.0101 - Lost In a Daydream, What Do You See?
Dean/Sam
8.02 - What's Up, Tiger Mommy?
1,976 words
Title from 30 Seconds to Mars
Loose sequel to All Nightmares Escaped My Head, Bar the Door, Please Don't Let Them In (8.01)
Teaser: Half the time you don’t know if you’re hunting a monster or a tree. Or just the rustle of wind. Sometimes it’s like you’re hunting yourself. Your own shadow from the day before…
Running a hand through his hair mindlessly, Sam sits down on the edge of his bed, old wood and squeaky springs, soft mattress, slept on too many times. The sheets are washed out chocolate brown with green twigs of fern growth, matching the tone of the room, a hunter, forest style. Nothing special or comfortable, nothing that would even remotely feel of home or comfort, just a harbor for the night. One of many on the long road to nowhere. Offhandedly, Sam tests the floor beneath his feet with the tip of his boot, light, foot-worn timbers that creak under the pressure, hoping, probably to no avail, that Dean would choose the bed over this tonight.
Sam sighs and glances towards the window that looks out to the parking lot, almost empty except a few cars that had seen better days, long time ago, except the Impala, dark and glistening, polished, and Dean leaning against her side. Looking tired as ever, and guilty as hell. Pretty much like every other minute, his whole life.
When he was gone, she was Sam’s, but hardly really his. The only tangible remembrance of his brother he had, something that was Dean as much as their father, a fine, fragile but unbreakable connection to their past and all that used to be. Sitting behind the wheel, it was almost easy to imagine Dean beside him, wounded so bad he couldn’t drive, or just asleep, too tired to fight for the keys. Sam listened to the same music he hated as a kid and a teenager, sang along to Dean’s favorite songs, in places where Dean used to sing, not deliberately, just unable to stop himself. Laughing when he would realize he was, and crying when no one made fun of him for that.
This Dean doesn’t sing along, he also never laughs, just fakes a smile, replaces it with a painful, twisted grimace. There was just that one smile, the first one, saying, I can’t believe I’m really here and I can’t believe you’re alive. And even that one went bitter in a matter of several heartbeats and a couple of wrong replies.
The dusk has fallen, light gray merging into a bluish violet shade of evening that colors the gravel path to blue, gives Dean’s face and bare forearms a strange touch of ultramarine. There’s that look in his eyes again, the vacant expression that implies so much and says absolutely nothing, gives more questions than answers. It’s like sitting in the cinema and watching all the commercials and trailers before the paid movie, and knowing that the actual movie will in fact never come. And it’s tiring.
Whatever Sam does, he feels like he’s failing, day by day, again and again. Like he can’t reach far enough to touch Dean, speak loud enough to be heard through the cacophony of violence and shrieks in his head. That though he tries, he’s powerless, not understanding, not knowing, missing so much, too much of what’s supposed to be seen, understandable. He’s afraid that Dean has finally fallen too hard and too far to be pulled back, saved. There’s that silent something in each of his movements and words, the unspoken horror Sam doesn’t want to know, but can’t help wondering. There’s Castiel, someone Dean had been relying on so strongly, never fully admitting how much he really liked that guy, the angel, who got lost somewhere between Dean’s way in and his way out. Dean doesn’t talk about him, winces when anyone else brings out his name, and Sam’s terrified that there’s more, something worse, so bad Dean can’t do otherwise than push it down, so damn low it disappears and stops being true.
•
„Tell me, Dean. Tell me what happened. You said Cas didn’t make it, but you make it sound like it was your fault.“
„What if it was?“
„And was it?“
There’s never a real response to that part of Sam’s question.
•
Dean doesn’t move, doesn’t even stir, when Sam steps closer, walking slowly and carefully like he’s approaching a runaway colt, knowing too well what kind of reaction fast, unexpected movements can bring. Dean’s got nightmares, wild and vivid, which is hardly surprising, but they’re not limited to nights only, or to the rare moments when he’s actually asleep. He has tendencies to black out, freeze, really, remembering and reliving whatever had happened to him down there, attacking anything and anyone that comes near him when he’s not prepared. Sam has learnt, the hard way, to not move too quickly or unforeseen, never walk through the darkened room without turning at least the bedside lamp on. Two times, he was nearly stabbed, strangled, one time, he almost had his throat sliced. Dean is dangerous, to others, to himself. He’s like a soldier, home at last after years in hell, a time bomb seconds from detonation.
