Work Text:
Ever since the hospital, Dean has been doing research.
Without identities that actually belong to them, busting Sam out before he was ready had been a necessity. But it also meant leaving behind valuable resources, and Sam can feel the gaps in the plan, is all too aware of the ways that he is now different. There’s no one steering this thing except for them, and neither of them quite knows which direction to go in.
Sam does not have a speech therapist. Sam does not have a recovery plan. He doesn’t even know if there is the possibility of recovery.
All Sam knows is that things are different, and the silence seeps into his body, squeezing all of the words still left inside him until they are nothing more than a tangled knot at his core.
But a lifetime on the road has taught them to be creative, to figure out their own solutions, and they’re nothing if not resourceful. Dean drags him to library after library in town after town where he sits at a computer terminal and reads. Sam sits next to him, huddled in a chair, picking idly at the loose threads on his jeans, waiting for something new to happen.
He’s never felt out of place in a library before.
Time goes on, and Dean starts to find things to hang onto, places that will point him in the right direction. At each new discovery, he shows Sam what he finds, but it all feels just out of reach. Dean’s stacks of printed research, hour after hour of searching, are nothing but incomprehensible words to Sam. Marks on paper that mean things to other people, but nothing to him anymore.
At night, in nameless motel rooms, Sam kicks at the furniture and shouts in garbled, half-choked screams. He shoves his brother away when Dean tries to get close to him, and all the words inside him tear through his veins, desperate to be let out.
He’s trapped with nowhere to go, and it’s maddening.
Weeks go by like this, Dean picking up an easy hunt or two, doing research about Sam the rest of the time. Sam waits, silent.
And after hours and hours of digging through websites, Dean starts to figure out something that might work. Sam can only hope that it does, but he tries not to get his hopes up. Tries not to imagine what he wants the most.
What happens next is familiar, but profoundly different. Sam finds himself in the copy center of Office Depot while, instead of creating fake IDs for bogus identities, Dean prints and laminates page after page of words. He’s focused, driven by this new mission.
Sam stands next to him, fingers tracing tentatively over the rows of tiles, each one containing an image and a word underneath it. Each new page that Dean lays out on the table means a new possibility, and with it, a new challenge.
Eventually, the pages become a stack, and the stack becomes a binder, carefully arranged and organized. When it’s complete, Dean tentatively holds it out to his brother, a hesitant smile on his face.
Still not entirely convinced, Sam takes the heavy book from him, cradling it in one arm as he slides a finger along the cover page, taking in the neatly arranged images. On the edge of the page, there are two that make sense right away, no translation needed.
Sam points to one and Dean looks down, staring at a tiny image of himself. “Dean,” he says his own name aloud, giving voice to the picture and the word beneath it.
Sam points to the tile above that, a little picture of his own face.
“Sam,” Dean says.
Up in the corner, there’s a little stick figure, his hand waving and a smile on his face. Sam points.
“Hi,” Dean supplies, and Sam feels a surge of emotion rush through his chest. He clutches the book a little tighter, finger trembling as he points to two squares in quick succession.
“Hi, Dean.”
There’s a proud grin spreading across Dean’s face, and Sam can’t stop the tentative smile that tugs at the corners of his mouth.
And so the process begins, the road stretching out for miles ahead of him. It feels endless, like he will never figure all of this out. Relearning all of these words, the new way he can make himself heard. He carefully opens the binder and thumbs through the pages, overwhelmed by the possibilities, of all he has to learn.
Sam turns back to the front cover and says again, in his brother’s voice,
“Hi, Dean.”