(no subject)
Noir
by whereupon
Sam/Dean. PG, no spoilers, 5,208 words.
The boundaries of Sam's universe have begun to blur.
For as long as Sam can remember, Dean has been fascinated by what Sam considers to be some of the most mundane objects in the entire world. Okay, yes, the bear in Colorado had been notably massive, but the ducks in the pond next to the motel were ducks and nothing more, and Sam hadn't actually needed to be jostled awake miles from their destination yesterday just because Dean had seen a bumper sticker proclaiming the existence of a museum of alien history, and check it out, Sam, they got a whole museum dedicated to that shit, can you believe it. Dean's only ever quiet when he's sleeping or hungover or in one of those dark moods that come over without warning and leave Sam terrified for his brother's safety, sure that Dean's going to get himself killed because he's decided once more that he's expendable.
Sam is all for appreciating the beauty of life, but there is something disturbing about the fact that his twenty-six-year-old brother finds it necessary to comment almost every time they pass a field full of cows. (And, seriously? They pass a lot of fields full of cows.)
They're on their way out of Nevada, having just finished a hunt that left Dean with what's probably a cracked rib and Sam with one hell of a headache from being flung into the side of a mausoleum, and Sam's fairly certain that the cops didn't get a good look at their license plate, but he could be wrong. Dean, on the other hand, is at once trying (Sam thinks) to reassure Sam as far as how they're totally not going to be hauled into prison within the next hour, at least, and managing to make them sound like a combination of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and the FBI's most wanted. Sam is not entirely sure Dean's aware that these positions are kind of irreconcilable.
"No, they're not," Dean says, turning from the steering wheel to glance at him beneath the heavy black of the unlit desert night. There are taillights miles away, flickering red dwarf stars, but other than that, they're all alone out here, without even the moon for company. "It's not like they ever catch the FBI's most wanted, is it? All those fucked-up serial killers are still out there."
"That's comforting," Sam says. "Thank you."
"Hey, we see worse things than serial killers every day."
Sam blinks at him. "Uh, yeah, that makes it much better."
"I'm just sayin', Ted Bundy's got nothing on a pack of rabid werewolves, okay," Dean says. "And since you did fine with that, you don't gotta worry about the other thing."
"And the FBI catches serial killers all the time," Sam says. "I mean, considering the estimated number of killers currently working."
"No, they don't," Dean says.
"Yes, they do," Sam says.
"You watch too much TV," Dean says. "Real people don't solve mysteries in an hour minus commercial breaks, dude."
"Dean, you're the one who watches soap operas," Sam says irritably. "I'm not sure you're exactly an expert on reality."
"I don't watch soap operas," Dean says. "I watch dramas. Sometimes. And you wouldn't know quality TV if it bit you on the ass."
"And you're such a connoisseur." It's a lame retort, but the way the headlight beams spin and flare across the road is making Sam dizzy. And kind of nauseated.
"Using college words doesn't make you right," Dean says. "It just means you can't think of anything to say."
"What do you expect, I'm concussed," Sam says, which is probably true. He doesn't have the authority to have an official medical opinion, but his field-medic skills have to count for something, a foxhole diagnosis. If he survives the war, he won't need a professional opinion; he'll have all the proof he needs in the lines of healed bones, phantom aches, the faint scars left behind from all the times Dean's had to stitch him back together. Nobody should have to lead this graceless kind of life, but he and Dean were born into it; outlaw's bred deep into the both of them.
"Yeah, good thing you got me to watch your back," Dean says. "Hey, think you actually dented the wall? Sure as hell sounded like it." Sam considers telling him to fuck off, but remembers waking up to Dean's hands on his face, remembers Dean's blurry but recognizably panic-stricken expression, and decides against it.
"I'm going to go to sleep now," Sam informs him, hoping that will deter him from continuing the conversation.
"No, you're not," Dean says. "It's not like I'd be able to tell if you died, you sleep like a dead person, and I'm not gonna spend the rest of the night driving around a freakin' corpse."
"If you couldn't tell, why the hell would it matter?" Sam asks, letting his head fall back against the seat and closing his eyes. "If you're so worried about it, you can wake me in an hour."
"What do I look like, an alarm clock?" Dean says, shoving Sam's shoulder. Sam grits his teeth against the way the motion jars his head, and keeps his eyes resolutely closed. "Sam," Dean says. Sam ignores him. Dean lets go of his shoulder and falls silent, but Sam knows better than to let his guard down; a moment later, Dean says, "Whatever. You wanna die from a concussion, knock yourself out. I'm gonna leave you on the side of the road, you know. I'm gonna open the door and push you out, I'm not even gonna slow down."
Sam thinks Dean mutters else something after that, but he's already too far asleep to care.
He's having this dream that he's following Dean through a cornfield, pushing through stalks that shouldn't be taller than him but that, with dream-logic, are; the sky is that strange religious blue and the ground is littered with dry husks that rustle beneath his boots. Dean is walking ahead of him, getting farther and farther away, and he doesn't want Dean to think he's fallen behind, so he walks faster, but it doesn't help. It occurs to him then that the rustling isn't just coming from beneath his feet, but from somewhere to the side, as though something is following him, hidden by the tassels and stalks and leaves, and he knows, with a flash of dread insight, that he is not armed. He looks ahead; Dean is no longer visible, and he does not dare look behind him, nor to either side, in case he might glimpse whatever's after him. He smells smoke and realizes suddenly that the field is burning, someone has set it alight, and then without warning he's not dreaming anymore, he's awakened by Dean's hand on his chest, his name in Dean's voice, the way he used to be, all through those weeks after the fire.
"What," he manages. Dean's palm is pressing his sweat-sticky shirt against his chest and he feels strung out. He straightens and Dean's hand falls away.
"You were havin' a nightmare," Dean says. Sam doesn't ask how he knew. "You want breakfast?"
Sam blinks at him. "What time's it?"
"Morning," Dean says. It's still dark out, but Sam's having trouble making out the numbers on the dashboard clock; he'll have to trust his brother, as he always does. He scrubs his hands across his eyes and realizes that the car is stopped, that they're parked and there's a truckstop lit bright as an operating room across the lot. "I could use the caffeine."
