Smells Like Teen Spirit 1/3
Smells Like Teen Spirit
Summary: Dean says that the world outside the bunker is far too dangerous for a thirteen year old Sam Winchester to wander about in but thirteen year old Sam is dying of boredom and honestly, what's the worst that could happen?
A/N: Based on a prompt I read somewhere, sometime, that rattled around in my brain until this fell out.
XXX
Chapter One
It takes forever for Sam to find a way out.
It's not that he's trying to escape. That would imply that he's somewhere that needs to be escaped from and, as weird as the whole thing is, Sam actually does believe the man who lives in this bunker and talks like Dad when he says that he's Dean and his weird friend who doesn't seem to blink is an angel called Castiel and, for reasons yet to be determined, Sam is suffering from a severe case of being thirteen when he is supposed to be thirty-three.
And it's not like he's being held prisoner here. Not really. Even if it does kind of feel like he is. He totally does understand that Dean is worried about letting Sam out into the big scary world with all it's big scary monsters, even though, from Sam's point of view, he's been helping his family hunt all those big scary monsters that lurk around out there in the big scary world for almost two years now so Dean can't have been this over-protective the first time Sam was thirteen.
It's not like he doesn't know how to look after himself, or as if he hasn't been taught how to fight, or like at least one blade isn't a common clothing accessory for a Winchester.
And Sam is so freaking bored.
Dean does hang out with him sometimes. The bunker isn't all bad. The extensive library does have some pretty interesting collections, though the genre options are somewhat slim, mainly monsters and magic. Dean has a room containing the biggest television Sam has ever seen. The kitchen is always well stocked and it turns out that Dean is an even better cook than Sam considered him back when his big brother's highest achievement was making hot-dogs edible for six days in a row.
But, well, Dean is a grown up hunter now and sometimes he can't ignore calls from people who need help. When he is home, he's poring over huge old books, searching tirelessly for a way to get his huge old brother back (and the old Sam really was huge, and old, and it's really weird looking at photos of himself where he's huge and old when right now he barely reaches Dean's shoulders). So a lot of Sam's time is spent alone, wandering down dusty hallways and poking around in old, shut-off rooms filled with weird old stuff that Dean has forbidden him from touching. Every now and then, Castiel pops up out of nowhere (maybe literally - Sam hasn't worked out yet whether the angel can teleport or if he's just impossibly light on his feet) and sends Sam back to the library under the pretence of needing help with research, or to the kitchen, claiming that they should eat, even though Sam has figured out that the angel doesn't need food to sustain him. Sam doesn't argue when this happens, just folds away his mental map and waits patiently to continue his search for a back door to the bunker once the angel has become distracted by whatever distracts angels.
Sam is still in bed, drifting hazily somewhere between sleeping and waking, when Dean knocks - with the same knock he always used on motel doors to announce his presence - on his bedroom door, early in the morning some three months after Sam woke up without the last two decades of his life. That's another weird thing - having his own room. There's no living in each other's shadows in this bunker. Sam doesn't tell Dean that it's almost impossible to fall asleep without the sound of his breathing acting as a lullaby. He doesn't need to give his brother any more reasons to look at him like he's a toddler in need of coddling.
“What izzit?” Sam calls sleepily.
The door opens and Dean pokes his head in. “Are you awake?”
“No, I'm sleep-talking.” Sam sits up, shrugging off the heavy blankets. He rubs his eyes and shoves his hair out of his face, then scowls when he realises that Dean is looking at him with that stupid 'aww, my baby brother is adorable' face, again. “What is it? Have you found something?”
It's mean and it makes Sam feel a little guilty but it does wipe that dumb look off of Dean's face, replacing it with the pinched expression that always forms when he's reminded of the other Sam and his lack of progress in getting that Sam back. It kind of hurts, actually, knowing that Dean would prefer to have the other, older version of him. It's not Dean's fault, and Sam can't exactly blame him for feeling that way, but there are only so many times you can catch your brother staring at you like you're a problem that needs fixing before you start to take it personally.
“No, not yet,” Dean sighs. He steps into the room and Sam sees that he's fully dressed, despite the early hour, with a duffel bag thrown over his shoulder. “Look, I have to head out for a couple of days. There's a Shapeshifter a few towns over, at least I think there is, so-”
“Can I come?” Sam throws off the blankets, scrambling out of bed. “Please? I'll stay in the motel room. I could do research, or clean weapons, or...”
Dean is shaking his head, holding up a hand to halt Sam's plea. Sam stops, halfway to the set of drawers full of thrift store clothes that Dean picked up after Sam nearly fell down some stairs, tripping on his rolled up trouser leg. “It's not a good idea,” Dean says. “I've told you, you have no idea how many monsters are out there that would love to get their hands on a thirteen year old Sam Winchester.”
