Chapter Text
“You gotta promise you won’t be mad,” Dean begins, arms raised to his shoulders, hip keeping the front door from shutting all the way in case he has to make a run for it.
Lisa looks at Dean with the kind of expression she levels at Ben when he stays up too late playing video games on a school night and comes to the breakfast table groggy and sullen.
“I don’t make promises I can’t keep,” she says.
“Okay, ah, then promise you won’t immediately freak out,” Dean says. He can feel Sam’s amusement radiating behind Dean’s shoulder. “You’ll think it over before you start yelling?”
Lisa sighs, heavy, and lets her cardboard box of books down to the floor. “How ‘bout you spill before I start yelling, right now?”
“Okay,” Dean says. He blows out a breath. He ducks behind the door and hoists the car seat up by its handle, swinging it into Lisa’s view.
Her eyes immediately latch onto the squirming, wide-eyed, very tiny human within.
“Oh my God!” She says.
“Don’t yell –” Dean warns, wincing. “It might start crying.”
“Holy shit! Did you steal a baby?”
“We didn’t steal it,” Dean says, a little offended Lisa immediately assumes crime. Which, yeah, Dean Winchester, here. But he hasn’t committed any crimes for nearly the whole year. Identity fraud doesn't count.
“Is this – is this yours?” Lisa stammers, casting an accusing hand to Sam, who takes an almost comical step backward, sputtering in horror.
“No! Fuck, no!”
“Dean, where the hell did you get a baby?”
Dean was right: yelling did, in fact, make the baby cry. It’s little face gets all smushed and red, and it starts wailing.
Lisa lets out a tiny gasp, rushes forward, and unbuckles the kid from its carrier with practiced hands.
“Shh, shh,” she says, gathering the thing against her chest and bobbing it up and down in her arms. She glares at Dean over her shoulder like this is all his fault. Which, to be fair....
It’s not like Dean found the kid, but he was the one who, when Sam asked what they were supposed to do with it, immediately thought of Lisa. Can you blame him? Lisa’s a mom. Figured a baby ought to be with a mom.
“It’s not permanent!” Dean says as Lisa continues to soothe the kid. She draws down its green hood and presses a kiss to its nearly bald head. And – damn. Seeing her all gentle and motherly, it does things to a man. Truth be told, it’s kinda hot.
Dean’s libido ain’t exactly been a sure thing over the past eleven months. They got into the habit of striking while the iron’s hot, as it were. But, for God’s sake, Dean knows now is not the time.
“We just gotta figure out, well, decide where it’s gonna go after we find out –”
“It?” Lisa says, seething. Sam doesn’t seem like he’s phased by much these days, but even he takes a step away from her. “Do you even know what his name is?”
“Um,” Dean says. He looks at the kid, who’s stopped crying now, still red-faced and trying to fit his entire fist into his sloppy mouth. He’s a surly kinda dude, and he’s got the kind of hairline you could hide under a trucker’s cap.
“Bobby?” he says at the same time Sam says, “John.”
“Bobby John,” Dean course corrects.
Lisa gives them a glance that could whither grass where it stands. “Bobby John?”
Dean shrugs, hopeless. “It – he – Bobby John just needs a place to stay. We gotta make sure he’s safe before we look for someone else to take him in.”
“Safe?” Lisa asks, holding the baby a little tighter to her chest. The kid – Bobby John – gurgles and wraps his wet fist around one of Lisa’s curls.
With another sigh, Dean spills the entire sad tale: the murder of the kid’s folks, the missing babies, the mystery of which monster is interested in making baby soup all of a sudden.
“We gotta keep him somewhere out of sight,” Dean finishes. “And, well, giganto here ain’t really fit for child rearing, ya know?” Dean pats Sam on the shoulder, who looks at the contact like he’s never seen anything like it. Dean draws his hand away, pushing down his disquiet. Maybe it’s just Hell. God knows Dean wasn’t too fond of touch after his own time in the pit. Still isn't.
“We figured he’d be safe here. With, well, you for the baby stuff, and me for the other stuff while Sam gets his geekboy on, follows up on some leads. Then we’ll look for any family connections.”
