Deerington Inbox.

[endoftheverse]

 

[A general automated voicemail plays.]
 

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[endoftheverse]

[Sam shrugs, having expected the response. And honestly, he had faith that Dean would at the very least not go trying to kill the kid — especially not if the other Sam had asked him. Even if they're not the exact same people as those they share names and faces with, it's hard to deny there's a sense of obligation to them.

Well, for Sam, anyway. Sue him, he's a bleeding heart.]

... You know how this place works. You know we might not have any choice, in Lucifer finding out. It might not even be a matter of if, but when. If the town interrupts, and there's even just a crack in that door that I can't...

[He runs a hand down his face, looking - unsurprisingly - exhausted.]

I don't bite now either, you know.

[The implication's there:

But I could bite. I could be a bigger threat than the kid.

Dean's protecting Sam, but who is protecting them from Sam?

It's a real concern, in Sam's eyes.]

Just... try to let the kid down gently — a little sympathy for the devil's kids.

... Our dad was a patron saint of fatherhood in comparison.

[ruined]

[ Honestly, he hates every part of this. That Sam's being his usual bleeding heart self. And he already knows that because Sam's asked him this much - both Sams have asked him this much - he's not got a choice but to fall in line. It smarts in a way that he wants to explain, but he doesn't have the words for how he feels. Instead of saying anything at all he grunts his frustration and drags a hand over his face. ]

Fine.

[ The comment about dad just twists him up a little tighter, insides pretzel-like and he doesn't feel better anymore. Thinking about dad is always complicated. This far out from his death and Dean's had a lot of time to think over what happened to them growing up. That he'd been almost in his 30s before he ever actually picked Sam's side over their dad's.

Rolling his bottom lip into his mouth, it's almost like he's trying to keep the words he's got circling his brain inside of him. It doesn't work. ]

I still hear him, sometimes. Not hear him hear him. But the kinda shit he woulda said when I fucked up.

[ Those words have been loud lately. ]

[endoftheverse]

[It's bittersweet o'clock, isn't it? Sam just smiles, but there's a wince to it. It's weird — years ago, Dad being mentioned would cause a terrible silence, or an awkward lull. They'd never really had a chance to get over it. To have his death turn into wistful recollections of life. Dad died... and then a year later, Dean died. Sam never knew how to cope with any of it.

Now, in the hushed silence of Deerington's momentary reprieve, before shit hit the walls again? It's something that feels weirdly easy to talk about. Five years apart, thinking too much, finding distance between them and their father's last day on earth... maybe it made something about it... more palatable.]

... Yeah. I do, too.

[Dean took John's admonishments with an overwhelming sense of self-burden, but Sam didn't exactly get away from them easy, either, despite how hard he'd tried to make it seem like they bounced off him in his teenaged years; those words were barbed, hurt him more than he'd been too stubborn to show. It's taken... a lot of time to remember the smaller, easier moments in-between the fighting, in-between a dad who had forgotten that they were his sons first, and not his subordinates.

Sam clings to those few and far moments a lot, these days.

Wonders if things would have been different, if John had survived long enough to do what he'd passed on to Dean.

... It was unfair of him. Unfair of him to put that on his son's shoulders.

But nothing in life is that fair, in retrospect.

... But... Sensing Dean's discomfort, Sam fights to fling all that off his shoulders, tries to ignore the icy burn in his stomach or the emotion swirling in his head at the thought of John Winchester and of how much he's let him down as he is now.]

... He was a real dick sometimes. Total stick up the ass. Terrible choice in cars.

[Sam smiles slightly.]

cw: depression

[ruined]

[ For a moment, the silence between them actually speaks volumes. Heavy and thick with all the things they both remember, and there's no actual need to say them out loud because they were both there for some of it. After Sam had gone off to college, things weren't all that different outside of he got chewed out less for failing Sam directly.

There were some conversations though where dad had definitely almost said something about the fact that Sam had left the family business. Like he wanted to lay the blame somewhere at Dean's feet. At least that's the way it felt, and all it did was drive him harder into becoming the best damn hunter he could be. Anything to stop the judgement, the holes picked in his skills.

He regrets not having Sam's back when it came to dad sooner. ]

Leave Baby outta this. She never did you wrong.

[ Dean did her wrong, and the reasons are both complicated and simple all at once. It's never long though after he's thinking about Dad that he thinks of Mom too. Back at camp there were some nights he wondered what she'd think about what he'd become. What he let happen to Sam. Those were the longest nights, when dawn seemed like it was never going to come. When the world was nothing but darkness and it matched everything he thought about himself. Still thinks about himself if he's given too much time to himself. ]

Our childhood wasn't a childhood. But if there's one thing I know? Nobody kicked ass like we did under the age of 10.

[endoftheverse]

I don't know, I was pretty shrimpy at 10. [A small, wistful smile pulls at his lips.] ... Totally knew how to use every weapon in the trunk by then, though.

[Their childhood fucking sucked. Some part of Sam hates that it was also the happiest time in his life, outside of Stanford; he was miserable through huge swaths of it, and yet it was better days.

... How fucked is that?

He seems to hesitate, though, like he's not sure what he's allowed to talk about. Like he's not sure what Dean's response would be; once upon a time, certain things spoken would end in Dean storming off at best, a split lip at worst, because Dad and Mom and particular mechanics of their screwed up childhoods was off limits. It took him a long time to get answers to his outpouring of questions as a kid, anyway.

One thing John and Dean had in common.

But there's a reason he always drifted to Dean, and not Dad. A lot of reasons, some as obvious as the nose on his face. So maybe Dean's capacity to — to listen... it turns Sam into that 18-year-old trying to convince Dean all over again, albeit with a little less heat and indignation—]

I thought a lot about it.

I mean, I did nothing but thinking. For years.

The way Dad put things on you... The way Dad dumped me in your lap to take care of until I was old enough to — I don't know — hold a gun. It wasn't fair to you.

So, uh... I'm sorry if I ever made things harder.

... Is what I wish I'd have said sooner.