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spn_summergen2008-08-28 09:22 am
spnsummer-mod.livejournal.com) wrote in spn_summergen2008-08-28 09:22 am
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Yesterday to Tomorrow (2/2)
Part One
They were in Nebraska, and it was winter.
It was a deadly combination for just about anyone, save perhaps Eskimos, but Dean Winchester took it to another level.
Sam knew that if his brother had a choice, he would prefer to sweat in Arizona than shiver in Alaska but when had Dean ever had a choice?
Of course, none of this stopped Sam from smirking at the sight of his brother blowing warm air into his cupped hands as he shifted his weight from foot to foot in a bid to increase body temperature. They were waiting by the side of the road leading to a ramshackle house which was currently being plagued by two women who’d refused to give up this world in peace. Their father was going to join them after a run to the grocery store for more bags of salt and once he did, all three Winchesters were going to raid the house.
Until then, Sam was happy to just laugh at his brother. They could have just sat in the Impala but in a bid to save fuel meaning they couldn’t turn up the heat, the car was acting as an icebox, the inside almost as cold as the outside.
Dean was standing beside Sam and the youngest Winchester could swear the air was about to turn blue – not because it was freezing, but because Dean was cursing uninterruptedly under his breath, using words Sam was sure he’d never heard before in his life – and considering the people he and his family hung out with, that was saying quite a lot.
“God, what’s taking Dad so long?”
Dean might have meant the question to be rhetorical but Sam couldn’t help answering: “No idea. But when is Dad ever on time?”
“Don’t start, Sam,” Dean warned immediately.
“I was just answering your question, dude.” Sam wondered if maybe he’d be doing his brother a kindness by riling him up so much, he’d forget the cold (and the fact that their father was running late, as per usual).
Five minutes later, their Dad’s truck still nowhere in sight and the mood between the brothers still slightly off, Sam decided to clear the air. He never wanted to go into a hunt with issues still in the air, and he used the time he had on hand to his advantage:
“Hey Dean?”
“What, Sasquatch?” Even coffee couldn’t prevent Dean’s crankiness today, and the previous exchange probably hadn’t helped. Not that Sam was surprised when he heard it in the tone of his brother’s voice.
“Scientists say that you’re going to feel the coldest if your head and feet aren’t covered.”
Dean turned his head to the side to give his brother a look. “Um… I’m not sure about you, Sammy, but I’m pretty sure these are combat boots I’m wearing. And just because I don’t have a mop on my head doesn’t mean mine isn’t covered.”
Sam ran his hand through his brown locks for the sole reason that it would annoy his brother. “No need to be jealous of the hair, bro. And as I was saying, head and feet need to be covered. But most of all…,” Sam dug his hand inside his (very warm) jacket pocket, “the nose should be covered.” Sam presented his brother with a red clown nose, the one he’d bought and was keeping in store for the opportune moment, such as this one.
Dean reached out a hand and took the red nose from his brother but the way he was glaring at it made Sam wonder if he should perhaps start running away. His brother’s aim was a thing to behold and at least this way, Sam could warm up a little too.
However, seventeen years of being glued to his brother’s side had to count for something which was why Sam wasn’t too surprised when Dean simply shrugged and put the red clown nose on his face and put his hands in his pocket as he waited for the extra… layer… of covering to take effect.
Plenty of time for Sam to open the passenger side door and lift his duffel bag onto the seat, using Dean’s distraction as he surveyed the open roads for any sign of their father to bring out his camera. Wanting to take his brother by surprise, Sam took the case off and slid back the shutter before ducking out of the car again and standing upright.
“De-ean,” Sam sing-songed his brother’s name, making it clear that his intentions in calling out for his brother were nothing short of mischievous.
The elder Winchester turned to face his brother, clown nose still in place, and it was something to be said of his reflexes when he managed to flip his brother the bird just as the flash went off.
Oh, this was so not his brother’s shining moment, Sam thought, as he shook his head fondly at the picture. A freezing Dean was usually reason for laughing but a heavily jacketed Dean with a clown nose on as he frowned, holding up a heavily gloved finger to the camera and his little brother?
Yeah, that was bribery material right there.
The next picture, however, completely removed all traces of good humour from Sam’s features as his mind travelled back to the day this picture had been taken, however unwillingly:
Sam was in no hurry to get home, as had been the case for the past two days. On Monday, he’d walked through the front door to find a note on his bedspread:
Dear Bitch (read the note),
Dad and me gone to fry some buggers in S. Dakota – be back Friday.
Don’t let your brain overload from too much studying, but no strippers over either.
Love,
Jerk.
Dean. The letter-writer of the family, clearly.
Under the note was a small pile of cash, enough and perhaps just a little more to tide Sam over till the end of the week though he was sure that if he opened up the fridge and the cabinets in the kitchen, he’d find them recently stocked. Ever since his school year had started, Dad and Dean would often leave for days at a time to deal with a hunt, most of the times in another state though never too far away.
Dean, at twenty-one and no longer tied down to formal education, had taken up a part-time job as a mechanic in a garage in town to try and earn some honest cash. It wouldn’t bode well for Sam as a student in the high school if his family was seen hustling every bar in a fifty mile radius, along with flaunting fake credit cards here and there. Of course, out-of-state hunts meant that his father and brother were able to keep their cash swindling talents in practise and that’s where most of the family’s income came from in any case.
However, each time his father and brother left on a hunt, Dean would first do a store run to make sure Sam wouldn’t want for anything in the meanwhile. Canned goods, cereal, milk, two minute noodles, instant coffee – all that a growing boy needed (or as Dean would say, much too overgrown boy, still smarting from the fact that his four years younger brother was four inches taller than he was).
It was now Thursday and Sam knew better than to expect his brother and father to be home ahead of schedule. On the other hand, delays were par for the course although it got harder and harder for the youngest Winchester with each passing extra day, not knowing if his family was alright. Dean would call every night they were apart for a status check but if they had to stay longer than expected, the fact was usually accompanied with them being too busy to call and ease Sam’s fears.
