Play It Again, Sam - 4/10
Download the soundtrack
Dean is still walking on eggshells, which annoys Sam to no end, but on the surface he’s at least trying really hard to treat Sam like a competent partner. They choose their first case together: a once-a-week whumping at a bowling alley in St. Cloud, Minnesota. A contact of Bobby’s called, speculating a vengeful spirit was causing it and asking him to take a look; Bobby passed it on to them. Dean says it’s a good case because they deserve to spend some time somewhere fun (bowling alley, woo hoo), but Sam thinks Dean’s really thinking about how a ghost is a lot easier to deal with than a trenchcoat-clad deity.
On the way there Dean accidentally turns on the radio, total force of habit. He reaches for the knob to turn it off with an apology, but Sam works hard not to let his eyes bug out and gives him a smile and an It’s okay. Dean kind of shrugs and turns the volume a little louder. It’s Sam’s fault for underselling the significance of the music to Dean, and anyway it’s not as if they’re going to hear some romantic song and be so moved by it that they pull over to the side of the road to make sweet love in the backseat.
Instead, they’re listening to Jimi Hendrix.
“You know that, like, half of the world thinks the words are ‘Excuse me while I kiss this guy,’” Dean kind of laughs.
Sam looks at him dubiously. “Yeah, Dean, and the other half’s known that since the song came out. We’ve talked about it before. Like a hundred times.”
Dean makes an expression Sam assumes is intended to save face, but really he just looks constipated. Perhaps “frequently misunderstood rock lyrics” was a topic he’d intended for bonding? Or maybe, Sam thinks with a flush, was Dean - he couldn’t just be trying to bring up the idea of men kissing in a really roundabout way, could he?
Two years, eleven months, and - Sam’s not going to think about it (do anything about it) until Dean’s ready to talk about everything that’s happened in the last year. Even if Dean wants to pretend he never forayed into the apple pie life, Sam needs the closure.
He can appreciate his brother reaching out, though, and he doesn’t want to waste the opportunity. “I read somewhere that Jimi Hendrix used to actually sing it that way and then he’d kiss some dude just to make the fans go nuts,” he offers.
Dean arches an eyebrow and cocks his head slightly. “It takes a real man to kiss another man.”
Sam ducks his head to study the creased and faded map on his lap. It didn’t mean what he thinks, this is just classic Dean. If Sam reacts, he’ll get mercilessly teased, there’s no good response, Dean’s just fucking with him, and the best thing to do is make sure they have the most efficient route planned to Minnesota. It’ll take them another three hours to get there. If they keep a consistent speed, Sam calculates, three hours and eighteen minutes. Two years, eleven months, and twenty-six days.
* * * * *
An hour outside St. Cloud, Dean says, “If Cas were really himself, he’d want us to stop him.” Then he grows immediately quiet, biting his lip, like he expects lightning to strike him dead on the spot.
Sam’s pretty sure the rules of this particular game allow for Dean to make offhand comments about Castiel, Lisa, Ben, and Lucifer while Sam is not permitted to. But then Dean was always more interested in figuring out his advantage on the battlefield than playing fair. So Sam keeps quiet.
Until he sees Dean’s eyes flicking toward him every few seconds and realizes that Dean wants a response. He just doesn’t know how to ask for one.
Sam wishes he had something substantial to say. He wishes he could say, Oh, as it just so happens, I was reading this interesting bit of lore on how to track down and de-juice God yesterday. Let me find that page again…He wishes he could reassure his brother that they won’t have to kill Cas, that they’ll be able to talk him down, so that Dean can be spared the pain of losing someone who has been more than a friend for the past four years. Castiel was the first person who came along and really believed in Dean. (Sam believes in his brother, of course, but it’s complicated, Bobby does too, but they’re family, an outsider is different.) For the sake of Dean’s self-esteem Sam doesn’t want him to lose that.
But, instead of saying any of that, he just nods mutely when Dean says they’re stopping for gas.
“I’m going to get something to drink. You want anything?”
“Get me a bottle of water.”
“What about food?”
Sam resists the urge to roll his eyes. He can appreciate that Dean wants him to take good care of his body, what with his mind being all shot to hell (literally), but gas station fare isn’t the solution. Besides, he’s not hungry.
“Well, I’m getting a snack cake.” He punctuates the thought by closing the door.
