Title: Attached

Disclaimer: Not mine, don't sue.

Summary: Sam/Dean. Part of the Still Life 'verse. The most difficult things Dean wants are the ones he won’t say out loud. Oneshot. Complete.

Feedback: Is love.

His brother has always had the sort of personality where he gets attached to things. His music, his car, his jacket, his amulet... he has never let go of things easily, that which he can take with him through their itinerant life. He didn’t let go of Sam easily when college obscured the horizon. What Sam doesn’t anticipate is how this becomes magnified as Dean’s world reduces to the size of Bobby’s house and occasional trips to the hospital or to pick up groceries.

He gets passionately attached to that damn book with all the pictures of dolphins inside it, even though he can’t read a single word within its pages.

Dean won’t put it down and people notice. People see his amiable smile and his unusually limpid eyes and they just know that something isn’t right. And that’s before they acknowledge that he is clutching a large, colourful book on sea life.

And that’s before he starts talking about how Sammy’s gonna take and see.

The doctors think it’s good that his interest has been sparked by something, and they say he’s lucky in that he can retain new information so well. Dean makes a bashful production of pointing out the pictures of the creatures he can name and even though Sam is unspeakably proud of him, he can’t bring himself to appreciate how the nurses treat him. They act as if Dean is a child and it disturbs Sam, how easily they behave like that. A year ago they would have been flashing their cleavage at his big brother, now they patronize him with their maternal tones.

“He’s doing so well. Aren’t you, sweetie?”

Not well, Sam wants to say, yet he doesn’t because Dean is doing well. But it’s not just an organic process – both of them have been working hard on Dean’s memory, on improving his reactions, his motor skills. His literacy.

Sometimes Sam gets the feeling he’s raising his brother and then he thinks: It’s only fair. He wonders how Dean coped with him growing up.

In the hard hours, Sam thinks about what his dad would do in any given situation, specifically when he’s attempting to teach Dean something and it just isn’t going in. Then he remembers the fraught, terrible quality to

their relationship and he hates himself for it... but he thinks that Dean is better off without their father there. Mainly because Sam is just not capable of resisting the pull of arguing with John Winchester. And Dean is very sensitive to that sort of thing, now more than ever. He can’t bear it when Sam raises his voice even slightly, to get his attention.

“Sammy no,” he says firmly, cringing, “Sammy no. No yell.”

What eats at Sam is when he hears himself babying Dean, softening the world. He can’t help it. There is the largest part of him that just wants to keep Dean safe from all the cruelty that lives outside of his small life.

“I won’t yell,” Sam soothes him, kissing Dean’s cheeks, his nose, “just listen to me, okay? Can you listen to me?” He tries teaching Dean the alphabet how they showed him to at the hospital. He forms an ‘A’ shape with his hands. “Can you do this, huh? C’mon.” Sam moves Dean’s hands so that they copy the shape. They tremor against his with studied, determined obedience. Then he smiles. “That’s really good, Dean.”

He can’t help how he speaks to his brother because he wants Dean to be happy.

What doesn’t push Sam to tears can only make him stronger. At least, that’s what he keeps telling himself. That if he has a certain philosophy then dealing with things will become infinitely easier. Or at least... less difficult. Less painful.

But there are only so many showings of The Wizard of Oz that a guy can take without wanting to poke his own eyes out. He knows for an iron clad fact that he shouldn’t let Dean sit in front of Bobby’s ancient television, all round eyed and fascinated.

“Where did you even get The Wizard of Oz?” Sam asks Bobby curiously.

He shrugs. “Someone with kids came round years back and they left it.”

“Oh. You know people with kids?”

“Sure I do,” Bobby looks at him like Sam’s disappointing him, “they just about crapped their pants when they figured out there was a VHS player under all the junk.”

Sam smirks.

And it quickly becomes apparent that The Wizard of Oz is the only movie that Bobby owns. It doesn’t take long for Dean to get obsessed with it.

“See,” Dean says every afternoon, like he’s set on a timer, “see, Sammy? With Dean?”

It’s the most difficult thing to resist Dean’s hopeful smile. So Sam tortures himself with repeated showings of the goddamn movie.

He’s either watched it twelve times or twenty and he’s contemplating how he will probably never stop being freaked out by the Munchkins, when Dean says, “Us come from Kansas, Sammy.”

This is one of the most coherent, complete sentences that Dean has spoken in a week and Sam sits forward to take notice. Dean’s on the floor, back turned, eyes fixed on the TV as if he’s never seen it before. “Uh...” It’s awesome that all Sam’s time at Stanford left him basically incapable to uttering anything meaningful when it actually matters. “You mean ‘we’.” Great. An important contribution to the conversation.

