fic: A Proportional Response (Supernatural; Sam and Dean; pg)
Pursuant to my last post.
A Proportional Response
Supernatural; Sam and Dean; spoilers through 4.03; pg; 1,670 words
Sam's a lying lieface who lies. Dean's not having with that.
Written for the West Wing title project. Thanks to luzdeestrellas for looking it over. All errors are mine.
~*~
A Proportional Response
Dean knows he's being manipulated. He knows, on some level, that he should take a deep breath, calm down, and not freak the fuck out. But after everything he's just seen, after the threat Castiel's just made, he can't.
His hands are steady with the keys, on the wheel, though he's so wound up he feels like he should be shaking. He hasn't slept much since he's been back, and he's hyperaware of everything around him--the bright lights of other cars on the road, the shadows where the light doesn't reach, the heavy sound of his own breath in his ears like the slow beat of wings. And he can't think about that, about dying angels or the yellow-eyed demon, about anything right now but Sam, and whatever the hell he's up to that's got God's panties in a bunch.
He finds the place easily enough, sees lights flickering behind boarded up windows as he tests the door. He doesn't even think about stealth, about picking the locks and using a calm, reasonable tone. He kicks the door in and stops dead in his tracks at the scene playing out in front of him.
Sam's got his eyes screwed shut, one arm held out like a warning, hand clenched in a fist. The girl from the motel is standing behind him, arms crossed over her chest, mouth curved in a smile that seems familiar. There's a guy tied to a chair, belching oily black smoke like an eighteen-wheeler, like it's being forced out of him one puff at a time. The smoke sizzles and then dissipates around the feet of the formerly possessed guy, who slumps forward, unconscious, held up by the ropes tying him to the chair.
"What the fuck is going on here, Sam?"
Sam's eyes open wide, and Dean huffs in relief when he sees no tinge of yellow, no flat black or blood red in them. "Dean?"
Dean moves in closer, gives Sam a quick once-over to make sure he's not injured. "What the hell, Sam?"
"Sam--" The girl steps forward and puts a hand on Sam's arm, and it all clicks into place.
"Hello, Ruby." He slides the demon-killing knife from its sheath. "Give me one reason I shouldn't gank you right now."
"Because I said so," Sam says, shaking Ruby's hand off, chin coming up in a challenge. "Ruby, go. We'll talk later."
Dean's lips draw back in a snarl as she melts away into the shadows, but he knows she's not the real problem. He'll deal with her later. He puts the knife away.
Sam moves over to check on the poor schmuck he just exorcised, and Dean can see some of the tension leave his shoulders when he realizes the guy is still alive.
Dean follows him, is right up in his space when he straightens and turns around. "Answer my question, Sam. What happened to, 'no, Dean, I'm not using my freaky psychic powers. It was practically your dying wish'?"
"I knew you would react like this." Sam's voice is edged with a familiar irritated (irritating) whine, one Dean used to hear all the time when Sam was a teenager, and his jaw is set defiantly.
Dean sucks in a shocked (guilty) breath. "So it's my fault?"
Sam looks away. "Dean--"
"No, Sam, seriously, what the hell is going on in that giant head of yours?"
"You were gone, Dean. You were dead." Sam takes a step towards him, no space between them now--he's close enough to smell stale coffee on Sam's breath when he speaks--and Dean prefers it that way, even if he has to tip his head back to meet Sam's gaze, the ginormous bastard. "And I tried everything--everything--I could think of to get you back." His fingers curl into Dean's shirt and he yanks on the material like he wants to shake some sense into Dean, like Dean's the one who's gone around the bend. "What made you think everything wouldn't include this?" Sam's voice is deep and loud and angry, and Dean wonders if it could blow out the glass in the windows, make his eardrums bleed, and that scares him more than anything.
"You stupid son of a bitch."
Dean follows up the insult with his fist, hits Sam's face pretty solidly, if the stinging in his knuckles is anything to go by. He doesn't have time to focus on that, though, because Sam's fist crashes pretty hard into his face a second later, and then they're going at it, punching and kicking and fighting in a way they haven't in a long time. Both of them are muttering insults and curses, and a couple minutes into it, Dean's got a gross mix of sweat and blood (both his and Sam's) in his eyes and his mouth, his knuckles are scraped raw, and his left eye is already starting to swell shut.
