For Your Own Good 6/8
For Your Own Good
Summary: “Don't worry, Dean. I'll be a good little soldier and do everything Dad says. Promise.” Sam doesn't know how right he is.
Sam is sixteen. Dean is twenty.
Chapter Six
Sam thinks he gets it now.
Looking in the mirror, at the new him, he thinks he finally understands what John has been trying to teach him all these years. What Dean already knows. The thing Sam's brother and father learned the night their house burned and Mary Winchester died. The lesson behind the spell.
Life is hunting.
Everything else can be taken away.
John claps him on the back and instructs him to take a shower and wash off all the scratchy scraps of hair that itch beneath his shirt. Sam stands under the spray, running his hands over and over his head, exploring the unfamiliar fuzz that stretches up the back of his neck, where he's been shaved almost bald. The hair on the top of his head is a little longer. The short strands feel sharp, like fuzzy little spikes.
He doesn't cry. He thinks he should be crying but he just feels hollow. Resigned. He watches the last few strands of his long hair disappearing down the drain and wonders how he could ever have been so foolish as to think there could be more to life than this.
When Sam finishes, he dries off - faster than usual. It's so strange, not feeling damp hair sticking to the back of his neck. He dresses in fresh clothes and rejoins his father in the kitchen, without asking whether John still wants his help. Probably yes. Probably he should just get on with it.
John has just finished sweeping up the mess. Sam slips into his seat. He watches as his father takes the dustpan full of his hair and dumps it unceremoniously into the trash.
John sits down and opens up his last beer.
“This was your idea,” he declares firmly.”Dean will ask so I want you to make it clear that you wanted this.”
Is that really what John believes? It almost seems like it is. Like he has himself convinced that if he says it, if he makes Sam repeat it, somehow it will become the truth.
“Yes, sir,” Sam says. “This is what I wanted.”
John nods. For a second, Sam is sure he sees something flash across his father's face; a sneer, some sort of sick satisfaction, and he changes his mind. John isn't oblivious to his distress. John doesn't really think that any of this is his idea. John is simply loving having complete control over his rebellious son.
And then, the sneer is gone and Sam isn't certain that he didn't imagine it. John returns to his reading.
Sam bends over his own book. One of his hands raises in an automatic gesture to brush hair from his eyes but nothing blocks his vision. He lets his hand drop and stares determinedly at the page, trying to think of nothing else but reading the swirling black ink. He just needs to find the answers John requires. He needs to get this over with so he can retreat to his room, away from his father's gloating presence, and just... stop.
He just needs everything to stop.
XXX
Sam doesn't look up when he hears a key being fumbled into a lock, too busy trying to make out a particularly smudged sentence. Behind him, the door creaks open and a gust of cold air accompanies Dean over the threshold.
“I got all of them,” Dean announces. “Bobby didn't want to part with one but I promised we'd look after it. I said - holy shit.”
There's a thump as something hits the floor. Startled, Sam swivels towards the sound.
Dean is frozen just inside the doorway, one hand still poised on the door handle. His other hand balances a stack of books, one of which has slipped free. It lies on the floor, splayed open.
“Be careful with those,” John chastises him. “They're old. And shut the door.”
Moving robotically, Dean closes the motel door. He crouches down to pick up the wayward book, missing completely on his first attempt because his eyes don't leave Sam. His mouth hangs open.
Heat rises in Sam's face. Feeling hideously self-conscious, he turns away, leaning over his book again, and pretends he can't feel his brother staring at his hair. At what's left of his hair.
“What happened?” Dean asks.
John lets out a chuckle, like Dean's shock is amusing. “Nothing happened. Sam just felt like a change. Didn't you, Sam.”
“Yes, sir,” Sam answers flatly, refusing to look up.
“You...” Dean actually sounds a little faint. Sort of like how Sam felt when he looked in the mirror. “What?”
“Felt like a change,” Sam repeats. He stares fixedly at the pages of the old book. Dean's eyes are itchy on his bare neck. He feels exposed, stripped and on display.
“Really?” Dean asks uncertainly.
“It looks good,” John proclaims, a little too enthusiastically. “Don't you think, Dean?”
Slowly, almost tentatively, Dean's footsteps move forward. He comes to stand beside the kitchen table, in the space between John and Sam. The table wobbles a little as he sets down his stack of books.
