Strange Brew 7/10
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) / 5,234 (chapter)
Summary: Sam snaps, just a bit.
Spoilers: None
Warnings: Child abuse
Disclaimer: I own nothing. No, really.
Dad left Sam and Dean alone after Saturday’s training session. Sam didn’t object. Training was brutal. John worked them so hard that Sam couldn’t even hold himself up by the end; of course, that could have been dehydration too. “You think you’re always going to have water with you?” John sneered when Sam asked for a water break. “You need to learn to play through the pain, princess. There’s no room for girls in this army, boy. Give me twenty pull-ups, right now!”
So Sam truly had no objections to getting left at the trailer. In fact, he would have been perfectly happy to just strip down and lie under the hose. He’d never been so happy to not have hot water in his life. Once Dad took off he did strip down to an old pair of cut-off shorts and hose down, even though Dean refused to join him. “Can’t cut off my jeans, dumbass. Have to save them all on the off chance that you’ll grow someday.”
Sam shrugged. There wasn’t much else to say to that; it was the truth. The only reason that these jeans had been cut off was that someone had badly sprained a knee and the jeans had needed to be cut off because of the swelling. He flopped down into the grass and turned to his brother. “So have you and Dad found anything new?”
“What, since Thursday or whatever?” Dean scratched at his ear. “I mean yeah, someone died weirdly yesterday but I don’t know if that counts. Dad’s off checking it out now.”
“Geez, only yesterday?” He tried to calculate the pace of the killings. “They’re getting faster.”
“Yeah, well, you can’t explain crazy. If this one was even a witch, you know. This could have just been screwed up. His septic system exploded.”
“Eeuw!” Sam exclaimed, jumping up and glaring at the ground. “How does your septic system just explode?”
“I dunno. We’ve never stuck around one place long enough to learn much about septic system maintenance. I guess gasses build up, from all the decaying, you know, stuff.” He made a face. “Christ it’s hot out here. I thought this far north would be like the tundra or something.”
“Apparently not.” Sam looked at the ground again. What if their septic system exploded? They hadn’t added anything to it since they moved in, thanks to the lack of a working bathroom, but stuff might still be in there.
“Anyway, I guess it’s theoretically possible. Or, you know, a witch could just hex you and make your toilet explode in rotting waste.” He cackled. “What a way to go.” He ducked his head inside and pulled out two beers from the cooler. “Here. It’s hot.”
Sam opened his. In theory, he knew that beer was probably not the best plan when he was already dehydrated and the day hot. “Dad’ll get mad.”
“Nah. He’ll be fine ‘long as we both stay sober. It’s just a beer, Sammy.”
“I wasn’t saying no, Dean.” He sipped from the can, enjoying the cool liquid as it flowed down his neck. God that felt good. Maybe the Tealls could teach him a spell that would keep him cool or cool him down on days like this, because seriously, this kind of blew. “Does Dad have any ideas about suspects or anything?”
“Dude, what is with the third degree here? Since when do you even care?” Dean shook his head. “You hate hunting, Sammy.”
“I do.” He shrugged. “What does that change?”
“What do you mean?”
“Does me hating hunting mean you’re not going to do it? That you’re going to hang around here and stay safe for me?” He took another sip from his beer. Dean was a quarter of the way through his bottle already and part of Sam thought that maybe he should try to drink it faster, be more like his brother. If the other kids got their hands on beers, they’d try to drink it faster. Sam knew better. Drinking beer too fast would just make him stupid and give him a headache later. Still, the temptation was there.
“Sammy, don’t start with me. You know that can’t happen.” Dean looked away. “Even if I wanted to, which I don’t, you know it can’t happen.”
“Right. So. If you have an extra set of eyes looking at the problem you’re more likely to come out of this safely, since you’re not going to do the really safe thing and not go messing with powerful witches who like to hurt people.” He sighed.
“I guess that makes sense,” Dean agreed. “But you know what would really go a long way toward keeping us safe in the long term? You not fighting Dad. Just shut up, do what you’re told, knuckle under and train. He’s trying to mold you into someone who can be safe.”
