Sam Wasn't Born (He Was Just Dropped Into Your Arms)
Title: Sam Wasn't Born (He Was Just Dropped Into Your Arms)
Summary: John Winchester wasn't exactly a monk. Sam is 17 here.
Warnings/Spoilers: Pshh, nothin'.
Wordcount: 2,099
Author's Note: I'm hard at work on the pilot and on more Season 5 stuff, but I'm busy the next few days (fuuuuck ohsam fills and fuuuck homework) so here's something small I had written already. Sam POV! Title is from one of my favorite songs, "Bookworm" by Margot and the Nuclear So and So's, which contains these fantastic lines:
And you couldn't breathe with all those doctors at your side
But you're talking to me, saying 'I wish that I had died,'
'cause I'm being crowded, crushed in your hands
Dean's in Reno and Sam didn't get to come because Sam never gets to have any fun ("because you're seventeen years old, Sammy, you think I'm dragging your underage ass around? There's not a fake ID in the world that'll cover that baby face") so he's in Asshole of the Earth, New Jersey trying not to sneeze his way through the dustiest hunt of his life, thank you, John, thank you very much.
Poltergeist fucked his knee up, too, so he's in the backseat rubbing his eyes and sneezing himself breathless and wincing over every speed bump.
"Almost back, Sammy."
Lately it pisses him off when John calls him Sammy.
And doesn't that just suck.
**
But he loves his dad, seriously, and he lets himself rest against his shoulder when John carries him inside because he's hurt and he's wheezy and he wants this.
"All right. Pants off. Let's have a look at this thing."
Sam unzips but lets John do the rest, sniffling and pushing his head back against pillows. "I'm not crying."
"I know."
"It's allergies," he says, and he sneezes hard like he has something to prove.
"I know. I'll get you a washcloth to get your face clean."
Sam wants a fucking shower, but one look at his knee once his pants are off and it's clear that's not going to happen. It's twice as big as the other one already, purple, and there's even some blood, that's unnecessary, thanks, knee.
"Shit," John says. "How's the pain?"
"About as bad as it looks," Sam says, which isn't useless bitching, because if there's one thing he's learned on hunts is that's that injuries can hurt three ways: less, equal to, or more than they look like they should. This one's equal, which is their favorite because it means he's not shocked out of feeling anything.
John leaves him for a minute to get ice and whiskey and a washcloth and Sam looks at his phone in his pants pocket, just out of arm's reach, and frowns.
"Want to call Dean," he says, biting back a groan while John wraps his knee tightly.
John tosses him the phone and pours Sam a few shots.
Dean doesn't answer because Dean is presumably out getting laid, and honestly it might be a blessing because Sam's chest is getting too tight to talk. He should tell his dad, he knows that, but he wants to save his breath and he's sleepy already from the whiskey and John should know, anyway, that an injury and a face full of dust is more than enough to give him an asthma attack. John will fix it. John knows.
John drinks on the bed next to him and rubs his hand over his mouth and Sam bites back wheezing because it's loud, keeping him awake, and he wants to sleep.
So he sleeps.
**
Amazingly, the attack evens out and he sleeps through the night. He wakes up breathless and heavy-chested but just uncomfortable bad, not scary bad. He looks longingly at his nebulizer across the room and his inhaler in the bathroom (whyyyy inhaler whyyy) and then at his fucked up knee, and that's when he realizes that John isn't here, and following that is the horrible knowledge that he's going to have to call his dad and get him to get him his medicine like he's twelve fucking years old.
John picks up quickly, so at least he has that going on.
"Sammy. How's the knee?"
Yeah, he doesn't have the air for this small talk (and when he doesn't have the air, everything that's not asthma counts as small talk). "Can't breathe, come back."
"On my way."
**
It takes ten minutes and by the end of it Sam is miserable, near tears, scary bad, I-want-Dean bad, and he lies very still while John sets up the nebulizer and whispers "shhh shh shhh it's okay Sammy it's okay"s.
And then he has the mouthpiece between his lips, and he's breathing too fast, he knows that, but he needs all the medicine right the hell now, fuck, his knee hurts.
It takes five minutes before he breathes enough and cares enough to nod at the woman lurking by the door and wheeze out, "Who the fuck's that?"
"She's going to take a look at your knee."
Except Sam's knee isn't that bad.
So what that really means is, she's going to let me fuck her in the Impala.
