I don't own Supernatural and so on.
Many thanks and adoring glances for Taynna, Dollar Short, PadfootObsessed329, sara, SilverKitsune1, carocali, rc, Oldach's Dream, sasha2002, Kaewi, MistyEyes, bally2cute and Annibal for their kind reviews.
Kaewi: I think Sam's relationship with his dad is pretty complicated. Although that's kind of a lame excuse for confusing writing. Sorry ;).
sara: lovely to hear from you! I promise, if I ever get hit with an sQ bunny, you'll be the first to know :D.
----
But for the Grace, Chapter 5
It took two days to drive from Springfield to southern Minnesota, and Sam said about three freakin words the entire way. It wasn't like before, that silence had been pretty much the worst one ever, worse even than the time Dean had accidentally shot a hole through the Impala's rear left door when he was thirteen and Dad hadn't said anything to him for what felt like a week, which really was totally unfair because it wasn't Dean's fault the skincrawler had run in front of the car, and it had been dark, pretty much black really, and the Impala was black too so how was he supposed to see it, and yet Dean still kind of felt guilty about what he'd done to his baby, even though back then she hadn't even been his. Anyway, this silence wasn't like that one, so thick you could cut it with a knife, or hell, even a goddamn spoon, but it was still making Dean antsy. He itched to flip on the stereo, but every time he went for it Sam would throw him a look like he'd just kicked a goddamn puppy or something and flip it off again. Eventually, Dean cracked.
"Come on, man, I can't take this. I'm dying of boredom here."
Sam's eyes didn't leave the road. "Driver picks the music."
Shoulda known that would come back to bite me in the ass. "But you haven't picked any."
Sam shrugged. "I like it quiet."
Dean subsided grumpily for a moment, then said, "OK, let me drive."
"No," said Sam, and that was it.
Which actually was pretty much a huge pain in the ass, because Sam was really not that hot on the whole driving thing. OK, yeah, he stopped at red lights and indicated turns and all that shit, but there were a couple of times when Dean thought for sure they were going to smash into something before Sam turned the wheel at the last minute. Dean wondered what the hell was up with him. Maybe this Sam had never passed his test or something. He looked pretty tired, but he'd been sleeping a lot more than Dean, so really that shouldn't be a problem. OK, most of it had been drunken sleep, some also involving head injuries, but still. It was like Driving Miss Daisy, if it had been Miss Daisy who had been doing the driving. So, really, not like Driving Miss Daisy at all. Yeah, whatever.
When they weren't in the car, Sam was often gone. It kind of pissed Dean off, because he didn't say where he was going, and sometimes he didn't even say he was going, leaving Dean to turn round in a gas station parking lot and find him gone, and at those times Dean would feel his stomach clench again and he would stand by the Impala and wait, holding on to the fact that he had let Sam go and Sam had come back. Sam had come back, but it seemed like Sam wanted to spend as little time with Dean as possible. Well, that was OK, because as long as he kept coming back Dean could still fix this mess, and then he would have the real Sam back again and all he would have to worry about would be melodrama and excessive emo. Jeez, he never thought he would miss that.
Whenever Sam was gone, usually for twenty minutes or so, Dean would keep a close eye on the laptop. He had developed a pure faith in the idea that Sam wouldn't leave for good without the computer, which really was totally irrational, because Sam had so far shown hardly any attachment to it and the stupid manbag hadn't made a single appearance. But love between a man and his laptop didn't require the intercession of a manbag, right? Otherwise, how did people get along before manbags were invented? Unless they were invented before laptops. Maybe the whole question required some further research.
Anyway, Sam always did come back eventually, though he wasn't any more talkative when he did. After a few rebuffed attempts at getting him to at least fucking smile, Dean gave up and waited for Minnesota.
----
The church looked pretty much the same as how Dean remembered it when they pulled up outside, and Dean hoped that that was a good sign. Nothing was certain any more, but so far everything in this reality that didn't relate to his family seemed to be more or less the same. Of course, it wasn't like he was too hot on the details of anyone else's family. Yeah, whatever, thinking too much again. This whole reality stuff was really freakin hard.
"You brought us to a church?" Sam asked as he got out of the car. He frowned, then said, "Oh, hey, that whole demon thing..."
