Live Again

The diner was small, mostly clean and served food that came closer to the vicinity of home cooked that the chips, soda and doughnuts they often called breakfast, lunch, or dinner. One man’s snack food…

Dean Winchester’s thoughts drifted from the mostly cleared platter of BLT and cheese fries to his younger brother, Sam. The dark circles of sleep deprivation that had adorned the youngest Winchester’s face for nearly a month had finally started to fade—at least indicating that Sam was getting some sleep.

Shoving the platter still littered with fries and tomatoes toward the edge of the table Dean allowed his mind to wander. The night after the attack, even a little over two months later Dean couldn’t call it what it was, Sam had slept curled beside him just like when he was three. He’d looked so fragile and small that Dean had been afraid to move when sunlight began to filter through the dingy curtains—brightening the sickly blue/green paint of the walls. Surprise and relief had filled him in equal amounts as he untangled himself from Sam’s sleeping form, not rousing the teen from the dreamless sleep he’d fallen into.

Dean watched Sam on the other side of the table seated next to their father, as the teen left the brightly colored house salad untouched and barely bothered with the soup of the day he’d ordered. Dean smiled at the amount of soup actually missing from the bowl. Sam still wasn’t eating the amount he was before…but he was making progress.

“Desert?” asked Grace, their waitress. Dean had to grit his teeth and bite his tongue to be nice—something he found himself doing more often than he liked. Unfortunately for Grace her bubbly personality and etched on smile didn’t agree with the foul mood he’d woken up in—that was only added to when he saw Sam respond to the overly cheery woman with a weak, sad smile of his own.

John Winchester took a look at the food sitting before Sam, “do you have peach cobbler?” he asked turning his attention back to Grace.

Her already broad smile grew as she said, “baked it fresh this morning.”

“I’ll have a little bit of that then.”

“Anything else?” she asked, green eyes bouncing between Sam and Dean. Dean shook his head in the negative while Sam carefully contemplated the mostly empty cup of soda. “More soda?” Sam gave a weak nod.

“I’m good,” Dean said, keeping his attention on his brother.

With a shrug and toothy smile the bubbly brunette stole away from their table with as many of the empty dishes as she could pile together and pick up with one hand. A little over two months ago Dean would have been mildly impressed by the feat, but now the only feat he was interested in witnessing was how quickly Sam’s hair grew back in and getting the kid to do more than nibble at meals.
Anger and frustration at all they’d been through welled in Dean at the thought that it taken Sam a month to get to the point where he’d even eat half a bowl of soup, and that may be in another month’s time he might finish the soup. It was a little thing, but since that night a little over a month ago it was the little things Dean Winchester found himself paying attention to. He paid closer attention to eyes that lingered too long on Sam, how much Sam ate at every meal, any expression that crossed Sam’s face, every night Sam didn’t sleep or had a nightmare and those rare nights when the dream was so intense that Sam would crawl into his bed, and the way that Sam was uncomfortable anywhere but at the cabin Bobby’d provided for them.

“One peach cobbler,” Grace’s cheerfully pitched voice cut harshly through Dean’s thoughts, “And a fresh soda.”

“Thank you,” John said, coming close to matching the waitresses cheery tone in voice and mostly plastic smile.

“You’re welcome,” she said, cheery voice faltering slightly as she watched Sam not reach to exchange the watered down remains of the soda he’d finished for the full, sweating one she’d placed near him on the table.

“We’re good,” Dean said, exchanging the glasses of soda for his brother. He tried to control the glare he wanted to give the hazel eyed woman as her eyes lingered on Sam, and the bandage just peaking out of his jacket sleeve. Yet another reminder of the nightmare they’d physically survived—mentally, he wasn’t as sure they’d survived. The bruises, cuts and other physical wounds had scabbed over and mostly healed weeks ago, but sounds, the cruel words their attacker had spoken, tastes, touches, and smell lingered in Dean’s mind.

The first week at Bobby’s cabin, before Sam stopped clinging to him like a life preserver and started talking again, Dean had tried to imagine the mess his baby brother’s mind had become after the abuse he’d endured, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t imagine the pain, the fear, the hope of rescue, or the beyond doubt belief of death—his heart had seized, tears sprung to his eyes and his head spun each time he tried to imagine what his brother had gone through.

The helplessness and humiliation, Dean could imagine. He’d lived it as the man had plowed into his mouth and then again as the man—Gerald Scott, not Martins, as they’d found out once they’d reached Bobby’s—teased Sam with the information. He hadn’t wanted to watch as the large man raped Sam’s body—and in fact did close his eyes—and then again hours later when Gerald raped Sam’s mouth more violently than his had been. Dean’s only regrets and the torment of his nightmares was ever letting those creepy ass twins in their room.

“All done?” Grace’s pitched voice once again cut through Dean’s thoughts, and again he found himself hoping that she was really a demon, succubus, or some other creature he could kill. Across the table his father plunked the fork back to the empty plate, chewed the last bit and smiled up at the young woman. “Enjoy it?”

“It was worth every penny,” John replied as Grace scooped up the remaining plates from the table and laying the bill slip in front of the elder Winchester.

Dean watched as Sam stiffened in the seat beside their father, what color he did have drained instantaneously from the teenager’s face and his hands that had been wrapped around the glass of the soda began to shake. Fear that Sam was about to meltdown and freak everyone in the diner out steam rolled through Dean.

“Hey, Dad,” he said casually, hoping to keep Sam calm enough to get him away from people, “’m gonna take Sam to the car.”

