no bravery | spn gen | post 3 × 13
This is a present for kroki-refur, because I played a trick on her, and then she gave me bitchface and I was sad. I listened to James Blunt's No Bravery on repeat almost the whole time I was writing this, and if there was ever a song written for Supernatural, this is it.
Spoilers from this week's episode under the cut.
no bravery | spn gen | post 3 × 13
The day after the Morton house Sam has an argument with Bobby.
Sam paces back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Dean retreats to the motel room; he’s getting motion sick just watching Sam. Dean’s not eavesdropping. The table and chairs just happens to sit underneath the window, which Sam just happens to be walking past every ten seconds or so. Still, Dean doesn’t pay close attention. The rules remain the same; he can’t help Sam, except to try and force food down his throat and make him sleep. The half-listening bit is getting harder though, if Sam’s voice keeps going up the whole complex will be getting an earful.
“Yes, I hear what you’re saying,” Sam says, “Yeah, I get it. I said I fucking get it, Bobby. What exactly do you want me to do, huh?”
Sam stops pacing, and if Dean leans back casually, which he does, than he can just see Sam’s profile. His jaw is visibly twitching, and Dean wonders if Sam’s teeth will actually crack under the pressure.
Whatever Bobby is saying, the news isn’t good because Sam disappears from view again and the next thing Dean hears is the distinct sound of plastic cracking. Sam doesn’t come back, and when Dean pokes his head out the door he sees Sam’s back as he strides out of the parking lot down the sidewalk. The next thing he sees is the remains of Sam’s Treo, cracked and split open on the asphalt.
When Sam hits a wall with his research, when Bobby calls to offer the same platitudes, Dean knows he should feel panicked, trapped and scared. And he does. But mostly he feels useless. Sam and Bobby and the other hunters they’ve outsourced to are working hard, and when Sam spent days cooped up in some dude’s rare book collection, wearing gloves and a mask and turning brittle pages with tweezers, Dean spent the days wandering the mall and thumbing his way through the latest Hustler. Months ago Dean suggested he might go on the occasional hunt while Sam was tied up with research. He hasn’t made another such suggestion again.
Sam doesn’t come back until its dark outside and Dean is starting to panic. Four times he’s gone to dial Sam’s number before he remembers that Sam no longer has a phone. Dean wants to tell him that it was stupid and childish to break the phone. Wants to remind him that they are currently on three hit lists or more; the FBI, this Lilith character, and any other hunter that Gordon Walker managed to mess with. It is not the time to be walking around without means of communication.
Dean doesn’t say any of those things. Dean is the one who is going to die, who is going to hell, but it’s Sam who walks with a noose around his neck.
“We’ll get you a new phone tomorrow,” Dean says. “I’ll probably be able to save all the info from the old one.”
“Thanks,” Sam says. His cheeks are red from windburn, making the cut and bruise above his cheekbone stand out even more. Sam sits down on the bed, loosens the laces and kicks off his sneakers. His palms rest on his legs, curved around his kneecaps.
“Where were you?” Dean asks, aiming for casual and missing the mark. He’s been working on a crossword puzzle he found in the classified section of the paper, but it’s not as much fun when Sam’s not around. What’s a five letter word for canoodles?
“Just needed to clear my head, Dean,” Sam says, offering a small smile. Dean swallows and nods, tight and quick. He can smell the combination of incense and candle wax that seems to be a prerequisite for churches off Sam’s jacket. He wonders if Sam talked to anyone, another churchgoer or a priest, of if he sat alone in the hard wood pew with his head down. If Sam doesn’t want to talk about it, well, that’s fine with Dean.
“Thought so,” Dean says, and looks back at the newspaper. He can’t look at Sam, at Sam’s eyes that never could conceal anything, and know that he did this to Sam, and he’s still not sorry. In the beginning, when the year still seemed long and escape possible, Dean had believed Sam would walk away clean. Maybe keep hunting, maybe go back to school. It’s taken Dean almost a month to come to terms with the fact that he won’t, Sam’s not going to be the same, he’s not going to get over it.
If Dean was a different person, he might feel a little pleased, knowing how much Sam cares. Instead, he feels sick. Sam was never meant to need him as much as he needs Sam. Worse still is all the shit that’s brewing right over top of Sam’s head. Sam doesn’t seem to care; he shrugs when Dean mentions Lilith, or finding a way to get his name clear again, or anything about his future. “It doesn’t matter right now,” Sam says, but more and more Dean thinks it won’t ever matter to Sam.
