Skywalker
Title: Skywalker
Summary: Sam gets hurt on a hunt. Later, the guys watch a movie.
Rating: R for language
Warnings/Spoilers: Spoilers for, um, the Empire Strikes Back.
Author's Note: This is different for me! Plenty of angst and h/c as always, but Sam's just 15 here. This is maybe the shadiest John I've ever written too.
Enough.
Seriously, fuck, enough of the whining and the bitching and the I don’t want to, none of them fucking want to be out in a damn cemetery at three in the morning (on a school night, Dean!) but people are dying, okay? It’s a little more important than calculus, or whatever.
Sam’s leaning indolently against a tree and looking like he’d rather be just about anywhere. To be frank, Dean would rather the kid were somewhere else too. This is all difficult enough without his fucking attitude.
“Can we move it along?” Sam shouts. “I’ve got a physics lab due tomorrow.”
“Too damn young for physics,” John mutters.
Too damn young for physics, but not for exhuming graves. Sometimes it just fucking hits Dean how twisted his life really is. He’s a week from his twentieth birthday, and most kids his age are in college (drinking and fucking around isn’t thewhole college experience, they’re also going to class and, like, playing pickup basketball or something, so don’t tell Dean he’s not missing out), and if they’re not in college they’ve got jobs, bringing home paychecks and maybe renting cool bachelor pads with a pinball machine and a giant fucking TV. Dean could have been a mechanic, maybe, or a bartender, or maybe even a barista at a coffee shop where a cute brunette would help him man the counter and they’d make covert jokes about the regulars and go back to his place and watch Indiana Jones on his huge TV. This is what twenty-year-olds do. They don’t live out of cars with their control freak father and their out-of-control brother.
On the other hand, people are alive because of Dean. It’s hard to argue with those results.
“Sam!” John shouts. “Give me some light over here!”
Sam trudges over like he’s marching to his own execution, dragging his feet in the snow and leaving two long trails instead of footprints behind him. He dances the beam of the flashlight across the headstone John’s peering at.
“Is it her?” If so, they can go home. Dean’s already thinking of cocoa, a change of socks. Maybe a hot shower. Hell, maybe a few drinks, he doesn’t have anywhere to be tomorrow.
John nods.
“Thank fucking christ.” Sam digs the blade of his shovel into the snow.
“Watch your mouth.”
“I’m digging, aren’t I?”
It goes quickly. He and Sam are getting bigger, and this gets easier every time they do it. Better yet, physical exertion shuts Sam the hell up for a few minutes. John stands guard, ostensibly to create a training exercise for his boys. Sam will complain, when John’s not around, that he’s just trying to avoid the blisters and sore muscles that come with digging.
The truth is John’s just not as quick as they are these days, and it makes Dean sad.
The spirit shows up (they always fucking show up, it’s like they know when their graves are being fucked with - shit, maybe they do, he should really ask Bobby about that) just as John is pulling out a box of matches. She rushes at them - Sam cries, “Dad!” - and John lets the match go. There’s a rush-roar of flame and the dead woman shrieks and she’s still coming at them but it’s too late bitch, another one bites the dust, and Dean’s mind is halfway home and into those warm dry socks as her hand connects with Sam’s shoulder just before she goes up in smoke.
If a lifetime of near-death experiences has taught Dean anything, it’s that all the clichés are wrong.
Nothing flashes before your eyes.
Moments don’t last an eternity.
There’s a split second of his little brother, eyes wide, arms pinwheeling, falling backward into a goddamn pit of fire, and there is luck, training, and every instinct in his body propelling him forward just in time to grab Sam by the shirt collar and haul him away.
People are alive because of Dean.
Then Sammy screams.
***
John’s already whipping off his jacket, wrapping it around Sam’s hand and arm. “Okay, Sammy, shit, okay. You’re okay.”
John doesn’t babble like that when things are okay, fuck.
Dad?
He’s ignoring Dean, supporting Sam around the waist because Sam’s knees are buckling, he’s still screaming fuckfuckfuck and Dean’s useless, clutching at his shovel like it has answers, holy fucking god what happened what do I do?
“Dean!”
He snaps to attention.
“Hospital. Carry him.”
Dean hasn’t carried Sam in years, since they were little (Sam was maybe ten when he got grouchy about piggyback rides, and by twelve he was too heavy anyway) but god, his brother can’t walk, can hardly stand, and he scoops him into his arms.
The clichés aren’t true.
He isn’t easy to lift. Dean doesn’t find some reserve of superhuman strength.
Sam is 120 pounds of panic, writhing in his arms, hoarse and screaming so each cry threatens to swallow the one before it, so he’s barely pausing to breathe.
Dean holds him so fucking tight and runs, lungs burning with every step, but fuck how could he let Sam stand so close to the fire, how could he let that thingget its hands on his little brother, and he’s got the car in sight before he realizes he’s echoing John’s mantra - “Okay Sammy, okay, everything’s okay.”
