ohsam | fic: Wrong Place, Wrong Time

Title: Wrong Place, Wrong Time
Author:

minviendha
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Supernatural
Word Count: 3260
Summary: Concussions suck.
Warnings: References to torture what is my life, language.
~~Neuroses~~ Notes: So this was actually done and written way back when when this meme was first posted, but in typical me fashion I fiddled and fussed at it and then 6.11 was come and gone and - basically, long story short, it doesn't fit canon. I might come back and fix it later, but I wanted to be On Time. And I do like what I have here to some degree. Canon aside. ...er. So...less seizures, more angst. Maybe? ~~And references to torture.~~
Prompt: By

pinkphoenix1985 here: During a hunt, Sam falls and hits his head quite hard. When he wakes up- he is convinced that he's back in the cage and Dean is really Lucifer who wants to break Sam using Dean's body.

Concussions. Dean hated concussions.

They were messy, painful, lasted too long and meant being really careful that it didn’t turn into anything worse. He hated getting them. He hated when Sam got them.

And Sam was going to have a motherfucker of one when he came around. 48 hours of sleeplessness for both of them, Sam being cranky and Dean having to put up with it because it wasn’t Sam’s fault, exactly.

Still, was a pain.

Stupid poltergeist. Dean’s neck still hurt from being tossed across the room himself, but at least he’d kept his head safe. Dean had just about panicked when Sam’s head hit the granite countertop with that nasty noise, and more when he hadn’t bounced right back up. But the poltergeist was gone now, and Sam’s breathing was even and his pulse steady, no brain matter and only a little blood. So he just sat down at the kitchen table, leaving Sam against the cabinets, and waited, giving him a little time before Dean broke out the gongs.

Took the chance to sit down and relax, too, since no one was coming home for at least a month and they didn’t really have anywhere to go in a rush.

Things had been better. Sort of. All was right with the soul (apparently, or at least it was there) and they’d avoided having a proper talk for weeks about…just about anything, really. So that was pretty much normal. Sort of sucky, but normal.

He’d been expecting some kind of blowup, but so far…

He brought his head around right away when he heard his brother twitch and start to stir, though, looking over at him and watching as his eyes stayed closed for a moment, probably figuring out where he was and what had happened. Time to help.

“Welcome back, Sleeping Beauty,” Dean said.

Sam’s eyes opened and his head turned slowly. He blinked, squinting as his eyes tried to focus, and then Dean felt himself recoil at the sheer rage that filled his brother’s hazel eyes. “No,” he said, hoarsely. “No, you can’t do that.”

Dean wished there was someone he could ask if he was the only one feeling a distinct and total lack of comprehension. “Do what? Call you girly names? Think you’re taking this a little seriously?”

Sam’s teeth bared. “It’s good,” he said, “I’ll give you that. But it’s not good enough. Your mistake. Now stop.”

He sounded, Dean realized, like he didn’t think Dean was real. Dean swallowed. He hadn’t hit his head that hard. “Hey,” he said, carefully, “Can’t do that. Kind of hard to stop being me.”

For some reason, Sam shuddered. “I won’t give in.” There was a new edge on his voice, not rage. Dean recognized it with a slight lurch as desperation. The kind of desperation you felt when your family was dying in front of you. The kind of desperation you felt when someone was pulling you apart piece by piece and you knew you couldn’t last forever.

Do you remember it? The cage?

Yeah.

Do you want to talk about it?

No.

They never had, either.

Oh, shit.

“Sam,” Dean said, placatingly, “I'm going to come over there and-“

“Don’t you dare,” Sam said; snarled, really, levering himself up on the counter. “Don’t you dare come near me with his face. You can’t use him against me. Anyone else, I don’t care, but don’t even think about violating - Never. I will never-” His eyes were wild, he looked frantic and like he was going to keel over and crack his head open all over again.

Dean held out both hands. “C’mon, Sam. Look at me. You whacked your head and you think – son of a bitch! Should have-”

Sam’s hands went up, covered his ears as his eyes dropped down. “Stop it,” he said, and the desolation in his voice hurt Dean to hear. “Stop it. Just stop. Anything else…not him.”

Dean forced a laugh. “God. Do you hate to look at me that much?”

