Chapter Text
Sam has a tattoo right across the apex of his hipbone. Not a lot of people know. Jess. A couple of casuals who bothered to look past his cock. Dean, of course.
It’s done in ballpoint pen ink with a needle, which is very old school, very much a do-it-yourself kind of deal. He’s seen other tattoos like it, mostly done in prison or sometimes at sea.
Jess asked about it and Sam laughed it off with a “stupid kid-stuff” line. Well, hey, it ain’t that far off the mark.
The tattoo, well, it’s because of all that stuff in Montana when he was young and, yeah, well, stupid. Now, Sam knows better. He’s back with Dean and they’re working together. They pretty much rode the whirlwind until dad died and then all the other shit that just kept happening… well… It kept happening.
Things have never been right between him and Dean since Sam left for college. Fair enough.
The tattoo thing happened in a brightly lit bedroom somewhere between that cabin in Montana and the salt flats in Utah. Dad’s warnings about permanent marks all ringing in their heads, so they had to be smart about it. Well, Dean warned him it was going to hurt like a son-of-a-bitch, but Sam wanted that to. With him and Dean pain was unavoidable anyway. Work hard, play hard.
Dean’s hands on him, holding him steady. This was before he gained height on Dean and before he did that other thing, that unforgivable thing. Sam had never scoffed at the loyalty demanded of him. He just saw things differently, is all. Loved his father. Loved his brother. Hated the life. Hated the blind obedience. Hated being the lowest dog.
That thing he’s said to his dad by the roadside? All true. Dad had been angry that he couldn’t control Sam anymore. Dean never understood it back then, but he’s starting to now. Because Dean is having trouble with the same fucking thing. And that’s just funny to Sam in a really dark way.
It’s the little things. Dean tries to get him to eat when he isn’t hungry, sleep when he doesn’t need it, go out and have fun when he doesn’t want to, all that stuff. It’s just Dean being Dean, trying to take care of him, and Sam knows it. But the problem is a couple of years away from the family has made Sam a little touchy on the subject of people trying to control his behavior. The only times he ever fought with Jessica was over shit like that.
She would try to control Sam in that same manipulative, sweet sedate way and it always, always got his blood up. She would tell him he needed to come to bed and Sam would say “in a minute” and then she’d scold ever so gently. She only did that a couple of times. Jess was a pretty slim girl, kind of tiny, really, and when Sam finally stood up from the table and growled down at her she backed off. It wasn’t a side of him he had ever intended her to see. He’d apologized. A lot.
Sam knows his limitations better than pretty much anyone. He’s been trained for that kind of shit. He knows exactly how long he can go without food, without sleep. He’s been pushed to the limit and past it a couple of times and he knows all the markers. He had even made the grade in dad’s book when he kept out of his and his brother’s way for three days on a survival exercise once in the woodlands somewhere in Utah. And on slim rations too.
Kids in college thought they had it tough. Sam woke up with nightmares from that thing in Arkansas and had PTSD and kept his knives sharp and his duffle packed. He didn’t care about normal. He cared about safe. Didn’t fit with anything at all.
That stupid kid who got that stupid tattoo disappeared one night right about the time Sam met Jessica. And then Jess died. And dad died. And Dean… well, now. Dean.
Dean is sitting across from him in the diner booth. There’s a demolished breakfast in front of them, papers spread out and Sam’s laptop whirring slightly. Fan going at full blast. It’s kind of hot and humid. Sam looks over at his brother. Studies him for a moment as he reads. Dean is sitting in a loose limbed sprawl, one hand on his knee leaning forward slightly. He’s chucked off the jacket and shirt and he’s wearing a frayed green t-shirt. The amulet catches a hard glint of sunlight throwing it Sam’s way.
Same dirty angel face, only harder. Same compact lithe physique, but more muscled. Same faded scar in the hairline. New scars on his arms and on every other part of his body. Sam knows. Sam has seen. Sam has patched some of the wounds up himself. New heart, old tricks.
-What, Sam?
Like that one. He always knows when Sam is looking.
-Find anything yet? Sam asks cool and easy.
Sam has new tricks and an old heart, so that balances things out nicely.
