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Title: Five Times Sammy Wasn't
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kellifer_fic
Rating: PG (Language)
Category: SPN, Gen
Word Count: 2,446
Spoilers: None
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue, no offense, no money.
Summary: These are the times Sammy... wasn't.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth
- Robert Frost
Tanya is standing in the doorway with her arms crossed over her chest and the look on her face only one person can put there.
“It’s your brother,” she says. Dean sighs, ducking out from under the sink where the pipes are refusing to cooperate and stop leaking but he pauses when Tanya puts one bare foot on his thigh, high up enough to be menacing. “Don’t give him any money this time, okay?”
“He might want to just see me,” Dean says, trying not to let the old anger out. Tanya had been patient and welcoming up to a point, but Sam has a way of wearing on people that aren’t family. No one can understand why he is the way he is. They just look at him and see a loser who is sponging off his big brother every chance he gets.
They don’t know about the visions.
They don’t know…
“Hey.” Sam is standing in his bright living room, looking out of place. He’s wearing a shirt that’s seen better days and none of those in a laundry and his long hair is greasy and unkempt. He’s a little unsteady on his feet and his eyes are glazed.
“Tell me you didn’t drive here,” Dean admonishes and Sam half-shrugs.
“Steady as a rock,” Sam responds, holding up a hand that tremors like an old man’s. He balls it into a fist with a small huff of annoyance. “Besides, what do you care? You haven’t been on the road since-”
“Don’t,” Dean snaps, because Sam brings it up every time. It’s his little way of making sure Dean remembers this is all his fault. The car wreck, the death of their father, the head injury that had switched something on in Sam, making it impossible for him to live a normal life. He’s not strung out on anything conventional or the normal type of illegal but the habit he has is expensive all the same and the people he deals with no less shady.
“I’m running out,” Sam says, practically whines and Dean clenches his own hands into fists.
“How? I only saw you four months ago. You’re running through it quicker,” Dean snaps and Sam’s eyes narrow, go flinty.
“Yeah, well, they’re getting worse,” he says stiffly, fingers walking the thin scar at his temple and he means it like an accusation. How can you turn me away when you did this to me?
“Have you tried seeing Missouri? She’s gotta have something you can do that isn’t-”
“I don’t want that old witches help!” Sam yells, putting a hand out and sweeping everything off the side table near his hip. Dean doesn’t so much as flinch but he hears something break from upstairs and knows Tanya isn’t going to want to let Sam in next time. “She’s trying to get into my head. She’s trying to use me,” he adds, his voice a low growl as he advances on Dean.
“Fine, take it. Take everything. It’s not like I could ever refuse you, Sammy,” Dean says and something softens in Sam’s expression for the briefest of moments, long enough that Dean thinks maybe, maybe he’s gotten through his little brother’s haze, but then Sam’s hands come up, one resting on his temple and the other along his jaw and Dean feels it drawn out of him, the years, the small slice of life that Sam’s shaving off him.
It would be so much easier if Sam had come for money, but the people he deals with have no such need for such mundane, material things.
000
“So this waitress like, bends over right in front of me and I say, I wasn’t aware I was getting the whole pie for free.” Dean snorts to himself and smacks a hand on his thigh.
“Mr. Winchester?”
Dean looks around and sees the nurse, Karen or Kathleen, he can never remember, has poked her head in. “It’s nearly time for his bath.”
“Okay,” Dean says, smiling a little and turns to clap Sam lightly on the shoulder. “No giving the nurses grief,” he admonishes as well and hears Karen/Kathleen’s light laugh as she disappears down the hallway. Dean pauses when he’s at the threshold of Sam’s room, the same room that’s been his home for the last three years.
The doctor’s say locked in syndrome like it’s the easiest thing in the world to diagnose. Dean had read somewhere that in France the common term for it had been maladie de l'emmuré vivant which translated to walled-in alive disease.
Dean thinks that one is more appropriate.
