Some Fics
Title: Clarity
Word Count: 2,100
Genre: Nuthin' but good ol' fashioned H/C
Warnings: Language
Spoilers/Notes: Mid-ep BUABS, triage in the bar
“God, you weigh, like, four hundred pounds,” she mutters, breath clouding in front of her face and muscles screaming uncle as they stagger-climb the squat steps to the bar’s delivery entrance, a short walk from the pier that should have taken five minutes but clocked in at nearly twenty.
His frustration is almost more palpable than his very obvious pain. “You should’ve been watchin’ the car,” he grits, leaning on the railing while she fumbles with the knob. “See which way he went.”
“Yeah, well, I got sorta distracted by the gunshot,” Jo huffs back, giving up and kicking in the door. She adjusts her grip on Dean’s water-logged coat, lake water pooling in the dents her fingers are making in the fabric.
He trips on the threshold, sends them stumbling sideways into the bar. He can’t stop the momentum of his weight, and she ends up sandwiched between him and the ledge of the bar, crying out as her shoulder blades are ground roughly into the polished wood. Ow. Fuck, that’s gonna leave a mark.
“Sorry.” He’s trying to get his feet back under him, pushes off the counter.
“Don’t worry about it.” She fists the front of his coat, braces her foot at the base of the bar and shoves up at the same time, sets a course for the nearest chair, lets Dean do little more than fall into it so she can step back and assess the situation.
He’s soaked, freezing, and pale as the moon with deep lines etched at the corners of his eyes, gripping his left shoulder and shivering from some combination of cold and pain. He reads the disbelief in her expression, shakes his head. “It wasn’t Sam.”
“Yeah, right, I know.” She’s shivering, too, a little, half of her clothing cold and wet, half of her long hair damp and curling. “Okay…just hang tight there for a sec and I’m gonna call 911.” She pulls her phone from her jacket pocket and is stopped before she can press any buttons, bloody fingers tightening around her arm almost hard enough to hurt.
“No,” Dean grits. “Don’t do that, just…” His eyes search the bar with the frightened ferocity of a cornered animal, and it scares her. “Just get me something from the bar and see if this dive has a first aid kit.”
Jo shakes off his hand and steps back out of his reach. She stomps her foot, the heel of her boot against the wooden floorboard echoing through the room. “No, Dean, you need - “
“Jo.” Loudly, white fist clenched on the tabletop. “Please. I need to find him, fast. I can’t…” The look in his eyes is indescribable, infuriates her and tugs at her heart all at the same time.
“Fine,” she relents with an angry sigh. Stupid, stubborn hard-headed assholes. Every single hunter she’s ever met. Her dad, even. She clomps behind the bar and grabs the first full bottle she sees, something with a crow on the label, and starts toward the office.
A sharp whistle stops her, turns her back to the room. He waves his good arm, motions her over. “Bring that here first.”
“Right.” She sets the bottle gently on the table and he grabs it up immediately, realizes just as quickly he doesn’t have the two good hands necessary to twist off the cap by himself. Jo reaches out, opens the bottle for him.
He nods a brief thanks, tips his head back to allow a big gulp of room temperature whiskey to do its patented pain-dulling thing.
“My dad used to like the whiskey for this part, too,” she says without thinking. Has to be without thinking, considering the last conversation they had.
The bottle thunks heavily to the table, and his swallow is audible. “First aid kit?”
“Yeah, in back.” She goes back to Mick’s office, where the emergency case is in the bottom drawer of his desk. “We’ve broken up a couple of a fights,” she calls out to Dean as she retrieves the kit and starts back toward the table. “The lowlifes hit the road, and the good guys get - “
“Nurse Jo’s special bedside manner?” he cracks tiredly, but not without bite.
She drops the case to the table and it’s just reflex, the playful punch she throws, but he folds in on himself like a paper menu, hisses and holds his shoulder tightly, white-knuckling through a wave of pain.
“I’m sorry, Dean, I didn’t mean to - “
“S’okay, really. I deserved that.” Through clenched teeth, shaking his head. “Okay, have a seat.”
She swallows, unzips her jacket and pulls out of it, tosses it aside. She sits, pops open the case. “I assume you’ve done this before?”
He grins, almost. “Not exactly this, believe it or not. But I can talk you through it.” He moves to shrug out of his coat, gets his right arm free but glances over sheepishly, stuck at the left.
Jo jumps up from her chair, pulls at the damp collar of his coat, gently tugs the sleeve down his arm, revealing a bloodstain on his shirt the size of her fist. “Oh, God,” she breathes. Her fingers twitch in the direction of her phone, thinking again she should tell Dean exactly where he can stick this bull-headed macho act, because, minors cuts and scrapes, okay, but she is so not equipped to deal with a gunshot wound in the middle of a dirty barroom.
“Not as bad as it looks,” he says, like he knows what she’s thinking. “It’ll be a piece of cake.”
She doesn’t believe him, but helps him out of the button-down. “Yeah, sure.”
“Okay, now cut…” He makes a scissoring motion with his right hand, gives up and drops it heavily to the bottle of whiskey. “Just cut.” He brings the whiskey to his lips.
“I think I can manage that.” A couple swift cuts with the medical scissors, and the sleeve of his dark t-shirt falls open like curtains, exposes a small neat hole in the fleshy spot just below the shoulder joint. A thin trickle of blood pumps deceptively slow from the wound. She can’t help herself, brushes tentative fingers along his shoulder blade, doesn’t find a partnering hole there marking the bullet’s exit. “Looks like it’s still in there.”
He barks a humorless laugh. “Yeah, I can feel it.” His fingers tighten around the neck of the bottle as he nods down at the long tweezers in the case. “Now just get in there and get the little bitch.”
Jo can feel the blood draining from her face. “Dean, I don’t think I can - “
“Hey, Jo, look at me.” His hand is cold on her arm, and his stare is intense, bright. “You can do this.”
He’s playing tough for her, and she figures the least she can do is repay the favor, seeing as how he probably saved her life. She straightens in her chair, takes a deep breath. “Okay. Yeah, sure, piece of cake, right?”
Tweezers in the hole, and she has to start talking to keep from vomiting, to keep from focusing on the sound of flesh and everything underneath ripping as she pokes and prods with the sharp tip and the accompanying unprotected noises of pain coming from the only person she’s ever met who’s tough enough to remind her of her dad. She remembers the front her mom would put on when faced with this task. She’d break down later when Dad was sleeping it off and she didn’t know Jo was watching, red-faced and shaking with sobs, but in the moment it was always stern smacks and, William Harvelle, sit still and give me two minutes to patch you up before you bleed to death all over the kitchen floor I just finished mopping.
So she bites her lip and bitches and chides and he grips the edge of the table and calls her a butcher and he’s probably not wrong. She no idea what kind of mess she’s made of the muscle and tissue inside as she searched for the bullet.
But it’s out now and Dean’s making like he’s gonna walk out of there with a leaky hole cutting halfway through his upper body and she channels her mother, snaps at him just like Mom snapped at Dad, and it works, pins him back in his seat. But the thought of Dad dovetails back to all of the horrible things Sam, or the demon inside him, had said, and she’s young enough to still be predominantly selfish, so while jamming a gauze pad into the hole it’s, do demons ever tell the truth?
Because she wants to take advantage of the situation, wants to get an unfiltered answer that will put her mind at ease, something like, nope, legit liars, every goddamn one. Don’t listen to anything they ever say, especially when they say I see you like a sister and my dad shot your dad in the head. She gets something unfiltered, an honest-to-God honest answer because he’s too tired for anything else, but it isn’t exactly what she’s looking for.
Why do I ask, Dean? Because I’m pretty sure your dad didn’t just let my dad die, I’m pretty sure your dad killed him. But that’s her problem, not his, so it’s, “Nothing,” that comes out of her mouth. “Doesn’t matter.”
