Take Me Back - Chapter Seven: I Talk of Six While Forgetting Five
Fic title: Take Me Back
Author name: safiyabat
Artist name: cassiopeia7
Genre: SPN AU - Human
Pairing: Sam/Dean (past Dean/Lisa, also Meg/Benny, unrequited Sam/Cas and Sam/Cara)
Rating: R
Word count (chapter): 5.473
Warnings: Bad language,reference to past dub-con
Summary: Guess who's (not) coming to dinner?
Dean frowned at Lisa. “I’m sorry, you want to do what now?”
She rolled her eyes at him as she took Ben’s bag. “I want you to invite Sam to Thanksgiving dinner. It’s a simple request. I made it in very plain English.” She laughed. “I spoke with Matt, and we both think it’s a good idea. Ben’s crazy about him. Did you know he asks to call Sam at least twice a week?”
“He what?” Dean shook his head. “Neither of them cleared that with me.”
His ex-wife cocked her head to one side and put the bag down. “Yeah, pretty sure no one needs to get permission to call family members on the phone, Dean. I was right there, it was on speaker, it’s not like he was secretly trying to convert our son to some kind of weird runners’ cult.”
“You don’t know Sammy,” he blurted before he could stop himself. “You don’t know how he can be. He’s…he’s subtle, Lis. He’ll have Ben wanting to study…I don’t know, freaking art. Or, or, I don’t know. You know how many times Sam ran off when he was a kid? Or -”
“Sam is a very well-respected federal agent, Dean.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “He’s a good man. He’s a good uncle. And my son wants a closer relationship with him. If that’s what he wants, and Sam’s okay with talking to him on the phone a little bit, then I’m okay with it. His reading and French scores have already gone up because of it. Now. You can be the one to extend an olive branch and invite your brother to be a part of a family Thanksgiving dinner or I can do it and you can sit there and feel ashamed of yourself while he sits across from you at the table and eats your share of the stuffing.”
“He hates stuffing.” Dean ran his fingers through his hair. “Lisa, think about Adam here. Adam hates the kid, can’t even stand to be in the same space as him. Are you seriously going to force Adam to sit through an important holiday meal with someone he hates?”
“Adam needs to grow the hell up, Dean. He’s a twenty-five year old man, he can’t sit there and nurse a grudge because Sam didn’t let someone else manage his life for him. If he can’t handle it he can go to Thanksgiving dinner at Maryann’s house.” She tossed her head back. He recognized her entire stance from the last couple of years of their marriage, when he’d been too stupid to realize that motherhood meant that she wasn’t going to be nearly as willing to yield and accommodate anymore.
“It’s a bad idea, Lisa.”
“It’s happening one way or another, Dean. You can be part of it or not.”
And it was going to happen. He could see it in the set of her jaw, the straightness of her spine and the line of her shoulders. “Sounds great, Lisa,” he lied. “I just want to make sure you know what you’re in for.”
“It’ll be great. Besides, Janette is coming and she broke up with Steve back in June. She’s got a thing for tall guys.” Lisa grinned. “I think she’d be just the thing to bring him out of his shell a little, don’t you?”
“Maybe. I tried to set him up with Cas, but he claimed a heavy caseload when Cas tried to get him to go to Balthazar’s thing at that gallery downtown, so I guess that was pretty one-sided.” He fought down the bile that rose in his throat at the idea of setting Sam up with a woman. He could cope with the idea of Sam and Cas together - barely, but he could cope. He’d never been able to stand the sight of Sam with a girl, any girl.
Dean! What the hell? You do it all the time!
Yeah, sure, Dean had gone off with girls all the time, but that was Dean. He’d had a string of girls throughout their youth, right through college because it hadn’t freaking mattered. None of them had been even a little bit serious. Sam had been the serious one; Sam was the one who had mattered. The girls were nice, he liked the attention and he liked fooling around, but at the end of the day they were a red herring for anyone who might suspect about the brothers who walked a little too close, who moved a little too in sync with each other. He could be trusted around girls because they were just girls, up until Sammy left anyway.
Sammy was different. Sammy got attached. Sammy got attached to everyone and everything, everywhere they went. He got attached to the little old ladies in the villages. He got attached to the sheep and the goats. He got attached to the apartments and the huts and the shacks and the tents they called homes in all of the war zones and the disaster areas and the dumps and the dives. He got attached to the mice and the roaches, for crying out loud. Sammy couldn’t be trusted around girls.
But things were different now. Sammy had walked away from him, turned his back on Dean. He couldn’t hold Sam to those standards anymore. If he wanted a girl, let him have a girl. Right?
He could think of it that way in the light of day, but by himself in his dark bedroom he had to face the fact that he wasn’t as over Sammy as he wanted to be. God, the thought of having Sammy at Thanksgiving, of being around him and not being able to put his hands on him, was almost more than he could handle. He was supposed to be past this. He couldn’t have Sammy anymore. Even though he wanted, and God did he want, it would be the absolute undoing of everything he’d achieved over the past thirteen years. He’d never be able to rebuild his life after even one night with his brother again.
That Sam wanted, or would want, to pick things up again didn’t even merit doubt. He’d taken some convincing when they’d been kids, but Dean had always managed to talk him around and he’d genuinely enjoyed everything they’d done together. Dean knew exactly how to get Sammy’s motor running, because he’d taught Sam everything himself.
Maybe some things had changed. Not the fundamentals, Dean was sure of that. Sammy would still kiss like a drowning man gasped for air - like he’d die without it, like it was literally the only thing keeping him alive. He’d still like to have his nipples played with, of course, because that had been one of the first things that Dean had discovered about his little brother. If the state of his pens was any indication he still had that oral fixation; he probably still sucked cock like a goddamn pro and he had a natural talent with that perfect pink tongue of his.
But what did he look like under all of those layers now? He’d seen his shoulder, and to be sure that had changed. Sam then had been scrawny. Sam now was muscular, the kind of hard body artists held up as the ideal - or at least, he was as far as Dean could tell with all of that fabric in the way.
Spending time around Sammy didn’t make that need go away. It made it worse, and the kind of proximity that occurred at a major holiday like Thanksgiving wouldn’t help. Still, it was going to happen with or without him. He might as well play along.
He took his time about communicating the request. He took his phone out to text, and he put it back. He repeated the process a dozen times in between dropping Ben off on Sunday and finally hitting send on Wednesday. He hesitated over wording, he fretted over timing, he fussed over tone. When he finally managed to get the message out, he sat back and congratulated himself on a job well done, ignoring the surge of adrenaline that made him feel like he’d just survived a parachute jump.
