Title: The 'Freak'

Author: Ice Cube

Rating: PG (K+)

Spoilers: For the episode Bugs…some of the stuff that Dean and Sam talked about, not the plot of the show…

Disclaimer: Right, if I owned them anywhere outside of my dreams, the characters that are forthwith mentioned in this story would be making me a lot of money and very happy…so no, they aren't mine, and I'm a broke college student who has no money, so if you're going to sue, feel free, you won't get anything.

Characters: Sam, John, Dean

Archives: Feel free; just let me know where so I can find it again.

Summary: All Sam has ever wanted was to be normal…and his father can't seem to accept that…

Warnings: To those who think that I am capable of writing a fic that is torture free…I can't, and thus, if you don't want to see h/c, various possible tortures, and other forms of angst, find another story. Also, to those of you looking for slash, when I mean friendship and brotherhood, I take that in the trust you with my life and have no problem telling you about my current crush who is of the opposite sex way. In other words, if you're looking for slash, you won't find it here.

I don't have my stories beta'd, I'm too impatient to wait for someone to proof it after I've written it, so I apologize for any mistakes, and if you email me to tell me that they're there, I'll fix them later. Reviews are always a plus, it's great to know that people are reading my stories and like them, but as I'm a horrible reviewer, I won't hold my breath for them. Flames, however, will be treated with the utmost respect they deserve…they will be ignored completely or poked fun at with friends.

That said, on with the tale…

The towheaded boy trapped the ball with his foot and faked out the defender. Rolling right and then quickly passing the soccer ball to himself through his friend's feet, he never gave anyone a chance as he raced across the yard to the goal. Grinning at the man playing net, he aimed to the far right and then at the last second, hooked the ball to the left. He grinned as the ball swooshed against the nylon, and then laughed out loud as he was tickled. He fought his way free and ran past the white picket fence, yelling for help. A blonde woman appeared from the porch and yelled out, "it's not his fault he tricked you, don't torture him."

To most, the sight of two boys playing soccer with a father as the mother watched over them might seem normal, and yet, to the blonde boy, it looked like heaven. Sam Winchester knew all too well that this moment was short-lived, and it was nothing more than the luck of the draw that his father hadn't come home on time, so he got the day to play with his friend's family. He looked down at his hands, small enough to sneak into cookie jars and steal a sweet before dinner, but had never had the opportunity. These hands knew how to load a shotgun without looking, fire a handgun accurately, and wield a knife with deadly force. The calluses weren't from too many hours playing baseball, but from shaping crosses and stakes. Sam hated almost every minute of it.

Sure it was great to hang around his brother all the time, and he did get to see some pretty cool places, but his captor never told him how well he did, never seemed to be interested in the math problem he had figured out. His jailer never liked to acknowledge that his youngest son was intelligent unless it was in finding a new lead for their current hunt. Even at his age, Sam knew that his father was disappointed in how he was turning out. Sure he could go through the motions and keep his weapons in pristine condition, fire his .45 into the bull's-eye, and melt silver on the weekends, but the only thing Sam really enjoyed was sparring with Dean, and the few times that their father took the time to teach him one-on-one. But those times were few and far between, and even then they usually ended poorly.

"Come on, Sam. What are you waiting for, let's play!" His friend called out, juggling the ball and beckoning. Nodding, Sam stowed his thoughts away for a different time, and decided to forget it all for now and have fun.

That was until his father showed up. "Sam, let's go. We have to go to the cabin for the rest of the weekend."

Sam would swear that his father had shown up out of nowhere, and flippantly thought of three different ways to exorcise the man, just in case. He hung his head. "Dad, I don't want to go. Can't I stay here? Dean can go with you."

"What? Sammy, come on. You know what this weekend is."

"I just want to play for a little while, dad. Can't we go tomorrow?"

"No, Sam. We're going."

"I don't…want to." Sam crossed his arms over his chest defiantly. Inside he knew that this was a losing battle, but he had been having fun for once and didn't want it to end.

John walked forward calmly and grabbed his youngest son by the arm. He didn't expect Sam to flinch and twist away from him, a glare crossing his features. The man leaned down. "We're going to work on your bow skills, Sammy, now let's go," he whispered forcefully.

"I don't want to work on another stupid hunting skill. I just wanna play soccer for a little while." Sam whispered just as forcefully, but with a slight quake in his voice.

"Don't you ever consider what we do stupid, young man. You know how important this is. We'll talk about this when we get home, now get in the car."

Sam backed away. "Why do you always do this?"

His friend's father called out from the porch where he and his wife were sitting, "Mr. Winchester, we can keep Sam for the weekend if you'd like. Give him a chance to hang out with our son. Sam has such a positive influence on him."

John saw the pleading eyes staring at him from his son's face, but quickly squashed his hopes. "What, this little bandit? A positive influence? No, he needs to come home now, but thank you." The tone was light enough to stave off any doubts as to his relationship with his son, but the words cut into Sam just as harshly.

