Strange Brew 4/10
Title: Strange Brew
Author: safiyabat
Artist: Stormbrite
Rating: PG-13
Genre/pairing: Gen
Characters: Sam Winchester, John Winchester, Dean Winchester
Word count: 51,698 (fic) / 5,243 (chapter)
Summary: Sam has an adventure he doesn't want.
Spoilers: None
Warnings: Mild child abuse, mostly psychological.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. No, really.
Thursday it rained, but once he’d gotten into dry clothes after his morning run Sam didn’t care. It was library day, and the whole world could go drown on library day as far as Sam was concerned. “Is there really all that much going on in that musty old place?” Dean asked him, exhaustion clear on his face as they rattled down the country road toward the center of town.
“Sure,” Sam replied, surprised. “I mean, it’s a library. I can research whatever I want, there’s other kids to talk to and we can talk about books or movies or different games to play or anything we want. It’s awesome!”
Dean drew his head back, affronted. “I talk to you all the time, Sammy.”
“You talk to me about hunting or about sex stuff, Dean,” the boy retorted.
“Well, yeah. What else is there?”
John gave a snort. “It’s probably for the best if you don’t go filling your brother’s head with sex stuff, Dean.”
“I’m only ten, after all,” Sam glowered.
“Not like you’re ever going to have sex anyway,” Dean grumped, crossing his arms over his chest. “What girl’s gonna want to look at you when she’s got me?”
Sam rolled his eyes. Who cared if girls wanted to look at him anyway? It wasn’t like he was ever going to be around anyplace long enough to do anything about it. He knew that didn’t mean much to his father or his brother, but he knew enough from books and from health class and everything to know that they’d both probably wind up getting a disease or something eventually. He didn’t want that. Who did?
“It’s best if he just learn to focus on the hunt,” Dad said, hands gripping the wheel a little tighter. “I’m pretty sure it won’t be an issue for Sam.”
What was that supposed to mean anyway? Not that he minded - girls were fine for friends, but the prospect of all that touching just seemed kind of gross to him - but why shouldn’t he be allowed just as much of a break to go “blow off steam” as they called it as his father and his brother? Had John somehow figured out about the filth inside of him? He turned his head and looked out the window. It didn’t matter. He’d never be in a position to have any choice in the matter anyway.
He got out of the car in silence when they got to the library, good mood successfully tempered thanks to the good offices of his family. He started to perk up once he got into the building, though. Star and Susan were already there, along with some of the other kids. They both seemed happy enough to see him. “Hey!” he greeted. “Did you guys have a decent night?”
“We sure did,” Susan told him. “All the moms liked you, even Mama Laura. She doesn’t like boys much at all.”
Sam wondered what would have happened if one of the moms had given birth to a boy, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t think that would make anyone feel better about their mom. “So, I was wondering,” he said instead. “You guys grow a lot of herbs at your farm. Is there really that much of a market for them?”
Both of the farm girls laughed at him. “Who does the cooking at your house again?” Susan wanted to know.
“Uh, my brother, mostly. My mom died when I was a baby.”
“Oh. Well, yes. Herbs have a lot of uses, but they’re especially useful for things like cooking. Have you finished that book we had on hold for you?” Star asked him. He nodded, holding his breath. “Well, why don’t we grab you an herbal. I’ll make you a list of all of the things we grow on the farm and you can figure out some of the things that people use them for now or might have used them for in history. Most of the things that aren’t used for food anymore are just decorative now, of course, but you might get a kick out of knowing what people thought they were useful for once upon a time.” She grinned. “You seem like that type.”
Oh, Sam was just that type. And he knew it. This was just the first time someone hadn’t thought that being “that type” made him someone to mock for it.
Star showed him to the botany section and helped him to find a big, heavy book about herbs before leading him back to the children’s section. Then she grabbed a piece of paper from the copier and started making out a list. “Here are some of the herbs we grow up at the farm, Sam,” she told him. “Why don’t you see if you can’t find out some of the things people thought they were good for?”
He looked up at her. “This is only herbs from that first field,” he told her, opening the book. “What about the ones from the other fields we saw?”
