Don't look back (it's a funeral) - (Sam/Dean, pgish?, ~2k)
Unbeta'd and written at work!
Don't look back (it's a funeral)
(Sam/Dean mostly, pgish?, ~2k, spoilers for 5.22)
Title from Tom McRae
Dean doesn't go to church to pray. Sure, he bows his head like all the rest, sings along with the hymns and makes nice with the priest. But he doesn't pray. Dean goes to church to remind God that he hasn't forgotten. Time has not healed all wounds and God better watch His fucking back, because Dean hasn't forgiven or forgotten.
It feels like leaving voicemail that's never picked up. God doesn't care. He didn't back then and He doesn't now. Probably delegates it to Castiel to sit the other side of the heavenly wall and listen to Dean's bloody, bitten out promises of vengeance. Sometimes Dean throws in something for Cas, a 'hey, how are you? Hope Heaven's nice and you'd better make the fucking most of it, 'cause when I get there I'm tearing it all down'.
These days are almost like peace. If he goes to Heaven, he'll get payback, and if he goes to Hell, he'll get Sam back. He'll press his face to the bars of Lucifer's cage, and he'll peer in, until he finds Sam looking back at him. And then they'll sit and watch whatever passes for the sky in that pit of darkness, and Dean might not even notice he's back in Hell.
He's not surprised he's got that thought in his head the first time he sees Sam.
:::
Lisa's hand doesn't fit Dean's, but she hangs on anyway, and Dean is grateful. He knows his hand is the wrong shape, the wrong size, moves in the wrong way, just wrong wrong wrong. But she hangs on anyway.
"I know what you're gonna say," she says. "You're gonna vote for karate lessons over soccer, but all of Ben's friends are on the team, and I just don't know how I feel about-"
Sam is leaning up against the Impala outside their house. He straightens up when he sees Dean approaching, lips twitching into that awkward little half-smile of his, the one for when he's not sure whether smiling is allowed but wants to all the same.
"Ha, surprise!" he says. He's breathless and excited, nervous as all hell. He's exactly how he should be. There's the precise wobble in his voice that Dean knows would be there, right down to where his breath hitches at the end of the word.
Dean stops, stares at him.
Sam stares back.
"Dean, honey?" says Lisa. She follows the direction of Dean's gaze and then looks back at him. She's smiling too, expectantly, but a little out of her depth.
Dean forces himself to look away from Sam, back to Lisa. "Karate's awesome," he says. "But if Ben wants to play soccer, then it's up to him, right?"
"Right," Lisa says uncertainly. She looks back at the Impala, but Dean doesn't.
:::
Sam shows up at Dean's work the next day. The sunlight at his back, his shadow creeps in among the wrecked and broken cars, and Dean's hands falter in the Buick's engine.
"Dean?" says Sam.
Dean walks away from the Buick. He goes into the office, calls the customer and tells them I'm sorry, your car's dead, it can't be fixed, I can't bring it back, how 'bout we just fucking burn it?
Then he drinks the manager's whiskey until Sam goes away.
:::
"How are you doing, son?" says Bobby.
"Good," says Dean. "I'm really good. Fine. Awesome. Yeah, I'm good."
Dean's knee jitters uneasily. He wishes Bobby would hurry up and drink his beer and go away. But he can't say so.
Ben is playing in the front yard. Dean doesn't feel comfortable about that, not lately.
He doesn't want either of them around when Sam next shows up.
Before Bobby goes, Dean hears him in whispered conference with Lisa in the kitchen. No prizes for guessing they're talking about him. They'll be talking about Sam too. Can't talk about Dean without talking about Sam. He'd tell them what that felt like, to be Siamese twin - (it's conjoined twins, Dean!) - to something like that. He'd tell them if he knew.
He finishes his beer, and calls Ben back inside.
:::
He knows it's Sam on the other end of the call. Caller ID says it is, but more than that, Dean knows the quality of Sam's silence.