She’s only been on her own a few months now, but it feels like a year since she’s seen a friendly face, and she isn’t ready to break it up now. She wants to hunt, and this is a demon, damn it, about as real as it gets and threatening her friends. Or, people that could maybe be friends if she can keep her emotions in check. She presses down the last piece of tape and hops to her feet. Okay, I’m all in now so let’s go get Sam.
When he laughs Jo wants to slug him, gimpy arm and all, but can’t see that adding much to the equation at this point. She should follow him out, ride this adrenaline high and be whatever weak-assed idea of backup she can manage, but he won’t have it.
She stomps her foot again, sure she’s driving home just how young and ill-notioned she is about this whole thing but it’s obvious he isn’t letting her out the door so she doesn’t have anything left to lose. “Wait.”
There are a dozen things she wants to say, all of them selfish, none of them relevant. She breaks eye contact, gaze dropping to the open case on the table, its thrown-about contents. She’s going to have to cough up a month’s tips to cover the cost of the Vicodin, but it’s the only thing she has to give him that he’ll take.
He won’t call and he doesn’t want her blood on his hands, but his is all over hers, and it takes a while to scrub it all from her fingers, but that’s just the blood, and that’s just her hands. She doesn’t know she’s crying until there’s still water falling after she turns off the tap. She runs hot, pink hands through her tangled hair, brings about a fresh sting of tears to her eyes when they connect with the goose egg on her forehead and all of a sudden her head HURTS.
She’d been having a pretty good night before Sam walked in, the only bartendress in a room full of horny pricks with fat wallets. Now she’s going to have to leave the entire wad of cash for Mick if she has a hope in hell of keeping this job, but it won’t scratch the surface of covering the damages.
The bar is a mess. There are knife holes in the posts and there’s glass. Everywhere. Beer bottles shattered into shimmery powder and the front picture window splintered into a million pieces. The glass tinkles like a music box as she sweeps it into a dustpan.
I can’t do this. Can’t do it.
It might just be the bump to the head or the suddenly ALONE feeling but Jo throws the broom to the floor with a loud clatter and grabs the receiver from the unit on the wall, dials the first number anyone memorizes.
Maybe if her mom had picked up on the first ring, but she doesn’t, and Jo has enough time before the second ring to think, I CAN do it. I did this, and she disconnects the call.
Title: Call It in the Air
Word Count: 1,700
Genre: Angsty Brotherly Love, Forced Holiday Cheer
Warnings: Language, Alcohol, Awkward Pauses, Sports References
Spoilers/Notes: Between 10.14 and 10.15, St Patty's Day. Also, callbacks to other fics of mine, "A Sunday" and "Observance"
After a late morning drive into town serving the dual purpose of weekly supply run and to fulfill a desire for a lungful of crisp fresh air promising a hastily approaching spring, Sam deposits a handful of plastic grocery bags into the kitchen and ventures out into the main room of the bunker. There are some personality traits that haven’t yet been permanently switched off by the things they’ve been through or the hunter he’s forcibly grown into, and he can’t help but survey the large room with the wide, hopeful eyes of a much younger Sam, looking for any sign of his big brother.
No dice, as usual, as has come to be expected. There are books and materials still laying open where Sam left them out last night but the room is otherwise empty and the lights are dark, and the silence is so pronounced and jarringly familiar it steals his breath and sets his heart into a panicked stutter for the briefest of moments.
But while the bunker carries the faint smell of dust and unwashed clothes, there’s no creeping sensation of death, and he should be used to the quiet by now. Sam swallows the uneasiness, pushes the fear aside, and goes back to the kitchen, where he hastily whips up something he’s sure will coax even Dean out of the prison he’s created for himself from the four walls of his room. And if that doesn’t work, he remembers Plan B, an opportunity for good, old-fashioned brotherly bonding. And finally, because Sam is always compulsively over-prepared, Plan C, the newspaper clipping. The promise of a hunt he’s keeping like the pocket ace that is always the undoing of one of these stubborn, self-flagellant fits of his brother’s.
“Well, if you guys will excuse me, I think I am gonna go sleep for about four days.”
That was nine days ago, and Sam’s been lucky to catch a peripheral glimpse of the Dean-ghost that occasionally haunts these halls when he thinks they’re otherwise unoccupied.
Sam resolutely travels a well-worn path to Dean’s room, grips the frosty glass with a suddenly sweaty palm and knocks tentatively on the doorframe. “Happy St. Patty’s Day.”
There are several seating options in Dean’s room that should certainly seem more appealing than the cold, hard concrete floor, but that seems to be where Sam always finds him. From his crossed-leg position next to his bed, Dean’s head whips up and around, and Sam sucks in a breath.
Sam used to be the pale one. Dean would tease and mock him mercilessly about all of the time he spent holed up indoors with books and homework and now Dean’s the one who hasn’t seen the sun in over a week, and that might be a modest estimation.
The bruises from his battle with Cain run bone-deep, and more than a week later there’s still more than enough visible evidence of a shocking amount of injury done. The ruddy splotches of day one had moved without ceremony to the opposite end of the color spectrum on day two, and half of Dean’s face had been appallingly black for days. Now, the stubborn contusions that are taking their sweet time in healing are a greenish yellow, standing out in stark contrast against his otherwise white skin.
There’s been a hiccup with one of the generators and the bunker’s been hot, stuffy for the past couple of days but while Sam’s opted for tees, Dean’s kept to long sleeves, concealing whatever lingering damage he can from his brother’s searching eyes. But when he’s seen Dean moving, he’s certainly doing so with the familiar hesitance of someone protecting broken ribs.
There’s a gauntness returning to his frame that brings Sam back in time a year and sends a shiver down his spine. They’re in a better place now, and the only thing he can do is handle this differently than he did then, make sure Dean knows he isn’t alone.
Sam steps fully into the room, holds aloft his offering. “I, uh, made you a green beer.”
Dean swallows audibly, tries to smile but one of the bruises halts its ascent before the motion reaches his eyes. “Thanks, but you kinda took the bloom off that rose a long time ago.”
Sam winces. “Sorry about that. All the same.” He sets the beer on the desktop, in the only patch of stained wood visible in a sea of stacked books and loose pages. The same research about tattoo and scar removal that he’s been reading and rereading and going cross-eyed over for weeks.
“Any word from Cas?”
“No.” Sam sees no need to expand, no need to tell Dean he’d sent the angel out of the bunker and threatened him not to set foot or wing here again until he has a plan for getting rid of the mark.
“S’kinda weird.”
“Uh huh. I mean, yeah, I guess.”
Dean quickly averts his eyes to the yellowed pages of the book in his hand as Sam uses this opportunity to take stock of the room. It doesn’t take long to confirm his concerns that his brother hasn’t been eating the meals Sam’s brought him. A bite missing from a sandwich here or there, but for the most part there are full plates stacked in a dangerous formation on top of the bureau. And whether he has an impressive and impressively hidden stash somewhere in the bunker or he’s been slipping out while Sam’s asleep, people have been called alcoholics for a lot less than the number of empty bottles he counts in the room, but that’s not to say it’s something Dean’s hidden or a label he’s shied away from in recent years. He’s owned it, but that doesn’t mean he’s comfortable with his little brother seeing him like this.
“It is what it is, Sam,” Dean speaks up in a low voice, like he knows what Sam’s thinking.
Yeah. Sam swallows, has a course set and keeps trying to pull his brother out of this hole he’s fallen into, throws another one for nothing. “They released the tournament bracket this weekend.”
Dean stares blankly, like he’s not only unsure of what the hell Sam might be talking about, but also what day of the week it might be. His eyes narrow and his head jerks. “Right. Basketball.” He produces a glass full of dark liquid from where it’s been so far concealed by his right leg, swallows half the contents in a hurried gulp. Sam guesses he needs the boost to go on feigning interest. “And?”
