My first
Supernatural fanfic!
I'm uber excited here. I'd love to hear your reaction to this story. I should probably add another warning to this fic, but technically, it doesn't apply here...
Title: Secrets
Rating: PG (Probably only G, but better safe than sorry).
Warnings: Minor Language
Summary: “I can’t tell him, Bobby. If I tell him, he’ll leave.” Sam has a secret he can’t tell Dean.
I
He’s been quieter than usual (almost deathly quiet, but Dean tries to ignore that thought as it slips through his mind) and Dean doesn’t know why. There is no reason for him to be quiet, none that Dean can see. Not that he’s ever been good at these touchy-feely things. Perceptiveness is more Sam’s thing; or, more correctly, responding to the perceptions is more Sam’s thing. And it isn’t as if he doesn’t have enough on his mind as it is. Not about the hunt – the hunt was easy. But about other things, things he’d rather not think about, things that just keep on sneaking up on him when silence fills the room, or the car.
Like now.
Dean has never hated silence more than he’s hated it since the deal. It screams out at him, torturous and evil, screams out things he’d rather not think about. Not things he’s afraid of, or things that hurt, or possibilities too gruesome to imagine – no. Dying, Dean realizes, is about remembering the things you love. The things you’re going to miss when you’re gone. Then, he never used to think about the smiles exchanged, the looks, the laughs, the silly sparring for nothing. Now, he can’t forget. Each precious moment rewinds itself over and over again in his mind until he feels like he’s going mad; he supposes, in a way, he is. It is a torture of its own – insanity by happiness – recalling all that you love and knowing you’re going to lose it.
Dean wishes Sam would speak, because his thoughts are so morbid now, they’re hard to recognize as his own.
He switches the radio on, tuning it to a station Sam hates more than demons. When he gets no reaction, he turns the volume all the way up, to the point where even he is wincing at the ear-pounding loudness of it. Sam doesn’t even flinch. Dean starts to sing along, purposefully off-key, but his voice peters out when he realizes that Sam hasn’t moved. Now, this is getting annoying. (Annoying, Dean thinks, because he’d rather not think that this is getting scary. He wants to know what is wrong, but he doesn’t think simply asking is going to get him anywhere – it never does.)
Why the silence? Dean clutches the Impala’s steering wheel tightly, trying to understand. It couldn’t be the hunt; the hunt had been easy, too easy. Dean would go as far as to say that it had been the simplest job he’d ever done. Of course, it hadn’t been without bump and bruise, but then again, what hunt was? If they hadn’t taken a few hits, Dean would have dropped dead on the spot. Werewolves usually weren’t pushovers, but this one? This one had been something else. Dean wasn’t complaining, so what is with Sam? From the moment they slipped into the car, Sam has been gazing – no, staring – out of the passenger side window, his eyes not even flicking about as if he is watching the scenery. Just staring straight out, wide-eyed, almost uncomprehending.
The only reason Dean knows Sam is alive is that he’s still breathing. Dean checked, fifteen minutes into the drive.
I-90 is relatively quiet for once. (Quiet, everything’s quiet, like the whole world has died. Is death quiet? Dean wonders. Is death as quiet as dying?) It’s late; the sun and moon have both long since vanished and the stars are slowly beginning to dim in preparation for dawn. They’ve left Wyoming far behind by now – they’d entered South Dakota an hour ago and are making their way through the familiar scenery of the Lawrence County stretch of the interstate. They race past an exit and Dean catches the number and realizes that they’re close to Bobby’s place.
‘Damn it, Sam,’ says Dean finally, switching the radio off. (He can’t take it anymore, can’t take the monsters inside his head, can’t take the anxiety that his brother’s silence is causing.) ‘What the hell is wrong with you?’
Sam turns his head slowly to face Dean, which is a surprise unto itself. If fifty decibel music hadn’t gotten him to move Dean sure has hell wasn’t expecting Sam to respond to his voice.
Sam’s eyes look odd and Dean feels something like déjà vu stirring deep inside him; he’s seen that look somewhere before. ‘Nothing’s wrong with me, Dean,’ says Sam, arching his eyebrows at Dean as if he’s concerned.
‘Of course nothing’s wrong with you,’ replies Dean, eyes back on the road. ‘That’s why we haven’t had a chick-flick moment in the past five hours.’ Who does he think he’s kidding? Who on this goddamn earth does he think he’s kidding?
Sam slips into silence again though and the voices once more fill Dean’s head and he swallows hard to keep down whatever is left in his stomach from his last meal. The way this is going, if Sam doesn’t start a conversation soon, Dean will go mad. Will he know it, when he does? Or is madness really relative and subjective and open to opinions? Will he think he’s normal and everyone else mental? Will it happen quickly, like the flick of a switch, or will he feel his mind leaving him, slowly, slowly, slowly, until it happens, finally, and he forgets that it happened at all?
