[Fic] The Fire Dream
Title: The Fire Dream
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/Pairing: Sam, Dean, John
Genre: Gen, hurt/comfort
Warnings/Spoilers: none, pre-series
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~5,700
Summary: Sam and Dean, on a hunt with Dad that ends with Dean torn up and delirious, admitting things that he’ll most definitely regret later.
Notes: This is a wish fill for dollysdoodles, at hoodie_time's wish fulfillment party, for this prompt: Sam and John are busy butting heads with each other and neither realize that Dean has been gravely injured in their last hunt. when they do realize, Dean is almost too far gone... almost. Loads of guilt ridden john and Sam and loads of them taking care of a delirious Dean who is so out of it that he doesn't even realize what fears he is saying out aloud. Comments/thoughts/any words at all are always greatly appreciated. ♥
The forest smells of earthy, pine-scented dirt, and blood.
Dean can taste the metal of it on his tongue, in his mouth, and on his lips. He closes his eyes, and a second later, his head smacks back into something hard, a not-so-gentle reminder that yeah, he really needs to stay with it here. Unless he plans on bleeding out against this tree, listening to Sam and Dad go at each other’s throats like they have been non-stop since they started this job.
He concentrates for a second on the voices fading in and out of his ears. He feels like he’s underwater. Dad’s gruff voice and Sam’s more urgent, shrill tone are both muted, covered up and blanketed by god knows what, throbbing in and out of focus with the thrum of blood moving through his veins. He can’t tell where the voices are coming from. If they’re in front of him, or behind him; if they’re moving towards him, or away from him. Hell, he doesn’t even know if they’ve managed to torch the damn wendigo yet, though he can make a pretty good guess about that one, at least. As it stands, he’s not really sure how he managed to get away, but he’s grateful he did. Now he just needs Dad and that stupid geek brother of his to stop verbally abusing each other long enough to figure out that he could use a little help here.
He touches his hand to his side, which is where the bulk of the searing pain is coming from and it comes away wet and sticky. Awesome, he thinks.
Dean knows he has to move. Has to get up and get back to Dad, and Sammy, but his arms and his legs feel like lead, like they weigh a thousand pounds, and even when he closes his eyes, and really concentrates, all he gets for his effort is a massive fresh wave of pain that washes over him slowly, heavy and dark. For a second it blots out everything - Sam’s voice, Dad’s voice, the whine of the wind through the trees above Dean’s head, everything.
He doesn’t try to move again after that, not even to try to stop the bleeding. He knows it’s bad - rule number one of self-preservation bad - but his arms just won’t move, not even to pull his jacket closed tight around him, even though he’s freezing, his teeth chattering like ice cubes against glass.
**
When he opens his eyes again, his head is swimming, throbbing too, and it takes him a minute to figure out that he’s sprawled out on his back across the back seat, and that the car is moving. The pain in his side is much duller than it had been back in the forest, and he figures he’s either lost so much blood that his body is going numb, or maybe it's not as bad as he thought.
He can hear Sam’s hushed voice from the front seat, and part of him is relieved. He supposes part of him is always relieved to know that despite whatever crap he’s gotten himself into, Sammy is still okay. Dad’s driving, and Sammy’s okay. All is not completely lost.
“We have to get him to a hospital. It’s bad enough that we’ve waited this long.” Sam’s voice is quiet, but urgent, right on the edge of panic.
Dean’s heard that tone a thousand times throughout Sam’s seemingly endless adolescent years. He’s not sure if seventeen really counts as adolescent anymore, and anyway, Sam’s felt all grown up for a while now.
“I told you we can’t risk that. We’ll be at the motel in ten minutes,” Dad says, sounding calm as always, but edgy, too. Tired, probably.
“Dammit, Dad.”
And yeah, that’d be Sam going right over that panic edge.
“Can’t you put someone other than yourself first for once? I don’t care what happens, or who comes after us. Dean is--”
Dean opens his mouth to interrupt, and nothing comes out, so he clears his throat, and tries again. “Sammy…”
Sam shifts around in the passenger seat to face him, and his hand closes over Dean’s shoulder.
“Dean,” Sam says, and the look in his eyes says about a million things at once, and at the top of the list is guilt, Dean can see that clear as day.
“’m gonna be fine,” Dean assures him. He immediately regrets trying to lift his head to get a better angle on Sam’s face. Sam’s features go all blurry and grainy on him as he struggles to focus. “So lay off Dad, okay?”
“It was his fault,” Sam says, even though his eyes contradict him, wide and wet and guilty as hell. It’s like looking into a goddamned mirror seeing Sam like this.
“It was both of us, Sam,” Dad says, and Dean is grateful, and a little surprised that this time Sam just manages a quick “yes sir” before he turns to face forward again.
Dean closes his eyes, and the warmth of Sam’s hand against his shoulder lingers there for a moment, like some kind of afterimage, and then things go a little numb for a while.
**
Dean’s eyes are so heavy. He tries to open them, but it’s like his eyelids are glued shut. He can hear voices, just barely, can feel weight against his shoulders, something pressing him down, and a tickling against his chest, like a feather being drawn across his skin. Then there’s more pressure on his shoulders, and he thinks he hears Sam’s voice.
Almost done, Sam says, and he’s pretty sure it’s directed at him, but his head feels jumbled, and everything feels strange, out of context. He tries to pick up his head, to open his eyes, but Sam is strong, pressing down on his shoulders. Dean can’t move.
And then the feather-touch is gone, and Dad’s voice moves past his ear. The words echo off of each other, like they’re all in some kind of wind tunnel.
He’s going to be fine.
Sam’s hands let go of his shoulders, and Dean is falling, sinking. He panics, just for a second. His heart pounds in his chest and thumps in his ears, blood rushing through his veins.
And then there’s just quiet, and it’s like he’s being pulled somewhere in the darkness behind his eyes, like he’s being dragged deep underground, silence closing in around him.
**
It’s dark, and Dean tries to prop himself up on his hands so that he can see what’s going on. He feels like he’s been asleep for about a million years. His elbows feel like they’re made of rubber though, which doesn’t work so well for supporting his weight. The only thing he accomplishes is making the motel room spin out of control until his stomach feels as if it wants to claw its way out of his throat.
He concentrates on breathing after that for what feels like an eternity, just sucking the air in through his nose and out through his mouth, breathing in the darkness and the motel room smells, searching for something familiar to latch onto, to ground him.
After a while his eyes adjust to the darkness, and he can make out two dark shapes lying on top of the bed opposite him. Sam’s face is squashed up against the pillow and Dad still has his boots on. Dean’s face warms a little. There’s no real reason for the familiar ache this brings to the center of his chest, except that this is his family, right here, and he’s really glad that he’s not still lying out in that damn forest, bleeding into the dirt.
He can hear them breathing - Sam’s long rasps that only come when he’s really exhausted, and Dad’s measured, quiet inhale and exhale. He marvels a little at it, at how simple it is. Just keep breathing, and everything will eventually be okay.
