.0038 - Watching You
Dean & Sam (Wee!Chesters)
1,817 words
Teaser: "It looks like you. It acts like you. But you... You feel differently, Dean."
Groaning sleepily, Dean shifts in the bed, making it squeal quietly under his weight. The sheets rustle softly as they slip from his shoulder, exposing his bare skin to the chilly air coming through the chinks in the window. The light of the streetlamp forces its way behind his eyelids as he rests onto his side, causing his eyelashes to flutter.
He's drawn from the sleep with an elusive feeling that something isn't quite the way it should be. A feeling that makes him hold his breath, listening to the dead silence of their room and the lazy, sleepy murmur of the city behind the hotel door.
His hand sneaks beneath the crumpled pillow under his head even before he thinks about moving and his fingers close around the cold metal of his gun. There's nothing supernatural in the darkness around him, he's sure of that, but something odd is and he knows it doesn't need to be big to cause big troubles.
Opening his eyes at last, Dean rolls onto his back and then jerks, startled, his jaw stopping in the middle of a yawn. There's a shadow falling onto the wall beside him, and a silent, motionless figure sitting at the edge of his bed. Dean reaches out to the nightstand automatically, his hand searching blindly for the switch of the lamp, eyes frantically roaming the edges of the silhouette. Lights of a passing car move along the room then, illuminating the closed door and the old paintings on the opposite wall, making the shadows of Sam's books and toys sitting on the shelf sail alongside the walls. Finally the light reaches Dean's bed and puts a face to the spook that has stopped the stream of his unstopping nightmares. The face of his twelve years old brother. Letting out a heavy breath he didn't even realize he's been holding, Dean wipes the cold sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand and sits up, leaning his back against the metallic headboard. Shaking his head, amused by his own unreasonable fright, he turns the light on eventually.
"What are you doing, Sammy?" he asks, the sleep and tiredness mirroring in the roughness of his voice, as he tugs the gun safely behind his back and back under the pillow.
Sam shrugs, as if sitting awake at Godknowswhat time in the night and scaring the crap out of his big brother was as natural as the light of the moon falling onto the lake across the street.
Dean fights back another yawn and sighs heavily. He hasn't slept well for the last six nights and something's telling him that this night won't be any exception.
“I'm watching you,” Sam says simply.
Dean stops in the mid of scratching his eyebrow and opens his eyes wider in confusion. “Why are you watching me?
Sam curls his legs under himself to keep his bare feet warm and folds his arms across his chest. "To know it's really you."
Dean's faked smile freezes on his lips and he frowns. "What?" He gets onto his knees to wrap his blanket around Sam and looks into Sam's wide and obviously tired eyes, knowing that he should tell him to go back to sleep and promise to talk about this in the morning. But it's the very look in them that tells him that this will not wait, because it was already strong enough to awake the both of them. Feeling like Sam's eyes can all of a sudden see more than they should, like they are able to look into Dean's own and read the truth he's so desperately trying to hide, Dean pulls back and glances away.
“Of course it's me,” he replies, as calmly as he can manage. “Who else would be that?”
Sam tilts his head to the side, studying Dean's face intently in the dim light like if he's never seen it before. Like he's connecting the freckles on Dean's cheeks and nose to age-long constellations.
Despite the fact that he's used to this kind of stare, this time it makes Dean nervous. He scratches unwittingly at the deep, and suddenly unbearably itching, wound that spreads over seven inches long, from his thigh down to his knee, realizing his wrong step the second he can feel the first warm droplets of blood soaking through the thin cotton of his sweatpants. Luckily for him, the dark color of the fabric makes the red invisible even in the honey-colored light of the lamp. Sam doesn't know about the injury, and he doesn't need to know. He still naively believes that Dean is invulnerable, and who is Dean to ruin this conviction of his?
“I don't know,” Sam admits, his voice really unsure, his gaze still threatening to burn holes through Dean's skin. “It looks like you. It acts like you, but you...”
Sam's voice forces Dean to look back at his brother, and he notices how small he looks suddenly. His eyes are soft and confused, maybe even a little scared. He glances down at his hands curling nervously in his lap, then back at Dean. “... you feel differently, Dean.”
Sam's words make Dean even more confused. Make him feel guilty for the things he's seen and needs to hide, for pushing Sam away recently. For shutting him out.
