fic: He Can Read Your Mind Backwards
Title: He Can Read Your Mind Backwards
Genre: gen, angst, pre-series
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Dean, OMC, minimal Sam
Words: ~2260
Spoilers: vague, up to general season 7
Warnings: recreational drug use (LSD), depression, weird writing style
Summary: Dean drops acid, and it’s not awesome and psychedelic. It’s terrifying.
Author’s notes: Title and cut text from the song Flying Teapot by Gong. For this prompt by the lovely purple_carpets for hoodie_timechallenge #6. The writing style of this was partially inspired by The Wild Boys by William S. Burroughs.
Thank you so much to jaimeykay for her quick and helpful beta!!
~
Dean’s hard at work stacking a display of boxes of sugary cereals. Humming Misty Mountain Hop quietly to himself in an attempt to not die of boredom, he’s relieved when Jaylen comes up from behind the tower of Lucky Charms. Dean’s coworker isn’t in his Safeway visor or shirt, though, and he’s grinning.
“What’s up?” Dean asks.
“Dude.” Jaylen steps closer and lets Dean peek in the bag he’s carrying. Inside is a sheet of paper tiled with Mickey Mouse’s smiling face, each print about an inch tall and wide.
“No way, you got it?” Excitement and a hint of anxiety flush through him.
“Hell yeah. Let’s go. My house,” Jay urges, nodding toward the exit, and Dean doesn’t think twice before shedding his visor and following his friend out of the grocery. Normally they wouldn’t get up to shit like this until after both their shifts, but if they wait they won’t have time before Sam gets back from school. It’s too good an opportunity to pass up, and this isn’t Dean’s real job, not the one that’s important. It doesn’t matter if he gets fired. He’ll be leaving as soon as Dad gets home, anyway.
~
“Nothing’s happening.” Dean lets out a frustrated sigh. Jay’s doesn’t listen to him, just stares up at the sky with a goofy look on his face, giggling. “Ugh.” Dean rolls his eyes and falls back into the grass, staring at a tree and focusing on the music playing from Jay’s boombox. Maybe he’ll have a religious experience to Dark Side of the Moon, he thinks. Or maybe he’ll start seeing the music. He’s heard that happens. That would rule.
Dean waits even longer, so long that he starts to think that his state won’t get any more altered than it is currently from the weed. He’s almost decided this was a total rip-off when he scratches his chest and feels something wet on his fingers. He raises them in front of his face and blood drips from his fingers and splashes onto his nose.
He jerks and sits up. Blood is seeping through his shirt, vertical stripes of red against gray. He frantically wrestles out of the shirt, throwing it to the side to examine his chest.
Gashes are opening across Dean’s torso. He looks like he’s been mauled by a giant wolf. Blood oozes skin hangs in flaps. A strangled cry escapes him, it echoes in his left ear swirls through his brain pours into the air. Jaylen’s finally looking at him, confused, a frown and concerned eyes.
Since he was little Dean has had trouble asking for help. Even if he knows he should tell his dad he’s hurt he goes silent and just - can’t. That’s what’s happening to him now, and it’s scary. He’s trying to get his brain to make his lips move, to show Jaylen what’s happening to him but the message won’t reach his mouth. Instead he stares wide-eyed, frantically pressing wide hands to his stomach trying to keep more wounds from opening trying to keep his blood in.
Suddenly Jaylen is in front of him. His dark hands grip Dean’s shoulders and Dean tries to jerk back but he can’t he tries to push Jaylen away but nothing’s working. Now Jay’s voice is in Dean’s brain, calm down man calm down I don’t know what you’re seeing but it’s not real just breath. What does that mean? Dean doesn’t know but he finds himself obeying, concentrating on his friend’s brown eyes deep like his breathing, in and out and Dean looks down at his hands again, at his torso. Red handprints are visible but fading, there’s no more red no blood no gashes. His insides aren’t falling out.
Relief hits him in a wave he giggles the wave pushes him to the ground. He falls on his back in the grass. Jaylen runs a hand down Dean’s arm saying you’re okay and laughing, Dean can feel each hair on his arm as Jay’s fingers pass them. Heightened senses. When he turns his head to the side he can see the grass but the grass is a city of living things like people except small and green and only about an inch and a half tall. Dean never knew they were alive so he watches the grass people for hours they dance and swarm about in curves. He follows their lives and he loves them. When he laugh he sees the grass people move to make room for the sound waves.
Jaylen lies next to him in the grass. Dean watches the massacre as it happens he sees hundreds of grass people crushed by Jay’s body his thick arms his bare feet.