He’s careful not to move too much. That whole room-spinning-wild thing is not something he wants to repeat, and so he just locks his eyes where they are and stays there. Dad’s boots, Sam’s cheek squashed up against the pillow, lit up by a tiny sliver of moonlight through the gap in the curtains. Everything he cares about, right there in his line of sight.
He stays awake as long as he can, until his eyes get warm and heavy again and he closes them.
Then he listens for a while, matching Sam’s breathing with his own until eventually he finds a steady rhythm to lock on to. It carries him off towards sleep, draws the darkness in around him until morning.
**
He wakes up to Sam’s cold, clammy hands against his chest.
“Sorry,” Sam says. “Just checking your stitches.”
“Where’s Dad,” Dean asks. He squints at the light streaming in from the windows. “What time is it?”
“I’m right here,” Dad’s deep voice says, and Sam’s fingers are gone, replaced by his father’s hands.
They move over his skin, under his arms, along his ribcage. He looks old. Not old old, but older, like the years have caught up to him without Dean noticing.
“How’re you feeling?”
“Like I got torn up by one nasty bitch of a wendigo,” Dean says. He wonders how long he’s been lying here. “That’s what happened, right?”
“Yeah,” Dad says, “more or less. You’ve got a dozen or so stitches across your side where he slashed you,” he adds. “But you’re gonna be fine.”
Dean can hear a derisive snort of laughter from across the room-Sam, of course. “No thanks to us,” he adds, for good measure, Dean figures. It’s meant to be mean, to provoke, but Dad doesn’t flinch.
There’s a moment of silence, and then finally, sounding exhausted, Dad says, “Sam, why don’t you go get us some drinks from the lobby.”
It’s not a question at all, it’s a direct order, and Sam obeys without a word, for once.
“What’s going on?” Dean asks, after the door closes behind Sam.
To say there’s a bit of tension in the air between his dad and his little brother lately would pretty much be the understatement of the century, but he’s only been up for two minutes and can tell it’s worse than usual. That can’t be a good sign.
“Nothing’s going on,” Dad says dismissively. “Sam’s being Sam, that’s all.”
Dean smiles a little at that, but then he remembers something from the car ride.
“Back in the car… Why did he say this was your fault?”
“Because it was,” his father says tightly. “Things got a little heated between us, right before the fight started. I let it distract me. I didn’t see you go down - Sam and I both thought you’d gone back to the car for the other flame thrower. By the time we realized what had happened… You were in pretty bad shape.”
“I was on my way back to the car when it blindsided me.”
“Yeah, I figured.”
Dean just lies there for a second, taking the full weight of the situation in. He’s not worried about what happened to him, but the thought of Dad letting one of his arguments with Sam affect a hunt, well, that left a bad taste in Dean’s mouth, made him think that maybe Sammy was right - maybe he didn’t belong here, hunting alongside Dad. It’s not like he hadn’t had about a hundred different versions of that same thought himself ever since Sam’d brought up the whole college thing, but this felt serious. This could mean Sam’s life, or Dad’s, if things went on like this. Bottom line, it wasn’t good. He was sure Sam knew it, was sure Dad knew it too.
And it’s like the thought itself casts some kind of cloud over the room, over his head, and by the time Sam gets back, all Dean wants to do is close his eyes again and not open them for a long, long time.
**
When he does try to open them again, all he can feel is heat, and fire, and his heart pounding in his chest. It takes him forever to actually get his eyes open, and when he opens his mouth, all that comes out is a groan. For several terrifying moments, he’s trapped.
For years after the fire that killed Mom, Dean’s nightmares were like this - predictable, and all-consuming. Fire and heat and smoke so thick he couldn’t breathe, and Sammy wasn’t tucked up in his arms, wasn’t anywhere. It was just Dean, alone, unable to move. He could hear Sammy crying somewhere off in the distance, and sometimes he could hear Dad’s voice, shouting for Mom, could hear the house crackling, wood breaking and splintering all around him. He would squeeze his eyes shut tight, wishing more than anything for someone to come and save him.
Sometimes he would escape from the house, would get far enough away that he couldn’t feel the heat from the fire anymore, and it was just a burning orange ball of fire against the black landscape of night. Those dreams were the scariest of all. Without the fire to distract him, without the heat and the flames and the fire, there was nothing at all, just emptiness, and darkness and silence, and somehow that always terrified him more than anything.
And then Sam is at the side of the bed, looking down at him, his stupid long hair flopping forward against his face.
“Dean,” he says, and sits down on the bed. “You okay?”
“Nightmare,” Dean manages, but his throat feels like sandpaper, rough and raw. “Where’s Dad?”
“He’s gone.” Sam sounds anxious. “He took off about an hour ago.”
“Mm,” Dean says, and he wants to reassure Sammy that Dad will be back soon, probably just went out for a grocery run, nothing to worry about. He doesn’t trust his voice though, so instead he reaches for Sam’s hand, and gives it a quick squeeze.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Sam asks, frowning.
For a while now, when his brow knits forward like this, Dean thinks he can almost see past the gangly teenager, can almost make out the independent college student his brother wants to be. It’s confusing how happy and proud and devastated this makes him feel, all at the same time.
“Dean?”
“Water,” he says. And then, with a little more determination, so that what comes out is more than a croak, “Can you get me some water?”
Sam stares at him for a second, and then ever dutiful, goes into the bathroom, and comes back with a plastic cup. Dean struggles to sit up. His fingers are shaking as he wraps his hands around the cup, and brings it to his lips. It’s cool, and refreshing but that only lasts a second before everything is on fire again.
He’s vaguely aware of Sam taking the cup from his hands, and pressing the back of his hand to his forehead, and then of Sam’s arm around his shoulders as he eases him back down on the bed. Then Sam presses his hand to Dean’s forehead again, and Dean would something to say about this, really he would, if it didn’t feel so damn good, having his baby brother here, taking care of him when he’s clearly dying like this.
This is why you can’t leave, Sammy, he thinks. The thoughts that have been spinning around his head, buzzing around for months now seem to have hollowed out a space for themselves, and suddenly Dean is in it. College prep - all those papers, all that application bullshit. A means to an end.
Dean has spent a very long time not thinking about what that end actually means, and he’d just as soon not break tradition now, just because the room is spinning and his brain is on fire, thanks, but he has the feeling it might be a losing battle this time.
A second later, he can hear the water running in the bathroom again, and then Sam is back, and there’s a cool washcloth pressed against his forehead.
“Thanks,” he says, and Sam is just sitting there, looking down at him like someone’s just killed his damn puppy or something.
“I’m really sorry,” he says. “About what happened out there.”
“I know, Sammy. Wasn’t your fault,” he says, but the words sound sloppy, slippery. “Dad told me everything.”
The words in his head are better, clearer, not sliding all over his mouth and coming out wrong, but he can’t find them in time. They’re hiding, buried somewhere. He wants to tell Sam that it’ll be better next time. Their next hunt won’t go sideways like this, because the three of them, they’re a team, and they have to stick together while they can, they have to.
