AN- So this is Samstiel, though I'll admit right now my OTP/Canon ship is Destiel (it's SO canon I don't care what you say! Hello TV's couple of 2013!) but my secret love is for Samstiel. I've written three stories for this verse. It's uploaded right now as three chapters at Ao3, but I'm separating them here. This first little ditty is Teen-chesters. Hope you enjoy!
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It was the rush of warm air through the bar doors that drew him in, dragging his fifteen year old brother behind him. They had food in this joint, greasy type, burgers and fries, probably some fried cheese sticks, anything they could throw together for a drunk's stomach to handle.
He saw the booths about five feet away from the bar, that sectioned off area for the unfortunate children dragged here by alcoholic parents—or big brothers—whichever misfortune these mop-headed, bleary eyed minors had to suffer.
And it wasn't like Dean didn't feel bad about dragging Sammy to a bar, because he did. He felt like shit about it, but he needed a beer, and despite his under-age status, no one actually bothered to card him anymore anyway, so he figured one before bed, to help him sleep.
He wasn't even sure about the name of this little po-dunk town John had dropped them into, throwing the keys to the Impala at Dean with a quick, "Keep your eyes and ears open, and watch out for Sammy," as though Dean would do anything else. He'd been raising the kid since he was six months old for Christ's sakes.
Dean had been the one to figure out Sammy's problem, actually. I mean, they'd diagnosed it when Sammy was sixteen months old, but Dean had known pretty much forever, at least since his mom had burned alive, that Sammy wasn't… right. I mean, he was right, hell Sammy was a damn genius compared to him, but he just didn't talk, and he didn't react, and he pretty much sat in his own little world until one day Dean blew an air horn right in the kid's ear by accident.
They'd been at Bobby Singer's house that weekend, John off on some hunt, and Bobby just stood there, his mouth hanging kind of open, and he looked from Dean to Sammy and then back to Dean and said, "Do that again."
So Dean did, feeling pretty crappy about it since it even hurt his ears, but Sam didn't react again. Dean, being five, still was able to put two and two together. Of course John was just pissed off about it, he didn't have time to take care of a disabled kid, what was he going to do with Sam now? Wasn't there some sort of spell that could fix him? Or surgery? Anything?
Well the doctors said no, of course, because it was a genetic something-or-other, which in Dean's mind as he grew up was probably the best diagnosis because that meant he could blame it on John, like he blamed everything else on his old man. It was his fucked up genes after all, that did this to Sammy.
But Sammy was okay. No, Sammy was great. Smart kid, smarter than Dean could ever hope to be, and it was actually Bobby who taught them to sign once he got up the courage to admit he knew how to. Dean would never forget the weeks he spent with the whiskey-soaked hunter, his gnarled, calloused hands twisting and turning Dean's fingers into these shapes that were somehow supposed to make sense.
And eventually they did, and Sammy just sort of seemed to know it, and Dean would never admit it aloud but he never got tired of watching Sammy's chubby little toddler hands slapping and jabbing and pointing and spelling at an age Dean had barely been able to feed himself.
So then Dean just sort of assumed the role of caregiver. And John tired sometimes, but not enough, and by the time they were left in this craphole of a town, John could sign things like, wait here, don't move, and of course the important ones like Holy Water, get the salt, and grab my gun. Dean, of course, took care of the rest, forging John's signature on school papers so that sometimes Sammy could get an education because Dean would be damned if the kid didn't make it to college, and he did his best to steer his dad in the direction of towns that had Deaf schools because it was only fair that Sammy get to at least experience the culture he was a part of, even if the Winchester boys were never really part of any culture. Ever.
So here they were, and Sam hunkered down into the worn booth, scowling because frankly the kid had a chip on his shoulder, and who wouldn't raised up like that, and he hated it when Dean drank. But it was the only way Dean was going to get to sleep to tell the truth, and there was no telling when John would bother to show his face again. If he did at all.
'You want some food?' Dean signed from the stool at the very corner of the bar.
'Not hungry,' Sam's fingers snapped back and he turned his gaze away from Dean so the conversation couldn't continue.
