Blue Skies From Rain Part 6 - Chapter 27 cont.
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Sam wanted to keep driving, right into the west, where the sun would go down and hopefully take them both with it, car and all. But he couldn’t ignore Dean in the seat beside him, dust streaking the side of his neck, the grit and speckles of blood on this arm. And especially not Dean’s left leg that he casually held out straight like it was no big deal, pretending he wasn’t gritting his teeth when Sam went over some railroad tracks. Roads in the desert tended to get melted and swimmy, so he wasn’t able to just drive straight along and not mess with Dean’s leg. No, they had to stop, he needed to get Dean fixed up, like Dean always took care of him. And they needed to talk. Dean would hate every minute of it. Too bad. Dean was the one who’d left, he had some explaining to do.
At San Ysidro, Sam pulled off at a little bend in the road with a gas station and a mom and pop motel that was so old and dusty it looked like part of the desert. There was even a little café, maybe that had the kind of food that Dean loved and-
He parked fast in front of the office, his eyes getting hot, his mouth twisting with fury and his efforts to keep tears of rage at bay. Keeping it down, like Dean was in the seat beside him, white like a sheet, pretending his leg wasn’t all fucked up, looking like he wished he were miles away.
“Why are we stopping?” asked Dean, freckles and sweat popping out across his nose.
“Because we need gas, and we need food, and we need all that before we cross the mountains and the desert. Besides,” Sam said, taking the keys out of the ignition, carefully not looking at Dean. “I need to look at that leg, and you and I need to talk.”
“No,” said Dean. “Can’t we just-”
“No,” said Sam. He got out and shut the door, then leaned on his elbows in the open driver’s side window. “It’s my turn now. My turn, my rules, I get to say. Besides, I have the keys and we’re in the middle of nowhere, and on that knee you can’t run very far. So I win. Get out.”
He went into the office where a very nice lady with a squash blossom necklace and a long grey braid checked him in and gave him the hours to the café. It wasn’t opened terribly late, she told him, but the food was good, because her husband cooked it. Cold beer? Yes, on tap, but no drunken parties. Her gaze rested on the Impala in the parking lot where Sam had yet to hear any door opening or closing. Obviously because Dean was staying put, but it wasn’t obedience, it was the knee.
“No, ma’am,” he said, taking the key, which was, remarkably, a real key with a wooden tag that said, Number 7 in painted-on yellow writing. “Just some rest before we go to MonumentValley tomorrow.”
“That’ll be nice, “she replied, smiling. “You’ll have some good weather, then. Blue skies.”
Sam slipped the key in his pocket and went out to help Dean, who hurriedly opened the door when he saw Sam coming and was now swinging his legs out, feet in the dust that dappled his black boots. The same boots he’d stolen from that house in MatanzasBeach. In the rain.
Dean tried to stand, hand gripping the edge of the open window, but it was obvious to Sam that the knee wouldn’t hold, not without some ice, some aspirin, and a good wrapped bandage. Like Dean’d probably done with Mrs. Clara’s ankle. He sighed, and looped his arm around Dean’s ribs and pulled him to.
“Shut up,” he said. “Just for now.”
It was a small miracle, but Dean let him help him hobble to the door of Number 7, a wooden door cleverly painted with outlines of green cactus and black coyotes, but at least, mercifully, there were no Kokopellis dancing around. Dean hated those, just as much as Sam hated it when the coyotes were purple or blue. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the key, and unlocked and opened the door. Cool, dark air rushed out at them, and Sam could feel Dean’s ribs relaxing against his arm as he sighed soundlessly. Sam flipped on the light. The overhead fan was already spinning, and the smell was dry and mold free. Their boots tracked in dust across the smooth red tile floor. But there were two beds with white sheets, and a new TV, and Sam found himself sighing in tandem.
He walked Dean to one of the beds and made him sit down on it.
“Boots and socks off, pants, too, and I’ll get the stuff from the car.”
