The Things That Were Lost (2/2)
Feb. 16th, 2013 12:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dime_lioraTitle: The Things That Were Lost (2/2)
Wordcount: Total 11,644
Rating: R
Warning(s): Explicit Language, Violence, References to Non-Con
Beta(s): The irresistible![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sammichgirl, who is not at fault for the mistakes I left.
Summary: A timestamp for "Lost Time", examines Ope and Sam's pasts. Won't make much sense if you haven't read "Lost Time", and has spoilers for the story.
Sam
Sam is almost seven when he first realizes just how serious it is that he doesn’t have parents. It’s not like he’s missed the little things. The way the other kids seem to already have friends in place when he joins the first grade class, or how they all have nice clothes that fit them just right. Sam can see that every one of the other kids look at him strangely, as if he’s something new or confusing. He lets them.
When reading time comes no one offers to be his partner and read off his book, and at recess no one wants to play with him. All of this is old news to Sam. He expects it, and he doesn’t mind it. He has an active imagination, and he doesn’t need them. He pretends instead that when the day is over he’s going to go home, and there’ll be two parents and a big dog waiting for him. Some days he has an older brother waiting too, and some days he’s going to go home to his little brother. Either way, there’s always a brother there that wants to do something like catch or a board game. Sorry or Monopoly. Sam doesn’t care what game, as long as there is a game, and a sibling waiting to play it.
Except today he’s not out in the yard watching the other kids play and imagining, today he’s in the bathroom. He didn’t feel great yesterday, but this morning when he woke up he knew he needed to stay home. His foster mother pushed him out the door with the two older girls that stay with them, and he waited for the bus as he shook in place. Now he’s in the bathroom, curled around the toilet and losing the toast he had for breakfast.
Mrs. Henderson finds him, and she carries him to the nurse’s office and they exclaim about fever and something else. They can’t give him anything, or do anything until his foster mother arrives. Which wouldn’t be a problem, except they call and call but she never answers. The school day drags past, and it only gets worse. He can’t focus anymore on what they’re saying around him, and the heaving won’t stop. It just won’t stop.
He wakes up in a hospital bed, a needle in his arm and a nurse standing over him and looking disapproving. His side hurts, and when he looks down there’s a bandage there that he didn’t have before. He can hear his case worker arguing in the hallway with his foster mother about neglect, about the necessity of being reachable, and then Sam never sees Mrs. Henderson again. He gets moved to a new foster family, and that means a new school. He works hard to never get sick again, even if they tell him there’s no way to stop appendicitis.
----
By the time Sam turns ten he knows all the buzzwords to make the bored woman that visits him think he’s alright. He knows how to talk about being well-adjusted, to praise his foster parents and siblings, and to show them how well he’s doing at school. It’s rote memorization and Sam is better at that than they will ever know.
He knows what kinds of clothes he needs to wear when they’re too rough, and what he needs to do to hide the fact his ribs always show a little too much, and that his cheekbones are just a bit too sharp. They never ask anything other than the standard questions, and Sam knows all of those too. It’s not hard to play the game, and Sam is an expert at it.
The kids at school give him a hard time, but he doesn’t care. He locks it all down tight, and never lets them see if they get under any of the tiny chinks in his armor. When it’s not the case worker, when it’s just him and any number of strangers that can’t quite get to him Sam doesn’t talk. Instead he reads. Books are a revelation that Sam can’t get over. He can be a knight traveling the countryside, or a respected lawyer, or even the president of the United States.
He’s not Little Orphan Sam anymore. He’s not the weird kid whose clothes don’t fit right, or the strange little boy that everyone seems to love to push or make fun of. When his foster brother starts burning the hairs on his legs Sam drops the right words and gets moved to another house.
He doesn’t mind chores, doesn’t mind cooking or cleaning, but he won’t let them exploit his weaknesses. Won’t let them touch his nightmares or the things the make him want to scream when all he can do is tighten his fists and bite his lip. Sam won’t let them get to him, and he has to work hard to protect himself. No one else will do it for him, and he’s learned that lesson the hard way. If he doesn’t like what’s happening he has to change it, and if he can’t change it he has to find a way to hide from it.
He lives in other countries, ones with rolling hills and dragons. He lives in castles and mansions, and he fights crime and preserves honor. That’s Sam, and the rest of it is inconsequential.
Really.
It doesn’t bother him that other boys his age are starting to notice girls and he has no interest, because if he’s odd in every other way he can be odd in this one too. He has no interest in pulling hair or playing pranks. It’s childish, and Sam is not a child. He knows that better than anything else.
His current foster mother is loud, likes to shout at her husband and the other kids in the house. Sam doesn’t care for her much, but he gets three meals a day and that’s worth putting up with a little volume. Except one night that volume is coupled with fingernails digging into his arm as she drags him through the house and into the kitchen. She points to a broken glass, and asks him if he’s responsible. When he says no she shakes him once, hard, and then points again.
“You’re telling me you didn’t do this? That you ain’t responsible? Well, you better think again, ’cause I know for a fact it was your night to do the damn dishes and it wasn’t broken before. You gotta learn to take responsibility for what you done boy. Ain’t nobody in this world gonna give up their time for something like you, so you gotta own up and clean up your own mistakes. You got me?”
He nods once and then starts to brush the glass up, but she hits his wrist and a piece digs in and cuts the tender flesh of his palm. It hurts, hurt a lot, but Sam doesn’t make a noise. He just looks up at her.
“Your parents didn’t want you, the people before me didn’t want you, and I don’t want you. What’cha gonna do when the state ain’t paying your way no more? What’cha gonna do when you gotta be wanted, ‘cause it ain’t gonna happen Samuel. You ain’t that kind of kid.”
He goes to bed that night with his cut hand curled against his chest and her shrieking voice ringing in his ears. Three weeks later when the social worker comes Sam tells her about the incident in a hollow voice, sheds a few tears, and goes to another foster family. It doesn’t matter. They’ll be just as bad, but at least he doesn’t have to listen to that voice anymore. Doesn’t have to think about it being right.
-----
Sam’s fifteen, leaning back in a book shop with a copy of Contact in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. It took up a good deal of his spending cash, but he’s willing to give it up to get the rare moment of peace associated with the act.
It’s been a year of aches and pains, but Sam is finally starting to really shoot up. He’s going to be tall, he knows it, and he wonders idly if his real parents were tall. One or both of them. If they had their growth spurts at the same time, and if they thought one day they’d pass those genetics onto someone else. If they were in love, and if his mother wanted to have tall children that she could look at in the way he sometimes sees his classmates parents look at them.
