fic: the dying bones
Okay, so here is another long-idling fic that I decided to post (just so no one thinks I'm actually being productive or anything). I started writing this after 6.05 "Live Free or Twihard." It's a riff off of the visions Dean had (except mine are much more indulgent and senseless. FTW!). Also, this was going to be my spn_reversebang entry had I not been made of total fail.
But, before warnings ... SNOW!. A three-inch dusting isn't bad for the first fall of the season. It's beautiful, but it could not come at a worse time if it tried. UGH
And now, OMGWTF: unbeta'd; gen (but how I do gen, :D ); some spoilers for 6.05; AU and possibly confusing; MIND-TRIP FIC WITH ANGST. ALSO, CAS AND AMBIGUOUS!SAM.
Uh ... that should cover it. I think.
the dying bones
It happens like this:
Sam's pressed up against Dean's side, small bird bones poking and jabbing, pulse beating through the thinness of his skin.
He's laughing. Dean can feel the aftershocks through the arm he has slung around Sam's shoulder.
They're safe; Sam's young, and Dean can feel a frown start forming at the thought, but his brother says, "you're so stupid, Dean," and giggles, flat out giggles.
Something thick and black cracks open in his chest at the sound; a distant hunger yawning like a crevasse under his feet (he wants this to be real, wants to stay like this forever, because this is almost happy, almost enough).
Dean listens to the plink plink plink of a leaking faucet somewhere behind them.
Plink.
It lasts a hundred beats before the lights fizzle out.
They sit in the dark, ten-fifteen minutes. A spring's been digging into Dean's ass and he almost sighs in relief when he stands up, Sam drawn with him like they're attached, two bodies and one mind (same blood, they have the same blood, and that's all that matters).
"Dean," Sam murmurs, quiet and even. Waiting. Dean turns his head, slow and feeling it every second; every movement echoing through his nerves, thick and distracting.
His brother's eyes are clear. Bright. His face is that slightly unfinished version Dean barely remembers. Soccer, Dean thinks, soccer was Sam's biggest concern back then. Back here.
Now.
Dean looks away from Sam, spit clotted in the back of his throat. He coughs, moves his feet clumsily to the right, a step then two from Sam, easy now, and he keeps walking toward the hallway he can't recall seeing before.
At the end of it, when he rounds off the wall jutting out and cutting off his line-of-sight, he sees a weak ass bulb swaying and flickering. Orange light casts shadows, bounces off the old brass knob of a closet, slats of the door broken and caving in.
He casts a look back over his shoulder, sees Sam standing at the end of the couch, fingers brushing stained, broken fabric. He's biting his lip, staring past Dean, and there's silence. Dean'd break it, but the clot's back and his diaphragm feels too weak to work, even to breath.
It's a long hallway, and Dean thinks for a second, no way, no way this is here. No way this is real, as he starts walking down it, closer to the orange flickering mess at the end. It seems to swallow him up, because he can only see blackness behind him whenever he turns around.
Everything's still, just him, but he can't hear his heartbeat jackrabbit in his chest, can't hear the sound of panting (trying to breathe, trying to breathe and not pass out with the dizzy swirls clouding his eyes).
He finally reaches the light, a little before it and looking up, bulb impossibly high in the small space.
He strains his ears, hears a faint thrum, a hint of static and sound every time the light steadies. It flickers, quiet, and it threatens to stay off, so Dean raises his hand, slow slow slow, eyes trying to shut themselves (don't look, don't look, don't look) and taps a finger against the hot-thin glass.
**
God, he thinks. The hell.
Off to his right he hears plink plink. Faucets in these shit holes, and the thought's a little bit rushed, a little bit hysterical. When Dean opens his eyes all he can see is a gigantic tit-shaped waterstain on the ceiling, two darker stains, even, for nipples. And how's that for realism.
His throat's dry, and when he tries to sit up, he feels electrocuted, echoes of rawheads and bad timing with tasers (too little too late, and Sam would never have sold his soul, back when it actually meant something.
No, Dean thinks, no no no).
"Sam," he croaks. Nothing, no sound, and he thinks he must be alone. Except when he looks over to the windows, he can't tell if the light behind the fabric is sun or a street light.
He pushes the scratchy comforter off his chest, feels the ends prickle against his hips before he kicks out, gets his feet planted in thick, dirty carpet.
