FIC: This Is How the World Doesn't End
Title: This Is How the World Doesn't End
Rating: PG-13, for language (!)
Words: 3500
Characters: Sam, Dean
Spoilers: Up to and including season 5, vague
Summary: Dean and Sam save the world. After that, life gets hard.
Author's Note 1: Written for 42footprints for the likes "emotional connection, sense of scale, importance of their lives." I hope this hits some of your spots, dear!
Author's Note 2: First ever gen!fic. I DID IT! I wrote something that wasn't porn!
Acknowledgments: Big thanks to dugindeep and zoemathemata for the beta and MUCH hand holding, as well as maerhys for being her usual awesome self.
The world doesn’t end. The earth is not scorched, and humanity is not made extinct.
Dean doesn’t bend over for an angel. Neither does Sam. There was a blaze of glory, but no Winchesters went down in it.
The circle is complete, and the cycle will start again - Lucifer in Hell’s cage, Michael in Heaven’s, destiny written on two brothers’ genes.
Someone’s, but not theirs. They have Winchester DNA, stubborn and wilful and loyal, and apparently rebellious. Destiny can fuck off.
*
It’s takes avoiding an Apocalypse and collecting an entirely new set of scars, but Dean decides it’s time to settle. Not settle down, mind. Just find a place a little more stationary than the Impala to call home. A place to rest, to collect the detritus of their lives, to put their shit while they figure it out. A place like Bobby’s, with a garage for Baby and a space to put Sam’s books.
Together, he and Sam pick Missouri. Somewhere in the middle.
*
They stopped the end close to the beginning, but there are lingering effects of the near-Apocalypse - a continued economic downturn, a noticeable spike in violent crime, and the resurgence of several epidemic diseases. Most nights he feels guilty about the deaths he knows are on him and Sam, the ones that very few people realize are a lot more than just a run of bad luck for the world. Most days he’s grateful it wasn’t worse. Days and nights, he’s eager for his brain to cram all of it in cold storage, just get the whole damn thing put away so he can start thinking and feeling bad about something else. Until that happens, Dean pretends he’s already there.
It works, unless Sam is in the same room. Then, it’s all guilt, shame, self-doubt, and self-recrimination, all the time, like when they do those marathons of the Star Trek movies on SyFy, except way less fun.
Sometimes Dean can’t take it anymore and blows up. Goddamn it, Sam! I know we started it and how many times we fucked up royally and how it’s all our fault, but we ended it, too! You think maybe you could give us a break? Sam just looks at him, shakes his head, and retreats to somewhere he can mope in private. Dean feels like shit for hours after, and it sucks, because his speeches don’t seem to do any good.
Sam never fucking shuts up about it, even when his mouth is closed.
*
The reminder of what they did to stop Lucifer is scrawled across their bodies, matching raised lines of filigree that start at their collarbones, curlicue along their sides and down their legs, onto their feet. Red and angry at first, dark like blood, now faded to the pink of new, raw skin.
The remainder of it is written on their souls, bound together and through with metaphysical chain.
It doesn’t bother Dean as much as it could, and definitely not as much as it should. It was always like this for him - Sam in his head, Sam in his space, Sam, Sam, Sam, forever and ever, amen. When Castiel found the ritual, it was easy for Dean to decide that it always would be.
He expected it to be a harder choice for Sam, but he said yes so quickly that Dean still doesn’t know who spoke first. Their voices overlaid like echoes.
*
The only thing they can afford with their complete lack of credit and nonexistent down payment is an ancient, run-down farmhouse on the edge of the town-limits that needs a lot of repairs, but it’s still cheaper than rent, and it’s theirs. Which is just weird; Dean hasn’t owned much in his life other than the tools of his trade, his clothes, his car, and his brother. Now he has these papers in his hand that say he has a freaking house.
He can handle the responsibility but the idea of domestic permanence is still freaky in a wanna-try-something-different way that’s kind of tingly, like when a naked girl proposes something really naughty and grins and blushes at the same time.
Sam looks at him sideways, with a tic in his jaw that says Dean’s thoughts have maybe come through a little more clearly than either of them would like.
Because of incidents like this one, and an unfortunate sharing of Dean’s special shower time, they frequently argue over who is sicker in the head.
Dean’s louder and more creative with his insults, but Sam is probably right.
*
The world didn’t end, but you take the bad with the good, and there are still just as many monsters and angry spirits and various creepy crawlies as there ever were.
Dean and Sam do their best, but it’s not like it was before. They aren’t like they were before.