“So,” Lisa says carefully. “To be clear, no one knows we have this baby? The police, CPS, or…” Lisa must know she sounds ridiculous because she trails into silence.
“Um, legality ain’t exactly a luxury we can afford, right now, sweetheart,” Dean apologizes.
“And if anyone asks how we’ve suddenly come by another kid?” Lisa asks.
“Immaculate conception?” Sam suggests, and the kid has the gall to grin. Gormless and cute as a button.
“Not helping, Sam,” Dean says. He looks at Lisa, who’s also stubbornly unamused. “Family friends? Ain’t like anyone knows us in this neighborhood, yet. They won’t bat an eye if we’ve got two kids instead of one.”
Lisa sucks on her bottom lip as she considers this. Bobby John takes the opportunity to shriek a little, not with tears this time, just for the thrill of hearing his own voice. But it makes Lisa’s face soften. She brushes the back of his head with her palm.
“Fine,” she says. “Just because – I mean, I can’t just leave him with you two.” Dean bristles a little at that, because it’s not like he doesn’t have any experience with babies. Hell, Lisa’s niece adores Dean. But then he catches sight of Sam’s sullen, Frankenstein bulk next to him and, yeah, Lisa has a point.
Lisa kicks her cardboard box out of the way and starts up the stairs. “But we’re gonna need some stuff, so that means you’re on Walmart duty, no arguing.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Dean says weakly.
“I’ll text you a list,” Lisa says over her shoulder. “And, Ben – I know you’re eavesdropping. Come help me set up a room if you’re still awake anyway.”
“I thought I heard a baby….” Ben says from upstairs. Dean catches a brief glimpse of him as he meets his mom at the top of the stairs before Dean turns back to Sam.
“You heard the lady,” Dean says. “Walmart run, let’s go.”
OOO
When he and Sam return from the store, laden with enough diapers, baby formula, teething toys, and baby clothes to start their own Baby’s R Us out of the garage, the house is in chaos.
There’s the sound of crying from the second floor, Lisa’s frantic voice, and Ben’s croaky, “Holy fuck!”
Dean’ll worry later about the lecture Lisa’s giving him about watching his language in front of Ben. For now, he charges up the stairs. Dean tucked a gun in the back waistband of his jeans before driving out to meet Sam, but he unarmed himself before going to Walmart. Sam, however, didn’t get the zero firearms at the grocery store memo, because he draws a pistol from a shoulder holster as he follows Dean.
Dean bursts into the room at the end of the hall – the one he and Lisa had vaguely talked about using as an office or a spare bedroom in the event they actually had people stay over, but would, in reality, turn into the place Dean slept when he didn’t want to keep Lisa awake with his nightmares.
Dean sees several things at once: one, Ben’s standing stock-still, open mouthed in the middle of the room. Two, Lisa’s covered head to toe in some kind of milky, oozing slime. And, C, there’s blood spattered on the wall.
“Wh-what –” Dean stammers, heart thundering, looking for the Goddamn threat – but the window isn’t open and there’s no one else in the room except for the baby, which is screaming at the top of his lungs, no longer blue eyed and blond but, instead, dark-skinned with tiny ringlets on his head, pudgy skin covered in the same flesh-colored gunk that’s all over Lisa.
“Well, fuck,” Sam says behind Dean, lowering his gun.
OOO
“Listen,” Sam says after Bobby John’s settled and Ben’s been bribed with hot chocolate to just go to your room, for God’s sake. Sam’s paws are around an untouched mug of coffee. The three of them are sitting around the kitchen table. Lisa’s pale and drawn beside Dean, still damp from her shower. “I’m sorry. I made a mistake bringing him here.”
“What do you mean?” Lisa’s eyebrows crease over her own mug of coffee. Dean brewed them all extra strong, despite the late hour. He has a feeling the night is far from over.
“He’s got a point, Lise,” Dean steps in. “I wouldn’t have brought the kid if I knew it was a shifter.”
“It’s still a baby, isn’t it?” Lisa checks. “Baby’s a baby.”
“Yeah, except now its kind is probably looking for it,” Dean says. “I’m not leaving you and Ben in the path of danger – not again.”
