fic: Put No Trust in the Morrow (SPN; Sam/Dean; pg)
Happy birthday to me!
Put No Trust in the Morrow
Supernatural; Sam/Dean; pg; vague spoilers through 5.07; 2,285 words
Seize the day; put no trust in the morrow.
Inspired by this a softer world comic. Which clearly makes it angelgazing's fault. Thanks to her for handholding and cheerleading as I wrote.
~*~
Put No Trust in the Morrow
The motel room reeks of smoke. There are pale brown streaks of nicotine on the faded green walls, and though the sign outside promised cable, only three channels come in clearly, and only one of those is in English (Fox News, of course; sometimes, it feels like the universe itself is punishing them).
"There's no hot water," Sam says, frowning, as he comes out of the bathroom.
They stay, because they've got nowhere else to go, and Dean's been driving for sixteen hours. His eyes feel like they're made of sand, and his ass is tingling with pins and needles, because it fell asleep about two hours ago and, much like the rest of him when he actually used to sleep, isn't happy being woken up.
It's not the first time they've slept in all their grave-digging, corpse-burning grime, but Dean is chilly from wind and rain and can't face a cold shower at the moment. He drops his duffel, takes off his boots, and flops face down onto the crappy polyester comforter. It smells like cheap floral room freshener and cigarette smoke. Since he smells like he's been rolling around in a forty-year-old grave, he figures it's a wash.
Sometimes, Dean thinks it would be easier if the world had ended when Lucifer was set free.
He's asleep before Sam can bitch about the accommodations, and he sleeps for four hours straight before the pressure in his bladder wakes him up. For once, he can't remember his nightmares. These days, that counts as a good night.
Sam is sacked out on the other bed, sheets kicked to the floor, the long lines of his body pale in the brief gleam of headlights from the parking lot. The sight makes something tighten in Dean's gut, something he'd like to pretend doesn't exist. Sometimes, when Sam's like this, Dean can fool himself, can look at him and pretend he's not Sam, not someone he's known his whole life. Like that would make it okay.
There was a time Dean would have crawled into bed beside Sam and pulled the covers up over both of them, making a nest of the warm darkness. He can't remember the last time they slept like that. They'd stopped it long before Sam left the first time, and Dean's not going to start it again, not now, not like this. There was a time Dean would have picked up the covers and tucked them around Sam without hesitation, but now he stands there for a second, wondering if he should even get that close, his whole body tense with something he refuses to recognize, let alone name.
Sam rolls over, rubs at his eyes. "Dean? What time is it?"
"Three-thirty." The weird tension broken, Dean picks the blanket and comforter up off the floor, drapes them over Sam. "Go back to sleep, Sammy."
Sam's eyes flutter shut and he grabs at the blankets, and he looks exactly the way he did when he was six. "M'kay."
After he takes a piss, Dean climbs back into his own bed. The sheets have cooled off a little, but now they smell like an unholy combination of smoke, grave-dirt, and body odor. Dean thinks longingly of the flask tucked into his jacket pocket and wishes for once that he had psychic powers of his own. He sighs and rolls onto his belly. He'll get up and get it in a minute.
He wakes up to weak sunlight streaming through the flimsy nicotine-stained curtains and the smell of strong coffee wafting through the air.
Sam's sitting at the table, eating an egg sandwich. His hair is wet and pushed back off his forehead, and there are purple smudges under his eyes, but when he gives Dean a little half smile and nods his chin at the cup of coffee waiting on the table, Dean feels a rush of warmth in his chest. This is what he missed when they were apart--longer than that, even. Since he came back from hell. They still have shit to work out, but mornings like this make him think they can do it. If the world doesn't end first. Mornings like this make him wish he believed he could stop it.
He drinks half the cup in one long swallow, even though it burns the roof of his mouth, and catches Sam watching him with a curious light in his eyes. Dean can't put a name to it, though; he finishes the rest of his coffee before he can form a full sentence, and even that comes out mostly in grunts.
"What's next?"
Sam shrugs. "We've got our choice of demonic omens, so I say we head south, avoid the snow."
"South of the border?"
Another shrug. "If you want."
Dean thinks about it--he's been to Mexico a few times over the years, but never with Sam. He thinks about the sun and the old stucco buildings and the dust in the air. He takes a bite of the greasy sandwich Sam hands him and lets himself imagine what that would be like for the minute or two it takes him to chew and swallow. It's the most tempting thing he's heard in forever, and he's about to say they should go for it when his phone rings.