Plink plink.
"Goddammit," he hisses, but it comes out weak, high (I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'll do better, plays out in the back of his head. John cradling Sam like the kid is the best thing in the world and glaring at Dean like he's the monster, the thing that needs killing).
The door swings open just as Dean's heading toward it. Cold air breaks through, pimples the skin of his thighs and chest, and Dean's suddenly aware he's only in a pair of boxer briefs.
"Come on, Dean," and Sam's older than before, large and cool, blocking the open doorway. "We've gotta go."
Dean swallows, throat spasming with the motion. "Lemme get dressed, jackass," he says, and Sam stands there, light and no light hiding him. "Right," he says, and nods.
There are certain things you don't turn your back to, John taught them that (I'm not the monster now, he thinks and feels his flesh creep in ways that have nothing to do with the temperature).
Sam drives, and seeing his brother so damn comfortable in the driver's seat is almost like getting punched after a shotgun blast to the face. It's really fuckin wrong, but it just doesn't matter.
"Another shifter case," Sam says, exasperated and indulgent, and Dean swallows the where are we going? riding the back of his tongue. Sam's running off a script a page ahead of him, and he just can't keep up. "Thirty more minutes," Sam says, "so don't be ..."
Dean drifts off, lets the words wash over him as the smell of burnt plastic drifts through the open window.
The shifter, Sam whispers, shoulders hunched in, broad enough to cast shadows over his own face. When, Dean thinks, when did this happen, when did you change.
Shifter, Dean parrots. It's evening, thirty minutes morphing into forty into an hour and a day. It's evening and they're surrounded by old stone angels, towering monoliths dedicated to the dead. The case.
Right, Sam answers, and the smell's thicker here (rot, rot, Dean thinks hysterically, but it's not. Rubber and burning hair, old happy meal toys melting into a puddle, bright colored and fake as Sam's smile).
What about the vampires, Dean asks, I don't -
Vampires, Dean? Sam laughs, brittle and wary, eyebrow cocked like Dean's the stupidest thing in existence. He leans against a statue, tall body propped up, a head below a mourning angel, her face cracked and stained with age, downturned and staring.
Sam, he wants to say, Sam, get away.
But Sam's saying: there are no vampires here. Focus, Dean.
What, Dean jokes, is the damn shifter a groundskeeper, Sam? Crappy trade-up, you ask me.
Sam doesn't laugh. His head cocks, hair falling against his face, into his eyes and he doesn't blink, doesn't move to clear his vision.
No, Dean. We made a deal.
**
(He thinks somewhere he's hurting. Acid sliding down his throat, through his veins, while his brother stands over him, watching.
Somewhere he's thinking, fucker, fucker, why'd you ever come back? Why'd you ever leave?
But he can't remember, either way, and seconds slide into nothing, into blank space he can barely recall. He decides it's not important.)
**
When he opens his eyes (he thinks he does, thinks he has to. Has to breathe, has to move, has to see) he can’t find Sam. Something creeps through his chest, spreading out from his heart, warm and sinking and familiar.
Relief, although the situation's not quite right, doesn't really fit (and he could ask why why why, but he knows the expression he'd see, and he's already so tired of the disappointment, the disbelief, so he crams the words behind his teeth and smirks instead).
Cas says, "don't look."
Too late, he thinks, because as soon as those words are hanging in the air, he’s zeroing in on what’s right there, unavoidable, and he knows this, too. "Too late." There's not much to see - hazy impression of a human body, dark, thick wings wrapped tight, patterned and weaving and shivering with control and desire. "How many?"
Cas draws even with him, and Dean feels the burn of the trench coat brushing his arm. Cas turns toward him, eyes appraising and solemn. "The seraphim are countless, Dean."
"Wings, dumbass," and Cas flinches. He's learning. "How many wings?" Because he knows how to boil anything down to be meaningless. It's a fuckin skill.
Cas sighs, and Dean knows what it means. Exasperation and hopelessness. Quit, Dean thinks, stop trying to find something here. "Six. All just to keep you alive."
Dean laughs. "Don't do me any favors," and he walks and walks and walks, incongruous with the actual distance. He doesn’t question the discrepancy, though; he doesn’t have to, because it all makes sense, clicks into place in the back of his mind.
