Drabbles
This post to serve as a collection of all the drabbles I've written so far, which run the gamut from angst to crack (more on the angst side though). More to be added as I write them.
S1, through "Route 66"
Sam keeps a silent, running tally of things lawyers can do that he can’t. He gave it up on purpose, he knows he did, but sometimes it’s hard not to dwell on what he’s missing.
Lawyers can convince people of things, for example. When a lawyer’s mulish brother is insisting they eat at some greasy spoon for breakfast, again, a lawyer could probably convince him of the benefits of fiber and vitamin c, and other nutrients that one does not find in cheep diners off the highway. Then again, not many lawyers have a brother quite as resistant to rational argument as Dean.
Lawyers don’t need to break the law to do their job, either, Sam thinks as they pick the locks to yet another building, looking for a haunted mirror this time. Lawyers are not interrupted by flashing lights and that oh-shit rush of adrenaline you get when you know you’re doing something wrong and you’re about to get caught. Lawyers have nice offices where they can turn on the goddamn lights.
Lawyers can afford houses with steam showers. That’s yet another lost opportunity for Sam to dwell on while Dean runs up the electricity bill in a house not even sold yet. Hunters can barely guarantee a shitty hotel room with hot water every night, but if a lawyer’s brother can be made this happy by some stupid, gimmicky shower, a lawyer is perfectly capable of getting said brother said shower.
Lawyers get some respect, too, Sam thinks when the cute girl he just met takes a ride with an exceptionally skeevy trucker rather than tell him where she’s going. Lawyers look more respectable than he does, sure, and they probably don’t hitchhike either. But people respect lawyers, and there have been plenty of times lately when he could have done with a little respect.
But the thing is, a lawyer can’t figure out on the fly that the way to kill a possessed, racist truck is to drive it into the consecrated ground of a burnt church, even if it means saving his brother’s life. Sam can do that. Maybe lawyers have plenty of things that Sam doesn’t, but hell if Dean’s smile and a brotherly slap on the shoulder don’t make up for most of them.
S1, post "Route 66"
It starts to bug Sam after a few weeks, but they don’t talk about it. No chick flick moments, he reminds himself. None of my business anyway. He manages to hold off until they’re at a rest stop not thirty miles away, and Dean doesn’t even seem to notice.
“You ever gonna call Cassie?”
Dean’s lips push out in that characteristic way as he finishes putting gas in the Impala. “Nah,” he says. Sam frowns. Dean had seemed so sure that he would as they were leaving, so sure that Sam had believed him.
“Why?” Sam asks, knowing he’s on thin ice. More than any insults that might be coming his way, it’s Dean’s reaction giving him pause. Meeting Cassie taught him that there were sides of his brother he didn’t know, more tender and easily bruised sides.
“Eh,” Dean shrugs and for a second Sam thinks that’s going to be it. “It’s like…She didn’t think I would, y’know?” Dean looks up at Sam, eyes unguarded for once, willing him to understand without any more talking.
And Sam does understand, how deeply ingrained it is in his brother’s nature to live up, or down, to any expectation put on him. How Dean needs someone who thinks better of him than his devil-may-care persona warrants.
“I know,” Sam says, trying to cram all his thoughts into those two words. Maybe he even succeeds, because Dean gives him a dazzling smile full of relief.
“What do you say to some pie?”
S2, unspecified
Sam squints down at the instructions, willing the crabbed handwriting to become legible. “Ok, I think that’s a two.”
“Are you sure?” Dean insists. “We don’t have a lot of time here.”
“I know!” Sam says. “I’m sure. Pretty sure. Look, just add two of them.”
Dean raises his eyebrows and shrugs, a silent ok, man, whatever, but it’s not my fault if this explodes.
“Alright, that’s almost everything. Hand me the extract.”
“This bottle?” Dean asks, picking out a small brown vial from the confusion of supplies on the table. He watches nervously as Sam carefully measures some of the liquid out and adds it to the mixture.
“What if we’re doing this all wrong,” he asks. “Shooting things, I get. Burning corpses, no problem. But…”
“We’re following everything it says, right down to the last letter,” Sam snaps. “It’s going to work.”
“If it was really a two,” Dean mutters, leaning over the mixture. “I don’t think it looks right.”
Sam grits his teeth. They’re running out of time, and Dean has to second-guess everything. “It’s going to work,” he repeats. “It has to.”