He wasn’t sure what he expected in response. “What time and where?” would have been the bare minimum. “What should I bring?” would have been an excellent accompaniment. Given the situation, an actual phone call with surprise and possibly tears of gratitude would not have been out of the question.
“Sorry, can’t. On assignment, back in early December,” wasn’t even close to being in the realm of possibilities.
That was, however, the text he received in return. He stared at his phone in blank incomprehension for a moment before dialing his brother’s phone. The little bitch might prefer text but he was going to pick up the damn phone for this one.
And he did. “Winchester,” Sam greeted, like he hadn’t even glanced at the screen. Or like he’d never bothered to program Dean’s name into his contacts. Like he never planned to stick around.
“What the hell, Sammy?” Dean seethed, grabbing one of the squishy “stress relief” toys people were always leaving on his desk in his fist. “What the hell do you mean you’re going on an assignment? It’s Thanksgiving! Put it off!”
Sam huffed out a laugh. “I’m not sure you get how law enforcement actually works, Dean. Criminals don’t take holidays. Neither can we. I’m sorry, but I really can’t make it.”
“They can put it off, or they can put someone else on it. It’s not like you’ve ever taken any family time before,” Dean pointed out in a very reasonable tone. “They’ve got literally thousands of other G-men who can do your job. They can spare you for one day.”
Sam was silent for a moment. “Actually no, Dean, no they don’t. I was specifically requested for this assignment because they needed someone with my skill set. A combination of skills that only I have. So no, they don’t have thousands of other ‘G-men’ who can do my job. They have one. And I’m it, which is why I’m doing it. They have other guys who can do parts of it, but they have one guy who can do all of it. And I’m going to.”
Dean had never heard Sammy’s voice sound so cold, not when speaking to him. Maybe to Dad, because Sammy’s anger burned cold almost all of the time, but not to Dean. Right now, though, he couldn’t think about Sammy’s anger because Dean’s own anger burned hot and fast. “Oh come off it, Sam. You’re hardly unique. You’re using the job as an excuse to avoid your obligations to your family. Again. I should have figured you’d pull something like this.”
“Oh come on, Dean, you didn’t even want me there in the first place,” Sam pointed out with a bitter little chuckle. “And now you’re pissed that I’m saying no? Do I need to get a note from my supervisor proving that I really do have to work that weekend, sir?” He wasn’t even trying to keep the mocking tone from his voice.
“What do you mean I didn’t want you there in the first place?” Dean challenged. A nurse walking by the door jumped from his shouting, and Dean moderated his voice. “I invited you, you giant freak!”
“Because Lisa forced you,” Sam reminded him. “Ben spilled the beans. He was upstairs while you were fighting with Lisa. Heard everything. But I was already assigned to this case before that. I couldn’t have ever said yes. And I can’t just turn around and not show up. I’m going to do my job, Dean. You would do the same damn thing.”
“I would put my family first,” Dean bit out. “After all this time you owe us this.”
“I don’t owe you shit,” Sam growled, and the line went dead.
Dean threw the stress ball across the office. It narrowly avoided hitting his diploma and bounced almost all the way back to his desk. He couldn’t scream, he couldn’t make it sound like he was losing it here, not in the office. Instead he bit down on his own fist. “Fuck!” he yelled. That should be safe enough, right?
He put his hands on his desk and inhaled, then exhaled. He could calm himself. He could do it; he could conduct himself in a professional manner. He would not, no matter what, let Sam cost him anything more at work.
What the hell could possibly be so important that he couldn’t put it off until after the goddamn holiday? And literally no one at the FBI wasn’t replaceable. They could do without him. Sammy was just doing what he’d always done - pulling back, trying to make Dean chase him because he loved that stuff. He loved to be pursued; he loved to feel like someone wanted him. He was like a girl that way, and Dean had been happy enough to indulge him when they were kids because it got him laid.
Now, though, there was no sex involved. Couldn’t be, no matter how tempted Dean might be, and damn it Sam’s drama queen antics were having an effect on more than just the two of them. The bastard needed to grow the hell up and take his place in family life. Dean wasn’t going to give in to his hissy fit this time.
He expected to get a call from Sam within six hours, twenty-four at the very least. Two days went by, and he heard nothing from his brother. He picked his son up from school, however, and was the proud recipient of a look that could have been a good emergency scalpel. “Dad, Uncle Sam isn’t coming to Thanksgiving!”
Dean bit his tongue. “No, champ. No he’s not.”
“He said he has to work!”
“Then he probably has to work, sport.”
“But he won’t be able to call me until after Thanksgiving! Like, December! I’m scared, Dad! What if bad guys get him?” Ben turned big eyes to him. “I’d rather have him home with us.”
Dean smirked. “Apparently his job is more important to him.” It was probably a dick thing to say to an eight year old. Okay, it was absolutely a dick thing to say to an eight year old. But it was best to manage the kid’s expectations early. He’d be happier in the long term that way.
Ben just sniffed at him. “Says you. You didn’t even want him there.”
“Excuse me?” Dean tightened his hands on the steering wheel. He’d never raised his hand to Ben - he wasn’t his father - but he understood why Dad had been so free with the backhand now. “You watch your tone with me, Ben, or you’ll find out really quick just how unpleasant life can get.”
“He probably won’t come because of you,” Ben sulked, crossing his arms over his chest and looking out the window. “You chased my Uncle Sam away.”
Ben wound up going directly to bed after dinner, without benefit of any electronics or television, and Dean was left to contemplate his own actions instead of spending the evening watching terrible television with his son. Funny how something intended to discipline Ben wound up punishing both of them.
He stood by everything he’d said to Sam. Sammy could have easily called in some of that time he’d accumulated over the years to get a goddamn holiday off. And no one was so essential that they couldn’t take Thanksgiving Day off. Even Dean had the day off, and he was a trauma surgeon. He saved lives, damn it. But he had been harsh. He’d sounded less like a loving brother and more like their father, and their father hadn’t successfully changed Sam’s mind on anything since the kid had been about four. So he’d absolutely set Sam up to dig in his heels, and maybe he should reach out and try to smooth things over.
His texts went unanswered. So did his calls.
When his fifth text lingered in the ether without any kind of acknowledgement, Dean started to worry. He dialed his phone again. “Hey, Meg,” he greeted when she picked up. “How’s it going?”
