Smells Like Teen Spirit 3/3
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: I'm so sorry this is so late! The school holidays snuck up on me and time just disappeared!
XXX
Chapter Three
Dean lets Sam get away with spending the next two days hiding in his bedroom. At first, Sam really is too tired to do anything other than sleep but then, once he's rested and rehydrated enough to think straight, he's so humiliated and angry at himself for making such a mess of things that he can't bring himself to do anything other than hide beneath his blankets and ignore his brother each time Dean checks in on him. But on the third day, Sam wakes up to Dean watching him from a chair pulled up next to the bed and he knows that his brother is done with letting him pretend.
So Sam sits up, rubbing sleep out of his eyes and bed-tasselled hair out of his face and steels himself for whatever is coming. He wonders if Dean will yell, like Dad used to.
“I'm sorry,” he says, before Dean can get started, hoping that a pre-emptive apology will temper some of his brother's anger.
Dean sighs though, appearing, if anything, more disappointed than before Sam opened his mouth. He looks exhausted, like he hasn't allowed himself to rest at all even though Sam has spent a good 48 hours doing nothing but. “Don't be,” Dean says.
Sam bites his lip. “I should have listened to you,” he admits, unable to look Dean in the eye. There's a band-aid taped across the back of his hand where he has a vague memory of an IV needle attaching him to a bag of clear liquid, saline or something. Sam runs his thumb over it anxiously.
“Yeah, you should have,” Dean agrees wearily. “But this is my fault, not yours.”
Sam frowns. “Your fault?” he asks dubiously. Dean didn't do anything wrong. It was Sam's own stupid, childish decision-making that got him into trouble. How could any of this be Dean's fault?
“Dude, I know you. Doing the opposite of what you're told is Sam Winchester 101.” Dean huffs out a rueful laugh. “I knew it was only a matter of time before all your poking around paid off and you'd find a way out of here.”
Sam can't tell if he's being admonished or praised. Dean doesn't sound angry - he almost sounds proud, like he finds the lengths Sam is willing to go to to be disobedient somewhat impressive - but maybe that's just because he's tired. Or maybe it's because Sam can't actually read his brother anymore. He doesn't know this man, not really. He has no idea what this older version of Dean might be thinking.
“I won't do it again,” Sam promises, and then, because he can't stop himself, he blurts out, “Don't send me away. Please. I'll follow orders. I can still help with research, and we can keep looking for a way to make me grow up again, and I won't act like a brat, I swear.”
Stupid tears are smarting in his eyes. He blinks them back before he risks a glance at Dean, who's suddenly sitting up straight and looking seriously pissed off.
“I'm not sending you anywhere!” Dean exclaims indignantly, like this thought has not only never occurred to him but as if it personally offends him. “What the hell did that Shifter say to you?”
Thinking about repeating Shifter-Dean's list of his short-comings makes Sam want to crawl back under the blankets for at least another week. He settles for ducking behind his hair, fidgeting with the band-aid on the back of his hand.
“Nothing,” he mutters. “It doesn't matter.”
“Sam-”
“What happened to it?” Sam diverts. “Does it still look like me?”
Dean's jaw works for a moment, then he nods tightly. “That's how it works,” he confirms. “Cas said he'd deal with it. I didn't ask his exact plans.”
“Oh.” It's creepy, thinking about the dead Shifter, forever trapped in the shape of Sam Winchester. Did Castiel burn it or bury it? Is it ash or is there a copy of Sam still out there somewhere, rotting in an anonymous grave? Sam keeps dreaming about his own empty eyes, staring at him.
“Sam.” Dean has to clear his throat before he can continue. Sam wonders if those eyes have been watching Dean as well. “Look, I know what Shifters are like. They're cruel. They like to mess with people's heads. They're all alone and they want to make everyone else feel alone, too. So they twist things. They lie. Because they just want to hurt you, however they can.”
Sam slides his fingernail under the edge of the band-aid, peeling it away from his skin. Dean obviously means for this to be comforting but it's not, because “It didn't need to lie,” Sam tells Dean. “It was right. I'm just in the way like this. If we can't figure out how to fix me, what's the point in keeping me around?”
“What's the point?” Dean echoes incredulously, rearing back in his chair. “Because you're my brother, Sammy.”
“You don't even like me!” Sam loses his fight with the tears he's been holding back. They spill over, hot and furious. “You just want your real brother back!” he accuses Dean.
