Fic: What Happens to a Dream Deferred, Sam/Dean, NC-17
Two stories in one week! Very unusual for me, but this one was almost finished and the last one was impulsive.
Title: What Happens to a Dream Deferred
Author: britomart_is
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: ~5000
Notes: Title from Langston Hughes. Little bit of borrowing from John Milton. Darkness and angst ahead, be warned.
Summary: AU. Sam never goes to Stanford.
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
\\
Sam doesn’t handle ultimatums well. Not at all. So when Dad roars at him, worked up beyond control, tells him to choose-college or family-Sam’s feet carry him right out the door, duffel heavy on his shoulder and throwing him off balance.
It’s night-dark already but barely after dinnertime (Sam’s hungry, fight interrupted dinner, hummingbird metabolism punishing him now), and the woman behind the plastic window at the bus station says he’s best off grabbing the midnight bus to Phoenix and transferring. She eyes Sam’s split lip like she knows his story. Sam has hours to kill, shifting on the uncomfortable bench of the indoor waiting area.
He eats Skittles from the vending machine, laundry money going to waste to fill his unsettled stomach. It keeps rumbling, uneasy, after he’s eaten. Sam realizes that in his rush to pack and leave, he’s left his toothbrush. It’s not two miles down the road to the motel where the brush is sitting, but it’s not like he can go back now, don’t mind me, just grabbing this and I’ll be out of your hair …
Maybe Dad and Dean are finishing dinner. Talking shit about him now that he’s gone, making plans for how perfectly they’ll work together, now that the oddball in the mix isn’t there to throw off their synchronization. Saying it’s for the best. Maybe Dean’s thrown out his toothbrush already.
Remembering the wall that slammed down over Dean’s features as Sam and John’s screaming escalated, Sam’s roiling guts tell him he’s an idiot, that he has no idea what’s going on in that room. Whether it’s even there anymore, or whether the weary structure has collapsed in a crash of stressed beams and rage and rejection.
Some small, scared part of Sam thinks, maybe they’re gone, moved on, out of town, no reason to stick around, nothing holding them back. Critters to kill, places to be …
Sam doesn’t do well with ultimatums; Dad’s (ridiculous, unreasonable, controlling) demand forced him into a reflex reaction, defiance forcing Sam’s hand before the painful knot in his chest from Dad’s words had a chance to disperse. He’s been planning this for ages, ever since the school counselor said he could write his own ticket, go anywhere he wanted as long as he courted the financial aid office. Sam knows what he wants. Trouble is, he also knows what he needs. What Sam wants is sun and books and choosing how to live his own life. What Sam needs is golden and green-eyed and strong and he doesn't know if he can live without it.
Sam hates ultimatums, and he storms out of the shithole apartment, leaving his father and brother behind. He makes it through four hours, ass cramping up on the bus station bench, before buckling.
\\
As the Marco Polo Motel comes into view, Sam’s bag seems lighter than it did five hours ago, even as it swings against his knee, slowly adding to the bruise that’s forming there. The curtains in room eight glow golden; the lights are on inside. Dad’s truck is gone.
Sam needs something to do, something to say. He needs words worked out in his head for when he knocks on the door, when someone opens it, or when no one comes to open it and he has to walk on through uninvited. He feels dumb and young, like the five-year-old running away from home and making it to the end of the driveway, not that Sam ever really had a driveway. But Sam just tried to leave forever, and the words aren’t going to come to him, so he knocks.
There’s a beat of silence, then sound, quick and efficient coming toward the door. Dean’s there when it swings open, confrontation in his stance that tenses into something else when he registers Sam in the darkness.
Sam doesn’t need words, because Dean speaks first. “Christo.”
Sam’s knees tremble, and his belly rumbles with something that might be laughter and might be something else. “Can I come in?”
And then Sam’s really waiting for an answer, doesn’t know what it will be.
Dean steps back and lets Sam step over the line of salt. Sam stands near the threshold, bag weighing on his shoulder again, afraid to put it down, afraid to make that declaration. Even scarier, he meets Dean’s eyes.
Dean’s eyes aren’t red, but his knuckles are, swollen and scratched. Newly so since Sam left. Dean’s arms and fingers hang loose, all the fight gone out of him.
Sam fingers the strap of his duffel.
“What are you doing, Sam?”
Sam chokes-the words are trying to come now, but they catch in his throat, because that’s the worst question. Is he really doing this? Is he really letting this happen?
Sam drops his bag at the end of a bed, still unmade, someone’s been lying in it-what was, this afternoon, his bed. He sits on the end like he has a right to. “Don’t make me talk about this? Please? Dean, I-”
He stops, because words are usually what get him into trouble. Sam braces himself for reproach, disgust or fury, but when he looks up, Dean’s expression is - tentative. Hopeful. Dean’s mouth works for a moment silently. Then he coughs, blinks, answers with that gruff voice that doesn’t have a chance to crack.
“Yeah. Yeah, Sammy,”-Sam hasn’t been Sammy for months, maybe years-“Don’t worry about it. It’s late.”
Then Dean’s coming over, kicking Sam’s duffel beneath the bed, out of sight like a dirty secret. He’s moving into some bizarre pillow-plumping, sheet-straightening routine. He looks back up at Sam when the bed is a little more inviting. “You look, uh. You look tired. You should … sleep.” His motion stops. “Shit, you-you didn’t get dinner. You hungry? I’ll get you dinner, it’s cool.” Dean’s already across the room, looking in the damn kitchenette that’s still strewn with the dinner-what remained when Sam stormed out hasn’t been eaten.
Sam has to stop Dean before he orders a five-course meal delivery. “No, you’re right man. I’m really tired.” As he says it, he realizes it’s true. He feels like he’s about to drop, even sitting down, his eyes burning, everything in his body a little shaky. “I’m fine till breakfast,” he says, knowing exactly what he’s really saying, yeah, I’m gonna be here for breakfast, please stop, Dean, stop moving and talking and trying to fix me when I just want to shut my eyes.
It works, at least a little, and Dean stills, frenetic energy still twitching his fingers a little, shifting his feet. “Yeah, okay. Yeah.”