-Not a damned thing. You?
-Three dead bodies by the lake. Could be something.
-Any ideas?
-Not really.
But it’s most likely just another murder/suicide or something stupid like them three drinking poisoned creek water. Sam’s seen a lot of stupid in his time.
-Good to go? Dean asks and Sam can just feel him chomping on the bit already.
Dean always feels safer while they’re moving. It’s like the opposite of most everyone else in the whole fucking universe as far as Sam can tell. Should have been a cowboy, a nomad, a sailor… someone who’s always on the move anyway. Sam feels the same after Stanford. He can’t sit still even when they are sitting still. He’s restless and on edge all the fucking time now and it’s only getting worse.
That morning, in the motel bathroom Sam caught himself running his thumb absentmindedly over the tattoo while he showered. Stupid. It’s just stupid and Sam knows it. Tight metered silences and all that fucking battle-readiness is taking its toll. That’s all it is.
They climb in to the car.
-Where do we go from here? Dean asks.
Sam’s mind supplies a lot of different alternatives to that. Hell in a hand basket. Bar with a Wurlitzer. White Russian – that’s a little obscure, but Dean would get it. Kansas – they’d never, ‘cause there’s no place like home.
-Head east, is what Sam does say. “The lake’s close by.”
Tone of voice level and cold. He’s not being dismissive for the sake of the thing in itself, he’s just tired and pissed and wound too tight. It’s been a long couple of days.
Sometimes, and let’s be honest, that’s most of the time, they’re just being two guys in a car. Bad jokes and all. There are things that Sam lets Dean have, like the fucking prank wars and the easy pickups and all that shit, because if they stay serious and focused all the time something really, really bad is going to happen. Sam doesn’t want to think about that.
There’s nothing by the lake. They spend a couple of hours there in daylight and then go back with weapons and provisions and sit out the night. Sam isn’t even fazed by the circumstance. He’s completely at ease in the dark. Nothing registers on his weird-shit-o-meter. The little hairs on the back of his neck stay down.
The only time he gets uneasy is when Dean goes out of sight and hearing to answer a call of nature. Jesus. They’re being bait, basically sitting there going “white meat, come and get it” and nothing comes. Maybe it was snakebites. Maybe it was a ménage-a-trois gone horribly wrong. Maybe it was bad salmon.
What the hell’s taking Dean so long?
Dean drifts back quietly a few minutes later.
-Thought I heard something.
-Nothing?
-Night bird maybe.
They’re out there until dawn. Still nothing. They amble half asleep to the car and drive back to the motel. They’re paid up ‘til the end of the week so they’ll just hang around for a while, sniff around some more. It’s only Tuesday now so they can get some sleep. Sam wants sleep. Sam wants a shower and a bed and he wants to be unconscious in about ten minutes if that’s okay. Shit. Fuck.
When they get back to the room Dean looks at Sam and nods.
-You take first shower. Look like you need it.
Sam doesn’t argue. He just gets in, strips down and lets the water pound on him for a while, head lolling forward. He’s not entirely sure he doesn’t fall asleep standing up for a few minutes. There’s stuff he should be thinking about, but he’ll get to it later. Right now he needs to hit the mattress and just not be awake. Needs to get his mind and body to let go for a few hours. Christ. He’s been edgy too long and this on top of everything else… he gets out and dries off, steps in to sweats and a t-shirt, brushes his teeth and shuffles out.
-Yours, he says as he passes the chair where Dean’s sitting.
Dean stands, turns away slightly and pulls of his shirt and the Henley under it. Sam forgets not to look. It’s like that. He forgets to not look at the blue-black ink markings high up on the inside of Dean’s left arm almost at the armpit. He forgets not to look and then he’s back in that room in Utah again. Exhaustion has made him slip and he feels the memories slam through him like a bad rush.
“Fuck you, Dean”, he thinks and there’s a vicious undercurrent to his thoughts that he tries to get at by scrubbing at his face with both hands. “Fuck you and your rules”, Sam thinks as he climbs in to his designated bed. “Fuck you and your stubbornness”. But he’s tired enough to almost fall asleep with the constant noise of water rushing as Dean starts the shower.
