Bound
Title: Bound
Author: winyumi
Rating: G (unless a swear or two slipped past me)
Words: 2700
Characters: Sam, Dean
Warning: None. Except, you should probably read
Summary: AU. Follow-up to Agreement. After the confrontation/power-struggle with Dad, Dean and Sammy have a talk.
Disclaimer: No profit being made. Please don't sue.
“Wicked men obey from fear; good men, from love.”
- Aristotle
“Alright, what’s wrong?” Dean asks when he finds Sammy after, facedown on the bed. Sammy’s practically suffocating himself in his pillow so Dad won’t hear him crying, and Dean can’t quite hit the exasperated note he's trying for when he sees Sammy’s chicken bone shoulders shudder with misery.
He refuses to even look at Dean, but that’s not surprising. Dean isn't really sure what he's supposed to say here, but he does know he just asked a stupid question. What’s wrong is they’re moving again, Sammy’s seriously pissed at Dad, and oh yeah, Dean just used magic to force his brother into submission. The fact that it didn’t look like magic means jack squat. They got all the candles and smelly herbs and chanting over with three night ago. Now the magic is invisible, Dean can’t even feel it working, but it’s still there and he used it tonight.
Dean can’t feel it, but Sammy must, because if Dean says ‘jump five times’ Sammy will jump five times, and if Dean says ‘jump off a bridge’ Sammy will jump off a bridge, not that Dean ever would, obviously, but he could, and that’s a scary thought.
And if that kinda thought won’t leave Dean alone, then who knows what’s going through Sammy’s head? It’s Sammy the spell changed, and Sammy overthinks things anyway. The wheels are always turning in Sammy’s head, even when as far as Dean’s concerned everything’s going fine. Tonight, Dean imagines the overworked hamsters running the wheels are on their last legs.
Dean itches to lay a comforting hand on Sammy’s back, but that’s not the kind of family they are. Sammy’s been saying he was too old for hugs since he was eight and Dean called him a girl one too many times.
Of course, Dean wouldn’t say they were a talking-about-feelings kind of family either, but for once he can’t let that stop him. This is too big. He needs to fix this somehow because it’s too late to just change their minds if it’s not working out. Dad was clear on the fact that this binding spell was heavy duty: til death do you part, no take-backs.
“C’mon Sammy, why don’t you just try me?” he says as lightly as he can. “I promise I’ll listen to whatever you say. It’s a one time offer, I won’t make fun of you no matter what you come up with.” Sammy just lets out another muffled sob in response, so that doesn’t lighten things up any. Dean changes tactics and goes for earnest. “Sammy, whatever it is... it’s not that bad. I promise, okay? I promise it isn’t as bad as you think.”
Sammy finally mumbles something into his pillow. Dean uses his years of deciphering garbled baby talk and under-the-breath muttering to decide it was “Just leave me alone.” Not like it helps a lot to know that, cause he can’t just leave Sammy alone. Or anyway, he doesn’t want to.
“Sammy,” he says patiently, “I can’t fix it if you don’t tell me.” He makes himself wait, and he can see his patience working in the way Sammy stills and finally starts really trying to get his breathing under control. After about ten seconds, Sammy raises his face a couple inches from the pillow and shoots Dean a damp glare.
“You think you can fix it? You can’t fix it, Dean. It’s so far beyond fixing it’s not even in the same universe!”
“Yeah, maybe,” Dean sighs. “But tell me anyway.”
“It won’t help,” Sammy says darkly, in that way he has that means he's going to give you exactly what you asked for, but he knows it won’t be what you really wanted. Dean just shrugs, but Sammy’s already talking anyway.
“Dad’s going to keep doing that,” Sammy says to his pillow, picking furiously at a raisin-sized hole in the seam. “He’s been dying for something like this, and now he’s finally found it and he’s finally going to have two perfect little soldiers instead of one. He’s not going to stop, and my whole life is going to be-” Sammy swallows, shakes his head, chokes on the last word, “hell.”
Dean answers without even needing to think about it. “No, it’s not.”
