Blind My Eyes
Another one for the Sam-centered h/c comment-fic meme at ohsam.
Title: Blind My Eyes
Prompt: From a prompt by the lovely and talented pkwench: Eye patch Sam! Sam loses one of those pretty eyes and has to cope with altered visual perception and looking like a pirate. Dean is awesome, over protective, angry as hell that this happened to Sam, and a completely amusing little shit. Any season, gen preferred. Original prompt can be found here.
Spoilers: None! This is set in Season 1, between "Bloody Mary" and "Skin."
Word Count: 4,331
Warnings: Violence, bad language, and one reasonably graphic description of Sam losing an eye.
Disclaimer: Written for love and not profit.
Neurotic Authorial Disclaimer: Uh, this was kind of banged together on a whim, because hey, who wouldn't want to put out Sam's eye? *cough* Right. Okay.
Random Author's Note: Title is taken from the Metallica song, "That Was Just Your Life."
He's blind. Dean's eyelids are glued together with congealing blood, and he's gripping the mirror so tightly his fingers are aching, listening to the terrible, rasping voice of Mary talking to herself and finally screaming herself into a long-overdue grave. There's nothing to do then but toss the mirror as hard as he can onto the floor, throwing an arm up to shield his face as it splinters into a million shards. The sound of screaming fills the air, and he thinks he hears Sam scream, too, but to be honest he's not sure he's not screaming himself. For a moment, everything is still.
He sits up, scrubs the blood away from his eyes, surveys the wreckage. “Hey, Sam,” he says, his voice shaking a bit. “This has got to be, what, six hundred years' bad luck?” He waits for the answering wry chuckle he knows that's going to get. This is Dean Winchester Humour 101, and Sam always finds it funny. “Sam?”
Sam lets out a choking moan, both hands clapped over his face, his heels scraping on the floor in a musical clinking of broken glass, and Dean feels his heart rate triple in a matter of seconds. He scrambles to his hands and knees, grabs Sam by the arms to hold him still.
“Sam! Sammy! Don't move, you'll cut yourself. What's wrong?”
Sam thrashes weakly under him, resists all of Dean's attempts to pull his hands away from his face. “My eye,” he gasps finally.
“Lemme see. Come on, Sam!”
He swallows hard, hoping Sam hasn't scratched his cornea or something with the glass. There's all sorts of shit that's been flying around, and eye injuries are right up there on the Winchester list of Things You Don't Mess With. He tugs at Sam's wrist, and when Sam lets him see he immediately wishes he hadn't. He turns away, gagging, hand over his mouth, forces himself to take a deep breath and not hurl on top of the mess they've already made. His mind is screaming at him, threatening to tear itself into a million pieces, because there's nothing left where Sam's left eye should be, nothing except a trail of blood and some clear viscous sludge spilling down his cheek that looks disconcertingly like a trail of tears. It's Sam's face except that his eye is gone, and he can't wrap his mind around it and he thinks that maybe he might puke after all. Then Sam moans again, and he shakes himself. There'll be plenty of time to freak out later.
“Okay. Okay, Sammy. It's not even that bad,” he lies, hoping Sam can't hear it in his voice. “We're going to have to get you checked out, though. Let's get you up, okay? Can you get up for me?”
He hauls Sam to his feet, half-collapsed in his arms -mostly from shock, he thinks. He drags him to the car, pulls out the first aid kit and presses a couple of sterile pads to the empty eye socket (Sammy's eye socket, Jesus), wraps a bandage around his head to keep it in place, tosses a blanket over him to ward off shock. He's running through the litany of first aid treatment in his head just so he doesn't have to think about anything else, and keeps up a steady stream of meaningless, reassuring chatter as he jams the accelerator right to the floor of the car. (Just hold it together, Dean)
It's a struggle not to turn into a hyperventilating mess in the E.R. A whole crowd of medical personnel whisk Sam away on a gurney, ignoring both their requests to be kept together, and he's left by himself to try and fill out insurance forms and pace the length of the waiting room, scowling at anyone who gets in his way. Eventually everyone gives him a wide berth, and every so often he catches sight of someone eyeing him warily, as though they're expecting him to turn around and hit someone at any moment. He just might, at that.
He doesn't need to see the grim expression on the doctor's face to know that the news is bad. He knows what he saw, and he's not blind, he thinks, swallowing the hysterical laughter that keeps trying to bubble up out of him. Eyes aren't meant to leak out of their sockets. He clenches his hands into fists so tightly that his knuckles turn white, turns away from the doctor and stalks aimlessly down the maze of corridors until he finds a wall to lean against. He sinks to the floor, fumbles his cell phone out of his pocket, hospital rules be damned. He has to hold it to his ear with both hands to keep it from falling to the floor.
This is John Winchester. I can't be reached If this is an emergency, call my son Dean. 866-907-3235. He can help.
“D-Dad?” his voice breaks, and he takes a deep breath. (Keep cool, Dean) “Dad, it's Sam. I... there's been an accident. He's alive but, uh, his eye... Look, I know you... uh, please just call me back.”
He flips the phone shut, lets it drop between his knees, and tries very hard to stop shaking.
*
“Sam! Zip it up, princess, and let's go! You've been preening in there for fuckin' ever, dude!”
