Little Sammy’s only fourteen, but the way his big
brother falls apart for him makes him feel like he has eons after eons of ancient
power; all it takes is a little sweep of his sooty eyelashes from beneath his
dark bangs and Dean is worshipping him; treats him like a prince, like a king.*
Dean whispers stories into his ear as he fucks him
through the dark nights: stories of the boy who would be king, stories of power
and glory and violence, and when Sam wakes up he’s exhilarated and sore and thrumming with something undefinable; he
feels something rise inside of him.*
Sam claws at Dean’s back when he comes, and he’s
shaking when he whispers against Dean’s damp throat: “Tell me the story again.
About the boy.”Dean’s eyes are almost black in the night, wide and
proud. “No baby boy,” he tells Sam in a voice that has so many layers it
makes Sam go dizzy. “You’ll tell it yourself. Soon.”Sam falls asleep in Dean’s protective arms. He dreams
of fire and echoes, and of Dean: strong and black-eyed, kneeling by a throne.
Tag: ficlet
The younger Winchester, Sam, was only a kid. Just a goddamn kid, big hazel doe eyes, scared out of his head. Agent Henriksen had come too far to let that kid out of his sight again, let him galavant off with — Dean. The monster of a big brother.
“Man, oh man,” the elder Winchester was laughing, twin guns swinging carelessly across the line of officers facing him down. “You really think you got us pinned down, doncha?” The green eyes were unnaturally bright, or maybe that was just the blood spattered across his face and clothes bringing them out. The man was pacing back and forth like a caged animal, staring past every weapon pointed his way in favor of leering over their heads toward Sam. Innocent, young Sam, who looked as though he’d do anything to get as far away from Dean as possible. “You think I’m gonna let my baby brother go, just like that?”
Henriksen forced his voice to come out steady. “Winchester, if you don’t want to be pumped full of lead, fucking stand down. This is your final warning.” He knew what this man had done. Kidnapped his brother, killed the girl Sam had been living with, and set his apartment on fire to make sure the once-successful Stanford student had nothing to go back to. Then, dragging him across the country on a year-long killing spree. The psychopath deserved to die. Henriksen hoped he got his chance to shoot.
John isn’t allowed to be soft anymore. Not since Mary died and he was thrown into this world of silver and iron and blood; not since he was left with two little boys to raise and to protect against the things that hide in the dark. Softness is weakness, so he sharpens all of his edges and makes sure that he doesn’t have any left. No softness. No weakness. Nothing that can be used against him or taken away.
(Nothing except his boys. They’d be so much better off somewhere else, with someone else, but god, he can’t let them go.)
It gets easier over time, anyways. To be nothing but hard edges. Seeing death day in and day out will do that to a man; he’s aged so much more than the twenty years that have passed, seen so much more than any man should have to. He’s rough and he keeps to himself and he gets the job done, because that’s all that matters anymore and that’s what he clings to. That’s what gets him up in the mornings.
Except.
Except that there’s also Dean.
Sam has left them behind already, chasing a dream of a better life, and as much as it still stings- as much as the screaming match still echoes in his head when it gets too quiet- John just hopes that he’s safe. They visit, sometimes, watch from a distance, and Sam seems happy. Sam seems like he’s doing okay, all by himself, but Dean- Dean’s still here. John doesn’t think that Dean is ever going to leave his side (selfish, he’s so fucking selfish for that to be a relief), and Dean- Dean.
Somehow, despite everything, Dean is still soft.
He gets the job done just fine. In fact, he’s a damn good hunter; John’s taught him everything he knows, and Dean’s always been a quick learner. He knows the lore, he’s a good fighter, and he can manage himself just as well as he can follow orders. But- but there are other things, too, like the way he talks to scared kids when they’re on the job, or how good he is at getting people to trust him. Or the way he lights up over the little things, like a good burger or a pretty waitress, or how he still looks at John like he’s hung the fucking moon-
Dean is still soft the way John’s forgotten how to be, and all John cares about some days is keeping him that way forever.
“Dad?” Dean asks him when he walks into the room one day, and John’s bent over his journal, carefully detailing the hunt they’ve just finished up. Dean’s found himself a job in town, too, a gig at a diner for a few extra bucks, and he’s still in uniform when John looks up. Dean’s eyes are fixed on the small table tucked away in the corner, and that’s where he’s headed, too. “What’re these for?”
John already knows what he’s talking about, but glances over anyways, taking a slow breath. The flowers had been an impulse decision, and maybe a stupid one- they’re damn expensive, and they don’t really have the money to spare- but there’s something about them that had caught hit eye. They used to make him think about Mary, but now…
“Just thought they’d brighten up the room.” He shrugs, like it doesn’t matter, and watches too closely as Dean approaches them, fingertips brushing delicate petals. “No big deal.”
