Fic: Radio Silence
The first step is admitting you have a problem, so here I am.
I, uh... I'm a blackout comment!fic writer. I don't mean to write comment!fic. I don't even mean to click the banner to the meme. But I click, and I browse, and then I stumble upon a prompt that grabs me. Next thing I know, it's four in the morning, birds are chirping in their stupid bird voices outside my window, and there's 2500 words of Sam whump on my computer screen that I don't remember putting there.
To be fair, though, the prompt by pkwench over at the ohsam comment!fic meme was:
"Happy Birthday, Sammy! Pity that it's alternate universe 5x04 and that you're having your birthday trapped inside of your own skin while the Devil ruins the world. Still, it was nice of the guy to sing to you on your birthday and he even got you a gift - he let you wander around in your body for an entire night out in the bleak remains of civilization. Of couse, everyone thinks you're the Devil and you're reviled and feared wherever you go. Worse, you're probably pretty far gone to find yourself weeping at the sound of birds on the wind or the scent of burning tires because it's just been so damned LONG since you've felt anything at all. Hey, I wonder what your chances are of getting Dean on the short wave are?"
And seriously, how could I reasonably be expected to resist that? Come on.
Title: Radio Silence
Characters: Sam, Lucifer, Dean
Ratings/Warnings: PG-13/Spoilers for 5.04 and language (Holy shit, I actually made them swear!)
Word Count: 2500
Summary: Future!fic. Sam gets a twelve hour break from being Lucifer's vessel. Following hazy memories from his old life, he wanders across the country in search of Dean.
Sam doesn’t remember much because there isn’t much to remember - not in the grand scheme of things. One life is too small a thing compared to the systematic extermination of humanity. He remembers words that have fallen from his mouth recently, useful words like genocide and perfection and maggots. Lucifer’s words. He feels other words within him, his own words from another life, but they’re rootless. Jess is a hiss of a syllable. Stanford is nonsense.
“Dean,” he says as he inhales for himself for the first time in a year. The name feels right on his tongue, but he doesn’t know why. The air filling his lungs is dry and burnt, and when he sits up in the bed of leaves, he finds himself on the edge of a forest that’s mostly char and still smoking. There’s little nearby: crumbling shapes of former trees, a dirt road strewn with debris, an old yellow truck.
Happy birthday to you, sings a voice from inside him. Happy birthday to you. I’d say you looked like a monkey, but that would be self-deprecating, wouldn’t it?
“Lucifer,” Sam says, his chest seizing up.
Yes, Sam, the voice replies, and he feels it coiled deep within him, a pit of crackling power he can’t see the bottom of. I told you I would take care of you, and I have. You’ve done so well, in fact, I thought you deserved a special treat on your birthday. So here you are, Sam - the reins are all yours for twelve hours.
“Mine?” he repeats, not sure he heard right.
Yours, repeats Lucifer. I will be resting in here until midnight. It’s been a busy year - I welcome the downtime.
Midnight. The sun hangs directly overhead. That means it must be around noon now. Sam’s brow furrows - a sensation that sweeps a wave of nostalgia through him so suddenly it almost knocks him back onto the grass. He takes another breath of the acrid air, and his heart feels like it might explode. It’s too much.
Midnight, he thinks. And then, for the first time in a year, he hears himself say: “Holy shit.”
*
For the first half an hour, Sam just sits on the grass at the roadside, rediscovering his own facial expressions. Smiling stretches his cheeks in strange ways. Scowling pinches them. Opening his mouth wide makes his tongue feel overexposed, and suddenly everything tastes like ash. He falls back into the grass, hits his head on a piece of gravel, and laughs as he cradles the back of his skull. And laughs. He laughs like he’s just discovered laughter for the first time, and his body is trying to figure out how much laughter it’s capable of without choking.
Okay, and maybe with choking.
*
12:30pm.