Because things have been weird, and will probably stay weird for a while, but hell? That’s Sammy freaking out and blowing things all out of proportion in his giant geek brain, like he always does. “Don’t be such a drama queen. I know Dad can be a hardass sometimes but he’s not like that all the time. And he doesn’t want to make you into the Terminator, Sammy, I promise.” Sammy turns his most pathetic doe-eyes on Dean, and Dean’s attempt at a joke falls flat.
“I know that, but Dean, he’s different when he’s mad. And he’s mad at me a lot.”
“And whose fault is that? He didn’t used to be. Sammy, you’re the one who keeps picking fights with him.” For a second Sammy’s eyes flare with anger, and Dean regrets what he’s said. He’s said it before, and Sammy’s never listened. But then Sammy looks at him for a long minute, just looks, and his eyes soften.
“I know,” he says quietly. Dean reviews what just happened, trying to figure out what stopped Sammy from arguing about Dad this time, but he comes up with nothing.
In the two second pause, Sammy shifts gears and his eyes go from uncomfortably soft to almost calculating. When he speaks Sammy doesn’t sound like he’s accusing Dean of anything, but he’s watching Dean so closely he’s even stopped picking at the pillowcase, and it makes Dean nervous. “Dean, do you know what you just did?”
“No, what?” he asks quickly.
“You just told me to tell you what was bothering me,” Sammy answers slowly. “You ordered me to. And you know what? I didn’t mind it. I was glad to. Because it was what you wanted.”
“What?” Dean’s mouth suddenly feels like Death Valley. He thinks back to his words ‘Yeah, maybe, but tell me anyway,’ he’d said. But he hadn’t meant it like that.
“I was happy to tell you, because it was what you wanted,” Sammy repeats, like he’s testing the words out, like he’s not upset at all, and it only makes it harder for Dean to process. What Sammy’s just said makes no sense, can’t be true.
Finally he blurts “But Dad said the commands wouldn’t carry over into like, feelings and stuff. He said I couldn’t make you feel happy or whatever just by ordering it. He said so and he wouldn’t lie about that, Sammy.” Sammy sighs and looks down at his pillow. “No, Sammy, no way! I mean, the push-ups!” he feels relief flood through him. “No offense, but you sure as hell weren’t happy to do those push-ups.”
“Yeah, but, I think maybe it was different, because you weren’t happy to make me do them,” Sammy replies with wide, pleading eyes. “Dean, I don’t know if Dad lied, or just was wrong, but I know that this- what I’m feeling- isn’t normal. It’s something from the spell.”
“But Sammy, how can you even be sure? I mean, I haven’t been giving you orders before tonight. So that’s just two times. You can’t know anything after two times.”
“Dean...” Sammy gets shifty eyed and Dean feels his throat tighten. “Last night, you told me to go to bed. And before that, at dinner, you told me to shut up and I couldn’t talk again until you asked me what time the game was gonna start. And before that you told me to pass the ketchup. And at breakfast you told me to stop humming cause it was annoying-” Sammy breaks off and actually gives a reassuring smile, “It’s okay Dean, it wasn’t your fault.”
Dean can’t speak through his clenched windpipe, he just snorts in disgust instead.
Then he tries to remember last night at dinner, whether he noticed Sammy being unusually quiet, tries to remember telling Sammy to pass the ketchup or go to bed, but he says stuff like that every night. He remembers telling Sammy to stop humming, but he can’t remember Sammy giving him a funny look or anything-
“It wasn’t your fault,” Sammy’s repeating soberly. “I could have told you every time. I knew they were just accidents. I knew you’d take it back if I told you what you were doing.”
“Yeah. I would’ve. So why didn’t you?” Dean grinds out.
“Because I didn’t mind them,” Sammy shrugs. “That’s how I know it makes a difference. It was different tonight, with the push-ups. For the first time it didn’t make me happy to do what you said to, it just made me feel as angry as I do every time you’re taking Dad’s side. That part hasn’t changed, anyway,” he finishes with a mutter.
