To Live on One's Own Terms 3/5

To Live on One's Own Terms

Summary: The curse is broken. And maybe Sam is too. (Sequel to For Your Own Good)

Chapter Three

Sam is already awake when Dean opens his eyes the next morning but he hasn't gotten out of bed. He isn't drifting, like Dean is tempted to do. Sleep tugs on his eyelids and the urge to press the snooze button on responsibility is strong. He could do with, like, another month of rest. But Sam is doing his statue impression, lying motionless on his back and staring at the ceiling, and if Dean leaves the kid alone with his thoughts for too long who knows what might happen?

Dean studies his brother through slitted eyes. Sam looks better than he has in days. Healthier, at least. He still seems somewhat lost and shell-shocked – Dean doesn't like the statue thing – but there's colour in his face. The fever Sam has been rocking looks to have finally broken and exhaustion is no longer bruising his eyes. He seems to be lost in thought, unaware that he's being observed, but after a moment he speaks.

“I don't know what to do. Usually there's a whole list of things I have to get done and now there isn't.” Sam frowns at the ceiling. “And I can't think of what to do. I don't know what I'm supposed to do, if I'm not doing what Dad says. I can't remember what I used to do.”

This is a lot for first thing in the morning. Dean scrubs sleep out of his eyes. “What's the time?”

Sam glances towards the alarm clock. “Just after eight.”

It's basically the crack of dawn, as far as Dean is concerned. He bites back a yawn. “Okay. How about we start with breakfast? Are you hungry?”

Sam considers this. “I guess so,” he says, without enthusiasm. Dean can't actually remember when the kid last ate more than a mouthful though so he'll take a lacklustre 'yes' if that's all that's on offer.

He lets Sam have the first shower, of course. Well, he insists, kind of, while also trying to make clear that Sam absolutely has the right to refuse and tell Dean to get fucked if Dean ever tries to get him to do anything that he doesn't want to do. He ends up getting himself confused and flustered and Sam actually smiles a little, amused, as he accepts the offer without complaint.

There's a diner across the road. It's small and quiet and the waitress is the grandmotherly type, who looks kindly at Sam and calls him 'sweetheart' and brings him tea with honey in it on the house after hearing how scratchy his voice is.

Sam blushes and ducks his head as he murmurs his thanks and manages to look completely adorable, even without the long hair that was always flopping in his face and falling in his eyes and making older women trip over themselves to mother him. Maybe it was never about the hair. Maybe Sam, with his ill-fitting hand-me-downs and shy smile, just looks like a kid in need of mothering.

“This feels wrong.” Sam pushes eggs around his plate. “Like I'm forgetting to do something really important.”

One of his knees is bouncing up and down anxiously under the table. He keeps twisting his fork around and around in his hand.

“You're forgetting to eat,” Dean points out. “That's pretty important.”

Sam rolls his eyes but he takes a bite. He chews slowly.

“When did you figure it out?” he asks.

Guilt, hot and prickly, rises in Dean's stomach. His mouthful of eggs and toast loses its flavour and he has to force himself to swallow. “I knew something was really wrong when you cut your hair.”

“When Dad cut my hair,” Sam corrects him, sourly. “It wasn't my idea. He made me say that.”

“Right.” Dean nods quickly. “Sorry. That... that must've sucked.”

Sam stabs at a bit of toast. “It all sucked,” he says, glaring down at his plate. “It was horrible. Like being a doll or a robot or something.”

“I thought you were possessed,” Dean admits. “I knew you weren't acting right. I thought something must've gotten under your skin – I was researching all kinds of creatures.” He's annoyed at himself now, for all the time he wasted going down the wrong track. He should have known that something was up when John refused to even entertain the possibility of a problem, insisting that Sam was just fine, even though he obviously wasn't. “I just... I never thought Dad would stoop so low. Not until I found that book and that spell and then, the more I thought about it, the more it seemed to fit. I was only sure when you hit me instead of listening to me but then you listened to Dad straight away.”