“Not as good as I’d hoped, since I’m sitting here talking to you instead of getting my neck nibbled on by a smoking hot psychiatrist in a cute black hat,” she retorted. “What do you need and I really hope it’s good because you are not my favorite person right now?”
He pulled his face away from the handset for a moment. “Excuse me?”
“You weren’t content to leave Sam a mess in 2002, you had to do it again now?” She gave a little growl. “I was so hoping that you’d be good for him, but instead you’ve run him clear out of town.”
“What the hell, Meg?” Dean snapped. “I just called to find out why he’s not answering his damn phone!”
“Ugh,” she snarled. “We’re going to have to do this in person, aren’t we? Benny, hold that thought. We’re going to your buddy’s.”
Dean heard his best friend in the background. “Try not to mark him up too bad, cher. Don’t want people getting the wrong idea now.”
Dean hadn’t intended to have company, but he figured the house was clean enough to greet people who invited themselves over. Especially when they invited themselves over to force conversations he didn’t want to have.
They arrived quickly, all things considered, and helped themselves to beer from the fridge. Dean decided he didn’t even want to know how Meg just kind of instinctively knew where the beer was. That had to be a constitutional violation; there wasn’t a warrant for his liquid chattels out there. “Alright,” the surgeon sighed as his guests made themselves at home on his couch. “You want to explain to me why my brother won’t answer my texts? And why you can’t just answer over the phone like a normal human being?”
Meg smirked at him. “Oh, Dean, you wound me. Here I was thinking you were just as eager to see me as I was eager to see your shining face.” She fluttered her eyelashes at him as she leaned her head against Benny’s chest.
“Easy, cher,” Benny murmured into her ear. “You’re here to help, remember?”
“Someone want to tell me what’s going on before I start shouting and wake the kid?” Dean urged from behind gritted teeth. His hands clenched into fists at his sides. These were his friends - well, Benny was, anyway. He wasn’t going to go all ballistic on them.
Meg folded her lips together and glared at him before replying. “Sam turned his phone off as is standard procedure before starting a top-secret operation,” she explained in a smooth, “official” type of voice. “It’s standard procedure because that’s his personal phone. He uses it to contact his family, his friends, whatever. Someone could use those connections and that phone to somehow compromise the mission through the GPS.”
Dean let that percolate through his mind. “That sounds made up,” he decided finally. “Is that made up? Because it sounds made up.”
“It’s not made up. If I felt like it I could figure out where Lisa’s new husband went on his lunch break today just by using your phone. But I’m not going to, because I couldn’t give less of a flying fuck. The issue with the phone, and the job, is that he didn’t need to leave for that job for another three days. He took off early because he was distraught after your call.”
Distraught? Dean thought wildly, even as a little pit started to form in the middle of his stomach. Who even gets “distraught?" “Well I always used to tease him about being a big girl but that’s a little much don’t you think?”
“Awesome. Gendered insults on top of everything. You’re a piece of work, you know that, Dean? I just told you that you chased your brother out of town three days before he even left - that he literally left town three days early, just to get to someplace that you weren’t - and all you can think to do is to call him a girl. To a woman. Because you think being a woman is something to be ashamed of.” Benny put a hand on her back and moved it back and forth.
“Jesus, lady, learn to take a joke. Sammy’s always gone storming off when he gets upset. It’s what he does. I told him some things he didn’t want to hear and he didn’t like it.” Dean shook his head and made himself grab his bottle for a drink. He hoped he didn’t look too much like a robot.
“Oh. Right. Would one of those things be the idea that he’s entirely replaceable at work, he has no skills that anyone else doesn’t have and they could put pretty much anyone in his job and no one would notice?” Meg’s dark eyes blazed and her cheeks burned.
Dean swallowed his beer. “Those weren’t the words I used, but that’s the sentiment. I mean, come on. It’s Thanksgiving. It’s the first Thanksgiving he’s been allowed back and he’s going to blow it off to go do some shit anyone could do?”
Meg’s eyes bulged almost right out of her sockets. “First of all, no. No no no. The guy speaks ten languages fluently, not including English. No one can do that. I can’t do that. He’s a crack shot, we don’t have anyone better. He’s such a good hacker that the NSA has tried to get him to transfer over something like six times. He was specifically requested for this job, Dean. Because he’s the best. The absolute fucking best there is. They just don’t make better agents than Sam Fucking Winchester. Counterterrorism was sorry to lose me, but they got it. People burn out. They fought tooth and nail to keep him.”
“Okay, but none of that overrides the family,” Dean spat back. “I mean, so what if he’s smart? He’s always been smart. He’d have been a great doctor if he’d done what he was supposed to. He needs to show his commitment to us, to his family. We need to know that he’s going to be there when we need him.”
“Like your father was?” Meg snapped back. “I mean, it was your father who cast him out to begin with, but it was your father who was always abandoning you to go wandering off into the jungle or the bush or whatever.”
“Back off,” Dean demanded. “Dad was saving lives.”
“And Sam saves lives every day. In different ways from you, it’s true, but he still saves lives.” She took a deep breath. “Look. I thought reuniting would be good for him. I really did. But now I just don’t. It’s hurting him and he’s making bad decisions as a result.”
“Oh, like what? Running off with hot chicks?”
“Please. Sam hasn’t even looked at a woman since Georgia. Or a man. Or anyone else. Dean, Sam volunteered for that job. Yes, he was specifically requested, but Jody had to approve the request and she wouldn’t have done so if Sam hadn’t asked to get out of town for a while. We’re going to lose him, Dean.”
“We’re not going to lose him,” Dean scoffed, even as the pit in his stomach grew bigger. “He’s only just moved here.”
“Counterterrorism wants him back in a big way. He was already down after Georgia and it was making him risky. The last time he went on one of these ‘special request’ trips he wound up in a cage for a good long time, getting tortured. But he’s taking on these ‘special request’ assignments again specifically because he needs to get some space from you!”
Dean stood up and walked over to the window. “Thirteen years wasn’t enough space for him?” he ground out, unable to look at either of them.
“That’s not it, smartass. You’re messing with his head and after everything he’s been through he can’t take it."
He couldn’t help but laugh. “Everything he’s been through. Right.”
Benny made a quizzical face at him. “What, the torture wasn’t enough?”
“Sorry, I mean I know you said something happened in Georgia. It’s just…he’s got a history of, uh, dramatics.” Dean took another drink and turned fully around. “I mean, I wasn’t there. You literally cannot blame what happened to him on me, and it doesn’t give him an excuse for not filling his obligations now.”
