(no subject)
Rebound
by whereupon
Supernatural: Sam/Dean, season one, PG-13, 4,890 words.
It's the landing that kills you.
For lavinialavender.
Waking up is a lot like falling: ultimately, it's the landing that kills you. Or, in this case, it's the look his brother's giving him, which isn't actually so much a look as it is a full-on death glare. But just as Sam's learned to fall (he's had to, during the course of so many years spent getting tossed into walls and down staircases and at whatever else happened to be nearby, like headstones or bookcases that broke with his weight or the Impala's rear bumper, which, thankfully, remained perfectly intact or both Dean and Dad might have killed him. Once they were done patching him up, of course.), he's learned to pretend not to notice the looks Dean bestows upon him each time he wakes with Dean's hand on his shoulder or chest or knee, or with a shout or a scream that he only sometimes manages to stifle; the dirty looks Dean gives him as though he thinks Sam might be having nightmares just to piss him off or to remind him that he hasn't been able to control Sam's life since they were maybe fourteen and ten, respectively.
The looks might be more effective if Dean didn't look just this side of zombification, himself. Just because he tends to wake not with a shout but with a hand on his knife and an intake of breath that he does not release until he's confirmed that he and Sam are alone in the room doesn't mean that his own nightmares are any less vivid or cruel than Sam's own, nor does it mean that he's getting any more rest than Sam is.
Not sleeping gets you killed, Dean says. Chastises, really, as he leans over the table in any number (Sam's lost count) of diners, or as he sits up in order to glare more directly at Sam from the other bed. Sometimes he changes things up, says, Eat more, that shit's not gonna give you the energy to kick anybody's ass, but the message is the same. Take care of yourself, coming from somebody who's never once taken his own advice.
Sometimes that's funny, when the sun's out and they're driving (because they're always driving, not-driving means stasis means somebody else getting killed) and Dean's caffeinated enough that Sam's fairly certain he's not going to run them off the road, which means that Sam can put on his sunglasses and maybe sleep for a few hours, lulled into what passes for peace of mind by the motion of transit and the sun filtering through the window. Other times, when they're sniping at each other, dream-rattled and eyes burning and glass beneath skin already aching with too many hours awake, because Dean nearly got his throat ripped open or Sam almost didn't duck in time, it really, really isn't.
Maybe neither of them really sleeps, but they've both got damned good reasons for it, and Sam's willing not to ask, as long as Dean won't, either.
Dean, however, appears to be unaware of any such agreement, unspoken or otherwise, and it's that more than anything that is driving Sam crazy (crazier, whatever, anybody who sees things before they happen, who has visions, is probably nuts, but that version of crazy's nothing compared to the brand of insanity that is devoting one's life to hunting). Sam can't do anything about the nightmares, no matter what Dean thinks, and it would be nice if Dean didn't have to remind him of that fact at least once an hour. After all, Sam doesn't go around reminding him of all the horrible, fucked-up things he's seen, or caused, or been.
Chill, dude, I'm great, I sleep like a baby, you're the only thing keeping me up, Dean says, slouched across from Sam in the vinyl-cushioned booth, one arm draped along its back like he's getting ready to make a move on a girl who happens to be invisible, the body language of someone completely at ease and in control, lying to Sam out of habit the way he lies to everybody else, but it doesn't count because Sam's always been able to see through it and Dean knows as much.
They're both papered over with lies and mirrors; they're collages of contradictions. Dean takes over the booth like he owns the place, but the shadows beneath his eyes echo the faded grey of his t-shirt. The hand not on the back of the booth is toying with the paper wrapper of his straw, crinkling it and uncrinkling it; he might not even know he's doing it.
And that's Sam's cue to shake his head or roll his eyes or heave a dramatic sigh, depending on the time of day and how many bodies they've burned or buried in the past twenty-four hours, but this time, he lets it go. This time, instead of any of those years-practiced gestures, he says, "You're lying," because Dean's boots keep accidentally colliding with his shins beneath the table and because the constant paper-crinkling noise is getting on his nerves and yeah, maybe he was already on edge to begin with because he hasn't slept well in weeks. Months, even.
Dean's mouth opens slightly either in genuine shock, because they each might know the other's lying, but they're not meant to call each other on it, or because he's thinking of what will undoubtedly be a stunning retort. Sam's betting on the first one, and not only because Dean hasn't come up with a stunning retort, even by Dean-standards, in the last week, which says enough about how great he is.
"You know, silence is tacit approval," he says when thirty seconds have passed and Dean has yet to do anything other than stare at him, though the stare is rapidly taking on decidedly glare-like qualities.
"I'm gonna tacitly approve your ass," Dean says immediately, and then pauses, tilting his head fractionally as though only just now thinking about what he said.
"Uh, thanks?" Sam says. "But if you're planning to use that line to pick people up, you might wanna sound like you're not using 'tacitly approve' as a synonym for 'kick.' Might get you further."
"Oh, fuck you, you know what I meant," Dean says, dropping the straw wrapper and picking up his fork instead. That wouldn't be particularly ominous if not for the way he's leaning in towards Sam, and how he doesn't actually have any food left on his plate.
Sam raises his eyebrows. "That you couldn't think of a decent counterargument? Or any counterargument?"
This time, there's absolutely nothing accidental about Dean's boot connecting with Sam's shin. Sam manages not to curse aloud; it would attract the other diners' attention, but mostly, he doesn't want to give Dean the satisfaction. Dean settles serenely back into place. "There's more than one kind of counterargument, Sammy. Thought you were meant to be all educated and shit."
"Don't change the subject," Sam says. Dean's eyebrows quirk into an exaggerated expression of surprise and offended innocence.
"We didn't have a subject. You had a delusion and because I'm an awesome big brother, I'm not gonna enable it. It's for your own good, dude."