"Hey, Bobby."
"Jeb Wilkins could use some help out in Little Rock if you boys are up for it."
Dean does the calculations in his head. "We could probably be there in ten hours, if we don't hit a lot of traffic."
"I'll tell him to expect you." Bobby hangs up.
Sam raises his eyebrows. "Where?"
"Little Rock." Dean shrugs a shoulder. "At least it's south?"
Sam gives a little huff of laughter and gets up to start packing. "Yeah."
*
The thing with Jeb Wilkins isn't a complete clusterfuck--they do save a family of four, and anytime Dean gets to light up the corpse of something evil, he considers it a good thing, even these days when nothing seems to bring him any joy.
Two hundred miles away from the burnt remains of a werewolf, they buy a sack full of whoppers from the BK drive-through, and a couple of sixpacks and a bottle of Cuervo to celebrate. They don't bother with salt or limes, just pass the bottle back and forth between them, washing the tequila down with swigs of beer and stupidly large mouthfuls of cold and greasy French fries.
Dean finds himself staring at Sam's mouth, the way his pink lips wrap around the bottle, the way his Adam's apple bobs when he swallows. He's so engrossed that his hand knocks into the bottle when Sam hands it to him and tequila spills onto the rumpled sheets, the smell rising sharp and earthy between them.
Sam practically falls off the bed laughing. "Dude, I am not sleeping in the wet spot," he says, his voice cracking as he laughs, each word loud and precise in the way he gets when he's drunk and he's trying to hide it.
Dean's drunker than he thought he was, because his mind immediately conjures up half a dozen ways they could end up with a wet spot between them, and none of them involve spilling their drinks. He blinks rapidly and shakes his head to clear it, because this is Sam, not some chick he picked up at the bar.
"What?" he says, scandalized at the direction his thoughts are taking, and again, "What?"
"You spilled the tequila," Sam says, laughing more quietly now. Dean can't remember the last time Sam laughed like that. He can't quite find the humor in this situation, though. "You should see the look on your face."
Dean does the only thing he can think of, and shoves Sam off the bed. Sam hits the floor with a thump and a surprised "Ow!"
Dean pastes a smirk on his face, leans over and says, "Not laughing so hard now, are you, Sammy?"
Sam's mouth twitches, and Dean waits for the patented Sam Winchester bitchface, but instead, Sam starts laughing again. Then he scrambles up onto the other bed and raises his arms over his head, bouncing in some kind of weird victory dance.
"I've got the dry bed," he says.
"I've got the tequila," Dean answers, raising the bottle to his lips before he says something he'll regret.
Sam shrugs and flops back against the pillows. He closes his eyes and five minutes later, he rolls over and goes to sleep.
After a long swig he hopes will wash away the weird feelings he's having, Dean caps the bottle of tequila and decides to do his drinking at bars from now on, alone.
*
He puts that plan into action a handful of times over the next month or so. They don't really have time, money, or energy for him to go out boozing, but he manages once in a while, goes out and gets shitfaced in places with Skynyrd on the jukebox and peanut shells on the floor, the kind of places Sam hates, or pretends to, anyway, though they always used to have a good time, back before things got so fucked up.
After the thing with the man-witch, Dean just wants to enjoy being young again. He still feels the weight of everything bearing down on him, but at least it's not complicated by arthritis and sciatica. They do a salt and burn a few days later, and Dean doesn't complain (much) about digging, because he feels good, as good as he's felt in a while.
Back at the motel room, he takes a quick shower, spikes up his hair, and says, "I'm heading out. Don't wait up." There's a barstool with his name on it somewhere in this town, and he plans to find it and drink until he falls off of it.
Sam frowns, the way he always does these days, and heaves a heavy sigh.
He does it on purpose, the little bastard, because he knows Dean can't not ask him, "What's wrong?"
Sam shakes his head. "I just--I thought things were getting better. I know it's hard, and that things won't ever be the way they were, but it feels like you can't even stand to be in the same room with me anymore. I wish I could fix that."
Dean pinches the bridge of his nose and sucks in a deep breath and lets it out slowly and noisily. "Sam. Sam. It's not--Things are better." It's not exactly a lie--things are better, or they're not worse, anyway, and at this point, Dean's willing to call that a win. "It's not that. It's not you. I just--"
Sam laughs, but there's nothing happy in the sound. "Seriously, Dean? You're going to stand there and tell me, it's not you, it's me, with a straight face?" He gets up in Dean's face, and Dean can't help it--he flinches, takes a step back. Sam looks away, jaw jutting out the way it does when he's hurt or angry, and nods. "But it's not me."