Sam leans against the car and shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans, copying Dean’s posture. “What he said,” he starts, quiet, unsure. “Dean, what he wrote, it’s not true. None of that was your fault.”
Dean’s voice is rough like he spent the last few hours screaming. Or crying. But can this Dean even cry? Or is he broken for good? “So killing Tiger Mommy would have been alright?”
“Not quite. No, that’s… not what I’m saying.”
But really, how many innocent people they had killed on their way to Kevin’s mom alone? Some of them were undoubtedly husbands, and parents, too. A bunch of harmless men and women that had done nothing wrong, nothing but being in the wrong place, in the wrong time. The only difference between them and Mrs. Tran was that they knew her name. And son. But if killing her meant killing the arrogant and rotten prick Crowley, making the world safer, maybe spilling her blood would have been worth it. She’s already damned anyway.
“So what is it you’re saying?” Dean asks, putting the question in a way that’s random, normal, like he doesn’t really care what Sam’s answer will be.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself is what I’m saying. We’re doing what we can.”
Dean’s look, for the first time truly aimed at Sam, is sharp, narrowed and demanding. “And since when is that enough?”
Sam doesn’t reply, not knowing what to say, unwillingly validating Dean’s theory, and Dean bites his lip thoughtfully, jerking his head in that, ‘Yeah, that’s what I thought’ gesture of his. Sighing, he turns around to rest his hands on the roof of his car, watching the sun setting down in front of him.
There’s not much left of it now, just a narrow stripe of red and orange, even thinner line of yellowish white above that, and the darkness that grows over it all, swallowing the last glimmers of light inch by inch.
“The sun doesn’t set,” Dean says, his eyes focused ahead, an unusual hint of astonishment in them, like he’s seeing it for the first time, in a new, wholly different way.
“What?”
“The sun… it doesn’t set. There. Doesn’t set. Doesn’t rise. It could be a night, or a dawn, a freaking noon and you wouldn’t know. A whole year in one endless day. There’s no sun, really, just some… kind of light. Dimmed. Consistent. It’s… a lot like hell. Just without fire. And meat hooks.” His tone is so even, so emotionless it’s almost flat, just the quietness of his voice and the whisper of terror behind his words uncover the real dread of what he’s really saying. The fact he actually can compare these two places, purgatory and hell, skipping heaven that doesn’t even feel like it anyway, is only one more proof that shows how fucked up their lives truly are. “Half the time you don’t know if you’re hunting a monster or a tree. Or just the rustle of wind. Sometimes it’s like you’re hunting yourself. Your own shadow from the day before… It’s not a place for angels.”
“Or humans,” Sam wants to add, but doesn’t. He shakes his head, once again lost for words. ‘I’m sorry’, however honest, is so poor in this case, so insufficient it sounds almost like a mockery. Hesitantly, he puts his hand on the small of Dean’s back, above the waistband of his jeans, just a light touch, putting no pressure. Leaning in, he presses his lips to Dean’s shoulder, breathing in his scent and the warmth of his skin that seeps through the thin cotton of his T-shirt.
Tilting his head to the side slightly, Dean lifts his eyes up to Sam’s, giving him a sad, regretful look that is so full of no and don’t that a butter knife sliding through Sam’s chest to carve out his heart would undoubtedly hurt less.
“It’s so easy to forget,” Sam notes, disappointed and unable to hide it. It’s not a question, just something between a sigh and a resigned statement.
“No. But it’s easier than trying to remember how to be the guy you knew. And wanted.”
The pure Dean, almost innocent. Not tainted with purgatory or hell, from before. Before sold souls and death wishes. Before Lisa and Ben, Jessica. Before Stanford. The same before that seems to be a million of light years away.