Sam left the door to the room open while he made several trips. First aid box, duffels, his laptop, gun, salt. All the things he now remembered, familiar weights in his hands, the heft and feel of thick cotton, the ragged edge of the wooden box, all like pieces of home that the Impala carried with them. Stuff he’d been leaving in the car because there’d been no Dean to bring them in to. He placed these on the low dresser next to the TV, catching Dean out of the corner of his eye. When he got back with the bucket of ice, Dean was bent far forward, but his knee wouldn’t let him undo his boots. But he was trying, because Sam asked him to.
“Hang on,” said Sam. He went out to roll up the windows on the car most of the way, and to lock the doors. Then he came back in the room, and closed the door to the outside. Then he bent on the floor in front of Dean. He started unlacing Dean’s boots, batting Dean’s hands back, not looking up.
“I’m helping,” he said, concentrating on the laces, ignoring Dean’s irritated breathing. “You can’t manage, so I’m helping.”
“Sam.”
“Just let me, okay?” Now Sam looked up, into Dean’s white face and his wide eyes. It wasn’t just his knee bothering him, Sam knew that. But first aid first, and then everything else later. “Otherwise your knee will swell up so bad we’ll have to cut these jeans off and I know they’re your favorites. So just shut the fuck up and let me.”
He undid Dean’s boots and slid them off, dust scattering to the floor when he pulled off Dean’s socks. Dean’s feet were filthy, but that couldn’t be helped now. Then he motioned for Dean to rise up on his hands so he could take Dean’s jeans off. Nothing they’d not done a hundred times before, but halfway through, when Sam’s fingers were scraping against the outside of Dean’s thighs as he tugged the jeans down, Dean got flushed, his mouth turning down as he hung on to his boxers with one hand. But Sam kept going. He didn’t really know what else he could do; Dean’s knee needed tending to, regardless of whatever else they’d been through. Like always.
Sam tossed the jeans to one side and got up to bring back a glass of water and three aspirin, which Dean took and swallowed. His throat worked as he tilted his head back, taking the pills the way he’d always done, the way he’d done in the hospital. Efficient and fast, no wasted effort. Sam made himself move to get the ice and wrap it in a towel. It’d be dripping in about five minutes, but it was better than nothing.
“Here,” he said. “Put that on there, I’ll get the bandage.”
It was an old routine, as old as their travels on the road. If you were broken and beat up, you got to sit down and be waited on while the other one fetched and carried. There were no words for this, though, no official rules laid down. Just the pattern of it, criss-crossing the room to get what Dean needed, kneeling down to take Dean’s leg and straighten the knee so Dean’s foot rested against Sam’s thigh. The skin cool and bare under his fingers as he pushed away the ice pack, making Dean hold it, and wrapping the bandage around and around, finally tucking it like Dean would, a little fold to hold it through the night.
He gave the side of Dean’s knee, firm and still under the bandage, a gentle pat as he stood up.
“Okay?”
Dean nodded, keeping his eyes on his knee, maybe on Sam’s fingers as they pulled away.
“I need to pee,” Dean said. “And I need to wash up.”
“Your knee ought to hold if you don’t start dancing around. Here, then,” said Sam. He held out his hand, and Dean took it, levering himself up, keeping his leg straight. Sam didn’t watch Dean hobble into the bathroom, didn’t flinch when Dean closed the door behind him. He listened though, as he gathered up Dean’s jeans and socks and boots to put them on the chair near the door. To the sounds of water running, the splashing in the basin, the toilet flushing. More running water.
He took some aspirin himself, and a large gulp of water besides, to try and combat the pounding behind his eyes that wasn’t entirely due to the heat outside or the driving through Albuquerque in the bright sun. Then he put the aspirin away, and tossed the plastic cup in the trash. Then he looked at the plastic lining and took the cup out again. He pulled out the lining and filled it with the rest of the ice and then wrapped the whole thing in the towel.
When Dean came out of the bathroom, he motioned towards the bed and held up the bag.
“Trash lining,” Sam said, knowing Dean would know what he meant.
“Sam,” said Dean. His eyes seemed to be avoiding Sam’s. Sam couldn’t help that. What was done was done; he just needed to understand why.
“Bed, Dean,” he said. “Let that leg rest, give yourself a break-”
He stopped. Reminded himself how mad he was. His confusion over Dean growing with each mile he’d chased his brother across the country. But the first aid was over, so it was time.
