Half The Lies You Tell Ain't True, No Pairings, PG-13
(Really am logging off now. Lol.)
Title: Half The Lies You Tell Ain’t True
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: None. Passing reference to Sam/Jess.
Warnings: None.
Word Count: Approx. 1300.
Summary: Sam won’t be drawn into the delusions Dad suffers from.
A producer credit to gimlisgloin and mel_b_angel for prodding me with the original idea
Many thanks to jackiesjunkie for the fine de-Brit and flow help, and to oxoniensis for the detailed and helpful beta. All errors are from my pre-post fiddling ;)
There’s a secret among the Winchesters.
Sam feels he should be included. Dad and Dean talk in whispers, pitched so they don’t reach Sam’s ears. They shut him out.
He's shouting to be let in, but it’s like he’s calling through layers of steel, ‘cause they never hear.
Sam tugs at Dean’s shirt and conscience, begs Dean to let him peek at what’s under wraps. Dean tells him there’s nothing, but he won’t look Sam in the eye. He tugs his shirt away from Sam, and makes his hands into fists.
Dean’s words are lies. There’s something, and it’s in the scribbles Dad makes in his journal and in the long periods without him.
It’s in the set of Dean’s jaw when Dean refuses to say any more.
Sam turns the pages of the journal and wishes he hadn't; it's full of stories that aren’t real, and pictures of monsters that don’t exist.
“Dad’s a superhero,” Dean tells him. Sam can translate that into its own truth: Dad couldn’t save Mom so he saves everybody else from pretend creatures.
It’s a pity nobody can save Dean and Sam from Dad’s imagination.
*
There’s a secret among the Winchesters.
Sam’s part of it now. Dad’s deceptions are a lie, and Sam’s drowning in them. Training's taken over Sam’s life. His feet are pounding along asphalt every morning, his arms are doing push-ups every night. A gun’s being placed into Sam’s hands, and his finger pressed onto the trigger. It doesn’t feel real.
He’s shooting at bottles, glass falling onto the dirt behind the fence. It gets in Sam’s nails when he picks them up. He should be doing homework, but Dad shouts at him to do it again.
Dad shouts that one day hitting the mark will be a matter of life and death.
It’s a matter of sanity or insanity, or normal or abnormal, at least.
Sam asks Dean why they play along with the charade, why his whole life feels like one big part in a scary movie where nobody gave him a script. He asks why they obey Dad’s orders.
Dean narrows his eyes until they’re slits. “To help Dad, Sammy.”
Sam wants to shout that helping Dad would be to stop this, to get Dad help, but he’s swimming against the tide.
So Sam runs in the morning and shoots at night. When his grades start to slip he gets up and studies while Dad dreams of demons and Dean snores on the couch ‘cause they can’t afford more than two beds.
Sam pretends his resentment is imaginary, like the monsters, but every story of a new demon adds another drop to it, until there’s an ocean inside him.
*
There’s a secret among the Winchesters.
Sam wishes he didn’t know. If he could have that day again, he wouldn’t open the journal, he’d push it back under the cushions and say he never saw it.
That would be a better fraud than this one. He thinks if he believes hard enough, he can pretend none of it’s happening.
Dean may be happy to spend his life protecting their father from the truth, but Sam isn’t. He spends more time bent over his homework and less time cleaning the weapons. He spends more time playing soccer and less time going running.
Dad has them racing around the forest at night, darting between trees that they narrowly avoiding hitting in the darkness. Dad shouts at them to evade a ghost that Sam can’t see and to duck from bullets that only Dad is firing.
Dean asks Sam if he can hear the noise, and Sam thinks, it’s getting to Dean too. It gets to Sam sometimes, when they’re out, and everybody’s saying they can hear the growling of the demon or the cries of the creature. Sometimes it slips through the dam Sam’s built to protect himself.
The dam Sam’s built to keep the insanity out. He won’t give up on a normal life. He won’t get sucked down too.
*
There’s a secret among the Winchesters.
It means Dad gets badly hurt. Dad goes out on solo missions, disappearing all night, or all day, or all week. He leaves Sam and Dean alone with the falsehood that they’re a normal family with nothing to worry about. He leaves Dean to put on a tie that tells people he’s Sam’s guardian at parents’ evening.
A tie that’s one of their many lies.
There are so many it’s hard for Sam to remember what’s real, sometimes.
Dad comes back with a red gash splitting the tan of his belly and a dark bruise imprinting his shoulder. Dad says a demon did it, and Dean asks for details, pursing his lips and patching him up with quick, steady hands. It’s a horned demon with sharp nails this time, but it could easily be a vicious werewolf or violent poltergeist. It could easily be any of the stories Dad believes to be true.
Sam wonders where the fantasies are going to end.
