SPN Fic: Now We Are Awake
Okay, I'm going to call this one an actual ~story~, as I realize at some point writing endless codas becomes a little pathetic. /o\ I thought up a title and everything!
Title: Now We Are Awake
Genre: Wincest (Sam/Dean)
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2095
Summary: He was never supposed to survive this.
***
Dean's heard somewhere, or maybe it's more of a sort of ubiquitous knowledge, about how devastating it is for a parent to lose a child. About how it can tear marriages apart because they can't deal with the loss. Because it goes against the natural order of things, and he gets that. Not that Sam was his kid or anything, but still. He gets it, with Sam in Hell and Dean sitting down for family dinner. It goes against the natural order of things.
Story of his fucking life.
Lisa's nice enough about it. She lets him stay a week before she finally asks, "What are you doing here?"
"I made a promise." Dean doesn't bother lying- he's not a con man anymore.
"Okay." She touches his face and smiles. It's sad. Everything is sad now. The next day she helps him find an apartment. Co-signs the lease and lends him the money. Dean supposes he'll have to get a job next.
He gets a gig bartending at a place a few blocks from where he lives. Somehow, serving other people drinks keeps him from drinking himself into oblivion. Maybe it has to do with feeling responsible for his customers. After having the weight of the planet on his shoulders, being beholden to no one doesn't sit well and Dean goes above and beyond to make sure the people he serves get home okay. It's stupid and mundane, but at least it's something.
Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays he has dinner with Lisa and Ben. For an hour and a half, three nights a week, it's kind of like having a family. Dean can generally muster up a smile and ask how work is, and school. He can tell a few highly edited stories about the places he's been. None of it makes Dean feel less empty, but that's not exactly a surprise.
The nightmares Dean expected never come. When he sleeps, he dreams of Sam. They're sitting on the hood of the Impala, beers in hand. Sam asks how things are going and Dean tries to answer honestly.
"I'm doing my best. I really am." Dean thinks nobody can ask him for more than that. Half of him is missing- he doesn't have more to give.
Sam looks at him, that sort of confused, pained expression he gets when he's about to emote and says, "Is it getting any easier?"
"No."
"Yeah." Sam wrinkles his nose and looks away the corner of his mouth twitching up into a smile. "I sort of hoped it would."
Dean taps the neck of his beer bottle against Sam's before he takes a drink. "You and me both, Sammy." But he's not sure if that's true. Maybe he doesn't want things to get better. Maybe he wants to hurt forever. Maybe that's all he can give.
At work, Dean flirts with the girls who sit at the bar in hopes of getting his attention. It's all rote, the wink and smile, the innuendo. But they always find someone else, or go home alone at closing time. Because the end of his shift means that Dean gets to sleep and Sam is always waiting for him.
There's no real rhyme or reason to where they are in his dreams. Sometimes it's day, sometimes it's night. They're at the beach, the lake, the middle of nowhere with the wide open sky stretched out before them. That, Dean recognizes, is Montana.
Sometimes they don't talk at all. Dean wants to ask how Sam is, where he is, if it's been long enough that he'll release Dean from his promise, but he doesn't. He wants to ask, but he doesn't want to know the answers. That probably makes him a dick, but Dean never claimed to be otherwise.
This time it's a sunset in Montana. Dean's not sure what the deal with that is, except that Montana always felt huge. They could drive for hours and not see another soul and it was easy to believe that they were the only two people in the world. Sometimes that felt like everything Dean could ever ask for.
The sky is pink and orange in front of them, deep purple and blue behind them and Sam seems content not to talk. They don't have any beer with them and Dean finds himself restless, watching Sam as Sam watches the sun set.
"What?" Sam turns to Dean, his smile halfway between amused and annoyed that Dean is sitting there watching him like a creep.
Dean can't look away. "I miss you so much." The words hurt to say, as though admitting it makes it more real. "Every second of every day."
Sam's smile fades. "I know." He looks down at his hands, curls his fingers and then spreads them wide again. "I miss you too."
