'Forever Ain't That Long' (the Jordan remix)
Title: Forever Ain’t that Long (the Jordan remix)
Rating: R
Pairings: Dean/Dean, Dean/OFC.
Setting: End ‘verse AU.
Word Count: ~4K
Warnings: Along with the same person sex? Depression, permanent injury and vague suicidal ideation.
Beta: calamitycrow--thanks as always, bb!
a/n: This is a remix of wave_obscura’s Forever Ain’t That Long, done for the hoodie_time remix challenge. I hope you don’t mind the liberties I’ve taken with your awesome, fic, bb!
a/n: This feels like part of a fanfic version of “telephone.” “Forever” was originally written for a prompt on roque_clasique’s amazing birthday comment fic meme, which started almost exactly a year ago today (1/8/09). The prompt was: End ‘verse. 2009!Dean is busted-up hardcore and he only trusts 2014!Dean to help him get around and do everyday things.. wave_obscura says that “Forever” was “very much inspired by roque_clasique’s painfully awesome fic Asterisms with the same basic set up-- 2009!Dean never goes back to the past and they're still hunting down Lucifer.”
My fic uses that set up as well-and is very much in the shadow of its two amazing predecessors (plus, it uses some of the dialogue from “Forever”). I really don’t know what to think of this one, and I’m pretty anxious about posting it. Please, please read the rating, pairings and warnings before you begin!
Summary: Dean knew that look. He’d made it himself often enough, from the inside out. And, shit, if he’d ever thought he was on the down-low with that look, he was even stupider than he’d realized.
Hm, hm, I hear Jordan rollin,’
Hm, hm, I hear Jordan rollin,’
Hm, hm, I hear Jordan rollin,’
In some lonesome graveyard.
“Moses” (trad. Spiritual)
Dean knew that look. He’d made it himself often enough, from the inside out. And, shit, if he’d ever thought he was on the down-low with that look, he was even stupider than he’d realized. Which was pretty fucking stupid already, thank you very much.
So mostly he tried to ignore it. Ignored the way the other Dean-the big guy, Dean usually called him in his head-watched his lips, sent his eyes curving over Dean’s ass, gaze so hot Dean could feel it. Because the last thing he needed was for things to get any more fucked up than they already were.
But it wasn’t as if the thought hadn’t crossed his mind, too. Wasn’t as if he hadn’t wondered what it would be like with someone who really knew him. With someone who would never say, “Huh, I wouldn’t have figured you for the type who was into that.-would never suddenly go still and say “stop lying to me-you’ve done this before.”
And mostly that went pretty well. Dean was a goddamn expert at not thinking about stuff. Look at how well he was doing with not thinking about how he’s screwed up and lost Sam, for instance, or with not thinking about what was still happening to Sam because of him. And of course there was plenty of other stuff to worry about instead, what with the constant threat of Croats and the endless scramble for supplies.
So yeah, things were going along okay in that regard. Until one day he ran into the other Dean coming around the corner of one of the old outbuildings. They stopped within a hairsbreadth of each other, barely avoiding collision. And then, without so much as a “Hey there,” the big guy spun him around and up against the wooden siding, one hand on Dean’s shoulder, the other high up on his thigh, fingers splayed over the hinge of his crotch. He leaned in, breath hot against Dean’s face, the offer, the challenge, clear as a prison-yard high beam.
Dean’s dick was interested-because damn if those fingers didn’t know him, weren’t already working out the perfect pressure, the perfect slide against his jeans. But the rest of him was having none of it, was damn near repulsed. Because as far back as Dean could remember, with men and women, young and old, it had always been about the game for him-the flirt, the tease, the play of charm-the slow dance until whatever was given was given freely.
But this? This was two animals passing in the jungle, marking territory, sparring for dominance and then moving on. This was as much about aggression as it was about sex. And giving into that felt, to Dean, like crossing some Rubicon he’d never be able to get back over.
So he fought his own desire, paid no attention to his hardening cock, and shoved back hard.
“Not tonight, dear,” he snarled. “I’ve got a headache.”
The big guy backed off easy, smirking and raising his arms like Dean was the crazy one, shrugged, and headed back around the corner of the building.
“Risa!” Dean heard him shout, loud and confident. And she’d come running, he knew she would. They all came when the big guy called.
It was like some kind of bad joke, Dean thought. There are two of me here, and I’ve never been so lonely in my life.
++++++
And that was before everything went right out the other side of fucked up, into some new territory of disaster unfamiliar even to Winchesters.
++++++
The minute he saw his mangled leg, Dean knew. Even before Risa put in her cack-handed, ineffectual sutures, he knew that this was the one he wouldn’t be coming back from.
Crippled on a goddamn supply run. Because they were all in the desperate scrabble for survival together, and Dean, fool that he was, had thought he should pull his weight.
Truth be told, he welcomed the pain. It seemed like the only clean, hard-edged thing in the whole filthy mess, in the whole grubby world. The only thing he could trust.
