Fic: Your Albatross (Sam/Dean, G)
Title: Your Albatross
Author: smalltrolven
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: G
Word Count: 1,100
Summary: Episode Coda to 10.11 “There’s No Place Like Home”
Author’s Notes: First Person POV for spnspiration bingo. Not my characters, only my words.
Read over on AO3 right here.
~*~*~*~*
“Sammy? You in here?” I yell into the main room of the bunker as I walk up from the kitchen.
Huh, not here, he must be out running or something. After Charlie left earlier, I think he knew I needed a little time alone to get myself put back together. Perceptive little bugger, I’ve gotta give him that.
I sit down at the work table with a decidedly non-green smoothie, all the fruit, hold the greens thankyouverymuch and see the note Sam left me in the usual spot.
Went out for a long run.
Make something without kale for dinner please,
Signed,
Your Albatross
Yeah, hell to the no on the kale, like ever again. But I look again at how he signed the note. and it hits me all over in the gut. For the millionth time. That he still doesn’t get it. What he means to me. How is that even possible? Wait, does Albatross mean what I think it does?
I pull over the laptop and google ‘Albatross around your neck’, because I know an albatross is some kind of a bird, but Dick Charlie had been using that phrase as a metaphor the other day, and I’m not sure where it’s from, it sounds familiar. Oh yeah, that old poem thing, Rime of the Ancient Mariner. I can’t help a little chuckle escaping when I remember a pre-teen Sammy following me around an abandoned county fairgrounds we were supposedly practicing recon hunting maneuvers in, reciting the whole damn thing at the top of his lungs. And not because I was scared Dean, geeze.
So it means pretty much what I thought, if not worse (a burden that feels like a curse? So not Sam!) which was why I’d interrupted Dick Charlie from continuing on and saying even more shit for him to hear. I was hoping Sam hadn’t noticed it. But of course he did. And the note sounds like he’s joking, or trying to. But who knows with him these days?
While the google page is up, I read more about albatrosses, and how they’re the most legendary of birds, soaring enormous distances with no energy expenditure, twelve foot wingspan, and lifelong pair bonding. Lifelong pair bonding, huh? Doesn’t sound like any kind of a curse to me, not if you pick the right bird to spend your life with, which I did of course.
I’m fully into web surfing mode now, so I click on the images link at the top of the google page, and among all the giant seagull kind of bird pictures, there’s a silver pendant that catches my eye. It’s a really striking design, a giant gliding bird, wings outstretched over a hammered silver circle. I can’t help myself scratching at the empty spot in the center of my chest where the amulet used to be. And before I can talk myself out of it, I click on the link to order it. I don’t think about it too much, what it would mean to wear it. I just like the idea of it. Of somehow turning around the negative into something completely amazing. Kinda like Sam is.
I forget all about it, of course, one hunt on the other side of the country kept us busy. Until it shows up the next week in a small padded envelope. Sam brings it in with the mail he retrieved from our nearest post office box, over in Smith Center. He tosses it on the table next to the stack of scrolls we’ve been going through. Still no joy in finding anything about the Mark even in all this damn, dusty paper. I look at the small envelope, taped with clear tape on all four corners and wonder what the hell it is. Sam sits down across the table from me and starts going through the big pile of mail. I rip open the envelope and am surprised when a small plastic ziploc bag slides out onto my lap.
I jump back to catch it before it slips off, which of course makes sure that Sam is watching me when I take the necklace out of the plastic bag. Sam doesn’t say anything, just makes a kind of hilarious confused puppy face while he watches me slip the necklace over my head. Yeah it’s a silver chain and not a black silk cord like the amulet used to be on, maybe I’ll replace that. But it’s what it came with. I pat the shining silver albatross charm down over the center of my chest and meet Sam’s eyes across the table.
The confused puppy no longer looks confused. Sam looks, well he looks melted or something, like his face can’t decide whether to smile or cry or frown. At least he’s not snarking at me, or sighing that long-suffering sigh that drives me nuts. He’s looking at the necklace and then back at me, cycling back and forth, figuring it all out in stages like he always does.
Sam stands up and comes around the table, so I turn to face him, looking up at his open, about to overflow with emotion, stupidly beautiful face. One of the giant hands I love so much reach down to touch the albatross. Almost like he needs to make sure it’s real. My giant of a brother leans way down and kisses me, clearly moved by whatever he’s interpreted my new necklace to mean. I kiss him back of course, never miss a chance at that. I’m relieved that it seems to have been taken the right way. And relieved that he’s not gonna push me to say the words out loud, even though I’m thinking them loud and clear.
My hands come up and hold him around the neck, keeping him in place so I can keep kissing him, stopping the words from coming out. They’d be too much for me to say. Too much for him to hear.
But I say them to myself, while I kiss him, and kiss him good. Maybe some of it will get through:
I’m choosing this Sam.
I’m choosing to carry the weight around my neck.
Because you are mine to bear.
I’m choosing to not see it as a curse, but as something I want to celebrate, even brag about. Here it will be, proudly displayed and acknowledged, right up front and center.
Unforgettable for the both of us.
This time, the necklace I’ll wear is something I’ve chosen as a gift for myself, representing my responsibility to you, to be the man you need me to be, a man worthy of you.
Maybe someday I’ll manage to actually tell him. Until then, I’ll wear this thing to remind me.