Bloody Things, PG-13, Sam, Dean
Title: Bloody Things
Author: scourgeofeurope
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Sam, Dean
Genre: Gen, h/c
Word Count: 1,274
Warnings/Spoilers: Meh. Series as a whole.
Timeline: Post-s6
Summary: Sam and Sam's head and Dean.
____________________________________________
Dean’s hands were pale and tight around the steering wheel. Sam watched them, watched the steady motion of his brother’s arms as he drove, of his brother’s eyes as they failed to stray from the road, of his brother’s mouth as it didn’t smile. It wasn’t a rare occasion, Dean not smiling. But it wasn’t Sam’s whole life, either. Dean smiled a lot these days. They weren’t happy smiles, or sad smiles. They were smiles for Sam. They were everything-is-going-to-be-okay smiles. Sam liked Dean’s everything-is-going-to-be-okay smiles, even if he knew there was no truth to them.
Sam picked at the denim covering his leg. It was dark, the classic medium vintage stained a deep crimson. It wasn’t a little stain, either. It covered his knee and went down and down and down. Dean seemed upset about that.
Get up, Dean had said. Sam, now. Get up.
It seemed a long time ago, but it wasn’t yet two hours and Dean’s anger had yet to fade. It had been sunny when they left, but now the sky was growing grey with clouds.
Sam’s fingernail made a coarse sound as it scratched his jeans. The stain was still a little damp. The tip of his finger came up smattered lightly with red. Sam stared at it, at the blood nestling in the lines of his skin. And he forgot where he was.
It was a flash. Just a flash, but it was red and it hurt in a way he couldn’t explain because it didn’t hurt like a fist or a knife or a bullet. Maybe a little like a stomachache. Or asphyxiation. Or both.
“Please, stop,” he murmured. “I don’t want…I didn’t.”
It stopped. The trees, the asphalt, the grass. They all stopped changing. They matched the sky. The sky was a big, unending thing and there weren’t two of it and there weren’t thousands. The sky was even bigger than the road and Sam was pretty sure at this point that the road went on for thousands of years, or at least a lifetime or three. His brother grabbed his wrist and scrubbed the blood off his fingertip with his own spit-slick digit. That’s when Sam blinked and focused, realized that the world didn’t stop. Just Sam, and Dean, and the car.
“Dean?” Sam asked, yanking his finger away. “Gross.”
Dean grunted. He still didn’t smile. He grunted and pulled himself out of the car. He didn’t shut the door, but Sam heard the trunk open and it seemed like a long time before it closed again.
Sam was hit in the face by his own clothes. Clean ones. They’d done the laundry two days ago, and they still had a few fresh days to come.
“Change,” Dean ordered, even though both he and Sam knew that Sam never took orders.
Sam’s mouth tightened. “I’m fine.”
Dean stared at him, his bottom lip dropping in a slight gape for just a second and then he was chewing on it, and his eyes went somewhere else as he thought. They were only two words, but Dean had to think about them. Sam got that. His mind could get caught up in even less than two words these days. Like lines on his fingers. Red lines.
Sam felt like he was just waking up again. That it had been a whole day and a whole night when Dean finally replied, “I didn’t ask if you were fine. I told you to change.” And he shut the door.
Sam changed. His limbs knocked into the car. He was big. Sometimes he forgot how big he was even though he’d been this big for an extremely long time. Longer than the lives of a hundred men, but there was a time when he was very small and still the exact same size. A time and place where everything burned, where skin hung from flesh and flesh from bone and Sam screamed a lot, screamed pleas and curses and threats that did no good, but it was okay. Everything was okay, because they always spoke to Sam in a way even more demeaning than they used to speak to Dean, they assured him. Dean was a kiddo and a sport. Sam was a darling little boy.
“I want to go home,” Sam said, then. And now.
He wrestled himself out of the car and into his shirt because he just couldn’t do it, the space was too small. He breathed in the air deeply as Dean brushed by him to collect the bloody clothes and throw them in the trunk. It smelled like rain.
“It’s going to rain,” Sam told Dean, because it was. It was going to be cold and wet and Sam was going to love it like he loved his brother, who was neither cold, nor wet.