“You don't laugh anymore,” Sam continues quietly. “You haven't smiled for a week. Not since the...” Sam pauses and Dean can clearly see as he's remembering the night when Dean returned from the hunt with dad. “Since that night.”
The very first hunt in Dean's life...
He had heard stories about the monsters waiting in the dark before. Heard from dad and from Bobby. Had read many stories and guides how to handle each one of them. But being a part of it, feeling the freshness of the forest, the nightly dew soaking his clothes, the heavy smell of his own fear and the reality when he stood face to face with the thing, was nothing he could have been prepared for. He didn't hesitate; his fingers worked as on autopilot, aiming, sending the evil back to Hell where it belonged, but something inside him changed, died that night along with the beast.
He's been naive thinking Sam wouldn't notice.
Dean wants to say it's gonna be okay. Wants to lie, even though Sam has already known about the supernatural for a few years. Wants to pretend, just for a while, that what he's seen, what he killed, was just a nightmare. He wants it so much that he's surprised when he opens his mouth and hears himself saying exactly that.
"I'm okay, Sammy." He's trying to assure Sam, assure himself, but his smile is barely there. "And this is still my old, bad me." His joke is flat, sounds stupid even to his own ears, but his plastered grin seems to be working on Sam. "I'll be okay."
"Really?" Sam asks suspiciously.
"Yes," Dean nods. "Really."
"You promise?"
Dean nods again, thankful that Sam doesn't push further, extraordinarily doesn't ask any more questions he's usually so full of. But maybe he's just too tired now and there will be another interrogation in the morning.
"I promise."
“Okay,” Sam smiles softly, obviously relaxing a bit. He turns his head to look to the other side of the room where his unmade bed is waiting. The sanitary white sheets feel cold even to Dean when he follows Sam's unsure gaze.
“You wanna sleep with me tonight?” he asks, already reading his answer of Sam's lit up face.
“Can I?” Sam asks, cheerfully, but sounding a little uncertain. They haven't slept curled into each other for a good few months.
“Yeah, but just for tonight. Okay?”
“Okay.” This time is Sam's smile real, finally, all dimples and sparkling eyes. He grabs the edges of the blanket and spreads his arms wide so he looks like a giant, tousled sparrow, and falls forward onto the bed, right beside Dean.
Dean can't help but smiles at that, shifting to the edge of the bed to give Sam and himself some space.
It's been a while since they slept in one bed, under one blanket, and Dean realizes that despite the fact that this is the most familiar gesture, because Sam was always curling up to Dean when he was scared of the world around, especially when dad was gone, suddenly it feels strange. And Dean knows exactly how long it is and why.
Sam might the smarter one, but he's still a kid, and Dean feels how visible the age difference between them is now. Some things Sam just doesn't understand, and some of them are difficult to explain. Some of them cannot be explained to Sam at all. Not yet.
Dean's body shivers when he remembers, the memory coming back to him nearly as vivid as the moment when it happened.
She was nearly fifteen, Dean was fifteen and ten months. Her lips tasted like a strawberry and her long, blond hair slipped through his fingers like water, smooth and smelling of peaches. She bit into his shoulder when he sunk into her, drowning in the feelings that have overflown him. His skin was burning, every cell in his body exploding like fireworks. The last remains of his childhood were taken away with the flow of their passion. He fell into an entirely new world and... in love. But the next day dad ordered to pack their things and Dean never got a chance to say more than the, 'Goodbye', that he'd written on a piece of paper torn out of Sam's notepad and stuck under the flowerpot at the front step of her house. Who knows if the wind that was extremely strong at the time didn't take it away just like Dean from her life.
So yeah, Dean has changed, and it can't be blamed only on the hunt.
Sam shifts closer to Dean, breaking the distance that Dean has put between them, and ducks his head under Dean's chin. He lets out a heavy sigh against Dean's collarbone and places a small warm hand on his stomach. "G'night, Dean," he mumbles, already falling asleep.
Dean's fingers stroke Sam's soft hair, sweeping it off his forehead. "Night, Sammy."
He turns off the light and looks up at the ceiling where the streetlight reflects the pattern of the faded curtain. He gives a slight sigh, shifting a little, then again, spending at least ten minutes waggling, trying to find the most comfortable position. Sam blindly follows and copies every movement of the warm, firm body beneath him, until the exhaustion takes over finally and Dean closes his eyes, falling asleep. Seeing no monsters and no blood in his dreams after a very long time.