“Number two seed in the Midwest bracket.”
“Go Jayhawks,” Dean says flatly, returning his gaze to stare intently at his book.
“No Stanford this year, but…” And that just shoots them both into last year. Dean’s eyes drift away and Sam tries to get him back before his mind wanders down one of the darker paths it’s known to travel. “Game’s Friday. Maybe we can watch it.”
Dean clears his throat in a way experience has Sam knowing he’s about to look for the shortest route out of the conversation. “Yeah, maybe. I’ll have to check my schedule.” It’s a mouthful of all the right words from such a practiced smartass, but there’s no bite, no humor, and it’s concerning how much effort Dean’s having to put into being this pitiful shadow of his former self.
“Yeah.” What’s even worse is that he might still think Sam is buying any of it. Sam waits a moment, weighs his words against what’s at stake. “You know, you don’t have to hide in here and pretend to be strong, Dean.”
Dean throws his head back against the bed. “I’m not - “
“No, what I mean is…you don’t have to pretend.” This isn’t going to be the first time Sam says this to his brother, and isn’t likely to be the last, since Dean never seems to HEAR it. “You ARE strong. You’re one of the strongest - you ARE the strongest person I’ve ever known. That has to mean something. You have to know you can beat this.”
“Yeah. Okay.” Too quickly to have put much stock in what Sam has said, just as he’s feared.
Sam sighs, knows when he’s making a situation worse as opposed to better. He moves unhappily to Plan C. “This isn’t the reason I came down here.”
Dean glares up at him.
“Okay, it isn’t the ONLY reason I came down here.” Sam pulls the torn scrap of newspaper from his pocket, unfolds the thin page and holds it out. “Found a job, I think. Just a haunting, and only a couple of towns over.”
“Hunting. It’s the only normal I know.”
But things change swiftly in their world, more often than not without pause or explanation. Dean scans over the article too quickly to really be giving it any thought, extends his arm and the paper back to Sam. “Should be easy for you, then.”
“Dean - “
“You can do a salt and burn with one hand tied behind your back, Sam. You’re a big boy, and I don’t need a pity invite. I’m fine. I’m good.”
“Yeah.” Sam folds the paper, holds it in his hands, waits there in the uncomfortable space between not quite in the room but not yet shut out completely.
Dean continues staring at the book in his hands, chewing the inside of his cheek, and Sam knows he only has to wait him out. The problem is, Dean is really good at this game.
But there had to come a day when Sam would win one. Dean finally sighs, cocks his head and drops the book and nods at the glass sweating on the desk. “Thanks for the beer. Really. That was a nice callback.”
“Don’t mention it. I’ll let you know how this ghost thing turns out.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
Sam retreats into the hall feeling no better than he did when he went in.
Title: Believe in What You Want
Word Count: 1,700
Genre: H/C
Warnings: Language, Stubborn!Dean, Sneaky!Sam
Spoilers/Notes: Post-ep 1.11, Spoilers for 1.10 and 1.11
It doesn’t seem to be bothering Dean, but they’re rumbling on maybe forty miles outside of Burkitsville when the silence in the car finally gets to Sam. All jokes and close calls and guilt over rock salt-loaded shotguns aside, something has been eating at Sam for the better part of the morning, and he’s not known to be one who’s able to keep such things to himself for long. They’ve had a hell of a week, and he needs to drown out any thoughts that would negatively affect the truce he’s just called with his brother, knows himself too well to be disillusioned into thinking they’ll make it to dinnertime without having this out if he has nothing better to do than dwell.
Of course, Sam is not permitted to touch any part of this car without Dean’s express permission, which has been made clear multiple times over the past few months with varying degrees of head slaps. “You want music?”
Dean sucks in a breath, adjusts his grip on the steering wheel in a manner that suggests the very act of hearing Sam’s voice has physically pained him. The sleeve of his blue jacket rides up, revealing a mess of thin abrasions encircling his wrist that Sam hadn’t really noticed until now, attention drawn instead to the blue spring flower is blossoming around his brother’s eye. While the swelling seems to have gone down, the residual headache is clearly raging on, which could explain the lack of tunes and the fact he’s been in a shitty mood since they hit the road. Deep creases tug at the corners of Dean’s eyes as he squints in the sunlight, but he hasn’t made a move for his sunglasses in the glove box. All of it ratchets up Sam’s concern, momentarily quells the frustration and clinging sense of betrayal he’s been harboring since they climbed into the car.
Dean clears his throat. “Sure. Yeah, if you do.”
It’s a bluff, and not one of his best. Dean won’t stomach being babied, or generally taken care of, any more than he would the thought of light beer. Or possibly, any food or drink at the moment. Sam has to draw him out, nice and slow and stealthy-like.
Because it’s not as much fun to call Dean on his bullshit when he isn’t in top form.
And he can still squeeze a little enjoyment from this while he’s at it. “Cool.” Sam flips the knob, immediately filling the car with an earsplitting flush of static, the white noise residing between station frequencies. It’s only mildly annoying to his own ears but he’s not the one who’s probably concussed. Dean recoils with a grimace, lips flattened into a thin line.
Sam takes his time adjusting the dials, searching for a station, while Dean’s fingers tighten around the wheel.
“Just turn that damn thing off,” he snaps.
Sam turns the knob with a click and pivots with as innocent as expression as he can muster. “Headache?”
Dean purses his lips, sucks in his cheeks. “Yeah.”
Sam gestures to the welt under Dean’s eyebrow, the bruise covering roughly a quarter of his face. “What did that?”
Dean’s glassy eyes give him away more than the hesitation before he answers. “Rifle.”
“Barrel?”
“Stock.”
“Butt?”
Dean nods stiffly.
“Ouch.” Sam hisses sympathetically through his teeth, but Dean had to think about it. He almost smiles, because he knows his beautifully dumb big brother believes that this nugget of honesty will cut Sam off at the pass. Sorry, bro. He stretches casually on the bench seat. “You hungry?”
The growl of Dean’s stomach is audible in the otherwise silent car, but it’s not one of hunger. Dean swallows a couple of times. “No, not really.”
Sam puts a mental check in that box. “We don’t have another job lined up. We can pull off for the night if you want.”
“What are you talking about? It’s not even lunchtime.” Just the word has Dean swallowing again.
“Well, it’s been a hell of a week, Dean. I don’t think a little rest would kill either one of us.” He thinks a moment before adding, “You, especially.”
“What, cuz you shot me a coupla days ago? Sorry to disappoint, Sammy, but I don’t go down that easy.” Shut the hell up, Sam, is easy enough to translate.
Sam sits back heavily, and after that low blow he’s done pulling his punches. “Dean, I am sorry about that, I am, but I’m not talking about what happened in Rockford, I’m talking about the apparent rifle butt to your face that gave you the concussion you’re trying to pretend you don’t have.”
Dean exhales in what might have been a laugh if he’d been feeling better, but as it is manages to do little more than graze the very edge of amusement. “I don’t have a concussion, Sam. I think I would be the first one to know if I had a concussion.”
“How long were you out?”
“Don’t know,” Dean answers smugly. He has yet to look over at Sam. “It was still light out when I woke up in…” Then he clamps his teeth down around the rest before he gives himself away entirely.
Too late. Sam nods tightly. Transported to a second location without coming to. Awesome. He rolls his eyes. “How long has it been since you’ve slept or eaten?”
“Probably the same as you. My God, do you have a concussion?”
“So you want me to discount the fact that you’re white as a sheet and can barely move?” Sam bobs his head. “Which, it turns out, is exactly the safest way to drive a giant car with a shitty turning radius on a crowded interstate.”
“So first you shoot me, then you ditch me, then you bitch about my car.”
“Will you stop trying to shake me off this conversation and please just pull over? If you don’t want to stop somewhere then at least let me drive for a while.”
