nurse said something about him mostly being shaken up. I don’t know. We’ll see when we get there.”
Sam bit his lower lip and watched the trees speed by in a blur of brown and black. The snow was all gone now, leaving the countryside flat and dead looking. “On Friday, he said that he and Tony were going to go camping.”
“Camping? He freaks out when he hears owls at night. What the hell would he be doing camping?”
“He said he and Tony were going together…” Sam watched his father for a long moment. “I know he didn’t say anything to you, but he’s been seeing a psychiatrist on campus, about things. He said they were making progress, figuring out why he was scared of things that weren’t there. He said she said it was time for him to face some of his fears and he figured camping with Tony out in the Berkshires was probably a low-key way to do it.”
“Fuck,” Dad cursed. “Fucking hell.”
Part Two
The odd thing, though, was the hunting rifle in Dad’s right hand. When he actually thought about it, which was rarely now, Sam sometimes wondered if Dad had been into hunting before Mom died. From what Aunt Martha said, Dad had been an entirely different person then and it wasn’t until they settled down in Massachusetts, around the time Sam started school, that things really changed. She talked about a man Sam didn’t know. To Sam, Dad would always be the man who took and taught night classes at the trade school when Dean was old enough to babysit him, who joined the Scouts with him, who showed him how to build a cabinet by hand in the garage, and always made sure that, no matter what his work schedule was, he always had time for Sam and Dean. The Marine Aunt Martha and Uncle Bill talked about didn’t sound anything like Dad.
*
One of Sam’s earliest memories was of his first day of school. Any memories before that were fuzzy, unclear where his memories ended and stories began, of Dad’s car and Dean’s arms and a smoky smell he didn’t really have a name for. Dad had bought him new pants and shoes the previous week - Goodwill new - and given him a pep talk reminding him that he was a big boy now and not to let anyone bully him just because he was six and only now starting kindergarten. He had been so excited and had even proudly left his blanket in the car when Dad drove them to the small brick building he would come to call school.
But when Dad tried to drop him off, Dean wouldn’t let go of his hand. Sam was used to Dean always being there and didn’t really mind, but he wanted to play with the blocks in the corner. Dad had tried to get Dean to let him go, told him that he had his own school and class to go to, but Dean wouldn’t listen. Ms. Capasso had come over and talked to them, thinking that it was Sam who wouldn’t leave his father and big brother, but Dean still wouldn’t leave Sam.
Sam couldn’t remember how the problem was resolved, but he remembered how scared Dean had been of leaving him in that classroom. His older brother had been his shadow for the next three years, even when they were fighting or attending different schools.
*
“Dad?” Sam called, clutching Mr. Snuffles to his chest. “Dean?”
“Sammy, what’s wrong?” Dean asked, immediately turning down the volume on the television. “Did something happen?”
“There’s - there’s a monster under my bed.” Sam held the stuffed rabbit tighter, as though he could keep the monsters at bay.
As Dean got up, with wide eyes, and took a few hesitant steps toward the bedroom he and Sam shared, Dad intercepted him. “Hey, it was just a nightmare. You were just having a bad dream, weren’t you, Sammy?”
Sam looked from Dean, who looked ready to take on any monsters who had been bothering his brother with his bare hands, to Dad, who was watching Dean with big eyes that were sadder than they shoulder have been. “Yeah,” he said to the top of Mr. Snuffles’ head. “It must’ve been a dream. Monsters ‘ren’t real.”
Dean sat back down on their old secondhand couch. He watched Sam like he wasn’t sure that Sam was telling the truth. “If you’re still a little scared, you can come sit with me a while. I can wake you up again when I go to bed. We could check under the beds and in the closet for monsters, if you like.”
Sam crawled up onto the couch next to Dean and tucked his head again his older brother’s shoulder. When Dean wrapped his arm around him like that, the monsters wouldn’t be able to get him. Dean pulled a blanket up around Sam’s shoulders, but didn’t turn up the volume on the television, even though the commercial break was long over.
From his place of comfort, Sam looked up at Dad, who was settled back into his chair, reading his book. “What are you reading, Dad?”
“Sammy, you need to sleep. It’s way past your bed time. Stop bothering Dad.” Dean ruffled Sam’s hair, but Sam could feel him watching Dad.
“Could you read to me?” Sam snuggled a bit closer to Dean.
“This isn’t the kind of thing you want as a bedtime story, Sammy,” Dad warned, his voice gruff and warm.
“Please?”
Dad sighed and Sam knew he’d won the argument before it was even fought. He closed his eyed, leaned against Dean, and allowed his father’s voice wash over him, his tongue rolling over the old-fashioned words in a familiar, comforting manner like a mother singing a lullaby.