He ran up to the porch anyway, out of reach of his father. "Why can't I, Dad?" The tone was unmistakable as his accent on the title was vehement. "What's so important up at the cabin?"

"You know very well what's going on up there, now let's…go." John had crossed the yard and latched onto his son, dragging him out of the backyard. "You will regret this," he whispered into the boy's ear.

Sam struggled and threw one last pleading look to his friend. Finally he gave up and walked sullenly to the car.

Sam curled up on the front seat of the Impala, pulled his seatbelt on and slammed the door. He glared out the window and refused to look at his father when the man got in and started the engine. He could hear the restrained anger over the purring of the car, and knew he was in for it.

John waited until they were out of eyesight to chastise his son. "What the hell did you think you were doing? You were supposed to stay home with Dean and organize everything for this weekend. Why are you wasting your time like this, don't you care about anything important?"

"I did stay home and organize with Dean. But then you didn't feel like showing up yesterday, so I went and had fun. You know that thing kids are supposed to do? Mike's dad came and picked me up and everything."

"I have never been more disappointed in you, Samuel. You are throwing everything away that I've taught you. Is this how you're going to repay me?"

"What? All I wanted to do was play soccer. It's normal, that's all."

"It's a waste of time."

"Hunting is a waste of time."

There was nothing more said between the two until they pulled into the parking lot of their apartment. Sam stormed out of the car and made for the back door of the complex.

"We aren't done with this, mister. You go inside and you sit down at the kitchen table."

Sam turned around and laughed in disbelief. "What are you going to do, lecture me? That's far too normal for our freak family."

"You're the odd one out in this family, Samuel. Now get upstairs."

Sam just shook his head and raced up the stairs. He walked in the door and slammed it shut purposely, and then stormed in the kitchen.

"Get out, Dean. Dad needs to yell at me some more."

Dean didn't even ask; the look his brother gave him for once didn't warrant a witty response. He just shook his head and picked up the pieces of his gun.

Dean walked out of the kitchen and met up with his father in the hall. "Sam's in the kitchen; what did the freak do now?"

"Don't you ever call your brother a freak, Dean. Do you understand me?"

"Yes sir."

"Good. Now finish packing. We're going to teach him how to use a bow later."

"Cool."

John walked into the kitchen and saw his son staring out the window. He knew that there was a park that Sam could see, and he sighed. Where had he gone wrong with the boy?

"Samuel."

"I know, I know. You're very disappointed in me and you don't know how I could have turned out so poorly. We aren't normal, Dad. Nothing about us is normal. Stealing to get by, cheating God knows how many people out of their money, learning how to aim a gun at something you can't even see? None of that is commonplace."

"It is for us, Sam. We help a lot of people doing it, and it's not like we get anything out of it."

"Sure you do. You get to feel a little bit better about yourself because you killed something else. It's like a drug for you and Dean. Maybe I don't want to do those drugs, Dad."

"It's not a thrill, Sam. It's never a thrill knowing that you or Dean or even I could be looking down the road at our last hunt next. It's…"

"Oh, sure it is, Dad. It's great fun for you and Dean. It's not fun for me. It's a burden, and all I want to do is be a kid. Why is that so hard to ask?"

"Because that's not how life panned out for us. We have to find the thing that killed your mom. Or did you forget about that? Your mother was killed by one of these things that you don't want to hunt. How can you not want to find it?"

"Look, I understand that mom was killed by something supernatural. But in all these years, you haven't even come close to finding anything like it. It's never happened to anyone else, and like it or not, I don't think it exists anymore. So instead of getting your revenge on it, you drag me and Dean across the country on 'adventure' after countless 'adventure'."

"We're trying to find it, Sam. We can't do that if we just sit back and wait for it to find us again. Your mom was a great woman, and we need to avenge her. Why can't you understand that?"

"Because I don't even know who she is. Sure she's my mother, but I don't remember what she was like, I don't have any memories of her. If there weren't pictures of her from our relatives that I don't know, I wouldn't even know what she looks like. Your crusade isn't mine, Dad."

John whipped his son around, and looked him straight in the eyes. "Don't you ever talk about your mother like that again. She loved you very much, and you owe her that much. She died saving your life, I'm sure."

Sam just shook his head and stormed off towards his room. "All I wanted to do was have a weekend to be normal, Dad. I just wanted to play soccer."

"We don't have time for that, Sam. I wish we did, but every minute you waste playing games is a lost opportunity to protect yourself better."

Sam just shook his head again and turned to walk away. "I'll never be good enough for you, Dad. Let's just leave it at that. I can get out of your hair in a few years for college, and you can forget that you have one ideal son and one freak of nature."

"You aren't going anywhere for college, Sam. Not if we haven't found this thing yet. Now go pack for the weekend. We're leaving in an hour."

