SPN: Through the Looking Glass (Sam/Dean) R
Title: Through the Looking Glass
Original post date: 2006
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: R for implied incest
Spoilers/Chronology: Stanford, general spoilers for the pilot if you're an enormous spoilerphobe, otherwise none.
Word count: 2152
Summary: Dean stopped calling Sam at Stanford after the second year, but he didn't stop thinking about doing it. You can't go home again, but sometimes Sam wished he could.
Five times Dean almost called Sam at Stanford
The first year Sam was gone, Dean called once a month. Just to check up on Sam, and make sure he was all right. He kept it short, so he didn't get to sounding pathetic. Sam didn't seem to want to talk much so that worked out.
The second year, he called twice--on Sam's birthday and Christmas. Sam called on his birthday. They pretended that was normal.
After that, he didn't call at all. But he thought about it sometimes.
1. Freebird
Okay, well, there was this one time. It didn't count as calling, because he hadn't really meant to, and they didn't talk.
Out on highway 65, about halfway between Birmingham and Montgomery, Dean stopped for gas at a mom and pop place that sold everything from batteries to buckshot. 4 C Batteries: $8.99. 50 Rounds of Buckshot: $31.00.
They had one of those little tape racks at the counter, and while he waited for the local five-o to pay for his doughnuts, Dean checked out the selection. He didn't plan to buy anything, but the Greatest Hits of Lynyrd Skynyrd: $4.99. Messing with Sammy who hated "Freebird": Priceless.
There are some things money can't buy. For everything else, there's Daryl. P. Jones' Mastercard.
Everything else but the damned plastic wrap on the tape - what jackass thought that was a good idea? The Bowie worked on it just fine, though, and in no time he'd hit the highway with "Freebird" blasting through the Impala's speakers.
About the third time through the tape, with Sam bitching in his head, he hit number one on his speed dial. Sam picked up right away, so he must've been waiting for a call - from someone other than him.
"Hello? Who's there? Who is this? Dean, is that you?"
Sammy sounded pissed off, and Dean had nothing to say. Before the song got to the chorus, he hung up. After that, he didn't call again. Really.
But he didn't take Sam off his speed-dial either.
2. Damned Yuppies
Dad sent Dean to Mountain View, one town over from Palo Alto, to find out what was behind a string of recent deaths on the tracks outside the Caltrain station. His EMP reader showed activity, but the ghost seemed more interested in panhandling than in pushing Dean to his death.
Just in case, he hung back to watch. Good thing, too. Turned out the spirit had a hate-on for eighties rock and bad fashion returns. Dean saved a guy's life, but told him to get better taste in music. He stuck around until the last train left the station, then caught some shuteye in the Impala before getting back to work.
Easy enough job, right? Find the remains, salt 'em and burn 'em. He could do it in his sleep. Except the newspaper articles might've been in a foreign language.
Twenty-two years ago, a yuppie had thrown a homeless yuffie onto the tracks in front of an oncoming train. The yuppie had pled temporary insanity on account of vehicular yuppicide.
"Damned yuppies," Dean swore, then almost called Sam to translate. He didn't, because Sam might not think it was as funny as he did, and that would suck. Out loud.
(After he translated the gibberish into English, Dean almost sympathized with the guy. If some homeless dude smashed up the Impala, he'd be tempted to kill him too.)
***
Yuppie = young urban professional
Yuffie = young urban failure; or girl ninja in a popular anime series
Vehicular Yuppicide = killing of a yuppie's BMW
3. Ifrit
New Haven, Connecticut, charming place. So damned gray and occult, it made him glad Sam had chosen Stanford. If he had to go to college, at least he could do it in California where people were more apt to raise imps than Ifrit.
This particular Ifrit had taken over Yale's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, and was now flambéing anyone who set within fifteen feet of the entrances. Apparently, the idiot who'd bound the Ifrit - grad student Joseph Said Reynolds - had wanted to keep other students from checking out the manuscripts he needed for his research.
If he'd researched his Ifreeti, he'd have learned that Ifreeti prided themselves on twisting their masters' words to permit as much damage as they could manage. Dean hated the smug fiery bastards, but he hated Joseph Reynolds a hell of a lot more. What kind of asshole called Djinn for something as stupid as schoolwork?
To stop the thing, he had to take ownership of it from Reynolds, then command it never to take human orders again without giving it room to go rogue. And it worked best in Arabic. He almost called Sam, then, because Sam had that whole language thing going for him, and he weaseled like a lawyer.