Sam realizes Dean isn’t going to do anything but stand there, doesn’t have anything more to offer, and gets up. Dean starts and steps forward, relaxing only when Sam doesn’t go anywhere, just starts undressing. Sam turns his back, but he can feel Dean’s eyes burning into him the whole time, like he’s going to sleep in his clothes and sneak off at daybreak.
When he’s down to his boxers, Sam turns to look at his brother. There’s nothing to say, so he just crawls into bed. The light flicks off a moment later.
Sam’s tired, feeling a little sick, actually, but he knows he won’t sleep anytime soon. Not when the anger at Dad is still flooding through his veins, even a little stronger, if more subdued in its expression, since he turned around and came home with his tail between his legs.
Sam stiffens when he feels a warm body slide up behind him, Dean’s bare chest against his back and boxer-clad hips a respectful distance from his ass. Dean’s arms wrap around him, chin tucking over his shoulder, into the hair behind his ear, little body-shift-tuck-nudges until Dean’s comfortably settled around and over Sam, effectively ensnaring him. If Sam moves in the night, Dean will know. And this is pretty fucking weird, Dean holding him, touching him without a good reason, but they’ve got a deal-they’re not talking about this, any of it, tonight.
Sam doesn’t push it and shuts his eyes, trying not to twitch uncomfortably in his brother’s awkward cage of an embrace. He’s sure he won’t be able to sleep.
\\
Sam wakes to the door creaking open and Dean disentangling himself gently, as if he could really avoid waking Sam in this position. Sam plays dead, dread going heavy in his gut when he hears the too-deliberate, hiding-sloppiness cadence of the footsteps coming into the room.
Dean peels himself away and out of bed, and Sam hears whispering in two voices, one better than the other at actually being quiet. He feels a new gaze on him where he lies in a lump between the sheets, and prays to avoid a confrontation.
To Sam’s astonishment, large hands don’t come to shake him awake, pull him out from under the sheets and demand that he account for his insubordination. Instead, more whispering, then Dean’s bare feet padding back across the carpet and Dean’s warmth curling back around him, less respect for personal space now that Sam’s ostensibly asleep. Sam doesn’t squirm, trying to maintain the illusion, and keeps his breath even. Dad may be far enough gone to fall for it, but he’s surprised if he’s fooling Dean.
The lights stay off as Dad lumbers through the room. At one point Sam becomes intensely aware of a presence standing over him, just standing. A clumsy touch brushes lightly over his hair, forehead, face, then goes away as footsteps creak to bed.
Sam realizes he’s tensed up, but that Dean is already asleep against him. Dean’s hot breath whuffles against Sam’s neck and face. Sam lets it warm him, and remembers why he came back.
\\
Sam seems to have lucked out-they never make him explain. He never has to figure it out. For a few weeks they’re oddly stationary, holed up in the motel, eating in the same diner over and over. It’s not until a room across the courtyard gets busted as a meth lab, cops swarming everywhere, that they pack up and move on.
It’s good. Sam’s been training himself up so he’s strongerbetterfaster. He needs evil to kill, innocent lives in danger, the reason they put themselves through this, the reason they’re not living in a suburban split-level worrying about the mortgage and heating bills. Sam wakes up before Dean for target practice, stays up to do extra crunches and push-ups before bed. He already knows his Latin, so he starts on Sumerian, studying whenever there’s a quiet moment and he needs to keep his mind from wandering into dangerous territory.
Sam eats spoonfuls of peanut butter to keep his weight up when food tastes like ashes.
Maybe there could have been a Sam who got on the bus to Phoenix, went to California and worried about course registrations and went to Full Moon on the Quad and kissed a pretty blonde and made friends and used his real name and never saw his brother again. Mourning that possible Sam is a useless exercise, because that Sam will never be.
When the crushing loss becomes too much, Sam pulls that college boy up in his mind’s eye and lets him go-shoots him through the head, lets the bus crash on the way to Phoenix, lets him get alcohol poisoning and choke on his own vomit at some frat party. Sam pulls the plug on the sickly revenant of a self it hurts to remember.
\\
Eventually Dean tries to move back to the other bed-Dad’s been attempting sensitivity or something, treating them like grownups by getting a separate room for them, even though Sam knows they can’t afford it. Sam should be glad of the privacy, with Dean far across the room, but it just isn’t working. He can’t sleep, gets antsy, notices how loud the room is and wonders if they’ve got bedbugs.
When Sam’s not tangled up in Dean, when their hearts aren’t beating chest-to-chest all night, it’s harder to remember why this is the right thing. Harder, if Dean’s not weighing him down all night, to keep himself waiting patiently for things to get better.
The first night Dean tries to sleep in his own bed, Sam tosses and turns for an hour before crossing the room to climb in with him. He presses his nose against Dean’s shoulder, body close but not touching, and falls asleep. He wakes up in the night needing to pee, pressure on his midsection making it worse, and Dean’s sprawled across him, face on Sam’s stomach, arms wrapped around his waist.
The shower thing is just more efficient, especially when they stay in cabins instead of motels and there’s a risk of the hot water running out. There’s no use being delicate in their line of work; bodies are something you use to get the job done.
Showering together, sleeping together-privacy’s not a big issue right now. Privacy means Dean’s not there to keep Sam’s mind on the job, on family, on the here-and-now.
They don’t have time alone, it’s just safer that way, so when Sam wakes up at night to the sound of Dean’s palm slipping fast and rhythmic, that makes sense - close quarters, gotta do it sometime, somewhere.
Sam can't jerk off since he came back. He tries half-heartedly sometimes, but it goes nowhere. The physical drive builds up anyway, and the only way to let it out is through the hunt.
Dean's always been there to help Sam, and that hasn't changed when Dean, spooned up behind Sam, lets his hand creep lower in the night. Sam's not expecting much but he gets hard for the first time in months, warm and breathless and squirming in anticipation of pleasure. Dean gets him off because he needs it, and they go back to sleep. Close quarters. Makes sense.
Makes sense, too, another night when Dean grinds his hips into the small of Sam’s back until there’s a splash of hot wet and Dean’s breath goes soft. Makes sense when they’re jerking off side-by-side in bed at night, eyes squinched shut except when they’re not, twin panting breaths noisy in the room. Makes perfect sense when their hands reach into each other’s laps, varying the monotony, making the most of what they’ve got when there are no classmates anymore, no friends, no one town to stay in, no one else who knows the truth.