Dean means it. Sid’s death was shit enough. Dean will not – he will not – contemplate losing Lisa or Ben, especially not because of something he drew to their door. He’s taken too many hits, lately. He doesn’t know how many more he can absorb and still get up after. He’ll play Two Men and a Baby in a heartbeat if it means keeping Lisa and Ben out of the line of fire.
“I don’t understand." Lisa frowns. "Where are you taking him instead?”
“Samuel,” Sam says at once. “Should have brought him there from the beginning. He’ll know how to handle this.”
“Samuel?” Dean sputters. “Are you fucking crazy? Samuel’s a hunter.”
“And you’re not?” Sam asks, eyebrows raised. God, there was a time not long ago that Dean’d sell his soul again just to experience Sam’s sanctimonious bullshit one more time. Now? Dean’s pretty sure he wants to deck the guy.
“Even if it’s a monster, it’s still a baby,” Dean agrees with Lisa because he doesn’t know how to answer Sam’s actual question. “We’re not handing it over to a bunch of hunters.”
“What are you afraid they’ll do to it?” Sam says. “I know Samuel, Dean. He’s not gonna –”
“You really want me to answer that question?” Dean says darkly.
“I thought we decided that its name was Bobby John,” Lisa says sharply. “And I thought we’d decided he’d stay here while you figured out a better solution.”
Her tone quells Dean into silence, but Sam’s not deterred – then again, kid’s never heard her go off when you mix the darks and lights in the same load.
“This is a better solution,” Sam says. “He’ll be safer with Samuel. You’ll be safer.”
“I agree with Sam about the you being safer part,” Dean says.
Lisa’s eyes snap. Yeah, she’s angry. And exhausted. She just spent ten minutes washing shifter-goo out of her hair. “You don’t get to tell me who gets to stay in my house, Dean,” Lisa says, pointing at Dean. “It’s my name on the lease.”
“Lise,” Dean pleads. There’s a tug of panic inside his chest, now. Even the thought of that thing – him, baby, Bobby John, Lisa’s voice rebounds inside his skull – makes Dean cold. He can’t risk it. He can’t let Lisa or Ben get hurt.
“He’s staying,” Lisa says sternly, shoving up from the table. “And if either of you don’t like it, then you can get out, instead.”
Dean tries to hide his flinch. Every night for nearly a year, he breathed a sigh of relief that that night wasn’t the night she kicked him out. Wasn’t the night she got so fed up with his shit he came back from work to find his duffle on the front step. Wasn’t the night she told him she’d found someone else, someone kinder, someone with less baggage. He knew the other shoe would drop. It was only a matter of time.
“But, if you’re staying, too,” Lisa says. “Then I suggest we all go to bed. It’s late, and it’s been one – one shitty day. Dean, help set Sam up on the couch, alright? I’ll wait for you in our room.”
Our room. The words dump a flood of cold relief over Dean’s head. He almost shivers. She doesn’t want him out, yet. She doesn’t –
Sam clears his throat. “Actually,” he says. “I’ve got a hotel a couple hours out. I should grab my stuff. Left in kind of a hurry.”
“Dude, what?” Dean turns to his brother, who – unlike Dean and Lisa – looks like he could run a fucking marathon. “Can’t it wait until morning?”
“No,” Sam says. “I’m fine, really, Dean. I’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Whatever,” Dean mutters. He doesn’t have the bandwidth to deal with the ache in the center of his chest whenever he thinks about Sam’s strange distance ever since Dean found out he was back. If Sam doesn’t want to stay in the same house as him, let him go. “Don’t drive off the road, bitch.”
“I won’t,” Sam says blandly, and Dean suppresses another shiver when his little brother leaves the kitchen, heading for the door.
OOO
“I shouldn’t have said that,” Lisa says later, when she’s drawing the blankets over their legs. “About kicking you out. I didn’t mean it.”
“You’d be right to,” Dean says. His jaw pulses when he clenches his teeth.
“Dean…” Lisa says heavily, in the voice she uses when she thinks Dean’s being too self-pitying. It’s not like she doesn’t listen when he talks – in fact, it’s the opposite: she’s about the only person Dean can talk to without feeling like he’s splitting open his chest and tearing out his ribs – it’s just that she doesn’t put up with bullshit.
She curls toward him in the bed and drags her hand down his arm.