The nastiest thing Dean had said right before Sam left for Stanford was “go on without me, I’ll just slow you down”.
This is what it is. Sam knows it. The move and countermove is like a chess game, and he's good at chess. He has always been the deeper thinker out of the two of them. Dean prefers to not go too deep, or at least not to reveal deep it goes, how much he is willing do or to sacrifice.
Sam knows anyway and it doesn't really matter what anyone else thinks.
This is the thing. When Sam says "we have to save as many people as possible" he means it. The difference between him and Dean isn't really that great, but it lies basically centered around what they are willing to sacrifice. Sam draws the line at the two of them. Him and Dean. He won't sacrifice either of them. Dean draws his line a little closer to home. He won't sacrifice Sam, that would never happen. As for himself, now that's a whole other ball game.
Sam still remembers their father's callousness when Dean was around nineteen. Remembers the way his father's eyes got that close but distant look as he told Dean he had seen younger men than him die in the war. Sam didn't know enough then to classify the feeling that gave him, but he does now.
He wanted to grab his dad's shirt and shake him hard. Tell him he was an ass for even suggesting to Dean that he might have to die before he reached twenty, like he was just another soldier and not his father's son. Damn the cold-hearted bastard. Intellectually Sam understands that it's all in dad's training, all in that stupid semper fidelis crap he was brought up on.
He still wants to grab his father's lapels and scream in his face "how could you do that to your own son" but he never got the chance and Dean...well. Dean doesn't see it that way. Dean sees it as a tough gig that might get him killed if he is sloppy or weak. Sam wants to grab Dean's lapels to. Scream in his brother's face. "How can you do that to me?"
Sam turns towards the wall and folds in on himself desperate to bury those thoughts along with the excess of exhaustion, because damn it all he doesn’t want to feel anything at all right now. He’s too wide open from lack of sleep and hard roads. He wants to shut down, just for a little while.
The irony is that Sam can’t really fall asleep until Dean has shuffled out, said his name softly and then settled in his own bed and exhaled a long sigh. Only when Sam knows exactly how many feet away Dean is can he actually let sleep have him.
Sam wakes up early. He gets up, looks over at Dean’s bed and sees the protesting curve of his brother’s shoulder that says “I am not waking up yet” so he doesn’t make any noise and doesn’t try to speak. They both know Dean has registered Sam getting up. They both know Sam is done sleeping.
Sam puts on sweats and running shoes and closes the door quietly behind him as he leaves. He runs for about forty-five minutes and then slips back inside for his wallet. There’s café a couple blocks down. Sam picks up breakfast and smiles at the girl behind the counter who is still blinking sleepily at him as she hands over his change. It’s one of those moments where he should be thinking of what’s in front of him as her eyes turn speculative and interested, but all he’s thinking of is what he’s left behind.
Dean is sitting up in bed, scratching his chin when Sam walks in and hands him a coffee.
-Breakfast in bed, Dean quips. “What did I do to deserve that?”
Sam sits down on his own bed and smiles a tight controlled smile.
-You’re just a lazy-ass, Sam says.
But he’s thinking Dean deserves all that and more for just being there, eyes open and so obviously waiting for Sam to get back, making sure he isn’t getting lost, or into trouble out there in the big bad world alone. Shit. Fuck. Damn.
“I am not that stupid kid anymore” Sam tells himself and hands out a sandwich to Dean. It’s the basic BLT breakfast bun every café has. Dean does that thing he always does, opens the bun to check what they actually stuck in there and then bites down on it. Sleep gruff and scruffy-looking he’s more of a dirty angel than ever.
-What are we doing today? Dean asks between bites.
-Laundry. Resupplying. Research.
-Right. The lake thing?
-Yeah, I’m still not sure about that. Talk to the locals again.
In the end it turns out to be nothing more than a garden variety murder/suicide after all.
By the time they leave Beadle Sam has learnt that the waitress at the café is called Leanne and that one of these days Dean is going to forget the rules.
When he does Sam is going to be the first to remind him who made the stupid rules to begin with. And that’s going to sting like a son-of-a-bitch.
***