He pauses outside the room and takes a few careful, measured breaths. The nurses at their station don’t even notice him anymore, which he’s thankful for. They’d been full of sympathy and concern for the first little while, but Karen/Kathleen had told him after a few months that he had surprised them by continuing to visit. “Most people can’t,” she said with a little shudder. “It’s too hard for them.”
“Well, I don’t think it’s hard for me,” Dean had said with a small frown. “I think it’s hard for Sammy and until someone can tell me he’s not in there anymore, I’m going to be here everyday.”
000
The plastic of the phone handle is rough and there’s a crack under his thumb. “Orange really isn’t your color, dude.”
Sam rolls his eyes and makes a fist, tapping on the glass where Dean’s forehead is reflected, like he would knock against Dean’s head if he could. “I’ll be sure to tell my stylist. They’ve been making a mess of my hair and makeup as well.”
“I wasn’t going to mention it but…” Dean feels the grin freeze on his face, a rictus thing. “Look, I was thinkin’…”
“Never a good idea for either of us,” Sam interrupts, sounding light but his eyes have gone wary.
“If I just tell-”
“You know I can’t let you do that,” Sam says and all emotion is gone from his face. “The only people who know the truth are me and thee,” he adds in a singsong that is so eerie Dean can’t help the shudder that runs through him. Sam is smiling now, although it isn’t reaching his eyes. He presses a hand to the glass briefly. “You got a kid now and a future. I’ve got blinding headaches and patches of violence I can’t control. It’s better this way.”
“You never asked me… you never gave me a chance to-”
“What? Throw yourself on the grenade like you always do? Nah, couldn’t let that happen this time.” The blankness is gone and there’s something warm and fond in Sam’s expression. “Just, let it go can’t you?”
“Not while you’re in here,” Dean says, hating how hurt and bruised his voice sounds. “If Bobby didn’t…”
“You leave Bobby alone. He did the right thing. The only thing he could’ve.”
“Yeah, well if I ever find him,” Dean says, threat evident in his voice.
“You won’t,” Sam says with a tired sigh. “Not while he doesn’t want you to, and he ain’t ever going to want you to.”
“I can just start telling people,” Dean says, frustration in his voice. He digs hands through his hair and then thunks his head against the glass separating him from his little brother. The guard looks disapproving but doesn’t say anything. Dean’s a regular visitor, never made any trouble in seven years.
“Go ahead,” Sam says with an annoying little smirk. “Tell the lawyers, tell the DA, tell that guard right over there. Let them know that the man they incarcerated isn’t Dean Winchester.”
“If you’d lift the whammy maybe I could,” Dean growls, because the words stick in his throat and to the roof of his mouth. He can’t write it down and it wouldn’t matter anyway. No one can hear it. They all think he’s Sam Winchester, led astray by his psycho of an older brother and it doesn’t help that he’s wearing Sammy’s face.
Sam played the ultimate prank.
Har, har. Gotcha Dean.
Sam is wearing Dean’s shit-eating grin as the guard announces that their time is up.
000
Dean watches the boy next-door scuff about his yard. His hair’s too long and there are holes in the knees of his jeans. His momma had said that they were living on hard times but he wasn’t really sure what that meant or why his mother whispered when she said it.
“Hey, kid!” Dean calls, stepping up onto the raised bit of fence paling so he can hook his chin over the top. Dean had been desperate for a little brother, ever since his mother had showed him her big belly and said he was going to get one but it hadn’t panned out, like he hadn’t gotten the Tonka Truck with the big wheels for Christmas like he’d wanted. Something had Gone Wrong and even though he was a little kid, he’d heard the capitol letters as clear as anything when his father had set him down to explain it. So, he didn’t have a little brother but he had a neighbor who was small and grubby and close enough in Dean’s opinion. “Hey, you wanna play hide and go seek?”
The kid looks up, kind of startled and finally spots Dean. “I’m not supposed to talk to strangers,” he snaps, crossing thin arms over his narrow chest.
“That’s other adults, you dumbass,” Dean says with an exaggerated eye roll. “You can talk to other kids.”
“Really?” The boy steps a little closer to the fence, looking unsure. “My Dad says not to no one I don’t know.”