He was raving by the time they got him back to camp. Or so they told him later. Like a wild animal, they said, and wasn’t that just fucking ironic. Thankfully, Dean couldn’t remember much of it himself. The pain, and afterward the fever, drove him clear out of his mind. And that, he figured, was for the best.
He would even have been grateful for it, if the dreams had been more peaceful. But it was him, right? So of course they weren’t. He dreamt of Sam, over and over again. Dreamt that he’d realized how wrong it was for them to be apart, that he’d tracked Sam down, and things were good again. But there was always a moment when Sam turned and looked at him, when Dean would know, with a pure wave of terror and despair, that it wasn’t Sam anymore behind those eyes.
That was bad, that was pretty fucking bad. But the thing was, sometimes it was worse, and Sam was following him instead, crying out in the voice of the little boy he once had been, “Why, Dean, why?”
Periodically, someone would prod him into partial awareness, pour water and meds down his throat, and change the dressings on his ruined leg, before letting him slip under again.
He thought it was Cas with him most of the time-his long-ago angel holding his hand while a river of molten lava swept out of his leg and tried to drown him. But Cas’s grip couldn’t pull him out of hell this time. This time, it seemed, they were condemned to clutch each other like children, equally at the mercy of the stream.
++++++
When he finally surfaced, he felt hollowed out, a shell. Dean knew a fair amount about wanting to die, though it wasn’t something he talked about all that much. But this was nothing like that. Because to want to die you had to be alive in the first place. And this was more like being the husk of something long since carved away. Superfluous. The extra Dean. The broken one. Lucky how the universe had provided a spare.
This was sitting ghostly on the riverbank, waiting for the ferryman.
So he let himself wallow on the narrow bed, anchored only by his pain-not clean now, but a ragged rope, tethering him to existence. His leg felt like it didn’t belong to him at all, except for how it hurt so much. He wondered why they hadn’t cut it off.
They found him crutches, but Dean had no intention of ever getting up, so he just watched them gleaming in the corner. They sent a guy named Sean to sit with him, and that was better. Sean scrounged cigarettes for Dean, periodically emptied the makeshift chamber pots, read random stuff aloud, and flirted with an abandon that almost stirred up a little life in the old appendages.
It wasn’t bad, except for the pain. Not a bad way to pass the time until the rest of him followed the important stuff down God’s toilet.
++++++
And then one day, seemingly at random, the other Dean-the operational one-showed up again.
“Dean,” he said, crossing his arms, and looking like a slab of blasted granite. “Get the fuck up. And make it snappy. I’ve got people to deal with.”
And, for some reason, the words hit him with a force that nothing else had for a long time.
Because they were true. Dean had always had family. And strangers he'd saved, or tried to save, before moving on. But the big guy had people-none of them related to him, and all of them dependent on him in as permanent a way as this world allowed. People whom, in his own savage, loveless fashion, he was trying to keep alive.
And it was that thought, more than anything else, that got Dean out of bed and up on those crutches.
It was hard going. The big guy goaded him along with a familiar mixture of bullying, taunting and grudging praise. Dean responded to it almost automatically-as he’d been trained to do since he was four. He was sure the big guy had known that going in, had calibrated his attack accordingly.
It didn’t matter. Once he got the hang of the forearm crutches, something, some remnant of pride, or of the back-brain will to survive, took over, and he kept going, lurching ungainly around the tiny room, even though every step hurt in a dozen new and surprising ways.
His world had so narrowed to the space of his body and his new, extra metal limbs that the big guy’s hand on his chest genuinely startled him, knocked his balance off of true.
The older man was looking at him strangely; caught, Dean thought, between compassion and disgust. And Dean, who thought he’d gotten over it, felt his smoldering fury rekindling.
“You know we did the best we could, right?" the big guy said. "The best we knew how?”
And that was it, right there-that brutal pragmatism-that willingness to survive all losses and move on that made Dean want to scream. That made him hate himself, and hate the man he had become-hate them most of all for being alive. He wanted, more than anything, to put his hands around this other Dean’s neck and squeeze. And he would have too, if he could have let go of the goddamn crutches.
He tried to turn his back instead, to lie down again on his uncomfortable bed and never get up. But of course that didn’t work either. One of the stupid crutches caught on something, and before he could fall, the other Dean had caught him in his arms, was holding him tight against his chest.
It was weird, that contact-to be held by someone so exactly his own height, whose shoulders spanned exactly the same distance. He could feel the corded iron of the big guy’s arms, the rocky planes of his torso. The other man probably outweighed him now by twenty pounds, Dean thought, after all those the days in bed.
And somehow, that knowledge, that recognition of the frailty of flesh, punctured his anger like a nail. It all hissed away as he sagged against his other self. Who suddenly wasn’t the rock he’d seemed a moment ago. Great, shuddering gasps were racking through him, leaving him almost as off-kilter as Dean. Dean thought for a long, scary moment that they’d tumble right over, end up one indistinguishable pile of limbs. And who’d be able to sort us out then?
