Putting the Fün Back in Dysfünctional (3/6)
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Putting the Fün Back in Dysfünctional
Author: greenthumb421
Artist: annartism
Summary: Laughing used to come easy to the Winchester boys.Sometimes Sam thinks they'll never really laugh again. Sam n' Dean, worn down by Bobby's death, Sam's hallucinations of Lucifer, lack of sleep, and the (temporary) loss of the Impala, decide to take a week or two off from hunting, rest up, and try to have some fun, see if they can remember how to laugh. The old Reilly 'House of Death' case in Pittsburgh, PA, seems like a nice, non-urgent case to chew over while they kick back and catch up on sleep. Unfortunately, the hyena demons infesting the house have other ideas.
Characters: Dean, Sam, Sheriff Jody Mills and OMC's.
Pairings: Gen. No, really! Okay, some if-you-squint slashiness, but no worse than canon.
Disclaimer: No profit, no glory, just borrowing the boys from Kripke and the CW.
Rating: PG-13 for language, violence
Word Count: approx 33,000
Warnings: Spoilers through 7.12 Time After Time. Language. (Seriously, gratuitous overuse of the F-bomb.) Misuse of the Pittsburghese dialect, the Ethiopian Christian Church, italics (and parentheses), Trojan condoms, and stuffed cats (but not together, ewwww). And epically long run-on sentences.
.pdf version, created by annartism (thanks, hon!)
The freakin' awesome artworks by annartism can all be seen here, including some tinted versions not seen with the story. Be sure to look for all the hilarious 'Lord of the Rings' references in the scene she created of Sam sitting on his bed!
Song lyrics taken from Bruno Mars' Grenade.
Many thanks go to my primary beta namichan89 for reading and cheerleading and idea bouncing and for making me laugh. The world would be a better place with more sweet souls like you.
Thanks also to my backup beta vyperdd for her emergency handholding and critical feedback. Also, thank you to paleogymnast, one of the mods of the immensely helpful omgspnbigbang, for taking the time to answer my questions and lend a helping hand. Finally, thank you to slightlysatanic, the other mod of omgspnbigbang, and to wendy and thehighwaywoman, mods of spn_j2_big_bang. Our fandom rocks because of people like you ladies!
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Putting the Fün Back in Dysfünctional
Master Post Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6
Dean Winchester's brother Sam loves him.
Sam didn't have to save the world to prove to Dean that Sam has a big heart. (Although he did it anyway. 'Cause Sam Winchester is the bravest fucking kid in the entire fucking universe. Stopped the motherfucking Apocalypse dead in its tracks, man.) But Dean's always known his little brother has a soft, mushy center to him (possibly yoghurt), because Sam Winchester, scary-smart, overgrown pre-teen girl that he is, has never been afraid to admit that he loves his big brother Dean.
Well, okay, not out loud, 'cause, come on, he'd never hear the end of it. (Dean would see to that. Heckling was part of his job description.) But shit, Sammy has his ways of saying it.
For instance, last Monday.
It was less than a week after their interview with Jon Reilly when Sam complained, “Man, we need to get out of this motel room."
It was true.
The room was bizarre to begin with, apparently decorated with hopes of catering to the needs of the hordes of travelling Lord of the Rings fanatics that roam the Pennsylvania countryside in search of a place to rest their weary heads. ("No coffee maker? They spend money on bedspreads that have detailed maps of Middle Earth, but there's no goddamn coffee maker?" "Just roll with it, dude. Oh, and don't sit on the Kingdom of Rohan, Dean. That's where the normal sized men live. You belong over there on the Shire, with all the other hobbits. Heheh." "Yeah, heheh, bite my rosy hobbit ass, Samwise.") Hanging on the water-stained walls were multiple portraits of that fucking creepy Eye of Sauron tower, which didn't at all make Dean feel like someone was fucking staring at him all the fucking time, nosirreebob, and what the hell, Party Trees carved into the headboards? Was that some sort of ironic comment on the non-existant sex life of anyone geeky enough to enjoy staying here? ("Admit it, Dean. You loved those movies right up until the scene where the giant spider showed up in the cave, and then you freaked out." "Excuse me? I don't freak out --" "You started hyperventilating and ran out of the theater." "I had to go to the can." "For an hour?" "....Shut up, Sam.") Just lying on the bed made Dean worry that his testosterone levels were dropping like a rock thrown down a mineshaft.
Sam fucking loved the room. Of course.
So Dean bit his tongue, and instead of hyperventilating (which he totally never did), he settled into the room like it was his new vacation home. Which it was, dammit. Which meant that within days of the Winchesters' arrival, the room was a complete shambles, resembling the subterranean lair of some lesser species of wendigo. A really lazy, disgusting wendigo. One that had never heard of Martha Stewart's hints for keeping a lovely home, and that probably would have ignored said hints anyway before proceding to devour her face, no doubt using the wrong fork.
Yeah, it was that bad.
On the third day, the motel manager had dropped by to see why they weren't letting the maid in to clean. Dean was out, doing his monthly Dean Winchester version of a Red Door day, meaning a cheap haircut for himself and a ludicrously expensive wash and wax for the car. ("Don't forget to buy the Mustang a new air freshener to hang from the mirror. One that smells like cheap perfume. You know, like all the slutty whores wear." "Shut up, Sam.") Sam, blocking the man's view into the room - he needn't have bothered, since the guns scattered about the room were buried under beer cans, pizza boxes, and dirty laundry - had maybe panicked just a bit and maybe kinda tried to fry the man's internal organs using the evil power of his brain ("Heh, that shit's never gonna not be funny, Sam. Hey! Hey, Sammy, do me now! C'mon, hold up your hand like you're singing 'Stop In The Name of Love' and give me that constipated look - Yeah, that's the one! Owww, no fair punching me in the spleen, I might need that some day.") and when that didn't work, he ended up blurting out that they were on their honeymoon and wanted their privacy. ("You said what now? On our honey -- What, are you fucking nuts, Sam? No one with half a brain's gonna buy that.”) Even after the complimentary fruit basket arrived, Dean couldn't bring himself to make any jokes about yeah, privacy for our big gay incestuous honeymoon. It was just too disturbing how quickly their vacation was turning into a Motel 6 version of Lord of the Flies.
Even more disturbing, Dean's underpants radius had gotten just a bit out of control. (“My what now?” “You know, the distance from his bed that a man is comfortable wearing just his underpants? Usually goes just as far as the bathroom. You kinda broke all the records for that.” “If they didn't want to see a man in his boxers, they shouldn't have invented the drive-thru beer distributor.”)
Sam said, “We've done nothing but get drunk, eat junkfood, and watch Redbox movies in our underwear for the last four days.”
Even though he kind of agreed, Dean was morally and legally obligated to argue about it. “I'm sorry, you're implying that there's somehow a down side to this?”
“We're becoming lazy, disgusting slobs.”