“If I hadn’t been arguing with Dad, we would have found you sooner,” Sam says. And then, in a shaky voice, “There was a lot of blood.”
“Yeah,” Dean says, remembering Sam’s voice out there in the forest, the taste of metal in his mouth, and wet, sticky hands. “You were mad at Dad. Really pissed.”
Sam always sounded so righteous when he was pissed. Drove Dean crazy, but it was worse with Dad, passion flaring up in his eyes, like everything was the last battle. But the bottom line was that Sam wanted out. And Dad was scared. He’s sure that’s what they’d been arguing about out there - even if it hadn’t started out that way, that’s how it would have ended.
Dean understood. He was scared too, thinking of Sammy out there on his own, but no. That’s not even really it, Dean thinks, and the room, the bed, it feels like it’s shifting underneath him, setting him off-balance. The blood rushing in his ears is deafening.
This was supposed to be about protecting Sammy. That was his job, the thing that had always been the thing, the most important thing.
There’s something else though. There’s the small, obvious fact that when Sam leaves, Dean doesn’t. He stays. And it feels like the fire dream all over again, like he’s lying there in the forest, like he’s not sure anyone will find him when he’s on his own, if anyone will even look.
Sam is just staring down at him intently, his eyes suddenly wide. “What?”
The funny thing about this motel room, Dean thinks, is that sometimes it’s spinning and sometimes it’s all there in one solid place, and sometimes the stuff he’s thinking, Sam just knows it, like he said it out loud, which is really kind of freaking him out at the moment.
And he’s looking at Sam, and suddenly, like a punch in his gut, he’s jealous. He closes his eyes, and the bottom drops out of the room, and he opens them and it’s spinning, and he’s not sure which is worse, but maybe it doesn’t matter anymore. He’s kind of getting used it.
“Dad gives you a hard time, but he’s going to let you go, you know,” Dean is saying, like he’s picking up where some other conversation left off. “And he’s not going to realize it until you’re gone, how much he’s going to miss you, but then he’s going to be stuck with me, and the thing is--”
“Dean,” Sammy says, a warning, maybe.
“I don’t know if I’m going to be good enough, Sammy,” Dean continues, ignoring him. He can feel his eyes burning. “I don’t know if I belong here. I mean, it’s not like I have anywhere else to go, but… That doesn’t mean I belong here once you--”
“Dean, stop it,” Sam says, and then he squeezes Dean’s shoulder. There’s a beat of silence, and Dean wonders if Sam can hear his heart pounding, it’s so loud. “If you don’t shut up, you’re going to kill me tomorrow, just for listening to you,” Sam says, and he smiles, but Dean doesn’t think he means it. He presses his eyes shut tight.
“Sorry,” Dean says, and then he says it again, and again, and each time he says it, it’s not quite right, there’s something missing.
And then Sam presses a finger to his lips to shut him up, and so he does.
“You’re not making this very easy, you know,” Sam says.
There’s cool fabric pressing against Dean’s eyelids again, and against his forehead.
“Is it supposed to be?”
Sam laughs a little at this, and then the room is spinning again, and this time, the sound spins with it, carrying Sam’s laughter around Dean’s head. It circles around, honing in.
His body feels weighted, like he’s got anchors dragging him down, sinking him. Sam squeezes his hand and Dean holds on. Everything is burning, heavy.
Sam switches out the washcloth, and Dean lets out a long breath.
“Dad’ll be back soon,” Sam says quietly. “He’ll know what to do.”
Dean decides that yeah, that sounds pretty reasonable. He’s not sure how much longer he can stand this heat though, or how his head just keeps spinning even though his eyes are squeezed shut as tight as he can manage, or how it feels like his heart is pounding double, or maybe triple time in his chest, but he doesn’t say any of that out loud, at least he doesn’t think he does, just concentrates on Sam’s icy cool fingers threading through his hair, the way Sam’s thumb rubs against his temple in tiny circles.
**
Two days later, Dean wakes up again, for good this time. He’s pretty sure it’s for good, anyway, because this time the room isn’t spinning, even when he sits up and stays there for a while, and also, because he’s starving.
He feels like he could eat the entire menu, even the salads, and the other stupid chick things that normally he wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole. He’s practically drooling on the table just thinking about how deliciously awesome it’s all going to be.
The other awesome thing? Since his most recent brush with death, it’s almost like there’s been a ceasefire between Dad and Sam. The bickering between them has pretty much stopped cold. At first, after his fever finally broke, he was convinced that the truce must have meant that he’d been well and truly dying - he even told both of them as much, and stressed the fact that if they were trying to grant him his last wish they were doing a lousy job of it. Obviously, there would need to be more hot chicks involved, if that’s what they were going for, but then the truce had continued right on through the rest of his recovery. Right on up until today, his graduation into polite, or at least semi-polite society again. Otherwise known as the famous Lucky Diner on Interstate 80.
He’s still feeling a little lightheaded from the walk over from the car, but that’s nothing a nice fat juicy burger won’t fix.
The interior of the diner, which looks like it hasn’t changed in fifty years, is exactly the way Dean remembers it from their last stop through. He eyes the pie case from behind Dad’s head. There are a lot of options. This isn’t going to be easy.
“You sure you’re all right there?” Sam says, grinning. “Wouldn’t want you getting too over-excited before your stitches are out.”
“Shut it, asshole. I don’t think I’ve ever been so hungry in my entire life.”
Dean is still salivating over the pie options when the waitress comes over to take their food orders. He musters up his best smile for her, which he figures should go a long way towards her not thinking he’s a complete freak for ordering three entrees. And dessert.
After she walks away, Sam shakes his head at Dean.
“Dude, no way are you going to eat all that.”
Dean beams. “I can try, Sammy, I can try.”
“Besides,” he adds, taking a long sip of his double chocolate milkshake. “That’s what doggie bags are for.”
**
Dean makes it halfway through his second burger before he throws in the towel, but he’s not ashamed at all. It feels good to be full. Good to be up and about, too. He thinks he’ll be okay if he doesn’t see the inside of a motel for a few thousand or so miles.
He leans back in the booth and stretches his arms out over the plastic seat, letting out a contented sigh.
“That good, huh?” Sam says, raising his eyebrows.
“You shut your hole,” Dean says, and gives him a quick punch in the arm. “Next time, we’ll feed you to the monster and see how you feel after wasting away in a motel for three days. I guarantee you’ll save room for pie, too.”
Dad pretty much hasn’t said a word since they got here, beyond his order to the waitress and a phone call he took about halfway through their meal, probably from Bobby.
Dean can tell by the set of his shoulders and the way he keeps looking over at them when they’re concentrating on their food that something’s up, something’s on his mind. So it’s no surprise to Dean when his father looks up from the empty table, after everything’s been cleared away, and the rest of Dean’s order (including an extra slice of blueberry pie) is packed up to go.
“Boys, there’s something I want to talk to you about.”
Sam glances at Dean for a second before he looks over the table.
