Title: Sam’s Journal
Author: Tim Quinn
Rating: FRM/R
Summary: Sams kept a journal since Jess.
Series: Dean’s Journal (Written by Bj Jones)
***
July 15, 2008
I got him out.
Its what brothers do.
Save each other.
He did it for me.
I didnt want him to, or ask him to, but hes always been there for me no matter how many times I screw up, and I guess the biggest screw up of all was dying on him.
So why does he look at me now like I did something wrong in saving his sorry ass?
How could I leave him there?
Its like when his heart was damaged crisping that Rawhead. He was ready to die, to martyr himself. He didnt want my help then, but what did he think I was going to do?
Sit by his bed, hold his hand and sing Kumbaya while he died right in front of me?
Hes my brother.
I had to save him.
He hated me for it then, but that was the Reaper, and even if the preacher had been the real deal, Id probably still have this feeling he didnt want me to interfere, because it saved it him on my terms not his.
He doesnt like me fighting for him. Must be a big brother thing.
So its okay for him to watch out for me but I cant do the same for him?
Yeah well, think again.
Jerk.
At lest hes using the journal I got him. I know it helps, getting it all out when you cant say stuff out loud. Hed look at me the same way he did when I told him I pray everyday, if I told him Id kept a journal since Jess.
Its online.
He wont find it, not when his internet experience doesnt get much past surfing local papers for background info and assorted porn.
If I asked him right now what he thought I was typing here, while he watches Mythbusters with his feet up on the table, Id get a facetious comment about downloading make-up tips or something.
Or I wouldve before
He doesnt talk much now. Not that he was ever the greatest conversationalist in the world to start with.
Hes quiet.
Too quiet.
I miss hearing him call me a bitch.
But if hes talking to his journal its okay.
I can wait.
Ill be here for him whether he wants me to be or not.
I got him back.
He doesnt know what it cost me, and he doesnt need to know, but I cant pretend like its not changed him, or me.
Scares me hes not my brother any more, that maybe I brought back someone else, or some THING else and left a part of him behind. I just dont want him to see that Im afraid.
Not after all this.
I got him out of hell.
And now?
Now we get to learn how to live again.
A day at a time.
For better or worse.
Like some dysfunctional old married couple.
Because thats what we do.
Because Dean is my big brother.
And I love him.
***
July 24, 2008
I hate this.
I should be able to make it right, but he pulls way from me.
What can I say to make him feel better? How is ‘it’ll be okay’ going to make it easier on him? He went to hell. How do you get over that without…I don’t know…without turning into Ruby?
I don’t know what to do.
When we were little it was hard enough just to hug, to even show each other we were feeling anything. Anything at all. He has to be the dude, keep it all inside, no ‘chick flick moments’.
I couldn’t count how many nights I fell asleep as a kid, crying where he couldn’t see it, making sure he never knew I wasn’t being as much of a dude as him.
I tried really hard to be him, and let’s face it, it wasn’t like I had a whole load of role models to work from, until I grew up and knew I couldn’t be him, and I couldn’t be dad. I had to be me.
For what it’s worth.
I should know what to say to him when he’s scared. I should be able to make it better. He always swore to me no matter what happened around us, or what we went through he’d never let me go Dark Side. He believed in me, when I wasn’t sure I could believe in me.
Now all I want to do is hold on to him when he shakes, like he used to hold me when I had bad dreams.
Feels like everything’s turned on its head here, and where he used to look at me making sure I was still me, now I’m looking at him, making sure I still see my brother and not something that looks like Ruby.
There’s my nightmare.
But I believe in him, and not even hell is going to change that. So when he sits there across from me trying to figure out if its okay to come back to bed, and the look on his face wrenches at my gut, why do I just lie there pretending to be asleep and hoping he doesn’t notice?
I hate myself for that, but I don’t know yet how to get him to take my hand when I offer it. He doesn’t get that its not weak to need someone and he’d never admit that. He’d go back to hell first.
But in the middle of the night when he’s struggling to wake up from terrors that won’t let him go, he’s got to know that I’mthe one who won’t let him go, and I’ll still be holding him when the nightmares have faded.
However long it takes.
***
August 2, 2008
I remember. I remember everything.
The Trickster showed me what I’d become without Dean. And I remember it all.