Stop Jay you’re killing them! Why would you do that?!
Black face brown eyes turn toward Dean an easy smile white teeth. I didn’t do anything. Lazy words stretched out.
There was probably a family there a whole fucking family probably like ten god damn families and you crushed them you asshole!
Shut up I didn’t do anything. You gotta relaaax man.
His mouth moves Dean can’t understand what he’s saying his teeth are gnashing his mouth opens to rows of sharp white teeth monstrous tongue. Dean thinks: big-mouth.
Relax, the big-mouth repeats, now it’s Jay again and Dean can understand. He wants to say don’t tell me to relax but he wishes he could relax he really does. He tries but he can’t his deep breath gets stuck in his chest. Fear pumps through his veins like waiting in the woods with his shotgun to his shoulder, like there’s a monster in the motel. A feeling he knows well. A blink, hours, and Dean can’t remember why he feels like this. He thinks to himself what happened why am I scared? Did something happen to his brother? Calm down you pathetic loser. He’s trying to figure it out so frightened his heart is beating words spinning so fast it makes him nauseous.
When he realizes what happened the world slows down and his thoughts do too.
SAM JUMPED IN.
The words loop in his brain idly and maliciously. He knows they are true. Sam jumped in. Dean doesn’t know the details but he knows it means Sam is gone his brother is gone. He can see a hole open up he can feel his brother disappear. Despair. Pain in his face and his chest.
Someone whispers: Sam is not the only one. Dean sees a bullet hole in a red hat a series of numbers. Water dripping from the bottom corner of a trench coat. Coffee flooding hospital linoleum. A woman entering her house a hospital bracelet on her wrist her son’s hand in her own. Skin burnt to a ceiling the smell of cooked meat. A touch of lips to his a river of gasoline flows down convenience store aisles. An unfamiliar face a rack of quivering red flesh his own laugh.
The images won’t stop they have been living in him forever.
A blink: he becomes aware of his surroundings again and looks at the yard with new eyes. There are spirals in the trees and air and grass. The sky is darkening and fire licks at the horizon. The images opened a hole in his chest, behind his ribcage. They stole something. He’s missing an organ. It isn’t physical but it’s true it hurts it hurts. Worse than a poltergeist breaking his arm worse than the bite of a black dog. He presses hard against his chest by the wound because that’s what he would do if he were bleeding when you are bleeding you apply pressure to the wound. (Get your head in the game, kid, this is important. You’ll need to know this it could happen to me or Sam someday this life is dangerous if you’re not prepared people die. People die people die people die.) It doesn’t help ha ha ha ha ha you should have learned by now Dean that nothing helps. But Dean didn’t he never does.
Dean lays with grass tickling at his bare chest and arms while the fire spreads from the horizon and eats the sky slowly inch by inch. Now the trees are in flames.
Suddenly a voice booms out words begin to rotate in his head.
THIS IS HOW IT ENDS, DEAN. THIS IS WHAT YOU BECOME.
The voice is all around him, in the air and in Dean’s body and his brain his blood vibrates with it. He clamps his hands over his ears but it doesn’t have any effect the sound isn’t coming from outside of him. It isn’t coming from anywhere it’s a part of him.
THIS IS HOW IT ENDS DEAN THIS IS WHAT YOU BECOME THIS IS HOW IT ENDS DEAN THIS IS WHAT YOU BECOME
Dean keeps his hands pressed firmly against his ears even though it doesn’t work (nothing ever works ha ha ha), keeps them pressed there waiting for the voice to go away it lasts forever as he hears the voice he sees more images a glass ceiling shatters a screen door slams familiar deep black eyes. A hospital bed and despair he can hardly breathe through.
this is how it ends dean this is what you become this is how it ends dean this is what you become this is how it ends dean this is what you become
The voice is getting quieter but it’s even deeper inside of him permeating every inch every fucking pore.
thisishowitendsdeanthisiswhatyoubecomethisishowitendsthisiswhatyoubecomeendsendsendsneverends
An eternity has passed and he is floating above the grass. The confusion that had been encompassing him is gone everything is clear. The words are no longer overwhelming because they are now merely a hum but he can hear them he can feel them he understands them.
He can understand everything especially this: he is alone. He is in pain. His name is Dean Winchester he has a brother. He is a bad person. He has done terrible things.
He knows: this is forever. There is no hope. There is no death. There is no way out.