Dean is shaking his head, trying to deny it. “You are my real brother,” he says. “Sam, whatever the Shifter said-”
“It wasn't the Shifter!” Sam cuts him off angrily. “It's you! You're never here. You're always running off to hunt and leaving me behind. You never want to hang out with me. You just want to research ways to get the old Sam back!”
“Because I fucking miss you!” Dean is on his feet, yelling and clasping Sam by the shoulders like he wants to shake him, and Sam is astonished to see that Dean's face is wet with tears as well. “I miss the rest of you. The last twenty years of you. I thought I'd find a way to put things right before anything bad happened but I can't... I can't find anything. And when I'm with you, it reminds me of how badly I'm letting you down, because I can't find anything, and I don't know how to make things right. I don't know what to do. I just- fuck!”
Dean releases Sam and sinks back down into his chair, burrowing his hands in his hair. “I just really fucking miss you,” he mutters to the floor.
Sam sags against the bed's headboard and stares in amazement, startled out of his own breakdown. He has never seen Dean cry before, ever, or heard Dean sound so upset. He doesn't know what to say. For some reason, it never occurred to him that Dean might miss Old-Sam the same way Sam misses Young-Dean. It had just seemed so much more likely that Dean was sick of dealing with him. It was all so obvious, once the Shifter had pointed it out...
“I'm not gone,” Sam offers eventually, which feels like a pathetic attempt at consolation. He knows it's not the same. Sometimes Sam finds himself wanting Young-Dean so badly that it's like his lungs are crumpling inside his chest.
Dean seems to find solace in Sam's statement anyway. “I know.” He sits up straighter and wipes his face on his sleeve. “I think that's the only thing keeping me from losing my mind. When I realized that the Shifter had tricked me, that it had lured me away so it could get to you...” Dean trails off, shaking his head, like the memory is too awful to put into words. “I could have lost you. All of you, not just twenty years. I'm so sorry, Sam. I shouldn't have left.”
Dean looks so disappointed in himself that, even though Sam was just yelling about being left behind all the time and the apology should vindicate his anger, immediately all Sam wants to do is make his brother feel better. Sam reaches out tentatively. His fingers look stupidly small as they curl around Dean's large hand.
“It's not your fault,” he assures Dean earnestly. “It was me. I was being a brat.”
Dean lets out a small, somewhat soggy, laugh. He squeezes Sam's hand. “Of course you were. You're thirteen. You're supposed to be a brat. Honestly, you never grew out of it. I'm the big brother. I'm supposed to keep you safe.”
“You did,” Sam insists, desperate to ease his brother's guilt. “You killed the Shapeshifter.”
This is the wrong thing to say. Dean's face clouds over at the reminder of the monster that looked like Sam and he pulls back, withdrawing into the memory. “Yeah. Sorry I wasn't there sooner. I would've shot it while it still looked like me but I wasn't close enough. I couldn't risk missing.”
Sam hugs his knees to his chest. “You wouldn't have had to do anything if I'd listened to you and stayed in the bunker,” he points out, but Dean shakes his head, refusing any absolution.
“I knew I was pushing my luck, keeping you shut up in here. Even Cas could see that you were going stir-crazy.” Dean lets out a heavy sigh. He looks Sam up and down. “It's just... fuck, Sam, you're so small.”
Sam makes a face, entirely unimpressed by this description. “Am not.”
Dean's lip twitches. Sam has managed to amuse him with the juvenile retort.
“I'm not, though!” Sam pushes on determinedly. “I can do things. I can hunt; you know I can. And you could teach me the things that I've forgotten. I learn fast. I hate being left behind, Dean.”
“I know,” Dean says, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “I know you can hold your own. Believe me when I say that there's no one else I'd rather have watching my six on a hunt.” The glow of pride in Dean's eyes convinces Sam that his brother is telling the truth about this, crazy as it may seem. Imagine being a good enough hunter to impress a grown-up Dean Winchester. Of course, Sam is quickly brought back down to earth when Dean continues with, “But, damn, Sammy, were you really this small the first time you were thirteen?”
“De-ean,” Sam complains, which draws a chuckle out of his brother.
“Well, I'm sorry but I've been looking up at you for the last decade and I still worried about you whenever we were hunting. I'm not about to stop now that you can barely see over the Impala's steering wheel. I don't know how Dad wasn't a nervous wreck all the time.” Dean gives his head a rueful shake. “Maybe he was. Maybe that's why he was so hell-bent on teaching us how to kill everything. So we could protect ourselves.”