“What happened on this last trip out,” Dad starts, “can never happen again. Whatever differences we have, all of us, we put them behind us when we step out into the field.”
Sam starts to interrupt, but Dean gives him a quick kick under the table, and a hard look. Sam lowers his eyes, and stares down at the table. He’s fiddling with the edges of the placemat, twisting the paper back and forth between his fingers.
“Both of you are my responsibility. And I let you down out there. I want you to promise me, that no matter what it is, if you’re mad at me, or you’re mad at your brother, or you’re mad at the world, you lay that aside when you go out there, or you don’t go out there at all. I don’t care what’s out there killing people. Family comes first. Always.”
“Yes, sir,” they tell him, almost in unison.
“Promise me,” he says.
“Yeah, okay,” Dean says, but Sam is quiet. “Come on, Sam,” Dean says after a few seconds of Sam’s silence.
Sam, for his part, doesn’t look angry, but he does look like he has something to say, like he’s gathering his thoughts.
“Dean could have died out there,” Sam says after another minute, and his voice is quiet. “Do you really have to turn this into another hunting lesson? Can’t you just say you’re sorry?”
“Okay, enough already,” Dean says quickly, sensing where this is going. “There’s nothing for anyone to be sorry about. Shit happens, and I’m fine, end of story.”
“You don’t get it,” Sam says through gritted teeth.
“What don’t I get? Look Sam, I understand. I got hurt, and believe me, it sucks, but it wasn’t your fault. Or Dad’s. Can we move on?”
“Dean.” That’s Dad, and Dean shuts his mouth.
There’s quiet on both sides of the table for a second.
“Let your brother say what he wants to say,” Dad says, and then nods to Sam. “Go on.”
Sam looks like he’s about to lose it, just start bawling right here at the table, or worse, punch Dad in the face, and Dean really does not feel up to dealing with either of those things right now. In fact, he’s about ready to squirm out of his skin if he has to sit through another second of this.
“Okay, I need to get out of here,” Dean announces, and stands up. Unfortunately, he stands up a little too quickly for someone not quite recovered from a recent brush with death. The edges of the room start to go fuzzy and he wavers, just for a second, but Sam and Dad are both up on their feet in a flash.
Dean feels two sets of hands tighten around both of his arms before he has a chance to do any additional damage to himself by say, plunging to the floor, tearing out his stiches and bleeding to death in front of half a dozen truckers.
“You got him?” Dean hears Dad ask Sam a second later, and man, this is embarrassing, Dean realizes. He tries to shrug off Sam’s stupid arm, but he’s got this whole death grip thing going on, so he just gives up after a second.
“Yeah, we’re good,” Sam says, and Dad goes off to pay at the counter, and Sam whispers sorry into Dean’s ear with a slightly sheepish smile on his face, as he maneuvers them through the diner, and out to the parking lot.
Then they’re outside, and the air is brisk and cold, and Dean fills his lungs with it. Sam lets go of his arm, but hasn’t taken his eyes off of him. Dean is positive he still has something to say. He waits for it, while Sam stares at him like he’s trying to bore a hold straight through Dean’s brain, until his impatience gets the better of him. So, about thirty seconds.
“C’mon, Sam,” he says. “You have something to say, just say it.”
“I already told you,” Sam says. “I feel bad. Guilty. I don’t know what to say other than ‘sorry’ and I’ve already said that about a million times.”
Then Sammy looks at him with those big, sad eyes again, and now Dean feels guilty.
Because he gets it, or at least he thinks he does. He’s been in enough situations where Sammy’s been in danger because of him, something he didn’t do or should have done that he can’t take back, and it tears him apart every time. Worst feeling in the world, really, but Dean’s a little surprised all the same. He always thought all that was just a big brother thing. Something warm flutters in his chest for a second.
“Sammy, I forgive you, okay. Dad, too,” he says, and relief washes across Sam’s face. “But come on, you knew that already. There’s not even anything to forgive, you idiot.”
And then Sam’s eyes narrow a little, and he says, “Did you mean what you said about me leaving?”
And shit, Dean thinks, because suddenly he’s remembering a bunch of stupid things he may or may not have said the other night. It’d been a confusing couple of days.
“Did you?”
“Uh, maybe,” Dean says, and he watches Sam’s face fall a little. “But hey, you can’t hold me accountable for things I said when I wasn’t, you know, in my right mind. I’m not sure I was even conscious.”
“You remember what you said though?”
“Um, yeah,” Dean says, shifty-eyed. “Maybe. Kind of.” He can take a pretty good guess, anyway.
“You’ve never said anything about me leaving before,” Sam says quietly.
“Yeah, so?”
“So I didn’t know. What you thought.”
Dean shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter what I think. The important thing is what you think. What you want.”
There’s a pause, a beat or two, and then Sam says, “Too bad Dad doesn’t feel the same way.”
“Well, then what would we have to entertain ourselves with on long car rides, right? All that fighting is damn good entertainment, I can tell you that much.”
Sam rolls his eyes, and then smiles a little, and there’s that look in his eyes that always creeps Dean out a little, like he’s just figured something out, like he’s the only one who knows the secret.
He’s about to ask Sam what that look means, in this particular context, but then Sam asks, “What’s the fire dream?”
And Dean is so surprised to hear those words outside of his own head, he forgets everything else, and just stares at Sam dumbly.
“What?”
“The other night you were having a nightmare, and then later, you said something about a fire dream.” Sam is watching him intently. “Were you dreaming about the night Mom died?”
Dean takes a deep breath, and answers his brother, just like pulling off a band-aid.
“Yeah, probably. I don’t really remember. I used to dream about the fire all the time when I was little though, so… Yeah, that’s probably what I meant.”
Sam stares at him for a second. “You never told me that.”
“Well, I probably didn’t want to freak you out. You were a pretty impressionable kid.”
Thank god, Dad is already making his way towards them.
There’s a tiny smile on Sam’s lips, and once Dad gets close enough, he tosses Sam the keys. And then Sam moves in towards him like Dean’s an old woman he’s helping cross the street or something, and shoves him into the passenger side in the most obnoxious way possible, all elbows and grabby hands before he folds himself into the back seat.
“You’re a little bitch,” Dean says, as Dad slides into the driver’s side. “You know that, right?”
“Learned from the best,” Sam returns, as Dean reaches back behind his seat to swat at Sam’s leg. He doesn’t make contact, but whatever, he wasn’t really trying.
Dad ignores them both, and turns up the radio as they roll out of the parking lot, and onto the road, and Dean thinks it’s about damn time they put this place behind them, already.
He closes his eyes to the bright, midday sun shining through the windshield. It warms his face, and even though his stitches are itching like crazy, and there’s a dull throbbing building up behind his temples, Dean can already tell this is going to be an okay day. Much more okay than the last few have been, anyway.
“So,” he says, leaning back against the seat, and stretching out his legs in front of him as far as they’ll go. “Where to?”