Dean doesn’t want to start another fight, so he just pretends to finish the crossword puzzle.
o0o
Two days after the Morton house and Sam will not get out of bed.
He doesn’t have a fever. Dean spends ten minutes rubbing his fingertips against Sam’s scalp to make sure there aren’t any bumps or cuts under the layers of soft hair. There isn’t, but Sam is so quiet and still under Dean’s hands that he doesn’t bother resisting the urge to brush the bangs off Sam’s forehead.
“What’s up?” Dean asks. The motel room is quiet and dim, and Dean pitches his voice low to preserve the atmosphere. The heavy curtains are fluttering lightly as hot air is pushed out of the register and the weak light of an overcast sky barely peaks through the gap.
“I’m tired,” Sam says, and his voice is hoarse, as though he’s been yelling all night. He wasn’t, of course, but Dean remembers hearing Sam’s tread on the carpet during the night, the purposeful shifting of bedcovers. Nightmares, maybe, but more likely the approaching deadline that neither of them can’t stop thinking about.
Sam’s been manic for months, desperate and grasping, sleeping according to equations Dean couldn’t fathom. If I read x number of pages and find y number of theories and then divide by z number of false leads then I can sleep for n number of hours. Dean’s been expecting this crash, thought he’d be prepared, but looking at Sam, eyes dull and staring and limbs folded like the blankets are too heavy, like he might never get up again, Dean realizes you don’t prepare for this.
“I could bring you breakfast,” Dean says. Sam closes his eyes, as though the effort of just listening to Dean’s voice is wearing him down.
“No Dean,” he says.
“Yeah, okay,” Dean says, rubbing his palms against his thighs. He can’t do another crossword puzzle, and the motel doesn’t get cable, so. “I’m gonna go out, get that phone. If you change your mind,”
“I’ll call,” Sam says, pulling the covers up around his ears, a clear dismissal.
Dean didn’t exactly plan on bribing Sam with a phone, and it’s not really a bribe anyway. It’s just a thing that Sam’s been yammering on about for close to a year and it is honest to Christ coincidence that the MegaMall has an Apple retailer. So if an iPhone makes Sam smile or geek out then it’s worth blowing the last bit of available credit on Richard Melways’ VISA.
Dean lingers around the food court until the portly security guard with the ridiculous sideburns make his third pass around his table. His fries are cold, anyway.
The town doesn’t have much to recommend it. It’s big, edging toward city, but it’s got the whole suburban industrial sprawl shtick going, with giant megastores and row after row of identical beige luxury townhouses with SUV’s parked out front. Dean wishes they’d pushed on further before stopping, but at the time all he’d been concerned with was getting away from those asshole Ghostfacers and Sam’s lectures.
It’s late afternoon when he gets back to the motel. He expects Sam to be up, probably gulping bitter-hot coffee from the diner across the road and hunched over the laptop.
Except the lights are off, curtains drawn and the laptop is still tucked away in the leather case. Sam’s an indistinct lump on the bed. Dean’s chest feels tight and he shifts the bag in his hands, not quite sure how to proceed.
“Sam?” he calls. Sam doesn’t answer, doesn’t even twitch. Dean crosses the room, heels dragging against the low pile of the carpet. Sam’s lying on his side; chin tucked down and eyes open. “Sammy?”
Sam blinks once, long and slow before tipping his head toward Dean.
“Did you get up at all today?” Dean asks, fingers clenching around the plastic handles.
“I need to sleep, Dean,” Sam says, and closes his eyes. Dean sets the package down on the side table.
“If you’re having a nervous breakdown right now, I need to know, okay?” he says with deliberate calm.
Sam doesn’t answer.
At nine o’clock, Dean calls Bobby. When the fuck did I start needing help dealing with Sam? He doesn’t bother stepping outside. If Sam wants to act like a freak than he can damn well listen to what Dean has to say.
“Sam is having some kind of meltdown,” Dean says without preamble when Bobby answers.
“What the hell are you talking about, kid?” Bobby says.
