fic: four steps backward, one step forward.
title: four steps backward, one step forward
rating: pg-13
characters: dean, sam
summary: No matter what happens, Sam knows his brother.
notes: 1850 words. Written for geckoholic over at spn_rambleon, who requested "Dean-centric S4 PTSD fic. Because there can NEVER be enough. I'd prefer the non-spectacular kind, though, quiet observations by Sam, maybe?" I hope this works for you. :)
Sam's spent his whole life observing his brother, give or take a few years at Stanford. He knows how Dean reacts to pain, to pleasure, to hot and cold, day and night and everything in between. He knows how out of it Dean looks first thing in the morning and how exhausted he looks last thing at night. No matter what happens, Sam knows his brother.
~
Five am and an all night hunt after an all night drive, and Sam feels like he could sleep forever. The motel room's burning up, A/C stuck on heat even though it's 92 degrees outside, and Sam wants to curse everything. His body's on fire and his blood feels the same, too many weeks gone by without seeing Ruby, too many days spent fighting with his very nature to appease a brother who barely notices he's there. But he tries to sleep anyway, squeezes his eyes closed tight and tries to ignore the steady drip from the leaky bathroom faucet and the tinny rattle from the broken A/C, tries to pretend that everything is okay and the end of the world isn't resting on the shoulders of a couple boys from Kansas. Tries to ignore the tiny whimpering noises that come from the next bed over where his brother tosses and turns in his sleep. Sam's resigned to this near-nightly occurrence now, can sometimes manage to fall asleep despite the fact he wants to comfort his brother. But comfort is not a thing Winchesters do well, and neither is talking it out, so Sam tries to sleep and listens to the sounds of a life and death spent in pain play out in Dean's nightmares.
Sometimes Sam sleeps. Most times he listens to his brother.
~
A hunt in the middle of winter, "come on Sam we can't be heaven's bitches all the time," and that smile that Dean uses to convince anyone to do anything, and suddenly Sam will do anything Dean says, so he follows him into the cemetery wearing four layers of clothes and losing feeling in his toes all for the sake of one Clarence Aster, pissed off spirit extraordinaire.
"'It's a simple salt-and-burn,'" Sam mumbles, trailing his brother with a flashlight and a shotgun nearly frozen to his hands. His left leg is on fire from where dear Clarence knocked him into a tree and he limps along as best he can, determined to smack the shit out of his reckless brother once the hunt is done. "When is anything ever simple, Dean?"
"When you make it," is the only reply Sam gets before Dean's prying open the iron doors of a mausoleum older than the two of them combined and disappearing into the darkness inside. Sam does his best ‘hurry up and hobble’, follows Dean into the tiny concrete tomb, practically stumbles down the stairs and into the stone coffin in the center of the room. It smells like dust and mold and too many years gone by. He hears Dean shout "Aha!" and thinks that maybe it could be a simple salt-and-burn after all, but then the door slams shut behind him and the flashlights go out, vacuum- sealed into a tiny concrete hold. Suddenly all Sam can hear is the sound of Dean's ragged breathing and his own chattering teeth. Simple isn't in the cards for Winchesters, it seems.
Sam takes note of everything he'd seen before being engulfed in total darkness: five steps into the dark wet room, one large concrete slab in the middle, dead flowers and a plaque Dean was in the middle of reading, one brother doing what he does best until he can't do it anymore. "Dean, you good?" Sam asks into the darkness, reaching out in the darkness like a blind child looking for safety. No response. Sam takes a few steps tentatively forward, tries again. “I really hate to say ‘I told you so,’” he says. Finally his hand collides with the warm swell of one of Dean’s biceps, and Dean jumps.
There are lots of things that worry Sam - when he's going to sleep, where he's getting money for his next meal, if he'll live through the night - but none worry him more than the strangled sounds Dean makes when he's scared. “Dean?”
A harsh intake of breath and then Sam feels the muscle under his hand and under four layers of clothing relax, hears the jagged exhale that follows. “Yeah, Sam. I’m good. Just… dark and cramped in here.” Dean’s arm slides out from underneath Sam’s hand and for a moment Sam feels lost without an anchor. He hears Dean tap on his flashlight and swear when it doesn’t come on, hears the flick of the lighter that’s never far from Dean’s fingertips, and then the tomb is engulfed in mellow light. He looks at Dean’s face, eyes wider and redder than they should be, the way he’s focusing on slowing down and evening out his breathing, and not for the first time, Sam wonders what goes on inside Dean’s head when Sam isn’t around to ground him.