Sam pulls himself to his feet, the gravel making divots in his palms, and climbs into the cab of the yellow truck. He’s terrified for a second because he can’t remember which pedal is which, but the moment he turns the key in the ignition, his right foot eases down against the far right pedal and the truck starts forward. His body knows this, even if he doesn’t remember. His body is used to taking six-hour shifts at the wheel, drumming fingers against the wheel to drown out the rhythm of AC/DC. His body is far more attuned to being inside a car than it is to being possessed by Lucifer, and it was made for Lucifer.
He races down the back roads of wherever-the-hell, the truck kicking up dust and gravel in its wake and wind whipping his hair into his face. The CB radio on the dashboard is picking up static, and the farther he gets from the burned forest, the more other noises come in aside from that white noise. Birds. A distant siren. Some lucky kid in one of these fields yelling happily, like she doesn’t know the world’s ended. More birds.
Birds. Sam knows he doesn’t like them much, and he has a vague recollection of what bird shit can do to a fresh paint job, but hearing their calls on the wind makes him tear up. They’re free. He’s free. By the time he finds the interstate, his cheeks are streaked wet and he’s rediscovered sobbing, too.
Sam thinks, About now he’d be calling me a girl and asking if I needed him to pick up some Midol at the store.
But he’s not sure who the “he” is who’s attached to that thought, so he lets it go. The interstate stretches out in both directions in front of him, and something in him says to go north, so he does.
*
1pm.
The smooth grumble of the truck’s engine makes him cry, too. It reminds him of another car, one whose grumble rings through his head like a song that's stuck. He speeds up to 90mph to make the chassis shake so he won’t have to hear the engine.
*
2:15pm.
A passing truck hails him and he has to think for a moment before he answers the CB. When he introduces himself by his real name, the other end of the line goes silent for a few seconds, and then what comes across is just swearing and threats. The name Dean is thrown into that mess, and it tugs at something in Sam’s chest.
Dean. Sam and Dean Winchester. Where’s he heard that before?
*
3:30pm.
Crying at random shit is exhausting - and worse, dehydrating. Sam pulls into the lot of a small gas station off the interstate. The windows are blown out and two cars are sitting abandoned in the lot. He wanders inside and grabs a Gatorade from the warm refrigerator compartment at the back of the store. Even though it’s been expired for three months--and how the fuck can Gatorade expire? He's debated that before--it tastes fine. He grabs two more bottles, some vacuum-sealed snack cakes, and a flannel shirt. In the middle of the store, he strips off the blazer and button-down dress shirt Lucifer had dressed him in and pulls on the black and blue plaid.
On the way out of the gas station, he slaps his credit card down on the check-out counter and feels like he’s paying homage to something. Probably a movie. Zombies? A zombie movie, yeah. Something Dean liked.
Who the hell is Dean?
*
4pm.
Sam tries the snack cakes.
*
4:23pm.
Sam pulls over to the shoulder and his stomach lets the snack cakes go on the pavement. Gross.
*
5:15pm.
For about five minutes, Sam thinks he should go get himself laid, since it is his birthday and all and he’s only got a brief window of time in control of his own body. He thinks about blondes vs. brunettes and takes serious consideration of what kind of bar he’d have to go to in order to find a girl who’d agree to sleep with him without being a total skank. He wonders if maybe he should aim for a skank - the dirtiest he can find - so he can pass something nasty on to Lucifer. If the devil’s gonna give him a consolation prize this crappy, he may as well give back in kind.
Sam’s trying to remember all the symptoms of syphilis when it occurs to him that there are no bar skanks in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
*
6pm.
He’s beginning to think this is his worst birthday ever, except he’s got a nagging feeling that it isn’t. He starts passing small cities, and with them, more vehicles. So he picks up the CB and tries again, asking the one question he can’t seem to shake.
“You know where Dean Winchester is?”
The first guy only laughs. Sam doesn’t know why it’s funny, but he feigns understanding because the guy’s in a huge Mack truck with a trailer on the back that looks like it could whack a little yellow truck off the road.
The second guy growls back, “Why d’you wanna know?”
And before Sam can think about it, he answers, “He’s m’brother.”
The second guy doesn’t answer after that. Sam’s kind of glad, because he’s doing that crying thing again, and he’s not sure he could talk through the knot in his throat.