“Well, I’m Dean,” Dean introduces, leaning an arm over the fence and holding his hand out. His dad makes them shake hands like men because he was too old for hugs, not that his mom had got the memo on that one. The kid looks at his hand like it has something slimy growing on it. “Now you know me.”
“Okay, I guess,” the kid says, sunny grin breaking out across his features and it changes his face. Makes him look less weird or something, less poor to Dean. He just looks like a normal kid now and Dean likes that. “I’m Sam.”
“Sam,” Dean says, testing it out. “Samma bamma, bo bamma, banana bana, fo fana, fee fie fo fanny, Sammy!” Dean hollers and Sam looks startled and pleased all at once, like it’s the most excellent thing he’s ever heard. Dean’s not quite sure he got it right but Sam’s grinning so he guesses it doesn’t really matter. “So, Sammy. Wanna play hide, go seek?”
“Sure,” Sam says with a decisive nod and lets Dean haul him over their dividing fence because Sam’s yard is barren while Dean had plants and trees and a cubby house that they could hide in.
000
Sam stretches as he paces, throwing his arms wide. “We know there’s no cure.”
“We don’t know that,” Dean hedges. “Not for sure.”
“Dean, we know there’s no cure.” One of Sam’s hands comes up to scratch idly at the bandaging covering his arm. There’s a two-day old bite healing underneath the mess of gauze and tape that’s healing a little too quickly for either of them to be blind to what’s happening.
“So, we lock you up three days of the month. Hell, you were a fuckin’ nightmare when you had your period anyway so what’s the diff?”
“Don’t make this a joke,” Sam snaps and Dean puts hands to his face and rubs, like he can wipe out the whole last forty-eight hours, including the part where Sam shoved his forearm into a werewolf’s jaws right before it bit down on Dean’s throat.
“Stop being so narrow minded!” Dean snaps back and they both glare at each other for a few precious moments. Sam is the first one to look away, sighing heavy as he sinks onto the end of his bed.
“It’s not your decision.”
“Like hell!” Dean practically yells and Sam stands again, drawing up to his full height like he only does when he’s keen to get his point across.
“I called Bobby already, and Jacob and Ethan.”
“You did what?”
“So even if I chicken out or whatever, I’ll still have a hunter come and… I just wanted to make sure.”
“Ethan’s a fuckin’ nut and he hates us,” Dean says, his voice shaking.
“I know, that’s why I called him. He’s not going to let any fuzzy feelings get in the way of what needs to be done.”
“What needs to be done is we need to get you the hell out of here.”
“No.”
“No? What the hell do you mean by no?”
“I mean no, Dean. I’m going to wait here for whoever comes first. I’m hoping it’s Jacob because I really don’t want Bobby to have to do this and at least Jacob won’t be happy about it.”
“You can’t do this,” Dean says, balling his hands into his fists. “I will knock you out and hog-tie you and throw you into the car myself if I have to.”
“You’re going to have to,” Sam says and while there’s a blank resolution to his face, his voice is steeped in sorrow and more than a little apology. “Or, you could go and get us a pizza and maybe rent a movie. I’ve been wanting to see the new Die Hard.”
“Sam-”
“Dean, please.” Sam’s head is ducked, eyes on his toes.
“Maybe we can go somewhere. One of those big state forests with no one around for miles.”
“There’ll be hikers,” Sam says. “Scout troops too. Little kids with merit badges in campfire making and I might-”
“All right, Jesus Christ,” Dean snaps, putting a hand up and out. “Just, don’t ask me to sit idly by and…” Dean makes a helpless gesture with his hands. All his horror and grief wrapped up into one gesture. “Just… let’s get in the car. Get as far as we can.”
Sam pauses, but then he finally smiles, looking out the motel’s window at the Impala sitting in the dying light of the day. There’s another two and a half weeks, maybe three till the full moon. Plenty of time for the caliber of men Sam’s tipped off to find them.
“Okay,” Sam relents, just to put the smile back on Dean’s face. “Okay, we’ll go.”