His breathing tells Dean stories. He reminds Dean of shared motel rooms, and night-long stakeouts where nothing happened, and going into the bathroom after one of Sam's showers and putting his fingertips in the condensation on the mirror.
Dean should hang up. He shouldn't be sitting here in the dark, on the edge of the bed he shares with Lisa, with the phone cupped to his ear, listening to Sam breathe.
Sam sighs, and says, "Is this what you want? Dean, just… just tell me. Talk to me. Is this what you want?"
That's when Dean hangs up.
:::
"Are we going to talk about this?" says Lisa.
"Talk about what?" says Dean.
Lisa is sitting at the kitchen table, dark-eyed and tired. "About Sam," she says. "I think it's time."
It's strange hearing someone else say Sam's name. It's been a constant thud inside Dean's thoughts, so hearing someone else say it is like it's broken out. Like Lucifer's out of his cage, even if it's only the one inside Dean's head.
"Nothing to talk about," says Dean.
He's angry with her, he realizes, and he's hurt too. She knew when she took him on that he came with issues. They had a deal, he thought. He kept those issues out of their life and away from Ben, and she didn't ask about them.
"Look, I don't know what happened between you two, but don't you at least owe it to Sam to-"
He let Sam fall, and he's left him falling. He let both his brothers fall, let them slip right through the bottom of the boneyard. He'd owed Sam so much fucking more than that, and he'd let him down. He'd let Sam go.
"Don't," said Dean. He doesn't dare close his eyes because he can't bear to see Sam right now. "Can we- can we not talk about him? I mean, ever?"
Lisa looks at him, and Dean knows she's realizing for the first time just how damaged he is.
:::
The doctor is exasperated with Dean's evasions and half-hearted attempts at charm, but she gives him a course of sleeping tablets anyway. Dean hides the bottle from Lisa and tells her the appointment was about the ache in his knee.
That night, he counts the tablets out of the bottle. Then he counts them back in, leaving just the two he needs to get him through to the morning.
:::
When he gets home from work, Lisa's just on her way out. She shies away from the kiss he tries to drop on her cheek, and then obviously feels bad about it, because she clutches him in close, fingers curled around his collar.
"We'll talk about this when I get home," she whispers.
As she leaves, she looks back at the house. The house seems dark at first, but the light is on in the kitchen. Sam is sitting at the kitchen table. He looks up at Dean and he's not smiling.
"Dean," he says. "Please."
Dean turns around and walks out.
"Dean!" Sam shouts after him. "Dean, this isn't fair!"
It's not, is it? Dean wants to say, but he can't. He knows he mustn't say a word.
:::
The Impala used to be safe ground but it's not anymore. It's like driving around in his own damn coffin. Some dirt from the cemetery in Stull got in somewhere, he's sure of it, because he can smell it. He's washed the damn car a hundred times, scrubbed it clean, but it still stinks of gravedirt and Sam.
One day, he'll get a new car. He'll park the Impala by the side of the road and walk away. He'll get himself a new car, something modern, something designed for a family. And then if anything still stinks of gravedirt and Sam, he'll know it's himself.
He drives and ignores Lisa calling him on his cellphone. Then Sam calls him, and before Dean knows it, he's parking up outside a motel.
Two queens, he says to the guy behind the counter, and he tries not to laugh about it, because it's a private joke and one that Dean's never been able to explain, though he thinks he's been trying to since Sam was that lanky geek he picked up at Stanford.
Dean goes to the room, and he drops his jacket on the bed closest to the door, and he orders pizza, and promises them a really big tip if they could bring him some of those little packets of salt too. They've probably had weirder requests.
It's time-consuming, opening each of those little sachets, to draw the lines across the doors and windows, but Dean doesn't mind. He's just coming back from doing the bathroom window, when Sam finishes picking the lock on the door and opens it.
They face each other, Sam awkward and Dean all careful curiosity. Sam steps over the salt line, and Dean nods to himself. So it's option b.
"I know I should probably leave you alone," says Sam, "but… I'm finding that really hard to do."