The body before him flitters in and out, real and not. "Stop," he says, and it does.
Something thick and moving oozes out between bony wings. It tingles along his nerves, beats behind his eyes, but he doesn't hesitate until he's right there, and he never realized angels could be so tall.
"Dean," Cas says, "this is not like you and me. I will not be able to save you -"
Cas is worried, dry voice threaded through with it, making it even more broken and jagged. Dean just shakes his head, staring. Why would he be here, otherwise, if not for this, for something close to this? "Show me," he says.
The seraphim bends low, rustling the shape of wings and Dean can't tell if there are feathers there or just long, jagged bones, but it doesn't matter, because the heat is intense, feels like it's breaking him in two. When he feels something rough against his face, cracking open the skin, he realizes he's shut his eyes, can't fight to keep them open.
A long hiss of air washes over him, over and over, beating out a rhythm fit to kill him.
That's enough to get him to crack an eye, see almost nothing but the edge of a wing pressed to his mouth, what he takes for eyes above that and so close.
A kiss, he has time to think, a kiss, before the image blurs, pain clawing and shrieking into him. God god god, he screams, and then it all goes black.
**
Eerie. That's a good word for it. Fuckin creepy as shit, but he's here, Sam's back, and the graveyard's just another long stretch of tired land waiting to give up the dead. A thousand markers for a thousand corpses, but they're still at the far end, more monuments than place setters, and Sam doesn't seem intent on moving.
(Dean thinks, this fits, this fits. This could be real, could be us now, I remember you staring and weighing; I remember the pain and begging you to help me.
Except there's nothing beyond them and the cemetery and the waiting. Always waiting. He's almost good at it.)
The statue bleeds, is the thing. Sam touches it, something like awe and rapture crossing over his face, and the statue bleeds, a mourning angel dripping crimson grief.
Thick red tears slither down the pitted face, and Sam doesn’t see, head tipped back, smile tilting his lips.
Dean wants to wipe the tracks away, hide them so Sam won’t ever know.
I’d go to hell for you, Dean thinks, but the words dry up in his mouth as his body shatters into a million jagged pieces on a dirty floor.
**
(It happens like this:
“This is what you'll remember, later. Just this.” Young Sam's smiling, tilting his head, maybe to take in Dean's whole body, maybe just to make his hair fall into his eyes. He looks stupid, standing in the middle of the broken ruins of their old apartment, but Dean can’t help but take it all in while he can.
Dean wants to ask why, ask about the shape of Sam, tall and shadowed and dangerous, standing in the back of an alley while blood dripped down Dean's throat. Wants to ask, but Sammy says,” right now, you're rolling around on a dirty concrete floor. Bodily fluid oozing out of your mouth.” Sam's face is empty, and Dean flinches. The look is too familiar. “This,” and Sam doesn't glance away, doesn't move away, just comes closer. Green hazel and fox sharp, scent and sight and Dean can't escape. “This is all that matters.”
Dean says, “you’re lying,” and Sam's smile widens, blinding and always so damn gorgeous, like he already knows. Dean thinks, I want this.)
**
He pries his eyes open. They’re sticky, almost glued shut from whatever the hell he’s been coughing up, mostly into the bucket, but there were a few unlucky shots, enough that the sharp-sweet smell of bile whiffs up from his shirt.
“Dude,” he mumbles to the feet situated around him. “Gross.”
There’s a pop and crack of knees folding (it’s gas, Dean, Sammy says, being released from the joint. The god, don’t you know anything? Sitting right underneath his brother’s words and prodding at Dean), and Dean turns his head toward it.
“Sam?”
“Yeah, Dean,” and there’s all the worry before Sam’s face wobbles into view. Polite concern, vague hands propping him off the dirty floor. “Let’s get you cleaned up, okay?”
“I’m not,” he bats at the hands, almost falls back when they retreat, but he catches himself. “I’m not a fuckin shitty two-year old. Christ.”
“Okay,” and the amusement isn’t any easier to hear, but he’s too tired, too out of it, to care much. “Then let’s go.”
They’re alone. Him and Sam and the shuffle of boots over trash and broken concrete, Dean’s voice fading into silence (but the fear, the whyhowwhat, the fuck you, Sam, the hell’s wrong with you? lingers hot and acidic between them).