"Right." Sam rests an elbow on the table, chin in hand. "Which is why my leg is probably broken now."
"I'd tell you not to be a bitch, but I know you can't help it." Dean slurps melted chocolate sludge from the bottom of his fluted milkshake glass and then looks back up at Sam. "It's not broken, it's bruised, and maybe you'll think twice about disrespecting your elders next time."
"Yeah, and I'll be sure to keep it in mind when you need somebody to push your wheelchair for you, too," Sam says. "It's funny how you're only ever my elder when you know I've got a point and you want me to shut up about it."
"Dude, me in a wheelchair? Never gonna happen. My car's the only wheels I'm ever gonna need." He pauses. "Seriously. Hey, you think I'll make it to thirty?"
"That's not funny," Sam says. It's especially not funny when Dean's tone doesn't change at all from the previous sentence, as though the concept of his death within the next four years is as certain as his insanely unhealthy devotion to a car, something to be spoken plainly in a diner with ketchup-smeared plates between them, over which previously they'd talked about the waitress's ass (or, really, Dean had talked about the waitress's ass and Sam had pointed out that she had a lot of other attributes, too, due to how she was a human being, at which point Dean had agreed and started talking about her tits, and Sam should have seen that coming, probably). The insignificance of the setting makes Sam's chest hurt a little.
He has dreams about Dean dying, sometimes. Nightmares, not (yet) tinged with the sick migraine-clarity of visions, images warped like a darkroom accident.
"I wasn't joking," Dean says. He smirks but his eyes are calm, accepting. Passive, and maybe it's that more than anything that bothers Sam. Dean will run into burning buildings for others, or send a hundred thousand volts twisting towards his heart, a slow-burning curse after all: leaving him to die ashen and hollow in a hospital named for a saint. He does not once stop to think of himself, or of who he'll leave behind. "That was an actual, valid question. We could bet on it."
"Dean, did you seriously just suggest that we make bets on your life? That's a whole new level of twisted, even for you."
Dean's eyes widen. "Jesus, don't get your panties in a twist. I wasn't ordering a goddamn Mafia hit, man, I was making a suggestion. Trying to liven up your life a little. You don't gotta take everything so damn seriously."
"Whatever, dude, I'm not enabling your little gambling problem. And to answer your stupid question, no, I don't, not if you don't get some fucking sleep."
"Coming from you--"
"If you finish that sentence, the next time you are actually asleep, I'm taking the car," Sam says flatly.
"Not if I sleep with the keys in my--" And every single way Sam can think for Dean to end that sentence is either disturbing or way too descriptive, or both, so he interrupts before Dean can give him with another horrifying mental image he'll have for the rest of his life. It's funny how many of the ones he already has came from Dean and not from the immensely fucked-up shit they see practically every day of their lives.
"Don't. Finish that one, either. I don't wanna know. You put the keys wherever you want, I'll break a window and hotwire her--it if I have to."
"Yeah, and then I'll break your fingers," Dean says, the threat as casual as the act of drawing a breath. "And I'm gonna finish whatever damn sentences I wanna finish. You don't wanna hear what I gotta say, why'd you ask me in the first place?"
"I didn't ask you anything," Sam says. "You just . . . started talking. The way that you do. All the time." Not that he minds, sometimes -- not that he'd ever tell Dean that. Of course, Dean already knows, anyway.
"Uh, yeah, that's called having a conversation, Sam. See, one person, and that's you, here, says something, and then the other person, that's me, points out how what you just said's bordering on criminally stupid, and then you get all pissy and defensive 'cause I pointed out what shoulda been obvious, and--"
"Actually, you're doing pretty good at having a conversation all by yourself," Sam points out mildly.
Dean shrugs. "One of my many gifts. You should be so lucky."
"I don't think having voices in your head is lucky, exactly," Sam says. "I think there's actually an entry in the DSM-IV for that."
"What the fuck ever, man," Dean says. "See, that right there, that thing we just did? A conversation. Pretty sure I taught you that back when you were, like, three, but hey, you got the whole sleep-deprived amnesia thing going on, I got your back."
"Dean," Sam says, and then pauses, because his voice is starting to hit that weird note that it does whenever Dean's being especially childish, which isn't fair because it makes him sound like he's maybe thirteen again, which makes Dean even less likely to actually listen to what he's saying. "Okay," he tries again, calmly and rationally enough for the both of them, as usual. "We are going to finish eating -- or at least, I'm going to finish eating, and you're going to stop slurping at your milkshake because the glass is empty, okay--"
"And that's gonna take you all of thirty seconds," Dean says immediately. "You eat like one a' those chicks that go on Oprah. You got some control issues you wanna talk about? No way I'm gonna hug you, but if you wanna, like, cry or whatever, I guess that wouldn't be anything new."
"I'm not the one who has to drive absolutely everywhere, and who freaks out if somebody else touches the radio," Sam says.
"I don't freak out if somebody touches the radio," Dean says. "I get justifiably annoyed if somebody turns the radio to, like, Whiny Manboys FM, though. Which you'd know all about, seeing's how it's your favorite station."
"As I was saying," Sam says, and Dean raises his hands in mock surrender and mutters something about PMS. Sam considers kicking him again, but he's not sure that at this point, that would end in anything other than Dean punching him as soon as they got out to the parking lot, if not sooner, and he's not sure he has the energy for a full-scale fistfight right now. Especially not with the way Dean fights dirty, and they're both just this side of too-tired to make real the possibility of not pulling their punches, of the fight turning into something serious and scary. He tasted blood for days, the last time that happened, and Dean's swollen-dark eyes had caught at him, the sight of them an ache like a badly-healed bone until he found himself trying to avoid looking at Dean, which only made him ache in a different way, one he remembered from the days directly before leaving for California. "I am going to finish eating, and you are going to stop playing with what's left of your food, and then we are going to go to a motel, and we are going to see who falls asleep first."
