Fall Out, 1/1, Sam, Dean, [G]
Title: Fall Out (complete)
Fandom: SPN
Characters: Sam, Dean
Rating: R
Word Count: 1,104
Summary: This totally not based on me, one bad Saturday morning two weeks ago. Like everyone else, I'm just trying to deal with the craptastic developments of "Sex and Violence."
Dean is in Hell.
Okay, maybe not, but he very much has the hangover from Hell. If this hangover was a demon, it would be the kind immune to holy water. It would make Yellow Eyes look like Lil’ Bo Peep.
Dean shifts in his seat. He feels worse, worse, oh god, much worse.
He shifts again, and is relieved to be back in Hell.
Maybe it was death that had killed his tolerance. Or maybe his sixth shot of Jim had been cursed. Whatever it was, pain is pounding in Dean’s head like perdition. Light stabs his eyes with homicidal cheerfulness. His bones ache. His skin is on too tight. He’s a little worried that his stomach might try to make a break for it, like a rat from a sinking ship, and all his limbs feel like lead.
And Sam is fucking whistling. It hurts.
“Sam…please,” Dean moans.
The whistling stops, but even with his eyes squinched tightly closed, Dean can feel Sam make that face. Dean sighs and leans his head against the window of the Impala. There is a brief moment of peace as the cool glass kisses his forehead, but it doesn’t live long.
If he were anyone else, he would think, ‘Dear God, kill me now,’ but he doesn’t want to tempt fate (or whatever).
“You look like Hell, Dean,” Sam says. He’d had that little crease of concern riding over his eyebrows since Dean had stumbled out of the bathroom (where he’d fallen asleep the night before), fell into his clothes and clapped the car keys into Sam’s hand.
“Yup,” is all Dean can croak out. He wants to relay that he doesn’t just look like Hell, but the sentence isn’t really coming together for him and he decides the juice just ain’t worth the squeeze.
“I hope you remember this the next time you tell the barkeep to leave the bottle,” Sam says.
Dean looks all over his brain for the words to express how unnecessary, how lame, how very Sam that comment was. He wants to tell Sam to leave the life lessons for later, and just be nice to him, for the love a’ mercy.
“Suck it, Sam,” is what he finds.
He hears Sam smother a laugh, and Dean can’t imagine what could be funny. After all, it’s Sam’s fault that he’s in this state to begin with.
“Sam, can we…can we just stop the damn car for a little bit? Just until my insides quit trying to crawl out?”
“Uh…yah, sure, Dean.” Sam’s voice is soft, and without looking, Dean knows that it’s there. That face. Dean drags a hand over his eyes, maybe to keep them in their sockets.
“You feel that bad?” Sam asks.
“Worse then that bad. Now will you please pull over already?”
“I did, Dean.”
“Oh. Fantastic.”
The silence throbs slightly for long moments while Dean focuses on breathing. He used to be good at it. There’s the in part and the out part. He thinks longingly of sleep, but sleep is a slippery and sloppy thing, at present, and besides, Dean doesn’t think he could handle the nightmares just now anyhow.
Sam sits awkwardly behind the Impala’s wheel, kind of like a puppy that knows it’s not supposed to be on the couch. Dean sympathizes briefly-he’s convinced the passenger’s seat is molded to be comfortable only to Sam’s ass. The Winchester boys don’t like change.
Sam’s giant hands sit loose in his lap, away from the wheel, and out of the corner of a bloodshot eye, Dean sees one twitch, like it wants to move towards him, but it falls back between Sam’s knees.
“Dean?” Sam says, and it’s in a little kid’s voice. It’s gentle and light and tinged with guilt for screwing up the quiet.
As it should be.
“Talking? Now? Really?” Dean grates. He rubs the corner of one eye gingerly.
“I just…you got pretty bad last night, even for you.”
Dean doesn’t ask what that’s supposed to mean.
“I just…why?” Sam shrugs.
If Dean could properly lift his arm, he’d sock Sam. Right in his big expression-y face. Sam knows perfectly fucking well why.
Why, he says.
Maybe because after that fucked to hell Siren business, all Dean wanted was to burn those words out of his brain. He wanted to drown his distrust of Sam. He wanted to poison the picture of Sam coming at him, hell-bent on bringing him down.
More then anything, though, he wanted to strip away the nagging knowledge that Sam was right.
Sam had said that he was stronger, smarter, better. He’d said that he didn’t need Dean, that Dean was just dead weight to him.
And hell, didn’t Dean try to tell him all that, before he’d gone to the Pit? That Sam would be fine without him?
Sometimes, it sucks to be right.
So Dean got drunk. Okay, Dean got tanked. But if Sam had just let him go on, living his miserable fucking nightmare of a life, he would have been happy. It would have been alright, no matter how the whole goddamned Apocalypse bullshit turned out.
If Sam killed him, well, that’s a raw deal, but Dean thought he could live with that. If Sam hated him, that was…that, Dean couldn’t bear.
So Sam had beaten the bloody hell out of Dean with his harsh and heavy truths, and then had the nerve to ask Dean why he’d gone on an unholy bender of decadent and dedicated self-destruction. It was like shooting a man and then asking him why he’s screaming.
Sonovabitch.
“Because,” Dean says.
“Dean, come on. Talk to me. Please.”
When Dean looks over, they’re still there. The apologies written all over Sam’s face, that had shown up seconds after the Siren’s spell let them painfully loose. Sam’s familiar cat eyes are shining at him, begging him. His lips are moving, trying to make something out of nothing.
He’s trying.
Dean remembers his mission in life, and, with mind-boggling effort, crafts his dry lips into a smile.
“Ah, some asshole at the bar wanted to go shot-for-shot. You know I don’t back down from a challenge, Sammy. Family honor.” Dean nods, and instantly regrets it when his brain sloshes around.
Sam gives that wobbly smile of his, and laughs a little.
“Who won?”
“Shut your mouth. You have to ask?”
“Yah, cause you look like a winner right now.”
“Shuddup, smartass.”
Sam relaxes, grinning, and looks out into the sun. Dean sinks back into the embrace of the Impala’s leather.
He feels a little better. Not good, but better.