“What about salt? Don’t these kind of things usually need salt?”
Sam grabs the paper and scans it. “Oh shit.” There’s a small note at the bottom, where it was too easily overlooked…“Hand me that box,” he says, pointing under the counter. “What does it say?”
Dean fishes it out of the trash, too frantic to even complain. “Ok, it says…unsalted.”
“No, no,” Sam moans. “If we use unsalted butter we’re supposed to add a teaspoon of salt. Fuck!”
“Hey, hey,” Dean says, going into big brother mode. “We can add the salt now.”
“The salt’s supposed to go with the dry ingredients. It won’t mix in right.” And there’s the icing, Sam remembers, and who knows if this old oven even heats evenly and…
“Well, let’s leave it out, then.”
Sam stares down at their hastily-bought pink mixing bowl. “How could we fuck up Caleb’s cake recipe?” he wonders aloud. “There are like, ten ingredients.”
“We should’ve used cake mix,” Dean says.
“You’re the one who said Bobby’s cake had to be special!” Sam explodes. “Fine, fine. I’ll add the salt. You grease the pan.”
“I hope Bobby friggin’ loves cake,” Dean grumbles. “I hope he really appreciates the lengths we’ll go to just to make his 60th birthday nice."
Sam eyed the sparkly purple candles Dean had insisted on picking up. Tried to imagine a world in which Bobby appreciated purple sparkly things. “Yeah, me too.”
S5, pre "Free to be You and Me"
“Is it bigger than a toaster?” Sam asks. They’re still 50 miles out from Bobby’s, which is a lot of driving and a lot of time to kill.
“Nope,” Dean replies. 20 questions is a familiar way to pass the time, a way of talking that doesn’t let you say anything. Dean has never liked to say the important stuff directly. It used to be a fun game. Now, Sam can feel a hard refusal to connect under his brother’s easy banter.
“Is it something you can use?”
Dean makes a show of looking overly pensive. “Yes, its something I can use.”
So it’s either a weapon or the keys to the car. “Is it made of metal?”
“Nope,” Dean smirks.
“Is it made of wood?”
“Ye-es...in a way.”
Suddenly Sam’s sick of the game, all the superficial camaraderie. He knows he fucked up. But “I’ll never forgive you” can’t be the final verdict, has to give way to Dean naming some form of penance that Sam will gladly suffer through if it means atonement. “Is it sharp?”
“You can cut yourself with it.”
“That’s not a yes or no,” Sam gripes.
“You should be glad to get extra information.” If Dean is deflecting, it means Sam’s onto something. “You have to answer the questions with a yes or no,” he insists.
Dean rolls his eyes. “No, then, I guess.”
“Would you sill have sold your soul for me, if you had known this is how we’d end up?”
The steering wheel creaks a bit as Dean’s hands clench. After that, it’s just silence stretching out.
“Yes,” Dean says. Sam has second of guilty relief, until he adds, “Id’ve thought I could stop you.”
“You’re supposed to just answer yes or no.” Or if there had to be a qualifier, it was supposed to be a stubborn, “you’re still my brother.” Sam had hoped that, even now, Dean would want to save him. Even at the expense of the whole of humanity, maybe. I guess that’s pretty selfish, Sam thinks. Tries to be glad Dean doesn’t care.
“It’s one of your porno mags.”
“Yahtzee!” Dean crows, full of fake cheer. “My turn. Is it bigger than a toaster?”
S5, post "Abandon All Hope"
Dean remembers crying. Seemed sometimes like since his father died, that’s all he’d been doing, despite his best intentions. He remembers trying so hard to stop the tears, to keep his game face on- at first for Sam, and then for himself. And it hadn’t mattered. No matter what pressure he put on himself to choke it back, man up he’d felt the involuntary tightening of his throat, the heat in his face, and finally the world had blurred and swam until he blinked and let it happen. Emotions made physical, forcing their way out of him, purging themselves.
He wouldn’t feel ashamed of crying, now. He’d welcome tears. Come on, he thinks, watching the photo burn. He waits for the familiar release. Jo, Ellen he reminds himself. Everything they could have been. He envisions the explosion, his fault for tripping like a damn civilian. If there was ever a time for crying, this was it. There’s lead in his stomach and a knot in his throat, but that’s all. Now that they’re wanted, those traitorous tears are nowhere to be found.