Dean works at the local auto repair shop doing about a billion oil changes a day and the occasional engine repair while Sam mans the register at a sporting goods store, selling guns to people who will probably never aim them at anything more threatening than an empty beer can and knives to folks whose main concern is whether the blade is thin enough to filet fish.
They go on hunts occasionally, when they get word that something needs to be hunted. It’s so easy, so smooth, so fucking exhilarating with Sam like an extension of his own body and mind and vice versa. But Dean doesn’t crave it like he used to; he’s got other things to live for now, other obligations and other ways to help people. So they kill what they can and come back to the house in Missouri to fucking lay flooring or install double paned windows or some such shit.
Most of the money they make goes into the house, starting with necessary structural improvements and the acquisition of basic furniture - they live on nothing but mattresses and two camping chairs for their first two pay checks - and graduating to cosmetic repairs and non-essential household items like a kitchen table that Sam found in an antique store two townships over. Dean made fun of him for weeks - antiquing, Sam, really? - but he loves the wood grain and the way it feels solid, like only old things can.
They’re getting good at home repair, which is insane. Sam spends almost as much time at Home Depot as he does at the local library. Dean just watches a lot of Holmes on Homes, and he feels that his tile-laying technique, as well as his grout-work, is much better than what Sam learns at the elbow of some pimply faced kid being paid minimum wage to teach people how to hold a trowel properly.
Dean can barely believe he knows what a fucking notched trowel is, much less that he can use one.
They cook more than they eat out, and take turns doing it. Sam likes Dean’s chicken casserole and Dean likes Sam’s roast beef, and neither one of them is willing to give up the other’s specialty dinners.
They spend entirely too much time with one another, playing cards and doing chores and watching old movies. It feels better when they’re close in physical proximity, deep contentment that hums in their bones. Neither of them dates, and neither of them develops any close friendships, though they have a group of guys they play poker with on Tuesdays at the Veteran’s Hall. It’s probably not healthy or whatever, but Dean never gave a shit about healthy or normal; he knows he’s fucked up, but he knows what he likes, and enjoys what he has, and doesn’t question why or what that might mean. To Dean, it’s just good.
They settle into a routine, into domestic habits and preferences, into chatting with the clerk at the grocery store and discussing cars with the postmaster, into the workweek and the weekends. Into having a home.
Probably, Dean shouldn’t be surprised he likes it so much, because he’s always enjoyed and been good at taking care of things, maintenance and attention and care, but he is.
Sam isn’t. The little bastard is a smug know-it-all.
“You love it,” Sam says, and Dean doesn’t bother denying it. Sam would know he’s lying.
Just like Dean knows Sam’s lying when he says the nightmares have stopped.
At least now when they lie to each other - and they still do, in spite of the futility of it, because most of the time lies are for ourselves as much as other people - there aren’t any messy confessions or paranoid suspicions or bruised knuckles.
There aren’t any worlds ending or angels falling.
The bond is a little invasive, but it’s not a bad thing. Besides, they’re used to invasive, when it comes to them.
*
It’s okay, Sam.
No, it’s not.
Dean’s confident Sam will get it, one day. He’s not the most patient guy in the world, though, so he tries to help his brother along with an incessant flow of assurance.
It’s okay, Sam. Really, it is. We’re okay.
*
Dean’s always had a fucked up sense of time; when they were hunting, it dragged on or sped by, always too much to kill or not enough to live. Now, it’s cyclical, concentric spirals of moments that make up everyday life, Sam in the center. One day bleeds into the next, months into a year and then some.
He doesn’t realize how long they’ve been at the farmhouse until one day he sees a few little gray hairs in Sam’s sideburns, noticeably contrasting with the dark brown. Dean checks himself the next night in the bathroom mirror, and is appalled to find a liberal sprinkling of gray disguised by the natural lightness of his hair.
Holy shit. They’re getting old.
Sam’s booming laugh carries up the stairs.
Dean can’t stop smiling because they’re getting old, and Sam’s laughing.
*
In December, they go to Louisiana on a hunt that looks like a simple salt and burn. Winter in the Deep South is just as exceptional as every other thing about it, so the ground isn’t too cold for digging. Sam’s in the hole while Dean’s up top taking a breather when the spirit shows up, gray skin hanging in flaps from its cheeks and bloody furrows on its bare torso. Dean scrabbles for the shotgun, but it’s too late and if he’s honest with himself, too slow. He flies through the air until his motion is stopped by a large angel-shaped headstone with outspread wings and tears etched into its stone face.