~
Dean drinks. It’s not a secret and it’s not a problem. In fact, as far as the list of problems currently in Sam Winchester’s life, it’s rather far down the scratchpad. But Sam worries. No matter what’s going in Sam’s head, what rifts are forming between he and his brother, he still worries. Sam drinks too, a couple beers at dinner, maybe a swig or two before bed, couple shots when they’re out on a job. Especially with angels lurking around all the time, Castiel popping in who knows when and Uriel constantly judging his current life choices. Sam’s feeling pressure from all sides, so he drinks too, tries to ‘drown his sorrows’ as the cliché statement suggests. It doesn’t work. Sam has a feeling that whatever sorrows he’s attempting to drown away could never compare to the ones Dean tries to cover up when he plows through half a bottle of Jack before bedtime and the other half when he awakes every morning.
Sam usually wakes before Dean, sits on the side of the bed for a minute and lets his vision clear, watches the slow and steady breathing of his brother in the next bed, sees Dean’s body flinch and his face contort against whatever trouble plagues his subconscious. Some mornings Sam makes it into the bathroom and back before Dean’s slowly opening his eyes and reaching for the bottle. Some mornings Sam sits on the bed and watches as Dean groggily pulls himself from his nightmares and blindly grasps at the bottle at his bedside. But the bottle is the first place Dean goes in the morning, oblivious of whatever observations Sam may be making.
Just once, Sam brings it up to Dean. “Think of the money we’d save if we stopped being best friends with Mr. Daniels there,” he says, casual as possible and sure to include ‘we’ so Dean doesn’t think he’s accusing him of anything.
“Think of the effort you’d save if you stopped acting like you know what’s best for me,” Dean retorts. It’s a cruel and calculating statement, two things of which Dean is neither, at least not often, at least not when sober. So Sam blames the comment on the alcohol and tries not to think too much about Dean’s casual dismissal.
After all, Sam spends his whole life thinking too much about Dean.
~
Another seal broken and one step closer to hell on earth, and then one day Dean’s stepping in front of a Greyhound and snatching a screaming little girl out of its path while Sam stares from the sidewalk frozen in place. Suddenly Sam’s sitting in a bar full of people thanking and congratulating Dean for risking his life, but Sam can’t escape the image of his brother’s body soaring through the air and colliding with the ground with a sick thump after being hit by a car in a town in Florida. Sam can’t help but think how easily this day could’ve echoed that memory of a day that never actually existed. And Sam wants to be proud, wants to pat Dean on the back and call him ‘hero’ like the rest of the men and women in this little town they were supposed to just grab a burger in and keep going, but Sam is weary, his bones heavy and his body itching for another fix from Ruby, and Sam can’t quell his concern for Dean and his reckless abandon, just a little more careless than usual.
Later when they’re driving away, or when they’re both faking sleep or pretending everything is okay or ignoring the herd of elephants suffocating them in the motel room, Sam will ask, “What were you thinking?”
And Dean will casually reply, “I wasn’t,” because it’s not in Dean to think before he acts and this is a fact Sam has known since he was five, watching his brother pull a piece of glass out of his hand without even flinching, blood dripping everywhere and no ambulance on the way. But as Dean answers, he will maybe look the other direction, roll over in bed, grip the steering wheel tighter, any little action to keep from looking at Sam, and Sam will have the urge to force this chick flick moment, tired of the months of pretending everything isn’t falling apart between them, sick of wondering if today will be the day Dean wakes up and says ‘enough’ or even worse, if today will be the day Dean chooses simply not to wake up.
At some point, Sam will quietly say, “I worry about you,” as Dean pulls into a gas station, as Dean flips down the bedspread because the room is too claustrophobic, as Dean fails to live one more moment without thinking of anything at all. And Dean won’t reply, probably won’t say anything at all, but Sam will count that as lucky; because Dean could be telling him to shut up, to mind his own business, to stop being a pretty princess and pack up the bags or get the gas. So Sam will push that luck, will try to look Dean in the eye and say something like, “There’s no going back, you know? To that person you were. Before.”
There will be silence for many moments and Sam will wonder if Dean’s fallen asleep, if Dean’s shutting him out and letting his anger build, but then Dean will turn and slowly look back at Sam, will stare at Sam like he’s trying to communicate all his thoughts and feelings without thinking about them, and he will say simply, “Sometimes I worry about me, too.”
Dean will let out a jagged breath and refuse to say anything further, probably drink even more than usual and eat less and take more risks than needed for several days afterward, but even so, Sam will consider the day a success despite everything in their lives pushing to make even the little victories obsolete.