"How am I supposed to do this?" Dean shakes his head when Sam shrugs and reaches out, grabs Sam's chin to make him meet Dean's gaze. He wants to yell, rail against Sam for making him promise. For making Dean survive when he didn't.
Instead he leans forward and kisses him.
"Oh," Sam says when Dean leans back.
"It was always you and me, Sammy. It was always supposed to be you and me." It isn't until the words are out of his mouth that Dean realizes they're true in a way he never knew he felt. He loves Sam so much it hurts. He was never supposed to survive this.
"Dean." Sam hesitates for a split second and then they're kissing again.
They lean back against the windshield and kiss, long and slow and sweet. The sky fades from pink to purple to black and the stars come out. Dean doesn't bother to look, his eyes are closed as he licks into Sam's mouth, clutches at his shoulders and wishes with everything left in him that they can just stay like this forever.
When he wakes up, it's like losing everything all over again. Dean curls into a ball and squeezes his eyes shut against the grief that throbs through him with every cursed beat of his heart. Thud, thud, thud, reminding him that he's still here, still alive, healthy as a fucking horse. He'll probably live to be a hundred and then maybe he'll go to a heaven that he no longer gets to share with his brother.
That night he goes to dinner and when it's time to leave he leans in to kiss Lisa goodnight. She pushes him away, gentle but firm and studies him with that worried expression.
"Sorry." Dean apologizes before she can manage to scold him. "Sorry, I don't-That was out of line."
"It's okay." She still looks wary, but more concerned than anything else. "If you want to talk about anything..." She frowns again when Dean shakes his head. "We're friends, right?" The tone of her voice makes him wonder whether she's reminding him or checking to make sure that it's true.
"Yeah, we are. And I appreciate it. Really." It's true. Dean's never had a friend in the way that other people think of the word and Lisa doesn't owe him anything. It's not her fault that most of the minutes of his life have been spent with someone who knew him inside and out in all the ways that mattered. It's not her fault that he didn't realize that until it was far too late. "Goodnight, Lisa."
She says goodnight and slowly shuts the door. The deadbolt slides into place a moment later and for some weird reason, it makes Dean smile.
The next time he dreams, they're not on the Impala. They're in a hotel room with one bed instead of two. Sam raises his eyebrows and smirks. Dean shrugs. "Can't control my dreams."
"Right." Sam laughs and takes a step forward, waving his hand toward the bed. "Because this is totally out of character."
Dean's smile is genuine, grows wider the closer Sam gets until Sam kisses him again, one hand on Dean's neck, the other spread wide and huge against Dean's back.
They end up on the bed, on their sides, legs tangled together as they make out. That's all they do, kiss like it's a better way of saying everything that needs to be said. Maybe it is. Maybe if Dean had kissed Sam the night he graduated from high school he never would have left the first time. What a useless thought.
Sam eventually pulls away, says Dean's name in a way that makes him open his eyes. Dean realizes that it's almost time for him to wake up. It's pretty much the last thing he wants to do. Sam brushes another soft kiss against Dean's lips, in apology or reassurance. Dean can't tell which.
"Am I going crazy?" He asks more out of curiosity than any real fear. If this is crazy, it sure as hell beats reality and Dean never promised to stay sane.
The alarm clock goes off before Sam has a chance to answer.
Fridays aren't Dean's favorite day of the week. Maybe it's because Ben usually has plans with his friends and dinner is a rushed, distracted affair, or maybe it's because he doesn't have to work the Friday shift, which means endless hours of nothing in particular stretched before him until he's able to fall asleep.
Whatever the reason, he usually walks to the house on Fridays and takes Lisa up when she offers him a drink. He never abuses her implicit trust in giving him alcohol in front of her child, remembers seeing his dad drunk enough that he takes care not to have too much. But sometimes the burn in his stomach is familiar enough to be a comfort of sorts. Dean has at least gotten to the point where he'll take what he can get.
After dinner is over and he's helped with the dishes, he hugs Lisa goodnight like a friend and steps out into the darkness. The streetlight's busted and there's a large, hulking shadow standing underneath it. Dean quickens his steps, reaching back to grasp the handle of Ruby's knife.