She hesitated, and then she grinned and laughed. “You’re observant!” She added to the list. “Most of these are just used for decoration now,” she reminded him. “We sell them to garden centers. But you might get a kick out of them.”
He was sure he would, although not for the reasons she thought. After all, herbs were useful for protection and cleansing, right? What if he could “cleanse” himself? Maybe Dad wouldn’t hate him so much. He smiled happily at his teenaged mentor and got to work.
The family had a generous section of rosemary shrubs, which had kind of struck Sam as odd at the time. He’d thought rosemary would thrive better in a drier, warmer environment like California or Texas, but apparently some varietals did just fine up here because they grew little shrubs and sold them. According to the herbal it was a popular culinary and decorative herb, but it also had protective uses for occultists and spellcrafters - especially female spellcrafters, he noted, writing the information in his notebook before moving on to the next item on his list. The Tealls grew mint; an herb Sam mostly knew through chewing gum. According to this herbal book, it “had once been used” to break spells and jinxes and gain mental clarity.
The work absorbed him. He liked this. Sure, it might be peripherally useful on a hunt someday. It might even be vaguely useful on the current hunt, if Dad or Dean got crossed up by the witch now and needed help or something. But truth be told, he just liked learning this stuff. The first list of things were even herbs that were easily found in the grocery store, for crying out loud. The stuff on the second list - that was more obscure. Yarrow, for example, offered bravery and broke curses, but had no culinary use. Wormwood, too - that stuff was dangerous. People once used it in brewing and distillation, but now it got used as a border plant in suburban gardens. How many of those suburban gardeners were really looking to “stimulate psychic visions” or “aid in contacting the spirit world?”
Five o’clock came far too early for Sam’s tastes. He reluctantly closed up the book and handed it to Star, who shook her head with a gentle smile. “Wow, you’re really into that book, aren’t you?”
He blushed. “I like learning stuff,” he admitted.
“Look. I know you’re not supposed to get a library card, but how about if I go ahead and check this book out for you? You can keep it for the whole weekend and then bring it back on Tuesday.”
Hope fluttered in his chest. He quelled it. “Oh, I couldn’t do that. It’s raining; the book would get wet.”
She paused. “Do you walk home at night, Sam?”
He shrugged. “I have to get home, ma’am.”
She made a face at the honorific. “I’m eighteen, Sam. I’m way too young for ‘ma’am.’ Look. I’ll give you a ride. I know where you’re living and that’s way too far for anyone to be walking, never mind a ten year old.” Her lips folded shut. “Come on. Let’s go.”
He swallowed. “Okay.”
She checked out the book, and Sam followed her and Susan out to the pickup truck with burning cheeks. It wasn’t like he wasn’t perfectly capable of walking home, or even running home if the situation arose. He wasn’t some baby who needed someone to wipe his nose for him or change his diapers. At the same time, he liked the book. And saying no, fighting back on this, would probably cause more problems for him than accepting the ride.
The Tealls let him out at the end of the driveway. He thanked them profusely for the ride and raced up to the trailer, book up and underneath his shirt. Dad and Dean were home, surprised to find him back so soon. “Figured we had at least an extra hour and a half of peace,” John grumbled, picking up scattered papers from the table.
“Susan and Star offered me a ride,” Sam explained. “Because of the rain. Sir,” he added when both father and brother glowered.
“What, you’re made of sugar, can’t let the rain fall on your precious little head?” the eldest Winchester scoffed.
“They checked me out a book from the library. I tried to say no, but it would have drawn more attention if I’d kept that up.” He kept his head up. “I know you didn’t want that.”
John looked him in the eyes. “A book? Really, princess? Your lazy ass rode back here because of fairy tales?”
“An herbal, actually.” He produced it from under his shirt. “Traditional and modern uses for hundreds of herbs. I got kind of into it so Star really wanted to check it out for me. Something to do over the weekend. Sir,” he added after another glower. “We do use herbs to cleanse houses and stuff.”
John tilted his head from side to side. “Valid,” he admitted after a moment. “I’m surprised you thought of it. Alright. New project. I want you to go ahead and copy every word of that herbal, word for word. I’ll have Dean run out and get you some notebooks.” He tossed a few bills onto the table. “Grab us some grub while you’re at it, Ace. First things first, Sam. Get the trailer cleaned up; it’s a sty in here.”