Author:
kellifer_ficRating: PG (Language)
Category: SPN, Gen
Word Count: 2,446
Spoilers: None
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue, no offense, no money.
Summary: These are the times Sammy... wasn't.
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth
- Robert Frost
Tanya is standing in the doorway with her arms crossed over her chest and the look on her face only one person can put there.
“It’s your brother,” she says. Dean sighs, ducking out from under the sink where the pipes are refusing to cooperate and stop leaking but he pauses when Tanya puts one bare foot on his thigh, high up enough to be menacing. “Don’t give him any money this time, okay?”
“He might want to just see me,” Dean says, trying not to let the old anger out. Tanya had been patient and welcoming up to a point, but Sam has a way of wearing on people that aren’t family. No one can understand why he is the way he is. They just look at him and see a loser who is sponging off his big brother every chance he gets.
They don’t know about the visions.
They don’t know…
“Hey.” Sam is standing in his bright living room, looking out of place. He’s wearing a shirt that’s seen better days and none of those in a laundry and his long hair is greasy and unkempt. He’s a little unsteady on his feet and his eyes are glazed.
“Tell me you didn’t drive here,” Dean admonishes and Sam half-shrugs.
“Steady as a rock,” Sam responds, holding up a hand that tremors like an old man’s. He balls it into a fist with a small huff of annoyance. “Besides, what do you care? You haven’t been on the road since-”
“Don’t,” Dean snaps, because Sam brings it up every time. It’s his little way of making sure Dean remembers this is all his fault. The car wreck, the death of their father, the head injury that had switched something on in Sam, making it impossible for him to live a normal life. He’s not strung out on anything conventional or the normal type of illegal but the habit he has is expensive all the same and the people he deals with no less shady.
“I’m running out,” Sam says, practically whines and Dean clenches his own hands into fists.
“How? I only saw you four months ago. You’re running through it quicker,” Dean snaps and Sam’s eyes narrow, go flinty.
“Yeah, well, they’re getting worse,” he says stiffly, fingers walking the thin scar at his temple and he means it like an accusation. How can you turn me away when you did this to me?
“Have you tried seeing Missouri? She’s gotta have something you can do that isn’t-”
“I don’t want that old witches help!” Sam yells, putting a hand out and sweeping everything off the side table near his hip. Dean doesn’t so much as flinch but he hears something break from upstairs and knows Tanya isn’t going to want to let Sam in next time. “She’s trying to get into my head. She’s trying to use me,” he adds, his voice a low growl as he advances on Dean.
“Fine, take it. Take everything. It’s not like I could ever refuse you, Sammy,” Dean says and something softens in Sam’s expression for the briefest of moments, long enough that Dean thinks maybe, maybe he’s gotten through his little brother’s haze, but then Sam’s hands come up, one resting on his temple and the other along his jaw and Dean feels it drawn out of him, the years, the small slice of life that Sam’s shaving off him.
It would be so much easier if Sam had come for money, but the people he deals with have no such need for such mundane, material things.
“So this waitress like, bends over right in front of me and I say, I wasn’t aware I was getting the whole pie for free.” Dean snorts to himself and smacks a hand on his thigh.
“Mr. Winchester?”
Dean looks around and sees the nurse, Karen or Kathleen, he can never remember, has poked her head in. “It’s nearly time for his bath.”
“Okay,” Dean says, smiling a little and turns to clap Sam lightly on the shoulder. “No giving the nurses grief,” he admonishes as well and hears Karen/Kathleen’s light laugh as she disappears down the hallway. Dean pauses when he’s at the threshold of Sam’s room, the same room that’s been his home for the last three years.
The doctor’s say locked in syndrome like it’s the easiest thing in the world to diagnose. Dean had read somewhere that in France the common term for it had been maladie de l'emmuré vivant which translated to walled-in alive disease.
Dean thinks that one is more appropriate.