Dean doesn't move as Sam comes in closer. Sam looks wretched.
"Why won’t you talk to me?" he says. "It's me. Not him. I promise. I swear to God, it's me. Just, please, talk to me. I'll go, I will, just talk to me first. Please, man, talk to me."
It feels like surrender to engage with Sam, not that Dean had much opposition left in him anyway.
"I thought maybe it was unfinished business, which'd be real unfair 'cause I did what you told me. But you got over the salt," says Dean. "So I guess I'm just crazy."
Sam frowns. "What?"
"Probably just as well, 'cause I don't even know how the hell I'm s'posed to get a hold of your bones to burn 'em. Guess I'd have to go back to Stull and start digging, right? Dig me a great big hole and climb inside. But see, if I'm crazy then… then…"
Then what? Then Dean's going to have to carry Sam around inside his head forever. Can't salt and burn his own damn head, can't get rid of the ghosts that are living inside of him. It's almost kinda nice.
"Dean, no," says Sam. It's tender, pained, and Dean doesn't know how his subconscious put something like that together, because it's Sam, he can't deny it, but he never heard Sam sound like that.
"I thought you were avoiding me," Sam says. "I spoke to Lisa, and to Bobby, and they didn't know what was going on with you. They tried talking to you but you just shut them down. I thought you were mad at me, Dean."
Sam smiles, takes a step closer to Dean. "But you weren't, were you? You were just…"
He reaches out, and for a moment, it's like he's the one thinking Dean's not real, because he touches Dean as though he expects him not to be there.
His hand is on Dean's shoulder, and it's heavy, then his fingers hesitantly creep to Dean's neck before curling into the hair at the back of his head and tipping their foreheads together. His breath is warm on Dean's skin, and Dean can feel every twitch and flicker of muscle in Sam's body against his. He can see every shade of green and hazel and blue in Sam's eyes, because Sam's gaze is fixed right on him.
"I'm here," Sam says. "God, Dean, I'm here. Let me prove it to you."
And then Dean knows he's crazy, because Sam kisses him.
~end
Don't look back (it's a funeral)
(Sam/Dean mostly, pgish?, ~2k, spoilers for 5.22)
Title from Tom McRae
Dean doesn't go to church to pray. Sure, he bows his head like all the rest, sings along with the hymns and makes nice with the priest. But he doesn't pray. Dean goes to church to remind God that he hasn't forgotten. Time has not healed all wounds and God better watch His fucking back, because Dean hasn't forgiven or forgotten.
It feels like leaving voicemail that's never picked up. God doesn't care. He didn't back then and He doesn't now. Probably delegates it to Castiel to sit the other side of the heavenly wall and listen to Dean's bloody, bitten out promises of vengeance. Sometimes Dean throws in something for Cas, a 'hey, how are you? Hope Heaven's nice and you'd better make the fucking most of it, 'cause when I get there I'm tearing it all down'.
These days are almost like peace. If he goes to Heaven, he'll get payback, and if he goes to Hell, he'll get Sam back. He'll press his face to the bars of Lucifer's cage, and he'll peer in, until he finds Sam looking back at him. And then they'll sit and watch whatever passes for the sky in that pit of darkness, and Dean might not even notice he's back in Hell.
He's not surprised he's got that thought in his head the first time he sees Sam.
:::
Lisa's hand doesn't fit Dean's, but she hangs on anyway, and Dean is grateful. He knows his hand is the wrong shape, the wrong size, moves in the wrong way, just wrong wrong wrong. But she hangs on anyway.
"I know what you're gonna say," she says. "You're gonna vote for karate lessons over soccer, but all of Ben's friends are on the team, and I just don't know how I feel about-"
Sam is leaning up against the Impala outside their house. He straightens up when he sees Dean approaching, lips twitching into that awkward little half-smile of his, the one for when he's not sure whether smiling is allowed but wants to all the same.