He didn't blame his kid brother for being irritated, but damn it he just wanted a beer or two so he could sleep. The bartender, who had watched the exchange, approached Dean with some hesitation and in the most exaggerated manner possible, nearly shouted, "What… can… I… get… you."
Dean's eyes narrowed and the sting of being treated like a moron hit him. "I ain't deaf," Dean said through a clenched jaw, "and if I were, shouting at me and talking like I'm an idiot wouldn't make me understand you any better. Just give me whatever that is," and he made the letter Y with his hand loosely and then pointed to the nearest tap. Dean almost always signed when he spoke, whether Sammy was around or not because signs were just as much of his language as any spoken word would ever be.
The bartender looked uncomfortable but did as Dean asked. No ID, no nothing, because even at nineteen, Dean looked a hell of a lot older than most of the patrons. Then again, most of the patrons hadn't seen half the shit he had in his short life.
A waitress came around and started chatting away to Sam who shot Dean a petrified glare. He didn't do so well with strangers, hearing or Deaf. Social anxiety, a school counselor had called it, but Dean knew that Sam was just scared shitless because he knew what was out there. He'd seen the monsters that rode around in human form, and he'd been almost killed enough times to be damn scared of everything that moved.
"He's deaf, okay?" Dean said to the lady, getting her attention. "Just bring him a burger and fries. And I don't know, coke or whatever you got."
He was signing when he spoke, which made Sam's frightened gaze melt into fury because he hated that kind of crappy greasy food, and he never drank soda, no matter how often Dean tried to get the kid to enjoy junk food every now and again.
"No," Sam said aloud, though it didn't come out very audible and sounded like he was talking with cotton in his mouth. Frankly the one thing Sam wasn't good at was speaking, but that sort of worked in his favor in the end since hunting required you to be really damn quiet most of the time. 'Water,' Sam signed, angrily jabbing his chin with the W sign, and he slapped the top of the table for good measure.
The waitress looked positively petrified, and it gave Dean a slight satisfaction considering a woman in her field should at least know some basic signs. Unless this town had not a single deaf person, though considering the size and piece of shit place it was, that was likely. "He wants water," Dean said, not relenting on the burger part of the meal.
"Um okay," the waitress said and hurried off.
Sam gave an irritated groan and pulled out a book from his bag, something his latest literature teacher had given him for the road. The cover was so worn that the title had rubbed off but whatever it was, Sam couldn't put it down. It was in French, too, which Dean couldn't read even if he wanted to, and he often gave Sam shit about being able to read in four different languages, but secretly he was so damn proud of the kid that he could burst.
Dean turned back to his beer and gulped it down. It had gotten warm, but he usually preferred it that way, anyway. He didn't quite get why Americans had to have their beers frosty, it took all the taste out of it.
Without a word, the bartender poured him another and Dean nodded his thanks. He was getting damn tired already and by the time he'd finished his second drink, Sam had his burger and his precious ice water, and he'd picked at some of the fries, discarded the bun and managed to make a small salad out of the condiments which he consumed without hesitation.
Dean rolled his eyes but he loved his baby brother just a little bit more for it because Sammy was just so damn unapologetic about who he was, and that was a rare quality in humans. 'Sam,' Dean signed. Their name signs weren't even really proper name signs, just the first letter sort of slashed across the air because most of the time when they were running from witches or demons, they just didn't have time to be creative or proper.
Sam gulped down his glass of water and slid out of the booth as Dean threw down a wad of cash to cover the beers, food and a small tip for the pathetically ignorant humans inhabiting these jobs.
They made their way to the door and as Dean pushed it open, a young man around his own age passed them and man there was something just off about that guy. He was taller than Dean, though not taller than Sam who was a freaking moose, and he had something about him. A smell, maybe? A vibration?
Whatever it was, even Sam noticed it because he'd stopped dead in his tracks and was staring as the stranger walked up to the bar and began to talk to the bartender in rapid, low tones.
'What's he saying?' Sam signed in fast, quiet signs held down low and short so no one could see them.
