spn-j2-xmas fic: The Inheritance of Loss (Sam/Dean, Michael!Dean)
Title: The Inheritance of Loss
Recipient: Cassiopeia7
Pairing/Characters: Sam/Dean, Michael
Word count: 1,287
Rating: PG
Warnings: Michael!Dean, angst
Summary: A meeting at the Botanical Garden.
AO3
It’s been exactly eleven days since Dean’s been gone when Sam gets a call from his brother’s phone. It’s four minutes past midnight on the night before Christmas.
Sam answers the phone, knowing it won’t be Dean on the other end of the line. Knowing he’ll hear Dean’s voice.
-
The meeting place he’s been summoned to is the Botanical Garden in Cleveland. He wonders-dully, somewhere at the back of his fogged-up mind-how Michael knows. Then he decides he doesn’t care. There isn’t much he cares about these days aside from his single-minded determination to get Dean back. Everything else is on the outside, like beams of sunlight bouncing off frosted glass. (Inside, there’s just him and memories. Inside, his brain is too crowded, claustrophobic.)
He’s sitting on a bench when Michael finds him. (It’s the same bench where, eternities ago, Dean had bought him a chocolate-drizzled mango ice cream cone and watched him eat it, grinning indulgently.)
‘You must be exhausted. Driving all day with barely a break,’ Michael observes.
Sam lifts a shoulder. ‘I’ve been worse.’
‘Sammy,’ Michael says with a chuckle, and it’s Dean’s voice, warm and rich; Dean’s smile, tiny laugh-lines rippling from the corners of his eyes; Dean’s shoulders, filling out a white dress shirt and a dark coat. Sam looks up and meets Dean’s eyes, greenly bright even in the shadowed interior of the Garden, as though reflecting the recreated forest.
‘It’s good to see you.’ Dean’s fingertips brush the tops of Sam’s shoulders. Michael leans down and kisses Sam’s cheek, lips brushing the corner of Sam’s mouth.
‘What’re you doing?’ Sam asks, not really interested in the answer.
‘Saying hello,’ Dean’s voice says. Michael sits down next to Sam and crosses one leg over the other, all easy grace. He taps Dean’s right temple. ‘Interesting, the things one sees in someone else’s head.’
‘I expect you’ve seen worse,’ Sam says, dry.
Michael lets out another laugh, low and pleased. Dean’s hand descends on Sam’s shoulder again, warm and heavy. It moves gently, caressing Sam’s back, gliding up under his hair, fingertips massaging his scalp lightly. ‘I know how much you like it when I do this,’ Dean’s voice murmurs.
Sam’s eyes remain open, gazing at the dark trees all around them. (There’s a memory of sunlight there, warm and golden, splintering into tiny rainbows where it meets the glass ceiling high above, invisible to everyone who isn’t looking up. Sam remembers looking up, his fourteen-year-old eyes desperately trying not to remain fixed on Dean: Dean, whose sunshine-golden hair was making Sam despair, whose jacket was demanding to be snuggled against, terrifying Sam. He hadn’t told Dean; he hadn’t found the words yet, wouldn’t try to find them for another two years.)
‘He’s thinking about it too,’ Michael says.
‘Now you’re clairvoyant, too?’ Sam tilts his head away, and Dean’s fingers slip from his hair.
‘Stubborn and resilient. The Winchester way.’ Sam isn’t looking at Dean’s face, but he can hear the smile in his voice. ‘I like it.’
There are things to say, of course. Obvious things, such as What do you want? and Let my brother go or I’ll hunt you down and kill you slowly or Please, please, let him go, I’ll do anything, anything you want.
Sam doesn’t say any of them. (There’s an echo of voices in his head. Dean, eighteen and beautiful and taller than Sam could ever hope to be: Dean, smiling sungod-like and making inappropriate horticultural jokes and teasing Sam endlessly about being turned on by plants. Sam, shoving at Dean to make him stop, horrifying himself at the secret thrill he felt every time his fingers brushed against Dean's sunlight-warm jacket. The secret, ever-present voice in Sam’s head told him how Dean would hate him if he could look inside Sam’s mind, see the longing there.)
