Spn fic and other things
Thing the first: Work still sucks, will catch up with everyone soon. *nods*
Thing the second: I gave up smoking (again) today. So far I’ve been through denial - Everything will be fine, I’ll just buy a pack at lunchtime, anger - omg kill everyone!, bargaining - seriously, I’ll sell you my soul for a ciggie and I’m currently working through depression - but I love nicotine *sobs*. I’m hoping to find my Zen sometime tomorrow, I apologise for any outburtsts of snark that may happen in the meantime.
Thing the third: fic, written for spn_50states, a day late ‘cos, clearly, I suck at deadlines.
Title: Bodies at Rest and in Motion.
Pairing: Sam/Dean.
Rating: R
Prompt: Alabama.
Summary: While laying low in Alabama the boys visit some unusual tourist spots.
Disclaimer: Don’t own ‘em. Never will.
Notes: Big smooches to zelda_zee for the beta.
Bodies At Rest And In Motion
They’ve been in Alabama for two days, laying low in a cheap motel just outside Huntsville - their last hunt a little too public, a demon with a thirst for power that brought Hendrickson a little too close on their heels. After it was done, they drove through the night and through the next day, zigzagging across the country, crossing state line after state line until the adrenaline wore thin and exhaustion made the jumbled neon glow of motels and diners clustered on the edge of the town look like an oasis created to draw them in.
Forty eight hours locked in a motel room that smells of sweat and sex. Lying on twisted sheets drinking warm beer, only leaving to run to the vending machine for food more chemical than nutritious no matter what the labels say. The air outside is thick with late summer heat, but inside the room it’s stale and thin, the a/c blowing dust around as it cools the room, its whirring a constant grind in the background, a soundtrack to the slap of skin and words muttered on the verge of sleep. Dean’s lips feel bruised, his throat raw, his muscles twinge in protest when he shifts on the bed, but when Sam rolls towards him again, fingertips ghosting across his skin, Dean grins and pulls him closer, spreads his legs so Sam can settle between them, relishing each twinge of pain as it reminds him that they’re both safe and alive and, really, that’s all that matters to him.
It’s new, this thing between them, built from frustration and fear, a clash of fists and words that became a desperate clash of bodies that turned their world on its axis, made them into something they were not meant to be. Dean knows it should feel wrong, that he should push away from it, draw a line between them and vow to not cross it again, but the weight of Sam folding down over him, pushing him into the mattress as he settles above him is steadying, familiar, a physical pressure that matches the weight Dean’s carried all his life. There’s a pattern to it that feels like comfort, Sam’s lips brushing the back of his neck, the steady burn as Sam pushes inside, stretching him wider than fingers or tongue ever can. Dean’s eyes close as his mouth falls open, a grunt smothered by the pillow he buries his face in, covering his mouth and stopping his air when he breathes in again. Every time, he waits until his lungs are screaming before he turns his head, rides out the panic and focuses on the push and pull of Sam inside him, the slow drive from pain to pleasure that trickles up his nerves, pulses through his bloodstream until he feels the mattress and the pillow fall away and he’s floating, colors dancing behind his eyelids as his vision starts to fade. And always, just as Dean can feel himself slipping away, Sam’s arms will wrap around his chest and drag him up until he’s holding himself on shaky arms and gulping lungfuls of air, the room spinning around him as he arches and shudders, sensation pulsing through him, every movement of their bodies feeling sharp and clear.
On the third day Dean wakes to the smell of fresh coffee and the sound of Sam singing off-key in the shower. He tries to ignore it, rolls on his side and closes his eyes again but just as he starts to sink back into sleep Sam tugs the covers away and dives onto the bed, straddles him and laughs at his muttered curses as he shakes his wet hair like a dog, water flying off him and dripping down onto Dean’s face. He reaches out to pull Sam to him but he twists away, wrinkling his nose., saying You need a shower, you stink. and Dean thinks, yeah, he probably does but he punches Sam in the arm for saying it anyway.
The light in the tiny bathroom is too harsh, making his skin look drawn and sallow, illuminating the dark circles that ring his eyes and Dean wishes that they had more time, that they could take a vacation, maybe head down to Mexico and spend a week on the beach like normal people. The world wouldn’t end if they took a holiday - or maybe it would, so he pushes those thoughts away. The shower is lukewarm, not hot enough to sting but enough to fill the room with steam that makes it feel smaller, closing in on him when he steps out of the stall. He has to open the door just to breathe.