“Yeah,” Sam responds and shrugs defensively, movement that keeps his shoulders and bulky jacket up near his ears. “What’s with all the questions, Dean?”
Dean spies the shape of the Impala, safe and hidden in the back of the lot, and he stands there a minute, body protesting, spirals of pain racing under his skin.
Sam doesn’t catch on and he stalks up ahead. Time freezes, just for a moment, Sam yards ahead of him, dim yellow light of a streetlight the only thing allowing Dean to see at all.
Just his brother and his car, almost like Dean doesn’t even need to be there, like he’s not, just a step outside and gone.
He stumbles his next step, but no one sees, and he jogs to catch up, to close the gap between them.
**
The world goes by in flashes of bright light and dark. Dean keeps his eyes on the road, thinks that maybe he shouldn’t be driving, images twisting and pounding behind his eyes, distracting him. But Sam doesn’t seem worried, doesn’t say a thing, so Dean just grits his teeth and stands on the gas.
**
Dean cleans up in some rat-bit gas station. He leaves Sam leaning against the Impala, watching the rotary flicker of numbers as gas spills into the tank. He uses tepid, foggy water to scrape at the spit and dirt stuck to him, bits of cheap brown paper towel rubbing and pilling along his skin.
The mirror’s cracked, jagged shards twisting his reflection into a washed out caricature. He turns away, eyes dry.
By the time he’s out, Sam’s back in the passenger seat, arm trailing out the window, strong and brown with an endless tan. Dean bows himself over Sam’s window (and he remembers wildly curling hair, fondness and nitpicking and being so happy, having everything he’d ever wanted) and he can almost swear his heart breaks just a little bit.
He means to say something, tip of his tongue comment, but he stares at Sam’s hard face and his mind goes blank. Turning away is easier, and he rests his back against the Impala, cold edges digging through the material of his jacket and into his back.
The heels of his hands make their way into his eye sockets, press against his lids until he sees sunbursts and feels the grit of skin against his eyes.
"Dean? Dean, are you - "
"Yeah, Sam," Dean sighs, drags his hands away from his face and walks around to the driver's side. He stops with his hand on the handle, takes in the space and the air, the bright details and the grunge, the painful lurch in his chest every time he thinks about looking at his brother.
Everything that makes this real.
He gets in, fingers wrapped around the key. "I'm ready," and the engine turns over.
But, before warnings ... SNOW!. A three-inch dusting isn't bad for the first fall of the season. It's beautiful, but it could not come at a worse time if it tried. UGH
And now, OMGWTF: unbeta'd; gen (but how I do gen, :D ); some spoilers for 6.05; AU and possibly confusing; MIND-TRIP FIC WITH ANGST. ALSO, CAS AND AMBIGUOUS!SAM.
Uh ... that should cover it. I think.
the dying bones
It happens like this:
Sam's pressed up against Dean's side, small bird bones poking and jabbing, pulse beating through the thinness of his skin.
He's laughing. Dean can feel the aftershocks through the arm he has slung around Sam's shoulder.
They're safe; Sam's young, and Dean can feel a frown start forming at the thought, but his brother says, "you're so stupid, Dean," and giggles, flat out giggles.
Something thick and black cracks open in his chest at the sound; a distant hunger yawning like a crevasse under his feet (he wants this to be real, wants to stay like this forever, because this is almost happy, almost enough).
Dean listens to the plink plink plink of a leaking faucet somewhere behind them.
Plink.
It lasts a hundred beats before the lights fizzle out.
They sit in the dark, ten-fifteen minutes. A spring's been digging into Dean's ass and he almost sighs in relief when he stands up, Sam drawn with him like they're attached, two bodies and one mind (same blood, they have the same blood, and that's all that matters).
"Dean," Sam murmurs, quiet and even. Waiting. Dean turns his head, slow and feeling it every second; every movement echoing through his nerves, thick and distracting.
His brother's eyes are clear. Bright. His face is that slightly unfinished version Dean barely remembers. Soccer, Dean thinks, soccer was Sam's biggest concern back then. Back here.
Now.
Dean looks away from Sam, spit clotted in the back of his throat. He coughs, moves his feet clumsily to the right, a step then two from Sam, easy now, and he keeps walking toward the hallway he can't recall seeing before.