Sam watches him swagger inside the mini mart, wondering how Dean manages to walk straight with those legs. Once Dean is swallowed up by the door to the mart, Sam leans back against the seat and closes his eyes. He didn’t want to say anything to Dean, but it’s been a long day, and the heat and sun have worn him out. His head is throbbing. He hopes Dean thinks to buy some Advil.
The keys are still in the ignition, and the radio is still playing softly. Out of a kind of morbid curiosity, Sam adjusts the volume a little louder. It’s “Behind Blue Eyes.” The harmonizing is kind of nice, and it’s a quiet song, so Sam just settles back into his seat and listens. It’s one of those songs he’s heard a million times since he was old enough to remember, but he’s never paid attention to it. It’s the story of a friend asking another for help because he’s taken on the weight of the world - and he’s asking for someone to stop him before he goes too far.
Sam bolts upright in his seat, turns the volume up, and listens much more carefully.
Just as the song ends, Dean comes back into the car with treats spilling from the cradle of his arms. As he hands Sam the requested bottle of water and the unrequested Advil, Sam is grateful for his intuition. “You look like you saw a ghost. Or Lucifer. Headache again?”
“Sort of,” Sam answers, helping himself to four of the pills as Dean tears open a package of Ho-Hos with his teeth. “Do you think it’s possible Castiel is trying to send us messages?”
“What do you mean?”
“Like, okay, I know this going to sound ridiculous, but hear me out. Could Cas - could he maybe somehow be asking us to stop him? Like, through messages…on the radio?”
Dean stops midway into a bite, so that there’s a stub of chocolate cake sticking out of his mouth. Sam would laugh if they weren’t facing such serious shit. Dean finally breaks off the bite with one hand and says through a mouthful, “You can hear Cas radio? Like, angel messages?”
“No, no, not like that,” Sam says. He gestures toward the car radio. “Like, the music.” He sighs and flips the radio back on. It’s still The Who, although this time it’s that song where they just scream a lot, the one they use on CSI: Wherever. Sam listens for a moment, but he doesn’t really see any connection to their lives or the immediate conversation.
“Cas likes The Who?” It’s clear Dean thinks this makes about as much sense as Stupid Frigging Plan 2.0.
“No, listen,” Sam repeats in frustration. “Just a minute ago you were talking about how we have to stop Cas, how he’d want us to stop him if he were still in his right mind, and then all of a sudden there’s a song on the radio about someone with blue eyes asking to be stopped. Don’t you think that’s a little suspicious?”
Dean shrugs and crams the remainder of his Ho-Ho into his mouth. “Coincidence.”
“Yeah, but Cas is God, Dean. He can make something come on the radio if he wants to. Maybe he’s giving us a sign.”
“Of what? You said it yourself. He’s God. Would you want to give that up?” Dean puts the car in reverse and pulls out, his way of telling Sam that he’s being ridiculous (he’s not, he’s making the same point Dean made a few minutes earlier) and that the conversation is closed.
Except it’s not. Because nobody bothered to turn off the radio, and now The Who are saying that they tip their hats to the new constitution and take a bow for the new revolution, and Sam’s pretty sure that a reference to changing leadership is not mere coincidence.
“Dean.”
“But, Sam, it’s a tape.” Dean presses eject and waves the cassette around. “So it can’t be a message from above, okay? It just happens to be what I put in.”
“When did you get a Who tape?”
“I have a lot of tapes you don’t know about,” he sniffs. “You don’t know all my music.”
Sam’s not sure if that’s code for I got it when I thought you were dead or I bought a bunch of $3 cassettes at truck stops as a distraction from the horrors of living with Soulless Dickwad or Dean’s awesome playlist isn’t good enough, so I had to satisfy my musical cravings on my own.
He leaves it alone. But he’s not dropping the issue of divine musical messages. Not any time soon.
* * * * *
It’s Sam’s turn to pick their food, and he’s craving Indian for some reason. Dean immediately protests, claiming that all Indian restaurants are too dim and too quiet and smell like curry. “You’re going to be eating curry, Dean,” Sam reminds him. “You won’t notice if the place smells like it.” Dean opens his mouth to raise another protest, but Sam cuts him off. “Look, it doesn’t matter, I ordered takeout online anyway. It’ll be ready when you’re done with your shower.”
“Why do I have to pick it up?”
“Dean, just go.”
