SPN FIC - So Long Ago, So Well
C'mon, give in and read. This is Dean and Sam, pretty much. I just used the Dean-and-Cassie icon because it's new and shiny. The premise? Dean says goodbye, one more time.
Characters: Dean, Sam, Cassie
Pairings: none
Rating: PG, for language
Length: 3540 words
Spoilers: Hmm. Say, up through now (3.07)
Disclaimer: There's no money changing hands. Y'all have figured that out by now.
“That I -“ Dean turned to his brother wearing an expression so despairing it made Sam’s breath catch in his throat. “Five people,” he managed to say. “There’s five people who’ll give a shit that I’m dead.”
So Long Ago, So Well
By Carol Davis
“You gonna take the car?” Sam asked. “Or do you want to just call me when you’re, um, finished, and I’ll come pick you up?”
They’d done both, on previous stops in what Sam thought of as Dean’s Eat, Fuck, and Be Merry tour of America, so it seemed like a reasonable question. And one that wasn’t especially difficult to answer. Still, Dean didn’t answer it. He’d turned off the engine a good five minutes ago, which also shut down the Nirvana tape that’d been playing loudly enough to make Sam’s eyes water, and the silence that was left behind had started to turn a little unnerving.
“Dean?” Sam prompted.
Dean shifted his head and peered at him. It wasn’t clear whether he’d even heard the question. “Yeah.”
“Yeah, which?”
“Which what?”
“Do you want the car?”
He definitely hadn’t heard the question. “What?”
The perplexed dismay on his face was almost funny. Might have been funny under other circumstances.
Hell, it wasn’t funny at all.
“Dude,” Sam said. “Do you want to drop me off somewhere and keep the car, or do you want me to come pick you up” - his face scrunched - “after.”
“Whatever,” Dean said dismissively.
Then he went back to staring out past the hood of the car, at…nothing in particular, because there was nothing past the hood of the car worth looking at. A rusted chain link fence, a couple of dented trash cans.
After another couple of minutes of that, Sam began to suspect that if he got out of the Impala and disappeared for the rest of the afternoon, he could come back and find Dean still sitting in the same position, staring emotionlessly at nothing. Which provided a lot of backup for his decision of two days ago that coming back to Cape Girardeau wasn’t a good idea - and that Dean didn’t honestly think it was, either.
They’d been in town for almost three hours, and Dean had spent most of it restlessly circling the areas where Cassie might be: her house, the newspaper office, the coffee shop she’d told Dean she liked. As if there were some sort of force field surrounding all three places, he’d gone no closer than a quarter-mile or so to any of them, the whole time wearing a shifting expression that said he was arguing silently with himself just as vehemently as he’d ever argued with Sam. It would have come as no surprise to Sam if, on their next loop around town, Dean took them back to the Interstate.
Of course, they might well end up back in Cape Girardeau tomorrow, or the day after.
“You gonna tell her?” Sam asked, not expecting an answer this time.
“I’m not looking for a pity fuck, Sam.”
“I didn’t say you were. But she might…you know. Since you guys were…” Sam sighed and shoved a hand through his hair. “She might care.”
“So, you have my permission to call her and tell her. After.”
“Oh? Thanks.”
“If I say anything to her about the deal, how does it turn into anything but a pity fuck? Huh?”
Instinct and common sense were having a hell of a good time duking it out in this car, Sam thought. He fought back the urge to say the first thing that popped into his head, managed to subdue it for a few seconds, then surrendered to it - as if he were arm-wrestling with it and the back of his forearm had just smacked the surface of the table. “It’s really charming, you know. That we drove all the way here from Hackensack not so you could spend some time with your friend, but so you could get laid.” Before Dean could respond, Sam glowered at him and sputtered on, “She’s a decent human being, Dean. A little self-centered, yeah, but you showing up just so you can have sex with her and not telling her what you…what your situation is - that’s… I don’t even know what that is.”
“Shitty?” Dean suggested.
Sam shrugged.
Dean let that lie there for a moment, then said, “I never claimed to have a whole lot of class, Sam.”
“She’s your friend, man.”
“Yeah. I guess.”
“She is.”
Dean’s palms drifted along the arc of the steering wheel, one clockwise, the other counter. “If I said I didn’t come here just for…that…would you believe me?”
“I don’t know.”
“Come on, man.”
“You want to know if I’ll concede that you’re not the biggest douche on the planet?”
“Guess I have my moments.”
“Occasionally.”
Sam glanced down at what was left of his cardboard container of French fries, sighed, and dropped it into the paper bag his lunch order had been packaged in. His Big Mac Combo had begun to sit leadenly in his stomach: he was at that point post-meal where fast food would suggest to him that going hungry for a few more hours might have been a better option.