Fucking figures.
The scent of lighter fluid is sharp in his nostrils and the dim glow of fire lights up the blood vessels in his eyelids as he comes to. Sam is crouching over him, brow furrowed and mouth a thin line, his giant paw pressed hard against Dean’s chest, covering his heart.
“I’m fine,” Dean says automatically. Sam grips his hand, hauls him to his feet and predictably, starts bitching at him for being careless and sloppy but Dean tunes it out because he’d be doing the same thing, channelling his worry into something more Winchester-acceptable.
He lets Sam drive. Dean figures that serves as an apology and makes up for it at once.
Dean can’t feel his lower body on the way home, but he doesn’t think about it so Sam won’t know. He’s not worried. All in all and like too many things in their fucked up lives, it could have been worse.
*
The next morning, Dean can barely move, never mind get out of bed. His muscles feel weak and his back throbs in a general, unfocused way, but he’s more alarmed by the shocky jerks and tingles in his legs. He covers his face in his hands - goddamn, this is embarrassing - and calls for Sam.
When Sam levers him up, Dean has to loop his arms around his brother’s neck because he can’t stand on his own. He gets a face full of coffee breath that almost makes him gag.
Dean opens his mouth to give him shit it or maybe barf, but Sam’s irises are stormy gray.
Sam and his goddamn mood eyes that Dean wrote the color guide for. Dean doesn’t need the bond to tell him Sam’s freaking the fuck out. He doesn’t say anything.
*
The doctor prescribes at least two weeks off work, with as much rest and as little movement as possible. Apparently Dean has a herniated disk that will correct itself as long as he doesn’t strain it in the meantime.
He’s so fucking old.
In the car on the way home, Dean looks at Sam under the guise of trying to get comfortable in the seat, gray in his sideburns and crow’s feet finally splitting the skin around his eyes.
Just-right old.
Dean doesn’t know if the thought is his or Sam’s.
*
There’s only so much daytime TV a man can take before he loses his mind. Dean welcomes the weekend, and therefore Sam, like a teenage girl with a crush and refuses to let Sam turn on any electronic device but the radio because he just can’t take anymore and because he wants to be the center of Sam’s attention.
They’re doing their best to play a game of rummy (Stop cheating! Stop broadcasting your cards so goddamn loud!), with Dean laying face down on the couch and Sam sitting cross-legged at the coffee table in Dean’s direct line of sight when the doorbell rings.
Sam’s eyebrow rises. Dean shrugs.
“I’ll get it,” Sam says. (Cause you’re a crippled old man.)
“Fuck you,” Dean replies. (Twice.)
Sam disappears into the foyer, and his surprise is yellow, sharp but happy. He comes back bearing a large red tin with a green lid, and Mrs. Anderson, the librarian.
“Mrs. Anderson heard you were a big wimp, and she brought cookies,” Sam says with a smile and a little bewilderment.
Dean smells cinnamon when Sam opens the lid to reveal gingerbread cookies, details of eyes and mouth and buttons precisely done in different colors of icing.
Mrs. Anderson stays for twenty minutes, talking about her grandchildren coming for Christmas, and suddenly the cookies make sense.
Dean and Sam haven’t acknowledged Christmas for years, not since the one with the crazy demi-gods, the one before hell. He doesn’t expect that to change, but damn. He’s been missing out on great cookies.
*
On Sunday, Greg Ware, Mrs. Anderson’s nephew and a regular customer of Dean’s, shows up with a tree. Seriously. A Douglas-fir, or so he informs them.
“We don’t have a stand,” Sam says. His eyes are a bit wild, like he’s looking around for Candid Camera or something. It’s pretty much hilarious.
And it gets funnier when Greg replies, “Oh, I brought one. Aunt June mentioned you all didn’t have a tree and that Dean was out of commission, so I thought I’d take care of it for you.”
“Umm. Thanks,” Sam says. His colors are all over the place, shifting like crazy, and Dean just sits back and enjoys the show.
He’s injured, after all.
*
The next day, Greg’s wife Sherry brings her two daughters to help decorate the tree. They’re ridiculously cute kids, with matching ponytails and big blue eyes.
“We don’t have decorations,” Sam says, like he’s apologizing.
Sherry beams. “That’s okay, honey, we brought a few of the old ones we don’t use anymore. I also have a few CDs, if you want to put on some music while we decorate?”