Sam rolls his eyes. When did Dean get so dramatic? “Dad let me hunt with him,” he points out defiantly.
“Yeah, well, Dad wasn't always right,” Dean says, and it's such an un-Dean-like thing to say that Sam is momentarily stunned silent, unable to think of a retort. Dean takes the opportunity to duck back out the door, all too eager to escape.
“I'll bring back ice cream.” Dean's voice retreats down the hallway. “See ya, Sammy!”
“It's Sam!” Sam yells after him, resisting the urge to stamp a petulant foot. It's not fair. He's not a baby. He's more capable of taking care of himself than any thirteen year old he's ever met and yet Dean insists on treating him like an infant.
Sam thuds back down onto his bed, gripping the mattress edge in both hands. Resentment rolls over him. Old-Dean sucks, the Men of Letters' bunker sucks, and being thirteen sucks. Everything sucks.
XXX
Sam is curled in an armchair, flipping idly through a giant book he has to balance awkwardly on his lap, written in a language he doesn't understand but full of intricate full-page illustrations of all kinds of strange creatures, when Castiel materializes at his side.
“Sam?”
Sam jumps, almost dropping the book. He grabs it before it slides to the floor and looks up from a drawing of a beautiful woman with a fish tail and long spindly fingers, resembling seaweed, stretching up to wrap around a disembodied foot.
“I am sorry,” the angel apologizes, in his usual strange, stiff manner. “It was not my intention to scare you.”
“You didn't scare me,” Sam lies, willing his heart rate to slow down. He has a feeling that Castiel can hear it pounding.
If he can, Castiel is too polite to let on. “Dean says I must go to the store while he is gone,” he tells Sam. “Is there anything in particular that you would like?”
Sam shrugs, looking back to his book. He's still far too angry at Dean to think about groceries. “I don't care,” he says, turning a page. A vicious-looking dog-like monster stands on hind legs and shows off a set of jagged teeth.
“Dean says that children like sugary cereals,” Castiel suggests.
“I'm not a child!” Sam snaps. Castiel just stares at him.
“I will buy what Dean usually buys,” he says, an uncomfortable moment later.
“Whatever,” Sam mutters, glaring determinedly at his book. Castiel is almost out of the room before Sam gives in and blurts out, “Can I come with you? Please?”
Even a trip to the grocery store with a socially awkward angel would be better than the bunker.
Castiel pauses, looking back at Sam with an expression that might be sympathetic. “Dean says that you must stay here.”
XXX
Dean says this. Dean says that. Sam is so over everything that Dean says. He waits until he hears the door shut behind Castiel before he closes his book, hurriedly replacing it on it's shelf, and sets off down the hallway. He doesn't bother going after Castiel - he's tried the front door before after being left alone for small snatches of time and nothing he does makes it budge. Instead, he follows a twisting path of corridors, ducking under cobwebs and pushing through a door that's been made to look like a wall until finally he recognises a room that Castiel had shepherded him out of last week.
It's an unobtrusive room, full of old furniture draped in sheets, standing eerily in the shadows like silent dusty ghosts. Sam tries the lights but nothing happens so he ventures in half-blind. He walks carefully with his arms stretched out in front of him, each step taking him further from the dim triangle of light spilling in from the hallway.
He isn't really sure what he's looking for. Just anything that might seem odd or out of place. He tugs the dust-covers off of a couple of heavy wooden desks, opening and closing each drawer in turn, pushes a few of the lighter items around to check beneath them in case they're hiding some sort of trap door, and ends up digging a splinter the size of a small pencil out of his palm when a rickety old chair literally falls apart in his hands.
Sam tosses the shard of wood aside and sticks his hand in his mouth, sucking at the blood blooming from the wound. The air is thick with dust motes. Sam waves his free hand in front of his face and the dust swirls.
A fit of sneezes hits him, so sudden and explosive that he stumbles. Sam flings out his hand to brace himself against the wall, only for the stone to glow red beneath his bleeding palm, and then he's staggering sideways. The wall shifts, each stone folding backwards to reveal the entrance to a narrow passageway, illuminated by the same eerie red glow. An emergency exit?
Sam only hesitates so a moment. So what if Dean gets mad? He's not even here. If Dean wants to yell at him he'll just have to turn the Impala around and come back to the bunker.
With one last glance over his shoulder, checking for any angelic apparitions, Sam steps into the tunnel.
XXX
Sam has almost decided to turn back, half-convinced that the tunnel is some sort of trick that will go on forever, by the time he rounds yet another corner and sees a haze of sunlight up ahead. He picks up speed, covering the remaining distance at a near-run, and moments later he slips through a gap between two boulders, shoves his way through a thick tangle of overgrown bushes, and finds himself surrounded by a crush of huge, towering trees.