He didn't, mostly because the Ifrit didn't give him time. But also because Sam had given up hunting. Sam had his life and Dad and Dean had theirs.
4. Bonner's Ferry
Dad always went to Lawrence to visit her grave and renew his promise to find the thing that killed her. Every year, he asked Dean to go with him, and every year Dean said 'no'. He wasn't going back there. Not unless Dad made him. And Dad didn't. Dean figured he wanted to be alone anyhow.
Sam's third year at Stanford, Dean was in Idaho for the anniversary. Little nothing town called Bonner's Ferry, two miles from the Montana border. At the invitation of the Tribal Elders, he'd been up on the Res hunting the ghost of a murdered Shaman and caught the sonuvabitch, too, but not before his tricks had claimed a dozen lives, including two kids.
The anniversary always put him in a bad mood, but the dead kids had his jaw locked up even tighter. He'd bellied up to the bar, given the dark-haired, dark-eyed cocktail waitress his newest fake card and his brightest "you know you want me" smile, and she'd kept the beers coming.
When the bar closed, Dean didn't want to be alone. He wanted Sam, in his bed, warm back pressed to his chest, where Dean could be sure he was safe.
He almost called, but Sam wouldn't want to talk to him. So he took the cocktail waitress back to his hotel instead.
5. Morning
Growling, Dean threw his arm over his face to screen out the sunlight. He didn't remember where he was, and it really didn't matter. It was just like every other morning.
He had three thoughts: Sam, coffee, and Dad. In that order. And just like every other morning, he didn't call Sam to make sure he'd made it through the night.
Dean figured eventually he might break, and do it, but not knowing wasn't as bad as Sam not answering.
Five times Sam almost came home from Stanford
After Dad told him he might as well stay gone, Sam knew he wouldn't go back. Not for a long time, and maybe not ever.
He almost changed his mind when he got to Stanford's campus and everyone wore new clothes, carried laptops, and looked like they'd been born to the lifestyle. He'd never felt more out of place.
Once he got a job as a library assistant and learned how to shop at Salvation Army, he stopped thinking maybe he ought to go back to hunting with Dad and Dean, but that didn't mean he never thought about going home.
1. Freebird
Friday after class, Sam usually met his friends to shoot some pool and have a few beers. This particular Friday, he'd asked Jessica, the pretty blonde from his art history class, to join them, and he was waiting for her to call to confirm.
His cell rang, and Sam answered it without checking the number. In the background he could hear "Freebird" playing. He hated that song.
"Hello? Who's there? Who is this?" No one answered, and he checked the number. It was blocked, and that pissed him off. "Dean, is that you?"
Before the song got to the chorus, whoever it was - Dean - hung up. Sam almost took the next bus home to kick his ass, on principle.
He didn't, because unlike some people, he wasn't ruled by his impulses. Besides, it faded when Jessica called.
2. Spring Break
Junior year, Sam's friends dragged him to Malibu for Spring Break. He'd have been happy to stay on campus and write his Cultural Anthro 431 seminar paper (on the role of the incest taboo in Northwest Coast Native tribes), but they were determined to get him drunk for some fun in the sun.
Bikinis, body shots and Budweisers, not to mention the aggressive posturing? Dean's world, not his. He fit here about as well as he had PS 2 in Norman, Oklahoma. But Dean would be right at home.
He couldn't say whether he did it for Dean, who'd never get the chance, or to spite Dean, and prove he wasn't the pussy Dean accused him of being, but Sam lived Spring Break like Armageddon neared. Drank 'til he couldn't stand, passed out on unfamiliar couches, woke with his hand wrapped around a beer - he wasn't entirely stupid; broken bottles could serve as weapons in a pinch.
When the week ended, and Sam's head felt slow and his eyes gritty, his body aching from too much alcohol and not enough sleep, he felt closer to Dean than he had in years.
He almost went home, but right then, he didn't trust himself to come back if Dean asked him to stay.
3. Imps
That same year, for Halloween, the Kappa Kappa Gammas decided it'd be a great idea to celebrate witchcraft. It being Stanford, they didn't stick to woo-woo skyclad rituals. No, instead, they went searching in medieval texts. Chanted ritual chants, performed summoning spells, in the name of authentic preparation for the party to end all parties.
Unfortunately for the Kappas, their authentic preparation almost did make it the party to end all parties. The spells they thought were fake were not. They summoned a horde of imps. And while imps aren't especially malicious, since they mostly want attention, they can be dangerous. Especially when everyone around you thinks they're a sorority prank.
