Fic: Smoker Friendly (1/1)
Title: Smoker Friendly
Author: Bella Temple
Category: Gen, comment-fic, h/c-ish
Rating: Adult, but really only because Dean uses bad words a lot
Warnings: Starts off preseries. This may or may not leave you craving a cigarette
Spoilers: Through 5x14
Characters: Dean and Sam
Disclaimer: The characters and basic premise within are property of Warner Bros, Eric Kripke, etc. No money is being made off this work of fiction.
Author's note: Written for roque_clasique's prompt over at the hoodie_time Dean-centric H/C meme: Dean tries (in vain, or successfully, your choice) to quit smoking. Sam tries to help him out by nagging him nonstop, but is actually spectacularly UNhelpful and finally they have it out.
Summary: Breaking up (with your addiction) is hard to do.
"Dean?"
Dean startled, hurriedly stashing his cigarette and his lighter into his pocket. Dammit, Sam's play practice wasn't supposed to be over for another twenty minutes.
Sam stared at him from three parking spaces away, adjusting the weight of his backpack on his shoulder. "When did you start smoking?"
Dean snorted, deciding to play it cool. "What're you talking about?"
Sam rolled his eyes. "Dude, your pants are on fire."
"Aren't you a little bit old for that?"
There it went, the ineffable teenage eyebrow. That "I know better than you because you're an idiot" expression Sam seemed to have perfected the instant he hit twelve, because he was a little over-achieving shit. "I mean literally."
Dean looked down and got a face full of curling smoke.
Right.
He jumped up from his lean against the Impala, patting hurriedly at his pants as he dug the lit cigarette back out of his pocket and threw it across the parking lot. Sam had been exaggerating -- there was only a small singed spot on his jeans. He spun to find Sam smirking away.
"You tell Dad, and I'll kill you."
Sam adjusted his backpack and reached for the passenger side door. "Whatever, wheezy."
Fuck.
*
Sam tried to go for subtle at first. Well, Sam-subtle anyway. Which was about as sneaky as a piano crashing to the sidewalk.
"Hey, Dean, could you hand me my book?"
Dean glanced over from his pile of weaponry and reached for the paperback.
Is Kissing a Girl Who Smokes Like Licking an Ashtray? by Randy Powell.
He threw it at Sam's head.
*
Dean watched the bus pull away, taking his little brother with it, winging off to California and college and a life without hunting or anything that went with it. Including him and Dad. He sat in silence for a moment as it faded down the highway, then let his hands wander the familiar path, first to the tape deck -- "Kashmir", not his first Zeppelin choice, but whatever -- then to the small box on the seat next to him. He had a cigarette out, in his mouth, and lit before he even had time to think about it.
For the first time in a long time, Sam wasn't right there to glower and pointedly roll down the window.
The wave of emotion that rolled over him bypassed his throat and heart and went straight for his lungs, shriveling them up into aching balls and sending his first drag back out his nose hard enough to burn. He doubled over, coughing hard enough to bring tears to his eyes, but didn't let go of that precious little white stick clutched between his fingers.
It wasn't just that Sam was gone, that he'd rejected everything Dean had spent his entire life building and keeping safe. It was that his first thought, as he took that first puff, had been a deep sense of relief not to be hassled about his smoking any more.
Fuck.
*
"So I see you're still smoking."
Dean smirked around the butt of his cigarette, eyes glued to the road. "Didn't have my little 'just say no' fairy lurking over my shoulder."
Sam's mouth pulled into a prissy little knot. He pointedly rolled down the window, and Dean felt the same way he did when he took that first drag after a long nic-fit.
Nicotine, nothing. Sam was addictive.
"You can't do that around me," Sam said. "Jess is allergic."
Dean groaned inwardly and flicked the mostly unsmoked cigarette out the window.
He was probably about as bad for Dean's blood pressure, too.