Dean stops grumbling then, and Sam wonders how long he can work this as long as my brother’s sane and conscious, I’ll do whatever the fuck he wants attitude to his advantage.
He sits patiently through his brother’s shower and dressing ritual, returns the pointed glare he gets when Dean takes the keys and heads out, and finally, alone in the room, takes out his notebook and gets to work.
He begins by scribbling down the song lyrics. He feels a little foolish, like that girl Maria from high school, who had pages of her math notebook devoted to things people had said and lines of beat poetry and Beatles lyrics because somehow it was all a sign. Of what, Sam never knew. He didn’t think she knew either.
Meet the new boss, he writes. Same as the old boss.
Castiel’s not going to be any better than the MIA God?
my dreams aren’t as empty as my conscience seems to be
if I swallow anything evil, stick your finger down my throat
Cas is asking for help purging the souls? He wants or needs Dean’s help? (Because, of course, Sam thinks with some annoyance, the message wouldn’t be directed at him, even if Sam’s the only one clever enough to get it.)
When he runs out of memorized lyrics, Sam runs a Google search. Then he starts researching the history of the songs to see if there’s any possible connection. Like with Robert Johnson and his demon deal. He’s interrupted when his phone chirps that he has a new text message.
It’s Dean, no doubt bitching about making the food run in the rain.
does too smell like curry
Sam doesn’t text back; it’s not the kind of message that necessitates a response. He keeps staring at his notebook, willing the song lyrics to tell him where they’re coming from and what they mean.
After a minute, the phone chirps again. if this gives me the runs ur dead
Sam can’t help smiling at that. Dean always bitches about things he doesn’t want to do, especially trying new things, but this is pretty cooperative for him. Sam feels grateful so he suggests, Get pie. Diner on corner.
what kind
Sam looks at the screen of his phone for a minute, trying to decide how to respond. Does Dean suddenly have some form of amnesia that has made him forget he knows all of Sam’s tastes because they’ve eaten every single meal together their entire lives? Did some courteous gene suddenly flip on, making today the day he’ll actually let Sam have a say when it comes to Very Important Things like pie?
cherry
It takes Dean ten whole minutes to respond, and in that time, Sam doesn’t make any progress with The Who. He’s just staring at random scribbles in his notebook, words and names like Roger Daltrey and conscience floating around on the page.
When his phone finally does beep, it catches him off-guard. Even more so when he sees the content of the message. None here. Too bad. Know u like ur cherry pie.
There’s no misunderstanding the meaning behind the message. If it was just about food, Dean would have just written something like, They’re out. We’re having blueberry. Sam can only assume this is more of Dean’s juvenile teasing. Like ha ha you like musicals, you’re a girl, like when they were little and for some reason eating Fruit Roll-Ups became synonymous with being a cootie licker (not that kind of cootie, they were little). Or is this innuendo? Does Dean really mean, You like having sex with virgins, and I’m going to bring up virgins because it’s the only way I can think of to bring up sex, which I totally-kind-of want to talk about with you?
Before Sam can figure out what to write back, Dean texts again: disappointed?
Sam is really confused now. He’s trying to solve the mystery of their new God (capital G) for one thing, which does not leave him with a lot of brain cells to decipher Dean. He just dashes off: Do you want me to be?
When Dean doesn’t respond after a few seconds, he starts to wonder if maybe he said something wrong, but he doesn’t know how he could have. He’s just trying to give Dean something he wants, which is pie, he’s letting Dean pick dessert, the way Dean let him pick the main course, it’s fair.
Finally, the text alert sounds again.
The message is from an unlisted number: Sam, it’s not me. When I want to send you a message, you will know. There will be no confusion.
Castiel.
Sam drops his phone and backs away from the table, as if Cas might smite him through it. He’s terrified to think that Cas knows where they are and what they’ve been doing, but then again if Cas is God now, they probably should have expected it.
That means it’s only through Castiel’s mercy that they are still alive.
Dean comes back twenty minutes later with a two heavy bags of food and an absolutely adorable smirk on his face. Sam doesn’t tell him about the songs. Or about Cas.
* * * * *
“The Hardy Boys and the Haunted Bowling Alley” is one of the dumbest cases they’ve worked in a long time. Apparently every Thursday night a spirit wails on some of the regular league bowlers, and they all limp home to their wives and still come back the next week because they’re idiots. Or because, as two bowlers, Steve and Rob, explain it to Sam, the league championship is only three weeks away.