"Yeah, okay," Sam says, fumbling for the door handle. The morning (night, his brain corrects; Dean's always trying to pull one over on him, always making up the most ridiculous stories) air smells like spilled gasoline and the ocean, and he shivers.
"Hey, you with me?" Dean asks, coming around the front of the car, and Sam shrugs as easily as he can.
"Yeah," he says. "Sorry, I'm just, uh. Still not really awake."
"That was a hell of a whack on the head you got," Dean says, reaching for Sam's face. Before Sam can pull away, Dean's trapped him, is smoothing his hands across Sam's jaw and frowning up at him. Sam wonders what he's looking for, if he's found it, and then Dean lets him go. "C'mon," he says, turning away towards the oasis of light, and Sam follows, caught in his wake and trying desperately not to think of cornfields and fire, trying desperately not to feel like he should be looking over his shoulder.
When they're safely inside the diner, the door closed between them and the ragged dark, Dean looks up at him again, narrows his eyes. "You look like crap," he says.
"Right back at you," Sam says, because beneath the rough stubble there's a bruise blossoming faintly purple on the side of Dean's chin and the shadows beneath Dean's eyes make it look almost like he's wearing smudged eyeliner. The thought makes him want to laugh and he tips his head back against that punch-drunk desperation, cracking his neck and letting the halogen light filter through his eyelids. Jesus, he's exhausted.
"There's blood in your hair," Dean says, sudden and low as though it's for Sam alone to hear, and Sam opens his eyes. "Excuse me, miss, can you tell me where the men's room is," Dean says, bright and loud this time, and the waitress coming towards them smiles the way waitresses always smile at him.
"Sure," she says. "Right down that hall and to your left. Let me know when you're ready and I'll get you a table."
"Believe me, I'll look forward to that," Dean says, and the waitress blushes, her smile widening as Sam thinks she fights back the urge to giggle. She can't be more than eighteen, he thinks, and he hopes to God Dean knows as much and actually cares enough to respect it. Dean catches the sleeve of his shirt, fingers warm against his wrist, and says, "Move your ass," pulling Sam in the direction the waitress indicated. Sam lets Dean guide him down the hall and into the men's room; it's easier than resisting the force of nature that is his brother.
He leans against the wall while Dean grabs a wad of paper towels from the dispenser and soaks them beneath the single faucet. In the mirror both he and Dean look pale, bleached and tinged faintly green by the dingy light fixtures. It takes more effort than it should to push off of the wall when Dean turns to look expectantly at him. "Thought you said you got all of it before," he says when Dean reaches up to dab at him with the towels.
"I was working by flashlight, okay," Dean says. The water's cold, makes Sam's skin prickle, but he forces himself not to move until Dean steps back and tosses the towels at the trash can by the door. He makes the shot, barely, and sighs.
"How're your ribs holding up?" Sam asks, leaning back against the sink. The porcelain's cool, steadying.
"It's probably just a bruise," Dean says. "I'll live."
Sam shakes his head as gingerly as he can. "Lemme see," he says. Dean shrugs, peels up his t-shirt. The smash of what had been vibrant red across his chest is beginning to darken and he grits his teeth when Sam skims his fingers across it.
"That doesn't mean you gotta go around poking it," he says, stepping out of Sam's reach and tugging his shirt down. He opens the door and glances back at Sam, tilts his head towards the hallway. He waits until Sam starts towards him before moving and Sam is somewhat relieved to know that even though Dean might be pissed at him, he won't leave his little brother to fall asleep in some forgettable truckstop bathroom.
They tramp wearily after the waitress towards a booth in the corner. Sam puts his elbows on the table and rests his head on his hand while Dean flirts perfunctorily, his voice scratchy and rough. After the waitress has poured them coffee and promised to come back in a few minutes to take their orders, Dean's shoulders slump, the crows' feet around his eyes deepening. He looks as though he's aged ten years in the space of seconds as he wraps his hands around the coffee mug and lifts it to his mouth without flinching, even though the steam rising from Sam's own means the coffee has to be painfully hot. He blinks at Sam, who wonders if he should apologize for staring and decides that probably being concussed is a good enough excuse.
He does get the hint, though, and the green vinyl creaks beneath him as he looks away, looks at something that isn't his brother. He wonders if Dean ever finds it exhausting to be the complete and total focus of Sam's life, but the question seems sort of analogous to wondering if gravity ever gets tired, so he discards it. The lights on the distant highway leave behind tracers and Sam is momentarily transfixed; he wonders if this is what it's like to be Dean, fascinated by everything.
It takes an inexcusably long time, but eventually he realizes that he's shivering, and he takes another sip of coffee against the way his teeth are going to start chattering at any moment. It occurs to him that maybe caffeine wasn't such a good idea; he feels jittery with it, like he might break apart at any moment, and he's still cold despite the heat of the mug between his palms. He makes a silent vow that he's not going to worry Dean with this, but of course Dean's on to him, eternally outmaneuvering him, in possession of a four-year advantage.
"You're pretty fucked up, huh," Dean says, which seems like such an accurate analysis of Sam's life and outlook in general that Sam can only nod. Dean knuckles at his eyes, sighs. "Yeah. Don't fall asleep on me, okay?"
"Okay," Sam agrees, because Dean spends most of his life pulling Sam from fires both literal and figurative; surely Sam can do this one thing for him.
"I mean it," Dean says. "You even think about shutting your eyes, I'll kick your ass."
Sam's saved from having to respond to that threat by the return of the waitress. "Did you figure out what you'd like?" she asks, entirely too perky and awake for this time of whatever the hell time of day it is. Sam would like to hate her on general principle, especially because of the way she's eying his brother, but he's too good of a person to do that, or at least to let it show.
"I think so, but I'd love to hear what you'd recommend," Dean says. He delivers the line like he thinks he's half Bogie, half Bond, and Sam can only stare at him, amazed once more at his audacity.
The waitress (Sam refuses to look at her name tag, because if he does, he'll have to start thinking of her as a person with a name and a family and a life and then he'll have to feel bad for hating her) blushes harder. "The number one special's pretty good," she says.
"In that case, I'll take that," Dean says, giving her that bandit's smirk that's usually reserved for Sam alone. Sam's justifiably annoyed; the waitress has never once stood beside Dean in a firefight or had Dean's back in a bar brawl. "Sam?"