With bitter paranoia, Dean was sure the other man was laughing at him, at his foolhardy attempts to walk, to live. But after a minute he realized that the jagged breaths were sobs; and after another minute, that the same paroxysm of grief was ripping through him, too. Not grief for themselves, of course: they were the survivors after all. They were mourning what they had lost, through their own misdeeds. They were both crying for Sam.
Dean broke away first, drained beyond imagining by the whole thing. “I’m lying down,” he said. “My leg is fucking killing me.”
“Yeah,” the other Dean said. “Okay.” He had a funny look on his face, like a child who’d finally torn away the scab he’d been picking at for hours: shocked and hurting, but also wonderingly free.
+++++++
Dean slept lightly these days, and when the first pale light spilled over the faded yellow blanket, he jerked awake.
Someone was breathing in the bed next to him, that was what had woken him, and Dean almost cursed out loud when he realized it was the big guy, knees pulled into his chest, his head pillowed on his arm, down for the count.
Startled into stillness, Dean watched him for a moment, feeling like he was seeing him for the first time. He looked tired, haggard, the skin thin and fragile across his cheekbones, the bridge of his nose, his jaw. A fine tracery of lines spread out from the corners of his eyes, unsmoothed by sleep, and grey threaded through the hair at his temples. On impulse, Dean brushed a hand over the bristling strands, gentle despite himself.
“Mmft,” the big guy murmured at the touch-a childish, sleepy protest like Sam used to make when Dean tugged at the covers in some crappy motel bed.
Sshh, Dean whispered automatically, and kept his hand on Dean’s as he fell back asleep.
++++++
When he woke up again, the big guy was watching him, something different in his eyes. Dean tried to figure out what it was. It wasn’t that they were softer, really, or warmer-more like something had been sloughed off, some film or tarnish, revealing a brighter layer underneath.
Curious, Dean shifted closer, trying to get a handle on what might be going on-on why the big guy was in bed with him, looking at him like that. But the movement jarred his leg in just the wrong way, sent a flare of white fire out through his whole body.
“Oh, God,” he moaned.
“Pills are behind you,” the big guy said, still with that coldness Dean had come to know and hate.
But Dean was just about paralyzed, the pain short-circuiting his muscles. It was all he could do to get out “Jesus-could you--?” through gritted teeth.
Somewhat to his surprise, the other man actually did. Swung up off the bed, fetched the pills, and cupped a hand around the nape of Dean’s neck, helping him lift his head so he could take them.
Dean went along with it, though warily, because this level of kindness was pretty much unprecedented, could mean something dangerous for all he knew.
And then the big guy leaned in, cautious for once, almost tentative, and kissed him.
If Dean thought things had been weird before, this put everything else all in the shade. Because it was a real kiss, not some cage-fight, death-match challenge. The other man’s lips were dry and chapped, but tender on his mouth, questioning rather than demanding.
Without really thinking about it, he responded, parted his own lips a little, pressed in. It had been a long time since anyone had touched him with that degree of care-with something that might even have been love. So incredibly long. Somewhat to Dean’s surprise, it turned out he wasn’t quite far enough gone not to yearn for it.
When the big guy pulled back, Dean blinked at him. “What the fuck was that?” he asked, confused.
“You’ll understand when you’re older,” the big guy answered, like he could put the smirk back on now.
Which no, no he couldn’t. Dean had had enough of that shit. He pulled the other man back down to him, reaching up hungrily for his mouth, making it his own.
It was good for a while, better than good-warm, familiar, coaxing the blood back into his veins. But the big guy got enthusiastic quick, squeezed some part of Dean that wasn’t up to being squeezed, and things flipped from pleasure to pain in an instant.
“Fuck,” Dean said, jerking his head away, panting. “Fuck.”
He thought the older man would leave then, back off, like the first time Dean had rejected his advances. But this time he stayed. Even helped Dean shift around so that his leg wouldn’t scream at him so loudly. Once they were lying side by side on the narrow bed, he rummaged in his pocket for a cigarette, and held it to Dean’s lips once he’d gotten it lit. Dean inhaled gratefully, the smoke hitting his lungs with a brutal jolt of pleasure.
“You-I mean I-“ Dean despaired of pronouns, went with the one that seemed easiest, if inaccurate. “I mean, we. We weren’t always like this, you know.”
“Speak for yourself,” the big guy snorted. And Dean had to laugh, and laugh again, to hear the sound in stereo.
“No, really.” Dean cast around for some anecdote from the past-shying away from memories of Cassie or Lisa or even Anna, because he didn’t want to end up in tears before he even began. “You remember that girl in Georgia, while Sam was at Stanford?” he finally offered.
“The one who lived in her van? With the snake tattoos? Dude, she was awesome.”
“Uh-huh, she was. But that was Louisiana, dumbass. I’m talking about the waitress outside of Macon.”
“Okay, yeah.” The big guy sniggered. “But I don’t think banging some chick next to the PBR empties counts as evidence of a kinder, gentler us.”
“Not that time. After. She took us home, remember?”
“Oh, yeah.” Dean could hear his voice change as he remembered. “What was her name, anyway? Julie? Jordana?”
“Jordan. Like the river, she said.”
