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beansideMore WIP! I swear, eventually we'll get caught up on the comments! It's been a long week.
*grin*
Title: Know Me Broken
Rating: MC-17
Authors:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nilchance and beanside
Disclaimer: We don't own them, we just play with them as long as Kripke will let us.
Warnings: violence, mental illness, and paternal and fraternal incest.
A/N: AU.
When morning broke, their house was still as the aftermath of a gunshot. It was an uneasy hush, waking John in the hours where dawn stretched pale and cold. They were suffering through a bitter snap, the last bite of winter, and the light gave only shadows.
Something was wrong. The weight of it crept up on John, coiling heavy and certain around his spine. He watched the long fingers of light stretch across the ceiling, shifting to tuck Sam a little tighter against his side, keep him a little closer. Even after six years, his other arm felt so empty it ached.
John knew his instincts. They'd kept him breathing more than once. He stroked the mark he'd bitten into Sam's hip and considered for a while, eased by Sam's slow and humid breaths against his shoulder.
0700 came and passed without Sam so much as twitching, all crashed out, his lashes heavy on his cheeks. Sam mumbled a drowsy question as John started untangling himself from Sam's long damn legs and arms, quieting again when John rumpled his hair and threw the bedspread over him. At least when Sam was asleep, he didn't question.
John moved to the kitchen and started the coffeepot, started the tea, and damned if that didn't still irk him. The cult had cost him his oldest, left scars deep on Sam, but it stung that the bastards had taken alcohol and coffee from John, too.
All right, so the ulcer had been his own damn fault.
As the water boiled, the hellbeast Sam called a cat meandered over and rubbed herself on John's leg. He nudged her away with a mutter of, "If you weren't a decent mouser, you'd be wendigo bait."
She swatted fondly at his ankle, which for her meant that it was only a flesh wound, and waddled off to stare at her empty food bowl. John fed her before she could start yowling loud enough to wake the dead, let alone Sam, and went to the living room to avoid the slurping.
Caleb looked up from John's couch, one of John's beers sweating in his hand. For a moment, he looked like another college student, his scarred face young and tired. You’d have to ignore the rusty blood wedged up under his fingernails, the livid bruise of a ligature mark around his throat. Most people did ignore it, because Caleb walked under a shadow that kept most people from looking twice.
Caleb was 23. John looked, trying to trace the progression of years, trying to match his own memory of Dean to fit. Would he be as tall as Caleb? As broad? As deeply scarred? Would stubble shadow Dean’s jaw now? Would his eyes have gone dark like Caleb’s?
Was he hunting?
Asking how the hell Caleb got in was a moot point, so John nodded at him. "Hey. You want coffee?"
Caleb gave his thin ghost of a smile and shook his head. "Nah. Won't be here long. Thanks."
"Fair enough. What've you got for me?"
Caleb opened his mouth to reply, stopped short of actually saying anything. He considered John for a long moment, then sighed and turned the laptop around. The video player was the eerie ghostlight of a night-vision camera, locked on the open mouth of an alley.
"I was in Rio de Janeiro hunting a skinwalker. Caught this on one of the surveillance cameras I rigged up. Thought you might want in on it.”
Irritated, John dropped onto the couch. “I know I’ve told you that this sort of thing goes to Bobby. It’s not my top priority, and I’m not arguing with you again. If you want my read on things, that’s fine, but I’m not in the field anymore.”
Part of John hated himself a little more every time he said that, every time he passed up a hunt or turned his back on a chance to track the thing that killed Mary. Every time the hunt for the demon turned up aces, and the hunt for Dean left John empty-handed and hurting deep.
That was usually Caleb’s cue to start up the impassioned speech about their duty as hunters, their need to protect the innocent. Caleb’s idealism sometimes made John’s teeth itch. This time around, though, Caleb only sighed and shoved the laptop across the space between them. "Just save the interrogation until you watch the damn thing, John."
John took the laptop, mostly because the laptop was worth more than John's life around midterms, and balanced it on his knees. "That bad?" he asked finally.
Caleb shook his head, looking suddenly like he felt every year weighing on him. "I'll be in the kitchen when it's done."
There was a sad, grim satisfaction in knowing why he'd felt the storm rolling in. John dismissed Caleb with a curt nod and, "Don't wake Sam. He's crashed out in my room."
