Sam: 14
Dean: 18

Life's a (W)itch

Sam was sitting.

He was resting his hands on his knees and studying from a physics book and hoping not to be discovered.

It wasn't like it was a crime for him to do his homework, this was just to pass the time, he was hiding from Dean.

Dean was on his last nerve lately. He was nineteen, only four years older than Sam, and he still thought he was so much cooler. Just because Sam couldn't drive, Sam couldn't run a 5K in eighteen minutes, Sam couldn't get a date.

So Sam lied. He'd said he was going on a date with Karen Allen, who didn't exist, and that he was meeting her at the movies to see some horror film that Sam probably wouldn't watch anyway. Dean—through his utter shock—approved, and said that even though Sam hated horror movies (too much like real life), they were the best thing to take a girl to. Instant cuddling.

Sam stored this bit of knowledge in his 'maybe later' vault; he was still a bit to awkward and shy to pull anything like that.

He checked his watch, an old piece of junk that, while having six or seven buttons, barely told the time and ran slow if he didn't set it daily. He still had another half hour until the movie was over, then add a few minutes for previews and talking afterward… at least forty-five minutes, probably close to an hour before he could go home.

Sam tried to take advantage of the free time by going to the library; physics was currently ruining his 4.0 with a B, which, though thoroughly useless in his little part of the world, gave him a personal suit of armor when his brother outdid him in an exercise, or target practice, or on a hunt. Dean couldn't touch his grades, unimportant as they had proven to be. So he tried to concentrate, looking up from the book and muttering what he'd read to memorize it. "When two objects travel beside each other, their velocities are 'v2-v1'. Therefore, if you traveling at…"

"Sa-mmy." Dean practically sang as he suddenly emerged from the forest of shelves. Sam sat in a strange swirl of horror and shock; Dean? In a library? Dean? Catching him at the library… not of a date.

Well, this stinks.

Regardless of his stinking up Sammy's afternoon, Dean sat backwards in a chair next to his brother. "I thought your movie ran for another hour or something."

Still safe! Lie. Sammy ordered himself. Lie well. "Karen got sick, she wasn't in school today. We'll catch it some other time."

Didn't even blink. Impressive, Dean thought. "Nice try, kid. Next time, use an actress I don't know. 'Karen Allen' was Marion Ravenwood in one of the Indiana Jones movies." He grinned in triumph.

Sammy looked absolutely devastated, and Dean's victory was confirmed. But he only basked in it momentarily, he was on business. "Come on, you gotta pack."

"Why?" Sam didn't forget his embarrassment, not for one second, but it was almost replaced with anger. "I thought Bobby said there weren't any jobs lined up." He thought he might get more than two weeks in a school for once. He should have known better than to hope, but the effect was still crushing.

"Dad can find jobs on his own." Dean said defensively. "And we got a lot of driving tonight, so hurry up." He hit his brother's shoulder lightly, prodding.

Sam slammed his book shut and started storming to the exit, probably not trying to act pissy, but doing a damn good job.

So, as punishment and for Dean's own amusement, he blared 'Frayed ends of Sanity' the entire ride home, ignoring Sammy's near constant attempts to turn it down.

"You eaten yet?" Dean asked, unlocking the door and stepping over a line of salt.

"No." Sam finally recalled that he hadn't eaten since breakfast and followed his brother immediately to the kitchen.

"Me either. What do you want?"

As much as Dean hated it, he was a fantastic cook. Something Sam took advantage of as often as he could. "Grilled cheese?" Sounded really good.

Dean looked over at him, annoyed. He didn't like to cook at all. "You're so high-maintenance Samantha. How 'bout hot dogs?" Sam scowled, but food was food, so he got out buns and ketchup and paper plates as Dean popped a package of hot dogs into the microwave. Sam was so grateful when they were done that he knew he wouldn't have had the patience to wait for grilled cheese.

Sammy grabbed three hot dogs, foregoing the bun on one of them just because he still liked them plain sometimes, slathered them in ketchup, and kicked his shoes off to lounge on the couch. "So what's Dad got this time?"

Dean grabbed only two hot dogs for himself, but he was currently hunting for a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos he'd hidden for just this moment. "Something East. People going missing, weird mutilations, stuff like that." Dean wasn't really paying attention the first time he'd been told. "He'll tell us in the car." He dismissed.

Dead people, mutilations, a damn good time. Sammy thought morbidly. He sighed.

Dean heard, and rolled his eyes; dad heard and threw a look at the back of his youngest son's head, willing him to cooperate at least until they got to the car.

Sam saw Dad coming from the corner of his eye and immediately stopped lounging. He sat up and ate his food quietly and efficiently, giving the air a colder feel and once again, Dean rolled his eyes.

Sammy was mad at Dad for moving them again, and worse, he was showing it with these snub little silences. It wasn't long until the bickering would begin.

Dean grabbed the chips and headed to his room.

It actually didn't take Sam very long to pack at all, not compared to his usual. But when Dean said as much, he was given the treat of Sarcastic Sammy telling him he had hardly unpacked, that it was hardly worth it anymore.

Cue bickering.

Only it didn't come.

It had been like that earlier too, where Sammy was obviously pissed, but he wasn't actually going at it with Dad. Dean prayed it might be a sign for future things to come.

"Last bag, princess?" Dean asked as Sam brought out one last small duffel. Everything they brought fit neatly in the back of his Impala on top of the weaponry.