Sam looked around. He’d kept the place in fairly good order; the only dirt or clutter had been distributed by John or Dean while he’d been out. He could say something, but that would just make John take away the possibility of spending time with the book. Plus, it wouldn’t take much time to clean up.
By the time Dean got back - six cloth-bound composition notebooks and three Styrofoam containers of greasy cheeseburgers and fries in tow - Sam had dealt with all of the clutter and scrubbed all of the mud. He glared at his brother and erased the footprints he left behind when he got through the door. Sam choked down some of the fries and managed a few bites of burger before he asked to be excused. “You just can’t wait to get back to that book, can you?” Dean chuckled, shaking his head.
The boy shrugged. “It’s useful knowledge, Dean,” he told his brother. It’s helpful to know. I mean, look. If we find, say, wormwood at a scene, we’ll have some clue as to what a witch was trying to do.”
“That’s not for you to worry about, Sam,” John intervened. “You just keep your mind on copying the book, let your brother and me worry about what the witch was doing.”
Anger welled up in the boy, but he choked it back. His father could tell him not to think all he wanted, but he couldn’t physically stop him. The important thing was getting back to the book.
He stayed up late going through the book, diligently copying each and every entry in his tiny, cramped handwriting by the light of the Coleman lantern before Dean finally demanded that he “shut the damn thing off, will you? Not like Dad’s not gonna make us run tomorrow morning, rain or shine.” It did rain on Friday morning, too, and Dad did make them run. While running, he noticed asters (which might have nourished twenty different species, to include some beautiful butterflies) and butterfly weed (which had once been thought to cure pleurisy, if given in a tincture of water or rum; Sam wasn’t entirely sure what pleurisy was but he’d stick with modern medicine for that one and let that protected plant feed butterflies, thanks) and blackberries (whose leaves apparently could be used in spells to make someone else’s evil intent boomerang back on them or something like that.)
It did occur to the boy that most branch libraries didn’t have herbology volumes that listed magical uses for plants. Of course, this was the kind of place that had a commune of women raising their daughters in common on a farm right there in town, so apparently Tully was just open-minded about that kind of thing. Lucky for Sam, and for the Winchesters.
After they did their running, Sam dried off and got back to work. He’d only gotten as far as the letter B last night; he had a long way to go today.
Saturday brought with it shooting practice and extra training, considering that the day was the first vaguely nice day that they’d had in a long time. He tried not to let himself show his frustration, but got through his minimum shooting as fast as he could so that he could inspect the plants growing on the edges of the makeshift range. He found bluestem and dog-bane, arrow wood and bergamot. Not all of them had uses that were appropriate to hunters or to people that might be of interest to hunters, but Sam found himself fascinated anyway.
“Sam!” John barked as the boy poked at what he thought might be fireweed (edible and medicinal, he remembered, if that was really what this was. He knew better than to think that he was some kind of expert.) “Quit picking flowers, princess, and get over here and show some interest in sparring.”
Sunday brought more training, more workouts, and more time with the book. Sam scribbled at a feverish pace, terrified that he wouldn’t get everything done before Tuesday. He skipped dinner, then breakfast on Monday, and then dinner again as he raced to finish the project. Blisters broke out on his hand, and they broke, but he just threw a couple of band-aids on them.
Had his father’s lip curled at the use of the bandages? Must have been - yeah, Dad would absolutely look down on him for using precious resources on his pathetic, useless hands. Still, he worked on. When Dean complained about the light on Monday night, Sam took the lantern out and worked in the Impala until Dad came to make him run.
It worked. He got everything copied. He barely got it all done on time, his hand could barely move from all of the cramping and the blisters, his stomach was practically wrapped around his spine and his eyelids felt like sandpaper, but he’d gotten the job done. He’d done it right, too. This was something no one could take away from him.
Dad didn’t even look at the stack of composition notebooks when they got back from their run. “It’s about time,” he grunted, gesturing to the coffee pot. “Get to it.”
Dean started the coffee and Sam went to clean up and change for library day. At least Star and Susan would be impressed, right?