With a grunt, Caleb disappeared into the kitchen. John could hear him rattling around in the cabinets, and odds were Sam would be up and in their faces in a few minutes anyway.
John hit play.
The video quality was grainy as hell, flickering green. There was a man leaning against the wall, his body language screaming discomfort. Hard to make out his face or shape, given the shadows, but there was something in the way he watched the street...
A shadow passed, and the first man moved enough that John could make out dark hair, medium build, and the bills folded up in the man's long fingers.
The shadow paused, then changed course. It drew close enough to the camera to resolve into another man. He was dressed in bulky clothes and layers that didn't hide that he was addict-skinny. He didn't move like a junkie. He moved like military, fluid and deliberate. His hair hung in his face, hiding it until he flicked it out of his eyes. And his face...
His eyes were Mary's eyes.
John's heart seized in his chest. He felt his fingers tighten on the laptop, felt himself draw closer like he could touch-
Six years. Six years of waiting, of empty bedrooms and dead ends, of feeling the absence in every drive, every Metallica song on the radio, every car he repaired and grade report Sam brought home, every hunt and every fight and every long night John lay awake wondering if his boy was dead. Wondering if dead might be kinder.
Dean had aged more than six years allowed. His face was harder now. Hard to tell in this crappy footage, but it looked like he'd gotten tall. Mary was an echo in his sharp cheekbones, in his eyes, in the absent cant of his head.
Dean stopped a few feet from the man, hands in his pockets, indolent and wary at once. Words were exchanged. Dean's mouth curved, but it wasn't anything recognizable as a smile. He reached out, plucking the money sharply from the man's fingers, and slid it into his pocket.
And then John's boy sank to his knees in the trash.
There was no way to breathe around the pain. John let it hit him, his fingertips resting on the warmth of his screen, his eyes locked on his son's upturned face. As the man slid his hand into Dean's hair, his fist tightening as he pushed himself deeper, John set his jaw and swallowed like it would help. Like this wasn't already over.
He watched, because that was all he could do and he owed Dean at least that much. He watched, feeling like he was bleeding inside again, until the man shuddered and it was done.
Dean turned his head and spat, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. While he was distracted, the man moved. At 16, Dean could've blocked it; at 22, he took the backhand square with enough force to whip his head around.
Dean moved fast, fast enough to blur the tape, fast enough that John lost track of him. One second he was knocked aside. The next, Dean was on his feet, knife in his hand, and the guy's insides was spilling out through his own clasped fingers.
With blood on his hands, on his face, there was no mistaking; Dean was a Winchester. John could read his own training in the way Dean moved, the way he took the man apart. There seemed to be a lag, until John realized Dean wasn't being slow about it; he was being deliberate, a sadistic edge that John hadn't sharpened himself.
It took a long damn time for Dean to let the man die.
In the end, Dean stood over the body (what was left of it) and wiped his bloody face. He sheathed the knife and stripped the man, folded up the bills. There was nothing of Mary in him now.
The screen went dark without warning, shadows devouring Dean. John reached convulsively for him and blunted his fingers against the screen. After a long moment, he swallowed against the burn in his throat and in his eyes, popped the drive, and broke the disc in two.
As promised, Caleb was waiting in the kitchen. Sam was beside him, hands wrapped around a mug, his expression a silent demand even as he pushed John's cup of tea at him.
Caleb'd put a screenshot from the video in front of Sam, the print-out blurry but clearly Dean. John was grateful enough to choke on it, because God knew he hadn't thought to save something from that video for Sam. The tea was black as tar, but it only served to make John want a stiffer drink.
"So?" Sam asked finally, sitting forward to lean his elbows on the table. He was careful to nudge the picture out of the way first. "Is Dean-?"
"Alive," John rasped. "He's alive."
Sam looked at him, obviously waiting for more. When John didn't give it, Sam said, frustrated, "And? Where is he? Why are you both acting like it's a funeral? Why is he so skinny? What the hell is he doing in Brazil? Who was that other guy? What'd he pay Dean for? Why-"
"Sammy," John said, sharper than he meant to. "Dean's alive. That's enough."
Sam was quiet for a long moment, which never boded well. Then Sam sat back in his chair, staring at John like sighting down a rifle. "What aren't you telling me?"