Dean blinks at him. "First, that thing about me being the boss of you? Hasn't changed. Just thought I'd clear that up for you. Second, dude, we get a free afternoon and you wanna spend it having a staring contest in a motel room? Tell you what, we'll get a room and you can stare at yourself in the damn mirror while I go out and have some actual fun."
"Because you know you'd fall asleep first," Sam says. "Because you're exhausted, and then I would win."
"No, you wouldn't," Dean says. "You would not win. Because we're not doing that."
"Because you're afraid to," Sam says. It's convenient how that tone of voice is perfect for both talking to scared witnesses and irritating his brother, who absolutely hates to be condescended to, a.k.a. talked to as though he's an eighty-year-old woman who just saw her husband dragged out of the bedroom window by what looked like a praying mantis on steroids.
"I'm not afraid," Dean says, a little too loudly, and Sam doesn't quite manage to hide his smirk. Some of the other patrons turn to look at them, and Dean leans in, says, quieter this time, but with just as much venom, "I am not afraid, goddamnit. It's just a really stupid idea."
"If I win, I get to drive next week," Sam says, mostly because he's curious as to whether Dean will put his own honor or that of his car first. "The whole week."
Dean's eyes widen so much that it looks like it might actually be painful. "In your dreams," he says. "Which you'll be having, when you lose."
"So we're on," Sam says.
"We are so on," Dean says. "When I win, it's gonna be awesome."
Sam raises his eyebrows, because the things Dean finds awesome have an alarming tendency to involve explosions and/or nearly being caught by the cops. "What do you want?"
"Haven't decided yet," Dean says. "But it's gonna be great." And very probably Sam should have made him come up with something before agreeing to this -- deal, or bet, or whatever it is, but whatever, it's not like Dean's going to win, so it's all theoretical, anyway.
He finishes what's left of his salad, faded-dull lettuce and tomatoes that taste more of being in a refrigerator than of anything grown beneath the sun, and Dean pays the check. On the way out to the parking lot, Dean's elbow jostles him twice, but not hard enough to bruise: not so much a challenge, then, as Dean reminding him that he's there, perpetually annoying and challenging and willing to take a bullet for Sam, or a curse, or to mark out the rest of his life in days spent bloody and alone, in order to give Sam what he thinks Sam wants, as though they cannot both be happy, cannot both get what they want.
Dean wants hardly anything for himself, so maybe it's all right that Sam wants everything for the both of them.
There's a motel on the other side of the parking lot, which Sam says is fate and Dean says is nothing new, people want beds and they want food, Sam, that's not exactly Oracle a' Delphi shit, to which Sam only stares at him wonderingly. Dean says these things sometimes and it's like unearthing some new secret, something that would have been Sam's if he'd stayed but to which he has no right now, the way he has no right to ask about the things Dean dreams of, those terrible unending nights when they both wake haunted. The Sea Cove Inn, the sign reads, creaking slightly with the breeze rising from the east, and the key to their room dangles from a blue plastic keychain in the form of a sailboat. They're hundreds of miles from the ocean, but as Dean unlocks their room and Sam sees the large-breasted mermaid painted on the opposite wall, he wonders if he might be seasick anyway.
"No, you were totally right," Dean says. "This is fate. Clearly. We're destined to live in Larry Flynt's The Little Mermaid. Only I guess it's more like the not-so-little mermaid, you think?"
"Dude," Sam says, and then draws a blank, as though the sight of a bed upon which he could collapse and hope for an hour or two of sleep before waking panicked has cancelled out the effects of the coffee he's been mainlining since waking in the cool dark to the noise of a horn blasting out on the freeway like a scream, a souvenir brought with him out of his nightmare like a token from the underworld.
Dean snickers. "Yeah, you might as well forfeit while you still got some dignity."
"Take off your damn boots and get in bed," Sam says, fighting back the urge to yawn.
"Shoulda figured you'd be a control freak in bed, too," Dean says, but he lowers himself, carefully as a man thirty years his senior, onto the side of his bed and begins undoing his laces. The fact that he's complying at all is worrying, Sam thinks, because if he's this tired, there's no way he should have been even thinking about driving cross-country again tonight, and all of a sudden Sam doesn't care at all about winning, because the fact is Dean was going to maybe get both of them killed because he didn't want to admit to Sam that he's just as burnt out as his brother is, either because he believes it doesn't matter or because he doesn't want Sam to know, and there's something awful, something stomach-dropping and skin-chilling and vaguely world-ending about that idea, because they used to know everything about each other and Sam can't remember how that began to change, though he remembers feeling grateful for it at the time, and the thought sickens him now. He can remember all too clearly what it was like to be young and casually cruel.
Sam drops down onto his own bed, toes off his sneakers. Dean's already lying down, but he's staring at the ceiling, his eyes open wide; Sam figures he'll close them maybe five seconds after reassuring himself that Sam's not looking anymore. Which Sam won't be, but only because he'll be waiting for Dean to give in; once Dean does, he'll open his own eyes, and poke Dean to tell him that he lost, and then go to sleep for real.
It's a good plan, except for the part where it doesn't happen.
Blood spatters across Sam's face, and even before the ceiling bursts into flame bright as the birth of stars, he can smell her singed hair, that sickeningly familiar char. He opens his mouth to speak her name, as though doing so this time might somehow bring her back, make her stay, and is suddenly awake, staring at a ceiling that has never once been burned, a ceiling unmarred by even a single water stain. He rubs a hand across his gritty eyes and glances at his watch: it's been three hours. They didn't draw the curtains before lying down, and there's more traffic on the street than there was before.