"I'll have the same," Sam says automatically, even though he has no idea what the number one special even is. He's just realized that he's forgotten to look at the menu at all. The waitress promises to be back with their food just as soon as she can, which Sam doesn't doubt considering the parting look she gives Dean, and then Dean kicks him under the table. Sam blinks at him, because that's usually his own move, and what the hell kind of alternate universe has this just become?
"Drink your coffee before I have to worry about you," Dean says.
Sam stares at him uncomprehendingly. It hadn't ever occurred to him that Dean does anything but worry about him, even though most of the time Dean tries to pretend otherwise.
Dean points at Sam's coffee as though Sam's forgotten what it is, and Sam's annoyed at the assumption. "Before you pass out," Dean says. "You're not looking so hot."
Sam's fairly certain that caffeine's not actually the best remedy for a concussion (though at the moment he's having trouble remembering what that remedy is, or if it even exists; maybe he should go for a rosary, just in case), but Dean seems certain enough for the both of them, so Sam obeys. Dean's the closest thing Sam knows to an expert on concussions, anyway, considering how many times Dean's been hit in the head with a blunt object; Sam can't remember how many times he's listened to Dean's nonsensical mumblings, Dean's accidental revelations, all of the things Dean had meant to keep to himself. Sam's glad that he hasn't managed to tell Dean any of his own secrets yet tonight, but he doesn't want to dwell on the thought, doesn't want to jinx it.
"You're a magnet for trouble," he observes, setting his cup back down. The table drifts at the edge of his vision and he feels vaguely seasick.
Dean raises an eyebrow. "Talk about the freakishly huge kettle callin' the pot black," he says. Sam's not entirely sure what he means by that, but from the look on Dean's face, he's fairly certain Dean's making fun of him.
"Whatever, jerk," Sam says. The words feel loose and half-formed in his mouth. He suddenly wants nothing more than to put his head down on the table and go to sleep, but he promised Dean, he reminds himself.
"Yeah, I totally see how you got into Stanford," Dean says. "I'm surprised they didn't just give you the freakin' Nobel already."
"What," Sam says, blinking at him; he thinks he might have only heard half of what Dean said. He wonders if Dean would notice if he drifted off for a few minutes. Probably not; Dean can keep himself entertained forever. His soliloquies would put Hamlet to shame.
"Sam," Dean says, scary and dangerous, whole worlds of violence in that voice, and Sam forces his eyes open. "I'm this close to taking you to the hospital, man," Dean says. He looks even paler than he did in the men's room mirror, Sam thinks, but that could just be the head injury talking.
"I'm fine," Sam says, sitting up straighter, because Dean and hospitals are a bad combination; Sam has years of memories to support that conclusion. "Really, Dean, I'm okay." He's not entirely sure that's true, but he's used to lying for his brother's sake. Whatever he can do to make Dean's life easier, because both of their lives are hard enough as it is.
"You can't lie to save your damn life," Dean says, and Sam wants to point out that he can, actually, and has even done so in the past; he's lied to save his life and lied to save Dean's, and he lied so much once that he was able to begin an entirely new life, but deals with the devil always end badly and now he's tasting smoke once more as though he never stopped, so he washes it away with a mouthful of coffee, instead. Dean would have only argued, anyway. It's effort enough to remain upright, to keep his thoughts corralled, to keep himself from drifting when things start to go blurry. (That last one takes a lot of blinking, mostly.)
The number one special turns out to be a stack of pancakes with bacon on the side, which Sam thinks might win the prize for most unimaginative special ever. He stares at his plate and is overwhelmed by the thought of the amount of hand-eye coordination it will take to lift a knife and fork, not to mention to cut the pancakes, or to try to eat them. He might as well just forfeit now; he's not even hungry.
Across the table, Dean's shoving food into his mouth like he's starving, like he thinks somebody's going to take it away from him, and the night's shipwrecked outside of the window, current-dragged and full of ghosts. If Sam looks hard enough, he can almost see phantoms, faces in the smudges across the glass, in the way the streetlights filter into shadows, and then the frame skips, redshift as the universe realigns: Dean's pulling cash out of his wallet, biting his lip as he counts off bills. "You ready?" he asks, to which Sam nods; he doesn't know what he's meant to be ready for, but he was born ready for Dean, for anything Dean might throw at him.
Navigating back out to the car is much easier after Dean turns around in time to see Sam stumble and decides that Sam's incapable of walking without being guided. That's more true than Sam would have liked, but he'll be damned if he's going to tell Dean as much. He's probably damned anyway, of course, but what the hell, he'll play it safe.
"Where're we going," Sam says when Dean stops them in front of the Impala, the one place they always manage to end up. Dean's scowling with his hands in his front pockets; he doesn't look up, doesn't respond to Sam at all. "Dean," Sam says, suddenly terrified that he's managed to lose his voice on top of everything else. He can't imagine a world in which Dean couldn't hear him; who would tell Dean to keep his head down, to keep the volume down, to stop trying to get himself killed?
"Where'd I put the damn keys," Dean says, still not looking at Sam. He's still got his hands in his pockets like he thinks the keys might materialize, like he thinks maybe he just missed them. They're pockets, not the freaking Tardis, but there's no way Sam's going to make that reference in front of Dean. "Fuck, I coulda sworn I had 'em a minute ago."
"Hey," Sam says, and it takes all of his concentration, all of his finesse, but he manages to get a hand beneath Dean's jacket and work the keyring out from the inside pocket. The leather's so much a part of Dean that Sam thinks in another frame of mind he'd feel invasive, that he has no right to do this. Dean twists away, straightening his shoulders, and scowls again, this time at Sam.
"Not cool," he says, like he thinks Sam's become a master of prestidigitation in the past hour. Sam's always been good with his hands, but Dean's got their dad's eyes and a pistolero's trigger finger; Sam knows better than to try anything where the car is concerned.
"You put them there yourself," Sam says. "Even I remember that."
Dean narrows his eyes. "Yeah, and if I wasn't busy worrying about your ass, I would have, too. Gimme the keys, Sam."