*
When Sam came to find Dean at the funeral, drawing away from the lines of sympathetic mourners and the stories about how she "was one of the good ones" and "just so young" and "wasn't it a shame?", he found Dean leaning against the Impala, tie undone, cigarette in hand.
Sam coughed and Dean braced himself.
". . . Can I have one?"
Dean looked up, fingers already poised to flick the butt out across the cemetery. He looked Sam over, noting the circles under his eyes and the low ride of his shoulders. He imagined his brother smelling of the overwhelming lily perfume Jess' grandmother favored, mixed with dirt and the lingering pall of apartment-smoke, all melted plastic and fried wires. He looked back across the cemetery and brought the butt back to his lips, taking a long drag and holding it for a moment before he let it spool out his nose.
"No," he said. "These things'll kill you."
*
Thing was, Dean didn't even like smoking. It wasn't the smell -- by now he couldn't smell himself even if he tried, and any little hint of tobacco lingering on his fingers when he rubbed his face or scratched his nose just made him twitch for his pack of cigarettes. It was the way he could feel it strap bands around his chest every time he lit up. The way the price of a pack -- he refused to buy by the carton, that was like giving in, right? -- seemed to increase exponentially with every state line that the crossed. It was the white marks of ground in ash that speckled the leather of the backseat every time he cleaned the Impala, and the way grey dust seemed to cling to the dashboard no matter how many times he wiped it down. The way a fresh pack's corners wore at his pockets, and how he found tiny holes in the cuffs of his shirts or small spots of burn on his fingers that he couldn't remember receiving.
But there was nothing more satisfying after a hard hunt or a long fuck or a good, heavy meal then lighting up. It made the long hours on the road go faster when he could roll his window down, turn the radio up, and lose himself in the flash of the dotted white lines and the rhythm of hand to mouth to flick of ash. It was the perfect excuse to duck away from Sam and Bobby or Sam and Dad or Sam and Sam, hell, and just be alone and away from the crowds for five minutes, just him and the flicker of motel neon and the curling, dancing smoke that clung to the air and the rain and his skin. Sure, it shot his lung capacity to hell, and sure, some girls took one whiff of his leather jacket and wrinkled their nose and walked away, and sure, he was essentially setting fire to someone's money every time he lit up -- but it wasn't his money. And he wasn't addicted. Shit, that was for pussies. It was a cliche, sure, but he could quit whenever he wanted.
Like right now. He was almost down to filter, here, and all it was doing was making his mouth taste gross. Just think of how much better his food would taste, when he could really smell it again. Just think how much happier his teeth would be. How much happier Sam would be. Maybe they couldn't find the thing that killed Mom and Jess, maybe Dad was running away from them faster than they could run to him. Dean could still do this for Sam.
Like a belated Christmas present. Or early birthday.
Yeah.
He flicked the butt away and straightened against the wall. He felt better already. He could feel his chest lightening even as he walked back towards the motel room -- he never smoked inside, it was part of his "punishment" or whatever, to have to brave the elements. He dug the pack out of his pocket and pitched into the small trashcan that marked the border between the parking lot and the ice- and snack machines alcove. See? Easy as that.
Two hours later, he was back by the alcove, sifting through half-chewed candy bars and old condom wrappers -- who the hell was having sex on the ice machine? Seriously -- for his pack of cigarettes.
Fuck.
*
"Smokey the Bear's habitat was originally burned down by a careless cigarette tossed out a driver's window."
"Fuck you, Sam."
*
They were out of money, out of credit cards, on the run from the law, and stuck in the middle of goddamn Wisconsin, and to top it all off, Dean was out of cigarettes.