"I won," Dean says scratchily, and Sam pushes himself up, looks over at him. He's still sprawled out on top of the blankets, but he's rolled over to look at Sam. If his eyes weren't still red-rimmed, his expression, which Sam thinks is probably meant to be a smirk of victory, might actually work; instead, he just looks sort of deranged, though not especially more than usual.
"No way," Sam says. His throat burns; he wants a glass of water, or a beer, something to erase the taste of smoke from his tongue. He wants to take a shower, as though that might remove the feeling that a layer of ash has formed just beneath his skin. "You were out."
"Prove it," Dean says. He sits up and his hair is matted on one side, his flannel twisted. One of its buttons is missing and Sam isn't sure when that happened, or how.
"You prove it," Sam says, and they stare at each other.
"Fuck," Dean says eventually. He pushes a hand through his hair, making it stand up in crazy spikes. "You shoulda thought of this."
"Me?" Sam says, and Dean nods, once.
"It was your stupid idea."
"You're the one who agreed to it," Sam says. He doesn't want to be arguing about this. He doesn't want to be arguing about anything at all. He feels bruised, all over.
"Because it was the only way you were gonna take a nap!"
"Right," Sam says. "I'm sure that's it."
"Yeah," Dean says. "Me, I was just resting my eyes, waiting for you to wake up."
Sam rolls his eyes and gets out of bed. He closes the curtains and runs the tap in the bathroom for a minute before filling one of the plastic cups next to the sink with water. It's lukewarm, still, but he drinks it anyway and then goes back out to the main room, where Dean has shifted to sit with his legs outstretched, crossed at the ankles, on his bed, his flannel crumpled beside him. The lights are still off and Dean's eyes glint in the faint late afternoon haze that seeps through the curtains; Sam has the thought, not for the first time, that it's in the darkness that they are truly at home, the darkness in which they are as close to safe as they ever get.
"Truce?" Dean says.
"Truce," Sam says.
Dean nods, the movement barely perceptible in the dim. Sam's heart is still beating too quickly, his veins flooded with dream-adrenaline. He thinks he might not be fully awake yet; the heavy shadows in the corners of the room pool like water, and he feels watched.
Which he is, he reminds himself; Dean's gaze is on him, sharp and somehow expectant, like he's waiting for Sam to say something, or to make a move. Sam feels off-cue, like he's missed a line or like Dean's asked him a question that he didn't hear.
"What?" he says dumbly, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. The whole world feels off-balance and he thinks that it was a stupid idea to have tried to sleep at all. He should sit down, he thinks, except the only place to sit down is on his bed, which will put him that much closer to his nightmare, because while there is a chair in front of the window, he's not yet ready to put his back to the glass, to the rest of the world in which so many wicked, clawed things move, some of them wearing human faces. It's not an entirely justifiable fear, but at the moment, he feels it keenly.
"Nothing," Dean says. "Sit down already."
"No, I'm up," Sam says. "I think I might go take a shower or something. You should get some more sleep, though. I mean, since we've got the room for the night."
"No, I'm up," Dean echoes. "Bad nightmare?"
Sam lifts one shoulder, half a shrug and half mere acknowledgement of the question. It's not an answer, really, because all of them are bad; this one was just more of the same. Which is funny, sort of; had he thought about it before, he might have expected them to get better as they went on, he might have expected that he'd get used to them, eventually.
It turns out that feeling your girlfriend's blood on your skin, that watching her burn alive and knowing that you could have stopped it, isn't something you get used to at all.
"C'mere," Dean says, tilts his head slightly. When Sam doesn't move, he frowns. "Jesus, Sam, you look like you're gonna fall over. Sit the hell down already."
Sam sits down beside him gracelessly, the mattress shifting beneath his weight. There's not much room between them, Dean's knee pressing against his own, and he's absurdly grateful for that, though he'll never admit it, and though he's slightly ashamed that he needs it and that Dean knows it. Of course, Dean's been seeing through him ever since he was born, so maybe he should be used to that.
Dean doesn't say anything, though, and for that, Sam's even more grateful. There's something comforting about being this close to his brother in the cramped motel room, the way he spent so many years of his life, as though the past four years didn't happen, or at least weren't spent apart, as though this is something they can pick up, one thing in Sam's world that has not been redefined, or lost.
It helps, just being close to somebody, this tangible, physical reminder that he isn't alone, that he is awake. It helps even more that this is the intimate, just-for-them version of Dean's elbow digging into his ribs, and when Dean touches the underside of his wrist, neither gently nor roughly, and reaches with his other hand for Sam's chin, his thumb on Sam's jawline, Sam feels his breath hitch, but he doesn't look away. He meets Dean's eyes, and when Dean kisses him, when they kiss, because in this as in everything they've ever done, it's mutual, it is at once new, this adrenaline sparking through his veins having nothing to do with fear, now, and not-new, because this is Dean, after all, and with Dean, Sam trusts his life, as he has so many times in the past.
The mattress gives and Sam's mouth is open on Dean's throat; Dean has his hands beneath Sam's shirt, his palms on the bones of Sam's hips. This is nothing new. This is only a different version of everything that has come before. This is Dean breathing in Sam's ear, this is Dean saying, Sammy, you aren't dreaming anymore, Sammy, Sammy, Sam, like he thinks Sam doesn't know. This is them breathing the same breath, and this is the way they fit together now overlain upon all of the times they have fit together in the past, all of the times they've split each other's lips or thrown an arm over the other's shoulder or carried each other out of burning buildings, crumpling buildings, back alleys and barfights. This is the way they fall, and the way they break each other's fall as they break each other, over and over again, with their bodies and with the weight of each other's names and with everything they do not say, and this is the way they come back to each other, every time.
