SPN fic: A Talent for Causing Things Pain
Sweet creamy jebus, I wrote another one.
Title: A Talent for Causing Things Pain
Author: On_Verra
Pairing & Characters: Sam/Dean, John, very brief mentions of Jim Murphy and Bobby
Rating: PG-13 (or possibly R for violent imagery)
Wordcount: ~4,070
Spoilers: None
Disclaimer: I do not own the boys, and I make no money from this.
Warnings/Enticements: See pairing. Also, there is graphic dental injury, wee bits of angst and humor, and a whole lot of blood. But not in a kinky blood play way... exactly. It's hard to explain! Just gotta read on!
A/N So, I see this as slash, okay? But I'm kickin' it Old School, and others might consider it pre-slash with UST. Depends on how you define resolution ;)
I feel compelled to dedicate this to balefully:
This fic may not be what you were expecting based on my recent comments, but the title does indeed come from Little Shop of Horrors ;D
Thanks to lotrabc for the beta offer, but I wanna get this up before I leave the country in a few days! So this is unbeta'd. I hope you will like it anyway! And thanks also to linaerys for putting up with my email spammage yet again.
Here be the story:
A Talent for Causing Things Pain
Then
Dean woke up with a jolt in the back seat of the Impala when John slammed the door shut at a gas station.
"Dean, you awake? Come sit up front. We're almost there." John rubbed at his jaw, thumbing at the spot where he'd been slammed to the rocks a couple days ago, bruise barely visible under dark stubble. "We'll pick up your brother and then head on home. You boys are going back to school in the morning. No excuses."
The bumper sticker on the car at the next pump told Dean that someone was the proud parent of an honor student in Blue Earth, Minnesota. They'd been renting a place in Wisconsin since January, in time for Dean's 14th birthday, but school was closed for spring break last week and John had taken Dean out on a long hunt up north near the Canadian border. They'd left Sam at Pastor Jim's the whole time.
Dean slid into the passenger seat. "Can't we just stay at Pastor Jim's tonight, Dad? We can sleep in and then take Sammy for waffles or something. He's probably still pretty bummed."
"I said no excuses. I'm dropping you boys at home and then I'm heading out first thing in the morning. Should be a quick hunt. Something killing hikers in the La Crosse bluffs." John rubbed at his jaw again, and then popped it, muttering to himself in obvious pain.
Serves you right for ruining Sammy's vacation, Dean mused, and then instantly felt guilty about it. He had wanted to go on this hunt, had practically begged for it, second thoughts coming only when he watched his brother's tiny figure receding in the rear window, his puppy dog eyes huge and his nose running, Jim Murphy standing behind with his arms crossed. Sam would be ten years old in a few weeks, but he still acted like a little kid sometimes. Dean couldn't wait until he was old enough to start hunting, too.
"Maybe we can both come with you. Show Sam a thing or two."
"Dean, you're going back to school tomorrow and that's final." John eased the car out onto the road, tapping two tense fingers against the wheel to the rhythm of some unheard song.
***
Around 3:00 in the morning, Dean found himself picking his way, barefoot, through the dry grass of the yard. His amulet was a spot of cold on his bare chest.
They had arrived home to their small clapboard house about half an hour ago. John had carried Sam, sleeping, into the boys' shared bedroom and laid him down. Sam had proclaimed that he'd stay awake for the whole ride, asking excited questions and trying to loop an arm around Dean's neck over the high seat back before he settled for reading by flashlight. Of course, he'd tired himself out after the first hour.
Dean took off Sam's sneakers and covered him with a ratty blue blanket. Then he'd gone to the bathroom to washed up, and was halfway through changing for bed when John had motioned for him to come out into the living room.
"Dean, I need you to go to the car and get the med kit." His voice was low but even rougher than usual. "Bring it out back to the garage."
"What - "
"Just do it." His eyes were red-rimmed and his jaw had swollen badly on one side.
Dean had known better than to question that order.