“For God’s sake, Dean, where do we start?” Meg cried, putting her beer down. “I mean, there’s what your father did to him, to both of you -”
“Watch it lady,” Dean growled.”
“There’s what you did to him,” she continued without missing a beat. “I mean, that screwed him up, Dean. Regardless of how you think he was the aggressor, it screwed him up. There’s nothing you can do about it now, but it screwed him up. There’s getting disowned. There’s what happened to his fiancée -”
“Fiancée?” Dean blurted. “Sammy was engaged?”
“Yeah. She was murdered his senior year at Stanford. It’s what inspired him to go into the FBI, actually.” She sighed. “I didn’t know her. I did know Madison, who he dated while we were at Quantico. She died in a training accident. She was…” Meg softened a little. “She was something else, Dean. Smart, fearless, took no shit from anyone. She was just… she was.”
Dean hesitated. He couldn’t bring himself to mourn for either the nameless fiancée from Stanford or for Madison, but he could easily imagine the effect that losing them had had on Sammy. The kid got attached to string, for crying out loud. “Okay. So that…that probably sucked for him. Still doesn’t mean that he just gets to waltz back in like he’s not the one who walked out on us! On me!”
Benny smiled a little, like the cat that ate the canary. Meg just recoiled. “That’s really what you’re going with?” she objected. “He has to sacrifice his career, the only thing he actually has left, in order to have the chance to maybe someday be accepted back as a perpetual penitent by the family that never wanted him in the first place?”
“Hey - you’re the one who wanted him to take some time off, sister.”
“Look. This is the problem right here. I’m telling you that he literally went out to put his life at risk because he can’t figure out -”
Benny cleared his throat, a soft sound that cut through the arguing quickly. “If I may,” he interrupted, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, “maybe I can offer some perspective. As a disinterested party. I think, and this is second-hand obviously, that Sam is feeling unsettled because he’s not sure where he stands with you, Dean. He can’t tell what it is that you want. And that has him feeling a great deal of stress and anxiety.”
Dean groaned in frustration. “I’ve done everything you people have asked of me. I’ve reached out to him, I’ve let him hang out with Ben - against my better judgment - and I’ve spent time with him.” He flopped back into his chair. “What else can you want from me, for crying out loud?”
Benny nodded and bit the inside of his cheek. “How do you feel about the time you’ve spent with him?”
“What?”
“How do you feel about the time you’ve spent with your brother?” Benny repeated, slower and slicing his hand down on each syllable. “It’s a simple question. You’ve gone out with him several times now. How do you feel about the time you’ve spent?”
Dean bit his tongue and shifted in his seat. “I’ve had fun. Okay?”
“Have you told Sam that?” The Cajun leaned back and put an arm around Meg.
“What?” Dean made a face. “Do you want us to have a slumber party? Maybe braid that hair of his? Hey, Meg, how exactly does he get away with having that hair? It’s way past regulation length.”
“Quit deflecting, Dean. You’re better than that. Now, I know, because Sam has said this in my presence, that Sam has no idea why you keep ‘dragging me out’ like you do because it’s clear ‘he’s not getting much out of it.” Benny sighed. “He’s pretty sure you don’t want to be there, that you don’t want to be around him, that you don’t trust him. He knows you don’t trust him with Ben.”
“He thinks you think he’s going to corrupt Ben,” Meg spat, lips curled back from her teeth. “Like he’s going to do to Ben what you did to him.”
Dean’s stomach lurched. “God. No, no, it’s not like that. Jesus, what is wrong with that boy?” He massaged his temples. “I mean, yes. I do think he’s already encouraging Ben to be rebellious. Next thing you know Ben’s going to want to go to art school, or be a plumber or something.”
“It’s Ben’s life,” Benny pointed out mildly. “He gets to do whatever he wants with it. I’m pretty sure Lisa and Matt, at least, would support him in whatever he chose.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of. I mean, Winchesters grow up to be doctors. Save lives. That’s all there is to it. But I’d never suspect Sam of…oh God. No no no.” He looked at his guests. “God that kid is so screwed up.”
“He is,” Meg glared.
“Now you can’t pin it all on Dean, sugar,” Benny counseled. “Dean was a victim too. He shouldn’t have done what he did, but he grew up just as isolated as Sam did. He didn’t know better. He didn’t exactly have moral guidance.” Benny glanced up at Dean, who had risen to his feet again without even noticing that he’d done so. “Dean, what do you want from your brother?”
Meg stared at Dean as Dean’s jaw fell open and hung there for a moment. “I…I don’t know,” he had to admit. “I mean…”
“You still want him,” she surmised, shaking her head. “That’s why you’re running so hot and cold toward him. You still want him.”
“Shut up,” he ordered her, eyes burning hot with tears. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You do. You still think that you have a right to him after all this time. After all the damage you did to him.”
Dean hadn’t ever decked a woman and he didn’t want to start now. He couldn’t afford to start now, but the urge was growing. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“Come on, cher,” Benny directed, dragging Meg to her feet. “Let’s get back to my place. It’s a little more amenable anyway.”
Meg’s eyes never left his, not until Dean closed the door behind them.
Alone again, Dean poured himself a giant tumbler of bourbon. How dared she - how dared that woman, who barely even knew his Sammy - accuse him of having ‘damaged’ his brother? They hadn’t done anything wrong. They hadn’t. Sammy’d agreed to everything they’d done, eventually, and he’d enjoyed it. There was nothing wrong with enjoying sex.
And the sex had always been separate from his feelings. It was for all of Dean’s partners. Dean had been devoted to his little brother until the day Sammy walked out that door and never came back. He’d shared the food with Sammy, stretching the food that they had. He’d made sure that Sammy was safe. He’d taught Sammy to read, how to write. He’d scrounged for clothes for the boy. He’d taught Sammy how to fight.
Meg had no goddamn idea what the hell she was talking about with that damage crap.
But Sam was damaged, and badly. There were no two ways about that.
What they’d done had been fun, and it had been some consolation for both of them. But it hadn’t been normal, and Sammy did get very attached. Maybe it had been difficult for him, not being able to be affectionate with the person he was attached to. And Dean had sometimes gotten a little twitchy about Sam forming the kind of relationships that Dean did, but that was for Sammy’s own good. They couldn’t go getting attached to outsiders, not with the life they’d led at the time.
Why are the rules any different for you than for me, Dean? Glass shattering, a nameless and faceless girl screaming, and Sammy bleeding on the floor.
He’d screwed up, maybe. He needed to talk to Sammy, maybe explain himself at least, when his brother got back from wherever the hell he was.
