Monsters We Have Been
Nov. 15th, 2010 10:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
glorious_spoonTitle: Monsters We Have Been
Pairing: Gen
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Summary: Sam thinks most hunters end up like this, if they survive. Future-fic, not very happy.
Dean never quits drinking.
That's the touchstone in the whole thing. That's the pivot-point that Sam keeps in his mind, the compass-spike of their whole, long, fucked-up existence. Dean never quits drinking, and that's such a sad, normal thing that it's impossible to forget. Functional alcoholism. Even with the brand new lease on life he got from Castiel, it's going to get him an early grave, probably.
He'd mention something to that effect if he thought Dean would care.
Everything else, Sam tends to forget about. It's just a thing. Just one of those things, hazard of the job. Not many hunters live this long, and Sam's pretty sure that most of the ones that do end up like him and Dean. Like Bobby. Rufus. Dad. Samuel Campbell was the closest to sane, and even he was a few cards short of a full deck.
It just happens sometimes. When they're tired, when they're sick, when a hunt went bad. A certain smell, the salt-iron taste of blood in Sam's mouth, a coroner who talks with the same Brando-knockoff cadence as Alistair. And then there's Sam locked in the bathroom for two days straight while Dean sleeps against the door, gun in hand, Sammy, dude, you're being ridiculous, at least open the door and let me give you some freaking food--
Or Dean pacing pacing pacing until he's so exhausted that he's walking into walls and hitting his hands and his knees and his feet on the furniture and Sam has to watch to make sure he doesn't take his lighter out and hold the flame against his own skin, absently, like the pain is a comfort.
They've never both freaked out at the same time. There's that. There's always someone on the outside, talking down whichever one is locked in his own private nightmare at the moment.
They take care of each other. It's what they do. It's all either of them really knows how to do. Sam does research, when he has the time, PTSD and triggers and trauma therapy, but this is them. Normal doesn't really apply.
Dean laughs at him. We're not trauma survivors, dude. We're fuck-ups.
Like they're not the same thing. Like one has nothing at all to do with the other.
You watch too many after-school specials, Sam.
And: Sammy, Sammy, come on, just breathe, okay? There's nothing here. You didn't hurt me. You didn't hurt anyone. You're okay. Breathe.
And this: the familiar late-night sound of a body jerking suddenly awake, the twist of a cap and the smell of cheap liquor, two long gulps and a sigh and the bedside lamp never even comes on. Whiskey and a knife, right next to Dean's pillow where he can reach them without thinking.
They have to skip town fast when Dean gets into a barfight and beats the other guy to a pulp and then some. Two counties out, after they finally shake the cops, Sam's wrapping his knuckles where they're split and bloody and all Dean will say is douchebag, fucking douchebag, over and over again like it's a prayer.
He still screams in his sleep, when the nightmares are bad and he runs out of whiskey. Most of the time, it's variations on the theme of please, God, stop, I'll do anything. Sometimes, though, it's apologies, and those are worse.
Sam spends an entire night's poker winnings on a bump of the latest and greatest designer cocktail and he's flying high when Dean finds him, just flying. Dean locks him in a cheap motel room and gentles him through the shakes. Doesn't bother with an ER. Sam's come down off of worse, and at least this doesn't have him hallucinating demon-possessed relatives.
He doesn't ask why Sam did something so dumbfuck stupid, so Sam doesn't have to tell him about the waitress who looked just like a woman he put down in the year he wasn't entirely Sam. A pretty brunette with green eyes and freckles. A civilian, stepped into the wrong place at the wrong time and he didn't even hesitate. He didn't hesitate at all.
She wasn't the only one.
And this: Sam never really gets over Jess. Years and miles and a river of blood on his hands, and he's not the same person she loved when they were twenty and the world seemed so new, but he still can't imagine sleeping next to anyone else. This is what he means when he tells Dean that he isn't going to settle down, that he doesn't really know how to anymore.
Dean accepts it even though he doesn't really understand. Dad would have understood, Sam thinks, but it's just one more in a long list of things they never got around to talking about.
The closest Dean ever got to settling down was Lisa, and much as he cared about her--and he did care about her--it was never a life he knew how to live.
It's just them. Sam and Dean, the Winchester brothers against the world and the world against them, most of the time. It's what they know.
It's everything they've always known.
Pairing: Gen
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Summary: Sam thinks most hunters end up like this, if they survive. Future-fic, not very happy.
Dean never quits drinking.