"Not the way you think," Dean says, desperate not to have this fight, desperate for the flask in his jacket pocket.
"Right."
"Sam." Before he can think better of it, Dean curls his fingers in Sam's flannel and pulls him close. He presses his mouth to Sam's, and when Sam gasps in surprise, Dean slips him some tongue. He braces himself for the punch, but when Sam's hands come up, they don't shove him away. Instead, he feels Sam's big, warm palms cupping his face, holding him close while Sam tries to take control of the kiss. Like Dean's going to let that happen.
The kiss goes on long enough to make him breathless--and hard--and he pulls away, dazed, to catch his breath. "That's what I mean," he says, his voice rough and low.
Sam laughs again, and this time there's joy in it. "It's about time."
"What? Sam--What?"
Sam tugs him close and kisses him again, hungry and hard, and Dean sucks on his tongue, heat shivering down his spine and pooling in his belly. This time when they break apart, Sam says, "The world might end, Dean, but not because of this." He leans in and plants a kiss under Dean's ear, nips at the hinge of his jaw, his hands brushing through Dean's hair, squeezing the back of Dean's neck. Dean feels hot and cold and happy and freaked out all at the same time. Which is par for the course where Sam is concerned.
They stumble onto one of the beds and make out for a while. All Dean can do is repeat Sam's name like it's the only word he remembers while they kiss and grope.
When Sam tries to unzip his jeans, Dean slaps his hands away, though there's amusement in his voice when he says, "Dude, you're still being treated for the clap." He presses his forehead to Sam's, feels the sweat dampening Sam's hair, making it stick to his skin. He breathes Sam in, smiles at the sight of Sam's kiss-swollen, saliva-slick lips
Sam rolls onto his back and groans. "That is so fucking unfair. I'm not the one who's fucked his way across the country."
Dean snickers. "Ironic, isn't it?" He leans in and kisses Sam before Sam can start bitching about that damn song.
Because Sam is right--the world is probably going to end soon, and it's definitely their fault, but not because of this. This is the only thing that's going to make the next few months bearable, and Dean's going to hold onto it--onto Sam--with both hands.
end
~*~
Feedback is adored.
~*~
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/192318.html.
people have commented there.
Put No Trust in the Morrow
Supernatural; Sam/Dean; pg; vague spoilers through 5.07; 2,285 words
Seize the day; put no trust in the morrow.
Inspired by this a softer world comic. Which clearly makes it angelgazing's fault. Thanks to her for handholding and cheerleading as I wrote.
~*~
Put No Trust in the Morrow
The motel room reeks of smoke. There are pale brown streaks of nicotine on the faded green walls, and though the sign outside promised cable, only three channels come in clearly, and only one of those is in English (Fox News, of course; sometimes, it feels like the universe itself is punishing them).
"There's no hot water," Sam says, frowning, as he comes out of the bathroom.
They stay, because they've got nowhere else to go, and Dean's been driving for sixteen hours. His eyes feel like they're made of sand, and his ass is tingling with pins and needles, because it fell asleep about two hours ago and, much like the rest of him when he actually used to sleep, isn't happy being woken up.
It's not the first time they've slept in all their grave-digging, corpse-burning grime, but Dean is chilly from wind and rain and can't face a cold shower at the moment. He drops his duffel, takes off his boots, and flops face down onto the crappy polyester comforter. It smells like cheap floral room freshener and cigarette smoke. Since he smells like he's been rolling around in a forty-year-old grave, he figures it's a wash.
Sometimes, Dean thinks it would be easier if the world had ended when Lucifer was set free.
He's asleep before Sam can bitch about the accommodations, and he sleeps for four hours straight before the pressure in his bladder wakes him up. For once, he can't remember his nightmares. These days, that counts as a good night.
Sam is sacked out on the other bed, sheets kicked to the floor, the long lines of his body pale in the brief gleam of headlights from the parking lot. The sight makes something tighten in Dean's gut, something he'd like to pretend doesn't exist. Sometimes, when Sam's like this, Dean can fool himself, can look at him and pretend he's not Sam, not someone he's known his whole life. Like that would make it okay.
There was a time Dean would have crawled into bed beside Sam and pulled the covers up over both of them, making a nest of the warm darkness. He can't remember the last time they slept like that. They'd stopped it long before Sam left the first time, and Dean's not going to start it again, not now, not like this. There was a time Dean would have picked up the covers and tucked them around Sam without hesitation, but now he stands there for a second, wondering if he should even get that close, his whole body tense with something he refuses to recognize, let alone name.
