fic: City Lights Lay Out Before Us (part three)
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Four weeks later, Sam walked back to his apartment after an eight hour shift at the store and six hours of classes and a ten mile run. He put his keys down on the counter, grabbed two beers from the fridge, and tried not to think about what day it was.
About the fact that this was the first birthday Dean had missed in nineteen years.
He hadn’t told any of his new friends. He didn’t feel like having to explain why cake and candles and singing waiters felt strange to people who never had to know what it felt like to have their parent forget the day they were born. All he wanted to do was get drunk - it was a Friday after all - watch bad horror movies, and point out all the inaccuracies.
It was something he and Dean used to do, but tonight he would just be talking to the empty apartment.
Sam finished the two beers, and then made moves towards the whiskey in the closet. He had replenished his stock more than once since that Saturday in November. As he was making his way back from the bedroom, he heard the familiar sound of his ringtone start in.
Wondering which of his friends had worked out what day it was, Sam picked up his phone from the coffee table. Sam’s knees gave out and he sat down on the couch in shock. He stared at the name and number flashing on the screen, remembering to answer just before it went to voicemail.
“Heeya Sammy.”
Dean’s voice was low and smooth and hit Sam somewhere between his chest and stomach.
“Dean?”
“Happy birthday little bro.”
“Dean what are you doing”
“Calling you Sammy.” His voice was a little too smooth, vowels and consonants slurring
together in a pattern Sam recognized like a song from his childhood. “‘S your birthday right?
Didn’t mess up the date again, did I?”
The fact that Dean, who used to make him stay up until it turned midnight every year, wasn’t sure if he had the date right was evidence enough of the state he was in.
“Are you drunk?”
“Generally, yeah.”
“Dean, I - it’s been months. I called you know. You couldda picked up.” Sam tried, and likely failed, to keep the hurt out of his voice.
“Couldn’t.” Dean’s tone, for once, was one that Sam couldn’t place.
“Cause of Dad?” Sam knew that John would’ve ripped Dean a new one if he found out he was
calling, but Sam had ruled out that excuse a long time ago. Dad had never kept Dean on that tight a leash and besides, Dean could do anything if he wanted it bad enough.
“No.”
“A hunt? You didn’t get hurt did you?” It would take more fingers than he had hands for to count the number of nights Sam had lied awake wondering if Dean hadn’t called because he was in a ditch somewhere. If John would stoop to call him if it was true.
“Whaddya think I can’t take care o’ myself without you?”
No Dean, I think with me gone you finally can take care of yourself, Sam thought to himself.
“What else is there Dean? Why the hell else can’t you pick up the damn phone?” Exasperated, a little angry, and on his way to drunk, Sam felt his emotions peaking.
“Jus couldn’t Sammy. Couldn’t talk to you.”
Sam let out a laugh that was more resentment than humor. “Right. Guess you’re still pissed at me for leaving then.”
“No no ‘m not. ‘S not why.”
“Then why?” Rage, hurt, and despair formed a lump in his throat that he somehow managed to talk around. “If you don’t hate me then why haven’t you-”
“-mishou.” Dean’s voice was muffled in the way that meant he was talking into his hand instead of the phone.
“What?”
“I miss you Sammy.” The weight of the confession pushed into Sam, settled in his bones and skin and lungs. The lump in Sam’s throat sealed shut at the sound of his cocky brother so wrecked and vulnerable.
“Dean…”
“Miss you so damn much. ‘S not the same with you gone. So quiet. Dad doesn’t even talk to me anymore, ‘less it’s about the job. He’s mad, ‘n I can’t blame him. I’m mad too, so mad I could just -”
“Dean, I’m sorry.” Sam couldn’t listen anymore. Couldn’t listen to that raw sound in his voice that Sam hadn’t heard since they were kids. Couldn’t hear Dean tell him that he had been right, he was mad at Sam, and that there wasn’t a way around it. “Please don’t be mad at me…”
Dean kept on talking, like he wasn’t even hearing Sam’s voice anymore. “- was so damn stupid. Shouldn’t ‘ve let you leave. Dad was yellin’ at you and telling you to go an’ I just stood there. Jus’ watched you walk out the door and didn’t say a damn thing. Beat myself bloody if I could.”