"Relax, Sam," Dean grinned. "I keep my fundie outfit for the weekends." He started up the steps. "You coming?"
Inside the church it was quiet and cool, like it always was in those goddamn places (huh, actually maybe this was one of the few occassions where goddamn really didn't work as a handy all-purpose adjective), and Dean settled down in a pew to wait. Sam sat behind him and started leafing through a hymn book.
After about ten minutes, a bearded priest appeared frrom a door at the side of the nave or whatever it was (yeah, names for parts of a church were really something Dean had no intention of bothering to remember), and Dean grinned. His gamble had paid off.
"Pastor Jim," he said, rising to his feet.
Jim turned and smiled, approaching them. "Have we met before?"
"Yeah," said Dean. "Well, uh... no. It's kind of complicated."
He heard Sam snort behind him. Great, the little geek was feeling sarcastic. "Could I have a word with you in private?" he asked Jim smoothly, shooting a death-glare in his brother's direction. Sam raised his eyebrows, but didn't say anything.
Jim looked curious, but he didn't protest. "Of course, my son," he said, using what Dean always privately referred to as his priest voice, one which he hadn't used on Dean since – well, since ever. "Do you want to make a confession?"
"Uh... no, I'll take a raincheck," said Dean, hearing Sam snort again. He could be such a little shit sometimes.
Jim didn't ask anything else, but led Dean to the sacristy (or whatever... OK, so Dean kind of did know church names, but only because he'd spent far too much time hanging out in them when he was a kid, not because he'd learned them or anything). It looked the same as Dean remembered. He and Sam had used to play hide and go seek in there when they were real little, and Sam had never understood how Dean managed to find him so quickly every time, which was really kind of slow of him, because come on, he hid in the cupboard with the cassocks every freakin time, and at that point an eight-year-old Dean had kind of wondered if maybe Sam was going to grow up to be a village idiot or something, but when he'd said so to Dad he had just grinned and said that there was a big difference between eight and four and he had to make allowances for his little brother, and Dean had always remembered that.
Except none of it had happened. Not here.
"What's troubling you, my son?" Jim asked (again with the freakin priest voice, Jeez), and Dean sighed.
"Jim, God, just tell me you're a freakin demon-hunter in this reality," he said, too tired to play games any more.
Jim stood very still for a moment, and Dean thought maybe he was wrong and that pretty much made him feel like shit because he wasn't sure where else to go and he wasn't sure how many more you're a freakin nutjob looks he could take. Then Jim said, "I'm a little old to hunt any more. Is something after you?"
Dean let out a sigh of relief. "Thank Christ. You've still got all those books, right?"
"Son," Jim said, sitting down at a narrow table and looking troubled, "I think you need to explain to me exactly how you know so much about me."
Yeah, that was kind of fair enough. At least this time he would have a headstart in the credibility stakes. Jim already knew what was out there.
All the same, it wasn't easy.
"Reality has changed," said Jim some time later, for what must have been the fifteenth freakin time.
"Yeah," said Dean, trying not to sound too impatient. "It's not like it's meant to be."
"And you know this because you're dead," Jim continued.
"Do I look freakin dead?" Dean snapped.
"Do you feel dead?" Jim asked.
OK, enough with the priest shit already. Dean closed his eyes and counted to ten. Well, OK, three, but he'd never exactly been the most patient person. "Listen, Jim, I'm not a ghost. I know you. Up until five days ago, you knew me too. You first met me when I was six and my little brother out there was two. Jeez, you stitched me up once in this freakin room."
Jim watched him for a moment, and Dean waited impatiently for him to get over the whole disbelief kick and start freakin helping. Sam, OK, Sam didn't know about the supernatural side of life, plus he was kind of fucked up, so Dean could be patient with him (well, kinda), but this was different. Dean needed help. And he wasn't just talking about a decent library.
"I've never heard of anything like this happening before," said Jim finally. "Do you have any sort of evidence to go on?"
Yeah, a couple of keys and twenty-two years of memory. "Think about it, Jim, if something like this had happened before, you wouldn't have heard about it, would you? No-one would remember."
"Then why do you?" asked Jim.
