Tell me, what makes you so special.

[Set in canonish. wentdwnthatroad used with love to make up for the prompt of lame. (Dean’s opinion, not mine.)]

Dad had told them to go occupy themselves.

He gave them money to get ice cream from the ice cream truck, and told them to go out and play on their own. At eight years-old, Dean had better things to do than babysit Sammy, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. He was stuck while Dad was off doing whatever it was he was doing, and he wasn’t fond of it. Plus, with Sammy around, he had less money for ice cream so he was stuck with a stupid popsicle instead of the ice cream fudge bar.

Lame.

They had returned to Pastor Jim’s after getting the ice cream, and Sammy was starting to get sticky from his, but Dad wasn’t done yet. He had tossed the bag of toys and books that they kept for car rides at the boys, and told them to head outside, leaving them alone again. Dean was really starting to get sick of babysitting Sammy.

“Vrrrrrr vrrrrrrroooooom vrrrrrrrrrroooooooooooom,” Sam said to himself, staying sprawled on top of one of the sturdier card tables that one of the church ladies left out near the side of the road. He had pouted his way into getting a second turn with the Matchbox cars, which left Dean with the legal pad and the markers. He was drumming along to one of Dad’s songs on the edge of the pad, before glancing around to the different people that were in the area.

School was out so there were a few kids out along the street with lemonade and all different kinds of stuff. There were a few yard sales, where people were coming over and walking away with stuff that they had paid for. Apparently, if you put stuff up for sale on the side of the road, people were willing to pay a lot of money for it, and fast. Each item, had its own kind of price tag and sign. He considered for a moment, before starting to write in big letters across the front of the paper.

( *** )

1261 words

[Goddamn stupid Winchesters. Dean wouldn't shut up about this, so here it is. Sam is imnot_likeyou but anyone else is an NPC.]

Venezuela had a way of making you sweat bullets.

It was disgusting. It was the kind of heat that got under your skin, made you feel like you were melting, and made Sam smell like a goddamn garbage truck, but that was okay really. Most of the Venezuelan jungle smelled like a goddamn garbage truck, so Sam blended right in. Unless you were standing right next to him, which was what Dean was doing a lot of the time because someone had to watch his ass. Kid was a walking target. It came with being a bajillion feet tall.

Anyway.

Middle of the night heat was better than middle of the day heat, but it was still humid as hell. The kind of humidity that if you weren’t used to it, it made you feel like you couldn’t breathe, and unfortunately for Dean, he had to say he was used to it. And it was less humid considering they were outside in the brush as oppose to trapped in the shack that they’d been in earlier, but given all the gear they were covered in, it wasn’t making much of a difference. They were still sweating to death. It was how Dean justified eating the way he did, so he certainly wasn’t going to complain.

Much.

( *** )

1438 words

“Sammy, get down.”

“Dean, I wanna see.” Sammy had the edge of his glove in his mouth, as he pushed up against the snow fort Dean had built just outside Pastor Jim’s. Some of the neighborhood kids had challenged him to the snowball fight and Dean, being seven and John Winchester’s son wasn’t about to back down from a challenge. Any challenge. But Dean also had to watch Sammy, who was two and a half, and facing down three of the neighborhood boys with a two and a half year-old as your copilot wasn’t exactly the best move. In fact, it sucked. Because Sammy really didn’t seem to get the point.

But Dean did his best. He built the fort and put Sammy behind it and was pummeling at the kids across the way, but Sammy was really doing his best to try and screw with his chances here. He kept poking his head over the top, trying to get a look, and making him a prime target. And Dean wasn’t the kind of guy to lose.

“Sammy, you gotta stay down.”

“Dean, I don’t like this anymore. I wanna go back inside.”

Dean had been mid throw at that point and hadn’t responded to Sammy fast enough. In fact, he wasn’t even really paying attention—seven year-old attention span not being what it should be. The next time he had a track on his brother again, it was when he heard his brother start crying. Pastor Jim’s was on the opposite side of the opposing team’s fort and when Sammy had waddled his way out to the middle of them, aiming to head back towards the house and not quite making it before the snowballs had started flying. When Dean looked over, Sammy was on his back on the ground, crying his eyes out for Dean, or anybody to help him.

Dean just grit his jaw slightly, scooping up whatever snowballs he had and charging out towards his brother, not planning on letting these guys get away with it. Nobody got to him through his brother.

Nobody.

348 words

[Set in pushedtoedges. Ruby is sent_farfaraway and used with permission from her mun who made a request for Dean/Ruby future fic with the prompt “correction.”]

“No matter what happens... somebody will find a way to take it too seriously.”

Dean had decided a long time ago to treat this as a vacation. A period of time where the rules were suspended and he didn’t have to worry about stopping the end of the world. It wasn’t like he could think of it otherwise, anyway, without driving himself insane. There was no way out. Not until the place got tired of you and decided to toss you away. Until then, the standard was pretty much making do with what he had—a house that was kinda sorta his (he claimed it after all), a couple of friends, and, well—Ruby.

Sam hadn’t shown up yet. Dean was starting to doubt he ever would, given the fact that his brother was probably smart enough not to push the limits. Which meant that Dean was stuck here, without Sam, and somehow that made it okay for him to break or find excuses for a lot of the rules that he normally made for himself, and more beyond the fact of “Well, yeah, but she’s really hot.” Truth be told, he had reasoned this out with more than just his dick. Really. Well, not the first time, the first time was her being—Ruby, for lack of a better adjective, and as far as he was concerned, it was never going to happen again.

Until it did.