Sam knows now that while he’s not necessarily asexual, he’s not sure where his tastes lie. Bobby Forte kissed him a week before, and Sam liked it, but Bobby is dating Rachel and he’s happy with that. Sam was just an experiment, which is ok because so was Bobby. Although Sam would never say that to him.
He gets along better now. The mocking is still there, but people keep their hands to themselves for the most part and Sam is happy for it. His current foster home has no physical abuse, but he’s tired of it. He gets up in the morning and moves through the house like a ghost, has the same experience when he gets home. No one talks to him, and Sam lives in perpetual silence. It’s not the worst thing he’s ever experienced, but he still hates it.
Sometimes at night he lies in bed awake and wonders what would happen if he just started talking one night, started telling them his story, and what it’s done to him. What would happen if he spouted off his hopes and dreams, or recited poetry, or just something to break the constant silence.
It’s while he’s flipping to the next page that Sam really feels the weight of the gaze for the first time. His eyes travel upwards, over the top of the page, and there he is.
It’s instantly electric, the blue eyes taking in his face, and the lips curving into a small smile. Sam’s never really flirted before, and for half a second he tries to recall the things he’s read about flirting. Eye contact, that’s important, but he can’t do it. Instead he closes the book, picks up his drink, and runs out of the store at top speed. He makes it home with his bag hanging off one shoulder and no one asks where he’s been or how his day was. Not that he was expecting it.
It’s a month before he sees the guy again, and Sam isn’t completely surprised when the man sits down across from him. He’s gotta be over eighteen, but he looks at Sam’s copy of the collected works of Frost for a moment before pointing. “The leaves are all dead on the trees, save those that the oak is keeping.”
He feels the grin threatening to spill out, and he closes the book around his finger and meets the blue eyes dead on. “I have come by the highway home, and lo it is ended.” The guy laughs once, holds out a soft hand that Sam grips tightly, and then leans back in his chair and straightens out the legs of his slacks.
“You’re a big fan I see.”
“So are you. I’m Sam.” The eyes brighten for a second, and then the smile is wider and more generous. For a second Sam can’t get over how bright and straight his teeth are.
“Tyson. It’s a pleasure to meet you Sam. So do your poetry interests end at Frost, or do you have any other favorites?”
And Sam? Sam likes that smile. Likes the question, and the real interest he thinks he sees behind it. He likes to be the center of Tyson’s interests, and he likes to talk to the older guy. They stay in the coffee part of the bookstore for three hours, chatting easily about everything. Sam doesn’t tell him he’s an orphan or that he’s in the system. Doesn’t mention the bullies at school or skipping grades. Instead they discuss books and art, TV, and sports as if they’ve known each other forever.
When he has to leave he collects his things and then looks up in surprise when Tyson slips him a piece of paper with his number. “I’d like to see you again. If it’s alright?”
And yeah. Yeah it’s more than alright, because Sam wants that more than anything. So he nods and smiles, and he clutches the number to this chest the whole way home.
Friday comes and Sam resigns himself to an entire weekend of silence. Of eating leftovers because when dinner is served no one gets him, and he knows instinctively that’s because they’d rather not have to eat with him at the table. Which is ok. Sam’s ok.
Except by the end of the weekend he’s shaking. Can’t stand the oppressive quality of the silence, or how badly it shakes him that sometimes he has to touch his own body to be sure that he’s still solid and real. That he hasn’t become the ghost they are making him. He calls Tyson, and they end up at the same part of the bookshop.
It takes three weeks of conversation for Tyson to talk Sam into leaving with him. By that point Sam thinks he knows everything there is to know about Tyson. Thinks that there can’t possibility be anyone more perfect on the face of the planet.
When he’s with Tyson he feels loved, feels alive, and he’s never had anything like that. Fuck his old foster mother, because here’s someone who wants him. Who will want him when he’s not a warden of the state anymore. Here’s someone that will take care of his messes. And Sam knows that, because the night before he accepts Tyson’s offer he makes a mistake.
It starts out small. They’re at the movies, and they’re having a great night. Sam laughs with Tyson at all the appropriate spots, and halfway through an arm slings around his shoulders and he relaxes into it. He’s warm, happy, and he wants to be there forever. Except when he gets up the soda he’s holding slips, just slightly, and he fumbles to catch it. The fumble results in Sam spilling his drink over the guy in the seat in front of them.
This is the point when Tyson should refuse any knowledge of Sam and leave him to it. There aren’t many other people in the theater, and the guy loses his shit all over the place. Starts shouting about what an idiot Sam is and how expensive his shirt is. He reaches out once, a hand connecting with Sam’s shoulder and pushing him so hard the edge of the seat catches the back of his knees and he goes slamming backwards and down into the seat. His head hits the top of the chair awkwardly and there’s a bright wave of pain.
Someone further back in the theater tells them to “shut the fuck up”, but Sam’s ready. This is going to be a beat down, and he’ll fight but he’ll lose. Except Tyson is there, standing between them and getting in the guy’s face despite him being bigger and having several friends behind him.
“You got a problem asshole? Let’s take it outside.”
Sam grabs for Tyson’s sleeve, misses the first time, but gets it on the second try. “No wait. Tyson that’s not-“
“It is. No one touches my boy.”
And that? That right there is something Sam never thought he’d hear. He sits perfectly still, shocked, and watches what he’s realizing is his boyfriend go out the side exit with three dudes that should be able to clean his clock. Does it to protect Sam, and that’s not something he’s ready for at all.
He gets up from the chair and stumbles outside, because if Tyson is going to get beaten up Sam should be there to suffer with him. They can at least take one or two down before they’re totally destroyed, and if Sam is there they may leave Tyson alone at least a little.
Except when he gets out all three guys are already on the ground and Tyson’s crouching over the leader with a fist cocked back. He’s growling, and Sam looks at how vicious his usually well put-together man is. How feral and wild he looks like that. “-keep your fucking hands to yourself.”
When Tyson stands, knuckles bloody and only the barest hint of a bruise on his jaw Sam surges forward and presses his lips to Tyson’s. They’ve never kissed before, but it’s just like Sam imagined it would be. Tyson’s cool and soft lips pressing against his before they take over. Sam gives in, goes limp in Tyson’s hold, and lets his mouth be plundered. He doesn’t even mind when fingers grip him a bit too tight. This is worth a little pain.
----
Sam’s sixteenth birthday is spent locked in a room with a guy a few years younger than him crying and pleading for mercy as Sam flexes the power Ty-Brady has given him. The power he’s just learning to fully control. He has to separate the two in his mind. Has to give space between the man that lured him away and the monster that trains him. If he doesn’t he’ll go crazy. Well, crazier.
The man’s face twists in pain, the eyes flashing black briefly, and Sam wonders if maybe this is better or worse than being dead. Except he can’t die, or at the very least he can’t get Brady to let him kill himself. He’s tried though.
