“So what the hell happened to you?” Dean asks when they’re finally sitting down across from one another. Four months and forty demonic years from that pretty little house in the suburbs where a stupid plan had lived up to its reputation.
Sam tilts his head forward, hiding behind his bangs, and laughs. Because, seriously? Dean’s spent however long in hell and he’s worried about Sam? He looks up at his brother with his new, lopsided smile, and waits for Dean to finish taking him in. It’s an act; Sam isn’t really comfortable smiling anymore. But it’s an important act and Sam puts his all into it for Dean. Anyone else, and Sam would keep his head ducked down to avoid attention. But this is Dean, and if he wants to look he’s going to.
“Did you know that you can pick a hell hound up by the scruff of its neck?” he asks. “They don’t like it.”
“You took on a hell hound?”
Sam shrugs. “I got one off you. What about you?” Sam asks, keen to move on. “Don’t tell me you got out of hell looking as pretty as when you went in.”
There’s a pause, and then Dean pushes one sleeve up. Sam raises his good eyebrow. “Wow,” he says. “That’s different.”
“Yeah,” Dean says. “The whole ‘coming back’ thing has been pretty different.” There’s a pause, and Sam wonders if Dean wants to ask Sam if it was like this the one time he died, that one stupid awful time when Dean did everything and anything and the one thing he shouldn’t have to get him back.
“I tried,” Sam says, surprising himself. “I tried everything.” He smiles his lopsided smile and looks down at the table, because Dean being gone still hurts in a way that the itch of healing skin had never been able to distract him from. Even with Dean sitting across from him with that same easy sprawl of his doesn’t ease the pain. Because Dean is different; there’s something different in his gaze and differences in his face. And he’s looking at Sam like he’s trying to find his brother under those slashes and the changed line of Sam’s nose and he just keeps looking, keeps missing the fact that Sam is right there in front of him. “We went through so many demons. They started coming to the crossroads with bodyguards. I was getting ready to bust down there and get you.”
Dean snorts. “I would have kicked your ass if you ever set foot there. You and Bobby kicking ass for me up here? That’s cool.”
Sam worries at his bottom lip for a moment. “Me and Ruby,” he finally corrects, and fully anticipates the look Dean gives him. “She had the contacts.”
“I thought she was dead?”
Sam shrugs. “So were you.”
*
Sam finds it horribly ironic that Dean tells people off for staring. “Haven’t you ever seen someone who cut themselves shaving before?” he snaps at motel receptionists who pause in making a booking when Sam steps through the doors. “My brother got something on his face?” he’ll ask icily when a waitress sucks a breath through her teeth when Sam looks up at her to give his order.
Dean’s still looking at the gash of red across Sam’s face instead of meeting his eyes. But compared to before, compared to no Dean at all… It’s better. It’s not so bad.
Sam isn’t good with people any more, and Dean struggles to fill Sam’s ‘good guy with the puppy dog eyes’ role. Dean has to talk to the high schoolers; Dean has to fake being a police officer on his own; Dean has to talk to doctors and teachers and find some kind of credibility deep inside himself. Sam is too recognisable. Sam is too impatient. Sam makes people uneasy. Dean may be wrecked and ruined inside after his time in hell - and he is, he tries to hid it from Sam but while Dean is staring at Sam’s mess of a face Sam is looking right down deep into Dean’s soul - but at least it’s a kind of fucked up that is easy to hide.
When Sam had first tumbled back into hunting, when he’d first finally understood that angry constant burn for revenge, he’d needed that connection with ordinary people. He’d needed that idle conversation about the weather and how a stranger’s day was going. He’d needed moments of being normal, keeping the skills of small talk fresh and easy. He realises now that he’d needed it because he’d assumed that he would go back one day. But each year is taking him further away; he can’t even see that good path he was on through the brambles and tangles he’s been caught up in. Psychic powers, devil’s gate, Dean dying, and now the seals breaking all over the place. Sam can only slip into the role of the normal guy for short moments now; a costume that doesn’t fit and his face is no longer suited to acting.