--
end
by whereupon
Supernatural: Sam/Dean, season one, PG-13, 4,890 words.
It's the landing that kills you.
For lavinialavender.
Waking up is a lot like falling: ultimately, it's the landing that kills you. Or, in this case, it's the look his brother's giving him, which isn't actually so much a look as it is a full-on death glare. But just as Sam's learned to fall (he's had to, during the course of so many years spent getting tossed into walls and down staircases and at whatever else happened to be nearby, like headstones or bookcases that broke with his weight or the Impala's rear bumper, which, thankfully, remained perfectly intact or both Dean and Dad might have killed him. Once they were done patching him up, of course.), he's learned to pretend not to notice the looks Dean bestows upon him each time he wakes with Dean's hand on his shoulder or chest or knee, or with a shout or a scream that he only sometimes manages to stifle; the dirty looks Dean gives him as though he thinks Sam might be having nightmares just to piss him off or to remind him that he hasn't been able to control Sam's life since they were maybe fourteen and ten, respectively.
The looks might be more effective if Dean didn't look just this side of zombification, himself. Just because he tends to wake not with a shout but with a hand on his knife and an intake of breath that he does not release until he's confirmed that he and Sam are alone in the room doesn't mean that his own nightmares are any less vivid or cruel than Sam's own, nor does it mean that he's getting any more rest than Sam is.
Not sleeping gets you killed, Dean says. Chastises, really, as he leans over the table in any number (Sam's lost count) of diners, or as he sits up in order to glare more directly at Sam from the other bed. Sometimes he changes things up, says, Eat more, that shit's not gonna give you the energy to kick anybody's ass, but the message is the same. Take care of yourself, coming from somebody who's never once taken his own advice.
Sometimes that's funny, when the sun's out and they're driving (because they're always driving, not-driving means stasis means somebody else getting killed) and Dean's caffeinated enough that Sam's fairly certain he's not going to run them off the road, which means that Sam can put on his sunglasses and maybe sleep for a few hours, lulled into what passes for peace of mind by the motion of transit and the sun filtering through the window. Other times, when they're sniping at each other, dream-rattled and eyes burning and glass beneath skin already aching with too many hours awake, because Dean nearly got his throat ripped open or Sam almost didn't duck in time, it really, really isn't.
Maybe neither of them really sleeps, but they've both got damned good reasons for it, and Sam's willing not to ask, as long as Dean won't, either.
Dean, however, appears to be unaware of any such agreement, unspoken or otherwise, and it's that more than anything that is driving Sam crazy (crazier, whatever, anybody who sees things before they happen, who has visions, is probably nuts, but that version of crazy's nothing compared to the brand of insanity that is devoting one's life to hunting). Sam can't do anything about the nightmares, no matter what Dean thinks, and it would be nice if Dean didn't have to remind him of that fact at least once an hour. After all, Sam doesn't go around reminding him of all the horrible, fucked-up things he's seen, or caused, or been.
Chill, dude, I'm great, I sleep like a baby, you're the only thing keeping me up, Dean says, slouched across from Sam in the vinyl-cushioned booth, one arm draped along its back like he's getting ready to make a move on a girl who happens to be invisible, the body language of someone completely at ease and in control, lying to Sam out of habit the way he lies to everybody else, but it doesn't count because Sam's always been able to see through it and Dean knows as much.
They're both papered over with lies and mirrors; they're collages of contradictions. Dean takes over the booth like he owns the place, but the shadows beneath his eyes echo the faded grey of his t-shirt. The hand not on the back of the booth is toying with the paper wrapper of his straw, crinkling it and uncrinkling it; he might not even know he's doing it.
And that's Sam's cue to shake his head or roll his eyes or heave a dramatic sigh, depending on the time of day and how many bodies they've burned or buried in the past twenty-four hours, but this time, he lets it go. This time, instead of any of those years-practiced gestures, he says, "You're lying," because Dean's boots keep accidentally colliding with his shins beneath the table and because the constant paper-crinkling noise is getting on his nerves and yeah, maybe he was already on edge to begin with because he hasn't slept well in weeks. Months, even.
Dean's mouth opens slightly either in genuine shock, because they each might know the other's lying, but they're not meant to call each other on it, or because he's thinking of what will undoubtedly be a stunning retort. Sam's betting on the first one, and not only because Dean hasn't come up with a stunning retort, even by Dean-standards, in the last week, which says enough about how great he is.
"You know, silence is tacit approval," he says when thirty seconds have passed and Dean has yet to do anything other than stare at him, though the stare is rapidly taking on decidedly glare-like qualities.
"I'm gonna tacitly approve your ass," Dean says immediately, and then pauses, tilting his head fractionally as though only just now thinking about what he said.
"Uh, thanks?" Sam says. "But if you're planning to use that line to pick people up, you might wanna sound like you're not using 'tacitly approve' as a synonym for 'kick.' Might get you further."
"Oh, fuck you, you know what I meant," Dean says, dropping the straw wrapper and picking up his fork instead. That wouldn't be particularly ominous if not for the way he's leaning in towards Sam, and how he doesn't actually have any food left on his plate.
Sam raises his eyebrows. "That you couldn't think of a decent counterargument? Or any counterargument?"
This time, there's absolutely nothing accidental about Dean's boot connecting with Sam's shin. Sam manages not to curse aloud; it would attract the other diners' attention, but mostly, he doesn't want to give Dean the satisfaction. Dean settles serenely back into place. "There's more than one kind of counterargument, Sammy. Thought you were meant to be all educated and shit."
"Don't change the subject," Sam says. Dean's eyebrows quirk into an exaggerated expression of surprise and offended innocence.
"We didn't have a subject. You had a delusion and because I'm an awesome big brother, I'm not gonna enable it. It's for your own good, dude."
