I Don't Trust Me (Supernatural, WIP, Chapter 1)
Title: I Don't Trust Me
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Gen
Characters: Sam, Dean
Word count: ~1200
Chapter: 1/? (WIP)
Disclaimer: I own nothing
Warnings: language, content: depression, eating disorder, OCD
Archive of Our Own link
Summary: A sort-of AU for Season 5 (starts at the end of 5.02) in which Sam's guilt about the events of Season 4 has him obsessively focused on self-discipline and self-control. Author's notes: This is probably going to be pretty long by the time it's finished; I'm hoping to update at least weekly. Feedback very welcome as I haven't written fanfic for years.
1.
"I know you don't trust me", Sam finds himself saying, "but I just realized something. I don't trust me either."
It's such a shameful confession that even the act of speaking the words gives him a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. Somehow, admitting his weakness so openly helps him recognize how painfully obvious it is. That whole year he'd spent kidding himself that he was somehow stronger, better, more powerful than anybody around him; that he could take care of things without Dean's co-operation; that it was Dean who had been weakened by those four months (forty years): well, it's now becoming pretty clear what an idiotic figure he must have cut. Jacked up on demon blood and Ruby's ego-boosting lies, he'd stumbled and fumbled and gorged his way along precisely the path she had set out. It's embarrassing to think how deluded he must have been, discounting Dean's objections as though his suspicion was a sign of stupidity. Dean isn't weak. He's never been weak. Sam, on the other hand, has always been a failure.
Dean sighs and looks out over the dark green silence of the forest to the side of the picnic spot where they've parked.
"I'm in no shape to be hunting," Sam says. "Maybe it's best if we just go our separate ways."
This isn't the first time they've been in this situation. Seven years earlier, Sam and his father had capped off a drawn-out battle about Sam's future with an argument Sam thought would be the last they'd ever have; and he'd turned on his heel, grabbed his duffel, and headed for California and a different kind of life. He hadn't stopped, on that occasion, to consult with Dean. He knew that leaving was a kind of betrayal: that although Dad had always placed a lot more trust in Dean, it still wasn't fair to abandon his brother to deal with Dad's grim silences and toughen-up attitude alone. Dad wasn't the enemy - not for Dean at least - but he wasn't quite an ally, either, critical rather than kind. Dean and Sam had spent a lot of their adolescence patching up one another's injuries in motel bathrooms after Dad had gone to bed, grimacing sympathetically across diner tables the next morning as they gritted their teeth and tried to hide the pain. If a wound didn't need stitches or involve a broken bone, Dad tended to dismiss it after a cursory glance. Complaining about it after that would earn you insults, or push-ups, or both. Leaving Dean alone with their father meant trading in this history of complicity and trust for a future he didn't yet know: gambling on normality and a life that he could control.
Of course, Sam had failed at that as well. When he'd started dreaming about Jess's fiery death, he'd simply shut his eyes and wished for it to go away; hoping idiotically that the monsters couldn't touch him if he kept on pretending really hard that they weren't real. It was the same kind of stubborn stupidity that had kept him ignoring every screaming sign to stop with which the universe had issued him since Dean had gone to Hell. "They don't understand," Ruby had told him - and he'd believed her. He could only imagine his father's scorn. There was that college-boy cleverness his Dad had always despised; the smug self-assurance that had him thinking he knew best, better than all the better people who'd told him he was going too far. Dean's horrified reaction to the demon blood had been only the last in a long line of shocked recoils. The angels. Chuck. Even Sam himself had known that it was wrong - or why had he resisted Ruby for so long? But no, despite it all he'd finally screwed his eyelids tight, carrying the whole of humanity along with him square into the path of destruction.
So much for Dean holding him back. He's been holding Dean back since 2005. And now, the damage done, his best hope at limiting what might follow is to cut himself loose, as cleanly as he can.