Without him I was someone else. I didn’t like that Sam.
I couldn’t think about Dean, about where he was what he was going through for me. So I focused on everything else, obsessively. Straight blankets on the bed. Everything in its place right. Everything just so. I had to fill my thoughts with other things or go mad with frustration and anger. So much anger.
No it was more than anger.
Rage.
Constant rage.
It was my fault. Dean was gone and it was my fault.
And I couldn’t save him. Whatever I did, whatever I tried, there was no way to stop him from dying.
And I tried. I swear I tried.
I knew from those months without him that all I could do was seek revenge. But life’s always been like that. Revenge for mom, revenge for Jess, revenge for dad, revenge for Dean.
I couldn’t go into hell to get him out. I knew where the Gate was. I’d stood there longing to open it. But Azazel would’ve won if I’d done that. I know it would’ve changed me in all the ways that he’d intended to start with, and that was the one thing Dean would never allow.
What was I meant to do but focus on the work? That was the only thing I had left. Nothing else mattered.
But the Trickster gave Dean back to me, right along with the memories of being without him.
Dean’s all I have.
And when the Hellhounds came to take him, I went mad with grief.
He took a part of me with him, cos that’s just how it is. Brothers as close as we are, share more than just genes.
He asks me now what I did to save him. He can’t figure it out and I don’t want him to know. He can yell and shout and get pissy with me and it doesn’t matter, cos I can’t tell him.
Little Sammy couldn’t do it.
All that education I had. All dad’s training…
There was nothing I could do. I already knew that thanks to the Trickster.
And Ruby…? She was no fucking use. Has her own agenda. Always has. She lied to me when she said she’d show me how to save him.
A demon who lies.
Big shock there.
In the end it was mom.
Mom saved him.
I kept dreaming about her and did a seance.
She came to talk with me for a while. She made it better.
Mom saved Dean.
I couldn’t ask dad, he was gone wherever it is people go when they don’t go to hell.
But mom was still there thanks to Azazel. Only thing I can think of to thank that sonofabitch for.
She was looking out for her boys.
Always.
I just can’t tell Dean his little Sammy went running to mom. I can’t.
What kind of brother does that make me?
***
August 24, 2008
He’s gone.
Sonofabitch!
Just left his car keys and split.
Okay so he froze up.
He’s not himself.
I get it.
I really get it.
He needs a bit of space.
But he can’t do this. Not like this.
We do this together.
Always.
How far have either of us ever got on our own? Hell and back?
Hasn’t he learned that yet?
Fuck.
Fuck fuck fuck!!
Okay so the only way out of here is by bus.
He’s not getting far.
I’ll come for you Dean.
Then beat your ass for leaving me to sleep in an empty bed again.
***
September 1, 2008
Eight days now.
I missed him two days and at least one State line further back.
Would’ve gotten to him yesterday if I hadn’t stopped to deal with that poltergeist in the bakery.
Even when I’m not hunting, these things still find me.
Must be some kind of supernatural catnip or something.
All I was doing was getting coffee and bam! People screaming, cups and plates flying, lights flickering.
Couldn’t just walk away from that. Yeah, I can do this job on my own but I don’t want to. I don’t want to become the Sam I turned into without Dean. I could, so easily, but I won’t. So I’ll find him if I have to track the jerk up to Canada and back.
I can’t sleep. When I stop chasing him and go rent a room for a couple of hours I just lie down and end up wondering why I’ve rented a room for two, when its only me here who needs a bed.
It’s never felt right without him beside me. Even when he’s having nightmares and he’s awake in the early hours of the morning, he’s still near me.
Wow…
Do I sound like some kind of hormonally obsessed teen fangirl or what?
Eurgh! Okay so that’s not a good image.
But the truth is he’s part of me and I’d like to think maybe I’m part of him.
Is he thinking about me? Is he as lonely without me as I am without him? Does he even get what it means to me when I don’t have him here?
Yeah, okay bad chick flick moment. Very bad. Very very bad.
He talks sometimes about how he loses everyone, and gives up everything, but I’ve lost everything too. And I can’t, I won’t lose him.
We are all we have.
I need to get a couple of hours rest; a shower and I’ll hit the road again.
I’ll find my brother. I have to. We don’t do too good on our own.