1,817 words
Teaser: "It looks like you. It acts like you. But you... You feel differently, Dean."
Groaning sleepily, Dean shifts in the bed, making it squeal quietly under his weight. The sheets rustle softly as they slip from his shoulder, exposing his bare skin to the chilly air coming through the chinks in the window. The light of the streetlamp forces its way behind his eyelids as he rests onto his side, causing his eyelashes to flutter.
He's drawn from the sleep with an elusive feeling that something isn't quite the way it should be. A feeling that makes him hold his breath, listening to the dead silence of their room and the lazy, sleepy murmur of the city behind the hotel door.
His hand sneaks beneath the crumpled pillow under his head even before he thinks about moving and his fingers close around the cold metal of his gun. There's nothing supernatural in the darkness around him, he's sure of that, but something odd is and he knows it doesn't need to be big to cause big troubles.
Opening his eyes at last, Dean rolls onto his back and then jerks, startled, his jaw stopping in the middle of a yawn. There's a shadow falling onto the wall beside him, and a silent, motionless figure sitting at the edge of his bed. Dean reaches out to the nightstand automatically, his hand searching blindly for the switch of the lamp, eyes frantically roaming the edges of the silhouette. Lights of a passing car move along the room then, illuminating the closed door and the old paintings on the opposite wall, making the shadows of Sam's books and toys sitting on the shelf sail alongside the walls. Finally the light reaches Dean's bed and puts a face to the spook that has stopped the stream of his unstopping nightmares. The face of his twelve years old brother. Letting out a heavy breath he didn't even realize he's been holding, Dean wipes the cold sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand and sits up, leaning his back against the metallic headboard. Shaking his head, amused by his own unreasonable fright, he turns the light on eventually.
"What are you doing, Sammy?" he asks, the sleep and tiredness mirroring in the roughness of his voice, as he tugs the gun safely behind his back and back under the pillow.
Sam shrugs, as if sitting awake at Godknowswhat time in the night and scaring the crap out of his big brother was as natural as the light of the moon falling onto the lake across the street.
Dean fights back another yawn and sighs heavily. He hasn't slept well for the last six nights and something's telling him that this night won't be any exception.
“I'm watching you,” Sam says simply.
Dean stops in the mid of scratching his eyebrow and opens his eyes wider in confusion. “Why are you watching me?
Sam curls his legs under himself to keep his bare feet warm and folds his arms across his chest. "To know it's really you."
Dean's faked smile freezes on his lips and he frowns. "What?" He gets onto his knees to wrap his blanket around Sam and looks into Sam's wide and obviously tired eyes, knowing that he should tell him to go back to sleep and promise to talk about this in the morning. But it's the very look in them that tells him that this will not wait, because it was already strong enough to awake the both of them. Feeling like Sam's eyes can all of a sudden see more than they should, like they are able to look into Dean's own and read the truth he's so desperately trying to hide, Dean pulls back and glances away.
“Of course it's me,” he replies, as calmly as he can manage. “Who else would be that?”
Sam tilts his head to the side, studying Dean's face intently in the dim light like if he's never seen it before. Like he's connecting the freckles on Dean's cheeks and nose to age-long constellations.
Despite the fact that he's used to this kind of stare, this time it makes Dean nervous. He scratches unwittingly at the deep, and suddenly unbearably itching, wound that spreads over seven inches long, from his thigh down to his knee, realizing his wrong step the second he can feel the first warm droplets of blood soaking through the thin cotton of his sweatpants. Luckily for him, the dark color of the fabric makes the red invisible even in the honey-colored light of the lamp. Sam doesn't know about the injury, and he doesn't need to know. He still naively believes that Dean is invulnerable, and who is Dean to ruin this conviction of his?
“I don't know,” Sam admits, his voice really unsure, his gaze still threatening to burn holes through Dean's skin. “It looks like you. It acts like you, but you...”
Sam's voice forces Dean to look back at his brother, and he notices how small he looks suddenly. His eyes are soft and confused, maybe even a little scared. He glances down at his hands curling nervously in his lap, then back at Dean. “... you feel differently, Dean.”
Sam's words make Dean even more confused. Make him feel guilty for the things he's seen and needs to hide, for pushing Sam away recently. For shutting him out.