Freckles of sunlight are scattered across the forest floor. The leaves are whispering above his head, shimmering in the breeze that curls down around the tree-trunks to run gentle fingers through Sam's hair. He closes his eyes and breathes in the warm earthy scent of outside.
This is more like it. Sam can count the times he's been allowed out of the bunker since re-turning thirteen on a single hand, and tense, late-night visits to drive-thrus while Dean sits hyper-vigilant and paranoid in the drivers seat, insisting that Sam stay tucked into the shadows, least he be spotted by Something Bad, just don't cut it. He needs fresh air in his lungs and sun on his skin. He needs open space to stretch himself out in.
With a reckless whoop, Sam sets off at a run. A startle of birds take flight, bursting out of the tree-tops, and Sam pretends he's one of them - wild and free to fly anywhere he wants, gliding and swooping and spreading out across the bright endless sky. The uneven ground is treacherous - an unexpected dip could twist or break an ankle - but Sam ignores the risk, leaping over rocks and shrubs, swinging from low-hanging branches, pushing himself to go faster, faster, faster.
There had been times in the last few months, spent locked inside the windowless bunker of a long-dead secret club, that Sam had felt as though the world could have ended behind his back and Dean and Castiel had decided not to tell him. Like maybe there was nothing left outside except for darkness and McDonald's drive-thrus. But it's here; sunshine and shades of green and birds and bugs and brightness. It's all still here.
Sam runs until he's hot and sweaty and breathing hard, giddy with endorphins and adrenaline, until his calves and thigh muscles burn and his lungs ache and a stitch starts to form in his side, then he finds a small clearing and collapses to the ground in an exhilarated heap. He rolls onto his back and watches clouds slip past the wobbly octagon of bright blue sky peaking through the tree-tops while he catches his breath.
He wonders how far he is from the lake he heard Dean mention once, or the town where Castiel is buying groceries. He wants to explore. He wants to just keep going, to keep existing out here in the world. The thought of returning to a grey concrete cage is so abhorrent that it makes Sam's throat tighten and he has to close his eyes and focus on his breathing for several minutes just to calm himself down.
Finally, Sam decides that he can't put it off any longer. He needs to start heading back. He isn't sure how much time has passed since he found the tunnel but Castiel will probably be returning from the store soon and, when he does, Sam should probably be inside the bunker, unless he wants to find out what happens when you piss off an angel. Or, maybe even more worrying, what happens when you piss off a grown up Dean.
Sighing, Sam drags himself to his feet. He brushes off the leaves and twigs that cling to his clothing and turns towards the bunker.
He almost walks right into Dean.
“Holy-!” Sam stumbles on a rock as he startles back a step. “Don't sneak up on me like that!” he demands as he rights himself, momentarily forgetting that he's in no position to make demands. He's reminded as soon as he catches sight of the look on his brother's face.
“Is that what you're planning on saying if some monster creeps up behind you?” Dean asks, his voice dangerously quiet. His arms are folded across his chest, his shoulders drawn back to reveal his full intimidating height. He sounds, and looks, like Dad, moments before the yelling starts.
“I was just-” Sam begins but Dean cuts him off, his words dripping with sarcasm.
“Just daydreaming and turning yourself into a perfect target for all the shapeshifters and Wendigos and demons out here?”
“That's not-”
“I told you to stay inside!” Now Dean is shouting, moving forward to crowd Sam's personal space, a tower of righteous rage. “No, I ordered you-”
Frustration bubbles up in Sam's chest. “I'm sick of your orders!” he yells, holding his ground, refusing to step back. Dean doesn't scare him, even old and giant and angry like this. Sam is used to going up against John Winchester, something that even seasoned hunters hesitated to do. He's not about to let Dean bully him into apologizing for going on a run in the forest, not when Dean should be apologizing for keeping Sam shut up inside and leaving him alone all the damn time. “I'm sick of the bunker and I'm sick of you!”
Sam intends to spin on his heel and storm off into the trees but there's a blur of movement, a flash of pain, and the ground rushes up at him. His ears are ringing. He tastes blood and when he touches his fingers to his lip they come away red. Sam stares at his hand, trying to make sense of it.
When he looks up, Dean is massaging his fist.
“You hit me,” Sam realises. He's so shocked that he forgets about being angry. Dean has never hit him before. Ever. Aside from a few wayward elbows and mistimed jabs while sparring, Dean has never laid so much as a finger on him. Sam can't believe it.
Sam doesn't believe it.
“You aren't Dean,” he states bluntly, like the fact he knows it to be. Numb panic crawls up his spine as a malevolent grin spreads across the Shapeshifter's face.
“Should've listened to your brother, Sammy.”
Chapter Two