He pointed at the bed, and then out of sheer kindness, went to Dean’s duffle and pulled out a t-shirt and a thin pair of cotton sweat pants. He went over to Dean with the articles in his hand and just looked at Dean. He handed Dean the sweatpants and stood by so Dean could steady himself against Sam as he put them on, holding his left leg out straight.
When Dean took off his shirt, Sam hissed. There were bruises older than the ones Sam had given him that morning. But the cuts were clean; Dean had washed them off in the bathroom. So he handed Dean the shirt and backed off while Dean slipped the shirt on. He held out his hand so Dean could sit back on the bed without jarring his leg, leaning over Dean so he could pull up the clean white pillows for Dean to rest against on the headboard. When he leaned again to hand Dean the ice bag and tug the sheets down, Dean jagged him with an elbow.
“Enough, Sam,” he said, snapping like he always did when Sam fussed too much.
So Sam sat on the other bed with a low groan, finally able to lean forward and take off his own boots and dirty socks. Also stolen in MatanzasBeach. In the rain.
He was gritty and dusty himself, could use a hot shower like nobody’s business, but this was more important. They had to talk about it, even if Dean didn’t want to. And maybe Sam didn’t want to either, but there was Dean, looking white, still, eyes dark, avoiding Sam’s. Shoulders hunched as if waiting for a blow. The cruelty in waiting would be to Dean, and he didn’t deserve that, regardless of anything else.
Sam couldn’t put it off any longer, otherwise they were never going to talk about this.
“So,” said Sam. He rested his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands.
He made himself look at Dean, who was studiously arranging his ice on his knee. Dean’s throat worked like he was trying to swallow. If his throat was as dry as Sam’s was, it would feel like sandpaper.
“Why?” he asked.
“Why?” Dean asked back. “Why what?” Belligerent, fighting it.
Sam made himself stay calm. “Why everything?”
Dean looked at him, eyes narrowing, like he used to back at the hospital when he was assessing Sam’s state. But he didn’t move.
A familiar unsettled feeling from the hospital came over him, the one that had blossomed in his chest every time he was away from Dean, or when Dean pulled back, or said no. It was sending him into a panic, but he didn’t want that. He wanted to understand why.
He took a deep breath. “You kept us there-we could have walked out any time, or you could have called Bobby or someone. Anyone. But you didn’t. We didn’t have to go through any of that, any of what we did. Why would you do that, it was almost like you wanted to stay. You-”
“It was the pills,” said Dean, suddenly. He pushed the bag off his knee. When he looked up at Sam, it seemed by force of will alone. “I asked Dr. Logan, and she said you couldn’t go cold turkey, ‘cause it would be hard on the body. Give you a stroke or send you into a coma. I couldn’t risk doing that on the open road, we had to go slow.”
Dean’s jaw quivered, the tremors slight, but Sam could see it. Sam leaned close, and he could see the flecks in Dean’s eyes. Dean’s hopeful eyes that, yes, this was the reason, the one that Sam would accept and then shut up and then go away. Very far away where Dean would never have to think about him again. Sam wasn’t having any of it.
Not leaning back, not moving away, he took a deep breath. “I guess I figured that out for myself, Dean,” he said. “But what about everything else?” Then, because it was important, Sam cleared his throat and clarified what he meant. “We were all tied up with each other, and that’s not new but-we had relations-”
It sounded so much like an old lady that he stopped, and Dean stopped him by laughing in his throat, hard, like he didn’t want to, but because Sam was so ridiculous. Sam stood up, feeling his eyes get hot, and the blood started thumping behind them. He loomed over Dean, who pulled against the headboard, not moving away, but making himself small.
“You let me do anything I wanted, Dean, have anything I wanted, including you. You never said no, you never drew the line, you knew you were my brother, and yet you went ahead and-“
“I tried to say, no, Sam, but-”
“But nothing.” Now Sam was pointing, jabbing his finger into Dean’s shoulder, making Dean wince. He ignored the darkness in Dean’s eyes, the screaming he saw there. He couldn’t let it stop him. “You were in your right mind, you knew. And yet you let me. I didn’t know who the hell I was, and yet you let me. You let me kiss you and jack you off and suck your cock, and then you put your head in the pillow so I could fuck you. You, Dean. You.” He shoved Dean hard enough so that the headboard clonked against the wall, and Dean’s head smacked into he plaster.