Sam looked like he wanted to crumple, and Dean wanted to punch somebody’s lights out. Not Sam’s, a poltergeist had apparently already taken care of that. How did you even fix… “God,” Sam whispered. “You even sound like him. Really good. Nice job. But I know-”

And he did know. Dean knew how that was. They showed you things and no matter what they were you believed they weren’t real because that was all you had. So Sam had decided that Dean wasn’t real, that Dean was the freaking Devil trying to…trying to what? Just break Sam, probably. Get him to give in and lie down and die even more.

“I'm not Lucifer,” Dean said, as calmly as he could manage, and Sam stared at him and laughed an awful, hollow, empty (soulless) laugh.

“Of course not,” he said, and his voice was heavy with dread. “You’re worse.”

For a long moment, Dean didn’t get it. For a longer moment, he didn’t want to get it. Who else was in the cage? Michael. Who had put Michael there? Sam. And Zachariah had given him stomach cancer when Dean was on his side.

Dean wanted to whimper.

Sam leaned heavily on the counter, not taking his eyes off Dean. “Now what?”

“Now what what?” Dean asked. Sam shrugged.

“Now that I’ve caught you. Again. What next? Crushing every bone in my body? Hemorrhaging? Pulling out my intestines a little at a time, that was fun-”

“Sam!” Dean barked, feeling nauseous. “Stop it. Stop it. That’s enough.”

“It’s never enough,” Sam said, and his voice was bitter and heavy as he sank back toward the ground, apparently willing now that Dean hadn’t moved forward in a while. “Not with you.”

Dean stayed as though stuck to the ground. He needed to get his brother out of here. He needed to get his brother to believe that he wasn’t back in the cage getting pulled apart by Michael the nice archangel. He had no idea how to do either. “Jesus, Sam,” he said, “it’s never easy with you, is it?”

Sam smiled, an awful expression that had no joy to it whatsoever. Only the sour flavor of denying someone what they wanted. “I'm glad I can make it hard. After what you and your people did to Dean-“

Aw, shit. Things he didn’t want to hear about. “Let’s skip that part,” Dean said, “And get to the part where we move. Come with me.”

“Sure,” Sam said. “Where? You’re not going anywhere. I go with you ‘somewhere else’ it’ll just start over again. With Jess or Dad or Bobby or Cas or even fucking Sarah, I don’t even know where you got that. I’ve pretty much got the list memorized by now.”

Dean gritted his teeth and tried to stay calm. Really calm. “Look, Sam, listen to me. You’re not in the cage. I'm not a dick with wings.”

“I don’t want to hear you use his voice.” And Sam looked…murderous. But he sounded frantic. Dean squeezed his eyes shut and wanted to scream. So this…was what Sam hadn’t wanted to talk about. And now it came back and bit them in the ass. Always. This was always the way it-

No. He couldn’t blame Sam for this. It was just…part of the concussion. The crankiness part.

“Okay,” he said, slowly. “I could switch to Lucille Ball if you want, but that’d be kind of weird.”

For just a second, Sam looked confused. Maybe Michael didn’t make pop culture references. Not even old ones. He jumped on that. “Look,” he continued, quickly. “What if I call Bobby? Let you talk to him. He’ll tell you-“

“It’ll just be you. Why are you trying so hard? I won’t believe you.” Sam pressed his face into his knees, all of a sudden. “It’s not him. I can hope for it and think about it and it still won’t be him. So just stop. It’s useless.”

“I could drag you bodily out of here,” Dean growled. “But I'm not. Self-restraint, Sammy. I'm really needing all of it. You whacked your head, you’re in a kitchen in West Virginia. With me. Your brother.”

Sam made a small, protesting noise. Dean bowled right over him. “And you’ve got a concussion and I need you to let me come over there so I can get your Sasquatch ass to the couch, because I don’t think a motel is happening tonight.”

Sam wanted to believe. Dean could see it in his posture, in the way his head lifted and tilted, in the way he hesitated. But he was scared of that. He wanted to believe so badly that he knew it would blind him to the reality, and if he accepted the false image and it revealed itself as false –

Yeah, Dean got it. He did, he really did. But still.

“Come on, Sam,” he said, groaned, really. “Am I really acting like – him?”

He wanted it too much. Dean saw the moment when he accepted that this was real, in spite of himself, because Sam’s eyes flickered and went melty and puppy-eyed in a moment as he just said, “Dean?”

He didn’t trust. But he believed, was letting himself believe a fragile illusion, and that was enough for Dean. At least for now. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, it’s me. Come on. Can I come over there and trust that you aren’t going to punch me out?”