Sam's hand closes around the metal. "No way you're driving anywhere, you can't even remember where you put the thing that starts the car."
"So, what," Dean says. "You wanna spend the rest of the night sleeping here?" Sam feels distantly vindicated; he'd known it couldn't have been morning.
"If the other choice's sleeping on the side of the road when you run us off it," he says, and maybe he should have phrased that better, because Dean's always been oversensitive as far as his driving skills are concerned. Dean lunges for the keys and Sam steps back, instinctively holding them out of Dean's reach, and then he overbalances and Dean has to grab him to keep him from falling. He ends up leaning against his brother, Dean's arms around him and the edges of the keys digging into his palm just in case Dean goes for them again.
"Gimme the keys," Dean says, and this time he doesn't sound pissed, he just sounds tired.
"You're not driving," Sam says into Dean's shoulder. One of them is swaying, and that means that both of them are, or maybe it's the night moving around them.
"I'm just gonna open the door, Sammy, you're a hell of a heavy bastard," Dean says. "I liked you better when you were smaller than me."
"No, you didn't," Sam says, though he can well believe it. And that must come through in his voice, because Dean smoothes Sam's hair back from his face, lifts Sam's head so that he can look Sam in the eye.
"Yeah, okay," he says. "You were a lot easier to carry, though, you gotta admit that."
"I don't hafta admit anything," Sam says, turning his face into the anodyne heat of Dean's palm. Dean's other hand snakes down to steal the keyring and Sam passes it over easily. "You can't make me."
"Tough words coming from the concussed guy," Dean says. "Right now I bet I could make you do anything."
"You wouldn't," Sam says, because Dean's his brother and even though Dean's a bitch when he's tired, impossible to reason with, he still cares about Sam's welfare.
"Try me," Dean says, and there's that reckless righteous grin; the sight of it beneath the streetlight haze makes Sam's heart catch and he wants nothing more than for Dean to keep looking at him like that, like it's the two of them against the world, always has and always will be, and even exhausted, Dean's eyes are flint to Sam's tinder, at once a promise and a dare, sending out a signal that Sam would have to be blind and deaf and senseless to miss, and even then, he'd hear it in the pulse of his heart, in the echo and answer of Dean's. His mouth is up against Dean's before he really knows what he's doing, his body acting without his permission, and he can only look on, dazed, as he kisses his brother. It seems only right, the way the night's gone, to be skidding out like this, wrecking himself against Dean even as his brother's the only thing keeping him alive. Which, hello melodrama, but maybe considering the cowboy bent of their lives, there's no other language for it but this one, all drama and pyrotechnics and immense terrifying epiphanies, Wile E. Coyote realizing that he's stepped off the cliff and hanging in midair, waiting to plunge; maybe that's Sam, breathing against Dean and waiting for the ground to rush up and smash him into a thousand unrecognizable pieces.
Dean's lips are chapped; his mouth tastes like coffee. His stubble scratches at Sam's skin, just as Sam's must burn him, and he does not kiss Sam back.
This is an impossible turn of events.
Sam's mind reels at the implications, at the devastating scale of what he's done, as Dean turns his head and gets hold of Sam's shoulders, taking a step back and still so goddamn careful with him, still unwilling to let Sam go crashing down to the asphalt where he belongs.
Dean licks his lips and Sam cannot look away. "Sam," Dean says, and he sounds as brittle now as he did in the diner, ground down to bone, to nothing. His hands are seeping heat into Sam's skin, branding him forever a traitor. Sam feels joyridden; whatever possessed him a moment ago has abruptly vacated the premises, leaving behind nothing but scratched metal and broken glass. He feels hollow, and weirdly sober, suddenly aware of the weight of all of his bones and how very badly his head hurts.
He thinks he liked it better when he was delirious.
"You're concussed," Dean says, his voice breaking halfway through the sentence.
Sam's mouth is dry. "Yeah," he says. He wants to step back, wants to get into the car and leave all of this behind, but he doesn't want Dean to take it the wrong way, doesn't want to lose Dean's hands on him. Selfishly, he wants to have this for as long as he can, because it'll probably never happen again.
"I just, I can't," Dean says. "We can't, Sam, please don't do this to me, man," and his jaw is tight, locked like he's afraid to say anything else. It occurs to Sam that Dean's finally got nothing to say; Sam's finally done the one thing that will get Dean to shut up, and he thinks he's going to be sick. Dean only ever says please when one or both of them are dying.
"I'm concussed," he says. "It was a, I don't know, it was."
"Yeah," Dean says. He lets go of Sam and gets into the car, stretching across the seat to pop the lock on the door closest to Sam, which Sam takes to mean that at least Dean isn't going to leave him here. As soon as Sam trusts his legs to work again, he reaches blindly for the car, the familiar curve of the metal against his hand as he opens the door, half-crawls into the back seat.
"I'll wake you in an hour," Dean says, and Sam doesn't dare look up at the rearview mirror. He's not sure whether he could live with the fact that maybe Dean can't even look at him. "Make sure you're not, you know."
"Yeah," Sam says. "Okay." He hears Dean shifting around, cranking the seat back so that he can stretch out. His throat burns. He tells himself that he'll have forgotten this by the time Dean wakes him, that he'll never remember it again. He tells himself Dean will think nothing of it; Dean knows his little brother's crazy, fucked up in all the worst ways, and maybe he saw this one coming miles off. He tells himself that in an hour, Dean will have had time to think it over, Dean will have decided Sam's right, that there's no other inevitability, no other possibility, no other life worth living, and will wake him up with his hand on Sam's chest once more, Sam's name in his voice and he'll say yes, yes, yes, his mouth hot on Sam's throat.
Sam squeezes his eyes shut and tells himself that he will not cry. Of all the terrible things he's done, this is probably the worst, but Dean will forgive him. Dean has to forgive him, Dean always forgives him. Dean has to forgive him, because Sam cannot comprehend a world in which this does not occur, but Sam's not a kid anymore, can't let himself think that just because he believes something, it has to be true, and right; even Dean doesn't try to tell him that anymore. He's killed people and he's broken his brother more times than he can remember, and maybe this time was the last.
He cannot trust that the world will still be there when he next opens his eyes, but he can't bear waiting to find out. He lets himself fall.