Still, today was alright. Dad and Dean had one more day before Sam started the fine art of silent panicking and since there was nothing waiting for him at home, Sam took his time, enjoying the fresh air and feel of the sun on his face. In his head, his brother called him a pansy but Sam ignored the tease, for all that it was imaginary.
Unlocking the front door, Sam carefully stepped over the salt line and closed the door behind him, flipping the flimsy lock but leaving the bolt untouched, even though he wasn’t quite sure – he had no intention of leaving the house today, and it wasn’t like he was expecting company.
Shrugging, Sam turned away from the door and made his way towards the kitchen for an apple. Even if any intruders came (human or non-human), Sam knew enough self-defence to put up a hell of a fight. Besides, Dean had strategically placed weapons, big and small, all around the house and Sam only needed a moment to reach for one.
Apple in hand, Sam went into the small living room which also housed the small TV. Munching his way through the fruit, Sam’s fingers kept a steady pressure on the channel button as he flicked from one to another, barely stopping at any for more than a few seconds. He must have done at least five rounds by the time the apple finished and he decided there was nothing worth watching on TV. At least, not for the moment anyway.
Going into his and Dean’s room, Sam grabbed perhaps the only two items he could label as “luxury items”, as his Economics teacher would call it: his camera, and his walkman. He then went to his backpack and dug out the book he’d borrowed from the school library before heading home.
The three items in hand, Sam seated himself in the sole comfortable armchair in the tiny house, the faded brown one facing the front door. Kicking off his shoes, he rested his feet on the coffee table in front of it and started putting the headphones in place. The walkman had been another item yet another garage sale had been a result of, though in a different state. Dean, finally tiring of Sam bitching about the music as they criss-crossed the country, had bought Sam the cassette player. What Dean didn’t know was that during one bored day two months ago, the fifth since he and their dad had gone for a hunt in Oklahoma, Sam had compiled a cassette of his favourite classic rock songs, ranging from Zeppelin to Pink Floyd to even a Motorhead one. Of course, Sam would never allow his brother the gratification of knowing he liked most of Dean’s music – he’d much rather horrify him with a passion for Bon Jovi and all other sorts of “emo music”, as Dean would label it.
With Jimi Hendrix attempting to hold a tune in Sam’s ear, the seventeen year old Honours student cracked open the book he’d borrowed – Bram Stoker’s Dracula – and started reading.
Fifty pages later and the cassette reaching the end of Side A, Sam put down the book and flipped the cassette around, wincing slightly as the screams of Robert Plant replaced the relatively soft crooning of Paul Rodgers. Having lost interest in the book, Sam picked up his camera instead. Having taken it to a school soccer match recently which had been rained out, he had a fear that some mud might have invaded the case and was crusting the delicate works of the machine.
Turning it over in his hands, Sam was glad to see that there wasn’t much. He used a thumbnail, which was in dire need of clipping, to scrape away the dried mud that was lining the outside of the shutter.
He’d just raised the camera to his eye to make sure there was nothing obscuring the viewfinder when the door directly in front of him was kicked open and his finger pressed on the button in reflex, the resulting flash surprising all.
Sam took one last look at the picture, enough for him to sear it in his memory before he brought his fingers to the middle and pulled, tearing the picture in half, once, twice, many times until each piece was no bigger than a dime. He carefully placed the pieces on the bedside table next to his bottle of beer. He’d burn the pieces later, but he knew there would be no forgetting.
It hadn’t been a monster which had burst into the tiny house in Finchley that day, nor it was a crazed spirit bent on revenge or a drunk human having no idea what he was doing, although Sam would have preferred any of those three scenarios than the one he’d been presented with:
John Winchester all but carrying his barely-conscious first born across the threshold, not even waiting to knock but kicking the door open – he couldn’t be faulted for being surprised when he’d immediately been greeted by a flash of light. Unbeknownst to all three Winchesters before today, the camera flash had managed to capture more than surprise on John’s face – Sam could clearly see worry and fear in his father’s eyes, something he hadn’t noticed that day, branding his father apathetic and unconcerned in his rage.
Dean, however, had been a mess. With his chin touching his chest, he’d been too out of it to realize that his father had broken every speed limit between here and South Dakota to get him home to be patched up. His entire left side, from the gash on his forehead to the deep claw marks in his side and leg, seemed to be covered in blood and the camera flash had only served to illuminate the gruesome colours.
They’d all been injured to various degrees in their line of work; Dean had certainly been injured worse before, but Sam wasn’t quite sure why that day, and the days after, were cemented so firmly in his mind. Perhaps the shock of the door bursting open to reveal a bloodied and bruised brother with his arm across their father’s neck had left an indelible mark on Sam’s consciousness – he did not need a picture to make the day all the more clearer.
The next picture soon joined the previous one in terms of being ripped to tiny pieces. Though an innocent observer would only have seen the right-side profile of a man sitting upright in bed, a remote in hand, lollipop in mouth and presumably watching TV, Sam saw more.
He knew that although his brother looked perfectly fine in the picture, one only had to walk to the other side of the bed to be faced with the true reality – gauze covering the gash over the left eyebrow; t-shirt covering the bandages swathed around Dean’s middle; blankets cloaking Dean’s wrapped leg.
Though over three years ago and only one of many things, Sam still remembered this event as something which had pushed him further to go to college, to get away from it all.
He didn’t want to see his brother’s blood spilt over and over again, unable to do anything except perhaps bandage his wounds – at least the physical ones. Sure, Sam did reason that if perhaps he’d gone along for the hunt, he might have been able to watch Dean’s back better, make sure the Tailyope didn’t get a jump on his brother but that was a possibility, not a certainty. It would take more than the fingers of one hand to count the times Dean had been injured because Sam had been there, in an attempt to protect the youngest of the Winchesters. No, Sam wasn’t going to stick around to bury his family. It also grated on his nerves that Dean could take this all calmly; that laid up in bed just days after almost bleeding out in a ramshackle house, he could be satisfied with just watching the tube, waiting until he was mobile enough to jump head first into yet another hunt.
No, Sam didn’t regret leaving hunting. He didn’t regret it at all. People’s lives were threatened by more than supernatural forces in this world and there was more than one way to live other than being driven by revenge and a desire to kill every monster between here and the demon who’d killed Mary Winchester.