They did a bunch of research before heading to the bowling alley (Sam did the research, Dean alternated between running to the bathroom and scowling at Sam), but there’s no history to the bowling alley or the plot of land it’s on. The best thing they can do now is scope the place out. It’s Wednesday, so everything should be okay.
Steve and Rob greet them as soon as they walk in, like they were waiting for Sam and Dean. They introduce them to another team member, Rick, who already has on his “Cloud Seeders” team shirt. Rick has bad news, though. Joey has the flu, which Steve thinks is code for being in trouble with his wife for staying out too late on Monday and having to make it up by staying home and watching Restaurant: Impossible with her. Whatever the case, the Cloud Seeders need a fourth, and they look eagerly at Sam and Dean.
“We come as a pair,” Dean says, pretending to be disappointed. He gestures with his thumb between them.
“It’s okay,” Rob decides with a smile. “You can take turns each frame.”
Dean doesn’t want to bowl, and neither does Sam, but it looks a lot less sketchy than running up and down the lanes with EMF meters or conducting surveillance from the dirty-carpeted lounge. Besides, it’ll give them a chance to ask seemingly innocent questions of Steve, Rick, and Rob, who are here often enough to know the scoop on the Thursday night ghost.
Apart from the rental shoes, which Dean insists are ugly and which Sam thinks are unsanitary (oh, man, you’re probably already full of disease, let it go, which is not nice, because now he actually knows what Soulless Dickwad did with his body, and ew), they have a pretty good time. Dean seems awfully proud of Sam when he knocks down nine pins at once on his first throw. Dean’s first throw is a gutterball. He swears and gets red-faced, but Sam just pushes his beer at him, and then Dean’s fine.
When they reach the fifth frame (Sam’s), the guys in the next lane decide to make a friendly wager. Their
matching shirts say “Saintly Sinners,” and they have gloves carefully velcroed around their throwing hands. They seem to have a longstanding rivalry with the Cloud Seeders. Offering some of his nachos, Steve explains that it started four years ago when Mike Absalom quit working at the garage and went corporate. Sam has no idea what that piece of history has to do with bowling. He also doesn’t want any nachos.
The teams are about even by the end of the first game, though it’s hard to tell, since there is some kind of complicated handicapping system to make up for Dean, who’s still pissed because I can shoot a moving target from a distance of fifty feet, why can’t I throw a fucking bowling ball? They end up calling it a draw. Steve buys their team a round of beer, and they take their time on the second, non-competitive game, which Dean sits out. Between turns, Sam tries to ask Rob about the spirit, but right as Rob says he’s never seen anything, the lights go out.
Sam’s heart pumps a little faster in anticipation of a hunt, but then blacklights come up and music starts blaring. It’s after nine, so it’s “cosmic bowling.”
And it’s Awesome ’80s Night.
“Aw, FML!” Dean shouts over the music.
“FML?”
“Yeah, ‘fuck my life.’” He shrugs. “Learned it from Ben. Sent him to his room for swearing.”
Sam laughs for a minute, hating Awesome ’80s Night as much as Dean, but then “Billie Jean” comes on, and isn’t that just neat after Dean made a Ben reference? Dean must notice the shift in Sam’s expression because he leans in again and asks, “You okay with this music?”
Sam wants to say, No, fuck no, let’s just get out of here or We should just shoot out the sound system, but having a meltdown in the middle of a case is probably a bad idea. “Yeah, I’m okay. Are you?”
Dean looks at him kind of funny, like he doesn’t understand the question, like it’s not the most obviously connected to their lives song in the world. Sam’s not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. But, again, they’re in the middle of a case, so Sam shrugs and lets it drop.
And, anyway, they’re interrupted when Rick reaches between them for his beer. “Man, I hate Michael Jackson. You guys?”
“Big time,” Sam agrees.
Awesome ’80s Night picks up a little bit after that eerie moment, and the thankfully hokey stream of glam rock and synth pop has the whole bowling alley bouncing around to the beat.
At some point Sam leans in to Dean to admit, “I forgot how much fun this can be,” this meaning hunting together, just the two of us, spooky cases, not heaven-and-hell cases. He figures Dean gets it because he says, “Don’t ditch me again,” which means it’s more fun with you, a pretty huge confession in Dean-speak. Sam, feeling all warm and fuzzy, maybe because of the beer or maybe because it’s hot in the bowling alley (no, it’s because of what Dean said), adds, “Yeah, it’s not the same without you, man.” And then “Every Time You Go Away” starts playing, even though it totally breaks the peppy atmosphere.