--
end
by whereupon
Sam/Dean. PG, no spoilers, 5,208 words.
The boundaries of Sam's universe have begun to blur.
For as long as Sam can remember, Dean has been fascinated by what Sam considers to be some of the most mundane objects in the entire world. Okay, yes, the bear in Colorado had been notably massive, but the ducks in the pond next to the motel were ducks and nothing more, and Sam hadn't actually needed to be jostled awake miles from their destination yesterday just because Dean had seen a bumper sticker proclaiming the existence of a museum of alien history, and check it out, Sam, they got a whole museum dedicated to that shit, can you believe it. Dean's only ever quiet when he's sleeping or hungover or in one of those dark moods that come over without warning and leave Sam terrified for his brother's safety, sure that Dean's going to get himself killed because he's decided once more that he's expendable.
Sam is all for appreciating the beauty of life, but there is something disturbing about the fact that his twenty-six-year-old brother finds it necessary to comment almost every time they pass a field full of cows. (And, seriously? They pass a lot of fields full of cows.)
They're on their way out of Nevada, having just finished a hunt that left Dean with what's probably a cracked rib and Sam with one hell of a headache from being flung into the side of a mausoleum, and Sam's fairly certain that the cops didn't get a good look at their license plate, but he could be wrong. Dean, on the other hand, is at once trying (Sam thinks) to reassure Sam as far as how they're totally not going to be hauled into prison within the next hour, at least, and managing to make them sound like a combination of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and the FBI's most wanted. Sam is not entirely sure Dean's aware that these positions are kind of irreconcilable.
"No, they're not," Dean says, turning from the steering wheel to glance at him beneath the heavy black of the unlit desert night. There are taillights miles away, flickering red dwarf stars, but other than that, they're all alone out here, without even the moon for company. "It's not like they ever catch the FBI's most wanted, is it? All those fucked-up serial killers are still out there."
"That's comforting," Sam says. "Thank you."
"Hey, we see worse things than serial killers every day."
Sam blinks at him. "Uh, yeah, that makes it much better."
"I'm just sayin', Ted Bundy's got nothing on a pack of rabid werewolves, okay," Dean says. "And since you did fine with that, you don't gotta worry about the other thing."
"And the FBI catches serial killers all the time," Sam says. "I mean, considering the estimated number of killers currently working."
"No, they don't," Dean says.
"Yes, they do," Sam says.
"You watch too much TV," Dean says. "Real people don't solve mysteries in an hour minus commercial breaks, dude."
"Dean, you're the one who watches soap operas," Sam says irritably. "I'm not sure you're exactly an expert on reality."
"I don't watch soap operas," Dean says. "I watch dramas. Sometimes. And you wouldn't know quality TV if it bit you on the ass."
"And you're such a connoisseur." It's a lame retort, but the way the headlight beams spin and flare across the road is making Sam dizzy. And kind of nauseated.
"Using college words doesn't make you right," Dean says. "It just means you can't think of anything to say."
"What do you expect, I'm concussed," Sam says, which is probably true. He doesn't have the authority to have an official medical opinion, but his field-medic skills have to count for something, a foxhole diagnosis. If he survives the war, he won't need a professional opinion; he'll have all the proof he needs in the lines of healed bones, phantom aches, the faint scars left behind from all the times Dean's had to stitch him back together. Nobody should have to lead this graceless kind of life, but he and Dean were born into it; outlaw's bred deep into the both of them.
"Yeah, good thing you got me to watch your back," Dean says. "Hey, think you actually dented the wall? Sure as hell sounded like it." Sam considers telling him to fuck off, but remembers waking up to Dean's hands on his face, remembers Dean's blurry but recognizably panic-stricken expression, and decides against it.
"I'm going to go to sleep now," Sam informs him, hoping that will deter him from continuing the conversation.
"No, you're not," Dean says. "It's not like I'd be able to tell if you died, you sleep like a dead person, and I'm not gonna spend the rest of the night driving around a freakin' corpse."
"If you couldn't tell, why the hell would it matter?" Sam asks, letting his head fall back against the seat and closing his eyes. "If you're so worried about it, you can wake me in an hour."
"What do I look like, an alarm clock?" Dean says, shoving Sam's shoulder. Sam grits his teeth against the way the motion jars his head, and keeps his eyes resolutely closed. "Sam," Dean says. Sam ignores him. Dean lets go of his shoulder and falls silent, but Sam knows better than to let his guard down; a moment later, Dean says, "Whatever. You wanna die from a concussion, knock yourself out. I'm gonna leave you on the side of the road, you know. I'm gonna open the door and push you out, I'm not even gonna slow down."
Sam thinks Dean mutters else something after that, but he's already too far asleep to care.
He's having this dream that he's following Dean through a cornfield, pushing through stalks that shouldn't be taller than him but that, with dream-logic, are; the sky is that strange religious blue and the ground is littered with dry husks that rustle beneath his boots. Dean is walking ahead of him, getting farther and farther away, and he doesn't want Dean to think he's fallen behind, so he walks faster, but it doesn't help. It occurs to him then that the rustling isn't just coming from beneath his feet, but from somewhere to the side, as though something is following him, hidden by the tassels and stalks and leaves, and he knows, with a flash of dread insight, that he is not armed. He looks ahead; Dean is no longer visible, and he does not dare look behind him, nor to either side, in case he might glimpse whatever's after him. He smells smoke and realizes suddenly that the field is burning, someone has set it alight, and then without warning he's not dreaming anymore, he's awakened by Dean's hand on his chest, his name in Dean's voice, the way he used to be, all through those weeks after the fire.
"What," he manages. Dean's palm is pressing his sweat-sticky shirt against his chest and he feels strung out. He straightens and Dean's hand falls away.
"You were havin' a nightmare," Dean says. Sam doesn't ask how he knew. "You want breakfast?"
Sam blinks at him. "What time's it?"
"Morning," Dean says. It's still dark out, but Sam's having trouble making out the numbers on the dashboard clock; he'll have to trust his brother, as he always does. He scrubs his hands across his eyes and realizes that the car is stopped, that they're parked and there's a truckstop lit bright as an operating room across the lot. "I could use the caffeine."