It’s been a year. A year of this and Sam can’t remember too clearly what it was like at the beginning. There was something then, something about Tyson Brady that made Sam jump ship to come with him. He thinks maybe it was love, or something like love, but what does a monster know about matters of the heart? Neither he nor Brady are qualified to say anything about love.
Sam does remember, with a hateful clarity, his foster mother telling him how useless and unlovable he was. She’ll never know how right she turned out to be. The black cloud emerges, and Sam twists his fist viciously and cuts the demon off before the young man slumps. His chest isn’t moving, and Sam knows that he’s dead. That Sam killed him. It happens more often than not these days.
Teeth sink into the meat of his shoulder, hard enough to draw blood, and there’s a moan behind him. He used to shiver because of how cool Brady’s skin was, but now he shivers in disgust. He doesn’t remember what it was like to be warm. Nowadays he’s always colder than Brady. Colder than anything. Sam’s given up sitting in the sun, given up hot showers, because nothing seems to return the warmth to his skin.
Instead he holds still while deft fingers flick the button on his pants open and shed him of his clothes quickly and efficiently. There’s no passion, no need, just a hard and fast blast of energy being burned off. Sam doesn’t fight. Brady likes it when he fights. He’s stopped struggling, stopped saying no, and most importantly stopped crying.
It’s rote memorization and Sam is good at that. His days pass in a blur of trying to avoid Brady’s attention as documentaries drone on the TV, of practicing the powers Brady has given him, and most importantly of taking his recommended daily dosage. The rush of power that comes with the coppery taste is the only time Sam feels alive anymore. Something inside of him, something no one was ever able to touch before, has curled up inside his head and died. He’s pretty sure he heard its last screams.
This is why he’s so surprised when they end up in the ranger’s station in the national park, and the little girl twisting in the ropes in front of them and begging for them not to hurt her wakes it up. That thing inside Sam that has been hiding for so long shudders, shakes, and then begins to scream, not right, not right, don’t do this.
He tries, tries so hard to ignore it, but there’s a feeling that comes with that strangled little voice. Something like being awake and alive, something warm, and Sam wants it. Suddenly wants it so badly that he can’t make himself move. So instead of reaching out, instead of digging around in her body the way Brady wants him to he turns his head and speaks. “No.”
There’s silence, heavy and oppressive, and then the merest brush of fingertips along his shoulder. He doesn’t shudder, but he wants to. “What?”
“N-no. I said no. Not t-this one.” He doesn’t turn to look. Knows exactly what he’ll see. The same thing he sometimes sees in the mirror, eyes black and face blank and impassive. Violence curled up in the corner of eyes Sam thought looked at him with love.
“Sam I don’t think you understand. It’s not a request. Do it or I have to get nasty.”
He swallows once, thick and heavy, and then shakes his head. “No. I w-won’t.” He can do this. He can die with dignity, and die he will. Brady will never put up with this sort of blatant disrespect.
A hand lands on his elbow, and he’s drawn to the door before his body slams into the wall. “Do we need to have a talk Sam? Do we need to be reminded about what you are, and why you’re here? Please don’t make me do that. You know I love you, you know how bad it hurts me to hurt you.” There’s no affection there. There’s not even a threat. Instead a hand brushes his cheek, and the voice is flat and empty. Sam knows it all too well.
“No.”
So now he’s being led outside, along a trail and through the wilderness, because Brady likes to hurt him best in the open. Where he can have hope that someone will see, will help, and no one ever does. The first time he took Sam in hand to remind him of his place was a public bathroom at a club, and some drunken guy actually laughed when Brady took him crying and screaming against the stall wall.
He sees a shape on the cliff face as they head around it, and realizes it’s someone climbing the rock. A girl as far as Sam can tell, and he hopes she won’t take notice. It would be bad if she got involved, worse if she simply watched it happen. Sam doesn’t have hope left for the humanity around him. Why should they care if a monster hurts another monster?
The walk takes a long time, and Sam at least gets to enjoy the beauty of the surrounding land before he dies. To soak in the sunshine that can’t warm him, the trees that can’t shelter him, and the rocky formations that don’t slow Brady’s purposeful step.
Then they’re on the other side of the cliff, and Sam’s pushed down and hits the rocks hard, feels them tear through the skin of his palms.
“Say it again. Say no to me one more time Sam. I just want to be sure you know you’ve earned your punishment.”
And Sam does. He earns every hit, every kick and bite, and he knows it. So he looks Brady in the eye, blue like he remembers but not the man he fell in love with. Not the Tyson who beat up the bullies at the theater or told him he had the most enchanting laugh. Brady, the demon, and Sam can do this. Sam can die like a man even if he isn’t one.
“No.” He doesn’t stammer, and then the pain begins.
When it stops Sam thinks he’s died, and he hears a struggle, harsh breathing, and then crashing. An odd soundtrack for Hell, but what did Sam expect? Music?
Except then there’s a hand, and he squints with his one working eye into the bright light of the sun and sees a towering shadow above him holding out one hand and blocking the worst of the light. She speaks, and Sam has to wonder if the offer she’s giving him is worth it, is any good at all. Does he want to live? Shouldn’t he just lie here, and let it all end? His brain casts back to that first time he and Brady, Tyson then, spoke. The book in his hand and the poem inside it open in front of him. Ah, when to the heart of man, was it ever less than a treason, to go with the drift of things, to yield with a grace to reason, and bow and accept the end.
Then he takes her hand. Lets her pull him up and help him along the rocky ground. Because suddenly Sam wants. Wants to get up and move. Wants to live.
-----
Sam is seventeen, right on the cusp of eighteen, when the last of Brady’s blood hits him. He was sure it was all out. The night sweats and the terrors had ended, and it seems so unfair that it’s come back. That it’s here again. Ope and Jeff have been gone for days, and Sam’s been getting increasingly nervous and unsettled until the morning he wakes up and knows, knows, that it’s still in him. That he’s tainting their happy household just by being here.
He can’t. He can’t drag them down with him. He’s just a monster after all, a thing, and so he draws the bath and then stares at himself in the mirror for a long time. If his eyes are really black, or if it’s just the force of memory that makes them look that way Sam will never know. All he does know is his hand strikes out and shatters the mirror almost casually. He takes one long piece, and then sets to the task at hand. Maybe he’s right, and maybe he’s wrong, but either way he’ll know in just a moment.
The glass cuts easily, and there’s red blood and maybe the hint of something else. So he bleeds like a person, and he looks like a person, and maybe those are good things. It’s hard to tell. He settles into the water and watches as it turns pink, as the colors mix and swirl and the room fills with that familiar and almost comforting coppery scent.