Sam is dressed and sipping his coffee, twitching with energy that’s infectious, spilling over and making Dean hurry as he dresses, still buttoning his shirt as he follows Sam out of the room and to the diner across the way. Over breakfast Sam talks about feeling stir-crazy. He tells Dean about this place he found on the map that he’s always wanted to visit: The Ave Maria Grotto - “ Jerusalem in Minature” It’s somewhere a friend at college told him about when they were swapping tales of their childhoods late one night. Dean wonders idly what Sam spoke about in return, how much of his life he talked about and how he explained it away, but mostly he thinks about how good it will feel to spend a day away from the peeling wallpaper and the cracks in the ceiling that he’s counted again and again.
They stick to the back roads where the traffic is light and Dean can gun the engine and listen to the Impala purr. They get lost on the way, doubling back on themselves when Sam realizes they’ve missed a turnoff, but Dean doesn’t mind. It feels good to be doing something, to be out of the confines of the motel room and in the world again. He’s so used to be on the move that staying in one place without a real purpose feels strange.
When they finally arrive at the grotto it’s bigger than Dean expected - a wide parking lot with a picnic area beside it stretches in front of a gift shop that’s the size of a church. To the side there’s a huge building, a prep school according to the leaflet that Sam reads aloud and it makes Dean wonder about the kind of family that sends their kids away for three quarters of the year, how it would feel to go home in the summer and spend time with people you barely know. Their life growing up may have been claustrophobic at times, and fraught with tension and arguments in the year before Sam left, but at least they were together, close in a way that the kids who live and learn here will never know.
The interior of the gift shop is hushed and cool. It’s cluttered with shelves and display cases holding religious trinkets of so many colors it hurts Dean’s eyes to look at them. Crucifixes and prayer cards sit next to carved statues of Jesus and kid’s toys with bible verses painted on them, totems to ease the believer into the next world and keep them safe from the demons that Sam and Dean know only to well really do exist. He picks at the offerings, turning things over in his hands, holding them up to the light to get a better look and wondering if any of them hold any true power or if their power only comes with a belief that Dean doesn’t have. He feels like a fraud for being here - a tourist looking on at a life he doesn’t subscribe to and never will.
He’s flipping through an illustrated book on the gospels when Sam tugs at his arm, nodding towards a turnstile that leads to the grotto itself before rushing towards it, leaving Dean to follow in his wake. Outside there’s a path that winds down a hillside overshadowed by trees that shade them from the heat of the day and beside it on either side are miniature models made from stone and concrete, decorated with bottle tops and broken glass, beads and pieces of tile - junk turned into replicas of holy places from across the world, each one a shrine to devotion and one man’s obsession with what he believed.
Dean understands obsession, he knows the drive behind it and the way it eats at a person’s life. He and Sam are models built by their father’s obsession, his anger, his sorrow, his need for revenge, his love - all jigsawed together to create disciples for his cause. As he walks the path he thinks how unfair it is that this obsession, the one laid out on the hillside for the world to see, is celebrated, venerated even, held up as a good work for others to see, but if Dad had built a shrine to what drove him - models of houses where ghosts lingered, of abandoned factories where monsters dwelled and woodland glades filled with legends come to life - he would have been locked away in a padded cell, pumped full of drugs and labeled insane, yet the truth is that there is fact to back up the ‘fiction’ of their lives and only words to prove that God exists.
As they round a corner the path widens out and beside it the hillside is covered with the Holy Land in miniature form. The scale is off, that’s the thing that stands out the most, the Coliseum the same size as the crosses on Calvary Hill, attention to detail not as important as finishing the task the creator of this place set for himself. Beside it lies a manmade cave, covered in ivy that hangs over the opening like stalactites of green, and in a niche beside it the Virgin looks down on Bernadette kneeling in front of her. Through the trees above it Dean can just make out the same figure further up the hill, Our Lady of Fatima transported to American soil, and there it is again, that strange acceptance of the truth of seeing spirits as long as those spirits are deemed to be good. But who decides what’s right and what’s wrong, who decides that the spirit is Mary the mother and not a demon in disguise sent to lead people astray, or simply children making up tales to get the attention they crave?
There’s a group of tourists standing smiling, arms looped around each other in front of the cave and somehow they’ve roped Sam into taking a picture for them, and as Dean watches they crowd around him, looking at the image of themselves captured in pixels on the camera’s screen. They talk excitedly about how amazing the place is, how strong the sense of spirit seems to be, how Brother Joseph was a great man who truly did God’s work and it makes Dean want to laugh, to climb to the top of the hill and preach the gospel that he understands - that the dead keep on living longer than they should, that true evil walks the Earth and that the stories they tell their children to keep them quiet in the night are based on fact and that if God really does exist he turned his back on His creation long ago. But he doesn’t, he stays quiet and lets them keep their innocence, just rolls his eyes and grimaces when Sam looks his way and walks on up the path wanting to get to the exit as quickly as he can.