“No, Dean. He’s trying to mold me into you, and I’m not you. I’m never going to be you. You’re awesome and all, sure, but my body isn’t yours and my brain isn’t yours and he’s not even doing a very good job of trying to turn me into you.” Sam jumped to his feet and he could hear his voice rising. “He taught you to shoot patiently. He just screams and hits me and hopes I’ll somehow figure it out from there. He explains crap to you. He doesn’t think he needs to do that with me because I’ll never need to think for myself. That’s bullshit and you know it.”
“It’s Dad, Sammy. He knows what you’re capable of, what I’m capable of. You have to trust him. We have to trust him. He’s kept us safe this long, he knows what he’s doing.” Dean’s words were calm but his face had clamped down again, getting that same kind of stony look that Dad got to it.
“I don’t have to trust shit,” Sam hissed out. “When he gives me a reason to trust him, maybe. But not one minute before.” He stalked back into the stifling, overheated trailer.
The heat wave continued on Sunday. Training also continued, with escape training and running and extra-hard sparring because Sam had walked away from his brother and Dean hated that almost as much as he hated witches. If his father noticed any additional heat behind Dean’s attacks he didn’t say anything about it, except to praise Dean’s “fire.”
Sam wasn’t going to just sit back and take it. Sure, Dean wanted Sam to give in and accept his place. Sam’s needs, Sam himself, didn’t figure into the picture much and the boy was angry about it. He fought back hard, not holding back as much as he usually did because he didn’t want to hurt anyone. Dean hadn’t been prepared for the hard defense and while larger, stronger Dean still left bruises that went straight to Sam’s bones, Sam was able to take down his brother a good half of the time.
John watched through narrow eyes as his youngest son’s rage channeled itself into physical action. “Looks like little Sammy’s got something to say,” he purred, and Sam hated that tone in his father’s voice. “You’ve been holding back on me, Sammy. Got something you want to tell us?”
“Sir,” Sam growled, chest heaving.
“I’m pretty sure you can use more words than that,” the patriarch continued, coming closer. “You bloodied your brother’s face with your knuckles, Sam. Is that what you wanted to do?”
“Is that what you call keeping us safe?” Sam smirked through gritted teeth, and Dean gasped. As a matter of fact, Sam had wanted to bloody Dean’s face with his knuckles. Dean had bloodied Sam’s nose with his own fist, after all.
John’s face darkened at the defiance, and he raised his hand to backhand his son. Sam blocked, the force of his father’s arm enough to land a new bruise. John’s eyes widened in shock, but Sam didn’t stop with a forbidden block. He stepped in and punched John in the gut, as hard as he could.
His father folded around the blow, and Sam knew he wouldn’t get in another lucky shot. John hadn’t been expecting it. He danced backward, out of the way of his father’s grasping hand. If he couldn’t extend his reach he needed to find some way of closing in, making it harder for John to use his own size against Sam. He grabbed a handful of dirt and flung it at John’s eyes, and when John blindly groped out for him he nabbed him with a right hook to the jaw.
Adrenaline burned through Sam’s veins as he circled his enraged father. He knew that this couldn’t last; John would catch up to him eventually and then there would be hell to pay. Right here, though, and right now, he didn’t care. His blood boiled with defiance and success and rage and resentment. When his father reached out again for him, Sam blocked. When John dove for him, Sam used the older man’s own momentum to send him to the ground.
He didn’t wait for his opponent to get up. Everything was starting to bleed together, bullies and monsters and resentment and rage and every time he’d wanted to stand up for himself and had been too scared. He wasn’t even seeing his father now, just another faceless creature that could have been any other ghost or ghoul or thing that their father set them against. The rush of adrenaline warred with the emotions in his head. He jumped on top of the creature, raining down blows without seeing or even feeling.
Strong arms pulled him away. He howled as he fought against his captor, wordless and enraged until a blast of cold water caught him square in the chest. Clarity trickled back in, and with it pain. John, eyes hard and furious, stalked toward him and backhanded him with the full force of his strength as Dean held him still. “Don’t you ever think that you get to raise a hand to me, boy,” his father snarled.
Sam spat blood at the man. “Need someone to hold down a ten year old for you?”
“I will be obeyed, you spoiled little brat.” He turned swollen, blackened eyes to Dean. “Get his shirt off.”