By the time Sam rounded up the last of the little bastards and sent him back to Hell, there'd been three near-deaths from clothesline strangulation, half-a-dozen incidents of broken noses, arms, and legs from tripping over shoes or brooms or what have you in the hallway, and one concussion from slipping on a sock.
Sam came out of it with a few scratches - little suckers had sharp claws, a swollen bite on his left hand, and a nasty bruise on his hip from falling over a bucket. He passed it off to Jess and his friends as the after effects of a spontaneous rescue of feral kittens and they believed him.
Sam almost went home just to have someone to share the truth with. But he was done hunting, so he'd just have to get used to it.
4. Dreams
When the dreams started up, sometimes about Mom, sometimes about Jess, Jess woke with him and worried for him.
He couldn't tell her, she couldn't soothe him, and he missed Dean so much he ached. He missed the solid warmth at his back, the reassuring strength of the one person who really knew what went bump in his nights. The one person he always believed when he said, "It's okay, Sam."
He wanted Dean, but his brother hadn't stopped him when he left, he hadn't called since the "Freebird" incident, and Sam was on his own. So he held Jess and told her he dreamed of losing her in the Bay fog, and spent the nightmare nights staring at the ceiling over the crown of her head.
5. Morning
Kissing Jess on the forehead, Sam slipped from bed. He powered up his laptop on the way to the kitchen to make coffee - the good stuff, French roast, because Jess had a final in three hours and she claimed it helped her think.
Mug in hand, he sat down at his desk, still in his boxers, to run the spider he'd created. This morning it turned up a new serial killer in Phoenix and one in Atlantic City. The missing persons count in Wenatchee had gotten to seven in two years, and off the top of his head, Sam could think of at least three supernatural beings that might be responsible. It would attract Dad's attention with the next disappearance, and this might be the time that Dean got killed.
He wanted to slam Dean up against a wall and kiss him until he swore he'd stop, but Dean couldn't stop, and Sam couldn't face saying goodbye again knowing it might be the last time.
~*~
Author's Notes: for meinterrupted (who is also the awesomest beta - thanks for saving me from dumb Discover joke and the rushing gaffe) from two 5 Things prompts: 5 times Dean almost called Sam at Stanford; 5 times Sam almost came home from Stanford. I'm bad at decisions, so I did both. Thanks to new beta estel_willow, too, who didn't go style-nazi on me but still caught my mistakes. :)
Original post date: 2006
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: R for implied incest
Spoilers/Chronology: Stanford, general spoilers for the pilot if you're an enormous spoilerphobe, otherwise none.
Word count: 2152
Summary: Dean stopped calling Sam at Stanford after the second year, but he didn't stop thinking about doing it. You can't go home again, but sometimes Sam wished he could.
Five times Dean almost called Sam at Stanford
The first year Sam was gone, Dean called once a month. Just to check up on Sam, and make sure he was all right. He kept it short, so he didn't get to sounding pathetic. Sam didn't seem to want to talk much so that worked out.
The second year, he called twice--on Sam's birthday and Christmas. Sam called on his birthday. They pretended that was normal.
After that, he didn't call at all. But he thought about it sometimes.
1. Freebird
Okay, well, there was this one time. It didn't count as calling, because he hadn't really meant to, and they didn't talk.
Out on highway 65, about halfway between Birmingham and Montgomery, Dean stopped for gas at a mom and pop place that sold everything from batteries to buckshot. 4 C Batteries: $8.99. 50 Rounds of Buckshot: $31.00.
They had one of those little tape racks at the counter, and while he waited for the local five-o to pay for his doughnuts, Dean checked out the selection. He didn't plan to buy anything, but the Greatest Hits of Lynyrd Skynyrd: $4.99. Messing with Sammy who hated "Freebird": Priceless.
There are some things money can't buy. For everything else, there's Daryl. P. Jones' Mastercard.
Everything else but the damned plastic wrap on the tape - what jackass thought that was a good idea? The Bowie worked on it just fine, though, and in no time he'd hit the highway with "Freebird" blasting through the Impala's speakers.
About the third time through the tape, with Sam bitching in his head, he hit number one on his speed dial. Sam picked up right away, so he must've been waiting for a call - from someone other than him.
"Hello? Who's there? Who is this? Dean, is that you?"
Sammy sounded pissed off, and Dean had nothing to say. Before the song got to the chorus, he hung up. After that, he didn't call again. Really.
But he didn't take Sam off his speed-dial either.
2. Damned Yuppies
Dad sent Dean to Mountain View, one town over from Palo Alto, to find out what was behind a string of recent deaths on the tracks outside the Caltrain station. His EMP reader showed activity, but the ghost seemed more interested in panhandling than in pushing Dean to his death.
