Fanfic - In vino veritas
Title: In vino veritas
Author: Zara-Zee
Beta: 9Tiptoes
Total Words: 1,885
Genre(s): Angst; H/C; Drama; Gen
Characters: Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester
Rating: PG-13
Type: Written for hoodie_time’s Dean-focused h/c Tags Challenge. My tag - intoxication.
Disclaimer: I only wish I’d thought of them first. Sadly, that honour belongs to Eric Kripke.
Spoilers: Up to 5.11 (Sam, interrupted)
Warnings: Intoxication, alcoholism, references to underage drinking, references to physical discipline of a minor, References to Hell and torture, Sam’s POV (he insisted on telling the story...Dean was too drunk…)
Summary: Dean gets drunk. Sam tries to remember the last time that actually happened.
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Sam could barely remember the last time he’d seen Dean drunk.
He’d seen him drinking plenty. His brother had discovered liquor young; growing up in trailer parks, 3-star motels and the back of a car lets you discover a lot of things young; and alcohol had been a constant in their lives for as long as Sam could remember: Salt, guns, knives, crossbows, first aid supplies, beer, whiskey, tequila.
Thanksgiving was a bucket of extra crispy and Dad passed out on the couch. Christmas: Reprise Thanksgiving. New Year was another good excuse for Dad to get wasted. So were birthdays: Dean’s, Sam’s, his own. Mom’s birthdays were an excuse to go on epic benders and the anniversary of her death usually caused him to disappear for days, coming home pale and jaundiced with blood shot eyes and bruises. Sometimes there was a phone call and Dean had to go and pick him up from somewhere. Sam never asked where; at first because he was too young and then because he was too pissed. Sam grew up watching his brother put their father to bed. Sometimes Dean sat by him while their father cried, wiping his brow and telling him that everything was going to be okay. Sometimes he even cleaned up Dad’s vomit.
The first time Sam had seen Dean drunk - which was quite possibly also the last time he’d seen him drunk because try as he might he couldn’t remember another occasion - his brother had been twelve. Dean had reasoned that if he was old enough to cook and clean and pay the bills and pack salt rounds and sharpen knives and lie to the school about where their Dad was then he was old enough to drink his way through a six pack of beer. Dean was still hung over when their Dad got back from his hunt. John had taken one look at his eldest son and then dragged him into the bathroom, locked the door, and taken a belt to him until he was a sobbing, pleading wreck. Sam had hammered on the bathroom door, screaming at his father, telling him over and over again: ‘It’s not fair! You drink beer and throw up all the time! It’s not fair!’ He can still remember what Dad had shouted at his brother, his voice rising and falling along with the belt: ‘You do as I say, boy, not as I do. Just cuz I got this problem, ain’t no excuse for you to have it too!’
Dean drank less after that; he just did it more often.
After Hell, though, Dean drank a lot more, a lot more often.
Sam had gone online and researched alcoholism a few months after Dean got back and he’d decided that Dean was riding the line between an alcoholic and a problem drinker. But now…Dean had come out of Glenwood Springs needing a drink, so maybe Sam would need to rethink his diagnosis.
‘So what if I like a drink or twelve,’ Dean would say blithely. ‘I can hold my liquor. You’ll never see me drunk, Sammy.’
And he never did. Hung over, maybe…although Dean always blamed the barfing on last night’s dodgy take out rather than last night’s excessive drinking; after all he never appeared drunk. Since they’d started hunting together again Sam had gotten tanked-up more often than Dean; of course, he always had been a light weight. In the right circumstances he might’ve found it funny that he, Sam Winchester, hardcore demon blood addict, starter of the apocalypse and Lucifer’s one, true vessel, could be felled by four shots of Tequila, but it was probably still too soon to be making jokes about the looming end of days. Sam had taken Psych 101 at college but really, it didn’t take a diploma to figure out why he’d taken up clean living and worked so hard at school. When your old man was a hard drinking, hard hitting, rebel-with-a-cause hunter of the supernatural, living just outside the boundaries of society, and your older brother was a chip off the old block, the only way to assert your independence; the only way to rebel; was to go the other way. Mr Goody Twoshoes; the rebel. Sam snickered.
‘Wa’so funny, Sammy?’ Dean asked from the other bed.
