fic!
Title: Disposable Heroes
Author: mcee
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters: Sam & Dean.
Rating: R - not a pleasant story.
Word count: 2,233
Thanks: to ink_stain and sevenfists <3
Summary: The pain gets worse the farther east they go.
::
They're in Nevada when Sam sees Ohio.
It comes to him mid-sentence, like it does, crashing in between thoughts and forcing everything else out. Sam feels himself bend in two and reaches out for Dean, whose voice, loud and agitated, sounds distant, crackling like bad reception. By the time his knees buckle, there are hands trying to hold him up. But momentum wins out and Sam's in too much pain already to feel his head crack against the café table, then thud on the terrace pavement.
When he comes to they're halfway through Wyoming.
The light is grey but blinding through the windshield, the movement of the landscape nauseating. He feels stiff and sore from sleeping too long in the car, from tensing against the pain, even unconscious. "Goddamn," he groans, reaches up to grind the heel of a hand into an eye socket. He folds in on himself, uselessly, knees knocking against the door, into the glove box.
"Sam. Sam! You all right?" Dean's voice is deep the way it gets when he's trying not to freak out. He sounds like he's looking for a way to cut across three lanes of traffic to pull over.
"Yeah." Sam changes tack and digs thumb and forefinger into his eyelids; the pain throbs, shifting, shooting through his sinuses and drumming at his temples. Sam gags, tastes the pesto chicken he'd been eating two states ago. He licks his lips. "Ohio," Sam groans.
"Yeah, Ohio." From Dean's mouth, it sounds like he's insulting someone's mother. "You've been moaning about it since we left Ely. What's in Ohio?"
Sam wants to laugh at the idea of Dean doing ninety racing towards nowhere. The impulse, curbed just in time, pushes the pain back to the back of his skull, and Sam wishes there was room to put his head between his knees. "I have no idea."
Dean gesticulates expansively, annoyed. "Great."
Sam slaps both hands on the dashboard and rests his forehead against his forearms. They go another ten miles like this, Sam breathing long and deep like that ever helped, and Dean shifting in his seat pretending he doesn't have a laundry list of questions Sam can't answer.
It trickles back in bit by bit another fifty miles later, when he's eyeing the silhouette of the Medicine Bow Range, dark grey against an ashen sky. Sam squints at the mountains like they're the shape of the vision itself, clearer when he looks through his lashes. The sound of the tires on the damp asphalt is almost soothing in the absence of music.
"A shooting." His own voice grates at the dull throb behind his eyes, makes it flare up like a grease fire. He pushes fingertips against his forehead, the pressure allowing him momentarily release. "I can't see who it is," he continues on a shiver. His breath clouds the window with each syllable. "Or who shoots. But I can take us there."
Dean nods, eyes glued to the road, knuckles tight around the wheel. "All right, we can work with that." Sam wonders when Dean's annoyance with the vagueness of Sam's visions will outweigh his natural inclination to be nice to Sam when Sam's in pain.
Sam presses his forehead to the glass, lets the chill of it bite at his skin, the vibrations oddly soothing, until they're not. He thinks he feels Dean's hand hover for a breath over Sam's knee before settling on the stick shift.
Sam wakes up again when they pull into a gas station just outside of Laramie. He keeps his eyes closed and listens to the familiar sound of Dean tooling around behind the car, filling up and humming to himself. Disposable Heroes.
The pain gets worse the farther east they go, but Dean doesn't need to know. Sam excuses himself to find the bathroom at the back of the building, and barely makes it to the toilet before vomiting.
*
He hates these first-person-victim visions, especially the ones where the background graphics look like they've been drawn in crayon, the shapes vague and smearing into one another. Movement makes it worse, and he can barely make out the hand he/the victim shoots up in defense, a reflex that's little use when the bullet tears right through his belly, quick and easy and grotesque.
A gunshot wound to the stomach is one of the most agonizing ways to die. Sam would rather not have known this first-hand.
The thing looms over him, its form warped, indistinguishable. The pain, white-hot, feels almost distant; what he feels most acutely is the victim's sadness, paralyzing.
*
They make it as far as Nebraska before stopping for the night.
It's already past midnight when Dean goes to check in. Sam flinches at the creak of the door when he gets their bags from the backseat, and goes to stand by the office door. Dean leads them to a unit four doors down and leaves the lights off while Sam toes off his boots and curls up on the bed farthest from the door.
He hears Dean take off his coat and sit on the edge of the second bed. The tingle of Dean's gaze follows Sam's spine all the way to the back of his neck. Sam falls asleep, dreamless for now, arms wrapped around his middle.
*
He can lie to Dean as easy as Dean lies to him, and it's not that hard to claim the pain's gone but has left him drained, not hungry. Dean buys it, or wants to buy it enough to leave Sam alone.
When Sam wakes up it's afternoon and Dean's gone. He's left the drapes drawn shut and half the contents of his duffel spread on the opposite bed, amid sharpening stone and empty knife case and take-out containers. There are three empty styrofoam cups on the nightstand, stacked with their rims chewed, next to a full cup on Sam's side, the brew gone cold. Sam downs it, grateful for the bitter bite of diner coffee.
*
He expects the bullet this time, and it's hitting the floor that hurts most. He can't tell if it's ceiling or sky above him, but whoever he is is struggling to move, heels digging into the ground to face the looming figure, a Rorschach blot against the shifting landscape.
It should be menacing, should elicit hatred or fear, but Sam just stares at it until his eyes water. It feels like dying, from the inside out.
"Sam?"
*
Sam startles out of sleep at the sound of his name, legs twisting in the sheet when he turns to find Dean silhouetted against the late-afternoon light.