He’s all caught up in the way that Dean touches the flowers, like they’re fragile and precious and will shatter on contact. Quietly, it’s exactly the same way that John thinks about Dean. “Huh. Alright.” A pause, and then Dean looks over towards him, smiling, and John holds his breath. “Never took you for an interior designer, Dad.”
John cracks a smile because he can’t help himself, and because seeing Dean in good spirits is… it’s good. It makes him happy to know he played a part in it. “Yeah, well. I won’t quit my day job quite yet.”
Dean laughs, and he eventually sits down across from John and asks what they’re going to have for dinner. John clings to the smile on his son’s face and the warm way that it makes him feel, and promises himself- not for the first time- that he’ll do everything in his power to preserve that.
He can’t allow himself to be soft anymore, but hell if he’s going to let Dean go the same way.
77/365
“Is Sam gay?”
Dean almost spits out when he hears what his father is asking him. What shocks him the most is the calm in his father voice, like he just asked him what he wants for dinner.
“No?” Dean replies after a time
“No you don’t know or no he isn’t ?”
“I don’t know, dad. You should ask him”
“If he didn’t tell me, it means that he doesn’t want to”
Dean licks his lips, not sure of what to say. His dad looks clearly intrigued, worried even, but it’s not Dean place to say anything about Sam sexuality.
“Well, I don’t know. Why do you think that he is?”
John looks clearly uncomfortable, all his attention focus on the road, and Dean wishes he had keep his mouth close for once.
“Found pictures.”
“Pictures?” He frowns
“Yeah. In Sam’s bag. Was looking for something and… shit. It was Sam, on it. With…” He scrapes jus throat “With panties. And like, doing things that I wish I never have seen my son doing”
What? With who?“
“No one. He was alone. But it was clearly a gift for someone”
Dean doesn’t answer, doesn’t know what his father is waiting for him to say. He’ll talk to Sam as soon as they’re alone, which will happen pretty soon since John really looks like he could use a drink.
“I don’t care if he’s gay. You gotta tell him that. I.. He’s my son. I love him. No matter what. But he can’t do that, can’t give pictures of himself to some boy. Who knows what the guy will do with it after ?”
“It’s just pictures dad”
“I don’t like it. I can’t tell him not to, but maybe he will listen to you, you know?”
His dad is looking at him with pleading eyes, knowing that he won’t be able to tell Sam not to do that. Pushing aside the awkward conversation that it would take.
“Yeah, I’ll talk to him”
“Good” John sights, finally able to breath. “Now, talk to me about our next case”
They go back to the motel room three hours later and John only gave one look at Sam sleepy form, controlling that he’s fine, before leaving the room. They will be gone in the morning, but he still wants his night to celebrate the last hunt.
Dean took a quick shower before putting his clean underwear on, sliding under the cover of Sam’s bed.
Sam takes a death breath, his body moving closer to Dean naturally.
“Come on, Sam, wake up” He whispers in Sam’s ear, dropping kisses on his jaw while his hands slide around his waist
“Dean? I wanna sleep” Sam nestles his face on his neck, and Dean let him do without any problem.
“Yeah ok.” He says, caressing his brother’s back “But tomorrow, you need to give me my gift”
Dean pushes Sam in front of the Mirror of Erised.
Sam stares into the glass.
He sees himself, draped across a throne. He sees Dean’s
pretty greens shift to black and he sees the darkest creatures bow before him
and swear their allegiances – he sees himself command the forces of Hell with Dean
by his side, his black eyed-knight; sees
himself in his, their, rightful
place.“Well?” Dean asks, bright eyed and rosy cheeked. “What
do you see?”Sam gently touches Dean’s cheek. “I see you.”
weecest headcanon
Dean packs Sammy’s school lunches and puts little notes inside like “have a good day little brother” and when John’s been away for a long time it’s “I’m taking you out for ice cream tonight” or when Sammy has a project or a paper due it’s “good luck bitch”
And Sammy collects every single note which he keeps hidden in his duffel bags or backpack.
When Sam’s older and the light that used to make his eyes gleam is gone, he looks at the little notes that used to make his day all the more better. He smiles to himself, fully aware that how the sweet notes that made him smile as a kid still make him smile now.
Dean, being the bratty older brother that he is, still gets joy out of rummaging through his little brother’s stuff. He goes through Sam’s desk in the bunker and only finds nerdy stuff that doesn’t pique his interest. However, when he looks on top of the desk he finds little scraps of paper- tons of them- all scribbled on with his own scratchy writing. He stops what he’s doing and just stares in awe, a light blush on his cheeks. He has to remind himself: no chick flick moments.
