Deeds Not Done
It had been a simple demon case. Kind of a milk run for the Winchesters at this point. They had apprehended the demon that had gutted 8 people. It was possessing a 32 year old man by the name of Curtis Spencer who had gone missing 7 moths ago from 5 states over.
Sam and Dean had him tied to a chair inside the standard Devil's Trap in an old hunting cabin well outside of town. They would exorcise it, but not before seeing if it had any knowledge to offer first. They brought him to with a splash of holy water. It sizzled on his flesh. He screamed then looked at his captors. A huff of disbelief left his mouth and he regarded them.
"Winchesters. And here I thought I'd never have the honor," he told them facetiously
"Well congratulations. Today's your lucky day," Dean chided.
"I wouldn't call it that."
"That's right, because we're sending your ass straight back to Hell."
The demon snorted. "You're not all you're hyped up to be."
"No?" Dean said raising his eyebrows with a 'do I look like I care' look. He really didn't.
"Please. You're just a scared boy. A mindless grunt. Your father's cannon fodder."
They had more than enough practice with demons. They knew they knew personal details about them, knew they'd use them to try to get under their skin. Sometimes despite their knowing better, it worked, though they wouldn't give the demon the satisfaction of seeing so. Dean was so over this though. He had gotten past it. Well, with some help from his brother being his constant.
"Your the only one who's fodder here, pal."
The demon smirked, but its expression changed to amused maliciousness as it turned to look at Sam.
"And look at you. Sam Winchester. Boy King. Azazel and Lucifer's Chosen One," it spat.
Sam huffed, "Yeah, I've heard that before. In case you didn't know, you lost."
The demon cackled. "You don't even know what a disappointment you are."
"What, to a bunch of demons? We'll be sure to send you some flowers and a "I'm sorry for your loss" card," Dean piped unhumorously, letting Sam know he had his back.
The demon didn't look at him. Instead, he glared at Sam, a knowing smirk on his face.
"But how much pain have you caused, Sam? How may lives have been lost because of you, even now? You really think you won?"
"We've saved more people than you can count," Dean interjected. His use of the word, "we," not "he" was intentional, again making sure Sam knew he wasn't allowing him to be singled out.
The demon ignored him. "People tried to make it right over the years, you know. Gordon had the right idea but… well, we know how well that turned out for him. And your brother couldn't kill you..."
He said I might have to kill you, Sammy.
Dean spared a glance at his brother. Sam's game face was still firmly in place, but Dean could sense the inward flinch.
"...And despite everything he was told, what other hunters tried to tell him, neither could your father."
Dean's head whipped back to the demon. It stared at Sam intently. Its voice was smooth.
"He was going to, you know. Kill you. When you were a kid." The demon sneered at Sam. "You remember that morning he woke you up to look at the sunrise while Dean was asleep in the car?"
Sam and Dean both felt a stutter in their chest.
"Shut your mouth," Dean seethed, not knowing or caring where the demon was going with this.
Sam's hunter face fell away. His breathing quickened as the memory filled him led by the demon's voice.
"He told you to look at the sun. He was going to shoot you in the back of the head. End it right then," the demon said matter-of-factly, "But then you got so excited and were acting like a real kid that he. Just. Couldn't. Do. It."
Acting like a real kid. Because I'm not one, Sam thought, I never was.
I was just a little kid. You think maybe I knew? I mean, deep down, that I had demon blood in me, and about the evil of it-?
"Your lying," Sam said, but there was uncertainty behind it.
"You can think that if it brings you comfort," the demon replied, "But its true."
"No."
"Oh c'mon boy! You're not remembering the whole story! Or did daddy water it down for you?" the demon raved.
"Shut up," Dean warned. The demon chuckled. He was having his way.
"Your daddy was going to blow your brains out," the demon sing-songed at Sam.
Dean looked at his brother. Sam was shaken despite himself. He knew it and so did the demon. Dean was shaken too. His insides felt cold, as frozen as Sam looked. It had to be a lie.
I know demons lie, but do they ever tell the truth too?
Maybe. Especially if they know it'll mess with your head.
Dean could hear the blood rushing in his ears, every muscle tense and vibrating with readiness, anger and the need to protect.