At the end of it, when he rounds off the wall jutting out and cutting off his line-of-sight, he sees a weak ass bulb swaying and flickering. Orange light casts shadows, bounces off the old brass knob of a closet, slats of the door broken and caving in.
He casts a look back over his shoulder, sees Sam standing at the end of the couch, fingers brushing stained, broken fabric. He's biting his lip, staring past Dean, and there's silence. Dean'd break it, but the clot's back and his diaphragm feels too weak to work, even to breath.
It's a long hallway, and Dean thinks for a second, no way, no way this is here. No way this is real, as he starts walking down it, closer to the orange flickering mess at the end. It seems to swallow him up, because he can only see blackness behind him whenever he turns around.
Everything's still, just him, but he can't hear his heartbeat jackrabbit in his chest, can't hear the sound of panting (trying to breathe, trying to breathe and not pass out with the dizzy swirls clouding his eyes).
He finally reaches the light, a little before it and looking up, bulb impossibly high in the small space.
He strains his ears, hears a faint thrum, a hint of static and sound every time the light steadies. It flickers, quiet, and it threatens to stay off, so Dean raises his hand, slow slow slow, eyes trying to shut themselves (don't look, don't look, don't look) and taps a finger against the hot-thin glass.
**
God, he thinks. The hell.
Off to his right he hears plink plink. Faucets in these shit holes, and the thought's a little bit rushed, a little bit hysterical. When Dean opens his eyes all he can see is a gigantic tit-shaped waterstain on the ceiling, two darker stains, even, for nipples. And how's that for realism.
His throat's dry, and when he tries to sit up, he feels electrocuted, echoes of rawheads and bad timing with tasers (too little too late, and Sam would never have sold his soul, back when it actually meant something.
No, Dean thinks, no no no).
"Sam," he croaks. Nothing, no sound, and he thinks he must be alone. Except when he looks over to the windows, he can't tell if the light behind the fabric is sun or a street light.
He pushes the scratchy comforter off his chest, feels the ends prickle against his hips before he kicks out, gets his feet planted in thick, dirty carpet.
Plink plink.
"Goddammit," he hisses, but it comes out weak, high (I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'll do better, plays out in the back of his head. John cradling Sam like the kid is the best thing in the world and glaring at Dean like he's the monster, the thing that needs killing).
The door swings open just as Dean's heading toward it. Cold air breaks through, pimples the skin of his thighs and chest, and Dean's suddenly aware he's only in a pair of boxer briefs.
"Come on, Dean," and Sam's older than before, large and cool, blocking the open doorway. "We've gotta go."
Dean swallows, throat spasming with the motion. "Lemme get dressed, jackass," he says, and Sam stands there, light and no light hiding him. "Right," he says, and nods.
There are certain things you don't turn your back to, John taught them that (I'm not the monster now, he thinks and feels his flesh creep in ways that have nothing to do with the temperature).
Sam drives, and seeing his brother so damn comfortable in the driver's seat is almost like getting punched after a shotgun blast to the face. It's really fuckin wrong, but it just doesn't matter.
"Another shifter case," Sam says, exasperated and indulgent, and Dean swallows the where are we going? riding the back of his tongue. Sam's running off a script a page ahead of him, and he just can't keep up. "Thirty more minutes," Sam says, "so don't be ..."
Dean drifts off, lets the words wash over him as the smell of burnt plastic drifts through the open window.
The shifter, Sam whispers, shoulders hunched in, broad enough to cast shadows over his own face. When, Dean thinks, when did this happen, when did you change.
Shifter, Dean parrots. It's evening, thirty minutes morphing into forty into an hour and a day. It's evening and they're surrounded by old stone angels, towering monoliths dedicated to the dead. The case.
Right, Sam answers, and the smell's thicker here (rot, rot, Dean thinks hysterically, but it's not. Rubber and burning hair, old happy meal toys melting into a puddle, bright colored and fake as Sam's smile).
What about the vampires, Dean asks, I don't -
Vampires, Dean? Sam laughs, brittle and wary, eyebrow cocked like Dean's the stupidest thing in existence. He leans against a statue, tall body propped up, a head below a mourning angel, her face cracked and stained with age, downturned and staring.
Sam, he wants to say, Sam, get away.
But Sam's saying: there are no vampires here. Focus, Dean.