Seriously, the other crap, Dean could handle. He was pretty much perpetually broke, when it came right down to it, no matter how many games of poker or pool he hustled, or how much credit card fraud he engaged in. Out of cash was just a part of Dean's existence and always had been. Out of quarters sucked, since Sam wasn't letting him get any further than the damned motel parking lot right now and magic fingers was his only joy in life, but out of money? He could deal. And, okay, so maybe it wasn't usually the goddamn FBI hunting his ass down, and certainly not Dean's face -- his actual face, not just a bad sketch of it -- making national news. But law? Yeah, he knew from that one, too. You didn't hunt for very long without ending up on the wrong end of a few of the boys and girls in blue. But out of cigarettes, with Sam off in the Impala and no hope of shoplifting a pack even if he did have transportation to any local convenience stores?
That shit just wasn't on.
Of course, he wouldn't be if he hadn't given in to the dream of quitting and pitched his last two-thirds of his pack out the window of the Impala on the highway. But, hell, it was always easy to decide to quit when you'd just smoked a cigarette, and the look on Sam's face when he did it was fucking golden.
Right. That was it. He'd just step outside for a moment, get some fresh air. Maybe see if he could jack a bag of chips from the vending machine. And if someone happened to be smoking, well. . . .
Sure enough, there was a smoker, just a couple doors down from his and Sam's room. Just his luck, she was a looker, too, maybe Sam's age, dyed hair, too much make up -- just the type who maybe didn't pay that much attention to the news.
Yeah, like he was gonna say no to what was obviously a hint from the universe?
He sauntered up. "Hey," he said.
"Hey," she said. She held her cigarette between her index and middle fingers, right near the end of the butt like some kind of French porn star or something. She smiled at him -- her lips were painted faintly purple -- and held up a battered tin cigarette case. "Want one?"
Dean grinned and plucked one out. "Girl after my own heart." She snapped the case shut and flipped out a lighter, seemingly all in the same movement. She had a flame poised an inch away from his cigarette before he'd even quite gotten to patting himself down for his own zippo. He leaned forward and inhaled.
She smoked menthols.
FUCK.
*
"So the patch might work."
"Sam."
"Or nicotine gum."
"Sam."
"They've got those tablet things, too. Or an inhaler, though we'd need to break out the prescription pads for that."
"Sam."
Sam looked up from his notes, his face five thousand kinds of hurt puppy. "What?"
Dean's fingers clenched around the steering wheel. He had a pack hidden away in the glove compartment, but he'd already had one that morning, and he was being good. No more than three a day. That was it. Three. And then he could cut that down to two. And then one or half of one. And then he'd be free. No more yellow fingers, no more pouty brothers, no more aches in his lungs or URIs. Just free.
And if he spent all his time -- all of it, seriously, he couldn't concentrate for shit on anything but the feel of smoke pouring down his throat, that light, heady sensation that started at the back of his head, the full on badass image of it that seemed to have been etched across his brain from his very birth -- thinking about when he'd be allowed to have another cigarette, that was a small price to pay, right?
"Dude. Dude. Dude, watch it."
Dean snapped back to the here and now just in time to hit the breaks before rear-ending the poor slow-ass fucker in front of them. He gritted his teeth, then reached for the glove compartment.
Sam smacked at his fingers and said "no" like he'd just whapped a dog on the nose with a rolled up newspaper.
Motherfucker.
*
". . . The hell?"
"They're cinnamon sticks. They're supposed to help with the cravings." Sam pulled out a stick and held it up between his index and middle fingers like a goddamn girl. "You can take a drag on 'em, right? Or gnaw on them or chew them or suck on them or whatever you need for your oral fixation."
"That thing gonna blow me?"
Sam's whole face crinkled up in disgust. ". . . What?"
"That's the only kind of 'oral fixation' I have."
"I'm trying to help, Dean."
"You know what helps?" Dean grabbed the cinnamon sticks and tossed them into the trash. "You shutting the fuck up."
*
Half a day and another motel later, when Dean paced back and forth across the carpet, considering running away rather than having to face Sam and his Disappointed Look if he so much as asked to sniff at the pack of cigarettes his brother kept under lock and fucking key in his bag, he really wished he had that damn jar of cinnamon sticks.
Especially if they came packed with tobacco and balanced for a good even burn.