“Fine,” Dean clips. “If it will shut you the hell up.” He jerks the Impala to the berm and slams her into ‘park.’ Before Sam can move he’s already thrown himself out of the door and started around the front of the car. Sam’s got one leg in the tall grass when Dean stumbles and falls on his palms against the hood.
There it is. Not like he likes to be right or anything. Sam rushes out, holds out his hands to steady Dean if he needs it but keeps them ultimately to himself. He hadn’t thought there was a paler shade Dean could turn, but his stubborn brother has gone and found it, crumpled against the grill of the Impala. “You need to puke?”
Dean risks a slow, unconvincing shake of his head. “I’m good.”
“Yeah. Yeah, you’re good.” Sam sighs and slaps a gentle hand on Dean’s shoulder.
*********************************************************
He’s got the lights in the room nice and low, a thin hand towel thrown over the top of the lampshade to dull the stab of the bright bulb. Dean’s got a couple of aspirin down the hatch, managed to keep these ones down so far, and a second towel full of ice held to the side of his head, face drawn while pulling in slow, deliberate breaths.
“Need to puke again?”
“Shut up about it, bitch.”
“Sure.”
Sam leans forward in his chair, laces his fingers together between his knees. He’d told himself not to go at Dean until he was at a hundred percent, but Dean has always been smarter than he’s been given credit for. He’s very rarely caught with his pants around his ankles, and even with this head injury Sam is safe in assuming Dean is anticipating the inquiry, battling his headache to get a story worked out.
“So how long have you known?” he asks, eyes ready to scrutinize Dean’s reaction for every known tell in his repertoire.
“Known what?”
“That it was a demon that killed Mom.”
Dean’s eyes remain closed but he shifts slightly, licks his dry lips. “Sam, what the hell are you talking about?”
“I saw your face, Dean, when Dad called the other day. When I mentioned a demon, you weren’t exactly surprised.”
Dean swallows, moves his lips around a few different responses before settling on one and drawing in a deep breath. “Sam, I swear I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Sam shakes his head, not buying what Dean is selling. “After all of this, you knew the whole time what killed Jess.”
“Sam - “
“No, Dean. I don’t believe you.”
Dean pulls away the homemade ice pack and draws himself up on his elbow, immediately draining any color left from his face. “Sam, I can’t make you believe me, but if you wanna treat me like I’ve got a freakin’ concussion, then you gotta give me the benefit of the doubt when I tell you that I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about.”
Sam sits back in his chair and stares at his brother a long moment, unable to get a good read on him, not sure what to believe. He swallows, frustrated, and flicks his glance away, where it falls on their packs on the table, the corner of the first aid case. “You need anything for those marks?” he asks in a tone signaling surrender, jerking his chin at his Dean’s raw wrists.
Dean falls back gingerly against his pillow and rotates his right hand, wincing as the abrasions there shift and pull, but shakes his head. “Nah, it’s cool.”
“Okay.” Sam runs a hand over his face and moves to stand. “I’m gonna get some fresh air. Get some rest and I’ll wake you up in an hour.”
“Yeah. I know the drill.”
“I know you do.”
He can’t help but think maybe Dean got lucky, running afoul of the butt of that rifle when he did. Or maybe Sam just showed his hand too early. Either way, he knew they’d be lucky if the truce lasted until dinnertime.
Title: Reason 346
Word Count: 900
Genre: Family Love and Togetherness, Sibling Rivalry
Warnings: Bratty Young Sam, Brief Mild Language, Briefer Sour Lemon Face, Old-School Banter
Spoilers: Mid-ep for 1.01 Pilot
Sam wiggles on the bench, adjusts his shoulders and kicks his giant feet around on the floorboards a bit before flopping hard against the seatback and exhaling a hot breath of restlessness and general discomfort, stares out of the window like a wounded puppy.
Dean smirks, chuckles in honest and healthy amusement. “Sorry, Sammy. We’re still a few hours out of Jericho. What, none of your genius prepster friends drive a real car? Or is just that your Sasquatch body can’t fit anymore?”
“Sam. And shut up. You know, all the time I spent being carted around in this thing, I can’t believe I actually forgot how stiff these seats can be.”
“And now look atcha. Finally graduated to the front seat, little brother.”
“Yeah, lucky me.” Another long sigh. “Dad’s gonna flip when he sees what you did to the trunk.”
Dean quirks a confused eyebrow. “Yeah, I guess.”
“You guess? How many meals did we eat in this car when were kids? Ballpark, maybe fifty percent? And he STILL blew a gasket if we dropped even one fry.”
Dean resists the urge to lay a soothing hand on the dash. “Well, maybe you could have treated her with a little more respect and not started so many food fights.”
“Yeah, because I’m the one that started them.” Sam props an elbow on the door. “Do you know how creepy it is when you call it ‘her’? Dad did that, too.”
Dean forgot how Sammy can flip the switch, shift gears from Worried About Dad to Annoying As Shit with little to no warning. Forgot that trashing Dad is what Sam considers small talk. And he’s not necessary pleased with the past tense he just heard coming out of his brother’s mouth, but he chocks it all up to lack of sleep and breakfast, rolls his neck and shoves a new cassette into the desk.
Sam reaches out and turns down the volume like this is his first rodeo, makes Dean smack his hand away. He falls back into the door with a squint. “So how’d you get the old man to let you use the car, anyway?”
“Hmm?” Dean clips out, annoyed.
“I’m not trying to say anything. I’m just wondering. He let you borrow it for that job you were working in New Orleans? What’d you say it was?”
“It was a hoodoo - what are you talking about, borrow it?”
“I mean, honestly, I find it harder to believe he ditched the Impala than to believe he ditched you. No offense.”
Sam always means offense, but Dean lets it slide right off of him, because he gets it then, almost gloats when he says, “He didn’t ditch me, or the car. Sam, the car’s been mine for years.”
Sam actually laughs, a quick high-pitched whine like a screaming tea kettle. “Yeah, right. Dad cares more about this car than he does either one of us.”
Jesus, Sammy. “Damn it, Sam, the man is missing. Can we not…” Even as he’s reaching to pop the glove box, Dean can’t believe he’s about to give Sam the satisfaction. The little voice in his head asking, He keeps both eyes on the road as he sifts past the cigar box of IDs and, okay, a couple of greasy burger wrappers the old man wouldn’t be particularly happy with, to wrestle out the title and registration, drops them both into Sam’s lap on the way out.
Sam stares a moment, holds up the registration card. “This’s expired. Like, by a lot.”
“Check the name, Officer Do-Gooder.”
Dean feels a swell of unchecked pride as he glimpses Sam’s head bobbing in his peripheral, lips pursed in that prissy way he’s really not missed these past few years.
Sam shifts the papers in his hand, studies the title. “This’s…this is around the time I left for school.” And he downshifts harshly from Annoying As Shit to Furious For The Hell Of It. “What, Dad buy you off for not going after me?”
Dean shakes his head, adjusts his grip on the steering wheel. “That’s not how it happened.”
“Unbelievable. He did, didn’t he?”
Son of a bitch. “That’s not how it happened, Sam.”
Sam snorts. “Yeah, like Dad has never rewarded you for towing the line and doing what he says.”
Dean thumps the wheel with his palm. “You know, Sammy, you’re damn right. And this, this panicked scouring of the country, me coming to get you? This is me reaping my rewards.”
Each Winchester has a tone at which they’re communicating BACK OFF and Dean has just taken his. They might not be close anymore but Sam recognizes it, raises his hands. “Okay, sorry, point taken.” He crams the paperwork back into the glove compartment. “But don’t call me Sammy.”
“Yeah, sure.” Dean rolls his neck, spots an exit coming up. “I need some caffeine, we’re gonna keep going.” A quick check of the dash. “So does my girl.”
Sam shakes his head. “So creepy.”
