The Things We've Lost (1/1 - Ficathon Submission)
Title: The Things We've Lost
Author: Christie (tinamishi)
Written for: storydivagirl
Rating: R, only for language
Category: Gen, Angst; Pre-Pilot
Spoilers: None
Warnings: Brother angst that might make you sad. They're not always BFF, you know. ;)
Disclaimer: Supernatural © Eric Kripke and the WB.
Summary: Sam leaves for college with no intention of ever coming back. Dean has a tough time letting go.
1.
On the way home from the bus station, after he'd dropped Sam off at the10:30 bound for Palo Alto, Dean pulled the Impala over and threw up on the side of the road. He barely made it out of the door and a little splashed on his shoes but at least he didn't puke on the upholstery. That was something, anyway.
Dean wished he felt wild inside, like driving to a bar to get into a fight or something. He wished he had excess energy to work off, but it took almost all of his energy to choke down the extra bile in his throat and get his palms off his knees. The only thing he could feel inside was the pounding in his head; other than that he was empty.
Back in the car he pushed in the lighter and sat in the dark until it popped out again. He pulled it from its socket, looked at the burning red tip and thought about how long it would take for him to feel something again.
*
When Dean was fourteen, he put a lit cigarette to the soft, white skin on the inside of his elbow because Tommy Cox dared him to. The little round scar it left was nothing compared to the scar on Dean’s upper lip because Dad came along while Dean was wincing in pain and the air was starting to smell like burning flesh and ash, and knocked him so hard across the back of the head that Dean stumbled into the teeter-totter and split his lip.
His dad said that’s what happens when you play chicken with cigarettes. Dean knew it was a façade, even at fourteen he could see the fear in his dad's eyes and that was a worse punishment than any grounding or even the split lip. But stupid ten-year-old Sammy, who took everything way too literally, said that you don’t split your lip from a cigarette, and Dad said let's see what happens when you talk back.
Later that night, dad apologized to Dean for the teeter-totter thing. He hadn't meant to hit Dean at all. It was a gut reaction, he said, like when you spank a kid for running into the street or slap their hand away from a hot stove. But Dad didn't apologize to Sam; and Dean thought dementedly that maybe one day Sam would stop smarting off.
2.
The first job they went on after Sam left was supposed to be a routine werewolf hunt outside Yuma, Arizona. Dean called Sam at the number Sam had scrawled on the inside of a matchbook and stuck in the glove compartment of the car. It was a general number for Stanford, and after working his way through three or four automatic menus, Dean reached the residence halls. It took another few idiots to figure out how to look up the extension to Sam's room, and by then Dad was flailing with the map and grumbling about werewolves being time-sensitive issues.
When Sam picked up, Dean immediately said, "Dude, you gotta give me your direct line or I'm never calling again," and Sam started rattling it off like Dean wasn't sitting in the car on the way to Yuma with his dad flailing maps in his face and telling him to get off the fucking phone and help.
Dean interrupted Sam, saying, "Never mind, I just called to make sure you got there alright." Sam sure had, and he sounded fucking excited and it made Dean want to throw up all over again. He rolled down his window a little bit, just to let in some air, until his dad yelled at him because the map went flying around the inside of the car. Dean didn't even wait for Sam's response to his hurried, "Yeah well, we're heading to Yuma so I gotta go."
Dean wanted to be excited for Sam, or at least be excited that Sam was so excited, but he'd always been a selfish bastard and he couldn't bring himself to be.
*
When Dean was sixteen, Dad took him on his first werewolf hunt and Dean was uncomfortable at how much omnipotent light the full moon cast, even through the overhang of trees. If he could see so well, then he could be seen and his dad said, "Get used to it, Dean-o, cause you aren't going to have any luck hunting these bastards without that moon."
Dean heard his dad's shout only a split second before the werewolf was on top of him and Dean remembered thinking Sam's gonna be pissed for having to stay with Mrs. Jenkins longer if Dean has to go to the hospital or something.
Sam was twelve, that beautiful age where every sentence begins and ends with, "I'm not a kid." Tonight it had been, "So I don't need a babysitter," and their dad had told him to shut his trap and be nice to Mrs. Jenkins or so help him.
Sammy had mouthed, "So help you what?!” and Dean pulled Sam's Red Sox cap over his shaggy hair and down to his eyes to shut him up.
Dean's shirt was ripped at the seam that ran across his shoulder and blood was beginning to coagulate in the fabric’s wake. When his dad saw the damage, Dean saw his face fall and practically heard him berating himself for not protecting his son, but all he said out loud was, “That’s gonna leave one hell of a scar.”
