Sam remembered one time, years ago, in some middle-of-nowhere dingy motel. He was eight or nine, maybe. Dad was gone, hunting. He’d only said he had a lead. Sam was pretty sure now that it must have been Azazel. Nothing less would have kept him away for three whole months.
There was a tree outside the hotel. Dad never let Sam climb trees, but Dad wasn’t there, and Dean was busy swiping food from the local gas station. He came back to Sam huddled and crying in the mud at the foot of the tree.
His arm was broken. He’d never seen Dean so scared. They didn’t have insurance, and the money dad had given them was quickly running out. So Dean wrapped Sam’s arm in ace bandages from the gas station and they left it alone, the way other boys hid broken vases from their mothers.