Steve, Rick, and Rob take it in stride. Apparently, the slow dances are timeouts for hitting the can or grabbing more beer or talking about lawn care maintenance. Dean doesn’t seem to be paying attention, to the music or to Steve, Rick, and Rob, but Sam has to sit down in one of the orange plastic chairs and talk himself through breathing in, out, in, out. At least Lucifer hasn’t shown up to join in the fun.
* * * * *
The next night they arrive at the bowling alley parking lot right in the middle of the smackdown. A guy in a dirty wifebeater reaches back to throw a punch at a guy in a blue hoodie. Dean rips the top off the salt container, and salt is flying everywhere, and Sam grabs the victim by the arms and backs him away.
Then the ghost starts screaming, “My eye! My eye!” and Blue Hoodie is yanking himself away from Sam while somebody from behind them hollers, “What the fuck, man? What the fuck?”
Sam maneuvers Blue Hoodie around and sees the Cloud Seeders and Saintly Sinners, all agape.
Five minutes later, they’re all sitting on the curb. The not-ghost in the dirty wifebeater has a handkerchief pressed to his eye, which is streaming tears. Dean paces in front of the group like he’s their school principal. “Me and him -” he gestures at Sam - “we drove all the way from South Dakota to save your ass.” He points now at Blue Hoodie, who mostly just looks disappointed, not grateful. “So start talking.”
“No.”
“No?” Dean repeats. “What do you mean, no?”
Blue Hoodie looks nervously at Dirty Wifebeater and clears his throat. “The first rule of Fi-”
“Aw, come on,” Sam interrupts with frustration. “You’ve got to be kidding me!”
“Why the hell did you let everyone think there was a ghost here?” Dean demands.
Steve shrugs. “They wouldn’t understand.”
“A ghost is easier,” Rob adds. “We can come home with bruises every week, and we don’t have to explain it. Our wives just feel sorry for us.”
“And grateful we’re alive,” Dirty Wifebeater adds, but Rick shoots him a look to shut the fuck up.
Dean rubs his forehead. “So there’s no ghost? Just a bunch of morons who don’t like their lives? Awesome, just awesome.”
Sam’s pretty flabbergasted; Dean just looks furious. Wordlessly they turn and start heading back to the car.
* * * * *
A few days later, they still haven’t picked up a new case. Sam forgot how much downtime there was in the cross-country hunting business. Before (not before, in italics, just regular before, like before the before), they’d give themselves a minute to breathe, maybe hustling pool to pad their pockets or going to a Jayhawks game or even just eating too much food and watching infomercials on lousy motel television sets. Then came the angels and the seals and the apocalypse and saving Soulless Dickwad, and downtime was pretty much nonexistent. If they weren’t hunting or chasing down some sign from Revelations, they were asleep or drunk (which led to being asleep) or nursing injuries (which meant forcing themselves to sleep). It’s been a long time since Sam has faced an entire forty-eight hours in one place with nowhere to go and nothing to do.
Dean doesn’t like to just waste time, never has. Sure, he’ll watch bad movies on TV or surf the internet for porn - he can do either of those things for hours without getting bored - but he considers both productive uses of his time. One thing Dad taught them was to take advantage of recreational time when it comes along because it doesn’t come along often. Mostly, though, Dean cleans their guns and sharpens their knives and makes little notes in the margins of Dad’s journal.
Sam should be helping him with the chores. He could clean out the backseat of the car, which is currently playing home to an assortment of cellophane wrappers. (For someone who says he loves his car so much, Dean sure doesn’t mind trashing it.) He could do the laundry, since he’s only got three clean pairs of underwear left. He could research the Castiel problem stealthily.
Instead, he spends the day admiring Dean.
It isn’t as if Sam woke up in the morning and thought, Today’s the day I’ll fall back in love with my brother. But Dean did this weird checking himself out in the mirror thing that involved lifting up his shirt to examine his abs, then sliding up one sleeve of his t-shirt to look at the Castiel handprint scar (yup, it’s still there, Sam’s sure Dean loves thinking about that right now), and finally Dean actually, honest to god (or someone) turned around to look at his own ass. Right in front of Sam, like it was the most normal thing in the world, not something incredibly vain and/or self-conscious, something to hide.