Dean just shrugged because he couldn't make out any of the words, and he gave Sam a shove outside. There was something off about that dude and Dean wasn't in the mood for that tonight. He was tired, half-drunk, and the crappy motel bed with the moth eaten sheets was waiting. Sam hesitated but after giving him a few forceful tugs, he gave up and followed Dean down the street.
qp
It was no surprise Sam couldn't sleep. He'd had insomnia since he was really young, terrified of everything in the world that went bump in the night. Dean always told him that it's better to know than not to, but Sam thought that was a load of crap. He figured if he was going to be flayed alive and eaten, he'd rather just be taken by surprise.
But Dean never had trouble sleeping, even if it was the beer that knocked him out. He was well on his way to becoming another Bobby Singer, but Sam couldn't hate the old hunter that much because Bobby actually cared for the boys, as often as he could when he was around, and Sam knew asking Dean to find another way to deal with their shit life wasn't fair. Sam had books, Dean had booze.
He figured he was luckier anyway, because at least Sam had the silence to soothe him. He hadn't really ever known anything else besides the silence, but he had a feeling that the chaos of noise and screams and the wailing of people being murdered by supernatural things would eventually drive you mad. Sam might get lucky and walk away from this entire life unscathed. Or mostly, anyway, because some of that shit was just impossible to forget.
He'd grown up in hotels, too, so being able to find a comfortable position in the ancient chairs with springs poking out wasn't an impossible feat, and he'd made himself a nest with the threadbare blankets and flattened pillows near the window so he could read with the yellow, mottled light of the parking lot without keeping his brother up.
The book was amazing, too. It was some unpublished novel by his teacher's great, great grandfather about a Deaf guy who pretended he could hear so he could join his brothers in world war one. The French was older, and not entirely grammatically correct, but Sam got it enough to understand it, and the more he read, the more he loved it.
That particular teacher had been great, too. They'd been stuck in some tiny corn-farming town in Iowa where everyone stared at him like he was a total freak, and by the end of the first week he didn't want to be in school anymore because the redneck morons thought it was funny to shout things at him he couldn't hear, and jump out at him from random places because he couldn't hear them laughing as they waited for him to pass by. One girl even admitted she'd never seen a "deaf'n'dumb" guy before, and he got punched by her boyfriend because he couldn't help but laugh that she actually used that phrase.
But then this teacher pulled him aside and told him that he was a CODA. And then Sam realized that this teacher actually kind of got it, got what his life was like and for the first time in what felt like months it wasn't just Dean who understood that being deaf wasn't being useless or stupid, or less of a person. This teacher didn't get right up in his face and use slow, exaggerated words and weird, senseless hand gestures to try and get their point across.
But then they were on the move again, and Sam just had his name—Mr. Roberts—and this book which he tried not to take, but Mr. Roberts had insisted, saying that it would at least give Sam something to do while they were on the road. He didn't even ask Sam about his home life, either, like so many of the others did, and for the first time in a long time Sam was glad he didn't have to lie.
Sam had been struggling with a particular sentence for some time when he first saw the weird shadow fall across the book. It was like… well it was like a wing, actually, a feathered wing, like from a bird, but freaking huge. He looked out the window and saw nothing, so he kept reading but it happened again. This time he stood up, peered over at Dean who was probably snoring as he laid there with his head back and mouth wide open, and he briefly thought maybe he'd freak Dean out in the morning and tell him he saw a roach crawl in his wide open trap.
Sam peered up and down the street but didn't see anything. Still, something felt weird, kind of creepy, the way that stranger in the bar felt when they were getting ready to leave. And see, the funny thing was, Sam had stopped because he swore—and he couldn't be sure because it had never happened to him before—but he swore he heard something.
Now, not having ever heard anything, even with his hearing aids, which were so old they were practically museum pieces, he could only really guess what hearing was like. Even Dean, who could talk for hours and explain the subtle nuances of a purring Impala engine, couldn't quite describe what hearing was like. But it was like a vibration, in his head, subtle and it only lasted a second, but it was there, and it overwhelmed him and it made him freeze on the spot.
