A/N; just a short one-shot I wrote. How perhaps the boys got over Asylam, plus why Sam went to Stanford and why he thinks John hates him. Like the series this is left unresolved. Please tell me what you think.

Permanency

The miles click out behind them. Dean's got that shuttered look on his face. Sam knows, from years of experience, that nothing he says will get through right now.

And for once he doesn't even try. The words are there, hanging on the edge of his teeth, GodDeandidn'tmea it,sofuckingsorry, but he holds them back with an effort.

He figures he's done enough right now.

The door of his closet doesn't shut properly. The metal bit in the frame is missing and sometimes at night it creaks open, startling him from a sleep to which he cannot seem to return. He's gone to school too many days feeling like a bearwalker's run over him because of it.

Sam could fix it, he knows how. It would only take an afternoon and a new metal bracket. Not difficult really at all. But Sam won't fix it.

Because he can't afford the new part, not when all the family money goes into foodrentammosalt . Not when his own mega savings are being set aside for some boots with no holes and a jacket that fits so that he might actually survive this winter.

And even if he did have the part, he doesn't have the time, not when the daylight hours (and non-daylight hours) that aren't taken up by sleepschoolhomeworktraining are spent in some strange wood or eerie graveyard or dusty motel, behind the barrel of a gun or blade of a knife. He's barely keeping up as it is.

And Sam won't fix it, even if he had the money, the time. He wouldn't, because it's just not worth it .

A year ago he would have, would have found a way. Two years before that he'd have changed the curtains and scrubbed the mould off the walls. Five years ago he might have even tried to paint it. Now though, the room is left. Only his day to day cloths in the wardrobe, a photo on the dresser and books on the desk. Everything else remains in his duffle, next to his shoes, at the end of his bed. Now he knows not to fix the door.

To do so would be staking a claim, investing a piece of himself in the this place. It's the first step to attachment, and that's both useless and painful.

Sam knows, in a deep aching way that given a month maybe two, he'll no longer live here. Knows that all too soon this room will be a distant memory and in some ways he's already left.

There's a fierceness to the way Dean picks their next gig, that Sam feels too weary to argue with. He's caught his brother gazing at him over the last three days, anger and bitterness burning in him and Sam has pretended not to see, not to break the fragile accord that Dean's so desperately built around them.

Sam knows, truly, that the silence is not a healing one, but at the same time he has no idea as to how to explain, how to absolve himself, how to make this better.

So he says nothing and nods at Dean's selection of the wendigo in Nebraska.

Normally Sam doesn't try to get chatty with any of the kid's at the latest school. It's pointless and messy and all too difficult when he can easily get by alone in the library during lunch hours.

Instead he uses the time to complete assignments he won't get to work on at home and to look into folk lore and legions and other such mythology that might come in useful. Might provoke that look his father gets sometimes when he looks at Dean.

Then comes Alberkerkey and Rachel Parker, a green-eyed mess of auburn curls. Rachel is head librarian at the local high, a girl fascinated with otherworldly things.

She helps him research, while Sam dithers, all doe-eyed and nervous. Laughs a bright laugh over dusty books. She looks at him understandingly, with the expression of a child who was orphaned and adopted at two. They share non-memories together.

And Sam knows not to form attachments, but quiet before he realises it, he's plucking up the courage to ask Rachel to the summer formal, which he's forgotten he probably won't be here for.

Then he gets home and the car's already packed and Sam says nothing, just jumps in the impala to his Dad's impatient sigh, looks forlornly out the window, back towards the passing town.

Dean glances at him "This about that booky chick? Cheer up Sammy, there'll be other girls."

Sam says nothing and hopes that Rachel finds someone else for her laugh and her compassion.

When the words finally come, Sam's not surprised. He knows Dean, knows that his brother doesn't talk about things, prefers to bury such hurts, let them heal or fester or just let them go. He knows this about Dean, it's why he's gone on with this farce for a week.

It's been doomed to failure all along. Dean's good at getting over, but there's only so long that you can suppress your brother shooting you, even with an empty gun.

So when they come, the words are expected, their expected and they break Sam down into little pieces.

"I mean what the fuck dude?!" Dean all but screams, pupils wide and dilated "I did fucking everything for you. I raised you, I kept you feed and clothed and safe, when Dad was too busy hunting to know the difference. All but fucking drove you to that bus for Stanford and after that you turn around and say you hate ?! That I do nothing but bark fucking orders! You fucking shoot me?!"

Sam says nothing, leadens his tongue to stop any back chat because Dean needs this. Because Sam owes him this when his brother' spent the last six days pulling chunks of rock-salt out of his chest.

"And Stanford!! I mean you walk out! On Me! on Dad! On your whole fucking family and your judging us?! Judging Dad all our lives because you think he's such a terrible father and yet you fucking turn around and shot me!"

His mouth springs to action before he can stop it, Dean's words bring back memories he's repressed too long. "Dean just…this isn't about Dad!"

Dean rounds on him "The fuck it's not! For years you've been all high and mighty with Dad, over his treatment of us, But guess what Sammy?! Dad would never shot either of us!"