He likes the messy history of Halloween, the ghosts and demons and the odd comfort in having a ‘peak season’ for hunting, but the holiday has always rubbed him the wrong way. Monsters in plain sight and somehow people can laugh at that, can think that it’s all just so much fun. But this mauled face of his casts the holiday in a new light. It’s the old, unblemished Sam that would feel like a mask now and Sam is sick of the awkward jokes that the people in this town are making about him getting into costume early. But he listens to Dean bitch about witches, and he does the kinds of research that don’t involve talking to people, and he looks up with a wry expression of irritation when he hears something fluttering in the non-existent breeze of the motel room.
And a pair of hard blue eyes look back. Two hands clasp his own large paw, and he hears a rough and tumble voice say, “Sam Winchester, the boy with the demon blood. It is good to see that you are well.” And there’s no irony in there, none at all. There is no pause or horror, no gaze flitting all over his face like a bug unable to settle. It’s the first time someone has looked in his eyes first and foremost since the day that Dean died, and it makes something deep in Sam ache.
“I don’t know how you handle that stare,” Dean remarks later. “I always feel like he’s poking around in my brain or something.”
“It’s a nice change to what I usually get,” Sam replies. Dean gives him a sideways look, and doesn’t answer.
Sam finds it impossibly frustrating that of all of the people in his life at the moment, Castiel is the only one to look him in the eyes and stare at Sam instead of the scars. Castiel is also the only person in Sam’s life who apparently has no interest whatsoever in Sam, beyond the cursory link between Sam and Dean’s general wellbeing.
During the search for Anna’s grace, she shies away from Sam. Looks anywhere but directly at him until Dean snaps at her and Anna snaps back with just as much legitimacy and the two of them sulk and smoulder at each other. Sam is largely unsurprised when they sleep together. But Anael is a different creature and she stares right into Sam with the same intensity Castiel holds, though her view is perhaps angrier. That’s how Sam equates Castiel to the good little solider and Anael to the role of deserter, the child who left. While he’s sure no angel would appreciate the sentiment, Sam feels an affinity with her. Envy, too, as she had so many years of a normal life while even at his very best Sam had never been able to hide the reality from himself.
“You’re not afraid to look at me anymore,” he comments shortly after she has reclaimed her wings. He has a string of voicemails on his phone from Ruby, but he’s not interested in arguing with the demon about her blood and why he won’t drink it. He was looking to be alone, and it is only when Anael joins him that he realises that no, that’s never been what he has wanted.
Anael is beautiful, and ethereal, and her presence speaks of more years than Sam can comprehend. The two of them could not be more different by design.
“Bodies are impermanent,” Anael replies. “It’s the soul that is important.”
Sam looks out at the gravel of the parking lot, and doesn’t mind at all when Anael keeps staring at him. “And how does my soul look?”
Anael looks at him then, looks deep into him and Sam can feel the prickle of her presence under his skin, the burn of her in places that are broken. “You have not taken the paths that were expected of you,” she replies. Angels, Sam is learning, do not like answering questions.
“I don’t think I’m very good at following paths,” Sam admits. He strayed off the path his father had laid out for him, the path to law school that he had determined for himself. He’d even strayed from whatever path the yellow-eyed bastard had set him on, judging by the lack of psychic powers of late. “I think I’m better at screwing things up.”
Anael reaches out and wraps her hand around three of Sam’s fingers, as much of his hand that her own can embrace. She smiles at Sam (a ghost of her human smile, but confident and beautiful all the same) and Sam smiles back, making the scars on the right side of his face crinkle stiffly. “You are,” she replies. “But it’s not so bad.”
*
Time may heal a wound, but it does nothing to erase the scar left behind. Sam is never going to be free of the cruel lines of red on his face, of the stares and the pauses, the wrought iron fence keeping him locked away from the world. But Dean will never be free of his time in hell, of the sick need to sacrifice himself for others. The angels by their sides will never be free of their respective betrayals, of the decisions they have made and the plans they have disrupted. The world will never be free of the slow and steady creep, creep, creep of demons out of hell.