Back when I left him to go try my luck finding dad in California he got his sorry ass tied to an apple tree and a Norse God looking to flay him alive (which I had to get him out of!) while I ended up with Meg on my tail.
Then there was the time he came after me when I wasn’t really me, and he got shot. He says I shot him so it’s probably a good thing I don’t remember much about what else I did…
And there’s the time I was taken with the other ‘special’ kids and got myself dead.
I don’t want to go back over that.
It’s never far away, always at the back of my head and sometimes it’s way too clear but it always happens when we’re apart. The worst comes when we’re not working together, covering each other’s backs, keeping each other safe.
We’re not meant to be apart.
And if Dean can’t handle me being just a little bit obsessed about keeping him near me, well tough!
***
September 19, 2008
Got flagged down by an old lady with a cherry red Mustang.
First thought – Dean’s taste in women is maturing.
Second thought – Dean’s taste in cars is so predictable.
She knew me. She damn well knew me and had been sitting there waiting for a ’67 Chevy Impala to go by.
Said my brother had stopped in for some pie a few days before and did I want some?
Dean is always eating. The jerk should be the size of Semi by now.
But hey, who turns down free pie?
She was nice.
Granny Smith.
Jeez.
Only Dean.
She said he’d not stopped talking about his stubborn ass bitchy little brother.
It’s weird hearing words like that come out of a sweet old lady’s mouth…
But she told me what he’d done to help her out and where he’d gone and what direction to head for. And I got a warm apple pie on the back seat for eating later. She was great really. Granny Smith. One of those people who make doing this crappy job every day worth the effort. If I’d had a Grandma, I’d’ve wanted her to be like that.
She said I was looking tired and I should get more rest but I can’t. I got to find Dean.
It’s all I can think about.
***
September 22, 2008
Valley Banks, Ohio.
Might as well put up a big ass sign that says ‘Dean Winchester was here’.
Everyone’s talking about the hero guy who breezed through town and sorted out their little problem with someone named Howard or Harold or something.
Yeah, that’s my brother.
Couldn’t lay low and be subtle if the future of mankind depended on it, but he doesn’t seem to have stuck around.
So I’m only a day behind.
I’m catching him.
I’ve been dreaming about him. Weird shit too. I think he got into trouble a ways back, but I don’t know what. All I got was flashes of pain and a lot of anger. I know he’s okay though. Don’t ask me how, I just do. I don’t get dreams like I did, those ‘death omens’ that used to plague me even when I was awake. Getting rid of Azazel did for that, and good riddance. This isn’t like that, it’s different.
I don’t know what yet, but it’s different.
Maybe once you’ve got the ‘shining’ it never really goes away.
But I should be covering the stupid jerk’s back, not driving through night after night hoping the next town I reach is going to be the one where I find him holed up in some cheap dive, dodging angry locals after scamming them out of their poker money.
I am so beating the shit out of him for doing this.
I don’t care if he hates ‘over protective Sammy’. Screw it. He’s my brother.
And I love him too much to let him get himself killed in some back alley bar brawl over a few bucks.
What do I have to do to show him I need him? Kick his butt a few times?
Jerk.
If he’s getting laid right now, so help me, I’m kicking her butt too. I don’t care if she IS the local Beauty Queen.
Dean’s mine.
His ass is getting claimed.
End of story.
***
September 25, 2008
He’s asleep.
I’m playing catch up on the last couple of days.
A lot has happened.
But I have him back, and for a while I’m just going to sit here and watch him sleeping.
There’s no way he’s running out on me again.
I made sure of it.
Finding what bus he was on was easy. Those ‘Homeland Security’ ID’s that Dean made, they can get you anything you need, no questions asked.
That much power is a bit scary, especially when people look at you with those wide ‘deer caught in headlights’ stares and assume you’re chasing terrorists, but I’m a lot less squeamish than I used to be on how and when and why to use them. It’s highly illegal, but screw it.
I’d move heaven and hell for Dean if I could.
A Marshal’s badge and claims of a dangerous felon onboard got me on the bus, although I’m confessing here and only here, that for a second or two I was sure I’d not left enough braking room for it to come to a stop without crashing into the Impala. It shuddered and groaned and left rubber on the road, but on the plus side, the sound of creasing metal would’ve gotten Dean off the bus way faster than I ever could.