“Jesus Sammy. Why didn’t you tell me this before? I mean, you feel happy to do what I say? That’s not right. Oh, and by the way? If I accidentally give you orders, you tell me, moron. I gotta know that I’m doing that. How am I ever gonna learn to stop it if you don’t tell me? We can’t all be like, geniuses, you know-”
“Dean?” Dean stops, gape-mouthed, because was that a giggle? What the hell? “You uh, you just-” Sammy lets out another slightly hysterical giggle. “That was just an order. To tell you when you were accidentally giving orders. Is that- did you mean to do that?” No. Dean did not mean to do that. This is exactly his point. This is why Dad could not have picked a worse person for the job.
“How is this funny?” he growls. Sammy’s smile drops, but his mouth is still twitching suspiciously.
“I dunno.” Sammy shrugs.
“No really, Sammy. I could tell you to go take a hike or something, and not know I’d done it til you were five miles into the woods-”
“Yeah. I know,” Sammy breaks in, serious now that he’s realized how upset Dean is. “Listen, I was thinking: what about if you try to make things into a question. Like, when you wanna say ‘shut up’ try to say ‘why don’t you shut up?’ instead, you know? If you make them questions I can choose to answer or not.”
“You know how long it’s gonna take me to get used to doing that?” Dean asks helplessly.
“You’ll learn. You’re not stupid.”
“Yeah, I know that.” Dean snaps, even though actually, he’s pretty sure he is. “You’re the dumbass who didn’t even tell me I was giving all those orders.”
“Well, from now on I’ll have to,” says Sammy calmly.
“Is that- is that okay? I won’t make you, I shouldn’t make you just because I want you to.”
“I dunno, I mean, you were right. I should’ve been telling you what you were doing. It is dangerous if you don’t realize it. But maybe you could make it not an order, if I promise to tell you from now on? Because if we’re around other people, it could get a little weird, me saying ‘Hey Dean, that was an order,’ all the time. It would be better if I had the choice to keep it to myself sometimes.” God, Dean feels like an idiot. It never even crossed his mind how fast a standing order like that would blow their cover. He rushes to fix it.
“Yeah. Okay. Uh, you don’t have to say anything when I accidentally give you orders.”
“Thanks, Dean,” Sammy smiles, almost shyly, and that reminds Dean of the other issue.
“Look, Sammy, we gotta tell Dad. About the spell messing with your emotions, making you happy to obey. I mean, he should know.” Sammy’s face falls.
“What if he already knows?” he mumbles.
“He doesn’t,” Dean replies with all the confidence he always has when it comes to Dad. “He would have told us.”
“Yeah, right,” Sammy snorts bitterly, but just as Dean braces himself for another round of attacks against Dad, Sammy looks at his face, and again his expression softens. “What good would it do to tell him, anyway?” Sammy asks persuasively. “It’s just a feeling. It's not even that strong. Whether I’m feeling it or not I’ll still do the order. Just sometimes I’ll like it better than others, that’s all. Trust me, he’s never gonna notice. I always listen to you better than him, and he knows it.”
Dean has to admit it’s true. An order coming from Dad’s mouth makes Sammy bristle in a way he doesn’t when it’s Dean. Dean’s often taken a secret pleasure in that fact. And Sammy’s right: how could Dad ever find out without Sammy telling him? But what if Dad needs to know?
“What if it means something’s wrong?” he asks.
“It’s too late to change it anyway,” Sammy answers calmly. “The ritual’s done. We can’t change it back now. Anyway, it doesn’t feel... wrong. It feels like, maybe it’s the spell’s way of making it easier? Making it so that I can just accept how it is, and be happy with it...” He stares off into space, in that way that’s always made Dean wish he could see inside Sammy’s brain. It occurs to him suddenly that he could make Sammy tell him everything he was thinking, if he wanted to. Just as quickly he shoves the thought aside. That’s just creepy, and so so wrong.
Sammy focuses on him again. “Look, Dean, if it starts to change, get stronger or something, I’ll tell you, I promise.” Sammy’s eyebrows are doing that drawing up in the middle thing they do when Sammy is completely in earnest. “I promise, Dean,” he repeats soulfully. And Dean’s never been able to resist that look.
“Yeah, okay. But you tell me the minute the feeling changes,” he says sternly.
“Yeah. I will.” Sammy answers. Then adds “I would’ve even if you hadn’t just made that an order.” Dean groans.