Sam made a small noise that was pretty far from a laugh, but sounded like it wanted to be one. “I won’t punch you out.” He didn’t apologize for thinking Dean was Michael. Probably because he was expecting Dean to be Michael any minute now.

Okay. This would be easy. All he had to do was prove that he was normal big brother Dean, not angel pretending to be big brother Dean. Simple. Sure. He eased over to Sam, watching those fists that he knew well could do some serious damage, but Sam just watched him with that half hopeful half suspicious air. “Okay,” he said, “Arm over my shoulder. Let’s get you up and I’ll see if this place has any ice. Or frozen peas. You always used to bitch when you got frozen peas, remember?”

Sam put his arm over Dean’s shoulder, wincing with that movement, and leaned on Dean just barely, as though he was reluctant to give into the impulse. But he still did it. Good. All the same…Dean had hoped the frozen peas would work. There was no way Michael knew that.

Unless Sam’s head was just ringing that much.

Dean sighed a little and braced against the counter, trying not to wrench his neck. “All right, Sasquatch. Help me help you. Try to get your legs under you, you weigh a friggin ton.”

Sam obliged, folding up his long legs and grabbing the counter, levering himself up the same way Dean had, though with a lot more wobbling. “I'm going to be sick,” Sam groaned.

“Not on me,” Dean said, deliberately lightly. “I’ll get a bucket after you’re down. No, no, eyes open,” he said quickly, as Sam’s eyelids started to slip. “You know the rules. Concussion equals no sleeping. Don’t bitchface at me. That’s how it goes when you whack your head on granite counters.”

Sam shook his head, and then reeled, just as Dean was trying to edge him away from the crutch of the counter. “Stop it,” he said, sounding exhausted. “Just…stop talking.”

Dean grimaced. And he’d thought they were doing so well. “Okay, Sammy,” he said, “But only as long as you keep walking. Got it?”

“Don’t call me that.” Backsliding, backsliding. Dean gritted his teeth and tightened his grip in case Sam tried to pull away.

“Okay, how’s Francis?”

Sam said nothing, but Dean didn’t miss the way his head turned away even as he kept staggering along forward with Dean, his weight like a sack of bricks even when he was trying to support most of it. If Michael ever turned up again so help him Dean was going to strap him down and Holy Fire him until he was char. Angelic dicks.

It felt weird to be…protective, again. Dean was momentarily sad about that, and then moved past it.

“Okay,” he said, encouragingly, because Sam seemed to be flagging. “End in sight. You going to make it?”

“I liked the other stuff better.”

Dean blinked, then forced himself to keep maneuvering his gigantic brother over to the safety of a flat, soft surface so he could go get a barf bowl and some ice. “What?” He asked, absently.

“The, uh. I dunno if you call it torture when you’re not trying to get anything. But that. So anytime you feel like it you could switch back. Maybe even let Lucifer have a turn.”

“Shut up, Sam,” said Dean. Okay, so maybe not as far as he thought. At all. “I thought we were together on this.”

“It’s kind of funny. I thought you guys would fight a lot. I guess having a common enemy – you know, me – kind of helps you forget your differences. It was kind of like that for Dean and me. Nothing was really solved, there were just kind of…more important things. Like the apocalypse.” Sam frowned. They were at the couch, and Dean was trying to simultaneously close his ears and get Sam to bend his knees and go down. “I never really thought about what would happen afterwards. Things probably would’ve just fallen apart again.”

Dean would have slammed Sam’s head into another granite counter, right at that moment, to get him to just stop. Talking. “You know,” he said, a little bit sourly, “The nice thing about when you were soulless was that you weren’t pouring out your issues all the time.”

Sam blinked at him, and finally his knees bent. “I'm soulless?” he said. “Well, that explains a lot.”

Dean pushed him down to the couch. Slowly. “Stop it,” he said, as mildly as he could manage. Which wasn’t very. Sam just looked at him with something that looked awfully like patience.

“Okay. What’s it going to be, tongue or vocal cords? I’d rather you didn’t use Dean to do it, though.”

So maybe not talking wasn’t so sucky after all, Dean thought as his gorge rose. He pushed it down, swallowing hard several times. “Sam,” he said, a bit weakly. “I want you to listen, really listen. I'm not Michael. You’re not in the cage.”