Fuck his baby face, what he wouldn't give to be in Reno.
**
The peroxide-blonde nurse pokes at his knee for a while, thank you very much, lady, and up close Sam can see that she's young enough to sleep with Dean. Fantastic.
"Chest feeling better?" John asks, gently.
It is, but better is a relative term, and Sam still thinks his chances of curling up and dying are better than his chances of breathing like this for the rest of his fucking life, and he hates when he gets in this place, he really does. He's supposed to be Dean's happy little sick kid. That's his job.
He just wishes his job were something easier.
John gives his back a quick rub and leaves with his trick, and Sam closes his eyes and hates his knee and dreams about libraries and term papers and sorority girls.
He doesn't need a different job (the truth is that there isn't a choice, he will be Dean's happy little sick kid until the day he dies and that is perfectly fine with him) he just needs another one.
One that isn't fighting monsters.
He's seventeen and so fucking tired.
**
He's still feeling crappy when John gets back, but he's able to gimp around on the leg now a little, so he watches TV and boots up his laptop and gathers air to call Dean.
"Hey hey hey hey heyyyy little brother!" and isn't it a little early to be drinking?
"Hey."
And he's immediately sober. "What's wrong?"
Sam's so fucking close, and not even by choice, to just bursting into tears and letting that speak for him. "Fucked up my knee. Chest hurts. Can't breathe."
"Where's Dad?"
"Some skank."
"Hmmm."
And then Sam is crying, and he can't help it, it just hurts so fucking much and he feels like he's dying, dying from a goddamn poltergeist, shit, and it just hurts so much. He's not going to die from not breathing; he's going to die from how badly he wants to breathe.
"Oh, Sammy. Shh shh shh."
He can barely hear Dean over his own breathing. "He left me alone to fight this."
"What?"
"You and me. We're fighting his fucking battle. He's fucking someone else and we're fighting for Mom."
"It's not that simple."
"I'm killing myself for Mom. I can't fucking breathe for Mom and what the fuck has he given up?"
"Sammy."
"I can't do this, Dean. I can't breathe."
"Stop crying. I mean it."
"I can't keep doing this. I can't hunt forever or my forever is going to be really goddamn short."
"Sam. We'll talk about this when I get back. I'll leave tonight, okay?"
"I have to get out. I have to get out." He's so dizzy. He's sitting down. How is he dizzy?
"Hang up. I'm calling Dad."
"Dad's busy," Sam says. "Dad gets to move on and we never do."
**
John comes back and smells like sex and rum at one in the afternoon and he rubs circles on his back and tells him "shh shh shh" and people have fucking got to stop shushing him when he doesn't have the air to talk.
"Feel sick, Dad."
The rubbing gets a little rougher. That's good. "What can I do?"
"Neb. I don't know. Shit."
The mouthpiece is in his hand before he knows it. He's confused and grateful and scared.
He lies on his side and drinks medicine and lets John stroke his hair and apologize even though doesn't fucking want to hear it, he doesn't want to hear anything besides the quiet little wheeze that he accepts (what the fuck other choice does he have, dirty motel rooms and too much running) and the heavy sound of Dean's boots.
"Feeling sick."
"Let's sit you up a little."
"No. Please."
"Right against me. It'll be okay."
Sitting up makes his knee hurt, and his knee hurting makes him teary, and being teary makes his chest ache and God, it just hurts too much today, and John smells like cheap perfume and not like John.
Sam cries and wheezes things that aren't words into his shoulder.
**
He wakes up better.
Not a hundred percent, not even his usual fraction of a hundred percent, whatever that is, but better.
John looks up from his journal and says, "Hey there, buddy, any easier over there? Your brother's been worried."
Sam looks around, but Dean isn't here.
"On the phone," John says. "We'll see him tomorrow night if you're feeling well enough to meet him halfway."
He's feeling worse already, goddamn it. "Chest is heavy."
John gets up and starts setting up the neb again. It's just all the fucking time, setting it up over and over. Over and over and over.
"You shouldn't have left me," Sam says, before he can think about it.
John turns around and raises an eyebrow but doesn't stop working.
"Sir," Sam adds.
"I didn't know you felt that bad. You could have told me."
"I was wheezing too hard to tell you, and I didn't want to make a scene in front of your whoeverthefuck of the month."
And now he stops. "You're out of line, Sam."
"What line? You want to tell me what fucking line, Dad? You want to remind me what you fucking want from me, here?"
