Hold Tomorrow Tightly
Title: Hold Tomorrow Tightly (or, still more scenes from an alternate universe where Sam stole the Winchester boys in 1987)
Rating: PG-13
Words: 2,729
Spoilers: None really, AU.
Warnings: Vague reference to child abuse/neglect.
Summary: More of the Reverse Engineering universe. Sam contemplates time, history, and parenthood.
Neurotic author's notes: Pure, unadulterated cuddly fluff, because I've had a horrible few weeks and because classiczeppelin is a cool chick. Title comes from Neal A. Maxwell: "You rock a sobbing child without wondering if today's world is passing you by, because you know you hold tomorrow tightly in your arms." Cut text comes from my favorite speech from my favorite play (Arcadia) by my (second) favorite playwright (Tom Stoppard).
Bobby gives Sam two hours’ preparation time, and arrives with a handgun the boys don’t spot but Sam does, holy water, salt, and a silver knife. At Sam’s strained but determinedly polite request the inquisition happens away from prying eyes, and once Bobby is satisfied that Sam, whoever he is, is a human, he goes to the boys.
It’s clear they don’t know one another particularly well yet, as Sammy doesn’t appear to remember Bobby and Dean is shy and diminutive and refers to Bobby as “sir,” apparently not quite able to connect Bobby to the man he’d talked on the phone with on his birthday or the stranger whose house he’d stayed at the previous year. But Bobby is patient, and has clearly read Sam’s letter, as there is a gentle, yearning way he looks at the two boys in front of him, and Sam wonders if he’s thinking In some other life, I died for you, or if he’s imagining these two small boys as the most notorious hunters in the lower forty-eight, as the axis on which the apocalypse turns, as the saviors of the world, as the allies and enemies of angels and rogue demons in turn, as grown men damaged beyond repair. It all seems rather laughable now, with Sammy idly itching the back of his leg with his toe and Dean fidgeting with the hem of his sweatshirt, but Sam doesn’t underestimate Bobby, and he doubts Bobby will underestimate the Winchesters.
After a few moments of Bobby asking the boys questions plainly designed to ascertain the truthfulness of of Sam’s letter and the quality of Sam’s parenting, Bobby seems reasonably satisfied and Sam haltingly suggests they go for lunch even though he can barely afford it, and before Bobby can even guardedly agree the boys are over the moon, because going out is a very special occasion these days, and when Sammy seizes onto Sam’s hand and grins up at him in honest, overbrimming excitement, Sam knows Bobby is sold.
:::
That night, after a nicer dinner than Sam and the boys have had in a very long time (Bobby’s treat, over Sam’s token protestations), after Sammy chattered endlessly about school and Dean asked a few tentative questions about Bobby’s salvage yard before lighting up when Bobby said, “Sam here tells me you know more about cars than just about anybody,” which is something of an exaggeration but also brings forth one of Dean’s pleased, proud smiles, after Dean and Sammy have raced to fish the cherries out of their Shirley Temples and Dean has tied the stems into knots in his mouth for Sammy’s amusement, after Sammy has fallen asleep against Dean on the drive home and Sam has carried him to bed, tucking him in while Dean tells Bobby goodnight, Sam and Bobby sit down for a beer.
“I thought every word of your letter was a lie, son,” says Bobby ruefully.
“Then why’d you come?” Sam asks, looking at him over the kitchen table. Bobby is staring at the fridge, where Dean’s schoolwork and Sammy’s drawings have been taped up.
“Because in that letter, you said where you come from, Bobby Singer’s never once let you or your brother down.” He takes a sip of his beer, turns to look at Sam. “And anyways, I came to see Dean and Sammy.”
Sam raises his eyebrows, on the one hand basking in the joy that is Bobby Singer, alive and trusting him and maybe even caring about him once again, on the other aware of how very tenuous that trust is.
