SPN FIC: The Better Trade (1/1) Dean/Sam FRM
Title: The Better Trade
Author: Sam/Sam-Tony
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: Dean/Sam
Rating: FRM - language mostly
Disclaimers: Not mine (except for Dani), no money made, trying to wrangle the bunnies back into their Pens...
Summary: Dean does something stupid, Sam yells at him.
Warnings: Language, not-quite-maybe spoilers for Crossroads, mention of incest and an OFC.
A/N: Yeah I gave the boys a sister, so OFC alert. ::flashes red warning lights:: I may even get that story written one of these years...decades... All you need to know about her for this part is in the snippet.
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The Better Trade
“Jesus, Dean!” Dani stared at the battered man that slunk through her door with something akin to shock. Shock that was quickly turning to horror as he slowly sank into her old armchair, wincing even as denim hit the overstuffed leather seat. “Did - did Sam do this?”
The short bitter smile her brother and fellow hunter graced her with was gone quickly, giving way to the general air of sadness that hung from Dean Winchester like a thick burial shroud. “No. No but if he had…I would have let him.”
“Then what the hell happened?” Demon then. Or possibly some other supernatural nasty. Despite her question, Sam hadn’t gone ‘dark side’; if he had, she would have Felt that. Sam was her twin, she would have known…somehow…
“I tried…” Dean trailed off. Taking a deep breath he tried again, obviously determined to get through whatever it was that had happened. “I tried to make a deal with the Devil, Dani,” he finally admitted, green eyes wide and horrified at what he had almost done. The harsh laugh was bitter and he dropped his eyes to his hands, bloodied and scraped at the knuckles, rather than brave whatever her reaction would be. “Me for Dad. Almost worked, too. Until Sam…”
“Until Sam, what, Dean?” She had her suspicions but it was obvious from his visit that Dean needed to talk.
Again those eyes met hers and Dani felt her chest tighten at the pain and confusion found almost hidden under the shame of his tears. “He showed up and denied the deal.” A harsh cry ended the admission, turning it into the accusation is truly was. “Why? Why would he do that? Dad died for ME! Sam would be better off hunting with - “
“Sam would be better off hunting with the one he loves, Dean,” Dani told him softly. “And he loves you. John Winchester could never hunt anything else but alone and you know it.”
“But - “
“But nothing, “ she cut him off firmly. “You know as well as I do that if Dad hadn’t made that deal that Sam would never have stayed on the hunt without you. John can hunt alone - you can hunt alone. But Sam? No. And he would have gone back home rather than stay where he wasn’t wanted. Do you really think his conscience would let him give it up? Knowing that all of the innocents he refused to help were damned because of something he didn’t do?”
Almost a whisper, “No.”
“No.”
“He’s in too deep,” Dean accused. “I got him in too deep. He’s trapped as much by this life I forced him into as the demon that killed mom.”
“You didn’t force him to come back, Dean,” Dani told him. “Sam chose to go after the demon when he killed Jess. But that’s not the only reason he came back. He came back for you.”
“Because I need him.”
But Dani shook her head. “Because he needs you. Not John, not Jess and not me.” Hazel eyes bore into green and the certainty shining behind them made him listen. “You. He loves you more than you know.”
Shuddering breath. “I can’t be what he needs - “
“Who says you aren’t already? Be who you are, Dean,” their sister told him firmly. “That’s who he knows. It’s who he feel in love with. To change who you are would only hurt you both.”
Dean looked up at her with a shaky smile. “Yeah?”
“Trust me.”
“You don’t…think this is strange?” he asked her hesitantly. “I mean…unnatural? Me and Sam?”
“Dean? What do we do for a living?” she asked, and continued right over the top of that before he could answer. “Unnatural is a natural state for people like us.”
“Hunters in general or Winchesters in particular?” Dean cracked a lopsided smile.
Dani matched it, more than agreeing with him. While Hunters were a strange and often touchy breed, Winchesters were that refined and magnified. The strange and unnatural - not to mention just plain trouble - just seemed to fly to them like iron shavings to a magnet.
“Take your pick. Either way, strange and weird is what we do - just look at the hotel rooms. What matters is that you’re both happy, and believe me,” she tapped her head with one finger, “I know you are.”
“Yeah.” His smile grew, taking on a softer edge than it had before. “Guess I’d better head back and face the music, huh?”