"Sam. You're a great hunter, and I--"
"I'm not a great hunter, Jesus, I'm just one of the only two who's going on a long with your fucking revenge plot. I can't goddamn breathe, Dad. I'm not a good hunter. I'm not good at anything. I'm not good...for anything."
John softens and says, "Sammy," and that look is pity and that name is Dean's and no no no.
He presses his hand to his chest. "I can't do this. I'm won't do this. I'm too sick to hunt and you can't fucking make me. I'll call social goddamn services and you'll never see me again."
John stiffens. "Jesus Christ, Sam."
"Do my goddamn--" Sam waves towards the nebulizer but no, fuck this, he's doing it himself. He winces his way over to the dresser and pushes John away. "Move."
He unscrews the vials and John puts his hand on his shoulder and he shakes him off. Too many hands, he can't breathe.
And then John's voice is stern. "Sammy. What happened to your mother--"
"She wasn't my fucking mother! I never even goddamn met her!"
And then he's slapped across the face so hard he sees spots.
And them John shoves him onto the bed--God fucking Christ his knee--and sets up the nebulizer and doesn't make a sound.
**
John has hit him exactly once before.
He was twelve years old, being some mouthy little kid, and John was hurt and agitated and fighting useless hunt after useless hunt and Sam said something bitchy, fuck if he remembers, and John backhanded him.
What he does remember is Dean, silent and still, disappearing an hour later and leaving John to hold ice on Sam's cheek.
What he does remember is pretending to be asleep when Dean came in roaring drunk and pointed at John and said, in a voice Sam had never heard, "You ever hit my baby again, I will take him so far away and you will never find us."
(What he does remember is never being allowed to sleep in Dean's bed after that night.)
**
They're in the car, ready to meet Dean halfway, and they haven't spoken to each other in twenty-four hours.
Sam's cheek is fine and his breathing's better and he's leaning against the window with his leg stretched out, foot in John's lap.
"I won't tell Dean you hit me," he says.
John blinks and says, "In exchange for what?"
"I'm applying for scholarships. Fucking deal with it."
**
In the diner bathroom, he walks in on John crying.
Sam says, "I love you, you know?"
John gathers him up and kisses the cheek that he hit.
Sam clings and pretends he will forever, just for a minute.
Summary: John Winchester wasn't exactly a monk. Sam is 17 here.
Warnings/Spoilers: Pshh, nothin'.
Wordcount: 2,099
Author's Note: I'm hard at work on the pilot and on more Season 5 stuff, but I'm busy the next few days (fuuuuck ohsam fills and fuuuck homework) so here's something small I had written already. Sam POV! Title is from one of my favorite songs, "Bookworm" by Margot and the Nuclear So and So's, which contains these fantastic lines:
And you couldn't breathe with all those doctors at your side
But you're talking to me, saying 'I wish that I had died,'
'cause I'm being crowded, crushed in your hands
Dean's in Reno and Sam didn't get to come because Sam never gets to have any fun ("because you're seventeen years old, Sammy, you think I'm dragging your underage ass around? There's not a fake ID in the world that'll cover that baby face") so he's in Asshole of the Earth, New Jersey trying not to sneeze his way through the dustiest hunt of his life, thank you, John, thank you very much.
Poltergeist fucked his knee up, too, so he's in the backseat rubbing his eyes and sneezing himself breathless and wincing over every speed bump.
"Almost back, Sammy."
Lately it pisses him off when John calls him Sammy.
And doesn't that just suck.
**
But he loves his dad, seriously, and he lets himself rest against his shoulder when John carries him inside because he's hurt and he's wheezy and he wants this.
"All right. Pants off. Let's have a look at this thing."
Sam unzips but lets John do the rest, sniffling and pushing his head back against pillows. "I'm not crying."
"I know."
"It's allergies," he says, and he sneezes hard like he has something to prove.
"I know. I'll get you a washcloth to get your face clean."
Sam wants a fucking shower, but one look at his knee once his pants are off and it's clear that's not going to happen. It's twice as big as the other one already, purple, and there's even some blood, that's unnecessary, thanks, knee.
"Shit," John says. "How's the pain?"
"About as bad as it looks," Sam says, which isn't useless bitching, because if there's one thing he's learned on hunts is that's that injuries can hurt three ways: less, equal to, or more than they look like they should. This one's equal, which is their favorite because it means he's not shocked out of feeling anything.