“John Winchester’s boys,” says Bobby, shifting and turning back to the fridge. “Damn near broke my heart, those kids. Met ’em last year. John just dropped them off, didn’t even tell me what they liked to eat or when Sammy went to bed or anything.” He sighed. “Didn’t matter. Dean knew. Never saw anybody look at a kid the way Dean looked at Sammy. They were real charmers, the both of them.” He looks at Sam. “Sammy doesn’t lisp so much, these days.”
“Dean’s good with him,” says Sam. “Bite-and-blow, you know.” He swallows. Something about being with Bobby again, who is younger by three decades but the same man nonetheless, is tugging at his brain in a way he can’t explain. “That’s me in there,” he says abruptly, jerking his head towards the boys’ room. “It is and it isn’t. I’ve known you for twenty-five years. I just-I don’t know what I’m doing, Bobby, and I miss you, and I miss him, Dean, my Dean, I miss him every single day but I don’t because I’ve got him right here, and I think the other Dean is gone now, he has to be, and now maybe he won’t be so-so-” Sam stops, swallows, calms himself down. Bobby is looking at him with some combination of pity and trepidation.
“From what you said in your letter,” says Bobby carefully, “if anybody ever deserved a second chance it was you and your brother.”
“We got a lot of second chances,” says Sam thickly.
“Well, then maybe this is the reward. Or the way things were supposed to be,” counters Bobby. He says it so gently Sam’s eyes well up unexpectedly, as he remembers the way Dean used to look at him, and knows-this time, finally, after losing Dean so often-that he will never see that little smile again. Bobby glances away tactfully, examines Sammy’s drawings as Sam mops his face with his sleeve.
“I’m just worried,” Sam chokes out after a moment, “that I’ve done something I shouldn’t have. And I lost-I lost my brother.”
“Maybe you did,” says Bobby, and something in the way he says it tells Sam that he read the letter very thoroughly, many times, internalized it. “But you haven’t lost Dean.”
“That’s. That’s true.”
Bobby raises his bottle in a mock toast. “To second chances,” says Bobby.
:::
Bobby doesn’t quite become the fixture in their lives Sam had day-dreamed he might, but he does keep in contact, and Dean in particular adores him. It is also because of Bobby, Sam suspects, that John sends the boys the occasional note or package, and the reason he has finally grasped what Sam already told him in multiple letters-that Sam cannot and will not be able to provide any meaningful data on Azazel’s location for another twenty years.
It is because of this, Sam is pretty sure, that Sammy turns to Sam one day as Dean is brushing his teeth and they are getting ready for bed and says, “You know my daddy?”
This is such a totally unexpected question that Sam halts in his quest to yank a slightly-too-small pajama top over Sammy’s head and actually pulls it back off to stare at the little boy, who stands guileless with his little tummy protruding, head cocked. Sam can’t read him (which is insane, he thinks distantly, because I always can-because he’s me).
“What about him?” asks Sam, resuming the effort to pull Sam’s shirt on.
“Well,” continues Sammy, unperturbed and a little muffled by the shirt, “only ’cause I know you’re, um, you weren’t my daddy before. An’ sometimes, we get packages from Daddy, and Dean says dat we gotta listen to you now, but you’re not our daddy, and I was wondering, um-” He stops, scrunches up his face. Sam watches him without moving, forces himself to quell the overwhelming urge to gave this little boy into his arms. “I was wondering, um, about dat,” Sammy finishes.
“Well,” says Sam after a moment, hyperaware that this is a moment he absolutely has to get right, “I’ll tell you what I told your brother.” He scoops Sammy up onto the bed and settles him among the pillows, against the wall (Dean is very insistent that he sleep closest to the door). “Which is that your dad loves you very much, but he wasn’t-quite able to take care of you. So I’m taking care of you now. You didn’t do anything bad.”
Sammy nods thoughtfully, then swallows and says, “Um, big Sam?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you like Dean better’n me?”
