love is watching someone die
so this is all introspective and shit, and i've been living with it for the past three weeks and so all objectivity has been lost, it could suck balls for all i can tell.
also, decimals don't work like that. but whatever.
( originally posted over at sharp_teeth, for the prompt, Dean doesn't tell Sam about his deal.)
naught
sam and dean, 4000 words
You have a year left to live, and now what do you do?
.365
Twenty-four hours, and Dean keeps thinking, I'll tell him.
.358
One week. Dean can only imagine the wrecked look on Sam's face.
.357
The thing is, Dean reasons; the thing is, Sam wouldn't let him. Sam would spend the rest of Dean's days looking for a way to end it, and right now Dean just loathes ends. Loathes ends like he loathes demons and devils and monsters, any kind of thing that will hurt them.
.350
Dean starts smoking again; no reason not to, ya know.
"Death wish," Sam spits at him, in the middle of his bitching Dean out; his eyes flash coppery.
No, Dean wants to say to him. He wouldn't wish this on anyone, not even himself.
.333
It's a month before Sam asks him, at a bar in Eaton, Colorado with only a scarred wood table and eight or nine empties between them.
"Dean?" he says, hoarse, and much too sober; he takes a quick, frustrated breath, running fingers through his hair, and asks, "What really happened that night?" eyes open wide enough to drown in.
"Nothing, Sammy," he says, "just lucky, you know, not many guys coulda survived that."
("You'd never lie to me, right, Dean?" a nine-year-old Sam had asked him, once, lifetimes ago.
"Never," Dean had told him, a promise for life.)
.340
Acclimatizing. It was one of Sam's SAT words from almost a decade ago, Dean sitting up at the kitchen table with him and reading pages and pages of Sam's notes back to him. Quizzing until Sam was absolutely sure he knew all of it, information etched into his mind.
Dean didn't understand it. Sam knew this stuff on sight, freakishly massive brain picking up information magnet-like. Dean has never been the smart one in the family.
.332
Sam's been unbearable for the past three states, bitchy and discontent. His fingers drumming against the dashboard are driving Dean faintly mad, white noise like ticking clocks that Dean can't stand.
"Sam," he finally snaps. "Jesus Christ, would you quit it."
And Sam glares, fucken beautiful glare, but he tucks his arms across his chest and crumples down in the seat and stares out the windshield.
This is one of Dean's favorite Sams, warm and soft and restless, and he doesn't think, slides his palm across to the nape of Sam's neck.
He could live like this.
.322
Ten days later, Dean first sees the monster.
Sam and Dean, they're getting Chinese food at this little place shoehorned in between a hardware store ("Family owned since 1895") and a beauty salon with moth-eaten mannequin heads in the window. Dean's train of thought is going steeply downhill, something about dismembered bodies and long muscle-tearing gashes, chests ripped open like overstuffed pillows. He grabs Sam's elbow, says, "I'm gonna. Go check on the car."
"You're paranoid, man," Sam says, but good-naturedly. His funk had worn off somewhere around Salt Lake City; Dean had known it wouldn't last.
Dean lets go of his brother and goes out to the parking lot and of course everything's okay. Sam was right, cause Sam is usually right.
(Behind the dumpster, eyes like hellfire.)
.321
So Dean's gonna go crazy before he dies. That, you know. That works too. Until he goes to light a cigarette, Dean doesn't realize his hands are shaking.
Perched on the balcony rail of the motel, they got a room on the second floor because that's what they always do, when they can. A level up, less likely to have a break-in, but you can still jump out the window if you have to. (This is how their minds work.)
Sam closes the motel door behind him flatly, and Dean considers letting the cigarette drop to the parking lot below, just so he won't have to see Sam look at him with anything but that adoring look he used to have years and years and years ago.
He doesn't; Sam spreads one hand out over Dean's back and says, "You're gonna fall."
"Nah," Dean replies.
.301
Dean has this idea, that he wants to eat from every diner and café and chain that he remembers being like, the best of the best: In-N-Outs in California and Chick-fil-As in the South, and that tiny diner in Minnesota that has the best spaghetti he has ever eaten, ever.
He tells this to Sam, in a sort of abstract way: something he wants to do, not something he wants to do before he dies. "You're crazy," Sam tells him. "Food-obsessed and crazy." But he goes along with it anyway.
So they spend weeks, criss-crossing the continent for no other reason than to eat. Sammy bitches constantly about the complete waste of time, but of course he doesn't really mean it.