Back to Chapter Six -- On to Chapter Eight
Author name: safiyabat
Artist name: cassiopeia7
Genre: SPN AU - Human
Pairing: Sam/Dean (past Dean/Lisa, also Meg/Benny, unrequited Sam/Cas and Sam/Cara)
Rating: R
Word count (chapter): 5.473
Warnings: Bad language,reference to past dub-con
Summary: Guess who's (not) coming to dinner?
Dean frowned at Lisa. “I’m sorry, you want to do what now?”
She rolled her eyes at him as she took Ben’s bag. “I want you to invite Sam to Thanksgiving dinner. It’s a simple request. I made it in very plain English.” She laughed. “I spoke with Matt, and we both think it’s a good idea. Ben’s crazy about him. Did you know he asks to call Sam at least twice a week?”
“He what?” Dean shook his head. “Neither of them cleared that with me.”
His ex-wife cocked her head to one side and put the bag down. “Yeah, pretty sure no one needs to get permission to call family members on the phone, Dean. I was right there, it was on speaker, it’s not like he was secretly trying to convert our son to some kind of weird runners’ cult.”
“You don’t know Sammy,” he blurted before he could stop himself. “You don’t know how he can be. He’s…he’s subtle, Lis. He’ll have Ben wanting to study…I don’t know, freaking art. Or, or, I don’t know. You know how many times Sam ran off when he was a kid? Or -”
“Sam is a very well-respected federal agent, Dean.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “He’s a good man. He’s a good uncle. And my son wants a closer relationship with him. If that’s what he wants, and Sam’s okay with talking to him on the phone a little bit, then I’m okay with it. His reading and French scores have already gone up because of it. Now. You can be the one to extend an olive branch and invite your brother to be a part of a family Thanksgiving dinner or I can do it and you can sit there and feel ashamed of yourself while he sits across from you at the table and eats your share of the stuffing.”
“He hates stuffing.” Dean ran his fingers through his hair. “Lisa, think about Adam here. Adam hates the kid, can’t even stand to be in the same space as him. Are you seriously going to force Adam to sit through an important holiday meal with someone he hates?”
“Adam needs to grow the hell up, Dean. He’s a twenty-five year old man, he can’t sit there and nurse a grudge because Sam didn’t let someone else manage his life for him. If he can’t handle it he can go to Thanksgiving dinner at Maryann’s house.” She tossed her head back. He recognized her entire stance from the last couple of years of their marriage, when he’d been too stupid to realize that motherhood meant that she wasn’t going to be nearly as willing to yield and accommodate anymore.
“It’s a bad idea, Lisa.”
“It’s happening one way or another, Dean. You can be part of it or not.”
And it was going to happen. He could see it in the set of her jaw, the straightness of her spine and the line of her shoulders. “Sounds great, Lisa,” he lied. “I just want to make sure you know what you’re in for.”
“It’ll be great. Besides, Janette is coming and she broke up with Steve back in June. She’s got a thing for tall guys.” Lisa grinned. “I think she’d be just the thing to bring him out of his shell a little, don’t you?”
“Maybe. I tried to set him up with Cas, but he claimed a heavy caseload when Cas tried to get him to go to Balthazar’s thing at that gallery downtown, so I guess that was pretty one-sided.” He fought down the bile that rose in his throat at the idea of setting Sam up with a woman. He could cope with the idea of Sam and Cas together - barely, but he could cope. He’d never been able to stand the sight of Sam with a girl, any girl.
Dean! What the hell? You do it all the time!
Yeah, sure, Dean had gone off with girls all the time, but that was Dean. He’d had a string of girls throughout their youth, right through college because it hadn’t freaking mattered. None of them had been even a little bit serious. Sam had been the serious one; Sam was the one who had mattered. The girls were nice, he liked the attention and he liked fooling around, but at the end of the day they were a red herring for anyone who might suspect about the brothers who walked a little too close, who moved a little too in sync with each other. He could be trusted around girls because they were just girls, up until Sammy left anyway.
Sammy was different. Sammy got attached. Sammy got attached to everyone and everything, everywhere they went. He got attached to the little old ladies in the villages. He got attached to the sheep and the goats. He got attached to the apartments and the huts and the shacks and the tents they called homes in all of the war zones and the disaster areas and the dumps and the dives. He got attached to the mice and the roaches, for crying out loud. Sammy couldn’t be trusted around girls.
But things were different now. Sammy had walked away from him, turned his back on Dean. He couldn’t hold Sam to those standards anymore. If he wanted a girl, let him have a girl. Right?
He could think of it that way in the light of day, but by himself in his dark bedroom he had to face the fact that he wasn’t as over Sammy as he wanted to be. God, the thought of having Sammy at Thanksgiving, of being around him and not being able to put his hands on him, was almost more than he could handle. He was supposed to be past this. He couldn’t have Sammy anymore. Even though he wanted, and God did he want, it would be the absolute undoing of everything he’d achieved over the past thirteen years. He’d never be able to rebuild his life after even one night with his brother again.
That Sam wanted, or would want, to pick things up again didn’t even merit doubt. He’d taken some convincing when they’d been kids, but Dean had always managed to talk him around and he’d genuinely enjoyed everything they’d done together. Dean knew exactly how to get Sammy’s motor running, because he’d taught Sam everything himself.
Maybe some things had changed. Not the fundamentals, Dean was sure of that. Sammy would still kiss like a drowning man gasped for air - like he’d die without it, like it was literally the only thing keeping him alive. He’d still like to have his nipples played with, of course, because that had been one of the first things that Dean had discovered about his little brother. If the state of his pens was any indication he still had that oral fixation; he probably still sucked cock like a goddamn pro and he had a natural talent with that perfect pink tongue of his.
But what did he look like under all of those layers now? He’d seen his shoulder, and to be sure that had changed. Sam then had been scrawny. Sam now was muscular, the kind of hard body artists held up as the ideal - or at least, he was as far as Dean could tell with all of that fabric in the way.
Spending time around Sammy didn’t make that need go away. It made it worse, and the kind of proximity that occurred at a major holiday like Thanksgiving wouldn’t help. Still, it was going to happen with or without him. He might as well play along.
He took his time about communicating the request. He took his phone out to text, and he put it back. He repeated the process a dozen times in between dropping Ben off on Sunday and finally hitting send on Wednesday. He hesitated over wording, he fretted over timing, he fussed over tone. When he finally managed to get the message out, he sat back and congratulated himself on a job well done, ignoring the surge of adrenaline that made him feel like he’d just survived a parachute jump.