No one was going to argue with me though. I’d have knocked them on their asses if they had.
It was amusing to watch Dean try and slip down in his seat and hide behind the collar of his jacket like it was some kind of invisibility cloak.
Jerk.
I wasn’t in the mood for being pissed about with.
I just heaved him out of his seat, slapped cuffs on him before he could put up a fight, and shoved him and his bag out onto the road.
Didn’t give him chance to say a damn thing. I didn’t want to hear it.
Everyone was staring at us but it didn’t matter.
When the pulled away from me the first words out of his mouth were that I should leave him, he wasn’t worth it and I was better off without him.
Fuck that!
I hit him.
Couldn’t stop it from happening, but hearing that come out of his mouth, it was like something welling up inside burst out of me and I couldn’t control it.
Probably looked like I was abusing my prisoner to the good folks on the bus, but I didn’t give a damn.
Dean looked at me with a ‘what the fuck’ expression I want to savor for as long as possible. I don’t get the drop on him that often. No one does.
I pushed him in the car and waited for him to start whining about me taking the cuffs off, but he didn’t. He just sat there as I put the bus behind us.
Way behind us.
We didn’t talk. I don’t think either of us could.
I only let him out of the cuffs when I’d got us a motel room. There was no way I was having him take off anywhere.
His ass was mine.
And he was going to learn that.
I didn’t care much if I hurt him, and I know I did.
He’ll have bruises for a while, just to add to the rest, and he won’t be sitting down comfortably for a good long time, at least not without thinking about me fucking him when he does.
I claimed him. Hard and fast.
Doesn’t get much simpler than that.
I wasn’t going to have some long, drawn out argument about why I should have left him rotting in hell, or sitting on that bus. We’ve never got much into philosophy or the art of debate unless bitch! and jerk! have reached scholastic levels I don’t know about. He wouldn’t listen to me, and I wasn’t about to listen to him.
So we got physical, and it wasn’t by throwing punches.
I held him down and fucked him so hard he screamed.
I don’t think I’ve ever been more in control of a situation in my entire life.
He screamed more than once.
Loud enough for the entire motel to hear.
Lucky no one came running to find out who was being murdered…
Try explaining THAT!
He struggled a little but I wasn’t letting him go.
I’m never letting him go.
I think he gets that now.
If he doesn’t, I’ll have to show him again.
I love the way he moans, how it feels to get him sweating, panting and gasping my name as I take him, sprawled out across the sheets or over the sink in the bathroom.
But it wasn’t all hard and violent.
I took care of him too.
I know what he likes.
We grew up so close, there’s no way I couldn’t know every little detail of what turns him on, what he enjoys the most, how he likes me on my knees in the shower, or spooning up behind him in bed taking him in slow easy thrusts. I know him better than he thinks I do. I spent my childhood watching and learning from him.
The last few hours have been just the two of us and nothing else; wrapped around each other, together, taking each other over the edge, rediscovering, relearning.
I slept, finally. Guess I was pretty exhausted, but when I woke he was right there, in my arms, and I was at peace.
Now I’m sitting here watching him, hoping he won’t have another nightmare but ready to hold him and ease him through it if he does.
I’ve heard it said that when you look at a sleeping face you see the real person, who they truly are, undisguised by all the masks that daily life and expectation demands.
Tonight, I know that’s true.
I see Dean, my Dean.
And for now at least, he looks content.
***
October 30, 2008
Should’ve known just being a tourist wouldn’t last long.
At least I got him to the Grand Canyon.
He kept looking at me like I’d lost my mind or something, but I guess he’d forgotten about telling me we should go see it some day.
It was pretty cool.
One of those places that kind of makes you feel like a tiny little speck in the great scheme of things. Puts stuff into perspective.
But I knew Dean wasn’t really comfortable with us pretending we could have just a few hours of being ‘normal’.
We sat and watched other tourists playing about taking pictures, joking around, doing family stuff.
We never got that, me and Dean.
Our family days out tended to involve shotguns, knives and assorted Latin rituals.
I could speak dead languages long before I learned the finer points of actually writing my own.
Dean let me ramble off about Indians and camping out.
