Fic: Memory Box (Sam/Dean, NC-17) Part 1 of 4

[smalltrolven]

Title: Memory Box

Author: smalltrolven

Artist: winchesterchola

Rating: NC-17

Pairing: Sam/Dean

Wordcount: 12,392

Warning: Spoilers for 12.08 “Lotus”

Author’s Note: Not my characters, only my words. This is an AU to what happens post-episode 12.08. Written for the 2018 SamWinchester-bigbang.

Summary: Sam’s powers return while he’s locked-up in solitary for six weeks. He uses them to communicate with Dean. They have a lot of time to practice, a lot of things left unsaid actually get said through the unusual method Sam comes up with. All that and an escape plan too.

Be sure to check out Winchesterchola's amazing art masterpost on tumblr here or on dreamwidth here.

Read it on AO3 right here.

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It’s getting hard to tell whether this is real or not because the cell reminds him of some of the scenarios Lucifer would create for him in the Cage. The walls thick, impenetrable, impossible to scale or alter in any way. No activity—no interaction—no contact for days, weeks, years, he couldn’t tell…he can’t tell. There wasn’t light—there wasn’t sound, except his own voice and even that he didn’t believe was real after a while. At least in this prison cell in the here and now (it’s now, it’s happening is a constant chant he keeps going in his head at all times) there is occasional interaction when they try to get him to confess to plotting to murder the POTUS.

Sam laughs remembering how Dean had called him the LOTUS which was remarkably witty for his brother.

Sigh.

His brother who he misses more than his own freedom, it would be bearable being locked up if only he could see Dean once in a while. The desperation he begins to feel is like coming down off demon blood, a craving so deep in his bones that he feels ready to shatter into uncountable shards. Dean is his glue, he keeps him stuck here in reality, keeps him together, gives him a reason to carry on and he wants—Oh how he wants to talk to Dean. To hear his voice, his noises that never stop until he’s so annoyed he’d be so grateful for any little slice of that kind of interaction. Or a shoulder bump, a hand on his knee, a shove through a doorway, all those incidental contacts he’s always stored up and treasured. Keeping them filed away in a secret box in his heart that he shamelessly rifles through now.

His secret box is filled with all the ways he’s had that contact with Dean, physical real contact, whether it’s fists in anger, or a welcome-back-to-life hug it’s remembered, cataloged, stored. So useful now when there’s nothing new to add to the box. A highlight reel plays in Sam’s mind, unbidden: today we’ll watch all the hugs I’ve ever gotten from Dean. Followed up with a short reel of all the times I’ve been unable to stop myself from hugging Dean. You’d think this would get boring but it doesn’t, it’s something Sam’s always done, his whole life. Greedy for any little bit of his brother’s attention even though he’s almost always had one hundred percent of it.

When they’d gotten a little older and Dean had started dating or hitting on girls as he’d brag, it got so much harder to keep hidden. Because Sam would have that contrast between how he saw Dean touch the girls (oh yes of course he watched that very closely) and how he’d craved a chance to get to feel that touch himself. Jealousy burning a hole through him, creating the space where the secret box belonged now. It was part of his internal organs, his system, fed with the demon blood he’d consumed as a baby and as a man, and also fed by the life he’d led with Dean.

The angels and demons that had taken up temporary residence in him had always remarked on it, using it as some sort of ultimate threat which it really, kind of sort of—was.

“Interesting furniture you’ve got in here, Sammy-boy,” Meg had said with her killer smirk. “It’d be a damn shame if Dean-o ever got to have a peek for himself in here. Wonder what the hell he’d have to say about it?”

“Tsk, tsk, I’m a little brother too, but this is a bit too far past filial loyalty even for me. Michael, c’mere, you’ve gotta check this collection out,” Lucifer had said. Michael’s answer about Dean having one of his own was something Sam’s told himself he left behind in the Cage, a memory not worth keeping. But it is still is there, niggling with that thread of possibility.

“Moose, I knew you were probably a hoarder, but this is ridiculous,” Crowley had said after he’d helped Sam realize he needed to kick Gadreel out. “Dean would not be as surprised as you’d think.”