Except they weren’t impressed either. “You look like a zombie,” Susan told him. “Seriously, Sam. You look like you crawled out of a Saturday afternoon matinee. When did you last sleep?”
Star looked at his hand. “What happened to you?”
“Well, I had to copy out the book, and -“
“You copied that entire book?” she objected, grabbing his hand and examining it more closely. “By hand?”
He pulled the limb back gently. “Well, I mean, yeah. I thought some of it would be useful and Dad said sure, it would be. I think he just meant it to keep me out of their hair, but I didn’t mind. I mean, it’s good stuff to know and the best way to learn is to write it down -“
“Sam.” She crouched down to his eye level. “Did anyone know that you were staying up all night to work on this? Or that your hand was that messed up?”
He squirmed. Crap. He’d drawn attention again. “Well, I mean, I don’t know. I get pretty caught up in things sometimes.” He gave his best dimple-filled grin, or at least the best dimple-filled grin that he was capable of under the circumstances.
It didn’t work. “I’d like to talk to someone from home,” the counselor told him, eyes narrowing a bit. “Maybe they could bring you into the building on Thursday.”
Sam nodded slowly, swallowing. This was a disaster that even the Rebel Alliance’s victory over the Empire couldn’t overcome.
The problem loomed over him all day on Wednesday, when Dad went out to do more research and Sam and Dean were left to their own devices in the trailer. “So,” he finally asked his brother, bringing him a peanut butter sandwich for lunch. “I kind of wondered if I could ask you a favor tomorrow.”
Dean glared at him. “A favor? Really?” Then he grinned. “That depends on what it’s worth to you, squirt.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “How about it’s worth not telling Dad about you ditching me at Plucky’s back in West Virginia so you could go make time with Kelsey Markham?”
Dean scowled. “You promised you wouldn’t say anything!”
“Dude, you ditched me in a building full of clowns. Besides, desperate times.” Sam crossed his arms over his chest. He’d rather have done this the nice way, but if Dean wanted to play hardball he’d do it.
His brother gave a deep, long-suffering sigh and threw his head back. “Who even says things like ‘make time’ anyway? Alright. Shoot. What is it that you want?”
“I want you to come into the library with me tomorrow,” Sam exhaled quickly, playing with the hem of his shirt.
“Seriously? What, did some other library nerd have a bigger book boner than you?” He laughed at his own joke. “Get it? Book boner?”
“I’m laughing on the inside. Listen, Star saw the bandages on my hand from the blisters that I got when I copied the book. She wants to talk to someone ‘in charge’ here.”
Dean cringed. “Better me than Dad,” he agreed quickly. “Nosy broad, is she?”
Sam shrugged. “I think she’s just worried. She doesn’t know the kind of life we live, you know? Normal kids don’t come in with blisters like that, they don’t need to wear long sleeves in public in the summer to hide training bruises and they don’t have to stay up all night to prove to their father that they can get the job done. I know we do,” he placated, holding his hands up as his brother’s face turned red, “but she’s a civilian and she doesn’t. She won’t. So… it worried her, I guess.”
Dean rolled his eyes and shook his head. “This is what comes of trying to do stuff outside the family, Sammy,” he groused.
“You do stuff outside the family all the time,” the boy objected.
“Yeah, but I don’t care.” He stood up. “Fine, fine. I’ll do it.”
The next day, Dean made good on his promise. He allayed John’s suspicions by telling his father that he’d promised Sam he’d go in and meet this “counselor” of Sam’s because “I think Sammy’s got a bit of a crush on her.”
John was annoyed, but not suspicious that Sam was about to bring CPS down on their heads or anything, so he sat in the parking lot and waited while Dean escorted Sam into the building.
Star greeted them at the entrance to the children’s section with a smile. “Hi, Sam. Good to see you. Why don’t you grab a seat?” Sam didn’t have a seat. He stood next to his brother, pulse racing. “And you must be Sam’s brother, Dean.”
“That’s me.” Dean gave a long, slow grin. “The one and only.”
Star’s polite smile started to look a little bit strained. “So, Dean, thanks for coming in. I was hoping we could chat a little bit about Sam’s hand. I noticed some blistering, and I noticed that he hadn’t slept in some time. I guess that he copied out the entire book I sent home with him in one weekend?”