Yeah, OK, good point. God, why couldn't people just damn well believe him once in a while? Oh yeah, maybe it was because he sounded like a freakin crazy person. "I don't know. Maybe I'm supposed to put it back, maybe it's just a mistake." Dean ran his hand through his hair. "Damnit, Jim, it's all wrong. My dad's freakin dead. My brother doesn't remember me – no-one remembers me. You gotta admit, that's pretty weird."
Jim was studying him again. Dean felt uncomfortable and dropped his eyes, fidgetting with a coin on the table. Finally, the older man sighed. "Sounds like you've got yourself in quite a fix. I'll help you as much as I can."
Dean let out a breath he hadn't even known he was holding. "Thanks, Jim."
Jim stood up. "We'd better see what your brother's been up to."
Sam was still sitting in the pew, his head bowed, and for a moment Dean thought he was praying. Turned out what he was doing was reading, though. Reading the freakin Bible. Serious ubergeek. Jim made his way over to him. "Hello," he said. "My name's Jim." Priest voice still intact.
Sam looked up and shook the hand that was offered to him. "I'm Sam," he said.
"So I hear," said Jim. He jerked his head in Dean's direction. "You know that guy?"
Sam glanced over. "Not really," he said. "He says he's my brother."
"You believe him?" asked Jim, and Dean felt the muscles along his spine tense.
Sam looked over again, more thoughtfully this time. Dean tried to arrange his features into a trustworthy expression, but he had the sneaking suspicion that he just looked constipated.
"I don't know," said Sam finally. "Do you?"
Jim looked over too, and studied Dean. Dean was actually getting pretty freakin sick of being freakin studied. OK, yeah, he was a handsome son of a bitch, but there really was no call for this level of observation. It was all he could do not to make some comment about labrats or oil paintings or whatever, which would have been a mistake because a. he didn't think it would help earn him anyone's trust and b. he couldn't come up with anything particularly funny when he was being stared at. He wished he had Sam's face (Jesus Christ he hoped he never wished that again) – they would have been eating out of his hand in freakin seconds.
"Why would anyone lie about something like that?" Jim observed.
Well, exactly. If I was going to pick someone to be my brother, it'd be like Johnny Depp or someone freakin cool, not freakin Sam
"I don't know," Sam shrugged. "Maybe he's a psycho. He keeps talking about demons and shit."
"Well that, at least, is true," Jim said, and Sam looked up at him in surprise. Jim held his gaze for a long moment, and then said, "Sam, I''d like to have a private talk with you if I may."
"Whatever," Sam shrugged.
Jim looked at Dean. "I'll show you the books."
----
Jim's house adjoined the church, and it, too, was pretty much exactly as Dean remembered it: small and neat and spartan, apart from the books which lined every wall and were piled high on every surface. Dean remembered the first time they had been there, when Sam was still just a baby, only two years old, and how wide his little brother's eyes had gotten when he'd seen the books. Kid wasn't even old enough to know what the damn things were for, but he was already a geek. Dean, meanhwhile, had seen the books mainly as a cool landscape to help him create the stories that had occupied his mind in those days, when he had hunted dinosaurs and fought space aliens in like silver spandex or whatever. They had been good for hiding behind and climbing on and piling up to make fortresses, not for what was inside them. God, Dean would have made an awesome dinosaur hunter.
And now here he was again, except this time he actually had to read the damn things, and that pretty much sucked. It wasn't that Dean didn't like to read – well, OK, actually yeah it kind of was, but whatever, that wasn't the point really. The point was that anyone could see that fighting demons (who pretty much never seemed to wear silver spandex by the way, and what the hell was up with that?) was just so much more fun than reading about them. Well, anyone except Sam, and let's face it, Sam was pretty much a freak. Fun or not, though, he needed to find out what was going on, and, more importantly, to fix it.
He picked up the first book off the top of a teetering pile, wondering briefly if Jim had any kind of filing system, and started to flick through it. It was pretty much your average demon lore book – spidery writing and twisted symbols and a serious case of melodrama. Demon research always somehow seemed less dorky on the internet. Well, OK, still dorky, but less.