"Ha, surprise!" he says. He's breathless and excited, nervous as all hell. He's exactly how he should be. There's the precise wobble in his voice that Dean knows would be there, right down to where his breath hitches at the end of the word.
Dean stops, stares at him.
Sam stares back.
"Dean, honey?" says Lisa. She follows the direction of Dean's gaze and then looks back at him. She's smiling too, expectantly, but a little out of her depth.
Dean forces himself to look away from Sam, back to Lisa. "Karate's awesome," he says. "But if Ben wants to play soccer, then it's up to him, right?"
"Right," Lisa says uncertainly. She looks back at the Impala, but Dean doesn't.
:::
Sam shows up at Dean's work the next day. The sunlight at his back, his shadow creeps in among the wrecked and broken cars, and Dean's hands falter in the Buick's engine.
"Dean?" says Sam.
Dean walks away from the Buick. He goes into the office, calls the customer and tells them I'm sorry, your car's dead, it can't be fixed, I can't bring it back, how 'bout we just fucking burn it?
Then he drinks the manager's whiskey until Sam goes away.
:::
"How are you doing, son?" says Bobby.
"Good," says Dean. "I'm really good. Fine. Awesome. Yeah, I'm good."
Dean's knee jitters uneasily. He wishes Bobby would hurry up and drink his beer and go away. But he can't say so.
Ben is playing in the front yard. Dean doesn't feel comfortable about that, not lately.
He doesn't want either of them around when Sam next shows up.
Before Bobby goes, Dean hears him in whispered conference with Lisa in the kitchen. No prizes for guessing they're talking about him. They'll be talking about Sam too. Can't talk about Dean without talking about Sam. He'd tell them what that felt like, to be Siamese twin - (it's conjoined twins, Dean!) - to something like that. He'd tell them if he knew.
He finishes his beer, and calls Ben back inside.
:::
He knows it's Sam on the other end of the call. Caller ID says it is, but more than that, Dean knows the quality of Sam's silence.
His breathing tells Dean stories. He reminds Dean of shared motel rooms, and night-long stakeouts where nothing happened, and going into the bathroom after one of Sam's showers and putting his fingertips in the condensation on the mirror.
Dean should hang up. He shouldn't be sitting here in the dark, on the edge of the bed he shares with Lisa, with the phone cupped to his ear, listening to Sam breathe.
Sam sighs, and says, "Is this what you want? Dean, just… just tell me. Talk to me. Is this what you want?"
That's when Dean hangs up.
:::
"Are we going to talk about this?" says Lisa.
"Talk about what?" says Dean.
Lisa is sitting at the kitchen table, dark-eyed and tired. "About Sam," she says. "I think it's time."
It's strange hearing someone else say Sam's name. It's been a constant thud inside Dean's thoughts, so hearing someone else say it is like it's broken out. Like Lucifer's out of his cage, even if it's only the one inside Dean's head.
"Nothing to talk about," says Dean.
He's angry with her, he realizes, and he's hurt too. She knew when she took him on that he came with issues. They had a deal, he thought. He kept those issues out of their life and away from Ben, and she didn't ask about them.
"Look, I don't know what happened between you two, but don't you at least owe it to Sam to-"
He let Sam fall, and he's left him falling. He let both his brothers fall, let them slip right through the bottom of the boneyard. He'd owed Sam so much fucking more than that, and he'd let him down. He'd let Sam go.
"Don't," said Dean. He doesn't dare close his eyes because he can't bear to see Sam right now. "Can we- can we not talk about him? I mean, ever?"
Lisa looks at him, and Dean knows she's realizing for the first time just how damaged he is.
:::
The doctor is exasperated with Dean's evasions and half-hearted attempts at charm, but she gives him a course of sleeping tablets anyway. Dean hides the bottle from Lisa and tells her the appointment was about the ache in his knee.
That night, he counts the tablets out of the bottle. Then he counts them back in, leaving just the two he needs to get him through to the morning.
:::
When he gets home from work, Lisa's just on her way out. She shies away from the kiss he tries to drop on her cheek, and then obviously feels bad about it, because she clutches him in close, fingers curled around his collar.