Sam winces guiltily, glancing up from his plate to frown at Dean's jaw. The bruise is starting to lose its purplish hue today, beginning to turn to a greeny-yellow at the edges, and it only hurts a little bit to chew. Sam has a hell of a right hook. John must have made him practice it a lot.

“Sorry,” Sam offers. “I didn't mean to. I couldn't stop myself.”

Dean shrugs. “You probably should have hit me earlier,” he says. “Maybe it would've knocked some sense into me.”

The corner of Sam's mouth quirks up, just a little. “Maybe,” he agrees.

Sam is joking, but he's also not. There's anger lurking in his eyes, bright and bitter. Most of it is probably for John, sure, but some of it is for Dean. There's a stiffness between them; something tight and tense and hurt that has been growing for months. It must have been infuriating for Sam, waiting for Dean to notice that something was wrong. How lonely and scared and hopeless must the poor kid have felt as the weeks went by and Dean went on with life, oblivious?

He's lucky Sam didn't throttle him in his sleep.

“I thought something was off, earlier,” Dean tries to explain. He feels horribly inadequate. Somehow he has messed up the most important job he has. He let down the only person that matters and nothing he says can make up for it. “Things were weird when you and Dad came back from that hunt. But then, I just... I just thought that you'd been fighting. You wouldn't talk to me so I talked to Dad – he pretty much blew me off, too, but he acted so normal. Like he did nothing wrong.” Dean shakes his head. He can't understand it. How could John have been so unfazed after cursing his own son?

“Mm. He was good at that,” Sam muses. He leans an elbow on the table and rests his chin on his hand. “He did it with me as well. Just pretended like nothing had happened. It drove me crazy. Sometimes it felt like he'd forgotten that I couldn't say no.”

Suddenly, Dean feels cold. A horrible new thought has crept its way up his spine. “It wasn't, like- I mean, he didn't ever...?”

John wouldn't.

Would he?

The world is upside down. Who knows what John is capable of?

Dean clears his throat awkwardly. “There wasn't anything, like, uh - because you can tell me, if there was – but there wasn't, right? I mean, he didn't do anything...?”

“Anything what?” Sam prompts, looking confused as Dean trips over his words.

Dean clears his throat again, lowering his voice. “Anything sexual?” he finally gets out.

Sam's mouth drops open and his eyes flash wide with surprise. He drops his fork and draws back in the booth, away from Dean. “What? No!” His face flushes and he ducks his head, glancing furtively around the diner to see if anyone else heard the question (that obviously shouldn't have been asked in such a public setting, come on, Dean, what's the matter with you?). Luckily, no one is paying them any attention. “No, that's not... that's not what he wanted.”

Sam's shock is a serious relief.

“Right. Sorry. Fuck.” Dean rubs both his hands down his face.

Sam shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “He, um... he mostly just gave me stuff to do. Like running and studying Latin and stuff.” Sam picks up his fork but he just uses it to poke at what's left on his plate. “And I wasn't allowed to complain or tell you - or anyone else - about the spell. Obviously.”

“I should have noticed.” Dean grits his teeth, freshly furious with himself. “I should have realized.”

Sam lifts a shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. “He didn't really give me many orders in front of you. He liked to save it for when you were out.”

“Then I should've stayed with you,” Dean says fiercely. “I knew something was wrong. I should've stuck around until I figured it out.”

Sam probably agrees because he doesn't even bother with a half-shrug this time, just toys with his fork, lightly scraping it back and forth on his plate. Dean thinks he's using it as an excuse not to look him in the face. “I wasn't allowed to ask you to stay either.”

Dean's hand tightens around his own fork. It threatens to bend under the weight of his anger.