Goddamn motherfucking piece of shit.
*
"My throat hurts."
"Dean, relax."
"Is my throat supposed to hurt?"
"It's healing. You've been smoking almost a pack a day for, what, ten years? It probably hurts because your nerve endings can finally, you know, feel anything."
Dean sneezed. It was one of those whopping, full body maneuvers that jerked him forward and had him swerving the Impala all over the thankfully empty road.
"I fucking hate you right now."
*
"Holy shit that reeks."
"Welcome back to the world of having a sense of smell."
"Seriously, I will fuck your shit up."
*
It wasn't even dawn yet, and Dean was up, sitting against the front of the Impala and staring out over the field they'd parked her next to for the night. The nearest town was almost ten miles away, they were down to their last hundred bucks on credit again, and Sam didn't trust Dean around Skeezy Bar People Who Smoked.
Which, you know, pretty much included half the people they knew, but whatever. Sam would be Sam, even if that meant being a sanctimonious bitch.
Whatever. Dean was done with that shit.
Sam woke up with a snuffle and Dean imagined him wiping at his lips. He was probably lucky he didn't end up with ink all over his face, the way he'd pass out on those texts. Drool plus hundreds of years old tomes of horror couldn't mix well. He heard Sam grunt, then the sound of the door swinging open. He didn't move, just kept staring out across the field.
Five. Four. Three. Two --
"Dean."
A little early. He must be slipping.
"What?"
"What the hell is that?"
Dean looked down at the cigarette in his fingers. "It's a fucking smoke, Sam."
"Jesus Christ, Dean!"
Dean snorted and smiled, though he didn't feel it. "I'm going to Hell in less than a year, Sam." He flicked off a bit of ash and brought the cigarette to his mouth. "I'm fucking going to enjoy what I've got left."
And here came Sam's hand, right on time this time, to smack away the cigarette. Dean leaned out of the way.
"You goddamn son of a bitch, I'm going to save you. You're willing to fuck up the last six months of --"
"Four." Dean shrugged. "Tops."
Sam stared at him. Dean shifted on the hood of the Impala, resisting the urge to hunch into himself under the force of his brother's disapproval. "We tried, Sam, okay? It's over. I'm not quitting."
"Dean --" Sam cut himself off, his face going from raging to pitying to encouraging in a matter of moments. "Dean, don't do this. You're strong, okay, you can --"
Dean laughed outright at that. "Yeah, well, maybe I'm not strong enough."
"Yes, you are --"
"No, Sam." Dean flicked the unfinished butt into the weeds and immediately reached into his pocket for another one. Sam made a grab for the pack, and this time Dean bodily shoved him away. "No. Okay? Just -- no."
"You think this is easy for me? Just standing by and letting you do this to yourself?"
"Nope." Dean put the cigarette to his lips and lit in, taking the space offered by the first drag, the natural pause to life that couldn't extend his year -- might very well make it shorter -- but damned well seemed right then to make it better. "Don't care."
"Bullshit."
Dean glared over the glowing tip. "I don't. You can either accept that, or I can leave your ass behind."
Sam crossed his arms. "No." He nodded to the cigarette. "This is how you want to play it? We can start this all over again. Pretty sure there's still half a box of patches in the trunk."
Sam was calling his bluff.
The fucker.
*
He and Bobby made it halfway back to Illinois chasing after Sam before Dean realized that, for all that he had picked up in that empty ass fill-up joint after crawling out of his grave, one thing he hadn't reached for was a pack of cigarettes.
Even before he noticed his fingers had straightened, Dean noticed the nic-fits were gone.
He'd been a smoker for a third of his life. But not even Famine's power made him crave a good smoke after Hell.
He wasn't sure how he felt about all that.
He did know, as he stood outside the panic room and listened to his brother howl for help, that quitting the second time was harder than the first. It was hard enough that Dean himself had outright refused to even try it.
But Sam was stronger than he was.
He had to be.