“Backseat,” John barks, and Dean’s in the car like he was put there. Years of taking orders in the field have just done this to him, made him a soldier, made him follow unthinkingly. John stomps on the accelerator, turning away from the motel and, presumably, toward the hospital, and Dean squirms his toes in his soaked shoes and thinks of the warm socks he won’t be getting and feels like an asshole, his little brother is shaking in his arms. Sam’s breathing hard, huge exhales that are still half-scream. “You don’t have to be quiet,” Dean says, against his temple so John won’t hear.
Sam shakes his head vigorously - Yes I do.
God, stubborn fucking kid.
“Keep that elevated,” John calls back.
“Yes sir.” Sam’s got the wrapped hand pressed tight against his chest. It’s a struggle to get a hand under his elbow and lift it, and Sam shrieks as if the loss of body contact is somehow exacerbating the pain. Maybe it is. What the hell does Dean know?
“Keep it together, Sam.” Christ, Dean could just about hit him. Sam is trying so fucking hard. Sam is being so fucking brave. Let the kid scream. Jesus. Let him cry.
***
Sam keeps it together all the way to the hospital.
Sam keeps it together right up until he’s in an exam room. Maybe it’s the pain of the nurse unwrapping the coat from around his hand, or maybe it’s the fact that John’s out of the room now feeding a doctor a line of bullshit about a campfire (that was always the plan, the cover story for a burn injury, Dean never thought they were going to fucking need it), but jesus fucking christ Sam’s arm.
Maybe it’s just that he’s seeing it.
Whatever the cause, Sam just breaks open, gasping around agonized sobs. “Oh god oh my god Dean it hurts, it hurts, oh god it hurts!”
“Sam…” Dean says, helpless, watching from the corner as they toss John’s coat on the floor and Sam cries out like he’s been stabbed and pulls away from the first investigative touch of sterile glove to his damaged skin.
“Help us hold him,” the nurse orders, and he’s there, arm low on Sam’s back. He pulls his hysterical little brother into his chest, and somehow his mouth is forming words (Okay, Sammy, shhhh, gotcha, I gotcha, gonna be fine) and that’s a fucking miracle because his head is just white noise.
Fucking god, Sam’s arm.
They’re holding it on a damp towel now, extending it (Sam heaves against him and Dean rubs his back absently) and he’s looking at tattered skin pulled away from muscle, charred black.
He looks away, looks anywhere but at that arm. His eyes meet the nurse’s, and she gives him a little nod. Whatever the hell that means.
The doctor comes in, thank god, but he’s taking Dean’s place, sliding Dean out of the way, and John catches him and steers him out of the room, fucking no.
“Dean!”
Sam’s reaching for him, one-handed, tearful. He sounds about seven years old.
Dean fights his father’s hold. Sam’s fucking alone in there, he’s terrifiedfuck, that arm - jesus, what if they have to fucking amputate?
The door swings shut on Sammy’s screams, and there’s just John’s voice in his ear. “Easy now, boy. Okay. He’s okay.”
Dean feels about seven years old.
He lets his father take him by the shoulders, guide him down the hall to the waiting room, put him in a chair like it’s an order. John presses a water bottle into his hands. “Drink.”
Dean drinks.
And spits. “That’s vodka.”
John glances around, scowls. “Button it up, Dean.”
“Yes sir.” Dean takes another swallow. Actually, it’s helping.
***
The waiting room is buzzy.
Buzzy? What the fuck does that even mean?
The waiting room is buzzy like the drone of bees, like dull voices saying things Dean doesn’t understand, autograft and dermatome and names of people who aren’t Sam. It’s buzzy like the bitter aftertaste of vodka in his is mouth and the spinning singing in his ears. It’s buzzy like the rasp of John’s foot scuffing over and over the same inch of nappy carpet, and Dean thinks rug burn and can’t tell if he’s going to laugh or throw up.
“Dean.”
He glances up at his father.
“Stop it.”
“Stop - what?”
“Picking.” John gestures.
Christ. He’s been pulling the stuffing out of the chair’s padded arm.
It’s been too long. They’ve been waiting too long, and frankly the fact that he can’t see the door to Sam’s room is not fucking acceptable.Settle down. They can’t take Sam anywhere (surgery), not a fifteen year old kid, not without talking to his fucking father, except - oh shit, maybe they did, maybe they did talk to John and they’ve got Sammy somewhere on a fucking gurney and they’re doing things -
John reaches over and pries Dean’s nails out of the chair. “He’ll be okay.”
Which is exactly no information whatsoever. “What did the doctor say?”
“He said he’d have to look at it.”
“Dad!”
“That’s what he said, Dean. Keep your voice down. What do you want me to say?”
“I want…” shit, he wants John to get upset about this. Keep his voice down? “He was screaming, Dad!”
“Winchester?”
Dean almost doesn’t register the name. He was listening for “Sammy.”
The nurse, or whoever she is, leads them down the hall. He’s hyperaware of the squeak-squeak of their wet shoes on antiseptic tile, the sour squelch of wet sock where snow’s slipped in and melted, the dried sweat on his skin and matting his hair. He feels gross. Peripherally he can see tears in his father’s shirt.