He doesn’t really listen to Dad’s answer though, because honestly, he couldn’t care less, so long as there’s a road in front of them, and they just keep driving.
end
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/Pairing: Sam, Dean, John
Genre: Gen, hurt/comfort
Warnings/Spoilers: none, pre-series
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~5,700
Summary: Sam and Dean, on a hunt with Dad that ends with Dean torn up and delirious, admitting things that he’ll most definitely regret later.
Notes: This is a wish fill for dollysdoodles, at hoodie_time's wish fulfillment party, for this prompt: Sam and John are busy butting heads with each other and neither realize that Dean has been gravely injured in their last hunt. when they do realize, Dean is almost too far gone... almost. Loads of guilt ridden john and Sam and loads of them taking care of a delirious Dean who is so out of it that he doesn't even realize what fears he is saying out aloud. Comments/thoughts/any words at all are always greatly appreciated. ♥
The forest smells of earthy, pine-scented dirt, and blood.
Dean can taste the metal of it on his tongue, in his mouth, and on his lips. He closes his eyes, and a second later, his head smacks back into something hard, a not-so-gentle reminder that yeah, he really needs to stay with it here. Unless he plans on bleeding out against this tree, listening to Sam and Dad go at each other’s throats like they have been non-stop since they started this job.
He concentrates for a second on the voices fading in and out of his ears. He feels like he’s underwater. Dad’s gruff voice and Sam’s more urgent, shrill tone are both muted, covered up and blanketed by god knows what, throbbing in and out of focus with the thrum of blood moving through his veins. He can’t tell where the voices are coming from. If they’re in front of him, or behind him; if they’re moving towards him, or away from him. Hell, he doesn’t even know if they’ve managed to torch the damn wendigo yet, though he can make a pretty good guess about that one, at least. As it stands, he’s not really sure how he managed to get away, but he’s grateful he did. Now he just needs Dad and that stupid geek brother of his to stop verbally abusing each other long enough to figure out that he could use a little help here.
He touches his hand to his side, which is where the bulk of the searing pain is coming from and it comes away wet and sticky. Awesome, he thinks.
Dean knows he has to move. Has to get up and get back to Dad, and Sammy, but his arms and his legs feel like lead, like they weigh a thousand pounds, and even when he closes his eyes, and really concentrates, all he gets for his effort is a massive fresh wave of pain that washes over him slowly, heavy and dark. For a second it blots out everything - Sam’s voice, Dad’s voice, the whine of the wind through the trees above Dean’s head, everything.
He doesn’t try to move again after that, not even to try to stop the bleeding. He knows it’s bad - rule number one of self-preservation bad - but his arms just won’t move, not even to pull his jacket closed tight around him, even though he’s freezing, his teeth chattering like ice cubes against glass.
**
When he opens his eyes again, his head is swimming, throbbing too, and it takes him a minute to figure out that he’s sprawled out on his back across the back seat, and that the car is moving. The pain in his side is much duller than it had been back in the forest, and he figures he’s either lost so much blood that his body is going numb, or maybe it's not as bad as he thought.
He can hear Sam’s hushed voice from the front seat, and part of him is relieved. He supposes part of him is always relieved to know that despite whatever crap he’s gotten himself into, Sammy is still okay. Dad’s driving, and Sammy’s okay. All is not completely lost.
“We have to get him to a hospital. It’s bad enough that we’ve waited this long.” Sam’s voice is quiet, but urgent, right on the edge of panic.
Dean’s heard that tone a thousand times throughout Sam’s seemingly endless adolescent years. He’s not sure if seventeen really counts as adolescent anymore, and anyway, Sam’s felt all grown up for a while now.
“I told you we can’t risk that. We’ll be at the motel in ten minutes,” Dad says, sounding calm as always, but edgy, too. Tired, probably.
“Dammit, Dad.”
And yeah, that’d be Sam going right over that panic edge.
“Can’t you put someone other than yourself first for once? I don’t care what happens, or who comes after us. Dean is--”
Dean opens his mouth to interrupt, and nothing comes out, so he clears his throat, and tries again. “Sammy…”
Sam shifts around in the passenger seat to face him, and his hand closes over Dean’s shoulder.
“Dean,” Sam says, and the look in his eyes says about a million things at once, and at the top of the list is guilt, Dean can see that clear as day.
“’m gonna be fine,” Dean assures him. He immediately regrets trying to lift his head to get a better angle on Sam’s face. Sam’s features go all blurry and grainy on him as he struggles to focus. “So lay off Dad, okay?”
“It was his fault,” Sam says, even though his eyes contradict him, wide and wet and guilty as hell. It’s like looking into a goddamned mirror seeing Sam like this.
“It was both of us, Sam,” Dad says, and Dean is grateful, and a little surprised that this time Sam just manages a quick “yes sir” before he turns to face forward again.
Dean closes his eyes, and the warmth of Sam’s hand against his shoulder lingers there for a moment, like some kind of afterimage, and then things go a little numb for a while.
**
Dean’s eyes are so heavy. He tries to open them, but it’s like his eyelids are glued shut. He can hear voices, just barely, can feel weight against his shoulders, something pressing him down, and a tickling against his chest, like a feather being drawn across his skin. Then there’s more pressure on his shoulders, and he thinks he hears Sam’s voice.
Almost done, Sam says, and he’s pretty sure it’s directed at him, but his head feels jumbled, and everything feels strange, out of context. He tries to pick up his head, to open his eyes, but Sam is strong, pressing down on his shoulders. Dean can’t move.
And then the feather-touch is gone, and Dad’s voice moves past his ear. The words echo off of each other, like they’re all in some kind of wind tunnel.
He’s going to be fine.
Sam’s hands let go of his shoulders, and Dean is falling, sinking. He panics, just for a second. His heart pounds in his chest and thumps in his ears, blood rushing through his veins.
And then there’s just quiet, and it’s like he’s being pulled somewhere in the darkness behind his eyes, like he’s being dragged deep underground, silence closing in around him.
**
It’s dark, and Dean tries to prop himself up on his hands so that he can see what’s going on. He feels like he’s been asleep for about a million years. His elbows feel like they’re made of rubber though, which doesn’t work so well for supporting his weight. The only thing he accomplishes is making the motel room spin out of control until his stomach feels as if it wants to claw its way out of his throat.
He concentrates on breathing after that for what feels like an eternity, just sucking the air in through his nose and out through his mouth, breathing in the darkness and the motel room smells, searching for something familiar to latch onto, to ground him.
After a while his eyes adjust to the darkness, and he can make out two dark shapes lying on top of the bed opposite him. Sam’s face is squashed up against the pillow and Dad still has his boots on. Dean’s face warms a little. There’s no real reason for the familiar ache this brings to the center of his chest, except that this is his family, right here, and he’s really glad that he’s not still lying out in that damn forest, bleeding into the dirt.
He can hear them breathing - Sam’s long rasps that only come when he’s really exhausted, and Dad’s measured, quiet inhale and exhale. He marvels a little at it, at how simple it is. Just keep breathing, and everything will eventually be okay.
