General Disclaimer: I own nothing but an old pick-up and some useless textbooks. I know nothing. Timelines and details are not my thing, so your belief may have to be suspended. This could go after Devil's Trap or not. I imagine it not to be though. Assuming they all survived that and found the demon later on. This would be after that. Vaguely inspired by Sam's "I'd sleep for a month" line in that episode I can't remember the name of. This should have three parts but I make no guarantees on the next two. Here it is, maybe you like it, maybe you don't (Yoakam :)) Let me know either way.
-------------------------
I Hear the Bells
-------------------------
After.
The demon is gone.
John is dead and Dean is broken.
Sam sleeps.
Sometimes, he sleeps for sixteen or eighteen hours a day, just because he can. It's a dark, dead sleep in which hours are lost with a mere blink. There are no nightmares anymore. Somehow, his brain knows that it's over.
Killing the demon sort of went exactly as he'd always expected it would. There was blood and guns. Nothing new for them. There's just vague snapshots left in his mind of the fight itself. But he can remember after.
Sam remembers standing there with the Colt warming his fingers, having fired that one, fatal shot to end the demon and everything they'd ever known, and staring at Dean.
His brother had this look like he'd gone blind. His eyes kept shifting a little to the left of whatever he was looking at.
They didn't even realize Dad was gone right away. Didn't even realize it until they got to the hospital and the doctors stood there in their white jackets, shaking their heads.
All Sam can remember feeling is disappointment.
Like, oh…that's it?
No, really…that's it?
--------------------------
There was a lot that happened in between all that and ending up at a motel in the middle of Kansas, sleeping away whole days, but Sam doesn't trouble himself to remember it. It doesn't really matter.
Finally, finally, he just gets to sleep.
"Sam?"
Sam opens his eyes. Dean is kneeling at his eye level next to the bed. The curtains are open, letting bright, white, afternoon sunlight slant in. The TV is on, a news channel.
"I'm going to the store," Dean says. "We need some stuff."
Sam opens his mouth. "Oh."
"Okay?" Dean asks, eyebrows raised. "Do you want anything?"
Sam pulls the covers higher. "Sleep."
Dean smiles a little. "Yeah. Alright." He stands and pats Sam on the shoulder before heading for the door.
Sam realizes he's about to leave with the TV still on and the curtains open. Can't sleep like that.
"Hey," he calls out.
As Dean turns around, Sam notices that he's limping pretty heavily though and he forgets about the curtains.
"What'd you do?" he asks.
"When?"
"Your knee," Sam tells him.
"Oh." Dean gets that look like he's gone blind again, dull eyes focused on the bedpost next to Sam's head. "The demon, Sammy, you know…"
That was a while ago, Sam thinks. It feels like forever ago. And he doesn't remember a thing about Dean being hurt.
"Right." He nods to cover his confusion. "Thought it got better."
"No." Dean turns for the door again. "Probably won't."
Sam finds that limp painful to see.
Once Dean is gone, he sits up and pushes the covers back. He shoves them away with his feet until they fall off the foot of the bed.
He has, he decides, been sleeping long enough.
--------------------------
When Dean returns from the store that day, it's to see Sam sitting at the small table by the window, showered and dressed.
"You're up," Dean says in surprise.
"Yep." Sam smiles. He'd gotten up and showered, dressed, read the newspaper, and promptly thrown up when he saw the date. Thought it was still May for some reason. Telling Dean he's lost almost two months is probably not a good idea though.
"Great." Dean grins in genuine enthusiasm. "Good. Are you hungry? I got some sandwiches and chips. Do you want something else? 'Cause I could always get something else."
"No, this is good."
Dean watches him for a moment, gauging his sincerity. "Okay." He drops into the chair across from Sam and starts to pull things out of the bags. "I didn't bug you before, did I? When I woke you up?"
"No. Just wasn't tired anymore."
"Good." Dean grins and pushes a sandwich across the table toward Sam. "Great."
Sam figures "good" and "great" must be his two new favorite words.
He eats everything Dean gives him and damn if it doesn't taste good.
He can't help but wonder what Dean has been doing for two months though. And what he plans to do now it's all over.
Dean wipes his mouth clean and tosses his trash into the wastebasket.
"Now what?" Sam asks.
"I got to call Bobby back," Dean says, already reaching for his phone.
"No." Sam shakes his head, still loosening sleep from his mind. "I mean, now what?" He gestures with his hands, meaning the future.
"Oh." Dean pauses and sets the cell phone down. "Well, uh, whatever you want, I guess."
Only thing is, Sam isn't sure what he wants anymore.
--------------------------
Dean isn't hunting at all. He isn't going to bars, isn't doing much of anything really.
And the scary thing, Sam notices, is that he doesn't seem to want to do anything.
He seems perfectly content to just hang around the motel. It's like someone's hit the pause button, freezing him in this one place.
"Shouldn't we be doing something?" Sam asks him one day, having grown bored with the TV.
Dean lays the newspaper down. "Like what?"
"I don't know." Sam shrugs. "Something."
"How about a movie?" Dean suggests, flipping to another page in the paper. "They've got times in here."
Sam stares at him. "I don't mean right now. I'm talking about life, Dean. Isn't there something you want to do?"
Dean barely considers this. "Might do some hunting."
"But don't you want, I mean, wouldn't you like--"
"To be normal?"
"Yes." Sam nods. "Yeah. We're done now, right? We don't have to do this anymore."
"You want to go back to school don't you?"
Sam considers this, considers the fact that it's Dean asking him this. He's wasted two months already sleeping, when he could've been getting started with normal again.