~
Dean’s eyes are pressed tight when he realizes it’s over. He makes himself open them, slowly. He forces his hands away from his ears. He is curled up in the grass. His brain has calmed down, he can relax.
The sky is dark, with tints of red. Twilight. Jay is sitting up straight, staring down at him with one eye.
“You good?” his friend asks after a few seconds.
“Yeah, man.” Jay hands him a bottle of water and Dean chugs it gratefully, hands quivering.
“Dude, you really had me freaked. You were all shaking and makin’ weird noises and shit. I tried to calm you down but I was pretty outta it myself, man.” Dean waves off his apology. “What were you even seeing?” Jaylen asks the question hesitantly but his eager eyes reveal that he’s dying to know. “‘Cause I’ve seen some pretty fucked up shit before but nothing that messed me up like that.”
“Uh.” Dean racks his brain. He tries to remember, really. “I can’t really remember it. Huh.” Jaylen doesn’t seem like he believes that, but he isn’t going to press for it. “It sucked, though,” Dean says with a laugh. Jaylen snorts. “Anyway, I should get going.”
“A’ight. See you tomorrow, dude.”
On his way out Dean’s legs are shaky. It’s ten blocks from Jaylen’s house to the motel and he still feels kind of out of it, not entirely in reality yet. Whenever he moves his gaze it looks like particles move in frantic circles for a moment before they settle. He walks through the Detroit outskirts in the dark past crumbling houses and the few young kids still out playing in the grass. He feels strangely calm and detached and unsettled.
When Dean enters the motel room Sam doesn’t so much as glance up from his textbooks strewn across the floor, but Dean is suddenly overcome with how much he loves this kid. Joy bubbles up in his chest like he could overflow. He’s so glad to see him it’s as if Sam was at school for four years instead of just until 3:00 that afternoon.
When he looks around and sees traces of Dad - his razor in the sink, his favorite coffee brand on the counter, he’ll be back any day now - he can’t do anything but fall onto his bed, grinning up at the ceiling.
Lying on the mattress listening to the scratch of Sam’s pen, Dean thinks it’s pretty weird that he doesn’t remember what he was hallucinating earlier. He wonders if he saw monsters, if so what kinds? and were they more fucked up than the ones he knows already? But as hard as he tries all he can place is an overwhelming sense of dread and despair.
Dean decides he’s okay with not remembering. He’s glad he doesn’t.
~Fin
Genre: gen, angst, pre-series
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Dean, OMC, minimal Sam
Words: ~2260
Spoilers: vague, up to general season 7
Warnings: recreational drug use (LSD), depression, weird writing style
Summary: Dean drops acid, and it’s not awesome and psychedelic. It’s terrifying.
Author’s notes: Title and cut text from the song Flying Teapot by Gong. For this prompt by the lovely purple_carpets for hoodie_timechallenge #6. The writing style of this was partially inspired by The Wild Boys by William S. Burroughs.
Thank you so much to jaimeykay for her quick and helpful beta!!
~
Dean’s hard at work stacking a display of boxes of sugary cereals. Humming Misty Mountain Hop quietly to himself in an attempt to not die of boredom, he’s relieved when Jaylen comes up from behind the tower of Lucky Charms. Dean’s coworker isn’t in his Safeway visor or shirt, though, and he’s grinning.
“What’s up?” Dean asks.
“Dude.” Jaylen steps closer and lets Dean peek in the bag he’s carrying. Inside is a sheet of paper tiled with Mickey Mouse’s smiling face, each print about an inch tall and wide.
“No way, you got it?” Excitement and a hint of anxiety flush through him.
“Hell yeah. Let’s go. My house,” Jay urges, nodding toward the exit, and Dean doesn’t think twice before shedding his visor and following his friend out of the grocery. Normally they wouldn’t get up to shit like this until after both their shifts, but if they wait they won’t have time before Sam gets back from school. It’s too good an opportunity to pass up, and this isn’t Dean’s real job, not the one that’s important. It doesn’t matter if he gets fired. He’ll be leaving as soon as Dad gets home, anyway.
~
“Nothing’s happening.” Dean lets out a frustrated sigh. Jay’s doesn’t listen to him, just stares up at the sky with a goofy look on his face, giggling. “Ugh.” Dean rolls his eyes and falls back into the grass, staring at a tree and focusing on the music playing from Jay’s boombox. Maybe he’ll have a religious experience to Dark Side of the Moon, he thinks. Or maybe he’ll start seeing the music. He’s heard that happens. That would rule.
