Disclaimer: Still not mine.
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Sam had had enough. Back in his motel room again – unfortunately locked in with the most infuriating pedagogue – how's that for improved vocabulary? - he'd had the misfortune to encounter. 'Chris' hadn't been very forthcoming with the details of his meeting Dean for the first time, and apparently he was he doing Dean a favour – yah right – but Sam was going to wring Dean's thick neck for ever saving such a colossal pain in the ass.
And he'd thought Dean was being a hard case today. Happy fuckin' birthday, Sammy.
He rotated his neck muscles to alleviate some of the tension gathered there and tried to gather his thoughts. He deliberately unclenched his hands and rolled his shoulders. He'd dealt with interfering old busy-bodies before. Granted they weren't usually centuries old persistent figments of a literary imagination. But he could do this. He'd had to at regular intervals throughout his childhood when a well-intention teacher would wonder why little Sammy was bruised, or why Dean was limping. Idiots, all of them. He let out a heartfelt sigh, took a deep breath in, held it, exhaled. If he could just get the Ghost of Yesteryear to listen to him. Deep breath in… Calm and collected. Calm and collected…
He tried again.
"Look, I know all this, alright? I get the whole 'Dean got Dumped on by Dad' routine, been there done that, got the t-shirt, ok? I know he was saddled with me and he did the best he could, I was there. And while apparently we do have all the time in the world Mr. So Last Year, can we get to whatever the point is? These Hallmark moments are starting to get me all teary-eyed."
Oops, apparently he was not as calm and collected as he'd hoped. Oh well, Mr. Warm-n'-Fuzzy-Memories could deal.
"You know what I find to be the saddest thing about all this? NO, don't answer that.
"Do you have any idea how proud Dean is of you, how much, in his own back-handed way, he brags about you to others? I know he is not the most open or expressive guy, but he does say it, usually at the risk of a dreaded 'chick flick' moment. And, ok, admittedly he does better when you're not face to face – that little phone conversation when you temporarily parted ways earlier this year comes to mind – but he is proud of you and he would do and has done almost anything for you. And for all that he's always saying how smart you are, and how you're the scholar in the family, you really don't get it, do you? Not much of a scholar of the Social Sciences, are you? I think you should have included at least one Psychology course on your curriculum there, Sammy boy. You've not only missed the point, you've missed the entire bloody boat, and you're wasting a totally unique educational opportunity."
Sam started to stalk forward to refute the supposedly superior spirit's rambling rhetoric when Chris once again stopped him; this time with a decidedly unfriendly spectral arm somehow barring his path.
"Ah, ah, ah… remember I can keep you immobile any time I want. It's still my turn to talk. Now where was I? Oh yes.
"I don't think, Sammy, that most of your issues are really with your brother, nor do I think that his are with you. In fact his aren't with your dad either. Both of your sets of issues involve your perceived relationship of your brother to your father and how wrong it is. All would be right between just the two loving brothers, but as soon as either Evil-Drill-Sergeant Dad or Stubborn-Inflexible Dad appears, depending on which son you talk to, all is wrong with the universe. And yet you barely understand your own relationship with your father. Dean claims, and rightly I believe upon further examination of the evidence, that you and your father are too much alike.
"But even that's not the bloody point. The point, as I'm sure you're breathlessly waiting to hear, is that I can show you what you don't know, I can illustrate in the truest possible sense how your 'fucked-up' family works. But it's a lesson that's wasted on someone who's not willing to learn, who thinks that there is nothing to learn."
Chris paused in his oration. Sometime during his rant he'd seamlessly morphed into an extra from Star Trek. And not just any extra, Sam belatedly realized; he'd morphed into Q. Q, the omnipotent being that plagues Captain Jean-Luc Picard to no end. Sam rolled his eyes at the lack of subtlety. He was beginning to think that maybe 'Chris' was a friend of Dean's. They certainly shared similar senses of humour. Although as far as he knew, Dean had never been a Trekkie.
Chris seemed to be momentarily out of steam, so Sam deemed it safe to get his two cents in. Calm and collected… calm and collected…
"I get that you know all things passé," he simpered snidely at the epitome of yester-Trek, "but the jury is still out on how well you know my family. But since the element of choice is missing in my life right now, since I'm stuck with you until you've presented your closing arguments, let's get on with this shall we?"
Hmm, still not particularly calm, but much more collected. It was good to know that those four years at college hadn't been wasted.
Chris shook his head at the doubting Thomas before him. He and his siblings had been so sure they could help; had been sure they could make Sammy see. Had been sure that it wasn't too late for the youngest Winchester, but now he was beginning to doubt. Maybe Sam was already too much his father's son. Maybe it was too late.