Tis what I've been working on lately.
Word Count: 2,100
Genre: Nuthin' but good ol' fashioned H/C
Warnings: Language
Spoilers/Notes: Mid-ep BUABS, triage in the bar
“God, you weigh, like, four hundred pounds,” she mutters, breath clouding in front of her face and muscles screaming uncle as they stagger-climb the squat steps to the bar’s delivery entrance, a short walk from the pier that should have taken five minutes but clocked in at nearly twenty.
His frustration is almost more palpable than his very obvious pain. “You should’ve been watchin’ the car,” he grits, leaning on the railing while she fumbles with the knob. “See which way he went.”
“Yeah, well, I got sorta distracted by the gunshot,” Jo huffs back, giving up and kicking in the door. She adjusts her grip on Dean’s water-logged coat, lake water pooling in the dents her fingers are making in the fabric.
He trips on the threshold, sends them stumbling sideways into the bar. He can’t stop the momentum of his weight, and she ends up sandwiched between him and the ledge of the bar, crying out as her shoulder blades are ground roughly into the polished wood. Ow. Fuck, that’s gonna leave a mark.
“Sorry.” He’s trying to get his feet back under him, pushes off the counter.
“Don’t worry about it.” She fists the front of his coat, braces her foot at the base of the bar and shoves up at the same time, sets a course for the nearest chair, lets Dean do little more than fall into it so she can step back and assess the situation.
He’s soaked, freezing, and pale as the moon with deep lines etched at the corners of his eyes, gripping his left shoulder and shivering from some combination of cold and pain. He reads the disbelief in her expression, shakes his head. “It wasn’t Sam.”
“Yeah, right, I know.” She’s shivering, too, a little, half of her clothing cold and wet, half of her long hair damp and curling. “Okay…just hang tight there for a sec and I’m gonna call 911.” She pulls her phone from her jacket pocket and is stopped before she can press any buttons, bloody fingers tightening around her arm almost hard enough to hurt.
“No,” Dean grits. “Don’t do that, just…” His eyes search the bar with the frightened ferocity of a cornered animal, and it scares her. “Just get me something from the bar and see if this dive has a first aid kit.”
Jo shakes off his hand and steps back out of his reach. She stomps her foot, the heel of her boot against the wooden floorboard echoing through the room. “No, Dean, you need - “
“Jo.” Loudly, white fist clenched on the tabletop. “Please. I need to find him, fast. I can’t…” The look in his eyes is indescribable, infuriates her and tugs at her heart all at the same time.
“Fine,” she relents with an angry sigh. Stupid, stubborn hard-headed assholes. Every single hunter she’s ever met. Her dad, even. She clomps behind the bar and grabs the first full bottle she sees, something with a crow on the label, and starts toward the office.
A sharp whistle stops her, turns her back to the room. He waves his good arm, motions her over. “Bring that here first.”
“Right.” She sets the bottle gently on the table and he grabs it up immediately, realizes just as quickly he doesn’t have the two good hands necessary to twist off the cap by himself. Jo reaches out, opens the bottle for him.
He nods a brief thanks, tips his head back to allow a big gulp of room temperature whiskey to do its patented pain-dulling thing.
“My dad used to like the whiskey for this part, too,” she says without thinking. Has to be without thinking, considering the last conversation they had.
The bottle thunks heavily to the table, and his swallow is audible. “First aid kit?”
“Yeah, in back.” She goes back to Mick’s office, where the emergency case is in the bottom drawer of his desk. “We’ve broken up a couple of a fights,” she calls out to Dean as she retrieves the kit and starts back toward the table. “The lowlifes hit the road, and the good guys get - “
“Nurse Jo’s special bedside manner?” he cracks tiredly, but not without bite.
She drops the case to the table and it’s just reflex, the playful punch she throws, but he folds in on himself like a paper menu, hisses and holds his shoulder tightly, white-knuckling through a wave of pain.
“I’m sorry, Dean, I didn’t mean to - “
“S’okay, really. I deserved that.” Through clenched teeth, shaking his head. “Okay, have a seat.”
She swallows, unzips her jacket and pulls out of it, tosses it aside. She sits, pops open the case. “I assume you’ve done this before?”
He grins, almost. “Not exactly this, believe it or not. But I can talk you through it.” He moves to shrug out of his coat, gets his right arm free but glances over sheepishly, stuck at the left.
Jo jumps up from her chair, pulls at the damp collar of his coat, gently tugs the sleeve down his arm, revealing a bloodstain on his shirt the size of her fist. “Oh, God,” she breathes. Her fingers twitch in the direction of her phone, thinking again she should tell Dean exactly where he can stick this bull-headed macho act, because, minors cuts and scrapes, okay, but she is so not equipped to deal with a gunshot wound in the middle of a dirty barroom.
“Not as bad as it looks,” he says, like he knows what she’s thinking. “It’ll be a piece of cake.”
She doesn’t believe him, but helps him out of the button-down. “Yeah, sure.”
“Okay, now cut…” He makes a scissoring motion with his right hand, gives up and drops it heavily to the bottle of whiskey. “Just cut.” He brings the whiskey to his lips.
“I think I can manage that.” A couple swift cuts with the medical scissors, and the sleeve of his dark t-shirt falls open like curtains, exposes a small neat hole in the fleshy spot just below the shoulder joint. A thin trickle of blood pumps deceptively slow from the wound. She can’t help herself, brushes tentative fingers along his shoulder blade, doesn’t find a partnering hole there marking the bullet’s exit. “Looks like it’s still in there.”
He barks a humorless laugh. “Yeah, I can feel it.” His fingers tighten around the neck of the bottle as he nods down at the long tweezers in the case. “Now just get in there and get the little bitch.”
Jo can feel the blood draining from her face. “Dean, I don’t think I can - “
“Hey, Jo, look at me.” His hand is cold on her arm, and his stare is intense, bright. “You can do this.”
He’s playing tough for her, and she figures the least she can do is repay the favor, seeing as how he probably saved her life. She straightens in her chair, takes a deep breath. “Okay. Yeah, sure, piece of cake, right?”
Tweezers in the hole, and she has to start talking to keep from vomiting, to keep from focusing on the sound of flesh and everything underneath ripping as she pokes and prods with the sharp tip and the accompanying unprotected noises of pain coming from the only person she’s ever met who’s tough enough to remind her of her dad. She remembers the front her mom would put on when faced with this task. She’d break down later when Dad was sleeping it off and she didn’t know Jo was watching, red-faced and shaking with sobs, but in the moment it was always stern smacks and, William Harvelle, sit still and give me two minutes to patch you up before you bleed to death all over the kitchen floor I just finished mopping.
So she bites her lip and bitches and chides and he grips the edge of the table and calls her a butcher and he’s probably not wrong. She no idea what kind of mess she’s made of the muscle and tissue inside as she searched for the bullet.
But it’s out now and Dean’s making like he’s gonna walk out of there with a leaky hole cutting halfway through his upper body and she channels her mother, snaps at him just like Mom snapped at Dad, and it works, pins him back in his seat. But the thought of Dad dovetails back to all of the horrible things Sam, or the demon inside him, had said, and she’s young enough to still be predominantly selfish, so while jamming a gauze pad into the hole it’s, do demons ever tell the truth?
Because she wants to take advantage of the situation, wants to get an unfiltered answer that will put her mind at ease, something like, nope, legit liars, every goddamn one. Don’t listen to anything they ever say, especially when they say I see you like a sister and my dad shot your dad in the head. She gets something unfiltered, an honest-to-God honest answer because he’s too tired for anything else, but it isn’t exactly what she’s looking for.
Why do I ask, Dean? Because I’m pretty sure your dad didn’t just let my dad die, I’m pretty sure your dad killed him. But that’s her problem, not his, so it’s, “Nothing,” that comes out of her mouth. “Doesn’t matter.”
