SPN Fic: Signs and symptons
Still not my spn_flashback fic.
Title: Signs and symptoms
Author: emma_daisy
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: PG
Words: Approx. 1500
Spoilers/warnings: No spoilers, incest
Disclaimer: Not mine, sadly. Kripke owns all.
Summary: Like all things, it becomes routine.
A/N: Many thanks to ladyjaida for the fabulous beta.
***
Like all things, it becomes routine.
Sam’s tired, jaw cracking with a yawn that makes Dean laugh and dart a sidelong look at him, eyes still mostly on the road but all his attention on Sam. Always on Sam. Dean cracks a joke that falls heavily onto the bench seat between them and Sam snaps, mercurial at the best of times, but this is different.
He yawns again and hunches his shoulders, annoyed and uncomfortable already and they’re only just leaving Boston, the Massachusetts turnpike a long grey stretch in front of them.
He can feel Dean looking at him, doesn’t need to look to see the worried line drawn deep between his eyebrows.
Sam wants to say, “I’m fine, Dean, I’m just tired. Just tired,” but Dean knows all his feints, so he presses his forehead against the Impala’s window and doesn’t say a damn thing.
***
Sam wakes up as the driver’s side door slams shut. Blurry eyed, he watches Dean stalk across the motel parking lot towards the front desk, hands in his pockets and with that same swaggering gait he’s had since he turned sixteen and sex was the new watchword. Sam goes to scrub a hand over his face but stops, remembers the bruise that covers his cheekbone, blue and still tender.
He gets out of the Impala and waits for Dean, his neck and shoulder twin bands of tension that he knows will be his two best friends for the next however many hours. He toes the loose gravel beneath his sneaker and doesn’t look up when he hears Dean open the trunk to grab their bags.
“We could keep going-”
Dean tosses him his duffel. “No.”
And that’s that.
***
The motel room is clean, warm. There are towels in the bathroom and a small coffee maker on the table, two off-white mugs stacked into each other beside it.
Sam knocks his knee on the chair as he passes it and it irritates him that Dean doesn’t make a joke about him not being able to control his limbs, doesn’t call him a freaking Sasquatch bastard, doesn’t make him trip and stumble further. Instead, Dean’s fingers, cold and dry, wrap around his elbow and refuse to be shaken off until Sam’s seated on one of the beds.
This time he does say, “I’m fine,” but only because he knows it’ll piss Dean off, make him purse his lips and stare until Sam has to look away, break his gaze.
“It might not,” Sam starts, but his vision starts to pulse and glare in front of him, arcs of light bursting out of nothing and it is, it always is.
***
When the vision hits, the pain is the only constant. What he sees changes: the people, their faces, their horror, their unexpected terrible ends. They’re never the same.
But the pain.
The pain is constant.
***
Afterward and Sam can’t move for wanting to throw up. Dean knows not to touch him but Sam’s shaking on the bed like he might actually fly apart. Dean’s hand on his shoulder feels like a punch, an acid burn, like broken bones and going crazy all at once. Sam jerks away and God, no, he shouldn’t have moved, shouldn’t have moved, but Dean manages to shove the garbage bin in front of him in time.
“God. Oh, God,” is all Sam can breathe out for a while.
He tells Dean in shattered sentences and mangled words what he’s seen, what will happen if Dean doesn’t get in the Impala and make for Arlington right fucking now, Dean, we have to go now.
He struggles to get up but Dean’s fingers pin him fiercely. “No. You have to stay here. You can’t. You have to stay here, Sammy, d’you hear me?”
Sam nods, mumbles, “OK, OK,” and Dean leaves a glass of water and a bottle of pills by the bed. He hesitates at the door, looks back over his shoulder.
“Get some sleep.”
Sam presses the heel of his hand into his eye. “Now, Dean, God, you have to go now.”
The door shuts without a sound behind him.
***
He twists and turns and presses his face into the pillow, kicking his legs out, curling his arms around his head. On his belly, on his back, on his side, every movement jarring his head, tight endless pressure behind his eyes, stomach long empty of anything but bile and even that will hit the toilet bowl soon enough. His tongue tastes like metal, like a ceiling on fire and not fast enough, not fast enough.
He wants to claw it out with his fingers, dig his nails into the sharp-edged ache and pull, twist it free, get it out, out.
If he can just.
Just be still.
Be as still and as silent as he can possibly be, it’ll be better. If he can slow his heart, calm his breathing, try to visualize the pain shrinking smaller and smaller and smaller until it‘s nothing. Gone. Free. If he can just. If he can just stop, just for a little while.
If he can just.
Just sleep.
***
Slowly, it loosens its grip.
Sometimes it takes hours, sometimes days. The drapes are always drawn against the light, the air conditioning, if it works, blows cool across the room, licking goose bumps over his back. He breathes, regular, steady. His limbs are heavy, dead weight against well-washed sheets. For a long time Sam drifts, not quite asleep, not quite awake, in that middle time where everything is slow and hazy. He curls his hand, fingers a loose fist, feels his skin tight stretch over his knuckles, the tips of his fingers against the palm of his hand.
