Fic: A Fact or a Weapon (Sam/Dean, NC-17) Part 1

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They’ve finally gone and done it for real this time. They’ve hung up their guns, shelved all their books, they’ve actually retired. It was pretty much inevitable after Sam’s probably one-hundredth head injury in a row. The doctor Dean dragged him to had said it was a miracle Sam was still walking and talking and even close to still being himself. To top it off, on that same hunt, both of Dean’s knees had been so battered he had barely been able to get Sam moved to the car when he was passed out. Sam badgered him into finally getting them looked at, and that doctor advised Dean that he definitely needed both knees to be replaced asap.

They’ve both managed to actually get old, and isn’t that the biggest freaking surprise of their lives?

Getting old all of a sudden means big, necessary and almost immediate changes for them. It means a real need to get moving on out of the bunker as fast as possible. They both agree that they definitely have to end up in a place without stairs and that is a whole lot closer to a hospital. And since they are going to be more vulnerable as they recuperate they have to be somewhere supernatural baddies don’t already know their address. It seems like the bunker has become Grand Central Station lately. It’s just a stop on the railway to and from Hell and points beyond.

Once they’ve decided they are actually going to do this thing, to actually retire, Sam starts searching for different possibilities of where they should land. He knows their number one need is to end up some place near a hospital that will be good enough for taking care of both of their medical issues. And that is unfortunately not going to be in Kansas. Turns out there aren’t too many head-trauma specialists in Kansas. They’ve already been to the one recommended doctor a few weeks ago, and his suggestion was that they try out of state for second opinions, much less obtaining actual treatment for Sam’s condition.

Luckily, the maintenance finance package that their original flavor Charlie had set up for them way back when, includes some physical assets as well as just money. Through an intricate series of trusts and shell companies, the brothers have complete ownership of a series of modest homes all over the country that mostly are intended to be income producers. The cheap to maintain rentals that are good for guaranteed tax write-offs if they ever bother to start filing income taxes. They’ve never even used them as safe houses or anything like that, they’ve pretty much ignored them and just lived off the steady income they brought in. Their days of credit card fraud are long behind them thanks to all the money that their Charlie had initially siphoned off from Dick Roman.

They do have several big arguments about who will be getting their issues treated first. Dean really wants Sam to ‘go get his melon fixed,' he insists that he’ll be able to deal with the pain of getting himself around until Sam’s head is better. Sam admits that Dean has a point that knee replacements are not nearly as specialized or tricky as fixing Sam’s messed-up grapefruit. Sam counters with a compromise that Dean stop referring to his brain as various fruits, something both of them can agree on. Sam then paints a graphic picture of Dean not being able to physically assist Sam while he recuperates because of the dire state of his knees. He uses lots of examples from their fateful last hunt. Dean eventually relents and agrees that he will go ahead and get his worst knee done, if Sam would then get his head fixed, and then Dean would get his second knee replaced. That seemed like a good order of operations, it makes sense to both of them. Sam notes that comprising is hard, yet satisfyingly grown-up feeling as well.

Dean leaves the details to Sam with vague assurances of not bitching about where they end up since it won’t be for forever. As Sam searches carefully through the list of the homes they own, he hopes that at least one of the properties might work as a temporary home for them. That would make it so much easier on him than having to find somewhere to rent. Sam knows that it will likely be a substantial amount of time until they’ve both recuperated from all the medical stuff and physical therapy. He still feels like he’ll be able to go back into the hunt after he’s let his brain recuperate. Hopefully.

Beginning to pack up for moving soon turns into Sam going through all his stuff, and unfortunately a lot of memories get triggered. That leads to new kinds of mental issues that he refuses to categorize as either visions or hallucinations because that’s really not what they feel like. He would know of course, as he’s had both. All of a sudden Sam will find himself back in his demon blood-addicted or even his soulless state, reliving one of the worst moments of his life, viscerally, with all five of his senses. It’s much more than just a memory, or even a sense memory, it feels too complete and all-consuming.

The first time it happens he’s sorting through his weapons, and puts his hand on the handle of Ruby’s demon killing knife. Then the next thing he knows he’s no longer in his lonely room in their bunker, but re-experiencing the very first time he drank a demon’s blood at Ruby’s urging. He’s right back in that null state of pain and loss fresh from witnessing his brother be torn apart by hellhounds. He hears her wheedling voice, tastes her sulfurous breath against his lips, and wonders how did he ever get past that horrific taste? He comes back to himself clutching the knife in his hand, blood pooled in his palm.The sharp bite of the knife must have been the thing that brought him out of whatever the hell that just was.

