ladyjanelly | Fic: Threw Away the sun 6/6 SPN AU Sam/Dean

Title: Threw Away the Sun 6/6
Author: Ladyjanelly
Warnings: Wincest, violence, a bumpy ride
Characters/pairings: Jess, Sam/Dean
Rated: NC-17 sex and violence
Summary: AU. Six months after John Winchester goes missing on a hunt, Dean Goes to Palo Alto to find a psychic.

For a month, Dean drives and drifts, mourning his father in his own way. The road is the only home he knows and hunting the only thing worth doing.

He tries to remember dad and forget Sam, but somehow memories of that first time they met, how open and honest Sam’s grin had been, linger with him. He hears Sam call him brother, John father, and wonders if it can be true, if this Sam can be Sammy.

Dean’s no novice to the investigative process and this--this is worth as much work as it takes to find out for sure.

First things first, he has a cop-friend check to make sure there aren’t, y’know, warrants out for his arrest.

“You’re clear,” Mike tells him, which means either Sam didn’t make it out of that cabin in any condition to communicate, or Sam did and chose not to talk to the cops. Both thoughts squirm around in Dean’s guts like guilt. His mind shies from thinking about Sam dead, his life snuffed out by Dean’s hand. The idea that the young man is lying in a bed somewhere, hooked up to a ventilator and all kinds of other machines isn’t much better.

The other possibility, that Sam came through it all okay and made the decision to protect Dean, it makes no sense. Like, why would he do everything in his power to tear the Winchester family apart and then chose to not get Dean thrown in jail?

He poses as a janitor in the hospital for Burnett County for two weeks before he gets a hold of Sam’s file. Hiding in a broom closet, he reads what he had done: contusions to the head and torso, broken wrist, broken and bruised ribs, a cut to the inside of Sam’s cheek bad enough to need stitches.

The last note chills him. “Indications of sexual assault.”

And God, it hadn’t even bee like that. It had been rough, yeah, but Sam pushed things that way. He’d fucked himself back on Dean’s fingers and dick harder than Dean would have if the younger man let him have the lead. He knows he didn’t imagine Sam’s “don’t stop.” He’s positive it wasn’t a “Stop, don’t.” He knows it and he has the way Sam wanted him to stay, the way Sam smiled in the car the next day, as proof.

Sam had been happy.

Sam had known they were brothers.

Sam had sex with him anyway.

It boggles his mind as much as Sam’s motives for killing the man he knew was his father.

The final page of the med file is a note about police notification and a referral to a good psychiatrist. Dean copies down the names and numbers and puts the folder back where he found it. He leaves his mop and uniform in the closet and walks out of the hospital.

Dean’s pretty sure he could get his hands on the police records if he wanted to, but he figures it would result in a whole lot of “I don’t remember, officer,” and “Sorry, didn’t see his face.” If there was anything else in Sam’s testimony, there would be warrants out for Dean’s arrest.

He breaks into the shrink’s place on a Sunday night, but there’s no file for Sam under Cole. On a whim, Dean checks for it under Winchester, but the names skip from Wilson to Womack.

The notebook with Jess’ number is still in the car but Dean doesn’t call it. There’s still too much he doesn’t know.

The change of name records are easy to acquire. The day of his eighteenth birthday Sam Winchester petitioned the court to become Sam Cole. Dean doesn’t know if it’s because he was planning this for so long or if he had another reason to not be a Winchester.

The childhood information is a lot harder to get a hold of. It takes a suit, glasses, a black briefcase and a well-forged subpoena, and still he ends up in the ass-end of the records office, digging through boxes for three days before he hits pay dirt. He gathers the thick stack of papers into his briefcase and leaves.

He opens the file in the privacy of another hotel room. Somehow the scratched Formica makes a fitting backdrop for the history of his broken family.

The oldest document tips Dean’s world on its side--he reads the first pack through twice and still can’t quite make sense of it. There’s no record of neglect, no abuse, no complaint and no hearing, just a surrender of parental rights dated November 8, 1984.

Dad lied.

Sammy wasn’t taken, he was dumped.

Dad abandoned Sam.

Dean wishes his old man was alive so he could shake him, ask “What the fuck were you thinking?”

They were family, God damn it. Family doesn’t just give up, walk away. Family doesn’t lie.

Jesus.

They could have protected Sam better than whatever schmuck ended up with the job, kept him safe. He tries to imagine Sam without the old scars on his young face, without the pained stoop to his shoulders. He tries to envision a Sam raised by Winchesters, what a different person he’d be.

If Sam blamed dad for the way it all turned out, Dean can see how it could be motive for murder. If Sam even knew.

The rest of Sam’s file turns Dean’s stomach until he has to read the words and not let himself imagine little Sammy in that life. It started small--a healthy white baby that nobody wanted. Discipline problems by age three, “Disruptive behavior,” lying, fighting. Psychological exams resulted in a five-year-old on antipsychotics for a year. A month after he came off the pills, an older boy in the foster home held him down and poured battery acid over his face.

Dean rubs at his own eyes, trying to make the phantom pain behind them dissipate.

For nearly six years after that, Sam withdrew, unresponsive to the point he spent that time in a children’s hospital.

The records are sketchy after Sam moved out of the hospitals. The kid was transferred dozens of times in the next six years. He filed for emancipation twice and was turned down on both times on account of not being able to care for himself. Dean has to ask himself, how desperate must have Sam been to try something with such a thin margin for success. It doesn’t take a genius to know a judge isn’t going to cut a blind orphan boy loose in the world.

Dean reads the entire file a few more times but the facts don’t change.