“Right. She was kind of a Bible thumper, wasn’t she?”
“Yeah, she was. Didn’t stop her from fucking our brains out, though.”
“No, sir. No, it did not.”
She’d been tiny, and thin as a twig, face prematurely wizened from too many late nights and cigarettes. But when she’d perched on the extra freezer in the bar’s back room and wrapped her legs around his waist, he could feel the wiry strength of her, the racehorse stamina. He’d dug a hand into her hair as she rocked herself onto him. When he’d worked it loose from its pins and bands, a cloud of brown had fallen over them both-dry, feathery, the split ends tickling his cheeks.
She’d left him gasping. When he’d finally managed to lift his head, he found her watching him, eyes as pale as the sky after rain, seeing something in him no one had seen for a long time.
“Come on, sugar,” she’d said. “You look like you could use a night in a real bed.”
“Remember how she woke us up?” Dean said now to the other him.
“I remember how she was completely naked,” the big guy answered, but Dean could have sworn his voice had lost a little of its harshness.
“She had these miniscule tits. Champagne glasses? Fuck-these were Dixie cups.” Dean sketched the shape in the air with his hands. “Gorgeous.”
“And perfect nipples-round, like berries, remember? Pink.”
“And she loved us rolling them around with our tongue.” Dean suddenly realized he was swirling his tongue around his own mouth-he would’ve bet good money the big guy was doing the same.
“And we just woke up with her straddling us, already jacking us, slow and steady.”
Dean’s dick stirred at the memory, and he almost reached a hand down to help himself along. But before he could act on the idea, he felt a different hand on his hip, slipping under his waistband, tugging down the loose pants. He froze, but the hand seemed to know what it was doing. And maybe it was the fault of the pain pills finally kicking in, but he lay back against the pillows and let whatever weird thing they were about to do happen.
“And we tried to do our share, help get her off-we were polite like that in those days.” The big guy took over the narrative. “But she just said uh-uh, baby, let me do this, ‘kay? You lie there and let me look after you.”
Dean risked a sidelong glance at him, and saw that the big guy might just as well have been describing himself. He was watching his own hand moving over Dean’s body, and he seemed to like what he saw, a smile Dean recognized as genuine satisfaction playing over his lips.
The older man shifted up on one elbow so he could free Dean’s cock from his trousers and curl his fingers around it. Dean watched him, scarcely daring to breathe. Careful not to jar Dean’s leg, the big guy ran the calloused pad of his thumb up the back of Dean’s dick and over the head, easy. Just the way Dean liked it, of course, and he was powerless against the swell of desire in him.
“By the time she finally lifted up and took us inside her we were desperate for it, almost crazy. And she was tight, so tight.” The big guy gripped harder, stripping Dean to the rhythm of his story. “She took her time, that girl, kinda lazy, but really not, you know? She could do these things with her hips, twisting them this way. And then like that--” The hand mirrored the words, leaving Dean was so hard it was almost painful.
“We were curious-fuck, we were always curious-and we couldn’t resist getting a hand between her legs. She was wet-so wet-like heaven. We found her clit-and she was so close that one, maybe two, little whirls around it, and she was coming like a fucking whirligig, taking us along for the ride.”
And maybe the big guy had learned a thing or two in his extra years, because suddenly Dean found he was pretty damn close too. One more clever twist, and he spilled all over the big guy’s hand.
And as Dean rode out the waves of his climax against that familiar weathered palm, Jordan, and that shabby apartment outside Macon, seemed to fade away. Fade way until there was nothing left but the face of his other self, looking down at him, eyes finally softened by Dean’s pleasure. My face, Dean thought, with weird clarity, though he was pretty sure his own eyes had never been that green.
He drifted off in the aftermath, he couldn’t help it. It was more exertion than he’d attempted in weeks, after all. He was vaguely aware of the big guy grumbling about the mess, wiping him off roughly with the threadbare sheet. Mostly, though, Dean was letting the last bits of that long ago Sunday in Georgia play out behind his eyelids.
Jordan had come back into the bedroom, smiling to see him lying there still wrecked. She’d put on some kind of loose flowered dress-though not, he didn’t think, much underwear-and pulled her hair back into its severe bun.
“I’m going to church now, sugar,” she’d said. “Sure you don’t want to come?”
“No thanks, sweetheart. I’ve done all the worshiping I need to do for today.” He’d leered at her playfully, appreciatively. “You tell the angels hello for me.”
“I will.” She’d nodded like she thought he was serious. “I know you won’t be here when I get back. So help yourself to whatever you want out of the fridge, and lock the door behind you. I’m telling you now there’s nothing worth stealing, so don’t get any ideas.”
And with a kiss blown off her fingers, she was gone.
Opening his eyes to his God-forsaken present, Dean looked over at his other self. The big guy had lit another cigarette, and was looking out the window, as much at peace as Dean had ever seen him. Dean had no idea what he was thinking, but with the yellow light hitting his face, he was beautiful.
And just for a moment, the briefest respite, Dean let himself imagine that the ratty straw-colored blanket under them was a basket, some fate-loved vessel, hiding them among the bulrushes, keeping them from harm.