Sam took the belting with laughter. The blows hurt, of course they hurt. They were intended to hurt, to humiliate and to cut into the skin. At the same time, they were being delivered by a man who’d had his face bloodied and battered by the son he derided as weak and useless and worthless. So Sam laughed, even though his laughter seemed to deepen the welts.
Once his father had finished venting his rage onto his youngest, he banished Sam to the sweltering trailer. The boy had no problem with his expulsion; why would he? It got him away from his family, if only briefly. He was close enough to still hear their conversation, though. “I don’t know what in the hell got into that boy,” Dad told Dean, sitting heavily against the stairs leading up to the doorway. “I’ve never seen him fight like that! Do you think it could be the witch?”
Dean paused. “So far the witch hasn’t used any of the victim’s, uh, victims to go after them.”
“What do you mean?”
“Her targets are all men that hurt women or kids, sir. And the witch hasn’t used the women or kids to go after the men.” Dean’s voice was carefully neutral.
“Hurt kids? Dean, I’ve never hurt either of you boys!”
Sam’s back begged to differ.
“I know that sir, but I don’t think the witch would see it that way. And since we’re trying to figure out if Sam got possessed by the witch, it makes sense to consider what she usually goes after and how she thinks about things. Sir.” Dean cleared his throat. “I think he’s just. You know. Screwed up.”
“There’s no place for crazy in this business,” John told him after a second.
“Not crazy, just screwed up. He’s not… he’s not like us, Dad,” Dean sighed. “He’s not a fighter.”
“My broken nose disagrees,” John told him. Sam felt a little thrill of victory.
“That’s not what I meant. He’ll dig in his heels when he knows he’s right, don’t get me wrong. But he’d rather think, find another way. He’d rather be safe than go out and fight something head on.”
“He’s a coward,” John sneered. “We’ll beat that out of him soon enough.”
“Sir - don’t you think what happened today was kind of… you know, not good? I mean, he went after you because he doesn’t…. never mind, sir.”
“He needs to learn to trust me, Dean. He needs to learn to trust me and to do what the fuck he’s told or it’s going to get worse for him.” John grunted; presumably Dean was applying some kind of first aid to him. “The hell was going on between the two of you earlier, anyway? You don’t think that set him off as much as anything else?”
“Ah, we had a fight. Nothing much, you know.”
“Must’ve been something I’ve never seen him fight so hard when he was sparring.” John sounded pained.
“He, uh, he doesn’t like hunting. Thinks you’re putting us in danger instead of keeping us safe. That’s what we fought about, sir.” Dean’s voice was barely audible through the door.
“Goddamn arrogant little shit,” Dad growled. “Thinks he knows better than I do. He’s going to have to learn.”
“That’s what I told him, sir.” Dean’s voice moved, footsteps over gravel. “He had an argument for everything.”
Dad sighed. “I so don’t have time for this. I can’t save this county from witches and teach him to obey at the same time. Obviously I’ve gone too easy on him. After this is over, I’m taking the two of you up into the woods somewhere and I’m going to focus on getting him under control. I can’t have this, Dean. I just can’t.”
Dean let out a little sound, somewhere between a groan and a grunt. “Sir.”
“I can’t fight him and the other monsters out there.”
“No, sir.” Dean leaned against the trailer wall, metal groaning under his weight.
Sam lay back against the couch, little caring about the stains to the sheet. His father had just called him a monster. His father, who killed monsters, had just called him a monster.
Well, what had he really expected? He’d known his father felt that way ever since he’d read the journal. He couldn’t afford to get hung up on his own fears or stuff like that. “We have to find the witch first, sir,” Dean was saying. “Any ideas about a suspect?”
“Well, she’s a woman,” John shot back. “We can be pretty sure of that.”
Sam rolled his eyes. Men could get defensive of women and children too, although he also thought that the perpetrator was probably a woman. God, it was hot in here. He thought about opening a window, but he knew that he’d just get in worse trouble.
“She’s probably some kind of feminist,” Dad continued. “I mean, she’s making her views pretty well known here. She’s not willing to just sit back and let the justice system handle things, she’s got to take matters into her own hands, see? Tell you what. How about you and me head into town and we’ll look for some meetings and stuff on message boards. Maybe we’ll get a lead that way.”