He’s emotionally exhausted, overwhelmed. He takes a drive to clear his head and hits Canada two days later. He starts looking for a job, anything to distract himself from the thought that he has a brother (that he’s fucked), that his dad is dead (and a liar, and did he really ever know the man?). He finds shit to kill--a ghost, two ghouls and a golem gone wild. He runs himself ragged trying not to think. He still dreams of Sam’s soft skin and warm smile. He dreams of Sam’s voice, low and serious, saying things like “You’re my brother, I love you.” Sometimes it’s just “I love you,” and sometimes it’s “I want you, Dean.”

Time is supposed to fix stuff like this, but months roll by and it doesn’t get any better. He convinces himself that it’s not desire or love or any of that crap, just curiosity. He even believes it a little, right up until the day he finds himself pulling the Impala up to the curb near Sam’s apartment.

Jess will probably take a swing at him with that bat, he decides as he slides in the building as someone else is going out. The cops are gonna get called and it’s crazy to be here. He’s not even sure what he hopes to accomplish.

He raps on the door, rocking from heel to toe and back again while he waits.

“Yeah?” Sam’s voice calls from within and Dean's surprised by the rush of relief that sweeps through him at the sound.

“It’s Dean,” he calls back, and takes a step to the side, just in case Sam shoots him through the door. Then he remembers he’s dealing with a freakin’ psychic and steps the other way. But of course Sam would know that too, so he gives up.

There’s a second of silence and then Sam says, “Hold on.”

“Sorry,” Sam says when he opens the door a moment later, “I had to put the dog up.” He looks tense, nervous. Still, Dean’s struck by how much better he looks than the last time Dean was here. He’s standing straighter, moving easier. There’s color in his face; he’s no longer the pasty, ill-looking young man of a year ago. Dean wants to touch him, to see if he feels different, smells different.

He turns and leads Dean into the living room, only fumbling for the couch a little at the very end. Sam sits and clasps his hands together as if to keep them still. Dean takes a seat across from him. He’d expected Sam to start the conversation like last time, but he doesn’t.

“So uh, how ya been?” Dean asks at last, feeling stupid and awkward.

Sam makes a little choked noise. “What are you here for?” he asks, like the words hurt to get out.

Dean frowns. Okay. He can play this game.

“I want to know why you did this,” Dean says. “Why you killed our dad, why you used me, why you fucked me.”

“It was for the best,” Sam whispers towards the floor. “It never came out any better than that.” A normal person, someone who could see, may have looked up at Dean then, but Sam’s face stays tilted downward.

“I knew it would hurt you,” he says, “But you’d live, and dad would go clean.” Sam takes a shuddering breath, “I love you, Dean. God, you don’t know how many horrible ways you could have died, the worse ways you could have lived.”

“I just gotta take your word for it?” Helpless anger burns up through Dean’s chest.

Sam’s knuckles go white where he grips at his own knees.

“If you aren’t going to believe a word I say, why are you talking to me?” he asks through clenched teeth.

The hunter in Dean can almost smell the opening.

“Why don’t you know?” He keeps his voice low, steady. There’s something here, something he’s missing. He notes the way Sam twitches, the flare of his nostrils. “What the fuck is going on?”

Sam’s lips curl in what is not a smile. “It’s gone,” he says, “The sight, the dreams, the visions.”

“When you killed the demon.” It’s not a question.

“Yeah,” says Sam.

Dean looks at Sam, healthier, probably happier (at least when Dean’s not there harassing him). It looks like not being able to see the future agrees with him.

“That why?”

“I already told you why.” Sam sounds more tense, like he’s gonna crack any second.

For Dean. And dad. Right.

“Did we have to fuck?” Dean asks, his voice hard. “Was that what was best for me? Knowing the guy who fucked me over and killed my dad was my brother?”

Sam turns his head away. If he goes any paler, Dean figures he’ll faint.

“That was for me,” he says, his tone soft and bittersweet. “That was all of you that this me would ever have.”

And shit, that’s the last motive Dean expected to hear. He clenches his hands into fists to keep from reaching out.

“Call me selfish,” Sam says, “But I thought I died when--after.” He shakes his head. Despite how accurate Sam’s prediction had almost been, it still makes Dean sick, that Sam would think that of him.

Dean’s quiet so Sam keeps talking. “I know it was wrong, Dean. I know. But for sixteen years, I’d seen how we would have been, how you’d have kept me safe. I’d seen worlds where we were as close as brothers can be and worlds where we were even closer."

He takes a breath. “If I hurt you, if I twisted us in ways we shouldn’t have been, I’m sorry, but not for loving you.”

Dean moves slow, but to Sam the touch to his cheek must feel sudden; he jerks back from Dean’s fingertips.

“Wait, wait,” he begs, scrambling back into the couch. “Please, please don’t leave me here for Jess to find.” His chest heaves with panicked breathing. “Don’t do that to her, man, she doesn’t deserve that. Please, Dean, please.”

It takes a second for Dean to get what Sam’s begging for. Sam used to love him, trust him. Now he expects Dean to murder him in cold blood.

“Shh,” he soothes, not sure if this can be fixed. He reaches out again, touching where Sam’s jaw meets his neck. Sam leans in, a sob breaking from his lips.

Dean gathers him up like the little boy he never knew. He can’t quite bring himself to apologize for beating his father’s killer, but it’s easy to say “I won’t hurt you, Sam. It’s okay, you’re safe. I’m here now, I’ve got you.”

Sam clings to Dean, fingers tight on his shoulders. He cries tense little whimpers, like a man who has never been free to show his hurt.

“I’m here,” Dean whispers into the unruly waves of dark hair. He sheds the tears that his brother can’t. He has no idea how to make this work, if it’s even possible.

He just wants it to be like it could have been.

“I’ve got you, Sammy. You’re safe.”