“Sam, I can see how this box works to keep you alive. It is an amazing accomplishment. I am currently reordering your inner workings so that this secret box is even more integrated into your system. You will need it even more once I am no longer in residence,” Gadreel had said.

Of course, back in the bunker under his bed was an actual memory box, with his pitiful collection of little hoarded treasures. Lying on his uncomfortable pallet in his lonely prison cell, Sam flipped through each item in that remembered box, his eyes tightly closed, moving his hands as he mimed handling each item, lifting it out of the box, feeling its weight and texture. The newest addition to the box came out first, the retirement home brochure. Oh how he could smell the ink of the heavyweight pages, printed with all those glossy photos showing happy old people in that lovely place. Safe, settled, secure. He heard the pages flutter as he flipped through the brochure.

He even let himself imagine a conversation with Dean about why he’d bothered to keep the thing. What it had made him think and feel as he’d added it to the box.

“The two rockers on the porch, Dean, like you said, remember Harry and Ed and how we weren’t going to end up like them? Your butt is going to be in that rocking chair right next to me, like it or not,” Sam would say.

“Will there be beer at least?” Dean would ask.

“Yeah, Dean, there’ll be beer, I promise,” Sam would answer.

Dean, god he could almost hear his voice in his mind, but it was never as good in his memory as experiencing it in real life, real time. There was something undefinable about being able to see the crinkles at the corners of his brother’s eyes deepen and relax, his expressive eyes flashing with interest or disdain or joy. And his mouth, how many hours of his life had been devoted solely to watching Dean’s mouth?—not nearly enough. Singing in the car when he thought Sam was asleep, when Dean would finally give in and read a book in front of him, lips moving over the words, Sam’s eyes unable to lower to his own book.

Quit it, Sam. I’m at the good part.

Read it to me, Dean.

Like out loud?

Yeah.

Then he’d gotten to watch, unashamed, falling in love with those lips all over again as they moved over the scene with Smaug in his lair, Bilbo talking his way out of the situation, Dean’s voice amused, his lips quirking with that heart-breaking smile.

Sam played that memory over and over. How the wind had picked up and rustled the big grass all around them and the leaves of the enormous cherry tree they’d been leaned up against, setting all the white petals to flutter through the air, landing on them like the best smelling snowflakes in the world.

Dean had pretended to be annoyed with them, but Sam had seen how captivated he was, how he’d said, “It’s like bein’ in a snow globe Sammy!” Dean had leapt up, pulling Sam with him, to spin around through the cloud of swirling petals. How his brother had laughed, with that free-spirited, uninhibited sound pulling the matching sound right out of his own body. It was the day Dean had finally admitted that Sam was taller than him, and from then on, Sam remembered how Dean had kept finding excuses to measure the difference. In the mirror, back to back, or standing front to front confirming that he was no longer eye to eye with Sam. Making sure Sam wasn’t pulling any tip-toe tricks on him.

Back then, Sam hadn’t understood the emotions coming off of Dean that day. There had been signs of exhilaration, relief, and accomplishment rolling off his brother in an undiluted form that he had been unable to ignore. There were all of those things, because his brother had been so pleased with himself for growing Sam up to that point, nurturing, coddling, encouraging him through his whole life. Putting all his eggs in the basket that was Sam. Keep Sammy Safe had always had the unstated dependent clause, Grow Sammy Up Right. And since he was taller, that meant Dean had done it, he’d gotten him there, physical proof of it undeniable. Despite all the odds stacked against them, the deprivation of poverty, parental neglect and constant shuffling between motels and broken-down rentals.

Small town after small town, Dean had made it all bearable, even enjoyable a lot of the time, and that was how Sam had managed to thrive. It wasn’t something John had ever recognized or praised, and Sam had certainly resented it at the time. Especially when Dean couldn’t seem to settle on whether to be pissy, chuffed or just relieved. Sam hadn’t understood it, that almost parental pride that Dean had felt, but he thought now that he got it a little better. That he owed his brother his eternal thanks, and now that he was really spending this time thinking about it, maybe it was something he should say out loud to Dean at some point.

