At Stanford, Sam keeps his phone on vibrate. It’s just too hard to be constantly turning the volume off and on in between classes. One mishap when he gets a call in the middle of a silent lecture hall that earns him the glares of every student in the room teaches him his lesson.
It’s two in the morning when his phone vibrates off his nightstand and crashes onto the floor. Sam gropes with one hand on the carpet, other hand rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He flips open the phone, not bothering to check who’s calling.
“Hello?“
"Hey Sammy,” Dean’s voice comes through the line.
Sam sits up, suddenly wide awake. “Dean?”
“The one and only.” Dean’s voice sounds weird, kind of slow and slurred.
“What’s wrong? Are you okay?” Sam asks, concerned.
Dean chuckles. “Nah, I’m good. Nothing a few stitches won’t take care of.”
Sam lets out a sigh of relief. “Good, that’s good. What were you hunting?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Dean replies, dismissive. “Let’s talk about you. What have you been up to college boy?"
"Oh the usual. Classes are a bitch, got two papers due on Friday, but I love it here, Dean, I really do.” Sam is smiling.
“That’s great, Sammy.” Dean coughs wetly, but it sounds muffled, like Dean is trying to hide the sound.
“Dean, are you sure you’re okay?"
Dean clears his throat. “Dude, stop worrying about me.” It almost sounds normal.
Shaking his head, Sam decides to let it go. “Okay, okay.”
There’s a silence then Dean starts talking again. “Y’know I love you, right Sam?”
"Yeah, of course.” It was a no brainer.
“No, no Sam. I love you, okay?”
"I know, Dean, I love you too."
"Just remember that, ok?” Dean coughs again.
“Yeah, you too.” And that’s just weird, because Dean never talks about his emotions like this, not even when they’re laying together, naked, catching their breath after the most glorious orgasms.
“I gotta go now, Sammy,” Dean says regretfully.
“Okay, later Dean."
"Yeah… later, Sam.” There’s a beep and then the line goes dead.
The next morning, Sam turns on the news while he eats breakfast. The reporter is talking about a park ranger that was mauled by a bear in the Portola Redwoods State Park.
“Ranger Samuel Cole was found dead early this morning…” The reporter continues seriously. The screen shows a picture of the ranger’s identification card, and that’s-
Dean.
“No. No no no no no no!” Sam scrambles up and grabs his phone, pressing 1 on speed dial. It goes straight to voicemail.
Sam sinks to the carpet in front of the TV, and doesn’t move until he runs out of tears.
Sam was a mess, after John forced him to cut his hair. It wasn’t short like Dean’s, but it was definitely shorter then Sam had ever had it.
“I look fucking ugly, Dee,” Sam whispered, voice sounding strained, tears obviously gathering in his eyes.
Dean slide his hands up Sam’s neck and stroked through his brother’s hair before gripping Sam’s face to hold his brother’s gaze. “God, Sammy,” he whispered. “You are so beautiful. Short hair or long, nothing- no one– will ever compare to you.”
okay so i don’t think that castiel is relevant in this at all. i don’t think that cas represents anything that parallels with cain’s story line. i also don’t think that the sam/abel, dean/cain thing is as cut and dried either.
the sam/abel parallels are clear. to cain, it seems inevitable that dean will eventually kill sam, because that’s his fate, because it was cain’s. however, it’s quite arguable that sam is also dean’s colette. sam is his anchor and his saving grace. how many times have we seen sam save dean so far? just this season? the answer is a lot. sam’s relationship with dean is mirrored in both cain/abel and cain/colette.
but there is one flaw with both these parallels. sam is not just dean’s abel or dean’s colette, he’s dean’s sam. and that’s the difference between dean and cain. cain had an abel and he had a colette, but cain never had a sam.
“Dean, it’s only some lame poltergeist. And I’ll pick up Dad on my way, remember? I’ll be fine.”
He thinks of the last time Sam said that, thinks of bloody bandages and purple-blue skin for weeks. Swallows his stutters. “Promise?” Dean croaks.
“Promise.”
Later, he will tell himself that it’s been the dimples, those damn fucking dimples. They get him every time but never seemed so far away than right now. It doesn’t take much to have it all taken away, and Dean knows. Knows just too well.
When he leans in to do it, Sam simply watches him. The flutter of eyelashes is too much, so Dean has to close his eyes. Like the guy knows what’s happening. As if he had read Dean hours ago already, heard the insecurity in his jokes while he tried to build up the courage and balls to finally… yeah, to do this here, kind of.
It’s just a small smacking sound, nothing more, one firm and warm touch of lips.
Sam smiles at him when he pulls back.
“What?” The hiss comes out of habit; pure defense. Dean feels the blood rush up his neck and cheeks.
“Nothing,” Sam hums, starts the engine. Dean steps back, his heart punching his ribs as if it wanted to break them. Not that he’d even notice that right now. “We’ll be back tomorrow night, okay?”
Dean nods.
“Stay safe, little brother.”
“You too, bitch.”
Sam laughs. Dean remembers that he always wanted to see if those damn dimples’ hollows create bumps inside of his brother’s mouth and continues playing with the thought when they arch deep in Sam’s face yet again. The Impala takes him away, yet again, with the obligatory “jerk” still in the air between them.
After a failed suicide attempt (those damn useless drugs could only make him lose consciousness until Adam, his brother, got home and called the ambulance), 20-year-old Sam Milligan was rushed into Lawrence Memorial Hospital, and (un)fortunately survived. Now he’s stuck in that hell hole under 24-hour watch and forced to attend group therapy three times a week. The only bright spot on his life is Dr. Winchester, his therapist and the only person who doesn’t judge him and actually helps a little. And, okay, he might have developed a little crush on him, but, can you blame a dysfunctional suicidal with zero hope of a future for falling for the first person in months to actually understand him a bit?
Random Toughts 