Work Text:
It goes like this:
Dad calls Dean and orders him to drive the both of you to Maine. Camden, Maine to be exact.
You get there the next afternoon, and Dad tells you he spent the night with this lady back in January. January, and it’s now August. You know before he admits to it that there’s a terrifying reason he’s telling you this.
Dad screwed a woman who looked an awful lot like Mom back in January. And suddenly you’re older than someone. Because said lady is pregnant. Due in late October.
Dean is quiet beside you, his hand still on your shoulder. And Dad is looking between the two of you like he expects you to throw punches.
But you’re older now. And you don’t know what an older sibling does unless it’s what Dean does. So, you game plan.
“Are we… Are you gonna raise ‘em?” you ask, guiltily scared at the thought. Because suddenly you’re older, and you don’t know how to be. And if being older means being Dean, you are positively screwed.
“I don’t know,” Dad admits.
That’s the end of it. But you know already. You know you’re going to have a little sibling, and you’re going to be more responsible for them than Dad. You know Dean’s going to raise another kid just as you were finally becoming old enough to take care of yourself. Just as he would have been free.
You feign sleep that night while Dean goes outside to talk to Dad. And you game plan.
Because suddenly you’re older, and Dad’s still just as angry as he was 15 years ago, and Dean deserves a break even if he’d never ask for it. Older by a whole lifetime.
And whoever this kid is, you know you’re gonna screw them up. You know Dad is gonna screw them up. You know Dean is gonna kill himself trying not to screw them up.
So you feign sleep, and you listen to the wordless murmur of voices, and you pretend you’re still younger. Because for now, you get that luxury.
October 17, 1998
Sam was still holding the baby when Dad came downstairs. He looked up with a question in his eyes, but Dad was looking at Dean. So Sam looked at Dean too and saw that his brother understood whatever had just happened with Chloe.
Dean laid a hand on Dad’s shoulder for a second in silence. Then he turned to Sam, and smiled broadly. “Guess we’re gonna find out if I know how to hitch up a carseat.” He crouched for a minute in front of Sam and their new sister, and there was a tenderness in his eyes when he looked at the baby. “You okay with her, Sammy?”
Sam bit the inside of his cheek to keep from correcting his brother. He wasn’t the youngest anymore, so the nicknames could stop now. “I got her,” he replied and glanced shyly toward their father. “Is she coming?” he asked Dean, watching John rub a hand tiredly down his face.
“No, Sam, she’s not coming.” Dean sounded tired too despite his efforts to hide it. None of them had slept much last night.
It was strange, the disappointment Sam felt at those words. Maybe it was the hand Chloe had touched his shoulder with so gently last night. Or maybe it was the fact he was holding a baby girl, and their family was about as traditionally masculine as it got. Maybe it was even the idea he’d had yesterday that he and Dean wouldn’t have to take care of this baby all by themselves.
Though that was ungenerous. Dad would probably help sometimes. Or try to anyway.
“What’s her name?” Sam asked, this time speaking to Dad.
John smiled this strange half-smile, his eyes damp. “Anna,” he said and reached toward Sam to pick up the baby. Sam felt a reluctance as he let him take her. “Anna Grace.”
But he looked at Dean and saw a real smile. Maybe it didn’t have to be as scary as he’d thought.
()()()
When Dean knocked on the door, Sam very nearly cried in relief. But Anna had dibs on crying, so he grit his teeth and unlocked the door.
“Take her,” he begged his brother.
Dean had the audacity to laugh at him. But he carefully took the baby, supporting her head with one hand as he shushed her. “The hell’d you do to her, Sam?” he asked, just teasing.
But Sam was at the end of his rope. “What didn’t I do?” he said instead. “I don’t know how to take care of a baby, Dean. I changed her diaper, which– Gross .” He shook himself in disgust at the memory. “I tried to feed her, but she wouldn’t eat. I tried to get her to nap, and she won’t. She just keeps crying.” He threw himself backwards onto his bed.
“Sammy, relax,” Dean told him. “She’s okay, man. Look.” He held the baby against his shoulder now, and she seemed calmer, her cries slowing. “Takes practice, man. You’ll be fine.”
Sam didn’t want to practice. He wanted to be the youngest again. But he looked one more time at the baby, now blinking her green eyes sleepily against Dean’s shoulder. She was so little and innocent. That was worth the stress of being older.
()()()
All of Anna’s little fingers were wrapped so tightly around Sam’s pinky, he honestly wished he could lift her up and hold her. But he was so weak, his stomach turning and his head heavy.
“Can you climb up?” he asked gently, though his voice came out frail anyway.