"Can't say I'm surprised," he says when he sees Sam's face. It's all muscle memory, the way he maneuvers the weight of his body to shove him up against the post.
"It's me." Hands spread, Sam's expression open and trusting. "Any test you can think of." He holds out his arm and says, "Cut me."
Dean runs the blade of the knife over his forearm, but there's no demonic flickering, only a thin line of blood that wells up from the cut. He tries a few different things in Latin. Doesn't have any holy water, but the other tests are enough and Dean slips the knife back into its sheath. "Sammy?"
"In the flesh," Sam says and then smiles like he's just made the most morbid joke in the world.
"Fucking..." Dean slams Sam back against the post and kisses him, harsh and painful. It's nothing like his dreams, instead of comfort, it's all of Dean's anger and fear, his frustration and grief. He shoves Sam again when he breaks the kiss and takes a step back, wiping his hand over his mouth.
Sam blinks at him as he runs a trembling hand over his own lips. "That was unexpected," he finally says.
"Sorry. I've been having these dreams." Dean scratches the back of his neck and looks away, because, wow. Awkward.
"Is that? Is this?"
Dean looks up at Sam's inability to complete a sentence to find him standing right there, his hands hovering like he wants to touch, but he's waiting for permission.
"Yeah." Dean nods as he says it.
The brush of Sam's lips this time isn't like his dreams either, but it's closer. Dean grabs the back of Sam's neck, opens his mouth and slides his tongue against Sam's like it's always been this way. He's not sure what he was expecting, sulfur or the copper tang of blood, but Sam tastes syrupy-sweet, like Coke. It makes Dean smile because he knows he tastes like whiskey, so it works.
They're comprised of jagged edges, but the breaks were always made against each other, it only makes sense that they could fit back together this way. Form something whole out of the pieces.
"Tell me this isn't a dream," Dean says against Sam's mouth. "Please. Please tell me I won't wake up from this."
"I'm here," Sam says and kisses him again.
For now, at least, that's more than enough.
***
Title: Now We Are Awake
Genre: Wincest (Sam/Dean)
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2095
Summary: He was never supposed to survive this.
***
Dean's heard somewhere, or maybe it's more of a sort of ubiquitous knowledge, about how devastating it is for a parent to lose a child. About how it can tear marriages apart because they can't deal with the loss. Because it goes against the natural order of things, and he gets that. Not that Sam was his kid or anything, but still. He gets it, with Sam in Hell and Dean sitting down for family dinner. It goes against the natural order of things.
Story of his fucking life.
Lisa's nice enough about it. She lets him stay a week before she finally asks, "What are you doing here?"
"I made a promise." Dean doesn't bother lying- he's not a con man anymore.
"Okay." She touches his face and smiles. It's sad. Everything is sad now. The next day she helps him find an apartment. Co-signs the lease and lends him the money. Dean supposes he'll have to get a job next.
He gets a gig bartending at a place a few blocks from where he lives. Somehow, serving other people drinks keeps him from drinking himself into oblivion. Maybe it has to do with feeling responsible for his customers. After having the weight of the planet on his shoulders, being beholden to no one doesn't sit well and Dean goes above and beyond to make sure the people he serves get home okay. It's stupid and mundane, but at least it's something.
Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays he has dinner with Lisa and Ben. For an hour and a half, three nights a week, it's kind of like having a family. Dean can generally muster up a smile and ask how work is, and school. He can tell a few highly edited stories about the places he's been. None of it makes Dean feel less empty, but that's not exactly a surprise.
The nightmares Dean expected never come. When he sleeps, he dreams of Sam. They're sitting on the hood of the Impala, beers in hand. Sam asks how things are going and Dean tries to answer honestly.
"I'm doing my best. I really am." Dean thinks nobody can ask him for more than that. Half of him is missing- he doesn't have more to give.
Sam looks at him, that sort of confused, pained expression he gets when he's about to emote and says, "Is it getting any easier?"