"We'll talk about this when I get home," she whispers.
As she leaves, she looks back at the house. The house seems dark at first, but the light is on in the kitchen. Sam is sitting at the kitchen table. He looks up at Dean and he's not smiling.
"Dean," he says. "Please."
Dean turns around and walks out.
"Dean!" Sam shouts after him. "Dean, this isn't fair!"
It's not, is it? Dean wants to say, but he can't. He knows he mustn't say a word.
:::
The Impala used to be safe ground but it's not anymore. It's like driving around in his own damn coffin. Some dirt from the cemetery in Stull got in somewhere, he's sure of it, because he can smell it. He's washed the damn car a hundred times, scrubbed it clean, but it still stinks of gravedirt and Sam.
One day, he'll get a new car. He'll park the Impala by the side of the road and walk away. He'll get himself a new car, something modern, something designed for a family. And then if anything still stinks of gravedirt and Sam, he'll know it's himself.
He drives and ignores Lisa calling him on his cellphone. Then Sam calls him, and before Dean knows it, he's parking up outside a motel.
Two queens, he says to the guy behind the counter, and he tries not to laugh about it, because it's a private joke and one that Dean's never been able to explain, though he thinks he's been trying to since Sam was that lanky geek he picked up at Stanford.
Dean goes to the room, and he drops his jacket on the bed closest to the door, and he orders pizza, and promises them a really big tip if they could bring him some of those little packets of salt too. They've probably had weirder requests.
It's time-consuming, opening each of those little sachets, to draw the lines across the doors and windows, but Dean doesn't mind. He's just coming back from doing the bathroom window, when Sam finishes picking the lock on the door and opens it.
They face each other, Sam awkward and Dean all careful curiosity. Sam steps over the salt line, and Dean nods to himself. So it's option b.
"I know I should probably leave you alone," says Sam, "but… I'm finding that really hard to do."
Dean doesn't move as Sam comes in closer. Sam looks wretched.
"Why won’t you talk to me?" he says. "It's me. Not him. I promise. I swear to God, it's me. Just, please, talk to me. I'll go, I will, just talk to me first. Please, man, talk to me."
It feels like surrender to engage with Sam, not that Dean had much opposition left in him anyway.
"I thought maybe it was unfinished business, which'd be real unfair 'cause I did what you told me. But you got over the salt," says Dean. "So I guess I'm just crazy."
Sam frowns. "What?"
"Probably just as well, 'cause I don't even know how the hell I'm s'posed to get a hold of your bones to burn 'em. Guess I'd have to go back to Stull and start digging, right? Dig me a great big hole and climb inside. But see, if I'm crazy then… then…"
Then what? Then Dean's going to have to carry Sam around inside his head forever. Can't salt and burn his own damn head, can't get rid of the ghosts that are living inside of him. It's almost kinda nice.
"Dean, no," says Sam. It's tender, pained, and Dean doesn't know how his subconscious put something like that together, because it's Sam, he can't deny it, but he never heard Sam sound like that.
"I thought you were avoiding me," Sam says. "I spoke to Lisa, and to Bobby, and they didn't know what was going on with you. They tried talking to you but you just shut them down. I thought you were mad at me, Dean."
Sam smiles, takes a step closer to Dean. "But you weren't, were you? You were just…"
He reaches out, and for a moment, it's like he's the one thinking Dean's not real, because he touches Dean as though he expects him not to be there.
His hand is on Dean's shoulder, and it's heavy, then his fingers hesitantly creep to Dean's neck before curling into the hair at the back of his head and tipping their foreheads together. His breath is warm on Dean's skin, and Dean can feel every twitch and flicker of muscle in Sam's body against his. He can see every shade of green and hazel and blue in Sam's eyes, because Sam's gaze is fixed right on him.
"I'm here," Sam says. "God, Dean, I'm here. Let me prove it to you."
And then Dean knows he's crazy, because Sam kisses him.
~end