In moments like that, Dean missed his mother. His mom didn't need to seem strong all the time. She just was, even when she wasn't acting like it.
Stitches were given by an old guy named Crash who had so many ugly, uneven scars, Dean was afraid to ask if he did his own work, too. He gritted his teeth and took the whiskey bottle his dad offered him, gripping its glass neck so tightly his knuckles went white and his dad said, “Ease up, buddy; you break that bottle and you’re gonna waste perfectly good liquor.”
3.
In Victorville, their waitress at Denny's was a cute little thing named Mindy who couldn't have been more than nineteen. Dean's hands were crawling up her shirt when the cell phone started ringing in his pocket. He was inclined to ignore his phone when he was about to get some tail in the supply closet of a Denny's - it was a good general rule, anyway - but Mindy plucked the phone off his jeans and held it up. "Need to get that?"
The caller ID flashed bright blue-green neon in the otherwise dark closet and Dean told himself there was no way SAM 650-555-6829 could be in danger right this second because Mindy had an ass that wouldn't quit.
But Sam hadn't called in a while and -
- Mindy's fingers sunk into his jeans and Dean dropped the phone, unanswered.
*
Sam's message said, "Just calling to see how the Yuma thing went," and when Dean called back his message said, "Yuma went fine. Um, see ya later," and Dean stopped counting after three weeks went by without a phone call in return.
Dad never asked how Sam was or if Dean even heard from him, but he drank a whole lot more than he ever had and Dean pretended like he didn't notice.
Dean wasted away the hours after his dad passed out attempting to peel labels off empty bottles without ripping them. He was getting pretty good too and had a nice collection of labels flattened between the pages of an old mythology book. He had lots of Coors and Jack Daniels. Heineken was the hardest.
4.
“What’s the fastest way to kill a harpy?”
Dean took his pen off the notepad and gripped it between his teeth. He said, “blessed silver sword” and then started writing again. His dad smiled like he was proud of Dean for taking notes. His dad was always writing in his journal; doing enough note-taking for the pair of them, Dean reasoned. He moved his hands to cover up the words Dear Sam in the top left corner.
Dean knew his dad wouldn’t mind him writing to Sam. What he would mind was Dean still writing to Sam even after he’d never gotten a response.
*
Sam wrote letters to a kid in Zimbabwe or something equally ridiculous for the better part of junior high and high school. When Dean would see him sitting at his desk, hunched over a sheath of notebook paper, writing like his life depended on it; Dean would lick his finger and stick it in Sam's ear. Inevitably Sam would squeal, his pen would skitter across the page and the whole letter would be ruined.
Dean thought that was pretty funny, because how important could this kid in Africa be, anyway? Sam barely talked to Dad anymore, but he could write six pages to a stranger? It always rubbed Dean the wrong way if he thought about it too long.
One time Dean got the mail and on top of the stack of bills in a bright array of colors was a letter addressed to Samuel Winchester. Dean put the letter aside and pondered on the bills first - like why they suddenly came in yellow and pink instead of the standard white, as if they hadn't been paid because Dad just didn't notice them and now he's sure not to miss them. Eventually, though, Dean sort of understood why his Dad didn't like to talk about money; money was depressing and Dean picked up the letter addressed to Sam.
It looked like there was six bucks worth of postage on it, and it had been forwarded from their old post office box in Topeka that Dad had finally closed when they settled in Oklahoma City for Sam to finish high school. The envelope was all battered and weathered and worn, like someone had carried it over from Africa and Dean didn't even think much about it when he slipped his pinky into a crease and ripped. The letter came tumbling out - obviously this kid was as prolific as Sam because there were eight pages handwritten in tediously small print, front and back.
It didn't even occur to Dean to read it. He couldn't have been less interested, but Sam chose that moment to barge into the house and after hollering about invasion of privacy, he didn't talk to Dean for a solid week.
5.
After two years of sporadic phone calls and never answered letters, Dean stopped trying. He woke up one day and just decided it, and from then on passed every souvenir stand in every Middle American town and didn't even try to find a postcard with a topless chick on it that said something tasteless like, "Wish you'd have COME!" It was funny to think about embarrassing Sammy like that before, but now it seemed pathetic.
Every once in a while, Dad would ask Dean if he'd heard from his brother, and Dean finally started answering truthfully. What was the point in lying anymore? 'No Dad, Sam never calls, never writes, never acknowledges we exist. Want me to order you another coffee?' It rolled off his tongue just fine.