He was way bored, but trying his best to be interested. I always know when he’s not listening (I know all his tells even though he’d never admit I do) but I didn’t really mind him not paying attention. Seeing him smile at me made it all okay.
He did take me by surprise when he kissed me.
Didn’t hesitate.
Right there where everyone could see.
Turned me on.
I’m not really a voyeur. At least I don’t think I am, unless a little pay-per-view counts, but damn!
Still grinning now when I think about it.
Made out with him under the stars. He rolled his eyes a lot at the ‘sappy chick’ idea, but in the end it wasn’t really camping, not when all we had was an old blanket, a scrappy little fire and a huge bag of M&M’s.
Didn’t matter.
We were together.
That was the important thing.
And I have this image burned into my mind now of looking up at him as he rode me, his body lit from behind by the rising moon, his face glowing with pleasure.
My Dean.
He moaned pretty loud, moving up and down on me, letting me stroke him, his hand wrapped around mine.
It was the first time I ever said ‘I love you’ out loud.
He smacked me.
Grinned.
And rode me harder.
I wanted us to have a few days, no hunts, no pressure, but he said he’d heard about a haunting not too far from here and we should check it out.
I should’ve said ‘fuck no, I’m not having you anywhere near anything supernatural while you’re still twitchy or I’ll be chasing you round the damn country again’, but no, I didn’t.
He just pouted and sulked until I agreed.
Next time he says I do the same thing, I’ll remind of this.
Jerk.
So much for us having a little bit of ‘normal’.
We can’t do that.
Maybe ‘normal’ is something neither of us was ever really meant to have and it’s time we both stopped looking for it and embraced what we really are?
Okay…
…did I really just write that?
Dean’s never let me be what I really am.
What I really am can never be allowed to take shape again, not even when I feel it in the dark places inside me.
What Azazal wanted from me, what he wanted me to be, its still there in me.
I know it.
And it still creeps me out.
So we’re going hunting on Hallowe’en.
Did I ever mention I hate Hallowe’en?
***
October 31, 2008
I hate fucking Hallowe’en.
Hate it.
Kids, booze, ouija boards.
It’s like an ‘all you can eat buffet’ for every evil thing out there.
Wasn’t an easy hunt.
Not a good idea to go digging up old Native Indian bones. Period.
Lucky we weren’t scalped or something.
And the kids made it worse.
They’d had more than their fair share to drink (and the fair share of several other people too I think) but we managed to persuade them it was all just some local show put on for the night and not really an ancient spirit trying to flay them alive.
I doubt any of them will remember much about it in the morning when they’re heaving their guts up in whoever’s bathroom they can find.
They’re lucky its just sore heads they’ll be dealing with tomorrow.
Caught Dean watching some of the youngsters in costumes all running loose on a sugar high, squealing over their candy buckets, begging the grown ups to let them stay up real late, and I couldn’t help wondering if maybe he can remember going ‘trick or treating’ with mom and dad before I was born and screwed up our lives.
Fuck.
Did I mention I hate Hallowe’en?
It’s right up there with Christmas.
And just to make it worse, Ruby showed up while I was getting us some food.
Turns out she’s still got an issue with Lilith. Yeah, what a shock.
Told to go fuck herself.
She’s always saying she’s got so much demonic power, she can deal with Lilith herself.
Screw it.
And her.
I just want her as far away from Dean as possible for the foreseeable future.
I’m not going to have him run from me again, and I know he’d try if he heard her bitching about how unfair it was that he’d had someone to get him out of hell when she’d been left there to rot without hope of rescue, and what made him so special in the first place…
She might look like the girl from next door but she’s still a demon, and I don’t give a shit about what she thinks is unfair or unjust.
I’m not dragging Dean into some new confrontation with Lilith or putting him at risk from a demon he could’ve faced in hell.
Not doing it.
She’s used me, and Dean for own agenda and I’m not playing that game again, so I threatened to put a bullet in her head if she didn’t leave.
She wouldn’t keep coming back to piss me off if I shot her with Colt, but I didn’t. In the end I’ve got to save those bullets for killing things that really matter.
And she really doesn’t matter any more.
So she’ll be back to piss me off again sooner or later.
I can take that as a given.
I just want Dean in a place where he can deal with her first, and not freak out or lose faith in himself when it happens.