“I really suck at this, huh?”
“Yeah, pretty much,” Sammy smirks, then his smile loses it's edge and gets all sincere. “But seriously Dean, thanks, you know, for trying. You’ll get good at it in no time. And thanks for agreeing not to tell Dad.”
“Yeah yeah. It’s not like I wanted to talk to Dad about freakin feelings anyway,” Dean scoffs, and punches Sammy in the arm to get the gooey look off his face. Sammy rubs at the spot and mutters "Jerk. I just did forty frickin push-ups." He's scowling his usual picked-on baby brother scowl, but his eyes are dry and his spine is straight and he looks light-years away from the miserable heap Dean found weeping into his pillow.
That's a pretty damn quick turn-around for Sammy, who tends to pick a mood and then cling to it until something comes along to forcibly rip it away. When the mood is good, that's great, but when the mood is anger or misery it can drive Dean to desperation trying to coax him to let it go. Those times, being Sammy's brother is enough to drive him insane, but it's not like anyone else is stepping up to the plate.
So he tries his best, and when Dean gets it right, like now, it gives him a thrill, like a girl who was playing hard-to-get finally writing her number on his hand, a burst of satisfaction that stretches an easy grin across his face. Except Sammy is tougher to crack than the prudist minister's daughter, and more important than any chick will ever be, and that makes the rush of victory all the sweeter.
"Hey wanna watch some TV?" Dean asks, and barely catches himself from adding 'Not like we've got homework to do anymore.' He half certain Sammy will refuse anyway, hide in his room so there's no chance he'll have to face Dad again tonight.
Sammy nods and slides out of bed instead. "Yeah, sure. Maybe we can find a movie or something."
"I'll make some us popcorn." Dean puts extra thought into his next words, so he's certain they won't be an accidental order. "Why don't you find us something good?"
Sammy nods and slips out of the room before Dean can change his mind. Dean letting him pick what they watch happens once in a blue moon, and even though all he can see of Sammy is his rapidly retreating back, Dean can tell he's smiling all the way down the hall.
Author: winyumi
Rating: G (unless a swear or two slipped past me)
Words: 2700
Characters: Sam, Dean
Warning: None. Except, you should probably read
Summary: AU. Follow-up to Agreement. After the confrontation/power-struggle with Dad, Dean and Sammy have a talk.
Disclaimer: No profit being made. Please don't sue.
“Wicked men obey from fear; good men, from love.”
- Aristotle
“Alright, what’s wrong?” Dean asks when he finds Sammy after, facedown on the bed. Sammy’s practically suffocating himself in his pillow so Dad won’t hear him crying, and Dean can’t quite hit the exasperated note he's trying for when he sees Sammy’s chicken bone shoulders shudder with misery.
He refuses to even look at Dean, but that’s not surprising. Dean isn't really sure what he's supposed to say here, but he does know he just asked a stupid question. What’s wrong is they’re moving again, Sammy’s seriously pissed at Dad, and oh yeah, Dean just used magic to force his brother into submission. The fact that it didn’t look like magic means jack squat. They got all the candles and smelly herbs and chanting over with three night ago. Now the magic is invisible, Dean can’t even feel it working, but it’s still there and he used it tonight.
Dean can’t feel it, but Sammy must, because if Dean says ‘jump five times’ Sammy will jump five times, and if Dean says ‘jump off a bridge’ Sammy will jump off a bridge, not that Dean ever would, obviously, but he could, and that’s a scary thought.
And if that kinda thought won’t leave Dean alone, then who knows what’s going through Sammy’s head? It’s Sammy the spell changed, and Sammy overthinks things anyway. The wheels are always turning in Sammy’s head, even when as far as Dean’s concerned everything’s going fine. Tonight, Dean imagines the overworked hamsters running the wheels are on their last legs.
Dean itches to lay a comforting hand on Sammy’s back, but that’s not the kind of family they are. Sammy’s been saying he was too old for hugs since he was eight and Dean called him a girl one too many times.