Sam ignores the persistent hammering at the door for a split second, but it's distracting enough while he's trying to shave that he's pretty sure he's going to slice his face open. “Give me a minute, and quit using the door for sparring practice! We're going to lose the deposit if you break it.” He fumbles the razor, and it bounces off the sink and lands on the floor. “Shit.”
He goes to one knee and reaches for it, and his hand lands a good inch to the right. With another muffled curse he adjusts his aim, snatches up the offending article, and with an annoyed huff goes back to trying not to slice himself to ribbons just making himself look marginally presentable. It's bad enough to have to wear an eye patch, and the elastic always seems to shift just enough to make his hair stick out at weird angles, but he's not going out there half-shaved, no matter how much Dean pretends that chicks dig the pirate look.
He sighs, glares at his reflection once before turning his back on it. Up until a month ago he would have told anyone who asked that he didn't really care about his appearance, but apparently that was a lie. It turns out he really does care, and this shit just isn't helping anything. He stops just before opening the door, forces himself to take a couple of deep breaths. There's no sense in Dean's knowing that he's been freaking out, yet again, about this. He's supposed to have this under control.
Sam has had this conversation with himself more times than he can count ever since they left Toledo, ever since he managed to find a brave smile and tell Charlie she ought to forgive herself for the fact that her boyfriend was a manipulative psycho with borderline personality disorder who killed himself and made her believe it was her fault. Lots of people live perfectly normal lives with only one eye. Just look at Columbo, even though his fashion sense is crap.
Of course, most people aren't hunters, and it's been a month of scrapes and bruises and frustration at not even being able to walk without bumping into things. Sometimes just using a fork is a challenge. If he worried about being a burden on Dean before, well, that's nothing compared to what he must be now. It wouldn't be so bad, he thinks sometimes, if it wasn't for the times he catches Dean looking at him with that horrible, guilty expression, as though he's personally responsible for screwing up Sam's life. It's exhausting, living with Dean's guilt, and if he hadn't sworn to himself that he wouldn't leave again... he shakes his head nudges open the door to the bathroom.
Dean's cross-legged on his bed, waiting for him, sharpening his knife with a whetstone. “I was beginning to think you'd drowned in the toilet there, Blackbeard.”
Sam rolls his remaining eye. “Blackbeard had both his eyes, jerk.”
“You would know, bitch. Are you coming, or what?”
“I'm here, aren't I?”
“Right,” Dean shoots him a look that's impossible to decipher, and shoves his knife in its sheath. “We're not going far, so how about you drive? Think fast,” he tosses the keys to the Impala at Sam, who reflexively puts out a hand to catch them. The tips of his fingers brush against the key ring, and for a moment he thinks he's going to drop them (like always), but somehow he manages to close his hand around them, just barely. He looks up with a grin, catches Dean grinning back, and feels the smile wipe itself from his face just as quickly as it came. Catching keys shouldn't be a major accomplishment.
“Let's go, then.”
He manages not to crash the Impala, and he's kind of glad he can't see Dean's expression and watch the road at the same time, the way he used to. He's pretty sure his older brother is white-knuckled with anxiety at the thought of his precious baby getting all scratched up.
Even eating at a diner turns out to be excruciating: the waitress keeps staring at his eye patch until he blushes bright red and all but runs from the place to the relative safety of the car, leaving Dean to use his not-especially-adequate people skills to sort out the mess and leave her whatever tip he thinks will compensate for his little brother doing his best impression of a minor freak-out. When they're done, Dean insists on taking him to the nearest bar for a drink.
“Come on, Sammy. We're not getting anything done tonight. Tomorrow we'll head out, figure out our next hunt, and then this town'll eat our dust. How about we work on your pool game? I'll even spot you a couple of balls, or whatever.”
“Whatever. Look, if you're so eager to go, why don't you just drop me off? I'll see if I can dig up another case or something back at the motel. I'm kind of tired anyway.”
“Nuh-uh, no way. I am going to drown that buzz kill of yours in beer if it's the last thing I do. No way are you going to spend another night moping in the motel room. Motel rooms are made for sleeping, and you don't even do that anymore, so you may as well come with me,” Dean's got his don't-argue-with-me-I'm-doing-this-for-your-own-good face on, and Sam knows better than to try to reason with him when he gets like that, even though he'd rather set himself on fire than walk into yet another crowded building at this point.
“Fine. But you'd better not get so wasted that we end up having to walk home.”
Dean claps him on the shoulder. “Attaboy, Sammy. That's a start, anyway.”
“It's Sam.”
“Sure, whatever. First round's on me.”
*
It's Friday night in a hick town in Nowheresville, USA, and Dean is beginning to think that maybe he didn't pick his moment all that well to start trying to ease his baby brother back into the social scene. The bar is smoky, crowded, hot and noisy, and they keep getting jostled by loud drunken guys who look like they started their nights early with a bottle of cheap stuff at home. Sam is being Sam, and not noticing the interested looks from a couple of the girls at the bar, just hunches down and looks even more miserable when Dean tries to strike up a conversation, and eventually Dean just lets it drop with an apologetic smile and a look that promises that, if for some reason he's still here tomorrow, he'll show them a fantastic time just to make up for it.
