A/N: Someday, I will stop writing these depressing winchesters-as-kids one-shots. That day is not today.

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Just a Boy, Wanting

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As soon as they're out the door, Sam sticks out an arm and says, "Hand." Sammy is a sweaty, clingy monkey always, doesn't matter that it's 500 degrees outside.

Reluctantly, Dean accepts the smaller, stickier mitt in his own. Safe at least in the knowledge that no one else will see.

They'd just moved into the rented house in Trigger, Indiana that morning. It had taken all of five minutes to carry their things from the car to the house and just as long to wander around the rooms. Every stair creaks. Every door squeals. They heaved all of the windows open to release the heavy, hot air and half of them fell back to the sills with random, sudden claps.

John had wanted to get some work done, so he kicked them out with directions to a little corner store a mile away. Go out to the road, start walking west.

Still, in that span of time, not a single car had passed by their temporary home, an old, gray farmhouse that looks as if it had heaved it's last sigh and settled.

Dean wiggles his fingers in Sam's grip. It feels like they're trying to hold water between their palms.

. In response, Sam shakes Dean's hand and his whole arm and stops walking. "Look at that."

Dean looks up from his shoes.

There's a house. It sits back off the road a little ways, large and stately, crisp, white paint and green shutters. There's plywood nailed over some of the windows and a huge blue tarp over half of the roof.

"Do you think someone's building it?" Sam asks. "Do you think someone'll live here? Do you think someone lives here now?" He bounces on his feet, excited about the idea of having neighbors, and eyes the front door like he wants to go right up and knock just to say hello.

Dean studies the house for a moment, the tall, white pillars in front and the plywood over the second floor windows. Whoever could afford to build this house probably didn't need to live in it before it was finished.

"Do you think?" Sam asks again.

"I don't--" Dean stops as a warm breeze catches a loose corner of the tarp. It flutters back to reveal charred wood and blackened siding. Dean can see the odd depression, where the roofline falls away beneath the tarp now. It's enough for his imagination to fill in the raw, gaping hole that must be there, like some monster came down and took a burning bite.

"Come on." He tugs at Sam's arm and starts walking.

The corner store is there in the distance, a little black square on the horizon.

---------------

Generally speaking, Dean doesn't like school, but this one in Trigger is particularly bad. It's small, so he can't just blend in. The other kids are knit together like a pack, so he can't just fall into a group. The teacher smells funny. The counselor, who is also the librarian, who is also the secretary, makes him sit and "talk" for two hours. There's no lunchroom. Sammy is in a different building.

By the end of the day, Dean decides that he hates this school. He hates Trigger. He hates Indee-yanuh.

Oh…and Alice, too.

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He meets her at recess. There's no playground here. No swings or monkey bars. Just a flat, graveled acre with a broken basketball hoop at one end. There's nothing else to do, so Dean walks around the edge of the lot. Wonders if the aide would really notice if he wandered off, took a few too many steps through the grass the gravel bleeds into. Figures she wouldn't.

Alice has got on a bright, orange t-shirt he sees at the corner of his eye for a while before she's standing right next to him. She's not in his class. There's two sections for each grade, but he's not sure if she's in the other one or another year altogether. The whole town seems to know he's the new kid though, and he expects some kind of kick.

Instead, she doesn't even look at him and asks, "Where'd you come from?"

He wants to say something smart, something quick. "Kansas," is what comes out.

"They got mountains there?"

"No."

"Bears?"

He shrugs.

She looks up at him with narrowing eyes. "I heard they got bums," she says. "I heard your daddy's a bum. I heard he hasn't got any job and he sells rotten cabbages for milk money."

He stares at her for a minute in shock. He still isn't quite sure who she is, potential friend to foe in two seconds flat. He wills more words forward, but finally just shakes his head. "You didn't hear that."

"Yes, I did," she snarls and kicks a rock at his shin that snaps like a bee sting. Then, she turns and walks away.

That's Alice.

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"Hey boys," Dad says when they get home from school.

All the windows are propped up by scraps of two by fours now and the wind drifts lazily across the fields and through the house like it's no obstruction at all. John sits at the wobbly kitchen table. His papers are spread out before him with dusty rocks on top to keep everything from fluttering away.