That's the touchstone in the whole thing. That's the pivot-point that Sam keeps in his mind, the compass-spike of their whole, long, fucked-up existence. Dean never quits drinking, and that's such a sad, normal thing that it's impossible to forget. Functional alcoholism. Even with the brand new lease on life he got from Castiel, it's going to get him an early grave, probably.
He'd mention something to that effect if he thought Dean would care.
Everything else, Sam tends to forget about. It's just a thing. Just one of those things, hazard of the job. Not many hunters live this long, and Sam's pretty sure that most of the ones that do end up like him and Dean. Like Bobby. Rufus. Dad. Samuel Campbell was the closest to sane, and even he was a few cards short of a full deck.
It just happens sometimes. When they're tired, when they're sick, when a hunt went bad. A certain smell, the salt-iron taste of blood in Sam's mouth, a coroner who talks with the same Brando-knockoff cadence as Alistair. And then there's Sam locked in the bathroom for two days straight while Dean sleeps against the door, gun in hand, Sammy, dude, you're being ridiculous, at least open the door and let me give you some freaking food--
Or Dean pacing pacing pacing until he's so exhausted that he's walking into walls and hitting his hands and his knees and his feet on the furniture and Sam has to watch to make sure he doesn't take his lighter out and hold the flame against his own skin, absently, like the pain is a comfort.
They've never both freaked out at the same time. There's that. There's always someone on the outside, talking down whichever one is locked in his own private nightmare at the moment.
They take care of each other. It's what they do. It's all either of them really knows how to do. Sam does research, when he has the time, PTSD and triggers and trauma therapy, but this is them. Normal doesn't really apply.
Dean laughs at him. We're not trauma survivors, dude. We're fuck-ups.
Like they're not the same thing. Like one has nothing at all to do with the other.
You watch too many after-school specials, Sam.
And: Sammy, Sammy, come on, just breathe, okay? There's nothing here. You didn't hurt me. You didn't hurt anyone. You're okay. Breathe.
And this: the familiar late-night sound of a body jerking suddenly awake, the twist of a cap and the smell of cheap liquor, two long gulps and a sigh and the bedside lamp never even comes on. Whiskey and a knife, right next to Dean's pillow where he can reach them without thinking.
They have to skip town fast when Dean gets into a barfight and beats the other guy to a pulp and then some. Two counties out, after they finally shake the cops, Sam's wrapping his knuckles where they're split and bloody and all Dean will say is douchebag, fucking douchebag, over and over again like it's a prayer.
He still screams in his sleep, when the nightmares are bad and he runs out of whiskey. Most of the time, it's variations on the theme of please, God, stop, I'll do anything. Sometimes, though, it's apologies, and those are worse.
Sam spends an entire night's poker winnings on a bump of the latest and greatest designer cocktail and he's flying high when Dean finds him, just flying. Dean locks him in a cheap motel room and gentles him through the shakes. Doesn't bother with an ER. Sam's come down off of worse, and at least this doesn't have him hallucinating demon-possessed relatives.
He doesn't ask why Sam did something so dumbfuck stupid, so Sam doesn't have to tell him about the waitress who looked just like a woman he put down in the year he wasn't entirely Sam. A pretty brunette with green eyes and freckles. A civilian, stepped into the wrong place at the wrong time and he didn't even hesitate. He didn't hesitate at all.
She wasn't the only one.
And this: Sam never really gets over Jess. Years and miles and a river of blood on his hands, and he's not the same person she loved when they were twenty and the world seemed so new, but he still can't imagine sleeping next to anyone else. This is what he means when he tells Dean that he isn't going to settle down, that he doesn't really know how to anymore.
Dean accepts it even though he doesn't really understand. Dad would have understood, Sam thinks, but it's just one more in a long list of things they never got around to talking about.
The closest Dean ever got to settling down was Lisa, and much as he cared about her--and he did care about her--it was never a life he knew how to live.
It's just them. Sam and Dean, the Winchester brothers against the world and the world against them, most of the time. It's what they know.
It's everything they've always known.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-11-16 05:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-16 09:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-16 05:28 am (UTC)Really beautiful. Thank you for sharing this. <3
no subject
Date: 2010-11-16 09:10 pm (UTC)One of the things I like about the show is that for all the fantastical elements, the characters are gritty and *real*, and that's what I was hoping to capture here. So thank you :)
no subject
Date: 2010-11-16 05:55 am (UTC)How do you always do this to me?
I adored the style, and the punchlines. The little details that are factual and how Dean dismisses them, flows along with them. How even when Sam knows what's wrong, he doesn't think he can fix it, so he doesn't even try.