Dean has a nice ass.
Two years, eleven months, and twenty-nine days. It’s a lot longer than Sam thought after would ever last, it’s longer than the time between before and after, the time during. He never really believed after would be a finite number of days worth counting, rather than a permanent state of being, just the way they go on now. He knows it’s probably better, but still he doesn’t want them to go on this way.
He has a lot of contradictory thoughts on the subject.
* * * * *
When it’s Dean’s turn to pick the food, he sends Sam on a wild goose chase for blackberry pie. Sam can’t even remember Dean ever eating blackberry pie. He could have asked for the more popular and more readily available cherry and apple, even blueberry is more common, or lemon meringue or key lime, but, no, he wants blackberry of all things. But if it’s what Dean wants, Sam is willing to search for it. Eventually he tracks some down at a suburban Whole Foods, carefully peels the labels off the plastic carton so Dean doesn’t bitch about goddamn expensive rich people grocery stores, and makes the twenty minute drive back to their motel.
When he walks in, Dean is sitting at the little round table, facing the door. There’s a bottle of Jack Daniels and one glass in front of him. “Sit down.”
Dean looks pretty serious, and Sam understands that the blackberry pie quest was a misdirection so that Dean could prepare…whatever this is. When Sam takes a seat across the table, Dean pushes the bottle and glass in his direction. “Dean?”
“Therapy,” Dean says, as if that explains everything.
Sam shows the paper bag that holds the pie he worked so hard to track down. “I found your pie.”
“Later.” Dean nods at the bottle and glass. “Drink.”
Something about Dean’s demeanor makes Sam a little nervous (maybe it’s the fact that Dean just turned down pie). He doesn’t really want a drink - whatever Dean has planned, there’s no way it’ll be better if Sam’s tipsy. But he doesn’t want to defy Dean right now, either. Dean’s not really radiating angry, but he’s doing be a soldier and follow orders, so Sam picks up the bottle and tips half a shot’s worth into the glass. He swiftly downs it.
“That was a bad move,” Lucifer says. He looks like Sam today, except he’s decked out in some luxurious suit with an actual pocket square (it’s lavender). “You’re giving him all the advantage. He’s still sober.”
Behind him Michael snorts. “Must be a special occasion. That never happens.” Today Michael is masquerading in Adam’s form. He’s just in jeans and a flannel.
Sam slides the bottle back across the table to Dean. “If I have to drink, so do you.”
It’s hard to miss the way Dean’s face perks up at that or the speed with which he produces a second glass. “Don’t have to tell me twice.”
They are quite dysfunctional, Sam knows. “And if I have to answer questions, so do you.” Dean doesn’t look as eager to agree to this condition, but Sam gives him that face, the one that says, Come on, Dean, you know I mean business, and finally he nods once, almost imperceptibly, in agreement.
“Me first,” Dean says. “Tell me the truth. Are you okay?”
Sam shakes his head no, then takes the bottle and drinks straight from it. He passes it back to Dean. “Are you worried about Cas?”
Dean nods and drinks. “Should you be hunting right now?”
“Yeah, it’s okay.” Sam doesn’t feel the burn of the liquor going down this time. “Will you ever be able to talk about Lisa and Ben?”
“Sam -”
“I know you said I can’t bring them up, but, Dean, you have to deal with this.”
Dean stares him down for a minute, leaving Sam to sweat whatever response might be coming.
“All right, I’m gonna level with you,” he says finally. “I still love her, and I didn’t tell her, and I’m having a hard time with the fact that it’s just all….erased. I didn’t really think it through. Now I gotta live with that.”
Sam doesn’t say anything but nods his head just a little, even though Dean is trying to avoid eye contact. He picks up the bottle and hands it over. Dean looks pretty grateful as he takes two gulps.
It’s not the big revelation Sam feared, but it still leaves Sam a little shaky to hear Dean say it. This is how his brother works - always making decisions in what he perceives to be other people’s best interests, without thinking through the consequences first. Dean knows he does it and keeps doing it anyway, and Sam knows Dean knows, so there’s not really much to say on that front. Sam also thinks Dean might feel like he abandoned Lisa and Ben (again) to be with Sam.
It’s something he and his brother have in common, even if the details are a little different. It’s been a long time since Sam really angsted over the path his life didn’t take, but he does know what it’s like to love someone and lose her. He also knows how that love (real, deep, important love) can coexist with the love he has for his brother. One doesn’t have to cancel the other out.