“...Yeaahh, still not seeing the bad.”
“Lucifer's complaining that we're disgusting, okay?”
“Wow. That's quite an insult, coming from a brain fart.”
“Just because he's a product of my diseased brain doesn't mean he can't have standards.”
“Well, yeah, but - I mean ... Oh, fine. I'll get the car keys.”
“And ...”
“And pants... You know, if I ever get myself an imaginary evil friend, it's sure as shit gonna be someone who's more fun to hang out with than yours is. Like maybe an evil proctologist.” He pursed his lips, considered. “With laser eyes.”
So, it was Monday and they were out 'endorphing' - Hey, Sam likes calling it that, okay? And Dean lets it ride, because while they might someday find a cure for his brother's pesky insanity issues, they will never ever find a cure for his terminal dorkiness, so why fight it? (In yet another example of his supreme dorkitude, Sam, in a moment of boredom, has programmed his cell phone so that whenever anyone utters the phrase “House of Death”, Sam can covertly push a single button and suddenly there's a loud crash of thunder and the sound of horses whinnying in terror. “It's an homage to Mel Brooks. You know, Frau Blucher in Young Frankenstein? Oh, c'mon, it's funny … Yeah, okay, maybe you have to be insane to get the joke.”) So, 'endorphing' it is.
So, yeah, it was Monday and they were out 'endorphing', which on that night meant impersonating average guys in some tiny Pennsylvania town's corner pub slash sports bar. The 'sports bar' part meant a pair of hilariously warped pool tables and a much abused dart board. (Sam and Dean played a couple of rounds of pool against each other, and then teamed up against a few of the locals, but were careful to keep it friendly, no hustling, since they were officially off the clock.) It also meant the place boasted a single oversized flatscreen hanging right over the bar, which in turn meant that the bartender was in a perpetually pissy mood, because while he could hear the play-by-play, he never got to actually see any of the Monday night football games. (“What happened? What'd I miss? Goddammit!”) Dean and Sam agreed that the bartender alone was entertainment worth coming back here someday. The 'pub' part meant surprisingly good chili dogs cooked in the tiny kitchen out back, and half-price beer on tap until midnight, so no one gave a fuck if the bartender's attitude was shitty. (“Throw in some skin mags and a supply of peanut M&M's ...” Sam muttered with a sideways look, and Dean finished with a happy sigh, “... Screw Heaven, I'm coming here when I die.”) They'd anonymously infiltrated a raucous crowd of locals in loudly cheering on the Pittsburgh Steelers and throwing pretzels and peanuts at the Steelers' archrivals, the Baltimore Ravens (and the bartender), and it was fun, and for an entire evening, neither of them were world saviors or bringers of doom or chosen ones or any of that bullshit. (Although Dean did insist on introducing himself to strangers as Seacrist O'Malley to see if anyone's eyes flipped to black. “See what I did there, Sammy? Huh? Who says I can't do subtle? I got subtle coming out of my ass.” “Yeah? Better put your invisible proctologist on speed dial. Sounds like you're gonna need him.”)
It was almost closing time now but still comfortably crowded and noisy, and the jukebox was a steady pulse of pop and rock in the background. Dean, out of respect for their date night (fuck, stop calling it that, stupid brain!) was content to flirt with the cute waitress while letting her know that he was strictly a solo act tonight. Sigh. He pocketed phone numbers from two other women, smiled politely but dismissively at an interested young man, and spent the rest of his time mentally working on his Schwarzenegger line, that mythical perfect line that is to be uttered just moments before dispatching an evil sonovabitch.(“I'll be back,” and “Hasta la vista, baby” and "Consider this a divorce," are all taken, of course. Damn the man's genius!) Thus far in his career as a hunter, he's mostly found himself yelling things like, “Stop trying to strangle my brother!” and … Well, pretty much that's all he ever yells at fuglies before he puts them down. It's kinda depressing.
Sam (a.k.a. The Incredible Lightweight Drinker) had tripped and fallen right over his three-beer limit several hours back, and had graduated from being merely embarrassingly stupidly drunk (“Oops, sorry, ma'am, didn't mean to bump you - Oh, crap, sorry, dude, I thought you were a woman, heh heh.” “I am a woman.” “Oh. Oh. Crap.”) to being humiliatingly retardedly drunk, and was currently trying to seduce a completely disinterested lesbian who was occupied with making out with her girlfriend in public (they were starting to make Dean blush, for pete's sake) by telling her that he knew how to say the phrase “Bite me” in thirty-two languages plus Morse Code. “And Enochian,” Sam added with a sloppy grin.
Dean paused, the beer lifted halfway to his mouth forgotten for a moment. “Bite me” wasn't all Sam could say in Enochian, the language of the angels. Thanks to his century down in the Cage with fucking Lucifer, and fucking Michael, the sadistic Wondertwins, Sam was the only human being on the planet - possibly in the entire history of the planet - who was fucking fluent in Enochian. He'd never spoken of it to Dean, but it didn't take a linguistics expert to realize that the miserable sobbed mutterings that came from Sam's bed in the darkest part of the night were real words, in a real language. Real pleas for mercy, for death, for his brother, for Jess, for his Dad, for it all to stop. Angelic motherfuckers. Just the thought of them made Dean's trigger finger itch, made him want to seek out the meanest sonuvabitch in the bar and pick a fight... He had to consciously put a lid on his rising temper. Not here, and not now, Dean ordered himself, don't spoil a fun night out for Sam, and drank down his beer with brittle determination.
“And yet you can't understand the simple phrase “Go away, you fucking creep” in plain English,” the girl was saying in a lazy drawl, tucking her hand further down the ass of her girlfriend's jeans.
Sam's face fell.
Aw hell, no, Dean thought. Houston, the Emo has landed.
At this point, Dean (a.k.a. He Who Shall Never Let Sam Near Alcohol Again) had decided to call it a night. The poor kid never could understand the casual cruelty of the human race, never learned to brace himself for impact. “Time to go, kiddo,” he said, plucking the beer from Sam's hand. “You've got an appointment with a hangover in about six hours.”
Sam's constipated response of “Muérdame, Dean” in a surprisingly authentic Spanish accent did not impress Dean. “Right back atcha, Casanova.” He had just elbowed between two tattooed, ten-day-stubbled construction worker types at the bar to settle the tab with the grumbling bartender when Sam suddenly blurted out behind him, “Dude, they're playing our song!”
The bartender's bushy eyebrows snapped to attention. The workers' heads swiveled to aim amused smirks at Dean, and please, was that amount of facial stubble really necessary?
Dean coughed, and muttered, “Heh, we sure get some oddballs in here on game nights, eh, boys?” And he was just about to defuse the tense moment by oh-so-casually mentioning his pet pitbull, his favorite NFL quarterback, his tour in 'Nam, and what the hell, Sam's third testicle, when an eight and a half foot tall yeti suddenly draped itself over his back and shoulders, pressing his chest into the bar.