Sam would and was going to help people his way, and fulfil his dreams along with it. The way it looked right now as he glanced around the bedroom and noticed all the Jess-isms, such as the easel and canvas in the corner next to a pile of law books that overflowed from the bookshelf, he was damn well already on the way.
The picture, ripped into a reasonable amount of pieces adding to the first pile, Sam focused on the next one and suddenly couldn't help but feel that perhaps the Winchester's hunting lifestyle hadn’t been all that bad - Sam doubted he could have gotten to know half the positive influences in his life without them.
Pastor Jim, for example - part-time preacher, part-time hunter. In the photo Sam held in his hands, the Blue Earth resident was facing the stove but had turned slightly to his right to smile into the camera as Sam took a picture. The camera had also managed to capture the fact that both of the priest's hands were covered with oven mitts and he was wearing a 'Kiss the Cook' apron. On the stove was a piping hot (at least, that's how Sam remembered it) straight-out-of-the-oven apple pie and it should have been impossible that the scent of it could reach Sam all the way into the present but there was no doubting it - it was as though the apple pie was right in front of Sam in his apartment, causing his stomach to release a growl, and Sam tried to remember just how many cookies Jess had left in the oven…
Speaking of ovens-
The Winchesters had travelled to Minnesota for a hunt during Sam's winter break and having been able to wrap up their hunt in time, they'd descended on Pastor Jim's porch the day before Christmas Eve and he'd been more than happy to receive them.
In fact, his happiness at the company was demonstrated by the feast he'd cooked up for Christmas Day. Sam had always known that the older man had a soft spot in his heart for Dean and the apple pie had been evident of the fact, for all that everyone had shared it. And in spite of the deteriorating relationship between Sam and his father, both had managed to put aside their differences for the few days they were in Blue Earth and Sam couldn't help but guiltily notice that Dean also seemed more than happy at the brief respite.
And one way or another, that year's Christmas had been one of the nicest Sam had ever experienced, including the one last year with Jess and her family. There had been an honest-to-goodness tree with proper lights, snow lining the windows and the landscape around them, a sense of family with all three Winchesters present and accounted for, even though one was still slightly limping, and let's face it, damn good food and eggnog.
Too involved in the festivities to use his camera more than once or twice, Sam had still made sure to snap a picture of Pastor Jim, unaware at the time that it would be the last time he'd see the man. The preacher had called plenty of times during the course of Sam's Stanford years and though the man never chastised Sam for his choices and encouraged Sam to be the best he could be, Sam still linked hunting to a part of the old man's persona - who else carried all sorts of weapons in their church office? And no, he didn't just mean the holy water.
However, he’d learnt a lot from the old man, and a photo of him wasn’t unwelcome in Sam’s book.
Moving on, the next picture was a relatively simple one. Location-wise, it was another motel although Sam couldn’t be sure where. In the foreground, Dean was sitting on one bed and using the other to spread out all the weapons the Winchesters had and was cleaning each and every one of them, face expressionless as he made his way through the boring and repetitive task, cloth in one hand, a gun in the other. In the background, their dad was sitting at the small desk in the room, papers spread out before him; pen in hand and leather-bound journal in front of him, dutifully recording the latest hunt.
The picture should have reeked of normalcy (Winchester normalcy, at least, what with the plethora of guns all laid out on the bed) but Sam knew better. The eldest and youngest in the family had just had a huge argument, big even for their standards. Dean, who normally turned into a post when Sam and John went at each other, was only in the room to make sure his father and brother suddenly didn’t decide to tear each other to pieces even though a silent truce had been called and everybody was quiet.
Too quiet.
Had things really been a-ok, the TV would have been on in the background, providing some much needed background noise. Dean would have been making asinine comments, mostly to get a rise out of his brother; Sam would have been replying when provoked but mostly trying to concentrate on his text-book and John would have contributed in the form of pen-scratching and paper-shuffling and the occasional “Knock it off, boys”, “Dean, stop torturing your brother” or “Sammy, don’t rise to his bait.”
But when the picture had been taken, the silence had been over-whelming and suffocating until Dean had judged the situation stable enough to start humming some Metallica and when Sam had randomly decide to snap a picture, the unexpectedness of it caused the tension to lighten in each man, John smiling slightly even though his head was bowed and Dean giving his little brother a “What the hell do you find photogenic now, ass?” look.
The next picture was much the same, though lighter in nature somewhat.
It was either lunch or breakfast time, judging by the light poring in through the windows from the right in the photo. In the foreground, John was sitting across from Sam at the diner table, reading the newspaper and Dean, clad in his signature leather jacket, was half leaning over the counter in the left background of the picture, chatting up a redheaded waitress who was holding a pot of coffee.
Part of the reason Sam had taken this photo was because it was Dean being so… Dean, and the other was he was bored – his father had been too busy reading the paper and it’s not like they had much to say to each other those days, nothing of import at least, and neither wanted to spark off another fight with an offhand or careless comment.
Silence was preferable to shouting some days but neither were afraid to revert to raised voices when it mattered. And neither would back down, resulting in Dean having to intervene, sometimes physically, and have them retreat to their corners – John to a bar, Sam to his room even though he shared it with his brother who was oft left standing in the middle of the proverbial battlefield, having no idea what to do or how to fix things.
Looking at the picture, Sam wondered if maybe he and their father had done a great injustice to Dean – and how much it must have hurt his brother to have his two remaining family members go at each like that.
He couldn’t imagine what it would have been like for him as a kid and before John became Enemy Number One, if Dean and their father had always fought, always at each other’s necks.
To have the two people whom you loved most in the world go at each other like wolves.
But, Sam thought, it was over now. It’d been three years since he’d last communicated with his father and both of them were living the lives they wanted – one getting an education and well on the way to realizing the American Dream, and the other hunting creature after creature as he tracked down the evil bastard who’d killed his wife.
Dean no longer had to intervene – Sam had removed himself from the equation and there was nothing to worry about now, everybody was happy.
He was happy.
The next picture took Sam by surprise. As he hadn’t used the camera very often, he pretty much had a rough idea of what the roll contained and would have been able to come up with examples had the developed versions not been in his hand.
