A/N: So here's a oneshot for everyone who thought I'd been abducted by aliens. Nope, just been busy helping out on www.supernatural.tv's Virtual Season. (Go read - certain characters don't DIE in it!)
Angst Alert: Very angsty and very Deancentric and this is what happens when I'm left alone with a copy of In My Time of Dying and time on my hands. I only watched it three times yesterday.
I don't usually do angst. My last angst-fic occurred when I found myself in a similar situation with Devil's Trap.
Synopsis: I'm not entirely sure it's about anything. It's kind of more of a stream of consciousness type thing.
Dedication: Written for bjxmas. Not sure if this is what you had in mind, but its what came out.
Spoilers: Oooh, for everything, but especially In My Time of Dying, which most of my fellow Brits won't get to see until January. Oh, and there are some micro-references to my Virtual Season story Let Go, but you don't have to have read that to understand this. Actually I'm not sure anyone is going to understand this. But you're more than welcome to pop on over to the Virtual Season and give it the once over. Hits always welcome.
Disclaimer: If I owned it, it would have been shown around the world last Thursday. Even in places in the US that don't carry the CW, if only to safeguard the sanity of Thru Terry's Eyes.
TAKE / GIVE
I made you grow up too fast. You took care of Sammy. You took care of me…I just want you to know that I am so proud of you.
The night it took his Mom, Dean Winchester was given something else.
Take your brother outside as fast as you can.
Sammy had been his ever since.
Not that Dean hadn't already been an awesome big brother, even before Dad gave him Sam.
The first time he'd laid eyes on the new baby he'd promised his Mom that he was going to be the bestest big brother in the world ever.
Mom had smiled at that. "I know that, love," she'd said, and then she'd shown him how to hold the baby properly, how to support his head and make sure he didn't hurt him.
Dean would never hurt Sammy.
Dean had loved to hold his baby brother then, even though he was really too small himself to do much else but let him lie there across his knees, gurgling up at him like he was the most important person in the world.
He'd felt so safe then. The safest he'd ever felt in his life, sitting in Mom's lap with Sammy in his arms. Mom had shown him how to hold the baby's bottle just right, her hand on his. "There, that's it. You're a natural, honey!"
Dean hadn't felt safe in a long time.
Don't be scared, Dean.
"Daddy, the baby's crying."
Dean didn't know where he was.
Dad had said they had to go. Mike had called some Bad People and they were coming to take Dean and Sammy away. So they had to go.
That had been a while ago.
Lots of motel rooms ago.
All Dean knew now was that they were somewhere a long, long way from home and Sammy was crying.
Dean had never slept in a motel room before Mom was taken.
It had been an adventure at first. Him and Dad and Sammy in a strange room, with take out food and a cranky TV and a lumpy bed that smelled funny.
But now he was tired. Tired because he didn't sleep much any more. Kept dreaming about fire and Mom and Daddy, did she hurt? And every night he woke to the same sound.
If it wasn't Sammy it was Daddy.
Every night he woke to the sound of crying.
Tonight it was Sammy.
Last night it was Daddy.
"Daddy?"
He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes as he padded quietly over to the table by the window where Dad was sitting, poring over something clutched tightly in his hand.
It was dark outside. Dark and raining and the street light made the shadows of the raindrops on the window trickle down Dad's face.
"Sammy's crying," Dean said in a small voice. "Daddy?"
He was looking at a picture. The same picture he'd been looking at every night for two months.
Mommy looked pretty in the picture. Pretty like Dean remembered her and smiling.
Dean couldn't remember the last time he saw Daddy smile.
Gingerly, he reached out and put a small hand on Dad's shoulder.
"Its okay, Daddy."
Dean wasn't sure if Dad heard him.
Dad didn't even hear Sammy.
But Sammy was still crying.
The makeshift motel room crib wasn't very nice, Dean had decided. It smelled even funnier than the bed and was all brown around the edges.
He lifted Sammy out because he figured maybe Sammy didn't like the crib either, and that's why he was crying. He was getting heavy, but that was okay. Dean could manage.
But even when Sammy was cradled against Dean's shoulder like Mom had shown him how, he still kept crying.
Hungry.
Dean was hungry, so maybe Sammy was too.
There was a microwave in the motel room's little kitchen. Brown kitchen. Brown like the carpet and the drapes and the bed and the crib and Dad's eyes. Dean stood looking at it for a second, working out what the buttons did. He knew what the big dial was for. Kate had shown him that. She'd shown him lots of things. Like how to warm Sammy's milk. And how to change his diapers. And how to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches just like Mom used to make.