Slowly.
Slowly.
***
The first time he opens his eyes there’s an old Friends rerun on the small TV and Dean’s hand is warm on the back of his neck, his thigh relaxed beneath Sam’s cheek. The sound is muted but Sam’s seen this episode before, seen them all before in one motel room or another.
He blinks and lets the world shift back into focus, waits for the hot spike of pain to shoot through his temple. Waits, but it doesn’t come. Sam lets out a breath and Dean presses his thumb into the ridge behind Sam’s ear.
“Did-” Sam stops, clears his throat.
“Piece a cake, Sammy,” Dean says. “Piece a cake.”
Sam turns, presses his face into Dean’s stomach and mumbles, “You’re such a fucking liar.”
“Shut up,” Dean’s fingers thread through Sam’s hair. “This is my favorite part.”
***
The second time he wakes up the drapes are open and Dean’s asleep beside him, hair still damp from the shower and a towel around his waist. There’s a long dark bruise across the middle of Dean’s back and three long sutured gashes up the left side of his ribcage.
Sam touches the red, puffy skin just below where the last gash ends and Dean huffs, flinching awake. He turns his head on the pillow and Sam can see the yellow bruise on his forehead has a couple new friends.
Sam thinks, I should’ve been there, and it isn’t until Dean groans and mutters, “Ah, Christ, not now,” that he knows he said it out loud.
Sam’s “Sorry, sorry,” comes out on an exhalation that’s barely audible as he smoothes his hand down the center of Dean‘s back, careful of his injuries. Dean blinks myopically and doesn’t push Sam away when he folds his body around Dean‘s.
***
Dean grumbles and glares as Sam eats his burger in the Impala, greasy fingers too close to the upholstery for Dean’s comfort. Sam laughs, mouth full, and lets Dean steal his fries.
Heading west again, they compromise on Pink Floyd. Dean taps his fingers on the steering wheel while Sam leafs through the journal, reading and rereading notes and sentences that he already knows by rote. He underlines a word in pencil every so often because you never know when it might be important, when it might make a difference.
They don’t talk about it. Don’t talk about the blood that was smeared on Sam’s pillow, a telling streak of brown across his cheek. Don’t say what they both know, that the visions are getting worse, more frequent, less forgiving.
They don’t talk about it. The Impala’s tires eat the I90 and they stop at diners and gas stations to break up the monotony of the never-ending forward. They curl into each other at night, elbows and knees and mouths sharp angles that shouldn’t connect, shouldn’t fit, but somehow do.
They wait and they wait and they don’t talk about it and like all things, it becomes routine.
End.
Title: Signs and symptoms
Author: emma_daisy
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: PG
Words: Approx. 1500
Spoilers/warnings: No spoilers, incest
Disclaimer: Not mine, sadly. Kripke owns all.
Summary: Like all things, it becomes routine.
A/N: Many thanks to ladyjaida for the fabulous beta.
***
Like all things, it becomes routine.
Sam’s tired, jaw cracking with a yawn that makes Dean laugh and dart a sidelong look at him, eyes still mostly on the road but all his attention on Sam. Always on Sam. Dean cracks a joke that falls heavily onto the bench seat between them and Sam snaps, mercurial at the best of times, but this is different.
He yawns again and hunches his shoulders, annoyed and uncomfortable already and they’re only just leaving Boston, the Massachusetts turnpike a long grey stretch in front of them.
He can feel Dean looking at him, doesn’t need to look to see the worried line drawn deep between his eyebrows.
Sam wants to say, “I’m fine, Dean, I’m just tired. Just tired,” but Dean knows all his feints, so he presses his forehead against the Impala’s window and doesn’t say a damn thing.
***
Sam wakes up as the driver’s side door slams shut. Blurry eyed, he watches Dean stalk across the motel parking lot towards the front desk, hands in his pockets and with that same swaggering gait he’s had since he turned sixteen and sex was the new watchword. Sam goes to scrub a hand over his face but stops, remembers the bruise that covers his cheekbone, blue and still tender.
He gets out of the Impala and waits for Dean, his neck and shoulder twin bands of tension that he knows will be his two best friends for the next however many hours. He toes the loose gravel beneath his sneaker and doesn’t look up when he hears Dean open the trunk to grab their bags.
“We could keep going-”
Dean tosses him his duffel. “No.”
And that’s that.
***
The motel room is clean, warm. There are towels in the bathroom and a small coffee maker on the table, two off-white mugs stacked into each other beside it.
Sam knocks his knee on the chair as he passes it and it irritates him that Dean doesn’t make a joke about him not being able to control his limbs, doesn’t call him a freaking Sasquatch bastard, doesn’t make him trip and stumble further. Instead, Dean’s fingers, cold and dry, wrap around his elbow and refuse to be shaken off until Sam’s seated on one of the beds.
This time he does say, “I’m fine,” but only because he knows it’ll piss Dean off, make him purse his lips and stare until Sam has to look away, break his gaze.
“It might not,” Sam starts, but his vision starts to pulse and glare in front of him, arcs of light bursting out of nothing and it is, it always is.