“You been taking your meds?” Lisa asks in the darkness, voice gentle despite the chiding note. She already knows he hasn’t. In his defense, it’s been kinda crazy lately. You can lose track of things like antidepressants in the wake of mysteriously resurrected brothers.
“No,” Dean admits.
“Hm,” Lisa hums, quiet.
About four months in, while Dean was still sleeping on the couch, Lisa found him passed out in the bathroom with a whiskey bottle one too many times, and she gave him a choice: talk to someone or take something. It ain’t like Dean can air out his dirty laundry with even the most understanding of head-shrinkers without getting his ass tossed in the nut house, so Dean went with the latter option. And the pills did help – a little. Made it easier to sleep, easier to concentrate at work, made him present enough to make breakfast and help Ben with his math homework.
“Why?” Dean demands suddenly, sharper than he intended, but he’s fucking tired. And tense. He’s worried he’ll pull his back out just from the tension he’s carted around on his shoulders all week. “Why fucking bother? The problem’s fixed. Sam’s back, isn’t he?”
“If you say so,” Lisa says after a pause.
Yeah, well, Dean does say so. He huffs. Rolls over, not out of Lisa’s reach, just so he doesn’t have to look at her. He’s stupid. Goddamn winy bitch, Dad’d say.
“I’ll take ‘em,” he mumbles.
“I’m not gonna force you,” Lisa says, pulling herself closer to him so she’s wedged behind his back, cradling him like a backpack. Dean’s not too proud to admit he likes being little-spooned.
She places a kiss on the back of his neck, above the collar of his sleep-worn t-shirt. Warmth spreads down his spine from the point of contact. He’s tired, true, but she also feels good. Close. It’s been a while since they messed around: having their lives disrupted by a bunch of Djinn and moving to another state will do that to you, he guesses.
Dean’s about to hoist himself onto his arm, so he can turn to face her, when a by-now familiar wail travels muffled through the door.
“Fuck,” Dean groans. Lisa moves beside him, but Dean stops her with his hand. “I got it. Him. I got him. You try to get some sleep.”
“You sure?” Lisa asks.
“Ain’t exactly my first rodeo,” Dean says wryly. “Even if it’s been a couple decades.”
“Alright,” Lisa settles back into her covers. “If you’re not sure about something – Google it.”
Dean snorts. He places a kiss onto the apple of her cheek before hoisting himself up.
“Alright, alright, don’t blow a gasket,” Dean grumbles as he passes blindly down the hall to the room next door. He sends an apology toward Ben’s room, hoping the kid hasn’t woken up. God knows Ben’s getting the short end of the stick in a lot of his and Lisa’s decisions lately.
Dean opens the guest room – baby room – whatever it is, now, and flicks on the lamp. Bobby John, thank God, hasn’t exploded again, but he is sitting in the middle of the flat-pack crib Dean and Sam pounded into submission while Lisa was cleaning up herself and the baby. He’s wide awake and screaming in abject misery. Fuck. Why’d babies have to look so Goddamn sad when they cry? Used to tug on Dean’s intestines when Sammy started wailing in their hotel room. Dean could never understand how Dad could drink enough whiskey to drown it out.
“Hey, buddy.” Dean eases his hands around the baby, who doesn’t quiet his sobbing but does reflexively grab for Dean’s shirt once Dean has him cradled on his chest. “Shh, kiddo. It’s okay. What’s all this, huh? What’s the matter, big guy?”
Plenty, is the answer to that question. Dean figures he’d be crying in the middle of the night, too, if his parents had been brutally mauled by monsters and he suddenly found himself in a new house with strangers.
“You’re okay,” Dean says. He jogs Bobby John in his arms the way Lisa had earlier. He was too little to do this the last time he held a baby. Turns out there are advantages to being more than twice the height of the kid you’re trying to soothe.
For instance, Dean can move out of the room and down the hall without breaking a sweat – doesn’t even worry about dropping the kid on the way to the kitchen. Dean opens the fridge and grabs the jug of formula Lisa mixed before going to bed. Dean carefully fills one of the new bottles, warming it in a bowl of water from the tap. He can keep Bobby John comfortably on his hip the entire time he works. The baby doesn’t fully stop crying, but he does quiet to tiny, pathetic whimpers.