Michael sighs, a quiet sound in the near-silence of the night around them, leaves rustling in an invisible breeze. ‘I was expecting more of a fight.’
Sam half-turns his body toward Dean’s, Dean’s profile outlined in shadows beside him. ‘Not much of a fair fight,’ he says, deliberately ambiguous.
It’s blessedly quiet for a minute. Then Michael says, soft, amused, ‘Aren’t we a sorry pair of bastards. You wishing I were your brother, I wishing you were mine.’
‘Well, yours is dead. Mine killed him.’
‘With a little help from you, I recall.’
‘Glad to be of service.’
‘How does it feel, Sam? To be one half of a whole, floundering helplessly in the dark?’
‘You wouldn’t know.’
‘No. No, I wouldn’t. But I have a front-row seat to your dear brother’s memories.’ He taps his head again, as though Sam needs reminding.
‘You think you know us,’ Sam says, conversational.
‘You think I don’t?’ Michael’s amused again. Dean’s hand closes the gap between their bodies, knuckles moving lightly across Sam’s jawline, trailing to his cheekbone: a gesture Sam knows by heart, hard-wired into his sense memory and into Dean’s.
‘My brother.’ Dean’s thumb, lightly callused, traces the shadows under Sam’s eye. ‘My brother’s vessel. We were meant to be, Sam. Even you can’t keep us apart.’
‘I’m here, aren’t I.’
‘You came here to die,’ Michael observes. His fingertip moves around the shell of Sam’s ear, and Sam feels warm breath against his skin. Dean’s mouth is pressed to the side of his head. ‘Not your time, little brother.’
The words are soft, pressing bleakly into Sam’s hair and nestling there. Dean’s arm is strong around Sam’s shoulders. The other moves to Sam’s front, and he’s fenced in, the circle of Dean’s arms around him.
Sam smiles into the darkness. Loss is a blanket around him, warm and soft.
(‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,’ Dean said when they were walking back to the car. He was laughing almost uncontrollably, his gaze fixed on the dark spill of melted ice cream staining Sam’s shirt, his jeans. He’d held his ice cream cone too long, wanting it to last, and the pointy end had become hopelessly soggy, dribbling melted goo all down his front while Sam, oblivious, had been looking at the flora and fauna. Dean hadn’t let up with the orgasm jokes all the way back.)
‘You’re miles away,’ Michael murmurs, squeezing Sam’s body lightly with Dean’s arms. ‘I need you here, Sam. I need you fighting fit.’
Sam turns to him. He fits perfectly into Dean’s arms, always has. Dean’s eyes are shuttered, archangel-glazed. Sam remembers what it’s like to be behind the shutters. ’I’m here,’ he says. ‘I’m right here.’
Dean’s mouth smiles at him. Kisses him. Dean’s fingers curl into his hair, tongue mapping Sam’s mouth leisurely in a well-remembered pattern, no hurry, no hurry at all. Dean’s hands move to Sam’s throat, thumbs pressing into soft skin.
The kiss breaks. Dean’s hands tighten. ‘It would be easy,’ Dean’s voice murmurs. ‘So easy.’ Sam knows Michael isn’t talking to him. He wouldn’t be able to reply even if Michael was, with Dean’s hands cutting off his breath.
Michael releases his hold slowly before he stands. Sam takes in small breaths of air, almost imperceptible in the darkness.
‘We’ll meet again. Soon.’ Dean’s fingers push into Sam’s hair, combing through it for one last caress. ‘Don’t be a stranger, now.’
Michael walks away, confident and unimaginative, shiny boots clacking against the cobbled floor.
(Twenty-two years ago, Dean’s still on the bench next to Sam, leaning in to take a huge bite of ice cream from the dripping cone in Sam’s hand; a quick swallow and it’s gone, Dean’s mouth, chocolate-and-mango-flavored and sunlight-drenched, smiling at Sam.)