A brand new bottle of Jack Daniels black label had been sitting right at the top of Dean’s duffel bag and Dean had been chugging it back before he’d even stripped out of the hospital gown. He’d managed to change without breaking contact with the bottle and then he’d sat on his bed, legs outstretched, back resting against the plumped up pillows, and cradled the whiskey like a long lost lover.
The bottle was now two thirds empty.
‘Sammy?’
‘Nothing,’ Sam replied, ‘just trying to remember the last time I saw you this wasted.’
Dean frowned, slowly and carefully.
‘M’not drunk, Sammy.’
‘Sure, Dean. Whatever you say.’
‘M’not. I’s jus’ the rizijew…rezidge-jewel…the af’er effex of that wraith poison.’
‘If you say so.’
Dean took another swig from the bottle and then crawled very carefully to the edge of the queen sized bed and put the bottle down gently on the lamp table.
‘You wan’ me to walk a straight line? Touch m’nose wiv m’finger?’
Sam rolled his eyes.
‘Sure. Whatever.’
Dean clambered from the bed and walked a careful straight line, one foot in front of the other, while simultaneously extending his right arm and bringing his forefinger in to touch the end of his nose.
‘See!’ he crowed. ‘Not drunk!’
‘Very good,’ said Sam. ‘I’m impressed.’
And he was. The fact that Dean could do this after two thirds of a bottle of whiskey was hella impressive.
‘I’s nuthin’,’ Dean waved an arm dismissively, ‘I c’n walk a straight line wiv m’ki’ney’s balanc’d on m’head. Ge’ me a knife, Sammy. Gonna show you…’
The indulgent smile fell off Sam’s face rather quickly.
‘Is that something you did in Hell?’ he asked. Very softly. And very carefully.
‘Yeah. An’ a lotta other really, really messed up shi’.D’you know how loooong intestines are, Sammy? Y’can skip with’em. Where’s m’knife, Sammy? M’fav’rite one? Has A’stair go’it?’
Dean looked vaguely troubled and Sam set his face into his very best ‘listen to my words and take everything I tell you very seriously’ expression; good for keeping civilians calm while manoeuvring them away from the zombie lumbering up behind them.
‘You’re not in Hell now, Dean. You're safe. With me. And you can’t chop your kidneys out here or it’ll kill you. Okay?’
‘Okay, Sammy,’ Dean said agreeably, ‘Gonna try n’t to die again fo’ a while. You too. Don’ like you dyin’. We do it too many times. I‘s no good.’
‘That’s right,’ Sam said soothingly. ‘No dying.’
He wished Dean would just hurry up and pass out already because truth be told, his grip on reality seemed a little tenuous right now. The last thing either of them needed was for Dean to decide that he would show Sam how he could skip with his intestines; or that the couple in the next room had been sent to Hell for torture. While he was wishing, Sam figured he may as well wish for an opportunity to kill Alistair all over again…maybe make it a bit more painful this time.
Dean swayed a little on his feet.
‘You wanna watch some TV?’ Sam asked.
Dean pursed his lips, scrunched his face up thoughtfully and muttered something vaguely coherent about pay-per-view and magic fingers before shaking his head.
‘Think I’ll jus’ hit the hay,’ he said. He pulled back the blankets on Sam’s bed and climbed under them, snuggling on his side in an almost foetal position.
‘Uh….Dean?’
Dean peeled back his eyelids with obvious effort and stared up at Sam with old green eyes. Throughout time, cultures all over the world had called the eyes the windows to the soul and Sam was now staring through deep green windows into a broken, tortured soul which had spent forty long years in Hell. The hard-eyed mask Dean usually wore had been stripped away by the whiskey, leaving him vulnerable and exposed.
‘Sammy?’ Dean said sleepily, ‘Wha’ are you doin’ in my bed?’
‘This is m…’ Sam shook his head. ‘Do you want me to move?’
Dean smiled at him so tenderly that for a moment Sam felt eight years old again. Tears pricked behind his eyes as he thought of everything they’d lost since then; their father; way too many friends; their innocence; their lives.
‘Nah,’ Dean said, ‘S’okay. You be’n havin’ nigh’mares ag’n, huh? Always wanna sleep’n m’bed when y’have nigh’mares…’
‘And you’re always there for me,’ Sam said softly, ‘always got my back.’
