SPN-cartoons - Page 2

I can't recall the last time Dean and I did something normal people would find...normal, precisely. I mean, how long has it been since we sat in a park or at the edge of a river and had a beer together? Of course we've shared beers, lots of beers"that's not even a question" but in the last couple of years, we always did it during a case, not even paying attention to what we were actually drinking. We drank, surrounded by piles and piles of old grimoires and parchments, constantly interrupted by Kevin with new information on Metatron, or Cas popping out of nowhere to tell us about a serious angel situation in L.A or in Antarctica. And this was when we could actually share a drink: with the recent "demon situation", I can't even remember the last time Dean sat next to me to indulge in such a simple pleasure.

However, for the first time in a long time, here we were, enjoying the late autumn and nursing fresh Buds (that's all we could find), laughing at people preparing for Halloween. We counted the kids proudly coming out of the costume shop nearby; in the span of only two hours, there were sixteen Elsas and twenty-two Ironmen.

This pleasant interlude didn't last very long though: Dean had peeked at the newspaper and was now nonchalantly suggesting, between two sips, that we could maybe do some research on a series of suspicious local deaths that were vaguely described as "animal attacks".

I knew Dean would check out the press. Of course he did. I did it too. The saying "Old habits die hard" takes on a whole new meaning when it comes to us and hunting: were like doctors who can't help but take a person's pulse when shaking hands , then tell them between discussing the weather that they should definitely watch their cholesterol. Wecan't disconnect from the job and just let it go, like Garth used to do, for instance. I secretly envied him for being able to take some time off, do his yoga, go to comic conventions and be comfortable enough to call other hunters from the area to take care of a case when he was unavailable.

Even if I couldn't help thinking that it was still too soon, I couldn't blame Dean for wanting to be back in the field to keep himself occupied. In that sense, my brother isn't very different from the average Joe who puts all his energy into his job in order to forget about a tragedy in his life, like a divorce, the loss of a loved one, or financial problems. Dean just wanted to forget that he had been a demon and had tried to decapitate his baby brother with an axe. That's all.

And who were we trying to fool anyway? Vacations are not for us, we've never really had a single proper vacation in our life! When we work, we want all this hunting shit to stop and when we finally take a break, we're unable to function as normal human beings and donothing. It's almost as if we need a "vacation coach" to tell us how to do it.

Anyway, this "family reunion" case didn't disappoint. We ran into Kate, an old quarry who was turned into a werewolf a couple of years ago.
This hunt had it all: family drama, inconsiderate decisions that lead to even more shit than they were supposed to solve, consent issues, loss of control, making the right call...sounds familiar, huh? Seriously, why did we have to work on a hunt that hit so close to home? Couldn't it have been a freaking White Lady at the edge of a road, or a good old poltergeist who was trashing a house for fun? Everything about this case was mirroring the events of the past few months, everything.

On a more positive note, Kate's story only confirmed something Dad was never able to understand: monsters can have a family, a complex history, doubts too. They aren't just mad, screaming creatures who jump people to slash their carotids when the full moon rises high in the sky. I'm sure that Dad wouldn't have approved of our decision to let Kate go, but I'm convinced we made the right call. Without disrespecting John Winchester, we have more experience now than he ever had because we've been through more, seen more, but the guy has left such an imprint on us that more than ten years after his death, his presence haunts us in spite of the fact that we're fully aware we have nothing to prove to him anymore.

So, long story short, Dean and I were back on the job like in the good old days. I should be happy, finally relieved to see things return to "normal" but honestly, I'm torn: on the one hand, I would have preferred seeing him resting, taking some time off, watching silly cat videos on his computer comfortably flopped down on his bed at the bunker, but on the other, if it's really what is best for him...then so be it. At least, my brother admitted that he needed to work and why he needed it during one of the most open conversations we had in years. Can you imagine that? The Winchesters talking? Of course, you had to read between the silences, awkward pauses and annoyed sighs but at least, we were kinda honest with each other. Dean wasn't easy on me though; I can even say he was pretty harsh, going on about my behavior over the last few weeks. I tried to brush it off, acting as if Lester's fate didn't affect me in the least and was just some sort of unfortunate collateral damage, but I couldn't. And if it was only Lester...

There was also this guy in Albuquerque who ended up with a broken jaw, and a couple of assholes who had some intel about "big, bad Dean Winchester gone really dark side", to whom I gave enough of my opinion to send them to the hospital for a whole month. I could try to bullshit myself and say that it wasn't really who I am, that I didn't mean it, but if I had to do it again? I would do it without even giving it a second thought. You see, I was talking about Dad earlier and how different we were in our ways of considering the job, but I'm starting to believe that what Henry told me about my similarities with our father and me being his true legacy, wasn't completely stupid.