She’s only been on her own a few months now, but it feels like a year since she’s seen a friendly face, and she isn’t ready to break it up now. She wants to hunt, and this is a demon, damn it, about as real as it gets and threatening her friends. Or, people that could maybe be friends if she can keep her emotions in check. She presses down the last piece of tape and hops to her feet. Okay, I’m all in now so let’s go get Sam.
When he laughs Jo wants to slug him, gimpy arm and all, but can’t see that adding much to the equation at this point. She should follow him out, ride this adrenaline high and be whatever weak-assed idea of backup she can manage, but he won’t have it.
She stomps her foot again, sure she’s driving home just how young and ill-notioned she is about this whole thing but it’s obvious he isn’t letting her out the door so she doesn’t have anything left to lose. “Wait.”
There are a dozen things she wants to say, all of them selfish, none of them relevant. She breaks eye contact, gaze dropping to the open case on the table, its thrown-about contents. She’s going to have to cough up a month’s tips to cover the cost of the Vicodin, but it’s the only thing she has to give him that he’ll take.
He won’t call and he doesn’t want her blood on his hands, but his is all over hers, and it takes a while to scrub it all from her fingers, but that’s just the blood, and that’s just her hands. She doesn’t know she’s crying until there’s still water falling after she turns off the tap. She runs hot, pink hands through her tangled hair, brings about a fresh sting of tears to her eyes when they connect with the goose egg on her forehead and all of a sudden her head HURTS.
She’d been having a pretty good night before Sam walked in, the only bartendress in a room full of horny pricks with fat wallets. Now she’s going to have to leave the entire wad of cash for Mick if she has a hope in hell of keeping this job, but it won’t scratch the surface of covering the damages.
The bar is a mess. There are knife holes in the posts and there’s glass. Everywhere. Beer bottles shattered into shimmery powder and the front picture window splintered into a million pieces. The glass tinkles like a music box as she sweeps it into a dustpan.
I can’t do this. Can’t do it.
It might just be the bump to the head or the suddenly ALONE feeling but Jo throws the broom to the floor with a loud clatter and grabs the receiver from the unit on the wall, dials the first number anyone memorizes.
Maybe if her mom had picked up on the first ring, but she doesn’t, and Jo has enough time before the second ring to think, I CAN do it. I did this, and she disconnects the call.
Title: Call It in the Air
Word Count: 1,700
Genre: Angsty Brotherly Love, Forced Holiday Cheer
Warnings: Language, Alcohol, Awkward Pauses, Sports References
Spoilers/Notes: Between 10.14 and 10.15, St Patty's Day. Also, callbacks to other fics of mine, "A Sunday" and "Observance"
After a late morning drive into town serving the dual purpose of weekly supply run and to fulfill a desire for a lungful of crisp fresh air promising a hastily approaching spring, Sam deposits a handful of plastic grocery bags into the kitchen and ventures out into the main room of the bunker. There are some personality traits that haven’t yet been permanently switched off by the things they’ve been through or the hunter he’s forcibly grown into, and he can’t help but survey the large room with the wide, hopeful eyes of a much younger Sam, looking for any sign of his big brother.
No dice, as usual, as has come to be expected. There are books and materials still laying open where Sam left them out last night but the room is otherwise empty and the lights are dark, and the silence is so pronounced and jarringly familiar it steals his breath and sets his heart into a panicked stutter for the briefest of moments.
But while the bunker carries the faint smell of dust and unwashed clothes, there’s no creeping sensation of death, and he should be used to the quiet by now. Sam swallows the uneasiness, pushes the fear aside, and goes back to the kitchen, where he hastily whips up something he’s sure will coax even Dean out of the prison he’s created for himself from the four walls of his room. And if that doesn’t work, he remembers Plan B, an opportunity for good, old-fashioned brotherly bonding. And finally, because Sam is always compulsively over-prepared, Plan C, the newspaper clipping. The promise of a hunt he’s keeping like the pocket ace that is always the undoing of one of these stubborn, self-flagellant fits of his brother’s.
“Well, if you guys will excuse me, I think I am gonna go sleep for about four days.”
That was nine days ago, and Sam’s been lucky to catch a peripheral glimpse of the Dean-ghost that occasionally haunts these halls when he thinks they’re otherwise unoccupied.
Sam resolutely travels a well-worn path to Dean’s room, grips the frosty glass with a suddenly sweaty palm and knocks tentatively on the doorframe. “Happy St. Patty’s Day.”
There are several seating options in Dean’s room that should certainly seem more appealing than the cold, hard concrete floor, but that seems to be where Sam always finds him. From his crossed-leg position next to his bed, Dean’s head whips up and around, and Sam sucks in a breath.
Sam used to be the pale one. Dean would tease and mock him mercilessly about all of the time he spent holed up indoors with books and homework and now Dean’s the one who hasn’t seen the sun in over a week, and that might be a modest estimation.
The bruises from his battle with Cain run bone-deep, and more than a week later there’s still more than enough visible evidence of a shocking amount of injury done. The ruddy splotches of day one had moved without ceremony to the opposite end of the color spectrum on day two, and half of Dean’s face had been appallingly black for days. Now, the stubborn contusions that are taking their sweet time in healing are a greenish yellow, standing out in stark contrast against his otherwise white skin.
There’s been a hiccup with one of the generators and the bunker’s been hot, stuffy for the past couple of days but while Sam’s opted for tees, Dean’s kept to long sleeves, concealing whatever lingering damage he can from his brother’s searching eyes. But when he’s seen Dean moving, he’s certainly doing so with the familiar hesitance of someone protecting broken ribs.
There’s a gauntness returning to his frame that brings Sam back in time a year and sends a shiver down his spine. They’re in a better place now, and the only thing he can do is handle this differently than he did then, make sure Dean knows he isn’t alone.
Sam steps fully into the room, holds aloft his offering. “I, uh, made you a green beer.”
Dean swallows audibly, tries to smile but one of the bruises halts its ascent before the motion reaches his eyes. “Thanks, but you kinda took the bloom off that rose a long time ago.”
Sam winces. “Sorry about that. All the same.” He sets the beer on the desktop, in the only patch of stained wood visible in a sea of stacked books and loose pages. The same research about tattoo and scar removal that he’s been reading and rereading and going cross-eyed over for weeks.
“Any word from Cas?”
“No.” Sam sees no need to expand, no need to tell Dean he’d sent the angel out of the bunker and threatened him not to set foot or wing here again until he has a plan for getting rid of the mark.
“S’kinda weird.”
“Uh huh. I mean, yeah, I guess.”
Dean quickly averts his eyes to the yellowed pages of the book in his hand as Sam uses this opportunity to take stock of the room. It doesn’t take long to confirm his concerns that his brother hasn’t been eating the meals Sam’s brought him. A bite missing from a sandwich here or there, but for the most part there are full plates stacked in a dangerous formation on top of the bureau. And whether he has an impressive and impressively hidden stash somewhere in the bunker or he’s been slipping out while Sam’s asleep, people have been called alcoholics for a lot less than the number of empty bottles he counts in the room, but that’s not to say it’s something Dean’s hidden or a label he’s shied away from in recent years. He’s owned it, but that doesn’t mean he’s comfortable with his little brother seeing him like this.
“It is what it is, Sam,” Dean speaks up in a low voice, like he knows what Sam’s thinking.
Yeah. Sam swallows, has a course set and keeps trying to pull his brother out of this hole he’s fallen into, throws another one for nothing. “They released the tournament bracket this weekend.”
Dean stares blankly, like he’s not only unsure of what the hell Sam might be talking about, but also what day of the week it might be. His eyes narrow and his head jerks. “Right. Basketball.” He produces a glass full of dark liquid from where it’s been so far concealed by his right leg, swallows half the contents in a hurried gulp. Sam guesses he needs the boost to go on feigning interest. “And?”