Sammy rambles on for awhile about his day and when he's gone over everything twice, he lets out a big yawn and goes upstairs to get his sleeping bag for a nap on the floor of the front room.

Dean scoots into the chair next to John and squints at the papers, tries to make sense of hid dad's notes. "What is it?" he finally asks.

John clears his throat. "Five missing persons in the last six months all from this same five mile square." He pulls out a map and shows Dean, the area outlined in red sharpie. "I'm thinking we're looking at a Polevik." He lifts a rock and removes a paper from beneath it. On it is a sketch of a hunched, small man with grass-like hair on his head and chin and beaded eyes.

Dean reaches over to trace the twisted features with one finger. "What's it do?"

"Takes people. Leads them into the fields and woods."

Dean looks up at his dad, his sweat-dotted forehead and thin lips. "It kills them?"

John meets his eyes and looks away. "No…No. Just takes them."

"Where?"

"Don't know. That's the hard part."

"What's it do with them?"

"Don't know that either."

"Oh." Dean scoots his chair closer. "Is that it?"

"What?"

"That's all they do? Take people?"

John looks over his work and sighs. "I sure hope so."

"You're not sure though?"

John watches his son with careful eyes. "What else are you looking for here, kiddo?"

"I just thought, maybe they had other…maybe they could…"

"What?"

"Maybe they could start fires, too?" John closes his eyes for a long moment and Dean leans toward him. "Dad?"

John reaches over to grab the seat of Dean's chair and pull it towards his own. The legs scrape across the wood floor and when the chairs are flush, he drapes an arm around his son's shoulders.

"You saw that house down the road."

Dean doesn't say anything.

John sighs. "Poleviks can't start fires. Sometimes…sometimes, bad stuff just happens. Faulty wiring or a gas leak. It happens. That's…it's what…it just happens sometimes."

Dean leans in for a moment, breathes in salty sweat and coffee and soap. He looks at all the papers again from under his dad's arm, takes note of the black, beak-like claws on the Polevik's fingers. It looks an awful lot like work to him. It seems an awful lot like a job. Maybe it doesn't make money for milk like some, but it's important work, keeping people from going away. "It was a nice house."

John moves slowly, puts his elbows on the table and squints. "Yeah. Looked like it." He rubs at his eyes. "Get your brother up. We'll go into town for dinner."

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In the empty front room, the sun slants hot through tall windows. Sam lays in the middle of the room on his sleeping bag in a perfect rectangle of light.

Dean moves over and sits next to him on the floor. He reaches out to grasp a shoulder and shake Sam awake, but the complete slack-stillness of his features makes Dean pause. Sam is completely relaxed and asleep and safe and Dean doesn't want to interrupt that.

He sits there next to Sam for a while and when John doesn't come, he starts thinking about those Poleviks. He thinks about being taken away forever and not coming back and it doesn't really sound too bad. But then he thinks about Sam being taken away forever and not coming back. And that sounds like…

That sounds like…

---------------

By the end of the week the whole school thinks Dean's dad is a jobless bum and that they're just two shades away from homeless and begging. In a place of pride where most families struggle anyway, it's the begging that's the worst. Dean gives up on making friends. They won't be here long anyway.

At recess, he sees her coming up on his right. Alice walks like she's angry and when she stops, she says, "I been to Kansas once."

He wants to scream at her, feels the lump of it form in his throat and he presses his lips together to keep it in.

"They ain't got bears. Or mountains. Or an ocean." Her voice drops a little. "They got bars though," she says. "I heard your daddy goes to the bars every night. I heard he's an angry drunk and he beats you pert-near death once a week like clockwork."

He takes a slow, shaky breath. "You're wrong."

She shakes her head and smiles with pointed teeth. "No, I ain't."

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That night, Dad says, "I might need your help on this one, Dean."

They sit on the porch steps, looking out at the slowly darkening land. There's the steady, shrill ringing of insects in the yard. Can't see the neighbors burnt up house from here.

John holds a long neck bottle in one hand. Dean sits next to him, hunched over his knees, tugging on his shoelaces. He watches as John swishes the liquid around in the bottle more than he actually sips at it.