The truth was, Sam had been curious about hearing, but mostly he never really thought about it. He never really cared to not be deaf. I mean, it was just part of who he was and the people he cared about most, namely Dean and Bobby, didn't give a shit about whether his ears functioned or not. And maybe he wasn't part of the whole big Deaf culture thing seeing as they were always on the move and had never stopped for more than two weeks at a time, but he never felt like he was broken or missing out on anything. And Dean, Dean had never treated him like he functioned any differently than anyone else. Ever.
But the idea of hearing something, mostly because it was pretty damn impossible, freaked him out a little, and he had a feeling it had something to do with that guy at the bar. Obviously it was supernatural stuff, it's not like they could escape it even if they tried, but Sam wasn't sure he could handle someone messing with who he was like that.
There was a shift, like a gust of wind, he felt it with a pressure change in the room. Had he been able to hear, it would have sounded like a coat flapping in the breeze, but instead he just felt something different and when he turned, that strange guy was standing in the middle of the room.
"Sam," came a voice and it pelted across the fifteen years of silence, nearly knocking Sam to the floor. The weirdest part was, Sam understood it. He understood that the hissing sound, and that guttural aaahhh and the hum, of m pushing through lips meant his name.
His throat was tight as he reached out for the chair, gripping it. The book fell from the arm and clattered onto the floor, but he didn't hear it, and he figured he probably should have if whatever this thing was could make him hear.
So it wasn't hearing. It was something else?
"My name is Castiel," it said, but the lips hadn't moved, so it was definitely something otherworldly, and probably very dangerous, though for some reason, as startled as he was, Sam wasn't afraid.
'How?' Sam asked with his hands, knuckles pressed together, one tipping forward. He was shaking though, a bit too much to have anything but sloppy signs.
Castiel, as the thing called itself, cocked its head to the side. Its head? His head? It looked like a guy, which Sam had learned a long time ago that looks could be deceiving, but it was convincing enough. He raised his hands slowly, his long skinny fingers then punching out signs almost like those silly guys on those ASL videos in the high school classes who signed with way too perfect grammar. 'I did not mean to frighten you.' The signs flowed through the air, but the voice filled his head and he understood it which was the scariest thing to him.
'Am I hearing your voice? Really?' He brought his finger down from his chin a little sharper than he intended on, but the truth was, his nerves were taking over.
"I am an angel of the lord," and this time his mouth moved, just slightly, and there was that voice again and it just cut straight to his core as Castiel took a step toward Sam. "I'm here to warn you. Your father is in danger."
He was torn, suddenly, because he was hearing things, even if they were in his head, and even if he couldn't be sure that's what words actually sounded like, and my god this thing in front of him was a damn angel. He had never, not once, believed that angels existed. Not a single moment in his life, no matter how many times he saw ghosts and ghouls and goddamn demons. This Castiel thing might as well have called himself a unicorn.
And he should care that his dad was in danger, and he knew Dean would care, but he didn't. What was the point?
"It's not his time," Castiel said.
'Can Dean hear you?' Sam used his name sign for Dean, and pointed at Dean twice for good measure.
"No."
'Are these what words really sound like?'
At that, Castiel smiled, just a little upturn of the lips and he took another step to Sam. "Yes."
'Can you say my name one more time?' Sam wasn't even sure why he asked, only that he was kind of curious and really he was just thinking of Dean. He'd seen Dean do it, try and experience what Sam experienced through daily life. Dean hadn't done it in years, but Sam never forgot watching as Dean stuffed his ears with anything he could find when he thought Sam wasn't watching. And he'd stand there and yell and bang on things and try to see what day-to-day things were like without being able to hear them.
And now, for the first and probably only time it was possible that he could hear his name the way Dean did. Instead of that sharp S cutting across the air, or sometimes softer when Dean was just trying to be nice to Sam because their life really did suck.