He blinks. Sun’s coming in. They need to get home.
They need to get Sammy home.
He’s sitting up in bed, and he smiles when he sees them, but all Dean sees is the red in his eyes, the tear tracks drying on his cheeks, the club of his arm where the burn is obscured by a thick cover of gauze, and John’s hand is on his shoulder but the only thing in the world he wants right now is Sam. He’s beside the bed in two steps, hands cupping his brother’s face, searching his dilated pupils for the reassurance he needs.
Sam reaches up and wraps his hand around the back of Dean’s neck, pulls him down until their foreheads almost touch. “It’s okay, Dean.”
John’s not a hugger. And that’s fine, okay, Dean’s used to mining the emotional content from his father’s approving glances and occasional touches. He doesn’t need to be fucking hugged all the time, it’s not a thing.
Sam is - well, Sam is Sam. When he was two years old, he’d stand with his arms in the air, stretched out for a hug. When he was six he’d slump against John and wait for a comforting arm to settle around his shoulders. When he was nine, John shrugged him off and said “sit up, now” and Sam heard the underlying subtext.
As far as Dean’s aware, he hasn’t requested an embrace since.
Jesus, the things Sam wants - a hug from his father, a good night’s sleep on a school night, to finish his fucking physics homework (and seriously, Dean’s kid brother is studying physics, when the hell did Sammy grow up?) - it’s all so little to ask. He should be able to have this shit.
The ink’s not even dry on Dean’s GED certificate, and fuck, he wants Sammy to graduate.
Let him have that one fucking thing, you know?
Even numbed by drugs, Sam tenses at the first touch of John’s hand, and it’s a moment before he relaxes and allows himself to be held.
John buries his face in Sam’s hair and whispers things Dean can’t hear and maybe doesn’t want to, and Sam’s face is still stretched into that dopey smile when he starts to cry again.
***
“Hey Sammy?” Dean’s skimming the TV channels.
“Mm.”
Twenty four hours have cleared the drugs from Sam’s system, and John’s being a stingy fucker with the prescription the hospital sent them home with. If he’s filled it at all, he’s hiding it - Dean’s been through his duffel twice, and no cigar.
And yeah, he gets it. This is the kind of man his father is. Vodka in the water bottle in a hospital waiting room. Steals painkillers from his fifteen year old burn victim son. Sam’s lying on his back, eyes closed, breathing through gritted teeth, and John’s somewhere stoned on Sam’s painkillers, probably drunk, probably (where do you think Dean learned all this shit?) putting last century’s moves on some girl with too much sympathy or not enough self-respect.
His (dirty, empty) flask is a dead weight in his pocket. His (dirty, empty) condom wrappers are peeking out of the Kleenex he carefully wraps them in each time.
Sam’s (unfinished) physics lab is spread out all over the remains of their (unfinished) breakfast.
“Have you seen Star Wars yet?”
Sam drags one eyelid upwards like it’s not worth the effort. “The fuck?”
“Have you?”
“When was I going to fucking watch a movie, Dean?” He sighs and rolls away.
“Come on, watch this with me. It’s right at the beginning.”
***
“Okay, is that whole planet made of snow?” Sam scowls.
“Hoth. Yes. It’s the ice planet.”
“Dean, that wouldn’t happen.”
“Sure it would, Sammy, it’s really far away from the sun. Hold still, now.” He unwinds the gauze around Sam’s arm, fuck, it’s a mess. “Look. Imperial Walkers.”
Sam’s shaking.
“Watch, Sammy.” Don’t look at this. "The Empire's attacking."
He’s as gentle as he can be, keeps Sam’s hand cradled loosely in his palm, but Sam’s tense against him the whole time. He keeps his eyes on the movie, though, fuck he’s trying hard, and he doesn’t make a sound.
John hasn’t cleaned and rewrapped Sam’s arm. Fuck, John hasn’t even seen Sam’s arm. Sammy's hurt and John should fucking be here.
Dean winds the fresh gauze around the burn, fingertips to wrist to halfway up his forearm, until only pink, healthy skin is visible.
Sam shivers.
“Sammy?” God, it must be so painful.
“That’s-“ he breathes deep. “That’s a stupid design for a ground assault vehicle.”
Dean laughs. Jesus, Sam.
***
There’s something about Sam not eating that makes Dean twitchy. It doesn’t make any damn sense really - none of them have eaten since yesterday, what was he going to do, buy candy bars while Sam was having scorched skin cleaned off his arm - anyway - but there’s something about Sam that’s perpetually little and needs to be fucking nourished.
The go-to sick kid food (this month, apparently consistency is too mundane for Sam) has been hot dogs, so Dean boils water and heats up five of them because better to have and not need, right?
“I could do that,” Sam says.
“Cook lunch? No you couldn’t, Lefty.”
“No, that.” Sam gestures to the TV screen. “One handed handstand.”