Sam had been around an intoxicated Dean plenty in the years after he quit school, but he had never seen this side of him.
When Dean drank he was all bravado. The night usually ended with him getting either into some girl’s pants or into a bar fight, never with him so open you’d think his skin had been flayed off. Dean was still talking though, and Sam figured it would probably be a good idea to pay attention to this.
“It’s so damn hard Sam. I wake up some mornings, and it’s like I forget. I’ll look at the other bed, or at the door when it opens, ‘n I keep expecting to see you but you’re always gone. Calling you, it just reminds me that you’re not here, that you didn’t want to be here.
Hurts too much, Sam. I just couldn’t.”
“Dean, I’m sorry.” Sam said it again, reasonably sure that Dean hadn’t been listening the first time. “I didn’t, I mean, it wasn’t you Dean. It wasn’t your fault.” Not your fault I’m like this. Not your fault I want what I can’t have. “You weren’t supposed to be so messed up about this.”
“Course I’m messed up, you’re my brother and…”
“And what, Dean?”
“And I love you Sammy.” Sam couldn’t remember the last time Dean had said those words to him.
“Love you too Dean.” Sam tried to breathe some levity into his response; desperately wanted to pull Dean out from whatever dark place he had drank himself into.
“No, damnnit Sam. I love you.” The dark of his apartment and the alcohol made it all too easy to pretend that Dean meant it in the way he only could in Sam’s dreams.
“I know. Me too.”
“No. No, you don- you can’t. ‘S not the same.” And damn if Sam didn’t know it wasn’t the same. If that wasn’t tied up in why he left in the first place.
“Yeah well…doesn’t change things.” It was about as close to the truth Sam would ever come, and it made him want to be sick.
Silence. Sam waited. Still nothing. He was starting to think Dean had finally come to his senses and hung up on him or walked clear out of motel when he heard the tinkle of ice on glass. He cleared his throat, the best, damn near brilliant, idea coming to him. “Hey, uh, Dean?”
“Mmmm?”
“Why don’t you come out here?”
“What?”
“You should come visit.”
“Sam…”
“No, really, it’d be great.” Sam was grinning, his mouth moving faster than his brain at this point. “I’ll show you around, we can catch up-”
“-And then what huh? Just say goodbye again? See ya in another nine months? I’m sorry Sam, I can’t.” Dean’s voice was hard, an edge to it that had been missing the entire night.
“Dean, come on…”
“Sam, just stop. Please.” And just like that, the broken, pleading tone was back. Sam hated that he had put it there. “I- I just wanted to- Happy birthday Sam.” Sam knew what Dean was really saying. That what he meant was goodbye.
He doesn’t know how long he sat there, phone cradled in his hand and misty eyes staring at nothing. He slept right there on the couch that night, and for the first time since August Sam didn’t dream of anything at all
***
Sam woke up the next morning with the tv remote jammed between his shoulder blades. His head wasn’t pounding, which was good, but that meant he couldn’t blame last night on too much booze, which was disconcerting. It also meant that he remembered everything.
Despite his best attempts, he felt guilty. He never meant for Dean to be so upset over Sam leaving, truly thought that once he had been gone for a few weeks the hurt would die off. Apparently he was wrong.
With a groan Sam recalled his spur of the moment invitation, and how epically it blew up in his face. He meant it though, and he wanted Dean to know that it wasn’t just some drunken impulsive thought.
Well, it was, but that didn’t mean that Sam hadn’t thought about how great it would be to have Dean there, even just for a few hours.
