Day 13
title: sticks and stones, breaking my bones
author: acidquill
disclaimer: don't own em
rating: pg-13
characters: Sam, Dean
word count: 741
notes: rough & unbetaed. I started sketching this out after the S3 finale & finally finished today. entirely separate of S4 canon. I may come back and play with this a little, as I like the concept.
Sam spends four months running himself ragged finding a way to get his brother out of Hell. Just the right twist of words to call his brother back to him. When he finally finds them, it’s almost anti-climatic. He digs up Dean’s grave, draws the right symbols, says the right words. Sam slices open his palm and bleeds into the dirt. Below him Dean surges up from the coffin, coughing and screaming Sam’s name.
Dean snarls and sobs when Sam touches him. Fights tooth and nail until Sam does the only thing he can: He clocks his brother across the jaw and carries him to the car. Settles him into the passenger seat and turns the Impala westward.
Two days later Sam stands on Bobby’s porch with Dean in his arms. He’s spent the last forty-eight hours drugging his brother just so he can drive. He knows the two of them look like a hundred miles of bad road, but Sam didn’t know what else to do. Who else he could turn to.
He did everything right, only to realise Dean's been snatched away again in the worst way possible. Dean came back wrong.
They keep him locked in Bobby's basement. Chains on his ankles, his wrists. There’s a cot in the corner, covered in blankets and as comfortable as Sam could make it; Dean never sleeps there.
Sam hates it, all of it. He didn't save Dean from Hell for his brother to be kept down in the dark, shackled like an animal. Bobby doesn’t fare much better. Sometimes Sam catches him staring at the door leading downstairs with something like pain twisting his face; Bobby never says anything, but Sam can read the man's eyes just the same.
The situation isn’t what either of them wants, but Dean’s already proven that, given the chance, he will kill Sam, Bobby, and whoever else gets in his way. Sam still has the remnants of bruises around his neck to prove it.
Sam's lived twenty four years with a brother who loves his family above anything else in the whole fucking world, and now Dean hates them with the same intensity. He has no idea how he's going to fix this.
Sam spends most of his time with his brother. Far enough away that Dean can't reach him, looking up possible counter-curses or spells that can undo whatever happened to Dean to fuck everything up so badly. He knows - God he hopes - that there's more at work than four months of Hell.
Some days he wants to stop because nothing's working. Dean's still here, but he's not Dean. Bobby tries again and again to get Sam not to go down there everyday, says it's only hurting him:
"He's not your brother right now Sam, and he has all the ammo he needs to tear into you."
He gets it, that Bobby's trying to look out for him. But Sam's got more important things to worry about. He keeps disappearing into the basement for hours at a time. Harbors the smallest flicker of hope that just being near Dean will help somehow.
So far it hasn't.
All the months of research don't prepare Sam for the new problem of Dean. None of the books, the manuscripts gave any warning about how vicious his brother can be. How cruel.
"Don't you have anything better to do?" Dean moves in, closes the distance between them until the chains are taut. Sam can see the metal biting into his brother's skin. He steps closer, desperate to make some contact, any contact with the brother he's lost.
"What about Mom?" Sam whispers. It's the first time he's used their mother to reach Dean. He wants to beg, plead with whoever's listening that this will be enough. The secret Sam needs to break through to whatever small piece of his brother he has to believe is still there.
"I'm glad she's gone."
Dean's voice is like ice. Sam's hand is out before he thinks, cracking across his brother's jaw. It is a mistake. Dean spits blood, looks up at Sam with a sneer. "Like father, like son huh, Sammy?"
Sam thinks how sick it is that Hell warped so many of Dean's memories, but left that nickname untouched. A glaring reminder of how things should be. How things will be, if Sam has anything to do with it. He just needs to rescue his brother one more time.
- end
author: acidquill
disclaimer: don't own em
rating: pg-13
characters: Sam, Dean
word count: 741
notes: rough & unbetaed. I started sketching this out after the S3 finale & finally finished today. entirely separate of S4 canon. I may come back and play with this a little, as I like the concept.
Sam spends four months running himself ragged finding a way to get his brother out of Hell. Just the right twist of words to call his brother back to him. When he finally finds them, it’s almost anti-climatic. He digs up Dean’s grave, draws the right symbols, says the right words. Sam slices open his palm and bleeds into the dirt. Below him Dean surges up from the coffin, coughing and screaming Sam’s name.
Dean snarls and sobs when Sam touches him. Fights tooth and nail until Sam does the only thing he can: He clocks his brother across the jaw and carries him to the car. Settles him into the passenger seat and turns the Impala westward.
Two days later Sam stands on Bobby’s porch with Dean in his arms. He’s spent the last forty-eight hours drugging his brother just so he can drive. He knows the two of them look like a hundred miles of bad road, but Sam didn’t know what else to do. Who else he could turn to.
He did everything right, only to realise Dean's been snatched away again in the worst way possible. Dean came back wrong.
They keep him locked in Bobby's basement. Chains on his ankles, his wrists. There’s a cot in the corner, covered in blankets and as comfortable as Sam could make it; Dean never sleeps there.
Sam hates it, all of it. He didn't save Dean from Hell for his brother to be kept down in the dark, shackled like an animal. Bobby doesn’t fare much better. Sometimes Sam catches him staring at the door leading downstairs with something like pain twisting his face; Bobby never says anything, but Sam can read the man's eyes just the same.
The situation isn’t what either of them wants, but Dean’s already proven that, given the chance, he will kill Sam, Bobby, and whoever else gets in his way. Sam still has the remnants of bruises around his neck to prove it.
Sam's lived twenty four years with a brother who loves his family above anything else in the whole fucking world, and now Dean hates them with the same intensity. He has no idea how he's going to fix this.
Sam spends most of his time with his brother. Far enough away that Dean can't reach him, looking up possible counter-curses or spells that can undo whatever happened to Dean to fuck everything up so badly. He knows - God he hopes - that there's more at work than four months of Hell.
Some days he wants to stop because nothing's working. Dean's still here, but he's not Dean. Bobby tries again and again to get Sam not to go down there everyday, says it's only hurting him:
"He's not your brother right now Sam, and he has all the ammo he needs to tear into you."
He gets it, that Bobby's trying to look out for him. But Sam's got more important things to worry about. He keeps disappearing into the basement for hours at a time. Harbors the smallest flicker of hope that just being near Dean will help somehow.
So far it hasn't.
All the months of research don't prepare Sam for the new problem of Dean. None of the books, the manuscripts gave any warning about how vicious his brother can be. How cruel.
"Don't you have anything better to do?" Dean moves in, closes the distance between them until the chains are taut. Sam can see the metal biting into his brother's skin. He steps closer, desperate to make some contact, any contact with the brother he's lost.
"What about Mom?" Sam whispers. It's the first time he's used their mother to reach Dean. He wants to beg, plead with whoever's listening that this will be enough. The secret Sam needs to break through to whatever small piece of his brother he has to believe is still there.
"I'm glad she's gone."
Dean's voice is like ice. Sam's hand is out before he thinks, cracking across his brother's jaw. It is a mistake. Dean spits blood, looks up at Sam with a sneer. "Like father, like son huh, Sammy?"
Sam thinks how sick it is that Hell warped so many of Dean's memories, but left that nickname untouched. A glaring reminder of how things should be. How things will be, if Sam has anything to do with it. He just needs to rescue his brother one more time.
- end