Sam takes care of Dean, Dean takes care of Sam. They get the job done.
\\
The month he would have started at Stanford, Sam nearly dies on an Agropelter hunt. He’s across the lumber camp from Dad and Dean, looking into the trailers, which should be safe since the damn thing is supposed to hide in hollow trees.
The heavy pine bough catches the back of Sam’s head and spins him around, and Sam’s face-down in the mud before he even glimpses the thing. He can hear faintly, Dean screaming and a gun firing again and again, but wow, that ringing in his ears is damn loud, and he can’t quite get his eyes to open, and while he’s trying and failing to open his eyes, he barely notices the pain in his leg or the way the ground is moving beneath him.
When Sam wakes up, his embarrassing adolescent stubble has actually grown thick on his face and his first instinct is to ask Dean if it’s a school day. Eventually he remembers that there’s no more school for him, and vaguely remembers coming to Northern Minnesota. Dad and Dean have to explain the head injury that’s kept him under for the last week and a half, have to explain the tight clamp of the Agropelter’s jaw, dragging Sam back to its feeding ground, the teeth that caused the throbbing numbness Sam feels every time he tries to move his right leg.
The doctors say it should heal just fine, with physical therapy, but the Winchester version of physical therapy has less to do with bed rest and exercise balls and more to do with on-the-road, morning-run, extra-workouts.
By Thanksgiving, Sam can keep up with Dean again, pushing the pain until it’s just background noise as he runs, not slowing him down. But the leg never really gets better, never heals fully, always a little tight, a reminder.
Dean doesn’t know it still hurts, doesn’t ask and Sam doesn’t tell him, though Dean mouths along the scars as if he can erase them.
\\
Sam's on his hands and knees with Dean's weight against him, burn in his thigh but holding, holding through the pain.
"Harder," he says, and Dean fucks him harder. Dean's whispering affection in his ear, good boy, that's my boy, that feel good? A pang tears up Sam's leg and he's going to collapse any second, so he says, "Harder."
Dean gives him what he needs, and soon Sam can't even feel his leg anymore, can't feel anywhere except where Dean's body touches him.
\\
Sam’s having nightmares, horrors that send him gasping awake most nights now, sometimes just during naps, the quick sleeps that keep them all from collapsing with their erratic schedule. Sam’s having nightmares, but look at what his fucking life is. Of course he sees death and fire in the night. Even when he dreams, the demons creep in.
Some days, the man in Sam’s dreams is the only one who looks at Sam all day, Dad always preoccupied, Dean caring, meaning to be there, but busy, knowing Sam can handle himself while big brother forges ahead. As quiet as Sam is now, as much as he keeps to himself, his family’s learned to leave him be. But the yellow-eyed-man looks only at Sam. Really sees him, looking so deep down in places Sam didn’t know exist. He says Sam’s special.
In the light of day, when he remembers, Sam has to snort at his subconsciousness’ lack of subtlety, telling him just what he needs to hear.
\\
Dean’s breath on Sam’s face, over his mouth, is suffocating sometimes.
Sam knows his brother fucks other people, couldn’t miss it the way Dean slips out of bars, sometimes comes back mussed and loose-limbed. Just once, Sam comes back to their room, their bed, and smells woman on the sheets.
They switch to the next bed with its clean sheets, but not until punches have been thrown and words unspoken. Not in our home. Such as it is.
Sam sleeps around too, and Dean knows but doesn’t interfere. Maybe he’s jealous, but it’s like he knows how close family’s hold on Sam comes to strangling him sometimes. He lets Sam out on a leash, and Sam always comes home by morning. Sam will always come back.
\\
Dad disappears without explanation, contacting them only to send them on a series of increasingly dangerous hunts.
The woman in white hisses into Sam’s ear, calls him unfaithful. He’s pleased (not just because of the pain in his chest) when Dean blows her away, because fuck that, he sure as hell is faithful, the sex, the strangers, they’re nothing.
He has faith in Dean. He believes in Dean with every part of himself; if he didn’t, why would he be living this life?
\\
In St. Louis, a pretty girl, a Stanford graduate, is trying to save her brother, says he’s been framed for murder. Her place is full of pictures with dorm-mates, old textbooks, throw pillows and coat racks and sponges and all the frivolous signs of permanence. Sam instantly dislikes her, though Dean checks her out.
The shapeshifter kills her before kidnapping Sam, taunting him while wearing his brother’s face. When Sam kills it with the kitchen knife, he stabs into it until the blood stops spraying and can only trickle feebly. The thing's long ago stopped moving, but Sam finishes it off with a silver bullet to be sure.
Sam wipes the blood from around his eyes and mouth and wonders if shapeshifters carry any diseases.
When Dean gets there, he stares at the shifter’s features, mangled almost, but not quite, beyond recognition, then tells Sam they need to get out of there before the distant sirens reach the house.
\\
"You ever think about what it'd be like if you went away to school?" Dean eyes Sam, taking a break and breathing hard. Sam heaves another shovelful of dirt out of the grave. "You ever think about going? I mean, now?"
Sam's shovel hits the coffin. He spits dust out of his mouth and onto the wood. "No."
The next night Sam goes out and he comes back with a man, pretty boy, never done honest hard work in his life. When they get to the room, Dean's pretending to be asleep in the dark, but Sam can see his hand on the gun under his pillow.
Pretty Boy notices him. "Is that-?"
"Just pretend he's not here," Sam whispers.
Sam lets Pretty Boy fuck him in the other bed, three feet away from Dean. He lets Pretty Boy kiss him, talk to him, go slow and gentle and draw out the pleasure.
Dean gets up and leaves when Sam starts moaning and lifting his hips up to every thrust, and Pretty Boy's too far gone to notice.
In the morning, the anger and hurt in Dean's eyes tell Sam that Dean doesn't understand why he's being punished.
Dean tries to go slow that night, and Sam curses and bucks until Dean starts slamming into him. "Harder, harder, fuck you, harder," and Sam's got bruises the next day.
\\
Sam’s yellow-eyed visitor tells him Max Miller is a threat before the visions even have a chance to lead him to that conclusion. Max isn’t as strong as Sam is. Isn’t as special.