“Okay, Sammy.” No he can’t, that’s bullshit. Sam is the least graceful person on the planet. He can’t even stand on his feet. (Without falling into a fucking fire, fuck.)
He cuts the hot dogs up, bite-sized, because that’s how Sammy likes them and anyway there isn’t any bread, and brings two forks so they can snack together. Sam won’t eat much - it’s always a battle, working him back up to full-size meals after a few days without food - but he’ll eat more if he feels like he has to compete for his share. Dean forks up four bites and eats them all at once, which earns him a scowl and a hasty mouthful of hot dog from Sam, so mission accomplished.
Sam’s quiet for a minute, chewing, eyes on the screen. He’s awkward in Dean’s peripheral vision (it’s an awkward place for him, Dean’s supposed to watch his brother, not steal these glances, but Sam’s temper is coming back. Stubborn awesome fucking little bitch brother.)
“Do we have anything?”
“Painkillers?”
Sam nods, all intense.
“Sorry.”
“Nothing?”
“It really hurts, huh?” He takes Sam under his arm. Sam tucks against his shoulder like he’s still a little fucking kid, like he never stopped fitting here, and rests his bandaged arm in Dean’s lap. Dean fusses with the edges of the gauze. Just gently. Just a little.
“Why’d he take them?”
Jesus, Sammy, break Dean’s heart.
“He loves you,” Dean says carefully, because that’s really the question, isn’t it? “He knows you’re hurting. He does care.”
“So why?”
Dean pets his brother’s hair. “You got hurt on his watch, Sam. He can’t deal. He loves you, it’s not your fault, he’s just - he’s a fuck-up. And you shouldn’t have to take that on, but it’s Dad, and he’s fucked up, and he needs to be shitfaced when something goes wrong because he can’t handle it. He just - he can’t.”
Sam sobs, wrenching, once. “I can’t either.”
***
“I know?” Sam spit-takes. “You can’t just - I know?”
“He’s being smooth.” The hell do you know about women anyway, Sammy?
Sam’s lying with his head in Dean’s lap, allowing his brother to fuss with his hair like it’s a privilege (shut up). Dean’s grabbed down a pillow to support his bandaged arm, even though Sammy says he can’t feel the difference, because the sight of that arm on the floor is kind of breaking his heart and there’s a great big annoying part of him that just wants to cuddle it. Poor fucking arm.
“She said she loved him! He’s been after her for the whole movie!”
“Yeah, and they kissed, what do you want?”
“She said it, so he has to say it back!”
“You’re fucking adorable, you know that? That isn’t how shit works.”
“You’re adorable,” Sam shoots back, like it’s an indictment. He rolls onto his back, bad arm strung out comically to the side. “It’s a fantasy movie, Dean, what the hell kind of fantasy is that? I know.”
“It’s a science-fiction movie.”
“Oh, give me a break.”
“Of course he loves her, Sammy. That’s the point. That’s what makes the scene fucking epic. He’s been putting the moves on her all this time, he doesn’t need to make some speech about it now. She’s not an idiot.”
“Mm.” Sam rolls back towards the TV. “I bet she’d still like to hear it, though.”
***
“Breathe, Sammy.”
Sam sucks in air. “Was - fucking fine - ten minutes ago…”
“You were distracted. Come on, this is the best scene in the whole movie.”
“Need - pills, Dean.”
Fuck. “I know, Sammy.”
“Really fucking hurts…”
Dean loves his father, okay? He does. He’s old enough to remember bedtime stories and games of catch with a soft football, pancakes for breakfast and being swept up in the biggest arms in the world.
He’s old enough to remember the weeks between the fire and the first hunt. The ugly scar through the center of their family where Mom was ripped out. Sam, hungry and overwhelmed, screaming into the night. The empty shell where his father used to be. (Was Dean even there?)
He’s old enough to know that that this version of John, flawed and fucked up and failing his sons, is preferable to the alternative.
But Sam’s face is twisted and he’s squeezing the fuck out of Dean’s hand, and seriously, fuck John right now.
Dean steals his father’s whiskey (he’s going to pay for that later, but seriously, zero fucks given) and holds the bottle to his brother’s lips, cradles him, whispers nonsense (okay Sammy all better) as Sam sputters and coughs and drinks his way into sleep.
***
The thing is, you can’t escape your family. Not really.
You can throw yourself down a mine shaft (or whatever, what the hell is that shaft, this part has never made sense) and fuck, maybe Dean would be killing himself dramatically if his father was Darth fucking Vader, but…probably not.
He’s always liked Return of the Jedi better anyway.
John stumbles in a few hours after the credits roll, after the hot dogs are finished and the dishes are washed, after Sam’s tucked into bed and sound asleep (passed out), after Dean’s finished the whiskey and gotten rid of the bottle because maybe,maybe, John will get confused and think he drank it himself.
Dean catches his father by the arm and guides him to the second bed, gets his boots off, puts the trash can beside him.
The bottle of pills is unopened in his pocket.