Okay, so maybe it's still too soon after Jess to nudge Sam into the waiting arms of a likely girl. Sure, it's a perk of the job, but Dean isn't a complete ass, and he gets that Sam has never really liked the easy one-night-stands that come with the territory. It's only been a couple of months, and Sam's still waking up in a cold sweat every night, still calling out her name in his sleep. So Dean does the next best thing and drags his brother to a pool table, and challenges him to a fair fight. Even though Sam's game is still better than most of the games in town, it's nowhere near what he used to be able to do with a pool cue, and it's easy to see by the set of his shoulders that his thoughts are going nowhere good, and fast.
So Dean does what he does best, and lines up a couple of likely-looking marks, alternately cajoling and taunting, and pretending to be just the wrong side of tipsy. Sam is glaring at him, clearly not in the mood to either hustle pool or even watch his brother hustle pool, but it's too late by now, and the men Dean singled out are already sidling up to the table, smirking at Sam in a way that makes Dean want to punch them. He wraps his hands around his pool cue instead, knuckles going white.
“Hey, man, I don't think it's a fair game,” the taller of the two says. He's the stupider of the two, as well, all mouth and no brain, and has already introduced himself twice as Brian. “It's like, two against one, or one and a half, or whatever,” he motions none-too-subtly at Sam, who winces imperceptibly.
“Why don't you let us worry about that?” Dean says flatly, and Brian's friend Stu, a stocky guy with hair that's kind of an indeterminate mousy colour, nods in acceptance and digs an elbow into Brian's ribs.
“It's their money, man. Up to them how they want to lose it.”
Dean doesn't bother pulling his shots too much. He figures this time he'll let Sam get his bearings around the table, and if he misses a couple of shots at first, well, it'll be all the better to reel in the suckers later. He pointedly ignores the extra glares his brother directs at him over the next half hour, even when Sam manages to break perfectly, earning him an incredulous stare from Brian. They squeak by on the first game, and at ten dollars a ball it's kind of nerve-wracking, even for Dean, but he can tell Sam's getting into his stride, growing a little more confident, which was really the point of this whole exercise, not that he's ever going to tell that to Sam. He'll just get all emo about it and then they'll have to talk, and that's just going to suck.
It's Sam's break, and while he isn't quite up to par, he does a pretty creditable job. Of course, he's scrunching up his mouth into a classic bitch-face that tells Dean he's not happy with it, but this isn't really the time to call him on that. He breaks, calls it, and sinks two before missing a bank shot by less than an inch. Brian takes up his cue and swaggers over to the table.
“Not bad,” he smirks, as though he's fucking Minnesota Fats. He's well into his fifth beer, and his shots are getting sloppy. He lucks out on one, but the next shot goes wide, and then Dean steps up, and he's pretty sure he's smirking just as much as Brian, only in his case it's justified.
Brian is a sore loser. Dean's still stringing them along, though -the real money's going to be made on the third game- so he lets himself miss a pretty complicated bank shot off two rails, and hands off the cue to Stu, who it turns out can't hold his liquor any better than his buddy. Brian's looking pissed off, and Dean perches on the edge of an unoccupied table, swinging one heel as though he doesn't have a care in the world, but alarm bells are going off in his head. Sam either hasn't noticed or doesn't care, but as he's bending over the table Brian steps up into his blind spot, and Sam ends up accidentally jabbing him with his elbow as he's taking aim. It was deliberate, there's no question there, and Sam turns his head to fix him with a calm stare.
“You mind?” he says quietly.
Brian holds up his hands in mock surrender, but doesn't move. “Sorry, man. I guess you didn't see me there.”
Shit. Dean slides off the table, feeling the familiar thrum of adrenaline in his veins. “Dude,” he starts, but Sam holds up a hand to stop him, and he hangs back.
“No, I didn't. You're blocking my shot.”
Brian's sporting a shit-eating grin. “My bad,” he says, and when Sam turns back to the table he makes a show of stepping back, deliberately jogging Sam's elbow as he makes his shot. “Sorry, man. I guess we're all having trouble watching where we're going tonight.”
“All right, that's it!” It takes less than a couple of seconds for Dean to have the fucker pressed up against the wall, pool cue jammed up against his Adam's apple. There's an angry film of red coating the entire bar. “Game's over, douchebag,” he snarls, enjoying the choking sounds coming from Brian's throat.
“Dean!” Sam is hauling on his elbow. “Dean, let it go. He's drunk, and it's not worth it. Come on.”
The next thing he knows, Sam has got both his arms locked behind him, dragging him away, and Brian is bent over, choking and snarling at him.
“This isn't over, asshole!”
*
It's the perfect ending to the kind of day Sam's been having. Not only did he not want to go anywhere near a bar or people tonight, he certainly didn't want to hustle a game of pool when he's not sure he can even hit the goddamned ball, and now Dean has gone and picked a fight with a bunch of losers who might actually be able to do some damage if they actually do come to blows. He figures they're getting off lucky when he drags Dean kicking and screaming into the cool night air, leaving a pretty generous tip on the bar as an apology to the bartender.
“What the fuck, Dean?”
Dean shakes it off, tugs his jacket back into place. “Fucker,” he mutters. “D'you see what he did?”
Sam huffs an exasperated breath. “No, Dean, I didn't see what he did. I think that was the point.”
