Freak
by Swanseajill
Summary: Sam has never understood Dean's preference for one-night stands. Until now.
Characters: Dean and Sam
Timeline and spoilers: Set midway through Season One. Skin and Route 666
Rating: T/PG-13 (Genfic)
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters nor am I making any money from them.
Author's notes: Huge thanks as always to my beta Angela whose patient labor is invaluable.
Sam lies tense on the lumpy motel-room mattress, listening to the rain hammering down outside. Through the open curtain the neon sign across the highway flickers in a dizzying psychedelic display. He glances at the clock on the table beside his bed. Two a.m. He's tired, but sleep isn't an option. Not until Dean comes back.
Earlier they had a few drinks at the bar across the lot and Dean hooked up with a particularly well-endowed waitress. Normally, when he picks up a girl, he doesn't roll in until around three. But there is nothing normal about tonight.
For the past four days Sam has watched his brother carefully. Dean doesn't talk about it and Sam doesn't ask, but he alternates between brooding silence and forced exuberance and Sam isn't fooled. He knows Dean is hurting, and there's nothing he can do to help. He has been waiting for Dean to seek solace in a stranger's bed and find that isn't enough to fill the gaping hole in his heart. And Sam needs to find a way to be there for him now that this has happened.
He looks at the clock again. Two-oh-five. He gets out of bed and paces for a while. Restless, worried. Considers turning on the TV. Rejects the idea and walks to the window instead, peering out across the brightly lit parking lot.
He breathes a sigh of relief as he spots a familiar figure, hunched against the rain and walking in a reasonably straight line, making its way across the lot. Sam moves swiftly away from the window, jumps back into bed and pulls the comforter over him, pretending sleep. It won't do for Dean to think he's awake. Waiting. Worrying.
The door creaks open, then thuds closed. There's a rustle as Dean removes his jacket, followed by a thump and a muffled curse. Then the sound of footsteps, muted against the carpet, the bathroom door opening and closing, and silence.
When the door opens again Sam hears Dean's footsteps come close and then stop. He smells a mixture of whiskey and cheap perfume and senses that Dean is standing beside his bed watching him. Sam keeps his eyes shut, concentrates on taking even breaths, and after a moment Dean grunts and moves away. Sam hears springs creak as his brother flops down onto his own bed.
He relaxes, but after a moment Dean says, "I know you're awake, Sam, so you can quit pretending."
Busted. Sam considers his reply. Dean's voice is slightly slurred and Sam detects an uncharacteristically defensive note. Usually, when Dean comes in after a night with a girl, he's full of himself, ready to share all the sordid details and mocking Sam as a prude when he chooses not to hear them. But, as expected, not tonight.
Finally he says lamely, "Couldn't sleep."
Dean grunts. "Ah. So you weren't waiting up for me?"
"Why would I do that?" Sam asks carefully
He can almost feel Dean's shrug. "Because you always do." There's a pause. "Aren't you going to ask me if I had a good time?"
"No."
"Don't you want to know if she was a good lay? Aren't you gonna ask if I even bothered to find out her name?"
Sam recognises the pain and anger underlying the harsh words and knows what put it there. He glances across at his brother who's lying on his back, arms laced behind his head, and says softly, "Dean, don't do this." Don't do this to yourself.
Dean swivels his head towards Sam, and when he speaks his tone is mocking. "What's wrong? Have I offended little Sammy's delicate senser… senshibilities again?"
The slurring takes some of the sting from the words, but they are cutting nonetheless.
"I'm not judging you, Dean," he says, and means it.
"Like hell you're not," Dean replies in a tight voice.
Sam is silent, for he knows that while he means what he says on this occasion, in the past he has judged his brother, and he suddenly feels ashamed.
In the months since they've been on the road together, Sam has tolerated Dean's womanizing, accepted that Dean's flippant "wham, bam, thank you ma'am" philosophy — love'em and leave 'em, no strings, no attachments – is simply part of who Dean is. He has always treated this proclivity for one-night stands with a mixture of envy and distaste. As a man who believes in relationships, he's never understood why his brother behaves the way he does. Until now. Now, he knows different. Now, he understands.
A week ago they went to the aid of Cassie Robinson, an old fling of Dean's, and Sam was initially angry when Dean admitted that he'd told the family secret to a woman he'd only gone out with a few times. But it quickly became apparent that Dean was – and clearly still is — in love with the girl. Because he loved her, he had risked everything by telling her the truth about himself. And she'd rewarded his honesty with rejection.
Ever since then Sam has been grappling with the fact that everything he thinks he knows about Dean and his attitude about life may be wrong. He remembers a conversation at a gas station, when Dean laid into him for trying to keep in touch with his friends.
"Look, it sucks, but in a job like this, you can't get close to people, period."
And he remembers his response. "You're kind of anti-social, you know that?"
Now, he understands. The truth is, Dean isn't naturally anti-social. He's simply learned the hard way a fact that Sam is steadfastly refusing to accept. Any kind of long-term relationship is the sacrifice you have to make to do the job they do.