Just in case, he hung back to watch. Good thing, too. Turned out the spirit had a hate-on for eighties rock and bad fashion returns. Dean saved a guy's life, but told him to get better taste in music. He stuck around until the last train left the station, then caught some shuteye in the Impala before getting back to work.
Easy enough job, right? Find the remains, salt 'em and burn 'em. He could do it in his sleep. Except the newspaper articles might've been in a foreign language.
Twenty-two years ago, a yuppie had thrown a homeless yuffie onto the tracks in front of an oncoming train. The yuppie had pled temporary insanity on account of vehicular yuppicide.
"Damned yuppies," Dean swore, then almost called Sam to translate. He didn't, because Sam might not think it was as funny as he did, and that would suck. Out loud.
(After he translated the gibberish into English, Dean almost sympathized with the guy. If some homeless dude smashed up the Impala, he'd be tempted to kill him too.)
***
Yuppie = young urban professional
Yuffie = young urban failure; or girl ninja in a popular anime series
Vehicular Yuppicide = killing of a yuppie's BMW
3. Ifrit
New Haven, Connecticut, charming place. So damned gray and occult, it made him glad Sam had chosen Stanford. If he had to go to college, at least he could do it in California where people were more apt to raise imps than Ifrit.
This particular Ifrit had taken over Yale's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, and was now flambéing anyone who set within fifteen feet of the entrances. Apparently, the idiot who'd bound the Ifrit - grad student Joseph Said Reynolds - had wanted to keep other students from checking out the manuscripts he needed for his research.
If he'd researched his Ifreeti, he'd have learned that Ifreeti prided themselves on twisting their masters' words to permit as much damage as they could manage. Dean hated the smug fiery bastards, but he hated Joseph Reynolds a hell of a lot more. What kind of asshole called Djinn for something as stupid as schoolwork?
To stop the thing, he had to take ownership of it from Reynolds, then command it never to take human orders again without giving it room to go rogue. And it worked best in Arabic. He almost called Sam, then, because Sam had that whole language thing going for him, and he weaseled like a lawyer.
He didn't, mostly because the Ifrit didn't give him time. But also because Sam had given up hunting. Sam had his life and Dad and Dean had theirs.
4. Bonner's Ferry
Dad always went to Lawrence to visit her grave and renew his promise to find the thing that killed her. Every year, he asked Dean to go with him, and every year Dean said 'no'. He wasn't going back there. Not unless Dad made him. And Dad didn't. Dean figured he wanted to be alone anyhow.
Sam's third year at Stanford, Dean was in Idaho for the anniversary. Little nothing town called Bonner's Ferry, two miles from the Montana border. At the invitation of the Tribal Elders, he'd been up on the Res hunting the ghost of a murdered Shaman and caught the sonuvabitch, too, but not before his tricks had claimed a dozen lives, including two kids.
The anniversary always put him in a bad mood, but the dead kids had his jaw locked up even tighter. He'd bellied up to the bar, given the dark-haired, dark-eyed cocktail waitress his newest fake card and his brightest "you know you want me" smile, and she'd kept the beers coming.
When the bar closed, Dean didn't want to be alone. He wanted Sam, in his bed, warm back pressed to his chest, where Dean could be sure he was safe.
He almost called, but Sam wouldn't want to talk to him. So he took the cocktail waitress back to his hotel instead.
5. Morning
Growling, Dean threw his arm over his face to screen out the sunlight. He didn't remember where he was, and it really didn't matter. It was just like every other morning.
He had three thoughts: Sam, coffee, and Dad. In that order. And just like every other morning, he didn't call Sam to make sure he'd made it through the night.
Dean figured eventually he might break, and do it, but not knowing wasn't as bad as Sam not answering.
Five times Sam almost came home from Stanford
After Dad told him he might as well stay gone, Sam knew he wouldn't go back. Not for a long time, and maybe not ever.
He almost changed his mind when he got to Stanford's campus and everyone wore new clothes, carried laptops, and looked like they'd been born to the lifestyle. He'd never felt more out of place.
Once he got a job as a library assistant and learned how to shop at Salvation Army, he stopped thinking maybe he ought to go back to hunting with Dad and Dean, but that didn't mean he never thought about going home.
1. Freebird
Friday after class, Sam usually met his friends to shoot some pool and have a few beers. This particular Friday, he'd asked Jessica, the pretty blonde from his art history class, to join them, and he was waiting for her to call to confirm.