“I should have ripped his spleen out past his tonsils,” Dean whips around and delivers a vicious kick to a nearby garbage can, and Sam rolls his eye toward the heavens, pleading for patience.
“I don't need you defending my honour, or whatever, Prince Charming. The guy was a drunken asswipe. We deal with people like him all the time. Come on, let's just get the car and go back to the motel. We'll pick up a six-pack and you can cool off somewhere there aren't pool tables.”
He hears the front door of the bar open and slam shut again, and from the way Dean stiffens and then relaxes into a casual defensive stance, all loose shoulders and bended knees, Sam knows that his earlier optimistic thought that they might be able to get out of here without a fight was just that -optimistic. He sighs.
“I'm assuming Brian is right behind me?” he asks quietly. Dean nods. “Alone?” Dean shakes his head. “Awesome. Next time I say I want to head back to the motel and do research, you're going to let me, got it?”
“Sure thing, Sammy.”
“It's Sam.” He turns toward the right, making sure to keep Brian and his friends in view. No sense in turning his blind side to them. Dean hasn't moved, but that doesn't mean he's not going to at any moment, and that means Sam has about three seconds to try and talk them out of this mess before things really turn nasty.
Brian is definitely drunk. Sam's not sure how he didn't see it earlier, but the smell of booze is rolling off him, and he's not exactly steady on his feet, but apparently having three buddies at his back is lending a little edge to the not-inconsiderable quantities of liquid courage he's already ingested.. “Hey, we never finished that game. You guys defaulted, which means we win. You're not trying to skip out on paying, are you?”
Sam steps in front of Dean, physically blocking him from going for Brian's throat. “Walk away, dude. You're trying to pick a fight, and you can't win this one. Trust me on this, you want to walk away.”
“Hear that, guys? Slick Rick here is trying to pussy out,” Brian steps forward, body language practically screaming belligerent drunkenness. His buddies don't seem to be spoiling for a fight nearly as badly, though, and Sam figures he can work with that. One of them shoves his hands in his pockets.
“Bri, you want to fight Special-Olympics guy there, you're on your own,” he calls out. “This ain't a fair fight.”
Dean is vibrating with indignation behind him, and Sam tries for one last-ditch attempt to save the situation. “Walk away,” he repeats. “I don't want trouble, and I certainly don't want to hurt you.”
He makes a point of standing straight, drawing himself up to his full height. He's not as muscled as Dean, but he's got a good five inches on Brian, and he's been trained to fight since he was eight years old. The only way Brian can win this is if he gets really, really lucky, and it looks like Brian's getting it, now, only it's too late to pull back without losing face.
“Fuck you!”
Brian lunges at him, and manages to clip him on the jaw even when Sam pulls back, and Sam has to hold up a hand to keep Dean from laying waste to the stupid, sorry son of a bitch.
“Dean, I got this.”
He's got Brian's measure, now, and even though he'd rather stick his hand in boiling oil than admit it to Dean, it actually feels kind of good to get into something he knows he can win. Dean is hanging back, ready to intervene if necessary, and it's kind of wrong how good that makes him feel, too. Better to get this over with. He shakes his head, clearing away the last of the stars sparking in his field of vision, and lets Brian come to him. He sees the first punch coming a mile away -predictably, Brian comes at him on his left side, but Brian's right-handed, and the swing is wide and clumsy, and it's ridiculously easy to grab him by the wrist, twist his arm behind him, and shove him up against the wall of the bar. Brian lets out a surprised grunt.
“Last chance, Brian,” he snarls into the guy's ear. “I'm letting go now, and you and your buddies are going to go back and finish your night in there. You try anything, all bets are off. I'm having a really shitty month, and I will hurt you. You understand me? Just give me a reason.”
Brian nods, gritting his teeth. Sam pulls back from the wall, shoves him away, and is completely unsurprised when Brian rounds on him and tries for another punch. He dodges the first blow, catches the follow-up with both hands, and snaps the asshole's wrist before shoving his face into the asphalt. Blood gushes from Brian's nose as it impacts with the ground, and he lets out a bloodcurdling shriek. Sam pushes a knee into the small of Brian's back as he gets to his feet, ignores the frightened looks he's getting from the other three men.
“You guys about done here? Or are we going to have a problem?”
“Nah, we're good,” the same one as before says. “Just let us get him. No problem, man.” They edge past him, grab their friend and drag him away, still moaning and cursing fluently.
He almost jumps out of his skin when Dean taps him on the shoulder. “Hey, Jet Li, you good now?”
Sam snorts, and suddenly the world goes quiet as the blood stops roaring in his ears. “Yeah, I'm good. Can we go?”
Dean thumps him on the arm, grinning. “Sure, dude, whatever you want.”
“If that were true, we wouldn't be here in the first place.” He cuffs Dean behind the head as they head toward the car, and to his credit, Dean lets him. “If we're getting that six-pack, you're buying.”
“Or what, you'll kick my ass?”
Sam slides into the passenger seat. “Damn straight.”
“I'd like to see you try.”
“Dude, I can do it blindfolded,” Sam ducks his head, trying to hide the grin on his face. “With one good eye? It'll be a cake walk.”
Dean stops short, hand poised above the ignition, and stares at him for a moment. Then he throws his head back with a bark of laughter.