The third guy he asks is in a tank-like thing coming the opposite direction, and he’s only too happy to answer.
“Yeah, Camp Chitaqua, about ninety miles north on the edge of the lake. Fucker stole the meds I was trying to sell him. Don’t do business up there.”
“I won’t,” Sam says.
*
7:35pm.
The sign at the camp’s entrance is half covered in leaves, but Sam can read it just fine. He parks and pulls out the CB mic.
“Camp Chitaqua, do you read me?”
Silence.
“Anybody there?” He pauses a moment, then adds, “I’m looking for Dean Winchester. Please. It’s urgent.”
“What do you want with Dean?” a woman’s voice replies.
“I need to see him.”
“Good luck. No way we’re gonna let a stranger in the gates - you could be infected.”
“I’m not a stranger,” Sam says, his voice going a little indignant. “I’m his brother.”
“Fuck you,” says the voice on the other end, and the line goes back to static.
*
8:05pm.
He’s been trying for half an hour, first politely, then pleading, and finally he starts to sing. He’s on the third verse of “Wanted Dead or Alive” when his finger slips off the button and he hears a gruff voice on the other end saying, “Stop it! For Christ’s sake, just stop it, will you?”
Sam’s throat constricts. He presses the button. “Dean?” It feels like he’s said that name a hundred times in that same startled tone.
“Yeah, you bastard, I’m here,” growls the reply. “What do you want this time? You wanna kill me? Go ahead - you gotta find me first, and I haven’t broken a rib since Cas marked me.”
“Kill you?” Sam frowns. “Dean, it’s me. Lucifer let me have control for the night.”
“Bullshit,” says Dean.
Back to static.
*
9pm.
“Say you were Sam,” the CB crackles. “Tell me something only Sam would know.”
Sam opens his mouth and has no idea what to say. “I…look, Dean, I don’t know. I don’t remember. I feel like my brain’s been shoved through a blender.”
“Well, that’s believable,” Dean snarks. “Come on in, Sammy! I’ll lay out a place at the table for you. You want chicken or fish?”
“Very funny.”
“Yeah, I crack me up. I’m gonna kill you, y’know that, you sorry son of a bitch? I may not be the goddamn Michaelsword, but I’ll find a way to tear you apart.”
Something clatters, and Sam is pretty sure his brother just threw something across the room. He sighs, settling into the radio silence.
*
9:45pm.
“I hope you do. Kill me, I mean. Kill Lucifer. I’m sorry, Dean. I don’t know what I was thinking. I wish I did. I wish I could explain it to you. I just know it didn’t work. And I’m sorry. If I could go back…fuck, Dean, I’d do it in a heartbeat. But I can’t, so I need you to be serious about this. Find a way to kill me. I’ll forgive you for it - hell, I’d congratulate you if I could. Please. Just figure it out and do it. I’m counting on you.”
Dean stopped responding a while ago.
*
10:25pm.
“Are you seeing these stars, man? I don’t think I’ve ever seen stars this damn bright before. Seriously, take a look out the window.” Sam stretches himself out across the hood of the truck, the CB mic’s cord pulled taut from the window. The metal is still hot from a day in the sun, but the air outside the camp has chilled enough that the heat is welcome against his back. The flannel he grabbed from the gas station insulates it, making his whole back relax. Sam would feel peaceful if it weren’t for the damn CB and what he knows is on the other end.
Or what he suspects, anyway. He might be talking to an empty room. But if he’s been telling an empty room about his ride up here and the way he felt about snack cakes, at least it’s been one of the more pleasant conversations he’s had since he was given the reins.
“That’s Ursa Major,” he says into the mic, pointing upward. “I think I studied the stars in…fifth grade? Sounds about right. I liked the bear constellations. Ursa Major and Ursa Minor.”
“Yeah,” says a voice on the other end of the radio. “I could never see the goddamn bears in those stars myself.”
That’s the last thing he gets from Dean over the radio.
*
11:20pm.