Everything's so good right now, and Dean feels cursed. Nothing remotely malicious has shown its face in a long time; Dean’s getting anxious, the complete lack of evil off-putting and strange. Sam has to remind him, sometimes good things do happen to them.
"Sometimes we are lucky," he goes on, pointing absently with the fork from his silverware packet. They're eating hamburgers in Montana.
"No, we're not," Dean says shortly, looking away from his brother.
"Sometimes," Sam persists.
.296
Digging up graves at two in the morning, hot Alabama stickiness soaked into their skin. Dean looks away for just a minute, wiping dirt of his face with a balled-up shirt, and suddenly Sam is in danger.
Standing over the hole in the ground, the thing bends its head like it's watching Sam work. Dean reaches for his pistol; it looks up.
Eyes like fire. The monster from the Chinese restaurant, and Dean has no idea how it found them again. The gun won't work, of course it won't, but Dean keeps one hand on it and waits for the creature to move.
It winks.
Dean's about to shoot on principle, but the monster disappears quick as anything. Dean is left shivering in 105 degree weather, chips of ice and pure terror buried in his skin.
Sam hasn't noticed a thing (thank god).
.265
A month, and the monster hasn't shown its face again. Small mercies, and all.
They're in the desert now, bottom tip of Nevada bleeding into Arizona. There's no solid lead anywhere in the area; they just like the desert. Escape routes, if Dean had to guess. Open skies. A peculiar kind of claustrophobia is deep in both their bones.
The road will keep them safe: this Dean from vast experience. The road will deliver them, but more importantly the road will take them away. The road is never-ending, always someplace to turn towards. The road is their whole life.
So all they see for miles is sand, sand and highway. They could be the only ones left, the only two people in the whole wide world, and Dean is pretty okay with that.
.234
Another month, and Dean isn't nearly so lucky.
Sam's in the Quick-Mart getting them soda when the monster says, Hello, Dean.
It's leaning in the window, but Dean can't seem to move to drive it away. Figures, this fucken thing would be able to paralyze. Its eyes are brighter up close, deeper and darker. Closer.
"What do you want?" Dean hisses.
It smiles, slow curling creature crawling its way across the monster's face. Dean screws his eyes shut.
Sam Sammy Sam Sam, it taunts, insect-like in Dean's ear. Your brother is dead meat, Dean-boy.
Dean can hear his own tearing breaths, harsh against the quiet. He slits open his eyes; the monster is gone.
Trudging across the parking lot, Sam is the best thing Dean's ever seen.
.202
One night, Dean gets drunk. Real, limb-numbing, head-spinning drunk, at a bar in Ohio with Sam back at the room researching banshees or something.
It's coming up on six months, you know.
Whiskey and beer and more whiskey, and Dean's a pretty good drinker but there seem to be two doors out, and he can't remember which one is real.
Elbows on the bar, and at least his hands aren't shaking. No way he's gonna drive his baby like this, though; occasionally Dean does have limits. He pulls out his phone, hits "1."
"Dean, where the fuck," Sam says; they don't bother finishing sentences around each other anymore. "I've been calling for an hour."
"Didn't hear," Dean says, cause he didn't. "Listen, Sammy, I'm kinda. Really fucken drunk. I need you, Sammy."
But that isn't really what he meant to say.
.183
Dean wakes up at 6:06.
He buys coffee for $1.83 at a gas station outside of Pittsburgh, and the cashier mistakenly gives him back fifty-once cents in change. How do you even make a mistake like that, is what Dean's wondering.
Sam has some kind of flu that's making him exhausted, eyes closed and the corners of his mouth pulled tight. Dean says they should only drive a little, just and hour or two, but Sam shakes his head and says, "'m good, Dean, keep driving."
"Sure," Dean replies, "just don't pass out on me or anything, 'kay?"
"Deal." Sam smiles drowsily, burrowing deeper into his hoodie and giving a small sigh, resting his head on the window glass.
New England, everything soft and fogged; the sky's a woolly comforting gray. Dean feels odd, and he has to wonder if Sam's contagious; everything feels removed by inches, reality not quite what it used to be (or maybe he's dying by degrees; maybe right now he's already six months into the pit).
They stop at a motel outside Bedford; Sam is barely awake, half-leaning on Dean and crumpling onto the nearest bed as soon as they get in the door. Panic sparks faintly in Dean's chest, and he drops the bags and goes straight to Sam, kneeling over him on the bed and saying, "Sam?" and his voice sounds so small.
Sam wraps his fingers around Dean's wrist; his eyes are still closed, but he says, "Stay here, okay?"
"Yeah, Sam, of course," Dean says. "Of course."