Dean tests the formula on the inside of his wrist before settling Bobby John in his arms and giving the kid the nipple.
Score, Dean thinks to himself when the baby immediately latches on and starts sucking. Guessed right on his first try.
Dean settles into a chair at the kitchen table so he won’t upset the kid while he’s eating.
“You know,” Dean says, watching the kid’s cheeks blow in and out as he chows down with single-minded concentration. “You’re pretty fucking cute for being a - well – something that goes bump in the night. Except I guess you just wake us up in the middle of the night. And eat. And poop, probably. I’ll let Lise take care of that one.”
Bobby John gets through half the bottle before he shoves Dean’s hands away and tries to sit up. Dean helps him, shifting him to his shoulder, and sets the bottle on the table.
“That feel better, buddy?” Dean asks. But Bobby John is apparently still dissatisfied because he starts crying again almost immediately. Shit, Dean thinks fervently and gets to his feet. He paces around the kitchen, patting Bobby John on the back, figuring he just needs to burp.
God, there’s so much Dean doesn’t know about him. Doesn’t know how he usually sleeps and how he can be soothed. Doesn’t know what his favorite toy was or books he liked to listen to.
“I’m really sorry,” Dean tells him. “You don’t want some rundown old man talking to you, huh? I guess you miss your mom.”
Someone knocks on the front door, and Dean freezes.
Fuck. Dean’s heart thunders against his ribs. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. Dean tunes out Bobby John wining, tip-toeing across the floor to peer through the window over the sink. He can’t see the front door from here, but he can see the driveway is empty except for his truck and Lisa’s sedan.
Monsters wouldn’t knock on the door, Dean reminds himself furiously, but it does nothing to calm him down. It’s two o’clock in the morning; it sure as hell ain’t a neighbor welcoming them with a plate of chocolate chip cookies.
Whoever’s on the other side of the door knocks again as Dean rushes up the stairs. He bursts through his and Lisa’s bedroom door. She’s snoring softly on each exhale, but Dean rouses her with a hand to her shoulder.
“Here –” he says without preamble, stuffing a still sniffling Bobby John into her arms as she groggily rises from the pillow. “Take him.”
“Dean,” she mumbles. “What’s happening?”
“Someone’s at the door,” Dean says. “It’s fine – just – be ready to grab Ben in case –” he can’t finish. She knows in case. In case killed their neighbors and wrecked their house less than a month ago. “Just…stay up here.”
The bedroom window overlooks the backyard, so Dean can’t see whoever’s at their door. Instead, he opens his bedside table’s drawer to grab his pistol. It was a hard-fought battle, convincing Lisa to keep it on hand. Not like he gave her a lot of reasons to trust him around firearms at his lowest point.
Dean stuffs his gun into the waistband of his sweats, then he heads back down the stairs. He pauses in front of the door, levelling his breathing. Monsters don’t come through the front door, he tells himself again. Monsters don’t knock.
Finally, Dean flicks the deadlock. He twists the knob and swings the door open by an inch, leaving most of his body out of view and out of reach of an attack.
“What took you so long?” Sam huffs on the porch.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Dean holds back the flare of anger, letting the door open wider. “You said you were going back to your hotel.”
Sam doesn’t even have the grace to look sheepish. In fact, he looks a little irritated. Why, Dean doesn’t know. He’s not the one showing up on his brother’s doorstep at two in the morning.
“I think someone's following me,” Sam says.
Fear pounds back to life inside Dean’s chest. Reflexively, he reaches his hand around his back for the grip of his gun.
“Why the fuck would you lead them here, then?” Dean hisses.
“Because I need the kid, Dean,” Sam says. “If they’re after me. They’re after him. Let me get to him so I can lead them away from you.”
“What?” Dean says. It makes some kind of horrible sense, but Sam’s still talking about using a baby as bait for the bad guys. In order to protect Lisa and Ben, yeah. But still. “Are you insane?” Dean asks. “They wouldn’t have known he was here if you hadn’t led them right to us!”