“Dean, please,” he tries again. “Please. It’s me. It’s Sam. I know I can’t prove it, but please.”
He lets the button go. Static.
“Dean,” he says into the mic. “It’s not there. All the things I knew - all the things I’m supposed to know- Goddammit, that’s why I need to see you. I’ve only got forty fucking minutes left, and then I’m gone again.”
He lets the button go. Static. It has to be the hundredth time he’s done this, and the thought drags a growl of frustration out of his throat. He pounds his fists on the hood of the truck and bites back tears. Not that he's got any left to spend. He's gone through all the Gatorades, thanks to this stupid crying reflex.
“Dean…I’ve spent this whole day feeling empty. Feeling wrong, like something took a melon baller to everything that used to be me. Everything’s jumbled and hollow, except you. Just saying your name, it’s like I’ve got someplace to go. I don’t have the details, but I know you. You’re home.”
He lets the button go and presses his palms hard against his eyes. Nothing but static.
*
11:42pm.
The gate creaks. Sam sits up.
Dean stands ten feet in front of him, a rifle choked up in one hand like some kind of weird security blanket and his eyes wide. “Sammy?” he says.
“Dean,” Sam says, pushing himself cautiously off the hood. “You’re-”
“Here, I know. Dumb shit move. But I thought…” Dean swallows hard enough that Sam can see his throat bob in the dark. He knows that throat. He knows that deeply fucking disapproving look. He knows the line of that collar and the slope of those shoulders. Dean shakes his head, and his voice gets small and sarcastic at the same time. “Dude, even Lucifer couldn’t sound that much like a girl.”
Sam’s shoulders slump, and he steps forward. Dean’s rifle thuds to the dirt, and his brother’s arms wrap around him. Dean hugs desperately, like he knows they’ve only got eighteen minutes and he’s trying to make a lifetime of it. His fingers dig into Sam’s shoulders so hard that Sam can feel the bruises forming already.
Sam takes in the smells of leather and machine oil and sweat and the solid feeling of Dean holding him up. He breathes it all in, smiles against the collar of his brother’s jacket, and remembers.
THE END!
I, uh... I'm a blackout comment!fic writer. I don't mean to write comment!fic. I don't even mean to click the banner to the meme. But I click, and I browse, and then I stumble upon a prompt that grabs me. Next thing I know, it's four in the morning, birds are chirping in their stupid bird voices outside my window, and there's 2500 words of Sam whump on my computer screen that I don't remember putting there.
To be fair, though, the prompt by pkwench over at the ohsam comment!fic meme was:
"Happy Birthday, Sammy! Pity that it's alternate universe 5x04 and that you're having your birthday trapped inside of your own skin while the Devil ruins the world. Still, it was nice of the guy to sing to you on your birthday and he even got you a gift - he let you wander around in your body for an entire night out in the bleak remains of civilization. Of couse, everyone thinks you're the Devil and you're reviled and feared wherever you go. Worse, you're probably pretty far gone to find yourself weeping at the sound of birds on the wind or the scent of burning tires because it's just been so damned LONG since you've felt anything at all. Hey, I wonder what your chances are of getting Dean on the short wave are?"
And seriously, how could I reasonably be expected to resist that? Come on.
Title: Radio Silence
Characters: Sam, Lucifer, Dean
Ratings/Warnings: PG-13/Spoilers for 5.04 and language (Holy shit, I actually made them swear!)
Word Count: 2500
Summary: Future!fic. Sam gets a twelve hour break from being Lucifer's vessel. Following hazy memories from his old life, he wanders across the country in search of Dean.
Sam doesn’t remember much because there isn’t much to remember - not in the grand scheme of things. One life is too small a thing compared to the systematic extermination of humanity. He remembers words that have fallen from his mouth recently, useful words like genocide and perfection and maggots. Lucifer’s words. He feels other words within him, his own words from another life, but they’re rootless. Jess is a hiss of a syllable. Stanford is nonsense.