“Whatever becomes of the Observation which we have hitherto been making, there has been too much cause to observe, that the Christians who were driven into the American Desart, which is now called New England, have to their sorrow seen Azazel dwelling and raging there in very Tragical Instances. The Devils have doubtless felt a more than ordinary Vexation…”
*
When Sam was ten and they’d just moved out of the crowded apartment with the noisy neighbors in the dull mill city and into the little brick-red house in Phillipston, his class went on a field trip to Salem. In September, they’d started a whole section on the history of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the field trip was supposed to give them a better idea of what they had been reading about for almost two months. Since Dad was working weird shifts again, he volunteered to help chaperone the trip. Sam had never been to Salem before. Dad was definitely more of a camping-and-enjoy-the-great-outdoors sort of guy than a books-and-museums geek, so, while they had gone camping and fishing in Vermont and the western part of the state, they’d left the museums around Boston well enough alone.
Of course, he knew about the Salem Witch Trials. Everybody did. One of the first chapter books they’d ever read for school was about the slave Tituba. Dad had lots of books written by and about the Mathers around the house and sometimes, when Sam was bored, he’d go through them and try to figure out what they were trying to say. They wrote a lot about evils and spirits and deserts, but Dad seemed to like them well enough and that was good enough for Sam. Dean had told him frightening stories of possessed women and berserker men going mad in Salem, but Sam told him he didn’t believe in witches. The magazines in the library said that the hysteria in Salem was caused by bad bread and that was good enough for Sam.
As the class moved through the Salem Witch Museum and followed their costumed guide down the street, with some of the girls shrieking loudly when the guide spoke of the torturous death of the silent Giles Corey, Sam hung back and fell into step with his father. “Dad, they’re talking about Cotton Mather like he’s a terrible person. Did he really hurt all those people like that?”
Dad wrapped his arm around Sam’s shoulder. “They’re not all right, but sometimes good people, even great people, do bad things or make mistakes. The Mathers were a great family and did many good things, but it does look like they hurt some people quite badly.”
“But…” Sam bit his lower lip and watched Alex and Mark jostle for space on the sidewalk. “I don’t get it.”
Dad didn’t say anything for a moment or two. “You know how Dean means well and we know he loves us, but sometimes, when he’s scared, even though he’s smart, he’ll do something that’s kind of stupid and maybe someone else will accidentally get hurt or scared?”
“Like when he brought the steak knife trick-or-treating and wouldn't let me eat any of the candy last year?”
Dad sighed deeply. “Yeah. Like that. What do you think about not dressing up with the other kids this year? I know you like the fun, but your brother gets so wrecked up and…”
“Yeah,” Sam agreed as they stepped in the cool shadows of the Witch Dungeon Museum. “I’m getting a little old for it anyway.”
“I’m working that evening, but I’ll make sure to order you pizza.” Dad smiled. “Maybe you can convince him to watch the Twilight Zone marathon with you? Have a little Halloween fun?”
Sam laughed. “Come on! You know he hates that stuff. He wouldn’t sleep for a week!”
*
“Sam?” Dad asked. “Can you come help me with the stuffing?”
“Dad,” Sam groaned from the couch. “You just gave me the Nintendo. I’m in the middle of a game.”
Dean jumped up from where he’d been watching Sam play and flipping idly through one of his books. “I can help.”
“Dean, you’ll set the kitchen on fire and we’re not even using the stove yet.” Dad stared at Sam impatiently. “I need your help in the kitchen, Sam, and you’re going to come and do it if you want me to let you keep playing those games today.”
“Fine, fine.” Sam set his game on pause and turned to Dean, warning, “If you even touch my game, I’m going to kill you dead.”
“I don’t want to play your stupid Donkey Kong,” Dean protested, making a big show of picking up his new John Grisham novel. “Go help Dad so you can get your ass back in here sooner and play it.”
Sam grumbled as he walked down the hall and into the kitchen, but stopped as soon as he saw the look on Dad’s face. It wasn’t going to be that bad; it looked like Dad had been telling the truth about wanting help with making stuffing, but he also looked furious. Silently, Sam went to the drawer, picked out one of the chopping knives, and went for the onions.
Dad took a deep breath as he began to tear up the bread with precise, sharp motions. “Why’d you do it, Sam?”
“I’m not going to take it back,” Sam said, as he blinked back onion-tears.
“I’m not asking you to. It’d break his heart and besides, it’s Christmas Eve.” He sighed heavily, sounding older than he was. “But you know what he’s like and he’s been better lately, especially since he got into St. Bernard’s. I really don’t think giving him some crazy luck charm you found in a New Age pawn shop is going to help him any.”