“Cwy,” Anna repeated, then seemed to understand. She gripped the bedsheets in one hand, Sam’s pant leg in the other, and started struggling up onto the mattress.
Sam moved one hand behind her back but worried that he wouldn’t have the strength to catch her if she fell. Fuck, he wished Dean would come back. Even Dad would have been a welcome sight at this point. He was going on two days with this stomach bug, and he was terrified Anna would catch it too. What the hell would he do then? A sick eighteen-month-old on his hands while he still felt like garbage?
“Dam,” Anna said softly, crawling into his lap. She was small, but she always managed to hit him in all the worst places when she climbed onto him.
“Anna,” he said back in an equally soft tone, wincing halfway through the word as her elbow hit his sternum.
Her small, warm body settled against his arm, her head turned into his shoulder. She babbled in a tiny, high-pitched voice. But over the course of about twenty minutes, her coos and half-words petered off.
Sam was mostly asleep himself, thinking about how he should probably move Anna so he didn’t roll onto her in his sleep. But his limbs were heavy, and the thought wasn’t even complete before he was out.
And that’s how Dad and Dean found them half an hour later. Sam’s cheeks were pink with fever, Anna’s thumb in her mouth as she slept. They looked so damn content and peaceful.
Dean loathed to mess it up, took longer than necessary getting Tylenol ready for Sam and a snack ready for Anna. And when he was done, he paused again to look at his siblings. They looked so tiny. Both of them, though Sam was about Dean’s height now.
It made Dean’s chest ache someplace deep. That kid with shaggy hair and dimples set in a baby face was made completely responsible for a toddler way too often. And the toddler? Her wispy curls and tiny fingers, the soft, contented breaths she kept releasing in her sleep– She deserved more than to be raised by a couple of pseudo-adults with their own emotional issues.
Dean looked at Dad– who was reading the newspaper, probably looking for another case– and sighed. Time to wake the kids up.
()()()
Anna was sobbing into Dean’s shoulder, and somehow that was the worst part of all this.
Sam had tears in his own eyes, though all he had felt a moment ago was anger. He’d known Dad would be pissed off. But he hadn’t realized Dad would disown him. It’s just college , he kept thinking uselessly. I’m just going to college.
But Anna was wailing somewhere to his right, and Dad was looming over him dangerously. For a minute, Sam believed Dad would hit him if he made a move toward the door. He looked desperately toward Dean. He didn’t know what he was expecting. Support? Fear? More anger?
What he found was grief.
Dean was willing to let him go, but he wasn’t willing to go with him.
“Daaaam!” Anna screamed at the top of her lungs, so high-pitched the word was barely comprehensible.
Dean shushed her, rubbing her back. But there was no consoling her now.
Sam’s chin wobbled as he looked at Anna. He didn’t want to leave her. He’d never intended to leave her. Whatever he’d expected Dad to say, it hadn’t been this. He’d never imagined Dad could take away his siblings.
It was real, solid proof that what Sam had suspected for a long time was true– Dad might not hate him, but he didn’t really love him either. Maybe he didn’t know how, or maybe he thought this was love. But it didn’t make a difference. Because it wasn’t love, and Sam wasn’t safe, and neither were his siblings.
He stepped toward Dean, put his hand on Anna’s back. “It’s okay,” he told her in a tiny, shaking voice. “I love you, Ladybug.” He looked carefully up at Dean, saw some brand of torn up love in his brother’s eyes. “You too,” he said, nostrils flaring with his effort to hold back tears.
Dean grabbed his brother by the elbow and pulled him in. One arm still held Anna as she hiccupped and let out infrequent sobs. The other held Sam so tight, it was a wonder no bones were broken.
Sam took one last look at Anna’s big green eyes, red and swollen with her grief. He wasn’t abandoning her, he told himself. And he wasn’t abandoning Dean. Dad wasn’t a monster, he wouldn’t hurt them. And Sam was only 18. He should never have been made to feel responsible for either of his siblings.
But he stepped outside under John’s barked reminder, “You go, you’re gone for good. You hear me?”
Maybe he’d thought he was calling Sam’s bluff. And maybe Sam thought that by stepping out that door, he’d be calling Dad’s.
But the door slammed behind him so hard, Sam flinched away from the sound. And he rode alone all the way to California, moved alone into his dorm room, and was still alone months later.
Dad, he could handle hating him.
Dean, he couldn’t.
And Anna? Sam was older. He still didn’t understand how the hell she’d managed to change him so much in the course of a couple years, but there was no going back now. And just the trying was killing him.
()()()
It was a massive relief when Anna remembered who he was.