“Number two seed in the Midwest bracket.”
“Go Jayhawks,” Dean says flatly, returning his gaze to stare intently at his book.
“No Stanford this year, but…” And that just shoots them both into last year. Dean’s eyes drift away and Sam tries to get him back before his mind wanders down one of the darker paths it’s known to travel. “Game’s Friday. Maybe we can watch it.”
Dean clears his throat in a way experience has Sam knowing he’s about to look for the shortest route out of the conversation. “Yeah, maybe. I’ll have to check my schedule.” It’s a mouthful of all the right words from such a practiced smartass, but there’s no bite, no humor, and it’s concerning how much effort Dean’s having to put into being this pitiful shadow of his former self.
“Yeah.” What’s even worse is that he might still think Sam is buying any of it. Sam waits a moment, weighs his words against what’s at stake. “You know, you don’t have to hide in here and pretend to be strong, Dean.”
Dean throws his head back against the bed. “I’m not - “
“No, what I mean is…you don’t have to pretend.” This isn’t going to be the first time Sam says this to his brother, and isn’t likely to be the last, since Dean never seems to HEAR it. “You ARE strong. You’re one of the strongest - you ARE the strongest person I’ve ever known. That has to mean something. You have to know you can beat this.”
“Yeah. Okay.” Too quickly to have put much stock in what Sam has said, just as he’s feared.
Sam sighs, knows when he’s making a situation worse as opposed to better. He moves unhappily to Plan C. “This isn’t the reason I came down here.”
Dean glares up at him.
“Okay, it isn’t the ONLY reason I came down here.” Sam pulls the torn scrap of newspaper from his pocket, unfolds the thin page and holds it out. “Found a job, I think. Just a haunting, and only a couple of towns over.”
“Hunting. It’s the only normal I know.”
But things change swiftly in their world, more often than not without pause or explanation. Dean scans over the article too quickly to really be giving it any thought, extends his arm and the paper back to Sam. “Should be easy for you, then.”
“Dean - “
“You can do a salt and burn with one hand tied behind your back, Sam. You’re a big boy, and I don’t need a pity invite. I’m fine. I’m good.”
“Yeah.” Sam folds the paper, holds it in his hands, waits there in the uncomfortable space between not quite in the room but not yet shut out completely.
Dean continues staring at the book in his hands, chewing the inside of his cheek, and Sam knows he only has to wait him out. The problem is, Dean is really good at this game.
But there had to come a day when Sam would win one. Dean finally sighs, cocks his head and drops the book and nods at the glass sweating on the desk. “Thanks for the beer. Really. That was a nice callback.”
“Don’t mention it. I’ll let you know how this ghost thing turns out.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
Sam retreats into the hall feeling no better than he did when he went in.
Title: Believe in What You Want
Word Count: 1,700
Genre: H/C
Warnings: Language, Stubborn!Dean, Sneaky!Sam
Spoilers/Notes: Post-ep 1.11, Spoilers for 1.10 and 1.11
It doesn’t seem to be bothering Dean, but they’re rumbling on maybe forty miles outside of Burkitsville when the silence in the car finally gets to Sam. All jokes and close calls and guilt over rock salt-loaded shotguns aside, something has been eating at Sam for the better part of the morning, and he’s not known to be one who’s able to keep such things to himself for long. They’ve had a hell of a week, and he needs to drown out any thoughts that would negatively affect the truce he’s just called with his brother, knows himself too well to be disillusioned into thinking they’ll make it to dinnertime without having this out if he has nothing better to do than dwell.
Of course, Sam is not permitted to touch any part of this car without Dean’s express permission, which has been made clear multiple times over the past few months with varying degrees of head slaps. “You want music?”
Dean sucks in a breath, adjusts his grip on the steering wheel in a manner that suggests the very act of hearing Sam’s voice has physically pained him. The sleeve of his blue jacket rides up, revealing a mess of thin abrasions encircling his wrist that Sam hadn’t really noticed until now, attention drawn instead to the blue spring flower is blossoming around his brother’s eye. While the swelling seems to have gone down, the residual headache is clearly raging on, which could explain the lack of tunes and the fact he’s been in a shitty mood since they hit the road. Deep creases tug at the corners of Dean’s eyes as he squints in the sunlight, but he hasn’t made a move for his sunglasses in the glove box. All of it ratchets up Sam’s concern, momentarily quells the frustration and clinging sense of betrayal he’s been harboring since they climbed into the car.
Dean clears his throat. “Sure. Yeah, if you do.”
It’s a bluff, and not one of his best. Dean won’t stomach being babied, or generally taken care of, any more than he would the thought of light beer. Or possibly, any food or drink at the moment. Sam has to draw him out, nice and slow and stealthy-like.
Because it’s not as much fun to call Dean on his bullshit when he isn’t in top form.
And he can still squeeze a little enjoyment from this while he’s at it. “Cool.” Sam flips the knob, immediately filling the car with an earsplitting flush of static, the white noise residing between station frequencies. It’s only mildly annoying to his own ears but he’s not the one who’s probably concussed. Dean recoils with a grimace, lips flattened into a thin line.
Sam takes his time adjusting the dials, searching for a station, while Dean’s fingers tighten around the wheel.
“Just turn that damn thing off,” he snaps.
Sam turns the knob with a click and pivots with as innocent as expression as he can muster. “Headache?”
Dean purses his lips, sucks in his cheeks. “Yeah.”
Sam gestures to the welt under Dean’s eyebrow, the bruise covering roughly a quarter of his face. “What did that?”
Dean’s glassy eyes give him away more than the hesitation before he answers. “Rifle.”
“Barrel?”
“Stock.”
“Butt?”
Dean nods stiffly.
“Ouch.” Sam hisses sympathetically through his teeth, but Dean had to think about it. He almost smiles, because he knows his beautifully dumb big brother believes that this nugget of honesty will cut Sam off at the pass. Sorry, bro. He stretches casually on the bench seat. “You hungry?”
The growl of Dean’s stomach is audible in the otherwise silent car, but it’s not one of hunger. Dean swallows a couple of times. “No, not really.”
Sam puts a mental check in that box. “We don’t have another job lined up. We can pull off for the night if you want.”
“What are you talking about? It’s not even lunchtime.” Just the word has Dean swallowing again.
“Well, it’s been a hell of a week, Dean. I don’t think a little rest would kill either one of us.” He thinks a moment before adding, “You, especially.”
“What, cuz you shot me a coupla days ago? Sorry to disappoint, Sammy, but I don’t go down that easy.” Shut the hell up, Sam, is easy enough to translate.
Sam sits back heavily, and after that low blow he’s done pulling his punches. “Dean, I am sorry about that, I am, but I’m not talking about what happened in Rockford, I’m talking about the apparent rifle butt to your face that gave you the concussion you’re trying to pretend you don’t have.”
Dean exhales in what might have been a laugh if he’d been feeling better, but as it is manages to do little more than graze the very edge of amusement. “I don’t have a concussion, Sam. I think I would be the first one to know if I had a concussion.”
“How long were you out?”
“Don’t know,” Dean answers smugly. He has yet to look over at Sam. “It was still light out when I woke up in…” Then he clamps his teeth down around the rest before he gives himself away entirely.
Too late. Sam nods tightly. Transported to a second location without coming to. Awesome. He rolls his eyes. “How long has it been since you’ve slept or eaten?”
“Probably the same as you. My God, do you have a concussion?”
“So you want me to discount the fact that you’re white as a sheet and can barely move?” Sam bobs his head. “Which, it turns out, is exactly the safest way to drive a giant car with a shitty turning radius on a crowded interstate.”
“So first you shoot me, then you ditch me, then you bitch about my car.”
“Will you stop trying to shake me off this conversation and please just pull over? If you don’t want to stop somewhere then at least let me drive for a while.”