.124
By now Dean's started counting things, marking them as his last. First months--this is his final July, this is the last October he's ever gonna live through--and now, now it's years.
In the large night hours of December 31, Dean's awake. They're sleeping in the Impala tonight, money having run out right around the last state border (but they're out west now, so who knows how long ago that was). Sam took the back, legs crunched up in tall mountain-like shapes. Always was too big for the car, ever since he was fifteen or sixteen and went freakish. Freakishly tall, that is. Dean's head is all fucked up tonight.
He looks out at the stars and wishes desperately to fall asleep.
Sam stirs, soft snuffling sounds as he tries to resituate himself. Dean watches him, tries not to think about where Sam'll be at this time next year. Dean has to believe: he's gonna be okay. He is. He has never needed Dean as much as Dean needs him.
.97
Dean wakes up to something that feels like an fucken earthquake. He lets out some kind of undignified squawking sound that he hopes Sam isn't around to hear.
Luck isn't ever really on Dean's side, though; Sam grins at him, propped up on one elbow next to Dean on the bed. "Happy birthday, jerk," he says, punching Dean on the arm.
Dean punches back, gets him into a half-nelson as best he can. "Get offa me," Sam says, sounding a little strangled cause he's laughing, big and open. Dean sits back, just marvels for a moment.
Sam folds his arms behind his head, smiles up at Dean with the kind of disarming adoration that he doesn’t hardly ever show anymore. Dean grins back, instincts being what he has more than anything else.
They sprawl out on the bed next to each other; Sam got coffee and enough doughnuts to feed a small army, and there's an Kolchak marathon on TV, with Jimmy Dean movies for during commercials. After 11:30 Sam gets more coffee and lets Dean spike it, and by mid-afternoon he's buzzed, sugar and caffeine and whiskey creating a pleasant static under his skin.
(Prickling thoughts in the back of his mind, something about last times.)
.88
In Peoria, there's this tiny clapboard church; Dean knows it from ten years ago, when he and Dad and Sam cleaned it out. A bunch of old spirits hanging around, stewing in their juices or whatever and they went rogue, killing people and mutilating and desecrating graves. One of Sam's first big hunts, and he'd saved Dean from a spirit hellbent for his blood.
Sam's saved him and now he's saving Sam (he hopes, he hopes); endless chains of salvation, and it seems only appropriate to come here.
Dean sits on the church steps for an hour, chainsmoking and watching the sun go down. It's so fucking dumb, this half-formed idea in his head about angels and Heaven, things he'd never see even if the were real, but all the same. Sam believes in this stuff; it must be worth something.
So he crushes his last cigarette against the concrete, scrubs his palms against his jeans. He has no idea what he's doing.
He walks into the heavy quiet. There doesn't seem to be anyone around, and he's glad for that.
He doesn't kneel, not sure if he's going to pray. Stays in the very back of the room, a trespasser.
His fingers grip the back of the last pew. "So fucking dumb," he repeats out loud.
Nothing moves, no one comes out of the woodwork; Dean's still half-wishing for another spirit to show up, something that will give him an excuse for action. He sits, still feeling pinpricks on the back of his neck; leans his forehead and the pew in front of him and stares at the floor.
He thinks about what to say, what he could possibly say.
"I don't want to die," he whispers finally. "I don’t want to die," he says again, louder, but his voice is shaking unforgivably. "I--Sam--" he starts, but that thought gets stuck somewhere in the back of his throat; he settles on, "My brother needs me," though that's not quite right.
"Amen," he adds for good measure, and then gets the hell outta there.
.73
Dean can't keep still, hands crawling for something to do, so he sits against the headboard and cuts his nails with Sam's penknife (it was closer).
His fingers slip, too much energy to do something so small, and suddenly there's blood, droplets chasing each other down his fingers.
He must say something, let out some kind of sound of surprise because Sam is there in an instant, cupping Dean's hand with his. "Fuck, Dean," he says. "Are you incapable of taking care of yourself." But his head is ducked, and Dean can't judge how he's supposed to take that.
"What's it to you," Dean mumbles, what he thinks is a good catchall answer.
Sam's head jerks up. "Don't say shit like that," he says, low and dark. He stands and shakes his head, like sometimes he can't understand his brother at all.
.61
Dean wonder what Sam will think of him, after. (Sometimes he still wants Sam to look at him like he's the world. That's not possible, it was never true, but sometimes.)
"You wonder what he'll do." Soft, decayed voice hissing in his ear. "You wonder: will he be lost, without his strong, noble brother to watch out for him?"
Dean's gut freezes, and he is fucking tired of this.
