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“Dean, if you would just listen to me –”
“You know what, Sam, I don’t have to, you know why?” Sam felt the heat in his face rush down to his neck, down his chest, and through his arms, a trail of roaring flames. He rolled his eyes and turned around, wanting to punch the wall behind him. Dean probably knew Sam was on the verge of lashing out, but he was still baiting Sam with the possibility of a sarcastic comeback or mockery. The brotherly instinct to push the other’s buttons never truly stayed in childhood.
“Because I don’t have to, that’s why!” Dean finished with a sarcastic tone, and Sam growled in frustration. He saw red and slammed his open palm against the wall, welcoming the electric sting flaring up on his skin, and the jolt that ran up his arm to his shoulder.
“That’s exactly what your problem is,” Sam snarled. He rubbed at his palm, and Dean shook his head and chuckled like the dick he was. As he grabbed his keys and stomped to the door, Sam followed. “That is exactly what it is,” he repeated. Dean opened the door, but Sam slammed it shut. The look Dean gave Sam was one he recognized well: the murderous glare that every monster saw before they died was the glare Dean wore. Sam was usually the one to run from familial conflict; however, when Dean wanted to run, it meant he needed to do it before fists started flying. By the look on Dean’s face, Sam was guessing he did not have much time until Dean’s fist flew towards his face.
“Sam, you better move out of the way,” Dean said in a low growl, “or I swear to God I’ll make you move.”
Sam weighed his options: allow Dean to throw the first punch, opening him up to punch back like he really, really wanted to, and let the two of them get their anger out in the manliest man way they could – like Dean wanted, because actually talking about feelings was never manly enough – or Sam could allow Dean the solitude he wanted and let him storm out of the room, leaving the talk unfinished and the conflict unresolved. Again.
Sam hated to do it – he hated having to let Dean walk out the door. He hated being unheard for the second time that day . . . the thousandth time that year, just as the year before that. Dad was going to be back in a bit, and if he was not pissed at Sam before, he would be livid if he saw his sons throwing punches at each other. Sam and his brother fighting each other? There better be a fucking monster in this room if you’re fighting, or so help me, Sam imagined John Winchester scolding with the growl to his voice that Dean was starting to develop. Sam inhaled deeply, slid his hand off the door, and clenched his fists tight to prevent himself from stopping his brother from leaving. His mind was screaming to be heard, pleading, nearly begging. Dean followed in their dad’s footsteps and did not hear the shouts.
When Dean slammed the door behind him, Sam kicked over the nearest piece of furniture, which happened to be a chair. It went flying with the force of Sam’s abuse, and it knocked over the lamp near his bed. The glass bulb chimed musically as it collapsed on the floor. Sam groaned: yet another thing John was going to be mad about. First, Sam attempted to broach the subject of college rather than hunting, which never ceased to grind his dad’s gears; next, he pissed Dean off by telling him he was as blind as Dad, and oh so blinded by him; and now, he thought, this fucking lamp is broken, and we’ll be charged extra for the hotel room.
Sam sighed, swiped his hand down his face to wipe off the sweat, and went to the closet to find the broom and dustpan. Though he still felt like his everything was on fire, and though he still had the red hue clouding his vision, he cleaned up the glass and swept the rest of the hotel room. He straightened up the beds even though the maids would do it later, and he stacked the books and Dad’s journal atop the desk. John liked things tidy, and Sam’s slight neat-freakiness felt better with things lined up and in order. Unlike his life. He was trying – had been trying for years – to get his life lined up like he lined up those damn books, the razors and shaving cream, the pillows and the sheets. He wanted to line up law books on a book shelf of his own, not a hotel desk they would leave behind like every other hotel room; he wanted to de-wrinkle the sheets and have a home that never moved. Stability.
Sam was at the end of his rope. He needed out. Usually that meant running away for a week or two until his brother and father found him. It was looking like that was going to be on Sam’s agenda for tonight. Allowing himself to be found by his father and brother or permanently vacating the family was still to be decided.