Half an hour and several volumes later, Dean looked around in disgust. He was never even going to make a dent in this goddamn huge freakin pile of dead tree. He had had to toss three books already because they were in languages he didn't understand, and one because, although it was in English, it might as well have been in Klingon for all the sense Dean could make of it. The others he'd flicked through didn't look like they had anything useful to say, though really, how the hell he was supposed to work out even what he was looking for was pretty much beyond him.
It was time to get some help.
Dean headed for the kitchen, pretty much fed up of waiting for Jim and Sam to finish their little gossip session anyway. What the hell were they talking about in there? Probably trading tips about the best places to sit in the library to pick up hot chicks (OK, maybe not). Or maybe Sam was filling Jim in on how Dean was really crazy and dangerous.
The kitchen door was slightly ajar, and Dean heard the hum of voices as he approached. He was about to breeze through and demand to know what the hell kind of system piling books all over the goddamn floor was in the first place and who the hell reads Latin any more anyway, when he heard Jim say something that made him stop dead.
"Sam," the priest's voice carried clearly, and it was pretty obvious from the tone (freakin priest voice) that this was just the latest in a long line of questions, "did your father ever hit you?"
Jesus Christ. Dean stared at the door. He should have known better than to come to Jim. OK, yeah, the guy had the best occult library this side of the freakin Vatican, but he was paid to stick his nose into other people's business, and he didn't know Dean, didn't know Dad, and what the hell kind of question was that to ask anyway? Well, at least Sam would set him straight.
Except Sam didn't. What Sam actually did was say, "What the hell kind of question is that?"
And although Dean had just thought exactly the same thing himself, he felt a shiver run through his insides, and he stepped back from the door. Fuck. Fuck. Sam hadn't denied it. OK, he hadn't outright said yeah, actually, my dad used to beat the shit out of me all the time, wanna see my scars?, but he might as well have done, because that was what Jim was going to hear. Dean felt a rising tide of anger flood through his belly. God, he was so freakin sick of this moody, silent Sam with his stupid sob-stories and his mistrustful glances and his refusing to let Dean drive his own goddamn car and all his freakin drama. Why the hell was this happening? Well, whatever the reason, Dean was going to fix it. Now.
----
Sam came into the library about ten minutes later, slipping through the door quietly and staring at the books. Dean pretended to be absorbed in what he was reading, and didn't look up.
"Wow," said Sam after a moment. "Lot of books, huh?"
Dean made a non-comittal noise.
Sam walked over to the shelf and scanned the spines. "You got a system?"
"Yeah," Dean said. "Pick a book and start reading."
Sam glanced at him, then chose a book from the shelf and started to flick through it. "Huh," he muttered. "Latin."
Dean looked up. "You don't speak Latin?"
Sam shrugged, putting the book back carefully. "No."
"Well, that's just great," Dean muttered, and slammed down the book he was holding, raising a cloud of dust.
"Sorry," said Sam, and chose another book.
Dean managed to contain himself for about a minute (well, OK, it was probably more like forty-five seconds, but that's like nearly a minute, right?) before he had to ask. "What did you talk about?"
Sam shrugged again. "Me. He asked a bunch of questions, pretty much the same ones you asked the other day. Everyone's suddenly pretty interested in my life story."
"What'd you tell him?" Dean asked, and his attempt at an indifferent tone obviously kind of failed, because Sam looked round in surprise.
"Same as I told you, man," he said. "Ask the same questions, get the same answers. That's generally how these things work."
"No, Sam," Dean growled, standing up and crossing to stand in front of his brother. "What did you tell him?"
Sam stared at him. "Am I not speaking English here?"
Freakin smart mouth. Goddamn. "You told him Dad used to hit you. Jesus, Sam, what the hell were you thinking?" Dean was yelling now, but he didn't care.
"What?" said Sam frowning and taking a step back. "I didn't freakin say that."
"Yeah, you did. Why would you say something like that?" Dean demanded, grabbing his brother's lapels. It was kind of like that night back in the parking lot in Palo Alto, except Sam didn't stink of bar and tequila and if Dean had thought he was mad then, he was freakin furious now. "Why?" he yelled again, and Sam's eyes skated off his to the wall.
"You gonna hit me?" he asked.