The next time it happens he’s sorting through his memory box, making sure the amulet is still tucked safely inside. He knows he would never forgive himself if he left it behind in the bunker, even if now it’s a bad reminder of its connection to Chuck. The little charm is still wrapped up in the same old blue bandana that he’d used to hide it in his duffel bag all those years ago. When he unwraps it, he’s slammed right back into the emptiness of his soulless self, debating whether to throw the amulet away along with the old duffel bag, or to maybe wear it just to fuck with Dean’s head. Everything is so clear, and not overlaid with emotional feeling, it’s almost cold, even though they’re in a motel room in Georgia in the summer. He looks at the amulet, and feels exactly nothing, only a calculation of what sort of reaction or response it might provoke in Dean. He comes back to himself with a death grip on the amulet, it’s pierced right into the skin of his palm and there’s a small amount of blood dripping into the memory box.

Fortunately these incidents take place when he’s alone in his room, so Dean doesn’t know, and if he did, Sam’s not sure what would happen. Would Dean write him off or maybe just pack him off to an institution? Sam’s worst case scenario is that Dean just wouldn’t do anything, wouldn’t notice the difference or be concerned. Sam knows that’s messed up to think about Dean being that way. But his brother’s had a lot of trauma lately too, and he’s dealing with it in his usual 3-D way, distraction, drinking and denial.

It’s probably a good thing that he has those glitches or incidents during the lead up to their move, because it forces Sam to have to deal with reality. After each one happens, he researches even more about traumatic brain injury. He needs to find out if the treatments for TBI available these days would even begin to help in his case. All he knows for sure is that he isn’t holding onto reality quite as well as he needs to be able to in order to continue hunting.

It’s entirely understandable of course, with the violent life he’s led, all the supernatural entities that have made use of his skull, the more than one hundred years of torture in the Cage, all of that mixed up together along with the mental stress of keeping the world’s biggest secret from the world’s biggest snoop. All of that combines to make him useless for an active hunting life, definitely for now, and maybe for good. His biggest worry is that once Dean gets better and has the full use of his knees back, he’ll figure out that Sam isn’t okay, and Dean will get out there on the hunting track again. Maybe on his own or with Cas or even Jack instead of Sam. And that would be okay, Sam just has to prepare himself for it ahead of time. He has to make it okay, has to give himself something else to do in the meantime.

Sam’s solution to this worry is to write a lot more than usual, obsessively really, in his journal, about all the things he wants to remember and accomplish and resolve before finally actually dying for real and for keeps. Writing it all down is his version of deep therapy. In his journals, he’s brutally honest with himself and it’s hard work. He regularly rereads what he’s written back at the beginning and marvels at how far he’s come. He has no one to share his progress with though.

One night Sam finds a picture of a snippet of a Margaret Atwood poem online somewhere:

He looks up the rest of the poem in order to read the whole thing, it had been published in a poetry collection, ‘Eating Fire’. He thinks that the larger context of the quote makes the author’s point much more clearly.

“A truth should exist,

it should not be used

like this. If I love you

is that a fact or a weapon?”

Sam copies it down into his current journal where he’s been gathering all his thoughts about moving. The quote makes him feel this deep resonance inside somewhere, like there’s an empty space that these words were made for. The question that the words raise for him is a very old one of course. One that many volumes of his journals have obliquely referred to over the years of trying and failing to figure himself out. He writes a few pages worth of musings about the quote, trying to nail down the feelings he has about it, why it’s resonating so deeply with him. But as usual, it’s hard to talk about the enormous thing you can’t allow yourself to really name out loud. He writes a few things about wishing he could discuss this with the person the quote is about for him, but how that person just wouldn’t understand in a million years, and he doesn’t want to risk the relationship that he has with this person just in case they don’t feel the same way.

Sam leaves the journal out on his desk, with the pen in the spot where he’s left off writing. He hopes that he’ll be able to figure it out after sleeping on the whole idea.