“Sir. Should we bring Sam?” Dean stood up. Probably stood straight up to attention, too, Sam thought meanly.
“Nah, let him stew in there,” Dad said after a minute. “Maybe he can sweat out some of whatever the fuck his problem is.”
Sam heard the Impala drive off; neither Winchester had even bothered coming inside to clean up before heading out.
The boy carefully opened up a window and climbed outside. Maybe he was a monster. Maybe that was why he always felt so filthy all of the time, underneath his skin. Maybe there was something deeply wrong with him. Hell, maybe Dad should just go ahead and kill him; it wasn’t like he was going to do anything useful with his life. That didn’t give his father the right to go dragging Dean into danger, to brainwash Dean into some kind of soldier. No matter how often they told him that “sons are soldiers, boy,” and “it’s Dad, so we have to trust him,” he knew that much was true.
He used the hose to clean himself up. Monster. He remembered Mrs. Lyle, remembered the psychic Silas. Dad didn’t think he remembered, thought that somehow a child’s brain just wiped itself clean every night like some kind of neurological chalkboard. Or maybe he just thought that way about Sam’s brain; either way, he’d never tried to talk to Sam about either of those incidents. Sam remembered them, though. He remembered every detail right down to the stink of Silas’ viscera on the ceiling or the sound of Dad and Mrs. Lyle as they - well, he might remember but there were parts he didn’t want to dwell on. Being a monster would explain a lot.
Shouldn’t a monster be able to do something, though? He wasn’t anything special. He was just a kid. A small kid, not very strong and not very fast and not very smart from everything he was told. He was pretty sure most monsters could at least run fast or punch through things. Crap. He wasn’t even much of a monster.
He could still do whatever he could find to keep Dean safe. Monster or not, Dean was still his brother and he loved him.
He made sure he got back into the trailer before John dropped Dean back off, closing the window and making sure that the salt line had stayed intact. Dean surveyed the scene. “Dude, you bled on my sheet, asswipe,” he complained.
Sam wrinkled his nose at his brother. “Where else did you expect me to sit?”
“I don’t know, just not getting your blood on my bedding, man! Gross!” Dean flopped down on the couch. “You really pissed him off, you know. You shouldn’t have flown off the handle like that.”
“Yeah, I know. It’s okay for him but not for me.” Sam sneered. “So what did you find out?” He got up and went to fix his brother a sandwich.
“What do you mean?” Dean froze.
“When you went to go scour town for message boards looking for feminist meeting groups or whatever.” He scoffed when Dean’s eyes bulged. “Dude. The walls of this trailer are paper-thin and you were right there. It’s not like you were trying to hide the conversation from me.”
“So you heard everything, huh?” Dean shook his head.
“Not like any of it was news,” Sam shrugged.
“You can’t fight him, Sammy. “You have to give in. He knows what he’s doing.” Dean watched him make the sandwich. “I mean, I don’t see why you can’t just accept that.”
“Let’s just drop it, Dean. You already know the answer. We each think that the other one is screwed up; fighting isn’t going to make it any better.” He might have used a little more force than necessary in cutting the sandwich in half. “Did you find anything out?”
“Nah. Well, maybe. We found a few domestic violence support groups. Figure you look like shit, maybe we should send you in as a decoy and see what you can find out.” He took a bite of the sandwich.
“Yeah, because that’s exactly what we need. The witch coming after Dad.” He rolled his eyes.
“Figured you’d be all over that, since you hate the man so much.”
“He’s the one who thinks I’m a monster and wants to kill me, Dean. But if a witch killed Dad, we’d be separated.” He went back and washed the knife with which he’d made the sandwich. “I don’t want to hunt, I want to be safe. And I want you to be safe. Letting the state split us up doesn’t accomplish that.”
“Then quit antagonizing Dad and do your fucking job.”
Sam folded his lips together, unfolded his bedroll and lay down.