He didn’t remember taking his camera to graduation.
He also couldn’t have taken a picture of himself, for all the weird things he’d witnessed in his life.
No, this was purely his brother’s doing. Sam had gone to school early for the dress rehearsal and the students’ families would arrive later on in the afternoon. For Sam, that meant Dean knocking off work early at the garage, making sure he wasn’t at a hunt and wearing clothes that didn’t contain large blots, or even traces, of either grease, blood or graveyard dirt.
As for their dad – Sam had learnt not to expect anything.
Sam had also been nervous about the speech he was supposed to deliver – as Valedictorian of the Class of 2001, he’d been scheduled to take centre stage soon after the principal’s gratifying message to the parents and students thanking them for finally getting their butts out of school. While the principal had prattled on, Sam had spent the last few minutes wondering if it was wrong to prefer facing down a ticked off poltergeist than risk slipping up on the podium, in front of hundreds of people including his big brother.
Only Dean could have remembered to poke around in Sam’s stuff before leaving to grab the camera, and then to use it to snap a picture of Sam with his mouth open, deep and profound expression on his face as he bull-shitted about a past in reality coloured with staying on the fringes of the law, delivering a damn speech wearing a friggin’ blue gown and a mortar board’s tassel swinging in front of his face.
Strangely enough, Sam felt kinda touched that his brother went through the trouble of commemorating his graduation by snapping a picture of it. God knew Sam had enough pictures through his friends’ parents telling him to jump into the shot, the youngest Winchester often towering over his friends in the photo and causing the eager parent to take a step or two back in order to accommodate his height, but this one was special.
This was Dean realizing the import of the event to Sam even though high school in their line of work was pretty much useless, with science subjects only good for knowing how to rig a bomb to create a diversion and Latin for spells. Who needed sissy subjects like English Literature and Spanish? It wasn’t as though the Winchesters could cross the border with a trunk full of weapons or face the ghost of Shakespeare spouting iambic pentameter.
Finally coming to the last picture in the bundle Jess had had developed, Sam found his resolve to break away from the Winchester clan waver as the previous pictures had never even come close to managing.
From a technical point of view, it wasn’t Sam’s best picture – it could easily be called the worst picture taken of the lot. Snapped through a glass pane with horrible lighting and the subject further away than in any of the previous pictures, it was hardly top quality photography.
From an emotional, human point of view, however, it spoke volumes, especially to Sam who knew the story behind the snap.
It was of Dean leaning against the hood of the Impala, hands stuffed deep inside his jacket pockets. Ordinarily, a very common pose for Sam’s brother. What made this time, and this picture, different was the circumstance.
Sam had snapped the picture from his seat on the Greyhound which would take him to Palo Alto – and away from his family, changing the Winchester hunting dynamics forever. The flash had clashed with the glass pane dividing him and his brother - one of many things - resulting in a spiky blob of white light on the top left corner of the photograph – adding a supernatural quality only those who’d never actually experienced the other world would associate.
Also adding to the off-ness of the photo was Dean’s expression. There was no trace of the good humour his brother was infamous for – able to go from teasing his brother to switching on the charm to impress the waitress who’d come to take their order, all in the space of a few seconds.
The Dean in the photo had found nothing to laugh at – something Sam and their father had been collectively responsible for.
Quite literally the day after Sam had graduated, the Winchester family had packed up their belongings and hit the road, leaving Finchley, Wyoming behind them forever. Being settled in one place for so long had rankled the two eldest members of the family but Sam, the only one who had never known what it felt like to have a permanent home since even Dean had had four years of Lawrence at least, enjoyed the change and stability.
However, Sam had received the offer from Stanford long before he donned a cap and gown but had never brought it up, never mentioned it to anyone, carefully hiding the letter away as he’d never hidden anything else.
It took Sam a month of being on the road again to work up the courage to talk to his father. A week and the fight of all fights later, Sam had walked out of the door of their current shindig motel.
John had been the first to storm out that night, actually. Issuing the ultimatum Sam would never forget – “if you’re gonna go, stay gone!” - the words and voice still ringing fresh on his mind even three years down the line. John had left, presumably to go to a bar, making it absolutely clear what choice Sam had – to either stay and invest fully into the hunt with no more bitching, or to leave and never come back.
It was the exit Sam was looking for – an excuse on a silver platter to choose normal over obsession, danger and death and never look back.
However, Sam knew he wasn’t guiltless in all his actions that night. After the slamming of the door had dissipated, Dean and he were still standing in the room, silent. Dean, without saying a word to his brother, had turned to follow their father outside when Sam spoke out loud words he wouldn’t regret until he’d calmed down and the bus was only five miles away from Palo Alto:
“Sure. Go follow him. It’s the only thing you know how to do, right?”
Although he wasn’t sure what had made him say something so horrible to Dean, Sam figured it might have been part of the self-righteous anger that had allowed him to pack his bags up within ten minutes and walk out the door without a pause, only to come to a complete stop when he saw Dean in the driveway, once again leaning against the Impala.
“Come on, I’ll give you a ride to the bus station,” was all Dean had said, in a tone Sam couldn’t decipher.
The ride to the station had been silent, the growing chasm between the two brothers filled only by music. Once there, Dean stopped the car and turned off the ignition, waiting for the throaty engine to finish emitting the few clanks it was wont to do.
“Sam…”
“I’m going, Dean. And nothing’s going to stop me.” Sam had wondered then if Dean would be able to catch the lie in the sentence. He knew exactly what would have made him stay. Even now he hadn’t yet figured out whether Dean’s not making him stay was because he’d failed to read Sam even though he’d never done so since Sam had been born, or if, despite knowing the key to making his little brother stay, Dean had chosen to let him go.
Sam was almost afraid of what the truth might be.
In the time it had taken for Sam to get out of the car with his two duffel bags and buy a ticket from the counter, Dean had taken up the pose Sam had photographed him in. There’d been no hug, no teary goodbyes – Sam had simply turned around halfway between the bus and the ticket counter to wave a hand in farewell, waiting only for Dean to reciprocate before continuing on his way and getting onto the waiting bus.