They'd gone to stay with Dad's friend Mike for a little while after the fire took Mom. Mike was nice. Until he called the Bad People. And his wife Kate was nice too, nicer, always hugging Dean when Dad forgot.
Sammy had been wailing something fierce, but Dad had been lost in a pile of funny-looking books with no pictures that smelt weird like the library and hadn't heard.
Dean had kind of stopped talking for a while there, figuring if Daddy couldn't hear Sammy then he couldn't hear Dean so what was the point.
So he had just stood looking at him, hoping he'd hear. But he hadn't.
He never even looked up.
Kate had heard instead.
"Here, honey," she'd said, taking Dean's hand and leading him into the kitchen, Sammy balanced on her shoulder like Daddy used to balance the football. "I think maybe you're going to need to learn how to do this stuff."
And then she'd shown Dean how to use the microwave. How to make formula. How to change Sammy's diaper. He hadn't liked that part. Didn't complain though. Never did. But he didn't like it all the same. Just wordlessly stood and watched Kate, like he used to watch Mom, remembering every step, every move. Committing it all to memory so that he'd be able to take care of Sammy like a good big brother, and the next time Kate had stood and watched him change the diaper, and she'd smiled and said, "Good boy. Your Dad'll be so proud of you when he sees."
Dean wasn't sure he ever saw.
Like tonight.
There was already formula made up, it just needed warming. Dean had been practicing. He could do it all one-handed now, with Sammy balanced against him like a football. Popped it in the microwave and turned the dial. There. Not long, just right and Sammy stopped crying and smiled up at him and it was all okay again.
And it stayed okay.
Sammy got bigger, started crawling, walking, talking – that was Dean's favourite part. Would sit and chatter away to him for hours about nothing – he'd make up stories, lots of stories, about firemen and spacemen and cars. Dean's favourites were stories about Daddy's car and where she'd been and all of her adventures. Dean loved the car almost as much as he loved Sammy. And Sammy loved Dean's stories. Would take them oh so seriously, face screwed up when it didn't make sense and Dean, that's just silly.
Dean never told scary stories. No monsters or ghosts or things that went bump in the night like the pictures Dad taped to the walls. Dean didn't like those stories and neither did Sammy and even when Sammy was sure there was a monster in his closet, it had been up to Dean to assure him that there was definitely nothing there. And even if there had been, Dean would never have let it hurt Sammy. Dean would never let anything hurt Sammy.
I want you to watch out for Sammy.
Yeah Dad, you know I will.
But then one day the monsters and the ghosts and the things that went bump in the night weren't just stories any more.
And Dad was the one who needed watching out for.
Its okay, Dad.
But it wasn't. Not any more.
And Dean was scared all the time. All the time.
But he never complained. Not once.
He was scared for Sammy and he was scared for Dad and he was scared that sooner or later everyone was going to leave him.
And then one day Sammy did.
But Dad never said, "Its okay, Dean." Not like he should have. Because it wasn't okay. It would never be okay again. And Sammy was alone and in danger and Dean couldn't look out for him any more and that made him… That made him meaningless.
And then Dad was gone too.
And I can't do this alone.
And Sammy came back.
But he came back different.
He came back Sam. And he had secrets. Whole years where Dean didn't know what his life had been like, what he'd been doing, who his friends had been. Who had been looking out for him.
Jessica.
Jessica had been looking out for him.
But then she was taken too. Burnt up on the ceiling like Mom.
Sam didn't come back for Dean. Sam didn't even come back for Dad.
Sam came back for Jessica.
But that had been okay because at least he was here and at least Dean had meaning again. At least he had purpose. At least he had family.
They don't need you. Not like you need them.
But there was that one little problem, that one pesky little detail that always got in the way.
The Demon.
Dad came back like he always did, but not for Dean and not for Sam.
Dad came back for The Demon.
And Dean lost Sam for a second time.
I'm going to be the one to bury you… You don't care about anything but revenge.
And Dean had been right.
For a while.
Until The Demon and the truck and the blood and the coma and we were just starting to be brothers again.
And then Sam was Sammy and everything was going to be okay and Don't worry Sammy, I'm not going anywhere.
Don't be scared, Dean.
I want you to watch out for Sammy.
And suddenly Dean was given something else.
The day it took his Dad, Dean was given something else.
I want you to know that I am so proud of you.
So that probably made absolutely no sense, but hey. Great episode. Apart from the ending. Obviously.
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