His whole body ached by the time he woke up, but he’d expected that. He felt that little thrill run through him when he saw the bruising on his father as they prepared for their run, though. That made the pain worth it, even as his father deliberately turned his back on him to begin the run. When they got back he cleaned himself up and got ready to head out to the Teall Farm for another lesson. John’s lip curled, but he didn’t object. “Enjoy your freedom, boy,” he growled. “As soon as this mess is over, it’s boot camp for you.”
“Whatever. I heard everything.” Sam rolled his eyes.
A dangerous glint came into his father’s eyes, and Dean buried his face in his hands. “You won’t be saying ‘whatever’ by the time I’m through with you,” he promised.
“What are you going to do, huh? Kill me?” He grabbed his notebooks and ran out the door, eager to meet up with Star before his father could start in on him again.
Star was ready and waiting at the driveway. “Sam, are you okay?” she demanded, turning to look at him. “You look awful.”
“Training accident,” he lied smoothly. “It happens sometimes.” He pulled the heavy door closed behind himself and buckled himself in, forcing himself not to wince as his back touched the back of the seat. “How was your weekend?”
The other moms all clucked in consternation and shook their heads when they saw his bruises, and Mama Rachel took him by the hand and brought him straight into a little room off the dining room. “You wanted to learn about herbalism,” she told him with a grim little smile. “This is a balm that’s soothing to bruises. It should help them to fade sooner. No spellwork of any kind, I promise, but I’m going to give you a jar and I’m going to write down the recipe, okay? That way you can make it for yourself.” She winked at him. “Don’t worry, it’s all stuff you can find pretty easily.”
Once she’d rubbed a healthy portion of the stuff into the bruises she could see - there was no way he was taking his shirt off to let her see the welts, no way in hell - she did write down the recipe. As Star and Susan went about their farm chores Rachel took Sam aside and worked with him to make a new batch of the balm. The work was hot, and Sam hadn’t ever had a kitchen to be much good in, but he focused carefully and listened to instruction and managed to come up with a product of reasonable quality.
Once they’d finished the first batch and put it aside, ten little Mason jars all nice and sealed, Sam licked his lips. “Um, what if we were to replace some of the water with holy water?” he asked. “And use some sage in the mix?”
The dark-haired woman tilted her head to the side. “Why would you want to do that?”
“Well, sometimes hunters get into dust-ups with things that poison you. And holy water can help clear out the poison. If you could make a balm that helped to draw out the poison and maybe helped purify the wound a little while also helping the bruises to heal faster, it might be helpful. I mean, not necessarily to you or your usual customers,” he added, blushing. “Forget it, it’s stupid.”
She ruffled his hair. “It’s not stupid, Sam,” she told him, putting her arm around his shoulders gently. “I think it’s a great idea. And maybe add a blessing over it.” She winked. “That’s kind of a very basic spell, Sam. Nice work. Let’s see how it turns out.”
They tried a batch, and nothing blew up. Sam’s hands trembled as he spoke the words of the blessing from memory, something very simple that Pastor Jim had taught him before he’d even known what his father did. Something very faint tickled at the back of his mind as he spoke the words and prepared to ladle the balm into the jars, something he mentioned to Rachel as he worked. She raised an eyebrow. “Interesting,” she told him. “You may have a little bit of latent psychic ability in you, Sam.”
“I’m not special,” he insisted, stepping back from the pots. “I’m not.”
“It’s okay,” she assured him, hands on his arms. “It’s not a bad thing. A lot of people have that, just a little bit of something, like a feeling or a hint of intuition. It’s okay. It just means that you can feel things like that. Not a big deal, Sam. Nothing to be ashamed of. Not around here, anyway. You’ve got nothing to hide here.” She patted his hair gently. “It’s okay.”
He forced himself to relax. No one was trying to hurt him. “I… okay.” He took a deep breath. Could a monster have even uttered a blessing? “Yeah. Okay.” He smiled up at his teacher. “Thanks.”
“Hunters,” she muttered. “How are you feeling with the regular stuff? Any better?”
He had to admit that he was. “Yeah, a bit. That stuff is pretty awesome.”
“Well, people back in the old days didn’t have pharmaceutical companies. They had what they could grow, and they made stuff out of it. They used what they had to make their lives better and easier, just like people do today. Modern people needed to make stuff in larger quantities, and faster, so we got into mass production. But the older ways still work, and sometimes they work better.” She winked. “Come on, we’ll let these set up and cool and we can talk about making tinctures.”
