Fanfic - SPN: IDKMUIMY - Ch.7 - I Know Myself and Change You

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Title: I Didn't Know Me Until I Met You
Author: eboniorchid
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Chapter 7: I Know Myself and Change You
[005.Anxious]



They spoke little after that, a question here, a far too simplistic answer there, but they still wound up at the motel together and there wasn't any talk about Sam going home.

Sam really didn't know how he'd react when he went "home" knowing that it had never really been his in the first place. He and Dean might both seem a bit awkward right now, but he also felt weird that he didn't feel more weird around Dean, much like when they'd first met, and he was betting the feelings were pretty mutual at this point. Thinking they were now at least half-brothers, if not full blood brothers, each knew they shouldn't want what they wanted from each other. More than that, with all their secrets laid out on the table, it seemed like they shouldn't be half as intrigued as they still were with each other. It seemed like they shouldn't still want to be so near to each other, close enough to feel the body heat rolling off each other.

They wanted things they knew they shouldn't, so they both slept alone and cold that night, a wide chasm left in the space between their bodies on the bed, a line drawn in the sand.

In the morning, virtually combing through hospital records, obituaries, and anything else they could think to look up, they found that it wasn't always easy to get the information they needed, but it was out there to find if they could just figure out a path to it. The genealogical search capabilities of the internet these days were incredible and Sam could tell that Dean was beyond glad that he wouldn't have to drive to Lawrence himself to try to get hard copy evidence. It might not be everything, but enough was laid out to confirm their suspicions.

Samuel Elijah Gregory was listed on his birth certificate as the exact same weight as Samuel Elijah Winchester. And each baby boy was born at exactly the same time. Both Mary Gregory and Mary Winchester had the same birth and death dates as well as the same listed cause of death with neither death leaving remains to be buried. And even if the fathers were different, one birth certificate saying Alistair Gregory and the other John Winchester, these discrepancies didn't overshadow the shocking similarities, not to mention the possibility that John may have even been possessed for a time, allowing for Sam to have the heritage of all three lines.

All the information, though, far from making things clearer, just seemed to make them both a bit numb.

They went to the diner for food, then, and it was just after noon, but neither of them really ate. They hadn't had any physical contact with each other since Dean helped Sam get his bearings back in the alley and Sam wanted, so badly, just to reach across the table and touch his lover, his brother, whatever. He wanted more than that. He wanted what they'd had before … before all this new bizarre information was revealed. But Sam was worried, worried that Kane would be there, in his mind, at least, that he wouldn't be able to get past his associations of sex between brothers as being about Kane, as being about cruelty. What he had with Dean was more than the sex, he knew that. It was affection. It was … something. Maybe it was even … love. But if every time he was with Dean, if every time he reached for Dean or Dean reached for him, Sam remembered that they were brothers and remembering that led him back to thoughts of Kane, then this wasn't going to work.

Maybe Kane had ruined him for this, made it so he'd never really be able to be with anyone else, especially not the one person who actually seemed capable of caring about him. Maybe that had always been the plan. Maybe his father did know. Maybe he'd sanctioned it, encouraged it, as a way to keep Sam from getting too close to Dean even if one of them did figure things out. Maybe this had all been a setup like Dean had said, and, as usual, Sam was just the last to know.

He couldn't say all that to Dean, though. Dean seemed to see himself as a liberator. But Sam could see that all this information hadn't really freed him from anything.

---
Dean followed him into the motel room after lunch and Sam knew that they would need to come up with some kind of plan, if he was ever going to be able to stuff his hatred and fear down long enough to go home and pretend he still believed all the lies he'd been told.

But, apparently, that wasn't quite what was on Dean's mind right then.

Only steps inside the door, Dean reached for Sam's arm and turned him around, placing a soft, but determined, kiss on Sam's lips. When he pulled back, hand still on Sam's arm, all he said was, "I still want you."

Sam looked from Dean's hand on his arm up to Dean's eyes and back down again. He swallowed, trying not to remember that Kane wanted him like that too, trying not to remember Kane's hands on him like that, keeping him from running, from getting away from what Kane wanted. That wasn't what Dean was doing, he knew that … he knew it … but that didn't make it any easier for him to breathe right then. "I know, Dean. I know, but … I just can't … I … " He let his eyes close for a moment, trying to get his breathing under control, before opening them again, his voice a little stronger. "This family thing … all these family things … I can't handle all of it at once like that, okay? I … I want you too. I just … I need time."