This is Sam though. Sam who’s so desperately picked up Dean’s love as a child and kept it to himself in any way he could find it, even if it was dumb little notes he wrote in 5 seconds and put into a nearly empty lunch bag. Dean takes a sticky note and a pen from Sam’s desk and smiles.
When Sam gets back from getting food he goes straight to his room and flops onto the chair that stands in front of his desk. After his muscles lose as much tension as they ever will, he sees something on his desk.
On top of all the notes he had collected he finds a note that he’s never seen before. The writing is clearly Dean’s, and it reads “I love you”
Sam’s heart clenches as he adds it to his collection.
Sam doesn’t move for a long time after the hellhounds take Dean. He stays there in that room, Ruby’s empty meatsuit on the floor somewhere behind him while his brother’s blood soaks into his clothes.
It’s impossible to pretend that things are okay. There’s no ignoring the way that Dean’s been torn open; deep gashes left in his chest and stomach where the phantom claws had sliced through his body. Sam can’t say for sure how his brother died (screaming, says a voice in his head, he died screaming), if they’d pierced right through to his heart and lungs, or if it was maybe the blood loss. Not that any of it matters, but his brain’s searching for any illusion of distraction, and maybe wondering about the medical details of what happened will do something to make it all stop hurting so much.
Eventually, he works up the energy to wipe Dean’s face clean. The drops of blood make it too hard to see his freckles, and this seems extremely important to Sam in this moment. He closes Dean’s eyes and doesn’t look at anything below his brother’s neck and tries to tell himself that Dean is asleep.
Sam’s not very good at lying to himself, and this one stands on thinner ice than most.
“What am I supposed to do?” he asks, voice whisper-soft like Dean is still around to hear him. Like maybe his spirit is hanging around, or watching him from heaven. As if either of those things are possible realities after the deal Dean had made. “What, Dean? What do I-”
His voice breaks, and he can’t speak anymore, and somewhere distant, he knows they need to leave. Knows that somebody will eventually call the police and he’ll be the only one nearby to blame for the pair of corpses in this room. None of it is enough to make him move, to work up the ambition to stand up and gather his brother’s body in his arms so he can-
So he can…
God, Dad would be pissed. Even Dean would be angry, but right then and there- god. Sam knows he can’t burn Dean’s body. He can’t do the one fucking job he’s got left, the last thing he can do for his brother, and he just.
He just. Can’t.
“I’m sorry.”
Dean can’t hear him, and it doesn’t feel any better to say the words to an empty room. His eyes are stinging, and Sam breaks all over again.
He can’t.
72/365
John doesn’t know why the lady across the counter at
the gas station goes a little pale when he says: “If you’d ring it up quickly
that’d be great, ‘cause me and my boys are in a bit of a hurry.”Impatience claws at him when she glances out the window
at the Impala. “Those are your sons?” she asks, faintly.John follows her gaze. Dean’s in the front seat reading
a map, Sam’s slouching moodily in the backseat. Nothing is out of the ordinary,
and John says tightly: “Yeah. Now, if we could hurry this up?”Her eyes flicker over to John’s for only a moment, and
there’s something in her eyes. Fear perhaps; John sees fear in everyone’s eyes these
days, but this just might be pity,
and John glares at her as she hands him his change.“God bless you all,” is the last thing she says, and
John must stop himself from rolling his eyes.Fuck, he’s
happy to leave these bible belt states, even if it’s for a wendigo in North
Dakota.John doesn’t know that she’s seen his boys before.
He doesn’t know that just the night before, his boys
had wandered into the same gas station with Dean’s arm possessively slung over
Sam’s shoulder. He doesn’t know that Dean had bought Sam ice-cream; doesn’t
know that Dean had kissed Sam’s pink mouth right there in front of her; doesn’t
know the smug smirk on Dean’s face as he’d made Sammy blush prettily beneath fluorescent
lights.John doesn’t know that she’d cooed over them and asked
how long they’d been together.John doesn’t know that Sam had gazed dreamily up at
Dean and said: “Since forever.”
It’s a relief to finally be a little farther south. A string of jobs up north had Dad dragging them back and forth between states that are still clinging to the last vestiges of winter, tiny snowbanks and subzero temperatures making it feel more like January than March.
Now, though, the streak has broken, and Dad’s finally found himself a case somewhere a little warmer. Before they even get out of the car, Dean can tell by the sun shining overhead and the beginnings of new growth that spring has most definitely sprung in Nevada.
