Fanfic: Mummy
Author:
sandymg Beta:
borgmama1of5 Summary: Head wounds sucked. Bloody disgusting messes. Drunk head wounds … Yeah.
Spoilers: Set in Season 1
Wordcount: 1,188 One-shot
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Characters: Sam, Dean
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural or any of its characters. They belong to the CW and Eric Kripke - who'd best treat them well
Mummy
There were a bunch of things they never spoke about. Sam leaving for Stanford was one, two and three on the list. So, Dean sprawled out on the bed, head waving around like an overgrown puppy murmuring, “I missed you, Sammy” was never going to end well. In the best case, it wouldn’t be remembered, worst case, Dean’d insist Sam answer something back.
Head wounds sucked. Bloody disgusting messes. Drunk head wounds …
Yeah.
“Dean, you need to drink this water.” He ignored his brother’s words and tried to get him to focus on the bottle of water in his hand.
“Dad cried.”
Sam flinched. This wasn’t going to end well. Never did. And how the fuck did Dean manage to always surprise him with a new one? Of course, their father crying could be about anything if it was even true.
Lifting the water up to Dean’s lips he tried to force the hydration issue. Heading to a bar wrapped up like the mummy was not Dean’s brightest idea. Sam still didn’t know what it was about this job that had gotten to Dean. A kid was involved and that always made it harder. But it all worked out … well, not counting his brother’s noggin gushing blood, although that wasn’t all that rare either. And head wounds tended to look worse than they were. But drinking after? That was about as dumb as …
“He didn’t know.”
“Know what Dean?” He shifted the water back to his brother’s lips. “Drink this.”
Dean took another sip. “Heard him. Was hidin’ it but I knew. Always knew, like after Mom …”
Sam fought another shudder. Dean was talking about when their mom was killed. Another one of those things they never spoke about. He tried to remember if he’d ever seen their father cry. The answer was no. He’d seen Dean cry, more times than he wanted to remember. Idiot tried to hide it, too. The only advantage of being the youngest Winchester was that he at least got to cry when needed. He looked at his bandaged brother on the bed. So many of Sam’s tears revolved around Dean.
Whatever had Dean talking like this had to be related to the hunt. But it was just a nasty spirit. Yeah, it ran into Dean and he’d fallen and cut his head but this happened lots of times. He stopped because it was obvious and the fact that he’d not seen it immediately made him feel dumber than dumb. The little floppy-haired boy.
“Dad was drinking,” Dean added to his tale. “Didn’t know it then. But he was.”
Sam didn’t want to hear this. Would they cover everything they never spoke about in one damn night?
Dean took another sip of water unaided and Sam thought that was good. Earlier he’d felt around his brother’s head for a bump but there wasn’t one, so at least Dean didn’t have a concussion. Because drinking with a concussion could get you dead. No, this was just a fairly shallow cut that bled like a mother and took a whole lot of bandages.
“Kept calling ‘Mary.’”
Sam was surprised because he thought they’d been talking about when he’d left for school and now it … “Do you mean right after … Mom died.”
Dean nodded and sipped again. His eyes were shut as he sat propped on the bed. The bartender had called him to pick Dean up. Which was good because Sam’d been circling for hours trying every damn bar in the area and fighting panic that he’d missed something … that the head injury was worse than he’d thought and that Dean was lying face down on a cracked sidewalk somewhere.
“You remember that, Dean?” His brother’d been only four. Sam thought back, tried to remember his own memories of being four, couldn’t think of much. But then again he hadn’t seen …
“We were in someone’s house, don’t know who. Dad pulled me to him. Squeezed really hard. Never seen him cry before. Scared me. He called for Mom. Called for god. And then you started to cry.”
Sam’s chest constricted like someone was grabbing and twisting. He distracted himself by studying the mummy wrap around Dean’s forehead - it looked gray. He walked away and rummaged in the first aid kit to find some fresh gauze to replace it. Wouldn’t do to let it get infected. Returning to where Dean groggily sat, Sam slowly started to pull the old bandage off. It tugged a bit where the dried blood made it sticky and Dean winced coming alert again. Sam’s heart tightened but he kept going.
“Nobody went to you. I mean, whenever you cried someone always went … Mom or Dad … but you kept crying.”
Images started to blend. The boy in the graveyard had cried at first. Sam kept at his bandaging task, this was important, had to keep it clean. He didn’t say anything because he really wanted Dean to stop talking. Wanted that no-chick-flick-moments rule back in place and fought the urge to remind his brother about his own words … except, this was his life. And he didn’t know this. And Dean did. And somehow that just wasn’t right.
“What happened, Dean?” he asked finally.
“I tried to get to you, Sammy.”
Sam looked down and Dean was looking at him now and he knew if he looked at those bleary green eyes one second longer he’d lose it, start to fucking cry like a girl, so he shut his eyes and automatically kept wrapping.
“Dad wouldn’t let me go. Scared me. But I couldn’t let you cry like that so I pulled away and … I guess it worked because I went to your crib and climbed up like I always did and you stopped.”
Sam met Dean’s eyes again. “I stopped?”
Dean’s lips curved up in the corners. “Smiled at me.”
And it all made sense. The boy in the graveyard had also stopped crying right after Dean appeared. The boy’d looked at Dean like now it was all better and it threw Dean off his game so when the kid tackled Dean’s legs they both went flying into a nearby footstone. Sam’d reacted quick and finished salting the small bones, dropped the match and the ghostly child vanished.
Sam bit back his tears and met his brother’s smile with one of his own. “How could I not smile looking at your weird mug?”
He finished tying off the bandage, tucking the loose end under neatly. “Mummy,” he added, taking a step back.
Dean’s eyes closed again, the evening’s events and the night’s binge finally getting to him. “Freak.”
Sam smiled again even though this time nobody saw it.
fin