She was seven now, wiry and small. Her hair was as messy and curly as ever, and she’d developed a spattering of freckles across her nose and the tops of her cheeks. She was quiet, though. She hid behind Dean like she was keenly aware that he was the only thing standing between her and a world of monsters. She giggled and bounced on her feet sometimes, but she was still quiet.
Sam knew very few kids, but those few he did know were loud . They ran without thought for those around them, shouted at the top of their lungs for no real reason other than to hear the sounds they could make, and felt their emotions so openly it was startling. But he’d never been like that. He didn’t remember Dean being like that. So, yeah, it shouldn’t have been a surprise that Anna wasn’t like that either.
But it still fucking killed him. That was the handiwork of John Winchester. It was fear and confusion and the latent understanding that you could never be sure whether you were safe or not. He knew before he even asked Dean that Anna was not in the dark about what was out there.
Seven years old, and she fell asleep at night knowing there were monsters lurking outside her window.
He didn’t sleep much after Jess. When he did, the nightmares came and woke him up. So he was wide awake, channel surfing when he heard Anna start crying in her sleep. He flicked the TV off and moved carefully toward the bed she shared with Dean.
He crouched beside her, brushed her hair out of her face. “Hey, what’s the matter?”
Anna jerked awake with a stuttering breath. With her, Dean woke too. “Wha’s wrong?” he asked drowsily. “You ‘kay, Munchkin?”
Anna nodded and let Dean give her a one armed hug.
“You were crying in your sleep,” Sam said softly. “You want to talk about it?”
Anna shook her head this time.
“You wanna watch TV for a little while?” he asked instead.
Dean blinked tiredly at him and sighed. “Go ahead, Rugrat,” he said, throat scratchy with sleep.
Anna slid eagerly out of bed and wrapped her arms around Sam’s neck. “C’you carry me?” she asked sweetly.
It was funny. When Anna had been about 20 pounds, he’d struggled to hold her for long periods of time. Now she was older and heavier, and Sam lifted her like she didn’t weigh a thing. They’d both grown up a lot while he was gone.
They sat on the couch, Anna curled up in Sam’s lap. And eventually, she started to speak over Tom & Jerry . “I keep having a dream that Daddy is dead,” she began. “He was mad at me ‘afore he left.”
The two statements seemed disconnected at first, but Sam was able to bridge the gap. “Dad didn’t leave because of you,” he said seriously. “He’s hunting the thing that called our mom. You know that, right?”
Anna shrugged. “He always been hunting that thing,” she said and sniffled. “But he got mad at me and slammed the door. And then he left in the morning.” She leaned her head resignedly against Sam’s shoulder, and he wrapped his arms around her. “He usually comes back by now.”
Sam looked at the TV but didn’t retain anything. “That’s not your fault. I’m sorry Dad got so mad at you. But, you know, that’s not your fault either.”
“Yeah-huh,” Anna said, but it wasn’t argumentative. It was just defeated. “If I’m good, he’s nice usually.”
It was half-curiosity and half-parental when he asked, “What would Dean say if you told him that?”
Anna’s mouth twisted off to the side. “That it’s not my fault,” she admitted. “He says Daddy just gets like that sometimes.”
“Exactly,” Sam agreed. “He shouldn’t take it out on you, though. If you want to be mad at him, you can. You don’t have to be quiet for him.”
Anna seemed confused by his words, and Sam realized this was a totally foreign concept. They didn’t talk outright about emotions. Hell, he’d be surprised if she understood that she was ‘being quiet for Dad.’ To her it was ‘being good.’ And that was all she knew good to mean– quiet, careful, sweet but only affectionate when it was okay.
“It’s not your fault he left,” Sam reiterated. “Can you say that?”
And it was like a memory re-enacted.
“Can you say it, Anna? Say ‘Sam.’ Say ‘Sam.’”
“No way, Sammy. She’s gonna say ‘Dean’ first. Right, Anna? Say ‘Dean.’ Come on.”
“Say ‘Sam.’”
“It’s not my fault he left,” Anna said with marked hesitation. She sniffled again, “Sammy, is Daddy gonna come back?” she asked. “He never goes for this long.”
Sam closed his eyes and pressed his cheek against the top of his sister’s head. This, right here, was what it felt like to actually be older. Cause he couldn’t do this shit as a teenager. He didn’t know how. “He’ll come back,” he promised. “Dad always comes back.”
And maybe that was his own childish dream. But he didn’t think so. Because he’d given up on Dad four years ago.
()()()
He couldn’t touch her.
Was this what Dad had felt, all those years? The way he’d kept himself so distant from his kids, snapped every time they got too close, was this feeling at the center?