Right?
. . .
Fuck.
The End
Author: Bella Temple
Category: Gen, comment-fic, h/c-ish
Rating: Adult, but really only because Dean uses bad words a lot
Warnings: Starts off preseries. This may or may not leave you craving a cigarette
Spoilers: Through 5x14
Characters: Dean and Sam
Disclaimer: The characters and basic premise within are property of Warner Bros, Eric Kripke, etc. No money is being made off this work of fiction.
Author's note: Written for roque_clasique's prompt over at the hoodie_time Dean-centric H/C meme: Dean tries (in vain, or successfully, your choice) to quit smoking. Sam tries to help him out by nagging him nonstop, but is actually spectacularly UNhelpful and finally they have it out.
Summary: Breaking up (with your addiction) is hard to do.
"Dean?"
Dean startled, hurriedly stashing his cigarette and his lighter into his pocket. Dammit, Sam's play practice wasn't supposed to be over for another twenty minutes.
Sam stared at him from three parking spaces away, adjusting the weight of his backpack on his shoulder. "When did you start smoking?"
Dean snorted, deciding to play it cool. "What're you talking about?"
Sam rolled his eyes. "Dude, your pants are on fire."
"Aren't you a little bit old for that?"
There it went, the ineffable teenage eyebrow. That "I know better than you because you're an idiot" expression Sam seemed to have perfected the instant he hit twelve, because he was a little over-achieving shit. "I mean literally."
Dean looked down and got a face full of curling smoke.
Right.
He jumped up from his lean against the Impala, patting hurriedly at his pants as he dug the lit cigarette back out of his pocket and threw it across the parking lot. Sam had been exaggerating -- there was only a small singed spot on his jeans. He spun to find Sam smirking away.
"You tell Dad, and I'll kill you."
Sam adjusted his backpack and reached for the passenger side door. "Whatever, wheezy."
Fuck.
*
Sam tried to go for subtle at first. Well, Sam-subtle anyway. Which was about as sneaky as a piano crashing to the sidewalk.
"Hey, Dean, could you hand me my book?"
Dean glanced over from his pile of weaponry and reached for the paperback.
Is Kissing a Girl Who Smokes Like Licking an Ashtray? by Randy Powell.
He threw it at Sam's head.
*
Dean watched the bus pull away, taking his little brother with it, winging off to California and college and a life without hunting or anything that went with it. Including him and Dad. He sat in silence for a moment as it faded down the highway, then let his hands wander the familiar path, first to the tape deck -- "Kashmir", not his first Zeppelin choice, but whatever -- then to the small box on the seat next to him. He had a cigarette out, in his mouth, and lit before he even had time to think about it.
For the first time in a long time, Sam wasn't right there to glower and pointedly roll down the window.
The wave of emotion that rolled over him bypassed his throat and heart and went straight for his lungs, shriveling them up into aching balls and sending his first drag back out his nose hard enough to burn. He doubled over, coughing hard enough to bring tears to his eyes, but didn't let go of that precious little white stick clutched between his fingers.
It wasn't just that Sam was gone, that he'd rejected everything Dean had spent his entire life building and keeping safe. It was that his first thought, as he took that first puff, had been a deep sense of relief not to be hassled about his smoking any more.
Fuck.
*
"So I see you're still smoking."
Dean smirked around the butt of his cigarette, eyes glued to the road. "Didn't have my little 'just say no' fairy lurking over my shoulder."
Sam's mouth pulled into a prissy little knot. He pointedly rolled down the window, and Dean felt the same way he did when he took that first drag after a long nic-fit.
Nicotine, nothing. Sam was addictive.
"You can't do that around me," Sam said. "Jess is allergic."
Dean groaned inwardly and flicked the mostly unsmoked cigarette out the window.
He was probably about as bad for Dean's blood pressure, too.