Of course, Dean wouldn’t say they were a talking-about-feelings kind of family either, but for once he can’t let that stop him. This is too big. He needs to fix this somehow because it’s too late to just change their minds if it’s not working out. Dad was clear on the fact that this binding spell was heavy duty: til death do you part, no take-backs.
“C’mon Sammy, why don’t you just try me?” he says as lightly as he can. “I promise I’ll listen to whatever you say. It’s a one time offer, I won’t make fun of you no matter what you come up with.” Sammy just lets out another muffled sob in response, so that doesn’t lighten things up any. Dean changes tactics and goes for earnest. “Sammy, whatever it is... it’s not that bad. I promise, okay? I promise it isn’t as bad as you think.”
Sammy finally mumbles something into his pillow. Dean uses his years of deciphering garbled baby talk and under-the-breath muttering to decide it was “Just leave me alone.” Not like it helps a lot to know that, cause he can’t just leave Sammy alone. Or anyway, he doesn’t want to.
“Sammy,” he says patiently, “I can’t fix it if you don’t tell me.” He makes himself wait, and he can see his patience working in the way Sammy stills and finally starts really trying to get his breathing under control. After about ten seconds, Sammy raises his face a couple inches from the pillow and shoots Dean a damp glare.
“You think you can fix it? You can’t fix it, Dean. It’s so far beyond fixing it’s not even in the same universe!”
“Yeah, maybe,” Dean sighs. “But tell me anyway.”
“It won’t help,” Sammy says darkly, in that way he has that means he's going to give you exactly what you asked for, but he knows it won’t be what you really wanted. Dean just shrugs, but Sammy’s already talking anyway.
“Dad’s going to keep doing that,” Sammy says to his pillow, picking furiously at a raisin-sized hole in the seam. “He’s been dying for something like this, and now he’s finally found it and he’s finally going to have two perfect little soldiers instead of one. He’s not going to stop, and my whole life is going to be-” Sammy swallows, shakes his head, chokes on the last word, “hell.”
Dean answers without even needing to think about it. “No, it’s not.”
Because things have been weird, and will probably stay weird for a while, but hell? That’s Sammy freaking out and blowing things all out of proportion in his giant geek brain, like he always does. “Don’t be such a drama queen. I know Dad can be a hardass sometimes but he’s not like that all the time. And he doesn’t want to make you into the Terminator, Sammy, I promise.” Sammy turns his most pathetic doe-eyes on Dean, and Dean’s attempt at a joke falls flat.
“I know that, but Dean, he’s different when he’s mad. And he’s mad at me a lot.”
“And whose fault is that? He didn’t used to be. Sammy, you’re the one who keeps picking fights with him.” For a second Sammy’s eyes flare with anger, and Dean regrets what he’s said. He’s said it before, and Sammy’s never listened. But then Sammy looks at him for a long minute, just looks, and his eyes soften.
“I know,” he says quietly. Dean reviews what just happened, trying to figure out what stopped Sammy from arguing about Dad this time, but he comes up with nothing.
In the two second pause, Sammy shifts gears and his eyes go from uncomfortably soft to almost calculating. When he speaks Sammy doesn’t sound like he’s accusing Dean of anything, but he’s watching Dean so closely he’s even stopped picking at the pillowcase, and it makes Dean nervous. “Dean, do you know what you just did?”
“No, what?” he asks quickly.
“You just told me to tell you what was bothering me,” Sammy answers slowly. “You ordered me to. And you know what? I didn’t mind it. I was glad to. Because it was what you wanted.”
“What?” Dean’s mouth suddenly feels like Death Valley. He thinks back to his words ‘Yeah, maybe, but tell me anyway,’ he’d said. But he hadn’t meant it like that.
“I was happy to tell you, because it was what you wanted,” Sammy repeats, like he’s testing the words out, like he’s not upset at all, and it only makes it harder for Dean to process. What Sammy’s just said makes no sense, can’t be true.
Finally he blurts “But Dad said the commands wouldn’t carry over into like, feelings and stuff. He said I couldn’t make you feel happy or whatever just by ordering it. He said so and he wouldn’t lie about that, Sammy.” Sammy sighs and looks down at his pillow. “No, Sammy, no way! I mean, the push-ups!” he feels relief flood through him. “No offense, but you sure as hell weren’t happy to do those push-ups.”