He’s honestly half asleep, drifting in and out of reality, when he hears it. It’s not human, not a sound he knows. A wail of animalistic agony, and his eyes shoot open to see Ope in the doorway with her hands over her mouth and her face white. He wants to comfort her, but he’s too sleepy.
Jeff appears over her shoulder, but Ope is already in motion. Her hands plunge into the water, and the whole time that high-pitched scream is coming out of her mouth as her tiny hands slip and slide through the water and his blood to grasp and push at his wound. She reaches up and snatches a towel off the rack so hard it breaks from the plaster of the wall, and then she’s pressing it against the wound as her other hand pulls the drain plug.
Jeff disappears, and the whole time Ope is just screaming. Agony now mixed with fear and rage. There are no words, and the sound breaks off and falters when Sam touches her face as best he can through his doubling vision and tries to smile.
“Sorry Ope.” It’s all he can get out, and the world goes black around him.
When he wakes up he’s in the bed in their house, the one they insist is his. Ope is sitting beside the bed, her arms dyed in flaking red and her head hanging low. Red and black hair covers her face, and her chest moves smoothly without a sound. Sam swallows once, throat dry, and then shifts. That’s when he notices that his arms are bound, and there’s an IV line in his right elbow pumping in blood. How they got it is beyond him, although he knows that Jeff knows a lot of strange people.
“Ope?” Her head comes up, but her blue eyes are wide and unseeing as she stares through him.
“Yeah?”
“Why?” He wants to know, but he’s not sure she’ll tell him. Not sure she even understands what he’s asking until her lips purse and her hands twitch. She fumbles into her pockets and pulls out the cigarette pack before popping one into her mouth and lighting it. Jeff hates when she smokes inside.
“Fuck you.” He expected it, but it still hurts. “Fuck you and fuck your stupid questions. Why? Fucking why Sam? I could ask the same goddamn thing. You crash into my fucking life, and then turn everything fucking upside down, and then this? You were getting better. We both know you were getting better. So, fuck, why?”
“I-“ He falters, unsure, and sees the eagerness in her eyes. The hope that it was a mistake or an accident even though they both know it wasn’t. “I wanted to see if I had organs like a human being. I want-wanted to-I just-I’m a mon-monster Ope.”
Her fingers tremble, and then the cigarette hits the floor and there’s a bright spark of pain in his face while his vision whites and his head snaps sideways. Her hand stays in the air, palm open, and then she falls into the bed sobbing and presses against his uncut side. “Sammy-Sammy please-“
It’s the shaking that gets him. The way her whole body shakes like she’s about to fly apart into tiny pieces. He wants to hold her, but his hands are securely bound, and he can’t move much at all other than to shift closer against her. His cheek throbs and his side hurts, but there’s something shifting inside him as she weeps into his chest. Something coming back to life, and it hurts, but it’s more than welcome.
“Sammy you’re-Jesus man you’re my everything. You’re my goddamn all, and fucking don’t do this to me. Don’t fucking leave me. Don’t fucking take yourself away or put yourself back there, because you fucking escaped. You fucking escaped so please honey, fucking please just stay with me. It’s selfish and fucking shitty, but please don’t leave me. I can’t do this without you. I can’t fucking do this, and you’re supposed to be my fucking friend and you’re like a fucking-please Sammy. Please.”
And Sam? He has no words for that. Nothing to say and no way to argue it. Because this is real. This isn’t any of that early manipulative bullshit Brady pulled to reel him in. There’s no art here, no smooth language and soothing sweetness. Ope’s raw, hard, and there’s snot and tears soaking through his shirt as she breaks and shatters at the thought of losing him. The thought of not having him in her life anymore.
What he did to earn it is irrelevant. Sam can’t care about that, or about how badly she shouldn’t want this with him. How she should want him as far from her as possible. All he can think about is how close he came to destroying her, and what he should have thought of before. He might not matter much to himself, but for whatever reason the lunatic currently pressed up against him can’t function without him. Loves him, and he has to uphold that. Has to be good and safe and well for her, because she doesn’t deserve to break.
“Untie me.” She looks up, eyes wide and frightened, and then somehow reads him and understands. She undoes the knots deftly and then Sam is wrapping the arm without the needle in it around her and pulling her in tight. He’s weak, tired, and he wants to sleep now, but he has to do this first. “I’m sorry Ope. So sorry. I didn’t think. I promise you, I promise I won’t ever do this again. Ok? I promise.”
And Sam means it.
-----
Sam is twenty-six when he finds out his real birthday. When he was a kid they designated it as the day he was found at the hospital. When he changed his last name to Burton Ope gave him one near Christmas, because “he was her best present”. Sam didn’t get to tease her half as much as Jeff did about that one, because it always made him tear up a little. So when he wakes up on May 2nd in a motel room with a very pleased looking Dean holding a Hostess cupcake with a candle in it Sam is honestly more than a little perplexed.
“What-Dean what the hell are you doing?”
Dean’s eyes moved from the cupcake, to Sam, and then back to the cupcake. “Uh. Yeah. I’m-well what does it look like Sam?” The blush spreading over his cheeks makes Sam want to lick him, but he restrains himself and pushes his way up from the bed.
“Being a lunatic at-“ he checked the bedside clock and groaned, “-six a.m. What the hell Dean?”
His brother’s lips pursed, almost a pout, and then shifted into full pout when Sam didn’t immediately retract his statement and start heaping praise on Dean. “I brought you a cake. For your birthday.”
“My birthday isn’t-“ Except it probably is. Because Dean knows his actual birthday. His real birthday.
Sam has a real birthday.
It shouldn’t mean so much, shouldn’t be so much of a revelation, but it is. The sudden understanding that Dean knows things about Sam that Sam doesn’t know. That all that stuff they needed when he was a kid and never had is right here in Dean’s head. Medical history, birthdate, social security number. All the stuff Sam was given as a child born to a family, and then all that was taken from him.
He’s been given everything since those days in Texas ended. A family he can love, a lover that will go to the ends of the earth for him, and a purpose. A chance to be a real hero instead of a monster.
Sam blows out his candle, drops the cake on the bedside table, and then drags Dean into the sheets with him. Because after all, it’s his birthday.
Wordcount: Total 11,644
Rating: R
Warning(s): Explicit Language, Violence, References to Non-Con
Beta(s): The irresistible
sammichgirl, who is not at fault for the mistakes I left.Summary: A timestamp for "Lost Time", examines Ope and Sam's pasts. Won't make much sense if you haven't read "Lost Time", and has spoilers for the story.
Sam
Sam is almost seven when he first realizes just how serious it is that he doesn’t have parents. It’s not like he’s missed the little things. The way the other kids seem to already have friends in place when he joins the first grade class, or how they all have nice clothes that fit them just right. Sam can see that every one of the other kids look at him strangely, as if he’s something new or confusing. He lets them.