Dean waits even longer, so long that he starts to think that his state won’t get any more altered than it is currently from the weed. He’s almost decided this was a total rip-off when he scratches his chest and feels something wet on his fingers. He raises them in front of his face and blood drips from his fingers and splashes onto his nose.
He jerks and sits up. Blood is seeping through his shirt, vertical stripes of red against gray. He frantically wrestles out of the shirt, throwing it to the side to examine his chest.
Gashes are opening across Dean’s torso. He looks like he’s been mauled by a giant wolf. Blood oozes skin hangs in flaps. A strangled cry escapes him, it echoes in his left ear swirls through his brain pours into the air. Jaylen’s finally looking at him, confused, a frown and concerned eyes.
Since he was little Dean has had trouble asking for help. Even if he knows he should tell his dad he’s hurt he goes silent and just - can’t. That’s what’s happening to him now, and it’s scary. He’s trying to get his brain to make his lips move, to show Jaylen what’s happening to him but the message won’t reach his mouth. Instead he stares wide-eyed, frantically pressing wide hands to his stomach trying to keep more wounds from opening trying to keep his blood in.
Suddenly Jaylen is in front of him. His dark hands grip Dean’s shoulders and Dean tries to jerk back but he can’t he tries to push Jaylen away but nothing’s working. Now Jay’s voice is in Dean’s brain, calm down man calm down I don’t know what you’re seeing but it’s not real just breath. What does that mean? Dean doesn’t know but he finds himself obeying, concentrating on his friend’s brown eyes deep like his breathing, in and out and Dean looks down at his hands again, at his torso. Red handprints are visible but fading, there’s no more red no blood no gashes. His insides aren’t falling out.
Relief hits him in a wave he giggles the wave pushes him to the ground. He falls on his back in the grass. Jaylen runs a hand down Dean’s arm saying you’re okay and laughing, Dean can feel each hair on his arm as Jay’s fingers pass them. Heightened senses. When he turns his head to the side he can see the grass but the grass is a city of living things like people except small and green and only about an inch and a half tall. Dean never knew they were alive so he watches the grass people for hours they dance and swarm about in curves. He follows their lives and he loves them. When he laugh he sees the grass people move to make room for the sound waves.
Jaylen lies next to him in the grass. Dean watches the massacre as it happens he sees hundreds of grass people crushed by Jay’s body his thick arms his bare feet.
Stop Jay you’re killing them! Why would you do that?!
Black face brown eyes turn toward Dean an easy smile white teeth. I didn’t do anything. Lazy words stretched out.
There was probably a family there a whole fucking family probably like ten god damn families and you crushed them you asshole!
Shut up I didn’t do anything. You gotta relaaax man.
His mouth moves Dean can’t understand what he’s saying his teeth are gnashing his mouth opens to rows of sharp white teeth monstrous tongue. Dean thinks: big-mouth.
Relax, the big-mouth repeats, now it’s Jay again and Dean can understand. He wants to say don’t tell me to relax but he wishes he could relax he really does. He tries but he can’t his deep breath gets stuck in his chest. Fear pumps through his veins like waiting in the woods with his shotgun to his shoulder, like there’s a monster in the motel. A feeling he knows well. A blink, hours, and Dean can’t remember why he feels like this. He thinks to himself what happened why am I scared? Did something happen to his brother? Calm down you pathetic loser. He’s trying to figure it out so frightened his heart is beating words spinning so fast it makes him nauseous.
When he realizes what happened the world slows down and his thoughts do too.
SAM JUMPED IN.
The words loop in his brain idly and maliciously. He knows they are true. Sam jumped in. Dean doesn’t know the details but he knows it means Sam is gone his brother is gone. He can see a hole open up he can feel his brother disappear. Despair. Pain in his face and his chest.
Someone whispers: Sam is not the only one. Dean sees a bullet hole in a red hat a series of numbers. Water dripping from the bottom corner of a trench coat. Coffee flooding hospital linoleum. A woman entering her house a hospital bracelet on her wrist her son’s hand in her own. Skin burnt to a ceiling the smell of cooked meat. A touch of lips to his a river of gasoline flows down convenience store aisles. An unfamiliar face a rack of quivering red flesh his own laugh.
The images won’t stop they have been living in him forever.