After, he thought suddenly, after he could go back to choosing the things Jess had taught him to enjoy. Tuna sandwiches. Stir-fry with lots of veggies.
That made his Big Mac Combo do a slow roll and threaten a return engagement.
“Pretty pathetic, isn’t it?” Dean asked.
“What?” Sam responded, not sure he wanted to know.
“That I can count ‘em on my fingers.”
Sam turned a little. Dean had gone back to staring out past the hood.
“You. Bobby. Ellen. Jo, I guess. She might go out and hoist a few to celebrate, but at least she’d have an opinion.”
“About what?”
“That I -“ Dean turned to his brother wearing an expression so despairing it made Sam’s breath catch in his throat. “Five people,” he managed to say. “There’s five people who’ll give a shit that I’m dead.”
“There’s -“ Sam mouthed more than that.
“Who?”
“I -“
“Who?” Dean demanded.
Sam’s mind clawed backwards, looking for a satisfactory answer and finding nothing but the situation Ruby had forced him to uncover: that the Yellow-Eyed Demon had managed to slaughter everyone their mother had held dear - by implication, everyone who might have cared about Dean. They’d made acquaintances along the way who might feel a brief pang of regret at hearing Dean was gone, but nothing more.
Most of their dad’s fellow hunters, the ones who’d had a hand in training John Winchester’s boys - they were either dead as well, or not the type to consider “grief” as something worth giving up valuable time to.
So, Dean was probably right. Five.
Only five.
Dean seemed to know where Sam had landed. “Guess it’s a good thing,” he shrugged. “Won’t be breaking too many hearts.”
Sam grabbed the door handle, popped the door open, and quickly unfolded himself out of the car. The air outside was fresh enough, cool enough, to prompt his stomach to settle a little, but not completely.
Unable to look back, to see what Dean’s reaction to his sudden exit might be, he started walking. Didn’t go far; after three trips around the block, his energy gave out near the end of the cross street that flanked the McDonald’s parking lot.
And that was as good an argument as he could ever hope to come up with for the existence of mystical forces, because not ten feet from where he stopped moving was a car he recognized as Cassie Robinson’s. He was staring unhappily at it when the front door of the house it was parked in front of creaked open.
He didn’t need to look.
“Sam?”
Fuck, he thought, almost giddily.
He offered her a smile that he suspected made him look like an escaped lunatic. She didn’t react to it until she got within a couple of steps of him; what he got from her then was a frown that lasted no longer than a sneeze. She looked around, didn’t find what she was looking for, and frowned again.
“He’s in the parking lot,” Sam said. “At McDonald’s.”
“Oh.”
“We were -“
“Is there something wrong?”
He watched the Reporter side of her do battle with the woman who’d been terrorized by a vengeful spirit…and win. It hadn’t been much of a fight, and her gaze, once it was over, was steady, curious, eager. “No,” he told her. “There’s nothing going on. At least, not that we know of. We were just sort of…passing through.” From Hackensack, he wanted to say. Because this is totally on the way from there to…anywhere. “He’d like to…see you. Say hello. You know. He’s in the parking lot.”
Except that Dean wasn’t in the McDonald’s parking lot; he was in the middle of the street, maybe fifty yards away. It took him a long time to cover the fifty yards, and when he finally reached Sam and Cassie, his hands were shoved deep into the pockets of his jacket and his head was lowered a little. He made an intense survey of the pavement alongside Cassie’s car, teeth sliding hard over his lower lip, before he said quietly, “Hey, Cassie.”
“Hi, Dean.”
They stared at each other uncomfortably enough for Sam to stammer, “I’m gonna -“
“Don’t,” they said simultaneously.
Yeah. Because that wouldn’t be awkward at all. “Lot of road construction going on,” Sam said after a minute. “Detours.”
“Uh-huh,” Cassie replied.
“Your mom is -“
“Good. She’s good.”
“That’s…good.”
“You’re - are you taller?”
“Don’t think so.”
“Oh.”
“Different shoes?” Sam suggested.
“Oh. Maybe.”
Cassie hadn’t taken her eyes off Dean the whole time, but they were still arm’s length from each other and had done nothing to shrink that distance. “I was going to -“ She cut herself off and gestured vaguely at her car. “I was doing an interview with the people here. Mr. and Mrs. Caston. The batteries in my tape recorder gave out, and the extras -“ Another gesture. “I should tell them I’ll finish up later. Tomorrow.”
Dean nodded so slightly it didn’t look intentional.
“I’ll be right back,” Cassie told him.
The moment the Castons’ front door had closed behind her, Dean turned on one heel and began striding back down the street, toward McDonald’s and his car. It took Sam a moment to register what he was doing and to catch up with him.