"Jesus, just forget it," Dean said, letting go of Sam and turning away.
Sam wasn't finished though. "Come on, Dean. I know you want to. You've wanted to ever since I freakin met you. I look like him, but I'm not him, right? So why don't you just take your shot?"
"Shut up," growled Dean, feeling a growing headache and the need for a beer and a quiet place to think.
"You know what? No. You don't get to tell me what to do. You're not my brother, and I'm pretty sure you're not John Winchester's son either, because if you were you would have freakin decked me by now."
There it was again. That implication, that dirty little freakin insinuation, and suddenly Dean couldn't control himself any more because he just wanted Sammy back, he just wanted his brother and not this bitter, moody, lying little shit, and so he swung hard, too hard, and Sam went down, caught by surprise, and he didn't get up again.
Shit.
Dean hadn't hit him that hard, right? Sam was the younger one, the kid, sure, but he'd long since outgrown the stage of being unable to stand up to Dean in a fight. Yeah, OK, Dean usually won, but that was because he was really freakin cool, not because Sam was liable to break at a touch.
Except there was Sam, lying on the floor (pretty much taking up the entirety of the floorspace that wasn't covered by books) and making this groaning noise and clutching his head and scrunching up his face the way he always did when he had a oh Christ a vision, and then Dean worked out what was going on and went from scared and guilty to scared and guilty and freaked the hell out and helpless, which was always a fun combination.
Sam had flicked into the glassy staring section of the vision by the time Dean made it to his side, and that was always kind of the part that freaked Dean out the most, even though it ought to have been a relief that his brother was no longer calling out in pain. He didn't really understand what the visions were like, what they felt like, whether Sam understood what was happening during them or only after. Sam had never told him. He had never asked. Yeah, he was pretty much a shitty big brother.
And then it was over, and Sam was blinking and cursing and rubbing his head again and said something that sounded like I'm not going back, but it was so quiet that Dean didn't think he could have heard right, and then he said what the fuck was that and Dean understood that this Sam had never had a vision before, and that was kind of a drag or whatever because sure, the visions were pretty spectacularly crappy whenever they happened, but Dean remembered the sheer panic the first time and he so didn't want to go through that again.
"You never had that happen to you before?" he asked cautiously, reaching out to help Sam up.
Sam batted his hand away. "Jesus. Have what happen?"
"A vision," Dean said, and when Sam turned disbelieving eyes on him, he said, "You know, psychic crap. Seeing the future. You're psychic."
OK, so that wasn't exactly the most sensitive way to do that. But on the other hand, Sam was freakin laughing, or kind of laughing, in a my-head-is-about-to-split-open kind of way that Dean recognised from too many hungover Saturday mornings watching cartoons in grimy motel rooms. "Dude," said Dean. "What?"
"Psychic? You think I'm psychic?" Sam was choking now, kind of hysterical, and Dean wondered about maybe slapping him except he was pretty sure that wouldn't help with the headache, and plus, he had just punched him in the face and look where that had gotten them.
"Well, yeah," Dean said. "You just had a vision, didn't you?"
"No," said Sam, and his laughter stopped as suddenly as it had started. He wasn't looking at Dean any more, looking inwards instead, at something Dean couldn't see, and damn, Dean hated it when he did that.
"Oh right," said Dean, "so you just decided to lie around on the floor whining for five minutes, that right?"
"You're the one who hit me," muttered Sam.
"Yeah, and you're the one who told me to do it. You seriously expect me to believe that all that was just from getting punched? Give it up, Sam, I've seen you fight. You saw something."
Sam pulled himself into a sitting position. He looked kind of pissed. Well, whatever, seemed like that was pretty much a given with this Sam anyway.
"You know, sometimes I think you really are the crazy one," he muttered, and Dean shrugged.
"Sometimes I think so too. What did you see?"
"Nothing," said Sam, and when Dean opened his mouth to protest, he raised a hand and said, "you're serious about this? The visions? I mean, in your reality I see... the future?"
"Damn straight," said Dean. "You never even had a, like, a nightmare or something?"
Sam snorted. "Everyone has nightmares."
"Not like yours," said Dean, and wondered how fucked up this whole thing had become that he was having to convince Sam that his nightmares weren't just random.
