Seven Ficlets for Seven Songs (PG-13, gen)
Title: Seven Ficlets for Seven Songs
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Sam, Dean. No pairing.
Summary: Seven ficlets inspired by seven songs. Individual descriptions inside.
Seven ficlets inspired by seven songs. Original idea came from
musesfool and her post in March, just to give you an idea of how long these have been sitting, untouched, on my hard drive. Nothing too serious, but they were fun to write.
1. He’s Got, But He Has- 170 Words.
“1%” by Lars Frederiksen and the Bastards.
Sam’s got a brother. And Sam has a brother.
2. Seven Steps to Hashing it Out, Winchester Style- 351.
“The Gauntlet” by Dropkick Murphys.
Sam is pretty sure Dr. Phil wouldn’t approve of the Winchester Method of Fighting.
3. Premonition- 575.
“Falling On” by Finger Eleven.
While at Stanford, Sam has a dream about Dean killing himself.
4. Gossip and Truths- 423.
“Which to Bury, Us or the Hatchet” by Relient K.
Post-3.12.
5. Stages- 534.
“White and Nerdy” by Weird Al.
Dean knew stages, knew every last one Sam went through, and this was hands down the strangest yet.
6. Cold, Hard Cash- 271.
“Filthy/Gorgeous” by the Scissor Sisters.
Dean’s cash was always wrinkled and watermarked. Sam never knew why.
7. What He Doesn’t Know, He Remembers- 780.
“Die Romantic” by Aiden.
Sam remembers the deal coming due, he just doesn’t know what happens next.
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1. He’s Got, But He Has
He’s a devil to most, but an angel to some
- 1%- Lars Frederiksen and the Bastards.
Sam’s got a brother. A big, annoying, pain in the ass of a brother that never passes up an opportunity to embarrass him. He’s got a brother that hustle pool for a living, runs credit card schemes for a living, kills for a living. He’s got a brother that never cleans up after himself, bosses him around constantly and possesses a running count that might rival Wilt Chamberland in the category of one night stands.
Sam has a brother. A big, annoying, selfless brother who has saved his ass more times than he can count. He has a brother who saves his life for a living, sacrifices himself for a living, loves him for a living. He has a brother who raised him when he was just a kid himself, who can‘t comprehend the thought of not putting him first every last time, and says Sammy like it’s code for all that’s important in this life.
So yeah, Sam’s got a brother. But better than that, Sam has a Dean.
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2. Seven Steps to Hashing it Out, Winchester Style
Stand up and fight
And I’ll stand up with you
- The Gauntlet- Dropkick Murphys.
Sam is pretty sure Dr. Phil wouldn’t approve of the Winchester Method of Fighting.
Step One: Find something trivial. Then bitch about it.
Dean’s dirty socks are usually a good bet. Chewing with his mouth open. Telling the girl at the desk that Sam has a Barbie doll just like that one. You know. Dumb shit.
Step Two: He always does it. Always.
Exaggeration is sometimes necessary here. Dean leaves the cap off the toothpaste once? Try every day. Sticks Sam with the crappy bed? What does he think the chronic back pain is from, if not every stabbing-springed hotel mattress in the continental U.S?
Step Three: Embarrass him.
This is usually the most fun step; he keeps a running list in his head at all times. That time Dean accidentally hit on that guy in drag in New Orleans is usually a winner. The fact that Bela has duped him more times then he can count. The high waters in second grade. The mullet he had in fifth.
Step Four: Bring up past arguments that still haven’t died, despite their seventy-second rehashing.
Step Three usually glides smoothly into four, mostly because the mullet incident leads flawlessly into that time with the Nair, or that time when Dean ditched him in Milwaukee for those twins, or how Dean always hit on the girls he liked growing up. Sometimes this requires a brief revisit to Step Two.
Step Five: Okay, so that is in the past. Really. But the present…
Never without a looming, everpresent threat, they usually slip into a sobering battle of the words. Sam’s visions. Dean’s stupid kamikaze trips. Sam’s possibilities of becoming evil. Dean’s deal.
Step Six: Awkward silence.
There’s never much to say after, “You can’t protect me from this, Dean,” or, “You can’t save me, Sam.”
Step Seven: The well-thought out change of subject.
Go out for a beer. Grab some dinner. “So, about this hunt…”
Never “sorry.” It’s implied in the way Dean flashes Sam a smile or the way Sam laughs at Dean’s corny jokes.
It’s never sorry, but, somehow, it’s always okay.
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3. Premonition
And if you find you’ve fallen, and all your grace is gone
Just scream for me and I’ll be what you’re falling on
- Falling On- Finger Eleven.