With the photo of his brother in his hands, Sam began to wonder, for the first time since he’d come to Stanford, if he’d really come here with no regrets at all.
The End
They were in Nebraska, and it was winter.
It was a deadly combination for just about anyone, save perhaps Eskimos, but Dean Winchester took it to another level.
Sam knew that if his brother had a choice, he would prefer to sweat in Arizona than shiver in Alaska but when had Dean ever had a choice?
Of course, none of this stopped Sam from smirking at the sight of his brother blowing warm air into his cupped hands as he shifted his weight from foot to foot in a bid to increase body temperature. They were waiting by the side of the road leading to a ramshackle house which was currently being plagued by two women who’d refused to give up this world in peace. Their father was going to join them after a run to the grocery store for more bags of salt and once he did, all three Winchesters were going to raid the house.
Until then, Sam was happy to just laugh at his brother. They could have just sat in the Impala but in a bid to save fuel meaning they couldn’t turn up the heat, the car was acting as an icebox, the inside almost as cold as the outside.
Dean was standing beside Sam and the youngest Winchester could swear the air was about to turn blue – not because it was freezing, but because Dean was cursing uninterruptedly under his breath, using words Sam was sure he’d never heard before in his life – and considering the people he and his family hung out with, that was saying quite a lot.
“God, what’s taking Dad so long?”
Dean might have meant the question to be rhetorical but Sam couldn’t help answering: “No idea. But when is Dad ever on time?”
“Don’t start, Sam,” Dean warned immediately.
“I was just answering your question, dude.” Sam wondered if maybe he’d be doing his brother a kindness by riling him up so much, he’d forget the cold (and the fact that their father was running late, as per usual).
Five minutes later, their Dad’s truck still nowhere in sight and the mood between the brothers still slightly off, Sam decided to clear the air. He never wanted to go into a hunt with issues still in the air, and he used the time he had on hand to his advantage:
“Hey Dean?”
“What, Sasquatch?” Even coffee couldn’t prevent Dean’s crankiness today, and the previous exchange probably hadn’t helped. Not that Sam was surprised when he heard it in the tone of his brother’s voice.
“Scientists say that you’re going to feel the coldest if your head and feet aren’t covered.”
Dean turned his head to the side to give his brother a look. “Um… I’m not sure about you, Sammy, but I’m pretty sure these are combat boots I’m wearing. And just because I don’t have a mop on my head doesn’t mean mine isn’t covered.”
Sam ran his hand through his brown locks for the sole reason that it would annoy his brother. “No need to be jealous of the hair, bro. And as I was saying, head and feet need to be covered. But most of all…,” Sam dug his hand inside his (very warm) jacket pocket, “the nose should be covered.” Sam presented his brother with a red clown nose, the one he’d bought and was keeping in store for the opportune moment, such as this one.
Dean reached out a hand and took the red nose from his brother but the way he was glaring at it made Sam wonder if he should perhaps start running away. His brother’s aim was a thing to behold and at least this way, Sam could warm up a little too.
However, seventeen years of being glued to his brother’s side had to count for something which was why Sam wasn’t too surprised when Dean simply shrugged and put the red clown nose on his face and put his hands in his pocket as he waited for the extra… layer… of covering to take effect.
Plenty of time for Sam to open the passenger side door and lift his duffel bag onto the seat, using Dean’s distraction as he surveyed the open roads for any sign of their father to bring out his camera. Wanting to take his brother by surprise, Sam took the case off and slid back the shutter before ducking out of the car again and standing upright.
“De-ean,” Sam sing-songed his brother’s name, making it clear that his intentions in calling out for his brother were nothing short of mischievous.
The elder Winchester turned to face his brother, clown nose still in place, and it was something to be said of his reflexes when he managed to flip his brother the bird just as the flash went off.
Oh, this was so not his brother’s shining moment, Sam thought, as he shook his head fondly at the picture. A freezing Dean was usually reason for laughing but a heavily jacketed Dean with a clown nose on as he frowned, holding up a heavily gloved finger to the camera and his little brother?
Yeah, that was bribery material right there.
The next picture, however, completely removed all traces of good humour from Sam’s features as his mind travelled back to the day this picture had been taken, however unwillingly:
Sam was in no hurry to get home, as had been the case for the past two days. On Monday, he’d walked through the front door to find a note on his bedspread:
Dear Bitch (read the note),
Dad and me gone to fry some buggers in S. Dakota – be back Friday.
Don’t let your brain overload from too much studying, but no strippers over either.
Love,
Jerk.
Dean. The letter-writer of the family, clearly.
Under the note was a small pile of cash, enough and perhaps just a little more to tide Sam over till the end of the week though he was sure that if he opened up the fridge and the cabinets in the kitchen, he’d find them recently stocked. Ever since his school year had started, Dad and Dean would often leave for days at a time to deal with a hunt, most of the times in another state though never too far away.
Dean, at twenty-one and no longer tied down to formal education, had taken up a part-time job as a mechanic in a garage in town to try and earn some honest cash. It wouldn’t bode well for Sam as a student in the high school if his family was seen hustling every bar in a fifty mile radius, along with flaunting fake credit cards here and there. Of course, out-of-state hunts meant that his father and brother were able to keep their cash swindling talents in practise and that’s where most of the family’s income came from in any case.
However, each time his father and brother left on a hunt, Dean would first do a store run to make sure Sam wouldn’t want for anything in the meanwhile. Canned goods, cereal, milk, two minute noodles, instant coffee – all that a growing boy needed (or as Dean would say, much too overgrown boy, still smarting from the fact that his four years younger brother was four inches taller than he was).
It was now Thursday and Sam knew better than to expect his brother and father to be home ahead of schedule. On the other hand, delays were par for the course although it got harder and harder for the youngest Winchester with each passing extra day, not knowing if his family was alright. Dean would call every night they were apart for a status check but if they had to stay longer than expected, the fact was usually accompanied with them being too busy to call and ease Sam’s fears.
Still, today was alright. Dad and Dean had one more day before Sam started the fine art of silent panicking and since there was nothing waiting for him at home, Sam took his time, enjoying the fresh air and feel of the sun on his face. In his head, his brother called him a pansy but Sam ignored the tease, for all that it was imaginary.