"Bet he regrets not doing it. Oh, wait," chastised the demon. "He was going to put you down but he didn't have the sac. He-"
Without warning Dean lunged forward with a growl and plunged the demon knife into its chest. The demon howled as electricity crackled from inside it then the head dropped motionlessly. Dean ripped the blade out unceremoniously and turned to face his brother. His look of raw anger and hatred melted to astonishment and concern that he couldn't quite mask if he had thought to try. The damage had been done.
Sam stood there stunned and pale. His shoulders dropped, posture deflated. His mouth was slack and his eyes were searching something inside, something Dean couldn't see. Fear upped itself a notch in his gut.
"Sam?"
His younger brother didn't answer. He tried again. "Sam."
Sam looked at the demon's body, well, the person it had been possessing and finally at Dean. His eyes were pained and distant, still partially somewhere Dean wasn't.
"He was a demon, Sam. Don't you believe it."
Sam still didn't respond.
"You hearin' me?" Dean questioned angrily.
"I can't not, Dean." Sam spoke lowly.
"What do you mean?" Dean felt his heart grow tight again, like there was something here he wasn't privy to, something he didn't want to be privy to but needed to be.
You're not remembering the whole story.
While Dean was asleep in the car.
Oh, god. It couldn't have been true. Please no. No, no, no, no.
"Nothing."
"Sam-"
"We should take care of the body," Sam said. Before Dean could say anything his brother walked out.
...
They dug in silence, and Dean didn't like it one bit. He didn't like where his mind kept going about their father, about what he remembered and how exactly he remembered it. He liked the vibe he was getting from Sam even less. The kid was hurting. He was angry and scared and Dean got that, because so was he. Demons lie. Of course they knew that, but it didn't feel like this one had.
They salted and burned the man's body in the hole they had dug in the woods. Neither looked away or at one another. They were going to try to save him by exorcising the demon. It would have been a gamble anyway. They knew demons usually rode humans hard and put them up dead. Still, Dean had been so afraid and enraged he hadn't cared. He had just wanted the thing dead. Sam didn't argue. It felt like the least of their concerns. Sam stood further than usual, and Dean could feel the wall he was putting up around himself, which would explain some of the cold absence he felt when he finally noticed.
When the flames finally died down they filed in the hole. Dean's mind was reeling. He could imagine Sam's. He decided it was time to try again. This wasn't something they couldn't talk about, as much as Dean didn't want to.
"Sam?" He kept his tone light, wanted to make sure Sam knew he was there, making sure he was alright.
How stupid. Of course he wasn't alright. He'd just been told his father had attempted to kill him when he was a child.
"No."
"Sam, c'mon."
"Don't, Dean. Just... don't." Sam's voice faded from anger to a plead, and when his eyes met his brother's, Dean caved and clamped his mouth shut. For right now, Sam needed space. Dean would give him that. Just for now. Besides, what could he say?
...
The brothers were packing their things. Dean was in the cabin grabbing the last of them. They needed to get the hell out of this place. Put it in the rear view and never look back. If only it were that easy to do the same with the demon's words, but they kept echoing in the brothers' heads.
Dean stepped outside into the cool night air. His eyes immediately found Sam standing at the Impala's trunk, his back to him. He stopped mid-track.
Sam's shoulders were hunched as he returned things to the turn I with slow precision. Dean recognized the unconscious actions as nearly life long habits when Sam was bothered, trying to protect himself and brood and suffer in silence, because Winchesters didn't whine about their problems.
This was inconceivable. The idea that John had tried...
No. Not going there. I can't, Dean thought. Yet he knew he had to. He knew because he could see Sam. Then his younger brother's broad shoulders shook slightly, and Dean realized with horrifying clarity that Sam was crying.
He froze momentarily, not exactly knowing how to approach this, just knowing he needed to do something, and maybe not just for Sam. He set the duffle he had over his shoulder down on the ground and walked up behind him.
"Sam. Look at me." Sam tensed a little, but didn't stop his task or turn around. Dean reached out and grasped his shoulder, effectively turning him. Sam wouldn't meet his eyes.
"Don't do this to yourself, man," Dean offered. It sounded pathetic, even to him.
"What, be evil?" Sam said flatly.
Dean sighed. All of this had been years behind them, but tonight it had been dragged up, bringing old feelings rushing back that Sam, and his older brother for that matter, had thought were long gone.