/broken hearted
|Meduza|
no subject
Date: 2010-11-16 09:11 pm (UTC)*fixes broken heart*
This season is kind of depressing me; does it show?
(no subject)
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Date: 2010-11-16 06:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-16 09:11 pm (UTC)Yeah, I always kind of thought that Rufus had a good point about what Dean (and Sam) was going to become.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-16 06:09 am (UTC)very realistic - no big revelations or fireworks or magical healing, and this is exactly how it would be.
*clutches both of them*
*and you*
well done.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-16 09:12 pm (UTC)I'm so glad you liked!
no subject
Date: 2010-11-16 06:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-16 09:13 pm (UTC)The one thing about Sam and Dean that makes it bearable is that they still try to take care of each other, I think.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-16 11:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-16 09:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-16 01:03 pm (UTC)Also, great writing! You know, as always. ;)
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Date: 2010-11-16 09:15 pm (UTC)I think Sam and Dean have, so to speak, passed the point of no return. Even if they survive, they're never going to be okay.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-16 02:30 pm (UTC)This is easily one of the best stories I've read in a long, long while. This is the Winchesters in a nutshell. It's perfect.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-16 09:15 pm (UTC)I'm so glad you enjoyed this.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-16 02:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-16 09:16 pm (UTC)Those boys break my heart, seriously.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-16 03:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-16 09:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-16 03:59 pm (UTC)It's just them. Sam and Dean, the Winchester brothers against the world and the world against them, most of the time. It's what they know.
I can watch these two do almost anything, go through whatever, as long as they're together and they haven't been, yet this season.
Anyway, I loved this, the alternating freak-outs, that Sam is so scarred by Jess--and you've made a very subtle point about that here, if I may digress for a moment. What I mean is that it seems that Sam was as traumatized by their happiness together as he was by her death, if that makes sense, that it was something he'd never had and having her, and the home they had together, was just as much a shock to his system as losing her was.
Sam's resigned tone in this is perfect, too, as are the fucked-up ways they both try to deal with the things they've done in the past, that have been done to them. Great job.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-16 09:18 pm (UTC)Glad you enjoyed this.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-16 05:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-16 09:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-16 05:57 pm (UTC)Well written. I think you've got it spot on with the first line. A few episodes back when Lisa had to tell the truth over the phone, one of the first things she said was "just drink a fifth a night and you're good." This was clearly a point of contention for her and something that was going to come up eventually. If Sam hadn't come and pulled him away, the drinking would have in my opinion.
Thanks for this.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-16 09:20 pm (UTC)My personal canon is that Dean did quit drinking--or at least, cut back severely--after a while when he was living with Lisa, but his problem is that he really doesn't have any kind of normal support system of coping mechanisms, so when he's stressed or upset, he falls back on what he knows. And this, sadly, is what he knows.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-17 01:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-17 03:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-17 02:53 pm (UTC)I always admire how you hit this particular note of unsentimental bleakness but manage to retain a quality that I maybe wouldn't call optimistic, but it's a certain openness that is vital to the writing.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-22 09:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-17 08:07 pm (UTC)nicepainful call back from back True Ghostbusters, where Dean told pretend Dean and Sam their life is enough to send most people howling to nuthouse.no subject
Date: 2010-11-22 09:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-17 08:45 pm (UTC)I've recced it here (http://community.livejournal.com/hoodie_time/246263.html) at
no subject
Date: 2010-11-22 09:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-17 10:11 pm (UTC)"Most of the time, it's variations on the theme of please, God, stop, I'll do anything. Sometimes, though, it's apologies, and those are worse."
*weeps*
Their lives are horrible!
Now I have to go find some schmoop to roll around in.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-22 09:12 pm (UTC)(I had to go roll around in some schmoop after writing this, too :P)
no subject
Date: 2010-11-17 10:12 pm (UTC)Makes me need a drink. >_>
Nonetheless, damn, damn good writing.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-22 09:13 pm (UTC)Thank you :)
no subject
Date: 2010-11-17 10:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-22 09:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-17 11:27 pm (UTC)The part about Jess, though. Really made me tear up.
Gorgeous job. Thank you.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-22 09:14 pm (UTC)Sam and Dean are kind of my gen OTP, too. I just really can't imagine them being even remotely functional without one another.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-18 01:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-22 09:15 pm (UTC)Sam and Dean survive, I think. It's what they do, no matter how screwed up they get.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-18 04:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-22 09:16 pm (UTC)The only thing that lets me get through this show without bawling like a baby is the fact that Sam and Dean always look after one another. I'm glad to hear that I captured that.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-18 07:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-22 09:16 pm (UTC)Thank you.