Dean blinked. “Well, yeah. He had to bring it back.”
Sam buried his face in his hands.
“And no one thought that he might be overworking himself,” Star prompted, smile falling. “Was anyone keeping track of how often he ate, or making sure that he slept?”
Dean struck a cocky pose. “Aw, sister. Us Winchesters are independent. If Sammy hadn’t taken so long to copy the thing out he wouldn’t have had to make up the time at the end, you understand?” His eyes looked the older teen up and down. “Sammy just needs to learn to prioritize. He’ll figure it out once he gets sick and tired of dragging, you know?”
She reached out and lifted Dean’s chin so he was looking at her eyes. “Thank you for coming in and meeting with me, Dean. It was very instructive.”
“No problem, sweetheart. Anytime.”
“It’s Star. Thank you. Sam, you can show your brother out; come right on back here for the science discussion, okay?”
“I think that went well,” Dean preened at the library entrance.
“Dude, DSS is going to be at the trailer before you even get there,” Sam despaired.
Star did not call DSS. She did, however, make sure that Sam had the farm’s phone number. “You call us if you need anything,” she told him. “Anything at all.”
How he was supposed to do that without a phone, Sam had no idea. But at least he knew that the option was there.
Friday was spent in training, again. Dad was off doing “research” or whatever, but he’d left Dean with a long list of training activities that he expected both sons to complete before he got home. Sam groaned. He hated sparring. He hated knife fighting even more. It wasn’t like Dean was going to go easy on him because of his size, no more than his father would. Dean liked to goad him, to tease, him, too. At least Dad just cut him down at the end of a session.
On the other hand, Dean liked to show him things. Dean would demonstrate how to perform a specific move, rather than just expect Sam to pick it up through osmosis. Today he showed Sam a new block he’d learned watching wrestling; it should be good for a shrimp like Sam, he said, because it used the opponent’s size against him. Sam was game for anything that let him succeed against larger opponents; he only ever fought larger opponents.
By the time they were finished with their training Sam’s muscles quivered and his stomach groaned, but he didn’t want to go back inside. Instead he went back out into the woods, seeking out more plants from the book of herbs. His book of herbs. Sure, it had been busywork; that just made it more his instead of theirs, right? Not that he should be thinking of things that way; he knew that he didn’t have anything of his own, not really.
Saturday brought a fresh new hell. Dad took them running and shooting, then he grabbed Sam from behind and tried to blindfold him. “Dad, what the hell?” Sam objected, struggling in vain against his father’s iron grip.
“Quit fighting me, boy!” John barked, tightening his hold and wrapping a leg around Sam. “Dean, get over here and hold onto your brother. Jesus Christ, boy, it’s a blindfold, not a noose!”
Sam didn’t care. It might not be much of a life but he wasn’t ready to end it, not yet. “I’m not letting you kill me!” he spat out. “I’m not going to let you!” He lashed out at where he thought his father was, connecting with something that yelped in his brother’s voice instead. “Fuck you! I’m not letting you just kill me out here in the woods like some kind of -“
John backhanded him across the face. “Quit your whining, you imbecilic crybaby,” he snarled. “For crying out loud, where would you even get that idea? What the hell is wrong with you, boy?”
“Seriously, Sammy,” Dean added, giving him a shove. “Why would you accuse Dad of something like that, huh?”
Sam didn’t answer, focusing all of his energy on struggling in his father’s arms. There would be bruises for weeks from this, if he survived. Dad had finally decided to just take him out, that he was too filthy to allow to survive. He shouldn’t be surprised by that and he wasn’t, not really. The timing was a shock, but the act didn’t surprise him in the slightest. He hadn’t expected Dean to help out, though. Maybe he should have. John was Dean’s hero. Anything Dad said, went. Why would John deciding that Sam needed to die be any different?” He felt hot tears begin to soak through the blindfold in the midday sun.
“Oh for crying out loud quit your blubbering! Do you really think I would kill you like this, idiot?” John sighed in exasperation, shoving Sam to the ground. “This is a training exercise. A survival training exercise. You have to -“
“What, find a way to survive you putting a bullet into my brain?” Sam spat. All he could think about were those cartoons, the ones where the victim got blindfolded and put up against the wall.