Sam can't imagine John Winchester, the gruff, order-barking, monster-killing drill sergeant, being nervous about anything, but maybe Dean's right. It's easier to give their father the benefit of the doubt, now.
“Teach me how to protect myself,” Sam begs. “I need to go outside. I need to see things other than walls.”
Dean looks pained. “If I can just figure out what happened to you-” he starts.
“But what if you can't?” Sam interrupts, growing frustrated. “What if I'm stuck like this? Are you going to make me grow up alone in a bunker?”
“No!” Dean quickly denies, horrified by the suggestion, or maybe by the realization that so far this is exactly what he's been doing. “No. That's not...” He rubs his temples, the way Dad used to do after hours of witness interviews, usually right before reaching for the bourbon. “It's hard,” he admits, after a moment. “I can't give up on you. On getting back the missing twenty years of you.”
“I'm not asking you to.” Sam has no problem re-gaining twenty years of lost memories and returning to his former, older self, if they can figure out how to make it happen. It's definitely weird to think about suddenly skipping forward a couple of decades but, well, he's already grown up once and it's kind of infuriating that he can't remember any of it. TV shows are full of references he doesn't understand. Dean is full of references he doesn't understand. Three months into this new existence and Sam is starting to think that he'll never be able to properly catch up with the world. Like he's always going to be out of step. “But...” Sam takes a deep breath. “Dad's gone. And Uncle Bobby, and Pastor Jim, and Caleb, and... everyone. Everyone's gone, except you. We can keep trying to fix me. I just... I don't want to be alone anymore, Dean. Please let me hunt with you.”
Dean is silent, head bowed and forehead furrowed, for what seems like an incredibly long time. So long that by the time he finally looks up, Sam has almost convinced himself that the answer is going to be no.
“You really want me to train you?” Dean asks, raising a sceptical eyebrow.
Sam feels a swell of excitement in his chest. “Yes!” he nods eagerly.
“I won't go easy on you,” Dean warns him. “If you want to hunt, you'll have to prove that you're up for it.”
“I will,” Sam promises, still nodding. “I am.”
“I must be nuts,” Dean mutters, and Sam stops trying to contain himself. He jumps up and throws his arms around his brother, almost knocking Dean off of his chair.
“Oh, thank you! Thank you! I'll work hard and I'll follow orders and I won't be a brat, I promise!”
Deans laugh sounds genuine now as he hugs Sam back. “I'm gonna hold you to that.”
XXX
It's past ten that evening when Dean appears in Sam's doorway but Sam is still wide awake, sitting cross-legged on top of his bed-covers with an open book in his lap. Dean looks much better than he had earlier - Sam was right to enlist Castiel's help in convincing his brother that Sam would not go out and get himself kidnapped again the moment Dean allowed himself to get some rest - and the smile directed at Sam is the brightest smile Sam has seen on the face of his grown-up older brother.
“Hey,” Dean says, rapping a knuckle on Sam's open door.
Sam sets aside the copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince that he's reading. Or re-reading, probably. “Hey.”
Dean holds up the keys to the Impala. “Feel like going for a drive?”
Sam doesn't need to be asked twice. He scrambles off of the bed and shoves his socked feet into his shoes before Dean can change his mind.
“Bring your jacket,” Dean says. “It's kind of cold outside.”
“Yes, 'Dad',” Sam quips, ducking away from the hand that tries to slap him upside the head and grabbing his jacket from the closet.
“Watch it,” Dean says, but his amusement shows.
Sam practically vibrates as he forces himself not to race ahead down the hallways, hoping to portray something other than 'excitable child'. He settles for walking backwards, a few steps ahead of Dean.
“Where are we going?” he asks.
Dean spins his keys around on his finger. “Does it matter?”
“Not really.” Anywhere is fine. Anywhere other than the bunker and the sewer. “Is Castiel coming?”
“Not this time.”
“Can I drive?”
Dean traps the keys in his palm, pulling them away from Sam. “No way in hell.”
“I have a license,” Sam points out.
“I don't care,” Dean replies. “No driving until you're sixteen... or thirty-three, whichever comes first.”