‘Come on, Sam,’ Dean tries again. ‘Talk to me. Why are you so wound up?’
(It’s almost as if he wants one of Sam’s emo moments, almost as if he’s begging for one, and he doesn’t really know why – only that the voices are driving him mad and he needs to stop them and the best, most perfect way in the world to stop the voices is to hear Sam’s voice – hearing it would be enough – if Sam told him not to listen, Dean would agree. He only needs to hear.)
Outside, it’s begun to rain (it would, Dean thinks, God, it would), a thunderous, ferocious, pelting rain that batters the Impala’s shiny exterior, and slips down the windows and windshield in waves. Dean switches on the windshield wipers and glances at Sam again. He’s staring out the windshield now.
Rolling his eyes with a heaving sigh, Dean turns back to watch the road.
‘Turn here,’ Sam says suddenly.
Dean slows automatically and raises an eyebrow at his younger brother. ‘Whoa. Two words. I almost swerved off the road.’
Sam ignores the sarcasm and repeats his demand. Dean squints past the windshield wipers and the rain and the incessant voices and catches the exit number. He turns to glance at his brother again as he turns into the exit.
‘You want to go to Bobby’s?’ he asks.
Sam nods, and Dean notices he’s biting his lips raw and his skin is pale and clammy. And Dean recalls the wide-eyed look and remembers where he’s seen all this before – it’s like Sammy’s going into shock. Dean slams down on the brake and they screech to a stop.
Sam turns. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘What’s wrong?’ exclaims Dean incredulously. ‘Dude, you’re what’s wrong. Mind telling me what the hell is up with you? You look like you just saw someone die.’
Sam shakes his head slightly. ‘I’m fine, Dean. Keep driving.’
‘Are you hurt?’ asks Dean immediately, heart rating jacking. ‘Did the werewolf get you? Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Dean,’ says Sam carefully, staring straight into his elder brother’s eyes now. ‘I’m fine. Let’s go, okay? Let’s get some sleep.’
But if Sam thinks Dean’s going to believe that, he’s got another thing coming. Dean presses down on the accelerator, but his heart doesn’t slow, and he actually feels thankful that they’re going to Bobby’s, because something is wrong with Sam and Dean doesn’t know how to find out what.
**
They get out of the car slowly, even though it’s raining harder now than it was before. The place is dark, even under the streetlights, and Dean half-expects Ruby to walk out of the darkness. He’s always expecting Ruby these days. Always expecting her to appear and mess with Sam, in turn messing with Dean himself. Dean doesn’t want to hear about how Ruby “thinks” she can save him from Hell, or “help” Sam save him from Hell. Dean doesn’t want to think about Hell because it starts up the voices and the memories and the fears and he has enough of those already. He wishes Ruby would just give up her supposed training efforts and get out of their lives, because if she breaks Sam with all her lies, if she keeps on telling him that his big brother can be saved, so help him God, Dean will wring her neck with his own hands. He hasn’t yet told Sam what Ruby confessed to him, that day, outside the motel, because she hasn’t yet paid another visit. If she does, though, and if she keeps flapping her lying lips, he’s going to make sure she follows him to Hell. She has no right to break Sammy. Dean doesn’t care what kind of preparation his kid brother needs for the “war”. There’ll be time enough for that later. For now, can’t she just let them enjoy each other the way they are, familiar and same? Can’t she let a good thing last a little longer? Dean doesn’t want to go to Hell with his last memory of Sam to be one that doesn’t fit. (He doesn’t want his last memory to be of a different, changing Sam, a Sam he’ll never get to know, a Sam who will always remain a stranger to him, haunting him as he rots in the reeking bowels of Hell.)
They walk up to Bobby’s front door and Sam shoves his hands into his pocket, his hair plastered firmly to his head.
Haircut, Dean thinks mildly as he knocks on the door, feeling his wet clothes beginning to stick.
Haircut, he thinks again, waiting, and then,
Bobby’s probably still asleep, and,
This was a stupid idea. And then, finally, forcefully,
Sam needs me, because the voices aren’t listening to his other thoughts, so he decides to reply to their goading. But this only gives them more confidence and they scream into and not-into his ears, from Heaven or Hell, or the depths of his mind:
Sammy just wants you to leave. Sammy just wants you off his back. Sammy just wants you to stop babying him. Why else wouldn’t he be talking to you?**
Secrets, Sam has a secret he can't tell Dean
Very intriguing. Can't wait to find out what is wrong with Sam. Update soon!