Sinatra sings on in the background as Sherry and the girls drape the tree with twinkle lights and silver garland and shiny red and green and gold ornaments, while Sam and Dean sit on the couch and watch with their mouths slightly agape. They’ve seen a lot of strange shit in their lives, but this takes it to a whole other level. There’s obviously an art to it, making sure everything is balanced and well-spaced, so that it draws the eye. It goes from a plain green plant to something pretty and cheerful in the space of an hour.
“Well, that looks good to me,” Sherry says when they’re done. “Now, we didn’t know what you wanted for a topper, so we brought a star and an angel.”
“Star,” they both hurry to say, probably a little too vehemently.
Sam is the only one tall enough to put the star on top of the tree without a ladder.
Dean’s eyes water as Sam stretches to reach, multicolored lights painting his cheekbones. Weird. Dean must be allergic to fir.
*
The day after that, a big snow falls while Sam is at work. Mr. Kowalski is their neighbour from across the street, retired and like eighty years old, but his back holds up fine as he shovels their driveway and sidewalk. Dean invites him in for a cup of coffee to warm up.
Mr. Kowalski seems to like the gingerbread cookies, and comments on how very nice their Christmas tree looks.
*
The day after that, a present appears under the tree, badly wrapped and with the word “Dean” scrawled on one side in black marker.
That sneaky bastard. Dean didn’t hear Sam thinking about it at all.
He prods a bit, but there’s nothing in Sam’s head remotely related to the wrapped gift. Dean narrows his eyes.
Sam just taps his temple with a finger and smirks. Show-off.
“You’re going to slip some time,” Dean says.
Sam smiles.
*
The day after that, Dean decides he’s healed enough to go shopping.
He’s back on the couch by the time Sam gets home, feeling a little sore, but it’s worth it.
Sam’s doing that thing where his mouth is moving but nothing’s coming out. His mind is perfectly blank with perplexity. The new present is in a flat garment box, bright gold paper with perfect crisp edges and curling red and green ribbon trailing from the big bow on top.
“It’s called gift-wrapping, bitch.”
*
The day after that, they receive an invitation to see the Ware girls perform in the choir at the town’s Christmas festival.
*
The day after that, they go.
*
The downtown is old, most of the buildings erected in the 1800s, when establishing a town near the river was a sure route to prosperity. The square is paved with restored cobblestones, and the trees that ring the courthouse are ancient, so big that he and Sam probably couldn’t link hands around the trunks.
All the buildings on the square are covered in Christmas decorations and lights, so bright that the automatic sensors on the streetlamps aren’t activated. The colors reflect off the snow and make everything look unreal, like another world.
The Booster Club is selling hot chocolate and roasted chestnuts at a booth near the petting zoo. Dean buys two cups and a large bag of nuts.
“What?” he says as he hands Sam the warm beverage. “I’m supporting local fundraising.”
Sam doesn’t say anything.
“Seriously, dude. Shut up,” Dean says.
“I didn’t say anything,” Sam says.
“You were thinking it.”
*
Dean doesn’t know all the songs, but the concert is cool, anyway. Sam is content, lost in the music and genuinely enjoying himself. When Sam’s happy, Dean’s happy. It’s one of Newton’s laws or something.
Afterwards, he and Sam mill around, congratulating the kids and visiting with the people they know. Which, between his job and Sam’s, and Sam’s unofficial position as unpaid town librarian, means just about everyone there.
Dean’s a little startled to realize this is his life, that he made this with Sam, and that it’s good in ways he never really knew existed.
His back starts to ache after a while, too much activity after too much lazing around. He finds an empty bench near the edge of the biggest part of the crowd and takes a quiet breath, suddenly exhausted.
Through half-slitted eyes, he takes in the scene around him. Their neighbors and friends are laughing and smiling and having a good time, pink cheeks and white-cloud breath and hands rubbing together in the cold. Cheerful Christmas music with a lot of trumpets and tinkling pianos combines with hundreds of excited conversations to make a new song.
This, Dean thinks, not too loud. He knows that Sam is listening. This is why we did it, why we always did it, and this is what we saved.
Sam’s hand lands on his shoulder and squeezes. Touch intensifies the bond, and it’s wide open now, in both directions.
Dean closes his eyes, because fucking finally Sam gets it. Relief swirls through him in salty waves, like a tide receding.
Sam’s fingers slide down his shoulder and curl around his upper arm. Dean opens his eyes as Sam helps him stand, sees the soft smile and swirling hazel. Hazel is good.
“Yeah, yeah, you sap,” Sam says, but his mind tells a different story. They both know their lines. “Let’s go home, old man.”