"You won't have to do anything," John goes on quietly. "These Poleviks, they've only taken people when they're alone. So, all we're going to do is tie a rope around my waist and around yours." He taps Dean's stomach with a thin finger and smiles. "Easy. Neither of us will ever be alone."

Dean tries to return his father's grin. "You're gonna kill it?"

"Yes." John nods.

"What about the people?"

"What people?"

"The one's it took. What about them?"

"They might come back."

"Might?"

John's face shutters and darkens. "I can't say for sure."

"Why not?"

"Dean."

"I'll help."

In the still night air, the huff of a sigh sounds like a cyclone whipping up in the distance. "I know you will."

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It's the weekend. Dad says they'll hunt on Monday, maybe Tuesday. On Saturday afternoon, he sends them down to the store for groceries.

"Eggs," he yells after them. "Don't forget the eggs!"

Dean waves okay.

Sam sticks his arm out at Dean. "Hand."

Dean ignores him.

"For safety," Sam says and grabs Dean's wrist. "Dad said." His fingers feel like sticky mud, dried in a bracelet Dean can't wash off.

It isn't long before the next house looms up, huge and white and perfect. The blue tarp lies limp in the dead, hot afternoon air.

Without warning, Sam stops walking. He tilts his head to the side and stares up at the house. "Dean," he says quietly. "We should go say hi."

Dean sighs. "Nobody lives here."

"How do you know?"

"There's a hole in the roof."

"There's holes in our roof, too."

"Pinholes, Sammy. This is a…a…" He doesn't finish as Sam releases his wrist and trots away up the driveway. Dean crosses his arms and trudges after Sam, up the wide porch steps to the front door.

Sam raps on the wood with thin knuckles.

"No one lives here," Dean sings. He slouches against the siding and then lurches forward as Sam reaches for the doorknob. "Don't!"

The door creaks and swings in.

Sam steps inside without hesitation, a look of wonder on his face. He hasn't quite learned the difference yet between public and private and having lived just about anywhere that would have them hasn't helped.

Dean doesn't say anything at all as Sam disappears around a corner, because inside, the house smells like it's still on fire. Heavy smoke and wood and ashes. The crackle and pop of flame isn't far off.

The rooms are pristinely neat, like living in a museum, but dirtied by smoke residue, the colors dulled and pale.

It's quiet.

"Sam?"

The tarp flaps loudly, slapping against the roof above. Dean wanders through to the kitchen in the back of the house and finds a slim staircase next to the pantry. He follows it up slowly, the wooden planks silent beneath his shoes.

Upstairs, the entire space is cast in deep blue where sunlight filters through the tarp. The charred, black walls take on a purple hue. Wood scraps and ashes cover the floor, shifting and scratching as Dean walks down the hall.

"Sam?" he calls again, quieter.

The tarp flutters, sending warm drafts of air through the crumbling, black rooms.

Dean turns to go, but a creak and a thud comes from a room to his right. He pauses, cranes his neck. "Sammy? I'm not kidding. You better not be hiding. I'll put worms in your cereal!"

Another creak.

Dean approaches the room slowly. It's at the end of the hall and the tarp slopes down where the walls have blistered away. He pushes at the door with one finger.

"Ra-UR!" Sam jumps out, hands curled into claws and immediately starts laughing, oblivious to his brother's reaction. The laughter dies when Dean's moist fingers grip his arm and shake him.

"Don't."

"I was just--"

"I don't care. You don't do that."

"Sorry." Sam ducks his head. "I just wanted to see."

Dean tugs him toward the stairs, a shaky hand on the wall. "'S'okay. Just…we…we shouldn't be here."

"I just wanted to see," Sam says again as they cross through the first floor.

Stepping outside is like a weight off Dean's chest, but his knees tremble, keyed up and jumpy like he could sprint to Mars without a breath.

He turns to go back home, but Sam tugs on his arm still in Dean's grip. His eyes are wide and startled. "The store, Dean."

"Right." Dean nods. "The store." He lets go of Sam and sends him a big, shaky smile. "I'll race you."

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When they get to the corner store they stand in front of a box fan that's set on the counter for ten minutes until the owner hands them Dixie cups of lemonade and tells them to buy something or leave.