When reading time comes no one offers to be his partner and read off his book, and at recess no one wants to play with him. All of this is old news to Sam. He expects it, and he doesn’t mind it. He has an active imagination, and he doesn’t need them. He pretends instead that when the day is over he’s going to go home, and there’ll be two parents and a big dog waiting for him. Some days he has an older brother waiting too, and some days he’s going to go home to his little brother. Either way, there’s always a brother there that wants to do something like catch or a board game. Sorry or Monopoly. Sam doesn’t care what game, as long as there is a game, and a sibling waiting to play it.
Except today he’s not out in the yard watching the other kids play and imagining, today he’s in the bathroom. He didn’t feel great yesterday, but this morning when he woke up he knew he needed to stay home. His foster mother pushed him out the door with the two older girls that stay with them, and he waited for the bus as he shook in place. Now he’s in the bathroom, curled around the toilet and losing the toast he had for breakfast.
Mrs. Henderson finds him, and she carries him to the nurse’s office and they exclaim about fever and something else. They can’t give him anything, or do anything until his foster mother arrives. Which wouldn’t be a problem, except they call and call but she never answers. The school day drags past, and it only gets worse. He can’t focus anymore on what they’re saying around him, and the heaving won’t stop. It just won’t stop.
He wakes up in a hospital bed, a needle in his arm and a nurse standing over him and looking disapproving. His side hurts, and when he looks down there’s a bandage there that he didn’t have before. He can hear his case worker arguing in the hallway with his foster mother about neglect, about the necessity of being reachable, and then Sam never sees Mrs. Henderson again. He gets moved to a new foster family, and that means a new school. He works hard to never get sick again, even if they tell him there’s no way to stop appendicitis.
----
By the time Sam turns ten he knows all the buzzwords to make the bored woman that visits him think he’s alright. He knows how to talk about being well-adjusted, to praise his foster parents and siblings, and to show them how well he’s doing at school. It’s rote memorization and Sam is better at that than they will ever know.
He knows what kinds of clothes he needs to wear when they’re too rough, and what he needs to do to hide the fact his ribs always show a little too much, and that his cheekbones are just a bit too sharp. They never ask anything other than the standard questions, and Sam knows all of those too. It’s not hard to play the game, and Sam is an expert at it.
The kids at school give him a hard time, but he doesn’t care. He locks it all down tight, and never lets them see if they get under any of the tiny chinks in his armor. When it’s not the case worker, when it’s just him and any number of strangers that can’t quite get to him Sam doesn’t talk. Instead he reads. Books are a revelation that Sam can’t get over. He can be a knight traveling the countryside, or a respected lawyer, or even the president of the United States.
He’s not Little Orphan Sam anymore. He’s not the weird kid whose clothes don’t fit right, or the strange little boy that everyone seems to love to push or make fun of. When his foster brother starts burning the hairs on his legs Sam drops the right words and gets moved to another house.
He doesn’t mind chores, doesn’t mind cooking or cleaning, but he won’t let them exploit his weaknesses. Won’t let them touch his nightmares or the things the make him want to scream when all he can do is tighten his fists and bite his lip. Sam won’t let them get to him, and he has to work hard to protect himself. No one else will do it for him, and he’s learned that lesson the hard way. If he doesn’t like what’s happening he has to change it, and if he can’t change it he has to find a way to hide from it.
He lives in other countries, ones with rolling hills and dragons. He lives in castles and mansions, and he fights crime and preserves honor. That’s Sam, and the rest of it is inconsequential.
Really.
It doesn’t bother him that other boys his age are starting to notice girls and he has no interest, because if he’s odd in every other way he can be odd in this one too. He has no interest in pulling hair or playing pranks. It’s childish, and Sam is not a child. He knows that better than anything else.
His current foster mother is loud, likes to shout at her husband and the other kids in the house. Sam doesn’t care for her much, but he gets three meals a day and that’s worth putting up with a little volume. Except one night that volume is coupled with fingernails digging into his arm as she drags him through the house and into the kitchen. She points to a broken glass, and asks him if he’s responsible. When he says no she shakes him once, hard, and then points again.
“You’re telling me you didn’t do this? That you ain’t responsible? Well, you better think again, ’cause I know for a fact it was your night to do the damn dishes and it wasn’t broken before. You gotta learn to take responsibility for what you done boy. Ain’t nobody in this world gonna give up their time for something like you, so you gotta own up and clean up your own mistakes. You got me?”
He nods once and then starts to brush the glass up, but she hits his wrist and a piece digs in and cuts the tender flesh of his palm. It hurts, hurt a lot, but Sam doesn’t make a noise. He just looks up at her.
“Your parents didn’t want you, the people before me didn’t want you, and I don’t want you. What’cha gonna do when the state ain’t paying your way no more? What’cha gonna do when you gotta be wanted, ‘cause it ain’t gonna happen Samuel. You ain’t that kind of kid.”
He goes to bed that night with his cut hand curled against his chest and her shrieking voice ringing in his ears. Three weeks later when the social worker comes Sam tells her about the incident in a hollow voice, sheds a few tears, and goes to another foster family. It doesn’t matter. They’ll be just as bad, but at least he doesn’t have to listen to that voice anymore. Doesn’t have to think about it being right.
-----
Sam’s fifteen, leaning back in a book shop with a copy of Contact in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. It took up a good deal of his spending cash, but he’s willing to give it up to get the rare moment of peace associated with the act.
It’s been a year of aches and pains, but Sam is finally starting to really shoot up. He’s going to be tall, he knows it, and he wonders idly if his real parents were tall. One or both of them. If they had their growth spurts at the same time, and if they thought one day they’d pass those genetics onto someone else. If they were in love, and if his mother wanted to have tall children that she could look at in the way he sometimes sees his classmates parents look at them.
Sam knows now that while he’s not necessarily asexual, he’s not sure where his tastes lie. Bobby Forte kissed him a week before, and Sam liked it, but Bobby is dating Rachel and he’s happy with that. Sam was just an experiment, which is ok because so was Bobby. Although Sam would never say that to him.
He gets along better now. The mocking is still there, but people keep their hands to themselves for the most part and Sam is happy for it. His current foster home has no physical abuse, but he’s tired of it. He gets up in the morning and moves through the house like a ghost, has the same experience when he gets home. No one talks to him, and Sam lives in perpetual silence. It’s not the worst thing he’s ever experienced, but he still hates it.
Sometimes at night he lies in bed awake and wonders what would happen if he just started talking one night, started telling them his story, and what it’s done to him. What would happen if he spouted off his hopes and dreams, or recited poetry, or just something to break the constant silence.