He finished folding his last clean shirt, tucking it tight into his suitcase sitting atop his bed before moving on to Dean’s clean clothes, still warm from the dryer, but only slightly. It had been a little while since he pulled them out. Dean was silently starting to help Sam fold the clothes when he dared to tell Sam he should not piss Dad off by bringing up the impossible dream of Stanford. Sam took a deep breath to try and calm his angry heart from punching its way through his ribs and bringing the fire back. He instead tried to focus on folding the clothes, but his mind kept rolling. Dean was just like John: never really hearing Sam, never wanting to know what was rolling through his mind. Dean was John’s son through and through; he was the obedient soldier Sam could never be.
The red hue to his vision returned, and pure, rage-filled adrenalin pumped through his veins. He could hear his blood pounding. The next thing he knew, the sound of ripping fabric filled the room. He looked down at his hands and saw the two halves of Dean’s favorite shirt clutched in each palm. It was ripped anyway, Sam muttered in his thoughts. Add it to the list of things for which to be mad at me.
After chucking the shirt into the trash, Sam continued his folding. Dean would hate that Sam was “putting his paws all over his stuff,” but he would not necessarily be surprised, either. Dean called it stress folding, and he always chuckled after mentioning it, seeing the perpetually annoyed look on Sam’s face. Dean would be mad that Sam was folding his clothes up, but he would let it go, as he always did, because bringing up the fact that Sam was stressed opened up the door for “chick-flick” moments, and there were few things Dean hated more than those.
Something caught Sam’s eye, and it stopped him mid-fold: a tightly folded napkin tucked between the wall of the suitcase and Dean’s tattered jeans. It was unused, clean, and oh so tempting. Dean was not a hoarder; he only kept what they needed because there was only so much room in a suitcase, and only so much room in the impala. Dean just did not keep napkins – come on, a napkin? Does he have a cold or something? Sam joked to himself, and when he started chuckling he cleared his throat and pulled out the napkin. As it unfolded, writing revealed itself: it was a phone number. Sam’s laugh returned; a chuckle of, “Typical Dean,” was at his lips until the name of the number’s owner caught his eye: Liam, most definitely a man’s name, not a woman’s, like it usually was. A “Damn, Dean,” sighed out of his lips instead, followed by more laughing. No wonder Dean was so especially pissy about his suitcase today. This morning before he left to grab everyone breakfast, when Sam asked where his dirty clothes were this time (the location changed every week), Dean fussed and grabbed them himself from his suitcase. Sam thought his brother was pissy because he had a hangover from a night of boozing and whoring. He came back to the hotel a couple hours short of sunrise, making no noise other than the drunken fumbling with his suitcase. Sam could not stop himself from downright giggling like the little brother he was, planning to raise hell about knowing his brother had a crush. And what a crush it is – if it is mutual, that is, Sam thought, and it is looking mutual. He tucked the napkin into his back pocket for later, he promised with a smile.
Sure, Sam was still fuming – he could feel the heat residing in his veins – but when he brought this up and let Dean know he could trust Sam with this, perhaps Dean would extend the trust and listen. Sam could give a rat’s ass about how – or with whom – his brother spent his time between the sheets. Dad, however, would not exactly be happy about his manly soldier flirting with other manly soldiers. It was more evidence that Dad was blind to what made his sons happy, and blind to everything but his sick obsession with the damn demon.