Actually Talking with a capital T to Dean, whether speaking his mind or expressing what was in his heart was always a delicate dance for Sam. Walking that tightrope of revealing too much of himself, his true feelings or wants or desires or shutting it down completely. Because Dean wouldn’t stand for that, being shut out, he wouldn’t let Sam get away with that for long. When they were teenagers Dean had seemed greedy for as much of Sam as he could get, especially now that Sam looked back on that time. Back then it had come off as smothering, but logically it made sense. Dean had been a quasi-parent struggling through separating from his child. That they still were together after all the craziness, that was the biggest blessing in Sam’s life. He prayed to God, to any angel listening, even Amara herself to let him have another moment with Dean so he could finally just tell him that. To his face. He wanted to see Dean hear his words, see Dean accept his thanks, unspoken for far too many years.

He slept despite himself, yellow-tinted dreams of Dumbo not needing a feather to fly and sitting by a fire, side by side with his brother. Shoulders pressed together as they sat in silence staring into the flames. Dean handed him a beer and watched him drink it. Sam started to speak, started to say his thank you, but Dean interrupted him before he could say anything.

“I already know. But if you want to say it out loud, I’ll listen. I’ll always listen to you, Sammy.”

Sam woke up, glad to have tears in his eyes because they were real and warm and salty, dripping into his mouth when he sat up against the cement wall. He closed his eyes tight and pictured the scene from his dream and said the words out loud in his empty cell. “Thank you, for everything, Dean. I wouldn’t have had much of a life without you. Never would have been so tall, or gotten into college or lived through all those hunts. It’s all because of you, and how much you gave of yourself. I’ll always be grateful. Always, Dean.”

The words he’d just spoken seem to hang in the still air in his cell, just barely visible, a short paragraph of something so obvious, but still so vital to be said out loud. Sam wished with everything he had that Dean could hear this somehow. He visualized the words turning into miniature arrows, flying through the cell walls until they found his brother wherever he was, piercing his heart with this truth.

Without a sound, the words all darted off, leaving small holes in the cement wall. Sam ran his fingers over the holes, feeling each one, wondering if this was when the crazy came crashing back down on him, familiar as an old raincoat brought out every rainy season. He picked at the wall with a screw he’d taken out of the bed frame, enlarging one of the holes nearest the bed. The cement flaked away easily because of the hole the word-arrow had left behind. Sam gathered the bits of cement in the palm of his hand, made a fist and held them tightly, counting to thirty. He opened his hand and brushed the cement pieces onto his bed and ran his fingers over the small dents they’d left behind. That could be hallucinated, definitely.

He used the sharpest pieces of cement to draw blood from his hand, drawing with it on the wall one of the summoning sigils he remembered, hoping it would call to Cas somehow. That was when the door to his cell banged open, the guards had him locked down on the ground and he couldn’t see what they were doing, but he heard scrubbing sounds and smelled bleach cleaner. One of the guards wiped the cut he’d made with alcohol and slapped a bandaid on it. The guards left and Sam sat on the floor, wondering at the whole thing. He hadn’t been touched in so long his body vibrated with the feeling of their hands on his body. It hadn’t felt good, but at least it felt like something.

The bandaid was proof right? The smell of the cleaner, the wetness of the wall, the clean patch where he’d drawn with his blood. That meant the word-arrows were a real thing, that he had made them somehow. Which meant…what the hell did it mean?

It didn’t feel like it was anything new, that was the thing. It felt familiar…because it was. His powers were back (or maybe they’d never really left him). After all these years he could feel that open spot inside of himself where they’d always been missing was filled again and humming with that white hot usemenowusemenowusemenowusemenow energy.

He put himself back in the state of mind he’d been in before he’d been so rudely interrupted by the prison guards. Right back into that endless wanting to communicate honestly, truthfully with his brother.

“Dean?” He said out loud—and there the word was, hanging in the air in front of his eyes. Each letter made all the more dear and meaningful because it was real and here. Just as his brother was, somewhere in this place. He thought about the word turning around…and it slowly started to rotate. The first time, his words had turned into arrows to get through the walls to reach his brother, what if this time, this one word became something more useful? The letters began to stretch and twine themselves into a long rope with a very sharp metallic end. They pushed through the larger hole he’d scraped into the wall and he sent them off and—through the walls that separated him from Dean. He could feel it when the rope-word was finally in Dean’s presence, and he reformed the word and question mark in the air for him.