Dean let him go then, stepping back. "Sure. It's a lot. And it's not like I don't know about the thing with your dad, Sam. I'm not trying to push you. I just thought you should know."

They'd been coming clean with each other for eighteen hours straight. Sam just didn't have a reason to hold the information back anymore, to let Dean keep thinking whatever he thought about his family situation. "That's the problem. It wasn't my father, Dean. It was my brother … my other brother. You've seen Meg, but Kane … he's … you don't want to see Kane. He doesn't do bars … or fun … unless your definition of fun is blood and screams and broken bones. If you see Kane, he's there to break someone. When I'm around … it's usually me. But he's my brother, my older brother, and he wants me … like you want me. I don't know what that means, but … I can't help but wonder what it is about me, what it is that makes you both want me, even though I'm family. You … didn't know … and I didn't either, and we just kind of fell into this, but … I don't know if I'm going to be able to separate the two in my head Dean. And sometimes you're … aggressive … and I don't mind, I don't, but … it might just be better if we didn't … for a while."

"I am not him, Sam. I'd never … you have to know that." Sam could tell that his words had hurt, but there weren't really any options. He could either keep trying to do this with Dean and slowly go crazy trying to make his mind ignore his memories of Kane. Or they could take a break until … he didn't know when exactly … just some time in the future when Kane didn't take up so much space in his brain.

"I do, Dean. I don't think you'd ever … but that doesn't mean that I don't remember … that the things I remember don't pollute how I see everything you do … everything we do. I just … maybe I need time … but maybe … maybe you can't fix this." Maybe there wouldn't ever be a time when Kane didn't take up this much space, when Kane's filth and violence didn't cover everything Sam had inside him, didn't color the way Sam saw everything around him.

Sam was shaking his head, shoulders rising and falling in anxious shrugs. He knew that his tongue was running too quickly, that his breaths were too shallow, that he was spiraling down into panic, but there were no brakes to hit, no safety net in sight to keep him from falling. "You said it might be a setup, right? Maybe it wasn't about us killing each other. Maybe it was just about torturing us both. Maybe we only made it this far because they wanted us to. Maybe losing you like this, because I'm tainted like this … maybe it's just to show me that I can't belong to anyone else, that they're too deep in me now … that even if this life is one big lie, that there is no other life for me. The Grigori are worse than any fucking Mafia you've ever heard of, Dean, with unimaginable power and connections all the way down and all the way back up. It's not like I can just leave! The only way you get out of this shit is in a bodybag … if they leave behind anything to bag. Finding out all this family stuff? It's not worth shit, Dean, if I'm just going have to keep pretending with them … keep being what I am to them." Keep being what I am to Kane.

Before he'd met Dean, all the fucked up stuff with his family was just what he thought was his portion in life. But then Dean had shown him so much more and … with Dean he could almost forget sometimes and … he just didn't know if he could go back to just being … less than nothing. His movement stopped as he looked Dean dead on, even though there was water welling in his eyes. "This is worse, Dean. Don't you get it? You and me. It was good, Dean. It had to be hidden, but that was to keep it safe, keep us safe. It was clean, though. It wasn't just one more twisted thing, one more stain on my skin. It was just good, Dean. But if we're blood … if you're to me what Kane is to me … then this is just one more layer of fucked up. And I can't see the lines anymore, because I know that I want to be with you, but every time we even get close … all I see is Kane … and maybe all that means is that I'm no good, Dean, that I belong to them more than I can ever belong to you, that you can't save me from this, and that everything we've learned today about who I am, only means that I've lost you and gained nothing."

Sam ground his teeth together, trying to keep it together, trying and failing. "You should have just shot me."

"No, Sam. You're wrong. We'll figure this out. We'll find a way to fight them. And if you really start to lose your mind over there … we can always just run, keep our heads down. But right now, they still think you don't know, they still think you're on their side, and that's an asset we can't lose just yet, okay?" Dean was honestly asking, his gaze intense, grounding.

Sam nodded, his breath slowing in an attempt to return to normal speed. He didn't know if he could really do this, if he really believed what Dean was saying, but he would try. And Dean nodded back.

"Whatever we decide to do, it'll just be easier if you're on the inside pointing them in all the wrong directions. We'll do the research. I'll call Dad, maybe he's got something. Or maybe one of the other players does. We'll figure it out, though, and we'll take them down, me and you."

He didn't know if it was possible, if he'd be able to see it through, but Sam knew he had to try.

---
They didn't really have any grand plans though. And it quickly became clear that they probably wouldn't have any kind of worthwhile plan any time soon.