Rating: R
Pairings: Dean/Dean, Dean/OFC.
Setting: End ‘verse AU.
Word Count: ~4K
Warnings: Along with the same person sex? Depression, permanent injury and vague suicidal ideation.
Beta: calamitycrow--thanks as always, bb!
a/n: This is a remix of wave_obscura’s Forever Ain’t That Long, done for the hoodie_time remix challenge. I hope you don’t mind the liberties I’ve taken with your awesome, fic, bb!
a/n: This feels like part of a fanfic version of “telephone.” “Forever” was originally written for a prompt on roque_clasique’s amazing birthday comment fic meme, which started almost exactly a year ago today (1/8/09). The prompt was: End ‘verse. 2009!Dean is busted-up hardcore and he only trusts 2014!Dean to help him get around and do everyday things.. wave_obscura says that “Forever” was “very much inspired by roque_clasique’s painfully awesome fic Asterisms with the same basic set up-- 2009!Dean never goes back to the past and they're still hunting down Lucifer.”
My fic uses that set up as well-and is very much in the shadow of its two amazing predecessors (plus, it uses some of the dialogue from “Forever”). I really don’t know what to think of this one, and I’m pretty anxious about posting it. Please, please read the rating, pairings and warnings before you begin!
Summary: Dean knew that look. He’d made it himself often enough, from the inside out. And, shit, if he’d ever thought he was on the down-low with that look, he was even stupider than he’d realized.
Hm, hm, I hear Jordan rollin,’
Hm, hm, I hear Jordan rollin,’
Hm, hm, I hear Jordan rollin,’
In some lonesome graveyard.
“Moses” (trad. Spiritual)
Dean knew that look. He’d made it himself often enough, from the inside out. And, shit, if he’d ever thought he was on the down-low with that look, he was even stupider than he’d realized. Which was pretty fucking stupid already, thank you very much.
So mostly he tried to ignore it. Ignored the way the other Dean-the big guy, Dean usually called him in his head-watched his lips, sent his eyes curving over Dean’s ass, gaze so hot Dean could feel it. Because the last thing he needed was for things to get any more fucked up than they already were.
But it wasn’t as if the thought hadn’t crossed his mind, too. Wasn’t as if he hadn’t wondered what it would be like with someone who really knew him. With someone who would never say, “Huh, I wouldn’t have figured you for the type who was into that.-would never suddenly go still and say “stop lying to me-you’ve done this before.”
And mostly that went pretty well. Dean was a goddamn expert at not thinking about stuff. Look at how well he was doing with not thinking about how he’s screwed up and lost Sam, for instance, or with not thinking about what was still happening to Sam because of him. And of course there was plenty of other stuff to worry about instead, what with the constant threat of Croats and the endless scramble for supplies.
So yeah, things were going along okay in that regard. Until one day he ran into the other Dean coming around the corner of one of the old outbuildings. They stopped within a hairsbreadth of each other, barely avoiding collision. And then, without so much as a “Hey there,” the big guy spun him around and up against the wooden siding, one hand on Dean’s shoulder, the other high up on his thigh, fingers splayed over the hinge of his crotch. He leaned in, breath hot against Dean’s face, the offer, the challenge, clear as a prison-yard high beam.
Dean’s dick was interested-because damn if those fingers didn’t know him, weren’t already working out the perfect pressure, the perfect slide against his jeans. But the rest of him was having none of it, was damn near repulsed. Because as far back as Dean could remember, with men and women, young and old, it had always been about the game for him-the flirt, the tease, the play of charm-the slow dance until whatever was given was given freely.
But this? This was two animals passing in the jungle, marking territory, sparring for dominance and then moving on. This was as much about aggression as it was about sex. And giving into that felt, to Dean, like crossing some Rubicon he’d never be able to get back over.
So he fought his own desire, paid no attention to his hardening cock, and shoved back hard.
“Not tonight, dear,” he snarled. “I’ve got a headache.”
The big guy backed off easy, smirking and raising his arms like Dean was the crazy one, shrugged, and headed back around the corner of the building.
“Risa!” Dean heard him shout, loud and confident. And she’d come running, he knew she would. They all came when the big guy called.
It was like some kind of bad joke, Dean thought. There are two of me here, and I’ve never been so lonely in my life.
++++++
And that was before everything went right out the other side of fucked up, into some new territory of disaster unfamiliar even to Winchesters.
++++++
The minute he saw his mangled leg, Dean knew. Even before Risa put in her cack-handed, ineffectual sutures, he knew that this was the one he wouldn’t be coming back from.
Crippled on a goddamn supply run. Because they were all in the desperate scrabble for survival together, and Dean, fool that he was, had thought he should pull his weight.
Truth be told, he welcomed the pain. It seemed like the only clean, hard-edged thing in the whole filthy mess, in the whole grubby world. The only thing he could trust.
He was raving by the time they got him back to camp. Or so they told him later. Like a wild animal, they said, and wasn’t that just fucking ironic. Thankfully, Dean couldn’t remember much of it himself. The pain, and afterward the fever, drove him clear out of his mind. And that, he figured, was for the best.