“I never fucked you,” said Dean, not rubbing his head. He said it like a mantra. His chest was heaving like he was trying to breath underwater, his hands fists along his legs. “Never.”
This clicked into Sam’s brain so sharp, everything else seemed muffled in comparison. Maybe Dean had wanted to. “Then what the fuck happened?”
“I screwed up,” said Dean. His voice cracked, mouth open as he scrubbed at his eyes with the heels of both hands. When he took his hands away, his face looked ragged, eyes wet and red-rimmed, as though he’d been crying, even though he hadn’t. “I screwed up and left us there too long-” The words rose from his throat like jagged-edged blades. “I kept you there, wanting you to be okay when we left, and I left it too long. I let them fuck you up, and I let me-”
Dean turned away and grabbed for the far edge of the bed, away from Sam. He pulled himself and tried to move too fast, jarring his leg as he swung it to the ground. Sam moved and reached across Dean’s bed, trying to grab Dean’s arm. Dean jerked his arm out of the way and tried to stand, but his knee gave way and he sank unsteadily against the headboard on the far side of the bed. Too far away even for Sam’s reach.
Dean’s mouth twisted, like he was trying to hold back something ugly. But his hand was on his knee, shaking, and Sam made himself be still, giving Dean enough room. Waiting till he stopped, till some of the whiteness faded from his face.
Dean pressed back against the headboard like it was his last salvation, putting both legs back on the bed. With his hands gripping the counterpane, he looked at Sam. Swallowed hard. “It’s my fault,” he said. “You didn’t know who you were and I did.”
Dean was shaking so hard the headboard knocked into the wall again, and his face was as white as iced paper. So white his eyes were blazing, and Sam knew that they, that he, had to fix this. Otherwise, Dean was going to carry this around, letting it eat at him until one day he would take it as an act of contrition to step into the path of a raging ghost, or a speeding train, or an 18-wheeler along one of those highways he loved so much.
It was wrong. All of it had been wrong. As to who was to blame, he’d been so sure it’d had been Dean’s fault. Now he wasn’t so sure.
Without moving, Sam said, “You were fucked up, too, Dean. Mental hospitals don’t make people sane, they just keep the crazies at bay.”
“That’s no excuse,” said Dean, his jaw coming forward like he was going to take a bite out of Sam. “None, because I knew and you didn’t, and you can’t-”
“I can,” said Sam, interrupting him. “And I have to. You kept saying no and I kept pushing and you-” He stopped, watching Dean wince, his eyes darken, starting to move off the bed again. He’d fall and then his knee would be even more fucked up than ever. But that wasn’t it, that wasn’t what mattered. Knees would mend. Dean, on the inside, was working towards cracking up.
Sam held up for his hand so that Dean would know Sam wasn’t coming at him. Dean settled back, still tense.
“We both did it, okay?” said Sam. “We were both there.”
Sam took a heaving breath and stood up to move to the foot of the bed that Dean was on. He knew it didn’t really make it any better for Dean; after all he was still standing there. Looming. So he turned away and went to open the door, and stared out at the parking lot and the blazing desert scrub land beyond. A single car passed on the two-lane highway, and Sam listened to the engine and the hum of the tires, and thought about how so much of their lives could be recounted by motel room doorways just like this one. Where are we, Dad? I don’t know, look out the door.
He turned his head to look at Dean. Watched Dean lift his face as he felt Sam looking at him. Sam crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the doorjamb and let the hot air from the outside mix with the cool air from the room. Waited for Dean. Like Dean would wait for him.
“I think-” started Dean. His mouth worked, but he didn’t take his eyes from Sam’s. “It started out because Dr. Logan said that helping you would help me. Remember her theory?”
Sam nodded, slowly.