“Dean,” he says as he inhales for himself for the first time in a year. The name feels right on his tongue, but he doesn’t know why. The air filling his lungs is dry and burnt, and when he sits up in the bed of leaves, he finds himself on the edge of a forest that’s mostly char and still smoking. There’s little nearby: crumbling shapes of former trees, a dirt road strewn with debris, an old yellow truck.
Happy birthday to you, sings a voice from inside him. Happy birthday to you. I’d say you looked like a monkey, but that would be self-deprecating, wouldn’t it?
“Lucifer,” Sam says, his chest seizing up.
Yes, Sam, the voice replies, and he feels it coiled deep within him, a pit of crackling power he can’t see the bottom of. I told you I would take care of you, and I have. You’ve done so well, in fact, I thought you deserved a special treat on your birthday. So here you are, Sam - the reins are all yours for twelve hours.
“Mine?” he repeats, not sure he heard right.
Yours, repeats Lucifer. I will be resting in here until midnight. It’s been a busy year - I welcome the downtime.
Midnight. The sun hangs directly overhead. That means it must be around noon now. Sam’s brow furrows - a sensation that sweeps a wave of nostalgia through him so suddenly it almost knocks him back onto the grass. He takes another breath of the acrid air, and his heart feels like it might explode. It’s too much.
Midnight, he thinks. And then, for the first time in a year, he hears himself say: “Holy shit.”
*
For the first half an hour, Sam just sits on the grass at the roadside, rediscovering his own facial expressions. Smiling stretches his cheeks in strange ways. Scowling pinches them. Opening his mouth wide makes his tongue feel overexposed, and suddenly everything tastes like ash. He falls back into the grass, hits his head on a piece of gravel, and laughs as he cradles the back of his skull. And laughs. He laughs like he’s just discovered laughter for the first time, and his body is trying to figure out how much laughter it’s capable of without choking.
Okay, and maybe with choking.
*
12:30pm.
Sam pulls himself to his feet, the gravel making divots in his palms, and climbs into the cab of the yellow truck. He’s terrified for a second because he can’t remember which pedal is which, but the moment he turns the key in the ignition, his right foot eases down against the far right pedal and the truck starts forward. His body knows this, even if he doesn’t remember. His body is used to taking six-hour shifts at the wheel, drumming fingers against the wheel to drown out the rhythm of AC/DC. His body is far more attuned to being inside a car than it is to being possessed by Lucifer, and it was made for Lucifer.
He races down the back roads of wherever-the-hell, the truck kicking up dust and gravel in its wake and wind whipping his hair into his face. The CB radio on the dashboard is picking up static, and the farther he gets from the burned forest, the more other noises come in aside from that white noise. Birds. A distant siren. Some lucky kid in one of these fields yelling happily, like she doesn’t know the world’s ended. More birds.
Birds. Sam knows he doesn’t like them much, and he has a vague recollection of what bird shit can do to a fresh paint job, but hearing their calls on the wind makes him tear up. They’re free. He’s free. By the time he finds the interstate, his cheeks are streaked wet and he’s rediscovered sobbing, too.
Sam thinks, About now he’d be calling me a girl and asking if I needed him to pick up some Midol at the store.
But he’s not sure who the “he” is who’s attached to that thought, so he lets it go. The interstate stretches out in both directions in front of him, and something in him says to go north, so he does.
*
1pm.
The smooth grumble of the truck’s engine makes him cry, too. It reminds him of another car, one whose grumble rings through his head like a song that's stuck. He speeds up to 90mph to make the chassis shake so he won’t have to hear the engine.
*
2:15pm.
A passing truck hails him and he has to think for a moment before he answers the CB. When he introduces himself by his real name, the other end of the line goes silent for a few seconds, and then what comes across is just swearing and threats. The name Dean is thrown into that mess, and it tugs at something in Sam’s chest.
Dean. Sam and Dean Winchester. Where’s he heard that before?
*
3:30pm.