Sam didn't even bother to respond to the princess comment, he just waited to get going, looking sullen.

Dean grinned, Sam was always so picky about making sure all of his books were perfectly arranged for the least amount of damage… He threw this last bag in the back seat, rather than trying to ruin the perfectly-packed-ness of the trunk. Normally he would have scrunched it, but Sammy was being good, so he'd get a little reward: his precious books would be spared.

Dean came around the Impala to find Sam already in the front seat. Dad was already in the pick-up in front of them too, coming very close to laying on the horn.

He strolled lazily toward the door of his baby and smiled as he started the ignition and Metallica continued to blare from where it had left off earlier.

For Dean, it was the good life.

Before they even got to Whateversville, SomewhereEast, Sam was practically asleep in the car, music and open windows aside. The clock on the dashboard was currently broken, and he wasn't moving to check his out-dated watch, but it had to have been three a.m. or past.

They'd even pulled off the road for coffee. And Dean hated the stuff.

Nonetheless, it was a necessary evil, and it sloshed in docilely the cup holder, black and cold.

It had already put Dean in a bad mood. When he'd offered Sammy some, the kid had gone on a tirade about caffeine and stunted growth and other such nonsense (though apparently soda was perfectly acceptable). All Dean could say to that was the kid needed his growth stunted. He was all arms and legs, which meant he would eventually get taller, but for the last year or so he started tripping over his own feet and knocking into furniture. Not good habits for a hunter.

And after that conversation, Sammy had completely ignored him until he fell asleep. Bitch needed his rest, sure, but now what was Dean supposed to do? He was such an awesome brother that he'd even turned of the music…

So he drove.

And drove.

God, how did Dad do it? So boring…

And drove some more…

Until finally he was close to falling asleep himself, and desperately needed something to keep him awake. The coffee was all but gone, with only the smallest drops left, leaving the Styrofoam cup sitting there, mocking him. Dean picked it up with the intention of throwing it out the window (there were no other cars on the road, he was sure), but then Dad might reprove his driving. And he didn't want to deal with that tonight, or whenever they stopped.

So it sat in his hand for just a moment, before Dean carefully tried to balance it on Sammy's sleeping head. He moved a little at first, but he didn't wake up.

Dean grinned when he finally got it to sit sturdily on the teen's hair, leaning against the headrest. He slowly moved his fingers to the power button for the cassette player, making sure his eyes were on Sammy when he punched it.

Sam jumped as far as the seatbelt allowed in a panic as little forgotten drops of cold liquid hit his face. He was disoriented and restrained by the seatbelt, which wasn't helping, and he almost literally had the shit scared out of him.

The only thing that stopped him from grabbing the knife in his back pocket was the sound of Dean's laughter, even louder than Metallica.

"You— You—" He sputtered for a second, realizing. "You jerk!!"

Dean just laughed 'bitch', as was customary, and chided Sam for falling asleep on him.

Sam seemed to fall asleep faster the second time just to spite him.

Sam shivered under the blankets for close to a half-hour before finally gathering the courage to face the cold morning. Even then, the only thing that finally convinced him to move was a soon-to-be urgent need for knowledge of bathroom location.

They'd gotten into town late last night, and Sam was about 3/5 sure he never woke up the entire time they unloaded the truck and Impala. He was made more sure when he stood up to find that he was still fully clothed, with his jeans making uncomfortable red marks on his legs. He stumbled to the door and out to a hallway, choosing to go left at random. He was too tired to play eenie-meenie-miney-moe.

He found stairs, and from there, the kitchen. He was popping a bagel (which, along with Lucky Charms, was the only thing edible as of yet) when Dean came down the same stairs he had. Trust Dean to wake from the dead at the smell of food. "Morning." Sam didn't even look up.

Dean 'hn'ed. But that was really the only language he had in the morning, so Sam just assumed it was a pleasant greeting.

Sam quietly picked up the laptop on the coffee table and began to open Google, not bothering to ask where their father was. He found the local newspaper online and began to search for anomalies.

It took two bagels and about a half-hour waking up period, but Dean finally started to read over his shoulder. Of course, 'read' was a relative term. Dean didn't read, he skimmed. And only the headlines, at most. "Obits?" he asked.

"Yeah. I was thinking about the mutilations and deaths, you didn't really say if there were any live victims." Or describe the mutilations, but Sam would rather read that than watch Dean portray it. His brother went into detail he didn't need, and indicated it on his own body, which was just wrong.

"None that I heard of." Dean thought back to his father's lecture. "Not that Dad mentioned." He confirmed, nodding to himself.

"Just checking." Sam excused, rather than pursuing the fact that Dad didn't know everything there was to know and could be missing crucial information to the case.

Dean watched his brother with a slight sense of unease. He'd given him the perfect bait, the perfect thing for him to latch onto and launch into an hour-long rant about how there father didn't always know everything, but Sammy didn't take it. Weird. Not bad, but weird. Dean had figured his little brother would need to be blowing off serious steam all day over what happened last night…

Cool.

"I'm going for a drive." He announced, rolling off the couch and stiffly getting into a walking motion toward the garage. "See if I can't talk to some locals." Hot locals.

Local girls, Sam thought, slightly annoyed, but used to it. "See if you can't figure out where the school is. It's Sunday." He reminded gently, hoping Dean would grant the request.

He groaned, but didn't say whether he would or not.

Tomorrow, first day of school! And the hunt begins...