Dean picks out the eggs and milk, bread and cheese, some sliced turkey.

Sam picks out circus peanuts.

They eat the candy on the way home, fingers leaving sticky prints on the paper grocery bags. It's all gone by the time their passing the burnt up house again and Dean tosses the empty candy bag into the ditch.

Sam licks his lips and asks, "Is that what our house looked like?" When Dean doesn't say anything right away, he addends, "After Mom."

"No." Dean shakes his head. "Not really."

"Oh."

"It was different."

"Okay."

"It wasn't…it didn't look like that."

"Okay."

Sam doesn't remember anything about the old house or Mom. He thinks maybe he'll remember more when he gets older and smarter, but for now all he knows is how much Dad and Dean miss her, how much it hurts them, and that's just enough.

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At school on Monday, everybody's gotten to thinking Dean's dad is a terrible, mean bum and he doesn't even know what to say to anyone anymore.

Alice is wearing a sunny, yellow dress, so bright he has to squint when she stands next to him on the gravel lot.

He has a few choice words for her, four and five letters, doesn't even care that he's not supposed to say them. Except for Alice is a girl and it'd be bad enough if Dad found out he was cussing, let alone at a girl.

"When I been to Kansas, it was to visit my grandma and grandpa," Alice says quietly, like it's a secret no one else can hear. "It was nice, Kansas. Not so diff-ernt from here." She scrunches her face up. "Do you miss it?"

Dean isn't sure what to say. She must have a reason, a bad reason, for being nice. He eyes her warily. "Sometimes."

She nods and squints at him and says, matter-of-fact, "I heard you ain't got a mama."

He lifts his chin. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," she says. "I heard you miss your dead mama real bad. I heard you cry over it. I heard your daddy cries, too."

For once, she speaks the truth. It makes him angrier than ever.

"It's all you're doing is wanting," Alice goes on. "Wanting a mama. Wanting something you can't have no more."

His fists are shaking. His chest is tightening.

Alice turns and walks away.

---------------

Dad ties the rope around Dean's waist until it's tight and rubs like a bellyache he can't quite place.

"You stay back, okay? At the very end of the rope," John says and smiles crookedly. They've been at the end of their ropes for a few years now. "There's plenty of slack and you're only job is to stay tied to this end, got it?"

Dean nods. "Yes'r."

"I don't want to see you."

"I know."

"You stay back."

"I know."

John eyes him for a long moment and then nods. "Okay." He stands and makes his way over to the refrigerator. The rope is looped around his arm and Dean follows closely like a leashed dog, watching in curiosity as he removes the carton of eggs and gives Dean a tight grin. "Let's go."

Just outside the back door, John shoulders a duffle bag and sets the perfectly good eggs into an aluminum trashcan with exaggerated care.

It startles Dean a little when he sets off into the tall grass at the edge of their yard, right behind the house. Dean stops there, at the edge where the uncut lawn only reaches above his ankles

John continues on into deeper grass and weeds, dropping the rope length as he goes, eventually disappearing into the brush. Dean can see just the very top of his head, parting the way like a lion prowling through the Sahara.

Dean pulls at his jeans where they stick to his thighs and the back of his knees with sweat. Dad said he had to wear them though, and big, thick socks, too in order to keep the ticks from biting.

The sun is just setting, and the yard is awful, indistinctive shades of gray. Dean glances back toward the house and sees a faint light in one of the windows where Sam must be. Probably curled up on his sleeping bag, reading the Bernstein Bears and dreaming about his very own tree house.

The rope straightens and tugs. Dean starts walking.

He keeps pace just enough to stay there, at the very end of the rope, some tension in it always. The burrs and blades of field grass stick and tug at his bootlaces. He follows the path that John had matted down, through the tall grass and into the thicker brush that rises over his head.

A sharp tug at his waist and Dean stumbles forward, picks up his pace to a quick walk and then a jog. Dad must be moving at a good clip now. His path curves off to the left.

Dean slows as John does, and then stops altogether. He takes a few steps backward to feel the tug of weight around his waist. A few minutes pass, the grass rustling around him, shadows shifting with the breeze.