He’s careful not to move too much. That whole room-spinning-wild thing is not something he wants to repeat, and so he just locks his eyes where they are and stays there. Dad’s boots, Sam’s cheek squashed up against the pillow, lit up by a tiny sliver of moonlight through the gap in the curtains. Everything he cares about, right there in his line of sight.
He stays awake as long as he can, until his eyes get warm and heavy again and he closes them.
Then he listens for a while, matching Sam’s breathing with his own until eventually he finds a steady rhythm to lock on to. It carries him off towards sleep, draws the darkness in around him until morning.
**
He wakes up to Sam’s cold, clammy hands against his chest.
“Sorry,” Sam says. “Just checking your stitches.”
“Where’s Dad,” Dean asks. He squints at the light streaming in from the windows. “What time is it?”
“I’m right here,” Dad’s deep voice says, and Sam’s fingers are gone, replaced by his father’s hands.
They move over his skin, under his arms, along his ribcage. He looks old. Not old old, but older, like the years have caught up to him without Dean noticing.
“How’re you feeling?”
“Like I got torn up by one nasty bitch of a wendigo,” Dean says. He wonders how long he’s been lying here. “That’s what happened, right?”
“Yeah,” Dad says, “more or less. You’ve got a dozen or so stitches across your side where he slashed you,” he adds. “But you’re gonna be fine.”
Dean can hear a derisive snort of laughter from across the room-Sam, of course. “No thanks to us,” he adds, for good measure, Dean figures. It’s meant to be mean, to provoke, but Dad doesn’t flinch.
There’s a moment of silence, and then finally, sounding exhausted, Dad says, “Sam, why don’t you go get us some drinks from the lobby.”
It’s not a question at all, it’s a direct order, and Sam obeys without a word, for once.
“What’s going on?” Dean asks, after the door closes behind Sam.
To say there’s a bit of tension in the air between his dad and his little brother lately would pretty much be the understatement of the century, but he’s only been up for two minutes and can tell it’s worse than usual. That can’t be a good sign.
“Nothing’s going on,” Dad says dismissively. “Sam’s being Sam, that’s all.”
Dean smiles a little at that, but then he remembers something from the car ride.
“Back in the car… Why did he say this was your fault?”
“Because it was,” his father says tightly. “Things got a little heated between us, right before the fight started. I let it distract me. I didn’t see you go down - Sam and I both thought you’d gone back to the car for the other flame thrower. By the time we realized what had happened… You were in pretty bad shape.”
“I was on my way back to the car when it blindsided me.”
“Yeah, I figured.”
Dean just lies there for a second, taking the full weight of the situation in. He’s not worried about what happened to him, but the thought of Dad letting one of his arguments with Sam affect a hunt, well, that left a bad taste in Dean’s mouth, made him think that maybe Sammy was right - maybe he didn’t belong here, hunting alongside Dad. It’s not like he hadn’t had about a hundred different versions of that same thought himself ever since Sam’d brought up the whole college thing, but this felt serious. This could mean Sam’s life, or Dad’s, if things went on like this. Bottom line, it wasn’t good. He was sure Sam knew it, was sure Dad knew it too.
And it’s like the thought itself casts some kind of cloud over the room, over his head, and by the time Sam gets back, all Dean wants to do is close his eyes again and not open them for a long, long time.
**
When he does try to open them again, all he can feel is heat, and fire, and his heart pounding in his chest. It takes him forever to actually get his eyes open, and when he opens his mouth, all that comes out is a groan. For several terrifying moments, he’s trapped.
For years after the fire that killed Mom, Dean’s nightmares were like this - predictable, and all-consuming. Fire and heat and smoke so thick he couldn’t breathe, and Sammy wasn’t tucked up in his arms, wasn’t anywhere. It was just Dean, alone, unable to move. He could hear Sammy crying somewhere off in the distance, and sometimes he could hear Dad’s voice, shouting for Mom, could hear the house crackling, wood breaking and splintering all around him. He would squeeze his eyes shut tight, wishing more than anything for someone to come and save him.
Sometimes he would escape from the house, would get far enough away that he couldn’t feel the heat from the fire anymore, and it was just a burning orange ball of fire against the black landscape of night. Those dreams were the scariest of all. Without the fire to distract him, without the heat and the flames and the fire, there was nothing at all, just emptiness, and darkness and silence, and somehow that always terrified him more than anything.
And then Sam is at the side of the bed, looking down at him, his stupid long hair flopping forward against his face.
“Dean,” he says, and sits down on the bed. “You okay?”
“Nightmare,” Dean manages, but his throat feels like sandpaper, rough and raw. “Where’s Dad?”
“He’s gone.” Sam sounds anxious. “He took off about an hour ago.”
“Mm,” Dean says, and he wants to reassure Sammy that Dad will be back soon, probably just went out for a grocery run, nothing to worry about. He doesn’t trust his voice though, so instead he reaches for Sam’s hand, and gives it a quick squeeze.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Sam asks, frowning.
For a while now, when his brow knits forward like this, Dean thinks he can almost see past the gangly teenager, can almost make out the independent college student his brother wants to be. It’s confusing how happy and proud and devastated this makes him feel, all at the same time.
“Dean?”
“Water,” he says. And then, with a little more determination, so that what comes out is more than a croak, “Can you get me some water?”
Sam stares at him for a second, and then ever dutiful, goes into the bathroom, and comes back with a plastic cup. Dean struggles to sit up. His fingers are shaking as he wraps his hands around the cup, and brings it to his lips. It’s cool, and refreshing but that only lasts a second before everything is on fire again.
He’s vaguely aware of Sam taking the cup from his hands, and pressing the back of his hand to his forehead, and then of Sam’s arm around his shoulders as he eases him back down on the bed. Then Sam presses his hand to Dean’s forehead again, and Dean would something to say about this, really he would, if it didn’t feel so damn good, having his baby brother here, taking care of him when he’s clearly dying like this.
This is why you can’t leave, Sammy, he thinks. The thoughts that have been spinning around his head, buzzing around for months now seem to have hollowed out a space for themselves, and suddenly Dean is in it. College prep - all those papers, all that application bullshit. A means to an end.
Dean has spent a very long time not thinking about what that end actually means, and he’d just as soon not break tradition now, just because the room is spinning and his brain is on fire, thanks, but he has the feeling it might be a losing battle this time.
A second later, he can hear the water running in the bathroom again, and then Sam is back, and there’s a cool washcloth pressed against his forehead.
“Thanks,” he says, and Sam is just sitting there, looking down at him like someone’s just killed his damn puppy or something.
“I’m really sorry,” he says. “About what happened out there.”
“I know, Sammy. Wasn’t your fault,” he says, but the words sound sloppy, slippery. “Dad told me everything.”
The words in his head are better, clearer, not sliding all over his mouth and coming out wrong, but he can’t find them in time. They’re hiding, buried somewhere. He wants to tell Sam that it’ll be better next time. Their next hunt won’t go sideways like this, because the three of them, they’re a team, and they have to stick together while they can, they have to.