So that's how he ended up edging to the garage in the dead of night. The side door was ajar, giving Dean the only distinct light he could see in the darkness, a harsher yellow than the neighbors' porch lamps all a good 15 or 20 yards away, or the hazy glow of the moon. Med kit in one hand, he nudged the door open and saw his father with his back mostly to the door, sitting in a folding metal chair at the low table they'd cobbled together out of plywood and cinder blocks. John was rummaging through a rusted toolbox, and next to it Dean spotted a broken shard of mirror, a box of matches and a half-empty bottle of vodka.
John heard the door creak and looked to where Dean hovered in the door frame. "Thanks, son. Now give me that kit and get to bed."
Dean glanced at the table again as he put the med kit down and watched John lift the lid, white plastic bright against the dirty wood and red cross like a painted target. "Are you hurt? Do you need some help?"
John squinted and palmed a roll of gauze. "I'll be fine. Go. And do not let your brother come out here."
"Yes, sir." Dean closed the door and turned toward the house, stray pieces of driveway gravel sharp under the balls of his feet.
***
Dean sat in the shadows, still in only his jeans, and watched his brother sleeping. He saw Sam stir at the sound of a muffled scream coming from the garage, and reached over to put a comforting hand on his shoulder. Another distorted, short yelp came from out back, and Dean felt Sam tense under his hand the moment that he woke up, fully alert but unmoving.
"Ssshh, it's okay," Dean said, and flicked on the bedside lamp before Sam could startle any more. "It's nothing. Just Dad. I think he busted a tooth or something."
Sam looked dubious, eyes narrowing not only from the sudden lamplight. He'd been kind of weird about his teeth lately, ever since the school nurse had given his class a special presentation about dental health. It had been a source of irritation, actually, driving John to snap at Sam more than once that, no, they could not visit the dentist every six months, and didn't he understand about staying out of doctors' offices? And avoiding a paper trail? And Social Services?
Noticing the look, Dean was quick to add, "Really, Sammy, don't worry. It's Dad, you know? I mean, he can handle whatever. It's just a toothache."
Sam seemed to relax, appeased for the moment. He rolled over and yawned, speech slurred. "Should make 'm go to the dentist. Should all go to the dentist."
Dean rolled his eyes, but smiled fondly at Sam's stubborn obsession. He waited until he was sure Sam was asleep again, and then he went back outside.
***
Dean took up the same place by the door, but he didn't dare touch it. Instead, he just peered through the crack, heartbeat coming faster.
A pile of bloody gauze had joined the bottle on the table, which had been stained with red fingerprints, obscuring the label. A few of the matches had been burned, their charred odor filling the air along with the metallic smell of blood.
John was still in the folding chair, his face tilted up to the bare, dusty bulb hanging above. He was holding the broken mirror in his left hand and inspecting his mouth. Dean could see a flash of bone and blood in the mirror and moved back a few inches, almost involuntarily, hoping that he hadn't been seen. With his right hand, John raised a large, nasty-looking wrench from somewhere inside that ancient toolbox. He positioned it against his back teeth and started to twist it back and forth, his eyes watery but focused.
Dean couldn't watch anymore. He closed his eyes, put his back flat against the wall, and listened to his father panting and cursing before letting out one last loud grunt. Then John cleared his throat and spit, scenting the air with another burst of iron. Dean thought he heard the small ting of something small and hard hitting the cement floor. He counted to ten in his head before twisting to look inside once more.
John was taking a long pull on the vodka, and everything else was back on the table and covered in sticky, darkening blood. Then John picked up some more clean gauze and stuffed it in his mouth. On top of the mirror shard, Dean could see what looked like two small pebbles, yellow veined through with dark gray. Dad's back teeth.
They'd probably been knocked loose on the hunt, but no way were they fine before. John was strong enough for damn near anything; Dean hoped to be just like him someday. But even John could still be laid low by something as small as... this.
Dean felt his own teeth throb in sympathy as he looked at his father leaning back in the chair, forehead shining with sweat and bloody hand still clenched around the bottle.
He shivered, and then began to move away.
"Dean."
Dean froze.