About all they could come up with was to do exorcisms, or, preferably, full-on banishment if they could find all the true names of his Grigori family. But these methods took time and there was nothing to say that his family wouldn't just tear them both to pieces before they could read through the whole ritual, Kane and his father especially, though Meg wasn't necessarily less of a threat. There was also the possibility of having some kind of defensive or even offensive items crafted, because Sam knew a blacksmith-mage who did good work on commission and generally kept his mouth shut, but there didn't seem to be any information on weapons that had historically been used against more than one kind of Grigori and this blacksmith, while good, wasn't the type to invent things out of thin air.

Dean kept saying they'd figure something out, but it had been two weeks already, which shouldn't seem like a long time, but it felt like it had been months. Sam had doubts from the beginning, but now they had been searching for solutions, their noses in books, vision blurred from too many foreign words and too many flickering computer screens, for hours daily and they had found next to nothing.

Dean was wandering away from the research more and more every day, looking for hunts. He didn't really seem good at staying in one place for a long time, especially when he knew for a fact that there were seriously top-ranking demonic forces on the prowl, but he'd stayed because he knew how Sam felt about the whole situation, how little hope he had.

Part of Sam would always want him to stay, but midway through the month, he just closed the book he was leafing through and said "go".

"Go, Dean. Go Hunt something evil, save some innocents, get the hell out of this town. You miss the road and it shows, Dean. Right now, you're bored out of your fucking mind and that means you're not really helping."

"I'm not bored, Sam, and you know I'm being just as thorough as you are. I know how important this is …"

"But …"

"But we've been through everything we can get our hands on. Dad's contacts are on it, doing what they can, even though Dad hasn't called me back. I just don't know if we're getting anywhere walking the same ground over and over."

"Then, go! At least you'll be saving a few people, right?"

Dean shot him a look, an "I'm not leaving you" look, and Sam just shook his head. "Please, Dean. Just go. I'll be fine. And, honestly, even if I'm not, there isn't much we can do about that at this point. I promise not to defect, if you promise to check in sometimes like you used to, okay? But seriously, Dean, if you feel like you're wasting time here you probably are. I can look through the rest of these again on my own."

"Are you sure?" Dean's expression managed to be both concerned and hopeful at the same time. He really, really wanted to get out and Hunt for a while. And Sam knew it would do them both good to have a break from each other, whether or not either of them was willing to say that out loud.

"Yes, Dean, I'm sure. Now, go!" Sam's eyes were wide with amusement-tinged exasperation as he went back to reading some text about Pheromitite spirit armor and gave a dismissive wave in Dean's general direction. It seemed to be enough, though, for Dean, and he bounded up and out of their nook at the local college library.

---
It was almost better not having Dean around for a while. It gave Sam a chance to think about his situation in realistic terms instead of constantly being bombarded by Dean's total refusal to even consider that they might never have a grand plan, that they might never get this right, that he and Dean might permanently end up playing for opposing teams.

Sam didn't want things to end up that way, but, frankly, their prospects all looked fairly gloomy and even if they got really lucky, as in unbelievably intensely lucky, the most they could hope to do would be to take out one of the three, maybe Meg, because she was ostensibly the weakest. Or, if they could, getting his Father would be a coup, because with him gone the others might be weakened, depending on how it happened, but even if they weren't, they'd be unorganized without a clear leader. As sick as it might sound, Sam was almost gleeful thinking about in-fighting within the family and the clan. He knew it would be a very dangerous time for any poor souls who happened to be in the vicinity, but Meg versus Kane could easily be the fight of the century.

But he didn't honestly believe that it would come to that.

From the looks of things, finding out who he was, in one sense, had changed absolutely nothing about who he had to be in order to survive in the world. For Dean, the new information, about how Sam Gregory was really a kidnapped Sam Winchester, was only slightly problematic at worst, and really great news at best. But for Sam, it was just … one more item on a long list of things that had been taken from him or done to him. Sitting around, waiting for a solution to present itself, was slowly going to drive him crazy with the desire to be rid of a life he might never be able to shed.

When Dean was away, even though he checked in, Sam could fall back into old routines again, he could make himself remember that following orders really wasn't that hard and as long as he could shut down his mind for a little while, especially that tiny conscience Dean had seemed to have installed, he could be okay, he could survive.

He wouldn't like it, but if he ran out of options and friends, Sam knew he could be the man his father had raised him to be. And if that meant finishing the mission he'd started last November then … he didn't know who he'd be rooting for … himself, or the Hunter and father whom his brother and lover would die to protect.


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