*
When Sam came to find Dean at the funeral, drawing away from the lines of sympathetic mourners and the stories about how she "was one of the good ones" and "just so young" and "wasn't it a shame?", he found Dean leaning against the Impala, tie undone, cigarette in hand.
Sam coughed and Dean braced himself.
". . . Can I have one?"
Dean looked up, fingers already poised to flick the butt out across the cemetery. He looked Sam over, noting the circles under his eyes and the low ride of his shoulders. He imagined his brother smelling of the overwhelming lily perfume Jess' grandmother favored, mixed with dirt and the lingering pall of apartment-smoke, all melted plastic and fried wires. He looked back across the cemetery and brought the butt back to his lips, taking a long drag and holding it for a moment before he let it spool out his nose.
"No," he said. "These things'll kill you."
*
Thing was, Dean didn't even like smoking. It wasn't the smell -- by now he couldn't smell himself even if he tried, and any little hint of tobacco lingering on his fingers when he rubbed his face or scratched his nose just made him twitch for his pack of cigarettes. It was the way he could feel it strap bands around his chest every time he lit up. The way the price of a pack -- he refused to buy by the carton, that was like giving in, right? -- seemed to increase exponentially with every state line that the crossed. It was the white marks of ground in ash that speckled the leather of the backseat every time he cleaned the Impala, and the way grey dust seemed to cling to the dashboard no matter how many times he wiped it down. The way a fresh pack's corners wore at his pockets, and how he found tiny holes in the cuffs of his shirts or small spots of burn on his fingers that he couldn't remember receiving.
But there was nothing more satisfying after a hard hunt or a long fuck or a good, heavy meal then lighting up. It made the long hours on the road go faster when he could roll his window down, turn the radio up, and lose himself in the flash of the dotted white lines and the rhythm of hand to mouth to flick of ash. It was the perfect excuse to duck away from Sam and Bobby or Sam and Dad or Sam and Sam, hell, and just be alone and away from the crowds for five minutes, just him and the flicker of motel neon and the curling, dancing smoke that clung to the air and the rain and his skin. Sure, it shot his lung capacity to hell, and sure, some girls took one whiff of his leather jacket and wrinkled their nose and walked away, and sure, he was essentially setting fire to someone's money every time he lit up -- but it wasn't his money. And he wasn't addicted. Shit, that was for pussies. It was a cliche, sure, but he could quit whenever he wanted.
Like right now. He was almost down to filter, here, and all it was doing was making his mouth taste gross. Just think of how much better his food would taste, when he could really smell it again. Just think how much happier his teeth would be. How much happier Sam would be. Maybe they couldn't find the thing that killed Mom and Jess, maybe Dad was running away from them faster than they could run to him. Dean could still do this for Sam.
Like a belated Christmas present. Or early birthday.
Yeah.
He flicked the butt away and straightened against the wall. He felt better already. He could feel his chest lightening even as he walked back towards the motel room -- he never smoked inside, it was part of his "punishment" or whatever, to have to brave the elements. He dug the pack out of his pocket and pitched into the small trashcan that marked the border between the parking lot and the ice- and snack machines alcove. See? Easy as that.
Two hours later, he was back by the alcove, sifting through half-chewed candy bars and old condom wrappers -- who the hell was having sex on the ice machine? Seriously -- for his pack of cigarettes.
Fuck.
*
"Smokey the Bear's habitat was originally burned down by a careless cigarette tossed out a driver's window."
"Fuck you, Sam."
*
They were out of money, out of credit cards, on the run from the law, and stuck in the middle of goddamn Wisconsin, and to top it all off, Dean was out of cigarettes.
Seriously, the other crap, Dean could handle. He was pretty much perpetually broke, when it came right down to it, no matter how many games of poker or pool he hustled, or how much credit card fraud he engaged in. Out of cash was just a part of Dean's existence and always had been. Out of quarters sucked, since Sam wasn't letting him get any further than the damned motel parking lot right now and magic fingers was his only joy in life, but out of money? He could deal. And, okay, so maybe it wasn't usually the goddamn FBI hunting his ass down, and certainly not Dean's face -- his actual face, not just a bad sketch of it -- making national news. But law? Yeah, he knew from that one, too. You didn't hunt for very long without ending up on the wrong end of a few of the boys and girls in blue. But out of cigarettes, with Sam off in the Impala and no hope of shoplifting a pack even if he did have transportation to any local convenience stores?