He would even have been grateful for it, if the dreams had been more peaceful. But it was him, right? So of course they weren’t. He dreamt of Sam, over and over again. Dreamt that he’d realized how wrong it was for them to be apart, that he’d tracked Sam down, and things were good again. But there was always a moment when Sam turned and looked at him, when Dean would know, with a pure wave of terror and despair, that it wasn’t Sam anymore behind those eyes.
That was bad, that was pretty fucking bad. But the thing was, sometimes it was worse, and Sam was following him instead, crying out in the voice of the little boy he once had been, “Why, Dean, why?”
Periodically, someone would prod him into partial awareness, pour water and meds down his throat, and change the dressings on his ruined leg, before letting him slip under again.
He thought it was Cas with him most of the time-his long-ago angel holding his hand while a river of molten lava swept out of his leg and tried to drown him. But Cas’s grip couldn’t pull him out of hell this time. This time, it seemed, they were condemned to clutch each other like children, equally at the mercy of the stream.
++++++
When he finally surfaced, he felt hollowed out, a shell. Dean knew a fair amount about wanting to die, though it wasn’t something he talked about all that much. But this was nothing like that. Because to want to die you had to be alive in the first place. And this was more like being the husk of something long since carved away. Superfluous. The extra Dean. The broken one. Lucky how the universe had provided a spare.
This was sitting ghostly on the riverbank, waiting for the ferryman.
So he let himself wallow on the narrow bed, anchored only by his pain-not clean now, but a ragged rope, tethering him to existence. His leg felt like it didn’t belong to him at all, except for how it hurt so much. He wondered why they hadn’t cut it off.
They found him crutches, but Dean had no intention of ever getting up, so he just watched them gleaming in the corner. They sent a guy named Sean to sit with him, and that was better. Sean scrounged cigarettes for Dean, periodically emptied the makeshift chamber pots, read random stuff aloud, and flirted with an abandon that almost stirred up a little life in the old appendages.
It wasn’t bad, except for the pain. Not a bad way to pass the time until the rest of him followed the important stuff down God’s toilet.
++++++
And then one day, seemingly at random, the other Dean-the operational one-showed up again.
“Dean,” he said, crossing his arms, and looking like a slab of blasted granite. “Get the fuck up. And make it snappy. I’ve got people to deal with.”
And, for some reason, the words hit him with a force that nothing else had for a long time.
Because they were true. Dean had always had family. And strangers he'd saved, or tried to save, before moving on. But the big guy had people-none of them related to him, and all of them dependent on him in as permanent a way as this world allowed. People whom, in his own savage, loveless fashion, he was trying to keep alive.
And it was that thought, more than anything else, that got Dean out of bed and up on those crutches.
It was hard going. The big guy goaded him along with a familiar mixture of bullying, taunting and grudging praise. Dean responded to it almost automatically-as he’d been trained to do since he was four. He was sure the big guy had known that going in, had calibrated his attack accordingly.
It didn’t matter. Once he got the hang of the forearm crutches, something, some remnant of pride, or of the back-brain will to survive, took over, and he kept going, lurching ungainly around the tiny room, even though every step hurt in a dozen new and surprising ways.
His world had so narrowed to the space of his body and his new, extra metal limbs that the big guy’s hand on his chest genuinely startled him, knocked his balance off of true.
The older man was looking at him strangely; caught, Dean thought, between compassion and disgust. And Dean, who thought he’d gotten over it, felt his smoldering fury rekindling.
“You know we did the best we could, right?" the big guy said. "The best we knew how?”
And that was it, right there-that brutal pragmatism-that willingness to survive all losses and move on that made Dean want to scream. That made him hate himself, and hate the man he had become-hate them most of all for being alive. He wanted, more than anything, to put his hands around this other Dean’s neck and squeeze. And he would have too, if he could have let go of the goddamn crutches.
He tried to turn his back instead, to lie down again on his uncomfortable bed and never get up. But of course that didn’t work either. One of the stupid crutches caught on something, and before he could fall, the other Dean had caught him in his arms, was holding him tight against his chest.
It was weird, that contact-to be held by someone so exactly his own height, whose shoulders spanned exactly the same distance. He could feel the corded iron of the big guy’s arms, the rocky planes of his torso. The other man probably outweighed him now by twenty pounds, Dean thought, after all those the days in bed.
And somehow, that knowledge, that recognition of the frailty of flesh, punctured his anger like a nail. It all hissed away as he sagged against his other self. Who suddenly wasn’t the rock he’d seemed a moment ago. Great, shuddering gasps were racking through him, leaving him almost as off-kilter as Dean. Dean thought for a long, scary moment that they’d tumble right over, end up one indistinguishable pile of limbs. And who’d be able to sort us out then?
With bitter paranoia, Dean was sure the other man was laughing at him, at his foolhardy attempts to walk, to live. But after a minute he realized that the jagged breaths were sobs; and after another minute, that the same paroxysm of grief was ripping through him, too. Not grief for themselves, of course: they were the survivors after all. They were mourning what they had lost, through their own misdeeds. They were both crying for Sam.
