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"Down to the Filter" - Sam, Dean - PG13
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ohsam's birthday commentfic meme.
Down to the Filter
Supernatural. Sam, Dean. PG13.
Sam starts smoking at Stanford. 1797 words.
Finals season causes a chain reaction: essays and exams turn into caffeine turns into sleep deprivation turns into smoking your third cigarette at four in the morning with a gaggle of dormmates that Sam has come to call his friends, even if he doesn't necessarily like them all. They're moaning about page minimums and bibliographies like it's the end of the world, and Sam joins in because it's such a novel thing, this communal bellyaching over the most benign of problems. How strange to have a soc essay be his biggest issue.
"LexisNexis can kiss my ass," Sam says, and everyone goes hear, hear.
+
When Sam was fourteen, Dad caught Dean smoking a cigarette and gave him hell. Sam was at the motel table trying to do his fractions, just trying to do some homework, trying to ignore Dad hollering in the background, but Dad just wouldn't let up. "You're supposed to be an example to your brother," Dad said, and Sam hated that, the way his father used Sam's well-being as a weapon against Dean. And Dean just sat there looking numb and guilty, muttering yessir nosir whenever Dad paused to take a breath.
"When you can't outrun some spook because you got emphysema," Dad said, "don't come running to me either." Then he looked at Sam. "Don't ever smoke."
"What about drinking?" Sam asked, casually.
Dad seethed, "Sam."
Sam said, "Maybe if Dean followed your example--"
And then Dean said, "Sam," and Sam held his tongue.
After Dad left, when it was just the two of them again, Sam commented, "Careless."
"Fuck off," said Dean, then heated up the water for their Cup Noodles. Sam was getting sick of Cup Noodles for every meal everyday, but hey, what could they do.
+
Sam bought the first pack of Camel Lights two months into his freshman year, and smoked his first cigarette after his Ancient Civ class, lighting up like he had been doing it for years. He coughed, but no one gave him a second glance, no one gave a shit. Sam Winchester was doing things for himself and the world didn't break apart, not this time, and then Sam thought of his family.
To Dad he would retort, "I'm done outrunning spooks anyway."
To Dean he would probably say, "Don't look at me like that," because Sam could just see the look on his brother's face. "Don't make this about you when it's not," Sam would say, because Dean said that to Sam once, and he'd just like to return the words, is all. Fucking shove Dean's face in it.
"Hey, man, got a light?" someone asked, and Sam, not without a smile, said yeah.
+
Jess taught him how to blow smoke rings. Tipping back her head, her throat working the graceful line of her neck. "You try it," she said, but Sam's throat was too dry, and not from the cigarette.
This is what Sam is thinking about when he starts to jerk off, but then his thoughts up the ante: Jess sitting on his lap with his hand between her legs, Jess with eyes closed calling his name, Jess on top of him, Jess beneath him, a jumble of memories, and Sam comes with a ragged "Fuck, shit," and then it's silent in the motel room again.
It's been four months since he buried Jess, and Sam's still jerking off to her ghost.
Dean's out getting dinner, and the motel room is suddenly so small with its quiet, so crammed with all the things Sam left behind. He can remember with utter clarity the way Jess gasped, "Like that, Sam, yeah, fuck," the memory late to the party, just an echo that fades into the shitshow of the here and now.
Sam cleans up, grabs his Camels, leaves and walks wherever. He's on his third cigarette when Dean calls asking him where the hell he is.
"Went to the gas mart," Sam says, because there just happens to be one across the street. "I got hungry, so I bought some Doritos."
"You couldn't wait twenty minutes for pizza?"
"No."
Sam returns to the motel with Cheetos instead of Doritos, because the mart inexplicably didn't have any Doritos. If Dean notices, he doesn't remark on it, and instead tells him hey, have some pepperoni.
+
Just outside of Sharon, Massachusetts, Sam nearly gets killed by an aswang. He hits the ground face-first as the beast crashes into his back, and he's faintly aware of Dean so far in front of him, seems like, turning around and calling his name. Murky, like being underwater, the aswang's delighted gibbering taking up most of his world right now, and its claws gouging into his flesh.
Later, when they're watching the monster's body burn, Dean says, "You're getting slow in your old age, Sammy," and Sam thinks that Dad would probably be disappointed. Dad was always disappointed. What did I tell you about cigarettes, Sam, he might say, but hey who's to say this is from cigarettes anyway? Sam got his life turned upside down. He was on the verge of getting everything, but now he has nothing, nothing but monsters and his brother and a father gone AWOL, so he's a little stressed right now, thanks. There's lots of things these days that leave him feeling breathless and unfit, and the smoking is the least of his problems.