"Yeah, okay," Sam says, fumbling for the door handle. The morning (night, his brain corrects; Dean's always trying to pull one over on him, always making up the most ridiculous stories) air smells like spilled gasoline and the ocean, and he shivers.
"Hey, you with me?" Dean asks, coming around the front of the car, and Sam shrugs as easily as he can.
"Yeah," he says. "Sorry, I'm just, uh. Still not really awake."
"That was a hell of a whack on the head you got," Dean says, reaching for Sam's face. Before Sam can pull away, Dean's trapped him, is smoothing his hands across Sam's jaw and frowning up at him. Sam wonders what he's looking for, if he's found it, and then Dean lets him go. "C'mon," he says, turning away towards the oasis of light, and Sam follows, caught in his wake and trying desperately not to think of cornfields and fire, trying desperately not to feel like he should be looking over his shoulder.
When they're safely inside the diner, the door closed between them and the ragged dark, Dean looks up at him again, narrows his eyes. "You look like crap," he says.
"Right back at you," Sam says, because beneath the rough stubble there's a bruise blossoming faintly purple on the side of Dean's chin and the shadows beneath Dean's eyes make it look almost like he's wearing smudged eyeliner. The thought makes him want to laugh and he tips his head back against that punch-drunk desperation, cracking his neck and letting the halogen light filter through his eyelids. Jesus, he's exhausted.
"There's blood in your hair," Dean says, sudden and low as though it's for Sam alone to hear, and Sam opens his eyes. "Excuse me, miss, can you tell me where the men's room is," Dean says, bright and loud this time, and the waitress coming towards them smiles the way waitresses always smile at him.
"Sure," she says. "Right down that hall and to your left. Let me know when you're ready and I'll get you a table."
"Believe me, I'll look forward to that," Dean says, and the waitress blushes, her smile widening as Sam thinks she fights back the urge to giggle. She can't be more than eighteen, he thinks, and he hopes to God Dean knows as much and actually cares enough to respect it. Dean catches the sleeve of his shirt, fingers warm against his wrist, and says, "Move your ass," pulling Sam in the direction the waitress indicated. Sam lets Dean guide him down the hall and into the men's room; it's easier than resisting the force of nature that is his brother.
He leans against the wall while Dean grabs a wad of paper towels from the dispenser and soaks them beneath the single faucet. In the mirror both he and Dean look pale, bleached and tinged faintly green by the dingy light fixtures. It takes more effort than it should to push off of the wall when Dean turns to look expectantly at him. "Thought you said you got all of it before," he says when Dean reaches up to dab at him with the towels.
"I was working by flashlight, okay," Dean says. The water's cold, makes Sam's skin prickle, but he forces himself not to move until Dean steps back and tosses the towels at the trash can by the door. He makes the shot, barely, and sighs.
"How're your ribs holding up?" Sam asks, leaning back against the sink. The porcelain's cool, steadying.
"It's probably just a bruise," Dean says. "I'll live."
Sam shakes his head as gingerly as he can. "Lemme see," he says. Dean shrugs, peels up his t-shirt. The smash of what had been vibrant red across his chest is beginning to darken and he grits his teeth when Sam skims his fingers across it.
"That doesn't mean you gotta go around poking it," he says, stepping out of Sam's reach and tugging his shirt down. He opens the door and glances back at Sam, tilts his head towards the hallway. He waits until Sam starts towards him before moving and Sam is somewhat relieved to know that even though Dean might be pissed at him, he won't leave his little brother to fall asleep in some forgettable truckstop bathroom.
They tramp wearily after the waitress towards a booth in the corner. Sam puts his elbows on the table and rests his head on his hand while Dean flirts perfunctorily, his voice scratchy and rough. After the waitress has poured them coffee and promised to come back in a few minutes to take their orders, Dean's shoulders slump, the crows' feet around his eyes deepening. He looks as though he's aged ten years in the space of seconds as he wraps his hands around the coffee mug and lifts it to his mouth without flinching, even though the steam rising from Sam's own means the coffee has to be painfully hot. He blinks at Sam, who wonders if he should apologize for staring and decides that probably being concussed is a good enough excuse.
He does get the hint, though, and the green vinyl creaks beneath him as he looks away, looks at something that isn't his brother. He wonders if Dean ever finds it exhausting to be the complete and total focus of Sam's life, but the question seems sort of analogous to wondering if gravity ever gets tired, so he discards it. The lights on the distant highway leave behind tracers and Sam is momentarily transfixed; he wonders if this is what it's like to be Dean, fascinated by everything.
It takes an inexcusably long time, but eventually he realizes that he's shivering, and he takes another sip of coffee against the way his teeth are going to start chattering at any moment. It occurs to him that maybe caffeine wasn't such a good idea; he feels jittery with it, like he might break apart at any moment, and he's still cold despite the heat of the mug between his palms. He makes a silent vow that he's not going to worry Dean with this, but of course Dean's on to him, eternally outmaneuvering him, in possession of a four-year advantage.
"You're pretty fucked up, huh," Dean says, which seems like such an accurate analysis of Sam's life and outlook in general that Sam can only nod. Dean knuckles at his eyes, sighs. "Yeah. Don't fall asleep on me, okay?"
"Okay," Sam agrees, because Dean spends most of his life pulling Sam from fires both literal and figurative; surely Sam can do this one thing for him.
"I mean it," Dean says. "You even think about shutting your eyes, I'll kick your ass."
Sam's saved from having to respond to that threat by the return of the waitress. "Did you figure out what you'd like?" she asks, entirely too perky and awake for this time of whatever the hell time of day it is. Sam would like to hate her on general principle, especially because of the way she's eying his brother, but he's too good of a person to do that, or at least to let it show.
"I think so, but I'd love to hear what you'd recommend," Dean says. He delivers the line like he thinks he's half Bogie, half Bond, and Sam can only stare at him, amazed once more at his audacity.
The waitress (Sam refuses to look at her name tag, because if he does, he'll have to start thinking of her as a person with a name and a family and a life and then he'll have to feel bad for hating her) blushes harder. "The number one special's pretty good," she says.
"In that case, I'll take that," Dean says, giving her that bandit's smirk that's usually reserved for Sam alone. Sam's justifiably annoyed; the waitress has never once stood beside Dean in a firefight or had Dean's back in a bar brawl. "Sam?"