“If I hadn’t been arguing with Dad, we would have found you sooner,” Sam says. And then, in a shaky voice, “There was a lot of blood.”
“Yeah,” Dean says, remembering Sam’s voice out there in the forest, the taste of metal in his mouth, and wet, sticky hands. “You were mad at Dad. Really pissed.”
Sam always sounded so righteous when he was pissed. Drove Dean crazy, but it was worse with Dad, passion flaring up in his eyes, like everything was the last battle. But the bottom line was that Sam wanted out. And Dad was scared. He’s sure that’s what they’d been arguing about out there - even if it hadn’t started out that way, that’s how it would have ended.
Dean understood. He was scared too, thinking of Sammy out there on his own, but no. That’s not even really it, Dean thinks, and the room, the bed, it feels like it’s shifting underneath him, setting him off-balance. The blood rushing in his ears is deafening.
This was supposed to be about protecting Sammy. That was his job, the thing that had always been the thing, the most important thing.
There’s something else though. There’s the small, obvious fact that when Sam leaves, Dean doesn’t. He stays. And it feels like the fire dream all over again, like he’s lying there in the forest, like he’s not sure anyone will find him when he’s on his own, if anyone will even look.
Sam is just staring down at him intently, his eyes suddenly wide. “What?”
The funny thing about this motel room, Dean thinks, is that sometimes it’s spinning and sometimes it’s all there in one solid place, and sometimes the stuff he’s thinking, Sam just knows it, like he said it out loud, which is really kind of freaking him out at the moment.
And he’s looking at Sam, and suddenly, like a punch in his gut, he’s jealous. He closes his eyes, and the bottom drops out of the room, and he opens them and it’s spinning, and he’s not sure which is worse, but maybe it doesn’t matter anymore. He’s kind of getting used it.
“Dad gives you a hard time, but he’s going to let you go, you know,” Dean is saying, like he’s picking up where some other conversation left off. “And he’s not going to realize it until you’re gone, how much he’s going to miss you, but then he’s going to be stuck with me, and the thing is--”
“Dean,” Sammy says, a warning, maybe.
“I don’t know if I’m going to be good enough, Sammy,” Dean continues, ignoring him. He can feel his eyes burning. “I don’t know if I belong here. I mean, it’s not like I have anywhere else to go, but… That doesn’t mean I belong here once you--”
“Dean, stop it,” Sam says, and then he squeezes Dean’s shoulder. There’s a beat of silence, and Dean wonders if Sam can hear his heart pounding, it’s so loud. “If you don’t shut up, you’re going to kill me tomorrow, just for listening to you,” Sam says, and he smiles, but Dean doesn’t think he means it. He presses his eyes shut tight.
“Sorry,” Dean says, and then he says it again, and again, and each time he says it, it’s not quite right, there’s something missing.
And then Sam presses a finger to his lips to shut him up, and so he does.
“You’re not making this very easy, you know,” Sam says.
There’s cool fabric pressing against Dean’s eyelids again, and against his forehead.
“Is it supposed to be?”
Sam laughs a little at this, and then the room is spinning again, and this time, the sound spins with it, carrying Sam’s laughter around Dean’s head. It circles around, honing in.
His body feels weighted, like he’s got anchors dragging him down, sinking him. Sam squeezes his hand and Dean holds on. Everything is burning, heavy.
Sam switches out the washcloth, and Dean lets out a long breath.
“Dad’ll be back soon,” Sam says quietly. “He’ll know what to do.”
Dean decides that yeah, that sounds pretty reasonable. He’s not sure how much longer he can stand this heat though, or how his head just keeps spinning even though his eyes are squeezed shut as tight as he can manage, or how it feels like his heart is pounding double, or maybe triple time in his chest, but he doesn’t say any of that out loud, at least he doesn’t think he does, just concentrates on Sam’s icy cool fingers threading through his hair, the way Sam’s thumb rubs against his temple in tiny circles.
**
Two days later, Dean wakes up again, for good this time. He’s pretty sure it’s for good, anyway, because this time the room isn’t spinning, even when he sits up and stays there for a while, and also, because he’s starving.
He feels like he could eat the entire menu, even the salads, and the other stupid chick things that normally he wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole. He’s practically drooling on the table just thinking about how deliciously awesome it’s all going to be.
The other awesome thing? Since his most recent brush with death, it’s almost like there’s been a ceasefire between Dad and Sam. The bickering between them has pretty much stopped cold. At first, after his fever finally broke, he was convinced that the truce must have meant that he’d been well and truly dying - he even told both of them as much, and stressed the fact that if they were trying to grant him his last wish they were doing a lousy job of it. Obviously, there would need to be more hot chicks involved, if that’s what they were going for, but then the truce had continued right on through the rest of his recovery. Right on up until today, his graduation into polite, or at least semi-polite society again. Otherwise known as the famous Lucky Diner on Interstate 80.
He’s still feeling a little lightheaded from the walk over from the car, but that’s nothing a nice fat juicy burger won’t fix.
The interior of the diner, which looks like it hasn’t changed in fifty years, is exactly the way Dean remembers it from their last stop through. He eyes the pie case from behind Dad’s head. There are a lot of options. This isn’t going to be easy.
“You sure you’re all right there?” Sam says, grinning. “Wouldn’t want you getting too over-excited before your stitches are out.”
“Shut it, asshole. I don’t think I’ve ever been so hungry in my entire life.”
Dean is still salivating over the pie options when the waitress comes over to take their food orders. He musters up his best smile for her, which he figures should go a long way towards her not thinking he’s a complete freak for ordering three entrees. And dessert.
After she walks away, Sam shakes his head at Dean.
“Dude, no way are you going to eat all that.”
Dean beams. “I can try, Sammy, I can try.”
“Besides,” he adds, taking a long sip of his double chocolate milkshake. “That’s what doggie bags are for.”
**
Dean makes it halfway through his second burger before he throws in the towel, but he’s not ashamed at all. It feels good to be full. Good to be up and about, too. He thinks he’ll be okay if he doesn’t see the inside of a motel for a few thousand or so miles.
He leans back in the booth and stretches his arms out over the plastic seat, letting out a contented sigh.
“That good, huh?” Sam says, raising his eyebrows.
“You shut your hole,” Dean says, and gives him a quick punch in the arm. “Next time, we’ll feed you to the monster and see how you feel after wasting away in a motel for three days. I guarantee you’ll save room for pie, too.”
Dad pretty much hasn’t said a word since they got here, beyond his order to the waitress and a phone call he took about halfway through their meal, probably from Bobby.
Dean can tell by the set of his shoulders and the way he keeps looking over at them when they’re concentrating on their food that something’s up, something’s on his mind. So it’s no surprise to Dean when his father looks up from the empty table, after everything’s been cleared away, and the rest of Dean’s order (including an extra slice of blueberry pie) is packed up to go.
“Boys, there’s something I want to talk to you about.”
Sam glances at Dean for a second before he looks over the table.