Crying at random shit is exhausting - and worse, dehydrating. Sam pulls into the lot of a small gas station off the interstate. The windows are blown out and two cars are sitting abandoned in the lot. He wanders inside and grabs a Gatorade from the warm refrigerator compartment at the back of the store. Even though it’s been expired for three months--and how the fuck can Gatorade expire? He's debated that before--it tastes fine. He grabs two more bottles, some vacuum-sealed snack cakes, and a flannel shirt. In the middle of the store, he strips off the blazer and button-down dress shirt Lucifer had dressed him in and pulls on the black and blue plaid.
On the way out of the gas station, he slaps his credit card down on the check-out counter and feels like he’s paying homage to something. Probably a movie. Zombies? A zombie movie, yeah. Something Dean liked.
Who the hell is Dean?
*
4pm.
Sam tries the snack cakes.
*
4:23pm.
Sam pulls over to the shoulder and his stomach lets the snack cakes go on the pavement. Gross.
*
5:15pm.
For about five minutes, Sam thinks he should go get himself laid, since it is his birthday and all and he’s only got a brief window of time in control of his own body. He thinks about blondes vs. brunettes and takes serious consideration of what kind of bar he’d have to go to in order to find a girl who’d agree to sleep with him without being a total skank. He wonders if maybe he should aim for a skank - the dirtiest he can find - so he can pass something nasty on to Lucifer. If the devil’s gonna give him a consolation prize this crappy, he may as well give back in kind.
Sam’s trying to remember all the symptoms of syphilis when it occurs to him that there are no bar skanks in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
*
6pm.
He’s beginning to think this is his worst birthday ever, except he’s got a nagging feeling that it isn’t. He starts passing small cities, and with them, more vehicles. So he picks up the CB and tries again, asking the one question he can’t seem to shake.
“You know where Dean Winchester is?”
The first guy only laughs. Sam doesn’t know why it’s funny, but he feigns understanding because the guy’s in a huge Mack truck with a trailer on the back that looks like it could whack a little yellow truck off the road.
The second guy growls back, “Why d’you wanna know?”
And before Sam can think about it, he answers, “He’s m’brother.”
The second guy doesn’t answer after that. Sam’s kind of glad, because he’s doing that crying thing again, and he’s not sure he could talk through the knot in his throat.
The third guy he asks is in a tank-like thing coming the opposite direction, and he’s only too happy to answer.
“Yeah, Camp Chitaqua, about ninety miles north on the edge of the lake. Fucker stole the meds I was trying to sell him. Don’t do business up there.”
“I won’t,” Sam says.
*
7:35pm.
The sign at the camp’s entrance is half covered in leaves, but Sam can read it just fine. He parks and pulls out the CB mic.
“Camp Chitaqua, do you read me?”
Silence.
“Anybody there?” He pauses a moment, then adds, “I’m looking for Dean Winchester. Please. It’s urgent.”
“What do you want with Dean?” a woman’s voice replies.
“I need to see him.”
“Good luck. No way we’re gonna let a stranger in the gates - you could be infected.”
“I’m not a stranger,” Sam says, his voice going a little indignant. “I’m his brother.”
“Fuck you,” says the voice on the other end, and the line goes back to static.
*
8:05pm.
He’s been trying for half an hour, first politely, then pleading, and finally he starts to sing. He’s on the third verse of “Wanted Dead or Alive” when his finger slips off the button and he hears a gruff voice on the other end saying, “Stop it! For Christ’s sake, just stop it, will you?”
Sam’s throat constricts. He presses the button. “Dean?” It feels like he’s said that name a hundred times in that same startled tone.
“Yeah, you bastard, I’m here,” growls the reply. “What do you want this time? You wanna kill me? Go ahead - you gotta find me first, and I haven’t broken a rib since Cas marked me.”
“Kill you?” Sam frowns. “Dean, it’s me. Lucifer let me have control for the night.”
“Bullshit,” says Dean.
Back to static.
*
9pm.
“Say you were Sam,” the CB crackles. “Tell me something only Sam would know.”
Sam opens his mouth and has no idea what to say. “I…look, Dean, I don’t know. I don’t remember. I feel like my brain’s been shoved through a blender.”
“Well, that’s believable,” Dean snarks. “Come on in, Sammy! I’ll lay out a place at the table for you. You want chicken or fish?”