What, Dean jokes, is the damn shifter a groundskeeper, Sam? Crappy trade-up, you ask me.
Sam doesn't laugh. His head cocks, hair falling against his face, into his eyes and he doesn't blink, doesn't move to clear his vision.
No, Dean. We made a deal.
**
(He thinks somewhere he's hurting. Acid sliding down his throat, through his veins, while his brother stands over him, watching.
Somewhere he's thinking, fucker, fucker, why'd you ever come back? Why'd you ever leave?
But he can't remember, either way, and seconds slide into nothing, into blank space he can barely recall. He decides it's not important.)
**
When he opens his eyes (he thinks he does, thinks he has to. Has to breathe, has to move, has to see) he can’t find Sam. Something creeps through his chest, spreading out from his heart, warm and sinking and familiar.
Relief, although the situation's not quite right, doesn't really fit (and he could ask why why why, but he knows the expression he'd see, and he's already so tired of the disappointment, the disbelief, so he crams the words behind his teeth and smirks instead).
Cas says, "don't look."
Too late, he thinks, because as soon as those words are hanging in the air, he’s zeroing in on what’s right there, unavoidable, and he knows this, too. "Too late." There's not much to see - hazy impression of a human body, dark, thick wings wrapped tight, patterned and weaving and shivering with control and desire. "How many?"
Cas draws even with him, and Dean feels the burn of the trench coat brushing his arm. Cas turns toward him, eyes appraising and solemn. "The seraphim are countless, Dean."
"Wings, dumbass," and Cas flinches. He's learning. "How many wings?" Because he knows how to boil anything down to be meaningless. It's a fuckin skill.
Cas sighs, and Dean knows what it means. Exasperation and hopelessness. Quit, Dean thinks, stop trying to find something here. "Six. All just to keep you alive."
Dean laughs. "Don't do me any favors," and he walks and walks and walks, incongruous with the actual distance. He doesn’t question the discrepancy, though; he doesn’t have to, because it all makes sense, clicks into place in the back of his mind.
The body before him flitters in and out, real and not. "Stop," he says, and it does.
Something thick and moving oozes out between bony wings. It tingles along his nerves, beats behind his eyes, but he doesn't hesitate until he's right there, and he never realized angels could be so tall.
"Dean," Cas says, "this is not like you and me. I will not be able to save you -"
Cas is worried, dry voice threaded through with it, making it even more broken and jagged. Dean just shakes his head, staring. Why would he be here, otherwise, if not for this, for something close to this? "Show me," he says.
The seraphim bends low, rustling the shape of wings and Dean can't tell if there are feathers there or just long, jagged bones, but it doesn't matter, because the heat is intense, feels like it's breaking him in two. When he feels something rough against his face, cracking open the skin, he realizes he's shut his eyes, can't fight to keep them open.
A long hiss of air washes over him, over and over, beating out a rhythm fit to kill him.
That's enough to get him to crack an eye, see almost nothing but the edge of a wing pressed to his mouth, what he takes for eyes above that and so close.
A kiss, he has time to think, a kiss, before the image blurs, pain clawing and shrieking into him. God god god, he screams, and then it all goes black.
**
Eerie. That's a good word for it. Fuckin creepy as shit, but he's here, Sam's back, and the graveyard's just another long stretch of tired land waiting to give up the dead. A thousand markers for a thousand corpses, but they're still at the far end, more monuments than place setters, and Sam doesn't seem intent on moving.
(Dean thinks, this fits, this fits. This could be real, could be us now, I remember you staring and weighing; I remember the pain and begging you to help me.
Except there's nothing beyond them and the cemetery and the waiting. Always waiting. He's almost good at it.)
The statue bleeds, is the thing. Sam touches it, something like awe and rapture crossing over his face, and the statue bleeds, a mourning angel dripping crimson grief.
Thick red tears slither down the pitted face, and Sam doesn’t see, head tipped back, smile tilting his lips.
Dean wants to wipe the tracks away, hide them so Sam won’t ever know.
I’d go to hell for you, Dean thinks, but the words dry up in his mouth as his body shatters into a million jagged pieces on a dirty floor.
**
(It happens like this:
“This is what you'll remember, later. Just this.” Young Sam's smiling, tilting his head, maybe to take in Dean's whole body, maybe just to make his hair fall into his eyes. He looks stupid, standing in the middle of the broken ruins of their old apartment, but Dean can’t help but take it all in while he can.