That shit just wasn't on.
Of course, he wouldn't be if he hadn't given in to the dream of quitting and pitched his last two-thirds of his pack out the window of the Impala on the highway. But, hell, it was always easy to decide to quit when you'd just smoked a cigarette, and the look on Sam's face when he did it was fucking golden.
Right. That was it. He'd just step outside for a moment, get some fresh air. Maybe see if he could jack a bag of chips from the vending machine. And if someone happened to be smoking, well. . . .
Sure enough, there was a smoker, just a couple doors down from his and Sam's room. Just his luck, she was a looker, too, maybe Sam's age, dyed hair, too much make up -- just the type who maybe didn't pay that much attention to the news.
Yeah, like he was gonna say no to what was obviously a hint from the universe?
He sauntered up. "Hey," he said.
"Hey," she said. She held her cigarette between her index and middle fingers, right near the end of the butt like some kind of French porn star or something. She smiled at him -- her lips were painted faintly purple -- and held up a battered tin cigarette case. "Want one?"
Dean grinned and plucked one out. "Girl after my own heart." She snapped the case shut and flipped out a lighter, seemingly all in the same movement. She had a flame poised an inch away from his cigarette before he'd even quite gotten to patting himself down for his own zippo. He leaned forward and inhaled.
She smoked menthols.
FUCK.
*
"So the patch might work."
"Sam."
"Or nicotine gum."
"Sam."
"They've got those tablet things, too. Or an inhaler, though we'd need to break out the prescription pads for that."
"Sam."
Sam looked up from his notes, his face five thousand kinds of hurt puppy. "What?"
Dean's fingers clenched around the steering wheel. He had a pack hidden away in the glove compartment, but he'd already had one that morning, and he was being good. No more than three a day. That was it. Three. And then he could cut that down to two. And then one or half of one. And then he'd be free. No more yellow fingers, no more pouty brothers, no more aches in his lungs or URIs. Just free.
And if he spent all his time -- all of it, seriously, he couldn't concentrate for shit on anything but the feel of smoke pouring down his throat, that light, heady sensation that started at the back of his head, the full on badass image of it that seemed to have been etched across his brain from his very birth -- thinking about when he'd be allowed to have another cigarette, that was a small price to pay, right?
"Dude. Dude. Dude, watch it."
Dean snapped back to the here and now just in time to hit the breaks before rear-ending the poor slow-ass fucker in front of them. He gritted his teeth, then reached for the glove compartment.
Sam smacked at his fingers and said "no" like he'd just whapped a dog on the nose with a rolled up newspaper.
Motherfucker.
*
". . . The hell?"
"They're cinnamon sticks. They're supposed to help with the cravings." Sam pulled out a stick and held it up between his index and middle fingers like a goddamn girl. "You can take a drag on 'em, right? Or gnaw on them or chew them or suck on them or whatever you need for your oral fixation."
"That thing gonna blow me?"
Sam's whole face crinkled up in disgust. ". . . What?"
"That's the only kind of 'oral fixation' I have."
"I'm trying to help, Dean."
"You know what helps?" Dean grabbed the cinnamon sticks and tossed them into the trash. "You shutting the fuck up."
*
Half a day and another motel later, when Dean paced back and forth across the carpet, considering running away rather than having to face Sam and his Disappointed Look if he so much as asked to sniff at the pack of cigarettes his brother kept under lock and fucking key in his bag, he really wished he had that damn jar of cinnamon sticks.
Especially if they came packed with tobacco and balanced for a good even burn.
Goddamn motherfucking piece of shit.
