original by medicinal_mirth

Remix Title: Learning to Run
Remix Author: eloise_bright
Original Story: Capacity
Original Author: medicinal_mirth
Rating: PG13
Pairings: none



"Learn to run when feeling the pain, then push harder."
William Sigei

Sam hates running.

Hates the whole training routine, hates that Dad insists they do at least a half hour every day, hates that Dean never tries to get out of it, hates that Dean always manages to somehow coax him into it.

It's far too hot to be doing this tonight, even if Dad had given in to Dean's persuasion and let them wait till evening. Sweat trickles down Sam's sides, plasters his hair against his forehead in damp clumps. His too-long bangs betray him, falling in his eyes, just like Dad said they would.

He won't get a haircut. He won't.

Dean's up ahead, not so far that he's ever out of sight, and Sam knows Dean would slow up if he called out. But that would be admitting defeat, and Sam won't give him the satisfaction.

He narrows his eyes at Dean's back and pushes harder, the muscles in the backs of his legs still burning from the set of mountain climbers they did during PT. Dad had sighed critically and told Sam to watch Dean – knees to chest every time, Sammy – and Sam had hated his brother right then. Almost as much as he hated training.

Dean is always up ahead; four years older, bigger, quicker, fitter, better than Sam can ever be. Dad never says it out loud, but he doesn't need to. His attitude is clear every time he tells Sam to watch how his brother does it, every time he tells Dean to show Sammy one more time.

So Dean shows him, never loses patience the way Dad does, and that scares Sam a little. Dean is eighteen, graduates in a month's time. He could get out. He could head off one day on a training run and just keep on going, leave all this behind. Sam can't understand why Dean doesn't. There's got to be something better out there, something more than this – existence. He won't call it a life.

Dean slows up and turns round, moving on the spot. His face is pale against the falling dusk as he looks back for Sam. "Dude, get your ass in gear."

The lazy amusement in his tone snaps Sam's mouth closed; grinds his teeth together. He catches up with his brother, gets a light whap on the back of the head. "Man, you are so out of shape."

"Fuck off, Dean." It comes out as a snarl, harsher than he means to be, and he sees a tiny muscle jump in Dean's jaw.

"Whatever. Bitch." Dean aims for nonchalant, but Sam knows he's hurt him. It doesn't feel as good as he thought it would.

Sam turns away from his brother and pushes on, ignoring the screaming protests of his thigh muscles. He knows he's on a growth spurt; his newest jeans are already too short in the leg. He's almost as tall as Dean now, and Dad says he's got growing still to do.

He lengthens his stride and pulls away from his brother. Dean falls back willingly, taking it slower, like he doesn't want to catch up with him. Fine. Sam doesn't care. It's not his fault that Dean's too conditioned to even recognize the opportunity to leave, never mind actually seize it.

Sam hates running, but when the time comes for him to get out, he won't make the same mistake as Dean. He'll be gone.

*~*~*~*

Dean loves running.

He loves sparring and hand to hand, and god, he loves his guns, especially that new BDM with the sweet single/double action flip switch his dad gave him for his birthday; but that's all part of hunting. And it's not that he doesn't love hunting, but sometimes, in moments of quiet treason, he wonders if that's all there is.

He doesn't really know why he started. He's never been one for school spirit, never tried out for football, baseball, soccer; knew from the get-go that Dad would nix involvement in anything that required commitment beyond the basic school day. Dean had never wanted to try out, not since Little League back in Akron. He'd made it onto the team; Coach had told him he was a natural, put him in to bat first.

He'd broken his collar bone two days before his first game, firing at the Lamia coming at Dad. He knew it would break - never discharge a weapon in a confined space, son – the recoil had nowhere else to go. But he had no choice, and he'd taken both the Lamia and his shoulder out of action in one bone-shattering shot. That had been the end of his short-lived Little League career.

This is different. Coach in this high school focuses more on athletics than team sports. Track meets are a big deal; football games, not so much. Dean doesn't try out. Not really. He just happens to be down at the track one Saturday morning while Sammy's at the library, and he's just settled into a gentle five K run when he sees Coach watching him.

