Fic: For a season there must be pain
Title: For a season there must be pain
Author: britomart_is
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: PG
Words: 1200
Notes: Spoilers for all aired episodes. AU from 6.11. Title from Rudyard Kipling.
Summary: Twenty years, and they've made a life.
He doesn't care about me, he just cares about his little brother, Sammy, burning in hell. He'll kill me to get that other guy back.
It happens in the curb lane of Market Street, on a Sunday morning. Those who see it (the sidewalks are crowded on such a lovely morning - parents holding their chubby toddlers up by each hand, Mrs. Emerson out walking her drooling Boston Terrier, the gaggle of raccoon-eyed teenage girls who blush and whisper when they're two diner booths away from Dean) deem it a rare occurrence of ball lightning, that flash-bang of light coming from nowhere like God's spitball.
Bruno down at the corner store jokes that the lightning went straight for Sam 'cause he was the tallest object in fifty miles of prairie, but even his usually slack-jawed cashier punches him in the arm for that. Some folks object to the lifestyle them two are practicing, but for the most part, people like the Singers. They've been resting their boots in this town for so long that the little kids Dean once winked at conspiratorially are bringing their first cars to him for oil changes. They've been here so long people don't even call Sam "the weird one" anymore.
The street is quiet while they wait for the ambulance to come. Everyone watches Dean on his knees in the gutter, holding his lover's hand. Dean's saying something that no one can hear, close and fervent in Sam's ear.
And ain't that the way it's always been with those two. Peer till your eyes bleed, strain your ears eavesdropping, but you'll never get a handle on what goes on between Sam and Dean.
-
They'd been headed to a late and lazy breakfast. Dean had been smiling smugly to himself with one orgasm under his belt before his morning coffee, imagining the fried eggs and thick slabs of bacon in his immediate future. Sam had been crunching his feet through the autumn leaves in the gutter, and his childish pleasure in their crisp give made Dean want to reach out and grab him.
Then Sam was in the leaves, crumpled like a dropped toy till Dean rolled him over to look at his closed eyelids, to feel the breath on his lips.
Now Dean's angry with himself for still having hunger pangs, for having a caffeine headache, when they won't let him touch Sam. He watches them slide Sam into the MRI and to Dean it looks like they're storing him away in a morgue drawer.
This isn't Sam and Dean Singer. They don't end up in the hospital. The Singers go to breakfast on Sunday mornings. The Singers have an address. The Singers share a last name, as far as the folks in town know, only because of a county clerk, a signed certificate, and a taciturn unwillingness to say any vows whatsoever. Not out loud, anyway. I will love you for what you are in the upturn of Dean's mouth, and what I am is yours in the firm set of Sam's jaw.
It hasn't been easy. Hasn't even been pleasant, often enough. But they've done the best they could with what they had.
For widely-witnessed freak lightning accidents, they take you to the big, well-equipped hospital three towns over. The people here don't know who Sam and Dean Singer are, haven't watched them, somehow, making it work. The nurse at intake asks Dean what his relation to Sam is, and Dean just wants his brother back. "He's all I've got."
-
Dean knows that something is very wrong when, upon waking, the first thing Sam does is to whisper, "Dean," like he's been traveling a long lonely road with nothing but the memory of his brother's face to sustain him. Like he's come home and stepped over the threshold into the warmth. Sam's eyes are welling up as he tugs at Dean's sleeve, and Dean has to hunch over the bed-rail to wrap his arms around Sam, confused. "Dean," Sam says into his hair. "Dean, Dean."
The shaking begins in his fingertips. Dean pulls away, stands with wide stance and set shoulders, ready to fight or flee. "Why are you being like that?" He's angry, irrationally angry with his injured brother, his lover. "Don't be a dick. Don't be like that. Don't pretend with me."