After a moment, Sam joins in.
Title: Blind My Eyes
Prompt: From a prompt by the lovely and talented pkwench: Eye patch Sam! Sam loses one of those pretty eyes and has to cope with altered visual perception and looking like a pirate. Dean is awesome, over protective, angry as hell that this happened to Sam, and a completely amusing little shit. Any season, gen preferred. Original prompt can be found here.
Spoilers: None! This is set in Season 1, between "Bloody Mary" and "Skin."
Word Count: 4,331
Warnings: Violence, bad language, and one reasonably graphic description of Sam losing an eye.
Disclaimer: Written for love and not profit.
Neurotic Authorial Disclaimer: Uh, this was kind of banged together on a whim, because hey, who wouldn't want to put out Sam's eye? *cough* Right. Okay.
Random Author's Note: Title is taken from the Metallica song, "That Was Just Your Life."
He's blind. Dean's eyelids are glued together with congealing blood, and he's gripping the mirror so tightly his fingers are aching, listening to the terrible, rasping voice of Mary talking to herself and finally screaming herself into a long-overdue grave. There's nothing to do then but toss the mirror as hard as he can onto the floor, throwing an arm up to shield his face as it splinters into a million shards. The sound of screaming fills the air, and he thinks he hears Sam scream, too, but to be honest he's not sure he's not screaming himself. For a moment, everything is still.
He sits up, scrubs the blood away from his eyes, surveys the wreckage. “Hey, Sam,” he says, his voice shaking a bit. “This has got to be, what, six hundred years' bad luck?” He waits for the answering wry chuckle he knows that's going to get. This is Dean Winchester Humour 101, and Sam always finds it funny. “Sam?”
Sam lets out a choking moan, both hands clapped over his face, his heels scraping on the floor in a musical clinking of broken glass, and Dean feels his heart rate triple in a matter of seconds. He scrambles to his hands and knees, grabs Sam by the arms to hold him still.
“Sam! Sammy! Don't move, you'll cut yourself. What's wrong?”
Sam thrashes weakly under him, resists all of Dean's attempts to pull his hands away from his face. “My eye,” he gasps finally.
“Lemme see. Come on, Sam!”
He swallows hard, hoping Sam hasn't scratched his cornea or something with the glass. There's all sorts of shit that's been flying around, and eye injuries are right up there on the Winchester list of Things You Don't Mess With. He tugs at Sam's wrist, and when Sam lets him see he immediately wishes he hadn't. He turns away, gagging, hand over his mouth, forces himself to take a deep breath and not hurl on top of the mess they've already made. His mind is screaming at him, threatening to tear itself into a million pieces, because there's nothing left where Sam's left eye should be, nothing except a trail of blood and some clear viscous sludge spilling down his cheek that looks disconcertingly like a trail of tears. It's Sam's face except that his eye is gone, and he can't wrap his mind around it and he thinks that maybe he might puke after all. Then Sam moans again, and he shakes himself. There'll be plenty of time to freak out later.
“Okay. Okay, Sammy. It's not even that bad,” he lies, hoping Sam can't hear it in his voice. “We're going to have to get you checked out, though. Let's get you up, okay? Can you get up for me?”
He hauls Sam to his feet, half-collapsed in his arms -mostly from shock, he thinks. He drags him to the car, pulls out the first aid kit and presses a couple of sterile pads to the empty eye socket (Sammy's eye socket, Jesus), wraps a bandage around his head to keep it in place, tosses a blanket over him to ward off shock. He's running through the litany of first aid treatment in his head just so he doesn't have to think about anything else, and keeps up a steady stream of meaningless, reassuring chatter as he jams the accelerator right to the floor of the car. (Just hold it together, Dean)
It's a struggle not to turn into a hyperventilating mess in the E.R. A whole crowd of medical personnel whisk Sam away on a gurney, ignoring both their requests to be kept together, and he's left by himself to try and fill out insurance forms and pace the length of the waiting room, scowling at anyone who gets in his way. Eventually everyone gives him a wide berth, and every so often he catches sight of someone eyeing him warily, as though they're expecting him to turn around and hit someone at any moment. He just might, at that.
He doesn't need to see the grim expression on the doctor's face to know that the news is bad. He knows what he saw, and he's not blind, he thinks, swallowing the hysterical laughter that keeps trying to bubble up out of him. Eyes aren't meant to leak out of their sockets. He clenches his hands into fists so tightly that his knuckles turn white, turns away from the doctor and stalks aimlessly down the maze of corridors until he finds a wall to lean against. He sinks to the floor, fumbles his cell phone out of his pocket, hospital rules be damned. He has to hold it to his ear with both hands to keep it from falling to the floor.
This is John Winchester. I can't be reached If this is an emergency, call my son Dean. 866-907-3235. He can help.
“D-Dad?” his voice breaks, and he takes a deep breath. (Keep cool, Dean) “Dad, it's Sam. I... there's been an accident. He's alive but, uh, his eye... Look, I know you... uh, please just call me back.”
He flips the phone shut, lets it drop between his knees, and tries very hard to stop shaking.
*
“Sam! Zip it up, princess, and let's go! You've been preening in there for fuckin' ever, dude!”