But Dean is looking him in the eyes, and shocked stares soften when Sam smiles. It’s not so bad, and - for this one thing at the very least - it’s getting better.
Sam tilts his head forward, hiding behind his bangs, and laughs. Because, seriously? Dean’s spent however long in hell and he’s worried about Sam? He looks up at his brother with his new, lopsided smile, and waits for Dean to finish taking him in. It’s an act; Sam isn’t really comfortable smiling anymore. But it’s an important act and Sam puts his all into it for Dean. Anyone else, and Sam would keep his head ducked down to avoid attention. But this is Dean, and if he wants to look he’s going to.
“Did you know that you can pick a hell hound up by the scruff of its neck?” he asks. “They don’t like it.”
“You took on a hell hound?”
Sam shrugs. “I got one off you. What about you?” Sam asks, keen to move on. “Don’t tell me you got out of hell looking as pretty as when you went in.”
There’s a pause, and then Dean pushes one sleeve up. Sam raises his good eyebrow. “Wow,” he says. “That’s different.”
“Yeah,” Dean says. “The whole ‘coming back’ thing has been pretty different.” There’s a pause, and Sam wonders if Dean wants to ask Sam if it was like this the one time he died, that one stupid awful time when Dean did everything and anything and the one thing he shouldn’t have to get him back.
“I tried,” Sam says, surprising himself. “I tried everything.” He smiles his lopsided smile and looks down at the table, because Dean being gone still hurts in a way that the itch of healing skin had never been able to distract him from. Even with Dean sitting across from him with that same easy sprawl of his doesn’t ease the pain. Because Dean is different; there’s something different in his gaze and differences in his face. And he’s looking at Sam like he’s trying to find his brother under those slashes and the changed line of Sam’s nose and he just keeps looking, keeps missing the fact that Sam is right there in front of him. “We went through so many demons. They started coming to the crossroads with bodyguards. I was getting ready to bust down there and get you.”
Dean snorts. “I would have kicked your ass if you ever set foot there. You and Bobby kicking ass for me up here? That’s cool.”
Sam worries at his bottom lip for a moment. “Me and Ruby,” he finally corrects, and fully anticipates the look Dean gives him. “She had the contacts.”
“I thought she was dead?”
Sam shrugs. “So were you.”
*
Sam finds it horribly ironic that Dean tells people off for staring. “Haven’t you ever seen someone who cut themselves shaving before?” he snaps at motel receptionists who pause in making a booking when Sam steps through the doors. “My brother got something on his face?” he’ll ask icily when a waitress sucks a breath through her teeth when Sam looks up at her to give his order.
Dean’s still looking at the gash of red across Sam’s face instead of meeting his eyes. But compared to before, compared to no Dean at all… It’s better. It’s not so bad.
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When Sam had first tumbled back into hunting, when he’d first finally understood that angry constant burn for revenge, he’d needed that connection with ordinary people. He’d needed that idle conversation about the weather and how a stranger’s day was going. He’d needed moments of being normal, keeping the skills of small talk fresh and easy. He realises now that he’d needed it because he’d assumed that he would go back one day. But each year is taking him further away; he can’t even see that good path he was on through the brambles and tangles he’s been caught up in. Psychic powers, devil’s gate, Dean dying, and now the seals breaking all over the place. Sam can only slip into the role of the normal guy for short moments now; a costume that doesn’t fit and his face is no longer suited to acting.
He likes the messy history of Halloween, the ghosts and demons and the odd comfort in having a ‘peak season’ for hunting, but the holiday has always rubbed him the wrong way. Monsters in plain sight and somehow people can laugh at that, can think that it’s all just so much fun. But this mauled face of his casts the holiday in a new light. It’s the old, unblemished Sam that would feel like a mask now and Sam is sick of the awkward jokes that the people in this town are making about him getting into costume early. But he listens to Dean bitch about witches, and he does the kinds of research that don’t involve talking to people, and he looks up with a wry expression of irritation when he hears something fluttering in the non-existent breeze of the motel room.