“He won’t get out of bed. He’s just… laying there, Bobby. It’s like he’s been lobotomized or something. He won’t talk to me. He just, I don’t know, man.” Dean rubs his palm over his mouth and is surprised to see his hand is shaking. “He can’t do this,”
“Dean,” Bobby sighs. “Maybe you oughta cut him some slack, just for today.”
Dean doesn’t want to say it, not out loud, not where Sam can hear, but he’s got fifty nine days left and he just wants Sam to fix himself. He wants Bobby to say something that will make Sam get out of bed right now. He doesn’t want to cut Sam any slack, doesn’t want to let him take a mental health day or what the fuck ever.
“I can’t,” Dean says, wincing at the way his voice shudders. This isn’t right, Sam shouldn’t do this to him.
“Okay,” Bobby says, “Let me talk to him.”
Dean takes a deep breath, composing himself, before he sits on the edge of Sam’s bed and holds out his cell phone. He pokes Sam’s shoulder and Sam jerks and mumbles; he’d actually been dozing, before turning and blinking up at Dean.
“It’s Bobby,” Dean says.
Sam moves slowly, clumsy, as he frees his arms and reaches for the phone. Dean watches as Sam flips the phone closed and drops it back on the bedspread.
“What the fuck, Sam?” Dean jumps off the bed, away from his brother in case he gives in to the sudden desire to smother him with a pillow.
“I don’t want to talk to Bobby,” Sam says.
“Why not?” Dean demands.
“People will care, Dean,” Sam says.
“What?” Dean asks, angry tirade completely derailed by Sam’s comment.
“When you die people will care,” Sam says.
“I am giving you exactly ten seconds to explain yourself,” Dean says.
“Corbett died, and they didn’t even care. They made a movie out of it. They were going to sell it. And he, he was just a kid who wanted to fit in, and he died, Dean.” Sam says, voice soft and almost monotone. Dean feels like someone just pushed down on his shoulders, hard. He sits down heavily on the mattress, watching as Sam bounces a little.
“Sam,” he begins.
“He was so scared,” Sam says.
“Jesus,” Dean bows his head.
“He said my name, like I could make it stop,” Sam closes his eyes, he’s almost whispering now. And Dean knows what he’s going to say next, and he can’t, Dean won’t let him. He crawls into bed alongside Sam and curves himself against Sam’s back.
“Stop, Sam,” he whispers into the soft skin of his nape.
And Sam stops.
Spoilers from this week's episode under the cut.
no bravery | spn gen | post 3 × 13
The day after the Morton house Sam has an argument with Bobby.
Sam paces back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Dean retreats to the motel room; he’s getting motion sick just watching Sam. Dean’s not eavesdropping. The table and chairs just happens to sit underneath the window, which Sam just happens to be walking past every ten seconds or so. Still, Dean doesn’t pay close attention. The rules remain the same; he can’t help Sam, except to try and force food down his throat and make him sleep. The half-listening bit is getting harder though, if Sam’s voice keeps going up the whole complex will be getting an earful.
“Yes, I hear what you’re saying,” Sam says, “Yeah, I get it. I said I fucking get it, Bobby. What exactly do you want me to do, huh?”
Sam stops pacing, and if Dean leans back casually, which he does, than he can just see Sam’s profile. His jaw is visibly twitching, and Dean wonders if Sam’s teeth will actually crack under the pressure.
Whatever Bobby is saying, the news isn’t good because Sam disappears from view again and the next thing Dean hears is the distinct sound of plastic cracking. Sam doesn’t come back, and when Dean pokes his head out the door he sees Sam’s back as he strides out of the parking lot down the sidewalk. The next thing he sees is the remains of Sam’s Treo, cracked and split open on the asphalt.
When Sam hits a wall with his research, when Bobby calls to offer the same platitudes, Dean knows he should feel panicked, trapped and scared. And he does. But mostly he feels useless. Sam and Bobby and the other hunters they’ve outsourced to are working hard, and when Sam spent days cooped up in some dude’s rare book collection, wearing gloves and a mask and turning brittle pages with tweezers, Dean spent the days wandering the mall and thumbing his way through the latest Hustler. Months ago Dean suggested he might go on the occasional hunt while Sam was tied up with research. He hasn’t made another such suggestion again.
