Disclaimer etc, see Chapter 1
NET KNOTS
Chapter 6
"Huh."
It was all Dean said, but it was all Sam needed. The elder man's expression was thoughtful not angry. He was nearly three-quarters of the way to acceptance, so Sam laid it out.
"If you want to know, I had the epiphany in the hospital…just after Dad did his patented 'you're both still breathing so everything's okay so long' disappearing act." Sam didn't even bother to keep the irritation out of his voice, but kept it as low as possible; in the hospital he'd had time to come to a lot of realisations, some of which had fallen well into the 'home truth' category.
"I was so out of it…" the admission slipped out before Dean could stop it; he'd already been seriously injured before the possessed trucker did a number on the Impala.
As always the anger surged and Dean mentally swapped the 'tr' for an irate 'f' – he was convinced the demon had targeted them in the Impala specifically because after Sam, it was the second most important thing in Dean's life. Yes, even before John. After all, it was only thing Dean loved that had never abandoned him, or metaphorically ripped his heart out, tossed it in the dust and jumped up and down on it, but somehow Dean had never succeeded in pushing Sammy to second place after the Impala – Sam had held Dean's heart in one hand and his soul in the other for far too long for anything else to usurp his supremacy.
Sam shivered; Dean had called him selfish and vengeance obsessed like John. In the car, driving to the hospital, just before the truck hit them, with John berating Sam for not murdering his father as 'acceptable collateral damage' to get rid of the demon, Sam had looked in the rear-view mirror straight into his critically injured brother's tortured eyes and realised that Dean had actually been understating the case. He had spent his teenage years straining away from John, and in that moment he realised that he had allowed Jessica's murder to turn him into his father; as always it was Dean, loyal, steadfast, selfless, who had paid the price of Sam turning into a selfish, self-pitying, self-obsessed, 'I'll love you only on my terms and as long as you toe my line' asshole. How warped were you when you considered, even for just a second, actually killing your father?
With an effort, Sam pushed the thoughts away for later brooding. "Yeah, well right from the moment we got to the hospital, my blood pressure was pushed into orbit even before Dad skipped on us. You were – unconscious…" even now he couldn't say out loud the reality of 'coma'. "Dad was nearly catatonic –"
"You just being the walking wounded saved our asses," Dean agreed.
"Only just!" Sam snorted. "While you and dad were in the ER, I was clearing out the Impala's glove box and trunk before the cops got there – I ended up putting them behind a dumpster. Then I had to verbally tap-dance to make sure they didn't wonder why Dean Winchester was in their hospital instead of being dead in St Louis. If they hadn't bought that all our injuries were caused by the car accident…" he shook his head in frustration.
"You did good, Sam." Dean tried to encourage.
"No, I just got lucky," Sam corrected, "and luck has a nasty habit of flipping you the bird and driving off laughing in a screech of tires just when you need her most. I was sat there trying to fill in the forms and keep our stories straight when I realised that we were sitting ducks."
Continued in Chapter 7…
© 2006, Catherine D. Stewart