"I know you're there, so you listen to me. You have to learn how to take care of yourselves, you and Sammy." His speech was slurred through the gauze he was still biting hard. "Can't afford to be going to civilians with this, it's asking for trouble."
Dean didn't answer, waiting for John to continue.
But John remained silent, just taking deep breaths and scraping his boot against the floor.
Dean took off for the house like a shot.
***
The next day, after fourth period, Dean broke into the nurse's office and stole a whole month's supply of mouth rinse from the School Fluoride Program. He took enough for thirty kids, and he started slipping a dose into Sam's water every Saturday when they went out running.
From then on, whenever Sam grinned at him with those perfect, gleaming white teeth, Dean felt a rush of personal pride in a job well done.
***
Now
Dean was just minding his own business when it started.
They were in a motel out near the airport in Albuquerque, where they'd just wrapped up a case. Just some ghouls that needed to be taken out before they could tear up any more corpses. Gross, but nothing too hard.
Sam was in the shower, leaving Dean alone to drink beer in front of an old TV with a blurry green spot in the upper corner.
Dean watched The Simpsons with the volume low and his mind on autopilot. Bart and Lisa flitted across the screen, ageless in their cartoon world. He swallowed a mouthful of beer and felt a low thrum of pain in his cheek, like he'd bitten the inside and hadn't noticed.
Once Sam was out of the bathroom, Dean wiped down the mirror and examined his mouth in the fluorescent light, but he couldn't see anything unusual. He came back out and flopped into bed, scowling.
"What's wrong?" Sam paused over his duffel holding a clean t-shirt and a beat-up paperback.
"Nothing. Just a piece of food caught in my teeth or something." Dean shrugged and turned up the volume.
***
"That still bothering you?" Sam was giving him the Eyebrows of Serious Concern from where he was folded in the passenger seat.
They were leaving Utah. Leaving Salina, where some character from the Black Hawk War had risen up from the desert sand and started attacking the descendants of Mormon settlers.
By the time Sam and Dean had shown up, a group of local Ute tribesman had already dispatched the ghost. The leader gave them a "'Round here, we take care of our own" kind of speech, but they were thanked nonetheless for their troubles and given room and board for the night.
"It's nothing. I'm handling it." Dean had been sucking on his cheek in silence since they got on the road. His tooth had kept bothering him for almost a week, even though he'd spent every meal chewing carefully on one side, and checking on it every morning and night. His distress must have been pretty obvious, if Sam's badgering was anything to go by.
"Clearly," Sam scoffed, sarcastic. "Clearly you're fine."
"What do you want me to do, huh? I can't just walk into a dentist's office. None of our cards or IDs are any good right now. I'm just gonna wait until it gets better."
"Three days, Dean. Three more days and then you're at least gonna let me take a look at it."
"Please, like you know anything about teeth..." Dean trailed off, defeated by the surfacing knowledge that his brother had probably learned all about this shit. During all their years at risk of grievous bodily harm, Sam had gone through multiple phases of absorbing medical training textbooks like a sponge.
"Actually, I do. I know a lot more than you think." Sam's voice bordered on smug. "And I just want to help."
Dean pressed harder on the gas, and Sam coughed and rolled up his window against the road dust.
***
Three days later they were in Kentucky, on the northern edge of the swamps at Reelfoot Lake. Dean was in so much pain that it distracted him from the Buru they were hunting.
He'd nearly gotten his foot bitten off while he was busy worrying at that sore spot with his tongue and cradling his face.
"That's it," Sam said, between the breaths he was catching after he finished sinking the beast's dead body into the muddy water. "Time's up. We're doing something about that tooth, tonight."
"Man, I just washed these pants! And how does a Buru even get to Kentucky, anyway?" Dean could hear the awkward note in his own voice, dissembling.
"Don't change the subject. Why are you making such a big deal out of a stupid toothache? And why-?"
"Shut up! You don't know!" Dean cut his brother's questions off with a shout, but his voice was muted by the sodden landscape. It was like the opposite of an echo, and twice as creepy.
They locked eyes and the moment stretched out before Sam twitched with a flicker of understanding that gave Dean a swooping feeling in his stomach.