“Jesus, Dean,” Sam says, rolling his eyes. Instead of getting flashbacks to Sam as an angsty teen, Dean just feels unnerved, like this isn’t really Sam, like this is someone playacting his brother. Dean shoves the feeling down. He watched Sam do the tests. This is Sam. “Let me in.”
Dean lets Sam shoulder himself through the front door. He keeps his hand on his gun. He’s on-edge and cautious. If Sam’s right and there really is someone on his tail, there’s no telling how soon they could be here. Dean needs to get Lisa, Ben, and the baby out – stat.
“Where is he?” Sam asks.
“Lise has him,” Dean says.
Sam beelines for the stairs. Without knowing why, Dean slides in front of him, blocking his brother’s way.
“Wait, Sammy,” Dean pleads. He doesn’t like this. He doesn’t like any of this. “Let’s just talk about this for a second, okay? We agreed the baby was staying with Lisa. We’re not – you’re not just gonna storm in and rip him from her arms.”
“We don’t have time for this, Dean,” Sam says, a flash of anger crossing his face, reminding Dean starkly of John Winchester.
“We could go to Bobby’s again,” Dean says. It’s stupid. He knows he’s being stupid. He doesn’t owe this baby, anything. This baby is nothing to him. But, dammit, he’s still just a fucking child. He doesn’t deserve to be thrown to the wolves. And, right now, Dean feels like his brother’s one of the wolves.
“Stop being Mother Theresa for a Goddamn second, Dean –”
“Stop acting like the fucking terminator –”
“Dean!” Sam’s voice shouts, and Dean turns to see the mirror image of his little brother framed in the open doorway, gun trained on the back of his doppelganger. “Duck!”
Dean’s got thirty years of habit beaten into him to do as that voice asks. Dean fucking ducks.
The Sam in the doorway fires three rounds in quick succession. The Sam in front of Dean goes slack, jaw falling open in a wordless shout. He topples toward Dean. Dean instinctively reaches for his brother, cushioning his fall and – no – fucking no.
Sammy, his brain starts a panicked tattoo. Sammy, Sammy, Sammy.
But the Sam in his arms blinks. The blankness in his face fades, replaced by a twisted smile. He braces himself on top of Dean and shakes his shaggy head.
“Heh,” he says, “almost had you fooled.”
“He’s the shifter, Dean!” Sam says unnecessarily from the doorway. “Silver bullets!”
“Fuck!” Dean says. The shifter attempts to lift himself off of Dean, despite the three rounds of silver in his back. Dean puts a stop to that by ramming his knee soundly into the monster’s junk.
“Oof,” the shifter says in Sam’s voice. Its face goes red with pain, and it collapses again, momentarily stunned. Which is bad news for Dean, because he once again has two-hundred-twenty pounds of monster crushing him on the stairs.
Dean scrambles to get his hands under him, trying to roll the monster off, but not before the shifter gives another horrendous grin and smashes its forehead into Dean’s face.
Dean’s head rebounds against the stair beneath him, and twin points of agony erupt in his head: one at his nose and the other at the back of his skull.
“Fucking creep –” Sam says – one of the Sam’s – Dean’s not entirely sure which because his brain’s gone fuzzy from the pain.
There’s the sound of shattered glass upstairs, like someone – or something – blasted through a window. Lisa shrieks.
“Lise!” Dean yells, or tries to. It comes out as more a garbled shout. Sam must have the shifter occupied, because Dean’s no longer being crushed by another body. He pushes himself onto his belly, attempts to get his feet under him, and charges up the stairs, grappling for the handrail to keep himself from falling back to his knees.
But then someone grabs him from behind, tripping him back into the stairs beneath him. His forehead cracks against a step, and he feels rug burn on his chin. Two blows to the head within seconds makes a high-pitched wine start up in his ears.
Dimly, he’s aware of pounding footsteps dodging his motionless body on the stairs and a lot of yelling. There are suddenly a lot more people in the foyer than there were a minute ago.
“Dammit, use the nets!” barks a familiar voice, and Dean blinks to clear his vision. He sees Samuel’s bald head glinting from the lamp overhead. And, hey, the rest of the posse’s here, too: Christian, Mark, and Gwen. Regular fucking family reunion.
Dean attempts to brace himself on his elbow. The house doesn’t spin too badly around him.