"Right." Sam rests an elbow on the table, chin in hand. "Which is why my leg is probably broken now."
"I'd tell you not to be a bitch, but I know you can't help it." Dean slurps melted chocolate sludge from the bottom of his fluted milkshake glass and then looks back up at Sam. "It's not broken, it's bruised, and maybe you'll think twice about disrespecting your elders next time."
"Yeah, and I'll be sure to keep it in mind when you need somebody to push your wheelchair for you, too," Sam says. "It's funny how you're only ever my elder when you know I've got a point and you want me to shut up about it."
"Dude, me in a wheelchair? Never gonna happen. My car's the only wheels I'm ever gonna need." He pauses. "Seriously. Hey, you think I'll make it to thirty?"
"That's not funny," Sam says. It's especially not funny when Dean's tone doesn't change at all from the previous sentence, as though the concept of his death within the next four years is as certain as his insanely unhealthy devotion to a car, something to be spoken plainly in a diner with ketchup-smeared plates between them, over which previously they'd talked about the waitress's ass (or, really, Dean had talked about the waitress's ass and Sam had pointed out that she had a lot of other attributes, too, due to how she was a human being, at which point Dean had agreed and started talking about her tits, and Sam should have seen that coming, probably). The insignificance of the setting makes Sam's chest hurt a little.
He has dreams about Dean dying, sometimes. Nightmares, not (yet) tinged with the sick migraine-clarity of visions, images warped like a darkroom accident.
"I wasn't joking," Dean says. He smirks but his eyes are calm, accepting. Passive, and maybe it's that more than anything that bothers Sam. Dean will run into burning buildings for others, or send a hundred thousand volts twisting towards his heart, a slow-burning curse after all: leaving him to die ashen and hollow in a hospital named for a saint. He does not once stop to think of himself, or of who he'll leave behind. "That was an actual, valid question. We could bet on it."
"Dean, did you seriously just suggest that we make bets on your life? That's a whole new level of twisted, even for you."
Dean's eyes widen. "Jesus, don't get your panties in a twist. I wasn't ordering a goddamn Mafia hit, man, I was making a suggestion. Trying to liven up your life a little. You don't gotta take everything so damn seriously."
"Whatever, dude, I'm not enabling your little gambling problem. And to answer your stupid question, no, I don't, not if you don't get some fucking sleep."
"Coming from you--"
"If you finish that sentence, the next time you are actually asleep, I'm taking the car," Sam says flatly.
"Not if I sleep with the keys in my--" And every single way Sam can think for Dean to end that sentence is either disturbing or way too descriptive, or both, so he interrupts before Dean can give him with another horrifying mental image he'll have for the rest of his life. It's funny how many of the ones he already has came from Dean and not from the immensely fucked-up shit they see practically every day of their lives.
"Don't. Finish that one, either. I don't wanna know. You put the keys wherever you want, I'll break a window and hotwire her--it if I have to."
"Yeah, and then I'll break your fingers," Dean says, the threat as casual as the act of drawing a breath. "And I'm gonna finish whatever damn sentences I wanna finish. You don't wanna hear what I gotta say, why'd you ask me in the first place?"
"I didn't ask you anything," Sam says. "You just . . . started talking. The way that you do. All the time." Not that he minds, sometimes -- not that he'd ever tell Dean that. Of course, Dean already knows, anyway.
"Uh, yeah, that's called having a conversation, Sam. See, one person, and that's you, here, says something, and then the other person, that's me, points out how what you just said's bordering on criminally stupid, and then you get all pissy and defensive 'cause I pointed out what shoulda been obvious, and--"
"Actually, you're doing pretty good at having a conversation all by yourself," Sam points out mildly.
Dean shrugs. "One of my many gifts. You should be so lucky."
"I don't think having voices in your head is lucky, exactly," Sam says. "I think there's actually an entry in the DSM-IV for that."
"What the fuck ever, man," Dean says. "See, that right there, that thing we just did? A conversation. Pretty sure I taught you that back when you were, like, three, but hey, you got the whole sleep-deprived amnesia thing going on, I got your back."
"Dean," Sam says, and then pauses, because his voice is starting to hit that weird note that it does whenever Dean's being especially childish, which isn't fair because it makes him sound like he's maybe thirteen again, which makes Dean even less likely to actually listen to what he's saying. "Okay," he tries again, calmly and rationally enough for the both of them, as usual. "We are going to finish eating -- or at least, I'm going to finish eating, and you're going to stop slurping at your milkshake because the glass is empty, okay--"
"And that's gonna take you all of thirty seconds," Dean says immediately. "You eat like one a' those chicks that go on Oprah. You got some control issues you wanna talk about? No way I'm gonna hug you, but if you wanna, like, cry or whatever, I guess that wouldn't be anything new."
"I'm not the one who has to drive absolutely everywhere, and who freaks out if somebody else touches the radio," Sam says.
"I don't freak out if somebody touches the radio," Dean says. "I get justifiably annoyed if somebody turns the radio to, like, Whiny Manboys FM, though. Which you'd know all about, seeing's how it's your favorite station."
"As I was saying," Sam says, and Dean raises his hands in mock surrender and mutters something about PMS. Sam considers kicking him again, but he's not sure that at this point, that would end in anything other than Dean punching him as soon as they got out to the parking lot, if not sooner, and he's not sure he has the energy for a full-scale fistfight right now. Especially not with the way Dean fights dirty, and they're both just this side of too-tired to make real the possibility of not pulling their punches, of the fight turning into something serious and scary. He tasted blood for days, the last time that happened, and Dean's swollen-dark eyes had caught at him, the sight of them an ache like a badly-healed bone until he found himself trying to avoid looking at Dean, which only made him ache in a different way, one he remembered from the days directly before leaving for California. "I am going to finish eating, and you are going to stop playing with what's left of your food, and then we are going to go to a motel, and we are going to see who falls asleep first."