John leaves him for a minute to get ice and whiskey and a washcloth and Sam looks at his phone in his pants pocket, just out of arm's reach, and frowns.
"Want to call Dean," he says, biting back a groan while John wraps his knee tightly.
John tosses him the phone and pours Sam a few shots.
Dean doesn't answer because Dean is presumably out getting laid, and honestly it might be a blessing because Sam's chest is getting too tight to talk. He should tell his dad, he knows that, but he wants to save his breath and he's sleepy already from the whiskey and John should know, anyway, that an injury and a face full of dust is more than enough to give him an asthma attack. John will fix it. John knows.
John drinks on the bed next to him and rubs his hand over his mouth and Sam bites back wheezing because it's loud, keeping him awake, and he wants to sleep.
So he sleeps.
**
Amazingly, the attack evens out and he sleeps through the night. He wakes up breathless and heavy-chested but just uncomfortable bad, not scary bad. He looks longingly at his nebulizer across the room and his inhaler in the bathroom (whyyyy inhaler whyyy) and then at his fucked up knee, and that's when he realizes that John isn't here, and following that is the horrible knowledge that he's going to have to call his dad and get him to get him his medicine like he's twelve fucking years old.
John picks up quickly, so at least he has that going on.
"Sammy. How's the knee?"
Yeah, he doesn't have the air for this small talk (and when he doesn't have the air, everything that's not asthma counts as small talk). "Can't breathe, come back."
"On my way."
**
It takes ten minutes and by the end of it Sam is miserable, near tears, scary bad, I-want-Dean bad, and he lies very still while John sets up the nebulizer and whispers "shhh shh shhh it's okay Sammy it's okay"s.
And then he has the mouthpiece between his lips, and he's breathing too fast, he knows that, but he needs all the medicine right the hell now, fuck, his knee hurts.
It takes five minutes before he breathes enough and cares enough to nod at the woman lurking by the door and wheeze out, "Who the fuck's that?"
"She's going to take a look at your knee."
Except Sam's knee isn't that bad.
So what that really means is, she's going to let me fuck her in the Impala.
Fuck his baby face, what he wouldn't give to be in Reno.
**
The peroxide-blonde nurse pokes at his knee for a while, thank you very much, lady, and up close Sam can see that she's young enough to sleep with Dean. Fantastic.
"Chest feeling better?" John asks, gently.
It is, but better is a relative term, and Sam still thinks his chances of curling up and dying are better than his chances of breathing like this for the rest of his fucking life, and he hates when he gets in this place, he really does. He's supposed to be Dean's happy little sick kid. That's his job.
He just wishes his job were something easier.
John gives his back a quick rub and leaves with his trick, and Sam closes his eyes and hates his knee and dreams about libraries and term papers and sorority girls.
He doesn't need a different job (the truth is that there isn't a choice, he will be Dean's happy little sick kid until the day he dies and that is perfectly fine with him) he just needs another one.
One that isn't fighting monsters.
He's seventeen and so fucking tired.
**
He's still feeling crappy when John gets back, but he's able to gimp around on the leg now a little, so he watches TV and boots up his laptop and gathers air to call Dean.
"Hey hey hey hey heyyyy little brother!" and isn't it a little early to be drinking?
"Hey."
And he's immediately sober. "What's wrong?"
Sam's so fucking close, and not even by choice, to just bursting into tears and letting that speak for him. "Fucked up my knee. Chest hurts. Can't breathe."
"Where's Dad?"
"Some skank."
"Hmmm."
And then Sam is crying, and he can't help it, it just hurts so fucking much and he feels like he's dying, dying from a goddamn poltergeist, shit, and it just hurts so much. He's not going to die from not breathing; he's going to die from how badly he wants to breathe.
"Oh, Sammy. Shh shh shh."
He can barely hear Dean over his own breathing. "He left me alone to fight this."
"What?"
"You and me. We're fighting his fucking battle. He's fucking someone else and we're fighting for Mom."
"It's not that simple."
"I'm killing myself for Mom. I can't fucking breathe for Mom and what the fuck has he given up?"
"Sammy."
"I can't do this, Dean. I can't breathe."
"Stop crying. I mean it."
"I can't keep doing this. I can't hunt forever or my forever is going to be really goddamn short."
"Sam. We'll talk about this when I get back. I'll leave tonight, okay?"