Back in the car they head towards Scottsboro taking a scenic route that winds round the foothills of the Appalachians, the road edged by trees on one side and a lake on the other. Dean has the stereo turned down low and he hums along to it, enjoying the breeze from the open windows as Sam flips through the road atlas, keeping an eye on their route. He knows Sam is trying to fill their time with something other than running and hiding, but the truth is Dean prefers what they’re doing right now, just him and Sam and the car, driving the miles in comfortable silence. This is how Dean wants to spend the day.
In Scottsboro they stop at the Unclaimed Baggage Center, the next destination on Sam’s tour of the strange. It’s a huge building covering a whole city block, a warehouse of lost treasures and forgotten memories all lined up for sale. Walking through it, Dean wonders how people end up with so many possessions that they can leave so much behind, not bothering to trace a suitcase that goes missing or a shipment that never arrives, marking it down to bad luck and moving on without a second thought.
Maybe their life, the one he and Sam lead, is the better one, each item they own treasured and carefully packed away when they move on, no excess baggage to fill their lives and fix them in one place. They have the freedom to wander the country, to see sights and places that most people will never see and Dean is grateful for that, for the life that Dad gave them and, he thinks, really, he wouldn’t have it any other way.
It’s late when they arrive back at the motel, the day’s heat turned to a crisp clear evening, the moon shining brightly in a cloudless sky. Dean lingers by the car after he’s locked it up tight, leaning against the side window, chin resting on arms folded on the roof and watching the traffic as cars full of people speeding their way through life and not noticing what’s around them rush by. He senses Sam behind him before he feels the press of him on his back and he smiles at the thought of dirtying clean sheets, of the weight of Sam above him, moving inside him, of making more memories that he can take to his grave.
He has six months left to honor Dad’s obsession, six months left to treasure the life he’s living, six months in which he isn’t going to dwell on the past or fear the future because, Dean knows, the here and now is the most important thing.
*****
The Ave Maria Grotto, Cullman, Alabama
The Unclaimed Baggage Center, Scottsboro, Alabama
Thing the second: I gave up smoking (again) today. So far I’ve been through denial - Everything will be fine, I’ll just buy a pack at lunchtime, anger - omg kill everyone!, bargaining - seriously, I’ll sell you my soul for a ciggie and I’m currently working through depression - but I love nicotine *sobs*. I’m hoping to find my Zen sometime tomorrow, I apologise for any outburtsts of snark that may happen in the meantime.
Thing the third: fic, written for spn_50states, a day late ‘cos, clearly, I suck at deadlines.
Title: Bodies at Rest and in Motion.
Pairing: Sam/Dean.
Rating: R
Prompt: Alabama.
Summary: While laying low in Alabama the boys visit some unusual tourist spots.
Disclaimer: Don’t own ‘em. Never will.
Notes: Big smooches to zelda_zee for the beta.
Bodies At Rest And In Motion
They’ve been in Alabama for two days, laying low in a cheap motel just outside Huntsville - their last hunt a little too public, a demon with a thirst for power that brought Hendrickson a little too close on their heels. After it was done, they drove through the night and through the next day, zigzagging across the country, crossing state line after state line until the adrenaline wore thin and exhaustion made the jumbled neon glow of motels and diners clustered on the edge of the town look like an oasis created to draw them in.
Forty eight hours locked in a motel room that smells of sweat and sex. Lying on twisted sheets drinking warm beer, only leaving to run to the vending machine for food more chemical than nutritious no matter what the labels say. The air outside is thick with late summer heat, but inside the room it’s stale and thin, the a/c blowing dust around as it cools the room, its whirring a constant grind in the background, a soundtrack to the slap of skin and words muttered on the verge of sleep. Dean’s lips feel bruised, his throat raw, his muscles twinge in protest when he shifts on the bed, but when Sam rolls towards him again, fingertips ghosting across his skin, Dean grins and pulls him closer, spreads his legs so Sam can settle between them, relishing each twinge of pain as it reminds him that they’re both safe and alive and, really, that’s all that matters to him.