All I did wasn't for nothing, though: Dean is here, alive, even smiling from to time, enjoying classic rock tunes on the radio and delighted that his baby is now more beautiful than ever after a ten hour session of cleaning, vacuuming, polishing the paint or whatever. However, our problems are far from being over: every time I get the sensation that everything is fine again, my eyes drop to my brother's forearm and the Mark is there, present, immanquable, to remind me that this moment of calm is just temporary.

If and when this Mark rises to its full potential and takes over for good, will I have the same courage as Kate? Will I be able to make the right call, something I found impossible to do the first time? It seems like I'll never find the strength to do it even if Dean is myresponsibility. I can't ring Cas like a butler every time I need to make a harsh decision; I can't ask him to kill his best friend just because I don't have the balls to do it myself. It's a dead end: I changed a lot with time, I'm doing things now I would have found absolutely amoral a few years back. I'm also maybe a bit less self-righteous when it comes to the decisions my brother made in the past, but I'm sure of one thing: I'll never be able to take his life. Not now, not never.

Until I can finally find a way to cure Dean (and I will), I'm trying to discreetly check anything "demonic" or unusual about my brother's behavior: a change in his sleep cycles, loss of appetite, an unexplainable urge for violence. Of course, Dean noticed (it's Dean, for f**k's sake!) but he didn't even get angry. He just sighed and said: "I told you I'd say something if there was anything wrong with me".

What do you want me to tell you? I can't help it, I'm paranoid. It's almost ridiculous, but we can't change ten years of trust issues just because Dean and I had a moment. This is who we are, this is who I am, and honestly it's driving me nuts.

Maybe my brother is right after all, maybe I'm the one who truly needs a vacation.

"You know John, boys will be boys!"

That's what Bobby told my Dad one day when Dean and I were fooling around in the middle of the piles of scrap metal and tires of Singer Salvage, playing cops and robbers, scampering over the carcasses of old Cadillacs and Chevys. Our father thought we were a bit too noisy for his taste and were preventing him from focusing on an important case but our favorite uncle (and the only one we ever knew) came to the rescue to remind John Winchester that his sons were kids and also, that's what brothers do when they're together: scream, laugh, play, imagine they are Indiana Jones, Han Solo or Captain America fighting evil, chasing each other with an axe and a knife in order to slit each other's throats.

Well, that's what we do now anyway. Times have changed and we, as a family, changed a lot too.

Dean and I don't share moments of complicity like these anymore. The only things we share are a poorly lighted demon-proof safe room and toxic conversations about our past, our mother and what a poor excuse of a brother I am. I was fully aware that bringing Dean to the bunker and trying to cure him with shots of human blood would be difficult for both of us but I didn't expect his words to hit so close to home. I could try to fool myself and say that it wasn't really my brother talking, that the monster inside of him was doing an amazing job at trying to guilt-trip me on every decision I took from the day I was born, but the son of a bitch was right on so many levels. I'm not talking about Mom or the fact that Dean has always seen me as an embarrassment and that he would have been better off with me dead (I'm not that stupid to fall into a trap so big) but rather about what happened in the past month and the extent I went to in order to find Dean. Let's say I did a lot of crap I shouldn't be proud of and that a man who claims he's fighting evil should never ever, have considered like conning a poor man into summoning a crossroad demon and torturing said demon for hours to obtain intel on Dean's whereabouts. It shouldn't have played out that way to be honest, the plan was to be quick enough to stop Lester from sealing the deal and to catch the demon but...what is done is done anyway. I wish I could rewrite what happened but unfortunately, it doesn't work that way.

I gave Dean shot after shot after shot of blood, and in spite of the visible pain he was enduring when injected, Dean gained in assurance. His tongue was more poisonous, his smile cockier and I was starting to seriously doubt I'd ever be able to make him human again. The fact that my brother didn't want to be cured made the task even more difficult: he wasn't a patient fighting for his life or struggling with all his strength to get rid of an evil eating his insides cell after cell, he was liking the disease, embracing it with every fiber of his body and battling adamantly to keep it inside him.

After several hours of repeated injections, prayers in Latin and insults thrown at my face, I couldn't take it anymore. I had to have a break. I couldn't stand seeing my brother that way, clinging to the arms of the chair, screaming because his blood seemed to be boiling inside his veins after each shot. Not to mention Dean's words started to affect me more than I expected in the first place. I was fully aware it was the demon talking but that bas***d knew exactly what buttons to push to make me break piece after piece.