Castiel seemed to get it, too, because he looked over at Sam's sleeping brother and then he approached Sam carefully, putting his hands on the side of Sam's face. He drew his mouth in near Sam's normally useless ear and he spoke, letting the air breeze across Sam's skin, and even though Sam didn't hear it where most people heard it, it flooded through his head and he knew that was his name.
"Sam."
"Now his," Sam said aloud, and had no doubts about Castiel understanding his crappy words.
"Dean." And it was nothing like Sam imagined it would sound, because the D was really sort of harsh and the 'E' sound sort of slid through and the N wasn't as rough or stilted the way it felt on his tongue the handful of times Sam had said it aloud to get his brother's attention. "Winchester."
He hadn't expected that one, and hadn't even known he wanted to hear it until Castiel said it. And when Castiel's warm hands had finally pulled away from Sam's face, Sam realized that his eyes were kind of wet. It wasn't that he wanted to hear, because again, he didn't want that chaos and he wasn't broken, but someone was able to give Sam that moment to hear the world like Dean did, or at least hear their names. And it was kind of nice.
'Where is my father?' He signed the word father with disdain he couldn't help, letting his thumb barely brush against his forehead because John didn't deserve that title. At all.
"Ten miles down the road, he's trapped in a house up on Baker's hill. Poltergeist that made a deal with a demon. Bring rock salt shells and tell your father about the deal. He'll know what to do."
Then all was silent like normal, and the pressure in the room was gone. Dean was still snoring so loud Sam could feel the vibrations as he approached the bed. His hand hovered above Dean's chest, ready to shake his brother awake, but he gave himself a moment, because something had happened that was only his, and he didn't know if he was going to see Castiel ever again, but he felt… different.
And it was kind of nice, too.
qp
He lied to his brother, of course, and told him it had been a dream, and Dean took him seriously because sometimes Sam had those kinds of dreams and they almost always came true. He looked thoroughly put out about driving ten miles in the foggy middle of the night, but John was there, just like Castiel had said, and Dean had the shotgun, and over the blast Sam shouted, "Demon deal!" trying to make himself sound exactly like Castiel had said it without quite knowing how to.
But he must have said it right because both John and Dean froze and stared at him in shock. Then John started making marks on the floor and chanting words that Sam couldn't even begin to read from his lips and the house began to rumble and shake.
He felt Dean's arm come around him protectively, pulling him under a table while everything around him hummed and vibrated and suddenly everything got really bright. Then, though no one else seemed to notice it, there was a warmth and a quiet voice in the back of his mind that said, "You'll forget me, but I'll see you again," and then an invisible embrace.
When Sam finally opened his eyes, he'd momentarily forgotten where they were and why they were there. He blinked, pushing Dean away from him because the chaos was over and the poltergeist was gone, and for some reason, there was a name ringing in Sam's head, but he couldn't remember it right then.
'Ok?' Dean asked, sort of jabbing the letters at him.
'Fine,' Sam signed back, just a swift light tap of his thumb in the center of his chest as he brushed his brother's annoyingly overprotective gaze away. Why had they come again? A dream?
Sam rubbed his eyes and he was really just damn tired and wanted to get back to the motel. John was hurt, but not too bad, and Dean drove with loud music Sam could feel against the back of his head as he rested against the back of the Impala. The hotel room was exactly how they'd left it, only his book was on the floor and Sam was confused because he didn't remember moving it from the table and he was always careful with his things.
The next morning it was obvious Dean wanted to ask Sam how he knew where to go and about the demon. And Sam just didn't want to talk about it because damn it, he didn't know. Sometimes things just came to him and if he tried to think about it, his head started to hurt and he felt this really bizarre absence, like the feeling you get when something or someone you love dies.
So Dean let it go, and eventually the curious glances stopped and they went on with their lives. Sam stopped thinking about it, too, and it was only again, years later when Castiel the archangel stood before them and reached out to touch the hand print on Dean's shoulder after his brother had been pulled from hell that Sam thought about that bar. He thought about that bar, and how he knew what Dean's name sounded like, and how he knew what Castiel's hands on his skin felt like, and though he didn't want to remember, suddenly, he did.