And that's all for now :)
S1, through "Route 66"
Sam keeps a silent, running tally of things lawyers can do that he can’t. He gave it up on purpose, he knows he did, but sometimes it’s hard not to dwell on what he’s missing.
Lawyers can convince people of things, for example. When a lawyer’s mulish brother is insisting they eat at some greasy spoon for breakfast, again, a lawyer could probably convince him of the benefits of fiber and vitamin c, and other nutrients that one does not find in cheep diners off the highway. Then again, not many lawyers have a brother quite as resistant to rational argument as Dean.
Lawyers don’t need to break the law to do their job, either, Sam thinks as they pick the locks to yet another building, looking for a haunted mirror this time. Lawyers are not interrupted by flashing lights and that oh-shit rush of adrenaline you get when you know you’re doing something wrong and you’re about to get caught. Lawyers have nice offices where they can turn on the goddamn lights.
Lawyers can afford houses with steam showers. That’s yet another lost opportunity for Sam to dwell on while Dean runs up the electricity bill in a house not even sold yet. Hunters can barely guarantee a shitty hotel room with hot water every night, but if a lawyer’s brother can be made this happy by some stupid, gimmicky shower, a lawyer is perfectly capable of getting said brother said shower.
Lawyers get some respect, too, Sam thinks when the cute girl he just met takes a ride with an exceptionally skeevy trucker rather than tell him where she’s going. Lawyers look more respectable than he does, sure, and they probably don’t hitchhike either. But people respect lawyers, and there have been plenty of times lately when he could have done with a little respect.
But the thing is, a lawyer can’t figure out on the fly that the way to kill a possessed, racist truck is to drive it into the consecrated ground of a burnt church, even if it means saving his brother’s life. Sam can do that. Maybe lawyers have plenty of things that Sam doesn’t, but hell if Dean’s smile and a brotherly slap on the shoulder don’t make up for most of them.
S1, post "Route 66"
It starts to bug Sam after a few weeks, but they don’t talk about it. No chick flick moments, he reminds himself. None of my business anyway. He manages to hold off until they’re at a rest stop not thirty miles away, and Dean doesn’t even seem to notice.
“You ever gonna call Cassie?”
Dean’s lips push out in that characteristic way as he finishes putting gas in the Impala. “Nah,” he says. Sam frowns. Dean had seemed so sure that he would as they were leaving, so sure that Sam had believed him.
“Why?” Sam asks, knowing he’s on thin ice. More than any insults that might be coming his way, it’s Dean’s reaction giving him pause. Meeting Cassie taught him that there were sides of his brother he didn’t know, more tender and easily bruised sides.
“Eh,” Dean shrugs and for a second Sam thinks that’s going to be it. “It’s like…She didn’t think I would, y’know?” Dean looks up at Sam, eyes unguarded for once, willing him to understand without any more talking.
And Sam does understand, how deeply ingrained it is in his brother’s nature to live up, or down, to any expectation put on him. How Dean needs someone who thinks better of him than his devil-may-care persona warrants.
“I know,” Sam says, trying to cram all his thoughts into those two words. Maybe he even succeeds, because Dean gives him a dazzling smile full of relief.
“What do you say to some pie?”
S2, unspecified
Sam squints down at the instructions, willing the crabbed handwriting to become legible. “Ok, I think that’s a two.”
“Are you sure?” Dean insists. “We don’t have a lot of time here.”
“I know!” Sam says. “I’m sure. Pretty sure. Look, just add two of them.”
Dean raises his eyebrows and shrugs, a silent ok, man, whatever, but it’s not my fault if this explodes.
“Alright, that’s almost everything. Hand me the extract.”
“This bottle?” Dean asks, picking out a small brown vial from the confusion of supplies on the table. He watches nervously as Sam carefully measures some of the liquid out and adds it to the mixture.
“What if we’re doing this all wrong,” he asks. “Shooting things, I get. Burning corpses, no problem. But…”
“We’re following everything it says, right down to the last letter,” Sam snaps. “It’s going to work.”
“If it was really a two,” Dean mutters, leaning over the mixture. “I don’t think it looks right.”
Sam grits his teeth. They’re running out of time, and Dean has to second-guess everything. “It’s going to work,” he repeats. “It has to.”