Sympathetic understanding dawns on Sam's face, a wave of sadness and love that's too much. That's impossible. "Dean, it's really me," he says softly. Sam swings his legs over the side of the bed and stands with a grimace, hand rubbing against his sternum like he's sore (like something white-hot burned him on its way back in.) He rests his hands on the broad, steel-tight line of Dean's shoulders and catches Dean's flickering gaze, holds it. "There's nowhere they could've put me where I wouldn't find my way back to you." A wry smile. "Even if it took a while."
Dean's shaking his head, slow rhythm of no, no, no. "Twenty years."
Sam's hands cradle Dean's face, hands Dean knows so very well. "I'm sorry. It must've been hard on you."
Dean presses his mouth to the inside of Sam's wrist because there's nothing to say. I never stopped looking, except he did, there was no way, no way. But Sammy, this Sammy, he never stopped. This is the moment Dean's been waiting for. It is. This is a miracle. It's. Dean muffles his voice against Sam's skin. "We made a life. We."
"It's okay," Sam says, hands stroking over Dean's hair, petting him like he's soothing an animal. "I'm home. You're not alone anymore."
"I wasn't alone," Dean says, but it's lost to inaudibility when Sam kisses him. The shaking has spread from Dean's fingertips now, and his body is a tremor against Sam, a tectonic shift. Sam is home. He is gone. Sam's here. He's gone.
Twenty years collapse and fall through the fault lines as Dean shakes.
-
When the hospital releases Sam, Dean brings him home and takes him to bed all sweet and slow, because he loves his brother and his brother loves him back.
Dean wakes in the night in a cold sweat. He frees himself from the sheets in a panic, stumbles to the bathroom where his toes slip on the tile. He runs cold water till the sink is full, dunks his head in. Opens his eyes underwater, hears nothing but his own heartbeat.
The sink emits a quiet death rattle as it drains, and then Dean drips into the empty basin.
Dean looks at his gray face in the mirror and sees an adulterer. Sam, with sleepy-heavy lashes and a wrinkle of concern, comes from behind to rub Dean's shoulders. Dean looks at Sam in the mirror, and in the dark, low light of the streetlamp coming through the window, he sees a murderer.
Author: britomart_is
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: PG
Words: 1200
Notes: Spoilers for all aired episodes. AU from 6.11. Title from Rudyard Kipling.
Summary: Twenty years, and they've made a life.
He doesn't care about me, he just cares about his little brother, Sammy, burning in hell. He'll kill me to get that other guy back.
It happens in the curb lane of Market Street, on a Sunday morning. Those who see it (the sidewalks are crowded on such a lovely morning - parents holding their chubby toddlers up by each hand, Mrs. Emerson out walking her drooling Boston Terrier, the gaggle of raccoon-eyed teenage girls who blush and whisper when they're two diner booths away from Dean) deem it a rare occurrence of ball lightning, that flash-bang of light coming from nowhere like God's spitball.
Bruno down at the corner store jokes that the lightning went straight for Sam 'cause he was the tallest object in fifty miles of prairie, but even his usually slack-jawed cashier punches him in the arm for that. Some folks object to the lifestyle them two are practicing, but for the most part, people like the Singers. They've been resting their boots in this town for so long that the little kids Dean once winked at conspiratorially are bringing their first cars to him for oil changes. They've been here so long people don't even call Sam "the weird one" anymore.
The street is quiet while they wait for the ambulance to come. Everyone watches Dean on his knees in the gutter, holding his lover's hand. Dean's saying something that no one can hear, close and fervent in Sam's ear.
And ain't that the way it's always been with those two. Peer till your eyes bleed, strain your ears eavesdropping, but you'll never get a handle on what goes on between Sam and Dean.
-
They'd been headed to a late and lazy breakfast. Dean had been smiling smugly to himself with one orgasm under his belt before his morning coffee, imagining the fried eggs and thick slabs of bacon in his immediate future. Sam had been crunching his feet through the autumn leaves in the gutter, and his childish pleasure in their crisp give made Dean want to reach out and grab him.
Then Sam was in the leaves, crumpled like a dropped toy till Dean rolled him over to look at his closed eyelids, to feel the breath on his lips.