Sam sighed and closed his eyes. "I'm having the worst week," he muttered. Dean waited, but Sam didn't say anything else, heading into his brooding emo phase, and Dean was about to ask again when Sam said, "It wasn't a vision."
"Sam, would you just stop..."
"No," said Sam. "I did see something, but it wasn't the future. It was the past. A memory."
Dean stared. OK, that was new. "You sure?"
Sam nodded, then winced slightly.
OK, weird. What the hell use was a psychic power that showed you the past? "What was it a memory of?"
Sam looked very tired. "I'd really rather not talk about it."
Dean thought about this. It could be important, and in fact, if it wasn't important then that was a goddamn crock of shit, because really, painful visions that saved lives were one thing, but painful visions of the time you accidentally called your teacher "dad" or whatever were just, well, kind of unfair. On the other hand, if it really was just the past, and not even someone else's past but Sam's, then how could it be important? Sam already knew about it. Plus, Sam had pretty much talked a lot today and some of the things he had talked about had not been pretty. Dean frowned, remembering exactly why he had hit Sam in the first place.
He had taken too long to think about it, though, and now it was too late to demand Sam tell him what he saw, because Sam had already got up and was heading out the door, mumbling something about needing some air. If it had been Sam, the real Sam, Dean might have gone after him, but this guy, who was kind of Sam but kind of not... Dean wasn't sure any more, so he watched him go and then turned back to the piles of books.
OK, research. Great.
----
Books were kind of lame.
Seriously, the geeks of the world treated these things like they were made of freakin gold or whatever, and God, they were dusty and boring and they kind of smelt, and why the hell were there so many of them? Really, people didn't need to know all this shit. Plus, no search function, what the hell was up with that?
But the worst thing about books, Dean decided as he tossed another volume aside none too gently, was that none of these ones had what he wanted in it. Not one book so far had mentioned reshaping reality to your own specifications, they were all about the ghosts and demons and prophecies and shit, which hey, he guessed sometimes that was pretty useful, but those times were not now.
Jesus, he had a headache.
He wondered how long Sam had been gone. His initial worry about the vision had faded, and he was starting to get just a little pissed at how Sam had just left him here to do all the work. Especially given Sam was just so much better at this stuff, Latin or no Latin. Jim had gone out somewhere too, and the house was pretty quiet, which set Dean's teeth on edge. He wondered if Jim had a tape deck. Wondered if he would mind if Dean blasted AC/DC. His Jim hated Dean's music and had banned it from the house when Dean was fifteen, but hey, Sam was pretty much a different person here, so who's to say Jim wasn't a closet classic rock fan? At any rate, it would be a good excuse.
Plus, he thought the aspirin were still in the car.
Straightening his aching shoulders (why the hell did sitting around staring at crappy books make him feel more exhausted than hunting down three werewolves?), he got up and headed for the door. Sam hadn't taken the car when he'd gone off, which Dean was grateful for. Of course, Sam didn't know about Dean's extra set of keys. He had figured that would come in handy some time, and that time was now.
He dropped into the driver's seat of the Impala and smiled for a moment, enjoying being back where he belonged. Letting Sam drive the car all the time was a total pain in the ass. Plus, Sam thought it was him not letting Dean drive, and that was pretty hard to take. "I missed you, baby," Dean muttered softly, running his hands over the steering wheel. Talking to a car. Maybe he was the crazy one.
He thought about taking it out for a spin, imagined himself cruising down the highway with the window open and his music playing. Except for some reason instead of the really hot chick who ought to have been in the seat next to him, given that it was his goddamn fantasy after all and he could imagine whatever he liked, it was Sam, Sam laughing at him singing off-key, Sam groaning at his bad jokes and complaining about his taste in music. Goddamn, Sam was such a massive pain in the ass. He couldn't even leave Dean's fantasies alone.
Dean sighed, grabbed a couple of tapes from his collection, and reached for the glove compartment. The bottle of aspirin fell out as he opened it, and rolled out of sight under the passenger's seat. Great. He leaned down and groped around for it, and his fingers closed on a piece of card. Curious, he tugged at it. It was stuck to the floor, but after a moment he pulled it loose and found himself staring at his own four-year-old face, creased and stained with time and some unidentifiable substance that actually Dean didn't really want to even try and identify, but recognisably him. In fact, the whole photograph was familiar: the four of them, Dad, Mom, baby Sammy and him, grinning in front of their house in Lawrence, two months before the fire.