It’s while he’s flipping to the next page that Sam really feels the weight of the gaze for the first time. His eyes travel upwards, over the top of the page, and there he is.
It’s instantly electric, the blue eyes taking in his face, and the lips curving into a small smile. Sam’s never really flirted before, and for half a second he tries to recall the things he’s read about flirting. Eye contact, that’s important, but he can’t do it. Instead he closes the book, picks up his drink, and runs out of the store at top speed. He makes it home with his bag hanging off one shoulder and no one asks where he’s been or how his day was. Not that he was expecting it.
It’s a month before he sees the guy again, and Sam isn’t completely surprised when the man sits down across from him. He’s gotta be over eighteen, but he looks at Sam’s copy of the collected works of Frost for a moment before pointing. “The leaves are all dead on the trees, save those that the oak is keeping.”
He feels the grin threatening to spill out, and he closes the book around his finger and meets the blue eyes dead on. “I have come by the highway home, and lo it is ended.” The guy laughs once, holds out a soft hand that Sam grips tightly, and then leans back in his chair and straightens out the legs of his slacks.
“You’re a big fan I see.”
“So are you. I’m Sam.” The eyes brighten for a second, and then the smile is wider and more generous. For a second Sam can’t get over how bright and straight his teeth are.
“Tyson. It’s a pleasure to meet you Sam. So do your poetry interests end at Frost, or do you have any other favorites?”
And Sam? Sam likes that smile. Likes the question, and the real interest he thinks he sees behind it. He likes to be the center of Tyson’s interests, and he likes to talk to the older guy. They stay in the coffee part of the bookstore for three hours, chatting easily about everything. Sam doesn’t tell him he’s an orphan or that he’s in the system. Doesn’t mention the bullies at school or skipping grades. Instead they discuss books and art, TV, and sports as if they’ve known each other forever.
When he has to leave he collects his things and then looks up in surprise when Tyson slips him a piece of paper with his number. “I’d like to see you again. If it’s alright?”
And yeah. Yeah it’s more than alright, because Sam wants that more than anything. So he nods and smiles, and he clutches the number to this chest the whole way home.
Friday comes and Sam resigns himself to an entire weekend of silence. Of eating leftovers because when dinner is served no one gets him, and he knows instinctively that’s because they’d rather not have to eat with him at the table. Which is ok. Sam’s ok.
Except by the end of the weekend he’s shaking. Can’t stand the oppressive quality of the silence, or how badly it shakes him that sometimes he has to touch his own body to be sure that he’s still solid and real. That he hasn’t become the ghost they are making him. He calls Tyson, and they end up at the same part of the bookshop.
It takes three weeks of conversation for Tyson to talk Sam into leaving with him. By that point Sam thinks he knows everything there is to know about Tyson. Thinks that there can’t possibility be anyone more perfect on the face of the planet.
When he’s with Tyson he feels loved, feels alive, and he’s never had anything like that. Fuck his old foster mother, because here’s someone who wants him. Who will want him when he’s not a warden of the state anymore. Here’s someone that will take care of his messes. And Sam knows that, because the night before he accepts Tyson’s offer he makes a mistake.
It starts out small. They’re at the movies, and they’re having a great night. Sam laughs with Tyson at all the appropriate spots, and halfway through an arm slings around his shoulders and he relaxes into it. He’s warm, happy, and he wants to be there forever. Except when he gets up the soda he’s holding slips, just slightly, and he fumbles to catch it. The fumble results in Sam spilling his drink over the guy in the seat in front of them.
This is the point when Tyson should refuse any knowledge of Sam and leave him to it. There aren’t many other people in the theater, and the guy loses his shit all over the place. Starts shouting about what an idiot Sam is and how expensive his shirt is. He reaches out once, a hand connecting with Sam’s shoulder and pushing him so hard the edge of the seat catches the back of his knees and he goes slamming backwards and down into the seat. His head hits the top of the chair awkwardly and there’s a bright wave of pain.
Someone further back in the theater tells them to “shut the fuck up”, but Sam’s ready. This is going to be a beat down, and he’ll fight but he’ll lose. Except Tyson is there, standing between them and getting in the guy’s face despite him being bigger and having several friends behind him.
“You got a problem asshole? Let’s take it outside.”
Sam grabs for Tyson’s sleeve, misses the first time, but gets it on the second try. “No wait. Tyson that’s not-“
“It is. No one touches my boy.”
And that? That right there is something Sam never thought he’d hear. He sits perfectly still, shocked, and watches what he’s realizing is his boyfriend go out the side exit with three dudes that should be able to clean his clock. Does it to protect Sam, and that’s not something he’s ready for at all.
He gets up from the chair and stumbles outside, because if Tyson is going to get beaten up Sam should be there to suffer with him. They can at least take one or two down before they’re totally destroyed, and if Sam is there they may leave Tyson alone at least a little.
Except when he gets out all three guys are already on the ground and Tyson’s crouching over the leader with a fist cocked back. He’s growling, and Sam looks at how vicious his usually well put-together man is. How feral and wild he looks like that. “-keep your fucking hands to yourself.”
When Tyson stands, knuckles bloody and only the barest hint of a bruise on his jaw Sam surges forward and presses his lips to Tyson’s. They’ve never kissed before, but it’s just like Sam imagined it would be. Tyson’s cool and soft lips pressing against his before they take over. Sam gives in, goes limp in Tyson’s hold, and lets his mouth be plundered. He doesn’t even mind when fingers grip him a bit too tight. This is worth a little pain.
----
Sam’s sixteenth birthday is spent locked in a room with a guy a few years younger than him crying and pleading for mercy as Sam flexes the power Ty-Brady has given him. The power he’s just learning to fully control. He has to separate the two in his mind. Has to give space between the man that lured him away and the monster that trains him. If he doesn’t he’ll go crazy. Well, crazier.
The man’s face twists in pain, the eyes flashing black briefly, and Sam wonders if maybe this is better or worse than being dead. Except he can’t die, or at the very least he can’t get Brady to let him kill himself. He’s tried though.
It’s been a year. A year of this and Sam can’t remember too clearly what it was like at the beginning. There was something then, something about Tyson Brady that made Sam jump ship to come with him. He thinks maybe it was love, or something like love, but what does a monster know about matters of the heart? Neither he nor Brady are qualified to say anything about love.
Sam does remember, with a hateful clarity, his foster mother telling him how useless and unlovable he was. She’ll never know how right she turned out to be. The black cloud emerges, and Sam twists his fist viciously and cuts the demon off before the young man slumps. His chest isn’t moving, and Sam knows that he’s dead. That Sam killed him. It happens more often than not these days.