‘Uh huh…’
Dean was barely awake now. Sam reached down and stroked his forehead gently, noticing the way the furrows in his brother’s brow smoothed away under his touch.
‘Wha’ ‘r’you doin’?’ Dean murmured drowsily.
‘Shhh. Just go to sleep, Dean.’
Sam continued to stroke Dean’s forehead slowly, tenderly, until his brother started to snore gently, and then he rolled off the bed and slipped under the covers. Dean made a soft noise of distress and Sam scooted up behind him, wrapping his arms around him and playing the part of the big spoon, just as Dean had done for him when they were younger and Sam had nightmares. Dean quieted immediately.
In the morning, when Dean woke up, Sam was going to call him Deana and give him hell for crawling into his little brother’s bed. And then he was going to offer him a greasy pork sandwich served in a dirty ashtray.
Who was he kidding?
In the morning he was going to let Dean wake-up first and he was going to stay staunchly asleep until Dean had crawled back into his own bed. He was going to let Dean pretend that he hadn’t slept the night curled around his brother, that he hadn’t got drunk and talked about balancing his kidneys on his head and skipping with his intestines; he was even going to let him pretend that he was throwing up because of ‘last night’s Chinese take out.’ After all, denial was the tried and true Winchester way. He’d learnt it from Dean who’d learnt it from their father. Although maybe…maybe there was a little more to it than that. Maybe, when your hero showed you his vulnerability; when he showed you that he was scared, flawed and only human; maybe you let him. And maybe afterwards you showed him that you loved him and understood him by letting him keep his dignity. Dean had done that for their father; with hindsight and an adult perspective, Sam understood. It was only right that he should do the same for Dean.
His brother stirred slightly and snuggled against him.
‘Love you Sammy,’ he said.
Sam’s breath hitched and he blinked back tears. If he started crying now Dean would find some way to remember this part of the evening - and this part only - and he’d get called Samantha for a week.
‘Love you too Dean,’ he said steadily.
If Dean had been sober Sam would’ve been muttering Christos under his breath. As it was the Latin phrase in vino veritas seemed more appropriate.
-fin-
Author: Zara-Zee
Beta: 9Tiptoes
Total Words: 1,885
Genre(s): Angst; H/C; Drama; Gen
Characters: Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester
Rating: PG-13
Type: Written for hoodie_time’s Dean-focused h/c Tags Challenge. My tag - intoxication.
Disclaimer: I only wish I’d thought of them first. Sadly, that honour belongs to Eric Kripke.
Spoilers: Up to 5.11 (Sam, interrupted)
Warnings: Intoxication, alcoholism, references to underage drinking, references to physical discipline of a minor, References to Hell and torture, Sam’s POV (he insisted on telling the story...Dean was too drunk…)
Summary: Dean gets drunk. Sam tries to remember the last time that actually happened.
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Sam could barely remember the last time he’d seen Dean drunk.
He’d seen him drinking plenty. His brother had discovered liquor young; growing up in trailer parks, 3-star motels and the back of a car lets you discover a lot of things young; and alcohol had been a constant in their lives for as long as Sam could remember: Salt, guns, knives, crossbows, first aid supplies, beer, whiskey, tequila.
Thanksgiving was a bucket of extra crispy and Dad passed out on the couch. Christmas: Reprise Thanksgiving. New Year was another good excuse for Dad to get wasted. So were birthdays: Dean’s, Sam’s, his own. Mom’s birthdays were an excuse to go on epic benders and the anniversary of her death usually caused him to disappear for days, coming home pale and jaundiced with blood shot eyes and bruises. Sometimes there was a phone call and Dean had to go and pick him up from somewhere. Sam never asked where; at first because he was too young and then because he was too pissed. Sam grew up watching his brother put their father to bed. Sometimes Dean sat by him while their father cried, wiping his brow and telling him that everything was going to be okay. Sometimes he even cleaned up Dad’s vomit.