Sam doesn’t come back until its dark outside and Dean is starting to panic. Four times he’s gone to dial Sam’s number before he remembers that Sam no longer has a phone. Dean wants to tell him that it was stupid and childish to break the phone. Wants to remind him that they are currently on three hit lists or more; the FBI, this Lilith character, and any other hunter that Gordon Walker managed to mess with. It is not the time to be walking around without means of communication.
Dean doesn’t say any of those things. Dean is the one who is going to die, who is going to hell, but it’s Sam who walks with a noose around his neck.
“We’ll get you a new phone tomorrow,” Dean says. “I’ll probably be able to save all the info from the old one.”
“Thanks,” Sam says. His cheeks are red from windburn, making the cut and bruise above his cheekbone stand out even more. Sam sits down on the bed, loosens the laces and kicks off his sneakers. His palms rest on his legs, curved around his kneecaps.
“Where were you?” Dean asks, aiming for casual and missing the mark. He’s been working on a crossword puzzle he found in the classified section of the paper, but it’s not as much fun when Sam’s not around. What’s a five letter word for canoodles?
“Just needed to clear my head, Dean,” Sam says, offering a small smile. Dean swallows and nods, tight and quick. He can smell the combination of incense and candle wax that seems to be a prerequisite for churches off Sam’s jacket. He wonders if Sam talked to anyone, another churchgoer or a priest, of if he sat alone in the hard wood pew with his head down. If Sam doesn’t want to talk about it, well, that’s fine with Dean.
“Thought so,” Dean says, and looks back at the newspaper. He can’t look at Sam, at Sam’s eyes that never could conceal anything, and know that he did this to Sam, and he’s still not sorry. In the beginning, when the year still seemed long and escape possible, Dean had believed Sam would walk away clean. Maybe keep hunting, maybe go back to school. It’s taken Dean almost a month to come to terms with the fact that he won’t, Sam’s not going to be the same, he’s not going to get over it.
If Dean was a different person, he might feel a little pleased, knowing how much Sam cares. Instead, he feels sick. Sam was never meant to need him as much as he needs Sam. Worse still is all the shit that’s brewing right over top of Sam’s head. Sam doesn’t seem to care; he shrugs when Dean mentions Lilith, or finding a way to get his name clear again, or anything about his future. “It doesn’t matter right now,” Sam says, but more and more Dean thinks it won’t ever matter to Sam.
Dean doesn’t want to start another fight, so he just pretends to finish the crossword puzzle.
o0o
Two days after the Morton house and Sam will not get out of bed.
He doesn’t have a fever. Dean spends ten minutes rubbing his fingertips against Sam’s scalp to make sure there aren’t any bumps or cuts under the layers of soft hair. There isn’t, but Sam is so quiet and still under Dean’s hands that he doesn’t bother resisting the urge to brush the bangs off Sam’s forehead.
“What’s up?” Dean asks. The motel room is quiet and dim, and Dean pitches his voice low to preserve the atmosphere. The heavy curtains are fluttering lightly as hot air is pushed out of the register and the weak light of an overcast sky barely peaks through the gap.
“I’m tired,” Sam says, and his voice is hoarse, as though he’s been yelling all night. He wasn’t, of course, but Dean remembers hearing Sam’s tread on the carpet during the night, the purposeful shifting of bedcovers. Nightmares, maybe, but more likely the approaching deadline that neither of them can’t stop thinking about.
Sam’s been manic for months, desperate and grasping, sleeping according to equations Dean couldn’t fathom. If I read x number of pages and find y number of theories and then divide by z number of false leads then I can sleep for n number of hours. Dean’s been expecting this crash, thought he’d be prepared, but looking at Sam, eyes dull and staring and limbs folded like the blankets are too heavy, like he might never get up again, Dean realizes you don’t prepare for this.
“I could bring you breakfast,” Dean says. Sam closes his eyes, as though the effort of just listening to Dean’s voice is wearing him down.
“No Dean,” he says.
“Yeah, okay,” Dean says, rubbing his palms against his thighs. He can’t do another crossword puzzle, and the motel doesn’t get cable, so. “I’m gonna go out, get that phone. If you change your mind,”
“I’ll call,” Sam says, pulling the covers up around his ears, a clear dismissal.
Dean didn’t exactly plan on bribing Sam with a phone, and it’s not really a bribe anyway. It’s just a thing that Sam’s been yammering on about for close to a year and it is honest to Christ coincidence that the MegaMall has an Apple retailer. So if an iPhone makes Sam smile or geek out then it’s worth blowing the last bit of available credit on Richard Melways’ VISA.