***
When the vision hits, the pain is the only constant. What he sees changes: the people, their faces, their horror, their unexpected terrible ends. They’re never the same.
But the pain.
The pain is constant.
***
Afterward and Sam can’t move for wanting to throw up. Dean knows not to touch him but Sam’s shaking on the bed like he might actually fly apart. Dean’s hand on his shoulder feels like a punch, an acid burn, like broken bones and going crazy all at once. Sam jerks away and God, no, he shouldn’t have moved, shouldn’t have moved, but Dean manages to shove the garbage bin in front of him in time.
“God. Oh, God,” is all Sam can breathe out for a while.
He tells Dean in shattered sentences and mangled words what he’s seen, what will happen if Dean doesn’t get in the Impala and make for Arlington right fucking now, Dean, we have to go now.
He struggles to get up but Dean’s fingers pin him fiercely. “No. You have to stay here. You can’t. You have to stay here, Sammy, d’you hear me?”
Sam nods, mumbles, “OK, OK,” and Dean leaves a glass of water and a bottle of pills by the bed. He hesitates at the door, looks back over his shoulder.
“Get some sleep.”
Sam presses the heel of his hand into his eye. “Now, Dean, God, you have to go now.”
The door shuts without a sound behind him.
***
He twists and turns and presses his face into the pillow, kicking his legs out, curling his arms around his head. On his belly, on his back, on his side, every movement jarring his head, tight endless pressure behind his eyes, stomach long empty of anything but bile and even that will hit the toilet bowl soon enough. His tongue tastes like metal, like a ceiling on fire and not fast enough, not fast enough.
He wants to claw it out with his fingers, dig his nails into the sharp-edged ache and pull, twist it free, get it out, out.
If he can just.
Just be still.
Be as still and as silent as he can possibly be, it’ll be better. If he can slow his heart, calm his breathing, try to visualize the pain shrinking smaller and smaller and smaller until it‘s nothing. Gone. Free. If he can just. If he can just stop, just for a little while.
If he can just.
Just sleep.
***
Slowly, it loosens its grip.
Sometimes it takes hours, sometimes days. The drapes are always drawn against the light, the air conditioning, if it works, blows cool across the room, licking goose bumps over his back. He breathes, regular, steady. His limbs are heavy, dead weight against well-washed sheets. For a long time Sam drifts, not quite asleep, not quite awake, in that middle time where everything is slow and hazy. He curls his hand, fingers a loose fist, feels his skin tight stretch over his knuckles, the tips of his fingers against the palm of his hand.
Slowly.
Slowly.
***
The first time he opens his eyes there’s an old Friends rerun on the small TV and Dean’s hand is warm on the back of his neck, his thigh relaxed beneath Sam’s cheek. The sound is muted but Sam’s seen this episode before, seen them all before in one motel room or another.
He blinks and lets the world shift back into focus, waits for the hot spike of pain to shoot through his temple. Waits, but it doesn’t come. Sam lets out a breath and Dean presses his thumb into the ridge behind Sam’s ear.
“Did-” Sam stops, clears his throat.
“Piece a cake, Sammy,” Dean says. “Piece a cake.”
Sam turns, presses his face into Dean’s stomach and mumbles, “You’re such a fucking liar.”
“Shut up,” Dean’s fingers thread through Sam’s hair. “This is my favorite part.”
***
The second time he wakes up the drapes are open and Dean’s asleep beside him, hair still damp from the shower and a towel around his waist. There’s a long dark bruise across the middle of Dean’s back and three long sutured gashes up the left side of his ribcage.
Sam touches the red, puffy skin just below where the last gash ends and Dean huffs, flinching awake. He turns his head on the pillow and Sam can see the yellow bruise on his forehead has a couple new friends.
Sam thinks, I should’ve been there, and it isn’t until Dean groans and mutters, “Ah, Christ, not now,” that he knows he said it out loud.
Sam’s “Sorry, sorry,” comes out on an exhalation that’s barely audible as he smoothes his hand down the center of Dean‘s back, careful of his injuries. Dean blinks myopically and doesn’t push Sam away when he folds his body around Dean‘s.
***
Dean grumbles and glares as Sam eats his burger in the Impala, greasy fingers too close to the upholstery for Dean’s comfort. Sam laughs, mouth full, and lets Dean steal his fries.
Heading west again, they compromise on Pink Floyd. Dean taps his fingers on the steering wheel while Sam leafs through the journal, reading and rereading notes and sentences that he already knows by rote. He underlines a word in pencil every so often because you never know when it might be important, when it might make a difference.
They don’t talk about it. Don’t talk about the blood that was smeared on Sam’s pillow, a telling streak of brown across his cheek. Don’t say what they both know, that the visions are getting worse, more frequent, less forgiving.
They don’t talk about it. The Impala’s tires eat the I90 and they stop at diners and gas stations to break up the monotony of the never-ending forward. They curl into each other at night, elbows and knees and mouths sharp angles that shouldn’t connect, shouldn’t fit, but somehow do.
They wait and they wait and they don’t talk about it and like all things, it becomes routine.
End.