The rope gives a sudden, violent jerk, and Dean face plants into the dusty earth. He pushes himself up, coughs and wipes the dirt off his mouth with the back of his hand. Scrambles to his feet, takes two steps, and stops.

The rope has gone slack and lies limp in the dust at his feet.

---------------

First thing, Dean unties the rope from his waist. It takes a minute to pick apart Dad's careful knots and in that time, the night is eerily silent. The rope doesn't move.

Dean picks it up in his hand and starts walking, letting the length slip through his fingers as he goes. He moves as quickly as he can with only the shallow, silver light of the moon to guide him.

The end of the rope slips from his hand. It's frayed and snarled and curled around on itself. Dean looks around, because here's the end of the rope, here has to be Dad. All they had to do was stay tied to it and they'd never be alone, that's what Dad said. That's what he said.

Dean spins around and opens his mouth wide. "Dad? DAD!" He takes a few steps forward and a few steps back, feels his heart begin to trip over itself as it pounds in his ears. "Dad!"

The weeds rustle off to his left. Dean turns and sees a flash of scraggly grass hair and beaded eyes before he's running for the house.

---------------

The screen door cracks shut behind him and Dean goes right for the table. Dad's papers are stacked all over it in neat piles.

Sam pads into the room in shorts and bare feet, blinking and frowning. "What're you doing?"

"Dad's book. Did you see it? The journal? It was here." Dean moves another pile of papers and makes a strangled noise of achievement at seeing the leather bound book.

"What's going on?" Sam comes over to stand at his elbow.

Dean glances at him, takes a deep breath and squares his shoulders. "Nothin'." He flips the journal open, turning the pages slowly like they might crumble beneath his fingers.

Sam's staring up at him with big, round eyes. "I don't believe you."

Poleviks. Dean scans the entry, description, details and then…to appease. "Appease," he repeats aloud. "Appease?"

"It's like sayin' you're sorry."

Dean looks down at Sam. "Like a…like a peace treaty?"

Sam shrugs.

Dean reads over the list. A rooster, a toad, a crow, and two eggs thrown into the ditch on the full moon, to appease the Polevik.

Two eggs.

Eyes growing wide, Dean darts for the back door, throws it opens, and completely misses the first step. It's a weird, poorly built half of a step, maybe just two inches down instead of the height of a typical rise. The kind of stair that trips you up even when you've lived with it for months. His foot goes out beneath him and he tumbles into the trashcan, takes it with him to the ground. The aluminum lid rolls off into the grass as dead animals tumble out…and broken eggs.

Dean stares at the mess for a minute, the slimy puddle of yolks and hollow eyes of the dead crow. Dad had a whole plan here, just in case of an emergency like this, just in case of this. He'd planned for it, made it easy for them and still Dean manages to mess it up. And that's it. That's the end. There's nowhere to go shopping this time of night, nowhere to get more eggs. There's no way to kill the thing. There's no way to get Dad back.

Dean shoves the dead limp rooster away from him and closes his eyes against the prickling pressure behind them.

"Dean?" Sam asks quietly. He stands in the doorway, framed by the yellow kitchen light.

Dean rises slowly to his feet, feels the odd tug of raw skin on his knee, rubs at his eyes and keeps his head down. "Yeah?"

"The full moon is tomorrow."

---------------

School is an act, just killing time before nightfall. Sam never straight out asked about Dad and it's a façade for both of them; keeping up with the idea that everything is fine and normal.

School keeps Dean's mind busy, too. Papers and books and don't think about it. Don't think about Dad. Don't think about Dad gone. Don't think.

Alice comes up to him at recess. He braces himself, but the greater part of his mind, the part busy not thinking, doesn't even care. She can't say anything more.

And she doesn't. She just stands there for a while, kicking at the dust and gravel. The breeze twirls her hair about like Medusa's snakes. Then, she gives a weary sort of sigh and says, "I ain't got a Mama neither."

He stares at her for a long moment. A dull buzzing starts in his ears and he wonders vaguely if Sam's eaten lunch yet.

"She fell asleep one day, at our house," Alice says, still staring at the ground. "She did that a lot. Sleep, you know, in the middle of the day. She said sometimes grown ups need naps, too. But that day, it all caught fire 'cause of a candle. The whole house." Alice shrugs. "Then she just left. Don't really know why. She just left. Didn't come back."