He picked his phone up off the floor where it had apparently fallen at some point in the night, and dialed Dean’s number. He held the phone to his head, the voice in his head chanting don’t pick up don’t pick up just let it go to voicemail. For once, the universe was on his side and Sam let out an audible sigh of relief at the sound of Dean’s recording.
“Look, I know you’re gonna try ‘n’ pretend last night didn’t happen but uh,” Sam looked down, as if he was really talking to Dean and not leaving a voice mail he probably wouldn’t even listen to. “I meant what I said. About visiting,” Sam quickly clarified, cheeks blushing at the memory of his almost-confession.
“You can. Anytime. Just uh, just think about it.” He hung up, feeling satisfied and empty at the same time. The ball was in Dean’s court now. Sam plugged in his phone to charge, changed into shorts, and set out for a run to clear his head.
When he trudged back into the room nearly two hours later, hair wet with sweat, he filled and drank two glasses of water back to back. The run was good; brutal, but it left him feeling accomplished. That all went out the window when he walked into his room to change, and saw the ‘missed call’ message flashing on his phone.
Sam flipped it open, and sure enough, it was from Dean. No message, not that Sam was really surprised. He pressed the green call button, hoping he hadn’t missed his chance. No answer, also not surprising.
“Damnit!” Sam threw his fist against the mattress and then, having nothing better to do, took a shower.
That afternoon, Sam walked to the nearest electronics accessories store and bought an arm band to hold his phone when he went running. He never left the building without his phone again.
***
Two weeks passed, Sam heard nothing.
After three weeks, Sam called Dean on his walk home from the bookstore. Dean didn’t pick up.
Four weeks, and Sam was trying to get his heart under control after a black muscle car passed by his lunch spot.
After six weeks, Sam gave up. Dean wasn’t calling, and Sam had too much pride to keep doing this. The spring quarter ended, and Sam applied for summer housing. He moved into a new apartment, still a single but with a little more room and a bit further away from the center of campus.
He was miserable.
onwards
Four weeks later, Sam walked back to his apartment after an eight hour shift at the store and six hours of classes and a ten mile run. He put his keys down on the counter, grabbed two beers from the fridge, and tried not to think about what day it was.
About the fact that this was the first birthday Dean had missed in nineteen years.
He hadn’t told any of his new friends. He didn’t feel like having to explain why cake and candles and singing waiters felt strange to people who never had to know what it felt like to have their parent forget the day they were born. All he wanted to do was get drunk - it was a Friday after all - watch bad horror movies, and point out all the inaccuracies.
It was something he and Dean used to do, but tonight he would just be talking to the empty apartment.
Sam finished the two beers, and then made moves towards the whiskey in the closet. He had replenished his stock more than once since that Saturday in November. As he was making his way back from the bedroom, he heard the familiar sound of his ringtone start in.
Wondering which of his friends had worked out what day it was, Sam picked up his phone from the coffee table. Sam’s knees gave out and he sat down on the couch in shock. He stared at the name and number flashing on the screen, remembering to answer just before it went to voicemail.
“Heeya Sammy.”
Dean’s voice was low and smooth and hit Sam somewhere between his chest and stomach.
“Dean?”
“Happy birthday little bro.”
“Dean what are you doing”
“Calling you Sammy.” His voice was a little too smooth, vowels and consonants slurring
together in a pattern Sam recognized like a song from his childhood. “‘S your birthday right?
Didn’t mess up the date again, did I?”
The fact that Dean, who used to make him stay up until it turned midnight every year, wasn’t sure if he had the date right was evidence enough of the state he was in.
“Are you drunk?”
“Generally, yeah.”
“Dean, I - it’s been months. I called you know. You couldda picked up.” Sam tried, and likely failed, to keep the hurt out of his voice.
“Couldn’t.” Dean’s tone, for once, was one that Sam couldn’t place.