"Nothing that matters." John dragged a hand through his hair, suddenly exhausted. He felt like he needed a shower, but it wouldn't be enough. "The other guy's dead now. No point looking into it. We need to start digging through flight manifests, checking with the border guards-"
"He's my brother," Sam said. Simple words, but the agony beneath them was like swallowing barbed wire. "Dad-"
"And I'm your father. And I'm telling you now, Sam, he wouldn't want you to see what's on that tape." Jesus, let that still matter to Dean. Let it still matter to both of them. "It's gone anyway."
The breath hissed sharply between Sam’s teeth. He looked at Caleb, pale and furious, but Caleb just held up his hands in silence. Not without regret, Caleb said, “Only made the one copy. Figured it was John’s call.”
“Fuck,” Sam breathed, letting his head drop back. He closed his eyes and said tiredly, “How long’d you sit on that disk, Caleb?”
Caleb drew in a breath, met John’s eyes. Must’ve read the warning there, because he exhaled and nodded. “Few days. Near a week. I tracked him through half of South America, feels like. He’s your boy to the bone, John, because damned if I could keep up with him. I managed three days, but he finally scraped me off for good at LAX.”
“So he’s back in the States,” John murmured.
“I lost him in an airport. No telling if he’ll stay here. Even if he does, that leaves you a lot of ground to cover.” Caleb rolled one shoulder, rubbing at it absently. “I brought the manifests with me, and whatever paperwork I could dig up. It’s in the study. If you need my help-“
“We’ve got it,” John said, voice just this side of rude.
Sam kicked him under the table. To Caleb, he said, “We’ll call you if anything comes up. Thanks.”
“S’all right. Nobody’s got a shot of catching him unless it’s you.” Climbing painfully to his feet, Caleb limped on the first step and wrapped an arm around his ribs. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get back down and kill that chupacabra.”
Hell. Caleb had left the hunt to do this. There were no easy words for how much that had probably cost the man, so John reached out, clapped his arm and said, “Thank you. I owe you.”
“I know.” Caleb gave him a lopsided smile and a quick, sardonic salute. “Good luck. I’ll let myself out.”
The door rattled closed behind Caleb. A few seconds later, John heard Caleb’s engine turn over and the truck pull away, gravel scraping and popping under its wheels.
Sam was up out of his chair the second the sound died away, the screenshot in his hand. He crowded into John’s space, slapping the picture down between them, and shoved his fingertip into John’s chest. “I’m not stupid,” Sam said savagely. “I’m not a kid.”
“Careful,” John said, dangerously mild.
“Dean was on his knees in an alley, and the guy was offering him money. I can work it out from there-“
John looked at his boy, the fire in Sam’s eyes, the circles carved under them. The nightmares that Sam had been having for years now. The ones about Dean. The others, the ones that came with crippling pain, the ones that came true.
For all that John prayed Sam was wrong when it came to his brother, he’d known better. And Sammy…
“You already knew,” John said heavily. “You’d already seen him do it.”
Sam looked at him, then swallowed and nodded. He spread his fingers out on John’s chest, smoothing the shirt down, and stared at his hand. “More than once,” Sam said finally. “Started last August. I didn’t want to tell you.”
“You should’ve,” John bit off, his voice strained. “Goddamn it, Sam, we could’ve-“
“Could’ve what, put a stake-out on alleys?” Sam dragged a frustrated hand through his hair. “I couldn’t tell anything. Half the time I barely knew it was Dean. I hoped it wasn’t. I fucked up, and I’m sorry.”
“All right.” Scrubbing tiredly at his face, John closed his eyes. Tried to quiet his temper, the gnawing in his gut. When he could trust his voice, he reached out and gently swatted Sam in the head. He let his hand linger there, finger-combing Sam’s too long hair. He wasn’t sure who that was supposed to comfort. John sighed and asked, “Anything else I should know?”
From the sudden tension under his hand, that was a ‘yes’. Sam winced, leaning away from John’s touch, and said, “Um. I don’t-“
“Spit it the hell out, Sammy.”
“Jesus, I’m trying, just give me a minute!” Sam barked. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he turned away and paced the narrow kitchen once, twice. Each step was measured, and John could damn near hear Sam counting them off in his head. After the third, Sam stopped short and said in an almost violent burst, “Sometimes, they look like- not all the time, but enough-“
“Sam,” John said, gentler that time.
“Sometimes,” Sam said, and shuddered. “Fuck. Sometimes, they look like you.”