Sam knocks him down first, but Dean returns the favor with a sweeping leg kick, rolling away before Sam can land on top of him. He tries to get up but Sam yanks him back down, long fingers wrapped around his ankle, his knee, and they roll around on the cold concrete floor for a bit, neither of them able to get any kind of good hit in, both reduced to pinching and scratching and hair-pulling, like when they were kids, before Dad's training was second nature. Sam's arms and legs are like giant freaking squid tentacles, though, and he flips them over easily, kneeing Dean in the ribs and knocking the wind out of him in the process. Dean hates that Sam's big enough to manhandle him, hates that he still secretly worries more about hurting Sam than beating him, even now.
By the time Sam's got him pinned, Dean's not even sure what he's saying anymore--some combination of Sam and please that he wishes didn't sound so much like begging.
"Come on, Dean, don't be like that." Sam's hair is plastered to his forehead and he's dripping sweat and blood all over the place, his lower lip split and swollen and a bruise already purpling on his jaw, but he's wearing that kicked puppy look that never fails to make Dean feel, well, like he's just kicked a puppy. "I was gonna tell you. Please don't be mad."
"You were gonna tell me?" Dean wants to believe him.
Sam leans back, a huge weight sitting on Dean's belly, and nods. "I was just trying to figure out how."
"Here's a clue, Sammy: not like this." He reaches up, digs his fingers into Sam's ribs, tickling now instead of pinching, and Sam yelps and rolls off of him, settling on the floor by his side. They lie there for a couple of minutes, until their breathing evens out and what's left of Dean's anger has drained away.
He levers himself up off the floor, offers a hand to Sam, who takes it and holds it just a little longer than he needs to, swings his other arm up to drape over Dean's shoulders and squeeze, a half-hug Dean allows because he's still a little freaked out himself.
"How'd you find me?" Sam finally asks.
"Castiel told me." Dean thinks of the threat hanging over them and pushes it aside for the moment. Now that he knows what Sam's up to, he can figure out how to stop it from spiraling out of control. "Dude, you missed out. He did this whole Back to the Future thing with me, and showed me Mom and Dad when they were dating."
"Really?"
"Really." They untie the unconscious guy and Dean uses the guy's phone to call 911. As they walk back to the car he says, "Dad was kind of a dork, so I guess we know where you get that from, but Mom was hot."
Sam laughs, surprisingly not freaked out by these revelations. "Please tell me you didn't..." he pauses, as if searching for the right words, "do anything weird or wrong."
Dean shakes his head, shoves down the image of his possessed grandfather making out with his mother. "We're still here, aren't we?" He unlocks Sam's door first and continues on his way around the front of the car. "Anyway, she was hot, and she was a hunter."
"No shit?"
"Cross my heart, man. You should've seen her. She was badass." They settle comfortably into the front seat, and Sam looks so young and happy that Dean hesitates for a second, thinks about not telling him the rest of it. He grabs some napkins out of the glove compartment and tries to clean the blood off his face, and says, "And the yellow-eyed demon was there. Azazel."
"She knew him," Sam says softly. "He showed me--he showed me that night, the night she died."
Well, that explains why Sam's not freaking. He's already had the demonic version of the experience.
Dean's hands curl into fists again, and he can't quite manage to keep the anger out of his voice when he says, "The night he bled into your mouth?" Sam starts and opens his mouth, but Dean keeps talking before he can say anything. "How long have you known about that, Sam? What else aren't you telling me?" Sam shifts, touches his fingertips to his mouth, and it's got to hurt, but they can take care of that back at the motel. Dean doesn't want to change the subject while he's got Sam in a sharing mood. "Huh?"
"I'll tell you everything, Dean, I promise. But can we go back to the motel, please? I don't want to be here when the cops find that guy."
"Okay, good point, but you are not weaseling out of this, Sam. I want to know everything." He pulls out, aims the car back towards the motel, and hopes his eye doesn't swell completely shut before they get there.
"Okay," Sam says. "Okay."