Because Sam had his nine-year-old sister curled in his lap, crying silent tears into his flannel, and he still couldn’t feel enough to hold her. She was grieving, and he was all she had left, but he couldn’t hold her.
Sam stared for the millionth time at Dean’s grave. “What would you do?” he asked dully. He used to cry here, but he couldn’t anymore.
But it didn’t matter. If being older meant being Dean, Sam was positively screwed. He didn’t know how to feel nothing and keep living. He could do quiet anger, fear, even depression. But this numbness was so different, so overwhelming.
It was like he didn’t exist at all. Maybe he had it all wrong. Maybe he wasn’t all Anna had left. Maybe she had nothing.
Because Sam couldn’t be older if he couldn’t be younger. And Dean was dead.
()()()
It was startling, the tightness of Anna’s arms around his waist.
She was twelve, and she wore her hair in braids most of the time. She’d taken to wearing hoodies and ripped jeans, trying her best to look older. But she still looked like a baby to him, because all he saw were her eyes. And when she spoke, he heard pain etched into every word. But he comforted himself by calling it projection.
“I missed you too,” Sam said through a breathy laugh. Anna didn’t let go, not even when Dean grabbed Sam’s shoulders and crushed him in another hug. He had a feeling things had been kind of… difficult while he was gone. “It’s okay,” he said as Dean let him go and Anna held on.
Dean tugged gently at her shoulders until she released Sam. But she had tear tracks on her face. How was she still so good at crying without making a sound? Dean tucked her against his side and rubbed her shoulder soothingly.
“Let him breathe, Sweetheart,” he requested. Then, to Sam, “You must be starving.”
And Sam was.
But it wasn’t the kind of hunger fixed with a sandwich and a beer. It was a deeply rooted, insatiable hunger he’d learned when he was six months old. A hunger to feel love as simply as he felt starvation.
()()()
It was torture, listening to Anna scream her throat raw.
“Hold still,” Sam begged her, tears in his eyes. “Come on, Anna, please. I can’t get your wrists out if you keep moving.” But she wasn’t hearing a word he said, and it was terrifying. It was torture. “Hold still,” he pleaded and finally got one wrist free.
It was with dread that he realized Anna had already wrenched the other one out of the cuff. She crawled forward liltingly and reached Dean’s side as he closed her mother’s eyes.
Sam felt sick as he joined them. This was a whole other type of trauma. He crouched and put a hand on Anna’s back, between her shoulder blades. She was shivering. Sam couldn’t see her face, but he watched Dean look worriedly at her.
“Hey,” Dean said softly, and Sam heard more than saw his brother’s sadness. “Look at me.” Anna didn’t. But it wasn’t defiance. “Come on, Rugrat. You in there?”
“Shock?” Sam asked quietly.
Anna made a sound of denial, but it wasn’t anything close to a word.
“Yeah, she’s barely responsive,” Dean answered and stood, pulling Anna up with him.
Sam could see her eyes now, and it made his stomach flip. She looked dazed, numb, only half-alive. “I think she broke her wrist,” he said, feeling some of that numbness enter his own skull.
“Sammy,” Dean snapped, and Sam realized he’d been spacing out a bit himself.
“Sorry, sorry,” he said, shaking himself. “Hospital?”
Anna made another sound of possible denial. But Dean overruled her, “Tough, Anna, ‘cause you’re going.”
Sam helped him lead her to the car, and at the hospital, he helped get her back out.
She still wasn’t even half with it, but Anna fought them tooth and nail when she saw the vibrant sign for the emergency room. Sam couldn’t make sense of most of her words, but he knew she was pleading to go home. And it broke his heart, but she wasn’t okay, and there was no pretending this time.
When she finally managed to pull out of both their hands, Dean seemed fed up. He gave Sam a look before sweeping Anna off her feet and holding her tight under the knees and shoulders. Sam got the door without being asked, talked to the receptionist urgently and was surprised by the believability of his own improvised story.
There was an older man in the waiting room, but at the sight of Anna, the staff rolled out a gurney right away. Anna was terrified, that much was clear by her voice as she asked Dean to take her home. And Sam watched without air.
This whole thing was an unbelievable failure.
()()()
It goes like this:
Your father puts a baby in your arms, says, “Her name is Anna.”
Then you leave, your father dies, you die, Dean dies, and one day so does the baby.
And you keep finding each other. And you keep trying to make things better for this kid. This kid you were handed before you knew how young you were. And you keep messing up.
But no matter how guilty or mournful or scared you feel, this kid keeps looking up at you with trust in her eyes. And suddenly you understand. This is older. This fumbling and panicking and unearned guilt– this is what older is.
La Fin