The bunker has a garage full of classic cares and Sam has spent a decent amount of his endless free time wandering among them, idly admiring the old-fashioned styles. He isn't into cars the same way Dean and Dad always have been but even he can appreciate the impressive collection. However, the only car that Sam is really interested in is the one car that's hardly ever there.
The Impala is the only thing that looks the same now as it did the first time Sam was thirteen, the only place that feels like home. There were a few times, especially early on after Sam woke up in an underground bunker with an old, oddly-familiar, stranger explaining that actually, he's Dean, just a Dean who is thirty-seven rather than seventeen, and this is thirty-seven year old Dean's friend, Castiel, who inhabits a human body but is actually an Angel of the Lord, and by the way, it's the year 2016 and no one knows why or how Sam is suddenly replaying puberty, yeah, early on after that, that Sam had snuck down here in the creepy midnight hours. When Dean was between hunts and sleeping behind the closed door of his room, and Castiel was doing whatever Castiel does instead of sleeping, and Sam was wide awake and trying not to start screaming because the bunker was so quiet and lonely that it seemed like it would crush him, the army man jammed in the ash tray and the jaggedly carved initials were the only things that could calm him down.
Then, he had crawled into the backseat, pressing his face into the upholstery. It didn't actually smell quite right and Dean had said something once about rebuilding the Impala multiple times, which meant that maybe it wasn't even the same army man and maybe they weren't the same initials Sam remembers carving when he was little, but he had curled up anyway, closing his eyes and pretending that he was back where he was supposed to be.
Now, Sam slides into the passenger seat. Dean gets behind the wheel and starts the engine, and Sam rolls down the window so that the wind can rush into the car, wild and free and whipping his hair around as they drive, fast - probably too fast, if Dean still drives the way he did as a teenager - with the tape player screaming Led Zeppelin and the stars growing brighter as the roads get longer and rougher, and it's the most okay that Sam has felt in three months.
Dean stops in a field in the middle of no where, turning the music down to a mumble. He twists to grab a cooler from the backseat.
“C'mon,” he says, motioning Sam out of the car.
Curious, Sam follows his brother to the front of the Impala. Dean sets the cooler on the hood and hops up beside it, extending a hand to help Sam do the same. Accepting it, Sam climbs up next to Dean.
“Do I get beer?” he asks, as Dean opens the cooler and pulls out two bottles.
“Ha,” Dean scoffs. “You get soda.” He pops the top off a coke and passes it to Sam before opening a beer for himself.
Unbothered, Sam takes a sip and copies Dean, leaning back to stare up at the sky. He can sense that, whatever they're doing, it's important.
There are only wisps of cloud, drifting lazily across an ink-black backdrop, and a stunningly bright array of stars, splashed carelessly across the night. Sam inhales deeply, breathing in the reckless beauty of it, and for a while there is nothing but the music rolling across the field, the lights sparkling in the sky, and Dean's solid, steady presence at Sam's side.
“When you turned fourteen, we were in Arizona,” Dean says eventually. Sam looks at him quizzically, momentarily confused, before he remembers that, of course, he did turn fourteen, once upon a time. Dean doesn't take his eyes off of the stars. He clears his throat and continues. “Dad was hunting a restless spirit, I think. He was gone all day and most of the night, whatever it was, so it was just you and me in a crappy motel room with a busted TV. You were so mad. Not because of the TV - because Dad had promised that he'd be there. He did show up eventually, some time after midnight, with a somewhat decent excuse and a cake with only a tiny bit of blood on it, but at the time, it seemed like he'd flaked on you.”
Dean takes a long pull from his beer, then uses the bottle to gesture at the sky. “That was the first time we did this.”
Dean keeps talking, moving on from birthdays to Christmases to 4th of Julys, describing monsters and girlfriends and all the different diners they stopped at that had amazing pie. He tells Sam about Dad, sacrificing himself for Dean, and then Dean, sacrificing himself for Sam, and how they met Cas and the way that they all worked together to save the world. Sam gets the feeling that he's being given the PG13 version of events but he doesn't care. He can always bug Dean for more details in the future. Or maybe they actually will find a way to make him grow up one day and he'll get back all the memories that he's lost.
Sam shuffles closer, resting his head against Dean's shoulder. He closes his eyes, trying to picture everything just as Dean describes it, and falls asleep beneath the stars, lulled by a bedtime story of a life he can't remember and the melodic murmurings of an '80s rock band.
The End