There were moments in between, rare, temporary but sweet, but there was also Lucifer, knowing, judging, laughing. Turning the only safe and stable thing Sam, they both had, into something stained and sick, disgusting. Sam didn’t let Dean close, couldn’t, unable to tell the difference, distinguish his real, loving brother from the psyched Lucy version of him. They didn’t really get it back, the original, genuine relationship they used to have. It wasn’t about the physical bound, though it was there, undoubtedly, it was loving someone who understood, who knew. Who got that silence didn’t mean rejection but quite the opposite. Dean was never good with words, never believed he was, but his body knew how to speak, how to say everything, his hands, his lips, his eyes. The eyes that used to say, I love you and now say, I can’t. And I don’t know if that can be fixed.
Putting his palm gently on Dean’s cheek, unshaved and bruised, Sam turns Dean’s face to him, running his thumb over the full, pliant flesh of Dean’s lower lip. It’s dry under his touch, warm and a little chapped. “I still want you,” he tells him. “That’s never gonna change.”
Everyone, all the girls in between were just a patch, a substitution. No one was Dean, so good and wrong. No one had the same tempting taste of dark and forbidden. Rebellious.
For a second, a moment so brief that when it’s gone Sam’s no longer sure it actually happened, Dean looks like he’s smiling.
Sam kisses him then, moving closer slowly enough to give Dean the chance to stop him, dares him to stop him, but he doesn’t. He looks determined to do so, reluctant to give in to the heat and want in between, but when Sam’s right there, breathing in Dean’s breath, his taste, he’s not backing away. His lips give in beneath Sam’s, parting for him and his tongue that slips in, hungry but insecure, wanting more and everything that Dean’s got to offer, scared to ask for more than he’s willing to give at this moment. He tastes so good, so familiar.
Dean kisses back like he doesn’t really want to, like he just can’t help himself, just blindly follows Sam and what his own body is yearning for. It’s almost enough, though, the fact he’s not pushing Sam away instantly, that he’s not fighting him. The fact he’s there, with his body and mind, not watching the invisible, but seeing and feeling Sam in the existing reality, in present time.
8.02 - What's Up, Tiger Mommy?
1,976 words
Title from 30 Seconds to Mars
Loose sequel to All Nightmares Escaped My Head, Bar the Door, Please Don't Let Them In (8.01)
Teaser: Half the time you don’t know if you’re hunting a monster or a tree. Or just the rustle of wind. Sometimes it’s like you’re hunting yourself. Your own shadow from the day before…
Running a hand through his hair mindlessly, Sam sits down on the edge of his bed, old wood and squeaky springs, soft mattress, slept on too many times. The sheets are washed out chocolate brown with green twigs of fern growth, matching the tone of the room, a hunter, forest style. Nothing special or comfortable, nothing that would even remotely feel of home or comfort, just a harbor for the night. One of many on the long road to nowhere. Offhandedly, Sam tests the floor beneath his feet with the tip of his boot, light, foot-worn timbers that creak under the pressure, hoping, probably to no avail, that Dean would choose the bed over this tonight.
Sam sighs and glances towards the window that looks out to the parking lot, almost empty except a few cars that had seen better days, long time ago, except the Impala, dark and glistening, polished, and Dean leaning against her side. Looking tired as ever, and guilty as hell. Pretty much like every other minute, his whole life.
When he was gone, she was Sam’s, but hardly really his. The only tangible remembrance of his brother he had, something that was Dean as much as their father, a fine, fragile but unbreakable connection to their past and all that used to be. Sitting behind the wheel, it was almost easy to imagine Dean beside him, wounded so bad he couldn’t drive, or just asleep, too tired to fight for the keys. Sam listened to the same music he hated as a kid and a teenager, sang along to Dean’s favorite songs, in places where Dean used to sing, not deliberately, just unable to stop himself. Laughing when he would realize he was, and crying when no one made fun of him for that.
This Dean doesn’t sing along, he also never laughs, just fakes a smile, replaces it with a painful, twisted grimace. There was just that one smile, the first one, saying, I can’t believe I’m really here and I can’t believe you’re alive. And even that one went bitter in a matter of several heartbeats and a couple of wrong replies.