Sam could hear the vibrations of his brother’s voice through the walls. “Sammy!” screamed over and over again, beat against his ear drums, pushed at his skin, sank into his heart with all the desperation that he felt too. Sam could hear the guards running in the hallway, undoubtedly towards his brother. That meant it had really worked, Dean had actually seen it, or at least felt it. He heard a metallic clanging on his own door and it was the tip of the word rope, returning to him as it wormed its way underneath through the small space. It rose up and formed a word for him to read.

It said: Okay.

Dean was okay, thank all the gods and goddesses, he was okay. And somehow the rope was reporting the word that Dean had either said or thought or wanted him to know. One word at a time wasn’t going to do it for them, even though it was truly a comfort. Sam knew that to have any chance to escape, they needed a plan, and that would take more that a single damn word.

Lunch was served then, the tray crashing through the opening in the wall, quick noisy, in/out/done, so efficient, with an emphasis on absolutely no human contact. Maybe this meal was really breakfast, it was impossible to tell time in the windowless cell, but the food on the tray indicated lunch. There was a sandwich with seeds on the bread. Sam picked his way through eating and brushed the seeds off his lap onto the floor. They bounced and then stopped, rearranging themselves into a word.

Dean? was there on his floor, made out of sesame seeds.

He pushed the seeds into a small pile under the foot of his bed. There were more seeds on his bread at dinner and he gathered them up and added them to the pile. He spent a long time arranging them and rearranging them with the power of his mind into more and more words on his cell floor. The small sound of them scraping across the cement barely a tickle in his ear. After he wrote a sentence, he’d speak out loud the answer and the seeds would reform. He could make the seeds listen. He could do it here pretty easily, where he was close to them, his powers at their strongest, several sentences were possible. But would he be able to send them several cells away to his brother and make them do their thing? All he knew was that he had to at least try.

Even if Dean would no doubt worry about Sam’s powers being back, would maybe even think he was a monster again. Or maybe Dean had always thought that. My brother the monster…No—don’t go down that path, Sam scolded himself, it won’t help anything now, you’ve wasted enough of your life worrying about it.

Just last month, Sam had switched phones and he’d made himself listen to all of his saved messages, and there were a whole lot of them, many years worth. It had taken a while, but it was like flipping through a scrapbook of memories, something to do while Dean was working on the Impala and they were between cases. He’d been transferring the messages from phone to phone for many years, he had this habit of saving most of the ones that Dean had ever left him. It had started back the year before he went to college, when he knew there was a chance that he’d get cut off from his family. Or going even darker, that Dean would die on a hunt and he’d have nothing left of him, not even the memory of his voice.

Fortunately he’d only been right about the getting cut off thing, so the saved messages had gotten him through the crushing loneliness of separation when he tried to do the normal college thing. He’d play them when he was lonely or bored or just needed to hear his brother’s voice. All the different ways his brother said his name, sometimes just plain Sam, but most of the time it was Sammy, a clear, distinct choice which meant a million different things. But then there were the times Sammy was said with a drunken slur, the drunk dial calls that Dean never ever mentioned or even apologized for. The ones where he got positively cuddly over the phone, demonstrative, praising, even suggestive. Sam didn’t let himself listen to those too often, but they were there when he needed them.

Sam closed his eyes and pictured himself sitting on his bed in his room in the bunker, like he had been that day, just a few weeks ago, relaxed and just holding his cell phone. He pictured himself as he pressed the play button and could hear Dean’s words come pouring out of the speaker, praising, cajoling, whatever tone Dean used with him, they all ran together in a wash over him. He reveled in all of it, pulling it up around himself as it became a physical comforting blanket of memories and feelings.

It pushed him into remembering all those times they’d come back together after some time apart, how his brother would yank him in for a hug, pulling him down so he could tuck his chin over Sam’s shoulder, locking him in tight like he never wanted to let him go. He could feel Dean with him here in his cell, Sam spread his arms and welcomed his brother into his arms as the phone messages played through his memory, all of them, even that one, the worst one. The one where Dean said he’d hunt him, the one they’d never talked about. The one that Sam had almost deleted, but had always kept, because he needed to remember how bad it could get between them, that his choices about his powers weren’t just about him.