“I'd catch a grenade for ya,” Sam bellowed/sang in Dean's ear. His sasquatch hands groped and patted at Dean's face and hair like Helen Keller at a drunken orgy. “S'our song, Dean! Throw my hand on a blade for ya. Sing it, Dean!”
“Yeah, can't really breathe here, Sammy,” Dean whispered, trying to peel a ginormous hand off his chin.
Sam's answer was to plant an enthusiastic kiss (“mwah!”) on Dean's ear. There may have been some tongue involved, Dean was too traumatized to know for sure. “Jump in front of a train for ya --”
The construction workers were shaking with laughter by now, and Dean's face was turning purple, a combination of red (embarrassment) and blue (lack of oxygen).
R.I.P. Dean Winchester, his tombstone would read, Beloved Brother, Friend to Mankind, God's Gift to Womankind, Killed By ROY G fuckin' BIV.
Sam's octopus arms were wrapped firmly around Dean's torso, and he was howling something about “black and blue, beat me till I'm numb, tell the devil I said hey,” when the bartender, who'd spent the better part of the evening being pelted with snack foods and now was being musically assaulted, decided to call an end to amateur hour and slapped a wooden baseball bat down on the bar. “You boys need to settle down right quick,” he said, leaning down to point the business end of the bat at Dean's wincing face.
Dean gave him a look that plainly said What the fuck? Victim here, buddy! Talk to Godzilla up there, I'm an innocent bystander, with a jab of his thumb in Sam's direction in case the barkeep was unclear as to which Godzilla he was referring to.
“Aw, hell, Craig, leave the lovebirds alone, they ain't bothering no one,” Builder Bob on the left said. Dean slid a lethal sneer at the man, and said, well, nothing, 'cause hey, no air.
“Ooh, toys! S'like Chuck E Cheese,” Sam cried happily, and thank fucking god he let go of Dean to grab the baseball bat.
Dean's lungs immediately sucked in a breath and wheezed out, “Notgayjustbrothers” -- which he could probably manage to mumble on his deathbed with a ventilator tube shoved down his throat, he'd had so much practice saying it over the years, dammit - but no one seemed to notice he'd said anything.
Probably because Sam was saying mournfully “Aw, man, I broke your stick. Sorry about that,” as he gently laid the two splintered halves of the bat in front of Dean. And just as gently, and sounding in that instant dead sober and not at all amused, “You maybe shouldn't poke things in my brother's face. Okay?”
Craig blinked. Nodded. “Okay.”
There was an odd bubble of shocked silence under the drumming music and background chatter, then Dean cleared his throat and said, “He always was rough on his toys. Hey, Sam, remember that Slinky you got jammed up your nose when you were five?” The tension broke, all of them grinning sheepishly, and Sam took that as his cue to wrap his brother up in a bear hug, bellowing, “Take a bullet straight through my brain - They wrote a fucking song about us, man!” as the construction workers slapped them on the shoulders and ordered another round of beers for the brothers.
So yeah, Sam Winchester loves his brother. Dean knows this, like he knows the sun will rise in the east. Doesn't need to think about it, or debate whether he deserves it. He just knows it.
“Garth, if this is another assdial, I will end you,” Sheriff Jody Mills says as soon as she picks up. “You either stop carrying your phone in your back pocket, or you lose my cell number. Got it? Good.”
“Hey, Sheriff, it's Sam. How's it going?” Sam replies. He clicks the button for 'speakerphone' and sets the phone on the table between them.
“Sam?” The threatening growl turns into a friendly purr. “Well, I'll be damned. Thought you two must've lost your phones, it's been so long. Good to hear your voice, Sam.”
The sheriff always did have a soft spot for Sam. (Creepy, right? What's the world coming to, when you can't count on an officer of the law to try to kill you?) It's like nobody ever told her about the years Sam spent possessed by Satan/rotting in Hell/soulless/driving a Dodge Charger. Or maybe she just didn't believe it. She e-mails him regularly, not just updates about the FBI's search for the Winchesters, but about an interesting book she's reading on anti-terrorism tactics, and the vegetable garden she paid a neighbor kid to dig and plant for her, and the best methods for getting gun oil stains out of clothing. Last Christmas, she sent Sam mittens. Mittens. Dean received a coupon for a free donut with the purchase of a cup of coffee. (“Smug is not a good look on you, Sam.” “I'm her favorite. I bet if I called her 'Jody', she wouldn't even shoot me for it.” “Oh, get over yourself. The woman sent you mittens, not her left kidney.” “She waters my crops on FarmVille.” “Okay, that's just creepy, Sam.”)
Dean's never been able to fathom it. Seriously, how does his brother do it? Just two years ago, Sam had been the one to put a bullet in her young son's brain, for fuck's sake. True, the kid was an undead cannibal zombie at the time, and had just turned his own dad into a sushi combo platter on their living room floor, but still. You gotta forgive family, right? Dean ought to know, he's forgiven Sam for worse than that. And in the non-hunter world, isn't shooting someone's kid the sort of thing that gets you permanently taken off of that someone's Facebook 'friends' list? And yet, the Sheriff seems to have put it behind her. She sends cases their way, does what she can to lend unofficial support to a growing network of hunter connections, and she keeps tabs on the Leviathan situation. But with Sam, she's... well, maternal is the only word Dean can think of that comes close.
Sam has no real explanation for it either. (“It's the dimples, man. They have powers.” “Pfft, I've seen your dimples, Sam. All they do is stop your freaky-ass sideburns from going feral and running amok over your entire body, like kudzu vine hitting a ditch. That's not a power, dude, that's just landscaping.” “No, I'm serious, man. These dimples? Lethal. Look, I don't want to worry you, but I think it's maybe another one of the Special Kids talents. Never really dared to unleash it enough to find out for sure. With great power comes great responsibility, you know.” “Oh, Peter Parker, you are so full of complete and utter bullshit.” “Fine, allow me to demonstrate... Dean Winchester, your Impala is a sorry piece of shit --” “Hey!” “-- and I'd be doing your ass a favor if I drove it to Vegas, sold it to a street-corner pimp, and blew the cash on hookers and vegan buffets.” “Fuck that noise, you sick son of a - Oh, you think smiling is going to … Dammit. Yeah, okay, okay, you've proved your point. Turn the cloaking device back on, Sam, you're making my brain sweat.”)
Maybe it's because Sam has always been polite and respectful around the sheriff, and always seems just a bit surprised that anyone seems to genuinely like him back, which disarms people and just makes them like him all the more... Yeah, whatever. Dean far prefers the brain-melting dimples theory.
“Good to hear your voice, too, Sheriff.” Sam's smile is crooked, shy but genuine.
Dimples deployed at one quarter power, Dean notes, grinning to himself.
“Is your brother around? Or did some jealous boyfriend finally shoot his ass?”