****

Dean lets himself into Sam’s room to snag the Star Trek dvd set they’d been watching in there last night. He had just been eating pie in the kitchen when he remembers he wants to re-watch one of the episodes on his Dean-Cave big screen tv while Sam is out at the store with Jack. Sam usually keeps the current dvd’s out on his desk near the laptop they use as a screen, and there they are, right next to Sam’s journal. Dean struggles for mere moments before sitting himself down in Sam’s desk chair and beginning to read. He starts with the most recent entry, because they’ve been fighting off and on lately about the whole needing to retire and move thing, and maybe it’ll give him a clue about where Sam’s head is at on the subject.

He’s read Sam’s writing before, it’s a big-brother’s prerogative after all to be a snoopy asshole. But when he reads the Atwood quote and the whole discussion that follows it, where Sam is dancing around naming names, he gets this squirmy feeling in his gut. Sam has someone. Someone that this is all about, and it obviously isn’t about him, of course not. Sam isn’t…doesn’t think like that about him, he knows that. Of course he knows that.

Maybe this is why Sam is hemming and hawing about the moving thing so much. It might be about someone who lives around here, a Lebanon local. He knows that Sam’s pretty friendly with some of the clerks in the stores, could it be one of them? Maybe it’s someone online that Sam knows. He briefly considers hacking into Sam’s laptop, but stops himself when he hears noises from the down the hall. They’re back.

He scoops up the dvd set and closes Sam’s journal, placing the pen back in what he hopes is the right spot. He gets the Star Trek episode going before Sam tracks him down, still thinking over what he’s just read in Sam’s journal. While Sam is talking to him about their shopping trip and dinner plans and who knows what else, Dean’s examining him. Does Sam look different, like someone in love, someone who’s pining away because he won’t let himself love the person he loves. Now all of a sudden the point of that poem, fact or a weapon, becomes clearer to him. Maybe he can help Sam by getting him to talk about the whole thing.

“So, who’d you see in town?” Dean asks in the middle of Sam’s discourse on what they just bought at the grocery store.

Sam stops and looks at him, a little confused at being interrupted about the three types of beer they’d bought. “No one special really, Larry at the gas station says hi, and Lila at the post office asked after your bad knees.”

“But no one else?” Dean asks.

“No, Dean, no one else. I mean, I can’t just go visit my secret lover when I have Jack with me, what kind of quasi-parent do you think I am?” Sam asks with a laugh, he rolls his eyes and leaves.

Dean sits back in his recliner, watching as Spock and Kirk do their will-they won’t-they dance and thinks too much about little brothers and secret lovers and quasi-parents.

****

“Has Dean seemed strange to you lately?” Sam asks, handing Jack the colander of rinsed-off fresh snap peas.

Jack takes the pea pods and starts tearing off the ends of each one methodically and precisely, one by one. Sam can tell he’s thinking so he waits for the answer. Jack finally looks up at him.

“Dean has been upset because of the fights you’ve been having lately. The ones about the moving issue, but nothing else that I’ve noticed. Why do you ask?”

“He was just quizzing me about who I’d seen or talked to in town. And it was just weird, it’s not a thing he usually does—like ever,” Sam says.

“Maybe he’s worried you have a reason to want to stay here in Lebanon instead of moving somewhere else to retire,” Jack suggests.

“Why would he think that? He knows I don’t really have any friends here, just acquaintances. Just like him,” Sam says.

“I know this will sound naive or silly coming from me, but maybe you should try just asking him,” Jack suggests.

Sam doesn’t answer, just kind of sinks into himself trying to picture what would happen, how such a conversation would go with Dean. He decides it wouldn’t be worth the risk and maybe he doesn’t really want to know.

***

“Cas, can you hand me the 3/8” drive socket?” Dean asks.

“Is this the tool for the spark plugs to be changed?” Cas asks, searching the workbench.

“Yes, that’s what I’m trying to get done today, if my knees cooperate that is. Don’t tell Sam I said that,” Dean says, sticking his head back under Baby’s hood and leaning on her fender for support.

“I will do as you ask, Dean, but only if you will at some point tell him yourself,” Cas says, handing him the requested tool.

Dean straightens up, and takes the drive socket, he stares at it for a long moment, ignoring the crack about his bad knees. “Hey, I have to ask you something, about Sam. Have you noticed him having a new friend or acquaintance lately, maybe one in town or elsewhere?”

“I have not noticed any new attachments. Sam, and you for that matter, are both very self-contained,” Cas observes.

“If you hear him talking about someone new, in like a friendly sort of way, can you tell me?” Dean asks.

Cas looks at him for longer than would usually be necessary. “Dean, are you jealous of your brother possibly having a friend beside you?”