His cell rang, and Sam answered it without checking the number. In the background he could hear "Freebird" playing. He hated that song.
"Hello? Who's there? Who is this?" No one answered, and he checked the number. It was blocked, and that pissed him off. "Dean, is that you?"
Before the song got to the chorus, whoever it was - Dean - hung up. Sam almost took the next bus home to kick his ass, on principle.
He didn't, because unlike some people, he wasn't ruled by his impulses. Besides, it faded when Jessica called.
2. Spring Break
Junior year, Sam's friends dragged him to Malibu for Spring Break. He'd have been happy to stay on campus and write his Cultural Anthro 431 seminar paper (on the role of the incest taboo in Northwest Coast Native tribes), but they were determined to get him drunk for some fun in the sun.
Bikinis, body shots and Budweisers, not to mention the aggressive posturing? Dean's world, not his. He fit here about as well as he had PS 2 in Norman, Oklahoma. But Dean would be right at home.
He couldn't say whether he did it for Dean, who'd never get the chance, or to spite Dean, and prove he wasn't the pussy Dean accused him of being, but Sam lived Spring Break like Armageddon neared. Drank 'til he couldn't stand, passed out on unfamiliar couches, woke with his hand wrapped around a beer - he wasn't entirely stupid; broken bottles could serve as weapons in a pinch.
When the week ended, and Sam's head felt slow and his eyes gritty, his body aching from too much alcohol and not enough sleep, he felt closer to Dean than he had in years.
He almost went home, but right then, he didn't trust himself to come back if Dean asked him to stay.
3. Imps
That same year, for Halloween, the Kappa Kappa Gammas decided it'd be a great idea to celebrate witchcraft. It being Stanford, they didn't stick to woo-woo skyclad rituals. No, instead, they went searching in medieval texts. Chanted ritual chants, performed summoning spells, in the name of authentic preparation for the party to end all parties.
Unfortunately for the Kappas, their authentic preparation almost did make it the party to end all parties. The spells they thought were fake were not. They summoned a horde of imps. And while imps aren't especially malicious, since they mostly want attention, they can be dangerous. Especially when everyone around you thinks they're a sorority prank.
By the time Sam rounded up the last of the little bastards and sent him back to Hell, there'd been three near-deaths from clothesline strangulation, half-a-dozen incidents of broken noses, arms, and legs from tripping over shoes or brooms or what have you in the hallway, and one concussion from slipping on a sock.
Sam came out of it with a few scratches - little suckers had sharp claws, a swollen bite on his left hand, and a nasty bruise on his hip from falling over a bucket. He passed it off to Jess and his friends as the after effects of a spontaneous rescue of feral kittens and they believed him.
Sam almost went home just to have someone to share the truth with. But he was done hunting, so he'd just have to get used to it.
4. Dreams
When the dreams started up, sometimes about Mom, sometimes about Jess, Jess woke with him and worried for him.
He couldn't tell her, she couldn't soothe him, and he missed Dean so much he ached. He missed the solid warmth at his back, the reassuring strength of the one person who really knew what went bump in his nights. The one person he always believed when he said, "It's okay, Sam."
He wanted Dean, but his brother hadn't stopped him when he left, he hadn't called since the "Freebird" incident, and Sam was on his own. So he held Jess and told her he dreamed of losing her in the Bay fog, and spent the nightmare nights staring at the ceiling over the crown of her head.
5. Morning
Kissing Jess on the forehead, Sam slipped from bed. He powered up his laptop on the way to the kitchen to make coffee - the good stuff, French roast, because Jess had a final in three hours and she claimed it helped her think.
Mug in hand, he sat down at his desk, still in his boxers, to run the spider he'd created. This morning it turned up a new serial killer in Phoenix and one in Atlantic City. The missing persons count in Wenatchee had gotten to seven in two years, and off the top of his head, Sam could think of at least three supernatural beings that might be responsible. It would attract Dad's attention with the next disappearance, and this might be the time that Dean got killed.
He wanted to slam Dean up against a wall and kiss him until he swore he'd stop, but Dean couldn't stop, and Sam couldn't face saying goodbye again knowing it might be the last time.
~*~
Author's Notes: for meinterrupted (who is also the awesomest beta - thanks for saving me from dumb Discover joke and the rushing gaffe) from two 5 Things prompts: 5 times Dean almost called Sam at Stanford; 5 times Sam almost came home from Stanford. I'm bad at decisions, so I did both. Thanks to new beta estel_willow, too, who didn't go style-nazi on me but still caught my mistakes. :)