Dean lets himself hope.
Summary: Sam gets hurt on a hunt. Later, the guys watch a movie.
Rating: R for language
Warnings/Spoilers: Spoilers for, um, the Empire Strikes Back.
Author's Note: This is different for me! Plenty of angst and h/c as always, but Sam's just 15 here. This is maybe the shadiest John I've ever written too.
Enough.
Seriously, fuck, enough of the whining and the bitching and the I don’t want to, none of them fucking want to be out in a damn cemetery at three in the morning (on a school night, Dean!) but people are dying, okay? It’s a little more important than calculus, or whatever.
Sam’s leaning indolently against a tree and looking like he’d rather be just about anywhere. To be frank, Dean would rather the kid were somewhere else too. This is all difficult enough without his fucking attitude.
“Can we move it along?” Sam shouts. “I’ve got a physics lab due tomorrow.”
“Too damn young for physics,” John mutters.
Too damn young for physics, but not for exhuming graves. Sometimes it just fucking hits Dean how twisted his life really is. He’s a week from his twentieth birthday, and most kids his age are in college (drinking and fucking around isn’t thewhole college experience, they’re also going to class and, like, playing pickup basketball or something, so don’t tell Dean he’s not missing out), and if they’re not in college they’ve got jobs, bringing home paychecks and maybe renting cool bachelor pads with a pinball machine and a giant fucking TV. Dean could have been a mechanic, maybe, or a bartender, or maybe even a barista at a coffee shop where a cute brunette would help him man the counter and they’d make covert jokes about the regulars and go back to his place and watch Indiana Jones on his huge TV. This is what twenty-year-olds do. They don’t live out of cars with their control freak father and their out-of-control brother.
On the other hand, people are alive because of Dean. It’s hard to argue with those results.
“Sam!” John shouts. “Give me some light over here!”
Sam trudges over like he’s marching to his own execution, dragging his feet in the snow and leaving two long trails instead of footprints behind him. He dances the beam of the flashlight across the headstone John’s peering at.
“Is it her?” If so, they can go home. Dean’s already thinking of cocoa, a change of socks. Maybe a hot shower. Hell, maybe a few drinks, he doesn’t have anywhere to be tomorrow.
John nods.
“Thank fucking christ.” Sam digs the blade of his shovel into the snow.
“Watch your mouth.”
“I’m digging, aren’t I?”
It goes quickly. He and Sam are getting bigger, and this gets easier every time they do it. Better yet, physical exertion shuts Sam the hell up for a few minutes. John stands guard, ostensibly to create a training exercise for his boys. Sam will complain, when John’s not around, that he’s just trying to avoid the blisters and sore muscles that come with digging.
The truth is John’s just not as quick as they are these days, and it makes Dean sad.
The spirit shows up (they always fucking show up, it’s like they know when their graves are being fucked with - shit, maybe they do, he should really ask Bobby about that) just as John is pulling out a box of matches. She rushes at them - Sam cries, “Dad!” - and John lets the match go. There’s a rush-roar of flame and the dead woman shrieks and she’s still coming at them but it’s too late bitch, another one bites the dust, and Dean’s mind is halfway home and into those warm dry socks as her hand connects with Sam’s shoulder just before she goes up in smoke.
If a lifetime of near-death experiences has taught Dean anything, it’s that all the clichés are wrong.
Nothing flashes before your eyes.
Moments don’t last an eternity.
There’s a split second of his little brother, eyes wide, arms pinwheeling, falling backward into a goddamn pit of fire, and there is luck, training, and every instinct in his body propelling him forward just in time to grab Sam by the shirt collar and haul him away.
People are alive because of Dean.
Then Sammy screams.
***
John’s already whipping off his jacket, wrapping it around Sam’s hand and arm. “Okay, Sammy, shit, okay. You’re okay.”
John doesn’t babble like that when things are okay, fuck.
Dad?
He’s ignoring Dean, supporting Sam around the waist because Sam’s knees are buckling, he’s still screaming fuckfuckfuck and Dean’s useless, clutching at his shovel like it has answers, holy fucking god what happened what do I do?
“Dean!”
He snaps to attention.
“Hospital. Carry him.”
Dean hasn’t carried Sam in years, since they were little (Sam was maybe ten when he got grouchy about piggyback rides, and by twelve he was too heavy anyway) but god, his brother can’t walk, can hardly stand, and he scoops him into his arms.
The clichés aren’t true.
He isn’t easy to lift. Dean doesn’t find some reserve of superhuman strength.
Sam is 120 pounds of panic, writhing in his arms, hoarse and screaming so each cry threatens to swallow the one before it, so he’s barely pausing to breathe.
Dean holds him so fucking tight and runs, lungs burning with every step, but fuck how could he let Sam stand so close to the fire, how could he let that thingget its hands on his little brother, and he’s got the car in sight before he realizes he’s echoing John’s mantra - “Okay Sammy, okay, everything’s okay.”