“I'm right here, Sheriff,” Dean says. “Hey, check it out. We're on vacation, right? But that doesn't mean we're going to turn into couch potatoes. We're keeping ourselves sharp, you know? So Sam taught himself to say 'bite me' in three new languages. German --”
“Du kannst mich mal ,” Sam says obediently.
“-- and Gaelic --”
“Greim mise.”
“-- and my personal favorite, Australian --”
“Bite me, mate,” says Sam, and meets Dean halfway for a self-congratulatory fist-bump.
"It's always nice to see someone trying to improve himself," the sheriff says, a bit doubtful. "And what have you been up to, Dean?"
“Me? Oh, I've been wearing the same pair of boxers for so long that the crotch makes crackling noises when I walk.” He winks at Sam, leans in for another fist-bump.
Sam gives him a sideways look of you better be shitting me, and crab-walks his chair firmly away from Dean, scrubbing his fist-bumping hand on his thigh as a health precaution. Dean rolls his eyes. Wuss.
Sheriff Mills is silent for a moment. It's been a while since she's last spoken Winchesterese; it's not one of the most popular dialects of American Bullshit. “You telling me you get vacations now?”
“Well, kinda. I mean, we are looking into a case. There's this old mansion in a little neighborhood of Pittsburgh. --” Dean hesitates when Sam loudly clears his throat. Then he lifts his eyes heavenward for patience, and says sourly, “Or, as the locals like to call it - the House of Death.”
Sam jabs a button on the phone. Thunder strikes, terrified horses neigh, and Sam grins like a madman. (Heh.)
“Was that -?”
“Yep, an homage to Mel Brooks,” Sam nods eagerly, and punches Dean in the shoulder. “See? You do not have to be batshit crazy to think it's funny. Jerk.”
Dean pinches the bridge of his nose, wondering if it's possible to beat someone to death with a cell phone.
“No, but I imagine it helps.” The sheriff is apparently pondering the same thing. “Well, at least you're not in federal custody yet. Or starting another apocolypse,” she mutters, and adds, “Yet,” just to be sure she's getting her point across.
“We're doing our best to stay out of trouble, Sheriff,” Sam says, idly stroking the phone with his fingertips.
Dean watches quietly while Sam lays out the embarassingly few details of the Reilly case, wonders if maybe they shouldn't go see the sheriff in person. She's not really old enough to be Sam's mother, but damn, the vibe between these two is pure mom-son. Dean's not sure if Sam even recognizes it. The kid has no memory of Mom, no exposure to being mothered, outside of Dean's crude parenting skills when they were growing up. Maybe he thinks she's just being kind to Bobby's surviving family?
“Anytime you want to chat, Sam,” she says agreeably after a while. “Hey, put your brother on, would you?”
Sam, baffled, says,“He can hear you, he's sitting right here.”
“She means go take a walk so we can gossip about what a filthy slut you are behind your back, Cindy Lou,” Dean informs him, and pastes on a bland smile.
“Oh. Okay.... Guess I'll go for a run.” Sam shrugs and grabs his running shoes.
“So I'm guessing your 'vacation' has something to do with Sam's situation. How's he doing?” she says as soon as Sam is out the door.
“He's dealing.”
Jody Mills is the only person left alive who knows about Sam's mental state. The only person who knows, intellectually at least, what Sam went through to bring him to this point. “The freaky Hell-O-Visions when he's awake seem to have tapered off.” Not that Sam has said as much. Dean, who has always been a keen observer of the rare bird Sammus Dorkius, has had to become an expert at pinpointing those moments when Sam starts sliding sideways into a waking dream of being tortured, and needs to be nudged out of it with a distraction to ground him in the here and now.
“How about the walks on the beach with Satan?”
“Oh, that's a whole 'nother story. Little freak just shrugs that off like it's normal to have Lucifer sharing your shaving mirror with you. Says it's so bland and harmless compared to the real thing, like a very faint echo, that it barely bothers him at all,. Even makes jokes about it sometimes.” (Hey, Dean, Lucifer says if you leave your dirty socks on the tv one more time, he's gonna make me suffocate you with them. Just saying. Totally not my idea, FYI.)
“I guess that's a good sign.” The Sheriff sounds iffy on the subject.
Dean scratches his eyebrow with his thumb. “Yeah, kind of creeps me out too.” You'd never catch me cracking jokes about Alistair, no fucking way. “I'm worried he's taking it too lightly, maybe it'll come back to bite us in the ass on down the road... But for now,” he sighs, “I'd give my left nut just to get a decent night's sleep.”
“Sam's still making nightly visits to the Cage, huh?”
“Yeah.”
Dean's pretty sure Sam doesn't remember much about his nightmares in the daytime. Or he doesn't volunteer that information, and Dean doesn't ask. Doesn't need to, really. Memories of Alastair's creative use of fire and force and blade had frequently brought Dean flailing upright in his bed that first year after he'd clawed his way out of the ground. Still does, some nights. He knows all about the stuttering breath (stay back - get away from me - fucking gut you) and the graceless scramble to the floor (shards of bone/glass/teeth in his palms and knees) with the blankets tangled around his legs. So he's never surprised nowadays when he's awakened by a hoarse scream or, somehow worse, the muted sound of choked sobbing, and someone stumbling about the room. He just rolls out of bed - they always leave a lamp on - and joins Sam, crouched in a corner of the room, head buried in his arms, trying to make himself hidden, make himself invisible. Usually, Sam will wake up completely within a few seconds, Dean's hand a firm squeeze on the back of his neck until Sam is able to sit up and gives a shaky nod of thanks. Other times, Dean's voice speaking quiet words of encouragement (safe with me, Sammy, safe now) is needed to bring him out of it. And other times, the nightmare lingers, Sam's wrecked voice choking out the strange stilted syllables of the angels' language, eyes squeezed shut against his brother's throat, shuddering, completely lost in his own head while Dean (shouts his name, hugs him tight, pulls his hair, pets and whispers and kisses his temple, pinches and slaps and shakes him by the shoulders) does whatever it takes to snap him out of it, bring his brother back from Hell.
“And besides it being tons of fun for him and me both, the lack of sleep is crippling us.” He chews on his lip. “I think it might be time to look for some help.”
“You mean check him into a hospital?”
“What? No! No,” he says, calmer. “No one's locking Sammy up.” He sucks in a calming breath. “Maybe a sleep expert. If we could get a handle on that, the rest of it should be manageable.”
She's quiet for a minute, and he knows she's thinking that he's deluding himself, that the entire Sam Winchester package is so damaged that sleeping pills and bedtime foot massages or whatever aren't even going to scratch the surface. But she simply says, “I'll put out some inquiries. Maybe we'll find someone with hunter connections. It'd be nice if whoever it is doesn't think we're just as loony tunes as Sam.”
“That'd be good. I'll talk to Sam about it.” Dean rubs his eyes wearily.
Never thought we'd come to this.