“He hasn’t been better,” Sam hissed, keeping his voice low as he chopped the onions with a vengeance. “He just knows when to keep his mouth shut now. He doesn’t want you to send him away.”
“What?” Dad had stopped tearing up the bread to stare at Sam.
“Dean’s not dumb, Dad, no matter what his teachers say. He knew that Ms. Price didn’t call you in for parent-teacher conferences because he was a goddamn pleasure to have in class. He figured out that maybe he should keep his mouth shut a little bit more.” Sam finished with the onions and reached for the celery.
“So he’s lying?” Dad asked, with a deep sigh.
“He’s not lying.” Sam put the knife down angrily. “He figured out what your game was and is working around it. It doesn’t mean he still isn’t scared of vampires or ghosts or whatever the hell it is that he’s scared of. It just means that he’s not telling people about it. He’s been working his way through a Latin copy of the Malleus Maleficarum at night. You know how he helped you make those bookshelves out of that verawood? He’s got a stick of it under his pillow, sleeps on it, got a cross carved into it. Did you know it’s called palo santo in Spanish?”
Dad frowned deeply, the lines marking his face, and picked up the piece of bread again. “I’ve heard of it. I didn’t think he had.”
“I’m not going to take back a necklace that’s going to make him feel safe, Dad.” Sam started chopping the celery with vigor. “I know that it’s just a cast metal head and that there are probably thousands like it, but…” He sighed. “I don’t know why he’s scared of the dark. I don’t get why he thinks these things are real. But if I can help feel even a little bit safer, even even it’s just by giving him a trinket, then, then that’s good enough for me.”
“You think I don’t want him to feel safe?” Dad asked, mixing the bread and chopped vegetables in a bowl. “I just want him to know it, not depend on a necklace for it.”
“Whatever.”
“Having super-secret cooks’ conversations?” Dean wandered into the kitchen and grabbed a glass from the cabinet. “Ones not for the likes of me?”
“Whatever,” Sam repeated, watching Dean touch the charm on the leather thong around his neck as he poured himself some water.
*
Sam sat in his room fairly quietly and tried to pretend he wasn’t listening to his dad yell at Dean. Again. Sam had his own opinions about what was going on, that it wasn’t Dean’s fault he’d had a panic attack during the exam and totally bombed his SATs. Dean didn’t get them often, but Sam had seen him, sometimes, when he had, and they were terrifying. Really, Sam wished that he’d been there to help calm Dean down and figure out what had caused it, that Dean hadn’t been surrounded by a bunch of strangers like that.
“I don’t know what you want me to do!” Sam could hear the desperation in Dean’s voice. “I got a job down at the garage. I can try retaking the SATs again this year. It’s not like colleges are going to say, ‘Oh, look, he’s twenty, we can’t accept him as a freshman!’”
“Don’t take that tone of voice with me.”
“I’m trying here, I really am, but I don’t get it! I know you want me to go to college like you never did! And I’m going to, I’m going to try. But I can’t right now and I’m doing the best that I can!”
“I don’t get it, son. You’re smart and you can do so much better than this! Why do you keep throwing your life away?”
“Throwing my life away?” Sam winced at the bafflement in Dean’s voice, like Dad hadn’t brought this up a hundred time before. “I’m trying here.”
“You’re nineteen and you’re still afraid of the dark!” Sam winced again; Dean hated that fact possibly more than he hated the dark. “Don’t think I haven’t found those books under your bed or the knives in your desk! And I’d bet money that whatever the hell happened during that test had something to do with those things, too!”
“I wonder why the fucking hell I’d be scared of the dark, Dad! It’s not like there’s anything out to get me! It’s not like I’ve never seen anyone else reading books like that! Not like I learned it from anyone!”
“You learned those things during a bad time, Dean Winchester! Things have changed. You’re old enough to know that - to know better. Can’t you see that you’re safe!”
Sam sighed heavily and put down the book he’d been pretending to read, reaching instead for his portable CD player. If he knew anything, he knew that Dean and Dad would be at each others’ throats for another hour yet and then they’d both leave in a huff. They wouldn’t speak to each other for three days and then they’d pretend nothing had ever happened, until Dean had another panic attack or got caught with his knives or his books and then it would be round two. As he put on his headphones and listened to U2 rage, he wondered what it was that Dean was throwing in Dad’s face whenever they argued like this, why Dean thought it was Dad’s fault that he was scared of so much.
*
Alex grinned as he and Sam walked home from school. “Come on, it won’t be that bad. We can study together for that stupid French test and play video games all night. And your dad said he didn’t mind me staying the weekend.”
“It’s not that,” Sam said, scuffing his sneaker in the dirt. “Dean, he came home last night and, well, he and Dad aren’t getting along all that well right now.”