“Like her,” Dean points at Dorothy, and turns his head to look at Sam, ignoring the correction, “we’re from Kansas.”

He says it cans-ass. Emphasis on the ass.

“Yeah,” Sam manages, “we are.”

Dean smiles triumphantly and shifts back so he can see the screen.

“Dean? Did Bobby tell you that?”

“Shush.”

“Did Bobby tell you we’re from Kansas?” he asks softly, knowing he’s not going to get a real reply.

Instead, Dean just talks along with what’s on screen, “Of course, people do go both ways...” his words are slow, a little behind, and when he says them he glances back at Sam again, surprise written all over his face. “Know... know it.”

Sam leans his face in his hand and smiles at Dean warmly. “That’s ’cause you’re smart.”

Dean gets that same look he has whenever Sam says something he doesn’t think is true. He blushes a little and peers at the ground. “Sammy...”

“You are smart, Dean. Everyone thinks so.”

“No.”

“Who doesn’t?”

There’s no answer, but Sam thinks he knows it anyway.

Dad doesn’t.

Occasionally, Sam loathes the fractured legacy their father’s life has left behind, lingering on in Dean’s mind. Unchangeable.

--

Getting to be as smart as he was before is something Dean wants, but not out loud. When Dean wants something out loud he keeps on about it – and they’re always pretty simple things that Sam can make happen, things that give Sam the feeling of being able to provide his brother with a good life. He can always produce cake, or get Dean changed, or tell him a story that will make him laugh. He can take him for walks, or on drives,

or plan for seeing dolphins someday. Sam can always hold him when he needs to be held, when he’s scared by storms or bad dreams.

All the silent wants are more difficult.

Sam can try and try to be a great educator but nine out of ten times the new information slides across Dean’s brain and just won’t stick. They can study the alphabet every day but Dean can’t get past reciting the first five letters before he skips right to ‘L’.

Even the very basic things that Dean wants, the things he won’t say, are a struggle for Sam to provide. Like the ability to know his own body and control it.

Nothing keeps Sam from trying.

In an attempt to stop Dean yelling at the top of his lungs, Sam tells him that unless they’re in the same room together, he can’t hear what Dean’s saying. Dean sits there, pressing his hands together and pulling them apart, nodding solemnly as if Sam has imparted some great universal wisdom.

“Okay, Sammy.”

“Good.”

Of course, this doesn’t stop the yelling altogether. But at least they don’t have lengthy conversations through walls anymore, and at least now Bobby doesn’t have to do the same. Naturally, though, Dean has to have proof over where he is in order to figure out where Sam can hear him.

“Where’s Sammy?”

“Kitchen.”

“Where Dean?”

“You mean where am I?”

Dean pauses for a moment, then shouts, his tone nearing cocky, “In the kitchen. Where?”

“No... I meant... Never mind. I hope that Dean’s still in the living room,” Sam calls back, raising his voice loud enough for Dean to hear clearly when he says living room.

“Okay!”

“Do you want to talk to me?”

“No!”

Sam can’t make himself shut down his smile. Sometimes Dean just grabs him like this, with the gentle innocence that he wears like a new skin, a soul nearly rinsed clean.

It’s easier to think of it like that, rather than to see his brother as damaged.

“Judy Garland’s dead, right?”

Nurse Lympy looks up from her notes and stares at Sam. “Um. Yes. For a long time now.” Spending the afternoon at the hospital isn’t Sam’s favourite thing because people keep asking him if he wants to go and grab a cup of coffee, this will only take a minute, Dean will be fine, that sort of thing. And sometimes he wants to go and get some coffee and sit by himself and maybe pick up a trashy novel that he never would have read in the past. Just for the hell of it. Because trying to read anything for more than ten minutes around Dean is impossible.

Bobby’s been offering to take care of Dean for a day while Sam goes out. Where isn’t specified, he guesses this is his own choice. But all his choices relate to Dean. Making a decision without thinking of him being there just feels... selfish. And he feels selfish for even indulging the dream of walking down the street alone, without people staring.

Occasionally, he can’t tell if it’s fear or devotion that keeps him by Dean’s side. “Just checking.”

“The Wizard of Oz will never die,” she adds.

Sam winces. “That’s what I thought. Dean’s...”

“More than a little fixated?”

“I guess you could say that.” He looks at his brother. Dean’s sitting in the most comfortable chair in the room, counting his fingers and toes in a hushed voice that keeps jumping up to meet Sam’s ears, uncontrolled. Dean’s still counting everything in twos, because to him two is the perfect number. Anything larger is overwhelming, anything smaller is lonely. “I think it’s the singing. And the... the colours. He likes that,” he clears the painful presence from his throat and tries to laugh; “he can learn it pretty well.”