Next: Chapter 4
Master Post
Putting the Fün Back in Dysfünctional
Author: greenthumb421
Artist: annartism
Summary: Laughing used to come easy to the Winchester boys.Sometimes Sam thinks they'll never really laugh again. Sam n' Dean, worn down by Bobby's death, Sam's hallucinations of Lucifer, lack of sleep, and the (temporary) loss of the Impala, decide to take a week or two off from hunting, rest up, and try to have some fun, see if they can remember how to laugh. The old Reilly 'House of Death' case in Pittsburgh, PA, seems like a nice, non-urgent case to chew over while they kick back and catch up on sleep. Unfortunately, the hyena demons infesting the house have other ideas.
Characters: Dean, Sam, Sheriff Jody Mills and OMC's.
Pairings: Gen. No, really! Okay, some if-you-squint slashiness, but no worse than canon.
Disclaimer: No profit, no glory, just borrowing the boys from Kripke and the CW.
Rating: PG-13 for language, violence
Word Count: approx 33,000
Warnings: Spoilers through 7.12 Time After Time. Language. (Seriously, gratuitous overuse of the F-bomb.) Misuse of the Pittsburghese dialect, the Ethiopian Christian Church, italics (and parentheses), Trojan condoms, and stuffed cats (but not together, ewwww). And epically long run-on sentences.
.pdf version, created by annartism (thanks, hon!)
The freakin' awesome artworks by annartism can all be seen here, including some tinted versions not seen with the story. Be sure to look for all the hilarious 'Lord of the Rings' references in the scene she created of Sam sitting on his bed!
Song lyrics taken from Bruno Mars' Grenade.
Many thanks go to my primary beta namichan89 for reading and cheerleading and idea bouncing and for making me laugh. The world would be a better place with more sweet souls like you.
Thanks also to my backup beta vyperdd for her emergency handholding and critical feedback. Also, thank you to paleogymnast, one of the mods of the immensely helpful omgspnbigbang, for taking the time to answer my questions and lend a helping hand. Finally, thank you to slightlysatanic, the other mod of omgspnbigbang, and to wendy and thehighwaywoman, mods of spn_j2_big_bang. Our fandom rocks because of people like you ladies!
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Putting the Fün Back in Dysfünctional
Master Post Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6
Dean Winchester's brother Sam loves him.
Sam didn't have to save the world to prove to Dean that Sam has a big heart. (Although he did it anyway. 'Cause Sam Winchester is the bravest fucking kid in the entire fucking universe. Stopped the motherfucking Apocalypse dead in its tracks, man.) But Dean's always known his little brother has a soft, mushy center to him (possibly yoghurt), because Sam Winchester, scary-smart, overgrown pre-teen girl that he is, has never been afraid to admit that he loves his big brother Dean.
Well, okay, not out loud, 'cause, come on, he'd never hear the end of it. (Dean would see to that. Heckling was part of his job description.) But shit, Sammy has his ways of saying it.
For instance, last Monday.
It was less than a week after their interview with Jon Reilly when Sam complained, “Man, we need to get out of this motel room."
It was true.
The room was bizarre to begin with, apparently decorated with hopes of catering to the needs of the hordes of travelling Lord of the Rings fanatics that roam the Pennsylvania countryside in search of a place to rest their weary heads. ("No coffee maker? They spend money on bedspreads that have detailed maps of Middle Earth, but there's no goddamn coffee maker?" "Just roll with it, dude. Oh, and don't sit on the Kingdom of Rohan, Dean. That's where the normal sized men live. You belong over there on the Shire, with all the other hobbits. Heheh." "Yeah, heheh, bite my rosy hobbit ass, Samwise.") Hanging on the water-stained walls were multiple portraits of that fucking creepy Eye of Sauron tower, which didn't at all make Dean feel like someone was fucking staring at him all the fucking time, nosirreebob, and what the hell, Party Trees carved into the headboards? Was that some sort of ironic comment on the non-existant sex life of anyone geeky enough to enjoy staying here? ("Admit it, Dean. You loved those movies right up until the scene where the giant spider showed up in the cave, and then you freaked out." "Excuse me? I don't freak out --" "You started hyperventilating and ran out of the theater." "I had to go to the can." "For an hour?" "....Shut up, Sam.") Just lying on the bed made Dean worry that his testosterone levels were dropping like a rock thrown down a mineshaft.
Sam fucking loved the room. Of course.
So Dean bit his tongue, and instead of hyperventilating (which he totally never did), he settled into the room like it was his new vacation home. Which it was, dammit. Which meant that within days of the Winchesters' arrival, the room was a complete shambles, resembling the subterranean lair of some lesser species of wendigo. A really lazy, disgusting wendigo. One that had never heard of Martha Stewart's hints for keeping a lovely home, and that probably would have ignored said hints anyway before proceding to devour her face, no doubt using the wrong fork.
Yeah, it was that bad.
On the third day, the motel manager had dropped by to see why they weren't letting the maid in to clean. Dean was out, doing his monthly Dean Winchester version of a Red Door day, meaning a cheap haircut for himself and a ludicrously expensive wash and wax for the car. ("Don't forget to buy the Mustang a new air freshener to hang from the mirror. One that smells like cheap perfume. You know, like all the slutty whores wear." "Shut up, Sam.") Sam, blocking the man's view into the room - he needn't have bothered, since the guns scattered about the room were buried under beer cans, pizza boxes, and dirty laundry - had maybe panicked just a bit and maybe kinda tried to fry the man's internal organs using the evil power of his brain ("Heh, that shit's never gonna not be funny, Sam. Hey! Hey, Sammy, do me now! C'mon, hold up your hand like you're singing 'Stop In The Name of Love' and give me that constipated look - Yeah, that's the one! Owww, no fair punching me in the spleen, I might need that some day.") and when that didn't work, he ended up blurting out that they were on their honeymoon and wanted their privacy. ("You said what now? On our honey -- What, are you fucking nuts, Sam? No one with half a brain's gonna buy that.”) Even after the complimentary fruit basket arrived, Dean couldn't bring himself to make any jokes about yeah, privacy for our big gay incestuous honeymoon. It was just too disturbing how quickly their vacation was turning into a Motel 6 version of Lord of the Flies.
Even more disturbing, Dean's underpants radius had gotten just a bit out of control. (“My what now?” “You know, the distance from his bed that a man is comfortable wearing just his underpants? Usually goes just as far as the bathroom. You kinda broke all the records for that.” “If they didn't want to see a man in his boxers, they shouldn't have invented the drive-thru beer distributor.”)
Sam said, “We've done nothing but get drunk, eat junkfood, and watch Redbox movies in our underwear for the last four days.”
Even though he kind of agreed, Dean was morally and legally obligated to argue about it. “I'm sorry, you're implying that there's somehow a down side to this?”
“We're becoming lazy, disgusting slobs.”
“...Yeaahh, still not seeing the bad.”