*
"My throat hurts."
"Dean, relax."
"Is my throat supposed to hurt?"
"It's healing. You've been smoking almost a pack a day for, what, ten years? It probably hurts because your nerve endings can finally, you know, feel anything."
Dean sneezed. It was one of those whopping, full body maneuvers that jerked him forward and had him swerving the Impala all over the thankfully empty road.
"I fucking hate you right now."
*
"Holy shit that reeks."
"Welcome back to the world of having a sense of smell."
"Seriously, I will fuck your shit up."
*
It wasn't even dawn yet, and Dean was up, sitting against the front of the Impala and staring out over the field they'd parked her next to for the night. The nearest town was almost ten miles away, they were down to their last hundred bucks on credit again, and Sam didn't trust Dean around Skeezy Bar People Who Smoked.
Which, you know, pretty much included half the people they knew, but whatever. Sam would be Sam, even if that meant being a sanctimonious bitch.
Whatever. Dean was done with that shit.
Sam woke up with a snuffle and Dean imagined him wiping at his lips. He was probably lucky he didn't end up with ink all over his face, the way he'd pass out on those texts. Drool plus hundreds of years old tomes of horror couldn't mix well. He heard Sam grunt, then the sound of the door swinging open. He didn't move, just kept staring out across the field.
Five. Four. Three. Two --
"Dean."
A little early. He must be slipping.
"What?"
"What the hell is that?"
Dean looked down at the cigarette in his fingers. "It's a fucking smoke, Sam."
"Jesus Christ, Dean!"
Dean snorted and smiled, though he didn't feel it. "I'm going to Hell in less than a year, Sam." He flicked off a bit of ash and brought the cigarette to his mouth. "I'm fucking going to enjoy what I've got left."
And here came Sam's hand, right on time this time, to smack away the cigarette. Dean leaned out of the way.
"You goddamn son of a bitch, I'm going to save you. You're willing to fuck up the last six months of --"
"Four." Dean shrugged. "Tops."
Sam stared at him. Dean shifted on the hood of the Impala, resisting the urge to hunch into himself under the force of his brother's disapproval. "We tried, Sam, okay? It's over. I'm not quitting."
"Dean --" Sam cut himself off, his face going from raging to pitying to encouraging in a matter of moments. "Dean, don't do this. You're strong, okay, you can --"
Dean laughed outright at that. "Yeah, well, maybe I'm not strong enough."
"Yes, you are --"
"No, Sam." Dean flicked the unfinished butt into the weeds and immediately reached into his pocket for another one. Sam made a grab for the pack, and this time Dean bodily shoved him away. "No. Okay? Just -- no."
"You think this is easy for me? Just standing by and letting you do this to yourself?"
"Nope." Dean put the cigarette to his lips and lit in, taking the space offered by the first drag, the natural pause to life that couldn't extend his year -- might very well make it shorter -- but damned well seemed right then to make it better. "Don't care."
"Bullshit."
Dean glared over the glowing tip. "I don't. You can either accept that, or I can leave your ass behind."
Sam crossed his arms. "No." He nodded to the cigarette. "This is how you want to play it? We can start this all over again. Pretty sure there's still half a box of patches in the trunk."
Sam was calling his bluff.
The fucker.
*
He and Bobby made it halfway back to Illinois chasing after Sam before Dean realized that, for all that he had picked up in that empty ass fill-up joint after crawling out of his grave, one thing he hadn't reached for was a pack of cigarettes.
Even before he noticed his fingers had straightened, Dean noticed the nic-fits were gone.
He'd been a smoker for a third of his life. But not even Famine's power made him crave a good smoke after Hell.
He wasn't sure how he felt about all that.
He did know, as he stood outside the panic room and listened to his brother howl for help, that quitting the second time was harder than the first. It was hard enough that Dean himself had outright refused to even try it.
But Sam was stronger than he was.
He had to be.
Right?
. . .
Fuck.
The End