Dean walked through the door with a half-eaten burger in one hand and a paper bag with its bottom stained with grease in the other. His eyes shifted from Sam’s face and down to his hands (which were finishing folding up the last shirt) and back to Sam’s face, a glare marring the calm expression he wore coming in. It was a softer glare than the homicidal one from before, but it was a glare nonetheless. Sam slipped the shirt into his brother’s suitcase and walked away, leaving it open like Dean requested after Sam’s stress folding, of which Dean mumbled while he stomped over to predictably investigate. It was an endless cycle of stress for Sam: folding because he was stressed and calming down after cleaning up, only to be stressed all over again because Dean wrinkled and stirred his clothes around like a stew to make sure Sam did not misplace anything. This time, however, Sam knew what Dean was checking to see was still in its place, and Sam sat at the desk to wait, his fingers fumbling with the napkin. When Dean started to frantically throw his shirts and jeans out of the suitcase, Sam prepared himself for the shit storm.
Dean shot a wide-eyed look at Sam, and though the fire in his eyes burned hot, and his fingers clenched and unclenched in and out of a fist, it was there; Sam saw it, and it was one of those moments where one becomes aware of timeless memories that one would remember ten years to ninety years down the line. Fear-fueled embarrassment. Dean was panting, hands shaking, and the hairline fracture in the tough soldier cracked further into a wide fissure, revealing a glimpse of the flushed, scared twenty-three year old kid. The wrath was still obviously there; the fright, however, bubbled beneath the surface. He’s lucky it was me who found it, Sam thought, only slightly frightened of the impending wave of rage looming over him that was his big brother. I’ll have to remind him of that. He has to know that, right?
Sam unfolded the napkin, taking note of Dean’s fingers twitching and the blush painted across his cheeks. “You planning on calling him back?” Sam asked. Dean, unsurprisingly, kept silent. “’Cause if you wanted to, now’s your chance. Dad isn’t back yet, and won’t be back for a bit. You heard us. That kind of argument usually results in about an hour or two absence, and he’ll come back with a job or a few beers, or both.” Sam sighed, and he tested the waters with a smirk. “Is he blonde? You’ve been jonesin’ for the blondes lately –”
“Shut up,” Dean whispered. Sam scoffed and looked away, folding the napkin back up. “Shut. The fuck. Up.” Dean watched as Sam stuffed the napkin back into his pocket. “What, is this payback for me pissing you off before I ran out? You want Dad mad at me, too? Feeling a little lonely in the Daddy-hates-me club?”
Sam raised a hand, curled it in a fist, and gently out it on the table, stuffing down the want to knock the books over in a rage. He stared Dean down, trying to convince both his brother and himself that he was not going to take the bait, the merciless jab. Sam understood just fine: Dean thought his kid brother was going to expose his closeted state, and he was responding like the cornered dog he felt like. If Sam got angry, he would lose the trust he was trying to strengthen.
“You. Don’t. Listen,” Sam breathed, and Dean rolled his eyes and turned his back on Sam. “It might be a little hard to believe, Dean, but just because I’m not on Dad’s side, it doesn’t mean I’m not on yours.” Dean was about to throw a shirt back into the pile of clothes overflowing from his suitcase, but was floored mid-throw. He gave Sam a side-long glance and said not a word. He licked his lips and continued his packing.
Sam took the cue and explained: “Look, I don’t care if this is a phase, or if you are just keeping it as a joke, or if you do actually plan on calling this Liam guy. It’s your life . . . not Dad’s.”
“Oh, come on,” Dean groaned, slamming the suitcase flap shut and shoving it under his bed.
“Dean, you have to see it,” Sam argued stubbornly, leaning forward in his chair. “Or else you wouldn’t be so defensive and protective of this number.”
Dean ripped the paper bag in opening it up, and he groaned loudly. “It’s not that big o’ deal, Sammy, just fucking let it go.” He plopped onto the bed, wiggling around to get comfortable (or to wrinkle the cleaning I did, Sam thought).
“Oh, come on,” Sam mocked in the same tone Dean used moments before. Dean rolled his eyes yet again as he pulled out his burger. “Are you hearing me, Dean?”
“Yeah, yeah, I hear ya.”
“Are you hearing yourself?”
Dean chuckled, but there was no humor in it. He mumbled “Fuck this,” before digging in to his burger.