“I know,” Dean said. He put a hand on Sam’s shoulder. There wasn’t anything really gentle about the way he pushed down and in to urge Sam into the car, or the way Sam returned the roughness with the back of his hand to his brother’s belly, but when the world stopped stopping, and Sam’s mind was still grasping the red lines of his own fingers, Dean asked, “Better?”
And Sam was back again, in clean jeans and a clean shirt. A clean start.
“It wasn’t a kid, was it?” he asked.
Dean’s eyes strayed from the road. “No, Sam. It wasn’t a kid.”
“A girl?”
“Not a girl, either. Just some guy. He was just some guy and he was coming at me, and he wasn’t even dead when we left.”
Sam saw brown eyes, wide and terrified, a mouth that yelled like Sam’s used to scream. He would have screamed, too, if he’d known that pain for hundreds and thousands of years. Indeterminate lengths of ripping and shredding and cutting and blood, blood, blood.
“Do you think he died?”
Dean hesitated. Sam knew why. Sam was thinking about it, too, his jeans in the trunk. All that blood.
“I don’t think he died,” Dean said, and it didn’t even sound like a lie. “I think there was a doctor in the joint. An awesome doctor with hands like a wizard.”
Sam snorted. “You talk to me like I’m five.”
Dean’s voice was like one of his smiles. “Whatever. I want to believe in an awesome doctor with hands like a wizard who cleans up our messes.”
My messes, Sam thought, and he remembered last night and how he woke up sweating and crying and puking his guts out, hanging his head over the side of the bed. Dean’s hand was like a phantom on his back.
It’s okay, Sammy, Sam told himself now as Dean had told him then. Everything’s going to be okay.
“I want to wash my hands,” he said now. “They have your spit on them and I feel violated.”
A drop of water hit the windshield. Then another. And another. The rain was coming. Soon everything would be cold and wet and not red and burning.
“We’ll stop off in a bit,” Dean promised.
Sam sniffed at that, and Dean smiled a real smile. His hands were loose and relaxed around the steering wheel, and he glanced away from the road at times, to look at Sam. He wasn’t angry anymore. Sam was wearing clean clothes and the man Sam stabbed but didn’t remember stabbing was two hours in the past. It had settled, finally, like rotten food in a strong stomach. Nothing was going to be okay.
Sam left his eyes on the sky and tried not to think about bloody things.
Author: scourgeofeurope
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Sam, Dean
Genre: Gen, h/c
Word Count: 1,274
Warnings/Spoilers: Meh. Series as a whole.
Timeline: Post-s6
Summary: Sam and Sam's head and Dean.
____________________________________________
Dean’s hands were pale and tight around the steering wheel. Sam watched them, watched the steady motion of his brother’s arms as he drove, of his brother’s eyes as they failed to stray from the road, of his brother’s mouth as it didn’t smile. It wasn’t a rare occasion, Dean not smiling. But it wasn’t Sam’s whole life, either. Dean smiled a lot these days. They weren’t happy smiles, or sad smiles. They were smiles for Sam. They were everything-is-going-to-be-okay smiles. Sam liked Dean’s everything-is-going-to-be-okay smiles, even if he knew there was no truth to them.
Sam picked at the denim covering his leg. It was dark, the classic medium vintage stained a deep crimson. It wasn’t a little stain, either. It covered his knee and went down and down and down. Dean seemed upset about that.
Get up, Dean had said. Sam, now. Get up.
It seemed a long time ago, but it wasn’t yet two hours and Dean’s anger had yet to fade. It had been sunny when they left, but now the sky was growing grey with clouds.
Sam’s fingernail made a coarse sound as it scratched his jeans. The stain was still a little damp. The tip of his finger came up smattered lightly with red. Sam stared at it, at the blood nestling in the lines of his skin. And he forgot where he was.
It was a flash. Just a flash, but it was red and it hurt in a way he couldn’t explain because it didn’t hurt like a fist or a knife or a bullet. Maybe a little like a stomachache. Or asphyxiation. Or both.
“Please, stop,” he murmured. “I don’t want…I didn’t.”
It stopped. The trees, the asphalt, the grass. They all stopped changing. They matched the sky. The sky was a big, unending thing and there weren’t two of it and there weren’t thousands. The sky was even bigger than the road and Sam was pretty sure at this point that the road went on for thousands of years, or at least a lifetime or three. His brother grabbed his wrist and scrubbed the blood off his fingertip with his own spit-slick digit. That’s when Sam blinked and focused, realized that the world didn’t stop. Just Sam, and Dean, and the car.
