AN: This was inspired by a post on tumblr where someone said something to the effect of "Do you guys remember when that woman in white told Sam he'd be unfaithful?" I don't know if this is what they meant by it, but my brain kind of exploded. Because how many times has Sam been unfaithful to Dean since that day?
SPOILERS: Up to and including 8x01, but nothing further. The S1-3 references in particular are pretty heavy, so I've put a full list of referenced episodes at the end.
Warning: Here there be language.
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Unfaithful
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"You can't kill me. I've never been unfaithful."
"You will be."
Sam and Constance in Supernatural 1x01: Pilot
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Jericho.
The little town that started it all – the end of Sam's life as he knew it (for the second time around, if you count that one time when a demon showed up out of the blue and killed his mother).
How many years has it been? Nearly nine years, by earth's count? Or over one hundred and nine, if he includes Hell? It feels longer than it actually has been, in any case.
Sam remembers a hunt a little while after the whole Woman in White thing – a haunted truck that was driving around town, killing people responsible for its owner's death.
He'd been feeling particularly frustrated by his life, and he remembers a conversation he had with Dean.
"So, this killer truck," Dean had said, and Sam had laughed bitterly.
"Oh, I miss conversations that didn't start with This killer truck," he'd said.
He'd been missing College at the time – been missing normal conversations that started with "Hey, when's that essay due?" or "Oh, you know those morons down the hall from us…" and "I could totally go a coffee right now," and "So, that lecturer…" – and he'd thought that killer trucks were so far beyond what he should have to be dealing with at the time.
What Sam wouldn't give now – after Dad and deals and hell and heaven and apocalypses and prophets and purgatory and demons and betrayal and Ruby and blood and Lucifer and Michael and angels and pits and little brothers and vessels and Bobby and Ellen and Jo and Cas and leviathans and insanity and every fucking thing they've dealt with since then… what Sam wouldn't give for just a simple hunt that starts with a conversation about a killer truck.
But back then – back in Jericho, with its high rate of missing persons who all vanished somewhere along Centennial Highway – it was just one hunt – one last hurrah, so to speak – with his brother before Sam went back to Jess and Stanford and his normal life and aced his Big Interview and got his whole future handed to him on a plate and married the girl and never told her what the family business was and they had their two-point-five kids and their dog and their white picket fence and they lived happily ever after.
That's not at all how it ended up happening, of course, but it's what Sam had thought (hoped, dreamed) would happen at the time.
So he'd gone with Dean on this one hunt, and they'd found their dad's abandoned motel room and worked out what he'd been hunting and then Dean had been arrested and the hunt had been paused for a moment.
One paperclip and a fake police report later and Dean had escaped custody, Sam was driving to pick him up, and Constance had shown up in the Impala.
Constance, who'd found out her husband had cheated on her and – in a fit of anger – drowned her children in the bathtub. Constance, who'd realised what she'd done only after it was too late and gone and jumped off the nearest bridge because the guilt and devastation was too much to deal with. Constance, who'd been punishing unfaithful men in spectacularly bloody fashion ever since then, driving Jericho's Missing Person numbers up higher every year from 1983 til now.
"Take me home," she'd requested, sitting all prim and shy in the backseat, like Sam didn't know what happened to men after they'd driven her home.
"No," he'd said, and her vulnerable expression had hardened instantly.
And for the second time since arriving in town the ghost took over control of the Impala ("Man, that Constance chick, what a bitch!") and she'd driven herself home with Sam locked in the driver's seat, only to sit there once they arrived and stare forlornly at the ramshackle old building that had once been the loving home of a young family.
"I can never go home," she'd whispered, making no move to go inside, and everything had fallen into place.
"You're scared to go home," Sam had said, and yeah, maybe drawing the attention of a homicidal ghost when you're at its mercy and completely without backup hadn't been the best thing to do right then, because the next thing Sam knew was that she was on top of him and her fingers were digging holes through the skin on his chest.
"You can't kill me," he'd gasped through the pain, even as it was very apparent that she was planning to do just that. "I've never been unfaithful."
She'd looked up at him at those words, and then he'd blinked and her lips had been right by his ear, and she'd whispered in a way that would have been sensual if she hadn't been both dead and actively trying to kill him too, "You will be."
In the aftermath of the hunt – after Dean arrived just in time and shot her through the Impala's window ("What the hell are you thinking, shooting Casper in the face, you freak!") and Sam had driven her into the house for her children (the ones she'd killed, the ones who'd been waiting for her since the day she drowned them in the bath and then left to jump off the nearest bridge) to greet her and all three of them had vanished out of existence with a bang and a screech, and Dean was driving Sam home for his interview and all was silent in the Impala ("And I'll tell you another thing – if you scratched my car… I'll kick your ass.") and Sam had time to think – he'd thought that Constance had just been being all anti-male-feminist on him, claiming that he would be unfaithful one day, because he was a male and thus genetically wired to cheat on his girlfriend and it was only a matter of time, but that wasn't it at all.
Sam never did cheat on Jess.
Never got the chance, even if he had been that way inclined (which he wasn't).
He'd arrived home from Jericho to find cookies on the table and Jess on the ceiling, and in very quick succession all his dreams of a normal life had gone up in flames.
He never cheated on Jess, and any of the relationships he had between her and Amelia were far too short for there to be either the time or inclination to cheat, and in the back of his mind where his subconscious kept a memory of an angry ghost's words, he was proud, because he was right and she was wrong and he'd never been unfaithful.
Except… well.
Turns out that's not strictly right, is it?
Because suddenly Dean's back from Purgatory and Sam's just said that he didn't look for him, and Dean's got this look of such hurt on his face that Sam kind of can't breathe, and suddenly Constance's words come back to him.