“Fine,” Dean clips. “If it will shut you the hell up.” He jerks the Impala to the berm and slams her into ‘park.’ Before Sam can move he’s already thrown himself out of the door and started around the front of the car. Sam’s got one leg in the tall grass when Dean stumbles and falls on his palms against the hood.
There it is. Not like he likes to be right or anything. Sam rushes out, holds out his hands to steady Dean if he needs it but keeps them ultimately to himself. He hadn’t thought there was a paler shade Dean could turn, but his stubborn brother has gone and found it, crumpled against the grill of the Impala. “You need to puke?”
Dean risks a slow, unconvincing shake of his head. “I’m good.”
“Yeah. Yeah, you’re good.” Sam sighs and slaps a gentle hand on Dean’s shoulder.
*********************************************************
He’s got the lights in the room nice and low, a thin hand towel thrown over the top of the lampshade to dull the stab of the bright bulb. Dean’s got a couple of aspirin down the hatch, managed to keep these ones down so far, and a second towel full of ice held to the side of his head, face drawn while pulling in slow, deliberate breaths.
“Need to puke again?”
“Shut up about it, bitch.”
“Sure.”
Sam leans forward in his chair, laces his fingers together between his knees. He’d told himself not to go at Dean until he was at a hundred percent, but Dean has always been smarter than he’s been given credit for. He’s very rarely caught with his pants around his ankles, and even with this head injury Sam is safe in assuming Dean is anticipating the inquiry, battling his headache to get a story worked out.
“So how long have you known?” he asks, eyes ready to scrutinize Dean’s reaction for every known tell in his repertoire.
“Known what?”
“That it was a demon that killed Mom.”
Dean’s eyes remain closed but he shifts slightly, licks his dry lips. “Sam, what the hell are you talking about?”
“I saw your face, Dean, when Dad called the other day. When I mentioned a demon, you weren’t exactly surprised.”
Dean swallows, moves his lips around a few different responses before settling on one and drawing in a deep breath. “Sam, I swear I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Sam shakes his head, not buying what Dean is selling. “After all of this, you knew the whole time what killed Jess.”
“Sam - “
“No, Dean. I don’t believe you.”
Dean pulls away the homemade ice pack and draws himself up on his elbow, immediately draining any color left from his face. “Sam, I can’t make you believe me, but if you wanna treat me like I’ve got a freakin’ concussion, then you gotta give me the benefit of the doubt when I tell you that I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about.”
Sam sits back in his chair and stares at his brother a long moment, unable to get a good read on him, not sure what to believe. He swallows, frustrated, and flicks his glance away, where it falls on their packs on the table, the corner of the first aid case. “You need anything for those marks?” he asks in a tone signaling surrender, jerking his chin at his Dean’s raw wrists.
Dean falls back gingerly against his pillow and rotates his right hand, wincing as the abrasions there shift and pull, but shakes his head. “Nah, it’s cool.”
“Okay.” Sam runs a hand over his face and moves to stand. “I’m gonna get some fresh air. Get some rest and I’ll wake you up in an hour.”
“Yeah. I know the drill.”
“I know you do.”
He can’t help but think maybe Dean got lucky, running afoul of the butt of that rifle when he did. Or maybe Sam just showed his hand too early. Either way, he knew they’d be lucky if the truce lasted until dinnertime.
Title: Reason 346
Word Count: 900
Genre: Family Love and Togetherness, Sibling Rivalry
Warnings: Bratty Young Sam, Brief Mild Language, Briefer Sour Lemon Face, Old-School Banter
Spoilers: Mid-ep for 1.01 Pilot
Sam wiggles on the bench, adjusts his shoulders and kicks his giant feet around on the floorboards a bit before flopping hard against the seatback and exhaling a hot breath of restlessness and general discomfort, stares out of the window like a wounded puppy.
Dean smirks, chuckles in honest and healthy amusement. “Sorry, Sammy. We’re still a few hours out of Jericho. What, none of your genius prepster friends drive a real car? Or is just that your Sasquatch body can’t fit anymore?”
“Sam. And shut up. You know, all the time I spent being carted around in this thing, I can’t believe I actually forgot how stiff these seats can be.”
“And now look atcha. Finally graduated to the front seat, little brother.”
“Yeah, lucky me.” Another long sigh. “Dad’s gonna flip when he sees what you did to the trunk.”
Dean quirks a confused eyebrow. “Yeah, I guess.”
“You guess? How many meals did we eat in this car when were kids? Ballpark, maybe fifty percent? And he STILL blew a gasket if we dropped even one fry.”
Dean resists the urge to lay a soothing hand on the dash. “Well, maybe you could have treated her with a little more respect and not started so many food fights.”
“Yeah, because I’m the one that started them.” Sam props an elbow on the door. “Do you know how creepy it is when you call it ‘her’? Dad did that, too.”
Dean forgot how Sammy can flip the switch, shift gears from Worried About Dad to Annoying As Shit with little to no warning. Forgot that trashing Dad is what Sam considers small talk. And he’s not necessary pleased with the past tense he just heard coming out of his brother’s mouth, but he chocks it all up to lack of sleep and breakfast, rolls his neck and shoves a new cassette into the desk.
Sam reaches out and turns down the volume like this is his first rodeo, makes Dean smack his hand away. He falls back into the door with a squint. “So how’d you get the old man to let you use the car, anyway?”
“Hmm?” Dean clips out, annoyed.
“I’m not trying to say anything. I’m just wondering. He let you borrow it for that job you were working in New Orleans? What’d you say it was?”
“It was a hoodoo - what are you talking about, borrow it?”
“I mean, honestly, I find it harder to believe he ditched the Impala than to believe he ditched you. No offense.”
Sam always means offense, but Dean lets it slide right off of him, because he gets it then, almost gloats when he says, “He didn’t ditch me, or the car. Sam, the car’s been mine for years.”
Sam actually laughs, a quick high-pitched whine like a screaming tea kettle. “Yeah, right. Dad cares more about this car than he does either one of us.”
Jesus, Sammy. “Damn it, Sam, the man is missing. Can we not…” Even as he’s reaching to pop the glove box, Dean can’t believe he’s about to give Sam the satisfaction. The little voice in his head asking, He keeps both eyes on the road as he sifts past the cigar box of IDs and, okay, a couple of greasy burger wrappers the old man wouldn’t be particularly happy with, to wrestle out the title and registration, drops them both into Sam’s lap on the way out.
Sam stares a moment, holds up the registration card. “This’s expired. Like, by a lot.”
“Check the name, Officer Do-Gooder.”
Dean feels a swell of unchecked pride as he glimpses Sam’s head bobbing in his peripheral, lips pursed in that prissy way he’s really not missed these past few years.
Sam shifts the papers in his hand, studies the title. “This’s…this is around the time I left for school.” And he downshifts harshly from Annoying As Shit to Furious For The Hell Of It. “What, Dad buy you off for not going after me?”
Dean shakes his head, adjusts his grip on the steering wheel. “That’s not how it happened.”
“Unbelievable. He did, didn’t he?”
Son of a bitch. “That’s not how it happened, Sam.”
Sam snorts. “Yeah, like Dad has never rewarded you for towing the line and doing what he says.”
Dean thumps the wheel with his palm. “You know, Sammy, you’re damn right. And this, this panicked scouring of the country, me coming to get you? This is me reaping my rewards.”
Each Winchester has a tone at which they’re communicating BACK OFF and Dean has just taken his. They might not be close anymore but Sam recognizes it, raises his hands. “Okay, sorry, point taken.” He crams the paperwork back into the glove compartment. “But don’t call me Sammy.”
“Yeah, sure.” Dean rolls his neck, spots an exit coming up. “I need some caffeine, we’re gonna keep going.” A quick check of the dash. “So does my girl.”
Sam shakes his head. “So creepy.”
Tis what I've been working on lately.