Unlocking the front door, Sam carefully stepped over the salt line and closed the door behind him, flipping the flimsy lock but leaving the bolt untouched, even though he wasn’t quite sure – he had no intention of leaving the house today, and it wasn’t like he was expecting company.
Shrugging, Sam turned away from the door and made his way towards the kitchen for an apple. Even if any intruders came (human or non-human), Sam knew enough self-defence to put up a hell of a fight. Besides, Dean had strategically placed weapons, big and small, all around the house and Sam only needed a moment to reach for one.
Apple in hand, Sam went into the small living room which also housed the small TV. Munching his way through the fruit, Sam’s fingers kept a steady pressure on the channel button as he flicked from one to another, barely stopping at any for more than a few seconds. He must have done at least five rounds by the time the apple finished and he decided there was nothing worth watching on TV. At least, not for the moment anyway.
Going into his and Dean’s room, Sam grabbed perhaps the only two items he could label as “luxury items”, as his Economics teacher would call it: his camera, and his walkman. He then went to his backpack and dug out the book he’d borrowed from the school library before heading home.
The three items in hand, Sam seated himself in the sole comfortable armchair in the tiny house, the faded brown one facing the front door. Kicking off his shoes, he rested his feet on the coffee table in front of it and started putting the headphones in place. The walkman had been another item yet another garage sale had been a result of, though in a different state. Dean, finally tiring of Sam bitching about the music as they criss-crossed the country, had bought Sam the cassette player. What Dean didn’t know was that during one bored day two months ago, the fifth since he and their dad had gone for a hunt in Oklahoma, Sam had compiled a cassette of his favourite classic rock songs, ranging from Zeppelin to Pink Floyd to even a Motorhead one. Of course, Sam would never allow his brother the gratification of knowing he liked most of Dean’s music – he’d much rather horrify him with a passion for Bon Jovi and all other sorts of “emo music”, as Dean would label it.
With Jimi Hendrix attempting to hold a tune in Sam’s ear, the seventeen year old Honours student cracked open the book he’d borrowed – Bram Stoker’s Dracula – and started reading.
Fifty pages later and the cassette reaching the end of Side A, Sam put down the book and flipped the cassette around, wincing slightly as the screams of Robert Plant replaced the relatively soft crooning of Paul Rodgers. Having lost interest in the book, Sam picked up his camera instead. Having taken it to a school soccer match recently which had been rained out, he had a fear that some mud might have invaded the case and was crusting the delicate works of the machine.
Turning it over in his hands, Sam was glad to see that there wasn’t much. He used a thumbnail, which was in dire need of clipping, to scrape away the dried mud that was lining the outside of the shutter.
He’d just raised the camera to his eye to make sure there was nothing obscuring the viewfinder when the door directly in front of him was kicked open and his finger pressed on the button in reflex, the resulting flash surprising all.
Sam took one last look at the picture, enough for him to sear it in his memory before he brought his fingers to the middle and pulled, tearing the picture in half, once, twice, many times until each piece was no bigger than a dime. He carefully placed the pieces on the bedside table next to his bottle of beer. He’d burn the pieces later, but he knew there would be no forgetting.
It hadn’t been a monster which had burst into the tiny house in Finchley that day, nor it was a crazed spirit bent on revenge or a drunk human having no idea what he was doing, although Sam would have preferred any of those three scenarios than the one he’d been presented with:
John Winchester all but carrying his barely-conscious first born across the threshold, not even waiting to knock but kicking the door open – he couldn’t be faulted for being surprised when he’d immediately been greeted by a flash of light. Unbeknownst to all three Winchesters before today, the camera flash had managed to capture more than surprise on John’s face – Sam could clearly see worry and fear in his father’s eyes, something he hadn’t noticed that day, branding his father apathetic and unconcerned in his rage.
Dean, however, had been a mess. With his chin touching his chest, he’d been too out of it to realize that his father had broken every speed limit between here and South Dakota to get him home to be patched up. His entire left side, from the gash on his forehead to the deep claw marks in his side and leg, seemed to be covered in blood and the camera flash had only served to illuminate the gruesome colours.
They’d all been injured to various degrees in their line of work; Dean had certainly been injured worse before, but Sam wasn’t quite sure why that day, and the days after, were cemented so firmly in his mind. Perhaps the shock of the door bursting open to reveal a bloodied and bruised brother with his arm across their father’s neck had left an indelible mark on Sam’s consciousness – he did not need a picture to make the day all the more clearer.
The next picture soon joined the previous one in terms of being ripped to tiny pieces. Though an innocent observer would only have seen the right-side profile of a man sitting upright in bed, a remote in hand, lollipop in mouth and presumably watching TV, Sam saw more.
He knew that although his brother looked perfectly fine in the picture, one only had to walk to the other side of the bed to be faced with the true reality – gauze covering the gash over the left eyebrow; t-shirt covering the bandages swathed around Dean’s middle; blankets cloaking Dean’s wrapped leg.
Though over three years ago and only one of many things, Sam still remembered this event as something which had pushed him further to go to college, to get away from it all.
He didn’t want to see his brother’s blood spilt over and over again, unable to do anything except perhaps bandage his wounds – at least the physical ones. Sure, Sam did reason that if perhaps he’d gone along for the hunt, he might have been able to watch Dean’s back better, make sure the Tailyope didn’t get a jump on his brother but that was a possibility, not a certainty. It would take more than the fingers of one hand to count the times Dean had been injured because Sam had been there, in an attempt to protect the youngest of the Winchesters. No, Sam wasn’t going to stick around to bury his family. It also grated on his nerves that Dean could take this all calmly; that laid up in bed just days after almost bleeding out in a ramshackle house, he could be satisfied with just watching the tube, waiting until he was mobile enough to jump head first into yet another hunt.
No, Sam didn’t regret leaving hunting. He didn’t regret it at all. People’s lives were threatened by more than supernatural forces in this world and there was more than one way to live other than being driven by revenge and a desire to kill every monster between here and the demon who’d killed Mary Winchester.