Sam called Dean once in his entire Stanford tenure, a chilly Tuesday in the dead of December, his first year of residence. Forty-five degrees was So-Cal for freezing, and back then he still lived in the dorm, a hole-in-the wall, peanuts for insulation cardboard box. He was still a lowly freshman with zero friends and a stubborn streak so big he wasn’t sure if he would ever admit there was a chance he had made a mistake coming there.
Somewhere around then was when he developed his insomnia habit, and rarely during the week did he sleep more than four or five hours, never staying asleep long enough to slip deeply enough to dream. This particular night was different, though. Flashes pushed through his sleep, like a video playing on mute, so vivid he woke up with a start.
Sweat pooled on his forehead as he gasped for air, eyes straining in the dark room as he tried to process the snippets running through his mind, practically on fast forward.
Dean. An empty hotel room, dawn barely breaking through the slats on the blinds, behind thin curtains. Dean, sitting on the edge of his bed, a gun in hand. Dean pressing the metal to his temple and relieving the trigger.
The alarm clock flickered 4:09, a flashing panic against the pooling contrast of the dark room. Suddenly, Sam was palming for his cell phone, fingers blazing on the keys and pressing “Send” before he could even give a second thought.
Several rings set in, his anxiety growing with each passing burst. His judgment didn’t kick in until the fifth ring or so, at which point he decided he was being irrational, that of course Dean was fine, that of course he’s always fine. Thumb moving to end the call, a voice clicked on the other end of the line.
“Hello?” Suddenly, Sam’s mouth went dry. Eyes slipping close, a wave of familiarity washed over him, along with a blanket of relief. “Hello?”
“Hi,” Sam finally offered, shy and weak. A pause.
“Sam? Everything okay?”
“Yeah, everything is fine,” Sam smiled. “I just… I had a weird dream.”
“Oh.”
“I just wanted to make sure you were…” Sam shifted awkwardly. “I mean… you’re okay, right?”
“Yeah. I‘m doing alright,” Dean reassured after a brief silence, a bit less believable than Sam would have liked.
“You sure?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. What about you? College all it’s cracked up to be?”
“Yeah,” Sam said. He wasn’t sure if he was lying. “It’s great.”
“Good, glad to hear it.” There was a pause. “Hey, if that‘s all-”
“Where are you?” Sam interrupted, desperate to hear more of Dean’s voice.
“Uh, North Carolina.”
“Oh. What are you dealing with?”
“Not sure yet. What I‘m trying to figure out.”
“Oh.”
“Hey, look, sorry to rush through this, but I really should get back to this-”
“Oh, yeah. No problem,” Sam murmured, trying to keep the disappointment from his tone. “I’ll let you get back to that.”
“Yeah. Call me if you need anything?”
“Yeah. I will,” Sam swallowed.
“Alright. Talk to you later, then?”
“Yeah, yeah. Bye Dean.”
“Bye Sammy.”
He sat for several seconds after Dean hung up, not moving, unsure of the heavy feeling in the pit of his stomach. It wasn’t relief. Something along the lines of homesickness, maybe.
Three years later, when dreams become prophetic visions and home becomes Dean once more, Sam can’t help but wonder.
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4. Gossip and Truths
No I don’t hate you, don’t want to fight you
You know I’ll always love you but right now I just don’t like you
- Which to Bury, Us or the Hatchet- Relient K.
Bruised skin and bloodshot eyes, the brothers drag themselves from the jail with much of the same tension with which they had entered. Sam purses his lips, glancing to his brother as he pops the lock on the car, sliding in to the driver’s side without so much as shooting him a glance. The familiar feeling of dread starts to pool in the pit of his stomach, strangling its way up into a knot at the base of his throat and after a moment of staring over the smooth metal of the Impala’s roof, he gains the reluctant courage to drop himself into the passenger seat.
He knows better than to try to initiate conversation, instead tensing his jaw and waiting for his brother to acknowledge him as Dean throws the car into reverse, shifting so suddenly into drive that it throws Sam forward before his sore shoulders come back in contact with the leather of the seat. He glances to Dean, sure the impact couldn’t have helped the bullet wound in his shoulder, but he sees no signs of pain. No signs of anything, for that matter.
A couple minutes worth of heavy silence and Sam’s contemplating the physics of throwing himself out of the vehicle, figuring the eighty-plus on the speedometer nixes any hope of surviving.
“How about some music?” he forces through a fake smile, reaching for the radio before a rough swat blocks access. Sighing, he purses his lips and shoots Dean a look, his brother’s eyes still firmly glued on the racing asphalt.
“Dean-”
“Shut up, Sam.”
“But-”
“I mean it. Don’t talk. I don’t want to hear you talk right now.”
“You could at least let me explain.”