"I think you're right," Dean says. And just like that, it's over; four years of rediscovered codependency amputated like a limb. Sam feels as dizzy as if it were an arm or leg, rather than a brother, being lost. But he manages - this last time - to keep it together, smiling tightly and gratefully and hurrying away from Dean's conciliatory offer of the car. That itself makes him weak with self-disgust. Dean's baby and he's stoically offering it up to the no-good brother who's done nothing but let him down.
It's a relief when the first driver he approaches offers him the passenger seat and doesn't ask for an explanation. As the truck pulls away, Sam gazes blindly out of the window, shamed afresh by the contrast: Dean's capacity for self-denial against his own humiliating lack of control. He can't stop thinking about it for the rest of the six-hour journey. He's still thinking about it when, two days and three rides later, he unfolds himself onto the asphalt of some two-bit town in Oklahoma, checks into a motel and tries to imagine what might come next.
Last time Sam had to cope without Dean he'd sunk into self-destruction with barely a backward glance. Barely a week after that horrible night in New Harmony and he'd already lost all semblance of self-discipline, slipping fast and dirty into drinking and fucking around; staggering from bar to crossroads to swindling psychic's den, picking fights wherever he could so he'd hurt on the outside, too. No wonder Ruby had caught the opportunity. He was looking for something to binge on and she'd offered herself up on a plate.
So this time, sitting lonely on the bed of his motel room, Sam juts his chin and straightens his back, resolved. He will not let himself behave that way again.
No. This time things will be different. More like Stanford, where he'd spent the whole first year working every hour of every day; fuelled by the furious, desperate desire to quiet the guilty voice in his head. More like, even, the lost six months after Broward County. OK, so that hadn’t exactly been pretty: he can still feel the horrible prickle of that pause before the Bobby he had stabbed to death dissolved to reveal the Trickster. But he’d taken that risk because he had a mission: to get Dean back, or destroy the monster that had taken him. This time, the only monster Sam needs to punish is himself.
Sam goes to bed hungry. He hasn’t eaten since he left Dean. That’s what it’s all about, right? Self-control. So the twist of his stomach feels like a sign that he’s starting to get things right.
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Gen
Characters: Sam, Dean
Word count: ~1200
Chapter: 1/? (WIP)
Disclaimer: I own nothing
Warnings: language, content: depression, eating disorder, OCD
Archive of Our Own link
Summary: A sort-of AU for Season 5 (starts at the end of 5.02) in which Sam's guilt about the events of Season 4 has him obsessively focused on self-discipline and self-control. Author's notes: This is probably going to be pretty long by the time it's finished; I'm hoping to update at least weekly. Feedback very welcome as I haven't written fanfic for years.
1.
"I know you don't trust me", Sam finds himself saying, "but I just realized something. I don't trust me either."
It's such a shameful confession that even the act of speaking the words gives him a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. Somehow, admitting his weakness so openly helps him recognize how painfully obvious it is. That whole year he'd spent kidding himself that he was somehow stronger, better, more powerful than anybody around him; that he could take care of things without Dean's co-operation; that it was Dean who had been weakened by those four months (forty years): well, it's now becoming pretty clear what an idiotic figure he must have cut. Jacked up on demon blood and Ruby's ego-boosting lies, he'd stumbled and fumbled and gorged his way along precisely the path she had set out. It's embarrassing to think how deluded he must have been, discounting Dean's objections as though his suspicion was a sign of stupidity. Dean isn't weak. He's never been weak. Sam, on the other hand, has always been a failure.
Dean sighs and looks out over the dark green silence of the forest to the side of the picnic spot where they've parked.
"I'm in no shape to be hunting," Sam says. "Maybe it's best if we just go our separate ways."