Dean plans to hold him to that promise.
end
~*~
Feedback is adored.
~*~
A Proportional Response
Supernatural; Sam and Dean; spoilers through 4.03; pg; 1,670 words
Sam's a lying lieface who lies. Dean's not having with that.
Written for the West Wing title project. Thanks to luzdeestrellas for looking it over. All errors are mine.
~*~
A Proportional Response
Dean knows he's being manipulated. He knows, on some level, that he should take a deep breath, calm down, and not freak the fuck out. But after everything he's just seen, after the threat Castiel's just made, he can't.
His hands are steady with the keys, on the wheel, though he's so wound up he feels like he should be shaking. He hasn't slept much since he's been back, and he's hyperaware of everything around him--the bright lights of other cars on the road, the shadows where the light doesn't reach, the heavy sound of his own breath in his ears like the slow beat of wings. And he can't think about that, about dying angels or the yellow-eyed demon, about anything right now but Sam, and whatever the hell he's up to that's got God's panties in a bunch.
He finds the place easily enough, sees lights flickering behind boarded up windows as he tests the door. He doesn't even think about stealth, about picking the locks and using a calm, reasonable tone. He kicks the door in and stops dead in his tracks at the scene playing out in front of him.
Sam's got his eyes screwed shut, one arm held out like a warning, hand clenched in a fist. The girl from the motel is standing behind him, arms crossed over her chest, mouth curved in a smile that seems familiar. There's a guy tied to a chair, belching oily black smoke like an eighteen-wheeler, like it's being forced out of him one puff at a time. The smoke sizzles and then dissipates around the feet of the formerly possessed guy, who slumps forward, unconscious, held up by the ropes tying him to the chair.
"What the fuck is going on here, Sam?"
Sam's eyes open wide, and Dean huffs in relief when he sees no tinge of yellow, no flat black or blood red in them. "Dean?"
Dean moves in closer, gives Sam a quick once-over to make sure he's not injured. "What the hell, Sam?"
"Sam--" The girl steps forward and puts a hand on Sam's arm, and it all clicks into place.
"Hello, Ruby." He slides the demon-killing knife from its sheath. "Give me one reason I shouldn't gank you right now."
"Because I said so," Sam says, shaking Ruby's hand off, chin coming up in a challenge. "Ruby, go. We'll talk later."
Dean's lips draw back in a snarl as she melts away into the shadows, but he knows she's not the real problem. He'll deal with her later. He puts the knife away.
Sam moves over to check on the poor schmuck he just exorcised, and Dean can see some of the tension leave his shoulders when he realizes the guy is still alive.
Dean follows him, is right up in his space when he straightens and turns around. "Answer my question, Sam. What happened to, 'no, Dean, I'm not using my freaky psychic powers. It was practically your dying wish'?"
"I knew you would react like this." Sam's voice is edged with a familiar irritated (irritating) whine, one Dean used to hear all the time when Sam was a teenager, and his jaw is set defiantly.
Dean sucks in a shocked (guilty) breath. "So it's my fault?"
Sam looks away. "Dean--"
"No, Sam, seriously, what the hell is going on in that giant head of yours?"
"You were gone, Dean. You were dead." Sam takes a step towards him, no space between them now--he's close enough to smell stale coffee on Sam's breath when he speaks--and Dean prefers it that way, even if he has to tip his head back to meet Sam's gaze, the ginormous bastard. "And I tried everything--everything--I could think of to get you back." His fingers curl into Dean's shirt and he yanks on the material like he wants to shake some sense into Dean, like Dean's the one who's gone around the bend. "What made you think everything wouldn't include this?" Sam's voice is deep and loud and angry, and Dean wonders if it could blow out the glass in the windows, make his eardrums bleed, and that scares him more than anything.
"You stupid son of a bitch."
Dean follows up the insult with his fist, hits Sam's face pretty solidly, if the stinging in his knuckles is anything to go by. He doesn't have time to focus on that, though, because Sam's fist crashes pretty hard into his face a second later, and then they're going at it, punching and kicking and fighting in a way they haven't in a long time. Both of them are muttering insults and curses, and a couple minutes into it, Dean's got a gross mix of sweat and blood (both his and Sam's) in his eyes and his mouth, his knuckles are scraped raw, and his left eye is already starting to swell shut.