“Exactly, Dean, fuck this – fuck this sad thing we call a life, the life Dad gave us – forced us into – forcing me to keep when I don’t want it anymore. I don’t understand why you do, especially when you don’t feel free to be yourself.”
“Okay, Sammy, you wanna play shrink, get all Freud on me, hm?” Sam bit his lip, forcing himself to keep quiet. “Fine: I don’t get why you want out when you can never really be out. We can’t ever have a normal life; we’ll always be under Dad’s thumb –”
“So you admit that we are –”
“—because he is at least doing some good – gankin’ monsters along the way of his search for the demon that forced us all into this, and as long as we’re protecting people from those sons of bitches, I couldn’t give a flying fuck.” He took an angry bite of his burger. “If you should be mad at anyone, it ain’t Dad – it’s that thing that killed Mom.”
“Do you really believe all that, Dean? You know it’s not some holy mission, right? It’s a sick and downright fucked up obsession that will get you and Dad killed.”
“Just me and Dad?” Dean clarified, and Sam sighed. Dean’s glower was worthy of the same title as John’s, but it melted away to an expression Sam was not expecting. He looked away and shook his head, and he ran a hand through his hair. Where he was expecting a John Winchester-like scolding, he instead heard Dean whisper, “Please don’t leave again, Sammy.” Sam let out a sigh that evolved into a groan. A scolding he could handle, but this? Sam really wanted to bail now. “You’re my brother, and if you leave again . . . I really will be part of the Dad-hates-me club. You aren’t there, and you won’t be, even if you leave. I will be.”
“No, you won’t,” Sam argued.
“Who do you think he chews out more when you leave, huh?” Sam stubbornly pointed at himself, but when Dean gave another humorless chuckle, he was getting the impression that there was something he was missing. Dean did not elaborate; he only sighed, shook his head, and took a large bite out of his burger.
“I don’t have to leave alone, Dean.” As expected, Dean rolled his eyes and kept his mouth shut – or, too filled with food to talk. This was not the first time Sam suggested they leave Dad together. “I got a full-ride to Stanford, and I don’t have to live off-campus, so I can help you get a job and an apartment. I looked it up, and there’s a place in need of a mechanic near campus. You can do that, you’re good at it. You can crash with me until you raise enough to get your own place.” Still, Dean said nothing, but Sam knew – he knew – Dean heard every word.
When Dean still said nothing, Sam’s frustration forced him up, and the red hue dyed the edge of his vision. “Dean, this isn’t a life! This is a life without free will, damn it. You can’t possibly think this dictatorship Dad has is good for us. Come on, he’d rather see me holding a gun than a diploma.”
“It’s more practical,” Dean muttered, and Sam knocked over the pile of books in a blind rage. Dean did not flinch.
“God, do you hear yourself? You’re just like Dad.” Sam paced, trying to calm himself before he took his daddy-issues out on his brainwashed brother. He went to his suitcase and checked if everything he needed before he departed was packed and ready. He was so ready to leave. He needed to leave. Dean was hearing him, sure, but he did not listen, and he obviously did not care. Fine. That made it easier to leave both of him and Dad.
“It ain’t practical, a diploma,” Dean repeated, tossing his trash into the bin, “but that doesn’t mean I ain’t proud of you for trying to get it, Sammy.” No, no, stay mad, Sam begged. “But you leaving for college . . . how are you gonna go to class and shoot down a werewolf?”
“I won’t; I’ll just be going to class.”
“Hey, the monsters aren’t going to back off just because you’re going to class.”
“Me leaving means I leave everything. That doesn’t have to include you. You’re my big brother.”
“Damn straight,” Dean chuckled under his breath. He looked over at Sam.
The door swung open, and John Winchester barged through. Sam was so close to thinking, Man, that was a close one, I don’t know what I’d do if he overheard that last part, but Sam was just not that lucky. John threw his bag to the ground and stomped over to Sam. Dean immediately stood up, but Sam casually leaned against the desk, crossing his arms. It was not submission, him sitting, allowing himself to be loomed over by his dad. Dean was at attention, shoulders squared, ready for orders. Sam took no orders, nor was he his Dad’s soldier. This was unabashed rebellion.