He wasn’t sure what he expected in response. “What time and where?” would have been the bare minimum. “What should I bring?” would have been an excellent accompaniment. Given the situation, an actual phone call with surprise and possibly tears of gratitude would not have been out of the question.
“Sorry, can’t. On assignment, back in early December,” wasn’t even close to being in the realm of possibilities.
That was, however, the text he received in return. He stared at his phone in blank incomprehension for a moment before dialing his brother’s phone. The little bitch might prefer text but he was going to pick up the damn phone for this one.
And he did. “Winchester,” Sam greeted, like he hadn’t even glanced at the screen. Or like he’d never bothered to program Dean’s name into his contacts. Like he never planned to stick around.
“What the hell, Sammy?” Dean seethed, grabbing one of the squishy “stress relief” toys people were always leaving on his desk in his fist. “What the hell do you mean you’re going on an assignment? It’s Thanksgiving! Put it off!”
Sam huffed out a laugh. “I’m not sure you get how law enforcement actually works, Dean. Criminals don’t take holidays. Neither can we. I’m sorry, but I really can’t make it.”
“They can put it off, or they can put someone else on it. It’s not like you’ve ever taken any family time before,” Dean pointed out in a very reasonable tone. “They’ve got literally thousands of other G-men who can do your job. They can spare you for one day.”
Sam was silent for a moment. “Actually no, Dean, no they don’t. I was specifically requested for this assignment because they needed someone with my skill set. A combination of skills that only I have. So no, they don’t have thousands of other ‘G-men’ who can do my job. They have one. And I’m it, which is why I’m doing it. They have other guys who can do parts of it, but they have one guy who can do all of it. And I’m going to.”
Dean had never heard Sammy’s voice sound so cold, not when speaking to him. Maybe to Dad, because Sammy’s anger burned cold almost all of the time, but not to Dean. Right now, though, he couldn’t think about Sammy’s anger because Dean’s own anger burned hot and fast. “Oh come off it, Sam. You’re hardly unique. You’re using the job as an excuse to avoid your obligations to your family. Again. I should have figured you’d pull something like this.”
“Oh come on, Dean, you didn’t even want me there in the first place,” Sam pointed out with a bitter little chuckle. “And now you’re pissed that I’m saying no? Do I need to get a note from my supervisor proving that I really do have to work that weekend, sir?” He wasn’t even trying to keep the mocking tone from his voice.
“What do you mean I didn’t want you there in the first place?” Dean challenged. A nurse walking by the door jumped from his shouting, and Dean moderated his voice. “I invited you, you giant freak!”
“Because Lisa forced you,” Sam reminded him. “Ben spilled the beans. He was upstairs while you were fighting with Lisa. Heard everything. But I was already assigned to this case before that. I couldn’t have ever said yes. And I can’t just turn around and not show up. I’m going to do my job, Dean. You would do the same damn thing.”
“I would put my family first,” Dean bit out. “After all this time you owe us this.”
“I don’t owe you shit,” Sam growled, and the line went dead.
Dean threw the stress ball across the office. It narrowly avoided hitting his diploma and bounced almost all the way back to his desk. He couldn’t scream, he couldn’t make it sound like he was losing it here, not in the office. Instead he bit down on his own fist. “Fuck!” he yelled. That should be safe enough, right?
He put his hands on his desk and inhaled, then exhaled. He could calm himself. He could do it; he could conduct himself in a professional manner. He would not, no matter what, let Sam cost him anything more at work.
What the hell could possibly be so important that he couldn’t put it off until after the goddamn holiday? And literally no one at the FBI wasn’t replaceable. They could do without him. Sammy was just doing what he’d always done - pulling back, trying to make Dean chase him because he loved that stuff. He loved to be pursued; he loved to feel like someone wanted him. He was like a girl that way, and Dean had been happy enough to indulge him when they were kids because it got him laid.
Now, though, there was no sex involved. Couldn’t be, no matter how tempted Dean might be, and damn it Sam’s drama queen antics were having an effect on more than just the two of them. The bastard needed to grow the hell up and take his place in family life. Dean wasn’t going to give in to his hissy fit this time.
He expected to get a call from Sam within six hours, twenty-four at the very least. Two days went by, and he heard nothing from his brother. He picked his son up from school, however, and was the proud recipient of a look that could have been a good emergency scalpel. “Dad, Uncle Sam isn’t coming to Thanksgiving!”
Dean bit his tongue. “No, champ. No he’s not.”
“He said he has to work!”
“Then he probably has to work, sport.”
“But he won’t be able to call me until after Thanksgiving! Like, December! I’m scared, Dad! What if bad guys get him?” Ben turned big eyes to him. “I’d rather have him home with us.”
Dean smirked. “Apparently his job is more important to him.” It was probably a dick thing to say to an eight year old. Okay, it was absolutely a dick thing to say to an eight year old. But it was best to manage the kid’s expectations early. He’d be happier in the long term that way.
Ben just sniffed at him. “Says you. You didn’t even want him there.”
“Excuse me?” Dean tightened his hands on the steering wheel. He’d never raised his hand to Ben - he wasn’t his father - but he understood why Dad had been so free with the backhand now. “You watch your tone with me, Ben, or you’ll find out really quick just how unpleasant life can get.”
“He probably won’t come because of you,” Ben sulked, crossing his arms over his chest and looking out the window. “You chased my Uncle Sam away.”
Ben wound up going directly to bed after dinner, without benefit of any electronics or television, and Dean was left to contemplate his own actions instead of spending the evening watching terrible television with his son. Funny how something intended to discipline Ben wound up punishing both of them.
He stood by everything he’d said to Sam. Sammy could have easily called in some of that time he’d accumulated over the years to get a goddamn holiday off. And no one was so essential that they couldn’t take Thanksgiving Day off. Even Dean had the day off, and he was a trauma surgeon. He saved lives, damn it. But he had been harsh. He’d sounded less like a loving brother and more like their father, and their father hadn’t successfully changed Sam’s mind on anything since the kid had been about four. So he’d absolutely set Sam up to dig in his heels, and maybe he should reach out and try to smooth things over.
His texts went unanswered. So did his calls.
When his fifth text lingered in the ether without any kind of acknowledgement, Dean started to worry. He dialed his phone again. “Hey, Meg,” he greeted when she picked up. “How’s it going?”
“Not as good as I’d hoped, since I’m sitting here talking to you instead of getting my neck nibbled on by a smoking hot psychiatrist in a cute black hat,” she retorted. “What do you need and I really hope it’s good because you are not my favorite person right now?”