The four Campbells, plus real Sam, have the shifter surrounded. It’s a thrashing, hissing bundle on the floor of Lisa’s new hallway, covered in what looks like heavy silver netting.
“Jesus Christ, shut him up!” Christian yells.
Mark approaches the monster with a drawn syringe, but the shifter’s stronger than anyone anticipated; it snaps its arm through the netting and catches Mark directly in the chest. Mark goes flying, knocking his head against the corner of the wall. He slumps to the floor, leaving a trail of blood on the white paint.
“Mark!” Gwen shrieks. She scrambles for the dropped syringe, lunging for the monster before it can land another hit. The needle sinks into the shifter’s meat, and the monster shudders to a stop, dropping into a heap on the floor.
“Enough to drop a bull elephant,” Christian says.
“Get it the fuck out of here before someone calls the cops on those shots!” Samuel orders.
Sam and Christian nod curtly. Like a well-oiled machine, Sam grabs one of the shifter’s arms and Christian takes the other. They haul the shifter out of the door and into the driveway – presumably to dispose of it; Dean doesn’t know. Frankly, he doesn’t give a crap as long as it’s out of his house.
“Gwen, can you handle Mark?” Samuel asks.
“Got him,” Gwen says. She rushes toward the boneless man, drawing his arm over her shoulder and, with surprising strength for her small frame, pulls Mark up and drags him after Sam and Christian.
“Where’s the baby?” Samuel asks Dean as soon as Gwen’s out the door.
“What baby?” Dean says futilely, because at that moment, the baby in question lets out a displeased squeal, and Dean looks over his shoulder to see a shocked Lisa standing at the top of the stairs, Bobby John on her hip and a speechless Ben drawn tight to her side.
“We’ll take him from here, ma’am,” Samuel says smoothly, stepping toward the staircase.
“Hey, hey, wait –” Dean says, pulling himself to his feet and nearly going down again when a surge of dizziness sloshes through his brain.
Samuel steadies him with a tight grip on his upper arm. “Easy, son,” Samuel says.
“I’m not your son,” Dean snaps, snatching his arm back.
Samuel gives him a look that’s almost amused, but he does step back from the stairs.
“And you’re not touching that baby,” Dean says, pointing an unsteady finger at his grandfather.
“We can’t leave him with you.” Samuel frowns. “It’s not safe.”
“Safe?” Dean scoffs. “And what, he’s safe with a bunch of hunters?”
“Least we’ll know how to handle him,” Samuel says.
“Handle him?” Lisa pipes up, incensed. She tightens her grip on Bobby John. Dean knows she’ll fight tooth and nail if anyone tries to take him from her now. “What’s to handle? So what – he sheds his skin every couple days. We’ll stock up on wet wipes and onesies.”
“Samuel’s right,” Sam says from the doorway. Dean didn’t notice his brother come back in. He looks totally untouched by the battle that raged in the foyer just a moment ago. He didn’t even break a sweat. “He should be with hunters.”
“And what the fuck are hunters gonna do with him?” Dean demands again. “Poke at him? Run fucking experiments?”
“Not everyone’s mind runs straight to torture, Dean,” Sam says without pause, and Dean freezes. His stomach lurches. He’s not sure if it’s from the head wound or his brother’s callousness.
“We’ll raise it,” Samuel says measuredly.
“We’ll raise him,” Lisa announces from the top of the stairs.
We. She says it so surely. Like it’s an inarguable fact that she and Dean are a unit. She and Dean agreed not to discuss marriage until a couple years, but, hell, give him a ring, and Dean’d pop the question, right now.
Dean works hard not to let the soppy warm feeling in his belly show on his face. He’s busy arguing with someone, right now.
“If he stays with me, he’s with a hunter,” Dean says. He glares at Samuel, pretty sure he’s making eye-contact even as the room continues a lazy spiral around him.
Samuel huffs, something between exasperation and amusement. “Stubborn like your mother,” he says. “Fine – on your head be it. But don’t come crying to me if something else shows up at your doorstep looking for the thing.”
“I think he’ll be better off with a family who doesn’t think of him as a thing,” Lisa says frigidly.
Samuel frowns at her, but he doesn’t say anything else. He throws up his arms like he’s sick of them all before marching back to the door.