“Explain what? Why you neglected to tell me about this Lilith chick? You don’t think it’s important for me to know what’s coming?”
“I was planning on telling you.”
“Yeah, when? When she came after you? Damn it, Sam, you know this isn’t something you keep from me.”
“I didn’t want to worry you.”
“Who the hell cares if I worry? If she’s coming after you, damn right I have a right to worry. We don’t keep secrets, Sam. We can’t. You can’t keep shit like this from me. Why would you-”
“Because I figured there was a chance you’d be gone by the time she found me,” Sam snaps, putting a wide-eyed end to the tirade. “And I won’t let you spend your last days trying to save me when you should trying to save yourself. I won’t.”
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5. Stages
I wanna roll with the gangstas
But so far they all think I’m too white and nerdy
- White and Nerdy- Weird Al.
It wasn’t as if Dean didn’t understand stages, because, really, he did.
When Sam was a baby he went through plenty. It started with the throwing food stage, the hating Dean phase, the unable to part with Dean for more than three seconds without screaming phase. Somewhere in there the run around naked phase happened, followed by the rebellion and not sleeping through the night phases. Dean isn’t sure if Sam ever grew out of the last two, but luckily the naked thing only lasted a couple of weeks.
Then there was the “my brother is the coolest” stage, soon followed by the “my brother is the most embarrassing person ever” phase. There was that awkward liking Barney phase, which Dean completely skipped over, having graduated nearly directly from Lamb Chop to HBO as a kid. Then of course the world-famous “Dad is an obsessed bastard phase,” followed soon by the “You both are obsessed bastards” phase which would later pretty directly lead to the Stanford phase.
So.
Dean knew phases, knew every last one Sam went through, knew the reasons behind each. But this one… this one Dean couldn’t understand, no matter how hard he tried.
Fall of Sam’s freshman year, this particular phase made its debut through garbled headphones and obnoxiously pounding beats.
“What the hell is that?” Dean asked, scrunching his noise at the noise seeping from Sam’s ears.
Sighing loudly, he rolled his eyes as he exaggeratedly paused the music, demanding his brother repeat the question.
“What does it sound like?” Sam bit, apparently exasperated.
“A bit like bunch of dying dogs in the middle of a twenty car pile-up, to be completely honest,” the older grumbled, twisting up the knob on the sound system, amplifying The Kinks further.
“It’s Puff Daddy, dumbass,” Sam declared, nose in the air, completely ignorant to the horror translating across his brother’s face.
And, okay, maybe it meant Sam had ignored Dean his entire life and obviously refused to have decent tastes as a result, but Dean could manage. As long as Sam kept his Puff Daddy to himself, he could deal.
Only it didn’t stop at the music.
By November Sam had moved beyond Puff Daddy to declaring Snoop Doggy Dogg was the most talented artist that had ever lived, and while Dean expanded his repertoire of horrified facial expressions, it was nothing like when Dean handed Sam forty bucks to buy some new clothes and he came home looking like a pimp.
At the time, Sam was just over six foot, barely 140 pounds with pale skin, bad acne, and an everpresent cowlick. Nothing about that picture, Dean thought, would prompt his brother to buy a white t-shirt, sized 4XL, baggy red sweatpants, a little clock tethered around a thick chain that hung from his neck, and a lime green dew rag, holding back his hair.
Doing as any decent big brother would, Dean nearly blew a kidney laughing.
The gangsta phase ended soon after, when Sam tried to wear the dew rag on a hunt and ended up getting laughed at by a malevolent spirit before it proceeded to attempt to strangle him with it.
It was spectacular blackmail material, nonetheless.
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6. Cold, Hard Cash
When you’re walking down the street
And a man tries to get your business
- Filthy/Gorgeous- The Scissor Sisters.
Sam liked his money ATM-crisp, like the kind slipped into birthday cards or reserved for a package of Lays in the vending machine. He preferred cash to plastic, bills to coins and spare change to be left in Feed the Children bins at grocery stores. He never carried more than two hundred, bitched at Dean for carrying more than three, and never felt quite as good about spending credit-schemed cash than he did hard-earned.
It made no difference to Dean. Money was money, whether it was pool-sharked or sweat-minted, a mud-soaked five on the sidewalk or bank-fresh, didn’t much matter.
Sam complained every time Dean handed him a twenty that looked as if it had seen the inside of a washing machine, practically turned his nose up at cash crumpled to wrinkles and creased to fading ink.
He never seemed to notice the only time Dean had cash on him at all is when they were running between credit card schemes, days of cheap meals and expertly ditched drinking sessions at the local bars.