“Did I hear the word leaving, Sam Winchester?” Dad asked. His voice was steady and low. Sam thought he was going to face a shit storm earlier when he showed Dean that he had his secret number, but that was not even close. This was the calm before the storm. Because he could not help making it worse, Sam shrugged in response. Not answering with “Yes, sir,” or “No, sir?” Even Dean was starting to fidget, and none of the anger was at all going to be directed at him.
“Next time you want to conspire about leaving, close the damn window,” Dad growled, and he jabbed a finger at said window. “Isn’t a Stanford student supposed to be smarter than that, Sam?”
“Guess that’s why I’m going,” Sam answered, and John immediately snapped, “No, you are not. Your brother and I are not going to waste time driving around trying to find your ass when we have a job to do.”
“Then don’t waste your time. Don’t come looking.”
“I won’t, you know why?” Sam had a flashback of Dean before he left the room only an hour or so ago. That same tone. The same slight scorn, only this time it was the arrogance of a parent instead of the mockery of a sibling. “Because you. Are not. Leaving. End of story.” To drive his order home, John walked away and went to the sink to splash his face with water, turning his back on his sons.
“What kind of father doesn’t want his son to go do something with his life? What father isn’t proud of the fact that his son worked his ass off to get a full-ride to a good college?”
“The kind that knows there is something bigger out there than your damn school,” John answered. Sam muttered an, “Oh, my God,” and John continued: “The kind that knows his sons want to avenge their mother’s death, whatever the cost.”
“Could you just stop acting like you’re some holier-than-thou, righteous man because you’re trying to get revenge? You’re obsessed and pathetic. So fuck you and your avenging, Dad. You can do it without dragging us along.”
“Sammy,” Dean warned, but the warning was too late. John stood as still as a statue, his shoulders tense, his arms rigid. Sam’s ears rang as he hurried to grab his suitcase, checking his pocket to make sure he had his wallet along the way. He glanced over at Dean, watching the quick rise and fall of his chest, the panicked flicker of his eyes darting between Sam and John.
The only regret Sam had asking his next question was that Dad’s rage would sway slightly from himself to his brother, but he still asked: “Are you coming with me, Dean?”
“What did you just say?” John whispered. The shit storm was upon them. Dean was a stuttering mess, and Sam did not blame him. He was never good at defying their father. It’s a good thing I am, Sam thought.
Instead of answering his father, Sam ignored the challenge. John was daring Sam to answer with a confession of defiance, and in ignoring him – a small victory for Sam – Sam was disrespecting his father. When John spoke, you said, “Yes, sir,” or “No, sir,” and always answered a direct question, no matter the implications. Sam would not utter a word. He was throwing his soldier training out the window and metaphorically flipping off the drill sergeant. Sam was just sorry Dean was caught in the middle, as always; he literally stood between their fuming father (Sam was half expecting steam to burst from John’s ears like he was a character from a Saturday morning cartoon) and his little shit (and rightly so) kid brother as a buffer –
Sam’s hand hung frozen, clutching the half-escaped jacket from his suitcase. He never thought of Dean as the buffer; he saw Dean as the push-over daddy’s boy who waited till the bad seed was scolded to swoop in and resume his role as the big brother, defending Dad’s actions despite how wrong he was. What Sam never realized until actually talking with Dean was how daddy’s-good-soldier was not the only role Dean played. “Who do you think he chews out more when you leave, huh?” Dean had said before. The words of a buffer, of a man who flaunted being on his father’s side until the battle was done, and came in to bandage the wounds of the fallen brother. Sam had learned that Dean was not solely on Dad’s side. Sam had the chance to bring Dean with him on his road to freedom.