-end-
Author: Christie (tinamishi)
Written for: storydivagirl
Rating: R, only for language
Category: Gen, Angst; Pre-Pilot
Spoilers: None
Warnings: Brother angst that might make you sad. They're not always BFF, you know. ;)
Disclaimer: Supernatural © Eric Kripke and the WB.
Summary: Sam leaves for college with no intention of ever coming back. Dean has a tough time letting go.
1.
On the way home from the bus station, after he'd dropped Sam off at the10:30 bound for Palo Alto, Dean pulled the Impala over and threw up on the side of the road. He barely made it out of the door and a little splashed on his shoes but at least he didn't puke on the upholstery. That was something, anyway.
Dean wished he felt wild inside, like driving to a bar to get into a fight or something. He wished he had excess energy to work off, but it took almost all of his energy to choke down the extra bile in his throat and get his palms off his knees. The only thing he could feel inside was the pounding in his head; other than that he was empty.
Back in the car he pushed in the lighter and sat in the dark until it popped out again. He pulled it from its socket, looked at the burning red tip and thought about how long it would take for him to feel something again.
*
When Dean was fourteen, he put a lit cigarette to the soft, white skin on the inside of his elbow because Tommy Cox dared him to. The little round scar it left was nothing compared to the scar on Dean’s upper lip because Dad came along while Dean was wincing in pain and the air was starting to smell like burning flesh and ash, and knocked him so hard across the back of the head that Dean stumbled into the teeter-totter and split his lip.
His dad said that’s what happens when you play chicken with cigarettes. Dean knew it was a façade, even at fourteen he could see the fear in his dad's eyes and that was a worse punishment than any grounding or even the split lip. But stupid ten-year-old Sammy, who took everything way too literally, said that you don’t split your lip from a cigarette, and Dad said let's see what happens when you talk back.
Later that night, dad apologized to Dean for the teeter-totter thing. He hadn't meant to hit Dean at all. It was a gut reaction, he said, like when you spank a kid for running into the street or slap their hand away from a hot stove. But Dad didn't apologize to Sam; and Dean thought dementedly that maybe one day Sam would stop smarting off.
2.
The first job they went on after Sam left was supposed to be a routine werewolf hunt outside Yuma, Arizona. Dean called Sam at the number Sam had scrawled on the inside of a matchbook and stuck in the glove compartment of the car. It was a general number for Stanford, and after working his way through three or four automatic menus, Dean reached the residence halls. It took another few idiots to figure out how to look up the extension to Sam's room, and by then Dad was flailing with the map and grumbling about werewolves being time-sensitive issues.
When Sam picked up, Dean immediately said, "Dude, you gotta give me your direct line or I'm never calling again," and Sam started rattling it off like Dean wasn't sitting in the car on the way to Yuma with his dad flailing maps in his face and telling him to get off the fucking phone and help.
Dean interrupted Sam, saying, "Never mind, I just called to make sure you got there alright." Sam sure had, and he sounded fucking excited and it made Dean want to throw up all over again. He rolled down his window a little bit, just to let in some air, until his dad yelled at him because the map went flying around the inside of the car. Dean didn't even wait for Sam's response to his hurried, "Yeah well, we're heading to Yuma so I gotta go."
Dean wanted to be excited for Sam, or at least be excited that Sam was so excited, but he'd always been a selfish bastard and he couldn't bring himself to be.
*
When Dean was sixteen, Dad took him on his first werewolf hunt and Dean was uncomfortable at how much omnipotent light the full moon cast, even through the overhang of trees. If he could see so well, then he could be seen and his dad said, "Get used to it, Dean-o, cause you aren't going to have any luck hunting these bastards without that moon."
Dean heard his dad's shout only a split second before the werewolf was on top of him and Dean remembered thinking Sam's gonna be pissed for having to stay with Mrs. Jenkins longer if Dean has to go to the hospital or something.
Sam was twelve, that beautiful age where every sentence begins and ends with, "I'm not a kid." Tonight it had been, "So I don't need a babysitter," and their dad had told him to shut his trap and be nice to Mrs. Jenkins or so help him.
Sammy had mouthed, "So help you what?!” and Dean pulled Sam's Red Sox cap over his shaggy hair and down to his eyes to shut him up.
Dean's shirt was ripped at the seam that ran across his shoulder and blood was beginning to coagulate in the fabric’s wake. When his dad saw the damage, Dean saw his face fall and practically heard him berating himself for not protecting his son, but all he said out loud was, “That’s gonna leave one hell of a scar.”