"Get away from me, you crazy motherfucker," he yells, into the empty motel room.
The monster reappears in the space between the beds. "How will he deal?" it taunts, and Dean maybe loses it a little bit.
He grabs the nearest weapon, a sawed-off full of rock salt. He fires at the thing, and when the shotgun clicks empty he grabs his pistol, and empties a magazine into it, for good measure.
"Dean!" Sam comes bursting through the door, scared-outta-his-mind look on his face. "What is it, man, what the fuck--"
"Sorry, Sammy," Dean rasps, the only thing he can think to say.
"For what?" Sam asks. "Dean, what happened."
"It was--" but Dean can't explain, can't possible say how it was after you, Sammy, it was going to hurt you.
Sam's looking scared, genuinely fucking afraid for Dean's sanity, and he says, "Okay, we need to leave, um." He makes plans out loud, how they're gonna run now and not get tangled with whatever people will think about the gunshots they must've heard, they police they're sure to have called.
Behind Sam, the wall pocked with salt and lead; sanctified.
.24
In the middle of Nebraska, Dean does something stupid (or maybe it's Sam): they spend the next fifty miles fighting, bitching each other out with the endless ammunition they have at their fingertips.
Sam finally lapses into sullenness, and Dean decides to change the oil. Just for something to do, understand. Sam is too quiet, Dean can practically hear static in his ears.
He pulls over and Sam doesn't even look up, just does this little flick with his eyes to see where they are. Dean scoffs, and gets out without saying a word.
Bent over his baby's propped-open hood, the sun is comfortably warm; the six-pack he grabbed from the trunk is barely cool, but he drinks it like water. This feels good, oil under his fingernails and his skin slowly burning, condensation from the bottles that he wipes off against his t-shirt.
The shotgun door creaks and slams, and then Sam's standing next to him, hands shoved deep into his pockets. His shoulders are hunched, protective, and he just stands there for a few minutes.
"What?" Dean asks, acknowledging.
Sam doesn't reply, just curls his fingers softly over the back of Dean's neck. A solid weight as Dean finishes, and when he straightens up Sam doesn't let go.
Dean realizes they're breathing together; in-out, in-out, steady as clockwork. They breath the oil now streaked across Dean's hands; they breath the night sky wide as promises and the dark asphalt highway. They breath each other, short life and infinite devotion tangled in the air.
And Dean says, "Wanna show you something," and Sam says, "Yeah?" and Dean starts to explain, This is the battery; right there, those are the drive belts.
Sam doesn't question it, and Dean pretty much figures he has the best little brother in the world.
.14
Two weeks left, and Dean and Sam go to a baseball game.
It's Giants-Cardinals, night game, and the stadium is lit up like a birthday cake. Sam got them tickets, somehow, cause he's a fucken awesome little brother and has like, networks of people at his beck and call or something.
(Sam used to go to games when he was at Stanford, he tells Dean when Dean voices that particular theory. "A few of us used to drive up, when we didn't have a whole lot of homework," Sam says, with the wary look he gets whenever he talks about California. Dean nods, trying to imagine that.)
They keep one scorecard, wrestling it back and forth, accusing each other of getting rusty, and they're still bickering that night when they're cruising around St. Louis looking for a motel. Sam's driving, having deemed Dean too buzzed; which is bullshit, because Sam matched him beer for beer and who ever said Dean couldn't drive drunk? But he lets Sam win this time, and it's maybe worth it; Sam drives with one arm flagging out the open window, created wind whipping his hair in his eyes and he keeps having to push it back, letting go of the wheel with both hands as long as they're on deserted stretches of road. (And Dean thinks, Sam can pretend to be different and maybe he is, maybe he's fundamentally, elementally different than Dean. But the fact is: Dean taught him, which is why his handwriting sucks and his driving sucks and apparently even his scorecard-keeping abilities aren't exactly up to par, but Dean gave him everything he had to give and more, and that's the truth. Sam is Dean's legacy, Sam is what Dean has to leave behind, and Dean has no kind of problem with that.)
"Hey Sammy," Dean says as they glide down another sidestreet, everything dark cause of a blown-out streetlight.
"Sam." Auto-correct.
"Hey Sammy," Dean says again, and Sam just rolls his eyes; they've had this conversation so many times before.
"What, Dean," Sam sighs, but he's smiling.
"Nothin'," Dean says after a moment. "Nothin."
"Whatever, man," Sam tells him. "Just tell me when you think of it."