Sam’s grateful Dad never hurts him, or Dean, aside from scratches and bruises caused by training, or he’d have to blow the lid off their secret.
*
There’s a secret among the Winchesters.
Dean should have gone to college. Sam might be the only one who knows it, but he’s sure the truth of it permeates through Dad’s walls, to the part of him that remembers to ask about Sam’s homework, and that pins Sam’s report card on the fridge.
Dean stays to help Dad, to fight the monsters of his dreams, to look after Sammy.
Relief floods Sam’s gut and he swamps it with guilt. He couldn’t cope with Dad on his own. He needs Dean there. He needs Dean to pretend the unreality is real, ‘cause Sam sure can’t.
He could never make the same sacrifice, and that’s the worst part of it.
*
There’s a secret among the Winchesters.
It was Sam's secret, but now he’s told them it isn't a secret any more. Sam’s leaving, moving into the world where people are sane, and get jobs and girlfriends. Where people don't fight demons.
Into a world where it’s easier for him to reveal their life to be a sham.
Dean’s in denial, but one day he’ll see that Dad needs help that they can’t give him.
Sam gets on the bus without a backward glance, ignoring Dean’s shouts to stay safe, to take care, to put salt down.
Dean’s reality has narrowed to become Dad’s, to become the world of the Winchesters. Dean’s become immersed, but Sam won’t be.
*
There’s a secret Sam keeps from Jess.
Dean blows it by appearing and taking Sam away. To hunt for Dad, who’s finally lost it, who's vanished off the grid without even confiding in Dean, who gets to hear all of Dad’s crazed theories.
Sam helps Dean search, fruitlessly, then he comes back - to Jess, to normality.
Jess is pinned to the ceiling, blood tripping from her stomach, flames lapping at her edges. She’s the picture Dad drew in his journal. She’s the death that caused Dad’s delusions.
It’s happening in front of Sam’s eyes. Sam blinks, and wills himself to believe it isn’t there, that he can’t feel the fire on his face or hear the crackle of the flames as they burn her up.
The fire incinerates Sam’s defense system. Years of carefully building up a wall are torched as Dean drags him out of the fire. Years of closing his eyes to the ghosts that were heading toward him, of closing his ears to the cries of the hurt, of closing his heart to the truth about his father, all crumble away to join the ashes.
“This denial has gotta stop,” Dean’s saying, “surely you see it now. Sam? Enough.”
“Yeah,” Sam answers. “Enough.”
*
Title taken from Stereophonics.
I’d love to know what you thought!
Title: Half The Lies You Tell Ain’t True
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: None. Passing reference to Sam/Jess.
Warnings: None.
Word Count: Approx. 1300.
Summary: Sam won’t be drawn into the delusions Dad suffers from.
A producer credit to gimlisgloin and mel_b_angel for prodding me with the original idea
Many thanks to jackiesjunkie for the fine de-Brit and flow help, and to oxoniensis for the detailed and helpful beta. All errors are from my pre-post fiddling ;)
There’s a secret among the Winchesters.
Sam feels he should be included. Dad and Dean talk in whispers, pitched so they don’t reach Sam’s ears. They shut him out.
He's shouting to be let in, but it’s like he’s calling through layers of steel, ‘cause they never hear.
Sam tugs at Dean’s shirt and conscience, begs Dean to let him peek at what’s under wraps. Dean tells him there’s nothing, but he won’t look Sam in the eye. He tugs his shirt away from Sam, and makes his hands into fists.
Dean’s words are lies. There’s something, and it’s in the scribbles Dad makes in his journal and in the long periods without him.
It’s in the set of Dean’s jaw when Dean refuses to say any more.
Sam turns the pages of the journal and wishes he hadn't; it's full of stories that aren’t real, and pictures of monsters that don’t exist.
“Dad’s a superhero,” Dean tells him. Sam can translate that into its own truth: Dad couldn’t save Mom so he saves everybody else from pretend creatures.
It’s a pity nobody can save Dean and Sam from Dad’s imagination.
*
There’s a secret among the Winchesters.
Sam’s part of it now. Dad’s deceptions are a lie, and Sam’s drowning in them. Training's taken over Sam’s life. His feet are pounding along asphalt every morning, his arms are doing push-ups every night. A gun’s being placed into Sam’s hands, and his finger pressed onto the trigger. It doesn’t feel real.
He’s shooting at bottles, glass falling onto the dirt behind the fence. It gets in Sam’s nails when he picks them up. He should be doing homework, but Dad shouts at him to do it again.
Dad shouts that one day hitting the mark will be a matter of life and death.
It’s a matter of sanity or insanity, or normal or abnormal, at least.
Sam asks Dean why they play along with the charade, why his whole life feels like one big part in a scary movie where nobody gave him a script. He asks why they obey Dad’s orders.
Dean narrows his eyes until they’re slits. “To help Dad, Sammy.”