“What happened on this last trip out,” Dad starts, “can never happen again. Whatever differences we have, all of us, we put them behind us when we step out into the field.”
Sam starts to interrupt, but Dean gives him a quick kick under the table, and a hard look. Sam lowers his eyes, and stares down at the table. He’s fiddling with the edges of the placemat, twisting the paper back and forth between his fingers.
“Both of you are my responsibility. And I let you down out there. I want you to promise me, that no matter what it is, if you’re mad at me, or you’re mad at your brother, or you’re mad at the world, you lay that aside when you go out there, or you don’t go out there at all. I don’t care what’s out there killing people. Family comes first. Always.”
“Yes, sir,” they tell him, almost in unison.
“Promise me,” he says.
“Yeah, okay,” Dean says, but Sam is quiet. “Come on, Sam,” Dean says after a few seconds of Sam’s silence.
Sam, for his part, doesn’t look angry, but he does look like he has something to say, like he’s gathering his thoughts.
“Dean could have died out there,” Sam says after another minute, and his voice is quiet. “Do you really have to turn this into another hunting lesson? Can’t you just say you’re sorry?”
“Okay, enough already,” Dean says quickly, sensing where this is going. “There’s nothing for anyone to be sorry about. Shit happens, and I’m fine, end of story.”
“You don’t get it,” Sam says through gritted teeth.
“What don’t I get? Look Sam, I understand. I got hurt, and believe me, it sucks, but it wasn’t your fault. Or Dad’s. Can we move on?”
“Dean.” That’s Dad, and Dean shuts his mouth.
There’s quiet on both sides of the table for a second.
“Let your brother say what he wants to say,” Dad says, and then nods to Sam. “Go on.”
Sam looks like he’s about to lose it, just start bawling right here at the table, or worse, punch Dad in the face, and Dean really does not feel up to dealing with either of those things right now. In fact, he’s about ready to squirm out of his skin if he has to sit through another second of this.
“Okay, I need to get out of here,” Dean announces, and stands up. Unfortunately, he stands up a little too quickly for someone not quite recovered from a recent brush with death. The edges of the room start to go fuzzy and he wavers, just for a second, but Sam and Dad are both up on their feet in a flash.
Dean feels two sets of hands tighten around both of his arms before he has a chance to do any additional damage to himself by say, plunging to the floor, tearing out his stiches and bleeding to death in front of half a dozen truckers.
“You got him?” Dean hears Dad ask Sam a second later, and man, this is embarrassing, Dean realizes. He tries to shrug off Sam’s stupid arm, but he’s got this whole death grip thing going on, so he just gives up after a second.
“Yeah, we’re good,” Sam says, and Dad goes off to pay at the counter, and Sam whispers sorry into Dean’s ear with a slightly sheepish smile on his face, as he maneuvers them through the diner, and out to the parking lot.
Then they’re outside, and the air is brisk and cold, and Dean fills his lungs with it. Sam lets go of his arm, but hasn’t taken his eyes off of him. Dean is positive he still has something to say. He waits for it, while Sam stares at him like he’s trying to bore a hold straight through Dean’s brain, until his impatience gets the better of him. So, about thirty seconds.
“C’mon, Sam,” he says. “You have something to say, just say it.”
“I already told you,” Sam says. “I feel bad. Guilty. I don’t know what to say other than ‘sorry’ and I’ve already said that about a million times.”
Then Sammy looks at him with those big, sad eyes again, and now Dean feels guilty.
Because he gets it, or at least he thinks he does. He’s been in enough situations where Sammy’s been in danger because of him, something he didn’t do or should have done that he can’t take back, and it tears him apart every time. Worst feeling in the world, really, but Dean’s a little surprised all the same. He always thought all that was just a big brother thing. Something warm flutters in his chest for a second.
“Sammy, I forgive you, okay. Dad, too,” he says, and relief washes across Sam’s face. “But come on, you knew that already. There’s not even anything to forgive, you idiot.”
And then Sam’s eyes narrow a little, and he says, “Did you mean what you said about me leaving?”
And shit, Dean thinks, because suddenly he’s remembering a bunch of stupid things he may or may not have said the other night. It’d been a confusing couple of days.
“Did you?”
“Uh, maybe,” Dean says, and he watches Sam’s face fall a little. “But hey, you can’t hold me accountable for things I said when I wasn’t, you know, in my right mind. I’m not sure I was even conscious.”
“You remember what you said though?”
“Um, yeah,” Dean says, shifty-eyed. “Maybe. Kind of.” He can take a pretty good guess, anyway.
“You’ve never said anything about me leaving before,” Sam says quietly.
“Yeah, so?”
“So I didn’t know. What you thought.”
Dean shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter what I think. The important thing is what you think. What you want.”
There’s a pause, a beat or two, and then Sam says, “Too bad Dad doesn’t feel the same way.”
“Well, then what would we have to entertain ourselves with on long car rides, right? All that fighting is damn good entertainment, I can tell you that much.”
Sam rolls his eyes, and then smiles a little, and there’s that look in his eyes that always creeps Dean out a little, like he’s just figured something out, like he’s the only one who knows the secret.
He’s about to ask Sam what that look means, in this particular context, but then Sam asks, “What’s the fire dream?”
And Dean is so surprised to hear those words outside of his own head, he forgets everything else, and just stares at Sam dumbly.
“What?”
“The other night you were having a nightmare, and then later, you said something about a fire dream.” Sam is watching him intently. “Were you dreaming about the night Mom died?”
Dean takes a deep breath, and answers his brother, just like pulling off a band-aid.
“Yeah, probably. I don’t really remember. I used to dream about the fire all the time when I was little though, so… Yeah, that’s probably what I meant.”
Sam stares at him for a second. “You never told me that.”
“Well, I probably didn’t want to freak you out. You were a pretty impressionable kid.”
Thank god, Dad is already making his way towards them.
There’s a tiny smile on Sam’s lips, and once Dad gets close enough, he tosses Sam the keys. And then Sam moves in towards him like Dean’s an old woman he’s helping cross the street or something, and shoves him into the passenger side in the most obnoxious way possible, all elbows and grabby hands before he folds himself into the back seat.
“You’re a little bitch,” Dean says, as Dad slides into the driver’s side. “You know that, right?”
“Learned from the best,” Sam returns, as Dean reaches back behind his seat to swat at Sam’s leg. He doesn’t make contact, but whatever, he wasn’t really trying.
Dad ignores them both, and turns up the radio as they roll out of the parking lot, and onto the road, and Dean thinks it’s about damn time they put this place behind them, already.
He closes his eyes to the bright, midday sun shining through the windshield. It warms his face, and even though his stitches are itching like crazy, and there’s a dull throbbing building up behind his temples, Dean can already tell this is going to be an okay day. Much more okay than the last few have been, anyway.
“So,” he says, leaning back against the seat, and stretching out his legs in front of him as far as they’ll go. “Where to?”
He doesn’t really listen to Dad’s answer though, because honestly, he couldn’t care less, so long as there’s a road in front of them, and they just keep driving.
end