Dean blinks at him. "First, that thing about me being the boss of you? Hasn't changed. Just thought I'd clear that up for you. Second, dude, we get a free afternoon and you wanna spend it having a staring contest in a motel room? Tell you what, we'll get a room and you can stare at yourself in the damn mirror while I go out and have some actual fun."
"Because you know you'd fall asleep first," Sam says. "Because you're exhausted, and then I would win."
"No, you wouldn't," Dean says. "You would not win. Because we're not doing that."
"Because you're afraid to," Sam says. It's convenient how that tone of voice is perfect for both talking to scared witnesses and irritating his brother, who absolutely hates to be condescended to, a.k.a. talked to as though he's an eighty-year-old woman who just saw her husband dragged out of the bedroom window by what looked like a praying mantis on steroids.
"I'm not afraid," Dean says, a little too loudly, and Sam doesn't quite manage to hide his smirk. Some of the other patrons turn to look at them, and Dean leans in, says, quieter this time, but with just as much venom, "I am not afraid, goddamnit. It's just a really stupid idea."
"If I win, I get to drive next week," Sam says, mostly because he's curious as to whether Dean will put his own honor or that of his car first. "The whole week."
Dean's eyes widen so much that it looks like it might actually be painful. "In your dreams," he says. "Which you'll be having, when you lose."
"So we're on," Sam says.
"We are so on," Dean says. "When I win, it's gonna be awesome."
Sam raises his eyebrows, because the things Dean finds awesome have an alarming tendency to involve explosions and/or nearly being caught by the cops. "What do you want?"
"Haven't decided yet," Dean says. "But it's gonna be great." And very probably Sam should have made him come up with something before agreeing to this -- deal, or bet, or whatever it is, but whatever, it's not like Dean's going to win, so it's all theoretical, anyway.
He finishes what's left of his salad, faded-dull lettuce and tomatoes that taste more of being in a refrigerator than of anything grown beneath the sun, and Dean pays the check. On the way out to the parking lot, Dean's elbow jostles him twice, but not hard enough to bruise: not so much a challenge, then, as Dean reminding him that he's there, perpetually annoying and challenging and willing to take a bullet for Sam, or a curse, or to mark out the rest of his life in days spent bloody and alone, in order to give Sam what he thinks Sam wants, as though they cannot both be happy, cannot both get what they want.
Dean wants hardly anything for himself, so maybe it's all right that Sam wants everything for the both of them.
There's a motel on the other side of the parking lot, which Sam says is fate and Dean says is nothing new, people want beds and they want food, Sam, that's not exactly Oracle a' Delphi shit, to which Sam only stares at him wonderingly. Dean says these things sometimes and it's like unearthing some new secret, something that would have been Sam's if he'd stayed but to which he has no right now, the way he has no right to ask about the things Dean dreams of, those terrible unending nights when they both wake haunted. The Sea Cove Inn, the sign reads, creaking slightly with the breeze rising from the east, and the key to their room dangles from a blue plastic keychain in the form of a sailboat. They're hundreds of miles from the ocean, but as Dean unlocks their room and Sam sees the large-breasted mermaid painted on the opposite wall, he wonders if he might be seasick anyway.
"No, you were totally right," Dean says. "This is fate. Clearly. We're destined to live in Larry Flynt's The Little Mermaid. Only I guess it's more like the not-so-little mermaid, you think?"
"Dude," Sam says, and then draws a blank, as though the sight of a bed upon which he could collapse and hope for an hour or two of sleep before waking panicked has cancelled out the effects of the coffee he's been mainlining since waking in the cool dark to the noise of a horn blasting out on the freeway like a scream, a souvenir brought with him out of his nightmare like a token from the underworld.
Dean snickers. "Yeah, you might as well forfeit while you still got some dignity."
"Take off your damn boots and get in bed," Sam says, fighting back the urge to yawn.
"Shoulda figured you'd be a control freak in bed, too," Dean says, but he lowers himself, carefully as a man thirty years his senior, onto the side of his bed and begins undoing his laces. The fact that he's complying at all is worrying, Sam thinks, because if he's this tired, there's no way he should have been even thinking about driving cross-country again tonight, and all of a sudden Sam doesn't care at all about winning, because the fact is Dean was going to maybe get both of them killed because he didn't want to admit to Sam that he's just as burnt out as his brother is, either because he believes it doesn't matter or because he doesn't want Sam to know, and there's something awful, something stomach-dropping and skin-chilling and vaguely world-ending about that idea, because they used to know everything about each other and Sam can't remember how that began to change, though he remembers feeling grateful for it at the time, and the thought sickens him now. He can remember all too clearly what it was like to be young and casually cruel.
Sam drops down onto his own bed, toes off his sneakers. Dean's already lying down, but he's staring at the ceiling, his eyes open wide; Sam figures he'll close them maybe five seconds after reassuring himself that Sam's not looking anymore. Which Sam won't be, but only because he'll be waiting for Dean to give in; once Dean does, he'll open his own eyes, and poke Dean to tell him that he lost, and then go to sleep for real.
It's a good plan, except for the part where it doesn't happen.
Blood spatters across Sam's face, and even before the ceiling bursts into flame bright as the birth of stars, he can smell her singed hair, that sickeningly familiar char. He opens his mouth to speak her name, as though doing so this time might somehow bring her back, make her stay, and is suddenly awake, staring at a ceiling that has never once been burned, a ceiling unmarred by even a single water stain. He rubs a hand across his gritty eyes and glances at his watch: it's been three hours. They didn't draw the curtains before lying down, and there's more traffic on the street than there was before.