Sam smiles into the darkness. Loss is a shield around him, thick and sweet as molasses.
Recipient: Cassiopeia7
Pairing/Characters: Sam/Dean, Michael
Word count: 1,287
Rating: PG
Warnings: Michael!Dean, angst
Summary: A meeting at the Botanical Garden.
AO3
It’s been exactly eleven days since Dean’s been gone when Sam gets a call from his brother’s phone. It’s four minutes past midnight on the night before Christmas.
Sam answers the phone, knowing it won’t be Dean on the other end of the line. Knowing he’ll hear Dean’s voice.
-
The meeting place he’s been summoned to is the Botanical Garden in Cleveland. He wonders-dully, somewhere at the back of his fogged-up mind-how Michael knows. Then he decides he doesn’t care. There isn’t much he cares about these days aside from his single-minded determination to get Dean back. Everything else is on the outside, like beams of sunlight bouncing off frosted glass. (Inside, there’s just him and memories. Inside, his brain is too crowded, claustrophobic.)
He’s sitting on a bench when Michael finds him. (It’s the same bench where, eternities ago, Dean had bought him a chocolate-drizzled mango ice cream cone and watched him eat it, grinning indulgently.)
‘You must be exhausted. Driving all day with barely a break,’ Michael observes.
Sam lifts a shoulder. ‘I’ve been worse.’
‘Sammy,’ Michael says with a chuckle, and it’s Dean’s voice, warm and rich; Dean’s smile, tiny laugh-lines rippling from the corners of his eyes; Dean’s shoulders, filling out a white dress shirt and a dark coat. Sam looks up and meets Dean’s eyes, greenly bright even in the shadowed interior of the Garden, as though reflecting the recreated forest.
‘It’s good to see you.’ Dean’s fingertips brush the tops of Sam’s shoulders. Michael leans down and kisses Sam’s cheek, lips brushing the corner of Sam’s mouth.
‘What’re you doing?’ Sam asks, not really interested in the answer.
‘Saying hello,’ Dean’s voice says. Michael sits down next to Sam and crosses one leg over the other, all easy grace. He taps Dean’s right temple. ‘Interesting, the things one sees in someone else’s head.’
‘I expect you’ve seen worse,’ Sam says, dry.
Michael lets out another laugh, low and pleased. Dean’s hand descends on Sam’s shoulder again, warm and heavy. It moves gently, caressing Sam’s back, gliding up under his hair, fingertips massaging his scalp lightly. ‘I know how much you like it when I do this,’ Dean’s voice murmurs.
Sam’s eyes remain open, gazing at the dark trees all around them. (There’s a memory of sunlight there, warm and golden, splintering into tiny rainbows where it meets the glass ceiling high above, invisible to everyone who isn’t looking up. Sam remembers looking up, his fourteen-year-old eyes desperately trying not to remain fixed on Dean: Dean, whose sunshine-golden hair was making Sam despair, whose jacket was demanding to be snuggled against, terrifying Sam. He hadn’t told Dean; he hadn’t found the words yet, wouldn’t try to find them for another two years.)
‘He’s thinking about it too,’ Michael says.
‘Now you’re clairvoyant, too?’ Sam tilts his head away, and Dean’s fingers slip from his hair.
‘Stubborn and resilient. The Winchester way.’ Sam isn’t looking at Dean’s face, but he can hear the smile in his voice. ‘I like it.’
There are things to say, of course. Obvious things, such as What do you want? and Let my brother go or I’ll hunt you down and kill you slowly or Please, please, let him go, I’ll do anything, anything you want.
Sam doesn’t say any of them. (There’s an echo of voices in his head. Dean, eighteen and beautiful and taller than Sam could ever hope to be: Dean, smiling sungod-like and making inappropriate horticultural jokes and teasing Sam endlessly about being turned on by plants. Sam, shoving at Dean to make him stop, horrifying himself at the secret thrill he felt every time his fingers brushed against Dean's sunlight-warm jacket. The secret, ever-present voice in Sam’s head told him how Dean would hate him if he could look inside Sam’s mind, see the longing there.)