Sam wants to shout that helping Dad would be to stop this, to get Dad help, but he’s swimming against the tide.
So Sam runs in the morning and shoots at night. When his grades start to slip he gets up and studies while Dad dreams of demons and Dean snores on the couch ‘cause they can’t afford more than two beds.
Sam pretends his resentment is imaginary, like the monsters, but every story of a new demon adds another drop to it, until there’s an ocean inside him.
*
There’s a secret among the Winchesters.
Sam wishes he didn’t know. If he could have that day again, he wouldn’t open the journal, he’d push it back under the cushions and say he never saw it.
That would be a better fraud than this one. He thinks if he believes hard enough, he can pretend none of it’s happening.
Dean may be happy to spend his life protecting their father from the truth, but Sam isn’t. He spends more time bent over his homework and less time cleaning the weapons. He spends more time playing soccer and less time going running.
Dad has them racing around the forest at night, darting between trees that they narrowly avoiding hitting in the darkness. Dad shouts at them to evade a ghost that Sam can’t see and to duck from bullets that only Dad is firing.
Dean asks Sam if he can hear the noise, and Sam thinks, it’s getting to Dean too. It gets to Sam sometimes, when they’re out, and everybody’s saying they can hear the growling of the demon or the cries of the creature. Sometimes it slips through the dam Sam’s built to protect himself.
The dam Sam’s built to keep the insanity out. He won’t give up on a normal life. He won’t get sucked down too.
*
There’s a secret among the Winchesters.
It means Dad gets badly hurt. Dad goes out on solo missions, disappearing all night, or all day, or all week. He leaves Sam and Dean alone with the falsehood that they’re a normal family with nothing to worry about. He leaves Dean to put on a tie that tells people he’s Sam’s guardian at parents’ evening.
A tie that’s one of their many lies.
There are so many it’s hard for Sam to remember what’s real, sometimes.
Dad comes back with a red gash splitting the tan of his belly and a dark bruise imprinting his shoulder. Dad says a demon did it, and Dean asks for details, pursing his lips and patching him up with quick, steady hands. It’s a horned demon with sharp nails this time, but it could easily be a vicious werewolf or violent poltergeist. It could easily be any of the stories Dad believes to be true.
Sam wonders where the fantasies are going to end.
Sam’s grateful Dad never hurts him, or Dean, aside from scratches and bruises caused by training, or he’d have to blow the lid off their secret.
*
There’s a secret among the Winchesters.
Dean should have gone to college. Sam might be the only one who knows it, but he’s sure the truth of it permeates through Dad’s walls, to the part of him that remembers to ask about Sam’s homework, and that pins Sam’s report card on the fridge.
Dean stays to help Dad, to fight the monsters of his dreams, to look after Sammy.
Relief floods Sam’s gut and he swamps it with guilt. He couldn’t cope with Dad on his own. He needs Dean there. He needs Dean to pretend the unreality is real, ‘cause Sam sure can’t.
He could never make the same sacrifice, and that’s the worst part of it.
*
There’s a secret among the Winchesters.
It was Sam's secret, but now he’s told them it isn't a secret any more. Sam’s leaving, moving into the world where people are sane, and get jobs and girlfriends. Where people don't fight demons.
Into a world where it’s easier for him to reveal their life to be a sham.
Dean’s in denial, but one day he’ll see that Dad needs help that they can’t give him.
Sam gets on the bus without a backward glance, ignoring Dean’s shouts to stay safe, to take care, to put salt down.
Dean’s reality has narrowed to become Dad’s, to become the world of the Winchesters. Dean’s become immersed, but Sam won’t be.
*
There’s a secret Sam keeps from Jess.
Dean blows it by appearing and taking Sam away. To hunt for Dad, who’s finally lost it, who's vanished off the grid without even confiding in Dean, who gets to hear all of Dad’s crazed theories.
Sam helps Dean search, fruitlessly, then he comes back - to Jess, to normality.
Jess is pinned to the ceiling, blood tripping from her stomach, flames lapping at her edges. She’s the picture Dad drew in his journal. She’s the death that caused Dad’s delusions.
It’s happening in front of Sam’s eyes. Sam blinks, and wills himself to believe it isn’t there, that he can’t feel the fire on his face or hear the crackle of the flames as they burn her up.
The fire incinerates Sam’s defense system. Years of carefully building up a wall are torched as Dean drags him out of the fire. Years of closing his eyes to the ghosts that were heading toward him, of closing his ears to the cries of the hurt, of closing his heart to the truth about his father, all crumble away to join the ashes.
“This denial has gotta stop,” Dean’s saying, “surely you see it now. Sam? Enough.”
“Yeah,” Sam answers. “Enough.”
*
Title taken from Stereophonics.
I’d love to know what you thought!