The dusk has fallen, light gray merging into a bluish violet shade of evening that colors the gravel path to blue, gives Dean’s face and bare forearms a strange touch of ultramarine. There’s that look in his eyes again, the vacant expression that implies so much and says absolutely nothing, gives more questions than answers. It’s like sitting in the cinema and watching all the commercials and trailers before the paid movie, and knowing that the actual movie will in fact never come. And it’s tiring.
Whatever Sam does, he feels like he’s failing, day by day, again and again. Like he can’t reach far enough to touch Dean, speak loud enough to be heard through the cacophony of violence and shrieks in his head. That though he tries, he’s powerless, not understanding, not knowing, missing so much, too much of what’s supposed to be seen, understandable. He’s afraid that Dean has finally fallen too hard and too far to be pulled back, saved. There’s that silent something in each of his movements and words, the unspoken horror Sam doesn’t want to know, but can’t help wondering. There’s Castiel, someone Dean had been relying on so strongly, never fully admitting how much he really liked that guy, the angel, who got lost somewhere between Dean’s way in and his way out. Dean doesn’t talk about him, winces when anyone else brings out his name, and Sam’s terrified that there’s more, something worse, so bad Dean can’t do otherwise than push it down, so damn low it disappears and stops being true.
•
„Tell me, Dean. Tell me what happened. You said Cas didn’t make it, but you make it sound like it was your fault.“
„What if it was?“
„And was it?“
There’s never a real response to that part of Sam’s question.
•
Dean doesn’t move, doesn’t even stir, when Sam steps closer, walking slowly and carefully like he’s approaching a runaway colt, knowing too well what kind of reaction fast, unexpected movements can bring. Dean’s got nightmares, wild and vivid, which is hardly surprising, but they’re not limited to nights only, or to the rare moments when he’s actually asleep. He has tendencies to black out, freeze, really, remembering and reliving whatever had happened to him down there, attacking anything and anyone that comes near him when he’s not prepared. Sam has learnt, the hard way, to not move too quickly or unforeseen, never walk through the darkened room without turning at least the bedside lamp on. Two times, he was nearly stabbed, strangled, one time, he almost had his throat sliced. Dean is dangerous, to others, to himself. He’s like a soldier, home at last after years in hell, a time bomb seconds from detonation.
Sam leans against the car and shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans, copying Dean’s posture. “What he said,” he starts, quiet, unsure. “Dean, what he wrote, it’s not true. None of that was your fault.”
Dean’s voice is rough like he spent the last few hours screaming. Or crying. But can this Dean even cry? Or is he broken for good? “So killing Tiger Mommy would have been alright?”
“Not quite. No, that’s… not what I’m saying.”
But really, how many innocent people they had killed on their way to Kevin’s mom alone? Some of them were undoubtedly husbands, and parents, too. A bunch of harmless men and women that had done nothing wrong, nothing but being in the wrong place, in the wrong time. The only difference between them and Mrs. Tran was that they knew her name. And son. But if killing her meant killing the arrogant and rotten prick Crowley, making the world safer, maybe spilling her blood would have been worth it. She’s already damned anyway.
“So what is it you’re saying?” Dean asks, putting the question in a way that’s random, normal, like he doesn’t really care what Sam’s answer will be.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself is what I’m saying. We’re doing what we can.”
Dean’s look, for the first time truly aimed at Sam, is sharp, narrowed and demanding. “And since when is that enough?”
Sam doesn’t reply, not knowing what to say, unwillingly validating Dean’s theory, and Dean bites his lip thoughtfully, jerking his head in that, ‘Yeah, that’s what I thought’ gesture of his. Sighing, he turns around to rest his hands on the roof of his car, watching the sun setting down in front of him.
There’s not much left of it now, just a narrow stripe of red and orange, even thinner line of yellowish white above that, and the darkness that grows over it all, swallowing the last glimmers of light inch by inch.
“The sun doesn’t set,” Dean says, his eyes focused ahead, an unusual hint of astonishment in them, like he’s seeing it for the first time, in a new, wholly different way.