He had always resented how well his brother could read him. Almost as much as he resented himself.
***
Dean sat in an overstuffed armchair with beige upholstery scratching his forearms, waiting for Sam to turn around from the motel table where he was arranging supplies.
Somehow, who the hell knew when or where, Sam had procured a brand new pair of medical-grade stainless steel dental pliers. Dean felt a pang of absurd gratitude, but said nothing. He still hoped the pliers would not be necessary.
Along with some gauze, cotton swabs and rubbing alcohol, Sam had also revealed a small vile of numbing agent, which Dean waved away, much to his brother's consternation.
"Come on, who needs that shit when there's vodka?" Dean held up the bottle, but did not add the part about family tradition.
"Sorry, am I offending your precious masculinity? This is going to hurt a lot. Seriously, man, this is gonna feel a lot worse before it gets better."
"Oooh, kinky, Sammy. Are you sure we're still talking about dentistry?"
"Very funny," Sam mumbled and rolled his eyes, then angled a lampshade in Dean's direction and bent over the chair. "Now open up and hold still while I take a look."
Dean put his head back and dropped his jaw, and Sam's expression shifted immediately from detached scrutiny to outright shock.
"Oh my god."
"What?"
"No wonder. Your molar is, like, completely wrecked. Your cavities have cavities, Dean. We definitely have to pull it out."
"Well, fuck," said Dean, and then took another swig of vodka, sloshing it around his mouth. He stared at a stain on the carpet.
When he raised his eyes again, Sam was only inches away with those pliers.
"Holy shit! Give me another minute here!" Dean nearly jumped out of the chair, and felt slightly dizzy as the vodka hit him along with the rush of adrenaline that he'd found often preceded imminent physical suffering.
Sam pulled his arm away, jerking it back sharply. "We should move you to the bed, anyhow. The light is better."
Dean rubbed his jaw protectively and thought about this before answering slowly. "Yeah... okay..."
They crossed the room to the first bed. Dean's brain bounced inside his skull as he threw himself down on his back with his head hanging off the far side, where the light was brightest. Almost immediately, his gut was compressed by Sam's full body weight on top of him, knees on either side pinning Dean's arms to keep him in place.
"What the hell?" Dean spluttered, "I mean, what the hell?! This sucks enough without you going all, all Orin Scrivello on me!" Dean tried to gesture with his trapped hands and succeeded only in straining his neck muscles as he craned his head a few inches. Sam held still, looming over him with a haunted, manic gaze.
"It's the only way to keep you from moving around too much. Trust me. Just relax as much as you can."
Dean felt his face go red, and knew what he must look like, all unguarded and vulnerable. He saw a matching blush rise high on his brother's cheekbones.
"Uh, this is kind of weird, Sam."
Sam only leaned in closer, and Dean flushed even more all over as Sam tugged gently on his chin with a thumb.
"Just relax," Sam said again. He was looking at Dean's mouth with a strange intensity.
Dean took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and opened wide. First he felt the metallic, sterile cold of the pliers, which actually kind of helped.
Then the pliers clamped down and started to wriggle, and he had to choke back a scream.
"Okay, it's... uh, it's moving. It's... I should be able to get it... right..."
Dean opened his eyes and a wave of red flared over his vision. He tried and failed to focus on the corners of the ceiling, upside-down, and refused to let himself make any of the embarrassing, half-animal noises that were threatening to escape into Sam's face.
"Just another sec..." Sam's hair was falling into his eyes and he was biting his bottom lip.
"Aaaaaggh," Dean managed, and began mentally counting backwards from ten. When he was almost to six, he felt the pressure in his gums give way. This was followed by a warm pulse of liquid over and under his tongue.
"I got it." Sam said, quiet and awestruck, with no hint of triumph. "There's... a lot of blood. Let me..."
Dean swallowed down the taste of iron as Sam dropped the pliers somewhere off to the side and felt around for the towel he'd positioned nearby, eyes never leaving Dean's mouth.