For a brief moment John merely stared at his eldest son. The question of “why” stuck to his tongue like tree sap as he turned to look at Sam. Sam was pale, shaking and looking ready to throw up. Quickly and wordlessly John finished the Impala’s keys from the front pocket of his jeans as he moved out of Sam’s way.

“Sam,” Dean said, fighting the urge to reach across the table and still his sibling’s trembling hand. “Sam.” The youngest Winchester’s stricken hazel gaze finally moved from the empty space in front of him to the concern filled eyes of his older brother. “Let’s get some air.” Dean held his hand out for his brother to take.

Slowly Sam blinked his fear filled hazel eyes before opening them to stare at the out stretched hand being offered to him. “It’s all right, Sammy,” Dean whispered, willing the teenager to snap out of the memory he was trapped in and just take his hand.

Minute long seconds ticked by before Sam’s eyes carefully traveled from the offered hand to the wrist, forearm, elbow, on up to Dean’s worry filled green eyes. Recognition flittered through Sam’s eyes and the younger man gingerly grasped the offered hand.

Dean almost sighed in relief as he helped his brother from the booth, but he knew that was only step one. Step two was getting Sam outside before anything else could be done or said to send the teenager farther toward the likelihood of a major tantrum—as their dad had taken to calling Sam’s momentary flash backs.

Dean hated that term for Sam’s episodes.

Sam’s slightly larger hand griped Dean’s tightly as they older hunter led them from the diner to the parking lot.

“We’ll figure this out, Little Brother…I promise.” Dean’s own words rattled around his head as he held Sam in his lap more than a few heartbeats after the officer, he’d tried not to call a prick, and his father had gone outside. “Sam,” he said giving the teen a gentle shake, “I’m going to clean up the sink.”
Sam’s hand clutched at the arm Dean had wrapped around his chest, but put up no fight as his older sibling pulled away.

‘Pull it together, Winchester!’ Dean mentally scolded himself as tears begged to form at the site of his sibling pulling his lanky form into a small ball with his back resting against the wall—hollow eyes staring unfocused at the room surrounding him. Tears forced from his eyes, Dean tore his attention from the torturous site of his younger sibling’s broken unfocused eyes and reached for the trash can sitting beside the toilet.

Dean, pretending to look for a non-existent razor, began carefully plucking clumps of Sam’s soft locks from the yellowish sink. As the hair blackened and filled the small trash can the twenty-one year old wished they could have not killed the bastard who’d ripped what heart was left of their family from their collective chests and trounced all over it—wished they could have broken the monster…

Sam let out a small noise, stopping the older hunter’s thought hard. Dean turned to Sam. Hazel eyes stared hollow, broken and cold at him. “Sam?”

“Dean,” Sam choked from his bruised throat, “make him be quiet, Dean…please.”

“Shh,” he cooed crouching beside his younger brother, “he’s gone, Sam…he can’t hurt you.” Dean’s heart broke at the site of tears streaking down Sam’s face. “Let me clean that up,” Dean murmured, pulling away from his brother.

Doing his best to steady hands that wanted to shake, Dean wet a washcloth. Kneeling once more beside his sibling, Dean forced his trembling hands steady and reached the wet cloth to the smears of dried blood caking to his brother’s face. The wet fabric glided across the thin cut on Sam’s cheek like an eraser—erasing the blood that had oozed from the cut nearly half an hour before. Dean barely breathed as he finished cleaning the wound. Sam was silent and still beneath the older hunter’s nursing.

“Dean,” Sam whispered, eyes still not focused on anything.

Dean stopped breathing, waiting for Sam to say more. Sam whimpered lightly settled on the floor and closed his eyes. “Sam?” he breathed, releasing his held breath. Sam’s breath came slow, even puffs despite the slight tremors racking his almost too thin body.

Deciding to finish the cleaning job, Dean pulled himself back to the sink. After ridding the yellowed porcelain of large clumps of Sam’s silky locks of hair, Dean used the already dampened wash cloth to wipe the few remaining strands from the sink.

Once again he kneeled before his baby brother. “Sam,” he said, reaching a hand out to carefully touch the teen’s arm. “Sam, why don’t we go to the other room?”


“Dean?” Sam said, voice coming out small, choked and muffled.

“Yeah, Sam?” he answered turning his full attention from his thoughts to the younger hunter seated in the backseat of the family Impala—feet on the pavement of the parking lot, head held in his hands, elbows atop his knees, eyes focused on the pavement beneath his feet.

“Is this ever going to end?...are we…will I…” Sam fumbled, not looking up from the dull grey of the once black asphalt of the parking lot.

“Someday,” Dean said. “It all depends on the person and the people around them, Sammy.”

“Dad thinks I should be over this by now.”

“Yeah, I know, Little Brother,” Dean agreed turning his attention to the cars moving up and down the highway on the other side of the corn field across from the diner. “Look, Sam,” Dean said, sharply—turning back to the younger man, “Dad doesn’t know how to deal with this any better than we do. It’s just easier for him to pretend that it never happened—sweep it under the rug as though it had never been there. It’s his way, Sam.

“But it’s not your way. He wasn’t there with us or for us—that alone kills him. You should have seen him after we finally stopped…before we went to Bobby’s…he was lost, Sam. I think he still is.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Are you lost or shattered?”

“Sam, there’s a limit to how many shattered and lost people one family can have.” Dean watched as the corners of Sam’s mouth pulled up slightly. “Someone’s got to glue you back together and let dad believe that pretending is working for us too. I’ll be fine, Sammy.”

The End