“You don't laugh anymore,” Sam continues quietly. “You haven't smiled for a week. Not since the...” Sam pauses and Dean can clearly see as he's remembering the night when Dean returned from the hunt with dad. “Since that night.”
The very first hunt in Dean's life...
He had heard stories about the monsters waiting in the dark before. Heard from dad and from Bobby. Had read many stories and guides how to handle each one of them. But being a part of it, feeling the freshness of the forest, the nightly dew soaking his clothes, the heavy smell of his own fear and the reality when he stood face to face with the thing, was nothing he could have been prepared for. He didn't hesitate; his fingers worked as on autopilot, aiming, sending the evil back to Hell where it belonged, but something inside him changed, died that night along with the beast.
He's been naive thinking Sam wouldn't notice.
Dean wants to say it's gonna be okay. Wants to lie, even though Sam has already known about the supernatural for a few years. Wants to pretend, just for a while, that what he's seen, what he killed, was just a nightmare. He wants it so much that he's surprised when he opens his mouth and hears himself saying exactly that.
"I'm okay, Sammy." He's trying to assure Sam, assure himself, but his smile is barely there. "And this is still my old, bad me." His joke is flat, sounds stupid even to his own ears, but his plastered grin seems to be working on Sam. "I'll be okay."
"Really?" Sam asks suspiciously.
"Yes," Dean nods. "Really."
"You promise?"
Dean nods again, thankful that Sam doesn't push further, extraordinarily doesn't ask any more questions he's usually so full of. But maybe he's just too tired now and there will be another interrogation in the morning.
"I promise."
“Okay,” Sam smiles softly, obviously relaxing a bit. He turns his head to look to the other side of the room where his unmade bed is waiting. The sanitary white sheets feel cold even to Dean when he follows Sam's unsure gaze.
“You wanna sleep with me tonight?” he asks, already reading his answer of Sam's lit up face.
“Can I?” Sam asks, cheerfully, but sounding a little uncertain. They haven't slept curled into each other for a good few months.
“Yeah, but just for tonight. Okay?”
“Okay.” This time is Sam's smile real, finally, all dimples and sparkling eyes. He grabs the edges of the blanket and spreads his arms wide so he looks like a giant, tousled sparrow, and falls forward onto the bed, right beside Dean.
Dean can't help but smiles at that, shifting to the edge of the bed to give Sam and himself some space.
It's been a while since they slept in one bed, under one blanket, and Dean realizes that despite the fact that this is the most familiar gesture, because Sam was always curling up to Dean when he was scared of the world around, especially when dad was gone, suddenly it feels strange. And Dean knows exactly how long it is and why.
Sam might the smarter one, but he's still a kid, and Dean feels how visible the age difference between them is now. Some things Sam just doesn't understand, and some of them are difficult to explain. Some of them cannot be explained to Sam at all. Not yet.
Dean's body shivers when he remembers, the memory coming back to him nearly as vivid as the moment when it happened.
She was nearly fifteen, Dean was fifteen and ten months. Her lips tasted like a strawberry and her long, blond hair slipped through his fingers like water, smooth and smelling of peaches. She bit into his shoulder when he sunk into her, drowning in the feelings that have overflown him. His skin was burning, every cell in his body exploding like fireworks. The last remains of his childhood were taken away with the flow of their passion. He fell into an entirely new world and... in love. But the next day dad ordered to pack their things and Dean never got a chance to say more than the, 'Goodbye', that he'd written on a piece of paper torn out of Sam's notepad and stuck under the flowerpot at the front step of her house. Who knows if the wind that was extremely strong at the time didn't take it away just like Dean from her life.
So yeah, Dean has changed, and it can't be blamed only on the hunt.
Sam shifts closer to Dean, breaking the distance that Dean has put between them, and ducks his head under Dean's chin. He lets out a heavy sigh against Dean's collarbone and places a small warm hand on his stomach. "G'night, Dean," he mumbles, already falling asleep.
Dean's fingers stroke Sam's soft hair, sweeping it off his forehead. "Night, Sammy."
He turns off the light and looks up at the ceiling where the streetlight reflects the pattern of the faded curtain. He gives a slight sigh, shifting a little, then again, spending at least ten minutes waggling, trying to find the most comfortable position. Sam blindly follows and copies every movement of the warm, firm body beneath him, until the exhaustion takes over finally and Dean closes his eyes, falling asleep. Seeing no monsters and no blood in his dreams after a very long time.