.7
They stop an hour outside of Topeka, because Dean's sick of big cities and Sam's sick of driving and this little town, it looks just the right amount of friendly. Not too much, not in your face, but at three AM the lighted windows of the momnpop diner look something like heavenly.
"D'you ever figure," Sam says idly, as Dean parks carefully between a minivan and a Mustang from the early 80s, "d'you ever figure how much of our life happens at three in the morning?"
"No, " Dean answers truthfully.
"Yeah," Sam says, watching out the window. "I try not to."
And Dean just has no idea what he's supposed to do with that. So he says, "Let's get some fries, huh, Sammy?" cause he's of the opinion that french fries cure anything.
"Sure," Sam says. Tiny smile shot Dean's way, and the world rights itself.
They get two of the largest orders of fries, plus coffee and milkshakes and a burger for Dean. Hunched in the corner booth, they're alone in the place; it's putting Sam on edge, Dean can tell, but it doesn't bother him. Sam's torn open a handful of Sweet'N'Low packets and is creating highways, hills and roads and deserts.
Their food comes. Sam spoons milkshake into his coffee to cream it and Dean gives him the pickle from his burger: traditions from when they were teenagers, held ever since for no particular reason. They don't talk much, and that's okay.
"Dean?" Sam asks, quiet.
"Yeah." Dean takes a sip of Sam's coffee, cause it's better with the milkshake in it.
Sam opens his mouth, closes it again. "Let's stay in the car tonight," he finally lands on.
"Thought you were sick of the car." Dean wraps his fingers around Sam's mug and just breathes in the coffee scent for a second.
"Never," Sam says, smiling crooked.
.5
Dean's been twitchy for hours now, off-center feeling in his gut that he can seem to shake. Sam's reading with the dome light turned on, creating distorted reflections on the windshield, and Dean keeps having to double-check reality.
In the distance, far off across plains and forests and roads, Dean can hear wolves.
.3
They're in one of the Carolinas, just got done with a ghost in Richmond. It was a simple job, easy and instinctive, knowledge deep in his bones. And he wouldn't mind, you know. Having that as his last hunt.
Takes a moment to acclimatize to that line of though, and when he’s sure he can speak again, he asks, “Sammy?”
“Yup.” He has his arms folded across his stomach, head tipped back and his eyes closed. He doesn’t sound tired, though, and Dean goes on, “Name your favorite place.”
“What?” Sam asks. “Why?”
“Just wonderin’,” Dean explains. He grins at Sam, punches him on the leg. “C’mon, Sam, tell me. Favorite spot in the country.”
Stares out the windshield for a while, and Dean’s sure he’s not going to answer when, “Texas, I think,” Sam says. “That stretch where you feel like you’re the only ones left, you know?”
Of course Dean knows.
.2
And then, Dean starts counting his time left in hours.
They're driving through Arkansas when the 48 hour mark passes, Dean glancing down at the dashboard clock to find his life expiring in the kind of time it takes to travel I-90 from coast to coast. Deep shuddering breath, and Sam looks over at him, worried.
"Y'all right?" he asks, soft smooth skin between his eyes creased into a V.
"Yeah, Sammy," Dean says, trying for a grin. "Fine."
Sam nods, but he looks less than convinced. Too smart for his own good, that has always been his baby brother.
Dean gives a shaky laugh, can't seem to hold it in. Sam looks really worried now, and Dean wants to tell him, It's okay. He wants to say, I'm sorry.
God, Sammy, I'm so fucking sorry.
.1
Twenty-four hours, and Dean can't think. Can't even really seem to move, but he drives because that's what he does. He drives like how other people breathe.
Sam wants to stop. It's 9:12. Dean says, "Okay."
This tiny Texas roadside motel, middle of the desert and faded with age. Sam and Dean play poker, sitting crosslegged across from each other with cards sliding between them on the slick motel bedspread. They eat M&Ms that Dean had in his jacket pocket, drink Jack that Sam'd bought at an Arkansas liquor store. Sam's smiling, eyes crinkled at the corners.
They play for a while and watch TV for a while longer, and then at 11:47 Sam says, "Okay, man, I'm gonna turn in."
He changes, brushes his teeth. Dean sits on the other bed, drags one hand across his mouth and watches the door.
Sam turns out the light, settles under the covers. Dean watches him now, trying to remember everything about his brother, everything he knows from a quarter-century together.
11:56. "Goodnight, Sammy," Dean whispers, cause he can't say goodbye.
"Night, Dean." Sam sighs, soft, and closes his eyes.
11:59, and Dean goes outside, so Sam won't have to see.
0
Last thoughts, with hot breath on his face and howling behind him.
Sam.