A/N: Okay, long story, (probably made longer), the other day, I asked for a mute story on story finders, and what I envisioned just wasn't the results I got. So I thought why not write it myself, and here it is. Bit random and different for me but I hope you guys enjoy x

Badass Beta/Awesome Editor- Samanatha V

Summary: Sam was a mute, in all these years Dean's never really agreed with what that title meant, but they'd used it since he could remember. Set around s1 timeline.

Quiet like the snow

"Sammy, you want anything?" Dean asked after closing the menu.

Sam nodded his head, scowled at the nickname, then took the menu and started looking. After a few minutes Sam pointed to the chicken salad and then to the coke.

"Not coffee?"

Sam shook his head, Dean didn't expect a verbal answer, he never does, he just wished he could say the same for practically every other human on the planet.

As the waitress started to wander over, Dean only hoped this one would be a little more polite than yesterdays, after they ordered, the bitch had called Sam a retard under her breath. It didn't bother the kid, but that didn't mean it didn't bother his big brother. If that chick had been a guy, Dean would have decked her.

"So, what you two handsome boys want today?" this waitress, 'Emma', unlike the one before, had a smile and a charm about her - okay she wasn't doing too bad so far.

"Burger and fries, extra onions." Dean left out the sweetheart today, it would take him a few days to be charming again, always did after a bad day.

"How about you sugar?" she looked to Sam, who just stared at her, then back at Dean, before he went to pick the dried skin from his hands. Dean noticed it, just as he noticed everything else with his brother. Okay, so maybe yesterday had bothered him.

"He'll have the chicken salad, and cokes for us both."

"Sure thing hon." She smiled and left.

Dean let out a breath of relief when she did so. Sam nudged his elbow to get his attention, he was smiling slightly, maybe even a little sadly. Dean knew what his brother was saying, he was telling him he didn't have to worry that much, he was okay.

"Yeah well, that doesn't mean you have to put up with it. I sure as hell ain't."

Sam shrugged, 'I'm used to it.'

Truth be told, so was Dean, but that didn't mean he liked it any better. The way some... well... most people, treated his brother, he expected it from every single person that wasn't him or his father, but he still hated how they all thought they had the right to make others feel like shit.

Basically, Sam was a mute. In all these years Dean's never really agreed with what that title meant, but they'd used it since he could remember. What Dean did understand was Sam didn't talk, hadn't for a long time. Probably never would.

SPN

The rest of their evening passed without a hitch, they ate their meals, Dean thanked the waitress for the both of them, then after they drove for a little longer they pulled into a motel for the night.

"I'm gonna take a shower."

Dean looked at his brother for a second before he went to gather some clean sweats and his shaving kit. He knew that face, that was Sam's 'don't use all the hot water,' face.

"Yeah, yeah, bitch."

The left side of Sam's face twitched, 'jerk.'

As he stripped from his clothes and stood under the spray of the shower, Dean started to reminisce.

Most people probably wouldn't remember exact dates when crap things happened, they only remember when their kid spoke their first word, the day they tied their own shoe laces, the day they learned how to ride a bike. People don't like to remember when bad things happen, when their child started to talk back, when they got detention for the first time, when they got really sick and the day they're rushed to hospital. But Dean remembered their shit like it was yesterday, and he'd certainly never forget.

He and their dad had taken off for a hunt when Sam was about ten years old. They left the rather chatty, bubbly and sometimes annoying as hell, little kid with some friends of dads, and when they came back, Sam was just... silent, and had been ever since.

They had obviously tried to get him to talk, at first they figured it was just Sam being a whiny little so and so, he never was happy when they left him behind, but when days of silence turned to weeks, that was when they realized something was wrong.

On the third week, John contacted his 'friends', ranted and raved and beat one of them to a bloody pulp because they had to be the reason Sam wasn't talking, they had to have done something to his boy. One of them had to have said something, done something, it was the only explanation, kids just don't just stop talking for no reason, right?

Well, turns out, what they weren't told when they picked Sam up was, John's gang of so called friends had found a little hunt to go on in the week he left his youngest son in their care. They got bored of babysitting, so they went to go have some fun in the woods. Sam was told to stay in the car, and not get out under any circumstances. But the kid had to pee, and when you had to go, you had to go. He had lock picked his way out of Bill's truck and sprinted to the nearest cave for some privacy. There Sam had found trouble, shoulders deep in shit trouble. Clay, the one John made sure would be eating through a straw for the rest of his life had said he heard someone screaming that night, but when stopped all of a sudden, they figured it was just their imagination. They killed the big nasty when it came out from toying with Sam in the cave, then they took the kid back to the truck, and went on their merry way home, no harm, no foul. Yeah, John reacted just about the way you'd expect with that little tale, only worse.

Sam's brother and father took him to see a specialist in about the fifth week. After every damn brain scan under the sun, the hospital didn't have any real answers. The doctor diagnosed Sam with Selective Mutism, or SM if you want to be quick about it. It was something to do with a person, most often a child, who find themselves unable to speak in certain situations or around certain people, often because of shyness or some sort of social anxiety. Dean thought that was a bunch of bull, he still did, Sam wasn't shy, he was the most outgoing kid on the planet. They got a second opinion, and still, the new doctor explained there was no medical reason for why Sam wasn't talking, his voice box and everything around it was working perfectly, and none of the brain tests showed any kind of blockages or barriers to Sam's speech. He was just simply choosing not to talk, maybe consciously, maybe subconsciously.