Sam nearly trips over himself to get out of the car once they’ve parked, and Dean isn’t far behind him, happy for the excuse to finally wiggle out of his hoodie and let the sun shine on his bare arms. He knows they need to bring their bags inside, lay the salt lines, and get some food, but for right now, it’s nice to just feel the warm weather again for a bit.
“Think I saw a sign for a park down the street.” It’s Dad, and when Dean looks his way, there’s a smile on his face. The cold must’ve been getting to him, too, and it’s hard not to be at least a little happy under the sun like this. “You boys can head down there for a bit before dinner, if you want.”
“Yeah!” Sam’s already nodding rapidly, and he runs over to hug Dad tight around the middle. “Thanks, Dad!”
Dad laughs, and Dean’s grinning, already jogging over to join his brother. “You don’t need any help unpacking?”
“We’ve got three bags between us.” There’s a touch of amusement in Dad’s expression. “I think I’ll live. Go, you’ve got half an hour.”
That’s all the permission Dean needs, and he grins at Sam once more as the two of them start running in the direction Dad had indicated. Dean’s taking it easy- Sam’s still got a whole bunch of growing to do, and he can’t run as fast when he’s so little- but he’s having fun, too, laughing and giving his brother tiny, teasing nudges. “Wanna race?”
“You always win!” That doesn’t seem to discourage Sam all that much, though, as he pushes himself harder and speeds up a little. Even with his shorter legs, he’s quick on his feet and has a lot of energy, leaving Dean chasing after him as they approach the park.
With soft grass underfoot, Dean finally makes it up close behind Sam and snatches him right up off the ground, earning a breathless giggle from his brother. Slowing down, he shifts Sam around in his arms until he’s holding him princess-style, smiling widely on the way to the park’s playground. “S’that mean I win?”
“You cheated,” Sam accuses him, but he doesn’t look all that upset, wiggling in place just a little bit like he’s testing Dean’s hold on him. “When I get bigger, I’m gonna be way faster than you, and you’ll never catch me!”
“Keep dreamin’, squirt.” Dean grins and leans down to nose through Sam’s hair, just to hear him huff in protest. “You gotta get taller first, and I don’t see that happening anytime soon.”
Sam pouts at him, but lights up again once they get close to the swings, nearly squirming out of Dean’s arms in excitement. “Can you push me? Please, Dean?”
Dean pretends like he’s thinking about it for a moment before nodding, setting Sam down on his feet so he can dash over and grab one of the swings for himself. “Fine, but only ‘cause I feel bad that you’re gonna be short forever.”
Sam sticks his tongue out as he plops down on the swing, and Dean can’t hide his grin, circling around so he can start pushing. Sam swings his legs in time with each one, and before long, he’s soaring high, laughing with delight and holding onto the chains tightly. Dean just smiles, feeling light and happy as he soaks up the sun overhead and the sound of his brother’s laughter.
Half an hour. Better make the most of it.
70/365
Agent of Death (13.14 coda)
Some character introspection because from someone who normally puts so much thought into his words, Sam’s “No killing!” was horribly and uncharacteristically raw.
“No killing!”
It comes out like it has been perched there on the tip of his tongue, waiting. It comes out before he can soften it, modulate his voice, make it more palatable. It comes out raw and too-desperate, because he’s tired.
All he can think about is Rowena, a huntress and murderer herself, shaking at the memory of her own death. Eileen, falling in some dark, imagined place because he wasn’t there to see her go. Dad and Mom and Bobby. Jess. Kelly Kline, cold on a bed where there only should have been new life. Almost every soul he’s ever touched and been touched by. His life, by now, seems like a litany of farewells.
Hunting, just like war, requires a single-minded belief in the rightness of his cause that Sam has never had.
Before he was a high school freshman, he knew that sometimes the things they hunted deserved to live and sometimes the people doing the hunting deserved to die.
Sometimes humans are the only monsters in the room.
No killing, he says, and the words come out sour and with cutting edges, because killing is everything they do, and the blood on his hands has stratified by now, layer upon layer of deaths telling the story of Sam Winchester’s life.
The words sound impulsive and childish, even to him, but goddamnit he’s tired of being the one who pulls the trigger. He’s tired of seeing pain and causing pain and being pain. His last thoughts when he sleeps and his first when he wakes are of Lucifer walking free, of the creative torments he visited on Sam.
The thought of causing even a measure of the pain he experienced at Lucifer’s hands makes him feel dirty and wrong and unreal.
“No killing,” Sam Winchester says, and he knows even as the words leave his mouth that it’s impossible.
He’ll be the agent of death until he meets his own.
It’s the family business, after all.
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