"I have to get out. I have to get out." He's so dizzy. He's sitting down. How is he dizzy?
"Hang up. I'm calling Dad."
"Dad's busy," Sam says. "Dad gets to move on and we never do."
**
John comes back and smells like sex and rum at one in the afternoon and he rubs circles on his back and tells him "shh shh shh" and people have fucking got to stop shushing him when he doesn't have the air to talk.
"Feel sick, Dad."
The rubbing gets a little rougher. That's good. "What can I do?"
"Neb. I don't know. Shit."
The mouthpiece is in his hand before he knows it. He's confused and grateful and scared.
He lies on his side and drinks medicine and lets John stroke his hair and apologize even though doesn't fucking want to hear it, he doesn't want to hear anything besides the quiet little wheeze that he accepts (what the fuck other choice does he have, dirty motel rooms and too much running) and the heavy sound of Dean's boots.
"Feeling sick."
"Let's sit you up a little."
"No. Please."
"Right against me. It'll be okay."
Sitting up makes his knee hurt, and his knee hurting makes him teary, and being teary makes his chest ache and God, it just hurts too much today, and John smells like cheap perfume and not like John.
Sam cries and wheezes things that aren't words into his shoulder.
**
He wakes up better.
Not a hundred percent, not even his usual fraction of a hundred percent, whatever that is, but better.
John looks up from his journal and says, "Hey there, buddy, any easier over there? Your brother's been worried."
Sam looks around, but Dean isn't here.
"On the phone," John says. "We'll see him tomorrow night if you're feeling well enough to meet him halfway."
He's feeling worse already, goddamn it. "Chest is heavy."
John gets up and starts setting up the neb again. It's just all the fucking time, setting it up over and over. Over and over and over.
"You shouldn't have left me," Sam says, before he can think about it.
John turns around and raises an eyebrow but doesn't stop working.
"Sir," Sam adds.
"I didn't know you felt that bad. You could have told me."
"I was wheezing too hard to tell you, and I didn't want to make a scene in front of your whoeverthefuck of the month."
And now he stops. "You're out of line, Sam."
"What line? You want to tell me what fucking line, Dad? You want to remind me what you fucking want from me, here?"
"Sam. You're a great hunter, and I--"
"I'm not a great hunter, Jesus, I'm just one of the only two who's going on a long with your fucking revenge plot. I can't goddamn breathe, Dad. I'm not a good hunter. I'm not good at anything. I'm not good...for anything."
John softens and says, "Sammy," and that look is pity and that name is Dean's and no no no.
He presses his hand to his chest. "I can't do this. I'm won't do this. I'm too sick to hunt and you can't fucking make me. I'll call social goddamn services and you'll never see me again."
John stiffens. "Jesus Christ, Sam."
"Do my goddamn--" Sam waves towards the nebulizer but no, fuck this, he's doing it himself. He winces his way over to the dresser and pushes John away. "Move."
He unscrews the vials and John puts his hand on his shoulder and he shakes him off. Too many hands, he can't breathe.
And then John's voice is stern. "Sammy. What happened to your mother--"
"She wasn't my fucking mother! I never even goddamn met her!"
And then he's slapped across the face so hard he sees spots.
And them John shoves him onto the bed--God fucking Christ his knee--and sets up the nebulizer and doesn't make a sound.
**
John has hit him exactly once before.
He was twelve years old, being some mouthy little kid, and John was hurt and agitated and fighting useless hunt after useless hunt and Sam said something bitchy, fuck if he remembers, and John backhanded him.
What he does remember is Dean, silent and still, disappearing an hour later and leaving John to hold ice on Sam's cheek.
What he does remember is pretending to be asleep when Dean came in roaring drunk and pointed at John and said, in a voice Sam had never heard, "You ever hit my baby again, I will take him so far away and you will never find us."
(What he does remember is never being allowed to sleep in Dean's bed after that night.)
**
They're in the car, ready to meet Dean halfway, and they haven't spoken to each other in twenty-four hours.
Sam's cheek is fine and his breathing's better and he's leaning against the window with his leg stretched out, foot in John's lap.
"I won't tell Dean you hit me," he says.
John blinks and says, "In exchange for what?"
"I'm applying for scholarships. Fucking deal with it."
**
In the diner bathroom, he walks in on John crying.
Sam says, "I love you, you know?"
John gathers him up and kisses the cheek that he hit.
Sam clings and pretends he will forever, just for a minute.