Sam and Rachel spent the rest of the morning talking about the different ways to extract the useful parts of herbs from the plants, whether or not that was drying them, or soaking them in alcohol, or soaking them in oil, or grinding them into a powder. Some of these things were probably going to be difficult to get away with for him; it wasn’t like he was ever going to have a kitchen to use, or canning equipment. Or a place to dry lavender for six months. But some of them he could definitely pull off, assuming that he could keep Dad and Dean out of the vodka.
He helped clean up, and then he helped Mama Kelly with the lunch to the extent that he was able. She had to admit that his knife skills were exemplary, a fact that she found disturbing.
After lunch Star talked to him and Susan about magic and some of the ways that it worked - the different things that went into constructing a spell. Sam paid attention, thinking of the different things that made up the hex bag that had been found with the guy who’d been killed by bees. Some of the herbs made some sense, he guessed, given what he now knew about their traditional associations. And the bee. And the use of the man’s own personal clothing. He raised his hand. “But my brother talks about… um. Bodily fluids,” he said, blushing. “Like, he was pretty convinced that witches use bodily fluids in all of their spells. Why does he think that?”
The teen blushed. “Well, he’s not wrong, exactly. There are some spells that are made stronger by the use of some kinds of parts of the body. For a curse, if you can get some parts of the victim, like hair or fingernails, it will work best. Or some of their blood - not that I want to ever hear anything about either of you doing curses on anyone,” she added with a stern glare. “You can use some of your own blood, too, if you want to add power to a spell, but that’s tricky. Blood magic is kind of a gray area even if you’re using your own; if you’re using someone else’s it’s always nasty stuff. I’d stay away from it if I were you. There’s other kind of bodily fluids, urine or saliva or… you know. Other things.” She blushed. “This is why we usually wait until you’re older.”
Sam and Susan glanced at each other and blushed deeply. “It’s oaky, we can talk about that another time,” the latter mumbled.
“Please,” Sam added, nodding feverently. It wasn’t that he didn’t know about sex stuff, it was that he didn’t want to think about it.
“Right. Moving right along. We also use some other elements. Sometimes we’ll use incense, or candles of a specific type or color.” She continued the lecture, discussing how they would sometimes burn herbs in this or that type of bowl or do things at a specific time of day or under a given phase of the moon. Apparently some kinds of energies waxed or waned at certain times or could be helped with certain aids. It all sounded a bit New Agey to Sam, and he could almost hear his father’s sneering voice in the background asking if he was going to read the future in a crystal ball too. Then he remembered what he’d felt at the back of his head when he’d made the second batch of balm and shut himself up.
Star only lectured them for a couple of hours. After a quiz, she dispatched them to go play. “You should have some fun, go run and enjoy yourselves,” she grinned. “You’re ten. That’s what being ten is for.”
Sam knew being ten wasn’t for playing, not if the ten year old in question was a Winchester. At the same time, he was going to get dragged off to “boot camp” when his father found the witch, so he resolved to make the most of his reprieve.
After dinner, before he went home, he asked if they’d made any progress toward figuring out who the rogue witch was. Laura frowned at him. “I thought we made it pretty clear that it was an internal matter, Sam,” she pointed out.
“You did,” he assured her. “And I agree. I mean, I’m on board, I’m not trying to take it from you or anything. I’d rather my father not do any killing if he doesn’t have to. But if I can do something to steer him away, then I want to do it.”
She considered. “We’re not sure who she is yet, but we think she might live in in Preble or thereabouts.”
Sam nodded. “Awesome. Thanks. I’ll try to keep him clear of Preble, then. If I can. He doesn’t exactly listen to me, but I’ll talk to my brother and see if that gets me anywhere.”
Her lips twitched a little. “Does your dad get a little rough with you sometimes, Sam?”
“All dads do,” he told her quickly. “It’s just training. We’re in - they’re in - a rough line of work and he wants to make sure we’re ready.”
“Hm. Well, you be safe, Sam.”
Sam smiled at her. “I’m trying, ma’am.”
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