He pauses outside the room and takes a few careful, measured breaths. The nurses at their station don’t even notice him anymore, which he’s thankful for. They’d been full of sympathy and concern for the first little while, but Karen/Kathleen had told him after a few months that he had surprised them by continuing to visit. “Most people can’t,” she said with a little shudder. “It’s too hard for them.”
“Well, I don’t think it’s hard for me,” Dean had said with a small frown. “I think it’s hard for Sammy and until someone can tell me he’s not in there anymore, I’m going to be here everyday.”
The plastic of the phone handle is rough and there’s a crack under his thumb. “Orange really isn’t your color, dude.”
Sam rolls his eyes and makes a fist, tapping on the glass where Dean’s forehead is reflected, like he would knock against Dean’s head if he could. “I’ll be sure to tell my stylist. They’ve been making a mess of my hair and makeup as well.”
“I wasn’t going to mention it but…” Dean feels the grin freeze on his face, a rictus thing. “Look, I was thinkin’…”
“Never a good idea for either of us,” Sam interrupts, sounding light but his eyes have gone wary.
“If I just tell-”
“You know I can’t let you do that,” Sam says and all emotion is gone from his face. “The only people who know the truth are me and thee,” he adds in a singsong that is so eerie Dean can’t help the shudder that runs through him. Sam is smiling now, although it isn’t reaching his eyes. He presses a hand to the glass briefly. “You got a kid now and a future. I’ve got blinding headaches and patches of violence I can’t control. It’s better this way.”
“You never asked me… you never gave me a chance to-”
“What? Throw yourself on the grenade like you always do? Nah, couldn’t let that happen this time.” The blankness is gone and there’s something warm and fond in Sam’s expression. “Just, let it go can’t you?”
“Not while you’re in here,” Dean says, hating how hurt and bruised his voice sounds. “If Bobby didn’t…”
“You leave Bobby alone. He did the right thing. The only thing he could’ve.”
“Yeah, well if I ever find him,” Dean says, threat evident in his voice.
“You won’t,” Sam says with a tired sigh. “Not while he doesn’t want you to, and he ain’t ever going to want you to.”
“I can just start telling people,” Dean says, frustration in his voice. He digs hands through his hair and then thunks his head against the glass separating him from his little brother. The guard looks disapproving but doesn’t say anything. Dean’s a regular visitor, never made any trouble in seven years.
“Go ahead,” Sam says with an annoying little smirk. “Tell the lawyers, tell the DA, tell that guard right over there. Let them know that the man they incarcerated isn’t Dean Winchester.”
“If you’d lift the whammy maybe I could,” Dean growls, because the words stick in his throat and to the roof of his mouth. He can’t write it down and it wouldn’t matter anyway. No one can hear it. They all think he’s Sam Winchester, led astray by his psycho of an older brother and it doesn’t help that he’s wearing Sammy’s face.
Sam played the ultimate prank.
Har, har. Gotcha Dean.
Sam is wearing Dean’s shit-eating grin as the guard announces that their time is up.
Dean watches the boy next-door scuff about his yard. His hair’s too long and there are holes in the knees of his jeans. His momma had said that they were living on hard times but he wasn’t really sure what that meant or why his mother whispered when she said it.
“Hey, kid!” Dean calls, stepping up onto the raised bit of fence paling so he can hook his chin over the top. Dean had been desperate for a little brother, ever since his mother had showed him her big belly and said he was going to get one but it hadn’t panned out, like he hadn’t gotten the Tonka Truck with the big wheels for Christmas like he’d wanted. Something had Gone Wrong and even though he was a little kid, he’d heard the capitol letters as clear as anything when his father had set him down to explain it. So, he didn’t have a little brother but he had a neighbor who was small and grubby and close enough in Dean’s opinion. “Hey, you wanna play hide and go seek?”
The kid looks up, kind of startled and finally spots Dean. “I’m not supposed to talk to strangers,” he snaps, crossing thin arms over his narrow chest.
“That’s other adults, you dumbass,” Dean says with an exaggerated eye roll. “You can talk to other kids.”
“Really?” The boy steps a little closer to the fence, looking unsure. “My Dad says not to no one I don’t know.”