Sam is so sidelined by the question he whips around, instinctively, to look for Dean. For guidance, to scold him, he’s not really sure. He turns back to Sammy, though, and says, “Of course not. I don’t like either of you better. I li-love you both the same.”
“Oh,” says Sammy, and he picks at the quilt. Sam waits for him to offer up more information-he almost always does. “Um, ’cause, um, Dean said maybe, maybe if we were really good, my daddy would take me back, but pro’ly not Dean.” He swallows, looks right in Sam’s face. “Only I don’t wanna go if Dean’s gotta stay, an’ I don’t wanna leave, big Sam, I wanna stay here.”
For a moment, Sam isn’t sure if he’s going to cry or vomit, but he runs a hand through Sammy’s soft hair and says, “When did Dean say that?”
“A while ago,” says Sammy, looking down, and Sam thinks he probably wasn’t supposed to repeat any of that.
“Well,” says Sam firmly, drawing Sammy towards him, “neither of you is going anywhere. And you don’t need to worry about anybody ‘taking you back,’ because you’re safe and wanted right where you are, okay? Which is here with me. You can stay, Sammy, alright? I want you to stay.” He swallows, kisses the top of Sammy’s head, and just in case Dean is listening-which he’s almost certain he is-he adds, “I want you both to stay here more than anything.”
Sammy gives a little sniffle, but accepts this, and before Sam is quite sure what is happening he’s pulled himself up so he’s standing on the bed and is bending slightly to press a quick, light kiss to Sam’s own cheek.
“Night-night, big Sam,” says Sammy, settling back down to his side of the bed.
“Night-night, Sammy,” Sam replies, and there’s so much more he wishes he could say.
:::
As expected, he finds Dean sitting against the wall by the door to the bedroom, knees pulled up and face buried in his arms. After a moment, he slides down next to Dean, sits with him. This is how Dean used to approach him when he was angry, as a little boy throwing tantrums, as a teenager after a fight with John-Dean would find him and mirror his position and wait until he could talk.
But Dean didn’t start to talk, because this has always been the difference between Dean and Sam, and after a moment Sam wedges a hand between Dean and the wall and starts rubbing Dean’s back. Dean tenses up but doesn’t twitch away.
“Dean,” says Sam, after another moment of silence, and Dean makes a wet little noise.
“I miss my dad,” says Dean, in a very small voice.
“I’m sorry,” replies Sam, because he can’t think what else to do.
“I thought he-I thought he didn’t want me. I thought I screwed up.” His little voice is wobbling horribly. “But maybe he’d still-maybe Sammy could go home.”
“You didn’t screw up, Dean,” says Sam, and he’s tired but this is another thing he can’t get wrong. “You didn’t. You’re nine years old, and the best kid anybody could ever ask for. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Dean mumbles something, and when Sam asks him to repeat it he abruptly unravels and pitches sideways, his body suddenly supported only by Sam’s sturdy presence, his red face pressed to Sam’s side. “Then why didn’t he come get me?” says Dean, and if he weren’t squashed against Sam it might have been a wail.
And Sam doesn’t have an answer for that, but he knows that John was everything to Dean, that a failure in Dad’s eyes, even an imagined one, was the greatest catastrophe Dean could conceive of. That Dean was very small and had mostly only ever been told that safety and security came as a direct result of his father, and his father’s approval. Sam was too young, when Dean was this age, to quite know what that father-son dynamic looked like, but he’s read Dad’s journal a thousand times, and he knows things Dean probably wishes he didn’t. He knows that this Dean has already seen his father shoot something that looked exactly like a man in the head. He knows that this boy’s father has already attempted to groom his killer instinct and already relies on him for support and comfort. He knows Dean is nine years old, and the things he knows are loss, fear, his brother, and his father.