Dean lingers around the food court until the portly security guard with the ridiculous sideburns make his third pass around his table. His fries are cold, anyway.
The town doesn’t have much to recommend it. It’s big, edging toward city, but it’s got the whole suburban industrial sprawl shtick going, with giant megastores and row after row of identical beige luxury townhouses with SUV’s parked out front. Dean wishes they’d pushed on further before stopping, but at the time all he’d been concerned with was getting away from those asshole Ghostfacers and Sam’s lectures.
It’s late afternoon when he gets back to the motel. He expects Sam to be up, probably gulping bitter-hot coffee from the diner across the road and hunched over the laptop.
Except the lights are off, curtains drawn and the laptop is still tucked away in the leather case. Sam’s an indistinct lump on the bed. Dean’s chest feels tight and he shifts the bag in his hands, not quite sure how to proceed.
“Sam?” he calls. Sam doesn’t answer, doesn’t even twitch. Dean crosses the room, heels dragging against the low pile of the carpet. Sam’s lying on his side; chin tucked down and eyes open. “Sammy?”
Sam blinks once, long and slow before tipping his head toward Dean.
“Did you get up at all today?” Dean asks, fingers clenching around the plastic handles.
“I need to sleep, Dean,” Sam says, and closes his eyes. Dean sets the package down on the side table.
“If you’re having a nervous breakdown right now, I need to know, okay?” he says with deliberate calm.
Sam doesn’t answer.
At nine o’clock, Dean calls Bobby. When the fuck did I start needing help dealing with Sam? He doesn’t bother stepping outside. If Sam wants to act like a freak than he can damn well listen to what Dean has to say.
“Sam is having some kind of meltdown,” Dean says without preamble when Bobby answers.
“What the hell are you talking about, kid?” Bobby says.
“He won’t get out of bed. He’s just… laying there, Bobby. It’s like he’s been lobotomized or something. He won’t talk to me. He just, I don’t know, man.” Dean rubs his palm over his mouth and is surprised to see his hand is shaking. “He can’t do this,”
“Dean,” Bobby sighs. “Maybe you oughta cut him some slack, just for today.”
Dean doesn’t want to say it, not out loud, not where Sam can hear, but he’s got fifty nine days left and he just wants Sam to fix himself. He wants Bobby to say something that will make Sam get out of bed right now. He doesn’t want to cut Sam any slack, doesn’t want to let him take a mental health day or what the fuck ever.
“I can’t,” Dean says, wincing at the way his voice shudders. This isn’t right, Sam shouldn’t do this to him.
“Okay,” Bobby says, “Let me talk to him.”
Dean takes a deep breath, composing himself, before he sits on the edge of Sam’s bed and holds out his cell phone. He pokes Sam’s shoulder and Sam jerks and mumbles; he’d actually been dozing, before turning and blinking up at Dean.
“It’s Bobby,” Dean says.
Sam moves slowly, clumsy, as he frees his arms and reaches for the phone. Dean watches as Sam flips the phone closed and drops it back on the bedspread.
“What the fuck, Sam?” Dean jumps off the bed, away from his brother in case he gives in to the sudden desire to smother him with a pillow.
“I don’t want to talk to Bobby,” Sam says.
“Why not?” Dean demands.
“People will care, Dean,” Sam says.
“What?” Dean asks, angry tirade completely derailed by Sam’s comment.
“When you die people will care,” Sam says.
“I am giving you exactly ten seconds to explain yourself,” Dean says.
“Corbett died, and they didn’t even care. They made a movie out of it. They were going to sell it. And he, he was just a kid who wanted to fit in, and he died, Dean.” Sam says, voice soft and almost monotone. Dean feels like someone just pushed down on his shoulders, hard. He sits down heavily on the mattress, watching as Sam bounces a little.
“Sam,” he begins.
“He was so scared,” Sam says.
“Jesus,” Dean bows his head.
“He said my name, like I could make it stop,” Sam closes his eyes, he’s almost whispering now. And Dean knows what he’s going to say next, and he can’t, Dean won’t let him. He crawls into bed alongside Sam and curves himself against Sam’s back.
“Stop, Sam,” he whispers into the soft skin of his nape.
And Sam stops.