“Lucifer's complaining that we're disgusting, okay?”
“Wow. That's quite an insult, coming from a brain fart.”
“Just because he's a product of my diseased brain doesn't mean he can't have standards.”
“Well, yeah, but - I mean ... Oh, fine. I'll get the car keys.”
“And ...”
“And pants... You know, if I ever get myself an imaginary evil friend, it's sure as shit gonna be someone who's more fun to hang out with than yours is. Like maybe an evil proctologist.” He pursed his lips, considered. “With laser eyes.”
So, it was Monday and they were out 'endorphing' - Hey, Sam likes calling it that, okay? And Dean lets it ride, because while they might someday find a cure for his brother's pesky insanity issues, they will never ever find a cure for his terminal dorkiness, so why fight it? (In yet another example of his supreme dorkitude, Sam, in a moment of boredom, has programmed his cell phone so that whenever anyone utters the phrase “House of Death”, Sam can covertly push a single button and suddenly there's a loud crash of thunder and the sound of horses whinnying in terror. “It's an homage to Mel Brooks. You know, Frau Blucher in Young Frankenstein? Oh, c'mon, it's funny … Yeah, okay, maybe you have to be insane to get the joke.”) So, 'endorphing' it is.
So, yeah, it was Monday and they were out 'endorphing', which on that night meant impersonating average guys in some tiny Pennsylvania town's corner pub slash sports bar. The 'sports bar' part meant a pair of hilariously warped pool tables and a much abused dart board. (Sam and Dean played a couple of rounds of pool against each other, and then teamed up against a few of the locals, but were careful to keep it friendly, no hustling, since they were officially off the clock.) It also meant the place boasted a single oversized flatscreen hanging right over the bar, which in turn meant that the bartender was in a perpetually pissy mood, because while he could hear the play-by-play, he never got to actually see any of the Monday night football games. (“What happened? What'd I miss? Goddammit!”) Dean and Sam agreed that the bartender alone was entertainment worth coming back here someday. The 'pub' part meant surprisingly good chili dogs cooked in the tiny kitchen out back, and half-price beer on tap until midnight, so no one gave a fuck if the bartender's attitude was shitty. (“Throw in some skin mags and a supply of peanut M&M's ...” Sam muttered with a sideways look, and Dean finished with a happy sigh, “... Screw Heaven, I'm coming here when I die.”) They'd anonymously infiltrated a raucous crowd of locals in loudly cheering on the Pittsburgh Steelers and throwing pretzels and peanuts at the Steelers' archrivals, the Baltimore Ravens (and the bartender), and it was fun, and for an entire evening, neither of them were world saviors or bringers of doom or chosen ones or any of that bullshit. (Although Dean did insist on introducing himself to strangers as Seacrist O'Malley to see if anyone's eyes flipped to black. “See what I did there, Sammy? Huh? Who says I can't do subtle? I got subtle coming out of my ass.” “Yeah? Better put your invisible proctologist on speed dial. Sounds like you're gonna need him.”)
It was almost closing time now but still comfortably crowded and noisy, and the jukebox was a steady pulse of pop and rock in the background. Dean, out of respect for their date night (fuck, stop calling it that, stupid brain!) was content to flirt with the cute waitress while letting her know that he was strictly a solo act tonight. Sigh. He pocketed phone numbers from two other women, smiled politely but dismissively at an interested young man, and spent the rest of his time mentally working on his Schwarzenegger line, that mythical perfect line that is to be uttered just moments before dispatching an evil sonovabitch.(“I'll be back,” and “Hasta la vista, baby” and "Consider this a divorce," are all taken, of course. Damn the man's genius!) Thus far in his career as a hunter, he's mostly found himself yelling things like, “Stop trying to strangle my brother!” and … Well, pretty much that's all he ever yells at fuglies before he puts them down. It's kinda depressing.
Sam (a.k.a. The Incredible Lightweight Drinker) had tripped and fallen right over his three-beer limit several hours back, and had graduated from being merely embarrassingly stupidly drunk (“Oops, sorry, ma'am, didn't mean to bump you - Oh, crap, sorry, dude, I thought you were a woman, heh heh.” “I am a woman.” “Oh. Oh. Crap.”) to being humiliatingly retardedly drunk, and was currently trying to seduce a completely disinterested lesbian who was occupied with making out with her girlfriend in public (they were starting to make Dean blush, for pete's sake) by telling her that he knew how to say the phrase “Bite me” in thirty-two languages plus Morse Code. “And Enochian,” Sam added with a sloppy grin.
Dean paused, the beer lifted halfway to his mouth forgotten for a moment. “Bite me” wasn't all Sam could say in Enochian, the language of the angels. Thanks to his century down in the Cage with fucking Lucifer, and fucking Michael, the sadistic Wondertwins, Sam was the only human being on the planet - possibly in the entire history of the planet - who was fucking fluent in Enochian. He'd never spoken of it to Dean, but it didn't take a linguistics expert to realize that the miserable sobbed mutterings that came from Sam's bed in the darkest part of the night were real words, in a real language. Real pleas for mercy, for death, for his brother, for Jess, for his Dad, for it all to stop. Angelic motherfuckers. Just the thought of them made Dean's trigger finger itch, made him want to seek out the meanest sonuvabitch in the bar and pick a fight... He had to consciously put a lid on his rising temper. Not here, and not now, Dean ordered himself, don't spoil a fun night out for Sam, and drank down his beer with brittle determination.
“And yet you can't understand the simple phrase “Go away, you fucking creep” in plain English,” the girl was saying in a lazy drawl, tucking her hand further down the ass of her girlfriend's jeans.
Sam's face fell.
Aw hell, no, Dean thought. Houston, the Emo has landed.
At this point, Dean (a.k.a. He Who Shall Never Let Sam Near Alcohol Again) had decided to call it a night. The poor kid never could understand the casual cruelty of the human race, never learned to brace himself for impact. “Time to go, kiddo,” he said, plucking the beer from Sam's hand. “You've got an appointment with a hangover in about six hours.”
Sam's constipated response of “Muérdame, Dean” in a surprisingly authentic Spanish accent did not impress Dean. “Right back atcha, Casanova.” He had just elbowed between two tattooed, ten-day-stubbled construction worker types at the bar to settle the tab with the grumbling bartender when Sam suddenly blurted out behind him, “Dude, they're playing our song!”
The bartender's bushy eyebrows snapped to attention. The workers' heads swiveled to aim amused smirks at Dean, and please, was that amount of facial stubble really necessary?
Dean coughed, and muttered, “Heh, we sure get some oddballs in here on game nights, eh, boys?” And he was just about to defuse the tense moment by oh-so-casually mentioning his pet pitbull, his favorite NFL quarterback, his tour in 'Nam, and what the hell, Sam's third testicle, when an eight and a half foot tall yeti suddenly draped itself over his back and shoulders, pressing his chest into the bar.