It’s new, this thing between them, built from frustration and fear, a clash of fists and words that became a desperate clash of bodies that turned their world on its axis, made them into something they were not meant to be. Dean knows it should feel wrong, that he should push away from it, draw a line between them and vow to not cross it again, but the weight of Sam folding down over him, pushing him into the mattress as he settles above him is steadying, familiar, a physical pressure that matches the weight Dean’s carried all his life. There’s a pattern to it that feels like comfort, Sam’s lips brushing the back of his neck, the steady burn as Sam pushes inside, stretching him wider than fingers or tongue ever can. Dean’s eyes close as his mouth falls open, a grunt smothered by the pillow he buries his face in, covering his mouth and stopping his air when he breathes in again. Every time, he waits until his lungs are screaming before he turns his head, rides out the panic and focuses on the push and pull of Sam inside him, the slow drive from pain to pleasure that trickles up his nerves, pulses through his bloodstream until he feels the mattress and the pillow fall away and he’s floating, colors dancing behind his eyelids as his vision starts to fade. And always, just as Dean can feel himself slipping away, Sam’s arms will wrap around his chest and drag him up until he’s holding himself on shaky arms and gulping lungfuls of air, the room spinning around him as he arches and shudders, sensation pulsing through him, every movement of their bodies feeling sharp and clear.
On the third day Dean wakes to the smell of fresh coffee and the sound of Sam singing off-key in the shower. He tries to ignore it, rolls on his side and closes his eyes again but just as he starts to sink back into sleep Sam tugs the covers away and dives onto the bed, straddles him and laughs at his muttered curses as he shakes his wet hair like a dog, water flying off him and dripping down onto Dean’s face. He reaches out to pull Sam to him but he twists away, wrinkling his nose., saying You need a shower, you stink. and Dean thinks, yeah, he probably does but he punches Sam in the arm for saying it anyway.
The light in the tiny bathroom is too harsh, making his skin look drawn and sallow, illuminating the dark circles that ring his eyes and Dean wishes that they had more time, that they could take a vacation, maybe head down to Mexico and spend a week on the beach like normal people. The world wouldn’t end if they took a holiday - or maybe it would, so he pushes those thoughts away. The shower is lukewarm, not hot enough to sting but enough to fill the room with steam that makes it feel smaller, closing in on him when he steps out of the stall. He has to open the door just to breathe.
Sam is dressed and sipping his coffee, twitching with energy that’s infectious, spilling over and making Dean hurry as he dresses, still buttoning his shirt as he follows Sam out of the room and to the diner across the way. Over breakfast Sam talks about feeling stir-crazy. He tells Dean about this place he found on the map that he’s always wanted to visit: The Ave Maria Grotto - “ Jerusalem in Minature” It’s somewhere a friend at college told him about when they were swapping tales of their childhoods late one night. Dean wonders idly what Sam spoke about in return, how much of his life he talked about and how he explained it away, but mostly he thinks about how good it will feel to spend a day away from the peeling wallpaper and the cracks in the ceiling that he’s counted again and again.
They stick to the back roads where the traffic is light and Dean can gun the engine and listen to the Impala purr. They get lost on the way, doubling back on themselves when Sam realizes they’ve missed a turnoff, but Dean doesn’t mind. It feels good to be doing something, to be out of the confines of the motel room and in the world again. He’s so used to be on the move that staying in one place without a real purpose feels strange.
When they finally arrive at the grotto it’s bigger than Dean expected - a wide parking lot with a picnic area beside it stretches in front of a gift shop that’s the size of a church. To the side there’s a huge building, a prep school according to the leaflet that Sam reads aloud and it makes Dean wonder about the kind of family that sends their kids away for three quarters of the year, how it would feel to go home in the summer and spend time with people you barely know. Their life growing up may have been claustrophobic at times, and fraught with tension and arguments in the year before Sam left, but at least they were together, close in a way that the kids who live and learn here will never know.
The interior of the gift shop is hushed and cool. It’s cluttered with shelves and display cases holding religious trinkets of so many colors it hurts Dean’s eyes to look at them. Crucifixes and prayer cards sit next to carved statues of Jesus and kid’s toys with bible verses painted on them, totems to ease the believer into the next world and keep them safe from the demons that Sam and Dean know only to well really do exist. He picks at the offerings, turning things over in his hands, holding them up to the light to get a better look and wondering if any of them hold any true power or if their power only comes with a belief that Dean doesn’t have. He feels like a fraud for being here - a tourist looking on at a life he doesn’t subscribe to and never will.