“No…nah, that’s not it, I’m just looking out for him. Something I read, made me think of it.” Dean doesn’t elaborate and tell Cas he’s been doing something so disrespectful as reading his brother’s journal. Cas would never understand anyway. Even though he was dead-on about Dean’s jealousy issues.

“As far as I know, Sam is focused on convincing you of the need to move to resolve your medical issues, not on forming new friendships,” Cas says.

“I know he is, believe me I know, he’s on me about it all the time. It’s just…I don’t want him to leave someone behind here in Lebanon just to go off and retire with me somewhere else.”

“I am not aware of anyone that Sam knows who he would prefer to having a retirement with you, here or anywhere else.”

“Oh…uh, that’s good, thanks, Cas. I’m just going to get back to getting the plugs done.”

Dean is happy with the answer he just got, Cas seems to monitor both of them pretty closely, so maybe there really isn’t someone else that Sam is seeing. But then who was Sam writing about in his journal? This hasn’t solved any of his questions, maybe it’s even made them a bit worse. If they go off and retire together like Sam’s pushing for, that might give Dean more time to get a real answer, but not at the risk of Sam sacrificing a potential for a happier ending.

****

Sam writes in his journal that evening about the strange questions from Dean and the suggestion from Jack that he ask Dean about the whole thing. And that’s when he notices the sticky fingerprint on the previous page in his journal. Two of the pages are lightly stuck together by what looks like jam or maybe pie filling. There’s only one person who lives here in the bunker that would be snooping around leaving behind their pie-covered fingerprints—Dean.

He reads the page the fingerprint is stuck on, re-reads what he’s written several times, it was all about that Margaret Atwood quote. He thinks he was vague enough about who he was thinking about, but who knows with Dean. His brother can be scary good at putting together the facts of a case, but since this is about them, maybe Dean won’t be on his A game. That’s the only thing Sam can hope for at this point. He was asking about Sam seeing someone in town, so far so good, hopefully maybe?

But the more he thinks about it, the more he starts getting pissed off, after an entire lifetime of Dean’s snooping, Sam knows he should be used to it, this casual invasion of his privacy. If only Dean had something similar like the journal so Sam could get back at him in an equal way. All Sam’s got for a defense is being weird right back at him. That’s what he deserves for being such a snoopy big-brother. He decides right then and there that the next strange question he gets from Dean, he’s going to answer with his own equally strange question. That will at least be entertaining—the game is afoot.

That night at dinner, after Jack and Cas have left the table, Dean tries to open up a discussion about the people that they might know in town.

“So, who do you think you’re you going to miss the most in town when we move?” Dean asks.

Sam almost answers Lila at the post office, but just before he says her name he remembers his promise to himself. “I have to think about it, how about you? Who are you going to miss the most?”

“Probably I’ll miss Frank the bartender, he’s gotten me through a few rough nights,” Dean says.

Sam’s stomach cramps with something familiar, that green-tinged barb of jealousy he feels whenever Dean connects with someone else.

“I think that’s kind of sweet, having a connection with the local bartender,” Sam teases.

“You know, sometimes, a guy just needs someone to talk to,” Dean says.

Sam looks up at him sharply, stomach clenching with the realization that this means Dean didn’t choose him, what sounds like more than once, Dean had chosen instead to talk to Frank the fucking bartender.

“I mean—sometimes, when I need to talk about what’s going on with you, or you and me, I need to talk to someone else besides you or me,” Dean says, eyes hopeful.

“What about Cas or Jack, why not talk to them?” Sam asks, continuing his asking weird questions promise to himself instead of offering what he’s really thinking.

“They’re not always around, and also, they’re not human or fully human, so they don’t quite get what I’m usually worrying about. You know how they are, especially about important human stuff,” Dean says.

“Dean, if you’re worrying about me or something to do with us, I wish you’d just…you know, talk to me,” Sam says, abandoning the only asking questions promise.

“I know, Sammy, I try to most of the time, I do, but sometimes it’s—well, it’s hard to explain. We’re so used to dealing with each other, 24/7 right? But when big things have come up, and I’ve needed to get my head sorted, sometimes it helps to talk to someone who doesn’t really know me, or us at all. Just to get an unconnected, outside point of view,” Dean says.

“I see, I think I get it,” Sam says, so relieved to feel his stomach unclamping from the jealousy over the stupid bartender. “Sounds like wherever we move to, there had better be a decent neighborhood bar with a bartender who’s a great listener.”