“Whatever you say.” Sam swayed a little, even sitting down, and Dean gave up and grabbed the nearest potted plant and shoved it between his knees. “Use that,” he said, “I'm getting a bucket,” and retreated into the kitchen.

Sometimes it would be good if they could live up to their repression all the time. Eventually, though, it all seemed to come boiling out in a great big heap of shit.

He grabbed a bucket and some ice, bagged the ice and went back to Sam, replaced the potted plant with the bucket, and eyed his brother critically. He looked pale and a little clammy, but that was probably just the nausea. Sam didn’t look up, his back heaving a few times though he didn’t barf.

Dean sat down, spread out his fingers and pressed his palm down between Sam’s shoulder blades, rubbing in tiny circles while he moved the ice in the other hand to the lump on the back of Sam’s head. Sam’s back liked to piss him off, and he’d always liked it when Dean did that, even if it wasn’t much of a backrub.

To his utter relief, Sam didn’t jerk away, not even from the ice. Instead, his whole body went slack.

“Okay,” said Dean, gingerly. “How are we feeling? Inventory.”

“Shitty,” said Sam. Dean couldn’t tell from his tone if he’d miraculously recovered or still thought he was back in the Pit. But he wasn’t tensing up and Dean kept his hand on his back, not sure if it was because Sam was pretending again or he’d come back to reality. He wanted the latter. Suspected the former.

“Yeah,” he said. “I don’t blame you. Really did a number on your head. Let’s avoid granite counters from now on, okay?”

“Yeah,” Sam said. “They really suck.” He paused, and made a small noise, his eyes falling toward closed again. “M’tired.”

“No sleeping. Remember?” He reached up and cuffed Sam’s shoulder, as gently as he could manage. “You’ve got a long night ahead of you, concussion boy. I’ll stick around, though.”

“I guess maybe I can believe this,” said Sam, not quite dreamily. “For a little while.”

Dean’s hope soured. “Why would you make your happy space about getting a concussion while hunting a friggin poltergeist? I hate poltergeists.”

“Yeah,” said Sam, turning his blurry, differently-sized-pupil eyes on Dean. “But it’s good. I mean. You’re here. Aren’t you?”

He said it like it was obvious. Dean kind of wanted to sink into the ground. “God, Sam,” he said instead. “You’re going to give me a huge freaking head.”

“Not you,” Sam said, and it looked like he was drifting off, so Dean squeezed his shoulder and gave him a little shake. Sam focused on him with what looked like way too much effort. Dean thought that if Sam had been this floppy around Michael it was a wonder Michael hadn’t just –

No, he didn’t quite want to follow that train of thought.

Dean pulled the ice down and set it aside, then shifted so Sam was leaning on his shoulder because he was definitely listing to the right, and said quietly, “We good?”

“Yeah. We good.”

There was a long silence, though Sam forced his eyes open again, turning half towards Dean. He looked bleary and confused. “You said…I used to hate it when I got the frozen peas,” he said, frowning.

Dean frowned, not quite able to follow Sam’s train of thought at the moment. “Yeah, I did. Why?”

“There’s no way Michael would know that. Is there?”

Talking about Michael rather than ‘you.’ That was progress, Dean noted in some still sensible corner of his brain. The rest of him was just awash in way too much relief. “Yeah. There isn’t. Because I'm really Dean and you’ve been out of Hell for ages. Well. Not ages. But almost a year and a half, that’s sort of like ages.”

Sam turned his head toward Dean, and gave him the bleariest bitchface ever. “Dude. Shut up.”

Dean snickered, and it was even almost genuine. “I really hope you said that to Michael. Geez. What a whiny bitch.” Sam made a sound halfway between choking and laughing. Dean grimaced as he fell silent too quickly, but then he relaxed as Sam tucked his head down in a familiar gesture that was not quite a snuggle.

Mostly only because Sam would have killed him if he called it a snuggle.

“Yeah. Little bit.” A pause. “Hey Dean?”

Dean tensed, afraid that that tone meant he was in for more things he didn’t want to hear, or details of Fun With Sam In the Cage. “What?” he said anyway, trying not to let his nerves creep through. If Sam wanted to talk, if it would keep him awake and semi-aware and at least pretending that he knew the difference between the real Dean and anyone pretending to be Dean –

“Lindsey Lohan or Britney Spears?”

And just like that, Dean knew they were okay.