Sam was about to resume his preparation when a rough hand spun him around. John’s hard, rugged face was inches away, red and marred with righteous, fatherly fury. He did not lift his hand away, and he ignored Dean’s growled protest of, “Let go!” Sam did not give John the satisfaction of a reaction; while Dad bellowed, Sam stared back with dead eyes. He heard, but he did not listen.
“You need to grow up, Samuel Winchester. You think you can go out on your own, pack your bags, head out to school, and survive? You got another thing comin’, son. There’s things out there that’ll rip you to shreds. We are your family, and you are nothing without us. You’re weak, and you’re a traitor for skipping out on this family.” He paused, breathing heavily, hand still clutching Sam’s arm. The lingering scent of booze mixed with aftershave and the impala’s leather clouded the space between them. “Your mother would be ashamed of you for choosing to willingly betray your family.”
As much as Sam tried to not listen to a word John was saying, every bit of it echoed in Sam’s head like church bells. Ringing. Clanging. “Mom doesn’t care. She’s dead.”
It was an obvious statement: a logical assumption based on a fact. Mom is dead. Because she is dead, she feels no emotions, and she no longer has the brain function that allows her to express the cocktail of chemicals that is shame, nor disappointment, nor betrayal. Therefore, she could not care less. For her to give two shits, she would have to be alive. It was as simple as that, and yet Sam knew entirely well that if any two words were to piss John off, it was those two. Unfortunately, it also made that homicidal glare return to Dean’s face. Good, Sam thought, and he gulped. Dean probably was not going to come with me anyway. It will be much easier for me to leave him behind if he is mad at me. No croons of “Sammy” from him now.
Sam should have predicted it. John’s grip on Sam’s arm tightened to an unbearable sting, and it cramped when John threw Sam aside. His fingers raked against Sam’s skin as he collapsed on the floor in a heap of familial disappointment. Not to Sam’s surprise, his big brother acted on instinct to defend Sam – he heard the echo of a distant memory with a protective Dean threatening to rip out the lungs of whoever tried to hurt his kid brother – but was visibly torn. He put a hand against John’s chest and forced him to back away and recoiled as if he touched a hot stove, turning to help Sam up. He was forced to protect Sam from the man who ordered him to protect Sam. Not that John would lay another hand on his son. He got the anger out. He saw red. He was probably going to knock over a chair or the lamp. Like Sam did. Because he’s John’s son.
Not anymore.
As soon as Sam got to his feet, he ripped Dean’s hand off of him. Betrayal tainted Dean’s face until he realized that Sam did it to press the napkin into his open palm. His brow furrowed, and Sam resumed his dead-eyed expression as he grabbed his suitcase and jacket and stomped to the door. John tried shouting after him, ordering Dean to stop his brother, but when Sam looked over his shoulder to check if Dean would obey, he saw no effort to do so. If ever there were proof of Dean finally understanding Sam, this was it, small as it was. Sam paid no mind at all to John’s shouts and orders and protests. He would come after him again in a month at most. He could never let Sam truly leave the hunter’s life.
John issued one last order as Sam opened the door, and it was enough to make Sam hesitate from taking that first step to freedom. “If you walk out that door, don’t you ever come back.”
The sound of breaking glass resonated in Sam’s ears, though no such thing physically broke. Was it his strength? Was it the hope that one day Dad would come find him and finally understand, the hope he secretly clung to as a child clung to their parent? Sam was not sure. If anything was going to make him stop, it was that sentence. All the talk of betrayal. . . . Sam would have called John a hypocrite if he was not so (dare he admit it?) wounded. Sam had never been so close to wholeheartedly obeying an order from his father in years, but he had emerged himself so completely in the role of the bad seed, the failure of a soldier, the disappointment of a child, that he wanted to be consistent. So he walked out the door without even a glance at his big brother. John may never forgive nor understand Sam, but perhaps Dean could. One day.
One day, Sam repeated.