+
Once, when it was Sam's turn to buy dinner, he thinks about smoking a cigarette in the Impala, which he would never do, of course, because he valued his life. Still, Sam studies this alternate universe in his mind, this situation where the smoke sticks to the upholstery, and Dean pitches a fit over the corruption of his two favorite things. How much more callous would Sam have to be to actually follow through?
Outside the Chinese food place, Sam leans against the car and smokes one down, doing French inhales just because he can. He tried to teach Brady how once in sophomore year, sometime after Brady came back from Thanksgiving break all fucked up. That was half an hour of their lives lost to his determination to succeed, because it was the first time Sam had heard Brady laugh in days.
"Fuck it, I'm just gonna smoke it the regular way," Brady finally said, and smiled at Sam, brilliant and warm. "Fuck, man."
"What?"
"Just..." Brady shook his head. "You're like... I don't know. Thanks, you know? For putting up with my shit."
"I've put up with a lot worse," Sam shrugged.
"You're like the brother I never had," said Brady, and Sam didn't know what to do with that, so he just smiled sheepishly and looked down at his shoes.
He puts out his cigarette under his boot and goes inside the restaurant, wondering wontons or dumplings, hoping Brady is okay, wherever he is.
+
The last 7-11 only had Camel 100s, but between that and Parliaments, Sam'll take the 100s, the lesser of two evils. At least they aren't Marb Lights, and at the very fucking least they aren't Marb Reds. He's been trying to cut down since the aswang incident, and then he's been redefining the word 'try'.
He has had three today. (Three and a half.) This, Sam decides, is good.
"We should hit up a laundromat after this," Dean says before they get in the car, just a casual comment and a good point, but it makes Sam wonder, Does Dean know?
They're on their way to a witch in Ypsilanti, and Sam is mostly thinking about anti-sorcery charms and defensive strategy, but there is still a little part of him that's thinking Does Dean know? Like Sam's a teenager keeping shit from Dad all over again. Maybe Sam should buy stronger cologne. Maybe Sam should buy some gum.
Dealing with the witch is a straightforward affair, nothing surprising about it, except for the end, of course, which Sam should have figured. Endings never go well for him.
Sam douses the body in lighter fluid, Dean has his zippo out, and Sam's already wondering whether they should get Chinese or McDonald's later, when Dean reaches over and slips his hand into the inside pocket of Sam's jacket. He pulls out the cigarettes.
"Dean--" Sam says, when he breaks through his cloud of bewilderment.
"What, Sam," Dean says, and Sam watches in horror as Dean takes out a cigarette, puts it between his lips and lights up.
"Dean, what the fuck are you--"
"What the fuck are you doing?" Dean snaps, and the smoke streams from his mouth, blue in the nighttime shadows. He shakes the pack in Sam's face. "What the fuck are these?"
"Hey, look," Sam begins, and Dean takes his lit cigarette and throws it on the corpse. It lights up like a Christmas tree, fire in Dean's eyes, fire sketching in the shadows of his clenched jaw as he stares at the conflagration, and not at Sam at all.
"Dean," Sam tries again, and Dean throws the pack of cigarettes in the fire too.
"You're a fucking idiot," Dean announces.
Sam throws his hands up, and neither of them say anything until they get back in the Impala.
"You gotta stop," Dean says, starting the car. "It's a waste of money, and we're not made of fucking money here, buddy. It's hell on your lungs, and it's just one more thing people can remember about you--" and Dean goes on and on, and isn't this just fucking typical.
Sam prepares his rebuttal, trying to decide just how angry he wants to make Dean.
"You're like a child," Dean spits out.
Really fucking angry, Sam decides, and opens his mouth to reply.
+
"Don't be an idiot, Sammy," Dean sighs when they pull up to the motel parking lot. He's using that tone where he acts like this is going to be the last thing he says on the subject. Yeah, Sam knows that tone.
Dean calls dibs on the shower, and Sam gets on his laptop and puts some sitcom rerun on TV to ignore. What to kill next? The eternal question. Why does Dean have to be such a goddamn drama queen? The other eternal question. Sam jiggles his knee and tap-tap-taps his fingers on the table as the websites load, and he doesn't remember the connection being this slow this afternoon.
On TV, someone makes a ludicrous suggestion, and the canned laughter goes wild.
+
"Will that be all?" the guy behind the counter asks.
Sam says, "Can I get a pack of Camel Lights?"
"Your total is eight seventy-three," says the clerk. "You need matches?"
