SPN FIC - Fallen (7.02)
A few days ago, they were looking for Cas. Hoping there'd be some way of fixing this. Fixing him.
CHARACTERS: Dean, Sam, Bobby
GENRE: Gen
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: 7.02
LENGTH: 939 words
FALLEN
By Carol Davis
"You better dry it out," Bobby says.
There's no criticism in it, though; not even a hint of something Dean could figure on using to flog himself - or Bobby - with, later on. Just a quiet reminder. You leave it folded up wet like that, and you'll be able to smell it from two states away.
"Yeah," is all Dean can get out.
"Put it in the dryer for you, if you want."
Sure. Like that would accomplish anything. The dryer's an old, beat-up Kenmore, bought at a yard sale back when Dean and Sam were kids, because they went through a spell of messing up their clothes faster than the extra set would dry, out on the clothesline in the yard. But it was a piece of crap even then, and that was twenty years ago. You'd have better luck drying something out by laying it on top of the toaster.
Dean shakes his head, aware that the movement is so slight, Bobby might not see it for what it is.
He must, though, because he goes back inside, closing the door gently and almost silently behind him.
Pretty much everything around Bobby's house is junk, Dean figures: the heaps of wrecked cars, the old Wang computer, the console TV. The rusted-out lawn chair he chose to sit on, out in the dust alongside the back door.
He's got the trenchcoat in his lap.
It 's stopped dripping, at least, though it's still undeniably soaked, and smells vaguely of fish.
You idiot.
Cas.
You goddamn fool.
He's tried, over and over, to fold the coat the way Dad had taught him to fold up a flag: has tried to turn Jimmy Novak's slightly frayed, badly wrinkled and stained old overcoat into a neat, crisp triangle of fabric, but it's too bulky, too wet. The best he's been able to manage is a lumpy rectangle, the size of a couple of thick phone books.
Maybe there's something of Cas still clinging to it, if Cas actually did disintegrate out there in the water.
No way is Dean going to load that into an old Sears dryer.
You stupid…
The sound of the TV from inside reminds him that there's a job to do, same as there's been for the past few weeks: watching news reports for signs of anything the right kind of messed-up going on, although they've still got no clue what to do about it if they find it.
A few days ago, they were looking for Cas.
Hoping there'd be some way of fixing this. Fixing him.
Something moves at the edge of Dean's peripheral vision. It's Sam, unfolding a lawn chair that matches Dean's only in its degree of ruin. It creaks as Sam forces it open, and creaks again as Sam lowers his weight into it, wary of collapsing the thing and ending up on the ground. He ends up perching at the edge of the seat like a middle-school kid at a dance, wringing his hands together in his lap.
"I'm sorry, man," he says after a minute.
All Dean can offer him is a shrug.
They sit in silence for a while. Then Sam stands up abruptly, and before Dean can protest, he lifts the trenchcoat off of Dean's lap and walks off with it. It takes a moment for Dean to put himself together enough to do anything at all, and as he strides across the dusty yard in Sam's wake he's still not sure whether he should scream, or hit, or simply blow the fuck up, bits and pieces of his skin and hair and bone scattering themselves on the wind, across a swath of South Dakota.
What he sees, when he puts himself together enough to look, is that Sam has carefully spread Cas's coat out across the trunk of the Impala, in a big pool of brilliant afternoon sunlight.
They used to dry their clothes that way, sometimes, when they were kids.
Still do, once in a while.
"Might not dry it all the way," Sam says, arms folded across his chest. "It's kind of late in the day. The pockets might still be a little wet."
Laid out that way, the sleeves look a little like wings.
There's another coat beneath it, a big, old leather jacket, in a cardboard box in the trunk, carefully folded and lovingly stored.
They've got no flags, Dean thinks; they've got coats. If anything happens to his brother - if something ever happens, and it sticks, he'll have to fold up a fucking hoodie.
He'll have to…
His legs stop being willing to support him then, and he ends up in a heap on the ground, with none of the silent stoicism he managed when he lit Dad's funeral pyre, none of the brittle, drunken rage he felt when Sam was stabbed to death, or the cold numbness that wrapped itself around him when Sam fell into the Pit.
This time, he is simply broken.
And he cries.
A minute later, Sam is again beside him, sitting in the rutted, gravely dust of Bobby's driveway. When he can manage to look, he sees through his tears an expression he remembers from years ago, from a time when something ugly happened, something that was a small boy's kind of eternally, crushingly hopeless, and his little brother cupped Dean's face in his small, soft, damp hands and pleaded, "No cry, Dee. Huh? No cry."
This time, Sam simply slings an arm around him and holds on.
"I'm sorry, dude," he says softly. "Jesus, I'm sorry."