The pain thrummed, but it was better than before. Bearable. Dean's adrenaline had started go down, and he was suddenly left feeling totally exposed. Intimate.
Sam put the towel against Dean's cheek, almost absently, then leaned in even closer.
"Let me," Sam said again.
"Yeah, Sammy," Dean replied, not entirely sure what he was agreeing to.
That uncertainly was still not cleared up when Sam touched Dean's lower lip with his own.
The press was brief, only two or three seconds, and then Sam pulled away with a thin string of bright red wet blood catching between them. It snapped, which seemed to snap something loose in Sam, as well. His eyes were glassy as he wiped his lip with a thumb and lifted off of Dean gingerly, as if trying not to disturb him from a shallow sleep.
"I - uh, sorry," Sam held out a plastic water bottle. "Here. Rinse with this, it's way safer than the tap water. You should, uh, go clean up."
Dean swung himself upright and took the water, not really knowing what else to do. Halfway to the sink, he turned. Sam was staring after him.
"Uh, thanks," Dean said, feeling more than a little dazed.
Sam just kept staring.
***
An hour later, Dean was vaguely watching a movie. Some straight-to-cable action crap. He really wasn't paying attention, too busy dealing with the ice pack on his cheek, the chalky taste of dry gauze, and the strange thoughts that kept swirling around his mind while he tried not to look at his brother. He had taken some fantastic painkillers, leftover from the last time they'd restocked at Bobby's. Probably not the best idea he'd ever had, on top of the vodka, but he felt like he'd earned a break. Besides, he had Sam around to make sure he didn't pull a Jimi Hendrix.
Sam, for his part, had busied himself packing away the med supplies, cleaning their hunting knives, and rinsing the worst of the blood - both Dean's and the Buru's - from their clothes. He came over to take the ice pack away, and finally sat down, his tall form hunched with his elbows on his knees in the armchair.
"So..." Sam started. "How you feeling?"
"So..." Dean drawled. "You got some kind of blood thing that I don't know about?"
It came out before he could stop himself. The meds were fucking with his subconscious, obviously. But it was kind of worth it just to see the look on Sam's face through the haze.
"No! God!" Sam stammered and ran a hand through his hair. "Uh, no. Not - it's not the blood."
"I get it, Sammy." Dean yawned. "You and me, always a blood thing. Blood is... thicker..." The meds were fucking with his brain-to-mouth filter, too.
"Yeah," said Sam. "Thicker than water. Blood brothers."
Dean felt the remote control lifted from his languid grip, and a warm hand landing on his ankle.
"You should sleep now. We can... we can talk tomorrow."
The hand rubbed a circle, and Dean blacked out.
***
Tomorrow came, and Dean didn't wake up until well into the afternoon. Sam had been up for hours, had maybe been up most of the night, judging by how exhausted he looked. He'd stood with his hands limp at his sides waiting for Dean to get dressed before they'd ventured out in search of a diner.
Dean stared longingly at the trucker eating a cheeseburger one table over, but grudgingly downed his lukewarm cream-of-something soup - surely the first of many bowls of soup, which was all he'd be able to handle for a little while.
Sam had ordered a fruity granola mix at first, but called the waiter back and changed it for what Dean was having. It was a nice token of commiseration, as was the tentative half-smile he gave Dean as he fumbled his silverware from his rolled napkin.
"Jesus. I swear, when I'm healed up I'm going to eat junk food for a week."
"That's probably how you got into this mess in the first place."
"Hey, you know I take care of my teeth." Dean feigned shock and then smirked. "And you gotta admit, a mouth this pretty is a terrible thing to waste."
Sam blanched for a split second before schooling his face into a practiced emo eye roll. Dean noticed it all, and did not let on as he felt his stomach do that inexplicable swooping thing. The sensation didn't go so well with his soup, though, so he did his best to ignore it while filing Sam's reaction away for future consideration.
"Sure, whatever gets you through the day." Sam mocked, but then appeared thoughtful. "Actually, you did set a decent example when we were kids. I mean, in terms of oral hygiene."