And he can’t explain, because it’s all so impossible, because so much has happened, because Dean is so young-he can’t explain that he’s trying to fix it. So he tugs Dean closer to him and tells him the truth: that he can’t be expected to hold everyone together all the time, that his father loved him but couldn’t really be a father to him, that he didn’t do anything wrong, that he is just as good and loved as his brother, that he’s safe, he’s good enough, it’s okay, he’s allowed to be upset. He says it and he says it until he can’t say it anymore, and if he’s played this scene with Dean a few times before, he doesn’t mind.
He doesn’t say that Dean is better off for his intervention. He doesn’t say that he hopefully has saved Dean from growing up far too soon, from a lifetime of hunting monsters, from never feeling good enough, from Hell, from death, from a father who hits him and will hold him to impossible standards for the rest of his life, from a brother who will grow up with a view so warped and damaged he will lash out at all the wrong moments, from a rootless existence, from so much loss and pain, from self-loathing and alcohol and torture and sacrifice and so very much misery.
He can’t say that, so he says “It’s okay, Dean, it’s okay,” and when Dean relaxes at last all Sam can think is, I learned how to do that from you.
“Come on, buddy,” he says after Dean has let out a contented little sigh, “bed time.”
“Yeah,” says Dean softly, and Sam’s heart melts a little because it’s so very sweet, and Dean allows Sam to stand him up and lead him into the bedroom, where Sammy is sleeping soundly, curled towards the door and the empty half of the bed, waiting for his brother.
“Goodnight, Dean,” says Sam, struck suddenly by what a fatherly figure he cuts, helping this little boy into bed, running an affectionate hand through his hair and casting a quick glance to the nightlight to make sure it’s going strong. “Sleep well.”
“Okay, I will,” mutters Dean sleepily, which is-dare he say it-adorable, and when Dean’s in bed and curled towards Sammy, Sam pulls the blankets up over the two of them and thinks maybe he’s been redeemed at last, maybe this is, in some twisted way, what he was supposed to have done all along, save the Winchesters whatever it took, that maybe one day Dean will be grown and understand and they can be equals one more time, can thank one another, maybe-he watches as Sammy lets out a little sleepy-sigh and Dean responds with some mumbled word of comfort without waking up-maybe this is enough.
Rating: PG-13
Words: 2,729
Spoilers: None really, AU.
Warnings: Vague reference to child abuse/neglect.
Summary: More of the Reverse Engineering universe. Sam contemplates time, history, and parenthood.
Neurotic author's notes: Pure, unadulterated cuddly fluff, because I've had a horrible few weeks and because classiczeppelin is a cool chick. Title comes from Neal A. Maxwell: "You rock a sobbing child without wondering if today's world is passing you by, because you know you hold tomorrow tightly in your arms." Cut text comes from my favorite speech from my favorite play (Arcadia) by my (second) favorite playwright (Tom Stoppard).
Bobby gives Sam two hours’ preparation time, and arrives with a handgun the boys don’t spot but Sam does, holy water, salt, and a silver knife. At Sam’s strained but determinedly polite request the inquisition happens away from prying eyes, and once Bobby is satisfied that Sam, whoever he is, is a human, he goes to the boys.
It’s clear they don’t know one another particularly well yet, as Sammy doesn’t appear to remember Bobby and Dean is shy and diminutive and refers to Bobby as “sir,” apparently not quite able to connect Bobby to the man he’d talked on the phone with on his birthday or the stranger whose house he’d stayed at the previous year. But Bobby is patient, and has clearly read Sam’s letter, as there is a gentle, yearning way he looks at the two boys in front of him, and Sam wonders if he’s thinking In some other life, I died for you, or if he’s imagining these two small boys as the most notorious hunters in the lower forty-eight, as the axis on which the apocalypse turns, as the saviors of the world, as the allies and enemies of angels and rogue demons in turn, as grown men damaged beyond repair. It all seems rather laughable now, with Sammy idly itching the back of his leg with his toe and Dean fidgeting with the hem of his sweatshirt, but Sam doesn’t underestimate Bobby, and he doubts Bobby will underestimate the Winchesters.