"He already has! So you know what? Fuck you Dean! At least the gun I fired at you was empty, which is more than Dad can say about the gun he fired at me."

The room is left cold in the wake of his confession, Dean gapping at him, pale and horrified, and no matter what Sam says, he can't take the words back.

The night Sam's supposed to be awarded Valla Victorian, he's knee deep in a grave in Tennessee, arms aching with the effort of scraping out two hundred years of undisturbed earth.

The last resting place of a priest (and isn't that ironic?) who's current gig is possession of his poor victims, amplifying their greatest sin until they kill either themselves or someone around them, sometimes both.

His father's supposed to be keeping watch for the vengeful Vicar, but they heard a noise about twenty minuets ago and John's gone to investigate. Sam hasn't heard form him since and he's started to get worried, but he also knows the most help he can be right now is finishing his task. His Father's a great hunter and he can certainly hold his own against an old ghost.

Dean's not here, way back in Nevada, chasing a Skinwalker with Caleb. The hunt's not going well apparently, and Dean's told them not to expect him home for a couple of weeks. Sam's just finishing up- he's smashed through the coffin, sprinkled the salt and the lighter fluid over the pearly bones.

He scrambles out of the hole breathing in the fresher night air and heads for his backpack cursing the fact he forgot the bloody lighter.

As soon as his father appears Sam knows there's something wrong with him. Can see the change in the way John moves, in his careful foot falls. He waves the hand not holding the lighter. "Dad?"

John turns and the gun, previously held loosely in his grip, is trained on Sam. John smiles slowly and softly and Sam freezes both consciously and not, eyes glued to the expression that isn't entirely his father's.

"Dad?" he whispers again, feeling compelled to give it his all "Dad, it's me. It's Sam."

John walks forward all anger suddenly. "I know who you bloody are boy. Fucking whiney little thing, never listening to a word I say, always off on your own thing…."

Now Sam knows this isn't his father. He's not quiet sure what vice is being amplified here; Pride or Anger, but he decides it doesn't really matter- the result is the same and Sam need's to light up this son of a bitch before his father does something he'll regret for the rest of his life. He steps slowly backwards towards the open grave, trying to just seem terrified. Unfortunately it's not really an expression he has to fake.

John's still talking "Always defying me. Ignoring my orders, running to your brother when things don't go your way. Dean does his part, is the good hunter he ought to be. But not you, not precious little Sammy."

Sam chokes a little. He knows the words aren't really true, tries to convince himself that his father doesn't actually feel this way. But then again, isn't this what he's secretly believed John's thought about him for years? Could it be that the ghost is only making an environment where such things can be spoken? Sam blinks back tears and knows either way he'll never feel completely comfortable with the name Sammy ever again.

His foot scrapes the edge of the grave. He flicks the lighter.

John raises the gun. His face twisted a way that's not at all natural. "I'll make sure you never defy me again Boy" He yells and his finger tightens on the trigger.

Later, Sam is almost sure he feels the pain before the bang. Spreading from his left shoulder and down through his chest and gut, searing every nerve ending. It's some kind of miracle that he doesn't fall backwards into the disturbed earth. That as he looks down to the blood, quickly oozing though his shirt, he remembers to drop the lit lighter in his uninjured hand.

The holy man burns.

By this point Sam's sitting down, head held between his hands, voice monotonous and raw. He can't look at Dean as he tells the story, can't see the loss spread across his features. John's always been Dean's idol and Sam never meant to take that away.

"By the time you got back, I was out of hospital and mostly fixed up. Dad never really talked about it, but we…well we decided it was probably better you didn't know. You were already too worried that one day we'd kill one another."

Dean sat back "And he…he said those things…he, he shot you."

Sam looks up, eyes pleading. "He didn't mean it Dean." He says in the most convincing voice possible, wanting to chase away any doubt any horror from the revocable damage he's inflicted here. "He didn't mean it, Dean, none of it… and nether did I."

He reaches forward, hand hesitating over Dean's knee. "Demons lie Dean, and ghosts… ghosts make people lie."

And finally Dean lets go, breaths out the hurt and the anger. "Yeah." He sighs "yeah, ok."

Things aren't better, not yet, but they will be given time, and Sam leaves it.

Wound not yet closed and story not quite finished.

He loves Dean and his brother doesn't need to know the rest.

The first week back at school the teacher hand him his uncollected award. It feels heavy in his hands, and so do the words that accompany it.

"Valla Victorian is a big deal Sam. You should be looking at collages. Ivy League collages."

A month ago he would not have considered it, but now he's left with the memory of John's forced words. With a ruined shirt and the sound of a gun firing.

The wound's nothing but a scar now. Any apology his father may have given a ghost on his tongue that was left unsaid.

But there a permanency to scars, to unspoken words. For the rest of his life, no matter where he is or when, Sam will have a round shape on his shoulder to remind him of his place.

And it hurts.

So when he sticks the Stanford application in the mailbox with a return for Pastor Jim's, he prays for a different kind of permanency.

For a world where he can fix a door and keep a laugh and where an old scar is just a scar.

~fin~

So yeah, tell me what you think.