Sam ignores the persistent hammering at the door for a split second, but it's distracting enough while he's trying to shave that he's pretty sure he's going to slice his face open. “Give me a minute, and quit using the door for sparring practice! We're going to lose the deposit if you break it.” He fumbles the razor, and it bounces off the sink and lands on the floor. “Shit.”
He goes to one knee and reaches for it, and his hand lands a good inch to the right. With another muffled curse he adjusts his aim, snatches up the offending article, and with an annoyed huff goes back to trying not to slice himself to ribbons just making himself look marginally presentable. It's bad enough to have to wear an eye patch, and the elastic always seems to shift just enough to make his hair stick out at weird angles, but he's not going out there half-shaved, no matter how much Dean pretends that chicks dig the pirate look.
He sighs, glares at his reflection once before turning his back on it. Up until a month ago he would have told anyone who asked that he didn't really care about his appearance, but apparently that was a lie. It turns out he really does care, and this shit just isn't helping anything. He stops just before opening the door, forces himself to take a couple of deep breaths. There's no sense in Dean's knowing that he's been freaking out, yet again, about this. He's supposed to have this under control.
Sam has had this conversation with himself more times than he can count ever since they left Toledo, ever since he managed to find a brave smile and tell Charlie she ought to forgive herself for the fact that her boyfriend was a manipulative psycho with borderline personality disorder who killed himself and made her believe it was her fault. Lots of people live perfectly normal lives with only one eye. Just look at Columbo, even though his fashion sense is crap.
Of course, most people aren't hunters, and it's been a month of scrapes and bruises and frustration at not even being able to walk without bumping into things. Sometimes just using a fork is a challenge. If he worried about being a burden on Dean before, well, that's nothing compared to what he must be now. It wouldn't be so bad, he thinks sometimes, if it wasn't for the times he catches Dean looking at him with that horrible, guilty expression, as though he's personally responsible for screwing up Sam's life. It's exhausting, living with Dean's guilt, and if he hadn't sworn to himself that he wouldn't leave again... he shakes his head nudges open the door to the bathroom.
Dean's cross-legged on his bed, waiting for him, sharpening his knife with a whetstone. “I was beginning to think you'd drowned in the toilet there, Blackbeard.”
Sam rolls his remaining eye. “Blackbeard had both his eyes, jerk.”
“You would know, bitch. Are you coming, or what?”
“I'm here, aren't I?”
“Right,” Dean shoots him a look that's impossible to decipher, and shoves his knife in its sheath. “We're not going far, so how about you drive? Think fast,” he tosses the keys to the Impala at Sam, who reflexively puts out a hand to catch them. The tips of his fingers brush against the key ring, and for a moment he thinks he's going to drop them (like always), but somehow he manages to close his hand around them, just barely. He looks up with a grin, catches Dean grinning back, and feels the smile wipe itself from his face just as quickly as it came. Catching keys shouldn't be a major accomplishment.
“Let's go, then.”
He manages not to crash the Impala, and he's kind of glad he can't see Dean's expression and watch the road at the same time, the way he used to. He's pretty sure his older brother is white-knuckled with anxiety at the thought of his precious baby getting all scratched up.
Even eating at a diner turns out to be excruciating: the waitress keeps staring at his eye patch until he blushes bright red and all but runs from the place to the relative safety of the car, leaving Dean to use his not-especially-adequate people skills to sort out the mess and leave her whatever tip he thinks will compensate for his little brother doing his best impression of a minor freak-out. When they're done, Dean insists on taking him to the nearest bar for a drink.
“Come on, Sammy. We're not getting anything done tonight. Tomorrow we'll head out, figure out our next hunt, and then this town'll eat our dust. How about we work on your pool game? I'll even spot you a couple of balls, or whatever.”
“Whatever. Look, if you're so eager to go, why don't you just drop me off? I'll see if I can dig up another case or something back at the motel. I'm kind of tired anyway.”
“Nuh-uh, no way. I am going to drown that buzz kill of yours in beer if it's the last thing I do. No way are you going to spend another night moping in the motel room. Motel rooms are made for sleeping, and you don't even do that anymore, so you may as well come with me,” Dean's got his don't-argue-with-me-I'm-doing-this-for-your-own-good face on, and Sam knows better than to try to reason with him when he gets like that, even though he'd rather set himself on fire than walk into yet another crowded building at this point.
“Fine. But you'd better not get so wasted that we end up having to walk home.”
Dean claps him on the shoulder. “Attaboy, Sammy. That's a start, anyway.”
“It's Sam.”
“Sure, whatever. First round's on me.”
*
It's Friday night in a hick town in Nowheresville, USA, and Dean is beginning to think that maybe he didn't pick his moment all that well to start trying to ease his baby brother back into the social scene. The bar is smoky, crowded, hot and noisy, and they keep getting jostled by loud drunken guys who look like they started their nights early with a bottle of cheap stuff at home. Sam is being Sam, and not noticing the interested looks from a couple of the girls at the bar, just hunches down and looks even more miserable when Dean tries to strike up a conversation, and eventually Dean just lets it drop with an apologetic smile and a look that promises that, if for some reason he's still here tomorrow, he'll show them a fantastic time just to make up for it.