“What?”
“The sun… it doesn’t set. There. Doesn’t set. Doesn’t rise. It could be a night, or a dawn, a freaking noon and you wouldn’t know. A whole year in one endless day. There’s no sun, really, just some… kind of light. Dimmed. Consistent. It’s… a lot like hell. Just without fire. And meat hooks.” His tone is so even, so emotionless it’s almost flat, just the quietness of his voice and the whisper of terror behind his words uncover the real dread of what he’s really saying. The fact he actually can compare these two places, purgatory and hell, skipping heaven that doesn’t even feel like it anyway, is only one more proof that shows how fucked up their lives truly are. “Half the time you don’t know if you’re hunting a monster or a tree. Or just the rustle of wind. Sometimes it’s like you’re hunting yourself. Your own shadow from the day before… It’s not a place for angels.”
“Or humans,” Sam wants to add, but doesn’t. He shakes his head, once again lost for words. ‘I’m sorry’, however honest, is so poor in this case, so insufficient it sounds almost like a mockery. Hesitantly, he puts his hand on the small of Dean’s back, above the waistband of his jeans, just a light touch, putting no pressure. Leaning in, he presses his lips to Dean’s shoulder, breathing in his scent and the warmth of his skin that seeps through the thin cotton of his T-shirt.
Tilting his head to the side slightly, Dean lifts his eyes up to Sam’s, giving him a sad, regretful look that is so full of no and don’t that a butter knife sliding through Sam’s chest to carve out his heart would undoubtedly hurt less.
“It’s so easy to forget,” Sam notes, disappointed and unable to hide it. It’s not a question, just something between a sigh and a resigned statement.
“No. But it’s easier than trying to remember how to be the guy you knew. And wanted.”
The pure Dean, almost innocent. Not tainted with purgatory or hell, from before. Before sold souls and death wishes. Before Lisa and Ben, Jessica. Before Stanford. The same before that seems to be a million of light years away.
There were moments in between, rare, temporary but sweet, but there was also Lucifer, knowing, judging, laughing. Turning the only safe and stable thing Sam, they both had, into something stained and sick, disgusting. Sam didn’t let Dean close, couldn’t, unable to tell the difference, distinguish his real, loving brother from the psyched Lucy version of him. They didn’t really get it back, the original, genuine relationship they used to have. It wasn’t about the physical bound, though it was there, undoubtedly, it was loving someone who understood, who knew. Who got that silence didn’t mean rejection but quite the opposite. Dean was never good with words, never believed he was, but his body knew how to speak, how to say everything, his hands, his lips, his eyes. The eyes that used to say, I love you and now say, I can’t. And I don’t know if that can be fixed.
Putting his palm gently on Dean’s cheek, unshaved and bruised, Sam turns Dean’s face to him, running his thumb over the full, pliant flesh of Dean’s lower lip. It’s dry under his touch, warm and a little chapped. “I still want you,” he tells him. “That’s never gonna change.”
Everyone, all the girls in between were just a patch, a substitution. No one was Dean, so good and wrong. No one had the same tempting taste of dark and forbidden. Rebellious.
For a second, a moment so brief that when it’s gone Sam’s no longer sure it actually happened, Dean looks like he’s smiling.
Sam kisses him then, moving closer slowly enough to give Dean the chance to stop him, dares him to stop him, but he doesn’t. He looks determined to do so, reluctant to give in to the heat and want in between, but when Sam’s right there, breathing in Dean’s breath, his taste, he’s not backing away. His lips give in beneath Sam’s, parting for him and his tongue that slips in, hungry but insecure, wanting more and everything that Dean’s got to offer, scared to ask for more than he’s willing to give at this moment. He tastes so good, so familiar.
Dean kisses back like he doesn’t really want to, like he just can’t help himself, just blindly follows Sam and what his own body is yearning for. It’s almost enough, though, the fact he’s not pushing Sam away instantly, that he’s not fighting him. The fact he’s there, with his body and mind, not watching the invisible, but seeing and feeling Sam in the existing reality, in present time.