Max is a threat. Max is evil. And Sam hunts evil.
Almost worse, Max is pathetic. Wallowing in his misery, sitting at home, letting his family hold him back, angry and doing nothing.
Sam busts his way out of the closet, taking the slightest second to acknowledge, whoa, that was new, the push that doesn’t come from his muscles, and then he’s upstairs, gun drawn and splattering Max Miller’s brains on the wall before the boy can turn around, before he can threaten Dean the way Sam knows he will.
Killing a human is easier than Sam thought it would be.
Sam’s not so sure about the visions yet, but the man in his dreams has never lied to him.
\\
The yellow-eyed man pets Sam’s hair, sits on the edge of his bed in the dream and looks on him with fondness. Whispers questions-how does Sam feel about John, keeping Sam home and then leaving his sons, not a word to say that everything’s all right and he’ll be home soon. The yellow-eyed man listens so attentively when Sam answers.
When Dad turns up unexpectedly, slipping right back in as leader of the troops, the nightly conversations are all that keeps Sam’s temper in check. He lets loose enough steam each night that he doesn’t explode, getting the peace he needs in the safety and quiet of his dream-world. His dreams are rarely of fire, now, and more often of those whispered questions and promises. Keep fighting. Keep killing. Rattle the bars all you want but in the end you'll crawl back home. Will you ever be good enough? Never good enough for John, maybe, but my favorite. Someday, Sam, they'll all see.
\\
Dean's bleeding on the floor and Sam needs to get to him now, and there's a broken whisper and a shout competing, Sam, don't! and You shoot me in the heart, son!
Sam's shaking so hard he misses, gets the shoulder instead of the heart.
On the drive to the hospital Sam remembers yellow eyes and thinks, coincidence, not the same. Couldn't be. He cares about me.
Dad's trying to argue, thinks Sam missed on purpose, but Dean's bleeding and Sam has no words to waste on John, and it's a good fucking thing he's not distracted when he sees the truck's headlights with seconds to spare.
\\
There are vampires. Sam's all for killing them, but Gordon Walker irritates the fuck out of him, so he doesn't. When Sam was younger he really might have believed the vampires deserved to live if they weren't killing humans, and since Dean still won't accept that Sam's not that sweet twelve-year-old anymore, he buys it. Dean's ability to spot lies tends to disappear when the truth contradicts that image of his softhearted little brother.
Dean's asleep when Sam slips out, goes back to that cabin and finds Gordon sitting in his own piss. Sam slits his throat. The man's a loose cannon, and he made Dean laugh.
Sam's not sure where the vampires have gotten off to, but he'll track them down sooner or later and when he does they'll think they can trust him.
\\
After they break the binding link, Sam can only say, "You should have killed me. What the hell were you thinking?"
Dean doesn't understand.
For one brief moment in that bar in Duluth, Sam really thought Dean would shoot him and his mind flooded with God yes, please, but Dean's as completely fucked as Sam is, can't let go even if it leads him right to hell.
Sam holds tight to Dean in the night and remembers how it felt in those first months after giving up on Stanford, how he lost himself in Dean so he'd know it was worth it even as he felt himself dying from the inside out. Even as the self that would have mourned Steve Wandell withered away under the intensity of Sam's determination.
\\
In San Francisco (a little too close to that place with its students and new beginnings), there’s a girl. A woman. Sam can tell she’s afraid of him, of all three of them, but he is Dean Winchester’s little brother, can’t live with the man all these years and not pick up a few tricks, and soon, when it’s just the two of them, she’s laughing and smiling and finding excuses to touch him-innocent touches to his shoulder, less innocent ones to his knee. She’s pretty, and he fakes normal well enough (all the while inside, how long does it take them to find the damn wolf?) that she thinks he’s like her. Someone who believes in her fresh start, new beginnings.
He sleeps with her, but it turns out she’s a fucking werewolf, so he shoots her through the heart with a silver bullet.
It's good to have a hunt so easily solved for once. She didn't even fight him.
\\
To an outsider, the world the djinn creates might not look like much.
Dean and Sam sleep on a dirty mattress, hungry sometimes, broke, never have enough of anything except each other. Growing up, food at the group home was shitty, the tiles fell off the ceiling in the bathroom and most of the kids had lice. An outsider might pity those poor orphaned Winchester boys, lost both their parents in one night.
But it's just Dean and Sam against the world, no one to bother them. No one expects anything of them, so they can live just for each other.
When Sam wakes up to his Dean's worried eyes, he's perfectly happy until he sees John a step behind. Sam never tells them what he saw in the djinn's wish-world.
Sam fucks Dean hard and silent that night, then wakes him up and does it again. If he closes his eyes and lies to himself hard enough, Sam can believe that it'll just be this, just be them, forever.
\\
Sam never thought he'd be able to fall asleep in Cold Oak, so it's a shock when he realizes he's dreaming.
The yellow-eyed man (demon, it's a demon, how could he be a demon all this time) comes to Sam and says, "Sammy, you're my favorite," just like he's been saying for years. He says Sam's the best, chosen, they're all soldiers and Sam's the strongest, meant to lead the army, create a new world from the ashes of this one. And Sam knows it's true. He's the perfect soldier, spent years becoming one, and that's all. All he is. All he'll ever be.
Sam's not even sure he has a soul to risk-he can't feel anything warm or pure inside himself, suspects it's not there, so when the demon says to him that he's not even human, Sam believes him. He's been fighting on the wrong side and it explains so much. Explains why he feels this way.
When he wakes up from the dream, muscle memory tells him what to do, he doesn't need to think. It's just killing, and Sam's been doing that for years. He's good at it. Ava's neck snaps with a satisfying crack. Andy goes down with a look of betrayal in his eyes, nice kid, too bad it came to a choice of him or Sam. Jake's tougher than the others, he's strong, but Sam's the one with the knife and it takes just one practiced sweep of his arm to open Jake up from navel to sternum, hot blood and viscera spilling to the floor.
And then it's just Sam.
The demon presses the Colt into Sam's hand and it feels right there. Righteous. Like now that Sam's on the path he was born to follow, all the jagged pieces will fit. Sam's not a freak, he's just been answering to a false father all this time.