“Yeah, but, I think maybe it was different, because you weren’t happy to make me do them,” Sammy replies with wide, pleading eyes. “Dean, I don’t know if Dad lied, or just was wrong, but I know that this- what I’m feeling- isn’t normal. It’s something from the spell.”
“But Sammy, how can you even be sure? I mean, I haven’t been giving you orders before tonight. So that’s just two times. You can’t know anything after two times.”
“Dean...” Sammy gets shifty eyed and Dean feels his throat tighten. “Last night, you told me to go to bed. And before that, at dinner, you told me to shut up and I couldn’t talk again until you asked me what time the game was gonna start. And before that you told me to pass the ketchup. And at breakfast you told me to stop humming cause it was annoying-” Sammy breaks off and actually gives a reassuring smile, “It’s okay Dean, it wasn’t your fault.”
Dean can’t speak through his clenched windpipe, he just snorts in disgust instead.
Then he tries to remember last night at dinner, whether he noticed Sammy being unusually quiet, tries to remember telling Sammy to pass the ketchup or go to bed, but he says stuff like that every night. He remembers telling Sammy to stop humming, but he can’t remember Sammy giving him a funny look or anything-
“It wasn’t your fault,” Sammy’s repeating soberly. “I could have told you every time. I knew they were just accidents. I knew you’d take it back if I told you what you were doing.”
“Yeah. I would’ve. So why didn’t you?” Dean grinds out.
“Because I didn’t mind them,” Sammy shrugs. “That’s how I know it makes a difference. It was different tonight, with the push-ups. For the first time it didn’t make me happy to do what you said to, it just made me feel as angry as I do every time you’re taking Dad’s side. That part hasn’t changed, anyway,” he finishes with a mutter.
“Jesus Sammy. Why didn’t you tell me this before? I mean, you feel happy to do what I say? That’s not right. Oh, and by the way? If I accidentally give you orders, you tell me, moron. I gotta know that I’m doing that. How am I ever gonna learn to stop it if you don’t tell me? We can’t all be like, geniuses, you know-”
“Dean?” Dean stops, gape-mouthed, because was that a giggle? What the hell? “You uh, you just-” Sammy lets out another slightly hysterical giggle. “That was just an order. To tell you when you were accidentally giving orders. Is that- did you mean to do that?” No. Dean did not mean to do that. This is exactly his point. This is why Dad could not have picked a worse person for the job.
“How is this funny?” he growls. Sammy’s smile drops, but his mouth is still twitching suspiciously.
“I dunno.” Sammy shrugs.
“No really, Sammy. I could tell you to go take a hike or something, and not know I’d done it til you were five miles into the woods-”
“Yeah. I know,” Sammy breaks in, serious now that he’s realized how upset Dean is. “Listen, I was thinking: what about if you try to make things into a question. Like, when you wanna say ‘shut up’ try to say ‘why don’t you shut up?’ instead, you know? If you make them questions I can choose to answer or not.”
“You know how long it’s gonna take me to get used to doing that?” Dean asks helplessly.
“You’ll learn. You’re not stupid.”
“Yeah, I know that.” Dean snaps, even though actually, he’s pretty sure he is. “You’re the dumbass who didn’t even tell me I was giving all those orders.”
“Well, from now on I’ll have to,” says Sammy calmly.
“Is that- is that okay? I won’t make you, I shouldn’t make you just because I want you to.”
“I dunno, I mean, you were right. I should’ve been telling you what you were doing. It is dangerous if you don’t realize it. But maybe you could make it not an order, if I promise to tell you from now on? Because if we’re around other people, it could get a little weird, me saying ‘Hey Dean, that was an order,’ all the time. It would be better if I had the choice to keep it to myself sometimes.” God, Dean feels like an idiot. It never even crossed his mind how fast a standing order like that would blow their cover. He rushes to fix it.
“Yeah. Okay. Uh, you don’t have to say anything when I accidentally give you orders.”
“Thanks, Dean,” Sammy smiles, almost shyly, and that reminds Dean of the other issue.