“You coming, Sam?” Samuel pauses to ask Sam.
“He’ll be out in a second,” Dean says stiffly before Sam has a chance to respond. Sam just shrugs. Samuel rolls his eyes – must run in the family – before disappearing over the threshold.
“So,” Sam says into the silence Samuel leaves behind. The hallway’s a wreck. Dean doesn’t know when it happened, but the stairway handrail is torn out at one of its bases. There’s glass, plaster, and blood in the carpet, holes in the walls, and books scattered from the forgotten cardboard box. “Congratulations are in order. Sorry, I didn’t bring any cigars.”
“You brought them here,” Dean says to Sam.
Sam has the gall to look surprised. He lifts his eyebrows. “Samuel? Yeah,” he says. “Figured we could use the backup if the shifter showed up.”
“If?” Dean bites.
“I told you they’d come for it.” Sam shrugs.
“You wanted them to come,” Dean accuses. His voice is suddenly shaking with a rage so powerful it almost knocks him on his ass. It boils inside his stomach like lava. “You knew that thing was following you. Knew probably since you picked that kid out of its house. You wanted it to catch up. You wanted a chance for Samuel to get his grubby hands on it.”
“Jesus, Dean, relax would you?” Sam doesn’t deny it. And the bastard fucking smiles.
“Relax?” Dean yells. He hasn’t felt so angry at Sam since he found out about the demon blood. Whatever crawled out of the pit – whatever this thing is standing in Dean’s hallway, who willingly set up a baby as bait for monsters, who led the fucking things directly to Dean’s doorstep – to Dean’s family – it sure as hell ain’t his little brother. “You just brought that thing to our front porch and you don’t even fucking care.”
“I told you we should have brought it to Samuel,” Sam says.
It’s the total lack of remorse, the total lack of understanding, that chills Dean to the core. It sends fear and anger in equal measure rocketing down his spine.
“Get the fuck out,” Dean says, throat tight. “Get the fuck out, or so help me, I’ll make you –”
“Fine,” Sam says with the air of pacifying a mad dog. “Jesus. Fine, Dean. I’m going.” He takes a step backward so he’s standing on the porch.
“Don’t fucking come back here,” Dean says. His face is hot. There’s dampness on his cheeks. Maybe it’s blood, he thinks, and he knows it’s not. “Don’t come near my family, again.”
Sam just looks at him. Looks at him like he’s sizing him up – like it’s Dean who’s unrecognizable.
“Fine,” he says again. “You wanted out of the life, anyway, right? Well, it won’t be me who tries to drag you back in.”
Sam turns around. He walks down the porch stairs until he disappears into the early morning darkness beyond.
Dean stands there, shaking and unable to move. Dimly, he’s aware of Lisa coming down the stairs. She passes him to shut the door. She makes sure to turn the deadlock, and, for a moment, Dean feels like laughing. Like a deadlock will keep anything out when their bedroom windows are blown out SWAT-style upstairs.
“Let me look at your head,” Lisa says softly, touching Dean’s elbow with two fingers. Despite the softness of her touch, Dean flinches.
“Dean,” she says in the voice she used early on, when Dean’d wake screaming and spend what felt like hours staring into dead space. “Come with me.”
Dean does what she says. She’s still got Bobby John in one arm. Astoundingly, the kid’s managed to drift off somewhere in the middle of taking down the shifter and Dean’s argument with Sam.
Dean follows Lisa into the kitchen. He nearly collapses into the chair where, just an hour ago, he was feeding Bobby John a bottle.
Lisa moves from the sink, wetting a fistful of paper towels, to the freezer to extract a pack of Green Giant frozen peas. She returns to Dean.
“Clean yourself up,” she orders. Dean takes the damp towels and presses them to his nose, which feels hot and swollen. The paper comes away red. His nose must be bleeding. Lisa hisses in sympathy when she pushes the frozen peas to the bump on the back of Dean’s head, but Dean doesn’t even wince.
Ben comes into the kitchen, staring over his shoulder at the ruined hallway, eyes lingering on the smear of blood Mark left on their wall.
“So,” Ben says into the silence, looking glum. “Does this mean we have to move again?”