***
November 3, 2008
I’m tired.
I’m so tired.
Maxed out one of our credit cards bailing Dean out of jail.
Not for the first time.
Didn’t take long to find him.
I saw where he’d gone to when he’d run out of our room, and by the time I pulled some clothes and shoes on there cops cars and sirens just across the street.
I turn my back on him for two damn seconds and look what happens!
Couldn’t do much to help, not with Ruby being cuffed and shoved into a car behind him.
At least she had as many bruises as Dean.
Fled the town.
Fled the damn State.
Been driving for hours.
I just want to stop for a while. Rest up.
Dean’s in the shower.
Had this big angry speech all planned.
I was all set to kick his ass, but all I can think about now is how he screamed.
Never heard anyone (or any THING) scream like that.
So we’ve not said much, and I think my not yelling at him like he wants me to has got to be creeping him out.
But getting mad with him won’t fix it.
Hitting him will only give him more bruises and he’s got enough of those.
Is he trying to get himself killed?
Is that what this is?
Would he rather be dead?
When is he going to figure out that I can’t live without him; that I don’t WANT to live without him?
And what the hell did Ruby do that got him so pissed he went and trashed a coffee shop?
No, wait…
…I can imagine some of what she said in that ‘I’m so fucking superior’ way she’s got.
I’d tie Dean to the bed and just fuck some sense into him if I wasn’t so tired.
Best I can do is lock the door. At least if he bolts again, the time it’ll take for him to break it open will give me chance to stop him leaving.
I’ll rub some ointment on his bruises before we go to bed.
If he’ll let me.
I’ll hold him when he shakes.
If he’ll let me.
I’ll keep the demons away, if he’ll let me do that too, but he’s looking at me right now like he can’t quite decide what to say to me.
He looks like shit.
But hey, that’s not the first time either.
And I know it won’t ever be the last.
***
November 6, 2008
He knows the truth.
He knows what I did.
That fucking bitch Ruby!
That’s why he trashed that stupid coffee shop.
Damn it all!!
I should’ve killed her when I threatened to, and sent her smug ass back to hell.
When does a demon get to be so fucking righteous?
I swear to God I’m putting a bullet in her next time she shows up.
Or ripping her soul from her body with my bare hands.
Which isn’t as inconceivable as it might once have been.
She had no right.
Fuck.
What do I do now?
How do I look my brother in the eye again?
I can’t explain.
I just can’t.
I don’t know what to say.
He’s always saved me, done whatever was necessary.
He sold his soul for me.
And what do I do to save him?
I go dark side.
Big brave Sammy.
Shit.
He wasn’t meant to know.
He just sat there with his eyes wide and that weird little frown on his face, like he couldn’t quite believe I heard him and he was desperately trying to find a way to make it all just a big mistake, but some things you can’t joke about.
He knows.
He didn’t say anything, he just looked at me like I was something unbelievably pathetic.
I think I jumped out of the car. And I remember ranting on Ruby’s ass and the her fucking big mouth and how many ways from Sunday I could show her she’d truly pissed me off, but he pushed me back in the car, took the wheel himself and we ended up here.
Which is…?
Now I think about it, I have no clue.
I should check the motel sign or something but, fuck it.
***
November 9, 2008
‘Thank you for saving me. I love you Sammy, so much.’
Jerk made me cry.
I just stood there waiting for him to crack his usual comment about ‘chick flick moments’ but he didn’t.
He took my face between his hands and kissed me.
So slow, so soft it made my heart ache.
He told me all about it, how he’d thought he was dreaming it, but the pieces are coming together in his head now as time goes on. He knows what I did.
Well, some of it.
I put my arms around him and held on, half expecting to have that same furious fight with him about how I should never put myself in a place to let out the darkness inside me, but it never came.
I’d tried to find so many ways to explain; to justify what I did.
But I didn’t need to.
And just like that, he made it feel better.
Rubbing his hands up and down my back like he did when we were kids and I was miserable with the flu or something, I put my head against his neck and he let me just cry.
He’ll deny it, but I know he cried too.
It’s okay. I know it’s okay.
But he’s always been there, taking care of me.
His little Sammy.
I just hope I can still be the little Sammy he gave his soul for when the darkness takes over and I can’t control it any more.
We made love all morning, not caring about anything but each other.
