Work Text:
September 1995
There was nothing worse, Dean decided later, than watching someone scream in silence.
He'd heard a lot of screams in his day—veteran sixteen years that he was—made in fear or anger. Wretched wisps of sound from the dying; ear shattering, full throated explosions of fury from the half-mad or enraged; but, of all these, nothing equaled the heart-rending anguish of his little brother's silent outpouring of rage.
'Jesus, fuck, Dad!' Dean yelled, propelled through the front door of their current tumble-down shack of a temporary residence by a heavy crash and his father's guff bellowing of Sam's name. He dumped the groceries where he stood and bolted down the short hallway to Sam's bedroom.
John was hulking in the middle of the room, hair askew, with at least three days worth of stubble on his cheeks, like he had either just woken up or hadn't ever been to bed in that time. He was still in his leather, smelling of whiskey, kerosene, and smoke, and a fresh trickle of blood was running down the side of his face from a scratch over his left eye.
Sam was hunched, angry-cat style, in the floor at John's feet, curled around something Dean couldn't see. His mouth was open in a wordless, silent cry, and his eyes were wide and angry-terrified like a horse caught in a burning barn with no hope of a blindfold and blessed escape.
'What the hell happened?' Dean shouted.
He was on the floor, draped across Sam's back, bodily shielding him from their father's looming bulk in less time than it took John to even register he was in the room. It wasn't like John would actually hit his boys—nothing above an open-handed slap for back-talk anyway—something Sam obviously did not reciprocate judging by the scratch on John's face (and Dean would have to have a serious talk with him about that later). Even when he was drunk beyond being able to drive, which was saying something where John Winchester was concerned.
Dean was pretty certain John hadn't lifted a finger to Sam, but he had to have somewhere to vent the awful, twisting agony in his chest at seeing his baby brother so obviously tormented and completely unable to voice it, so it landed on John if only by dint of proximity.
'I didn't— I just got home and— I thought I told you never to leave him alone!'
John was flustered and that was a rarity, and it showed in his weak defense of accusing Dean of leaving Sam unattended. Dean knew it, too; knew that they were both ridiculously, irrationally angry for reasons of their own and lashing out at the nearest able-bodied target.
'I went down to the corner store for supplies,' he said tightly, clamping down on his displaced rage. 'I was gone fifteen minutes. He was fine.'
John ran a hand through his hair, stared down at his sons, curled around each other like wild pups, in defensive posture waiting for the attack. He fell back a step, and then another, until he was braced in the doorway and sagging under his own weight, and Dean could see just how exhausted he was.
'I only came in to say hello,' he sighed. Dean's eyes flicked to the cut above John's brow. He reached up to swipe at it. 'I startled him. I guess. He threw his notebook. It was just reflex.'
Father and son stared at each other a moment longer and then John fell back further, into the hall. Dean did not lift off of Sam until he heard the other bedroom door shut and the shower start to run.
'Jesus, Sammy…' Dean sat back on his haunches, shed his jacket, and took Sam's face in his hands. Sam had his bottom lip between his teeth now, and his eyes were red with unshed tears. He covered Dean's hands with his own and pushed them up into his hair until Dean's big palms cradled most of his skull.
'Headache?' Dean asked.
Sam sniffed once and gave a bare nod.
'That how he snuck up on you?'
Another nod, and Sam unfolded from around the towel that was balled up against his stomach. It was damp with blood.
'Fuck,' Dean bit out and started moving his fingers in Sam's hair, massaging in little circles against his scalp and pressing in firmly at his temples with the pads of his thumbs. 'Sammy, I'm sorry.'
Sam shook his head. Not your fault.
'When? Just after I left?'
Another nod.
Dean cursed again and continued to massage Sam's head. He eyed the towel. There was more blood than usual, and he could still see it seeping sluggishly inside Sam's nostrils, crusting around the edge. 'It's getting worse.'
Sam shrugged.
'We should tell Dad.'
Eyes wide open for a brief flash, lips thinned out to nothing. No.
Dean sighed. 'Sam, this could be serious.'
Quick quirk of an eyebrow before a flinch of pain. Of course, it's serious.
'Not what I mean, Sammy,' Dean said, soothing his thumbs over Sam's wrinkled brow. 'I mean, there might be something physically wrong with you. Something we should have checked out.'
Shake of the head. Another flinch of pain as the headache worsened.
Dean leaned forward and kissed Sam's forehead, lingered there like he might be able to draw out some of the pain through the press of his lips on Sam's damp, hot skin. Sam sighed, a stuttering of breath, as close as he ever came to a whimper of pain. Dean tipped back reluctantly and slowly withdrew his hands.
'l'll get your meds and some ice. Stay put.'
Sam wilted onto the floor without Dean to prop him up and curled back around the towel like it was some secret he had to protect.
Dean's heart ached at the sight, and he was half tempted to steal the towel once Sam was asleep and show it to John, beg him to do what any sensible father would do and take his son to a doctor, or the hospital, or Christ! A damn shaman for all Dean cared. Just someone—someone—who could help Sam.
But that idea was equally terrifying, for reasons Dean couldn't put together in his head with all the edges lined up. Something in John's face lately, like he suspected everything the two of them had been trying to cover over for a while now. John wasn't stupid. He wouldn't have lived this long if he was, nor would either of his sons. He was a master at piecing together information that normally would never correlate. It was that particular skill that terrified Dean, made his stomach hurt to think about what John would do with the information Sam could provide him in the form of his person.
Dean rummaged their bag of meds on the back of the cracked porcelain tank of the toilet in the bathroom, and listened to the pipes rattle in the wall under the pressure of lukewarm water from the unreliable water heater in the utility room in back. He snagged a bottle with no label and a couple of chemical ice packs, smashed them together fiercely in his fist, and stopped to lean his forehead against the chipped mirror above the sink and take a breath. And then another. These bouts of panic were becoming more and more frequent, in direct relation to Sam's 'episodes.'
But Dean had to trust his brother.
He may have taken care of the little runt since before he could even crawl, chosen his diapers and changed them, made the decisions on which veggies he should eat to grow big and strong, but he was out of his depth here. He had to trust Sam, now, to know what was going on inside his own head, and when to trust Dean to help him deal with it, and when to let him know it was too much.
Dean straightened, shuffled the ice packs and pills in his hand and turned out the light.
For now, they would just keep doing what they were doing.