"Yeah. Yeah, I do."
"Then do it." Dean shrugs easily.
"What about you?"
"I'm not going to school."
"But you could get a job, Dean. A real job and a house. Doesn't that sound nice?" Sam sits up straighter. He can see how this could all work out for them.
"A real job?" Dean laughs, somewhere between a bark and a cough. "I'm twenty-six years old, Sammy, and I've had exactly three "real" jobs, none of which lasted longer than a couple of months. I'd be lucky if McDonald's hired me. And a house? Do you know a bank that'll spot me that loan? Or, hey, maybe I'll just put it on the VISA."
It's the first time Dean's been meanly sarcastic to him in awhile. Sam can't help but laugh.
"What?" Dean snaps.
"Nothing." Sam laughs. "It's just, you're right. God, I'm stupid." He can see the flaws in his plan now.
But even clearer than that, he can see the lasting legacy John Winchester has left. He has raised children that will never be able to live in the "real" world. Even if they want too.
People save up their whole lives to buy houses and work all their lives to get good jobs. And they have nothing. They scarcely even exist in that world.
Sam can't even imagine Dean in some nine to five type job. Dean in a suit. Dean in a cubicle. Dean trying to fix a jammed copy machine.
Sam cracks up laughing again.
"What?" Dean asks, softer this time. The corners of his lips curve up in amusement.
"Just put the house on the VISA." Sam laughs. "No one will notice that charge."
"Yeah." Dean smiles and then starts to laugh. He leans back in the chair and rubs his sore knee. "Yeah."
"You'd look good in the McDonald's uniform, Dean."
"Hell yeah, I would."
Sam grins.
This, he could live with.
--------------------------
He heads out to Stanford the next week, anyway. He has an appointment with the dean to discuss his extended leave of absence and possible re-enrollment. He doesn't expect anything to come of it, but it's worth doing.
Before he leaves, Dean tells him he's going to work on that white picket fence thing. Sam laughs.
He takes the Impala to California by himself, Dean for some reason opting to stay back at the motel in Kansas.
It feels good to be out on his own, stretching his legs. The California sun is bright as ever and he stops before his meeting to walk along the beach for awhile. It reminds him of Jess, gives him a sense of calm and safety. It makes him wonder, again, why he wasted two months sleeping.
The meeting goes well. Sam explains about Jess's death and Dad's disappearance and subsequent death while the dean nods with an apprehensive frown etched into her features.
"I'm concerned," she finally says. "That you may not yet be ready to return."
"I'm ready," Sam reassures her. "I can do this." He leaves off the "I need this" part, in order to put forth a façade of sanity.
After a bit more nervous conversation she decides he can return with full scholarship reinstated.
Sam waits until he's outside in the car to freak out.
He calls Dean and tells him.
"Holy hell." Dean whistles. "What'd you do to convince him?"
"Her," Sam says.
"Oh." Sam can hear Dean smirking across the line. "I see."
"Whatever, Dean. God, can you believe it?"
"I'm happy for you," Dean says. "I'm glad you're happy, man."
"Can you believe this?" Sam asks again.
"Yeah." Dean laughs. "I can."
"Full scholarship, Dean! I can finish."
"I know, Sammy, I know. You're going to chill out before you drive anywhere, right?"
"Yeah." Sam breathes, trying, and not succeeding in drawing the smile from his face. "I can't believe this. Seriously, Dean. Can you believe it?"
"Yeah," Dean replies calmly. It's you. "Wouldn't expect any less."
-------------------------
When Sam gets back to Kansas, it's early evening. Dean limps out to meet him, shadow stretched long across the parking lot.
"Feeling good?" he asks, slapping Sam on the back and laughing.
"Yeah." Sam grins.
Dean reaches into the backseat to grab Sam's bags. "Hungry?"
"Always." Sam follows his brother back to the motel room.
Dean seems to have gotten older somehow, in the few short days he'd been away. It might be the limp, Sam considers, or the light. But probably, it's the thought of being alone as he goes back to school.
"Hey," he calls to Dean. "Any progress on the picket fence?"
Dean laughs. "Not in this lifetime."
The TV is on again, CNN or something, as Sam steps into the room. A pot of macaroni and cheese sits on the hot plate.
"Dinner." Dean grins, removing the pot from the hot plate and setting it on the table in front of Sam.
"Aren't you going to eat?" Sam asks.
"Already did." Dean waves his hand flippantly. "So, how'd everything go?"
"Good," Sam answers slowly. He shoves a forkful of macaroni and cheese in his mouth. "Already got my classes scheduled."
"How to be a Lawyer 101?"
"Yeah." Sam pauses. "But…I don't know."
Dean leans forward intently. "Don't know what?"
"Law school. It doesn't feel right anymore."
"Why not?"
Sam shrugs. "I don't know. I just…I'm not like them."
"You don't want to fit in with the stuffy old men anymore?" Dean grins.
"Yeah, I guess. There's just so many limitations on what you can do, to help. I'm not sure it's worth it. And most of those old men don't even know what they're doing. They're just walking around--"
"Noses in the air?"
"Yeah." Sam nods emphatically.
"So?" Dean shrugs.
"So…"
"So, shake 'em up. You know what you're doing. You know how to get around red tape. Beat the hell out of them. Just because you didn't have some white collar upbringing doesn't mean you're less than anybody."
"Really?"
"I wouldn't say it if I didn't mean it."
Sam smiles. It's reassuring, but at the same time, he isn't sure what to do with this Dean, so encouraging and positive. He keeps waiting for the mask to crack.
And a few weeks later, it does.
-------------------------
tbc