Archive of Our Own ^beta

Title: Something Close to Normal
Category: AU, General, Hurt/Comfort
Characters: John, Mary, Dean, and Sam
Rating: K+
Summary: Sometimes life isn't as you expected it would be, but it still works out in the end.
Word count: 1300+
Disclaimer: I still don't own any of the characters.

John and Mary first suspected something might be wrong with Dean before he was even a year old, he didn't react to them the way their friends' kids reacted at the same age. However, it wasn't until Dean was 18 months that they found out just how bad it was. They had taken Dean to yet another doctor and this one gave them the diagnosis that would change their family forever, Dean was autistic and while they could work with Dean to help him learn to interact with them, he would always be stuck in a world all his own.

John and Mary had always wanted to have several kids close together, but after Dean's diagnosis, they debated whether they should risk having another one, not to mention that keeping an eye on Dean was a fulltime job for Mary. However, when Dean was three John and Mary decided they would take the chance and have another child. Dean would interact with John and Mary if they made sure they had his attention, however, he didn't seem to understand that he was going to have a sibling. Up until Sam was born, Dean would spend most of the days, that he didn't attend therapy, playing with his Legos or lining up his toys and random things left around the house, however, once Sam was home from the hospital Dean liked to sit rocking in front of Sam and watch him sleep. John or Mary would find Dean sitting in front of Sam's crib sometimes during the night when they would get up take care of Sam. Whoever was up would carry Dean back to his room, but quite often by morning, he was back in Sam's room. By the time Sam was a couple of months old Dean had added "Sammy" to his vocabulary. Overall having Sam in the family was a good thing for Dean, the only time that it wasn't was when Sam was really fussy, while Dean reacted bad to any loud noise, he reacted especially bad to Sam crying. Thank goodness, Sam was usually a happy baby because when Sam couldn't quickly be settled down Dean would become agitated and start rocking harder and if he was close to a wall at the time, he would bang his head against it, which would make Sam cry even louder.

The night Sam turned six months old John had stayed up watching a movie after Mary went to bed. He must have fallen asleep because he woke up later to the smell of smoke. John ran upstairs to check on his family and when he got to the top of the stairs, he could see flames coming from his and Mary's bedroom and he could hear Sam crying in his room. John yelled for Mary as he went to get Sam. Once he had Sam, John headed to Dean's room while still yelling for Mary, when John checked Dean's bed Dean wasn't there. John knew it wouldn't do any good to yell for Dean because he wouldn't answer to his name most of the time anyway and in this situation, John was sure Dean wouldn't, so John started searching Dean's room for him. John checked under Dean's bed first but didn't see him, after searching the entire room he finally found Dean rocking in the back of his closet. John had a terrible time getting him out while still holding on to Sam, but finally managed to hold Sam in one arm while picking Dean up with the other. John still hadn't seen Mary, but he couldn't search for her until he got the boys outside anyway. As he was heading down the stairs, he could hear sirens in the distance and hoped that the fire trucks were headed toward them. Once he made it outside, he realized that he couldn't leave the boys alone out there, with as worked up as Dean was there was no telling where he might wonder off to especially when the fire trucks showed up and added even more chaos to the scene. It was one of the hardest things he had ever had to do to sit there with the boys, and hope that Mary would come out on her own at any minute. Thankfully, he didn't have to wait long for the fire trucks to show up and for the firefighters to start heading to the house to search for Mary. Unfortunately, the firefighters weren't able to get to Mary in time. They said the cause of the fire was faulty wiring and that the fire started in the master bedroom, and that Mary had probably died before John had even gotten his sons out of the house, but it didn't help him feel any better. Of course being left with two young sons didn't give him much time to dwell on it.

John and the boys temporarily moved in with his business partner Mike while John tried to find another place for them to live since even if he could get the house fixed he couldn't bring himself to go back there. He eventually found a three-bedroom ranch style house on the other side of town. Dean had regressed after the fire and had stopped communicating with John too, so it wasn't possible for John to find a babysitter to stay with his sons while he worked. Therefore, he had to cut back his hours working at the garage, so he only worked in the mornings while Dean was getting therapy and Sam was in daycare, and he did the ordering and paperwork for the business from home in the afternoon that way he could watch the boys. When Dean started going to school all day John put Sam in daycare and started working at the garage during the day until it was time to pick up Dean from school.

As Sam got older, he still didn't show any signs of autism and he took on the role of big brother and would often try to comfort Dean when he was upset. Once Sam was in school too, he insisted on John dropping them off at the curb and then Sam would walk Dean to his classroom before Sam headed to his own class. After school, John would help his sons with their homework before fixing supper, and Sam would try to get Dean to play with him until supper was ready. John knew it was Sam's way of making sure that John could focus on fixing supper without having to worry about Dean wondering off or getting hurt. Sam would also try to include Dean when Sam had friends over to the house, which was slowly helping Dean learn to interact with other children. The one time John had heard one of Sam's friends make a comment about Dean, Sam had punched the kid and hadn't talked to him again as far as John knew. Dean still preferred it when it was just John, Sam and him though.

After Dean moved on to middle school he rode the bus, but Sam was always there waiting for Dean to get off the bus. Once inside the house Sam would help Dean get a snack before they started on their homework, while John stayed in his office working on paperwork since Sam had quickly decided he could do his homework on his own and would make sure Dean started on his too. John would wait about another fifteen minutes after he heard the boys sit down to do their homework before he headed out to help Dean with his homework. John figured fifteen minutes was long enough for Sam not to get the impression that John didn't trust him to help with Dean, but not so long that Dean would start to feel frustrated by his homework. It actually worked out well for all of them since it let John finish up on his work and let Sam feel useful, and Dean was fine with it as long as the schedule was the same every day.