The buzzing in Dean's ears turns into a slow simmer in his bones. He's tired and he's angry, but it's the anger that he needs. The fight and heat in his fists. "Do you miss her?" he asks.

She looks up at him and nods, a careful, trusting admittance.

He sees it, a weakness. She expects empathy, even after everything. The blood rises to his face in an angry flush and all he sees is red and black and green fury. "All you're doing is wanting," he spits back at her. "Wanting a mom. Wanting something you can't have anymore."

Alice blinks at him, frowns, and then rears back one skinny fist and pops him in the nose.

Dean curses and takes a step back. The blood and snot runs from his nose in a slimy, pink mixture that he wipes on his shirt hem. It hurts more than he'd thought. It all hurts more. The aide is coming over to them, but he can't stop now.

"She didn't want you either," he snarls. "My mom d-didn't have a choice, but yours left. She left 'cause she didn't even want you." He watches as she blinks slowly and her lips begin to tremble, features slowly crumbling.

Alice, with all her anger and her words, she cries.

---------------

The secretary wants to put ice on Dean's eye and have him sit and talk about things, but he tells her it's fine, he'll just go back to class, only needs to stop in the bathroom first. There's a window in the boys room and it's already open. It doesn't take much work to slither out.

The walk home takes longer than Dean thought it would, flat roads swarming out in the wavy heat before him. With nothing to distract him, Dean can't help but think of his dad, which leads to thoughts of Mom, and then Sammy, Alice and her mother, even, the fire and all that hurt.

Alice couldn't say why her mother left, and Dean can't imagine why. When so much is taken, it's hard to understand why anyone would ever leave. He squashes down those niggling feelings of empathy for Alice and holds onto the anger. That's how you survive, he knows. That's how Alice has survived, too.

He keeps walking past their rented house, past Alice's burnt up house, all the way to the corner store. The owner gives him an Arnold Palmer, fresh squeezed lemonade and sun-brewed tea. He sips at it while staring at the cooler of eggs. Finally, he selects one of the mismatched cartons and opens it to see the brown eggs inside, each set carefully into place by a farmer's callused hand.

---------------

That night, when the full moon is high, they go. The rooster, crow and toad are packed in a garbage bag and the entire dozen eggs, cradled in the carton.

Sam trails along, a half step behind Dean, one of his shoelaces untied. "Will Dad be hungry?" he asks, still avoiding the important questions.

Dean shrugs. "Maybe."

"We…we could make pancakes?"

"Yeah. If you want."

Sam ducks and bumps into Dean's elbow. "Dad likes them."

Dean stops walking. "We'll make pancakes."

Sam stands next to him, shifting from foot to foot.

The road stretches out long, a silver path in the moonlight. The open fields on either side are dark codas.

Dean takes a deep breath and overturns the garbage bag into the ditch. The birds and toad flop out and with them, the heavy, sweet scent of rot. He nudges Sam, who holds the egg carton. "Two of 'em."

Sam sets the carton down on the road, removes two eggs and steps down into the ditch to place them gently next to the animals. He scrambles back up to stand next to Dean.

Nothing happens.

Dean squints into the darkness.

It's quiet and nothing moves.

"Hey!" Sam yells out into the dark. "Give him back now!" There's no real fear there. No comprehension that this could be it. It's just a boy, wanting his Dad back.

It's just a boy, wanting.

Dean's throat closes in tight, a buckeye lodged in the back of his mouth. The grief swamps over him like the thickest cloud of exhaust and just as dizzying.

"Give him back!" Sam yells again. "Give him back now!"

Dean doesn't know what to say. Another brick is forming in his mind, stacking up. He prepares himself, tries to remember in fast forward everything Dad was. Alice's words float obscenely through his mind and he remembers. He remembers who his dad wasn't and who he could have been.

"It's fair!" Sam tries after a moment. He kicks gravel into the ditch. "It's what you wanted!"

Dean opens his mouth to take a breath, but it catches in a hysterical, awful, wet hiccup.

Sam looks up at him sharply.

The weeds rustle, part slowly, and John emerges.

---------------

end