"You're not evil, Sam. You never were. I know it. So do you." Dean willed him to hear the absolute in the words, but when Sam still didn't look up, he added, "So did Dad."
Sam looked up then, and Dean inwardly recoiled a bit.
"Yeah, that's why he told you might have to kill me. Why he was going to kill me."
"He didn't do it, Sammy."
Sam scoffed. "And that's supposed to make it okay?" He said incredulously, raising his voice some.
He was right of course, Dean knew. "No," he sighed again, "No it doesn't." He searched for reasoning. "But man, it was a long time ago. Dad didn't know. He was afraid and..."
And Dean couldn't offer anything more. He wished he could for both their sakes, but there was nothing to offer. Not for something like this.
"Damn it, Sam," Dean breathed quietly. And that about summed it up. Both looked down. "Do you remember it?" Dean asked after a moment.
Sam nodded slowly. "I mean, I didn't really until the demon mentioned that morning." Sam's eyes regained that distant look again. "It was the morning after that white haired guy grabbed me from the boarded up motel you took me to."
Dean went cold yet again. He hadn't thought about that in years. Dean remembered his father had left Sam with some old guy for a little while one day. After they got some lunch they picked Sam up. Dean hadn't thought much of it, but his father had been acting different after that and they drove on and on. It was like John had been running from something. They didn't stop until someone met him on the road. A man with white hair. At least, he looked like a man. His father motioned for them to stay in the car and went off with him. Moments later a flare went up and Dean had known with a heavy reluctant heart what that meant. He had jumped behind the wheel of the Impala, sitting on the edge of the seat and stretching his legs as far as he could to reach the pedals and got him and Sam out of there.
They'd holed up in an abandoned motel. Dean had gone outside when he heard his brother scream for him. He had held the man at gunpoint when John had finally gotten there. Hit the guy with a truck in fact. He fought with the man as Dean had gotten his brother out of the guy's trunk and placed him safely in the Impala, telling him to lay down and close his eyes no matter what. He had been the one to shoot that guy, not John.
He remembered the fear, thinking they'd lost their dad, the fear of someone taking Sam from him. He remembered the grim satisfaction of shooting the one responsible while feeling the horror of what he'd done. John had told Dean the guy was a monster and Dean hadn't felt bad then. Just another monster. And they both had told Sam that the bad man that tried to hurt him was gone. After John burned the body while Sam slept in the car under Dean's arm. The story became the story.
Or did daddy water it down for you?
But now…
Despite everything he was told, what other hunters tried to tell him…
Other hunters…
I'm not a killer, Dean. I'm a hunter. And your brother's fair game.
Dean felt his stomach grow tight.
"I was happy. He had woken me up to see it. I remember it felt special, because Dad never did anything like that and he never did it with just me, you know."
Dean swallowed thickly. One of the fondest memories Sam might of had of their father and it had been a lie. Tainted, like everything else in their cursed lives.
"And then you woke up and came out with us."
Dean's mouth dropped a little. He could remember, but he didn't think it was the morning light that had woke him. He had woken up alone in the Impala, Sammy no longer under his arm.
Sam slammed the trunk closed and sighed. "It doesn't matter. It's done," he said dismissively. He sniffed and wiped the moisture from his eyes with his hand, agitated. Dean watched him, wetness stating to pool behind his own eyes.
"Sam, don't do this to yourself," he repeated, softer this time. Sam took a shuddering breath and looked at Dean, hurt swimming in his hazel orbs as they regarded Dean's haunted green ones.
This was so screwed to hell.
"You think he would have regretted not doing it?" Sam asked suddenly and earnestly.
For a moment Dean was too afraid to respond, but he searched his heart for the father he knew, as big of a failure as a father as he might have been.
"No, Sam. I don't. I think it would have killed him." The answer was just as earnest as the question. Yet John had passed the task down to Dean, as if even hearing those word hadn't nearly killed him.
Dean loved his father, but he hated him too. He hated the man's burden he had put on a boy's shoulders; he hated his father's parting words to him, for placing that weight on him when John hadn't even been able to do it himself; he hated the broken look on his little brother's face. He hated John even more for this.
