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Sam preened. There was a buck in his walk, a skip that challenged decades of abuse at the hands of Chuck. Now, not only did he have a home, he had someone to teach. A (literal) fledgling asking question after question, learning his every movement, and if he thought a little less of himself, this might have given him an existential crisis. At the moment, he was carrying an extra box of ammo to the range to meet with Jack. He’d picked his favorite gun from among their antiques. A heavy revolver with runes etched on the grip. Jack liked pretty guns just like Dean.
“Uncle Sam!” Good lord, could those words melt his heart. Sam got the jitters, smile broad as he stepped over to Jack’s spot. He set the bullets down and the kid brushed arms with him, about as close as Winchesters could get.
“How’s it look, sport?”
Sport. You called a nephilim “sport.” This is great.
“It doesn’t!” Jack replied, “It doesn’t have eyes!” Sam looked to the paper villain hanging at the end of the range and his eyes bugged out. Two perfect holes had scraped out a gaping black gaze from the background of the wall. The paper fluttered fearfully in a breeze wedging through the door.
“Excellent,” he breathed, regaining himself, “That’s really good, Jack. Well done.”
Jack’s smile faltered. Sam watched him struggle and fail at neutrality.
“What’s wrong, Jack? You can tell me anything.” Jack’s eyes brightened and he looked up, way up, meeting Sam’s gaze with conflicted relief,
“I’m concerned about… Dean.”
Sam’s attention entered overdrive but he maintained, carefully pressing,
“Oh?”
“Sometimes I hear him and, he, he sounds in pain. It’s only after everyone’s gone to bed, occasionally he’ll wander, or, or he’ll lock himself in his room, I hear him and, I think… my father,” his cheeks flushed happily at the word, “has tried to help him at times.”
Sam pictured his brother’s drunken crying but relaxed at Cas’ name. He ignored the steady hiss of unease at the back of his mind in favor of supporting Jack. Jack did not need theories to accompany his fear.
“His help doesn’t seem effective. I also hear him,” Sam’s brain switched to block everything out of its own volition, but his curiosity bested its attempts to shut down. “He sounds in even greater pain. I never heard his voice so high, almost a scream.”
Nope nope nope
“I know the treatment must be working because even at its most painful, my father will encourage him, More, right there, and the like. I just wish it didn’t hurt them.” His fingers flexed around the gun, brow furrowed at his target.
“You don’t need to worry about them,” Sam offered blandly, reeling in his head at the two sex fiends lurking in their home. His bitch face was activated and he struggled not to point it at Jack, “They’re, uhh, helping each other. Just take the ear plugs from the range for when you go to bed.”
Jack glanced up questioningly, “Really? That’s all? I shouldn’t go help?”
“NO.” Sam’s voice boomed in the concrete hall. Jack’s eyes went wide as Sam backpedaled, “You leave them alone. They’ve uh… they’ve got a handle on it.” He winced, “They’re fine. Just leave them be.”
“But what is it they’re doing? Dean never limps,” Sam wanted to scream at his choice of words, “but,” he blanched, horror overtaking his features. Sam could relate, “sometimes when my father exits his room, he, well angels don’t, but, he’s the one that limps. It’s awful!”
Sam took a moment to smack his forehead on a concrete pillar. It was a good moment. The best he’d had all day.
“Is his power draining? Could it be my fault, I know I’m new I just wondered--”
“It’s not your fault, Jack.”
“But angels do not limp! ”
Sam shut off. His mouth moved without meaning, without direction from his brain. It was an unfiltered connection to his subconscious,
“Not unless they want to.”
Jack reeled back, confused, “Why would he want to hurt?”
Breathe. Breathe. And Shut up.
“Dean and Cas… care… for each other. Sometimes Cas will… take Dean’s frustration, and… carry it. For awhile. And I’m sure sometimes Dean… carries Cas’... frustration. This is, this is high-level stuff, if you really want to know,” he blinked.
It was so simple.
So evil.
“You should ask them. I’m sure they’ll be very open about it,” evil, evil, evil never felt this good even when he’d lacked the soul to tell the difference. “It’s a perfectly natural… exchange. Of power.”
Jack nodded sagely, then ceased. He looked stumped, “But,” Sam wanted to walk away, he did, he really did , “I’m more confused, now.” His fingers itched to rip at his scalp as Jack tilted his head like the adorable, fluffy angel-baby he was, “I hear Dean tell my father,” and here he puffed up his chest, did his best my-daddy’s-tough-guy-boyfriend impression, “Take it, and my father replies, give it to me . Does that not imply that something is wrong with my father? Is he taking Dean’s illness into himself? Why?”
“You’ll have to ask them.”
Do the evil thing. Do it. They deserve it for making Jack listen. For making you hear it from Jack in all his innocence.
Sam didn’t need a lot of convincing, at this point.
“Listen,” he said gravely, striving to quell the hateful laughter bubbling in his chest. Jack leaned in close, “you go to them, and all you have to ask is if they’re together.”
“That’s it?”
Sam nodded, rethought his method, expanded on it,
“Well, if you really want to know, ask them everything you’ve asked me. Everything. Especially any questions you have about giving and receiving.”
Jack’s eyes sparkled. He had caught on to the brow waggle, the idea of a secret, although he couldn’t know what the secret would be, beyond,
“Right, I’ll ask them all of those things. That I thought about,” air quotes, “myself.”
And if all of Sam’s laundry mysteriously turned pink for the month, if Jack’s winking at Dean and Cas earned him a punch later, it was enough to compensate for the minor aneurysm they’d made him suffer.