A blink: he becomes aware of his surroundings again and looks at the yard with new eyes. There are spirals in the trees and air and grass. The sky is darkening and fire licks at the horizon. The images opened a hole in his chest, behind his ribcage. They stole something. He’s missing an organ. It isn’t physical but it’s true it hurts it hurts. Worse than a poltergeist breaking his arm worse than the bite of a black dog. He presses hard against his chest by the wound because that’s what he would do if he were bleeding when you are bleeding you apply pressure to the wound. (Get your head in the game, kid, this is important. You’ll need to know this it could happen to me or Sam someday this life is dangerous if you’re not prepared people die. People die people die people die.) It doesn’t help ha ha ha ha ha you should have learned by now Dean that nothing helps. But Dean didn’t he never does.
Dean lays with grass tickling at his bare chest and arms while the fire spreads from the horizon and eats the sky slowly inch by inch. Now the trees are in flames.
Suddenly a voice booms out words begin to rotate in his head.
THIS IS HOW IT ENDS, DEAN. THIS IS WHAT YOU BECOME.
The voice is all around him, in the air and in Dean’s body and his brain his blood vibrates with it. He clamps his hands over his ears but it doesn’t have any effect the sound isn’t coming from outside of him. It isn’t coming from anywhere it’s a part of him.
THIS IS HOW IT ENDS DEAN THIS IS WHAT YOU BECOME THIS IS HOW IT ENDS DEAN THIS IS WHAT YOU BECOME
Dean keeps his hands pressed firmly against his ears even though it doesn’t work (nothing ever works ha ha ha), keeps them pressed there waiting for the voice to go away it lasts forever as he hears the voice he sees more images a glass ceiling shatters a screen door slams familiar deep black eyes. A hospital bed and despair he can hardly breathe through.
this is how it ends dean this is what you become this is how it ends dean this is what you become this is how it ends dean this is what you become
The voice is getting quieter but it’s even deeper inside of him permeating every inch every fucking pore.
thisishowitendsdeanthisiswhatyoubecomethisishowitendsthisiswhatyoubecomeendsendsendsneverends
An eternity has passed and he is floating above the grass. The confusion that had been encompassing him is gone everything is clear. The words are no longer overwhelming because they are now merely a hum but he can hear them he can feel them he understands them.
He can understand everything especially this: he is alone. He is in pain. His name is Dean Winchester he has a brother. He is a bad person. He has done terrible things.
He knows: this is forever. There is no hope. There is no death. There is no way out.
~
Dean’s eyes are pressed tight when he realizes it’s over. He makes himself open them, slowly. He forces his hands away from his ears. He is curled up in the grass. His brain has calmed down, he can relax.
The sky is dark, with tints of red. Twilight. Jay is sitting up straight, staring down at him with one eye.
“You good?” his friend asks after a few seconds.
“Yeah, man.” Jay hands him a bottle of water and Dean chugs it gratefully, hands quivering.
“Dude, you really had me freaked. You were all shaking and makin’ weird noises and shit. I tried to calm you down but I was pretty outta it myself, man.” Dean waves off his apology. “What were you even seeing?” Jaylen asks the question hesitantly but his eager eyes reveal that he’s dying to know. “‘Cause I’ve seen some pretty fucked up shit before but nothing that messed me up like that.”
“Uh.” Dean racks his brain. He tries to remember, really. “I can’t really remember it. Huh.” Jaylen doesn’t seem like he believes that, but he isn’t going to press for it. “It sucked, though,” Dean says with a laugh. Jaylen snorts. “Anyway, I should get going.”
“A’ight. See you tomorrow, dude.”
On his way out Dean’s legs are shaky. It’s ten blocks from Jaylen’s house to the motel and he still feels kind of out of it, not entirely in reality yet. Whenever he moves his gaze it looks like particles move in frantic circles for a moment before they settle. He walks through the Detroit outskirts in the dark past crumbling houses and the few young kids still out playing in the grass. He feels strangely calm and detached and unsettled.
When Dean enters the motel room Sam doesn’t so much as glance up from his textbooks strewn across the floor, but Dean is suddenly overcome with how much he loves this kid. Joy bubbles up in his chest like he could overflow. He’s so glad to see him it’s as if Sam was at school for four years instead of just until 3:00 that afternoon.
When he looks around and sees traces of Dad - his razor in the sink, his favorite coffee brand on the counter, he’ll be back any day now - he can’t do anything but fall onto his bed, grinning up at the ceiling.
Lying on the mattress listening to the scratch of Sam’s pen, Dean thinks it’s pretty weird that he doesn’t remember what he was hallucinating earlier. He wonders if he saw monsters, if so what kinds? and were they more fucked up than the ones he knows already? But as hard as he tries all he can place is an overwhelming sense of dread and despair.
Dean decides he’s okay with not remembering. He’s glad he doesn’t.
~Fin