Turns out, you don't actually have to be in a romantic relationship with someone to be unfaithful to them.
Sam and Dean – sure, they've always had an on-paper rule that if one of them ends up gone the other should move on, but it's not like that's ever stopped them before, and each of them have more than one example to support that fact.
Sam died in Cold Oak and Dean made a deal to bring him back.
The trickster killed Dean and Sam hunted the bastard down for six full months with barely enough time taken to stop for breath before he finally found the guy and forced him to change it all.
And then Dean really did die and did go to hell and Sam tried (and failed, but that doesn't matter in the long run, because there's truth to that saying that it's the thought that counts) to bring him back.
Sam was possessed by a demon and went on a killing spree, and even before Dean worked out the part about the demon he refused to believe that Sam was responsible for all the carnage they'd witnessed and maintained that there must be some explanation.
Dean ended up tied to a tree in an apple orchard, a very-much-so unwilling sacrifice for some old-school fertility god, and Sam hitchhiked all the way back from half-way to California just because Dean hadn't answered his phone, and he got there just in time to free Dean and help him kill the beastie.
Sam was infected with the Croatoan virus, and Dean refused to kill him, despite the fact that all the evidence suggested that within hours there would be nothing left of Sam, and only a mindless, bloodthirsty beast in his place.
Dean was electrocuted to within an inch of his life and the doctors gave him a few months at most, and Sam didn't stop looking for a way to save him until he found a faith healer capable of reversing the damage (through less-than-moral means, as it turned out, but they hadn't known that at the time).
They're the Winchesters. Family comes first and impossible things are well within reach if you just have enough stubbornness to make it happen, and you never give up on your family.
They've both been to hell and come back; they've both been to heaven and come back; they broke all the rules of the apocalypse and forced not only Lucifer, but Michael too back into the Cage; they defeated Eve, the Mother of everything that goes bump in the night; and they ran a two-man army against the Leviathans and managed to beat the sons-of-bitches.
Winchesters don't just give up when their family is in danger. They don't just not try to save them. They stick at it, and they find the impossible solution, and they succeed, damn it, and they come out on top and live to fight another day side by side.
Except… that's not what happened this time.
Because yeah, they beat the leviathans, but the bastards took Dean (and Cas) down with them, and all of a sudden Sam had found himself standing alone in an empty room after Dean had been dragged to Purgatory.
And did Sam stay true to their unwritten rule and move Heaven and Earth to gain access to Purgatory to save his brother?
No.
He gave up – he moved on and moved in with a girl and in the end Dean had to rescue himself, and now Dean's standing there with this hurt look on his face like he didn't even know that Sam was capable of betraying him as badly as he has.
Except that, really, Sam thinks with a sinking feeling, Dean shouldn't be surprised. Because this is hardly the first time that Sam's betrayed him.
Ruby is the most notable example that comes to mind, but it's not the only time.
He'd walked off on Dean in the middle of nowhere with a mind to go look for John himself and he'd left Dean to deal with the hunt on his own, which nearly ended very badly.
And when those two moron hunters had shot them and sent them both to heaven, all of the memories that classified as Sam's best had been one after the other of leaving his family behind.
And yes, Sam had thought he was doing the right thing with Ruby; and yes, he'd thought that going off to look for their Dad instead of going on yet another hunt was the most important thing at the time; and yes, maybe Zachariah was fucking with them and trying to cause dissention between the brothers and manipulating their memories accordingly; and yes, he hadn't even the faintest idea of where to even begin looking for a way out of Purgatory… but that still doesn't change the fact that really, when it comes down to it, Sam's betrayed Dean more than once.
He's chosen another person, gone a different way, left Dean behind, betrayed him…
While Dean – who, yes, has made some stupid decisions; and yes, can be a dick; and yes, holds grudges about things for way too long; and yes, can be an overbearing asshole; and yes, sometimes treats Sam like he's a foolish little kid... but who's never once looked between his brother and someone else and chosen the other person; who's never once walked out on Sam, who's never once betrayed him, who's sacrificed everything for Sam ever since the night he carried him out of a burning house when he was four years old – has never, ever been anything but utterly faithful to Sam.
"You can't kill me," Sam had said to the ghost who had been his first case in four years; the first case of the rest of his life. "I've never been unfaithful."
"You will be," she'd responded.
And she hadn't been wrong.
…
end
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Episodes referenced (in order of appearance):
1x01: Pilot
1x13: Route 666
8x01: We Need to Talk About Kevin
2x21: All Hell Breaks Loose (Part 1)
3x11: Mystery Spot
3x16: No Rest for the Wicked
2x14: Born Under a Bad Sign
1x11: Scarecrow
2x09: Croatoan
1x12: Faith
5x22: Swan Song
6x19: Mommy Dearest
7x23: Survival of the Fittest
1x11: Scarecrow
5x16: Dark Side of the Moon
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AN: Now, I love Sam. I love Dean more,true, but I really do love Sam as well. But there are a lot things he's done over the years that I have disagreed very strongly with, primarily because of the way that those things would break Dean's heart.
I think that his not looking for a way to rescue Dean was totally, totally wrong, and he has betrayed Dean a lot over the years. Dean's a forgiving guy and Sam's the most important thing in his life, so he's forgiven Sam each time he's turned his back on Dean, but every time it's happened it's just splintered Dean's heart that little bit more, and it's not ok.
And yes, Sam loves Dean too and he's made a lot of sacrifices for his brother (jumping into a certain pit comes to mind), but there are a lot of things he's done wrong, too.
I'd love to know your opinion on this – have I been too hard on Sam, am I right on the money, or am I somewhere in between? Please review. :)
Love Bundi