"Nah," Sam says, and lights one up as soon as he steps outside.
ohsam's birthday commentfic meme.Down to the Filter
Supernatural. Sam, Dean. PG13.
Sam starts smoking at Stanford. 1797 words.
Finals season causes a chain reaction: essays and exams turn into caffeine turns into sleep deprivation turns into smoking your third cigarette at four in the morning with a gaggle of dormmates that Sam has come to call his friends, even if he doesn't necessarily like them all. They're moaning about page minimums and bibliographies like it's the end of the world, and Sam joins in because it's such a novel thing, this communal bellyaching over the most benign of problems. How strange to have a soc essay be his biggest issue.
"LexisNexis can kiss my ass," Sam says, and everyone goes hear, hear.
+
When Sam was fourteen, Dad caught Dean smoking a cigarette and gave him hell. Sam was at the motel table trying to do his fractions, just trying to do some homework, trying to ignore Dad hollering in the background, but Dad just wouldn't let up. "You're supposed to be an example to your brother," Dad said, and Sam hated that, the way his father used Sam's well-being as a weapon against Dean. And Dean just sat there looking numb and guilty, muttering yessir nosir whenever Dad paused to take a breath.
"When you can't outrun some spook because you got emphysema," Dad said, "don't come running to me either." Then he looked at Sam. "Don't ever smoke."
"What about drinking?" Sam asked, casually.
Dad seethed, "Sam."
Sam said, "Maybe if Dean followed your example--"
And then Dean said, "Sam," and Sam held his tongue.
After Dad left, when it was just the two of them again, Sam commented, "Careless."
"Fuck off," said Dean, then heated up the water for their Cup Noodles. Sam was getting sick of Cup Noodles for every meal everyday, but hey, what could they do.
+
Sam bought the first pack of Camel Lights two months into his freshman year, and smoked his first cigarette after his Ancient Civ class, lighting up like he had been doing it for years. He coughed, but no one gave him a second glance, no one gave a shit. Sam Winchester was doing things for himself and the world didn't break apart, not this time, and then Sam thought of his family.
To Dad he would retort, "I'm done outrunning spooks anyway."
To Dean he would probably say, "Don't look at me like that," because Sam could just see the look on his brother's face. "Don't make this about you when it's not," Sam would say, because Dean said that to Sam once, and he'd just like to return the words, is all. Fucking shove Dean's face in it.
"Hey, man, got a light?" someone asked, and Sam, not without a smile, said yeah.
+
Jess taught him how to blow smoke rings. Tipping back her head, her throat working the graceful line of her neck. "You try it," she said, but Sam's throat was too dry, and not from the cigarette.
This is what Sam is thinking about when he starts to jerk off, but then his thoughts up the ante: Jess sitting on his lap with his hand between her legs, Jess with eyes closed calling his name, Jess on top of him, Jess beneath him, a jumble of memories, and Sam comes with a ragged "Fuck, shit," and then it's silent in the motel room again.
It's been four months since he buried Jess, and Sam's still jerking off to her ghost.
Dean's out getting dinner, and the motel room is suddenly so small with its quiet, so crammed with all the things Sam left behind. He can remember with utter clarity the way Jess gasped, "Like that, Sam, yeah, fuck," the memory late to the party, just an echo that fades into the shitshow of the here and now.
Sam cleans up, grabs his Camels, leaves and walks wherever. He's on his third cigarette when Dean calls asking him where the hell he is.
"Went to the gas mart," Sam says, because there just happens to be one across the street. "I got hungry, so I bought some Doritos."
"You couldn't wait twenty minutes for pizza?"
"No."
Sam returns to the motel with Cheetos instead of Doritos, because the mart inexplicably didn't have any Doritos. If Dean notices, he doesn't remark on it, and instead tells him hey, have some pepperoni.
+
Just outside of Sharon, Massachusetts, Sam nearly gets killed by an aswang. He hits the ground face-first as the beast crashes into his back, and he's faintly aware of Dean so far in front of him, seems like, turning around and calling his name. Murky, like being underwater, the aswang's delighted gibbering taking up most of his world right now, and its claws gouging into his flesh.
Later, when they're watching the monster's body burn, Dean says, "You're getting slow in your old age, Sammy," and Sam thinks that Dad would probably be disappointed. Dad was always disappointed. What did I tell you about cigarettes, Sam, he might say, but hey who's to say this is from cigarettes anyway? Sam got his life turned upside down. He was on the verge of getting everything, but now he has nothing, nothing but monsters and his brother and a father gone AWOL, so he's a little stressed right now, thanks. There's lots of things these days that leave him feeling breathless and unfit, and the smoking is the least of his problems.