~
rating: pg-13
characters: dean, sam
summary: No matter what happens, Sam knows his brother.
notes: 1850 words. Written for geckoholic over at spn_rambleon, who requested "Dean-centric S4 PTSD fic. Because there can NEVER be enough. I'd prefer the non-spectacular kind, though, quiet observations by Sam, maybe?" I hope this works for you. :)
Sam's spent his whole life observing his brother, give or take a few years at Stanford. He knows how Dean reacts to pain, to pleasure, to hot and cold, day and night and everything in between. He knows how out of it Dean looks first thing in the morning and how exhausted he looks last thing at night. No matter what happens, Sam knows his brother.
~
Five am and an all night hunt after an all night drive, and Sam feels like he could sleep forever. The motel room's burning up, A/C stuck on heat even though it's 92 degrees outside, and Sam wants to curse everything. His body's on fire and his blood feels the same, too many weeks gone by without seeing Ruby, too many days spent fighting with his very nature to appease a brother who barely notices he's there. But he tries to sleep anyway, squeezes his eyes closed tight and tries to ignore the steady drip from the leaky bathroom faucet and the tinny rattle from the broken A/C, tries to pretend that everything is okay and the end of the world isn't resting on the shoulders of a couple boys from Kansas. Tries to ignore the tiny whimpering noises that come from the next bed over where his brother tosses and turns in his sleep. Sam's resigned to this near-nightly occurrence now, can sometimes manage to fall asleep despite the fact he wants to comfort his brother. But comfort is not a thing Winchesters do well, and neither is talking it out, so Sam tries to sleep and listens to the sounds of a life and death spent in pain play out in Dean's nightmares.
Sometimes Sam sleeps. Most times he listens to his brother.
~
A hunt in the middle of winter, "come on Sam we can't be heaven's bitches all the time," and that smile that Dean uses to convince anyone to do anything, and suddenly Sam will do anything Dean says, so he follows him into the cemetery wearing four layers of clothes and losing feeling in his toes all for the sake of one Clarence Aster, pissed off spirit extraordinaire.
"'It's a simple salt-and-burn,'" Sam mumbles, trailing his brother with a flashlight and a shotgun nearly frozen to his hands. His left leg is on fire from where dear Clarence knocked him into a tree and he limps along as best he can, determined to smack the shit out of his reckless brother once the hunt is done. "When is anything ever simple, Dean?"
"When you make it," is the only reply Sam gets before Dean's prying open the iron doors of a mausoleum older than the two of them combined and disappearing into the darkness inside. Sam does his best ‘hurry up and hobble’, follows Dean into the tiny concrete tomb, practically stumbles down the stairs and into the stone coffin in the center of the room. It smells like dust and mold and too many years gone by. He hears Dean shout "Aha!" and thinks that maybe it could be a simple salt-and-burn after all, but then the door slams shut behind him and the flashlights go out, vacuum- sealed into a tiny concrete hold. Suddenly all Sam can hear is the sound of Dean's ragged breathing and his own chattering teeth. Simple isn't in the cards for Winchesters, it seems.
Sam takes note of everything he'd seen before being engulfed in total darkness: five steps into the dark wet room, one large concrete slab in the middle, dead flowers and a plaque Dean was in the middle of reading, one brother doing what he does best until he can't do it anymore. "Dean, you good?" Sam asks into the darkness, reaching out in the darkness like a blind child looking for safety. No response. Sam takes a few steps tentatively forward, tries again. “I really hate to say ‘I told you so,’” he says. Finally his hand collides with the warm swell of one of Dean’s biceps, and Dean jumps.
There are lots of things that worry Sam - when he's going to sleep, where he's getting money for his next meal, if he'll live through the night - but none worry him more than the strangled sounds Dean makes when he's scared. “Dean?”
A harsh intake of breath and then Sam feels the muscle under his hand and under four layers of clothing relax, hears the jagged exhale that follows. “Yeah, Sam. I’m good. Just… dark and cramped in here.” Dean’s arm slides out from underneath Sam’s hand and for a moment Sam feels lost without an anchor. He hears Dean tap on his flashlight and swear when it doesn’t come on, hears the flick of the lighter that’s never far from Dean’s fingertips, and then the tomb is engulfed in mellow light. He looks at Dean’s face, eyes wider and redder than they should be, the way he’s focusing on slowing down and evening out his breathing, and not for the first time, Sam wonders what goes on inside Dean’s head when Sam isn’t around to ground him.