“It worked both ways, right? And when-that one time-you were there when I came back-”
Dean stopped and Sam knew why. It was hard to think about how much power the hospital had, power to drag you away to a small, tiled room, to take off all your clothes and pump you full of something to keep you still. And then to wrap you tightly in damp sheets and hose you down with icy cold water because the hospital decided that it would help keep you calm, and maybe even teach you a lesson about how to control violent impulses. When all it taught you was that it didn’t matter how miserable it got or how scared you were, no one would rescue you from the dark.
“The touching helped,” said Dean, and Sam swallowed hard at the fist that rose in his throat. Dean was still talking, was telling the truth, by God, and Sam would rather rip out his own tongue than interrupt him. “It helped me, so I wanted to help you, and that was my game plan. Which got out of control. Because it turned into-Anyway. So that’s all. That’s how I fucked up.”
Sam could see how it had been for Dean, as clear as if Dean had drawn him a picture. Dean had been on meds too, in a coma for a week, according to Dr. Logan. He had come out of his djinn induced amnesia, and had found Sam as fast as he’d been able. Which had been pretty fast, considering everyone, including Dean, had been under the impression that his brother was dead. That was like a little bit of magic, right there. And then, with Dr. Logan’s experiment in place, Dean had taken control of everything, or tried to. Making a plan to get them off their meds, finding a way out of the hospital, finding paperclips, for Christ’s sake-
He stopped himself, because the mystery of that was the least of his concerns. The fan spun overhead and the cool air of the room swept across his skin. Nice and cool. Appropriately cool. Not like in the hospital, where the chill of the air was constant, like a punishment for something you’d not even done yet.
He had pushed up to Dean, climbed into Dean’s bed for warmth, and then there’d been kisses. And then there’d been more. He’d asked Dean if they could go further, he remembered thinking that Dean was everything good. Remembered thinking about Randy and his obsession with fucking. How he’d coaxed and coaxed, and finally, after Dean had laid down the law, no way, Then Sam had flipped out, and Dean had relented. But it had been Sam doing the fucking. Not Dean.
“This is not all your fault,” Sam said.
Dean sucked in his lips, and Sam could see him warring with it. It would be easier if he blew it off, for both of them. But Dean being Dean, he was going to see this through, even if it looked like it was killing him.
“Being with you-helped,” Dean said. Now he looked down, at his hands now as he rubbed his knee slowly. “Kept you calm, kept me calm. Kept us calm because it was like a two way street. Giving and receiving. Better than group therapy. Better than anything.”
Now that made sense. They’d been orphans of the storm, it felt like, now, looking back. And with only each other to cling to, to keep warm by, it made a kind of twisted sense.
“I couldn’t stop it,” said Dean. “You or me. In there. Everything was muffled, and it was this whole other world. What I was doing, what I was letting-it made sense. In there. Even though I knew that out here, it wouldn’t. And it doesn’t.”
“You did the best you could,” said Sam. He wished he didn’t still sound like he was blaming Dean for everything. So he closed the door, shutting out the bright light, leaving the room feeling a little bit darker, and maybe safer, for the seconds it would take their eyes to adjust to the darkness. “You saved us both, Dean, you got us out of there right under Henriksen’s nose, and no one, and I mean no one, could have done any better.”
“Doesn’t feel like it,” said Dean, low. As his eyes adjusted, Sam watched him push down into the bed until his head hit the pillow. “But it was the best I could come up with, okay?
“For what it’s worth,” said Sam to Dean’s outline. “I don’t blame you. For any of it. In fact-”
“Sam.”
“Yes?”
“Do you think I wanted this? Fuck, that’s why I left.”
Sam blinked.
“Just go take a shower or take a hike or whatever. Just leave me alone now. Just for until-just leave me alone, okay?”
Dean had been on the road for weeks, constantly on the move. He’d worn himself out running. Moving west, trying to get away from Sam. But it was like Dean had hit him, right in the chest, where it rang empty and hollow as he watched Dean roll away to face the wall.
“Fine.” Sam swung open the door with force. “But I’m going to be right outside. I mean it, Dean. You try to leave and I will mess up your other leg.”