“Backseat,” John barks, and Dean’s in the car like he was put there. Years of taking orders in the field have just done this to him, made him a soldier, made him follow unthinkingly. John stomps on the accelerator, turning away from the motel and, presumably, toward the hospital, and Dean squirms his toes in his soaked shoes and thinks of the warm socks he won’t be getting and feels like an asshole, his little brother is shaking in his arms. Sam’s breathing hard, huge exhales that are still half-scream. “You don’t have to be quiet,” Dean says, against his temple so John won’t hear.
Sam shakes his head vigorously - Yes I do.
God, stubborn fucking kid.
“Keep that elevated,” John calls back.
“Yes sir.” Sam’s got the wrapped hand pressed tight against his chest. It’s a struggle to get a hand under his elbow and lift it, and Sam shrieks as if the loss of body contact is somehow exacerbating the pain. Maybe it is. What the hell does Dean know?
“Keep it together, Sam.” Christ, Dean could just about hit him. Sam is trying so fucking hard. Sam is being so fucking brave. Let the kid scream. Jesus. Let him cry.
***
Sam keeps it together all the way to the hospital.
Sam keeps it together right up until he’s in an exam room. Maybe it’s the pain of the nurse unwrapping the coat from around his hand, or maybe it’s the fact that John’s out of the room now feeding a doctor a line of bullshit about a campfire (that was always the plan, the cover story for a burn injury, Dean never thought they were going to fucking need it), but jesus fucking christ Sam’s arm.
Maybe it’s just that he’s seeing it.
Whatever the cause, Sam just breaks open, gasping around agonized sobs. “Oh god oh my god Dean it hurts, it hurts, oh god it hurts!”
“Sam…” Dean says, helpless, watching from the corner as they toss John’s coat on the floor and Sam cries out like he’s been stabbed and pulls away from the first investigative touch of sterile glove to his damaged skin.
“Help us hold him,” the nurse orders, and he’s there, arm low on Sam’s back. He pulls his hysterical little brother into his chest, and somehow his mouth is forming words (Okay, Sammy, shhhh, gotcha, I gotcha, gonna be fine) and that’s a fucking miracle because his head is just white noise.
Fucking god, Sam’s arm.
They’re holding it on a damp towel now, extending it (Sam heaves against him and Dean rubs his back absently) and he’s looking at tattered skin pulled away from muscle, charred black.
He looks away, looks anywhere but at that arm. His eyes meet the nurse’s, and she gives him a little nod. Whatever the hell that means.
The doctor comes in, thank god, but he’s taking Dean’s place, sliding Dean out of the way, and John catches him and steers him out of the room, fucking no.
“Dean!”
Sam’s reaching for him, one-handed, tearful. He sounds about seven years old.
Dean fights his father’s hold. Sam’s fucking alone in there, he’s terrifiedfuck, that arm - jesus, what if they have to fucking amputate?
The door swings shut on Sammy’s screams, and there’s just John’s voice in his ear. “Easy now, boy. Okay. He’s okay.”
Dean feels about seven years old.
He lets his father take him by the shoulders, guide him down the hall to the waiting room, put him in a chair like it’s an order. John presses a water bottle into his hands. “Drink.”
Dean drinks.
And spits. “That’s vodka.”
John glances around, scowls. “Button it up, Dean.”
“Yes sir.” Dean takes another swallow. Actually, it’s helping.
***
The waiting room is buzzy.
Buzzy? What the fuck does that even mean?
The waiting room is buzzy like the drone of bees, like dull voices saying things Dean doesn’t understand, autograft and dermatome and names of people who aren’t Sam. It’s buzzy like the bitter aftertaste of vodka in his is mouth and the spinning singing in his ears. It’s buzzy like the rasp of John’s foot scuffing over and over the same inch of nappy carpet, and Dean thinks rug burn and can’t tell if he’s going to laugh or throw up.
“Dean.”
He glances up at his father.
“Stop it.”
“Stop - what?”
“Picking.” John gestures.
Christ. He’s been pulling the stuffing out of the chair’s padded arm.
It’s been too long. They’ve been waiting too long, and frankly the fact that he can’t see the door to Sam’s room is not fucking acceptable.Settle down. They can’t take Sam anywhere (surgery), not a fifteen year old kid, not without talking to his fucking father, except - oh shit, maybe they did, maybe they did talk to John and they’ve got Sammy somewhere on a fucking gurney and they’re doing things -
John reaches over and pries Dean’s nails out of the chair. “He’ll be okay.”
Which is exactly no information whatsoever. “What did the doctor say?”
“He said he’d have to look at it.”
“Dad!”
“That’s what he said, Dean. Keep your voice down. What do you want me to say?”
“I want…” shit, he wants John to get upset about this. Keep his voice down? “He was screaming, Dad!”
“Winchester?”
Dean almost doesn’t register the name. He was listening for “Sammy.”
The nurse, or whoever she is, leads them down the hall. He’s hyperaware of the squeak-squeak of their wet shoes on antiseptic tile, the sour squelch of wet sock where snow’s slipped in and melted, the dried sweat on his skin and matting his hair. He feels gross. Peripherally he can see tears in his father’s shirt.