That night Sam writes about this conversation and how it makes him feel to realize that he’s just as jealous if not more so, than Dean is. He was wondering if Dean’s snooping and questions about who he was seeing in town were motivated by some weird jealousy, and yeah they absolutely are, but he’s right there with Dean, having the same freaking issues—what a pair they are.

Sam remembers the most recent time he was jealous over Dean, it had been on one of their last cases. One of the witnesses had been flirting madly with Dean and he had flirted right back. It had had been hard to not say anything and to not be growly about it, especially since the guy reminded Sam of himself, a lot taller than Dean with longish brown hair. Fortunately he’d had a reason to tug Dean away from the guy because of the case. But the burning green fog of jealousy had made him less effective when it to finishing their case. The claw marks he’d ended up with had seemed a fitting punishment.

So are those the exact same feelings of jealousy for both of those cases? Sam writes and tries to figure that out in his journal. Worrying about Dean talking to the bartender in town, sharing his thoughts and worries feels a whole lot more intimate somehow. Considering Dean possibly hooking up with yet another person after a lifetime of enduring that is part of Sam’s normal day-to-day. Both are definitely rooted in jealousy, but they’re him being jealous about different parts of Dean, his heart and soul versus his body. Sam knows he wants the whole package all to himself, but he doesn’t write that bit down.

He continues on, thinking and writing, developing the ideas, if it’s possible that Dean is jealous like he is himself, in either of the two ways, doesn’t that finally confirm what Sam’s suspected all these years? Their feelings for each other might be mutual, in all ways, legal and not. He considers using the truth spell that Rowena had taught him not long before she became Queen of Hell. (you killed her, Sam, you killed her)

He’d promised himself that he’d only use it for help on their hunting cases, not for ‘home use,’ because that wouldn’t be fair to Dean. But neither was reading Sam’s journal fair to Sam. The frustration of not knowing for sure, one way or the other is killing him. It’s been a lot of years, bearing the weight of his feelings for Dean all on his own. He could probably get Jack to bring up the subject somehow, but that would be using their kid…as a weapon. And that is much too on the nose to the original Atwood quote that started this whole thing.

The game is still afoot, but now it’s utterly changed. How can Sam get Dean to say or do something to confirm his suspicions that their feelings for each other are indeed mutual without Dean realizing what he’s doing? It’s going to be tricky.

Before he can decide on a course of action, the very next night Cas says something at dinner as he’s passing the bowl of roasted vegetables that sort of solves the issue for Sam.

“Jack and I have been talking, comparing notes as you like to say, and we have some concerns we need to discuss. Are the two of you okay, or do you need our help?”

Dean looks up and meets Sam’s surprised eyes with a smirk. “We’re fine, right, Sam?”

“Yeah, we’re good, just getting the details of the whole moving thing worked out. Why do you ask, Cas?” Sam says.

“Cas says that you two are calcified, and that we would need well-timed explosions to break you out of it,” Jack says.

“Like this one maybe?” Dean asks with an even bigger smirk.

“Exactly like this one, Dean. You have been quizzing your brother about who he may be seeing in town. And Sam, you have been asking why Dean is asking that question. It seems to us, that it would be more straightforward and likely beneficial if you were to ask these questions directly to one another.”

“Leave us out of it, talk amongst yourselves,” Jack says, doing a spot-on imitation of Mike Meyers’ character Linda Richman on SNL.

Sam laughs at Jack’s imitation, he had forgotten that Dean had been showing Jack some of his favorite sketches from SNL last week.

“He does an awesome Gumby too, sounds just like Eddie Murphy,” Dean says, laughing with Sam.

“Will you do it? Will you talk to each other?” Cas interrupts the brother’s laugh-fest.

“At some point, sure,” Dean says, trying to sober up from laughing so hard.

“But probably not when you’re bugging us to do it,” Sam says. He hopes that Cas bringing up this question won’t shove Dean even further into the closet of denial he’s already got himself locked inside. Sam’s right in there with him if he’s honest. It seems pretty hopeless and pointless and his mind can’t hold it all sometimes.

All of this happening right as they make the decision to retire makes sure that particular conversation never takes place. Instead it’s left hanging there, taunting Sam with everything left unsaid. Sam can feel the promise of it, and the threat of it too. He keeps thinking about Dean agreeing that at some point they’ll talk. Okay, but when?

****
To Part Two