In moments like that, Dean missed his mother. His mom didn't need to seem strong all the time. She just was, even when she wasn't acting like it.
Stitches were given by an old guy named Crash who had so many ugly, uneven scars, Dean was afraid to ask if he did his own work, too. He gritted his teeth and took the whiskey bottle his dad offered him, gripping its glass neck so tightly his knuckles went white and his dad said, “Ease up, buddy; you break that bottle and you’re gonna waste perfectly good liquor.”
3.
In Victorville, their waitress at Denny's was a cute little thing named Mindy who couldn't have been more than nineteen. Dean's hands were crawling up her shirt when the cell phone started ringing in his pocket. He was inclined to ignore his phone when he was about to get some tail in the supply closet of a Denny's - it was a good general rule, anyway - but Mindy plucked the phone off his jeans and held it up. "Need to get that?"
The caller ID flashed bright blue-green neon in the otherwise dark closet and Dean told himself there was no way SAM 650-555-6829 could be in danger right this second because Mindy had an ass that wouldn't quit.
But Sam hadn't called in a while and -
- Mindy's fingers sunk into his jeans and Dean dropped the phone, unanswered.
*
Sam's message said, "Just calling to see how the Yuma thing went," and when Dean called back his message said, "Yuma went fine. Um, see ya later," and Dean stopped counting after three weeks went by without a phone call in return.
Dad never asked how Sam was or if Dean even heard from him, but he drank a whole lot more than he ever had and Dean pretended like he didn't notice.
Dean wasted away the hours after his dad passed out attempting to peel labels off empty bottles without ripping them. He was getting pretty good too and had a nice collection of labels flattened between the pages of an old mythology book. He had lots of Coors and Jack Daniels. Heineken was the hardest.
4.
“What’s the fastest way to kill a harpy?”
Dean took his pen off the notepad and gripped it between his teeth. He said, “blessed silver sword” and then started writing again. His dad smiled like he was proud of Dean for taking notes. His dad was always writing in his journal; doing enough note-taking for the pair of them, Dean reasoned. He moved his hands to cover up the words Dear Sam in the top left corner.
Dean knew his dad wouldn’t mind him writing to Sam. What he would mind was Dean still writing to Sam even after he’d never gotten a response.
*
Sam wrote letters to a kid in Zimbabwe or something equally ridiculous for the better part of junior high and high school. When Dean would see him sitting at his desk, hunched over a sheath of notebook paper, writing like his life depended on it; Dean would lick his finger and stick it in Sam's ear. Inevitably Sam would squeal, his pen would skitter across the page and the whole letter would be ruined.
Dean thought that was pretty funny, because how important could this kid in Africa be, anyway? Sam barely talked to Dad anymore, but he could write six pages to a stranger? It always rubbed Dean the wrong way if he thought about it too long.
One time Dean got the mail and on top of the stack of bills in a bright array of colors was a letter addressed to Samuel Winchester. Dean put the letter aside and pondered on the bills first - like why they suddenly came in yellow and pink instead of the standard white, as if they hadn't been paid because Dad just didn't notice them and now he's sure not to miss them. Eventually, though, Dean sort of understood why his Dad didn't like to talk about money; money was depressing and Dean picked up the letter addressed to Sam.
It looked like there was six bucks worth of postage on it, and it had been forwarded from their old post office box in Topeka that Dad had finally closed when they settled in Oklahoma City for Sam to finish high school. The envelope was all battered and weathered and worn, like someone had carried it over from Africa and Dean didn't even think much about it when he slipped his pinky into a crease and ripped. The letter came tumbling out - obviously this kid was as prolific as Sam because there were eight pages handwritten in tediously small print, front and back.
It didn't even occur to Dean to read it. He couldn't have been less interested, but Sam chose that moment to barge into the house and after hollering about invasion of privacy, he didn't talk to Dean for a solid week.
5.
After two years of sporadic phone calls and never answered letters, Dean stopped trying. He woke up one day and just decided it, and from then on passed every souvenir stand in every Middle American town and didn't even try to find a postcard with a topless chick on it that said something tasteless like, "Wish you'd have COME!" It was funny to think about embarrassing Sammy like that before, but now it seemed pathetic.
Every once in a while, Dad would ask Dean if he'd heard from his brother, and Dean finally started answering truthfully. What was the point in lying anymore? 'No Dad, Sam never calls, never writes, never acknowledges we exist. Want me to order you another coffee?' It rolled off his tongue just fine.
-end-