He blinks. Sun’s coming in. They need to get home.
They need to get Sammy home.
He’s sitting up in bed, and he smiles when he sees them, but all Dean sees is the red in his eyes, the tear tracks drying on his cheeks, the club of his arm where the burn is obscured by a thick cover of gauze, and John’s hand is on his shoulder but the only thing in the world he wants right now is Sam. He’s beside the bed in two steps, hands cupping his brother’s face, searching his dilated pupils for the reassurance he needs.
Sam reaches up and wraps his hand around the back of Dean’s neck, pulls him down until their foreheads almost touch. “It’s okay, Dean.”
John’s not a hugger. And that’s fine, okay, Dean’s used to mining the emotional content from his father’s approving glances and occasional touches. He doesn’t need to be fucking hugged all the time, it’s not a thing.
Sam is - well, Sam is Sam. When he was two years old, he’d stand with his arms in the air, stretched out for a hug. When he was six he’d slump against John and wait for a comforting arm to settle around his shoulders. When he was nine, John shrugged him off and said “sit up, now” and Sam heard the underlying subtext.
As far as Dean’s aware, he hasn’t requested an embrace since.
Jesus, the things Sam wants - a hug from his father, a good night’s sleep on a school night, to finish his fucking physics homework (and seriously, Dean’s kid brother is studying physics, when the hell did Sammy grow up?) - it’s all so little to ask. He should be able to have this shit.
The ink’s not even dry on Dean’s GED certificate, and fuck, he wants Sammy to graduate.
Let him have that one fucking thing, you know?
Even numbed by drugs, Sam tenses at the first touch of John’s hand, and it’s a moment before he relaxes and allows himself to be held.
John buries his face in Sam’s hair and whispers things Dean can’t hear and maybe doesn’t want to, and Sam’s face is still stretched into that dopey smile when he starts to cry again.
***
“Hey Sammy?” Dean’s skimming the TV channels.
“Mm.”
Twenty four hours have cleared the drugs from Sam’s system, and John’s being a stingy fucker with the prescription the hospital sent them home with. If he’s filled it at all, he’s hiding it - Dean’s been through his duffel twice, and no cigar.
And yeah, he gets it. This is the kind of man his father is. Vodka in the water bottle in a hospital waiting room. Steals painkillers from his fifteen year old burn victim son. Sam’s lying on his back, eyes closed, breathing through gritted teeth, and John’s somewhere stoned on Sam’s painkillers, probably drunk, probably (where do you think Dean learned all this shit?) putting last century’s moves on some girl with too much sympathy or not enough self-respect.
His (dirty, empty) flask is a dead weight in his pocket. His (dirty, empty) condom wrappers are peeking out of the Kleenex he carefully wraps them in each time.
Sam’s (unfinished) physics lab is spread out all over the remains of their (unfinished) breakfast.
“Have you seen Star Wars yet?”
Sam drags one eyelid upwards like it’s not worth the effort. “The fuck?”
“Have you?”
“When was I going to fucking watch a movie, Dean?” He sighs and rolls away.
“Come on, watch this with me. It’s right at the beginning.”
***
“Okay, is that whole planet made of snow?” Sam scowls.
“Hoth. Yes. It’s the ice planet.”
“Dean, that wouldn’t happen.”
“Sure it would, Sammy, it’s really far away from the sun. Hold still, now.” He unwinds the gauze around Sam’s arm, fuck, it’s a mess. “Look. Imperial Walkers.”
Sam’s shaking.
“Watch, Sammy.” Don’t look at this. "The Empire's attacking."
He’s as gentle as he can be, keeps Sam’s hand cradled loosely in his palm, but Sam’s tense against him the whole time. He keeps his eyes on the movie, though, fuck he’s trying hard, and he doesn’t make a sound.
John hasn’t cleaned and rewrapped Sam’s arm. Fuck, John hasn’t even seen Sam’s arm. Sammy's hurt and John should fucking be here.
Dean winds the fresh gauze around the burn, fingertips to wrist to halfway up his forearm, until only pink, healthy skin is visible.
Sam shivers.
“Sammy?” God, it must be so painful.
“That’s-“ he breathes deep. “That’s a stupid design for a ground assault vehicle.”
Dean laughs. Jesus, Sam.
***
There’s something about Sam not eating that makes Dean twitchy. It doesn’t make any damn sense really - none of them have eaten since yesterday, what was he going to do, buy candy bars while Sam was having scorched skin cleaned off his arm - anyway - but there’s something about Sam that’s perpetually little and needs to be fucking nourished.
The go-to sick kid food (this month, apparently consistency is too mundane for Sam) has been hot dogs, so Dean boils water and heats up five of them because better to have and not need, right?
“I could do that,” Sam says.
“Cook lunch? No you couldn’t, Lefty.”
“No, that.” Sam gestures to the TV screen. “One handed handstand.”