After a few moments of Bobby asking the boys questions plainly designed to ascertain the truthfulness of of Sam’s letter and the quality of Sam’s parenting, Bobby seems reasonably satisfied and Sam haltingly suggests they go for lunch even though he can barely afford it, and before Bobby can even guardedly agree the boys are over the moon, because going out is a very special occasion these days, and when Sammy seizes onto Sam’s hand and grins up at him in honest, overbrimming excitement, Sam knows Bobby is sold.
:::
That night, after a nicer dinner than Sam and the boys have had in a very long time (Bobby’s treat, over Sam’s token protestations), after Sammy chattered endlessly about school and Dean asked a few tentative questions about Bobby’s salvage yard before lighting up when Bobby said, “Sam here tells me you know more about cars than just about anybody,” which is something of an exaggeration but also brings forth one of Dean’s pleased, proud smiles, after Dean and Sammy have raced to fish the cherries out of their Shirley Temples and Dean has tied the stems into knots in his mouth for Sammy’s amusement, after Sammy has fallen asleep against Dean on the drive home and Sam has carried him to bed, tucking him in while Dean tells Bobby goodnight, Sam and Bobby sit down for a beer.
“I thought every word of your letter was a lie, son,” says Bobby ruefully.
“Then why’d you come?” Sam asks, looking at him over the kitchen table. Bobby is staring at the fridge, where Dean’s schoolwork and Sammy’s drawings have been taped up.
“Because in that letter, you said where you come from, Bobby Singer’s never once let you or your brother down.” He takes a sip of his beer, turns to look at Sam. “And anyways, I came to see Dean and Sammy.”
Sam raises his eyebrows, on the one hand basking in the joy that is Bobby Singer, alive and trusting him and maybe even caring about him once again, on the other aware of how very tenuous that trust is.
“John Winchester’s boys,” says Bobby, shifting and turning back to the fridge. “Damn near broke my heart, those kids. Met ’em last year. John just dropped them off, didn’t even tell me what they liked to eat or when Sammy went to bed or anything.” He sighed. “Didn’t matter. Dean knew. Never saw anybody look at a kid the way Dean looked at Sammy. They were real charmers, the both of them.” He looks at Sam. “Sammy doesn’t lisp so much, these days.”
“Dean’s good with him,” says Sam. “Bite-and-blow, you know.” He swallows. Something about being with Bobby again, who is younger by three decades but the same man nonetheless, is tugging at his brain in a way he can’t explain. “That’s me in there,” he says abruptly, jerking his head towards the boys’ room. “It is and it isn’t. I’ve known you for twenty-five years. I just-I don’t know what I’m doing, Bobby, and I miss you, and I miss him, Dean, my Dean, I miss him every single day but I don’t because I’ve got him right here, and I think the other Dean is gone now, he has to be, and now maybe he won’t be so-so-” Sam stops, swallows, calms himself down. Bobby is looking at him with some combination of pity and trepidation.
“From what you said in your letter,” says Bobby carefully, “if anybody ever deserved a second chance it was you and your brother.”
“We got a lot of second chances,” says Sam thickly.
“Well, then maybe this is the reward. Or the way things were supposed to be,” counters Bobby. He says it so gently Sam’s eyes well up unexpectedly, as he remembers the way Dean used to look at him, and knows-this time, finally, after losing Dean so often-that he will never see that little smile again. Bobby glances away tactfully, examines Sammy’s drawings as Sam mops his face with his sleeve.
“I’m just worried,” Sam chokes out after a moment, “that I’ve done something I shouldn’t have. And I lost-I lost my brother.”
“Maybe you did,” says Bobby, and something in the way he says it tells Sam that he read the letter very thoroughly, many times, internalized it. “But you haven’t lost Dean.”
“That’s. That’s true.”
Bobby raises his bottle in a mock toast. “To second chances,” says Bobby.