He’s flipping through an illustrated book on the gospels when Sam tugs at his arm, nodding towards a turnstile that leads to the grotto itself before rushing towards it, leaving Dean to follow in his wake. Outside there’s a path that winds down a hillside overshadowed by trees that shade them from the heat of the day and beside it on either side are miniature models made from stone and concrete, decorated with bottle tops and broken glass, beads and pieces of tile - junk turned into replicas of holy places from across the world, each one a shrine to devotion and one man’s obsession with what he believed.
Dean understands obsession, he knows the drive behind it and the way it eats at a person’s life. He and Sam are models built by their father’s obsession, his anger, his sorrow, his need for revenge, his love - all jigsawed together to create disciples for his cause. As he walks the path he thinks how unfair it is that this obsession, the one laid out on the hillside for the world to see, is celebrated, venerated even, held up as a good work for others to see, but if Dad had built a shrine to what drove him - models of houses where ghosts lingered, of abandoned factories where monsters dwelled and woodland glades filled with legends come to life - he would have been locked away in a padded cell, pumped full of drugs and labeled insane, yet the truth is that there is fact to back up the ‘fiction’ of their lives and only words to prove that God exists.
As they round a corner the path widens out and beside it the hillside is covered with the Holy Land in miniature form. The scale is off, that’s the thing that stands out the most, the Coliseum the same size as the crosses on Calvary Hill, attention to detail not as important as finishing the task the creator of this place set for himself. Beside it lies a manmade cave, covered in ivy that hangs over the opening like stalactites of green, and in a niche beside it the Virgin looks down on Bernadette kneeling in front of her. Through the trees above it Dean can just make out the same figure further up the hill, Our Lady of Fatima transported to American soil, and there it is again, that strange acceptance of the truth of seeing spirits as long as those spirits are deemed to be good. But who decides what’s right and what’s wrong, who decides that the spirit is Mary the mother and not a demon in disguise sent to lead people astray, or simply children making up tales to get the attention they crave?
There’s a group of tourists standing smiling, arms looped around each other in front of the cave and somehow they’ve roped Sam into taking a picture for them, and as Dean watches they crowd around him, looking at the image of themselves captured in pixels on the camera’s screen. They talk excitedly about how amazing the place is, how strong the sense of spirit seems to be, how Brother Joseph was a great man who truly did God’s work and it makes Dean want to laugh, to climb to the top of the hill and preach the gospel that he understands - that the dead keep on living longer than they should, that true evil walks the Earth and that the stories they tell their children to keep them quiet in the night are based on fact and that if God really does exist he turned his back on His creation long ago. But he doesn’t, he stays quiet and lets them keep their innocence, just rolls his eyes and grimaces when Sam looks his way and walks on up the path wanting to get to the exit as quickly as he can.
Back in the car they head towards Scottsboro taking a scenic route that winds round the foothills of the Appalachians, the road edged by trees on one side and a lake on the other. Dean has the stereo turned down low and he hums along to it, enjoying the breeze from the open windows as Sam flips through the road atlas, keeping an eye on their route. He knows Sam is trying to fill their time with something other than running and hiding, but the truth is Dean prefers what they’re doing right now, just him and Sam and the car, driving the miles in comfortable silence. This is how Dean wants to spend the day.
In Scottsboro they stop at the Unclaimed Baggage Center, the next destination on Sam’s tour of the strange. It’s a huge building covering a whole city block, a warehouse of lost treasures and forgotten memories all lined up for sale. Walking through it, Dean wonders how people end up with so many possessions that they can leave so much behind, not bothering to trace a suitcase that goes missing or a shipment that never arrives, marking it down to bad luck and moving on without a second thought.
Maybe their life, the one he and Sam lead, is the better one, each item they own treasured and carefully packed away when they move on, no excess baggage to fill their lives and fix them in one place. They have the freedom to wander the country, to see sights and places that most people will never see and Dean is grateful for that, for the life that Dad gave them and, he thinks, really, he wouldn’t have it any other way.
It’s late when they arrive back at the motel, the day’s heat turned to a crisp clear evening, the moon shining brightly in a cloudless sky. Dean lingers by the car after he’s locked it up tight, leaning against the side window, chin resting on arms folded on the roof and watching the traffic as cars full of people speeding their way through life and not noticing what’s around them rush by. He senses Sam behind him before he feels the press of him on his back and he smiles at the thought of dirtying clean sheets, of the weight of Sam above him, moving inside him, of making more memories that he can take to his grave.
He has six months left to honor Dad’s obsession, six months left to treasure the life he’s living, six months in which he isn’t going to dwell on the past or fear the future because, Dean knows, the here and now is the most important thing.
*****
The Ave Maria Grotto, Cullman, Alabama
The Unclaimed Baggage Center, Scottsboro, Alabama