Dean turned the picture over carefully, and saw the list of names written in Dad's sloping hand. The thing must have been down there under the seat forever. He guessed Sam had never found it. Jesus. And also, gross. What was that sticky stuff?
Dean wondered what to do with the picture. Technically, it was Sam's, and not only that but it would help tip the scales, help prove to Sam without a shadow of a doubt that what Dean was telling him was the truth. But he didn't want to give it to Sam. Not to this Sam, who hated the car and implied stuff that Dean still wasn't actually going to think about because it made his headache worse. Sam would probably just throw it straight in the trash. Sam wasn't even trying to be part of the Winchester family. No, Dean would keep the photo, for now anyway. Whatever the hell the sticky stuff turned out to be.
OK, decision made. Aspirin. Dean groped further, under the driver's seat this time, assuming the damn thing had rolled away. His fingers brushed something cold, and he grinned and grasped it.
It wasn't the bottle of aspirin, though. It was something else.
Dean pulled the object out and stared at it for a moment. Vodka. A bottle of vodka. Or, to be more accurate, a bottle which had once contained vodka. What the hell was that doing under the seat of the Impala?
Dean thought about it, hard. Vodka. Vodka in the Impala. Vodka in the Impala because... Sam had had a car party and invited all his friends? Or because Sam was taking the bottle to be recycled? Or... hey, Dean remembered Sam saying that his dad had liked to drink vodka. The photo had clearly been stuck down there for at least seven or eight years, so why not the empty bottle too? OK, so bottles were kind of bigger than photos and less liable to get stuck to the floor, but still, it could happen, right? A Chevy Impala and an impressive collection of empty bottles. Well, he guessed that was what Dad had left Sam, then. That was OK. Dad's vodka, not Sam's.
Unbidden, another voice – no, the same voice, but not the same person – entered his head. A little more tequila, a little less demon hunting.
Jesus, Sam, get out of my head.
Both of them were a pain in the ass. It was just totally typical that Sam would get himself into this kind of trouble, and now Dean had to fix it as usual. Yeah, OK, it seemed like technically it was Dean who had gotten into trouble this time, but Sam wasn't exactly doing his darndest to help, so Dean was going to have to fix it anyway. And he supposed maybe you could see it as Sam getting into trouble, because Sam was the one who was stuck being wrong and screwed up, even though it was Dean who was stuck having to deal with it.
OK, you know what? He really had to stop trying to think out the mechanics of this whole situation in his head. It pretty much never went well.
Dean reached under the seat one final time, managed to find the aspirin (finally), popped a couple, and got out of the car, taking the photo and the bottle with him. Much as he loved sitting in the Impala, he still had a lot of work to do.
----
Sam came back about an hour later. Dean heard rather than saw him, the towers of books were kind of blocking his view. In fact, it was kind of like the time he'd made a castle and fought off hordes of barbarian invaders. Pity those damn barbarians couldn't show up now. He could do with the distraction.
"Sam," he called. "Get your ass in here and help me out, would ya?"
Sam entered the room and stumbled slightly over a couple of books that lay where Dean had left them. "Jesus," he said. "This place looks like a bomb hit it."
"Yeah, well," Dean muttered, "I kind of wish it would."
Sam hunkered down next to him and scanned the spines. "Find anything yet?"
"Oh yeah," Dean sighed in frustration. "A whole big pile of nothing." Then he paused. Sam had that smell again. That bar smell. Shit. Say something, Dean. "Uh... good walk?" Yeah, real smooth.
Sam shrugged. "OK," he said, and Dean caught the whiff of tequila on his breath.
Shit. Shit shit shit.
Why the hell had he thought an empty bottle could manage to spend seven years under a seat without being spotted anyway?
"Uh, Sam," he said carefully, because man if he was wrong (and he was wrong, right?) and he didn't take enough care he was going to be in deep shit.