He pulled his face away from the handset for a moment. “Excuse me?”
“You weren’t content to leave Sam a mess in 2002, you had to do it again now?” She gave a little growl. “I was so hoping that you’d be good for him, but instead you’ve run him clear out of town.”
“What the hell, Meg?” Dean snapped. “I just called to find out why he’s not answering his damn phone!”
“Ugh,” she snarled. “We’re going to have to do this in person, aren’t we? Benny, hold that thought. We’re going to your buddy’s.”
Dean heard his best friend in the background. “Try not to mark him up too bad, cher. Don’t want people getting the wrong idea now.”
Dean hadn’t intended to have company, but he figured the house was clean enough to greet people who invited themselves over. Especially when they invited themselves over to force conversations he didn’t want to have.
They arrived quickly, all things considered, and helped themselves to beer from the fridge. Dean decided he didn’t even want to know how Meg just kind of instinctively knew where the beer was. That had to be a constitutional violation; there wasn’t a warrant for his liquid chattels out there. “Alright,” the surgeon sighed as his guests made themselves at home on his couch. “You want to explain to me why my brother won’t answer my texts? And why you can’t just answer over the phone like a normal human being?”
Meg smirked at him. “Oh, Dean, you wound me. Here I was thinking you were just as eager to see me as I was eager to see your shining face.” She fluttered her eyelashes at him as she leaned her head against Benny’s chest.
“Easy, cher,” Benny murmured into her ear. “You’re here to help, remember?”
“Someone want to tell me what’s going on before I start shouting and wake the kid?” Dean urged from behind gritted teeth. His hands clenched into fists at his sides. These were his friends - well, Benny was, anyway. He wasn’t going to go all ballistic on them.
Meg folded her lips together and glared at him before replying. “Sam turned his phone off as is standard procedure before starting a top-secret operation,” she explained in a smooth, “official” type of voice. “It’s standard procedure because that’s his personal phone. He uses it to contact his family, his friends, whatever. Someone could use those connections and that phone to somehow compromise the mission through the GPS.”
Dean let that percolate through his mind. “That sounds made up,” he decided finally. “Is that made up? Because it sounds made up.”
“It’s not made up. If I felt like it I could figure out where Lisa’s new husband went on his lunch break today just by using your phone. But I’m not going to, because I couldn’t give less of a flying fuck. The issue with the phone, and the job, is that he didn’t need to leave for that job for another three days. He took off early because he was distraught after your call.”
Distraught? Dean thought wildly, even as a little pit started to form in the middle of his stomach. Who even gets “distraught?" “Well I always used to tease him about being a big girl but that’s a little much don’t you think?”
“Awesome. Gendered insults on top of everything. You’re a piece of work, you know that, Dean? I just told you that you chased your brother out of town three days before he even left - that he literally left town three days early, just to get to someplace that you weren’t - and all you can think to do is to call him a girl. To a woman. Because you think being a woman is something to be ashamed of.” Benny put a hand on her back and moved it back and forth.
“Jesus, lady, learn to take a joke. Sammy’s always gone storming off when he gets upset. It’s what he does. I told him some things he didn’t want to hear and he didn’t like it.” Dean shook his head and made himself grab his bottle for a drink. He hoped he didn’t look too much like a robot.
“Oh. Right. Would one of those things be the idea that he’s entirely replaceable at work, he has no skills that anyone else doesn’t have and they could put pretty much anyone in his job and no one would notice?” Meg’s dark eyes blazed and her cheeks burned.
Dean swallowed his beer. “Those weren’t the words I used, but that’s the sentiment. I mean, come on. It’s Thanksgiving. It’s the first Thanksgiving he’s been allowed back and he’s going to blow it off to go do some shit anyone could do?”
Meg’s eyes bulged almost right out of her sockets. “First of all, no. No no no. The guy speaks ten languages fluently, not including English. No one can do that. I can’t do that. He’s a crack shot, we don’t have anyone better. He’s such a good hacker that the NSA has tried to get him to transfer over something like six times. He was specifically requested for this job, Dean. Because he’s the best. The absolute fucking best there is. They just don’t make better agents than Sam Fucking Winchester. Counterterrorism was sorry to lose me, but they got it. People burn out. They fought tooth and nail to keep him.”
“Okay, but none of that overrides the family,” Dean spat back. “I mean, so what if he’s smart? He’s always been smart. He’d have been a great doctor if he’d done what he was supposed to. He needs to show his commitment to us, to his family. We need to know that he’s going to be there when we need him.”
“Like your father was?” Meg snapped back. “I mean, it was your father who cast him out to begin with, but it was your father who was always abandoning you to go wandering off into the jungle or the bush or whatever.”
“Back off,” Dean demanded. “Dad was saving lives.”
“And Sam saves lives every day. In different ways from you, it’s true, but he still saves lives.” She took a deep breath. “Look. I thought reuniting would be good for him. I really did. But now I just don’t. It’s hurting him and he’s making bad decisions as a result.”
“Oh, like what? Running off with hot chicks?”
“Please. Sam hasn’t even looked at a woman since Georgia. Or a man. Or anyone else. Dean, Sam volunteered for that job. Yes, he was specifically requested, but Jody had to approve the request and she wouldn’t have done so if Sam hadn’t asked to get out of town for a while. We’re going to lose him, Dean.”
“We’re not going to lose him,” Dean scoffed, even as the pit in his stomach grew bigger. “He’s only just moved here.”
“Counterterrorism wants him back in a big way. He was already down after Georgia and it was making him risky. The last time he went on one of these ‘special request’ trips he wound up in a cage for a good long time, getting tortured. But he’s taking on these ‘special request’ assignments again specifically because he needs to get some space from you!”
Dean stood up and walked over to the window. “Thirteen years wasn’t enough space for him?” he ground out, unable to look at either of them.
“That’s not it, smartass. You’re messing with his head and after everything he’s been through he can’t take it."
He couldn’t help but laugh. “Everything he’s been through. Right.”
Benny made a quizzical face at him. “What, the torture wasn’t enough?”
“Sorry, I mean I know you said something happened in Georgia. It’s just…he’s got a history of, uh, dramatics.” Dean took another drink and turned fully around. “I mean, I wasn’t there. You literally cannot blame what happened to him on me, and it doesn’t give him an excuse for not filling his obligations now.”