+
Once, when it was Sam's turn to buy dinner, he thinks about smoking a cigarette in the Impala, which he would never do, of course, because he valued his life. Still, Sam studies this alternate universe in his mind, this situation where the smoke sticks to the upholstery, and Dean pitches a fit over the corruption of his two favorite things. How much more callous would Sam have to be to actually follow through?
Outside the Chinese food place, Sam leans against the car and smokes one down, doing French inhales just because he can. He tried to teach Brady how once in sophomore year, sometime after Brady came back from Thanksgiving break all fucked up. That was half an hour of their lives lost to his determination to succeed, because it was the first time Sam had heard Brady laugh in days.
"Fuck it, I'm just gonna smoke it the regular way," Brady finally said, and smiled at Sam, brilliant and warm. "Fuck, man."
"What?"
"Just..." Brady shook his head. "You're like... I don't know. Thanks, you know? For putting up with my shit."
"I've put up with a lot worse," Sam shrugged.
"You're like the brother I never had," said Brady, and Sam didn't know what to do with that, so he just smiled sheepishly and looked down at his shoes.
He puts out his cigarette under his boot and goes inside the restaurant, wondering wontons or dumplings, hoping Brady is okay, wherever he is.
+
The last 7-11 only had Camel 100s, but between that and Parliaments, Sam'll take the 100s, the lesser of two evils. At least they aren't Marb Lights, and at the very fucking least they aren't Marb Reds. He's been trying to cut down since the aswang incident, and then he's been redefining the word 'try'.
He has had three today. (Three and a half.) This, Sam decides, is good.
"We should hit up a laundromat after this," Dean says before they get in the car, just a casual comment and a good point, but it makes Sam wonder, Does Dean know?
They're on their way to a witch in Ypsilanti, and Sam is mostly thinking about anti-sorcery charms and defensive strategy, but there is still a little part of him that's thinking Does Dean know? Like Sam's a teenager keeping shit from Dad all over again. Maybe Sam should buy stronger cologne. Maybe Sam should buy some gum.
Dealing with the witch is a straightforward affair, nothing surprising about it, except for the end, of course, which Sam should have figured. Endings never go well for him.
Sam douses the body in lighter fluid, Dean has his zippo out, and Sam's already wondering whether they should get Chinese or McDonald's later, when Dean reaches over and slips his hand into the inside pocket of Sam's jacket. He pulls out the cigarettes.
"Dean--" Sam says, when he breaks through his cloud of bewilderment.
"What, Sam," Dean says, and Sam watches in horror as Dean takes out a cigarette, puts it between his lips and lights up.
"Dean, what the fuck are you--"
"What the fuck are you doing?" Dean snaps, and the smoke streams from his mouth, blue in the nighttime shadows. He shakes the pack in Sam's face. "What the fuck are these?"
"Hey, look," Sam begins, and Dean takes his lit cigarette and throws it on the corpse. It lights up like a Christmas tree, fire in Dean's eyes, fire sketching in the shadows of his clenched jaw as he stares at the conflagration, and not at Sam at all.
"Dean," Sam tries again, and Dean throws the pack of cigarettes in the fire too.
"You're a fucking idiot," Dean announces.
Sam throws his hands up, and neither of them say anything until they get back in the Impala.
"You gotta stop," Dean says, starting the car. "It's a waste of money, and we're not made of fucking money here, buddy. It's hell on your lungs, and it's just one more thing people can remember about you--" and Dean goes on and on, and isn't this just fucking typical.
Sam prepares his rebuttal, trying to decide just how angry he wants to make Dean.
"You're like a child," Dean spits out.
Really fucking angry, Sam decides, and opens his mouth to reply.
+
"Don't be an idiot, Sammy," Dean sighs when they pull up to the motel parking lot. He's using that tone where he acts like this is going to be the last thing he says on the subject. Yeah, Sam knows that tone.
Dean calls dibs on the shower, and Sam gets on his laptop and puts some sitcom rerun on TV to ignore. What to kill next? The eternal question. Why does Dean have to be such a goddamn drama queen? The other eternal question. Sam jiggles his knee and tap-tap-taps his fingers on the table as the websites load, and he doesn't remember the connection being this slow this afternoon.
On TV, someone makes a ludicrous suggestion, and the canned laughter goes wild.
+
"Will that be all?" the guy behind the counter asks.
Sam says, "Can I get a pack of Camel Lights?"
"Your total is eight seventy-three," says the clerk. "You need matches?"
"Nah," Sam says, and lights one up as soon as he steps outside.