"But you know what I've done. What I did, and who knows what else could happen because of me," Sam said through now strained vocal cords. He was breaking.
Dean reached out again and grabbed Sam's shoulders, forcing him to look at him and trying to hold them both together.
"You made mistakes, Sam. Some were on you. A lot weren't. You have always tried to right everything you could and you give so much more back. That's not evil, Sammy. Your a better man than him. Your a better man than me."
Tears fell freely from Sam's eyes and he had to look away from his brother, shaking his head.
Dean slid his hands up to either side of Sam's face, making welling eyes see his. "Yes."
"I started the Apocalypse, Dean." Sam's voice broke. All of the walls his strong willed kid brother could build were collapsing, and Dean found he was actually grateful. This, he could deal with.
"No. We did, Sam, remember? We're not doing this again, so c'mon."
"But I-"
"No," Dean said simply before impulsively pulling Sam against him.
"Yeah, we may have started it, and Dad might not have known, but screw that. We came out on top and saved so many people. Because of you. You stopped it, Sammy. You alone," Dean whispered against Sam's neck.
As he held on Dean felt Sam's heart fall into a more regular rhythm against his own and felt Sam's hands fist in the material of the back of his jacket. He was hanging on as tightly as Dean was holding on to him because while they didn't know exactly how to deal with what they now knew, keeping one another together was age old familiarity.
After a moment they broke the embrace, hands lingering on arms. When Sam met his older brother's eyes, his were lighter.
"You're wrong though. I didn't do it alone," he said profoundly.
Dean felt his heart swell. The same as it did when a 5 year old Sam had proclaimed his favorite super hero was his big brother for a school project.
"Alright ya big girl, don't go getting all sentimental on me," Dean sniffed. He forced a smile that wasn't completely forced before his emotions could betray his stoicism even more.
His brother huffed a laugh that was likewise lighter hearted. Sam leaned against the Impala's trunk. A few beats later, Dean settled beside him, close enough their shoulders touched in affirming solidarity. He ran a hand over his eyes, clearing them and looked out into the woods.
"He was proud of us, Sam," which was as close Dean came to saying that the man had loved them. Truthfully he didn't know if John would still be proud of them. He thought so. They had made mistakes, but they had done a lot of it for each other. And if John wouldn't understand that he was a hypocrite.
"I know," Sam responded.
But it didn't make stomaching this easier. It never would.
"I'm not sorry you're here and he isn't."
Dean's head turned in his brother's direction. "What?"
"Back then. You asked me what I could say to make that alright."
It had caught him off guard, but then Dean knew exactly what Sam was talking about. His mind recalled his emotional outpouring on the side of that road years before.
Dad's dead because of me. And that much I do know.
What could you possibly say to make that alright?
Talk about dredging up old painful memories.
"Sam-" he began, throat closing slightly.
"Its not about this Dean," Sam said turning to face him, "I never was. I just should have told you then."
Dean saw the absolute clarity in his brother's eyes even in the moonlight. Sam had grieved for their father. Dean had known he missed him too. He had seen his brother's pain when he was able to see past his own, but even then Sam had focused on him. He had tried to pull him back from the edge, to keep Dean safe and here, because what it really came down to was them, together. It always had.
"You did, Sammy," Dean said, voice betrayed slightly by another wave of stinging in his eyes.
Sam gave him a smile. It still wasn't completely full hearted, fresh emotions churning inside couldn't allow for it to be, but it was genuine in his eyes. Dean settled a hand between Sam's shoulders. Its weight and warmth was solid, calming. There was more to this. More than what they could remember or had been conditioned to remember. Dean knew they would need to look into it someday. He knew Sam did too, but it would wait. They might hurt but they knew they would be okay because they would stick it out together. Same as always.
A/N: I know this makes John out to be even less of a father of the year, but if anyone has read the graphic novels (I know, I'm a nerd,) namely "Rising Son," Vol. 4 you know what I'm referring to. I wondered how the brothers might deal with knowing about such a thing- while making it a good broment too, of course. I have also always wanted to write a fic about what I thought Sam could or should have said to Dean at the end of Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things. It seemed better working it into this story since they're already dealing with dredging up things passed and better than doing it alone as a shorter drabble.
Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural or any of the graphic novels mentioned or referred to. They just give me fun ideas.