And a pair of hard blue eyes look back. Two hands clasp his own large paw, and he hears a rough and tumble voice say, “Sam Winchester, the boy with the demon blood. It is good to see that you are well.” And there’s no irony in there, none at all. There is no pause or horror, no gaze flitting all over his face like a bug unable to settle. It’s the first time someone has looked in his eyes first and foremost since the day that Dean died, and it makes something deep in Sam ache.
“I don’t know how you handle that stare,” Dean remarks later. “I always feel like he’s poking around in my brain or something.”
“It’s a nice change to what I usually get,” Sam replies. Dean gives him a sideways look, and doesn’t answer.
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*
Sam finds it impossibly frustrating that of all of the people in his life at the moment, Castiel is the only one to look him in the eyes and stare at Sam instead of the scars. Castiel is also the only person in Sam’s life who apparently has no interest whatsoever in Sam, beyond the cursory link between Sam and Dean’s general wellbeing.
During the search for Anna’s grace, she shies away from Sam. Looks anywhere but directly at him until Dean snaps at her and Anna snaps back with just as much legitimacy and the two of them sulk and smoulder at each other. Sam is largely unsurprised when they sleep together. But Anael is a different creature and she stares right into Sam with the same intensity Castiel holds, though her view is perhaps angrier. That’s how Sam equates Castiel to the good little solider and Anael to the role of deserter, the child who left. While he’s sure no angel would appreciate the sentiment, Sam feels an affinity with her. Envy, too, as she had so many years of a normal life while even at his very best Sam had never been able to hide the reality from himself.
“You’re not afraid to look at me anymore,” he comments shortly after she has reclaimed her wings. He has a string of voicemails on his phone from Ruby, but he’s not interested in arguing with the demon about her blood and why he won’t drink it. He was looking to be alone, and it is only when Anael joins him that he realises that no, that’s never been what he has wanted.
Anael is beautiful, and ethereal, and her presence speaks of more years than Sam can comprehend. The two of them could not be more different by design.
“Bodies are impermanent,” Anael replies. “It’s the soul that is important.”
Sam looks out at the gravel of the parking lot, and doesn’t mind at all when Anael keeps staring at him. “And how does my soul look?”
Anael looks at him then, looks deep into him and Sam can feel the prickle of her presence under his skin, the burn of her in places that are broken. “You have not taken the paths that were expected of you,” she replies. Angels, Sam is learning, do not like answering questions.
“I don’t think I’m very good at following paths,” Sam admits. He strayed off the path his father had laid out for him, the path to law school that he had determined for himself. He’d even strayed from whatever path the yellow-eyed bastard had set him on, judging by the lack of psychic powers of late. “I think I’m better at screwing things up.”
Anael reaches out and wraps her hand around three of Sam’s fingers, as much of his hand that her own can embrace. She smiles at Sam (a ghost of her human smile, but confident and beautiful all the same) and Sam smiles back, making the scars on the right side of his face crinkle stiffly. “You are,” she replies. “But it’s not so bad.”
*
Time may heal a wound, but it does nothing to erase the scar left behind. Sam is never going to be free of the cruel lines of red on his face, of the stares and the pauses, the wrought iron fence keeping him locked away from the world. But Dean will never be free of his time in hell, of the sick need to sacrifice himself for others. The angels by their sides will never be free of their respective betrayals, of the decisions they have made and the plans they have disrupted. The world will never be free of the slow and steady creep, creep, creep of demons out of hell.
But Dean is looking him in the eyes, and shocked stares soften when Sam smiles. It’s not so bad, and - for this one thing at the very least - it’s getting better.
The end.
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*dances* Thank you so much for filling this prompt!
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You've broken my coherency with this phenomenal amazingness.
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