Dean broke away first, drained beyond imagining by the whole thing. “I’m lying down,” he said. “My leg is fucking killing me.”
“Yeah,” the other Dean said. “Okay.” He had a funny look on his face, like a child who’d finally torn away the scab he’d been picking at for hours: shocked and hurting, but also wonderingly free.
+++++++
Dean slept lightly these days, and when the first pale light spilled over the faded yellow blanket, he jerked awake.
Someone was breathing in the bed next to him, that was what had woken him, and Dean almost cursed out loud when he realized it was the big guy, knees pulled into his chest, his head pillowed on his arm, down for the count.
Startled into stillness, Dean watched him for a moment, feeling like he was seeing him for the first time. He looked tired, haggard, the skin thin and fragile across his cheekbones, the bridge of his nose, his jaw. A fine tracery of lines spread out from the corners of his eyes, unsmoothed by sleep, and grey threaded through the hair at his temples. On impulse, Dean brushed a hand over the bristling strands, gentle despite himself.
“Mmft,” the big guy murmured at the touch-a childish, sleepy protest like Sam used to make when Dean tugged at the covers in some crappy motel bed.
Sshh, Dean whispered automatically, and kept his hand on Dean’s as he fell back asleep.
++++++
When he woke up again, the big guy was watching him, something different in his eyes. Dean tried to figure out what it was. It wasn’t that they were softer, really, or warmer-more like something had been sloughed off, some film or tarnish, revealing a brighter layer underneath.
Curious, Dean shifted closer, trying to get a handle on what might be going on-on why the big guy was in bed with him, looking at him like that. But the movement jarred his leg in just the wrong way, sent a flare of white fire out through his whole body.
“Oh, God,” he moaned.
“Pills are behind you,” the big guy said, still with that coldness Dean had come to know and hate.
But Dean was just about paralyzed, the pain short-circuiting his muscles. It was all he could do to get out “Jesus-could you--?” through gritted teeth.
Somewhat to his surprise, the other man actually did. Swung up off the bed, fetched the pills, and cupped a hand around the nape of Dean’s neck, helping him lift his head so he could take them.
Dean went along with it, though warily, because this level of kindness was pretty much unprecedented, could mean something dangerous for all he knew.
And then the big guy leaned in, cautious for once, almost tentative, and kissed him.
If Dean thought things had been weird before, this put everything else all in the shade. Because it was a real kiss, not some cage-fight, death-match challenge. The other man’s lips were dry and chapped, but tender on his mouth, questioning rather than demanding.
Without really thinking about it, he responded, parted his own lips a little, pressed in. It had been a long time since anyone had touched him with that degree of care-with something that might even have been love. So incredibly long. Somewhat to Dean’s surprise, it turned out he wasn’t quite far enough gone not to yearn for it.
When the big guy pulled back, Dean blinked at him. “What the fuck was that?” he asked, confused.
“You’ll understand when you’re older,” the big guy answered, like he could put the smirk back on now.
Which no, no he couldn’t. Dean had had enough of that shit. He pulled the other man back down to him, reaching up hungrily for his mouth, making it his own.
It was good for a while, better than good-warm, familiar, coaxing the blood back into his veins. But the big guy got enthusiastic quick, squeezed some part of Dean that wasn’t up to being squeezed, and things flipped from pleasure to pain in an instant.
“Fuck,” Dean said, jerking his head away, panting. “Fuck.”
He thought the older man would leave then, back off, like the first time Dean had rejected his advances. But this time he stayed. Even helped Dean shift around so that his leg wouldn’t scream at him so loudly. Once they were lying side by side on the narrow bed, he rummaged in his pocket for a cigarette, and held it to Dean’s lips once he’d gotten it lit. Dean inhaled gratefully, the smoke hitting his lungs with a brutal jolt of pleasure.
“You-I mean I-“ Dean despaired of pronouns, went with the one that seemed easiest, if inaccurate. “I mean, we. We weren’t always like this, you know.”
“Speak for yourself,” the big guy snorted. And Dean had to laugh, and laugh again, to hear the sound in stereo.
“No, really.” Dean cast around for some anecdote from the past-shying away from memories of Cassie or Lisa or even Anna, because he didn’t want to end up in tears before he even began. “You remember that girl in Georgia, while Sam was at Stanford?” he finally offered.
“The one who lived in her van? With the snake tattoos? Dude, she was awesome.”
“Uh-huh, she was. But that was Louisiana, dumbass. I’m talking about the waitress outside of Macon.”
“Okay, yeah.” The big guy sniggered. “But I don’t think banging some chick next to the PBR empties counts as evidence of a kinder, gentler us.”
“Not that time. After. She took us home, remember?”
“Oh, yeah.” Dean could hear his voice change as he remembered. “What was her name, anyway? Julie? Jordana?”
“Jordan. Like the river, she said.”
“Right. She was kind of a Bible thumper, wasn’t she?”