Sam would and was going to help people his way, and fulfil his dreams along with it. The way it looked right now as he glanced around the bedroom and noticed all the Jess-isms, such as the easel and canvas in the corner next to a pile of law books that overflowed from the bookshelf, he was damn well already on the way.
The picture, ripped into a reasonable amount of pieces adding to the first pile, Sam focused on the next one and suddenly couldn't help but feel that perhaps the Winchester's hunting lifestyle hadn’t been all that bad - Sam doubted he could have gotten to know half the positive influences in his life without them.
Pastor Jim, for example - part-time preacher, part-time hunter. In the photo Sam held in his hands, the Blue Earth resident was facing the stove but had turned slightly to his right to smile into the camera as Sam took a picture. The camera had also managed to capture the fact that both of the priest's hands were covered with oven mitts and he was wearing a 'Kiss the Cook' apron. On the stove was a piping hot (at least, that's how Sam remembered it) straight-out-of-the-oven apple pie and it should have been impossible that the scent of it could reach Sam all the way into the present but there was no doubting it - it was as though the apple pie was right in front of Sam in his apartment, causing his stomach to release a growl, and Sam tried to remember just how many cookies Jess had left in the oven…
Speaking of ovens-
The Winchesters had travelled to Minnesota for a hunt during Sam's winter break and having been able to wrap up their hunt in time, they'd descended on Pastor Jim's porch the day before Christmas Eve and he'd been more than happy to receive them.
In fact, his happiness at the company was demonstrated by the feast he'd cooked up for Christmas Day. Sam had always known that the older man had a soft spot in his heart for Dean and the apple pie had been evident of the fact, for all that everyone had shared it. And in spite of the deteriorating relationship between Sam and his father, both had managed to put aside their differences for the few days they were in Blue Earth and Sam couldn't help but guiltily notice that Dean also seemed more than happy at the brief respite.
And one way or another, that year's Christmas had been one of the nicest Sam had ever experienced, including the one last year with Jess and her family. There had been an honest-to-goodness tree with proper lights, snow lining the windows and the landscape around them, a sense of family with all three Winchesters present and accounted for, even though one was still slightly limping, and let's face it, damn good food and eggnog.
Too involved in the festivities to use his camera more than once or twice, Sam had still made sure to snap a picture of Pastor Jim, unaware at the time that it would be the last time he'd see the man. The preacher had called plenty of times during the course of Sam's Stanford years and though the man never chastised Sam for his choices and encouraged Sam to be the best he could be, Sam still linked hunting to a part of the old man's persona - who else carried all sorts of weapons in their church office? And no, he didn't just mean the holy water.
However, he’d learnt a lot from the old man, and a photo of him wasn’t unwelcome in Sam’s book.
Moving on, the next picture was a relatively simple one. Location-wise, it was another motel although Sam couldn’t be sure where. In the foreground, Dean was sitting on one bed and using the other to spread out all the weapons the Winchesters had and was cleaning each and every one of them, face expressionless as he made his way through the boring and repetitive task, cloth in one hand, a gun in the other. In the background, their dad was sitting at the small desk in the room, papers spread out before him; pen in hand and leather-bound journal in front of him, dutifully recording the latest hunt.
The picture should have reeked of normalcy (Winchester normalcy, at least, what with the plethora of guns all laid out on the bed) but Sam knew better. The eldest and youngest in the family had just had a huge argument, big even for their standards. Dean, who normally turned into a post when Sam and John went at each other, was only in the room to make sure his father and brother suddenly didn’t decide to tear each other to pieces even though a silent truce had been called and everybody was quiet.
Too quiet.
Had things really been a-ok, the TV would have been on in the background, providing some much needed background noise. Dean would have been making asinine comments, mostly to get a rise out of his brother; Sam would have been replying when provoked but mostly trying to concentrate on his text-book and John would have contributed in the form of pen-scratching and paper-shuffling and the occasional “Knock it off, boys”, “Dean, stop torturing your brother” or “Sammy, don’t rise to his bait.”
But when the picture had been taken, the silence had been over-whelming and suffocating until Dean had judged the situation stable enough to start humming some Metallica and when Sam had randomly decide to snap a picture, the unexpectedness of it caused the tension to lighten in each man, John smiling slightly even though his head was bowed and Dean giving his little brother a “What the hell do you find photogenic now, ass?” look.
The next picture was much the same, though lighter in nature somewhat.
It was either lunch or breakfast time, judging by the light poring in through the windows from the right in the photo. In the foreground, John was sitting across from Sam at the diner table, reading the newspaper and Dean, clad in his signature leather jacket, was half leaning over the counter in the left background of the picture, chatting up a redheaded waitress who was holding a pot of coffee.
Part of the reason Sam had taken this photo was because it was Dean being so… Dean, and the other was he was bored – his father had been too busy reading the paper and it’s not like they had much to say to each other those days, nothing of import at least, and neither wanted to spark off another fight with an offhand or careless comment.
Silence was preferable to shouting some days but neither were afraid to revert to raised voices when it mattered. And neither would back down, resulting in Dean having to intervene, sometimes physically, and have them retreat to their corners – John to a bar, Sam to his room even though he shared it with his brother who was oft left standing in the middle of the proverbial battlefield, having no idea what to do or how to fix things.
Looking at the picture, Sam wondered if maybe he and their father had done a great injustice to Dean – and how much it must have hurt his brother to have his two remaining family members go at each like that.
He couldn’t imagine what it would have been like for him as a kid and before John became Enemy Number One, if Dean and their father had always fought, always at each other’s necks.
To have the two people whom you loved most in the world go at each other like wolves.
But, Sam thought, it was over now. It’d been three years since he’d last communicated with his father and both of them were living the lives they wanted – one getting an education and well on the way to realizing the American Dream, and the other hunting creature after creature as he tracked down the evil bastard who’d killed his wife.
Dean no longer had to intervene – Sam had removed himself from the equation and there was nothing to worry about now, everybody was happy.
He was happy.
The next picture took Sam by surprise. As he hadn’t used the camera very often, he pretty much had a rough idea of what the roll contained and would have been able to come up with examples had the developed versions not been in his hand.
He didn’t remember taking his camera to graduation.