Sam rolls over, rubs at his eyes. "Dean? What time is it?"
"Three-thirty." The weird tension broken, Dean picks the blanket and comforter up off the floor, drapes them over Sam. "Go back to sleep, Sammy."
Sam's eyes flutter shut and he grabs at the blankets, and he looks exactly the way he did when he was six. "M'kay."
After he takes a piss, Dean climbs back into his own bed. The sheets have cooled off a little, but now they smell like an unholy combination of smoke, grave-dirt, and body odor. Dean thinks longingly of the flask tucked into his jacket pocket and wishes for once that he had psychic powers of his own. He sighs and rolls onto his belly. He'll get up and get it in a minute.
He wakes up to weak sunlight streaming through the flimsy nicotine-stained curtains and the smell of strong coffee wafting through the air.
Sam's sitting at the table, eating an egg sandwich. His hair is wet and pushed back off his forehead, and there are purple smudges under his eyes, but when he gives Dean a little half smile and nods his chin at the cup of coffee waiting on the table, Dean feels a rush of warmth in his chest. This is what he missed when they were apart--longer than that, even. Since he came back from hell. They still have shit to work out, but mornings like this make him think they can do it. If the world doesn't end first. Mornings like this make him wish he believed he could stop it.
He drinks half the cup in one long swallow, even though it burns the roof of his mouth, and catches Sam watching him with a curious light in his eyes. Dean can't put a name to it, though; he finishes the rest of his coffee before he can form a full sentence, and even that comes out mostly in grunts.
"What's next?"
Sam shrugs. "We've got our choice of demonic omens, so I say we head south, avoid the snow."
"South of the border?"
Another shrug. "If you want."
Dean thinks about it--he's been to Mexico a few times over the years, but never with Sam. He thinks about the sun and the old stucco buildings and the dust in the air. He takes a bite of the greasy sandwich Sam hands him and lets himself imagine what that would be like for the minute or two it takes him to chew and swallow. It's the most tempting thing he's heard in forever, and he's about to say they should go for it when his phone rings.
"Hey, Bobby."
"Jeb Wilkins could use some help out in Little Rock if you boys are up for it."
Dean does the calculations in his head. "We could probably be there in ten hours, if we don't hit a lot of traffic."
"I'll tell him to expect you." Bobby hangs up.
Sam raises his eyebrows. "Where?"
"Little Rock." Dean shrugs a shoulder. "At least it's south?"
Sam gives a little huff of laughter and gets up to start packing. "Yeah."
*
The thing with Jeb Wilkins isn't a complete clusterfuck--they do save a family of four, and anytime Dean gets to light up the corpse of something evil, he considers it a good thing, even these days when nothing seems to bring him any joy.
Two hundred miles away from the burnt remains of a werewolf, they buy a sack full of whoppers from the BK drive-through, and a couple of sixpacks and a bottle of Cuervo to celebrate. They don't bother with salt or limes, just pass the bottle back and forth between them, washing the tequila down with swigs of beer and stupidly large mouthfuls of cold and greasy French fries.
Dean finds himself staring at Sam's mouth, the way his pink lips wrap around the bottle, the way his Adam's apple bobs when he swallows. He's so engrossed that his hand knocks into the bottle when Sam hands it to him and tequila spills onto the rumpled sheets, the smell rising sharp and earthy between them.
Sam practically falls off the bed laughing. "Dude, I am not sleeping in the wet spot," he says, his voice cracking as he laughs, each word loud and precise in the way he gets when he's drunk and he's trying to hide it.
Dean's drunker than he thought he was, because his mind immediately conjures up half a dozen ways they could end up with a wet spot between them, and none of them involve spilling their drinks. He blinks rapidly and shakes his head to clear it, because this is Sam, not some chick he picked up at the bar.
"What?" he says, scandalized at the direction his thoughts are taking, and again, "What?"
"You spilled the tequila," Sam says, laughing more quietly now. Dean can't remember the last time Sam laughed like that. He can't quite find the humor in this situation, though. "You should see the look on your face."
Dean does the only thing he can think of, and shoves Sam off the bed. Sam hits the floor with a thump and a surprised "Ow!"
Dean pastes a smirk on his face, leans over and says, "Not laughing so hard now, are you, Sammy?"