"No."
"Yeah." Sam wrinkles his nose and looks away the corner of his mouth twitching up into a smile. "I sort of hoped it would."
Dean taps the neck of his beer bottle against Sam's before he takes a drink. "You and me both, Sammy." But he's not sure if that's true. Maybe he doesn't want things to get better. Maybe he wants to hurt forever. Maybe that's all he can give.
At work, Dean flirts with the girls who sit at the bar in hopes of getting his attention. It's all rote, the wink and smile, the innuendo. But they always find someone else, or go home alone at closing time. Because the end of his shift means that Dean gets to sleep and Sam is always waiting for him.
There's no real rhyme or reason to where they are in his dreams. Sometimes it's day, sometimes it's night. They're at the beach, the lake, the middle of nowhere with the wide open sky stretched out before them. That, Dean recognizes, is Montana.
Sometimes they don't talk at all. Dean wants to ask how Sam is, where he is, if it's been long enough that he'll release Dean from his promise, but he doesn't. He wants to ask, but he doesn't want to know the answers. That probably makes him a dick, but Dean never claimed to be otherwise.
This time it's a sunset in Montana. Dean's not sure what the deal with that is, except that Montana always felt huge. They could drive for hours and not see another soul and it was easy to believe that they were the only two people in the world. Sometimes that felt like everything Dean could ever ask for.
The sky is pink and orange in front of them, deep purple and blue behind them and Sam seems content not to talk. They don't have any beer with them and Dean finds himself restless, watching Sam as Sam watches the sun set.
"What?" Sam turns to Dean, his smile halfway between amused and annoyed that Dean is sitting there watching him like a creep.
Dean can't look away. "I miss you so much." The words hurt to say, as though admitting it makes it more real. "Every second of every day."
Sam's smile fades. "I know." He looks down at his hands, curls his fingers and then spreads them wide again. "I miss you too."
"How am I supposed to do this?" Dean shakes his head when Sam shrugs and reaches out, grabs Sam's chin to make him meet Dean's gaze. He wants to yell, rail against Sam for making him promise. For making Dean survive when he didn't.
Instead he leans forward and kisses him.
"Oh," Sam says when Dean leans back.
"It was always you and me, Sammy. It was always supposed to be you and me." It isn't until the words are out of his mouth that Dean realizes they're true in a way he never knew he felt. He loves Sam so much it hurts. He was never supposed to survive this.
"Dean." Sam hesitates for a split second and then they're kissing again.
They lean back against the windshield and kiss, long and slow and sweet. The sky fades from pink to purple to black and the stars come out. Dean doesn't bother to look, his eyes are closed as he licks into Sam's mouth, clutches at his shoulders and wishes with everything left in him that they can just stay like this forever.
When he wakes up, it's like losing everything all over again. Dean curls into a ball and squeezes his eyes shut against the grief that throbs through him with every cursed beat of his heart. Thud, thud, thud, reminding him that he's still here, still alive, healthy as a fucking horse. He'll probably live to be a hundred and then maybe he'll go to a heaven that he no longer gets to share with his brother.
That night he goes to dinner and when it's time to leave he leans in to kiss Lisa goodnight. She pushes him away, gentle but firm and studies him with that worried expression.
"Sorry." Dean apologizes before she can manage to scold him. "Sorry, I don't-That was out of line."
"It's okay." She still looks wary, but more concerned than anything else. "If you want to talk about anything..." She frowns again when Dean shakes his head. "We're friends, right?" The tone of her voice makes him wonder whether she's reminding him or checking to make sure that it's true.
"Yeah, we are. And I appreciate it. Really." It's true. Dean's never had a friend in the way that other people think of the word and Lisa doesn't owe him anything. It's not her fault that most of the minutes of his life have been spent with someone who knew him inside and out in all the ways that mattered. It's not her fault that he didn't realize that until it was far too late. "Goodnight, Lisa."
She says goodnight and slowly shuts the door. The deadbolt slides into place a moment later and for some weird reason, it makes Dean smile.