“Your brother’s back?” Alex asked incredulously. “I thought he was actually trying to do some kind of college thing.”
“Yeah, but thing’s aren’t working out with his roommate or something,” Sam explained. “So he’s back home. Dad’s upset, thinks he needs to get along, shouldn’t have gotten kicked out. Whatever.”
“Can't say I blame his roommate, man.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sam voice was sharp as he glared at his best friend. He knew that Dean wasn’t always the easiest person to get along with, but he’d be damned if he let someone who didn’t even know Dean insult his brother.
“You know my cousins went to Bernard’s with him, right?” Alex made a face; he never bothered to hide his disdain for his Catholic cousins. “Said he wasn’t really all there. Saw one of the nuns take a couple of knives off him once and said that he talked shit about demons and Satan and shit.”
Sam shrugged uncomfortably. That sounded like Dean. His tendency to carry knives scared Dad. “It’s not like he’d hurt someone. He… just gets confused sometimes. That’s all.”
“Whatever, man. Charlie and Alice say he’d have joined a gang if anyone would have actually taken him.”
“Shut up.”
“What? People say it.” Alex looked sideways at Sam. “Christ, Sam, it’s a small town. People talk. Your brother isn’t exactly normal, run-of-the-mill. Any kid who pulls a knife on a cop because he’s dressed up like a vampire for a costume party… He was damn lucky everyone knows what he’s like.”
“Just shut up. That was years ago.”
Alex did as he was told and they walked toward the Winchester house in relative silence. This part of town was already looking like something out of a picture book, with the quiet New England houses and the broad trees already turning shades of red and gold. Sam liked living here more than he had like living in the city, even though he knew Dean had jumped at every shadow and nighttime sounds when they’d first moved. It felt cleaner, more open here than it had back in Fitchburg, even though the apartment had been closer to Dad’s jobs and there had certainly been more to do there.
When they got to the house, they quickly made their way to Sam’s bedroom, the same one he’d shared with Dean until he’d moved out only a month earlier. “Come on, I bet I can beat your ass at Mario.”
“You have got to be kidding me.” Alex laughed. “I can’t believe you still use this old system.”
“Come on, you know you love it,” Sam teased, picking up one of the old controllers.
“It beats French. Come on, you be Luigi.”
“Just because I’m taller than you…”
“You got any of those kick-ass cookies?” Alex asked, after their first round. “I’m starved.”
“Naw,” Sam told him. “I think Dad and Dean devoured them all last night after they stopped fighting.”
“So where’re they now? And is your Dad going to be making any more awesome food this weekend or am I going to starve on your cooking?” Alex grinned.
“Dad’s teaching one of the night courses tonight and Dean’s in class, I think.” He shoved Alex. “And if you’re going to make fun of me, damn straight you’re going to fucking starve!”
“Hey, hey!” Alex protested. “It’s not my fault your dad’s got such a pansy hobby!”
Sam laughed and grabbed the video game.
*
“Dad! Dad!” Sam yelled as he ran into the house. “I got in!” He slowed down when he saw that Dad was on the phone and his face was serious.
“What?” Dad said, his voice low and hoarse. “He’s where?” He nodded against the phone as though the person on the other end could see him. “Is he okay” There was a long pause and Sam watched his father’s mouth thin to a narrow line. “We’ll be there as soon as we can.”
Sam gently put his book bag on one of the kitchen chairs. “What’s going on?”
“Dean’s in the hospital.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know.” Dad grabbed the keys and headed for the door. “Come on. He’s out in Greenfield. It’ll take at least an hour to get there.”
Sam was silent as Dad pulled the Impala onto Route 2 and headed west. “He’s in the hospital? But I talked to him on Friday!”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t look like the doctors do either. They only figured out who he was by checking his wallet.” Dad’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel and Sam was pretty sure they were speeding.
“He - he’s unconscious?”
Dad shook his head, but kept his eyes on the road. “The nurse said something about him mostly being shaken up. I don’t know. We’ll see when we get there.”
Sam bit his lower lip and watched the trees speed by in a blur of brown and black. The snow was all gone now, leaving the countryside flat and dead looking. “On Friday, he said that he and Tony were going to go camping.”
“Camping? He freaks out when he hears owls at night. What the hell would he be doing camping?”
“He said he and Tony were going together…” Sam watched his father for a long moment. “I know he didn’t say anything to you, but he’s been seeing a psychiatrist on campus, about things. He said they were making progress, figuring out why he was scared of things that weren’t there. He said she said it was time for him to face some of his fears and he figured camping with Tony out in the Berkshires was probably a low-key way to do it.”
“Fuck,” Dad cursed. “Fucking hell.”
Part Two
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