“Very funny.”
“Yeah, I crack me up. I’m gonna kill you, y’know that, you sorry son of a bitch? I may not be the goddamn Michaelsword, but I’ll find a way to tear you apart.”
Something clatters, and Sam is pretty sure his brother just threw something across the room. He sighs, settling into the radio silence.
*
9:45pm.
“I hope you do. Kill me, I mean. Kill Lucifer. I’m sorry, Dean. I don’t know what I was thinking. I wish I did. I wish I could explain it to you. I just know it didn’t work. And I’m sorry. If I could go back…fuck, Dean, I’d do it in a heartbeat. But I can’t, so I need you to be serious about this. Find a way to kill me. I’ll forgive you for it - hell, I’d congratulate you if I could. Please. Just figure it out and do it. I’m counting on you.”
Dean stopped responding a while ago.
*
10:25pm.
“Are you seeing these stars, man? I don’t think I’ve ever seen stars this damn bright before. Seriously, take a look out the window.” Sam stretches himself out across the hood of the truck, the CB mic’s cord pulled taut from the window. The metal is still hot from a day in the sun, but the air outside the camp has chilled enough that the heat is welcome against his back. The flannel he grabbed from the gas station insulates it, making his whole back relax. Sam would feel peaceful if it weren’t for the damn CB and what he knows is on the other end.
Or what he suspects, anyway. He might be talking to an empty room. But if he’s been telling an empty room about his ride up here and the way he felt about snack cakes, at least it’s been one of the more pleasant conversations he’s had since he was given the reins.
“That’s Ursa Major,” he says into the mic, pointing upward. “I think I studied the stars in…fifth grade? Sounds about right. I liked the bear constellations. Ursa Major and Ursa Minor.”
“Yeah,” says a voice on the other end of the radio. “I could never see the goddamn bears in those stars myself.”
That’s the last thing he gets from Dean over the radio.
*
11:20pm.
“Dean, please,” he tries again. “Please. It’s me. It’s Sam. I know I can’t prove it, but please.”
He lets the button go. Static.
“Dean,” he says into the mic. “It’s not there. All the things I knew - all the things I’m supposed to know- Goddammit, that’s why I need to see you. I’ve only got forty fucking minutes left, and then I’m gone again.”
He lets the button go. Static. It has to be the hundredth time he’s done this, and the thought drags a growl of frustration out of his throat. He pounds his fists on the hood of the truck and bites back tears. Not that he's got any left to spend. He's gone through all the Gatorades, thanks to this stupid crying reflex.
“Dean…I’ve spent this whole day feeling empty. Feeling wrong, like something took a melon baller to everything that used to be me. Everything’s jumbled and hollow, except you. Just saying your name, it’s like I’ve got someplace to go. I don’t have the details, but I know you. You’re home.”
He lets the button go and presses his palms hard against his eyes. Nothing but static.
*
11:42pm.
The gate creaks. Sam sits up.
Dean stands ten feet in front of him, a rifle choked up in one hand like some kind of weird security blanket and his eyes wide. “Sammy?” he says.
“Dean,” Sam says, pushing himself cautiously off the hood. “You’re-”
“Here, I know. Dumb shit move. But I thought…” Dean swallows hard enough that Sam can see his throat bob in the dark. He knows that throat. He knows that deeply fucking disapproving look. He knows the line of that collar and the slope of those shoulders. Dean shakes his head, and his voice gets small and sarcastic at the same time. “Dude, even Lucifer couldn’t sound that much like a girl.”
Sam’s shoulders slump, and he steps forward. Dean’s rifle thuds to the dirt, and his brother’s arms wrap around him. Dean hugs desperately, like he knows they’ve only got eighteen minutes and he’s trying to make a lifetime of it. His fingers dig into Sam’s shoulders so hard that Sam can feel the bruises forming already.
Sam takes in the smells of leather and machine oil and sweat and the solid feeling of Dean holding him up. He breathes it all in, smiles against the collar of his brother’s jacket, and remembers.
THE END!