My Reason to Be || Sam&Dean

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When Dean is nine, John vanishes. He goes out on a hunt, standard and normal, and tells Dean that if he doesn't call in a week, Dean needs to call Pastor Jim or Uncle Bobby. A week comes and goes, and Dean doesn't call. He knows that Dad will be back, he will.

The days go by, and the people at the front desk are starting to get impatient when Dean says Daddy's in the shower and can't talk. Ten days after Dad leaves on his hunt, police knock on the door because there wasn't enough rent for more than a week, and Sammy needed food, so Dean bought them ice cream cones when they went to 7-11. The group home they get taken to is big and clean and scary. Dean pulls Sammy into his lap, and they sit in a big, sunken-in, blue chair while the man behind the desk writes down how many t-shirts they have and tries to figure out how much Sammy's stuffed frog is worth.

It's the first house Dean remembers being in since Aunt Kate and Uncle Mike. He hopes they let him and Sammy share a bed. Sammy's never slept alone before, and Dean doesn't want to. He's scared, and he wants his Daddy, but Dean knows he has to be brave for Sammy. Sammy's little; he doesn't know what's happening, and if Dean acts like it's okay, then Sammy will think it's okay.

The man behind the desk is Mr. Kim, and he lets Dean and Sammy sleep on the couch in the living room. Dean curls around Sammy, tucks him between his chest and the back of the couch, and keeps him safe. They stay there for a couple of weeks, and then they get moved to a foster home, some place with a real family and not people who get paid to stay and watch the kids. That lasts about a week. They try to make Sammy sleep in another room, and when Dean yells and screams, they decide that they would prefer "a more agreeable child." It goes like that for months. Sammy doesn't belong in the group home with all the difficult kids, and their case worker keeps moving them to foster homes, but families don't like Dean, and they send him and Sammy back.

One day, their case worker comes to the foster home. She takes Dean aside and tells him that the family they're with really like Sammy and want to keep him. Make him their son. But they say that Dean is too much for them. Dean doesn't know what rambunctious means, but he promises he'll stop being it, and he'll ask before he uses the stove, and he won't be loud, and he'll do anything, just don't take Sammy away. She tells him it's not up to her, and he tries not to cry too much, in case Sammy can hear. She tells him he has to be brave for his brother, that Sammy need him to be strong so that he doesn't get scared. Dean asks if he can tell Sammy, and she's quiet for a moment, just looking at him, before she nods and says he can.

Sammy cries. He clings to Dean's chest and sobs, burying his face in Dean's neck, begging Dean not to go, telling him he wants to stay with Dean. He doesn't care where they go, he won't complain, and he won't follow Dean around all the time, and he just wants to stay. Dean tells him no. He tells Sammy that these people are nice, and good—which he knows isn't the whole truth because nice people don't take little brothers away from their big brothers—and that if he stays with them, he can have better things. He tells Sammy that this is the way it has to be, and he's not going away forever, just for a little while.
"The Field Museum, Sammy, the big one with all the World War Two stuff. We'll meet there on your eighteenth birthday; that way, no one can tell you no. May second, two thousand and one, say it, Sammy." Sam sniffs and tries to wipe away his tears. "May second, two thousand and one."
"Where? Sammy, where?"
"Field Museum," he says, face buried in Dean's shirt.
He gives Sammy his favorite shirt, the big one of Daddy's that he always wore to sleep when he missed him. He tells Sammy that if he gets sad or scared, he can hug the shirt, and it'll be just like hugging him or Daddy. Sam tries to give Dean his frog, but Dean knows Sammy can't sleep without it. Sammy gets his purple shirt out of the his dresser, the shirt with the big teddy bear on the front and actual fuzz.
"I don't need it," Sammy tells him. "I got yours."
Dean leaves Sammy a picture on his bed, the one he drew last night when he thought of this. It's got the museum on it and the date so that Sammy doesn't forget. He tells Sammy he loves him, tells him this has to happen, and tries not to worry about Sammy going with people who are so nice they only want one little boy to keep. Dean knows how it works.