“I'd catch a grenade for ya,” Sam bellowed/sang in Dean's ear. His sasquatch hands groped and patted at Dean's face and hair like Helen Keller at a drunken orgy. “S'our song, Dean! Throw my hand on a blade for ya. Sing it, Dean!”
“Yeah, can't really breathe here, Sammy,” Dean whispered, trying to peel a ginormous hand off his chin.
Sam's answer was to plant an enthusiastic kiss (“mwah!”) on Dean's ear. There may have been some tongue involved, Dean was too traumatized to know for sure. “Jump in front of a train for ya --”
The construction workers were shaking with laughter by now, and Dean's face was turning purple, a combination of red (embarrassment) and blue (lack of oxygen).
R.I.P. Dean Winchester, his tombstone would read, Beloved Brother, Friend to Mankind, God's Gift to Womankind, Killed By ROY G fuckin' BIV.
Sam's octopus arms were wrapped firmly around Dean's torso, and he was howling something about “black and blue, beat me till I'm numb, tell the devil I said hey,” when the bartender, who'd spent the better part of the evening being pelted with snack foods and now was being musically assaulted, decided to call an end to amateur hour and slapped a wooden baseball bat down on the bar. “You boys need to settle down right quick,” he said, leaning down to point the business end of the bat at Dean's wincing face.
Dean gave him a look that plainly said What the fuck? Victim here, buddy! Talk to Godzilla up there, I'm an innocent bystander, with a jab of his thumb in Sam's direction in case the barkeep was unclear as to which Godzilla he was referring to.
“Aw, hell, Craig, leave the lovebirds alone, they ain't bothering no one,” Builder Bob on the left said. Dean slid a lethal sneer at the man, and said, well, nothing, 'cause hey, no air.
“Ooh, toys! S'like Chuck E Cheese,” Sam cried happily, and thank fucking god he let go of Dean to grab the baseball bat.
Dean's lungs immediately sucked in a breath and wheezed out, “Notgayjustbrothers” -- which he could probably manage to mumble on his deathbed with a ventilator tube shoved down his throat, he'd had so much practice saying it over the years, dammit - but no one seemed to notice he'd said anything.
Probably because Sam was saying mournfully “Aw, man, I broke your stick. Sorry about that,” as he gently laid the two splintered halves of the bat in front of Dean. And just as gently, and sounding in that instant dead sober and not at all amused, “You maybe shouldn't poke things in my brother's face. Okay?”
Craig blinked. Nodded. “Okay.”
There was an odd bubble of shocked silence under the drumming music and background chatter, then Dean cleared his throat and said, “He always was rough on his toys. Hey, Sam, remember that Slinky you got jammed up your nose when you were five?” The tension broke, all of them grinning sheepishly, and Sam took that as his cue to wrap his brother up in a bear hug, bellowing, “Take a bullet straight through my brain - They wrote a fucking song about us, man!” as the construction workers slapped them on the shoulders and ordered another round of beers for the brothers.
So yeah, Sam Winchester loves his brother. Dean knows this, like he knows the sun will rise in the east. Doesn't need to think about it, or debate whether he deserves it. He just knows it.
“Garth, if this is another assdial, I will end you,” Sheriff Jody Mills says as soon as she picks up. “You either stop carrying your phone in your back pocket, or you lose my cell number. Got it? Good.”
“Hey, Sheriff, it's Sam. How's it going?” Sam replies. He clicks the button for 'speakerphone' and sets the phone on the table between them.
“Sam?” The threatening growl turns into a friendly purr. “Well, I'll be damned. Thought you two must've lost your phones, it's been so long. Good to hear your voice, Sam.”
The sheriff always did have a soft spot for Sam. (Creepy, right? What's the world coming to, when you can't count on an officer of the law to try to kill you?) It's like nobody ever told her about the years Sam spent possessed by Satan/rotting in Hell/soulless/driving a Dodge Charger. Or maybe she just didn't believe it. She e-mails him regularly, not just updates about the FBI's search for the Winchesters, but about an interesting book she's reading on anti-terrorism tactics, and the vegetable garden she paid a neighbor kid to dig and plant for her, and the best methods for getting gun oil stains out of clothing. Last Christmas, she sent Sam mittens. Mittens. Dean received a coupon for a free donut with the purchase of a cup of coffee. (“Smug is not a good look on you, Sam.” “I'm her favorite. I bet if I called her 'Jody', she wouldn't even shoot me for it.” “Oh, get over yourself. The woman sent you mittens, not her left kidney.” “She waters my crops on FarmVille.” “Okay, that's just creepy, Sam.”)
Dean's never been able to fathom it. Seriously, how does his brother do it? Just two years ago, Sam had been the one to put a bullet in her young son's brain, for fuck's sake. True, the kid was an undead cannibal zombie at the time, and had just turned his own dad into a sushi combo platter on their living room floor, but still. You gotta forgive family, right? Dean ought to know, he's forgiven Sam for worse than that. And in the non-hunter world, isn't shooting someone's kid the sort of thing that gets you permanently taken off of that someone's Facebook 'friends' list? And yet, the Sheriff seems to have put it behind her. She sends cases their way, does what she can to lend unofficial support to a growing network of hunter connections, and she keeps tabs on the Leviathan situation. But with Sam, she's... well, maternal is the only word Dean can think of that comes close.
Sam has no real explanation for it either. (“It's the dimples, man. They have powers.” “Pfft, I've seen your dimples, Sam. All they do is stop your freaky-ass sideburns from going feral and running amok over your entire body, like kudzu vine hitting a ditch. That's not a power, dude, that's just landscaping.” “No, I'm serious, man. These dimples? Lethal. Look, I don't want to worry you, but I think it's maybe another one of the Special Kids talents. Never really dared to unleash it enough to find out for sure. With great power comes great responsibility, you know.” “Oh, Peter Parker, you are so full of complete and utter bullshit.” “Fine, allow me to demonstrate... Dean Winchester, your Impala is a sorry piece of shit --” “Hey!” “-- and I'd be doing your ass a favor if I drove it to Vegas, sold it to a street-corner pimp, and blew the cash on hookers and vegan buffets.” “Fuck that noise, you sick son of a - Oh, you think smiling is going to … Dammit. Yeah, okay, okay, you've proved your point. Turn the cloaking device back on, Sam, you're making my brain sweat.”)
Maybe it's because Sam has always been polite and respectful around the sheriff, and always seems just a bit surprised that anyone seems to genuinely like him back, which disarms people and just makes them like him all the more... Yeah, whatever. Dean far prefers the brain-melting dimples theory.
“Good to hear your voice, too, Sheriff.” Sam's smile is crooked, shy but genuine.
Dimples deployed at one quarter power, Dean notes, grinning to himself.
“Is your brother around? Or did some jealous boyfriend finally shoot his ass?”