And Sam hates to leave Dean, but he'll come back for him, soon as he can. As for right now-well. Sam's got work to do.
\\
Title: What Happens to a Dream Deferred
Author: britomart_is
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: ~5000
Notes: Title from Langston Hughes. Little bit of borrowing from John Milton. Darkness and angst ahead, be warned.
Summary: AU. Sam never goes to Stanford.
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
\\
Sam doesn’t handle ultimatums well. Not at all. So when Dad roars at him, worked up beyond control, tells him to choose-college or family-Sam’s feet carry him right out the door, duffel heavy on his shoulder and throwing him off balance.
It’s night-dark already but barely after dinnertime (Sam’s hungry, fight interrupted dinner, hummingbird metabolism punishing him now), and the woman behind the plastic window at the bus station says he’s best off grabbing the midnight bus to Phoenix and transferring. She eyes Sam’s split lip like she knows his story. Sam has hours to kill, shifting on the uncomfortable bench of the indoor waiting area.
He eats Skittles from the vending machine, laundry money going to waste to fill his unsettled stomach. It keeps rumbling, uneasy, after he’s eaten. Sam realizes that in his rush to pack and leave, he’s left his toothbrush. It’s not two miles down the road to the motel where the brush is sitting, but it’s not like he can go back now, don’t mind me, just grabbing this and I’ll be out of your hair …
Maybe Dad and Dean are finishing dinner. Talking shit about him now that he’s gone, making plans for how perfectly they’ll work together, now that the oddball in the mix isn’t there to throw off their synchronization. Saying it’s for the best. Maybe Dean’s thrown out his toothbrush already.
Remembering the wall that slammed down over Dean’s features as Sam and John’s screaming escalated, Sam’s roiling guts tell him he’s an idiot, that he has no idea what’s going on in that room. Whether it’s even there anymore, or whether the weary structure has collapsed in a crash of stressed beams and rage and rejection.
Some small, scared part of Sam thinks, maybe they’re gone, moved on, out of town, no reason to stick around, nothing holding them back. Critters to kill, places to be …
Sam doesn’t do well with ultimatums; Dad’s (ridiculous, unreasonable, controlling) demand forced him into a reflex reaction, defiance forcing Sam’s hand before the painful knot in his chest from Dad’s words had a chance to disperse. He’s been planning this for ages, ever since the school counselor said he could write his own ticket, go anywhere he wanted as long as he courted the financial aid office. Sam knows what he wants. Trouble is, he also knows what he needs. What Sam wants is sun and books and choosing how to live his own life. What Sam needs is golden and green-eyed and strong and he doesn't know if he can live without it.
Sam hates ultimatums, and he storms out of the shithole apartment, leaving his father and brother behind. He makes it through four hours, ass cramping up on the bus station bench, before buckling.
\\
As the Marco Polo Motel comes into view, Sam’s bag seems lighter than it did five hours ago, even as it swings against his knee, slowly adding to the bruise that’s forming there. The curtains in room eight glow golden; the lights are on inside. Dad’s truck is gone.
Sam needs something to do, something to say. He needs words worked out in his head for when he knocks on the door, when someone opens it, or when no one comes to open it and he has to walk on through uninvited. He feels dumb and young, like the five-year-old running away from home and making it to the end of the driveway, not that Sam ever really had a driveway. But Sam just tried to leave forever, and the words aren’t going to come to him, so he knocks.
There’s a beat of silence, then sound, quick and efficient coming toward the door. Dean’s there when it swings open, confrontation in his stance that tenses into something else when he registers Sam in the darkness.
Sam doesn’t need words, because Dean speaks first. “Christo.”
Sam’s knees tremble, and his belly rumbles with something that might be laughter and might be something else. “Can I come in?”
And then Sam’s really waiting for an answer, doesn’t know what it will be.
Dean steps back and lets Sam step over the line of salt. Sam stands near the threshold, bag weighing on his shoulder again, afraid to put it down, afraid to make that declaration. Even scarier, he meets Dean’s eyes.
Dean’s eyes aren’t red, but his knuckles are, swollen and scratched. Newly so since Sam left. Dean’s arms and fingers hang loose, all the fight gone out of him.
Sam fingers the strap of his duffel.
“What are you doing, Sam?”
Sam chokes-the words are trying to come now, but they catch in his throat, because that’s the worst question. Is he really doing this? Is he really letting this happen?
Sam drops his bag at the end of a bed, still unmade, someone’s been lying in it-what was, this afternoon, his bed. He sits on the end like he has a right to. “Don’t make me talk about this? Please? Dean, I-”
He stops, because words are usually what get him into trouble. Sam braces himself for reproach, disgust or fury, but when he looks up, Dean’s expression is - tentative. Hopeful. Dean’s mouth works for a moment silently. Then he coughs, blinks, answers with that gruff voice that doesn’t have a chance to crack.
“Yeah. Yeah, Sammy,”-Sam hasn’t been Sammy for months, maybe years-“Don’t worry about it. It’s late.”
Then Dean’s coming over, kicking Sam’s duffel beneath the bed, out of sight like a dirty secret. He’s moving into some bizarre pillow-plumping, sheet-straightening routine. He looks back up at Sam when the bed is a little more inviting. “You look, uh. You look tired. You should … sleep.” His motion stops. “Shit, you-you didn’t get dinner. You hungry? I’ll get you dinner, it’s cool.” Dean’s already across the room, looking in the damn kitchenette that’s still strewn with the dinner-what remained when Sam stormed out hasn’t been eaten.
Sam has to stop Dean before he orders a five-course meal delivery. “No, you’re right man. I’m really tired.” As he says it, he realizes it’s true. He feels like he’s about to drop, even sitting down, his eyes burning, everything in his body a little shaky. “I’m fine till breakfast,” he says, knowing exactly what he’s really saying, yeah, I’m gonna be here for breakfast, please stop, Dean, stop moving and talking and trying to fix me when I just want to shut my eyes.
It works, at least a little, and Dean stills, frenetic energy still twitching his fingers a little, shifting his feet. “Yeah, okay. Yeah.”
Sam realizes Dean isn’t going to do anything but stand there, doesn’t have anything more to offer, and gets up. Dean starts and steps forward, relaxing only when Sam doesn’t go anywhere, just starts undressing. Sam turns his back, but he can feel Dean’s eyes burning into him the whole time, like he’s going to sleep in his clothes and sneak off at daybreak.