Michael sighs, a quiet sound in the near-silence of the night around them, leaves rustling in an invisible breeze. ‘I was expecting more of a fight.’
Sam half-turns his body toward Dean’s, Dean’s profile outlined in shadows beside him. ‘Not much of a fair fight,’ he says, deliberately ambiguous.
It’s blessedly quiet for a minute. Then Michael says, soft, amused, ‘Aren’t we a sorry pair of bastards. You wishing I were your brother, I wishing you were mine.’
‘Well, yours is dead. Mine killed him.’
‘With a little help from you, I recall.’
‘Glad to be of service.’
‘How does it feel, Sam? To be one half of a whole, floundering helplessly in the dark?’
‘You wouldn’t know.’
‘No. No, I wouldn’t. But I have a front-row seat to your dear brother’s memories.’ He taps his head again, as though Sam needs reminding.
‘You think you know us,’ Sam says, conversational.
‘You think I don’t?’ Michael’s amused again. Dean’s hand closes the gap between their bodies, knuckles moving lightly across Sam’s jawline, trailing to his cheekbone: a gesture Sam knows by heart, hard-wired into his sense memory and into Dean’s.
‘My brother.’ Dean’s thumb, lightly callused, traces the shadows under Sam’s eye. ‘My brother’s vessel. We were meant to be, Sam. Even you can’t keep us apart.’
‘I’m here, aren’t I.’
‘You came here to die,’ Michael observes. His fingertip moves around the shell of Sam’s ear, and Sam feels warm breath against his skin. Dean’s mouth is pressed to the side of his head. ‘Not your time, little brother.’
The words are soft, pressing bleakly into Sam’s hair and nestling there. Dean’s arm is strong around Sam’s shoulders. The other moves to Sam’s front, and he’s fenced in, the circle of Dean’s arms around him.
Sam smiles into the darkness. Loss is a blanket around him, warm and soft.
(‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,’ Dean said when they were walking back to the car. He was laughing almost uncontrollably, his gaze fixed on the dark spill of melted ice cream staining Sam’s shirt, his jeans. He’d held his ice cream cone too long, wanting it to last, and the pointy end had become hopelessly soggy, dribbling melted goo all down his front while Sam, oblivious, had been looking at the flora and fauna. Dean hadn’t let up with the orgasm jokes all the way back.)
‘You’re miles away,’ Michael murmurs, squeezing Sam’s body lightly with Dean’s arms. ‘I need you here, Sam. I need you fighting fit.’
Sam turns to him. He fits perfectly into Dean’s arms, always has. Dean’s eyes are shuttered, archangel-glazed. Sam remembers what it’s like to be behind the shutters. ’I’m here,’ he says. ‘I’m right here.’
Dean’s mouth smiles at him. Kisses him. Dean’s fingers curl into his hair, tongue mapping Sam’s mouth leisurely in a well-remembered pattern, no hurry, no hurry at all. Dean’s hands move to Sam’s throat, thumbs pressing into soft skin.
The kiss breaks. Dean’s hands tighten. ‘It would be easy,’ Dean’s voice murmurs. ‘So easy.’ Sam knows Michael isn’t talking to him. He wouldn’t be able to reply even if Michael was, with Dean’s hands cutting off his breath.
Michael releases his hold slowly before he stands. Sam takes in small breaths of air, almost imperceptible in the darkness.
‘We’ll meet again. Soon.’ Dean’s fingers push into Sam’s hair, combing through it for one last caress. ‘Don’t be a stranger, now.’
Michael walks away, confident and unimaginative, shiny boots clacking against the cobbled floor.
(Twenty-two years ago, Dean’s still on the bench next to Sam, leaning in to take a huge bite of ice cream from the dripping cone in Sam’s hand; a quick swallow and it’s gone, Dean’s mouth, chocolate-and-mango-flavored and sunlight-drenched, smiling at Sam.)
Sam smiles into the darkness. Loss is a shield around him, thick and sweet as molasses.