"Whatever."

Sam stormed out, tears checked at the corners of his eyes. He saw his older brother hiding around the corner and shoved him out of the way, locking himself in his room. Once he knew that no one would disturb him, Sam sunk down against the door, laid his arms on his knees and buried his face in his arms. Tears pooled on his sweatshirt, and he allowed himself to cry.

John sat at the kitchen table and picked at the skin on his fingers, shaking his own head. He didn't know how to get through to the boy, and wasn't sure there was any way to repair the relationship. He could remember how eager Sam had been to help on his first hunt, but he could also see the hurt every time John made him pick pockets or work on forging another document. In another life, he thought, Sam would make a great lawyer; he always sought the truth in the situation.

"It's just a phase, Dad. He'll grow out of it." John looked up to see his oldest son standing at the door.

"Will he? Should he? Dean, maybe we're making a mistake. Maybe we shouldn't have brought him into this. Maybe I shouldn't have even brought you into this. I…"

"Dad, I love what we do. It's a great life. Sam's just…he's different, Dad. That's all. He's got more of a conscience than we do I guess. He's just…weird. He wants the kind of life that would probably get him killed, and would make me want to puke my brains out."

"Don't call your brother weird. He's amazingly intelligent for his age, and he'll be a great man some day. I just wish he could accept that we're trying to protect him."

"But you never tell him that, Dad. He doesn't know you even like him. He thinks you're disappointed in him, didn't you hear him?"

"He doesn't listen to me."

"Because you don't listen to him. He isn't like us, he'll never be happy to just go from town to town and hunt things. But he'll do it, because he doesn't want to look like a failure to you. Or me. I don't understand where he comes from, but he's not going to change, Dad."

"I know. And he won't accept that we love him for who he is."

"Dad, I make fun of him because he's a nerd. And he expects that, I'm his older brother. But you tell him not to stick his nose in another book, tell him that everything he does is a waste of time. Of course he doesn't think you like him."

"I do love him though, you know that."

"But he doesn't. He thinks you see him as a waste of space. And you aren't going to change that acting like you do."

"I'll make it up to him."

"Of course you will. By getting him a new gun or a better bow. But he doesn't want that. He wants the white picket fence and the dog and the older brother who protects him from schoolyard bullies, not poltergeists and demons. He knows he can't have that, but it's what he wants. He'll grow out of it eventually."

"Or we'll drive it out of him. And that scares me, Dean."

The conversation stopped as Sam walked out with his duffel bag. "So are we going or what?"

"Soon. I don't want to get stuck in traffic. Why don't you…" John paused, "go read one of your books for a little while? You could show me something new maybe?"

Sam scoffed. "Yeah, right, like you'd care."

Dean shook his head as his younger brother walked out again. "I'm going to run to the store down the street for a minute. I need to get something for him. I'll be back soon."

John looked confused, but knowing that Dean was the only thing keeping his youngest sane, trusted him to do right by the boy. "He always was your responsibility, Dean," he whispered to his eldest's back.

Dean walked back in half an hour later, a plastic bag slung over his shoulder. "Trust me, Dad."

John nodded and watched Dean from where he still sat at the kitchen table. "We're leaving in ten minutes."

"That's fine."

"Sammy, can I come in?"

Dean heard what he hoped was a muffled 'sure' and pushed the door open. Sam was curled around a book on his bed that looked as if it weighed a ton. "Geez, Sammy. What is that?"

"Lord of the Rings. You gonna make fun of me for it some more?"

"No, Sam, I won't. I got something for you." He sat down on the bed next to his younger brother. "He really does care, you know."

"Sure, whatever." Sam sat up and looked at the bag. "Another weapon or something?"

"Nope, Dad doesn't even know I got this for you. Got it with my own pocket money."

"From the lady's purse or the guy at the pool hall you hustled?"

"From taking the next door neighbor's dog for a walk all last week when Dad was gone. Sometimes I do earn my money, you know."

"So what is it?"

"Open the bag." Dean smiled as Sam caught the package and his eyes widened.

Peering into the bag, Sam grinned. "A soccer ball?"

"We can play in the motel rooms or something. I can't give you normal, Sammy, but I can give you this at least. It's a start."

"It's great, Dean. It really is." He bit his lower lip. "Will you make sure that I get this bow stuff this weekend? I want Dad to be proud of me for a change."

"He always is, Sam. You just confuse him sometimes."

"Well he confuses me sometimes."

"I know, kiddo."

"I…am not…a kid." He threw the ball to the floor and tackled his brother.

The two wrestled on the floor as John peered around the corner. He smiled as he watched the boys. It was the most normal thing he could ever hope for with his boys. Once again he cursed the demon that had caused his boys' hurt and vowed to find it if it was the last thing he did.

Which it very well might be.

THE END.