I locked myself inside Dean's room for a minute to enjoy a moment of silence. It was as if my brother left only yesterday: there was still an old slice of pie surprisingly intact in its plastic box, his classic rock records neatly filed in alphabetical order and a couple of old photos of us, Mom and Dad too, even Bobby all smiley in front of the piece of junk he dared to call his house. Those days are so long gone that I have the feeling they never actually happened, that the people in the pictures are strangers who left their family album at our place before leaving in a hurry.

When I came back to the basement, there was no more time for nostalgia or longing for the good ol' days: Dean had escaped because of an unexpected flaw in my plan. The more blood I was injecting him with, the more human my brother was becoming and the less effective the demon's trap and the handcuffs were. Dean just had to undo his ties and walk free out of the room.

Cas came to the rescue just in time to put an end to what had been the most difficult hunt of my life. I'm not sure I would have been able to carry on, I was physically and mentally exhausted. I mean, what could I do? Kill my brother? Let him decapitate me and livehappily evilly ever after as a demon? Dean understood how helpless I was and took advantage of my weakness. Of course he did. He knew that I would never harm him or try to resist very long even if it meant being slashed with an axe or falling under the blows of a hammer.

Yeah, I'm this kind of self-sacrificing idiot. It's not exactly new, you should know me by now.

Cas and I brought Dean back to the safe room and injected him with the remaining consecrated blood. At first I was afraid all the bags I stole from the hospital were not enough, that I would have to steal more and bring back the poor priest for another round of blessings and prayers until finally, after about ten hours, holy water didn't have any effects on him anymore and that Dean, my Dean, the real one smiled at us in disbelieve, as if he had just woke up from a bad dream.

I had a hard time transporting my brother to his room because of my arm and, once again, Castiel was of a great help. Dean and I were both too exhausted to hug or just be happy that it was finally over. Cas just laid him down on the bed, with his clothes and his shoes still on and Dean didn't oppose any resistance. He just mumbled half asleep that he wanted some pie and "hey, Sammy can I have some Snickers bars too and you know that thing, like...you know...with the...and...well...with the crispy stuff on top..huh...you got it". I didn't even understand what he was asking for but I was ready to buy him the whole junk food department of the nearby store if it could put a smile on his face. When I came back with a 4 pound bag of food that would have given Michelle Obama and her vegetable garden nightmares, Dean was fast asleep, snoring, his body certainly trying to recover from the past five or six weeks he stayed up without resting. I know the feeling: when I gained my soul back I thought I could eat an elephant at each meal and I was taking a nap every time I could, which gave Dean a perfect excuse to take memorable photos of me sleeping against a tree or the dirty bar counter of a strip club.

When I opened Dean's room to put the food on his nightstand, I couldn't believe my brother was there, alive. There was a moment, a short moment, where I was expecting to see him gone and that this mess wasn't over yet. I was afraid of...another note, another"Sammy, let me go" or that his eyes would turn black again when he woke up in the morning but Dean was here and today, yes today, I couldn't deny I did something positive for my brother, something I could be proud of: I brought him back, saved him and I didn't let him down, maybe for the first time in years. Of course, there's still the demonic elephant in the room, the f**king Mark of Cain on his arm. I'm not an imbecile, I'm conscious this shit is gonna blow up in our faces and that Dean will have to deal with this side of him at some point but as I told Cas, one fight at a time.

I'm exhausted. I need some rest, I need this train wreck to just stop for a minute, I need to take medicine for my arm that isn't healing as fast as it should, I need proper sleep and food, something I haven't had in a long time. In fact, I think I'm secretly dreaming of taking a couple of days off and then doing something...normal for a change...normal for me anyway. Like maybe working on a case with Dean, laughing at the stupid names we will choose for our fake FBI IDs and wondering how people still don't flinch when agents "Steven Tyler" or "Noel Gallagher" come knocking at their door. I can't wait to lose myself in the smell of old books and gun powder again and to do it with what's left of my family, no matter how f**ked up it is.

I'm in my room now, wearing the ugliest t-shirt you can think of (Dean won it at a "Guns and Bacon" fair in Texas) and let's face it, I'm completely toasted. Sam Winchester, the reasonable and wise Sam Winchester is drunk as hell, humming shitty soft rock songs with his iPod plugged to his ears and you know what?

He f**king deserves it.