He had gone to John, worried and confused, because Sam was pulling away from him, because the kid was starting to spend all his time buried in books or pounding the pavement, taking an unnaturally intense interest in getting stronger, faster, becoming a perfect shot, a perfect fighter, a perfect hunter, and John had laughed as if Dean was a little slow. He'd pointed out that Sam was getting older now. Obviously, he didn't need his big brother around all the time, and of course he was starting to take his duties more seriously; that's what growing up is all about.

It had stung but it had seemed to make sense. Dean remembers going through something similar himself around Sam's age; he was almost an adult and thirsty for his father's approval, ready to pack in school and show that he could handle the responsibility of becoming a full-time hunter. Hanging out with a twelve year old had suddenly become a drag and being left behind on babysitting duty had felt like the ultimate insult.

Teenagers are supposed to be dicks, right? They're supposed to be moody and unpleasant and distant. Dean definitely had been. It hadn't been hard for John to convince him that Sam was just going through a phase.

Why - why – does he have to be such a moron? How could he have fallen for John's bullshit? Maybe, if he'd been less worried about his own precious feelings and more concerned about Sam, this would have been fixed months ago.

It must have been intentional. Part of John's plan. He must have known that Dean would grow suspicious and he must have spent time thinking up explanations for Sam's behaviour. It makes bile rise in the back of Dean's throat, imagining John Winchester studying the curse in secret, planning how best to ambush Sam, manipulating Dean with carefully crafted lies until he was avoiding his own brother, resenting Sam for abandoning him when really he was the one abandoning Sam, leaving the kid alone with a monster.

“Bobby should have let me pound Dad's face in,” Dean spits. “I'm going to, if I ever see him again.”

Sam blinks. The bridge of his nose crinkles in confusion. “Aren't we going back?”

Now Dean is confused. “Why would we?” he asks.

Sam stares at him like he's not making sense. “Because... it's Dad.” Sam takes a breath. He finally stops playing with his fork and abandons it on his plate. His hands twist nervously in his lap and he drops his gaze back down to the table. “And I know how to behave now. I won't cause trouble again. Dad won't have to use witchcraft.”

Sam's eyes are flat and far away. His shoulders hunch, drawing in on himself, and Dean wants to stab something. He wants to track down John Winchester and throw him up against a wall, scream in his face and demand to know what the hell he was thinking. He wants to beat the answers out of him and then keep beating him because there's nothing John could possibly say that could make up for what he has done.

Dean uncurls his hand from his fork – it's pressing a grove into his palm – and sets it down on his plate, which he pushes aide, giving up completely on the idea of finishing his food. Instead of yelling and screaming and hitting something like he really, really wants to do, Dean presses his palms to the table and leans forward, searching Sam's far-away eyes for some sign of his little brother.

“Sammy, listen to me, okay?” He waits until Sam looks up, locking eyes with his despondent sibling. “What Dad did to you isn't okay. You didn't cause any trouble and even if you did, it wouldn't matter. It still wouldn't be okay.”

Sam frowns at him, more confused than ever.

Dean swallows a sigh. “We're not going back, Sam,” he explains patiently. “Dad hurt you. He set a monster on you and almost got you killed. That thing was wrapped around your soul. I'm not taking you back to him. Not today, not next week, not ever. Dad can go fuck himself for all I care.”

Sam looks earnestly surprised by this declaration, which is all kinds of heartbreaking. Did he think that Dean would back their father? Forgive John and return to him, despite the horror Sam has been through? Does Sam think he deserved what John did to him?

Sam pulls his hands inside the sleeves of his sweatshirt and leans back in the booth, chewing his lower lip as he digests Dean's words. A myriad of emotions play over his face. Doubt wars with relief and confusion bleeds into concern. He looks up at Dean, baffled.

“But... what are we going to do?” he asks.

Dean shrugs, a very casual shrug, as if this very question hasn't been tormenting him. Sam is barely holding it together as it is and he might just lose it completely if he realizes that Dean is as clueless as he is about what comes next.

“We'll figure it out.” Dean makes himself smile. “We can do whatever we want.”

To Be Continued

A/N: Reviews get given tea with honey in it.