“Everyone’s real pleased with how he’s getting along.”

Sam is perversely glad she doesn’t say that Dean’s doing well. He draws slightly away from Dean and lowers his voice to a hum. “The writing... the numbers... that’s not going so well.”

She sighs. “You can’t expect miracles.”

“I’m not. Just progress. Honestly? Is he going to be able to...” he can’t say it. He breathes. Tries to make himself be a good person, but it’s not that easy.

Nurse Lympy focuses on her notes instead of meeting his eyes. “Don’t give up hope.”

This reply gores Sam. He nods.

“If you’re asking me whether or not Dean will be able to live independently,” she doesn’t speak much quieter than usual, and he feels ashamed for trying to act like Dean isn’t in the room, “the answer is probably no. But that doesn’t mean you give up trying to give him the best quality of life possible.”

“I... I wouldn’t...”

A smile at that. A smile for the reformed. “I know that about you. It’s very special.”

It takes Sam no time at all to give into the worst, most wilful side of his personality. He kisses Dean on the forehead and leaves him alone with Bobby for the day. Summer is in full bloom, full burn, reducing prettiness to ashes and dried on dirt. Sam takes the Impala out for a drive and builds up childish fantasies of carrying on driving. He stops, scared by himself, and sits by the side of the road, his skin soaking up the over-warm sun.

Sammy’s gonna take and see.

No one will think he’s a bad person if he gives up, gives in. If he stops forcing learning down Dean’s throat and just lets things plateau, allows it all to be how it is. After a few days Dean will stop worrying about being able to read and write, about being able to recite his name and address and Sam’s phone number, Bobby’s phone number.

No one would blame him if he called Bobby now and said he needed to take a couple of days, if he drove a thousand miles away and just slept and thought about himself, his own future.

A car pulling over trembles Sam’s current self loose from his thoughts and a pretty girl wearing a dress the exact colour of a vicious bruise gets out. She smiles at him, friendly. “Are you in a little trouble? Classic cars are a pain in the ass, huh?” Her own car is sparkling blue, fresh from the showroom.

Sam hasn’t noticed that his heart’s hurtling through his body. It is no longer confined to his chest. He looks at the girl, struck entirely dumb.

She frowns. “Are you okay?” She has dark hair, loose, and sludgy eyes. “Do you need me to call someone for you?” She isn’t approaching him, though.

He must look crazy to her. With his wild hair and his worn jeans, sitting in the dusty dirt. Her shoes match her dress and she’s clutching her purse. The same shade of aching purple.

“Are you deaf?” she asks the question seriously, with no sarcasm. In his situation, Dean would hit on her. Or at least, Dean would have hit on her. In the past. He’d reel off some bleeding heart story about the car and then offer to buy her, his saviour, a drink.

Sam blinks and feels the haze move through his head. Not to leave it, just to relocate and allow him to speak. “No,” he says. No to everything.

She shifts uneasily in her heels. “You’ll get sick sitting out in the heat like that,” she says, in the same way someone might say hello, and retreats back to her car. Her new car that looks like it won’t ever break down.

He watches it go and stands up, dusting off his backside with his sticky palms.

Being alone, he is immobile and incapable. The world is bright and strange. Being alone is so much worse than being with Dean.

That’s not quite accurate. Being with Dean is so much better than being alone. Feeling like he’s selfish and kicked and running against a wall is preferable to ignoring the wall and actively being selfish.

When he gets home he’s been gone for less than two hours and Bobby looks seven years older – seven years’ bad luck, Sam thinks, contemplating all the broken places inside Dean – and he scratches his face almost nervously when he sees Sam step through the door.

“Where’s Dean?”

Bobby smiles at him with limp relief. “Sleeping on the couch.”

“Did he do anything?” What Sam’s asking is did he do anything bad? Though it’s not as if he wants to punish Dean, no matter what he’s done. No matter what shade of bad it may be.

“He forgot you were gone, called you... I tried putting the TV on but he wasn’t interested.”

“Mm,” he smiles despite himself, “so what did he do?”

“Looked in his book. Took himself off to the bathroom a coupla times. Then,” Bobby ushers him through into the living room, “he fell asleep.”

“Good.”

Bobby is quiet for a flurry of seconds, then he shakes his head and lets out a sigh like someone tired and not ready to show it yet. “Sam, honest, son. I don’t know how you do it.”

Sam shrugs and looks at Dean lying on the couch, limbs relaxed and loose, face cleansed of any conscious worry, any daytime depth. He wonders whether his brother dreams of his life now or his life then. Or if he just dreams in dolphins and red shoes. He hopes for the latter more than he can admit to himself. Perhaps this is what holds him here so firmly. “I just love him.”

--

End

--