“I'm right here, Sheriff,” Dean says. “Hey, check it out. We're on vacation, right? But that doesn't mean we're going to turn into couch potatoes. We're keeping ourselves sharp, you know? So Sam taught himself to say 'bite me' in three new languages. German --”
“Du kannst mich mal ,” Sam says obediently.
“-- and Gaelic --”
“Greim mise.”
“-- and my personal favorite, Australian --”
“Bite me, mate,” says Sam, and meets Dean halfway for a self-congratulatory fist-bump.
"It's always nice to see someone trying to improve himself," the sheriff says, a bit doubtful. "And what have you been up to, Dean?"
“Me? Oh, I've been wearing the same pair of boxers for so long that the crotch makes crackling noises when I walk.” He winks at Sam, leans in for another fist-bump.
Sam gives him a sideways look of you better be shitting me, and crab-walks his chair firmly away from Dean, scrubbing his fist-bumping hand on his thigh as a health precaution. Dean rolls his eyes. Wuss.
Sheriff Mills is silent for a moment. It's been a while since she's last spoken Winchesterese; it's not one of the most popular dialects of American Bullshit. “You telling me you get vacations now?”
“Well, kinda. I mean, we are looking into a case. There's this old mansion in a little neighborhood of Pittsburgh. --” Dean hesitates when Sam loudly clears his throat. Then he lifts his eyes heavenward for patience, and says sourly, “Or, as the locals like to call it - the House of Death.”
Sam jabs a button on the phone. Thunder strikes, terrified horses neigh, and Sam grins like a madman. (Heh.)
“Was that -?”
“Yep, an homage to Mel Brooks,” Sam nods eagerly, and punches Dean in the shoulder. “See? You do not have to be batshit crazy to think it's funny. Jerk.”
Dean pinches the bridge of his nose, wondering if it's possible to beat someone to death with a cell phone.
“No, but I imagine it helps.” The sheriff is apparently pondering the same thing. “Well, at least you're not in federal custody yet. Or starting another apocolypse,” she mutters, and adds, “Yet,” just to be sure she's getting her point across.
“We're doing our best to stay out of trouble, Sheriff,” Sam says, idly stroking the phone with his fingertips.
Dean watches quietly while Sam lays out the embarassingly few details of the Reilly case, wonders if maybe they shouldn't go see the sheriff in person. She's not really old enough to be Sam's mother, but damn, the vibe between these two is pure mom-son. Dean's not sure if Sam even recognizes it. The kid has no memory of Mom, no exposure to being mothered, outside of Dean's crude parenting skills when they were growing up. Maybe he thinks she's just being kind to Bobby's surviving family?
“Anytime you want to chat, Sam,” she says agreeably after a while. “Hey, put your brother on, would you?”
Sam, baffled, says,“He can hear you, he's sitting right here.”
“She means go take a walk so we can gossip about what a filthy slut you are behind your back, Cindy Lou,” Dean informs him, and pastes on a bland smile.
“Oh. Okay.... Guess I'll go for a run.” Sam shrugs and grabs his running shoes.
“So I'm guessing your 'vacation' has something to do with Sam's situation. How's he doing?” she says as soon as Sam is out the door.
“He's dealing.”
Jody Mills is the only person left alive who knows about Sam's mental state. The only person who knows, intellectually at least, what Sam went through to bring him to this point. “The freaky Hell-O-Visions when he's awake seem to have tapered off.” Not that Sam has said as much. Dean, who has always been a keen observer of the rare bird Sammus Dorkius, has had to become an expert at pinpointing those moments when Sam starts sliding sideways into a waking dream of being tortured, and needs to be nudged out of it with a distraction to ground him in the here and now.
“How about the walks on the beach with Satan?”
“Oh, that's a whole 'nother story. Little freak just shrugs that off like it's normal to have Lucifer sharing your shaving mirror with you. Says it's so bland and harmless compared to the real thing, like a very faint echo, that it barely bothers him at all,. Even makes jokes about it sometimes.” (Hey, Dean, Lucifer says if you leave your dirty socks on the tv one more time, he's gonna make me suffocate you with them. Just saying. Totally not my idea, FYI.)
“I guess that's a good sign.” The Sheriff sounds iffy on the subject.
Dean scratches his eyebrow with his thumb. “Yeah, kind of creeps me out too.” You'd never catch me cracking jokes about Alistair, no fucking way. “I'm worried he's taking it too lightly, maybe it'll come back to bite us in the ass on down the road... But for now,” he sighs, “I'd give my left nut just to get a decent night's sleep.”
“Sam's still making nightly visits to the Cage, huh?”
“Yeah.”
Dean's pretty sure Sam doesn't remember much about his nightmares in the daytime. Or he doesn't volunteer that information, and Dean doesn't ask. Doesn't need to, really. Memories of Alastair's creative use of fire and force and blade had frequently brought Dean flailing upright in his bed that first year after he'd clawed his way out of the ground. Still does, some nights. He knows all about the stuttering breath (stay back - get away from me - fucking gut you) and the graceless scramble to the floor (shards of bone/glass/teeth in his palms and knees) with the blankets tangled around his legs. So he's never surprised nowadays when he's awakened by a hoarse scream or, somehow worse, the muted sound of choked sobbing, and someone stumbling about the room. He just rolls out of bed - they always leave a lamp on - and joins Sam, crouched in a corner of the room, head buried in his arms, trying to make himself hidden, make himself invisible. Usually, Sam will wake up completely within a few seconds, Dean's hand a firm squeeze on the back of his neck until Sam is able to sit up and gives a shaky nod of thanks. Other times, Dean's voice speaking quiet words of encouragement (safe with me, Sammy, safe now) is needed to bring him out of it. And other times, the nightmare lingers, Sam's wrecked voice choking out the strange stilted syllables of the angels' language, eyes squeezed shut against his brother's throat, shuddering, completely lost in his own head while Dean (shouts his name, hugs him tight, pulls his hair, pets and whispers and kisses his temple, pinches and slaps and shakes him by the shoulders) does whatever it takes to snap him out of it, bring his brother back from Hell.
“And besides it being tons of fun for him and me both, the lack of sleep is crippling us.” He chews on his lip. “I think it might be time to look for some help.”
“You mean check him into a hospital?”
“What? No! No,” he says, calmer. “No one's locking Sammy up.” He sucks in a calming breath. “Maybe a sleep expert. If we could get a handle on that, the rest of it should be manageable.”
She's quiet for a minute, and he knows she's thinking that he's deluding himself, that the entire Sam Winchester package is so damaged that sleeping pills and bedtime foot massages or whatever aren't even going to scratch the surface. But she simply says, “I'll put out some inquiries. Maybe we'll find someone with hunter connections. It'd be nice if whoever it is doesn't think we're just as loony tunes as Sam.”
“That'd be good. I'll talk to Sam about it.” Dean rubs his eyes wearily.
Never thought we'd come to this.
Next: Chapter 4
Master Post