:::
Bobby doesn’t quite become the fixture in their lives Sam had day-dreamed he might, but he does keep in contact, and Dean in particular adores him. It is also because of Bobby, Sam suspects, that John sends the boys the occasional note or package, and the reason he has finally grasped what Sam already told him in multiple letters-that Sam cannot and will not be able to provide any meaningful data on Azazel’s location for another twenty years.
It is because of this, Sam is pretty sure, that Sammy turns to Sam one day as Dean is brushing his teeth and they are getting ready for bed and says, “You know my daddy?”
This is such a totally unexpected question that Sam halts in his quest to yank a slightly-too-small pajama top over Sammy’s head and actually pulls it back off to stare at the little boy, who stands guileless with his little tummy protruding, head cocked. Sam can’t read him (which is insane, he thinks distantly, because I always can-because he’s me).
“What about him?” asks Sam, resuming the effort to pull Sam’s shirt on.
“Well,” continues Sammy, unperturbed and a little muffled by the shirt, “only ’cause I know you’re, um, you weren’t my daddy before. An’ sometimes, we get packages from Daddy, and Dean says dat we gotta listen to you now, but you’re not our daddy, and I was wondering, um-” He stops, scrunches up his face. Sam watches him without moving, forces himself to quell the overwhelming urge to gave this little boy into his arms. “I was wondering, um, about dat,” Sammy finishes.
“Well,” says Sam after a moment, hyperaware that this is a moment he absolutely has to get right, “I’ll tell you what I told your brother.” He scoops Sammy up onto the bed and settles him among the pillows, against the wall (Dean is very insistent that he sleep closest to the door). “Which is that your dad loves you very much, but he wasn’t-quite able to take care of you. So I’m taking care of you now. You didn’t do anything bad.”
Sammy nods thoughtfully, then swallows and says, “Um, big Sam?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you like Dean better’n me?”
Sam is so sidelined by the question he whips around, instinctively, to look for Dean. For guidance, to scold him, he’s not really sure. He turns back to Sammy, though, and says, “Of course not. I don’t like either of you better. I li-love you both the same.”
“Oh,” says Sammy, and he picks at the quilt. Sam waits for him to offer up more information-he almost always does. “Um, ’cause, um, Dean said maybe, maybe if we were really good, my daddy would take me back, but pro’ly not Dean.” He swallows, looks right in Sam’s face. “Only I don’t wanna go if Dean’s gotta stay, an’ I don’t wanna leave, big Sam, I wanna stay here.”
For a moment, Sam isn’t sure if he’s going to cry or vomit, but he runs a hand through Sammy’s soft hair and says, “When did Dean say that?”
“A while ago,” says Sammy, looking down, and Sam thinks he probably wasn’t supposed to repeat any of that.
“Well,” says Sam firmly, drawing Sammy towards him, “neither of you is going anywhere. And you don’t need to worry about anybody ‘taking you back,’ because you’re safe and wanted right where you are, okay? Which is here with me. You can stay, Sammy, alright? I want you to stay.” He swallows, kisses the top of Sammy’s head, and just in case Dean is listening-which he’s almost certain he is-he adds, “I want you both to stay here more than anything.”
Sammy gives a little sniffle, but accepts this, and before Sam is quite sure what is happening he’s pulled himself up so he’s standing on the bed and is bending slightly to press a quick, light kiss to Sam’s own cheek.
“Night-night, big Sam,” says Sammy, settling back down to his side of the bed.
“Night-night, Sammy,” Sam replies, and there’s so much more he wishes he could say.
:::
As expected, he finds Dean sitting against the wall by the door to the bedroom, knees pulled up and face buried in his arms. After a moment, he slides down next to Dean, sits with him. This is how Dean used to approach him when he was angry, as a little boy throwing tantrums, as a teenager after a fight with John-Dean would find him and mirror his position and wait until he could talk.