Teeth sink into the meat of his shoulder, hard enough to draw blood, and there’s a moan behind him. He used to shiver because of how cool Brady’s skin was, but now he shivers in disgust. He doesn’t remember what it was like to be warm. Nowadays he’s always colder than Brady. Colder than anything. Sam’s given up sitting in the sun, given up hot showers, because nothing seems to return the warmth to his skin.
Instead he holds still while deft fingers flick the button on his pants open and shed him of his clothes quickly and efficiently. There’s no passion, no need, just a hard and fast blast of energy being burned off. Sam doesn’t fight. Brady likes it when he fights. He’s stopped struggling, stopped saying no, and most importantly stopped crying.
It’s rote memorization and Sam is good at that. His days pass in a blur of trying to avoid Brady’s attention as documentaries drone on the TV, of practicing the powers Brady has given him, and most importantly of taking his recommended daily dosage. The rush of power that comes with the coppery taste is the only time Sam feels alive anymore. Something inside of him, something no one was ever able to touch before, has curled up inside his head and died. He’s pretty sure he heard its last screams.
This is why he’s so surprised when they end up in the ranger’s station in the national park, and the little girl twisting in the ropes in front of them and begging for them not to hurt her wakes it up. That thing inside Sam that has been hiding for so long shudders, shakes, and then begins to scream, not right, not right, don’t do this.
He tries, tries so hard to ignore it, but there’s a feeling that comes with that strangled little voice. Something like being awake and alive, something warm, and Sam wants it. Suddenly wants it so badly that he can’t make himself move. So instead of reaching out, instead of digging around in her body the way Brady wants him to he turns his head and speaks. “No.”
There’s silence, heavy and oppressive, and then the merest brush of fingertips along his shoulder. He doesn’t shudder, but he wants to. “What?”
“N-no. I said no. Not t-this one.” He doesn’t turn to look. Knows exactly what he’ll see. The same thing he sometimes sees in the mirror, eyes black and face blank and impassive. Violence curled up in the corner of eyes Sam thought looked at him with love.
“Sam I don’t think you understand. It’s not a request. Do it or I have to get nasty.”
He swallows once, thick and heavy, and then shakes his head. “No. I w-won’t.” He can do this. He can die with dignity, and die he will. Brady will never put up with this sort of blatant disrespect.
A hand lands on his elbow, and he’s drawn to the door before his body slams into the wall. “Do we need to have a talk Sam? Do we need to be reminded about what you are, and why you’re here? Please don’t make me do that. You know I love you, you know how bad it hurts me to hurt you.” There’s no affection there. There’s not even a threat. Instead a hand brushes his cheek, and the voice is flat and empty. Sam knows it all too well.
“No.”
So now he’s being led outside, along a trail and through the wilderness, because Brady likes to hurt him best in the open. Where he can have hope that someone will see, will help, and no one ever does. The first time he took Sam in hand to remind him of his place was a public bathroom at a club, and some drunken guy actually laughed when Brady took him crying and screaming against the stall wall.
He sees a shape on the cliff face as they head around it, and realizes it’s someone climbing the rock. A girl as far as Sam can tell, and he hopes she won’t take notice. It would be bad if she got involved, worse if she simply watched it happen. Sam doesn’t have hope left for the humanity around him. Why should they care if a monster hurts another monster?
The walk takes a long time, and Sam at least gets to enjoy the beauty of the surrounding land before he dies. To soak in the sunshine that can’t warm him, the trees that can’t shelter him, and the rocky formations that don’t slow Brady’s purposeful step.
Then they’re on the other side of the cliff, and Sam’s pushed down and hits the rocks hard, feels them tear through the skin of his palms.
“Say it again. Say no to me one more time Sam. I just want to be sure you know you’ve earned your punishment.”
And Sam does. He earns every hit, every kick and bite, and he knows it. So he looks Brady in the eye, blue like he remembers but not the man he fell in love with. Not the Tyson who beat up the bullies at the theater or told him he had the most enchanting laugh. Brady, the demon, and Sam can do this. Sam can die like a man even if he isn’t one.
“No.” He doesn’t stammer, and then the pain begins.
When it stops Sam thinks he’s died, and he hears a struggle, harsh breathing, and then crashing. An odd soundtrack for Hell, but what did Sam expect? Music?
Except then there’s a hand, and he squints with his one working eye into the bright light of the sun and sees a towering shadow above him holding out one hand and blocking the worst of the light. She speaks, and Sam has to wonder if the offer she’s giving him is worth it, is any good at all. Does he want to live? Shouldn’t he just lie here, and let it all end? His brain casts back to that first time he and Brady, Tyson then, spoke. The book in his hand and the poem inside it open in front of him. Ah, when to the heart of man, was it ever less than a treason, to go with the drift of things, to yield with a grace to reason, and bow and accept the end.
Then he takes her hand. Lets her pull him up and help him along the rocky ground. Because suddenly Sam wants. Wants to get up and move. Wants to live.
-----
Sam is seventeen, right on the cusp of eighteen, when the last of Brady’s blood hits him. He was sure it was all out. The night sweats and the terrors had ended, and it seems so unfair that it’s come back. That it’s here again. Ope and Jeff have been gone for days, and Sam’s been getting increasingly nervous and unsettled until the morning he wakes up and knows, knows, that it’s still in him. That he’s tainting their happy household just by being here.
He can’t. He can’t drag them down with him. He’s just a monster after all, a thing, and so he draws the bath and then stares at himself in the mirror for a long time. If his eyes are really black, or if it’s just the force of memory that makes them look that way Sam will never know. All he does know is his hand strikes out and shatters the mirror almost casually. He takes one long piece, and then sets to the task at hand. Maybe he’s right, and maybe he’s wrong, but either way he’ll know in just a moment.
The glass cuts easily, and there’s red blood and maybe the hint of something else. So he bleeds like a person, and he looks like a person, and maybe those are good things. It’s hard to tell. He settles into the water and watches as it turns pink, as the colors mix and swirl and the room fills with that familiar and almost comforting coppery scent.
He’s honestly half asleep, drifting in and out of reality, when he hears it. It’s not human, not a sound he knows. A wail of animalistic agony, and his eyes shoot open to see Ope in the doorway with her hands over her mouth and her face white. He wants to comfort her, but he’s too sleepy.
Jeff appears over her shoulder, but Ope is already in motion. Her hands plunge into the water, and the whole time that high-pitched scream is coming out of her mouth as her tiny hands slip and slide through the water and his blood to grasp and push at his wound. She reaches up and snatches a towel off the rack so hard it breaks from the plaster of the wall, and then she’s pressing it against the wound as her other hand pulls the drain plug.
Jeff disappears, and the whole time Ope is just screaming. Agony now mixed with fear and rage. There are no words, and the sound breaks off and falters when Sam touches her face as best he can through his doubling vision and tries to smile.