"Aw, thanks. That's big, coming from you. I think you actually wanted to be a dentist for a while there."
"Dean, I was, like, ten. I also wanted to be an archeologist and dig for dinosaurs."
"Well you do a lot of digging up old shit now," Dean made a flourish with his empty spoon. "So on top of last night's little performance, I guess you're not far from realizing your dreams after all."
Sam laughed, with a nervous edge at first and then more openly when Dean snickered back. Then Sam smiled, and there it was - the blinding grin Dean didn't get to see nearly often enough.
"You, man, you've got the great teeth in this family." Dean said, pointing at Sam. "Always made sure of that."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You don't remember what happened with Dad, that time?"
"Huh?"
Dean leaned into the worn wooden back of his chair. "Let me tell you a story, Sam..."
- END -
Comments and recs appreciated.
Happy Holidays!
*Crossposted to DW and LJ*
Also posted in AO3.
Title: A Talent for Causing Things Pain
Author: On_Verra
Pairing & Characters: Sam/Dean, John, very brief mentions of Jim Murphy and Bobby
Rating: PG-13 (or possibly R for violent imagery)
Wordcount: ~4,070
Spoilers: None
Disclaimer: I do not own the boys, and I make no money from this.
Warnings/Enticements: See pairing. Also, there is graphic dental injury, wee bits of angst and humor, and a whole lot of blood. But not in a kinky blood play way... exactly. It's hard to explain! Just gotta read on!
A/N So, I see this as slash, okay? But I'm kickin' it Old School, and others might consider it pre-slash with UST. Depends on how you define resolution ;)
I feel compelled to dedicate this to balefully:
This fic may not be what you were expecting based on my recent comments, but the title does indeed come from Little Shop of Horrors ;D
Thanks to lotrabc for the beta offer, but I wanna get this up before I leave the country in a few days! So this is unbeta'd. I hope you will like it anyway! And thanks also to linaerys for putting up with my email spammage yet again.
Here be the story:
A Talent for Causing Things Pain
Then
Dean woke up with a jolt in the back seat of the Impala when John slammed the door shut at a gas station.
"Dean, you awake? Come sit up front. We're almost there." John rubbed at his jaw, thumbing at the spot where he'd been slammed to the rocks a couple days ago, bruise barely visible under dark stubble. "We'll pick up your brother and then head on home. You boys are going back to school in the morning. No excuses."
The bumper sticker on the car at the next pump told Dean that someone was the proud parent of an honor student in Blue Earth, Minnesota. They'd been renting a place in Wisconsin since January, in time for Dean's 14th birthday, but school was closed for spring break last week and John had taken Dean out on a long hunt up north near the Canadian border. They'd left Sam at Pastor Jim's the whole time.
Dean slid into the passenger seat. "Can't we just stay at Pastor Jim's tonight, Dad? We can sleep in and then take Sammy for waffles or something. He's probably still pretty bummed."
"I said no excuses. I'm dropping you boys at home and then I'm heading out first thing in the morning. Should be a quick hunt. Something killing hikers in the La Crosse bluffs." John rubbed at his jaw again, and then popped it, muttering to himself in obvious pain.
Serves you right for ruining Sammy's vacation, Dean mused, and then instantly felt guilty about it. He had wanted to go on this hunt, had practically begged for it, second thoughts coming only when he watched his brother's tiny figure receding in the rear window, his puppy dog eyes huge and his nose running, Jim Murphy standing behind with his arms crossed. Sam would be ten years old in a few weeks, but he still acted like a little kid sometimes. Dean couldn't wait until he was old enough to start hunting, too.
"Maybe we can both come with you. Show Sam a thing or two."
"Dean, you're going back to school tomorrow and that's final." John eased the car out onto the road, tapping two tense fingers against the wheel to the rhythm of some unheard song.
***
Around 3:00 in the morning, Dean found himself picking his way, barefoot, through the dry grass of the yard. His amulet was a spot of cold on his bare chest.