Dean wants to ask why, ask about the shape of Sam, tall and shadowed and dangerous, standing in the back of an alley while blood dripped down Dean's throat. Wants to ask, but Sammy says,” right now, you're rolling around on a dirty concrete floor. Bodily fluid oozing out of your mouth.” Sam's face is empty, and Dean flinches. The look is too familiar. “This,” and Sam doesn't glance away, doesn't move away, just comes closer. Green hazel and fox sharp, scent and sight and Dean can't escape. “This is all that matters.”
Dean says, “you’re lying,” and Sam's smile widens, blinding and always so damn gorgeous, like he already knows. Dean thinks, I want this.)
**
He pries his eyes open. They’re sticky, almost glued shut from whatever the hell he’s been coughing up, mostly into the bucket, but there were a few unlucky shots, enough that the sharp-sweet smell of bile whiffs up from his shirt.
“Dude,” he mumbles to the feet situated around him. “Gross.”
There’s a pop and crack of knees folding (it’s gas, Dean, Sammy says, being released from the joint. The god, don’t you know anything? Sitting right underneath his brother’s words and prodding at Dean), and Dean turns his head toward it.
“Sam?”
“Yeah, Dean,” and there’s all the worry before Sam’s face wobbles into view. Polite concern, vague hands propping him off the dirty floor. “Let’s get you cleaned up, okay?”
“I’m not,” he bats at the hands, almost falls back when they retreat, but he catches himself. “I’m not a fuckin shitty two-year old. Christ.”
“Okay,” and the amusement isn’t any easier to hear, but he’s too tired, too out of it, to care much. “Then let’s go.”
They’re alone. Him and Sam and the shuffle of boots over trash and broken concrete, Dean’s voice fading into silence (but the fear, the whyhowwhat, the fuck you, Sam, the hell’s wrong with you? lingers hot and acidic between them).
“Yeah,” Sam responds and shrugs defensively, movement that keeps his shoulders and bulky jacket up near his ears. “What’s with all the questions, Dean?”
Dean spies the shape of the Impala, safe and hidden in the back of the lot, and he stands there a minute, body protesting, spirals of pain racing under his skin.
Sam doesn’t catch on and he stalks up ahead. Time freezes, just for a moment, Sam yards ahead of him, dim yellow light of a streetlight the only thing allowing Dean to see at all.
Just his brother and his car, almost like Dean doesn’t even need to be there, like he’s not, just a step outside and gone.
He stumbles his next step, but no one sees, and he jogs to catch up, to close the gap between them.
**
The world goes by in flashes of bright light and dark. Dean keeps his eyes on the road, thinks that maybe he shouldn’t be driving, images twisting and pounding behind his eyes, distracting him. But Sam doesn’t seem worried, doesn’t say a thing, so Dean just grits his teeth and stands on the gas.
**
Dean cleans up in some rat-bit gas station. He leaves Sam leaning against the Impala, watching the rotary flicker of numbers as gas spills into the tank. He uses tepid, foggy water to scrape at the spit and dirt stuck to him, bits of cheap brown paper towel rubbing and pilling along his skin.
The mirror’s cracked, jagged shards twisting his reflection into a washed out caricature. He turns away, eyes dry.
By the time he’s out, Sam’s back in the passenger seat, arm trailing out the window, strong and brown with an endless tan. Dean bows himself over Sam’s window (and he remembers wildly curling hair, fondness and nitpicking and being so happy, having everything he’d ever wanted) and he can almost swear his heart breaks just a little bit.
He means to say something, tip of his tongue comment, but he stares at Sam’s hard face and his mind goes blank. Turning away is easier, and he rests his back against the Impala, cold edges digging through the material of his jacket and into his back.
The heels of his hands make their way into his eye sockets, press against his lids until he sees sunbursts and feels the grit of skin against his eyes.
"Dean? Dean, are you - "
"Yeah, Sam," Dean sighs, drags his hands away from his face and walks around to the driver's side. He stops with his hand on the handle, takes in the space and the air, the bright details and the grunge, the painful lurch in his chest every time he thinks about looking at his brother.
Everything that makes this real.
He gets in, fingers wrapped around the key. "I'm ready," and the engine turns over.