Now Dean's angry with himself for still having hunger pangs, for having a caffeine headache, when they won't let him touch Sam. He watches them slide Sam into the MRI and to Dean it looks like they're storing him away in a morgue drawer.
This isn't Sam and Dean Singer. They don't end up in the hospital. The Singers go to breakfast on Sunday mornings. The Singers have an address. The Singers share a last name, as far as the folks in town know, only because of a county clerk, a signed certificate, and a taciturn unwillingness to say any vows whatsoever. Not out loud, anyway. I will love you for what you are in the upturn of Dean's mouth, and what I am is yours in the firm set of Sam's jaw.
It hasn't been easy. Hasn't even been pleasant, often enough. But they've done the best they could with what they had.
For widely-witnessed freak lightning accidents, they take you to the big, well-equipped hospital three towns over. The people here don't know who Sam and Dean Singer are, haven't watched them, somehow, making it work. The nurse at intake asks Dean what his relation to Sam is, and Dean just wants his brother back. "He's all I've got."
-
Dean knows that something is very wrong when, upon waking, the first thing Sam does is to whisper, "Dean," like he's been traveling a long lonely road with nothing but the memory of his brother's face to sustain him. Like he's come home and stepped over the threshold into the warmth. Sam's eyes are welling up as he tugs at Dean's sleeve, and Dean has to hunch over the bed-rail to wrap his arms around Sam, confused. "Dean," Sam says into his hair. "Dean, Dean."
The shaking begins in his fingertips. Dean pulls away, stands with wide stance and set shoulders, ready to fight or flee. "Why are you being like that?" He's angry, irrationally angry with his injured brother, his lover. "Don't be a dick. Don't be like that. Don't pretend with me."
Sympathetic understanding dawns on Sam's face, a wave of sadness and love that's too much. That's impossible. "Dean, it's really me," he says softly. Sam swings his legs over the side of the bed and stands with a grimace, hand rubbing against his sternum like he's sore (like something white-hot burned him on its way back in.) He rests his hands on the broad, steel-tight line of Dean's shoulders and catches Dean's flickering gaze, holds it. "There's nowhere they could've put me where I wouldn't find my way back to you." A wry smile. "Even if it took a while."
Dean's shaking his head, slow rhythm of no, no, no. "Twenty years."
Sam's hands cradle Dean's face, hands Dean knows so very well. "I'm sorry. It must've been hard on you."
Dean presses his mouth to the inside of Sam's wrist because there's nothing to say. I never stopped looking, except he did, there was no way, no way. But Sammy, this Sammy, he never stopped. This is the moment Dean's been waiting for. It is. This is a miracle. It's. Dean muffles his voice against Sam's skin. "We made a life. We."
"It's okay," Sam says, hands stroking over Dean's hair, petting him like he's soothing an animal. "I'm home. You're not alone anymore."
"I wasn't alone," Dean says, but it's lost to inaudibility when Sam kisses him. The shaking has spread from Dean's fingertips now, and his body is a tremor against Sam, a tectonic shift. Sam is home. He is gone. Sam's here. He's gone.
Twenty years collapse and fall through the fault lines as Dean shakes.
-
When the hospital releases Sam, Dean brings him home and takes him to bed all sweet and slow, because he loves his brother and his brother loves him back.
Dean wakes in the night in a cold sweat. He frees himself from the sheets in a panic, stumbles to the bathroom where his toes slip on the tile. He runs cold water till the sink is full, dunks his head in. Opens his eyes underwater, hears nothing but his own heartbeat.
The sink emits a quiet death rattle as it drains, and then Dean drips into the empty basin.
Dean looks at his gray face in the mirror and sees an adulterer. Sam, with sleepy-heavy lashes and a wrinkle of concern, comes from behind to rub Dean's shoulders. Dean looks at Sam in the mirror, and in the dark, low light of the streetlamp coming through the window, he sees a murderer.