“Dude,” Sam said. “Where are you going?”
“Can’t do this,” Dean told him.
“So you’re just gonna bail? Dean. Come on, man. You came all the way here.”
“Yeah, and it was stupid. You should’ve stopped me. Should’ve told me there was no point to it.”
“And you would have listened to me?”
“Don’t be fuckin’ logical with me, Sam.”
Frustrated, Sam circled in front of his brother and, because Dean kept going, started to walk backwards so he could address him face-to-face. “You’ve kinda gone past the point of no return, don’t you think?”
“No.”
“Dude.”
“So, she’ll think I’m rude. She’ll get over it.”
“And maybe she’ll be less upset when I call her and tell her you’re dead?”
“Fuck you, Sam.”
Sam stopped walking abruptly enough that Dean almost collided with him. Hands fisted, Dean tried to sidestep him, but Sam blocked his progress.
“Cut it the fuck out, Sam,” Dean barked. “Let me go.”
He tried again, and almost got past; this time Sam caught him by the sleeve and clamped his fingers around Dean’s upper arm.
“I swear, Sam, I’m gonna -“
“What? You’re gonna do what? Deck me in the middle of the road?”
“We’re gettin’ out of here.”
“No. We’re not.”
“I can take you. Don’t think for one second I can’t.”
“Yeah, whatever. Take me down in the middle of the damn road. Why do you do this, Dean? Why do you refuse to let people care about you?”
Dean’s face contorted. “You let go right now, or I’m gonna kick your ass.”
“Fine. Do it.”
“Sam.”
A block and a half behind them, Cassie had come out of the Castons’ house and was standing alongside her car. Sam took note of that as he said, “It’s not pity, Dean.”
“The fuck it’s not.”
“And it’s not all or nothing. She was probably right that you guys wouldn’t be able to have anything solid together, not as a couple. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t care. It doesn’t mean she won’t be upset if -“
“You say anything to her and that’ll be the last you see of me. Ever. I swear.”
Slowly, Sam released his grip on his brother’s arm and took a step back. “I’m not going to say anything. You’re going to tell her.”
“No. I’m not.”
“You are. Because she cares, Dean. You came here. You opened this door. And I don’t think it was because you wanted to get laid.” When Dean shifted, ready to start moving again, Sam put out a hand to stop him. “Maybe it’s five. Maybe that sounds like nothing. But five’s a lot better than none. Five’s probably more than a lot of people have.”
Dean turned away, his face tight and unreadable.
“Five’s good, man,” Sam said.
“Let me go, Sam. Just…please. Let me go. I need to go.”
A single step took Sam out of Dean’s path. “Okay,” he replied quietly. “You go. Work this out in your head. I’m gonna ask Cassie to take me back to her house, and we’re going to sit there and wait for you. I won’t tell her what’s going on. You need to do that yourself. Because you guys had something once, and if I have to call her a few months from now and tell her you wouldn’t give her a chance to do…whatever she needs to do while you’re still here, then you’re punishing all three of us. And I’m not gonna let you do that.”
Dean didn’t reply.
Nodding, Sam moved further out of his path and began to walk back toward Cassie.
He didn’t need to bother looking over his shoulder to know that Dean was headed toward the Impala.
It was a little after nine, a full twelve hours after he and Dean had arrived in Cape Girardeau, that Sam finally heard the throaty rumble of what had once been their father’s car. The sound remained faint for a few minutes, leading Sam to think it might fade back out, that Dean would retreat without having come any closer; then, finally, it grew louder before it cut out altogether.
Sam had kept his word; he had told Cassie nothing beyond asking her to wait for Dean to show up. Which didn’t mean she’d been unable to figure out that Dean had something to say and would prefer not to say it.
At her request, when she went outside, Sam remained in the living room, perched on an uncomfortable chair, staring at the empty plate that had held the sandwich she’d fixed him for dinner.
After a couple of minutes he reached out to move the plate away from the edge of the coffee table.
A couple of minutes later Cassie came back in.
She left the front door ajar and stood in the middle of the foyer looking around as if she had never seen it before.
“Cassie?” Sam said quietly.
“Oh my God,” she murmured, to no one in particular.
Sam approached her slowly, rested a hand on her arm and offered her what he hoped was a supportive expression.
“There’s a way, isn’t there?” she asked with a tremor in her voice. “There’s got to be a way. Something.”
“We haven’t found it yet.”
“But there’s something.”
“No one’s giving up.”
“How do you - how do you even -“
“I can’t. A lot of the time. I can’t.”