All of the messages played as Sam held Dean in his arms, he wasn’t just imagining it, he was most of the way to experiencing it. He stood crouched down a little to be on Dean’s level, so he could feel the point of his brother’s chin digging into the soft spot between his shoulder and his neck. Just on the edge of painful, but so familiar and so welcome. He smelled what he would smell when he turned his face into the warmth of the soft skin on his brother’s neck. Faint spicy aftershave, salty sweat, and that Dean-ness underneath it all, musky, rough and intoxicating. Sam breathed it in and held it in his lungs, turning the memory of his brother’s voice and smell into something real that could fill him up where he was hungriest. Maybe it was just visualization, but it was working, he felt fuller, more there, more present. And Sam needed to be to get them out of this place.

The door of his cell clanged open and a pair of guards was there, Sam didn’t open his eyes or interrupt his visualization of holding his brother in his arms, he didn’t care that they laughed at him as they gathered up his food tray, the door smashing shut with a boom, the lock clicking  loud and final in the silence. But there wasn’t silence in Sam’s head where Dean was talking like he always did when they held each other, like there wasn’t a way for him not to. Sam had to mark it somehow, keep it separate from the usual, I got you, Sammy. Bring it in here, brother. Getting too tall for this Sasquatch, what are those seeds, Sammy? You gonna cook me some bread or something? Do me a favor and don’t burn down the kitchen this time, okay?

The seeds.

The guards hadn’t seen them, the small pile that Sam had gathered from the two meals. He called his powers up again and aimed them at the seeds, making them dance out from underneath the bed. They drew out the question he most wanted to ask Dean and sent them out, under the small space beneath the door towards his brother. He held them in his mind, felt the attention of his brother as he read the question they formed, and turned them into a listening field that took Dean’s answer down and brought it back to him. The small scraping sounds of their approach under the door sent a pleased thrill down his spine, he was doing it, it was working. The seeds formed Dean’s answer and Sam smiled to himself as he read it.

Hell, yes! What’s our plan?

Sam formed the answer quickly and sent it back to Dean, carefully tracking the seeds progress down the hallway, sticking to where the edge of the cement brick walls met the poured cement floor. There was just enough space where the movement of the seeds would be invisible to anyone in the hallway. The only point where there was risk was when they crossed the threshold of a door. Sam couldn’t see with the seeds, that was going too far for his powers (so far at least, a quiet voice told him deep within)

When your next meal comes, play dead. I will too. Sam could feel his brother read the words, could practically hear his snort of laughter.

Then what? was the answer that the seeds brought back to him.

Sam had known that would be Dean’s response, but how to express his intentions so that Dean wouldn’t freak. It was weird enough that they were communicating via animated seeds. Sam decided to try to sound confident, but leave it open-ended. Follow my lead, they don’t know what I can do  He left out the part about how Dean didn’t know that either.

The seeds traveled swiftly along the edge of the wall, avoiding any detection by the guards. Sam vibrated with the rush of doing this, sending his will out of his body, making the world react and conform to his wishes. He recalled the heady days of demon blood and revenge which made the seeds speed back to him even faster with Dean’s answer. I will, Sammy, but be careful okay?

Sam smiled, at Dean’s worry, of course his brother would be cautious about this. He could read the this time, that was at the end of Dean’s answer, unsaid but still plainly there nonetheless. Going down this road hadn’t ended well for either of them. It had taken a long time for Sam to earn Dean’s trust again. He was going to do it differently this time, he swore to himself he would. The words he sent back to Dean were larger this time, a much bigger font, one that had been bolded, one that Dean couldn’t ignore:  Don’t worry, I’ve got this, jerk

Sam could hear Dean’s laughter through the cement walls. Bitch was all that came back. But it was all fond and so very soft, it made Sam want to wrap it up and tuck it into that memory box he’d opened up earlier today. He made a place for it, next to the warm and comforting memories that were already overflowing. There was so much in there, he wished he could share it with Dean somehow, to get him through this.

Part Two