[Fic] "You're My Only Hesitation"
Sep. 15th, 2016 07:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Dean had always thought of himself as Sam’s knight in shining armor when they were young to even as grown adults. He would not relent no matter how much Sam protested. It had been difficult with the amount of travelling they did for hunts to fit in properly at school. It had seemed that any time they had finally settled in and started to make friends, they were immediately uprooted and tossed somewhere else for the vicious cycle to restart once more.
His older brother had been lucky. As a borderline jock and punk, he easily fit in no matter where they went. Sam was not as fortunate. With his intellect, it would seem likely that he would fit in with the nerds but somehow he found himself not meshing as well as he thought he would. All too often his intimate knowledge of hunting, though he never disclosed what they actually went after, frightened them as if he was some sort of crazy axe murderer.
The bullies saw his loner status as an opportunity to pick on him. Most of them settled for hurling insults but the Sunnyvale bullies went a step further. It started with light shoves and tugging on his hair. Sam would, of course, resist but it did little good when they were older and much bigger than him. He had been on the small side until late puberty caused a ginormous growth spurt that put everyone else to shame.
It had eventually escalated to the point that two bullies held him against the wall of blue lockers while the third punched the daylights out of him, for no reason other than the fact that they could. The rest of the students either continued to walk by in apathy or stood around gawking at the spectacle. No one would raise a hand to help him, except for his overprotective brother.
“Whoa, whoa, what the hell is this? That’s my little bro, you shitheads.” Dean abandoned whatever chick he had hanging off his arm and parted through the crowd to grab a hold of the bully’s wrist before he could deliver another punch. He turns the other guy around and punches him square in the face, causing a collective gasp to be let out by the spectators.
The other two relinquish their hold on Sam and he ducks away from the bullies to grab onto the back of his brother’s shirt, knowing that Dean would not stop at freeing him alone but would take it a step further to enact revenge as well.
“Dean, stop, I’m okay.” Sam lies. The truth was that his face and stomach hurt like shit, though honestly it was nothing compared to the wounds the monsters they hunted could dish out, but his older brother did not need to know that, it would only enrage him further. Dean never cared about the detentions, their stay was always temporary anyways, but Sam did not think that getting violent was worth it.
“Chill, dude, we were just messing around.” The bully says defensively, scanning around the crowd for feedback from his friends but apparently his comrades had already ditched him, not wanting to get in the middle of Dean’s war path.
“Don’t dude me. You know how I know you’re lying? You’re sweating bullets and you keep looking around frantically. And Sam, you need to learn how to lie better.” Dean’s voice is cold and harsh towards the bully but it briefly softens when he addresses Sam.
He recognizes that the advice is not about the bullies but it was part of their job to lie to do their hunts properly, having to lie about their identity or to lure monsters into a trap. Dad said that he was too soft and he needed to learn how to harden himself so he could lie with ease and not feel so guilty.
A teacher finally shows up before Dean is able to lay it into the bully and breaks them up. Both of them end up getting detention after school in separate classrooms. Sam waits around right outside the classroom because their father is in the middle of the hunt and he does not want to go back to the motel that they were staying at without his older brother. Not that he could not handle himself on his own but he would feel more comfortable with Dean there.
Dean was like his security blanket and no matter how Sam tried he could not dispel the co-dependence on his older brother.
“How was it?” Sam perks up as Dean emerges from the class, slinging his bag over his shoulders.
“Boring as fuck. Finkel made us do homework. Like that it will matter much anyways when Dad finishes up his business and we move onto the next town. More importantly, how are you? I don’t care what they said, that was no rough housing, that was a beating, pure and simple.”
“It will heal, Dean. I’ve seen Dad in worse shape than this.” Sam shrugs nonchalantly. Sometimes their father came back limping or his body littered in cuts but it did not stop him from getting the job done.
Dean insists on checking out his injuries when they arrive at the motel and Sam knows it is a lost cause to try to argue with him so he obliges. The scowl and the furious look on his brother’s face tells him that he wishes that he had not been interrupted in administering his own payback.
“It is not the end of the world.” Sam rolls his eyes.
“You’re my baby brother, I am supposed to be there to protect you.” Dean asserts.
“You cannot always be there when something goes down so don’t beat yourself up over it.” Sam knew that he felt like he had a sense of responsibility over him, which was not helped by their dad telling him to look after him, but he knew that there would always be the spontaneous and unavoidable factors that would pop up regardless.
“Well, that certainly is not going to stop me from trying.”
Sam is seventeen when he is on a hunt that goes terribly wrong. Even though he has been given more involvement in their cases - essentially working anytime he is not in class, he still takes school just as seriously. He has not mentioned it to either his brother or their father, knowing the vocal protest that he would get if ever admitted it, but Sam does not want to take up the family business.
No, he wants to go to college and be normal for once, even if it means that he has to separate himself from Dean.
He and his brother had split up from their father to take out a nest of vampires. They were supposed to be chasing after a single vampire but they ended up getting ambushed. Dean is on the defensive when Sam is grabbed during the fight that breaks out and taken hostage, which is the only time that his brother ever hesitates because he is never willing to let any harm befall him.
The situation gets resolved, Dean makes a calculated move to take the vampires out but Sam ends up with a stab wound in his chest, just narrowly missing any vital organs. It is one of the rare moments that he actually witnesses his brother cry.
“No, no, Sammy, you stay with me.” Dean says frantically as he kneels beside his body and has his head cradled on his lap. Sam is struggling to stay conscious, he just wants to close his eyes and take a nap.
“‘m sleepy.” Sam mumbles out and soon he passes out from the blood loss. Dead to the world but still alive, buried inside his subconsciousness.
Dealing with bullies when he was younger was much simpler, he did not have to worry about them trying to kill him. When it came down to it, this was ultimately not the life that he wanted to keep living and the only thing that kept him going forward rather than throwing his arms up and walking away from it all right then was the love he had for Dean.
Dean was his hesitation. Always.