“Sam, stop researching for a moment. Show Dean your new look.”
Reluctantly, like so many things he does these days, Sam raises his head, so that John can show off his work. He seems proud of it. Sam thinks back to the screaming matches they used to have, when he was around 10 or 11 and just starting to be brought into the world of hunting. John had wanted then for him to have a soldier's haircut. Like his own. Like Dean's. And Sam had refused, point blank, every time, no matter how angry John got or how much his father yelled. He'd just... wanted something that was his.
It may have taken six years, but John had finally gotten his way. Now he wants to revel in it.
But Dean's gaze skates right over Sam's hair. He seeks out Sam's eyes. His mouth is still hanging slightly open and his own eyes are wide with dismay. He looks completely stunned, and utterly confused, searching Sam's face for an explanation better than John's.
John clears his throat, prompting Dean for a response. Dean makes an effort to shake off his consternation but his frown doesn't fully go away.
“Yeah,” he agrees softly. He offers Sam a small smile. “Yeah, you look good, Sammy.”
Dean waits until later, for the privacy of their bedroom, both of them lying awake in the dark, to ask, “Did you really want to cut your hair? Or did Dad talk you into it?”
Sam's mouth opens. How long has it been since he was able to speak his own words? Lately, it seems like the only words he has are John's. “It was my idea.”
Dean props himself up on an elbow. “Why? And why did you get Dad to do it? I always thought he'd have to tie you down to get his hands on your hair.” There's a beat, then Dean asks, in a tone that only half-suggests he's joking, “He didn't, right?”
Sam stares at the ceiling. Even in the dim light, he can make out the nicotine stains. “I felt like a change,” is the only explanation he can offer.
Dean hesitates, his confusion stretching out across the room.“What's going on with you, Sam? You've been really weird for the last...” - Dean seems uncertain on a time frame - “ages. You never want to hang out. You don't argue when Dad pulls you out of school, or get pissy about training or going out hunting all night. You're practically failing your classes. Now you just randomly decide to cut all your hair off? I don't get it.”
Sam says nothing. Everything he wants to say would only end up stuck in his throat.
“I'm not saying it looks bad,” Dean continues quickly, maybe interpreting Sam's silence as him taking offence. “You look fine. Good. You look badass. It's just...” Dean sounds bewildered. “I thought you liked your hair.”
Finally, tears spring into Sam's eyes. His throat tightens, clogging up with despair. It's going to take forever for his hair to grow back. If John lets him grow it back.
And it had been humiliating, degrading, being forced to sit before his father like that, immobilized by magical chains and unable to lift a finger to stop John from chopping off his hair. His father hadn't framed it as such - he'd spoken only of practicality - but it felt like a punishment. Like John was getting revenge for Sam's years of fighting back against his rules. John knew - he knew - that Sam had liked his hair. John took it anyway.
Sam closes his eyes. He forces himself to breathe.
Thinking like this is pointless. Whatever the motivation, whether this is penance or pragmatism, John isn't going to let him grow his hair back. John isn't going to let up on the training regimen. John will never let him be anything other than the perfect hunter. It's time for Sam to grow up and get it through his thick head that this is his life. The spell is never going to be reversed. This is the way things are, the way life is, and, as John likes to tell him, no amount of whining is going to change that.
“I did,” he tells Dean, his voice entirely flat.
“Well, why cut it then?” A tinge of frustration bleeds into Dean's confusion. “Talk to me, Sam. Please. Tell me what's going on.”
“Nothing's going on,” Sam says. He opens his eyes, staring blankly at the stained ceiling as he recites John's script. “I just want to do better.”
“You keep saying that.” Dean sits right up in his bed. “This isn't about that stupid wood nymph, is it? Because that wasn't your fault, Sam. You know that. And my leg is fine. Good as new. If Dad is still giving you crap about it...”
Dean trails off, leaving the threat vague. He doesn't know what he'd do.
Sam does.
Nothing.
There is nothing Dean can do.
John always wins.
XXX
Sam takes out a werewolf and can't find it in himself to feel bad for the human man that gapes up at him from the pavement, blood pumping from his chest where Sam's silver bullet has sunk into his heart. It isn't just the crime scene photos Sam had studied, the people this man had torn apart.
Sam watches as the life fades from the werewolf's eyes and thinks about how nice it would be if everything would just end.