*grin*
Title: Know Me Broken
Rating: MC-17
Authors:
nilchance and beansideDisclaimer: We don't own them, we just play with them as long as Kripke will let us.
Warnings: violence, mental illness, and paternal and fraternal incest.
A/N: AU.
When morning broke, their house was still as the aftermath of a gunshot. It was an uneasy hush, waking John in the hours where dawn stretched pale and cold. They were suffering through a bitter snap, the last bite of winter, and the light gave only shadows.
Something was wrong. The weight of it crept up on John, coiling heavy and certain around his spine. He watched the long fingers of light stretch across the ceiling, shifting to tuck Sam a little tighter against his side, keep him a little closer. Even after six years, his other arm felt so empty it ached.
John knew his instincts. They'd kept him breathing more than once. He stroked the mark he'd bitten into Sam's hip and considered for a while, eased by Sam's slow and humid breaths against his shoulder.
0700 came and passed without Sam so much as twitching, all crashed out, his lashes heavy on his cheeks. Sam mumbled a drowsy question as John started untangling himself from Sam's long damn legs and arms, quieting again when John rumpled his hair and threw the bedspread over him. At least when Sam was asleep, he didn't question.
John moved to the kitchen and started the coffeepot, started the tea, and damned if that didn't still irk him. The cult had cost him his oldest, left scars deep on Sam, but it stung that the bastards had taken alcohol and coffee from John, too.
All right, so the ulcer had been his own damn fault.
As the water boiled, the hellbeast Sam called a cat meandered over and rubbed herself on John's leg. He nudged her away with a mutter of, "If you weren't a decent mouser, you'd be wendigo bait."
She swatted fondly at his ankle, which for her meant that it was only a flesh wound, and waddled off to stare at her empty food bowl. John fed her before she could start yowling loud enough to wake the dead, let alone Sam, and went to the living room to avoid the slurping.
Caleb looked up from John's couch, one of John's beers sweating in his hand. For a moment, he looked like another college student, his scarred face young and tired. You’d have to ignore the rusty blood wedged up under his fingernails, the livid bruise of a ligature mark around his throat. Most people did ignore it, because Caleb walked under a shadow that kept most people from looking twice.
Caleb was 23. John looked, trying to trace the progression of years, trying to match his own memory of Dean to fit. Would he be as tall as Caleb? As broad? As deeply scarred? Would stubble shadow Dean’s jaw now? Would his eyes have gone dark like Caleb’s?
Was he hunting?
Asking how the hell Caleb got in was a moot point, so John nodded at him. "Hey. You want coffee?"
Caleb gave his thin ghost of a smile and shook his head. "Nah. Won't be here long. Thanks."
"Fair enough. What've you got for me?"
Caleb opened his mouth to reply, stopped short of actually saying anything. He considered John for a long moment, then sighed and turned the laptop around. The video player was the eerie ghostlight of a night-vision camera, locked on the open mouth of an alley.
"I was in Rio de Janeiro hunting a skinwalker. Caught this on one of the surveillance cameras I rigged up. Thought you might want in on it.”
Irritated, John dropped onto the couch. “I know I’ve told you that this sort of thing goes to Bobby. It’s not my top priority, and I’m not arguing with you again. If you want my read on things, that’s fine, but I’m not in the field anymore.”
Part of John hated himself a little more every time he said that, every time he passed up a hunt or turned his back on a chance to track the thing that killed Mary. Every time the hunt for the demon turned up aces, and the hunt for Dean left John empty-handed and hurting deep.
That was usually Caleb’s cue to start up the impassioned speech about their duty as hunters, their need to protect the innocent. Caleb’s idealism sometimes made John’s teeth itch. This time around, though, Caleb only sighed and shoved the laptop across the space between them. "Just save the interrogation until you watch the damn thing, John."
John took the laptop, mostly because the laptop was worth more than John's life around midterms, and balanced it on his knees. "That bad?" he asked finally.
Caleb shook his head, looking suddenly like he felt every year weighing on him. "I'll be in the kitchen when it's done."
There was a sad, grim satisfaction in knowing why he'd felt the storm rolling in. John dismissed Caleb with a curt nod and, "Don't wake Sam. He's crashed out in my room."
With a grunt, Caleb disappeared into the kitchen. John could hear him rattling around in the cabinets, and odds were Sam would be up and in their faces in a few minutes anyway.