They sit there in the dirt till long past dark.
* * * * *
CHARACTERS: Dean, Sam, Bobby
GENRE: Gen
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: 7.02
LENGTH: 939 words
FALLEN
By Carol Davis
"You better dry it out," Bobby says.
There's no criticism in it, though; not even a hint of something Dean could figure on using to flog himself - or Bobby - with, later on. Just a quiet reminder. You leave it folded up wet like that, and you'll be able to smell it from two states away.
"Yeah," is all Dean can get out.
"Put it in the dryer for you, if you want."
Sure. Like that would accomplish anything. The dryer's an old, beat-up Kenmore, bought at a yard sale back when Dean and Sam were kids, because they went through a spell of messing up their clothes faster than the extra set would dry, out on the clothesline in the yard. But it was a piece of crap even then, and that was twenty years ago. You'd have better luck drying something out by laying it on top of the toaster.
Dean shakes his head, aware that the movement is so slight, Bobby might not see it for what it is.
He must, though, because he goes back inside, closing the door gently and almost silently behind him.
Pretty much everything around Bobby's house is junk, Dean figures: the heaps of wrecked cars, the old Wang computer, the console TV. The rusted-out lawn chair he chose to sit on, out in the dust alongside the back door.
He's got the trenchcoat in his lap.
It 's stopped dripping, at least, though it's still undeniably soaked, and smells vaguely of fish.
You idiot.
Cas.
You goddamn fool.
He's tried, over and over, to fold the coat the way Dad had taught him to fold up a flag: has tried to turn Jimmy Novak's slightly frayed, badly wrinkled and stained old overcoat into a neat, crisp triangle of fabric, but it's too bulky, too wet. The best he's been able to manage is a lumpy rectangle, the size of a couple of thick phone books.
Maybe there's something of Cas still clinging to it, if Cas actually did disintegrate out there in the water.
No way is Dean going to load that into an old Sears dryer.
You stupid…
The sound of the TV from inside reminds him that there's a job to do, same as there's been for the past few weeks: watching news reports for signs of anything the right kind of messed-up going on, although they've still got no clue what to do about it if they find it.
A few days ago, they were looking for Cas.
Hoping there'd be some way of fixing this. Fixing him.
Something moves at the edge of Dean's peripheral vision. It's Sam, unfolding a lawn chair that matches Dean's only in its degree of ruin. It creaks as Sam forces it open, and creaks again as Sam lowers his weight into it, wary of collapsing the thing and ending up on the ground. He ends up perching at the edge of the seat like a middle-school kid at a dance, wringing his hands together in his lap.
"I'm sorry, man," he says after a minute.
All Dean can offer him is a shrug.
They sit in silence for a while. Then Sam stands up abruptly, and before Dean can protest, he lifts the trenchcoat off of Dean's lap and walks off with it. It takes a moment for Dean to put himself together enough to do anything at all, and as he strides across the dusty yard in Sam's wake he's still not sure whether he should scream, or hit, or simply blow the fuck up, bits and pieces of his skin and hair and bone scattering themselves on the wind, across a swath of South Dakota.
What he sees, when he puts himself together enough to look, is that Sam has carefully spread Cas's coat out across the trunk of the Impala, in a big pool of brilliant afternoon sunlight.
They used to dry their clothes that way, sometimes, when they were kids.
Still do, once in a while.
"Might not dry it all the way," Sam says, arms folded across his chest. "It's kind of late in the day. The pockets might still be a little wet."
Laid out that way, the sleeves look a little like wings.
There's another coat beneath it, a big, old leather jacket, in a cardboard box in the trunk, carefully folded and lovingly stored.
They've got no flags, Dean thinks; they've got coats. If anything happens to his brother - if something ever happens, and it sticks, he'll have to fold up a fucking hoodie.
He'll have to…
His legs stop being willing to support him then, and he ends up in a heap on the ground, with none of the silent stoicism he managed when he lit Dad's funeral pyre, none of the brittle, drunken rage he felt when Sam was stabbed to death, or the cold numbness that wrapped itself around him when Sam fell into the Pit.
This time, he is simply broken.
And he cries.
A minute later, Sam is again beside him, sitting in the rutted, gravely dust of Bobby's driveway. When he can manage to look, he sees through his tears an expression he remembers from years ago, from a time when something ugly happened, something that was a small boy's kind of eternally, crushingly hopeless, and his little brother cupped Dean's face in his small, soft, damp hands and pleaded, "No cry, Dee. Huh? No cry."
This time, Sam simply slings an arm around him and holds on.
"I'm sorry, dude," he says softly. "Jesus, I'm sorry."
They sit there in the dirt till long past dark.
* * * * *