“Sorry Ope.” It’s all he can get out, and the world goes black around him.
When he wakes up he’s in the bed in their house, the one they insist is his. Ope is sitting beside the bed, her arms dyed in flaking red and her head hanging low. Red and black hair covers her face, and her chest moves smoothly without a sound. Sam swallows once, throat dry, and then shifts. That’s when he notices that his arms are bound, and there’s an IV line in his right elbow pumping in blood. How they got it is beyond him, although he knows that Jeff knows a lot of strange people.
“Ope?” Her head comes up, but her blue eyes are wide and unseeing as she stares through him.
“Yeah?”
“Why?” He wants to know, but he’s not sure she’ll tell him. Not sure she even understands what he’s asking until her lips purse and her hands twitch. She fumbles into her pockets and pulls out the cigarette pack before popping one into her mouth and lighting it. Jeff hates when she smokes inside.
“Fuck you.” He expected it, but it still hurts. “Fuck you and fuck your stupid questions. Why? Fucking why Sam? I could ask the same goddamn thing. You crash into my fucking life, and then turn everything fucking upside down, and then this? You were getting better. We both know you were getting better. So, fuck, why?”
“I-“ He falters, unsure, and sees the eagerness in her eyes. The hope that it was a mistake or an accident even though they both know it wasn’t. “I wanted to see if I had organs like a human being. I want-wanted to-I just-I’m a mon-monster Ope.”
Her fingers tremble, and then the cigarette hits the floor and there’s a bright spark of pain in his face while his vision whites and his head snaps sideways. Her hand stays in the air, palm open, and then she falls into the bed sobbing and presses against his uncut side. “Sammy-Sammy please-“
It’s the shaking that gets him. The way her whole body shakes like she’s about to fly apart into tiny pieces. He wants to hold her, but his hands are securely bound, and he can’t move much at all other than to shift closer against her. His cheek throbs and his side hurts, but there’s something shifting inside him as she weeps into his chest. Something coming back to life, and it hurts, but it’s more than welcome.
“Sammy you’re-Jesus man you’re my everything. You’re my goddamn all, and fucking don’t do this to me. Don’t fucking leave me. Don’t fucking take yourself away or put yourself back there, because you fucking escaped. You fucking escaped so please honey, fucking please just stay with me. It’s selfish and fucking shitty, but please don’t leave me. I can’t do this without you. I can’t fucking do this, and you’re supposed to be my fucking friend and you’re like a fucking-please Sammy. Please.”
And Sam? He has no words for that. Nothing to say and no way to argue it. Because this is real. This isn’t any of that early manipulative bullshit Brady pulled to reel him in. There’s no art here, no smooth language and soothing sweetness. Ope’s raw, hard, and there’s snot and tears soaking through his shirt as she breaks and shatters at the thought of losing him. The thought of not having him in her life anymore.
What he did to earn it is irrelevant. Sam can’t care about that, or about how badly she shouldn’t want this with him. How she should want him as far from her as possible. All he can think about is how close he came to destroying her, and what he should have thought of before. He might not matter much to himself, but for whatever reason the lunatic currently pressed up against him can’t function without him. Loves him, and he has to uphold that. Has to be good and safe and well for her, because she doesn’t deserve to break.
“Untie me.” She looks up, eyes wide and frightened, and then somehow reads him and understands. She undoes the knots deftly and then Sam is wrapping the arm without the needle in it around her and pulling her in tight. He’s weak, tired, and he wants to sleep now, but he has to do this first. “I’m sorry Ope. So sorry. I didn’t think. I promise you, I promise I won’t ever do this again. Ok? I promise.”
And Sam means it.
-----
Sam is twenty-six when he finds out his real birthday. When he was a kid they designated it as the day he was found at the hospital. When he changed his last name to Burton Ope gave him one near Christmas, because “he was her best present”. Sam didn’t get to tease her half as much as Jeff did about that one, because it always made him tear up a little. So when he wakes up on May 2nd in a motel room with a very pleased looking Dean holding a Hostess cupcake with a candle in it Sam is honestly more than a little perplexed.
“What-Dean what the hell are you doing?”
Dean’s eyes moved from the cupcake, to Sam, and then back to the cupcake. “Uh. Yeah. I’m-well what does it look like Sam?” The blush spreading over his cheeks makes Sam want to lick him, but he restrains himself and pushes his way up from the bed.
“Being a lunatic at-“ he checked the bedside clock and groaned, “-six a.m. What the hell Dean?”
His brother’s lips pursed, almost a pout, and then shifted into full pout when Sam didn’t immediately retract his statement and start heaping praise on Dean. “I brought you a cake. For your birthday.”
“My birthday isn’t-“ Except it probably is. Because Dean knows his actual birthday. His real birthday.
Sam has a real birthday.
It shouldn’t mean so much, shouldn’t be so much of a revelation, but it is. The sudden understanding that Dean knows things about Sam that Sam doesn’t know. That all that stuff they needed when he was a kid and never had is right here in Dean’s head. Medical history, birthdate, social security number. All the stuff Sam was given as a child born to a family, and then all that was taken from him.
He’s been given everything since those days in Texas ended. A family he can love, a lover that will go to the ends of the earth for him, and a purpose. A chance to be a real hero instead of a monster.
Sam blows out his candle, drops the cake on the bedside table, and then drags Dean into the sheets with him. Because after all, it’s his birthday.
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Date: 2013-02-16 02:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-16 09:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-17 07:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-17 03:13 pm (UTC)Glad you enjoyed, and thanks for reviewing!
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Date: 2013-02-18 02:13 pm (UTC)But reading these after the story, well, it's puzzle pieces falling into place. I won't say I didn't cry. I won't *say* it.
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Date: 2013-02-18 02:29 pm (UTC)Sometimes though I just want to try my hand at a crack fic. Maybe a Sam turned into a lady story or...something that's just laughing a lot. Laughing would be awesome.
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Date: 2013-02-18 02:55 pm (UTC):p
I don't know why I get a kick out of awful, terrible or funny and awesome stuff happening to Sam. He's like my own personal posable doll.
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Date: 2013-02-18 09:11 pm (UTC)Ohhh so many good examples. :D
Plus, me and goatskins may get way sexier than funny, although my brain is formulating it now...
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Date: 2013-02-23 04:52 pm (UTC)This made me cry.
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Date: 2013-02-23 08:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-22 04:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-22 04:32 am (UTC)I feel like Emma Thompson in Stranger Than Fiction. Any second now some character is going to walk in and tell me I'm ruining their life... :)
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Date: 2013-03-22 04:40 am (UTC)Fortunately, I love being treated this way. ;)