Cassie leaned against one of the carved pillars that held up the foyer’s ceiling and let it hold her up as well. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment and took a couple of deep breaths, as if she intended to meditate.
“I’ll try. Too,” she said without opening her eyes. “I don’t know what I can do, but I’ll try to do…something.”
“Did you walk away from him? Just now.”
“He asked me to.”
“Did you -“
Because the question was left unfinished, Cassie opened her eyes and peered at Sam. “Did I what?”
“Love,” Sam said hesitantly. “Did you love him?”
Her first thought didn’t make it as far as her lips. She shook her head slightly, then told him, “Yes.”
“Then could you do me a favor? Could you…would you tell him?”
“I did.”
That took Sam by surprise. He let a raised brow take the place of a question.
“He brought me flowers. And it didn’t - it didn’t seem like something he did very often. He looked like a little kid. So I kissed him and said ‘I love you.’” She grimaced, then tried to rearrange the expression into a smile. “Maybe I shouldn’t have. We hadn’t known each other very long. But there was something about him… I wanted him in my life, Sam. I did.”
“Do you now?”
Cassie tipped her head back, rested it against the pillar. “It’s not right.”
“Why not?”
“Because we don’t fit together.”
“But -“
“We don’t. But…” She paused again. “I think I knew the first time he left, that if I needed him he’d come back. That’s why I called, after my father was killed. I knew Dean would come if I needed him. Does that make me -“
“No,” Sam said.
“He needs to find someone who fits.”
Sam nodded solemnly and returned to the living room long enough to retrieve his jacket from the end of the couch. Cassie watched him shrug into it; when he came back to the foyer she left the security of the pillar and embraced him. Sam held onto her for a minute, his cheek resting against her dark curls.
“Take care of him, Sam,” she said against his chest.
He took a step back, intending to turn toward the door, and stopped. “Did you tell him again? Just now?”
“He wouldn’t let me.”
“Can you -“
“Give him the chance to find someone who fits, Sam.”
All he could do in response to that was nod.
Dean was leaning against the driver’s door of the Impala, gnawing contemplatively on his thumbnail. “You ready to go?” he asked as Sam approached the car.
Rather than answer him, Sam got into the passenger seat and sat there in silence until Dean got in.
“We could stick around,” he offered then.
“For what?”
“I don’t know.”
Dean pulled his door shut and made himself comfortable on the well-broken-in leather seat. He fumbled a little getting the key into the ignition and stopped short of turning the engine on, choosing instead to finger the key as if the feel of the metal against his skin was a curiosity. “She knows,” he surrendered finally.
“Do you?” Sam asked.
“You gonna keep picking at this?” Dean sighed.
“You’re the one who brought us here.”
“So I do amazingly dumb shit on occasion.”
“I didn’t say it was dumb.”
Shaking his head in a way that seemed more weary than anything else, Dean fired up the engine and shifted the car into reverse. When they had reached the main road he reached over to switch on the tape player but kept the volume low. Whether that was in deference to his mood or the late hour or something else, he made no sign.
“I’m sorry,” Sam said after they’d gone a few miles.
“What for?”
“That I wasn’t around. Back then. You must’ve been - it must’ve been tough.”
“You mean when she dumped me?” Dean shrugged and wobbled his head. “Got through it. We had stuff to do. Jobs.”
“Still.”
“What would you’ve done? Brought me tea and cookies?”
“You probably didn’t get much support out of Dad.”
Dean looked off to his left, watching traffic so he could make a turn.
“Seriously?” Sam said.
“He was okay about it.”
“Our dad.”
“Ain’t that what I just said?”
They’d gone almost thirty miles, mostly down county roads that were only sporadically lit, when Sam asked, “You okay?”
“I’m freakin’ delirious with joy,” Dean told him.
“So we’re going…where?”
“Don’t know. Wherever.”
Sam waited until the trio of farm vehicles approaching from the other direction had gone on past, then said quietly, “She’s in Michigan. Up near the Canadian border.”
“Who is?” Dean said in an uninterested tone.
“Jo.”
“Why the hell would I care where Jo is?”
“I’m just saying.”
“She already knows, Sam. Ellen told her.”
“Yeah. I’m just saying.”
“You’re a royal screaming pain in my ass, you know that?”
Sam smiled fleetingly as he settled down into the seat, pillowing his head on his right shoulder, hoping the road ahead was unmarred by construction enough that he wouldn’t be jarred awake every few miles. The music from the cassette player was soft enough - at least comparatively speaking - to act as somewhat of a lullaby.
“Five’s good,” he told Dean quietly.
He was close enough to sleep when Dean replied that the wobble in Dean’s voice might have been his imagination.
“Yeah,” Dean said. “I guess five’s good.”