John hit play.
The video quality was grainy as hell, flickering green. There was a man leaning against the wall, his body language screaming discomfort. Hard to make out his face or shape, given the shadows, but there was something in the way he watched the street...
A shadow passed, and the first man moved enough that John could make out dark hair, medium build, and the bills folded up in the man's long fingers.
The shadow paused, then changed course. It drew close enough to the camera to resolve into another man. He was dressed in bulky clothes and layers that didn't hide that he was addict-skinny. He didn't move like a junkie. He moved like military, fluid and deliberate. His hair hung in his face, hiding it until he flicked it out of his eyes. And his face...
His eyes were Mary's eyes.
John's heart seized in his chest. He felt his fingers tighten on the laptop, felt himself draw closer like he could touch-
Six years. Six years of waiting, of empty bedrooms and dead ends, of feeling the absence in every drive, every Metallica song on the radio, every car he repaired and grade report Sam brought home, every hunt and every fight and every long night John lay awake wondering if his boy was dead. Wondering if dead might be kinder.
Dean had aged more than six years allowed. His face was harder now. Hard to tell in this crappy footage, but it looked like he'd gotten tall. Mary was an echo in his sharp cheekbones, in his eyes, in the absent cant of his head.
Dean stopped a few feet from the man, hands in his pockets, indolent and wary at once. Words were exchanged. Dean's mouth curved, but it wasn't anything recognizable as a smile. He reached out, plucking the money sharply from the man's fingers, and slid it into his pocket.
And then John's boy sank to his knees in the trash.
There was no way to breathe around the pain. John let it hit him, his fingertips resting on the warmth of his screen, his eyes locked on his son's upturned face. As the man slid his hand into Dean's hair, his fist tightening as he pushed himself deeper, John set his jaw and swallowed like it would help. Like this wasn't already over.
He watched, because that was all he could do and he owed Dean at least that much. He watched, feeling like he was bleeding inside again, until the man shuddered and it was done.
Dean turned his head and spat, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. While he was distracted, the man moved. At 16, Dean could've blocked it; at 22, he took the backhand square with enough force to whip his head around.
Dean moved fast, fast enough to blur the tape, fast enough that John lost track of him. One second he was knocked aside. The next, Dean was on his feet, knife in his hand, and the guy's insides was spilling out through his own clasped fingers.
With blood on his hands, on his face, there was no mistaking; Dean was a Winchester. John could read his own training in the way Dean moved, the way he took the man apart. There seemed to be a lag, until John realized Dean wasn't being slow about it; he was being deliberate, a sadistic edge that John hadn't sharpened himself.
It took a long damn time for Dean to let the man die.
In the end, Dean stood over the body (what was left of it) and wiped his bloody face. He sheathed the knife and stripped the man, folded up the bills. There was nothing of Mary in him now.
The screen went dark without warning, shadows devouring Dean. John reached convulsively for him and blunted his fingers against the screen. After a long moment, he swallowed against the burn in his throat and in his eyes, popped the drive, and broke the disc in two.
As promised, Caleb was waiting in the kitchen. Sam was beside him, hands wrapped around a mug, his expression a silent demand even as he pushed John's cup of tea at him.
Caleb'd put a screenshot from the video in front of Sam, the print-out blurry but clearly Dean. John was grateful enough to choke on it, because God knew he hadn't thought to save something from that video for Sam. The tea was black as tar, but it only served to make John want a stiffer drink.
"So?" Sam asked finally, sitting forward to lean his elbows on the table. He was careful to nudge the picture out of the way first. "Is Dean-?"
"Alive," John rasped. "He's alive."
Sam looked at him, obviously waiting for more. When John didn't give it, Sam said, frustrated, "And? Where is he? Why are you both acting like it's a funeral? Why is he so skinny? What the hell is he doing in Brazil? Who was that other guy? What'd he pay Dean for? Why-"
"Sammy," John said, sharper than he meant to. "Dean's alive. That's enough."
Sam was quiet for a long moment, which never boded well. Then Sam sat back in his chair, staring at John like sighting down a rifle. "What aren't you telling me?"