Day five between credit fraud salvation, Dean fished the wad of twenties from his pocket, fingertips burning with their presence. Swallowing hard he slipped the bills beneath the faucet, dunking them in the soapy water repeatedly before rinsing them and replicating the process. Down the sink, the memories of the night before disappeared, washing away everything but the feel of the man’s hands on his body.
Sam may have known crinkled bills, water-wrinkled and soap-stained. Dean, however, made sure Sam wouldn’t ever know the smooth bills, bathed in back alley guilt and hands pressing bruises, grabbing, pushing. Taking.
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7. What He Doesn’t Know, He Remembers
Your last words to me, tonight’s the night
And redemption is only found in books
- Die Romantic- Aiden.
Sam doesn’t remember how it happens, exactly. He remembers shuffling through hundreds of pages of research, photo-copied and internet-addressed, disregarding potions, chants, and prayers in search of something a little more tangible. He remembers finding nothing, remembers Dean telling him it’s okay, remembers tears slipping beneath aching eyelids from sleepless nights and Dean trying to be strong. He remembers morning, waking up to Dean sitting on the edge of his bed, watching him as he slept. Remembers being unable to stop himself from hugging Dean, remembers his brother hugging him back.
It was worth it, Sammy, it was.
He remembers it going so quickly he is unable to protest: the ride to the crossroads, Bobby stepping from the car, a burst of flames, a agonizing scream that refuses to leave the air, resounding in his ears with an aching persistence.
Sam opens his eyes, finds his legs have given out from beneath him. The world is spinning, whipping around him so quickly his senses struggle to ease into perception. He feels the hand on his shoulder, the sticky heat of the summer air draping heavily with the smell of smoke, hears Bobby trying to reassure him through his own thick tears, hears screaming. It takes him several moments to recognize the ache in his throat, to realize the screaming is his own, for his eyes to adjust into acknowledgement at the body before him. He wonders how long he has been staring at Dean’s body, eyes wide and empty, skin an ashen gray. Wonders how long Dean has been dead.
“No, no, no, no…” he murmurs mindlessly, attempting to scramble to his feet but the muscles in his legs refuse to support his weight.
“Sam,” Bobby tries, hand resting on his arm as his body inches to block Sam’s view of his brother, body lying lifelessly fifteen feet of dirt and gravel away.
“No,” Sam shakes his head, tears cascading freely down his cheeks as the word tumbles unapproved from his mouth. “No, no…”
“Sam, it’s-”
“I can’t… I tried… he… he can’t…” Sam can’t find the words, racks his brain for something, anything, but all he can hear is Dean’s dead. Dean is dead. Dead is Dean. Is Dean…
Midway through trying to tell himself this is reality, Sam’s body violently denies the possibility, lungs constricting painfully as the gasps for air turn up loudly empty.
“Sam.” He can’t breathe, he can’t-
“Sam…” He needs air, why can’t he get-
“Come on, Sam, you have to…” He’s going to die. He’s going to die…
“Sam.” Maybe he wants to die.
“Breathe, you have to-”
“Sammy.”
And it stops.
It all stops. The dam breaks within, obstruction disintegrating into a woosh of oxygen filling his lungs, but Sam can’t focus on anything but pushing Bobby away. He remembers that voice, better than his own. Maybe he is hallucinating, maybe he’s dying. But he has to see.
From behind Bobby, Sam watches as his brother stumbles toward him, covered in soot, bloodied and grimacing, but alive. He collapses directly in front of him, as if his body can’t push any further, too exhausted to move. Sam’s hand instinctively reaches out, tracing a line of pale skin through the black soot. The touch pulsates through his body, burning down the levies of grief and pain so warmth can flow once more. He doesn’t remember when exactly he collects his brother in his arms. Upon this realization, he only tightens his grip as exhaustion and astonishment send his chin to rest on Dean’s shoulder.
Tear-slicked eyes glancing up, he sees Ruby standing where Dean‘s body had fallen, arms crossed and face fixed with a silent “I told you so.” The corners of her lips are turned up, however, softening any malice in her mannerisms. He opens his mouth to ask her how, to ask her why Dean’s pulse thunders against his own after having stopped. He closes it as Dean squirms against him, bringing him in touch with what matters.
He remembers the months spent wanting the how, wanting nothing more than to find the solution, but in truth wanting nothing more than Dean to live.
He remembers wanting to know, as Dean slaps weakly at his embrace, murmuring incoherently before he forms a scratchy-throated, “Ouch.” Sam laughs like they are most beautiful words he can remember ever hearing.
Sam meets Ruby‘s eyes, mouthing a silent Thank you. She nods before turning and disappearing into the night.
He doesn’t know, but he remembers. He remembers the lead up, remembers facing life without Dean, remembers getting him back. He has spent the last year wanting to know, but given the opportunity he doesn’t ask.