When he’s down to his boxers, Sam turns to look at his brother. There’s nothing to say, so he just crawls into bed. The light flicks off a moment later.
Sam’s tired, feeling a little sick, actually, but he knows he won’t sleep anytime soon. Not when the anger at Dad is still flooding through his veins, even a little stronger, if more subdued in its expression, since he turned around and came home with his tail between his legs.
Sam stiffens when he feels a warm body slide up behind him, Dean’s bare chest against his back and boxer-clad hips a respectful distance from his ass. Dean’s arms wrap around him, chin tucking over his shoulder, into the hair behind his ear, little body-shift-tuck-nudges until Dean’s comfortably settled around and over Sam, effectively ensnaring him. If Sam moves in the night, Dean will know. And this is pretty fucking weird, Dean holding him, touching him without a good reason, but they’ve got a deal-they’re not talking about this, any of it, tonight.
Sam doesn’t push it and shuts his eyes, trying not to twitch uncomfortably in his brother’s awkward cage of an embrace. He’s sure he won’t be able to sleep.
\\
Sam wakes to the door creaking open and Dean disentangling himself gently, as if he could really avoid waking Sam in this position. Sam plays dead, dread going heavy in his gut when he hears the too-deliberate, hiding-sloppiness cadence of the footsteps coming into the room.
Dean peels himself away and out of bed, and Sam hears whispering in two voices, one better than the other at actually being quiet. He feels a new gaze on him where he lies in a lump between the sheets, and prays to avoid a confrontation.
To Sam’s astonishment, large hands don’t come to shake him awake, pull him out from under the sheets and demand that he account for his insubordination. Instead, more whispering, then Dean’s bare feet padding back across the carpet and Dean’s warmth curling back around him, less respect for personal space now that Sam’s ostensibly asleep. Sam doesn’t squirm, trying to maintain the illusion, and keeps his breath even. Dad may be far enough gone to fall for it, but he’s surprised if he’s fooling Dean.
The lights stay off as Dad lumbers through the room. At one point Sam becomes intensely aware of a presence standing over him, just standing. A clumsy touch brushes lightly over his hair, forehead, face, then goes away as footsteps creak to bed.
Sam realizes he’s tensed up, but that Dean is already asleep against him. Dean’s hot breath whuffles against Sam’s neck and face. Sam lets it warm him, and remembers why he came back.
\\
Sam seems to have lucked out-they never make him explain. He never has to figure it out. For a few weeks they’re oddly stationary, holed up in the motel, eating in the same diner over and over. It’s not until a room across the courtyard gets busted as a meth lab, cops swarming everywhere, that they pack up and move on.
It’s good. Sam’s been training himself up so he’s strongerbetterfaster. He needs evil to kill, innocent lives in danger, the reason they put themselves through this, the reason they’re not living in a suburban split-level worrying about the mortgage and heating bills. Sam wakes up before Dean for target practice, stays up to do extra crunches and push-ups before bed. He already knows his Latin, so he starts on Sumerian, studying whenever there’s a quiet moment and he needs to keep his mind from wandering into dangerous territory.
Sam eats spoonfuls of peanut butter to keep his weight up when food tastes like ashes.
Maybe there could have been a Sam who got on the bus to Phoenix, went to California and worried about course registrations and went to Full Moon on the Quad and kissed a pretty blonde and made friends and used his real name and never saw his brother again. Mourning that possible Sam is a useless exercise, because that Sam will never be.
When the crushing loss becomes too much, Sam pulls that college boy up in his mind’s eye and lets him go-shoots him through the head, lets the bus crash on the way to Phoenix, lets him get alcohol poisoning and choke on his own vomit at some frat party. Sam pulls the plug on the sickly revenant of a self it hurts to remember.
\\
Eventually Dean tries to move back to the other bed-Dad’s been attempting sensitivity or something, treating them like grownups by getting a separate room for them, even though Sam knows they can’t afford it. Sam should be glad of the privacy, with Dean far across the room, but it just isn’t working. He can’t sleep, gets antsy, notices how loud the room is and wonders if they’ve got bedbugs.
When Sam’s not tangled up in Dean, when their hearts aren’t beating chest-to-chest all night, it’s harder to remember why this is the right thing. Harder, if Dean’s not weighing him down all night, to keep himself waiting patiently for things to get better.
The first night Dean tries to sleep in his own bed, Sam tosses and turns for an hour before crossing the room to climb in with him. He presses his nose against Dean’s shoulder, body close but not touching, and falls asleep. He wakes up in the night needing to pee, pressure on his midsection making it worse, and Dean’s sprawled across him, face on Sam’s stomach, arms wrapped around his waist.
The shower thing is just more efficient, especially when they stay in cabins instead of motels and there’s a risk of the hot water running out. There’s no use being delicate in their line of work; bodies are something you use to get the job done.
Showering together, sleeping together-privacy’s not a big issue right now. Privacy means Dean’s not there to keep Sam’s mind on the job, on family, on the here-and-now.
They don’t have time alone, it’s just safer that way, so when Sam wakes up at night to the sound of Dean’s palm slipping fast and rhythmic, that makes sense - close quarters, gotta do it sometime, somewhere.
Sam can't jerk off since he came back. He tries half-heartedly sometimes, but it goes nowhere. The physical drive builds up anyway, and the only way to let it out is through the hunt.
Dean's always been there to help Sam, and that hasn't changed when Dean, spooned up behind Sam, lets his hand creep lower in the night. Sam's not expecting much but he gets hard for the first time in months, warm and breathless and squirming in anticipation of pleasure. Dean gets him off because he needs it, and they go back to sleep. Close quarters. Makes sense.
Makes sense, too, another night when Dean grinds his hips into the small of Sam’s back until there’s a splash of hot wet and Dean’s breath goes soft. Makes sense when they’re jerking off side-by-side in bed at night, eyes squinched shut except when they’re not, twin panting breaths noisy in the room. Makes perfect sense when their hands reach into each other’s laps, varying the monotony, making the most of what they’ve got when there are no classmates anymore, no friends, no one town to stay in, no one else who knows the truth.