He also couldn’t have taken a picture of himself, for all the weird things he’d witnessed in his life.
No, this was purely his brother’s doing. Sam had gone to school early for the dress rehearsal and the students’ families would arrive later on in the afternoon. For Sam, that meant Dean knocking off work early at the garage, making sure he wasn’t at a hunt and wearing clothes that didn’t contain large blots, or even traces, of either grease, blood or graveyard dirt.
As for their dad – Sam had learnt not to expect anything.
Sam had also been nervous about the speech he was supposed to deliver – as Valedictorian of the Class of 2001, he’d been scheduled to take centre stage soon after the principal’s gratifying message to the parents and students thanking them for finally getting their butts out of school. While the principal had prattled on, Sam had spent the last few minutes wondering if it was wrong to prefer facing down a ticked off poltergeist than risk slipping up on the podium, in front of hundreds of people including his big brother.
Only Dean could have remembered to poke around in Sam’s stuff before leaving to grab the camera, and then to use it to snap a picture of Sam with his mouth open, deep and profound expression on his face as he bull-shitted about a past in reality coloured with staying on the fringes of the law, delivering a damn speech wearing a friggin’ blue gown and a mortar board’s tassel swinging in front of his face.
Strangely enough, Sam felt kinda touched that his brother went through the trouble of commemorating his graduation by snapping a picture of it. God knew Sam had enough pictures through his friends’ parents telling him to jump into the shot, the youngest Winchester often towering over his friends in the photo and causing the eager parent to take a step or two back in order to accommodate his height, but this one was special.
This was Dean realizing the import of the event to Sam even though high school in their line of work was pretty much useless, with science subjects only good for knowing how to rig a bomb to create a diversion and Latin for spells. Who needed sissy subjects like English Literature and Spanish? It wasn’t as though the Winchesters could cross the border with a trunk full of weapons or face the ghost of Shakespeare spouting iambic pentameter.
Finally coming to the last picture in the bundle Jess had had developed, Sam found his resolve to break away from the Winchester clan waver as the previous pictures had never even come close to managing.
From a technical point of view, it wasn’t Sam’s best picture – it could easily be called the worst picture taken of the lot. Snapped through a glass pane with horrible lighting and the subject further away than in any of the previous pictures, it was hardly top quality photography.
From an emotional, human point of view, however, it spoke volumes, especially to Sam who knew the story behind the snap.
It was of Dean leaning against the hood of the Impala, hands stuffed deep inside his jacket pockets. Ordinarily, a very common pose for Sam’s brother. What made this time, and this picture, different was the circumstance.
Sam had snapped the picture from his seat on the Greyhound which would take him to Palo Alto – and away from his family, changing the Winchester hunting dynamics forever. The flash had clashed with the glass pane dividing him and his brother - one of many things - resulting in a spiky blob of white light on the top left corner of the photograph – adding a supernatural quality only those who’d never actually experienced the other world would associate.
Also adding to the off-ness of the photo was Dean’s expression. There was no trace of the good humour his brother was infamous for – able to go from teasing his brother to switching on the charm to impress the waitress who’d come to take their order, all in the space of a few seconds.
The Dean in the photo had found nothing to laugh at – something Sam and their father had been collectively responsible for.
Quite literally the day after Sam had graduated, the Winchester family had packed up their belongings and hit the road, leaving Finchley, Wyoming behind them forever. Being settled in one place for so long had rankled the two eldest members of the family but Sam, the only one who had never known what it felt like to have a permanent home since even Dean had had four years of Lawrence at least, enjoyed the change and stability.
However, Sam had received the offer from Stanford long before he donned a cap and gown but had never brought it up, never mentioned it to anyone, carefully hiding the letter away as he’d never hidden anything else.
It took Sam a month of being on the road again to work up the courage to talk to his father. A week and the fight of all fights later, Sam had walked out of the door of their current shindig motel.
John had been the first to storm out that night, actually. Issuing the ultimatum Sam would never forget – “if you’re gonna go, stay gone!” - the words and voice still ringing fresh on his mind even three years down the line. John had left, presumably to go to a bar, making it absolutely clear what choice Sam had – to either stay and invest fully into the hunt with no more bitching, or to leave and never come back.
It was the exit Sam was looking for – an excuse on a silver platter to choose normal over obsession, danger and death and never look back.
However, Sam knew he wasn’t guiltless in all his actions that night. After the slamming of the door had dissipated, Dean and he were still standing in the room, silent. Dean, without saying a word to his brother, had turned to follow their father outside when Sam spoke out loud words he wouldn’t regret until he’d calmed down and the bus was only five miles away from Palo Alto:
“Sure. Go follow him. It’s the only thing you know how to do, right?”
Although he wasn’t sure what had made him say something so horrible to Dean, Sam figured it might have been part of the self-righteous anger that had allowed him to pack his bags up within ten minutes and walk out the door without a pause, only to come to a complete stop when he saw Dean in the driveway, once again leaning against the Impala.
“Come on, I’ll give you a ride to the bus station,” was all Dean had said, in a tone Sam couldn’t decipher.
The ride to the station had been silent, the growing chasm between the two brothers filled only by music. Once there, Dean stopped the car and turned off the ignition, waiting for the throaty engine to finish emitting the few clanks it was wont to do.
“Sam…”
“I’m going, Dean. And nothing’s going to stop me.” Sam had wondered then if Dean would be able to catch the lie in the sentence. He knew exactly what would have made him stay. Even now he hadn’t yet figured out whether Dean’s not making him stay was because he’d failed to read Sam even though he’d never done so since Sam had been born, or if, despite knowing the key to making his little brother stay, Dean had chosen to let him go.
Sam was almost afraid of what the truth might be.
In the time it had taken for Sam to get out of the car with his two duffel bags and buy a ticket from the counter, Dean had taken up the pose Sam had photographed him in. There’d been no hug, no teary goodbyes – Sam had simply turned around halfway between the bus and the ticket counter to wave a hand in farewell, waiting only for Dean to reciprocate before continuing on his way and getting onto the waiting bus.
With the photo of his brother in his hands, Sam began to wonder, for the first time since he’d come to Stanford, if he’d really come here with no regrets at all.
The End