Rating: PG-13, for language (!)
Words: 3500
Characters: Sam, Dean
Spoilers: Up to and including season 5, vague
Summary: Dean and Sam save the world. After that, life gets hard.
Author's Note 1: Written for 42footprints for the likes "emotional connection, sense of scale, importance of their lives." I hope this hits some of your spots, dear!
Author's Note 2: First ever gen!fic. I DID IT! I wrote something that wasn't porn!
Acknowledgments: Big thanks to dugindeep and zoemathemata for the beta and MUCH hand holding, as well as maerhys for being her usual awesome self.
The world doesn’t end. The earth is not scorched, and humanity is not made extinct.
Dean doesn’t bend over for an angel. Neither does Sam. There was a blaze of glory, but no Winchesters went down in it.
The circle is complete, and the cycle will start again - Lucifer in Hell’s cage, Michael in Heaven’s, destiny written on two brothers’ genes.
Someone’s, but not theirs. They have Winchester DNA, stubborn and wilful and loyal, and apparently rebellious. Destiny can fuck off.
*
It’s takes avoiding an Apocalypse and collecting an entirely new set of scars, but Dean decides it’s time to settle. Not settle down, mind. Just find a place a little more stationary than the Impala to call home. A place to rest, to collect the detritus of their lives, to put their shit while they figure it out. A place like Bobby’s, with a garage for Baby and a space to put Sam’s books.
Together, he and Sam pick Missouri. Somewhere in the middle.
*
They stopped the end close to the beginning, but there are lingering effects of the near-Apocalypse - a continued economic downturn, a noticeable spike in violent crime, and the resurgence of several epidemic diseases. Most nights he feels guilty about the deaths he knows are on him and Sam, the ones that very few people realize are a lot more than just a run of bad luck for the world. Most days he’s grateful it wasn’t worse. Days and nights, he’s eager for his brain to cram all of it in cold storage, just get the whole damn thing put away so he can start thinking and feeling bad about something else. Until that happens, Dean pretends he’s already there.
It works, unless Sam is in the same room. Then, it’s all guilt, shame, self-doubt, and self-recrimination, all the time, like when they do those marathons of the Star Trek movies on SyFy, except way less fun.
Sometimes Dean can’t take it anymore and blows up. Goddamn it, Sam! I know we started it and how many times we fucked up royally and how it’s all our fault, but we ended it, too! You think maybe you could give us a break? Sam just looks at him, shakes his head, and retreats to somewhere he can mope in private. Dean feels like shit for hours after, and it sucks, because his speeches don’t seem to do any good.
Sam never fucking shuts up about it, even when his mouth is closed.
*
The reminder of what they did to stop Lucifer is scrawled across their bodies, matching raised lines of filigree that start at their collarbones, curlicue along their sides and down their legs, onto their feet. Red and angry at first, dark like blood, now faded to the pink of new, raw skin.
The remainder of it is written on their souls, bound together and through with metaphysical chain.
It doesn’t bother Dean as much as it could, and definitely not as much as it should. It was always like this for him - Sam in his head, Sam in his space, Sam, Sam, Sam, forever and ever, amen. When Castiel found the ritual, it was easy for Dean to decide that it always would be.
He expected it to be a harder choice for Sam, but he said yes so quickly that Dean still doesn’t know who spoke first. Their voices overlaid like echoes.
*
The only thing they can afford with their complete lack of credit and nonexistent down payment is an ancient, run-down farmhouse on the edge of the town-limits that needs a lot of repairs, but it’s still cheaper than rent, and it’s theirs. Which is just weird; Dean hasn’t owned much in his life other than the tools of his trade, his clothes, his car, and his brother. Now he has these papers in his hand that say he has a freaking house.
He can handle the responsibility but the idea of domestic permanence is still freaky in a wanna-try-something-different way that’s kind of tingly, like when a naked girl proposes something really naughty and grins and blushes at the same time.
Sam looks at him sideways, with a tic in his jaw that says Dean’s thoughts have maybe come through a little more clearly than either of them would like.
Because of incidents like this one, and an unfortunate sharing of Dean’s special shower time, they frequently argue over who is sicker in the head.
Dean’s louder and more creative with his insults, but Sam is probably right.
*
The world didn’t end, but you take the bad with the good, and there are still just as many monsters and angry spirits and various creepy crawlies as there ever were.
Dean and Sam do their best, but it’s not like it was before. They aren’t like they were before.