“Cause of Dad?” Sam knew that John would’ve ripped Dean a new one if he found out he was
calling, but Sam had ruled out that excuse a long time ago. Dad had never kept Dean on that tight a leash and besides, Dean could do anything if he wanted it bad enough.
“No.”
“A hunt? You didn’t get hurt did you?” It would take more fingers than he had hands for to count the number of nights Sam had lied awake wondering if Dean hadn’t called because he was in a ditch somewhere. If John would stoop to call him if it was true.
“Whaddya think I can’t take care o’ myself without you?”
No Dean, I think with me gone you finally can take care of yourself, Sam thought to himself.
“What else is there Dean? Why the hell else can’t you pick up the damn phone?” Exasperated, a little angry, and on his way to drunk, Sam felt his emotions peaking.
“Jus couldn’t Sammy. Couldn’t talk to you.”
Sam let out a laugh that was more resentment than humor. “Right. Guess you’re still pissed at me for leaving then.”
“No no ‘m not. ‘S not why.”
“Then why?” Rage, hurt, and despair formed a lump in his throat that he somehow managed to talk around. “If you don’t hate me then why haven’t you-”
“-mishou.” Dean’s voice was muffled in the way that meant he was talking into his hand instead of the phone.
“What?”
“I miss you Sammy.” The weight of the confession pushed into Sam, settled in his bones and skin and lungs. The lump in Sam’s throat sealed shut at the sound of his cocky brother so wrecked and vulnerable.
“Dean…”
“Miss you so damn much. ‘S not the same with you gone. So quiet. Dad doesn’t even talk to me anymore, ‘less it’s about the job. He’s mad, ‘n I can’t blame him. I’m mad too, so mad I could just -”
“Dean, I’m sorry.” Sam couldn’t listen anymore. Couldn’t listen to that raw sound in his voice that Sam hadn’t heard since they were kids. Couldn’t hear Dean tell him that he had been right, he was mad at Sam, and that there wasn’t a way around it. “Please don’t be mad at me…”
Dean kept on talking, like he wasn’t even hearing Sam’s voice anymore. “- was so damn stupid. Shouldn’t ‘ve let you leave. Dad was yellin’ at you and telling you to go an’ I just stood there. Jus’ watched you walk out the door and didn’t say a damn thing. Beat myself bloody if I could.”
Sam had been around an intoxicated Dean plenty in the years after he quit school, but he had never seen this side of him.
When Dean drank he was all bravado. The night usually ended with him getting either into some girl’s pants or into a bar fight, never with him so open you’d think his skin had been flayed off. Dean was still talking though, and Sam figured it would probably be a good idea to pay attention to this.
“It’s so damn hard Sam. I wake up some mornings, and it’s like I forget. I’ll look at the other bed, or at the door when it opens, ‘n I keep expecting to see you but you’re always gone. Calling you, it just reminds me that you’re not here, that you didn’t want to be here.
Hurts too much, Sam. I just couldn’t.”
“Dean, I’m sorry.” Sam said it again, reasonably sure that Dean hadn’t been listening the first time. “I didn’t, I mean, it wasn’t you Dean. It wasn’t your fault.” Not your fault I’m like this. Not your fault I want what I can’t have. “You weren’t supposed to be so messed up about this.”
“Course I’m messed up, you’re my brother and…”
“And what, Dean?”
“And I love you Sammy.” Sam couldn’t remember the last time Dean had said those words to him.
“Love you too Dean.” Sam tried to breathe some levity into his response; desperately wanted to pull Dean out from whatever dark place he had drank himself into.
“No, damnnit Sam. I love you.” The dark of his apartment and the alcohol made it all too easy to pretend that Dean meant it in the way he only could in Sam’s dreams.
“I know. Me too.”
“No. No, you don- you can’t. ‘S not the same.” And damn if Sam didn’t know it wasn’t the same. If that wasn’t tied up in why he left in the first place.