( *** )

1325 words

[Set in Warm Gun. Sam is likely_evil and used with permission from his mun who made a request for Sam and Dean future!fic with the prompt “bikini.” Alec is smart_alec494 and also used with permission and lots of additional love. I have no idea how this happened.]

“Boredom is a great motivator.”

Dean loved bikini season.

It was one of the few reasons why he actually entertained setting foot in Palm Beach. The area really didn’t go with his wardrobe, and if it hadn’t been for the fact that there were half-naked women walking around, he probably would have passed up the unexplained events and headed for something a little more comfortable. Dean had always been a leg guy. He couldn’t help it.

It was one of those fantastic sets of legs that he had managed to get a number out of and a promise to drop by before he skipped out of town that had his attention when he collapsed into bed the night before, and he had intended to get at least a few good hours before he had to get back to the job, but it wasn’t long before Sam was shaking him awake, sounding almost a little alarmed.

“Dean! Dean, wake up!”

Dean groaned slightly, pulling the pillow over his head before rolling away from his brother. “What is it, Sammy?”

“A kitten!”

( *** )

1157 words

[Set after THIS. Tessa is bound_byfate, Sam is likely_evil, everyone else is an NPC. Goddamnit, Dean. Beginning dialogue is from above ficlet.]

“I know that you aren’t my daddy and mommy... but I want you to be. Daddies and Mommies take care of their kids, and I’m your kid.”

“Yer not takin’ dat away from yer bra’ther, my love. Johnny always be rememberin’ him. But you really are his daddy now. No harm in ‘im callin’ you dat.”

“If you really want to.”

“I love you, Daddy.”

The scene blurred in front of him and he tried his best to swallow it back, but he couldn’t. He knew that he should be happy for his brother. He knew that he should have seen this coming. But it didn’t stop the sucker punch to the gut that came with hearing your son refer to someone else as their father. What made it worse was that he understood it. Understood it more than he would have liked. Dean was dead. Gone. He wasn’t in Johnny’s life and he never had been, not beyond those first few months that he was sure the boy couldn’t even remember. Dean wasn’t anything more than a story Sam told Johnny to try and get him to sleep on nights when he couldn’t.

Sam was Johnny’s father. It was only fair that he should get the title to go with it.

( *** )

899 words

[Part of the Detective AU. Cas = soldier_ofgod, Sam = likely_evil, anyone else is an NPC. Related to THIS and THIS.]

“Dean?”

“Yeah, Sammy?”

“Why don’t we have a mom?”

Sam was about six when he first started asking that question. John was working late and they were spending the night at Mrs. Harvelle’s. She started watching them after school when John and Bill started working as partners, considering she had a kid of her own who went to the same elementary school. Jo was five and a giant pain in the ass (he didn’t know why he wasn’t supposed to use that word, Dad did all the time) butt as far as Dean was concerned, but Ellen was nice enough, and she had no problem holding back on dessert. That, alone, was enough to earn her major brownie points as far as his ten year-old self was concerned, so he wasn’t about to complain.

At first, Dean didn’t know how to answer that question. He wasn’t about to tell his kid brother that some whackjob got her, so he deflected. He didn’t know that was the term at the time but that’s what his shrink told him later. “Just get some sleep, Sam.”

“That’s not an answer.”

( *** )

961 words

[likely_evil and smart_alec494 used with permission. Set in Happiness is a Warm Gun.]

Dean was feeling a little domestic.

It was a bit of a weird feeling, but given that he was now traveling around with a demon who used to be his baby brother, and another brother who was part cat and raised in a military facility, left Dean as the only one who could really feel domestic without it seeming more than a little weird. And even for Dean it felt very, very weird.

Nevertheless, he figured burgers and fast food had been done to death for a while and it was time for the Winchester boys to eat something a little healthier. That, and Sammy was starting to act a little more like himself, so if figured it was time for something he might remember a little better. So he was standing over the kitchenette stove, stirring a pot of something while some B-movie was playing on TV, and it wasn’t long before one of them was poking their head in. It was only a few minutes before he felt Alec over his shoulder, looking down at the pot in front of him.

“Are you cooking?”

“Well—I don’t know if you’d call it cooking, but –yup.”

“Huh.” There was a pause as Alec leaned forward, sniffing at the food slightly. “What is it?”

At this, Dean just had to stare. There were a few childhood staples that Dean thought everyone had to have, and he was still trying to adjust to the idea that Alec didn’t exactly get all of them. Now that he was getting used to the idea that Alec was his brother as well as his friend, he was starting to think that he wouldn’t have minded having a second little brother around when they were kids. It was nice having someone to look after.

“It’s Spaghetti-O’s, dude. They’re Sammy’s favorite.”

“Oh,” Alec shrugged. “Never had them.” Another pause. “This a special occasion?” Because Lord only knew the Winchesters had them.

“Nope,” Dean shook his head. “Just felt like eating something other than hamburgers.”

With that, Alec shrugged again, before flopping down on one of the beds to watch the movie. “Cool. Works for me.”

“Awesome,” Dean nodded, before turning back to what he was doing. A few minutes later, he was serving up three bowls of the soup, sliding one with a spoon down towards Alec and sitting down with his own. He didn’t bother calling Sam. His brother had been like a bloodhound lately, and Dean knew it would only be a matter of time before—

“Is that Spaghetti-O’s?” The glee on Sam’s face was unmistakable, and he barged in taking his seat at the table with a happy sound. Dean just watched as Sam dug in before grinning to himself and digging in to his own food. Sam was probably going to be asking for them for weeks, now, but as far as Dean was concerned?

The look on his brother’s face made it worth it.

493 words