“Okay, Sammy.” No he can’t, that’s bullshit. Sam is the least graceful person on the planet. He can’t even stand on his feet. (Without falling into a fucking fire, fuck.)
He cuts the hot dogs up, bite-sized, because that’s how Sammy likes them and anyway there isn’t any bread, and brings two forks so they can snack together. Sam won’t eat much - it’s always a battle, working him back up to full-size meals after a few days without food - but he’ll eat more if he feels like he has to compete for his share. Dean forks up four bites and eats them all at once, which earns him a scowl and a hasty mouthful of hot dog from Sam, so mission accomplished.
Sam’s quiet for a minute, chewing, eyes on the screen. He’s awkward in Dean’s peripheral vision (it’s an awkward place for him, Dean’s supposed to watch his brother, not steal these glances, but Sam’s temper is coming back. Stubborn awesome fucking little bitch brother.)
“Do we have anything?”
“Painkillers?”
Sam nods, all intense.
“Sorry.”
“Nothing?”
“It really hurts, huh?” He takes Sam under his arm. Sam tucks against his shoulder like he’s still a little fucking kid, like he never stopped fitting here, and rests his bandaged arm in Dean’s lap. Dean fusses with the edges of the gauze. Just gently. Just a little.
“Why’d he take them?”
Jesus, Sammy, break Dean’s heart.
“He loves you,” Dean says carefully, because that’s really the question, isn’t it? “He knows you’re hurting. He does care.”
“So why?”
Dean pets his brother’s hair. “You got hurt on his watch, Sam. He can’t deal. He loves you, it’s not your fault, he’s just - he’s a fuck-up. And you shouldn’t have to take that on, but it’s Dad, and he’s fucked up, and he needs to be shitfaced when something goes wrong because he can’t handle it. He just - he can’t.”
Sam sobs, wrenching, once. “I can’t either.”
***
“I know?” Sam spit-takes. “You can’t just - I know?”
“He’s being smooth.” The hell do you know about women anyway, Sammy?
Sam’s lying with his head in Dean’s lap, allowing his brother to fuss with his hair like it’s a privilege (shut up). Dean’s grabbed down a pillow to support his bandaged arm, even though Sammy says he can’t feel the difference, because the sight of that arm on the floor is kind of breaking his heart and there’s a great big annoying part of him that just wants to cuddle it. Poor fucking arm.
“She said she loved him! He’s been after her for the whole movie!”
“Yeah, and they kissed, what do you want?”
“She said it, so he has to say it back!”
“You’re fucking adorable, you know that? That isn’t how shit works.”
“You’re adorable,” Sam shoots back, like it’s an indictment. He rolls onto his back, bad arm strung out comically to the side. “It’s a fantasy movie, Dean, what the hell kind of fantasy is that? I know.”
“It’s a science-fiction movie.”
“Oh, give me a break.”
“Of course he loves her, Sammy. That’s the point. That’s what makes the scene fucking epic. He’s been putting the moves on her all this time, he doesn’t need to make some speech about it now. She’s not an idiot.”
“Mm.” Sam rolls back towards the TV. “I bet she’d still like to hear it, though.”
***
“Breathe, Sammy.”
Sam sucks in air. “Was - fucking fine - ten minutes ago…”
“You were distracted. Come on, this is the best scene in the whole movie.”
“Need - pills, Dean.”
Fuck. “I know, Sammy.”
“Really fucking hurts…”
Dean loves his father, okay? He does. He’s old enough to remember bedtime stories and games of catch with a soft football, pancakes for breakfast and being swept up in the biggest arms in the world.
He’s old enough to remember the weeks between the fire and the first hunt. The ugly scar through the center of their family where Mom was ripped out. Sam, hungry and overwhelmed, screaming into the night. The empty shell where his father used to be. (Was Dean even there?)
He’s old enough to know that that this version of John, flawed and fucked up and failing his sons, is preferable to the alternative.
But Sam’s face is twisted and he’s squeezing the fuck out of Dean’s hand, and seriously, fuck John right now.
Dean steals his father’s whiskey (he’s going to pay for that later, but seriously, zero fucks given) and holds the bottle to his brother’s lips, cradles him, whispers nonsense (okay Sammy all better) as Sam sputters and coughs and drinks his way into sleep.
***
The thing is, you can’t escape your family. Not really.
You can throw yourself down a mine shaft (or whatever, what the hell is that shaft, this part has never made sense) and fuck, maybe Dean would be killing himself dramatically if his father was Darth fucking Vader, but…probably not.
He’s always liked Return of the Jedi better anyway.
John stumbles in a few hours after the credits roll, after the hot dogs are finished and the dishes are washed, after Sam’s tucked into bed and sound asleep (passed out), after Dean’s finished the whiskey and gotten rid of the bottle because maybe,maybe, John will get confused and think he drank it himself.
Dean catches his father by the arm and guides him to the second bed, gets his boots off, puts the trash can beside him.
The bottle of pills is unopened in his pocket.
Dean lets himself hope.