Of course, it's easy for Sam to hold on to hope. He never did pluck up the courage to tell Jess the truth about himself. Dean took that step and learned the hard way that if you open up, if you allow yourself to get close, you're going to get hurt.
Ever since they left Cassie, Sam has been wondering what would have happened had he been honest with Jess. Would she have rejected him, the way Cassie rejected his brother? Would she have looked at him in horror and disgust and kicked him out of her life? He cannot imagine the pain that would have caused, and he wonders if Dean sees Cassie's face in his nightmares, eyes that had once looked at him with love now full of revulsion.
It's all very clear to Sam now. Dean is first and foremost a hunter, a man who has chosen to spend his days seeking out and destroying the evil things of this world, a man living of necessity outside the normal conventions of society. A man with no future. A man who can never know the luxury of a lasting relationship. So he takes what he can get. And it isn't that he doesn't get a kick out of what he's doing. He enjoys sex. It's a release, a way to blow off steam, a way to forget when his way of life gets too hard. Sex for Dean is recreation, in the way books and the Internet are for Sam. But the one-night stands aren't what he wants deep down, not really. Sam has known that ever since he found out the truth about Cassie.
"Dean, I mean it. I… I'm sorry. I..." He doesn't know what else to say.
Dean is silent.
Sam turns on his side to face the other bed. I'm sorry," he says again. Sorry for his sanctimonious judgement of something he doesn't understand. Sorry about Cassie. Sorry for the future his brother's given up to the hunt. The words sound hollow even though he puts as much sincerity as he can into his voice.
The beds are jammed close together in the small room, and when Dean tilts his head in Sam's direction, Sam can clearly see his features in the street light flooding in through the open curtain. Dean's eyes search out his brother's, and Sam holds his gaze for a long moment. To Sam's relief, Dean seems to understand the depth of what he was trying to convey, for he nods and says, "Okay," very softly, and looks away again, a twitching muscle in his cheek the only outward betrayal of emotion.
There is silence then, for a long time, while Sam tries to think of something, anything that will give his brother some comfort. Then Dean speaks, and there's a slight tremor and a world of pain in his voice.
"She thinks I'm a freak."
Sam knows they're not talking about the girl Dean picked up in the bar. He didn't hear what Dean and Cassie said when they parted, but those words confirm what Dean's mood has been telling him for the past four days. Dean won't be going back. Not next month. Not next year. Not ever.
Sam remembers asking, "You meet someone like her, ever make you wonder if it's worth it? Putting everything else on hold, doing what we do?" Dean just smiled and didn't answer. Because it doesn't matter whether the answer's "yes" or "no." The job, following his father's lead, hunting down evil, is everything to Dean, and he'll carry on doing it, whatever the cost. And Sam thinks that sometimes that cost is just too damned high.
Sam tries to hate Cassie for what she's done to his brother. Tries to hate her, because even now that she knows the full truth, she is unable to see past the job and accept Dean for who he is. She still sees him as a freak. A misfit. A dangerous oddity who doesn't fit into her life. But Sam can't hate her because he understands her reluctance to embrace a life that includes a daily dose of demons, ghosts and monsters.
Understanding doesn't make it any easier to witness his brother's pain.
"No, Dean, she doesn't think you're… she just…" His voice trails off. He can't find the words, because there's no denying the truth.
There's a pause, then Dean says quietly, "Yeah, I know." He turns onto his side and lies very still. Sam knows he's failing his brother with his silence, but there's nothing he can say that can make this all right.
It registers then that Dean is still fully dressed, lying on top of the covers. It's a cold night and the heater isn't working and Sam doesn't want his brother waking in the morning like a frozen slab of meat. He slips out from under the covers and pads over to the other bed. He pulls Dean's boots off one by one, and after a sleepy protest of, "Leave me alone, you jerk," Dean makes no further protest.
Dean is breathing deeply now, on the verge of sleep, and Sam decides it's more trouble than it's worth to try to get him undressed. Dean's dead weight is sprawled across the bedclothes, so Sam grabs the spare comforter and a blanket from the closet and drapes them around him, tucking the ends in loosely.
He finishes his task and sits down on the edge of the bed. Reaches out a hand tentatively and rests it on the back of Dean's neck, squeezing gently. Dean tenses for a moment, then his muscles relax and he doesn't try to shake the hand off. They stay like this for a while, until Sam hears a muffled whisper.
"Nigh', Sammy."
Sam smiles. "Goodnight, Dean."
He sits there a while longer, glad on this occasion that Dean has had too much to drink, for the alcohol is pushing him over the edge into sleep.
Sam sighs. He thinks it'll be a long time before Dean gets over Cassie. A long time and a lot of one-night stands.
He refuses to believe that Dean is right. He chooses to believe that one day they'll find Dad and destroy the Demon and there'll be a future out there somewhere. A future for him and a future for Dean. And somehow, he's going to make his brother believe this, too.
End