Sam knocks him down first, but Dean returns the favor with a sweeping leg kick, rolling away before Sam can land on top of him. He tries to get up but Sam yanks him back down, long fingers wrapped around his ankle, his knee, and they roll around on the cold concrete floor for a bit, neither of them able to get any kind of good hit in, both reduced to pinching and scratching and hair-pulling, like when they were kids, before Dad's training was second nature. Sam's arms and legs are like giant freaking squid tentacles, though, and he flips them over easily, kneeing Dean in the ribs and knocking the wind out of him in the process. Dean hates that Sam's big enough to manhandle him, hates that he still secretly worries more about hurting Sam than beating him, even now.
By the time Sam's got him pinned, Dean's not even sure what he's saying anymore--some combination of Sam and please that he wishes didn't sound so much like begging.
"Come on, Dean, don't be like that." Sam's hair is plastered to his forehead and he's dripping sweat and blood all over the place, his lower lip split and swollen and a bruise already purpling on his jaw, but he's wearing that kicked puppy look that never fails to make Dean feel, well, like he's just kicked a puppy. "I was gonna tell you. Please don't be mad."
"You were gonna tell me?" Dean wants to believe him.
Sam leans back, a huge weight sitting on Dean's belly, and nods. "I was just trying to figure out how."
"Here's a clue, Sammy: not like this." He reaches up, digs his fingers into Sam's ribs, tickling now instead of pinching, and Sam yelps and rolls off of him, settling on the floor by his side. They lie there for a couple of minutes, until their breathing evens out and what's left of Dean's anger has drained away.
He levers himself up off the floor, offers a hand to Sam, who takes it and holds it just a little longer than he needs to, swings his other arm up to drape over Dean's shoulders and squeeze, a half-hug Dean allows because he's still a little freaked out himself.
"How'd you find me?" Sam finally asks.
"Castiel told me." Dean thinks of the threat hanging over them and pushes it aside for the moment. Now that he knows what Sam's up to, he can figure out how to stop it from spiraling out of control. "Dude, you missed out. He did this whole Back to the Future thing with me, and showed me Mom and Dad when they were dating."
"Really?"
"Really." They untie the unconscious guy and Dean uses the guy's phone to call 911. As they walk back to the car he says, "Dad was kind of a dork, so I guess we know where you get that from, but Mom was hot."
Sam laughs, surprisingly not freaked out by these revelations. "Please tell me you didn't..." he pauses, as if searching for the right words, "do anything weird or wrong."
Dean shakes his head, shoves down the image of his possessed grandfather making out with his mother. "We're still here, aren't we?" He unlocks Sam's door first and continues on his way around the front of the car. "Anyway, she was hot, and she was a hunter."
"No shit?"
"Cross my heart, man. You should've seen her. She was badass." They settle comfortably into the front seat, and Sam looks so young and happy that Dean hesitates for a second, thinks about not telling him the rest of it. He grabs some napkins out of the glove compartment and tries to clean the blood off his face, and says, "And the yellow-eyed demon was there. Azazel."
"She knew him," Sam says softly. "He showed me--he showed me that night, the night she died."
Well, that explains why Sam's not freaking. He's already had the demonic version of the experience.
Dean's hands curl into fists again, and he can't quite manage to keep the anger out of his voice when he says, "The night he bled into your mouth?" Sam starts and opens his mouth, but Dean keeps talking before he can say anything. "How long have you known about that, Sam? What else aren't you telling me?" Sam shifts, touches his fingertips to his mouth, and it's got to hurt, but they can take care of that back at the motel. Dean doesn't want to change the subject while he's got Sam in a sharing mood. "Huh?"
"I'll tell you everything, Dean, I promise. But can we go back to the motel, please? I don't want to be here when the cops find that guy."
"Okay, good point, but you are not weaseling out of this, Sam. I want to know everything." He pulls out, aims the car back towards the motel, and hopes his eye doesn't swell completely shut before they get there.
"Okay," Sam says. "Okay."
Dean plans to hold him to that promise.
end
~*~
Feedback is adored.
~*~