“For God’s sake, Dean, where do we start?” Meg cried, putting her beer down. “I mean, there’s what your father did to him, to both of you -”
“Watch it lady,” Dean growled.”
“There’s what you did to him,” she continued without missing a beat. “I mean, that screwed him up, Dean. Regardless of how you think he was the aggressor, it screwed him up. There’s nothing you can do about it now, but it screwed him up. There’s getting disowned. There’s what happened to his fiancée -”
“Fiancée?” Dean blurted. “Sammy was engaged?”
“Yeah. She was murdered his senior year at Stanford. It’s what inspired him to go into the FBI, actually.” She sighed. “I didn’t know her. I did know Madison, who he dated while we were at Quantico. She died in a training accident. She was…” Meg softened a little. “She was something else, Dean. Smart, fearless, took no shit from anyone. She was just… she was.”
Dean hesitated. He couldn’t bring himself to mourn for either the nameless fiancée from Stanford or for Madison, but he could easily imagine the effect that losing them had had on Sammy. The kid got attached to string, for crying out loud. “Okay. So that…that probably sucked for him. Still doesn’t mean that he just gets to waltz back in like he’s not the one who walked out on us! On me!”
Benny smiled a little, like the cat that ate the canary. Meg just recoiled. “That’s really what you’re going with?” she objected. “He has to sacrifice his career, the only thing he actually has left, in order to have the chance to maybe someday be accepted back as a perpetual penitent by the family that never wanted him in the first place?”
“Hey - you’re the one who wanted him to take some time off, sister.”
“Look. This is the problem right here. I’m telling you that he literally went out to put his life at risk because he can’t figure out -”
Benny cleared his throat, a soft sound that cut through the arguing quickly. “If I may,” he interrupted, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, “maybe I can offer some perspective. As a disinterested party. I think, and this is second-hand obviously, that Sam is feeling unsettled because he’s not sure where he stands with you, Dean. He can’t tell what it is that you want. And that has him feeling a great deal of stress and anxiety.”
Dean groaned in frustration. “I’ve done everything you people have asked of me. I’ve reached out to him, I’ve let him hang out with Ben - against my better judgment - and I’ve spent time with him.” He flopped back into his chair. “What else can you want from me, for crying out loud?”
Benny nodded and bit the inside of his cheek. “How do you feel about the time you’ve spent with him?”
“What?”
“How do you feel about the time you’ve spent with your brother?” Benny repeated, slower and slicing his hand down on each syllable. “It’s a simple question. You’ve gone out with him several times now. How do you feel about the time you’ve spent?”
Dean bit his tongue and shifted in his seat. “I’ve had fun. Okay?”
“Have you told Sam that?” The Cajun leaned back and put an arm around Meg.
“What?” Dean made a face. “Do you want us to have a slumber party? Maybe braid that hair of his? Hey, Meg, how exactly does he get away with having that hair? It’s way past regulation length.”
“Quit deflecting, Dean. You’re better than that. Now, I know, because Sam has said this in my presence, that Sam has no idea why you keep ‘dragging me out’ like you do because it’s clear ‘he’s not getting much out of it.” Benny sighed. “He’s pretty sure you don’t want to be there, that you don’t want to be around him, that you don’t trust him. He knows you don’t trust him with Ben.”
“He thinks you think he’s going to corrupt Ben,” Meg spat, lips curled back from her teeth. “Like he’s going to do to Ben what you did to him.”
Dean’s stomach lurched. “God. No, no, it’s not like that. Jesus, what is wrong with that boy?” He massaged his temples. “I mean, yes. I do think he’s already encouraging Ben to be rebellious. Next thing you know Ben’s going to want to go to art school, or be a plumber or something.”
“It’s Ben’s life,” Benny pointed out mildly. “He gets to do whatever he wants with it. I’m pretty sure Lisa and Matt, at least, would support him in whatever he chose.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of. I mean, Winchesters grow up to be doctors. Save lives. That’s all there is to it. But I’d never suspect Sam of…oh God. No no no.” He looked at his guests. “God that kid is so screwed up.”
“He is,” Meg glared.
“Now you can’t pin it all on Dean, sugar,” Benny counseled. “Dean was a victim too. He shouldn’t have done what he did, but he grew up just as isolated as Sam did. He didn’t know better. He didn’t exactly have moral guidance.” Benny glanced up at Dean, who had risen to his feet again without even noticing that he’d done so. “Dean, what do you want from your brother?”
Meg stared at Dean as Dean’s jaw fell open and hung there for a moment. “I…I don’t know,” he had to admit. “I mean…”
“You still want him,” she surmised, shaking her head. “That’s why you’re running so hot and cold toward him. You still want him.”
“Shut up,” he ordered her, eyes burning hot with tears. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You do. You still think that you have a right to him after all this time. After all the damage you did to him.”
Dean hadn’t ever decked a woman and he didn’t want to start now. He couldn’t afford to start now, but the urge was growing. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“Come on, cher,” Benny directed, dragging Meg to her feet. “Let’s get back to my place. It’s a little more amenable anyway.”
Meg’s eyes never left his, not until Dean closed the door behind them.
Alone again, Dean poured himself a giant tumbler of bourbon. How dared she - how dared that woman, who barely even knew his Sammy - accuse him of having ‘damaged’ his brother? They hadn’t done anything wrong. They hadn’t. Sammy’d agreed to everything they’d done, eventually, and he’d enjoyed it. There was nothing wrong with enjoying sex.
And the sex had always been separate from his feelings. It was for all of Dean’s partners. Dean had been devoted to his little brother until the day Sammy walked out that door and never came back. He’d shared the food with Sammy, stretching the food that they had. He’d made sure that Sammy was safe. He’d taught Sammy to read, how to write. He’d scrounged for clothes for the boy. He’d taught Sammy how to fight.
Meg had no goddamn idea what the hell she was talking about with that damage crap.
But Sam was damaged, and badly. There were no two ways about that.
What they’d done had been fun, and it had been some consolation for both of them. But it hadn’t been normal, and Sammy did get very attached. Maybe it had been difficult for him, not being able to be affectionate with the person he was attached to. And Dean had sometimes gotten a little twitchy about Sam forming the kind of relationships that Dean did, but that was for Sammy’s own good. They couldn’t go getting attached to outsiders, not with the life they’d led at the time.
Why are the rules any different for you than for me, Dean? Glass shattering, a nameless and faceless girl screaming, and Sammy bleeding on the floor.
He’d screwed up, maybe. He needed to talk to Sammy, maybe explain himself at least, when his brother got back from wherever the hell he was.
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