But Dean didn’t start to talk, because this has always been the difference between Dean and Sam, and after a moment Sam wedges a hand between Dean and the wall and starts rubbing Dean’s back. Dean tenses up but doesn’t twitch away.
“Dean,” says Sam, after another moment of silence, and Dean makes a wet little noise.
“I miss my dad,” says Dean, in a very small voice.
“I’m sorry,” replies Sam, because he can’t think what else to do.
“I thought he-I thought he didn’t want me. I thought I screwed up.” His little voice is wobbling horribly. “But maybe he’d still-maybe Sammy could go home.”
“You didn’t screw up, Dean,” says Sam, and he’s tired but this is another thing he can’t get wrong. “You didn’t. You’re nine years old, and the best kid anybody could ever ask for. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Dean mumbles something, and when Sam asks him to repeat it he abruptly unravels and pitches sideways, his body suddenly supported only by Sam’s sturdy presence, his red face pressed to Sam’s side. “Then why didn’t he come get me?” says Dean, and if he weren’t squashed against Sam it might have been a wail.
And Sam doesn’t have an answer for that, but he knows that John was everything to Dean, that a failure in Dad’s eyes, even an imagined one, was the greatest catastrophe Dean could conceive of. That Dean was very small and had mostly only ever been told that safety and security came as a direct result of his father, and his father’s approval. Sam was too young, when Dean was this age, to quite know what that father-son dynamic looked like, but he’s read Dad’s journal a thousand times, and he knows things Dean probably wishes he didn’t. He knows that this Dean has already seen his father shoot something that looked exactly like a man in the head. He knows that this boy’s father has already attempted to groom his killer instinct and already relies on him for support and comfort. He knows Dean is nine years old, and the things he knows are loss, fear, his brother, and his father.
And he can’t explain, because it’s all so impossible, because so much has happened, because Dean is so young-he can’t explain that he’s trying to fix it. So he tugs Dean closer to him and tells him the truth: that he can’t be expected to hold everyone together all the time, that his father loved him but couldn’t really be a father to him, that he didn’t do anything wrong, that he is just as good and loved as his brother, that he’s safe, he’s good enough, it’s okay, he’s allowed to be upset. He says it and he says it until he can’t say it anymore, and if he’s played this scene with Dean a few times before, he doesn’t mind.
He doesn’t say that Dean is better off for his intervention. He doesn’t say that he hopefully has saved Dean from growing up far too soon, from a lifetime of hunting monsters, from never feeling good enough, from Hell, from death, from a father who hits him and will hold him to impossible standards for the rest of his life, from a brother who will grow up with a view so warped and damaged he will lash out at all the wrong moments, from a rootless existence, from so much loss and pain, from self-loathing and alcohol and torture and sacrifice and so very much misery.
He can’t say that, so he says “It’s okay, Dean, it’s okay,” and when Dean relaxes at last all Sam can think is, I learned how to do that from you.
“Come on, buddy,” he says after Dean has let out a contented little sigh, “bed time.”
“Yeah,” says Dean softly, and Sam’s heart melts a little because it’s so very sweet, and Dean allows Sam to stand him up and lead him into the bedroom, where Sammy is sleeping soundly, curled towards the door and the empty half of the bed, waiting for his brother.
“Goodnight, Dean,” says Sam, struck suddenly by what a fatherly figure he cuts, helping this little boy into bed, running an affectionate hand through his hair and casting a quick glance to the nightlight to make sure it’s going strong. “Sleep well.”
“Okay, I will,” mutters Dean sleepily, which is-dare he say it-adorable, and when Dean’s in bed and curled towards Sammy, Sam pulls the blankets up over the two of them and thinks maybe he’s been redeemed at last, maybe this is, in some twisted way, what he was supposed to have done all along, save the Winchesters whatever it took, that maybe one day Dean will be grown and understand and they can be equals one more time, can thank one another, maybe-he watches as Sammy lets out a little sleepy-sigh and Dean responds with some mumbled word of comfort without waking up-maybe this is enough.