“Yeah, she was. Didn’t stop her from fucking our brains out, though.”
“No, sir. No, it did not.”
She’d been tiny, and thin as a twig, face prematurely wizened from too many late nights and cigarettes. But when she’d perched on the extra freezer in the bar’s back room and wrapped her legs around his waist, he could feel the wiry strength of her, the racehorse stamina. He’d dug a hand into her hair as she rocked herself onto him. When he’d worked it loose from its pins and bands, a cloud of brown had fallen over them both-dry, feathery, the split ends tickling his cheeks.
She’d left him gasping. When he’d finally managed to lift his head, he found her watching him, eyes as pale as the sky after rain, seeing something in him no one had seen for a long time.
“Come on, sugar,” she’d said. “You look like you could use a night in a real bed.”
“Remember how she woke us up?” Dean said now to the other him.
“I remember how she was completely naked,” the big guy answered, but Dean could have sworn his voice had lost a little of its harshness.
“She had these miniscule tits. Champagne glasses? Fuck-these were Dixie cups.” Dean sketched the shape in the air with his hands. “Gorgeous.”
“And perfect nipples-round, like berries, remember? Pink.”
“And she loved us rolling them around with our tongue.” Dean suddenly realized he was swirling his tongue around his own mouth-he would’ve bet good money the big guy was doing the same.
“And we just woke up with her straddling us, already jacking us, slow and steady.”
Dean’s dick stirred at the memory, and he almost reached a hand down to help himself along. But before he could act on the idea, he felt a different hand on his hip, slipping under his waistband, tugging down the loose pants. He froze, but the hand seemed to know what it was doing. And maybe it was the fault of the pain pills finally kicking in, but he lay back against the pillows and let whatever weird thing they were about to do happen.
“And we tried to do our share, help get her off-we were polite like that in those days.” The big guy took over the narrative. “But she just said uh-uh, baby, let me do this, ‘kay? You lie there and let me look after you.”
Dean risked a sidelong glance at him, and saw that the big guy might just as well have been describing himself. He was watching his own hand moving over Dean’s body, and he seemed to like what he saw, a smile Dean recognized as genuine satisfaction playing over his lips.
The older man shifted up on one elbow so he could free Dean’s cock from his trousers and curl his fingers around it. Dean watched him, scarcely daring to breathe. Careful not to jar Dean’s leg, the big guy ran the calloused pad of his thumb up the back of Dean’s dick and over the head, easy. Just the way Dean liked it, of course, and he was powerless against the swell of desire in him.
“By the time she finally lifted up and took us inside her we were desperate for it, almost crazy. And she was tight, so tight.” The big guy gripped harder, stripping Dean to the rhythm of his story. “She took her time, that girl, kinda lazy, but really not, you know? She could do these things with her hips, twisting them this way. And then like that--” The hand mirrored the words, leaving Dean was so hard it was almost painful.
“We were curious-fuck, we were always curious-and we couldn’t resist getting a hand between her legs. She was wet-so wet-like heaven. We found her clit-and she was so close that one, maybe two, little whirls around it, and she was coming like a fucking whirligig, taking us along for the ride.”
And maybe the big guy had learned a thing or two in his extra years, because suddenly Dean found he was pretty damn close too. One more clever twist, and he spilled all over the big guy’s hand.
And as Dean rode out the waves of his climax against that familiar weathered palm, Jordan, and that shabby apartment outside Macon, seemed to fade away. Fade way until there was nothing left but the face of his other self, looking down at him, eyes finally softened by Dean’s pleasure. My face, Dean thought, with weird clarity, though he was pretty sure his own eyes had never been that green.
He drifted off in the aftermath, he couldn’t help it. It was more exertion than he’d attempted in weeks, after all. He was vaguely aware of the big guy grumbling about the mess, wiping him off roughly with the threadbare sheet. Mostly, though, Dean was letting the last bits of that long ago Sunday in Georgia play out behind his eyelids.
Jordan had come back into the bedroom, smiling to see him lying there still wrecked. She’d put on some kind of loose flowered dress-though not, he didn’t think, much underwear-and pulled her hair back into its severe bun.
“I’m going to church now, sugar,” she’d said. “Sure you don’t want to come?”
“No thanks, sweetheart. I’ve done all the worshiping I need to do for today.” He’d leered at her playfully, appreciatively. “You tell the angels hello for me.”
“I will.” She’d nodded like she thought he was serious. “I know you won’t be here when I get back. So help yourself to whatever you want out of the fridge, and lock the door behind you. I’m telling you now there’s nothing worth stealing, so don’t get any ideas.”
And with a kiss blown off her fingers, she was gone.
Opening his eyes to his God-forsaken present, Dean looked over at his other self. The big guy had lit another cigarette, and was looking out the window, as much at peace as Dean had ever seen him. Dean had no idea what he was thinking, but with the yellow light hitting his face, he was beautiful.
And just for a moment, the briefest respite, Dean let himself imagine that the ratty straw-colored blanket under them was a basket, some fate-loved vessel, hiding them among the bulrushes, keeping them from harm.