Over the months, with countless nightmares and painfully silent screams from Sammy, John and Dean had worked it all out, Sam had been attacked in that cave, he had been the one screaming for help, he had screamed until he had nothing left, until he broke. He had cried for someone, anyone to save him, no one had, Sam had been abandoned, and now he was damaged because of that.

Dean knew his dad would never forgive himself for what had happened to Sammy, for leaving him with people he thought he could trust. God knows Dean hated himself for not listening to his brother when he needed it the most. Maybe if he had tried harder, noticed it sooner, Sam would be fine now, normal. But... sometimes, life just sucks doesn't it? It hands you lemons and you've just got to make lemonade no matter how much you despise the taste of it.

The kid was sent to bunch of speech therapists and psychologists over the years, but when Dean found a broken thirteen year old sobbing -in silence of course- on the bathroom floor one night, the endless shrink sessions and hordes of doctors ended. Sam didn't want to be the freak anymore, he didn't want the patronisation or the pity any longer. He just wanted people to treat him how they used to, and accept that his lack of speech was just as much of a part of him as his floppy hair and geeky books. He never told Dean any of this, clearly, but Dean knew the second he pulled his crying baby brother into his arms that night. When you've known a person all their lives, you tended to be pretty good at the whole sixth-sense thing.

Home life got easier when they treated Sam like Sam again. It took John a little longer to accept it, but eventually he gave into the inevitable, and Sam just became 'the quiet one' when he introduced himself and his boys. Training was back on schedule, and on his fourteenth birthday the initiation into the family business was handed out and Sammy was given a silver hunting knife engraved with his initials.

Sometimes Sam thrived on hunts, like he was getting his own back on those evil basted's that took something from him. But other times, when they faced certain monsters, black dogs to be specific, Sam went into an almost catatonic state. Dean had tried to talk to their dad about it, tell him to avoid those kinds of creatures for Sam's sake, hand that job over to someone else, but John always said Sam needed to face his fear. The kid tried his best, but with his father's methods, Sam ended up hating hunting all together as the years went along. Dean didn't blame him, he'd hate it too if it constantly reminded him of the worst night of his life, hell, he did hate it, for what it did to his brother. Sam still hung on though, for his brother he stuck around and sucked it up.

What Dean was always most proud of though was despite Sam's -enter quote marks- 'disability'... he sailed through school. Languages were a problem, but everything else... let's just say the letter A came up a hell of a lot on his report cards. Most teachers even complimented Sam, saying they only wished they had a classroom full of kids as quiet and well behaved as he was. Dean was beaming the day Sam got a freakin' full ride to Stanford.

Dad went insane when he found out, said how the hell was Sam supposed to do even the simplest of things like catch a bus when he couldn't speak. What if there was an accident, what if there was a fire, what if there was an attack and Sam couldn't yell for help? "How the fuck do you even expect to introduce yourself? It's not like you're suddenly gonna grow a sack and start talking is it?" Dad was out of line with some of the things he said - he called Sam useless and pathetic on his own, hopeless without the two of them to stick up for him, protect him, speak for him. That's when the kid made the loudest sound he'd made in eight years - he packed his bags and slammed the door so hard it practically vibrated the whole block of motel rooms.

Two years they were apart, and in spite of his pride for his baby brother, those two years were two of the most miserable, and lonely years of Dean's life. If you thought there was no difference between living with a mute with nothing but one sided conversations, and living alone, you were wrong. Especially the last month, when dad took off, when Dean really was alone. Yeah, those days sucked.

While he drove to Cali, Dean started to freak, what if he'd forgotten how to read Sam? What if he didn't understand him anymore? What if he'd lost the ability to interpret even the slightest twitch from Sam's mouth? He kinda hoped the day he knocked on Sam's dorm room door he'd find a new man, a talking man... okay, maybe not a man yet, but talking at least. But apparently lectures needed even less speech than high school classrooms. So did getting a girl, Dean was impressed at what Sam had been able to accomplish without speaking a word. Even in the hour that he spent with Jess, Dean could tell she cared about his brother, she knew him, and he hadn't needed to say a word. The tears Sam cried when she died had only defined and confirmed that all the more.

But now dad was missing, and although they had some kissing and making up to do, Sam was back and he was just as determined to find his father as Dean was. Oh, and FYI, thankfully, reading Sam, was like riding a bike.

Did he miss his brother's voice? Sure. Did he wonder daily what it would sound like now? Duh! Did he hold it against Sam or treat him anything less than his pain in the ass little brother? No. Never. Not gonna happen. Sam didn't have a voice, but he could still 'speak' and Dean would always be there to listen.

The End.

Possibly, does it seem ended to you? Or should I carry on? If you want the latter then give me some ideas for plots and stuff, anything I'm so in. But I need ideas! Long story, short story, or is this the end?