Dean's frowning. "Jesus. You're white as a sheet. You sure your head feels okay?"
Dean's fingers crawl along Sam's hairline, feeling out the bump where Sam's head connected with the table back in Nevada. Sam winces but the small, sharp pain, skin-deep, is almost comforting, pinning him to the here and now. Sam shrugs Dean off. "That hurts. Quit touching it."
Dean holds up his middle finger and asks, "How many fingers do you see?"
Sam squares his jaw at him but the effect is dampened by the swell of another headache, swallowing the pleasant tingle of the goose-egg on his forehead. Dean chuckles and the mattress dips when he sits by Sam's hip.
"There's nothing in the papers. The kids aren't talking. Whatever it is, it hasn't happened yet, and it isn't looking chatty." They've made it to Ohio, finally; Bowling Green, of all places. Sam hates college towns. Dean, predictably, loves them.
Sam ducks away from Dean's hand and presses his face into the flat pillow, blocking out the weak light. "Good." His own voice is muffled, but the sound of Dean's breathing is still crisp in his ear. "Wake me up when the forces of evil are astir."
*
"Sam? Sam!"
Sam tosses, expects to emerge from sleep to tell Dean to quiet the fuck down. But all he manages to do is dig his shoulder into the ground, hot blood coating his hands clamped down on his stomach. The pain is back, but he can't take his eyes off the figure advancing on him, familiar now. He can taste blood on his tongue, slick against the back of his teeth, thick and tasting of pennies.
"Dean?" He hears himself call, but Dean's back at the hotel, bored out of his mind flipping through papers and channels and take-out menus. Sam is suddenly very thankful for Dean's stubborn refusal to leave him alone.
"SAM!"
He wishes he'd stop yelling, though.
*
"Dude, you're freaking me out." After four nights of bedside vigil, Dean is beginning to look as shitty as Sam feels.
Sam feigns hunger and sends Dean to get him soup and hot tea. Once the room is quiet again Sam rolls over, tries to go back to sleep. Maybe one more go will give him the details they need.
He always thought Ohio was pretty, leafy. He never wants to see it again.
*
On the fifth day he wakes up feverish, angry.
He hoists himself out of bed, ignoring the pain in his skull, the nervous jitters in his limbs. Dean is gone, but his shit's everywhere: single-serving packets of chips, more coffee cups, worn shirts, magazines stolen from the motel office. Sam kicks at the crap that's on the floor, yanks the bedspread off Dean's bed, sending the stuff on it flying.
The tingle in his limbs pools between his shoulderblades, snakes down his spine. Sweat's making his shirt stick to his back, his armpits, makes his hair cling to his face, sting his eyes. It's hard to breathe; he can hear every huffed exhale like they're coming from across the room.
He upends Dean's duffel on the table, rummages through the contents, unhappy. He finds a stack of Dean's notes, useless, but can't find Dean's lighter to burn them. The bathroom only has a toothbrush on the lip of the sink, a tiny bottle of cheap shampoo on the edge of the tub next to a thin, newly unwrapped sliver of motel soap. The shower curtain hangs open, still a little damp. Sam flings it shut, ripping it half off its rings.
The tingle along his back slithers up his neck, kindles the headache then pushes it away, numbing it with something else. Sam knuckles his temple, squeezes his eyes shut.
It's not till he's stalked back into the room, eyes darting to every surface, that he notices the pain's gone, and realizes what he's looking for. It's not till he catches sight of himself in the mirror that he knows. He's looking for their dad's journal, but all he's found is Dean's Glock, weighing heavy in his hand.
He feels hot, only half-there, the walls and window and lamps and TV swirling around him to become indistinct splotches of muted color. The fury, unnamed and flaring, makes it hard to see, but he can hear with startling clarity the lock click, the doorknob turn. He can smell Dean through the door, cheap soap and gasoline and chicken noodle soup, peppermint tea.
Sam smiles but wants to cry when the door pushes inward, admitting Dean who sees the mess of the room before he sees Sam, facing him from across the room.
"Hey, you're up! How do you f--"
Dean stops, abruptly, his face falling. But this is the wrong angle, the wrong point of view. Dean raises his hand toward Sam, half warning half plea, but it's his own rising arms Sam sees, both hands clasped around the gun. His aim is perfect.
Dean was always quick, quicker than Sam if Sam were to be honest with himself, and the look of dawning comprehension on his face is worse than a headache, worse than cracking your face open on wrought iron, worse than being shot in the gut.
"Sam..."
It wants to be pleading but it comes out miserable. Sam wants to shake him out of it, kick into action, but the thing holding the gun on his brother smirks, twitching with fury.
"Where is the journal?" he hears himself growl, but it's not him, can't be, even though he feels the rumble of the words in his chest.
"In the car," Dean murmurs, and the hand that's held up is shaking. "In the trunk."
Sam's own smile hurts like a knife to the face.
He barely feels the kickback through his shoulder, but there's a faint echo of his dreams rippling through his body when Dean collapses, the shock on his face heartbreakingly familiar. The thing licks its lips at the dark crimson pouring out between Dean's fingers, staining his shirt in a widening pool. Sam feels the hot sting of tears, the sinking feeling of panic as he steps calmly over Dean's body, shaking off Dean's weak grab at his leg.
He hears Dean call after him, voice broken and wet, just as Sam closes the door behind him, turning to face the midday sun. It's been a while since Sam's seen the sun, and he closes his eyes to tilt his face to it. The hood of the car burns at his palm and he lets it for a moment, until there's no more panic, no more pain, only purpose.
Time to get out of Ohio. Head back west, maybe.