“Great,” said Dean, his grunt muffled by the pillow. “I’m your prisoner now, so just get the fuck out.”
Sam let himself out of the room, kicking the door shut behind him. He sat on the little bench against the wall in the shade and stared out at the desert, and the dusty road. And just let Dean be.
He got it, at least most of it. The pills, and how Dean had to be careful, taking them both off the meds, keeping them safe, not letting anyone find out. He must have lost his mind every time Sam was out of sight, because he couldn’t know if an orderly or doctor might order some tests and find out, and take Sam away. That made sense. As did Dean’s reluctance to let any one see him, and especially Sam, it seemed, in that state. Not even Bobby, because Dean had been weak and Sam weaker, and there was no way that Dean would want that to get out to any hunters. And when Henriksen had shown up, it must have killed Dean to stay still, to not start running then and there. But he’d waited. For Sam, and coaxed him into being brave, just by being brave himself.
As for him and Dean, the two of them beneath the sheets, sharing the darkness, that also made sense. The trust that Dean had to build to take Sam away with him had been necessary in Dean’s mind, according to Dean. But there seemed more than that, something open ended that Dean’s answers seemed to satisfy but didn’t. Sam’s mind went to Dean in the hotel in Quincy, how he’d turned away and tried to get Sam to stop, and no, he didn’t want to share a shower, and his whole attitude of reluctance that Sam had simply ignored. Dean had known who they were, had struggled with it and finally given in. Ostensibly because Sam wanted it, that was always the way, Sam’s needs got met and Dean’s needs got shelved for later. Or never.
And then there’d been the djinn, who’d started the whole mess, and their off-kilter sojourn in the mental institution. The djinn had given Dean the perfect dream to keep him still and happy for the djinn to feed off of. But in spite of having exactly what he’d thought he’d wanted in that other world, with no hunting and no strife, Dean had wanted to come back. Had killed himself to come back, and that, it seemed, because he and that other Sam had never-what. Gotten along? Shared anything? Been like real brothers? Been close?
Sam pushed his hair out of his eyes and chewed on his thumb and stared at the line of the horizon, the brightness of the desert and the scrub over the low hills shining under the blue, the far edge of it turning to dark because the sun was going down. It would get cooler then, maybe a breeze would kick up. They could go eat at the little café, have a cool beer under the stars, and he found his eyes were prickling, hot, and he blinked it away. It wasn’t just the meal or the beer, it was what it represented, if they could get there, to that moment, there could be others like it. Where they shared a meal and the time, and looked at each other with promises in their eyes, saving it for later. For the darkness of a room that wouldn’t judge or turn its head away, but would take them with wide, still arms and let them be.
Did he want that, then? It was one thing to accept what happened, to understand the reasons why. It was another to pursue it, to make Dean answer him, his final question, to tell Dean what he wanted. To see if Dean wanted it, too.
If Dean said no-
That would be hard, but they would have to stay together. Sam knew he couldn’t bear anything else. Being apart for a few weeks had been hard enough, he couldn’t exist that way forever. So Dean would just have to stay, and Sam would have to convince him that it was okay.
But if Dean said yes-
Sam’s heart exploded in his chest, and he knew then that was what he wanted. He scrubbed at his eyes and tasted the dry desert air in his mouth, hot tears taking the salt out of him. He was thirsty, he wanted water, he wanted Dean. But he couldn’t make Dean say yes, he would never do that, even when he liked it when Sam made him-
He took a deep breath and settled his hands in his lap to stare at the line of dark blue beyond the low, sandy ridge, becoming smudged to purple, with a blaze of pink across the rocks. In a land where it never seemed to rain, where the hot sun stroked the land day after day, things still grew, lush and green in spite of the lack of water. And a cool breeze stirred the hair where it stuck to his hot forehead, touching his brow, the side of his face.
He couldn’t let himself hope, of course, because that would make him too eager and might freak Dean out. If he could stay calm, if he could find a way to get through to Dean, it might be like this always, a constant surprise, like the sweet smell of something he couldn’t name, something insistent and eager, like a coming rain. Warm and bright and welcome across a desert sky.
Chapter 28
Blue Skies From Rain Master Fic Post