“Yeah well…doesn’t change things.” It was about as close to the truth Sam would ever come, and it made him want to be sick.
Silence. Sam waited. Still nothing. He was starting to think Dean had finally come to his senses and hung up on him or walked clear out of motel when he heard the tinkle of ice on glass. He cleared his throat, the best, damn near brilliant, idea coming to him. “Hey, uh, Dean?”
“Mmmm?”
“Why don’t you come out here?”
“What?”
“You should come visit.”
“Sam…”
“No, really, it’d be great.” Sam was grinning, his mouth moving faster than his brain at this point. “I’ll show you around, we can catch up-”
“-And then what huh? Just say goodbye again? See ya in another nine months? I’m sorry Sam, I can’t.” Dean’s voice was hard, an edge to it that had been missing the entire night.
“Dean, come on…”
“Sam, just stop. Please.” And just like that, the broken, pleading tone was back. Sam hated that he had put it there. “I- I just wanted to- Happy birthday Sam.” Sam knew what Dean was really saying. That what he meant was goodbye.
He doesn’t know how long he sat there, phone cradled in his hand and misty eyes staring at nothing. He slept right there on the couch that night, and for the first time since August Sam didn’t dream of anything at all
***
Sam woke up the next morning with the tv remote jammed between his shoulder blades. His head wasn’t pounding, which was good, but that meant he couldn’t blame last night on too much booze, which was disconcerting. It also meant that he remembered everything.
Despite his best attempts, he felt guilty. He never meant for Dean to be so upset over Sam leaving, truly thought that once he had been gone for a few weeks the hurt would die off. Apparently he was wrong.
With a groan Sam recalled his spur of the moment invitation, and how epically it blew up in his face. He meant it though, and he wanted Dean to know that it wasn’t just some drunken impulsive thought.
Well, it was, but that didn’t mean that Sam hadn’t thought about how great it would be to have Dean there, even just for a few hours.
He picked his phone up off the floor where it had apparently fallen at some point in the night, and dialed Dean’s number. He held the phone to his head, the voice in his head chanting don’t pick up don’t pick up just let it go to voicemail. For once, the universe was on his side and Sam let out an audible sigh of relief at the sound of Dean’s recording.
“Look, I know you’re gonna try ‘n’ pretend last night didn’t happen but uh,” Sam looked down, as if he was really talking to Dean and not leaving a voice mail he probably wouldn’t even listen to. “I meant what I said. About visiting,” Sam quickly clarified, cheeks blushing at the memory of his almost-confession.
“You can. Anytime. Just uh, just think about it.” He hung up, feeling satisfied and empty at the same time. The ball was in Dean’s court now. Sam plugged in his phone to charge, changed into shorts, and set out for a run to clear his head.
When he trudged back into the room nearly two hours later, hair wet with sweat, he filled and drank two glasses of water back to back. The run was good; brutal, but it left him feeling accomplished. That all went out the window when he walked into his room to change, and saw the ‘missed call’ message flashing on his phone.
Sam flipped it open, and sure enough, it was from Dean. No message, not that Sam was really surprised. He pressed the green call button, hoping he hadn’t missed his chance. No answer, also not surprising.
“Damnit!” Sam threw his fist against the mattress and then, having nothing better to do, took a shower.
That afternoon, Sam walked to the nearest electronics accessories store and bought an arm band to hold his phone when he went running. He never left the building without his phone again.
***
Two weeks passed, Sam heard nothing.
After three weeks, Sam called Dean on his walk home from the bookstore. Dean didn’t pick up.
Four weeks, and Sam was trying to get his heart under control after a black muscle car passed by his lunch spot.
After six weeks, Sam gave up. Dean wasn’t calling, and Sam had too much pride to keep doing this. The spring quarter ended, and Sam applied for summer housing. He moved into a new apartment, still a single but with a little more room and a bit further away from the center of campus.
He was miserable.
onwards