Title: Changes
Author: gleefulmusings
Beta: mysterious_daze
Fandom: Supernatural, Season One AU, set sometime after Skin.
Characters: Sam and Dean Winchester
Rating: FR-13 (T)
Warning(s): Language.
Distribution: Please ask first. Please do not screencap this story, save it to hard drives, exchange with others, or translate into other languages without written consent.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, lyrics, etc. are the property of their respective owners. Snippets of dialogue may be incorporated from the original canonical episode(s) and belong to their respective authors/creators. The original characters and plot are the property of the author(s). The author(s) is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended, nor should any be inferred. No profit is being made.
Summary: Sam has changed, and Dean is lost.
Sam had changed.
Dean couldn't readily recall when the change had first occurred; it had been so subtle, he had missed it.
Of course, he freely admitted that most subtleties slipped right past him. He never really had time for them, and they were usually a distraction; too close to emotion.
His mother had been subtle; a soft scolding here, a gentle caress there. Sometimes when he closed his eyes, he could still feel her fingers twining through his hair. It was often that memory to which he clung more tenaciously than any other, a lingering reminder of her love for him, and he constantly feared he would one day forget her touch.
He wasn't sure who had it worse; himself, for losing so many memories of Mary, or Sam, for never having any.
Sam was like Mary. For all of his bitching and moaning and complaining, for all of the bluster and obstinacy which were clear hallmarks of their father, despite the instances in which Dean was sure that his brother had more estrogen than most women, Sam was truly subtle when it came to his own emotions.
Usually, this was something Dean encouraged. He didn't like discussing Sam's feelings because it led to a closer examination of his own, which were often more in concert with Sam's thoughts than Dean would ever admit. He never spurred or engaged in discussions of Jess, even though he knew he should. That was Sam's pain; it was private, personal.
Still, he sometimes would look at Sam and see the scars, the festering wounds which had been left unhealed since her death. As much as he knew he should get Sam to open up, to excise the diseased tissue, he could never bring himself to do it.
So he watched his brother suffer and did nothing to stop it.
Jess's Sam was a Sam whom Dean didn't know, and wasn't sure he wanted to meet. Jess's Sam was Normal Sam, College Sam; not his Sam. The problem was that Dean no longer knew how to relate to his Sam any better than he did Jess's Sam.
Sam had stopped talking.
This would normally have been cause for celebration, for beers and tawdry waitresses outfitted in coochie cutters with tits on display.
Sam's voluntary muteness shouldn't be painful, but it was. It was more profound than any overwrought monologue or tiresome rant. Dean struggled for topics, but Sam no longer bothered to indulge him, perfectly content with the absence of words, though the silence was not companionable.
Dean didn't understand a Sam who didn't talk. From the moment he had began making sounds, Sam had never shut up. Be it plaintive whining or incessant questioning or determined arguing, Sam Winchester had used words as weapons. No one had been less surprised than Dean when Sam had declared a pre-law concentration. If anyone was born to argue, it was his Sammy, and Sam always argued to win. Not that Dean ever let him. Much.
Silence spoke a thousand words, but a picture was worth a thousand words. So which was better? Words which were given no voice, or a photograph which displayed no soul?
That was the change.
Sam was soulless; hollow.
Gutted.
And, somehow, Dean had missed it.
Sam had stopped touching him.
Dean didn't like being touched. This wasn't limited to Sam; he didn't like being touched by anyone, not even his father. Touches from girls were all right, sometimes, because they usually led to sex, and Dean understood sex. He understood that it was a validation of life, it was proof that you were still here, that you could still feel something. Dean wasn't a slut; he was a sexual voodoo doll.
Sam was sexually autistic. Dean had watched girls approach his brother, only to be quickly turned away. No problem, he had thought; his brother was just searching for the right girl. He had figured Sam was still mourning Jess.
He had been surprised, but not terribly so, the first time he had seen a man approach Sam. The man was the first of many, but he too had been turned away, just like the girls, and just like all future guys. Dean had figured, okay, Sammy's not into dudes. Whatever.
The more he watched - which wasn't anything new, because he always watched Sam; he had been trained to do so - the more Dean realized that Sam now eschewed all personal contact, as if he was a demon and human skin was holy water.
Sam hadn't often touched Dean, not since they were kids, because he knew it wasn't Dean's thing. When they had been young, there had been hugs and cuddles and hand-holding. Sammy had always been tactile. Dad had said it was because Sam had never known his mother's touch, and Dean could understand that; he missed Mom, too. So he had tried real hard to give Sam all the love he knew his little brother needed and deserved. And when Sam's first word had been Dean's name, it had all been worth it.
But then they had grown up and the touches had become less frequent, less substantial, less meaningful. There were the occasional shoulder bumps, or an arm slung around a pair of broad shoulders. Sometimes, Sam would freak when something gross attacked Dean and wouldn't stop clucking until Dean consented to a hug, never telling his brother he had needed it as much as Sam.
That was gone, now, too. The touching was gone; Jess was gone; Dad was gone.
Sam was gone.
Sam had stopped looking at him.
There had been a time when Sam's eyes had been filled with hero-worship for Dean, and Dean had lapped it up like nectar. Sam was the most important person in the world to him, so it only made sense that his brother had felt the same.
As time passed, the looks had changed. There had still been wonder and awe and love, but they warred with anger, jealousy, and resentment. So Dean had begun looking at other things, at other people, usually girls. And the girls looked back at him with something which was akin to how Sam used to, though their looks were clouded with lust and the promise of forever. Soon, Dean had stopped looking at them in favor of looking near them.
His forever was Sam; it always had been. He didn't know how to change it and he didn't want to.
So when girls looked at Dean now, he sometimes looked back. He just didn't look too hard.
Sam didn't look at him at all.
Sam had stopped dreaming.
At least, Dean thought he had. Or maybe his brother had just gotten better at controlling them.
That was when Dean knew the shit had really hit the fan. Sam no longer woke from nightmares, panting like a dog and sweating like a whore in church. He no longer screamed for Jess or Dad or anyone. There was no muttering, no whimpering, no begging for it to stop. There was nothing.
Even in his sleep, Sam was silent, and Dean just thought that was fucking weird. In the past year, Dean hadn't slept through the night without being woken by Sam.
Not that the lack of nightmares much improved Sam's appearance. The purple smudges under his eyes looked like bruises. His tan was fading. The whites of his eyes looked suspiciously like egg yolks, lined with red.
Sam was death warmed over. Except death was permanent, allegedly. Dean sure as hell hoped this wasn't.
Now that Sam had stopped dreaming, Dean didn't sleep at all.
Sam slept. He ate when hungry and stopped when full. He woke up first in the morning and was the last one down at night. He had coffee and a newspaper waiting when Dean woke up. Sam did laundry, did grocery shopping when they were in one place long enough, did his laptop thing, mapped out routes, and cleaned his share of the weapons.
He hunted when he had to, and he did a good job. He didn't talk to Dean, didn't speak to Dean, and didn't look at Dean, but he always had his brother's back when it counted.
He read books like he always had. He read them faster now, running a race in which he was the only participant, as if there was a finish line only he could see.
The visions came and went, and Sam and Dean traveled to where they were directed and did what they needed to do.
When John could be bothered to call, Sam would talk to him. They would hold conversations about nothing, or about the demon, or that game three nights ago on the tube. 'Yes, sir' rolled off Sam's lips like water.
Dean was the one who stopped talking to his father, fearful of being asked questions for which he had no answers. John gave them coordinates, Sam and Dean followed up.
To anyone else, it would have looked normal.
Dean's head roared with silent screams.