It occurs to Sam that, like the sigils on their ribs or the tattoos over their hearts, this is something else that connects them. And for once Sam can be the one to offer the advice.
“I still love Jess. I still think about her every single day.”
“Shit, Sam, I’m sorry. I mean, Jessica - it’s so much worse for you, and here I keep going on, and Lisa and Ben - at least they’re alive, you know? They’re okay.”
“No, Dean, I - I wasn’t trying to one-up you,” Sam says gently. Every instinct tells him to reach out to Dean, to take his hand or put a hand on his shoulder, but that’s not how Dean operates. He’ll just pull away. Sam has to be content to just let his presence be enough. He carefully pries the bottle of Jack out of Dean’s hand and sets it down. “I’m saying I know how you feel. And how much it sucks. But you don’t have to stop caring about them. There are no rules.”
“Yeah,” Dean breathes out. “Does it get easier?”
Sam nods, honestly, because it does. The pain and the guilt lessen with time. The what if becomes less of a stab of regret and more of a musing. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t love Jessica anymore. It just means he’s learned to live without her.
He never learned how to live without Dean.
He takes the bottle and drinks. It’s one thing to listen to Dean and offer advice because he’s been there before, but it’s another (soulless) thing to carefully steer his emotional recovery. He wishes he were a better man, but he has the inkling of a thought, that maybe losing Cas, Lisa, and Ben means there’s nowhere else for Dean’s love to go but back to Sam. So he’s going to say something, and maybe they’ll both regret it, and maybe it’ll ruin everything, but, oh, god, what if it doesn’t, so he’s going to say it anyway.
“You can still love her - both of them, and it doesn’t mean you can’t…that you can’t love other people, too.”
Dean looks at him carefully - looks right through his carefully vague grammar. Then he pulls the bottle back to his side of the table, drinks straight from it, and holds it in his lap like a security blanket, staring down at it. “I’ve always loved you more.”
There isn’t any music playing.
What were you expecting? Lucifer asks. Violins? That one theme they always play in cartoons when rabbits run toward each other with hearts coming out of their eyes? Sometimes you are just an embarrassing sap. How’d you get wrapped in such deceptive packaging?
Shut up, Sam snaps. You don’t get to ruin everything. You can’t have this.
Newsflash, Sammy: I already have you. You’re listening to me right now, aren’t you?
Sam knows, objectively, that he is sitting in a motel room across from his brother (Dean, his one real, full-blood brother, the one he grew up with). He knows, objectively, that he isn’t in the cage and that Lucifer is in his head.
So’s the music, kiddo, Lucifer adds.
Apparently, Sam’s Lucifer interlude destroyed the moment. Dean is squinting like he’s trying to read the last line at the eye doctor’s. “Are you having flashbacks right now?”
There’s no point in lying. Dean’s smart enough to figure it out, and it’ll just piss him off if Sam lies. And Sam’s tired of keeping everything to himself. He nods.
“What do you see? Or hear?” Dean asks.
“Michael just plucked out Adam’s eyes with a fork,” Sam admits. “And Lucifer’s trying to convince me that the music is all in my head.”
“Sam, Lucifer’s in your head, too.” He pours the whiskey into two glasses this time, god love him and his misguided attempt at medication. “You know that, right?”
Sam nods again, ignoring the fire that is creeping up his leg. It doesn’t burn because it’s not real. It’s all in my head, he tells himself. Lucifer, Michael, the cage - it’s all in my head.
So is the music.
He doesn’t quite understand that last part. The music was on the radio and playing in speakers in gas stations and bowling alleys. Dean heard it, too. How can it be in his head?
Oh, Sam, Lucifer says with fond exasperation. There was always music.
Sam thinks back over the past year, to when the radio was on and off, when the songs playing meant something and why. He thinks now that maybe all those times they turned the radio on to a particularly relevant song are actually faulty memories. The radio was always on, always playing something. It’s just that certain songs - the songs he wanted to hear - made him pay attention. Songs about him and Dean. And Cas, that one time.
“…music?” Dean is asking.
Although he missed most of the question, Sam takes a breath and readies himself. He lays it out for Dean, all of it, including the part where he’s not sure what’s real and what’s not but knows without question that it’s been three years and two days.
Next
Back to masterpost