Signal to Noise

Disclaimer: Supernatural belongs to Kripke and his associates. I am not him. Or, y'know, them.

A/N: yeah, still just toe-dipping in Supernatural-verse at this point. Five handscrawled pages of plot-outlines for fics in a fandom I've still not seen all of is definitely just toe dipping, really. Sigh.

A/N 2: SPOILERS: so my local library had this copy of the Supernatural: Rising Son TPB, and I read it, and then I had to wonder, what if - somewhere, in some universe - John had actually listened to the hunters baying for a six-year-old Sam's blood?

This was . . . a complication.

Not a problem, no. At least, not necessarily a problem. But it was definitely a complication. Dean chewed his lip thoughtfully, tonguing the split in it. He'd have to tell Sammy, he though muzzily. His kid brother would be proud of him, pleased at him choosing the four syllable noun over the two despite the concussion. Proud and relieved and then - hiding it behind bantering - would offer an even better choice of words from his college-boy vocabulary to show he was okay, too. Smiling, inviting his big brother in on the joke. And then they could snark at each other for a bit, fit back into that old hand-in-glove camaraderie. Reassure each other that their injuries were minor enough for raillery.

Yeah. That'd be good. He'd ask Sam for his word-of-the-day choice of descriptives for this particular turn of events.

He'd ask, might even listen to the response, too.

Just as soon as either of the two Sam Winchesters currently sprawling across the hard concrete floor in different but equally uncomfortable-looking poses woke up enough to answer.