Dean works at the local auto repair shop doing about a billion oil changes a day and the occasional engine repair while Sam mans the register at a sporting goods store, selling guns to people who will probably never aim them at anything more threatening than an empty beer can and knives to folks whose main concern is whether the blade is thin enough to filet fish.
They go on hunts occasionally, when they get word that something needs to be hunted. It’s so easy, so smooth, so fucking exhilarating with Sam like an extension of his own body and mind and vice versa. But Dean doesn’t crave it like he used to; he’s got other things to live for now, other obligations and other ways to help people. So they kill what they can and come back to the house in Missouri to fucking lay flooring or install double paned windows or some such shit.
Most of the money they make goes into the house, starting with necessary structural improvements and the acquisition of basic furniture - they live on nothing but mattresses and two camping chairs for their first two pay checks - and graduating to cosmetic repairs and non-essential household items like a kitchen table that Sam found in an antique store two townships over. Dean made fun of him for weeks - antiquing, Sam, really? - but he loves the wood grain and the way it feels solid, like only old things can.
They’re getting good at home repair, which is insane. Sam spends almost as much time at Home Depot as he does at the local library. Dean just watches a lot of Holmes on Homes, and he feels that his tile-laying technique, as well as his grout-work, is much better than what Sam learns at the elbow of some pimply faced kid being paid minimum wage to teach people how to hold a trowel properly.
Dean can barely believe he knows what a fucking notched trowel is, much less that he can use one.
They cook more than they eat out, and take turns doing it. Sam likes Dean’s chicken casserole and Dean likes Sam’s roast beef, and neither one of them is willing to give up the other’s specialty dinners.
They spend entirely too much time with one another, playing cards and doing chores and watching old movies. It feels better when they’re close in physical proximity, deep contentment that hums in their bones. Neither of them dates, and neither of them develops any close friendships, though they have a group of guys they play poker with on Tuesdays at the Veteran’s Hall. It’s probably not healthy or whatever, but Dean never gave a shit about healthy or normal; he knows he’s fucked up, but he knows what he likes, and enjoys what he has, and doesn’t question why or what that might mean. To Dean, it’s just good.
They settle into a routine, into domestic habits and preferences, into chatting with the clerk at the grocery store and discussing cars with the postmaster, into the workweek and the weekends. Into having a home.
Probably, Dean shouldn’t be surprised he likes it so much, because he’s always enjoyed and been good at taking care of things, maintenance and attention and care, but he is.
Sam isn’t. The little bastard is a smug know-it-all.
“You love it,” Sam says, and Dean doesn’t bother denying it. Sam would know he’s lying.
Just like Dean knows Sam’s lying when he says the nightmares have stopped.
At least now when they lie to each other - and they still do, in spite of the futility of it, because most of the time lies are for ourselves as much as other people - there aren’t any messy confessions or paranoid suspicions or bruised knuckles.
There aren’t any worlds ending or angels falling.
The bond is a little invasive, but it’s not a bad thing. Besides, they’re used to invasive, when it comes to them.
*
It’s okay, Sam.
No, it’s not.
Dean’s confident Sam will get it, one day. He’s not the most patient guy in the world, though, so he tries to help his brother along with an incessant flow of assurance.
It’s okay, Sam. Really, it is. We’re okay.
*
Dean’s always had a fucked up sense of time; when they were hunting, it dragged on or sped by, always too much to kill or not enough to live. Now, it’s cyclical, concentric spirals of moments that make up everyday life, Sam in the center. One day bleeds into the next, months into a year and then some.
He doesn’t realize how long they’ve been at the farmhouse until one day he sees a few little gray hairs in Sam’s sideburns, noticeably contrasting with the dark brown. Dean checks himself the next night in the bathroom mirror, and is appalled to find a liberal sprinkling of gray disguised by the natural lightness of his hair.
Holy shit. They’re getting old.
Sam’s booming laugh carries up the stairs.
Dean can’t stop smiling because they’re getting old, and Sam’s laughing.
*
In December, they go to Louisiana on a hunt that looks like a simple salt and burn. Winter in the Deep South is just as exceptional as every other thing about it, so the ground isn’t too cold for digging. Sam’s in the hole while Dean’s up top taking a breather when the spirit shows up, gray skin hanging in flaps from its cheeks and bloody furrows on its bare torso. Dean scrabbles for the shotgun, but it’s too late and if he’s honest with himself, too slow. He flies through the air until his motion is stopped by a large angel-shaped headstone with outspread wings and tears etched into its stone face.