Sam takes care of Dean, Dean takes care of Sam. They get the job done.
\\
The month he would have started at Stanford, Sam nearly dies on an Agropelter hunt. He’s across the lumber camp from Dad and Dean, looking into the trailers, which should be safe since the damn thing is supposed to hide in hollow trees.
The heavy pine bough catches the back of Sam’s head and spins him around, and Sam’s face-down in the mud before he even glimpses the thing. He can hear faintly, Dean screaming and a gun firing again and again, but wow, that ringing in his ears is damn loud, and he can’t quite get his eyes to open, and while he’s trying and failing to open his eyes, he barely notices the pain in his leg or the way the ground is moving beneath him.
When Sam wakes up, his embarrassing adolescent stubble has actually grown thick on his face and his first instinct is to ask Dean if it’s a school day. Eventually he remembers that there’s no more school for him, and vaguely remembers coming to Northern Minnesota. Dad and Dean have to explain the head injury that’s kept him under for the last week and a half, have to explain the tight clamp of the Agropelter’s jaw, dragging Sam back to its feeding ground, the teeth that caused the throbbing numbness Sam feels every time he tries to move his right leg.
The doctors say it should heal just fine, with physical therapy, but the Winchester version of physical therapy has less to do with bed rest and exercise balls and more to do with on-the-road, morning-run, extra-workouts.
By Thanksgiving, Sam can keep up with Dean again, pushing the pain until it’s just background noise as he runs, not slowing him down. But the leg never really gets better, never heals fully, always a little tight, a reminder.
Dean doesn’t know it still hurts, doesn’t ask and Sam doesn’t tell him, though Dean mouths along the scars as if he can erase them.
\\
Sam's on his hands and knees with Dean's weight against him, burn in his thigh but holding, holding through the pain.
"Harder," he says, and Dean fucks him harder. Dean's whispering affection in his ear, good boy, that's my boy, that feel good? A pang tears up Sam's leg and he's going to collapse any second, so he says, "Harder."
Dean gives him what he needs, and soon Sam can't even feel his leg anymore, can't feel anywhere except where Dean's body touches him.
\\
Sam’s having nightmares, horrors that send him gasping awake most nights now, sometimes just during naps, the quick sleeps that keep them all from collapsing with their erratic schedule. Sam’s having nightmares, but look at what his fucking life is. Of course he sees death and fire in the night. Even when he dreams, the demons creep in.
Some days, the man in Sam’s dreams is the only one who looks at Sam all day, Dad always preoccupied, Dean caring, meaning to be there, but busy, knowing Sam can handle himself while big brother forges ahead. As quiet as Sam is now, as much as he keeps to himself, his family’s learned to leave him be. But the yellow-eyed-man looks only at Sam. Really sees him, looking so deep down in places Sam didn’t know exist. He says Sam’s special.
In the light of day, when he remembers, Sam has to snort at his subconsciousness’ lack of subtlety, telling him just what he needs to hear.
\\
Dean’s breath on Sam’s face, over his mouth, is suffocating sometimes.
Sam knows his brother fucks other people, couldn’t miss it the way Dean slips out of bars, sometimes comes back mussed and loose-limbed. Just once, Sam comes back to their room, their bed, and smells woman on the sheets.
They switch to the next bed with its clean sheets, but not until punches have been thrown and words unspoken. Not in our home. Such as it is.
Sam sleeps around too, and Dean knows but doesn’t interfere. Maybe he’s jealous, but it’s like he knows how close family’s hold on Sam comes to strangling him sometimes. He lets Sam out on a leash, and Sam always comes home by morning. Sam will always come back.
\\
Dad disappears without explanation, contacting them only to send them on a series of increasingly dangerous hunts.
The woman in white hisses into Sam’s ear, calls him unfaithful. He’s pleased (not just because of the pain in his chest) when Dean blows her away, because fuck that, he sure as hell is faithful, the sex, the strangers, they’re nothing.
He has faith in Dean. He believes in Dean with every part of himself; if he didn’t, why would he be living this life?
\\
In St. Louis, a pretty girl, a Stanford graduate, is trying to save her brother, says he’s been framed for murder. Her place is full of pictures with dorm-mates, old textbooks, throw pillows and coat racks and sponges and all the frivolous signs of permanence. Sam instantly dislikes her, though Dean checks her out.
The shapeshifter kills her before kidnapping Sam, taunting him while wearing his brother’s face. When Sam kills it with the kitchen knife, he stabs into it until the blood stops spraying and can only trickle feebly. The thing's long ago stopped moving, but Sam finishes it off with a silver bullet to be sure.
Sam wipes the blood from around his eyes and mouth and wonders if shapeshifters carry any diseases.
When Dean gets there, he stares at the shifter’s features, mangled almost, but not quite, beyond recognition, then tells Sam they need to get out of there before the distant sirens reach the house.
\\
"You ever think about what it'd be like if you went away to school?" Dean eyes Sam, taking a break and breathing hard. Sam heaves another shovelful of dirt out of the grave. "You ever think about going? I mean, now?"
Sam's shovel hits the coffin. He spits dust out of his mouth and onto the wood. "No."
The next night Sam goes out and he comes back with a man, pretty boy, never done honest hard work in his life. When they get to the room, Dean's pretending to be asleep in the dark, but Sam can see his hand on the gun under his pillow.
Pretty Boy notices him. "Is that-?"
"Just pretend he's not here," Sam whispers.
Sam lets Pretty Boy fuck him in the other bed, three feet away from Dean. He lets Pretty Boy kiss him, talk to him, go slow and gentle and draw out the pleasure.
Dean gets up and leaves when Sam starts moaning and lifting his hips up to every thrust, and Pretty Boy's too far gone to notice.
In the morning, the anger and hurt in Dean's eyes tell Sam that Dean doesn't understand why he's being punished.
Dean tries to go slow that night, and Sam curses and bucks until Dean starts slamming into him. "Harder, harder, fuck you, harder," and Sam's got bruises the next day.
\\
Sam’s yellow-eyed visitor tells him Max Miller is a threat before the visions even have a chance to lead him to that conclusion. Max isn’t as strong as Sam is. Isn’t as special.
Max is a threat. Max is evil. And Sam hunts evil.