“Dean?” Sam asked, yanking his finger away. “Gross.”
Dean grunted. He still didn’t smile. He grunted and pulled himself out of the car. He didn’t shut the door, but Sam heard the trunk open and it seemed like a long time before it closed again.
Sam was hit in the face by his own clothes. Clean ones. They’d done the laundry two days ago, and they still had a few fresh days to come.
“Change,” Dean ordered, even though both he and Sam knew that Sam never took orders.
Sam’s mouth tightened. “I’m fine.”
Dean stared at him, his bottom lip dropping in a slight gape for just a second and then he was chewing on it, and his eyes went somewhere else as he thought. They were only two words, but Dean had to think about them. Sam got that. His mind could get caught up in even less than two words these days. Like lines on his fingers. Red lines.
Sam felt like he was just waking up again. That it had been a whole day and a whole night when Dean finally replied, “I didn’t ask if you were fine. I told you to change.” And he shut the door.
Sam changed. His limbs knocked into the car. He was big. Sometimes he forgot how big he was even though he’d been this big for an extremely long time. Longer than the lives of a hundred men, but there was a time when he was very small and still the exact same size. A time and place where everything burned, where skin hung from flesh and flesh from bone and Sam screamed a lot, screamed pleas and curses and threats that did no good, but it was okay. Everything was okay, because they always spoke to Sam in a way even more demeaning than they used to speak to Dean, they assured him. Dean was a kiddo and a sport. Sam was a darling little boy.
“I want to go home,” Sam said, then. And now.
He wrestled himself out of the car and into his shirt because he just couldn’t do it, the space was too small. He breathed in the air deeply as Dean brushed by him to collect the bloody clothes and throw them in the trunk. It smelled like rain.
“It’s going to rain,” Sam told Dean, because it was. It was going to be cold and wet and Sam was going to love it like he loved his brother, who was neither cold, nor wet.
“I know,” Dean said. He put a hand on Sam’s shoulder. There wasn’t anything really gentle about the way he pushed down and in to urge Sam into the car, or the way Sam returned the roughness with the back of his hand to his brother’s belly, but when the world stopped stopping, and Sam’s mind was still grasping the red lines of his own fingers, Dean asked, “Better?”
And Sam was back again, in clean jeans and a clean shirt. A clean start.
“It wasn’t a kid, was it?” he asked.
Dean’s eyes strayed from the road. “No, Sam. It wasn’t a kid.”
“A girl?”
“Not a girl, either. Just some guy. He was just some guy and he was coming at me, and he wasn’t even dead when we left.”
Sam saw brown eyes, wide and terrified, a mouth that yelled like Sam’s used to scream. He would have screamed, too, if he’d known that pain for hundreds and thousands of years. Indeterminate lengths of ripping and shredding and cutting and blood, blood, blood.
“Do you think he died?”
Dean hesitated. Sam knew why. Sam was thinking about it, too, his jeans in the trunk. All that blood.
“I don’t think he died,” Dean said, and it didn’t even sound like a lie. “I think there was a doctor in the joint. An awesome doctor with hands like a wizard.”
Sam snorted. “You talk to me like I’m five.”
Dean’s voice was like one of his smiles. “Whatever. I want to believe in an awesome doctor with hands like a wizard who cleans up our messes.”
My messes, Sam thought, and he remembered last night and how he woke up sweating and crying and puking his guts out, hanging his head over the side of the bed. Dean’s hand was like a phantom on his back.
It’s okay, Sammy, Sam told himself now as Dean had told him then. Everything’s going to be okay.
“I want to wash my hands,” he said now. “They have your spit on them and I feel violated.”
A drop of water hit the windshield. Then another. And another. The rain was coming. Soon everything would be cold and wet and not red and burning.
“We’ll stop off in a bit,” Dean promised.
Sam sniffed at that, and Dean smiled a real smile. His hands were loose and relaxed around the steering wheel, and he glanced away from the road at times, to look at Sam. He wasn’t angry anymore. Sam was wearing clean clothes and the man Sam stabbed but didn’t remember stabbing was two hours in the past. It had settled, finally, like rotten food in a strong stomach. Nothing was going to be okay.
Sam left his eyes on the sky and tried not to think about bloody things.