“Keep interrupting me and I’ll be tempted,” John told him. “Get in the car. If anyone pulls us over we tell them it’s your birthday and we’re taking you to a special surprise.”
Dean hauled him to his feet and Sam found himself dragged toward something - probably where the Impala had been, if he remembered correctly. Getting suddenly blindfolded hadn’t been great for his sense of place. “Lie down in the back,” Dean directed. “We’re going for a ride.”
“Oh no, kid,” John chuckled. “You’re riding back there with him. You need to make sure he keeps the blindfold on. I don’t trust him.”
Sam swallowed his panic and tried to focus behind a still-racing heart. He’d read about what you were supposed to do in a situation like this. Um, count the turns, right? He couldn’t use his eyes - Dad knew what he was doing - but he could use his other senses to try to increase his chances of escape. What had that book said? He struggled to reach back across a good three years of memory to some terrible mystery written for kids.
The ride took about an hour, but he was pretty sure that they doubled back on themselves at least twice. The route had hills, plenty of them, and by the end he knew that they were going to be at the top of something fairly steep. The temperature dropped; he couldn’t feel the sunlight on his skin anymore. Okay. Okay, he could work with that. He thought they’d gone back in toward town and then out again, but they hadn’t gone into town. Maybe… maybe north, based on sun positioning? He smelled cows, and then when the sunshine disappeared again he stopped smelling them again. Right - through farmland and then back into the forest.
At the end of the journey, his father pulled him out of the car and held his arms to his sides. “The purpose of this exercise is to survive the next twenty-four hours,” John told him, breath hissing hot and foul into his ear. “On a hunt, you never know when you’re going to be caught out without supplies. This is to teach you how to get along. You stand there and you leave that blindfold on until you can’t hear the Impala anymore. I’ll be back tomorrow to get you. Nod if you understand me.”
Sam nodded, limbs trembling.
Dean’s footsteps fell away from him. “Can’t believe you thought Dad was just going to off you, freak,” he scoffed.
Sam stayed still, fear rendering him unusually obedient. John still had his guns, after all. And And if John ever found out what Sam really was, the kind of freak he’d been harboring under his roof - well, he’d use them, and no mistake.
The Impala roared away.
When the engine faded, Sam took off his blindfold. He was alone in a forest, next to a road that looked so little used that it barely registered as paved. He heard a stream in the distance, barely audible over birds and the faint summer breeze. A friendly boulder provided seating.
He had no instructions and no supplies. Dad would supposedly come back for him tomorrow. All he had to do was survive, right? So what was he supposed to do, sit here on this rock and stare at the road until tomorrow?
Well, he had a little silver knife - he didn’t go anywhere without that. He knew that he could probably find water in the creek, if it were drinkable, and he knew that some of the plants at least were edible.
No instructions meant no orders, though. No orders meant that there was nothing to stop him from following the road down into town. It would be a long hike, but he could do it.
Two hours later he found himself on more familiar ground. The long semi-paved road let out onto Teall Farm Road, a winding affair that happened bisect the Teall family property. He laughed to himself, despite the sweat and mess. Oh, this was just too awesome. He could get home from here just fine. First, though, he was going to get a drink of water.
It was Mama Laura who answered the door when he rang the bell, though, not Star or Susan. “Sam?” she greeted with suspicion. “My God, Sam, you look a mess. What happened to you? You’ve got - are those bruises on your arms?”
“I got into some roughhousing with my brother, ma’am,” he lied. “I’m afraid that I got a little bit lost in the state park. Would it be okay if I borrowed a drink of water before I headed home?”
Star had heard his voice and made her way into the kitchen. “Sam? You’re not walking home, that’s way too far. Come on. Let’s get you some water, you can stay for dinner and I’ll give you a ride after you’ve had some good tasty salad.” She and Laura exchanged glances.
Sam considered and ultimately nodded. No one was expecting him anywhere, after all, and maybe he would get to see and play with Susan. The day was shaping up much better than it had started out.
Back to Chapter Three -- On to Chapter Five