"I'll have the same," Sam says automatically, even though he has no idea what the number one special even is. He's just realized that he's forgotten to look at the menu at all. The waitress promises to be back with their food just as soon as she can, which Sam doesn't doubt considering the parting look she gives Dean, and then Dean kicks him under the table. Sam blinks at him, because that's usually his own move, and what the hell kind of alternate universe has this just become?
"Drink your coffee before I have to worry about you," Dean says.
Sam stares at him uncomprehendingly. It hadn't ever occurred to him that Dean does anything but worry about him, even though most of the time Dean tries to pretend otherwise.
Dean points at Sam's coffee as though Sam's forgotten what it is, and Sam's annoyed at the assumption. "Before you pass out," Dean says. "You're not looking so hot."
Sam's fairly certain that caffeine's not actually the best remedy for a concussion (though at the moment he's having trouble remembering what that remedy is, or if it even exists; maybe he should go for a rosary, just in case), but Dean seems certain enough for the both of them, so Sam obeys. Dean's the closest thing Sam knows to an expert on concussions, anyway, considering how many times Dean's been hit in the head with a blunt object; Sam can't remember how many times he's listened to Dean's nonsensical mumblings, Dean's accidental revelations, all of the things Dean had meant to keep to himself. Sam's glad that he hasn't managed to tell Dean any of his own secrets yet tonight, but he doesn't want to dwell on the thought, doesn't want to jinx it.
"You're a magnet for trouble," he observes, setting his cup back down. The table drifts at the edge of his vision and he feels vaguely seasick.
Dean raises an eyebrow. "Talk about the freakishly huge kettle callin' the pot black," he says. Sam's not entirely sure what he means by that, but from the look on Dean's face, he's fairly certain Dean's making fun of him.
"Whatever, jerk," Sam says. The words feel loose and half-formed in his mouth. He suddenly wants nothing more than to put his head down on the table and go to sleep, but he promised Dean, he reminds himself.
"Yeah, I totally see how you got into Stanford," Dean says. "I'm surprised they didn't just give you the freakin' Nobel already."
"What," Sam says, blinking at him; he thinks he might have only heard half of what Dean said. He wonders if Dean would notice if he drifted off for a few minutes. Probably not; Dean can keep himself entertained forever. His soliloquies would put Hamlet to shame.
"Sam," Dean says, scary and dangerous, whole worlds of violence in that voice, and Sam forces his eyes open. "I'm this close to taking you to the hospital, man," Dean says. He looks even paler than he did in the men's room mirror, Sam thinks, but that could just be the head injury talking.
"I'm fine," Sam says, sitting up straighter, because Dean and hospitals are a bad combination; Sam has years of memories to support that conclusion. "Really, Dean, I'm okay." He's not entirely sure that's true, but he's used to lying for his brother's sake. Whatever he can do to make Dean's life easier, because both of their lives are hard enough as it is.
"You can't lie to save your damn life," Dean says, and Sam wants to point out that he can, actually, and has even done so in the past; he's lied to save his life and lied to save Dean's, and he lied so much once that he was able to begin an entirely new life, but deals with the devil always end badly and now he's tasting smoke once more as though he never stopped, so he washes it away with a mouthful of coffee, instead. Dean would have only argued, anyway. It's effort enough to remain upright, to keep his thoughts corralled, to keep himself from drifting when things start to go blurry. (That last one takes a lot of blinking, mostly.)
The number one special turns out to be a stack of pancakes with bacon on the side, which Sam thinks might win the prize for most unimaginative special ever. He stares at his plate and is overwhelmed by the thought of the amount of hand-eye coordination it will take to lift a knife and fork, not to mention to cut the pancakes, or to try to eat them. He might as well just forfeit now; he's not even hungry.
Across the table, Dean's shoving food into his mouth like he's starving, like he thinks somebody's going to take it away from him, and the night's shipwrecked outside of the window, current-dragged and full of ghosts. If Sam looks hard enough, he can almost see phantoms, faces in the smudges across the glass, in the way the streetlights filter into shadows, and then the frame skips, redshift as the universe realigns: Dean's pulling cash out of his wallet, biting his lip as he counts off bills. "You ready?" he asks, to which Sam nods; he doesn't know what he's meant to be ready for, but he was born ready for Dean, for anything Dean might throw at him.
Navigating back out to the car is much easier after Dean turns around in time to see Sam stumble and decides that Sam's incapable of walking without being guided. That's more true than Sam would have liked, but he'll be damned if he's going to tell Dean as much. He's probably damned anyway, of course, but what the hell, he'll play it safe.
"Where're we going," Sam says when Dean stops them in front of the Impala, the one place they always manage to end up. Dean's scowling with his hands in his front pockets; he doesn't look up, doesn't respond to Sam at all. "Dean," Sam says, suddenly terrified that he's managed to lose his voice on top of everything else. He can't imagine a world in which Dean couldn't hear him; who would tell Dean to keep his head down, to keep the volume down, to stop trying to get himself killed?
"Where'd I put the damn keys," Dean says, still not looking at Sam. He's still got his hands in his pockets like he thinks the keys might materialize, like he thinks maybe he just missed them. They're pockets, not the freaking Tardis, but there's no way Sam's going to make that reference in front of Dean. "Fuck, I coulda sworn I had 'em a minute ago."
"Hey," Sam says, and it takes all of his concentration, all of his finesse, but he manages to get a hand beneath Dean's jacket and work the keyring out from the inside pocket. The leather's so much a part of Dean that Sam thinks in another frame of mind he'd feel invasive, that he has no right to do this. Dean twists away, straightening his shoulders, and scowls again, this time at Sam.
"Not cool," he says, like he thinks Sam's become a master of prestidigitation in the past hour. Sam's always been good with his hands, but Dean's got their dad's eyes and a pistolero's trigger finger; Sam knows better than to try anything where the car is concerned.
"You put them there yourself," Sam says. "Even I remember that."
Dean narrows his eyes. "Yeah, and if I wasn't busy worrying about your ass, I would have, too. Gimme the keys, Sam."