Dani nodded. “Go take your beating, son, “ she told him, her smile turning wry to match his. “You’ll feel better.”
He raised his eyebrows at that, knowing full well that Sam was going to kick his ass again the second he got back. “No I won’t.”
“Well, eventually,” she admitted. “Once you heal up enough to walk without a limp again.”
“Gee thanks.”
“Welcome.” Dani smiled, before adding, “What are little sisters for?”
--
Sam didn’t quite kick his ass, though the verbal flaying he received almost made Dean wish he had. Dean knew he had been stupid; he didn’t necessarily like being reminded of that fact.
Sam had given him a little love tap before Dean had gotten the key out of the cheap motel room door, to ‘make sure he was paying attention’ to what Sam was about to tell him. At least he had let Dean close the door before knocking him flat and laying into him. Though Dean was under no illusions that a closed door necessarily equaled ‘privacy’ in a place like the Comfort Arms where the walls were only a shade thicker than the cotton bed sheets; so thin if you held them up to the light you could see through them.
The bed sheets, not the walls.
The tall, stalking form of his brother passing by his knees for the umpteenth time brought his eyes up from the ugly burnt orange carpeting. Not that he was cowed before Sam, because he wasn’t. Well, not much. Though there was something to be said for that lost puppy dog look Sam had; even more for the ‘fuck with me and I will hurt you’ set in stone look. That was the one he had worn when Dean had gingerly picked himself up from where the right cross to the jaw had dropped him half an hour earlier and sat, head hanging and arms dangling over his knees on the edge of the broken down mattress of the one bed in the room, ready for his lecture on stupid.
Dean knew that look. That look was Sam beyond pissed. That look you did not mess with, at least not until the younger Winchester had worn whatever the hell was bothering him down enough so that he actually gave a fuck about possible blood spilled on the carpets. Not that it could possibly make them any worse, or that you’d even be able to tell, not with rugs this bad…man but they were f’ugly…the blood would probably just blend right in…
“Dammit Dean - will you listen to me when I’m bitching at you?”
“What?” Dean widened his eyes in his best ‘I’m innocent, trust me’ expression. He shook his head when it was clear that not only was Sam not buying it, his brother was far from amused at it being turned on him. And Dean was just too damned tired to make it work. “Look, Sam, I’m sorry, ok? I fucked up, what can I say?”
“Apparently not much,” Sam snapped back, his lips tightening. “Yeah, you did and no, it’s not okay, Dean.”
“I just wanted…I just thought…hell, I don’t know.” He had just wanted to make it right. He had thought their Dad could protect Sammy from whatever the Hell it was after him a lot better than Dean could. He just…wanted their Dad back…hell he didn’t know…he was so tired of running, of chasing…of fearing the next time he wouldn’t be fast enough and the demon would take Sam; hurt him, use him. Twist him until he wasn’t Sam anymore but something wearing Sammy’s face that Dean would have to kill.
He didn’t know if he could take that and survive…
“Thought it might be nice to let all of this go for a little while.”
“Let go? Dean, if you EVER feel like pulling a stupid stunt like that again, you think about me; what it would do to me if… ” Sam shook his head, angry tears in his eyes, fists clenched at his sides. “Dammit, Dean, I swear to god - I’ll follow you down into whatever depths of Hell you go to and kick your ass for leaving me. You feel like letting go, you hold on to me.”
A wan smile was all he got. “I hear you, Sam.”
“No, I don’t think you do, Dean,” Sam Winchester fixed his older brother with a glare that could have frozen Hell if he had turned it on the Devil. Dean it melted into a puddle, every time. “But you had better.”
Dean was an idiot, he got that. But he was Sam’s idiot; and in a business like this one, that was enough to make all the difference in the world.
“Yeah,” Dean agreed. Argument over, he cast a green-eyed invitation up at Sam, wheedling, “Make up sex now?”
That at least got a snort out of Sam. Taking a deep breath, his head shook in fond exasperation - or at least what Dean hoped was fond exasperation - spilling his bangs into his eyes. “Dean, Dean…let’s just put it this way; if this motel had a doghouse, you’d be sleeping in it. Got me?”
Watching Sam walk away to the bathroom, Dean pouted. “What? No make up sex? Sam? Sam?” The door closed with a final, if somewhat hollow, thunk just as Dean tried one more time. “Sammy?”
end