Fucking figures.
The scent of lighter fluid is sharp in his nostrils and the dim glow of fire lights up the blood vessels in his eyelids as he comes to. Sam is crouching over him, brow furrowed and mouth a thin line, his giant paw pressed hard against Dean’s chest, covering his heart.
“I’m fine,” Dean says automatically. Sam grips his hand, hauls him to his feet and predictably, starts bitching at him for being careless and sloppy but Dean tunes it out because he’d be doing the same thing, channelling his worry into something more Winchester-acceptable.
He lets Sam drive. Dean figures that serves as an apology and makes up for it at once.
Dean can’t feel his lower body on the way home, but he doesn’t think about it so Sam won’t know. He’s not worried. All in all and like too many things in their fucked up lives, it could have been worse.
*
The next morning, Dean can barely move, never mind get out of bed. His muscles feel weak and his back throbs in a general, unfocused way, but he’s more alarmed by the shocky jerks and tingles in his legs. He covers his face in his hands - goddamn, this is embarrassing - and calls for Sam.
When Sam levers him up, Dean has to loop his arms around his brother’s neck because he can’t stand on his own. He gets a face full of coffee breath that almost makes him gag.
Dean opens his mouth to give him shit it or maybe barf, but Sam’s irises are stormy gray.
Sam and his goddamn mood eyes that Dean wrote the color guide for. Dean doesn’t need the bond to tell him Sam’s freaking the fuck out. He doesn’t say anything.
*
The doctor prescribes at least two weeks off work, with as much rest and as little movement as possible. Apparently Dean has a herniated disk that will correct itself as long as he doesn’t strain it in the meantime.
He’s so fucking old.
In the car on the way home, Dean looks at Sam under the guise of trying to get comfortable in the seat, gray in his sideburns and crow’s feet finally splitting the skin around his eyes.
Just-right old.
Dean doesn’t know if the thought is his or Sam’s.
*
There’s only so much daytime TV a man can take before he loses his mind. Dean welcomes the weekend, and therefore Sam, like a teenage girl with a crush and refuses to let Sam turn on any electronic device but the radio because he just can’t take anymore and because he wants to be the center of Sam’s attention.
They’re doing their best to play a game of rummy (Stop cheating! Stop broadcasting your cards so goddamn loud!), with Dean laying face down on the couch and Sam sitting cross-legged at the coffee table in Dean’s direct line of sight when the doorbell rings.
Sam’s eyebrow rises. Dean shrugs.
“I’ll get it,” Sam says. (Cause you’re a crippled old man.)
“Fuck you,” Dean replies. (Twice.)
Sam disappears into the foyer, and his surprise is yellow, sharp but happy. He comes back bearing a large red tin with a green lid, and Mrs. Anderson, the librarian.
“Mrs. Anderson heard you were a big wimp, and she brought cookies,” Sam says with a smile and a little bewilderment.
Dean smells cinnamon when Sam opens the lid to reveal gingerbread cookies, details of eyes and mouth and buttons precisely done in different colors of icing.
Mrs. Anderson stays for twenty minutes, talking about her grandchildren coming for Christmas, and suddenly the cookies make sense.
Dean and Sam haven’t acknowledged Christmas for years, not since the one with the crazy demi-gods, the one before hell. He doesn’t expect that to change, but damn. He’s been missing out on great cookies.
*
On Sunday, Greg Ware, Mrs. Anderson’s nephew and a regular customer of Dean’s, shows up with a tree. Seriously. A Douglas-fir, or so he informs them.
“We don’t have a stand,” Sam says. His eyes are a bit wild, like he’s looking around for Candid Camera or something. It’s pretty much hilarious.
And it gets funnier when Greg replies, “Oh, I brought one. Aunt June mentioned you all didn’t have a tree and that Dean was out of commission, so I thought I’d take care of it for you.”
“Umm. Thanks,” Sam says. His colors are all over the place, shifting like crazy, and Dean just sits back and enjoys the show.
He’s injured, after all.
*
The next day, Greg’s wife Sherry brings her two daughters to help decorate the tree. They’re ridiculously cute kids, with matching ponytails and big blue eyes.
“We don’t have decorations,” Sam says, like he’s apologizing.
Sherry beams. “That’s okay, honey, we brought a few of the old ones we don’t use anymore. I also have a few CDs, if you want to put on some music while we decorate?”