The first time Sam had seen Dean drunk - which was quite possibly also the last time he’d seen him drunk because try as he might he couldn’t remember another occasion - his brother had been twelve. Dean had reasoned that if he was old enough to cook and clean and pay the bills and pack salt rounds and sharpen knives and lie to the school about where their Dad was then he was old enough to drink his way through a six pack of beer. Dean was still hung over when their Dad got back from his hunt. John had taken one look at his eldest son and then dragged him into the bathroom, locked the door, and taken a belt to him until he was a sobbing, pleading wreck. Sam had hammered on the bathroom door, screaming at his father, telling him over and over again: ‘It’s not fair! You drink beer and throw up all the time! It’s not fair!’ He can still remember what Dad had shouted at his brother, his voice rising and falling along with the belt: ‘You do as I say, boy, not as I do. Just cuz I got this problem, ain’t no excuse for you to have it too!’
Dean drank less after that; he just did it more often.
After Hell, though, Dean drank a lot more, a lot more often.
Sam had gone online and researched alcoholism a few months after Dean got back and he’d decided that Dean was riding the line between an alcoholic and a problem drinker. But now…Dean had come out of Glenwood Springs needing a drink, so maybe Sam would need to rethink his diagnosis.
‘So what if I like a drink or twelve,’ Dean would say blithely. ‘I can hold my liquor. You’ll never see me drunk, Sammy.’
And he never did. Hung over, maybe…although Dean always blamed the barfing on last night’s dodgy take out rather than last night’s excessive drinking; after all he never appeared drunk. Since they’d started hunting together again Sam had gotten tanked-up more often than Dean; of course, he always had been a light weight. In the right circumstances he might’ve found it funny that he, Sam Winchester, hardcore demon blood addict, starter of the apocalypse and Lucifer’s one, true vessel, could be felled by four shots of Tequila, but it was probably still too soon to be making jokes about the looming end of days. Sam had taken Psych 101 at college but really, it didn’t take a diploma to figure out why he’d taken up clean living and worked so hard at school. When your old man was a hard drinking, hard hitting, rebel-with-a-cause hunter of the supernatural, living just outside the boundaries of society, and your older brother was a chip off the old block, the only way to assert your independence; the only way to rebel; was to go the other way. Mr Goody Twoshoes; the rebel. Sam snickered.
‘Wa’so funny, Sammy?’ Dean asked from the other bed.
A brand new bottle of Jack Daniels black label had been sitting right at the top of Dean’s duffel bag and Dean had been chugging it back before he’d even stripped out of the hospital gown. He’d managed to change without breaking contact with the bottle and then he’d sat on his bed, legs outstretched, back resting against the plumped up pillows, and cradled the whiskey like a long lost lover.
The bottle was now two thirds empty.
‘Sammy?’
‘Nothing,’ Sam replied, ‘just trying to remember the last time I saw you this wasted.’
Dean frowned, slowly and carefully.
‘M’not drunk, Sammy.’
‘Sure, Dean. Whatever you say.’
‘M’not. I’s jus’ the rizijew…rezidge-jewel…the af’er effex of that wraith poison.’
‘If you say so.’
Dean took another swig from the bottle and then crawled very carefully to the edge of the queen sized bed and put the bottle down gently on the lamp table.
‘You wan’ me to walk a straight line? Touch m’nose wiv m’finger?’
Sam rolled his eyes.
‘Sure. Whatever.’
Dean clambered from the bed and walked a careful straight line, one foot in front of the other, while simultaneously extending his right arm and bringing his forefinger in to touch the end of his nose.
‘See!’ he crowed. ‘Not drunk!’
‘Very good,’ said Sam. ‘I’m impressed.’
And he was. The fact that Dean could do this after two thirds of a bottle of whiskey was hella impressive.
‘I’s nuthin’,’ Dean waved an arm dismissively, ‘I c’n walk a straight line wiv m’ki’ney’s balanc’d on m’head. Ge’ me a knife, Sammy. Gonna show you…’
The indulgent smile fell off Sam’s face rather quickly.
‘Is that something you did in Hell?’ he asked. Very softly. And very carefully.
‘Yeah. An’ a lotta other really, really messed up shi’.D’you know how loooong intestines are, Sammy? Y’can skip with’em. Where’s m’knife, Sammy? M’fav’rite one? Has A’stair go’it?’
Dean looked vaguely troubled and Sam set his face into his very best ‘listen to my words and take everything I tell you very seriously’ expression; good for keeping civilians calm while manoeuvring them away from the zombie lumbering up behind them.