“Well, I’m Dean,” Dean introduces, leaning an arm over the fence and holding his hand out. His dad makes them shake hands like men because he was too old for hugs, not that his mom had got the memo on that one. The kid looks at his hand like it has something slimy growing on it. “Now you know me.”
“Okay, I guess,” the kid says, sunny grin breaking out across his features and it changes his face. Makes him look less weird or something, less poor to Dean. He just looks like a normal kid now and Dean likes that. “I’m Sam.”
“Sam,” Dean says, testing it out. “Samma bamma, bo bamma, banana bana, fo fana, fee fie fo fanny, Sammy!” Dean hollers and Sam looks startled and pleased all at once, like it’s the most excellent thing he’s ever heard. Dean’s not quite sure he got it right but Sam’s grinning so he guesses it doesn’t really matter. “So, Sammy. Wanna play hide, go seek?”
“Sure,” Sam says with a decisive nod and lets Dean haul him over their dividing fence because Sam’s yard is barren while Dean had plants and trees and a cubby house that they could hide in.
Sam stretches as he paces, throwing his arms wide. “We know there’s no cure.”
“We don’t know that,” Dean hedges. “Not for sure.”
“Dean, we know there’s no cure.” One of Sam’s hands comes up to scratch idly at the bandaging covering his arm. There’s a two-day old bite healing underneath the mess of gauze and tape that’s healing a little too quickly for either of them to be blind to what’s happening.
“So, we lock you up three days of the month. Hell, you were a fuckin’ nightmare when you had your period anyway so what’s the diff?”
“Don’t make this a joke,” Sam snaps and Dean puts hands to his face and rubs, like he can wipe out the whole last forty-eight hours, including the part where Sam shoved his forearm into a werewolf’s jaws right before it bit down on Dean’s throat.
“Stop being so narrow minded!” Dean snaps back and they both glare at each other for a few precious moments. Sam is the first one to look away, sighing heavy as he sinks onto the end of his bed.
“It’s not your decision.”
“Like hell!” Dean practically yells and Sam stands again, drawing up to his full height like he only does when he’s keen to get his point across.
“I called Bobby already, and Jacob and Ethan.”
“You did what?”
“So even if I chicken out or whatever, I’ll still have a hunter come and… I just wanted to make sure.”
“Ethan’s a fuckin’ nut and he hates us,” Dean says, his voice shaking.
“I know, that’s why I called him. He’s not going to let any fuzzy feelings get in the way of what needs to be done.”
“What needs to be done is we need to get you the hell out of here.”
“No.”
“No? What the hell do you mean by no?”
“I mean no, Dean. I’m going to wait here for whoever comes first. I’m hoping it’s Jacob because I really don’t want Bobby to have to do this and at least Jacob won’t be happy about it.”
“You can’t do this,” Dean says, balling his hands into his fists. “I will knock you out and hog-tie you and throw you into the car myself if I have to.”
“You’re going to have to,” Sam says and while there’s a blank resolution to his face, his voice is steeped in sorrow and more than a little apology. “Or, you could go and get us a pizza and maybe rent a movie. I’ve been wanting to see the new Die Hard.”
“Sam-”
“Dean, please.” Sam’s head is ducked, eyes on his toes.
“Maybe we can go somewhere. One of those big state forests with no one around for miles.”
“There’ll be hikers,” Sam says. “Scout troops too. Little kids with merit badges in campfire making and I might-”
“All right, Jesus Christ,” Dean snaps, putting a hand up and out. “Just, don’t ask me to sit idly by and…” Dean makes a helpless gesture with his hands. All his horror and grief wrapped up into one gesture. “Just… let’s get in the car. Get as far as we can.”
Sam pauses, but then he finally smiles, looking out the motel’s window at the Impala sitting in the dying light of the day. There’s another two and a half weeks, maybe three till the full moon. Plenty of time for the caliber of men Sam’s tipped off to find them.
“Okay,” Sam relents, just to put the smile back on Dean’s face. “Okay, we’ll go.”