All I could see was him. Alive. So vibrant and warm and real in my arms.
I could taste his breath on my skin.
Feel his heartbeat matching mine.
Hear him moan my name as I took him over the edge.
I can’t live without him.
Not now, not ever.
***
November 2, 2008
Looking now at what I wrote yesterday, I’m not sure I can decipher my own writing. I’d just grabbed the nearest thing and tried to fend off the memories of that night.
I can’t even think of it as anything more than ‘that’ night.
Dean yanked so damn hard on the wheel, it was a miracle we didn’t up in a field full of cows.
Scared the shit out of me.
He was screaming about some song on the radio and when I tried to stop him getting out of the car, he shrugged me off so hard he crushed my hand.
I don’t think he even knew he’d done it.
Doesn’t matter.
A little physical pain just doesn’t matter now.
All I can see is that look on his face.
I can’t even describe it, but there’s no way I’m going to forget it.
I can’t.
I’d had visions of him bolting or something hideous like that, and getting hit by a passing car, but he leapt right over the fence by the road and startled the animals running out over the grass.
He was breaking.
Right there.
Right in front of me.
And I knew there wasn’t a single damn thing I could do to stop it or make it better.
I’m so fucking sick of feeling that way.
I watched him die.
I watched Hellhounds I couldn’t even see, tear him to piece right in front of my eyes and I couldn’t stop it.
I watched him scream in torment.
I watched…
All I ever do is watch.
God, I fucking hate this.
Hate being powerless.
I knew, rationally that he had to get it all out of his system.
Psychologically, yes it makes sense, but I think these last few months have been like trying to run away from it and the tidal wave just hit him.
Hit us both maybe.
I’m not sure.
I just remember feeling like I did that night, watching as he fell to his knees and screamed up at the sky, railing against heaven for what he’d endured.
It’s not fair.
I know that.
I know it’s not fair.
He’s a good man. My loyal friend. My teacher. My inspiration. My defender. My brother. My heart. My lover.
He didn’t deserve what happened.
I’d give my own soul to go back and make sure it never happened. I’d do that. I’d give anything.
But I can’t.
I might have some kind of power that even now I’m only just learning to tap into, but even I can’t go back.
I’d change so much if I could.
Fuck, the irony isn’t lost here.
I scrawled it all down as he sobbed his pain out, wanting only to go comfort him and knowing I couldn’t. It wouldn’t have helped. It wouldn’t have done him any good.
He had to do it alone. I get that.
But it doesn’t make it feel right.
I don’t think it ever will.
I can’t make it better.
So what’s the point of this? What am I doing here trying to read my own shaky words and make it all make sense?
Maybe he’s scribbling something similar in that journal I got him?
He’s clinging to it like it’s a life line to wherever he is in his own mind right now.
I can’t say I’m surprised, but I’m glad he has something…some way to express it all when I know he can’t tell me.
I just need him to know I’m here.
That I’ll take care of him.
Always.
Whatever he needs. Whenever he wants it. I’ll be here.
Forever.
There’s nowhere else in this fucked up world I could ever be but with him.
If there’s truly destiny somewhere in all this, then its here, with Dean.
[edit: 2 hours after entry]
I don’t know there’s words for this.
It’s like…
I dunno, it’s kind of one of those moments where I’m hunting for song lyrics or something.
He told me, all of it, everything he remembers, all the things he felt then, and what he’s going through now. I’ve never known Dean just open up and talk like that.
I didn’t want to breathe in case he stopped.
I just held on to him, under the blankets, our bodies wrapped around each other, stroking his hair.
And he talked it out. All of it.
I can’t imagine. And after all the shit I’ve seen in my life, I’ve got a good imagination.
I just can’t imagine it.
Maybe, I don’t want to?
Maybe it’s like the brain has some kind of self-preservation mode or something, but I can’t do it.
I told him I wished it was me and not him. That after everything I’d put him through in my life, I was the one who’d deserved to go to hell, and he just looked at me with so much love in his eyes, I couldn’t speak after that. But he knew what I meant, and why I said it.
There’s times we don’t understand each other. Always has been. Growing up we had some classic fights.
But now, I think…I hope we know each other better.
We’re too close not to I guess.
We talked about what I did.