Sam's mouth twitches, and Dean waits for the patented Sam Winchester bitchface, but instead, Sam starts laughing again. Then he scrambles up onto the other bed and raises his arms over his head, bouncing in some kind of weird victory dance.
"I've got the dry bed," he says.
"I've got the tequila," Dean answers, raising the bottle to his lips before he says something he'll regret.
Sam shrugs and flops back against the pillows. He closes his eyes and five minutes later, he rolls over and goes to sleep.
After a long swig he hopes will wash away the weird feelings he's having, Dean caps the bottle of tequila and decides to do his drinking at bars from now on, alone.
*
He puts that plan into action a handful of times over the next month or so. They don't really have time, money, or energy for him to go out boozing, but he manages once in a while, goes out and gets shitfaced in places with Skynyrd on the jukebox and peanut shells on the floor, the kind of places Sam hates, or pretends to, anyway, though they always used to have a good time, back before things got so fucked up.
After the thing with the man-witch, Dean just wants to enjoy being young again. He still feels the weight of everything bearing down on him, but at least it's not complicated by arthritis and sciatica. They do a salt and burn a few days later, and Dean doesn't complain (much) about digging, because he feels good, as good as he's felt in a while.
Back at the motel room, he takes a quick shower, spikes up his hair, and says, "I'm heading out. Don't wait up." There's a barstool with his name on it somewhere in this town, and he plans to find it and drink until he falls off of it.
Sam frowns, the way he always does these days, and heaves a heavy sigh.
He does it on purpose, the little bastard, because he knows Dean can't not ask him, "What's wrong?"
Sam shakes his head. "I just--I thought things were getting better. I know it's hard, and that things won't ever be the way they were, but it feels like you can't even stand to be in the same room with me anymore. I wish I could fix that."
Dean pinches the bridge of his nose and sucks in a deep breath and lets it out slowly and noisily. "Sam. Sam. It's not--Things are better." It's not exactly a lie--things are better, or they're not worse, anyway, and at this point, Dean's willing to call that a win. "It's not that. It's not you. I just--"
Sam laughs, but there's nothing happy in the sound. "Seriously, Dean? You're going to stand there and tell me, it's not you, it's me, with a straight face?" He gets up in Dean's face, and Dean can't help it--he flinches, takes a step back. Sam looks away, jaw jutting out the way it does when he's hurt or angry, and nods. "But it's not me."
"Not the way you think," Dean says, desperate not to have this fight, desperate for the flask in his jacket pocket.
"Right."
"Sam." Before he can think better of it, Dean curls his fingers in Sam's flannel and pulls him close. He presses his mouth to Sam's, and when Sam gasps in surprise, Dean slips him some tongue. He braces himself for the punch, but when Sam's hands come up, they don't shove him away. Instead, he feels Sam's big, warm palms cupping his face, holding him close while Sam tries to take control of the kiss. Like Dean's going to let that happen.
The kiss goes on long enough to make him breathless--and hard--and he pulls away, dazed, to catch his breath. "That's what I mean," he says, his voice rough and low.
Sam laughs again, and this time there's joy in it. "It's about time."
"What? Sam--What?"
Sam tugs him close and kisses him again, hungry and hard, and Dean sucks on his tongue, heat shivering down his spine and pooling in his belly. This time when they break apart, Sam says, "The world might end, Dean, but not because of this." He leans in and plants a kiss under Dean's ear, nips at the hinge of his jaw, his hands brushing through Dean's hair, squeezing the back of Dean's neck. Dean feels hot and cold and happy and freaked out all at the same time. Which is par for the course where Sam is concerned.
They stumble onto one of the beds and make out for a while. All Dean can do is repeat Sam's name like it's the only word he remembers while they kiss and grope.
When Sam tries to unzip his jeans, Dean slaps his hands away, though there's amusement in his voice when he says, "Dude, you're still being treated for the clap." He presses his forehead to Sam's, feels the sweat dampening Sam's hair, making it stick to his skin. He breathes Sam in, smiles at the sight of Sam's kiss-swollen, saliva-slick lips
Sam rolls onto his back and groans. "That is so fucking unfair. I'm not the one who's fucked his way across the country."
Dean snickers. "Ironic, isn't it?" He leans in and kisses Sam before Sam can start bitching about that damn song.
Because Sam is right--the world is probably going to end soon, and it's definitely their fault, but not because of this. This is the only thing that's going to make the next few months bearable, and Dean's going to hold onto it--onto Sam--with both hands.
end
~*~
Feedback is adored.
~*~
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/192318.html.
people have commented there.