This isn't the first time they've been in this situation. Seven years earlier, Sam and his father had capped off a drawn-out battle about Sam's future with an argument Sam thought would be the last they'd ever have; and he'd turned on his heel, grabbed his duffel, and headed for California and a different kind of life. He hadn't stopped, on that occasion, to consult with Dean. He knew that leaving was a kind of betrayal: that although Dad had always placed a lot more trust in Dean, it still wasn't fair to abandon his brother to deal with Dad's grim silences and toughen-up attitude alone. Dad wasn't the enemy - not for Dean at least - but he wasn't quite an ally, either, critical rather than kind. Dean and Sam had spent a lot of their adolescence patching up one another's injuries in motel bathrooms after Dad had gone to bed, grimacing sympathetically across diner tables the next morning as they gritted their teeth and tried to hide the pain. If a wound didn't need stitches or involve a broken bone, Dad tended to dismiss it after a cursory glance. Complaining about it after that would earn you insults, or push-ups, or both. Leaving Dean alone with their father meant trading in this history of complicity and trust for a future he didn't yet know: gambling on normality and a life that he could control.
Of course, Sam had failed at that as well. When he'd started dreaming about Jess's fiery death, he'd simply shut his eyes and wished for it to go away; hoping idiotically that the monsters couldn't touch him if he kept on pretending really hard that they weren't real. It was the same kind of stubborn stupidity that had kept him ignoring every screaming sign to stop with which the universe had issued him since Dean had gone to Hell. "They don't understand," Ruby had told him - and he'd believed her. He could only imagine his father's scorn. There was that college-boy cleverness his Dad had always despised; the smug self-assurance that had him thinking he knew best, better than all the better people who'd told him he was going too far. Dean's horrified reaction to the demon blood had been only the last in a long line of shocked recoils. The angels. Chuck. Even Sam himself had known that it was wrong - or why had he resisted Ruby for so long? But no, despite it all he'd finally screwed his eyelids tight, carrying the whole of humanity along with him square into the path of destruction.
So much for Dean holding him back. He's been holding Dean back since 2005. And now, the damage done, his best hope at limiting what might follow is to cut himself loose, as cleanly as he can.
"I think you're right," Dean says. And just like that, it's over; four years of rediscovered codependency amputated like a limb. Sam feels as dizzy as if it were an arm or leg, rather than a brother, being lost. But he manages - this last time - to keep it together, smiling tightly and gratefully and hurrying away from Dean's conciliatory offer of the car. That itself makes him weak with self-disgust. Dean's baby and he's stoically offering it up to the no-good brother who's done nothing but let him down.
It's a relief when the first driver he approaches offers him the passenger seat and doesn't ask for an explanation. As the truck pulls away, Sam gazes blindly out of the window, shamed afresh by the contrast: Dean's capacity for self-denial against his own humiliating lack of control. He can't stop thinking about it for the rest of the six-hour journey. He's still thinking about it when, two days and three rides later, he unfolds himself onto the asphalt of some two-bit town in Oklahoma, checks into a motel and tries to imagine what might come next.
Last time Sam had to cope without Dean he'd sunk into self-destruction with barely a backward glance. Barely a week after that horrible night in New Harmony and he'd already lost all semblance of self-discipline, slipping fast and dirty into drinking and fucking around; staggering from bar to crossroads to swindling psychic's den, picking fights wherever he could so he'd hurt on the outside, too. No wonder Ruby had caught the opportunity. He was looking for something to binge on and she'd offered herself up on a plate.
So this time, sitting lonely on the bed of his motel room, Sam juts his chin and straightens his back, resolved. He will not let himself behave that way again.
No. This time things will be different. More like Stanford, where he'd spent the whole first year working every hour of every day; fuelled by the furious, desperate desire to quiet the guilty voice in his head. More like, even, the lost six months after Broward County. OK, so that hadn’t exactly been pretty: he can still feel the horrible prickle of that pause before the Bobby he had stabbed to death dissolved to reveal the Trickster. But he’d taken that risk because he had a mission: to get Dean back, or destroy the monster that had taken him. This time, the only monster Sam needs to punish is himself.
Sam goes to bed hungry. He hasn’t eaten since he left Dean. That’s what it’s all about, right? Self-control. So the twist of his stomach feels like a sign that he’s starting to get things right.