Almost worse, Max is pathetic. Wallowing in his misery, sitting at home, letting his family hold him back, angry and doing nothing.
Sam busts his way out of the closet, taking the slightest second to acknowledge, whoa, that was new, the push that doesn’t come from his muscles, and then he’s upstairs, gun drawn and splattering Max Miller’s brains on the wall before the boy can turn around, before he can threaten Dean the way Sam knows he will.
Killing a human is easier than Sam thought it would be.
Sam’s not so sure about the visions yet, but the man in his dreams has never lied to him.
\\
The yellow-eyed man pets Sam’s hair, sits on the edge of his bed in the dream and looks on him with fondness. Whispers questions-how does Sam feel about John, keeping Sam home and then leaving his sons, not a word to say that everything’s all right and he’ll be home soon. The yellow-eyed man listens so attentively when Sam answers.
When Dad turns up unexpectedly, slipping right back in as leader of the troops, the nightly conversations are all that keeps Sam’s temper in check. He lets loose enough steam each night that he doesn’t explode, getting the peace he needs in the safety and quiet of his dream-world. His dreams are rarely of fire, now, and more often of those whispered questions and promises. Keep fighting. Keep killing. Rattle the bars all you want but in the end you'll crawl back home. Will you ever be good enough? Never good enough for John, maybe, but my favorite. Someday, Sam, they'll all see.
\\
Dean's bleeding on the floor and Sam needs to get to him now, and there's a broken whisper and a shout competing, Sam, don't! and You shoot me in the heart, son!
Sam's shaking so hard he misses, gets the shoulder instead of the heart.
On the drive to the hospital Sam remembers yellow eyes and thinks, coincidence, not the same. Couldn't be. He cares about me.
Dad's trying to argue, thinks Sam missed on purpose, but Dean's bleeding and Sam has no words to waste on John, and it's a good fucking thing he's not distracted when he sees the truck's headlights with seconds to spare.
\\
There are vampires. Sam's all for killing them, but Gordon Walker irritates the fuck out of him, so he doesn't. When Sam was younger he really might have believed the vampires deserved to live if they weren't killing humans, and since Dean still won't accept that Sam's not that sweet twelve-year-old anymore, he buys it. Dean's ability to spot lies tends to disappear when the truth contradicts that image of his softhearted little brother.
Dean's asleep when Sam slips out, goes back to that cabin and finds Gordon sitting in his own piss. Sam slits his throat. The man's a loose cannon, and he made Dean laugh.
Sam's not sure where the vampires have gotten off to, but he'll track them down sooner or later and when he does they'll think they can trust him.
\\
After they break the binding link, Sam can only say, "You should have killed me. What the hell were you thinking?"
Dean doesn't understand.
For one brief moment in that bar in Duluth, Sam really thought Dean would shoot him and his mind flooded with God yes, please, but Dean's as completely fucked as Sam is, can't let go even if it leads him right to hell.
Sam holds tight to Dean in the night and remembers how it felt in those first months after giving up on Stanford, how he lost himself in Dean so he'd know it was worth it even as he felt himself dying from the inside out. Even as the self that would have mourned Steve Wandell withered away under the intensity of Sam's determination.
\\
In San Francisco (a little too close to that place with its students and new beginnings), there’s a girl. A woman. Sam can tell she’s afraid of him, of all three of them, but he is Dean Winchester’s little brother, can’t live with the man all these years and not pick up a few tricks, and soon, when it’s just the two of them, she’s laughing and smiling and finding excuses to touch him-innocent touches to his shoulder, less innocent ones to his knee. She’s pretty, and he fakes normal well enough (all the while inside, how long does it take them to find the damn wolf?) that she thinks he’s like her. Someone who believes in her fresh start, new beginnings.
He sleeps with her, but it turns out she’s a fucking werewolf, so he shoots her through the heart with a silver bullet.
It's good to have a hunt so easily solved for once. She didn't even fight him.
\\
To an outsider, the world the djinn creates might not look like much.
Dean and Sam sleep on a dirty mattress, hungry sometimes, broke, never have enough of anything except each other. Growing up, food at the group home was shitty, the tiles fell off the ceiling in the bathroom and most of the kids had lice. An outsider might pity those poor orphaned Winchester boys, lost both their parents in one night.
But it's just Dean and Sam against the world, no one to bother them. No one expects anything of them, so they can live just for each other.
When Sam wakes up to his Dean's worried eyes, he's perfectly happy until he sees John a step behind. Sam never tells them what he saw in the djinn's wish-world.
Sam fucks Dean hard and silent that night, then wakes him up and does it again. If he closes his eyes and lies to himself hard enough, Sam can believe that it'll just be this, just be them, forever.
\\
Sam never thought he'd be able to fall asleep in Cold Oak, so it's a shock when he realizes he's dreaming.
The yellow-eyed man (demon, it's a demon, how could he be a demon all this time) comes to Sam and says, "Sammy, you're my favorite," just like he's been saying for years. He says Sam's the best, chosen, they're all soldiers and Sam's the strongest, meant to lead the army, create a new world from the ashes of this one. And Sam knows it's true. He's the perfect soldier, spent years becoming one, and that's all. All he is. All he'll ever be.
Sam's not even sure he has a soul to risk-he can't feel anything warm or pure inside himself, suspects it's not there, so when the demon says to him that he's not even human, Sam believes him. He's been fighting on the wrong side and it explains so much. Explains why he feels this way.
When he wakes up from the dream, muscle memory tells him what to do, he doesn't need to think. It's just killing, and Sam's been doing that for years. He's good at it. Ava's neck snaps with a satisfying crack. Andy goes down with a look of betrayal in his eyes, nice kid, too bad it came to a choice of him or Sam. Jake's tougher than the others, he's strong, but Sam's the one with the knife and it takes just one practiced sweep of his arm to open Jake up from navel to sternum, hot blood and viscera spilling to the floor.
And then it's just Sam.
The demon presses the Colt into Sam's hand and it feels right there. Righteous. Like now that Sam's on the path he was born to follow, all the jagged pieces will fit. Sam's not a freak, he's just been answering to a false father all this time.
And Sam hates to leave Dean, but he'll come back for him, soon as he can. As for right now-well. Sam's got work to do.
\\