"Yeah?" Sam asked, not looking up from the books. God, even when he was wasted he was a giant geek.
Dean didn't really know what to say. I mean, what do you say in this situation? OK, so no-one had ever been in quite this situation before, but still. Are you an alcoholic just didn't seem like it was going to cut it, so Dean just reached over and grabbed the empty vodka bottle from where he had left it by the wall and tilted it towards Sam.
Sam looked at it, then at Dean. "Been having a party?" he said. "Hope you brought enough for everyone."
"I found it in the car," Dean said. Sounded like a simple statement. Yeah, whatever.
"OK," Sam said slowly, looking at Dean like he'd grown an extra head or something. "Your point being?"
"Have you been drinking?" Dean asked abruptly. He was kind of sick of playing games.
Sam rolled his eyes. "What's it to you?"
There it was again. That omission. That implication. God, why couldn't he just say things straight out?
"A lot. It's two in the afternoon."
"Yeah, Dean," Sam said. "I learned how to tell the time when I was four."
"Sam," Dean said, and he made sure to say it slowly because damn he was sick of Sam deliberately missing the point. "Do we have a problem here?"
"Wait," Sam was grinning, but he didn't look happy. "You mean do I have a problem, right? Is that what you're asking me, Dean? Do I have a problem?"
"Yeah," Dean said, without wavering. "That's what I'm asking you."
"Jesus, I don't believe this," Sam muttered. "You know, you don't have a right to know everything about my life, just because in some crazy alternate reality that you probably just made up I'm your brother, OK? Maybe I do have a problem, maybe I don't, but it's my problem, not yours."
"No way, Sam." Dean was good and pissed now, which really didn't take long because he'd been simmering on the edge all day. "If your problem interferes with me getting you back the way you're supposed to be, then it's my problem too. And it's got to stop."
"The way I'm supposed to be?" Sam sounded incredulous. "Wait, you mean your sweet little bro who does everything you ask and hero worships you and probably can't hold more than one beer because he would never drink because he's such a perfect little angel? What, you can't stand it that I have a mind of my own?"
"Shut up," Dean growled. "Don't you talk about him. You don't know anything about him."
Sam made a noise that was probably meant to be a laugh, but seriously, Sam needed to brush up on his noise-making skills because some of the things he was coming out with these days were seriously weird. "I am him," he said, spreading his arms wide. "Sam Winchester, right? That's me. I'm Sam."
"Yeah, well, you know what? You're right. The real Sam doesn't drink much, because he's not a fucking moron." Dean's fists were clenched at his sides, but he'd already taken one swing today and he wasn't planning on taking another.
"Jesus, Dean," Sam yelled, "this is real! I'm real! Can't you freakin see me?"
Dean shook his head. They were getting off topic, plus the whole conversation was really freakin confusing. "You've got to stop drinking," he said, determined to get this back to something he could have some control over, something he could fix, because Sam's freaky mind-bending double identity was pretty much the last thing he wanted to deal with.
"What for?" Sam asked.
Jesus, Sam was dumb. How the hell had he gotten into Stanford? "What for? Alcoholism's freakin dangerous, that's what the hell for! You could freakin die!"
Sam's mouth went tight. "I know what it's like. I pretty much had a front-row seat to that show."
"Yeah, well you're the one who's always going on about how much of a loser Dad was. Now you want to be just like him? What the hell is that?"
Sam shut up for a moment, a muscle twitching in his jaw. Then he looked Dean straight in the eye and said, "You know what, Dean? Everybody dies. At least this way, I've got a good idea of what'll do it for me. Unless I burn first."
Dean felt the bottle fall out of his hand. Goddammit. This was freakin serious, and it was freakin ridiculous. Of all the ghouls and monsters and things that had threatened Sam's life over the years, all the times one or both of his little family had got hurt trying to keep him safe, and Sam had taken a fancy to killing himself with a freakin bottle? Oh, no way. No freakin way. "Yeah, well, you know what, you're just going to have to live with being surprised like the rest of us poor schmucks," Dean said. What Sam wanted didn't matter any more. Sam had pretty much proved himself to be incapable of making his own decisions. From now on, Dean was in charge.
And Dean was not going to let a drop of alcohol pass his little brother's lips ever again