Title: You Can Never Go Back
Author: Nicola
Beta: Ciffie
Fandom: Supernatural
Genre: Drama
Rating: S
Warnings: If you squint, you might see incest (Sam/Dean). Sisältää tulkinnanvaraista insestiä. -jjb lisäsi varoituksen myös suomeksi
Summary: The only thing anybody needs to know about the relationship between Sam and Dean is that Sam went away when he was 19.
Disclaimer: Not mine... or are they? Mwuhahahahahaa!
A/N: Saattaa hyvinkin saada jatkoa. Palaute olisi tervetullutta.
You Can Never Go Back
The only thing anybody needs to know about the relationship between Sam and Dean is that Sam left when he was 19. He packed his backpack to the fullest, walked to the bus station, used 85 bucks to buy a ticket and was on his way while his father’s words rang in his ears, his brother’s eyes burned his back and the sweet taste of accomplishment coated his tongue. Wasn't this why he had busted his ass reading textbooks and writing essays and building volcanoes or whatever the hell it was his science teacher wanted at the time? To leave and to go to college?
Sam wanted a normal life and you could leave it at that. Who wouldn't want a normal life if the other option was constant fear, danger and all consuming want for a revenge that kept his father on the move and his brother in the dark? Werewolves, ghosts, ghouls and weeping white ladies in itself was enough to keep a young mind in a bad place but the worst part was that there was no dark and light, no evil and good. Just sorrow and bad fortunes and sickening life stories. Yeah, they killed things that hurt people, but the things they killed had been people too. Just like Sam, just like John, just like Dean. Just like Mary, the mother Sam had never known, the mother who he didn't remember, the mother that had her hold on Sam’s family even after 18 years of being dead.
Sam’s father wouldn't see the sadness of it all and Dean didn't want to, but Sam knew everything wasn't black and white and didn't that fuck him up?
Yeah, Sam wanted a normal life and you could leave it at that. A life away from the endless nights and monsters that glutted themselves with the darkness. But once your eyes have been opened, you can't close them again. You can't ever go back home, as the saying goes, and Sam might be young but he wasn't stupid. He knew that life without hunting was a no-go, there would never be a time he could forget what was waiting in the twilight or misinterpret the sounds of the night for something else than they were.
But hunting wasn't the most important thing in Sam’s life, never had been and was never going to be. His dad might need the hunt and his brother might want it, but Sam did neither. He didn't need or want and he could – and would – leave hunting behind in a heartbeat if it was possible to forget it, too. But since forgetting wasn't an option, Sam had learned a way to cheat life and had worked for his goal for years. He might never leave this war for good, but there was a way to take a breather, a brake, a time for just him and a normal life.
The way was in the hunters and daylight and people like Jess who didn't know about the war.
Sure it was selfish, but Sam had always been the youngest, the baby, the one who could get away with it. So he did, of course he did. The fight would go on and dad would be there and Dean would be there, the brave Dean, the head held high Dean and Sam would get to eat his cake and save it all the same. And try for a normal life, not just for the normal-life-without-war but the normal-life-without-Dean.
And didn't that sound awful? After all the fights, all the silent treatments and the bad blood between Sam and his father, it was Dean that Sam wanted to get away from. It was the brother who had saved him from the burning house at the age of four, kept him safe ever since, the brother who was the only mother he had ever had, the brother who knew everything (but not this, never this), did everything, gave everything, that Sam wanted to leave behind. And why? For the normal life? For the sake of leaving? Or because he wanted to return?
Yeah, he wanted to return, Sam thought when the flats of the Kansas were morphed into the hills of Colorado. The glass under his forehead shook and tickled his ears and he felt the warm thigh of the old lady sitting next to him against his own. The 500 bucks in his back pocket burned like the fires of hell, money that Dean had given him. Money Dean had saved working in the nameless car shops in the nameless towns they drove through. Dean hadn't wanted for him to leave, but still gave him his savings. Dean had yelled and cursed and hit his knuckles against the wood paneling in Sam’s room until there was blood and still he had given his little brother 500 bucks. Good riddance, farewell, don't let the door hit you. Please be safe.
Did Dean know? Did he know that Sam left because he wanted to come back? Did he know or did he think that Sam left because he wanted to stay away?
Sam didn't know. Winchesters didn't talk about feelings, not the good ones anyway. Family members loved each other; that went without saying. There were no need for declarations of love, it was for the week ones, the ones that didn't fucking know that family was the one thing, the only thing, that mattered. And if someone hurt your family, tears were for shit and pain was for sharing.
And that was the problem, wasn't it? That they were family members and that they had to love each other. Had to, no matter what. Sam could yell his lungs out, scream and kick and lash out every bad thought he had ever had in him and still his father would know Sam loved him. Just like Sam knew that no matter how much the slap of his father’s hand stung, no matter how much the disappointment in his father’s eyes burned his soul, his father loved him. They would die for each other. Would stand between that riffle/fang/monster and the one they wanted to tear down in the silence of a motel room and would gloomily wait for the pain to take its bite. Take the whole fucking arm if that was the case and then make sure that you weren't the only one hurting, that the job got done and got done well.
But it wasn't like Sam had ever needed or would ever need to wait for that bite of pain. No, Dean would never let things go that far. If Sam ever would have to get between his father and the monster of the week, Dean would be there in a second, standing between Sam and the fucker. And he wouldn't wait for the painbite, no, he would have his gun cocked up and his signature smirk blasted on his face and it would be the monster roaring for its agony, its rage, its death.
Sam felt salt burning behind his eyelids but he couldn't take his mind from his brother. His beautiful older brother who was everything his dad wanted his sons to be, everything the boys in high school wanted to be, everything the women in bars wanted to fuck. And Dean, the stubborn, cocky, quick witted son of a bitch Dean would play everything up, infuriate the high school boys, wet the women’s panties and come home and all but crawl for the acceptance of his father. It made Sam so mad, so sad, so everything, to see how someone so perfect could just obey someone so imperfect, give everything for the whisper of a bone. Sam was pretty sure that most of the fights between him and his dad were because Sam needed to take a stand for his brother against their dad. Not that Dean asked for it, hell, even wanted it, but just because the injustice of the situation was too much for Sam’s heart.
And now Sam had left his brother all on his own, to please and serve their father’s every command. There wouldn't ever be thanks for Dean, not in the way of words anyway, and maybe it wasn't about that in the end. Probably it would only make Dean blush and stutter and feel all kinds of wrong if their father ever did get down from his castle of solitude enough to see his son, the better man. The best man, if you asked Sam. But why would you? Sam had never been anything his dad wanted from his sons, nothing his classmates wanted to be or the girls wanted to fuck. He had had Dean and now he had given that up. But that was kind of the point, too. Because you had to love your family, but you didn't need to come back and Sam wanted to come back. Wanted to come back for Dean.