~
Dean drinks. It’s not a secret and it’s not a problem. In fact, as far as the list of problems currently in Sam Winchester’s life, it’s rather far down the scratchpad. But Sam worries. No matter what’s going in Sam’s head, what rifts are forming between he and his brother, he still worries. Sam drinks too, a couple beers at dinner, maybe a swig or two before bed, couple shots when they’re out on a job. Especially with angels lurking around all the time, Castiel popping in who knows when and Uriel constantly judging his current life choices. Sam’s feeling pressure from all sides, so he drinks too, tries to ‘drown his sorrows’ as the cliché statement suggests. It doesn’t work. Sam has a feeling that whatever sorrows he’s attempting to drown away could never compare to the ones Dean tries to cover up when he plows through half a bottle of Jack before bedtime and the other half when he awakes every morning.
Sam usually wakes before Dean, sits on the side of the bed for a minute and lets his vision clear, watches the slow and steady breathing of his brother in the next bed, sees Dean’s body flinch and his face contort against whatever trouble plagues his subconscious. Some mornings Sam makes it into the bathroom and back before Dean’s slowly opening his eyes and reaching for the bottle. Some mornings Sam sits on the bed and watches as Dean groggily pulls himself from his nightmares and blindly grasps at the bottle at his bedside. But the bottle is the first place Dean goes in the morning, oblivious of whatever observations Sam may be making.
Just once, Sam brings it up to Dean. “Think of the money we’d save if we stopped being best friends with Mr. Daniels there,” he says, casual as possible and sure to include ‘we’ so Dean doesn’t think he’s accusing him of anything.
“Think of the effort you’d save if you stopped acting like you know what’s best for me,” Dean retorts. It’s a cruel and calculating statement, two things of which Dean is neither, at least not often, at least not when sober. So Sam blames the comment on the alcohol and tries not to think too much about Dean’s casual dismissal.
After all, Sam spends his whole life thinking too much about Dean.
~
Another seal broken and one step closer to hell on earth, and then one day Dean’s stepping in front of a Greyhound and snatching a screaming little girl out of its path while Sam stares from the sidewalk frozen in place. Suddenly Sam’s sitting in a bar full of people thanking and congratulating Dean for risking his life, but Sam can’t escape the image of his brother’s body soaring through the air and colliding with the ground with a sick thump after being hit by a car in a town in Florida. Sam can’t help but think how easily this day could’ve echoed that memory of a day that never actually existed. And Sam wants to be proud, wants to pat Dean on the back and call him ‘hero’ like the rest of the men and women in this little town they were supposed to just grab a burger in and keep going, but Sam is weary, his bones heavy and his body itching for another fix from Ruby, and Sam can’t quell his concern for Dean and his reckless abandon, just a little more careless than usual.
Later when they’re driving away, or when they’re both faking sleep or pretending everything is okay or ignoring the herd of elephants suffocating them in the motel room, Sam will ask, “What were you thinking?”
And Dean will casually reply, “I wasn’t,” because it’s not in Dean to think before he acts and this is a fact Sam has known since he was five, watching his brother pull a piece of glass out of his hand without even flinching, blood dripping everywhere and no ambulance on the way. But as Dean answers, he will maybe look the other direction, roll over in bed, grip the steering wheel tighter, any little action to keep from looking at Sam, and Sam will have the urge to force this chick flick moment, tired of the months of pretending everything isn’t falling apart between them, sick of wondering if today will be the day Dean wakes up and says ‘enough’ or even worse, if today will be the day Dean chooses simply not to wake up.
At some point, Sam will quietly say, “I worry about you,” as Dean pulls into a gas station, as Dean flips down the bedspread because the room is too claustrophobic, as Dean fails to live one more moment without thinking of anything at all. And Dean won’t reply, probably won’t say anything at all, but Sam will count that as lucky; because Dean could be telling him to shut up, to mind his own business, to stop being a pretty princess and pack up the bags or get the gas. So Sam will push that luck, will try to look Dean in the eye and say something like, “There’s no going back, you know? To that person you were. Before.”
There will be silence for many moments and Sam will wonder if Dean’s fallen asleep, if Dean’s shutting him out and letting his anger build, but then Dean will turn and slowly look back at Sam, will stare at Sam like he’s trying to communicate all his thoughts and feelings without thinking about them, and he will say simply, “Sometimes I worry about me, too.”
Dean will let out a jagged breath and refuse to say anything further, probably drink even more than usual and eat less and take more risks than needed for several days afterward, but even so, Sam will consider the day a success despite everything in their lives pushing to make even the little victories obsolete.
~