“What about salt? Don’t these kind of things usually need salt?”
Sam grabs the paper and scans it. “Oh shit.” There’s a small note at the bottom, where it was too easily overlooked…“Hand me that box,” he says, pointing under the counter. “What does it say?”
Dean fishes it out of the trash, too frantic to even complain. “Ok, it says…unsalted.”
“No, no,” Sam moans. “If we use unsalted butter we’re supposed to add a teaspoon of salt. Fuck!”
“Hey, hey,” Dean says, going into big brother mode. “We can add the salt now.”
“The salt’s supposed to go with the dry ingredients. It won’t mix in right.” And there’s the icing, Sam remembers, and who knows if this old oven even heats evenly and…
“Well, let’s leave it out, then.”
Sam stares down at their hastily-bought pink mixing bowl. “How could we fuck up Caleb’s cake recipe?” he wonders aloud. “There are like, ten ingredients.”
“We should’ve used cake mix,” Dean says.
“You’re the one who said Bobby’s cake had to be special!” Sam explodes. “Fine, fine. I’ll add the salt. You grease the pan.”
“I hope Bobby friggin’ loves cake,” Dean grumbles. “I hope he really appreciates the lengths we’ll go to just to make his 60th birthday nice."
Sam eyed the sparkly purple candles Dean had insisted on picking up. Tried to imagine a world in which Bobby appreciated purple sparkly things. “Yeah, me too.”
S5, pre "Free to be You and Me"
“Is it bigger than a toaster?” Sam asks. They’re still 50 miles out from Bobby’s, which is a lot of driving and a lot of time to kill.
“Nope,” Dean replies. 20 questions is a familiar way to pass the time, a way of talking that doesn’t let you say anything. Dean has never liked to say the important stuff directly. It used to be a fun game. Now, Sam can feel a hard refusal to connect under his brother’s easy banter.
“Is it something you can use?”
Dean makes a show of looking overly pensive. “Yes, its something I can use.”
So it’s either a weapon or the keys to the car. “Is it made of metal?”
“Nope,” Dean smirks.
“Is it made of wood?”
“Ye-es...in a way.”
Suddenly Sam’s sick of the game, all the superficial camaraderie. He knows he fucked up. But “I’ll never forgive you” can’t be the final verdict, has to give way to Dean naming some form of penance that Sam will gladly suffer through if it means atonement. “Is it sharp?”
“You can cut yourself with it.”
“That’s not a yes or no,” Sam gripes.
“You should be glad to get extra information.” If Dean is deflecting, it means Sam’s onto something. “You have to answer the questions with a yes or no,” he insists.
Dean rolls his eyes. “No, then, I guess.”
“Would you sill have sold your soul for me, if you had known this is how we’d end up?”
The steering wheel creaks a bit as Dean’s hands clench. After that, it’s just silence stretching out.
“Yes,” Dean says. Sam has second of guilty relief, until he adds, “Id’ve thought I could stop you.”
“You’re supposed to just answer yes or no.” Or if there had to be a qualifier, it was supposed to be a stubborn, “you’re still my brother.” Sam had hoped that, even now, Dean would want to save him. Even at the expense of the whole of humanity, maybe. I guess that’s pretty selfish, Sam thinks. Tries to be glad Dean doesn’t care.
“It’s one of your porno mags.”
“Yahtzee!” Dean crows, full of fake cheer. “My turn. Is it bigger than a toaster?”
S5, post "Abandon All Hope"
Dean remembers crying. Seemed sometimes like since his father died, that’s all he’d been doing, despite his best intentions. He remembers trying so hard to stop the tears, to keep his game face on- at first for Sam, and then for himself. And it hadn’t mattered. No matter what pressure he put on himself to choke it back, man up he’d felt the involuntary tightening of his throat, the heat in his face, and finally the world had blurred and swam until he blinked and let it happen. Emotions made physical, forcing their way out of him, purging themselves.
He wouldn’t feel ashamed of crying, now. He’d welcome tears. Come on, he thinks, watching the photo burn. He waits for the familiar release. Jo, Ellen he reminds himself. Everything they could have been. He envisions the explosion, his fault for tripping like a damn civilian. If there was ever a time for crying, this was it. There’s lead in his stomach and a knot in his throat, but that’s all. Now that they’re wanted, those traitorous tears are nowhere to be found.
And that's all for now :)