XXX
An ache settles behind Sam's eyes and refuses to let up. There's a scratch in the back of his throat and gravity seems to be pressing down on him harder than usual.
He drags his feet through another week of school and can't remember anything from his classes. He feels blurry. Vague like an impressionist painting. Frayed like worn out cloth. He wants to lie down.
Instead, Sam runs a mile in six minutes and forty-two seconds, then cleans all the guns John leaves out for him.
Dean sits down next to him and tries to start a conversation. He asks Sam about his day and whether he likes his new school and if he maybe wants to go do something this weekend, just the two of them.
Sam shrugs every time Dean pauses for a response until finally Dean goes quiet. He stays and helps Sam clean the guns though, which Sam thanks him for before falling into bed.
The weekend passes in a haze. On Monday morning, Sam pushes cereal around his bowl until it turns to mush, then he scrapes it into the trash. He sleepwalks through his classes. By the time he drags himself through the door of their latest motel room at the end of the long school day the pounding in his head is so loud that he can hardly see and harsh coughs are rattling his lungs.
Dean is sitting cross-legged on the couch, the TV turned down low. One of John's books is open in his lap, which strikes Sam as unusual. John tends to get Sam to do the bulk of the research because he reads faster and has a knack for following threads that others miss, while Dean's strength lies in getting witnesses to spill their life stories within two minutes of meeting and, well, pretty much everything else. He's even a decent researcher, when he has to be.
“Hey,” Dean greets him, glancing up. He does a double take. “You don't look so hot. Are you feeling okay?”
Sam's backpack is weighing him down. He lets it drop to the floor. Answering Dean seems like it would take energy he doesn't have so Sam ignores the question and heads to the kitchen. At the sink, he fills a glass with water and sips it slowly, letting the water trickle down his swollen throat. Then he presses the glass to the side of his face. The cold seeps into his skin, soothing the throbbing in his head, just a little.
Dean appears at his side. “Tylenol?” he offers, holding out a pill bottle. Sam accepts it gratefully and shakes two pills into his palm. He swallows them with another sip of water.
“Thanks,” he murmurs. He really doesn't feel good.
Dean leans against the counter. “Bobby called,” he tells Sam. “Wanted Dad's help with something. He'll be back in a few days.”
“Okay,” Sam says. He's too tired to drum up more than a faint sense of relief. He sets the glass down and coughs into his fist.
“I was thinking,” Dean says, unconvincingly casual. “Maybe while Dad's gone, you could take it easy. We could take it easy, I mean. Pull back on the training. Maybe blow it off altogether. We could just hang out. Slack off, eat junk food, watch bad TV. What do you think?”
Sam thinks that life doesn't work like that. He's been under standing orders to complete all his regular training, whether John's around or not, for months now. There is no slacking off. Dean's shoulders sag with disappointment when Sam shakes his head.
“I have to train.”
“You look like you're coming down with something,” Dean presses. He reaches out and touches the back of his hand to Sam's forehead. Sam jerks his head away. He has to grab the counter to steady himself when the room stumbles. Dean drops his hand.
“You should take a break, Sam, especially if you're sick. I won't tell Dad.”
Sam shakes his head again, slowly, so the room doesn't spin. “I want to be better,” he murmurs.
Dean shifts uneasily from one foot to the other. His eyes are troubled but Sam doesn't have the time or the energy to figure out what Dean is thinking. He turns away, mildly annoyed now that his brother is attempting to interrupt his routine. He just wants to get on with things.
“Something's wrong,” Dean announces, following Sam into the bedroom, where Sam changes from his jeans into sweatpants. “With you. This isn't normal.”
“Nothing's wrong.” Sam slips his feet back into his shoes.
“Bullshit, Sam. This isn't right. This isn't you. Talk to me. Tell me what's going on.”
Dean is more insistent than usual but how many times has Dean looked at him like he's lost his mind, or told him that he's acting like a weirdo, over the last few months? How many times has Sam felt hope surging through him only for life to continue on exactly the same?
“Nothing.” Sam shrugs. “I'm going for a run.”
Dean follows him to the door, asking him to 'wait, just a minute, Sammy, please'. Sam doesn't. He can feel his brother's gaze trailing him all the way down the street, until he turns a corner.
Dean is quiet that evening. He sits on the couch and reads. Sam sits at the kitchen table and practices tying knots.
To Be Continued...