The next time he dreams, they're not on the Impala. They're in a hotel room with one bed instead of two. Sam raises his eyebrows and smirks. Dean shrugs. "Can't control my dreams."
"Right." Sam laughs and takes a step forward, waving his hand toward the bed. "Because this is totally out of character."
Dean's smile is genuine, grows wider the closer Sam gets until Sam kisses him again, one hand on Dean's neck, the other spread wide and huge against Dean's back.
They end up on the bed, on their sides, legs tangled together as they make out. That's all they do, kiss like it's a better way of saying everything that needs to be said. Maybe it is. Maybe if Dean had kissed Sam the night he graduated from high school he never would have left the first time. What a useless thought.
Sam eventually pulls away, says Dean's name in a way that makes him open his eyes. Dean realizes that it's almost time for him to wake up. It's pretty much the last thing he wants to do. Sam brushes another soft kiss against Dean's lips, in apology or reassurance. Dean can't tell which.
"Am I going crazy?" He asks more out of curiosity than any real fear. If this is crazy, it sure as hell beats reality and Dean never promised to stay sane.
The alarm clock goes off before Sam has a chance to answer.
Fridays aren't Dean's favorite day of the week. Maybe it's because Ben usually has plans with his friends and dinner is a rushed, distracted affair, or maybe it's because he doesn't have to work the Friday shift, which means endless hours of nothing in particular stretched before him until he's able to fall asleep.
Whatever the reason, he usually walks to the house on Fridays and takes Lisa up when she offers him a drink. He never abuses her implicit trust in giving him alcohol in front of her child, remembers seeing his dad drunk enough that he takes care not to have too much. But sometimes the burn in his stomach is familiar enough to be a comfort of sorts. Dean has at least gotten to the point where he'll take what he can get.
After dinner is over and he's helped with the dishes, he hugs Lisa goodnight like a friend and steps out into the darkness. The streetlight's busted and there's a large, hulking shadow standing underneath it. Dean quickens his steps, reaching back to grasp the handle of Ruby's knife.
"Can't say I'm surprised," he says when he sees Sam's face. It's all muscle memory, the way he maneuvers the weight of his body to shove him up against the post.
"It's me." Hands spread, Sam's expression open and trusting. "Any test you can think of." He holds out his arm and says, "Cut me."
Dean runs the blade of the knife over his forearm, but there's no demonic flickering, only a thin line of blood that wells up from the cut. He tries a few different things in Latin. Doesn't have any holy water, but the other tests are enough and Dean slips the knife back into its sheath. "Sammy?"
"In the flesh," Sam says and then smiles like he's just made the most morbid joke in the world.
"Fucking..." Dean slams Sam back against the post and kisses him, harsh and painful. It's nothing like his dreams, instead of comfort, it's all of Dean's anger and fear, his frustration and grief. He shoves Sam again when he breaks the kiss and takes a step back, wiping his hand over his mouth.
Sam blinks at him as he runs a trembling hand over his own lips. "That was unexpected," he finally says.
"Sorry. I've been having these dreams." Dean scratches the back of his neck and looks away, because, wow. Awkward.
"Is that? Is this?"
Dean looks up at Sam's inability to complete a sentence to find him standing right there, his hands hovering like he wants to touch, but he's waiting for permission.
"Yeah." Dean nods as he says it.
The brush of Sam's lips this time isn't like his dreams either, but it's closer. Dean grabs the back of Sam's neck, opens his mouth and slides his tongue against Sam's like it's always been this way. He's not sure what he was expecting, sulfur or the copper tang of blood, but Sam tastes syrupy-sweet, like Coke. It makes Dean smile because he knows he tastes like whiskey, so it works.
They're comprised of jagged edges, but the breaks were always made against each other, it only makes sense that they could fit back together this way. Form something whole out of the pieces.
"Tell me this isn't a dream," Dean says against Sam's mouth. "Please. Please tell me I won't wake up from this."
"I'm here," Sam says and kisses him again.
For now, at least, that's more than enough.
***