He doesn't do anything different, follows his usual routine, and then he realizes Coach is timing him. They have a conversation afterwards, where not much is said, and Dean somehow ends up on the track team.

He lies to his father for the first time in his life when he attends his first meet. Wins his heat, then the final of the 1500 meters. Repeat performance on the 3000. Coach tells Dean – good job, son.

Lying to Dad is hard, and lying to Sammy is almost worse, but he does it, and wins another two meets.

"You thought about college, Dean? " says Coach.

There are scouts. They talk to Coach and they mention scholarships and possible majors. Physical Therapy. Dean sees how that would be useful, starts imagining how he'd sell it to Dad. Coach talks to Dean about grades – not bad, Dean, but they could be better – and god, Dean thinks about it. He actually considers the heretical possibility that he might be able to improve his grades.

Coach never asks about home. Sometimes Dean comes to practice a little banged up, stiff and slow to stretch out, and Coach's lips fold into a thin line, but he doesn't ask. Dean loves him a little for that. And maybe hates him a little too.

He sits now, cross-legged, the manila envelopes beside him on his bed. Applications. Scholarships. College. It doesn't matter how Dean phrases it, all Dad will hear is betrayal.

Downstairs, Sam and Dad are getting into it again, maybe the third time this week. He knows it's because Sam's still pissed about having to run tonight, even though the kid's starting to shape up. Getting those elbows and gangly legs under control some. His stamina is for shit, though. His pacing tonight was way off, and Dad had totally called Dean on letting Sam think he'd beaten him. You're not doing him any favors, son. He'll never learn.

Dean sighs, slips the forms out of the envelopes and screws them up, tosses them into the trashcan in a pitch his Little League coach would be proud of.

Dean loves running. Just not enough to run away.

*~*~*~*

John watches the boys run.

Sam's almost back to his previous fitness level. Boy loves the physical therapy department, treats it like his own private health club. John's not surprised; years of daily exercise regimes performed in dusty backyards, on strips of broken asphalt and threadbare motel carpets must make the hospital department seem like a full service gym.

Dean's got some way to go yet. His muscle tone is improving, and he follows the therapy regime with an almost religious determination, but he tires easily, his strength not yet fully returned. Sam spots for him most days; reads the signs of exhaustion better than the therapist. He knows when his brother has reached his limit. Dean has always had a tendency to push himself too far, but Sam won't allow that anymore.

He will call time-out, rat his brother out to the therapist. Dean will grimace and swear and then finally give in, usually sweet-talking his therapist into giving him one of those trigger point massages that he declares may or may not be better than sex. So far she's turned down Dean's offers to put that theory to the test.

John had watched his older son take his first steps after the accident. Sam had been there too; his gangly frame sprawled over a too-small plastic chair, delivering sardonic encouragement from the sidelines.

Dude, relax. Dad here bawled like a baby his first time on the P-bars.

Sam hadn't been lying. John thinks he might have invented a couple of new swear words that afternoon. Or combined the familiar ones in a creative and rather high-pitched vocal performance.

Dean had loosened up then, and John was put to shame by Dean's quiet groans, his only concession to the pain of moving a body that had been broken before the truck ever hit them.

John doesn't run anymore. Can't. The cane allows him to move with a degree of independence, but the gunshot wound took its toll; his mobility is limited, restricted. He's no use to his boys now, nothing more than a liability, a responsibility they can't afford to consider. Not if they're going to have any chance of killing that damn demon.

John watches his boys run. Sam sets the pace, much slower than he can manage, but just enough of a challenge for Dean. The treadmills move in tandem, and Dean keeps up with Sam. A subtle shift in dynamics, they're no longer the boys he remembers raising, one leading, one following. They're partners, equals, a team; and there's no place for John there anymore.

He's not sure there ever was.

John closes his eyes, wishes for respite, but he knows, with shameful certainty, that his boys will always be running.