‘You’re not in Hell now, Dean. You're safe. With me. And you can’t chop your kidneys out here or it’ll kill you. Okay?’
‘Okay, Sammy,’ Dean said agreeably, ‘Gonna try n’t to die again fo’ a while. You too. Don’ like you dyin’. We do it too many times. I‘s no good.’
‘That’s right,’ Sam said soothingly. ‘No dying.’
He wished Dean would just hurry up and pass out already because truth be told, his grip on reality seemed a little tenuous right now. The last thing either of them needed was for Dean to decide that he would show Sam how he could skip with his intestines; or that the couple in the next room had been sent to Hell for torture. While he was wishing, Sam figured he may as well wish for an opportunity to kill Alistair all over again…maybe make it a bit more painful this time.
Dean swayed a little on his feet.
‘You wanna watch some TV?’ Sam asked.
Dean pursed his lips, scrunched his face up thoughtfully and muttered something vaguely coherent about pay-per-view and magic fingers before shaking his head.
‘Think I’ll jus’ hit the hay,’ he said. He pulled back the blankets on Sam’s bed and climbed under them, snuggling on his side in an almost foetal position.
‘Uh….Dean?’
Dean peeled back his eyelids with obvious effort and stared up at Sam with old green eyes. Throughout time, cultures all over the world had called the eyes the windows to the soul and Sam was now staring through deep green windows into a broken, tortured soul which had spent forty long years in Hell. The hard-eyed mask Dean usually wore had been stripped away by the whiskey, leaving him vulnerable and exposed.
‘Sammy?’ Dean said sleepily, ‘Wha’ are you doin’ in my bed?’
‘This is m…’ Sam shook his head. ‘Do you want me to move?’
Dean smiled at him so tenderly that for a moment Sam felt eight years old again. Tears pricked behind his eyes as he thought of everything they’d lost since then; their father; way too many friends; their innocence; their lives.
‘Nah,’ Dean said, ‘S’okay. You be’n havin’ nigh’mares ag’n, huh? Always wanna sleep’n m’bed when y’have nigh’mares…’
‘And you’re always there for me,’ Sam said softly, ‘always got my back.’
‘Uh huh…’
Dean was barely awake now. Sam reached down and stroked his forehead gently, noticing the way the furrows in his brother’s brow smoothed away under his touch.
‘Wha’ ‘r’you doin’?’ Dean murmured drowsily.
‘Shhh. Just go to sleep, Dean.’
Sam continued to stroke Dean’s forehead slowly, tenderly, until his brother started to snore gently, and then he rolled off the bed and slipped under the covers. Dean made a soft noise of distress and Sam scooted up behind him, wrapping his arms around him and playing the part of the big spoon, just as Dean had done for him when they were younger and Sam had nightmares. Dean quieted immediately.
In the morning, when Dean woke up, Sam was going to call him Deana and give him hell for crawling into his little brother’s bed. And then he was going to offer him a greasy pork sandwich served in a dirty ashtray.
Who was he kidding?
In the morning he was going to let Dean wake-up first and he was going to stay staunchly asleep until Dean had crawled back into his own bed. He was going to let Dean pretend that he hadn’t slept the night curled around his brother, that he hadn’t got drunk and talked about balancing his kidneys on his head and skipping with his intestines; he was even going to let him pretend that he was throwing up because of ‘last night’s Chinese take out.’ After all, denial was the tried and true Winchester way. He’d learnt it from Dean who’d learnt it from their father. Although maybe…maybe there was a little more to it than that. Maybe, when your hero showed you his vulnerability; when he showed you that he was scared, flawed and only human; maybe you let him. And maybe afterwards you showed him that you loved him and understood him by letting him keep his dignity. Dean had done that for their father; with hindsight and an adult perspective, Sam understood. It was only right that he should do the same for Dean.
His brother stirred slightly and snuggled against him.
‘Love you Sammy,’ he said.
Sam’s breath hitched and he blinked back tears. If he started crying now Dean would find some way to remember this part of the evening - and this part only - and he’d get called Samantha for a week.
‘Love you too Dean,’ he said steadily.
If Dean had been sober Sam would’ve been muttering Christos under his breath. As it was the Latin phrase in vino veritas seemed more appropriate.
-fin-