"Nothing that matters." John dragged a hand through his hair, suddenly exhausted. He felt like he needed a shower, but it wouldn't be enough. "The other guy's dead now. No point looking into it. We need to start digging through flight manifests, checking with the border guards-"
"He's my brother," Sam said. Simple words, but the agony beneath them was like swallowing barbed wire. "Dad-"
"And I'm your father. And I'm telling you now, Sam, he wouldn't want you to see what's on that tape." Jesus, let that still matter to Dean. Let it still matter to both of them. "It's gone anyway."
The breath hissed sharply between Sam’s teeth. He looked at Caleb, pale and furious, but Caleb just held up his hands in silence. Not without regret, Caleb said, “Only made the one copy. Figured it was John’s call.”
“Fuck,” Sam breathed, letting his head drop back. He closed his eyes and said tiredly, “How long’d you sit on that disk, Caleb?”
Caleb drew in a breath, met John’s eyes. Must’ve read the warning there, because he exhaled and nodded. “Few days. Near a week. I tracked him through half of South America, feels like. He’s your boy to the bone, John, because damned if I could keep up with him. I managed three days, but he finally scraped me off for good at LAX.”
“So he’s back in the States,” John murmured.
“I lost him in an airport. No telling if he’ll stay here. Even if he does, that leaves you a lot of ground to cover.” Caleb rolled one shoulder, rubbing at it absently. “I brought the manifests with me, and whatever paperwork I could dig up. It’s in the study. If you need my help-“
“We’ve got it,” John said, voice just this side of rude.
Sam kicked him under the table. To Caleb, he said, “We’ll call you if anything comes up. Thanks.”
“S’all right. Nobody’s got a shot of catching him unless it’s you.” Climbing painfully to his feet, Caleb limped on the first step and wrapped an arm around his ribs. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get back down and kill that chupacabra.”
Hell. Caleb had left the hunt to do this. There were no easy words for how much that had probably cost the man, so John reached out, clapped his arm and said, “Thank you. I owe you.”
“I know.” Caleb gave him a lopsided smile and a quick, sardonic salute. “Good luck. I’ll let myself out.”
The door rattled closed behind Caleb. A few seconds later, John heard Caleb’s engine turn over and the truck pull away, gravel scraping and popping under its wheels.
Sam was up out of his chair the second the sound died away, the screenshot in his hand. He crowded into John’s space, slapping the picture down between them, and shoved his fingertip into John’s chest. “I’m not stupid,” Sam said savagely. “I’m not a kid.”
“Careful,” John said, dangerously mild.
“Dean was on his knees in an alley, and the guy was offering him money. I can work it out from there-“
John looked at his boy, the fire in Sam’s eyes, the circles carved under them. The nightmares that Sam had been having for years now. The ones about Dean. The others, the ones that came with crippling pain, the ones that came true.
For all that John prayed Sam was wrong when it came to his brother, he’d known better. And Sammy…
“You already knew,” John said heavily. “You’d already seen him do it.”
Sam looked at him, then swallowed and nodded. He spread his fingers out on John’s chest, smoothing the shirt down, and stared at his hand. “More than once,” Sam said finally. “Started last August. I didn’t want to tell you.”
“You should’ve,” John bit off, his voice strained. “Goddamn it, Sam, we could’ve-“
“Could’ve what, put a stake-out on alleys?” Sam dragged a frustrated hand through his hair. “I couldn’t tell anything. Half the time I barely knew it was Dean. I hoped it wasn’t. I fucked up, and I’m sorry.”
“All right.” Scrubbing tiredly at his face, John closed his eyes. Tried to quiet his temper, the gnawing in his gut. When he could trust his voice, he reached out and gently swatted Sam in the head. He let his hand linger there, finger-combing Sam’s too long hair. He wasn’t sure who that was supposed to comfort. John sighed and asked, “Anything else I should know?”
From the sudden tension under his hand, that was a ‘yes’. Sam winced, leaning away from John’s touch, and said, “Um. I don’t-“
“Spit it the hell out, Sammy.”
“Jesus, I’m trying, just give me a minute!” Sam barked. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he turned away and paced the narrow kitchen once, twice. Each step was measured, and John could damn near hear Sam counting them off in his head. After the third, Sam stopped short and said in an almost violent burst, “Sometimes, they look like- not all the time, but enough-“
“Sam,” John said, gentler that time.
“Sometimes,” Sam said, and shuddered. “Fuck. Sometimes, they look like you.”
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Date: 2007-06-25 01:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-26 12:19 pm (UTC)