Well he could keep trying. Because of their… unusual… family upbringing there were many moments both 'normal' and paranormal that he could summon to demonstrate that this family unit worked, in it's own unique way, largely due to the efforts of the older son: a natural caregiver and peacekeeper who'd been molded into so much more. Chris had been deliberately shying away from the more supernatural of their experiences, as while their father's quest coloured everything they did, he wanted Sammy to see that the Winchesters did have strong ties and that it wasn't all bad. And that even when it was bad, they had each other – all three of them.
Chris decided. He'd picked a different sort of memory this time. One that once again would show Sam a scene and its consequences – scenes he'd never even imagined. One that would demonstrate both the trust that Dean and John had in each other and the lengths the entire family would go to keep each other safe. He hoped.
He sighed dramatically and with a flourish brought them to the next stop on their spectral excursion.
He just hoped any resulting trauma would be worth it. He hoped.
For once Sam knew exactly where and when they were living just outside of Moscow, Idaho: he was seven (soon to be learning the aforementioned knife wielding) and 'Chris' had alighted on yet another time when John was once again absent.
It seemed that even the home movies of the Dead and Famous suffered from the same old plot lines. He turned knowingly to his companion.
"Seen it already, I know this episode. It's where our father had pulled yet another vanishing act, Dean steps in, for our longest stretch ever and we both somehow made it through the ends of grades two and six respectively. In fact you've already missed some of the highlights: I got sick that spring and Dean had to take me to the hospital in the middle of a bitterly cold February. A feat he somehow managed to do without alerting the authorities as to our temporarily orphaned status by getting a drunk he met outside the hospital to pretend to be our dad. Or the time that we ran out of money so we searched behind a restaurant for leftovers. Or the fact that dad was away long enough to miss Dean's birthday and Easter and the end of the school year completely. Yep. I've seen this one before. Next!'
Chris just stood there, not amused, waiting for Sam to finish his harangue.
"Are you done? Good. Do you know why your father was away so long? He was trying to protect you and Dean. Did you know that your father phoned Dean as often as he could, which yes, even then turned out to be five times in the entire three-and-a-half months. Did you know he sent money in the mail as often as he could? Did you know that while you were missing him, he was coping in the only way he knew how, by trying to lead the hell hounds away from the scent of you boys? Didn't know about the hell hounds did you?" Chris could see that Sam had been shaken out of his certainty; he could see that Sam was trying to assimilate all the new data, but that for the time being it just wasn't computing.
"Hell Hounds? Dean never said… "
"No, he didn't. Your father told him not to. In their own way they tried to shield you from as much of the worst of the supernatural as they could. Yes, I know you were already learning Latin incantations and how to salt-n'-burn, but what seven-year old, already prone to nightmares, needed to know about Hell Hounds? They tried in their own ways, Sam. Even your Drill-Sergeant, Disappearing Dad, tried. Granted they didn't always succeed, and yes, your training and participation was soon to increase, and you were about to be inextricably entrenched, but they were both making the best of a bad situation."
"A bad situation that my father kept voluntarily putting us in. If it weren't for his quest, his damned obsession…"
"And why do you hunt, Sam? You have a degree, you can leave any time, as you've told your brother time and again. You can still have a shot at your precious 'normal', but you're still here chasing ghosts and ghouls. Why is that, Sam?"
And for once, Chris seemed to be genuinely waiting for an answer; the pause wasn't just for dramatic effect in the middle of one of his smug soliloquies.
"I… we still haven't…" Sam faltered to a stop. He turned somber brown eyes to Chris. And found the one word, that still summed up his own journey: "Jess."
And Chris, the previously patronizing poltergeist, suddenly seemed more human, more substantial as he stepped closer to Sam and rested his ghostly hand on top of Sam's shoulder. Sam, of course, felt nothing of the ghost's ephemeral weight, but was comforted by his gesture of support and by the understanding evident in the transparent visage and for the first time thought that Chris might be more than just a casual contact of his brother's; that he and Dean might be exactly what the ghost had claimed: friends.
Chris, on his part, for the first time all day, felt hopeful that Sammy would listen and that the message they were trying to impart would be heard. They hadn't even arrived at the crux of the memory yet, well two cruxes, to be exact, and they had already made immeasurable progress.
Chris thought that while the next memory would shake Sam up, and would venture close to the cordoned off areas of their childhood that Dean had no wish for Sammy to ever glean any knowledge of, it would be worth it to finally make Sammy see, that while the Winchesters were by no means normal, and really weren't ever going to be normal, neither were they something to be run from at the first opportunity. They were undoubtedly a strange family, but they were a family in every way that counted.
Now if he could just get Sammy to have a little faith.
Chris, sensing that Sammy was as ready as he'd ever be, allowed the memory to focus and take shape. Gads, he hoped Sammy was ready for this.
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TBC