Sinatra sings on in the background as Sherry and the girls drape the tree with twinkle lights and silver garland and shiny red and green and gold ornaments, while Sam and Dean sit on the couch and watch with their mouths slightly agape. They’ve seen a lot of strange shit in their lives, but this takes it to a whole other level. There’s obviously an art to it, making sure everything is balanced and well-spaced, so that it draws the eye. It goes from a plain green plant to something pretty and cheerful in the space of an hour.
“Well, that looks good to me,” Sherry says when they’re done. “Now, we didn’t know what you wanted for a topper, so we brought a star and an angel.”
“Star,” they both hurry to say, probably a little too vehemently.
Sam is the only one tall enough to put the star on top of the tree without a ladder.
Dean’s eyes water as Sam stretches to reach, multicolored lights painting his cheekbones. Weird. Dean must be allergic to fir.
*
The day after that, a big snow falls while Sam is at work. Mr. Kowalski is their neighbour from across the street, retired and like eighty years old, but his back holds up fine as he shovels their driveway and sidewalk. Dean invites him in for a cup of coffee to warm up.
Mr. Kowalski seems to like the gingerbread cookies, and comments on how very nice their Christmas tree looks.
*
The day after that, a present appears under the tree, badly wrapped and with the word “Dean” scrawled on one side in black marker.
That sneaky bastard. Dean didn’t hear Sam thinking about it at all.
He prods a bit, but there’s nothing in Sam’s head remotely related to the wrapped gift. Dean narrows his eyes.
Sam just taps his temple with a finger and smirks. Show-off.
“You’re going to slip some time,” Dean says.
Sam smiles.
*
The day after that, Dean decides he’s healed enough to go shopping.
He’s back on the couch by the time Sam gets home, feeling a little sore, but it’s worth it.
Sam’s doing that thing where his mouth is moving but nothing’s coming out. His mind is perfectly blank with perplexity. The new present is in a flat garment box, bright gold paper with perfect crisp edges and curling red and green ribbon trailing from the big bow on top.
“It’s called gift-wrapping, bitch.”
*
The day after that, they receive an invitation to see the Ware girls perform in the choir at the town’s Christmas festival.
*
The day after that, they go.
*
The downtown is old, most of the buildings erected in the 1800s, when establishing a town near the river was a sure route to prosperity. The square is paved with restored cobblestones, and the trees that ring the courthouse are ancient, so big that he and Sam probably couldn’t link hands around the trunks.
All the buildings on the square are covered in Christmas decorations and lights, so bright that the automatic sensors on the streetlamps aren’t activated. The colors reflect off the snow and make everything look unreal, like another world.
The Booster Club is selling hot chocolate and roasted chestnuts at a booth near the petting zoo. Dean buys two cups and a large bag of nuts.
“What?” he says as he hands Sam the warm beverage. “I’m supporting local fundraising.”
Sam doesn’t say anything.
“Seriously, dude. Shut up,” Dean says.
“I didn’t say anything,” Sam says.
“You were thinking it.”
*
Dean doesn’t know all the songs, but the concert is cool, anyway. Sam is content, lost in the music and genuinely enjoying himself. When Sam’s happy, Dean’s happy. It’s one of Newton’s laws or something.
Afterwards, he and Sam mill around, congratulating the kids and visiting with the people they know. Which, between his job and Sam’s, and Sam’s unofficial position as unpaid town librarian, means just about everyone there.
Dean’s a little startled to realize this is his life, that he made this with Sam, and that it’s good in ways he never really knew existed.
His back starts to ache after a while, too much activity after too much lazing around. He finds an empty bench near the edge of the biggest part of the crowd and takes a quiet breath, suddenly exhausted.
Through half-slitted eyes, he takes in the scene around him. Their neighbors and friends are laughing and smiling and having a good time, pink cheeks and white-cloud breath and hands rubbing together in the cold. Cheerful Christmas music with a lot of trumpets and tinkling pianos combines with hundreds of excited conversations to make a new song.
This, Dean thinks, not too loud. He knows that Sam is listening. This is why we did it, why we always did it, and this is what we saved.
Sam’s hand lands on his shoulder and squeezes. Touch intensifies the bond, and it’s wide open now, in both directions.
Dean closes his eyes, because fucking finally Sam gets it. Relief swirls through him in salty waves, like a tide receding.
Sam’s fingers slide down his shoulder and curl around his upper arm. Dean opens his eyes as Sam helps him stand, sees the soft smile and swirling hazel. Hazel is good.
“Yeah, yeah, you sap,” Sam says, but his mind tells a different story. They both know their lines. “Let’s go home, old man.”