I finally told him how much it terrifies me that I can’t control this…whatever it is inside me. He didn’t want me to do it. I know why. I know. I do.
But it was like it took over without conscious thought.
Like the time I moved the dresser from the door so I could get to him before a bullet split his head open.
It was just…there.
But if I let go…? What happens then?
Demon Armies march at my command?
Hell comes to earth?
I can’t help thinking about this stuff. It’s a part of me. It’s not going to change.
But Dean…he kissed me, and whispered in my ear that if we stick together, we can face anything.
Even hell.
And I know it’s true.
I just wish it hadn’t taken hell to show us both that.
***
November 27, 2008
Okes, We’ve never done this.
Not once.
I gave up a long time ago on us ever doing family stuff like the rest of my friends did when I was at school.
Thanksgiving has always been right up there with Christmas and Hallowe’en and all that other stuff I wasn’t meant to have.
Jess tried once to get me to her parents’ house, but I didn’t go. I just made excuses because I couldn’t sit there and pretend it was all okay and it was all normal.
I tried really hard to pretend I was normal, like the other kids, but the truth is, sitting there in that diner with Dean and tucking into the first real Thanksgiving meal we’d ever shared, I couldn’t remember what I’d been trying to pretend for in the first place.
Being with him was the only real part of my life.
We were a family.
Together.
I really missed dad right about then.
What would have thought to see us like that?
Dean smiled at me. An honest smile that came from the heart.
He was happy.
He even told the waitress what he had to be thankful for.
Sap.
He likes these weird little moments, when he can say we were doing right.
And it felt right. It truly did.
We took dessert back to our room at the motel and watched a repeat of the Macy’s Parade on the old TV.
Dean curled up with his head in my lap on the couch and promptly fell asleep, but it didn’t matter, not if he was sleeping peaceful and contented.
I had him there with me, and that was what I was thankful for.
***
November 30, 2008
I know what happened.
I think.
Maybe.
I just don’t want to admit it.
I can’t.
Not yet.
I can’t believe it.
I don’t want to believe it.
I can’t handle this.
And there’s no way Dean can either.
It was incredible.
And terrifying.
And right now I’m just scared shitless.
We destroyed that diner.
Totally.
It was just gone.
All I did was touch Dean’s hand and there was raw power flooding through me.
Us.
Through us.
Dean can still see hell’s bitches.
I realized it the second he grabbed that waitress, the one we met over Thanksgiving.
He was instantly tense when we walked in the door but I didn’t think it was anything like that.
How could I?
He never told me.
He never fucking told me!
Was he scared I’d think he was one of them?
One of hell’s bitches?
Yeah, that’s got to be it.
He’s terrified too.
I can see it on his face and his eyes.
He thinks he’s one of them.
Well, if he is, so am I.
I know because I’ve felt that power before.
Just not that strong.
It’s hellfire.
That’s the only way I can describe it in words.
One of Azazel’s fucking gifts.
If you can call that a gift.
Shit!
Shit!!
She said we were angels.
The waitress lady.
We saved her life, and right now I can’t even remember her name.
But we’re not angels.
Neither of us.
I tapped into the dark side to help Dean out of hell.
No regrets.
I got him back, and for that alone it was worth it.
But touching him, like that, in that diner, it just let it all out again, and I couldn’t control it.
Like, maybe Dean was some kind of conduit for the power and it channeled through us.
I feel sick thinking about it, especially when I don’t know how it happened.
I don’t understand, not when I already swore I’d keep it locked down inside of me.
Yeah that really worked well there Sam.
Way to go.
I should’ve realized I couldn’t escape becoming that OCD freak the Trickster showed me when he took Dean away from me for all those months.
That’s what I should be now, before anyone else has to die.
It’s what I was meant to have become.
Dean’s sitting there right back in the far corner of the room; scribbling in his journal like he thinks I’m not really watching him.
But I’m not letting the jerk out of my sight any time soon.
No fucking way.
Lilith’s going to hear about the diner.
We’re four States away from there but I can put money on her finding us.
And she won’t be alone when she comes for us.
No Dean, I’m not moving the dresser from in front of the damn door.
Keep growling at me.
I don’t care.
I’m not letting go of you again.
We’re in this together.
We’ll work it out together.
Whatever it takes.