Okay, so maybe it's still too soon after Jess to nudge Sam into the waiting arms of a likely girl. Sure, it's a perk of the job, but Dean isn't a complete ass, and he gets that Sam has never really liked the easy one-night-stands that come with the territory. It's only been a couple of months, and Sam's still waking up in a cold sweat every night, still calling out her name in his sleep. So Dean does the next best thing and drags his brother to a pool table, and challenges him to a fair fight. Even though Sam's game is still better than most of the games in town, it's nowhere near what he used to be able to do with a pool cue, and it's easy to see by the set of his shoulders that his thoughts are going nowhere good, and fast.
So Dean does what he does best, and lines up a couple of likely-looking marks, alternately cajoling and taunting, and pretending to be just the wrong side of tipsy. Sam is glaring at him, clearly not in the mood to either hustle pool or even watch his brother hustle pool, but it's too late by now, and the men Dean singled out are already sidling up to the table, smirking at Sam in a way that makes Dean want to punch them. He wraps his hands around his pool cue instead, knuckles going white.
“Hey, man, I don't think it's a fair game,” the taller of the two says. He's the stupider of the two, as well, all mouth and no brain, and has already introduced himself twice as Brian. “It's like, two against one, or one and a half, or whatever,” he motions none-too-subtly at Sam, who winces imperceptibly.
“Why don't you let us worry about that?” Dean says flatly, and Brian's friend Stu, a stocky guy with hair that's kind of an indeterminate mousy colour, nods in acceptance and digs an elbow into Brian's ribs.
“It's their money, man. Up to them how they want to lose it.”
Dean doesn't bother pulling his shots too much. He figures this time he'll let Sam get his bearings around the table, and if he misses a couple of shots at first, well, it'll be all the better to reel in the suckers later. He pointedly ignores the extra glares his brother directs at him over the next half hour, even when Sam manages to break perfectly, earning him an incredulous stare from Brian. They squeak by on the first game, and at ten dollars a ball it's kind of nerve-wracking, even for Dean, but he can tell Sam's getting into his stride, growing a little more confident, which was really the point of this whole exercise, not that he's ever going to tell that to Sam. He'll just get all emo about it and then they'll have to talk, and that's just going to suck.
It's Sam's break, and while he isn't quite up to par, he does a pretty creditable job. Of course, he's scrunching up his mouth into a classic bitch-face that tells Dean he's not happy with it, but this isn't really the time to call him on that. He breaks, calls it, and sinks two before missing a bank shot by less than an inch. Brian takes up his cue and swaggers over to the table.
“Not bad,” he smirks, as though he's fucking Minnesota Fats. He's well into his fifth beer, and his shots are getting sloppy. He lucks out on one, but the next shot goes wide, and then Dean steps up, and he's pretty sure he's smirking just as much as Brian, only in his case it's justified.
Brian is a sore loser. Dean's still stringing them along, though -the real money's going to be made on the third game- so he lets himself miss a pretty complicated bank shot off two rails, and hands off the cue to Stu, who it turns out can't hold his liquor any better than his buddy. Brian's looking pissed off, and Dean perches on the edge of an unoccupied table, swinging one heel as though he doesn't have a care in the world, but alarm bells are going off in his head. Sam either hasn't noticed or doesn't care, but as he's bending over the table Brian steps up into his blind spot, and Sam ends up accidentally jabbing him with his elbow as he's taking aim. It was deliberate, there's no question there, and Sam turns his head to fix him with a calm stare.
“You mind?” he says quietly.
Brian holds up his hands in mock surrender, but doesn't move. “Sorry, man. I guess you didn't see me there.”
Shit. Dean slides off the table, feeling the familiar thrum of adrenaline in his veins. “Dude,” he starts, but Sam holds up a hand to stop him, and he hangs back.
“No, I didn't. You're blocking my shot.”
Brian's sporting a shit-eating grin. “My bad,” he says, and when Sam turns back to the table he makes a show of stepping back, deliberately jogging Sam's elbow as he makes his shot. “Sorry, man. I guess we're all having trouble watching where we're going tonight.”
“All right, that's it!” It takes less than a couple of seconds for Dean to have the fucker pressed up against the wall, pool cue jammed up against his Adam's apple. There's an angry film of red coating the entire bar. “Game's over, douchebag,” he snarls, enjoying the choking sounds coming from Brian's throat.
“Dean!” Sam is hauling on his elbow. “Dean, let it go. He's drunk, and it's not worth it. Come on.”
The next thing he knows, Sam has got both his arms locked behind him, dragging him away, and Brian is bent over, choking and snarling at him.
“This isn't over, asshole!”
*
It's the perfect ending to the kind of day Sam's been having. Not only did he not want to go anywhere near a bar or people tonight, he certainly didn't want to hustle a game of pool when he's not sure he can even hit the goddamned ball, and now Dean has gone and picked a fight with a bunch of losers who might actually be able to do some damage if they actually do come to blows. He figures they're getting off lucky when he drags Dean kicking and screaming into the cool night air, leaving a pretty generous tip on the bar as an apology to the bartender.
“What the fuck, Dean?”
Dean shakes it off, tugs his jacket back into place. “Fucker,” he mutters. “D'you see what he did?”
Sam huffs an exasperated breath. “No, Dean, I didn't see what he did. I think that was the point.”