Sam's hand closes around the metal. "No way you're driving anywhere, you can't even remember where you put the thing that starts the car."
"So, what," Dean says. "You wanna spend the rest of the night sleeping here?" Sam feels distantly vindicated; he'd known it couldn't have been morning.
"If the other choice's sleeping on the side of the road when you run us off it," he says, and maybe he should have phrased that better, because Dean's always been oversensitive as far as his driving skills are concerned. Dean lunges for the keys and Sam steps back, instinctively holding them out of Dean's reach, and then he overbalances and Dean has to grab him to keep him from falling. He ends up leaning against his brother, Dean's arms around him and the edges of the keys digging into his palm just in case Dean goes for them again.
"Gimme the keys," Dean says, and this time he doesn't sound pissed, he just sounds tired.
"You're not driving," Sam says into Dean's shoulder. One of them is swaying, and that means that both of them are, or maybe it's the night moving around them.
"I'm just gonna open the door, Sammy, you're a hell of a heavy bastard," Dean says. "I liked you better when you were smaller than me."
"No, you didn't," Sam says, though he can well believe it. And that must come through in his voice, because Dean smoothes Sam's hair back from his face, lifts Sam's head so that he can look Sam in the eye.
"Yeah, okay," he says. "You were a lot easier to carry, though, you gotta admit that."
"I don't hafta admit anything," Sam says, turning his face into the anodyne heat of Dean's palm. Dean's other hand snakes down to steal the keyring and Sam passes it over easily. "You can't make me."
"Tough words coming from the concussed guy," Dean says. "Right now I bet I could make you do anything."
"You wouldn't," Sam says, because Dean's his brother and even though Dean's a bitch when he's tired, impossible to reason with, he still cares about Sam's welfare.
"Try me," Dean says, and there's that reckless righteous grin; the sight of it beneath the streetlight haze makes Sam's heart catch and he wants nothing more than for Dean to keep looking at him like that, like it's the two of them against the world, always has and always will be, and even exhausted, Dean's eyes are flint to Sam's tinder, at once a promise and a dare, sending out a signal that Sam would have to be blind and deaf and senseless to miss, and even then, he'd hear it in the pulse of his heart, in the echo and answer of Dean's. His mouth is up against Dean's before he really knows what he's doing, his body acting without his permission, and he can only look on, dazed, as he kisses his brother. It seems only right, the way the night's gone, to be skidding out like this, wrecking himself against Dean even as his brother's the only thing keeping him alive. Which, hello melodrama, but maybe considering the cowboy bent of their lives, there's no other language for it but this one, all drama and pyrotechnics and immense terrifying epiphanies, Wile E. Coyote realizing that he's stepped off the cliff and hanging in midair, waiting to plunge; maybe that's Sam, breathing against Dean and waiting for the ground to rush up and smash him into a thousand unrecognizable pieces.
Dean's lips are chapped; his mouth tastes like coffee. His stubble scratches at Sam's skin, just as Sam's must burn him, and he does not kiss Sam back.
This is an impossible turn of events.
Sam's mind reels at the implications, at the devastating scale of what he's done, as Dean turns his head and gets hold of Sam's shoulders, taking a step back and still so goddamn careful with him, still unwilling to let Sam go crashing down to the asphalt where he belongs.
Dean licks his lips and Sam cannot look away. "Sam," Dean says, and he sounds as brittle now as he did in the diner, ground down to bone, to nothing. His hands are seeping heat into Sam's skin, branding him forever a traitor. Sam feels joyridden; whatever possessed him a moment ago has abruptly vacated the premises, leaving behind nothing but scratched metal and broken glass. He feels hollow, and weirdly sober, suddenly aware of the weight of all of his bones and how very badly his head hurts.
He thinks he liked it better when he was delirious.
"You're concussed," Dean says, his voice breaking halfway through the sentence.
Sam's mouth is dry. "Yeah," he says. He wants to step back, wants to get into the car and leave all of this behind, but he doesn't want Dean to take it the wrong way, doesn't want to lose Dean's hands on him. Selfishly, he wants to have this for as long as he can, because it'll probably never happen again.
"I just, I can't," Dean says. "We can't, Sam, please don't do this to me, man," and his jaw is tight, locked like he's afraid to say anything else. It occurs to Sam that Dean's finally got nothing to say; Sam's finally done the one thing that will get Dean to shut up, and he thinks he's going to be sick. Dean only ever says please when one or both of them are dying.
"I'm concussed," he says. "It was a, I don't know, it was."
"Yeah," Dean says. He lets go of Sam and gets into the car, stretching across the seat to pop the lock on the door closest to Sam, which Sam takes to mean that at least Dean isn't going to leave him here. As soon as Sam trusts his legs to work again, he reaches blindly for the car, the familiar curve of the metal against his hand as he opens the door, half-crawls into the back seat.
"I'll wake you in an hour," Dean says, and Sam doesn't dare look up at the rearview mirror. He's not sure whether he could live with the fact that maybe Dean can't even look at him. "Make sure you're not, you know."
"Yeah," Sam says. "Okay." He hears Dean shifting around, cranking the seat back so that he can stretch out. His throat burns. He tells himself that he'll have forgotten this by the time Dean wakes him, that he'll never remember it again. He tells himself Dean will think nothing of it; Dean knows his little brother's crazy, fucked up in all the worst ways, and maybe he saw this one coming miles off. He tells himself that in an hour, Dean will have had time to think it over, Dean will have decided Sam's right, that there's no other inevitability, no other possibility, no other life worth living, and will wake him up with his hand on Sam's chest once more, Sam's name in his voice and he'll say yes, yes, yes, his mouth hot on Sam's throat.
Sam squeezes his eyes shut and tells himself that he will not cry. Of all the terrible things he's done, this is probably the worst, but Dean will forgive him. Dean has to forgive him, Dean always forgives him. Dean has to forgive him, because Sam cannot comprehend a world in which this does not occur, but Sam's not a kid anymore, can't let himself think that just because he believes something, it has to be true, and right; even Dean doesn't try to tell him that anymore. He's killed people and he's broken his brother more times than he can remember, and maybe this time was the last.
He cannot trust that the world will still be there when he next opens his eyes, but he can't bear waiting to find out. He lets himself fall.
--
end