"I won," Dean says scratchily, and Sam pushes himself up, looks over at him. He's still sprawled out on top of the blankets, but he's rolled over to look at Sam. If his eyes weren't still red-rimmed, his expression, which Sam thinks is probably meant to be a smirk of victory, might actually work; instead, he just looks sort of deranged, though not especially more than usual.
"No way," Sam says. His throat burns; he wants a glass of water, or a beer, something to erase the taste of smoke from his tongue. He wants to take a shower, as though that might remove the feeling that a layer of ash has formed just beneath his skin. "You were out."
"Prove it," Dean says. He sits up and his hair is matted on one side, his flannel twisted. One of its buttons is missing and Sam isn't sure when that happened, or how.
"You prove it," Sam says, and they stare at each other.
"Fuck," Dean says eventually. He pushes a hand through his hair, making it stand up in crazy spikes. "You shoulda thought of this."
"Me?" Sam says, and Dean nods, once.
"It was your stupid idea."
"You're the one who agreed to it," Sam says. He doesn't want to be arguing about this. He doesn't want to be arguing about anything at all. He feels bruised, all over.
"Because it was the only way you were gonna take a nap!"
"Right," Sam says. "I'm sure that's it."
"Yeah," Dean says. "Me, I was just resting my eyes, waiting for you to wake up."
Sam rolls his eyes and gets out of bed. He closes the curtains and runs the tap in the bathroom for a minute before filling one of the plastic cups next to the sink with water. It's lukewarm, still, but he drinks it anyway and then goes back out to the main room, where Dean has shifted to sit with his legs outstretched, crossed at the ankles, on his bed, his flannel crumpled beside him. The lights are still off and Dean's eyes glint in the faint late afternoon haze that seeps through the curtains; Sam has the thought, not for the first time, that it's in the darkness that they are truly at home, the darkness in which they are as close to safe as they ever get.
"Truce?" Dean says.
"Truce," Sam says.
Dean nods, the movement barely perceptible in the dim. Sam's heart is still beating too quickly, his veins flooded with dream-adrenaline. He thinks he might not be fully awake yet; the heavy shadows in the corners of the room pool like water, and he feels watched.
Which he is, he reminds himself; Dean's gaze is on him, sharp and somehow expectant, like he's waiting for Sam to say something, or to make a move. Sam feels off-cue, like he's missed a line or like Dean's asked him a question that he didn't hear.
"What?" he says dumbly, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. The whole world feels off-balance and he thinks that it was a stupid idea to have tried to sleep at all. He should sit down, he thinks, except the only place to sit down is on his bed, which will put him that much closer to his nightmare, because while there is a chair in front of the window, he's not yet ready to put his back to the glass, to the rest of the world in which so many wicked, clawed things move, some of them wearing human faces. It's not an entirely justifiable fear, but at the moment, he feels it keenly.
"Nothing," Dean says. "Sit down already."
"No, I'm up," Sam says. "I think I might go take a shower or something. You should get some more sleep, though. I mean, since we've got the room for the night."
"No, I'm up," Dean echoes. "Bad nightmare?"
Sam lifts one shoulder, half a shrug and half mere acknowledgement of the question. It's not an answer, really, because all of them are bad; this one was just more of the same. Which is funny, sort of; had he thought about it before, he might have expected them to get better as they went on, he might have expected that he'd get used to them, eventually.
It turns out that feeling your girlfriend's blood on your skin, that watching her burn alive and knowing that you could have stopped it, isn't something you get used to at all.
"C'mere," Dean says, tilts his head slightly. When Sam doesn't move, he frowns. "Jesus, Sam, you look like you're gonna fall over. Sit the hell down already."
Sam sits down beside him gracelessly, the mattress shifting beneath his weight. There's not much room between them, Dean's knee pressing against his own, and he's absurdly grateful for that, though he'll never admit it, and though he's slightly ashamed that he needs it and that Dean knows it. Of course, Dean's been seeing through him ever since he was born, so maybe he should be used to that.
Dean doesn't say anything, though, and for that, Sam's even more grateful. There's something comforting about being this close to his brother in the cramped motel room, the way he spent so many years of his life, as though the past four years didn't happen, or at least weren't spent apart, as though this is something they can pick up, one thing in Sam's world that has not been redefined, or lost.
It helps, just being close to somebody, this tangible, physical reminder that he isn't alone, that he is awake. It helps even more that this is the intimate, just-for-them version of Dean's elbow digging into his ribs, and when Dean touches the underside of his wrist, neither gently nor roughly, and reaches with his other hand for Sam's chin, his thumb on Sam's jawline, Sam feels his breath hitch, but he doesn't look away. He meets Dean's eyes, and when Dean kisses him, when they kiss, because in this as in everything they've ever done, it's mutual, it is at once new, this adrenaline sparking through his veins having nothing to do with fear, now, and not-new, because this is Dean, after all, and with Dean, Sam trusts his life, as he has so many times in the past.
The mattress gives and Sam's mouth is open on Dean's throat; Dean has his hands beneath Sam's shirt, his palms on the bones of Sam's hips. This is nothing new. This is only a different version of everything that has come before. This is Dean breathing in Sam's ear, this is Dean saying, Sammy, you aren't dreaming anymore, Sammy, Sammy, Sam, like he thinks Sam doesn't know. This is them breathing the same breath, and this is the way they fit together now overlain upon all of the times they have fit together in the past, all of the times they've split each other's lips or thrown an arm over the other's shoulder or carried each other out of burning buildings, crumpling buildings, back alleys and barfights. This is the way they fall, and the way they break each other's fall as they break each other, over and over again, with their bodies and with the weight of each other's names and with everything they do not say, and this is the way they come back to each other, every time.
--
end