“I should have ripped his spleen out past his tonsils,” Dean whips around and delivers a vicious kick to a nearby garbage can, and Sam rolls his eye toward the heavens, pleading for patience.
“I don't need you defending my honour, or whatever, Prince Charming. The guy was a drunken asswipe. We deal with people like him all the time. Come on, let's just get the car and go back to the motel. We'll pick up a six-pack and you can cool off somewhere there aren't pool tables.”
He hears the front door of the bar open and slam shut again, and from the way Dean stiffens and then relaxes into a casual defensive stance, all loose shoulders and bended knees, Sam knows that his earlier optimistic thought that they might be able to get out of here without a fight was just that -optimistic. He sighs.
“I'm assuming Brian is right behind me?” he asks quietly. Dean nods. “Alone?” Dean shakes his head. “Awesome. Next time I say I want to head back to the motel and do research, you're going to let me, got it?”
“Sure thing, Sammy.”
“It's Sam.” He turns toward the right, making sure to keep Brian and his friends in view. No sense in turning his blind side to them. Dean hasn't moved, but that doesn't mean he's not going to at any moment, and that means Sam has about three seconds to try and talk them out of this mess before things really turn nasty.
Brian is definitely drunk. Sam's not sure how he didn't see it earlier, but the smell of booze is rolling off him, and he's not exactly steady on his feet, but apparently having three buddies at his back is lending a little edge to the not-inconsiderable quantities of liquid courage he's already ingested.. “Hey, we never finished that game. You guys defaulted, which means we win. You're not trying to skip out on paying, are you?”
Sam steps in front of Dean, physically blocking him from going for Brian's throat. “Walk away, dude. You're trying to pick a fight, and you can't win this one. Trust me on this, you want to walk away.”
“Hear that, guys? Slick Rick here is trying to pussy out,” Brian steps forward, body language practically screaming belligerent drunkenness. His buddies don't seem to be spoiling for a fight nearly as badly, though, and Sam figures he can work with that. One of them shoves his hands in his pockets.
“Bri, you want to fight Special-Olympics guy there, you're on your own,” he calls out. “This ain't a fair fight.”
Dean is vibrating with indignation behind him, and Sam tries for one last-ditch attempt to save the situation. “Walk away,” he repeats. “I don't want trouble, and I certainly don't want to hurt you.”
He makes a point of standing straight, drawing himself up to his full height. He's not as muscled as Dean, but he's got a good five inches on Brian, and he's been trained to fight since he was eight years old. The only way Brian can win this is if he gets really, really lucky, and it looks like Brian's getting it, now, only it's too late to pull back without losing face.
“Fuck you!”
Brian lunges at him, and manages to clip him on the jaw even when Sam pulls back, and Sam has to hold up a hand to keep Dean from laying waste to the stupid, sorry son of a bitch.
“Dean, I got this.”
He's got Brian's measure, now, and even though he'd rather stick his hand in boiling oil than admit it to Dean, it actually feels kind of good to get into something he knows he can win. Dean is hanging back, ready to intervene if necessary, and it's kind of wrong how good that makes him feel, too. Better to get this over with. He shakes his head, clearing away the last of the stars sparking in his field of vision, and lets Brian come to him. He sees the first punch coming a mile away -predictably, Brian comes at him on his left side, but Brian's right-handed, and the swing is wide and clumsy, and it's ridiculously easy to grab him by the wrist, twist his arm behind him, and shove him up against the wall of the bar. Brian lets out a surprised grunt.
“Last chance, Brian,” he snarls into the guy's ear. “I'm letting go now, and you and your buddies are going to go back and finish your night in there. You try anything, all bets are off. I'm having a really shitty month, and I will hurt you. You understand me? Just give me a reason.”
Brian nods, gritting his teeth. Sam pulls back from the wall, shoves him away, and is completely unsurprised when Brian rounds on him and tries for another punch. He dodges the first blow, catches the follow-up with both hands, and snaps the asshole's wrist before shoving his face into the asphalt. Blood gushes from Brian's nose as it impacts with the ground, and he lets out a bloodcurdling shriek. Sam pushes a knee into the small of Brian's back as he gets to his feet, ignores the frightened looks he's getting from the other three men.
“You guys about done here? Or are we going to have a problem?”
“Nah, we're good,” the same one as before says. “Just let us get him. No problem, man.” They edge past him, grab their friend and drag him away, still moaning and cursing fluently.
He almost jumps out of his skin when Dean taps him on the shoulder. “Hey, Jet Li, you good now?”
Sam snorts, and suddenly the world goes quiet as the blood stops roaring in his ears. “Yeah, I'm good. Can we go?”
Dean thumps him on the arm, grinning. “Sure, dude, whatever you want.”
“If that were true, we wouldn't be here in the first place.” He cuffs Dean behind the head as they head toward the car, and to his credit, Dean lets him. “If we're getting that six-pack, you're buying.”
“Or what, you'll kick my ass?”
Sam slides into the passenger seat. “Damn straight.”
“I'd like to see you try.”
“Dude, I can do it blindfolded,” Sam ducks his head, trying to hide the grin on his face. “With one good eye? It'll be a cake walk.”
Dean stops short, hand poised above the ignition, and stares at him for a moment. Then he throws his head back with a bark of laughter.
After a moment, Sam joins in.