“Look, Sammy, we gotta tell Dad. About the spell messing with your emotions, making you happy to obey. I mean, he should know.” Sammy’s face falls.
“What if he already knows?” he mumbles.
“He doesn’t,” Dean replies with all the confidence he always has when it comes to Dad. “He would have told us.”
“Yeah, right,” Sammy snorts bitterly, but just as Dean braces himself for another round of attacks against Dad, Sammy looks at his face, and again his expression softens. “What good would it do to tell him, anyway?” Sammy asks persuasively. “It’s just a feeling. It's not even that strong. Whether I’m feeling it or not I’ll still do the order. Just sometimes I’ll like it better than others, that’s all. Trust me, he’s never gonna notice. I always listen to you better than him, and he knows it.”
Dean has to admit it’s true. An order coming from Dad’s mouth makes Sammy bristle in a way he doesn’t when it’s Dean. Dean’s often taken a secret pleasure in that fact. And Sammy’s right: how could Dad ever find out without Sammy telling him? But what if Dad needs to know?
“What if it means something’s wrong?” he asks.
“It’s too late to change it anyway,” Sammy answers calmly. “The ritual’s done. We can’t change it back now. Anyway, it doesn’t feel... wrong. It feels like, maybe it’s the spell’s way of making it easier? Making it so that I can just accept how it is, and be happy with it...” He stares off into space, in that way that’s always made Dean wish he could see inside Sammy’s brain. It occurs to him suddenly that he could make Sammy tell him everything he was thinking, if he wanted to. Just as quickly he shoves the thought aside. That’s just creepy, and so so wrong.
Sammy focuses on him again. “Look, Dean, if it starts to change, get stronger or something, I’ll tell you, I promise.” Sammy’s eyebrows are doing that drawing up in the middle thing they do when Sammy is completely in earnest. “I promise, Dean,” he repeats soulfully. And Dean’s never been able to resist that look.
“Yeah, okay. But you tell me the minute the feeling changes,” he says sternly.
“Yeah. I will.” Sammy answers. Then adds “I would’ve even if you hadn’t just made that an order.” Dean groans.
“I really suck at this, huh?”
“Yeah, pretty much,” Sammy smirks, then his smile loses it's edge and gets all sincere. “But seriously Dean, thanks, you know, for trying. You’ll get good at it in no time. And thanks for agreeing not to tell Dad.”
“Yeah yeah. It’s not like I wanted to talk to Dad about freakin feelings anyway,” Dean scoffs, and punches Sammy in the arm to get the gooey look off his face. Sammy rubs at the spot and mutters "Jerk. I just did forty frickin push-ups." He's scowling his usual picked-on baby brother scowl, but his eyes are dry and his spine is straight and he looks light-years away from the miserable heap Dean found weeping into his pillow.
That's a pretty damn quick turn-around for Sammy, who tends to pick a mood and then cling to it until something comes along to forcibly rip it away. When the mood is good, that's great, but when the mood is anger or misery it can drive Dean to desperation trying to coax him to let it go. Those times, being Sammy's brother is enough to drive him insane, but it's not like anyone else is stepping up to the plate.
So he tries his best, and when Dean gets it right, like now, it gives him a thrill, like a girl who was playing hard-to-get finally writing her number on his hand, a burst of satisfaction that stretches an easy grin across his face. Except Sammy is tougher to crack than the prudist minister's daughter, and more important than any chick will ever be, and that makes the rush of victory all the sweeter.
"Hey wanna watch some TV?" Dean asks, and barely catches himself from adding 'Not like we've got homework to do anymore.' He half certain Sammy will refuse anyway, hide in his room so there's no chance he'll have to face Dad again tonight.
Sammy nods and slides out of bed instead. "Yeah, sure. Maybe we can find a movie or something."
"I'll make some us popcorn." Dean puts extra thought into his next words, so he's certain they won't be an accidental order. "Why don't you find us something good?"
Sammy nods and slips out of the room before Dean can change his mind. Dean letting him pick what they watch happens once in a blue moon, and even though all he can see of Sammy is his rapidly retreating back, Dean can tell he's smiling all the way down the hall.