They had arrived home to their small clapboard house about half an hour ago. John had carried Sam, sleeping, into the boys' shared bedroom and laid him down. Sam had proclaimed that he'd stay awake for the whole ride, asking excited questions and trying to loop an arm around Dean's neck over the high seat back before he settled for reading by flashlight. Of course, he'd tired himself out after the first hour.
Dean took off Sam's sneakers and covered him with a ratty blue blanket. Then he'd gone to the bathroom to washed up, and was halfway through changing for bed when John had motioned for him to come out into the living room.
"Dean, I need you to go to the car and get the med kit." His voice was low but even rougher than usual. "Bring it out back to the garage."
"What - "
"Just do it." His eyes were red-rimmed and his jaw had swollen badly on one side.
Dean had known better than to question that order.
So that's how he ended up edging to the garage in the dead of night. The side door was ajar, giving Dean the only distinct light he could see in the darkness, a harsher yellow than the neighbors' porch lamps all a good 15 or 20 yards away, or the hazy glow of the moon. Med kit in one hand, he nudged the door open and saw his father with his back mostly to the door, sitting in a folding metal chair at the low table they'd cobbled together out of plywood and cinder blocks. John was rummaging through a rusted toolbox, and next to it Dean spotted a broken shard of mirror, a box of matches and a half-empty bottle of vodka.
John heard the door creak and looked to where Dean hovered in the door frame. "Thanks, son. Now give me that kit and get to bed."
Dean glanced at the table again as he put the med kit down and watched John lift the lid, white plastic bright against the dirty wood and red cross like a painted target. "Are you hurt? Do you need some help?"
John squinted and palmed a roll of gauze. "I'll be fine. Go. And do not let your brother come out here."
"Yes, sir." Dean closed the door and turned toward the house, stray pieces of driveway gravel sharp under the balls of his feet.
***
Dean sat in the shadows, still in only his jeans, and watched his brother sleeping. He saw Sam stir at the sound of a muffled scream coming from the garage, and reached over to put a comforting hand on his shoulder. Another distorted, short yelp came from out back, and Dean felt Sam tense under his hand the moment that he woke up, fully alert but unmoving.
"Ssshh, it's okay," Dean said, and flicked on the bedside lamp before Sam could startle any more. "It's nothing. Just Dad. I think he busted a tooth or something."
Sam looked dubious, eyes narrowing not only from the sudden lamplight. He'd been kind of weird about his teeth lately, ever since the school nurse had given his class a special presentation about dental health. It had been a source of irritation, actually, driving John to snap at Sam more than once that, no, they could not visit the dentist every six months, and didn't he understand about staying out of doctors' offices? And avoiding a paper trail? And Social Services?
Noticing the look, Dean was quick to add, "Really, Sammy, don't worry. It's Dad, you know? I mean, he can handle whatever. It's just a toothache."
Sam seemed to relax, appeased for the moment. He rolled over and yawned, speech slurred. "Should make 'm go to the dentist. Should all go to the dentist."
Dean rolled his eyes, but smiled fondly at Sam's stubborn obsession. He waited until he was sure Sam was asleep again, and then he went back outside.
***
Dean took up the same place by the door, but he didn't dare touch it. Instead, he just peered through the crack, heartbeat coming faster.
A pile of bloody gauze had joined the bottle on the table, which had been stained with red fingerprints, obscuring the label. A few of the matches had been burned, their charred odor filling the air along with the metallic smell of blood.
John was still in the folding chair, his face tilted up to the bare, dusty bulb hanging above. He was holding the broken mirror in his left hand and inspecting his mouth. Dean could see a flash of bone and blood in the mirror and moved back a few inches, almost involuntarily, hoping that he hadn't been seen. With his right hand, John raised a large, nasty-looking wrench from somewhere inside that ancient toolbox. He positioned it against his back teeth and started to twist it back and forth, his eyes watery but focused.
Dean couldn't watch anymore. He closed his eyes, put his back flat against the wall, and listened to his father panting and cursing before letting out one last loud grunt. Then John cleared his throat and spit, scenting the air with another burst of iron. Dean thought he heard the small ting of something small and hard hitting the cement floor. He counted to ten in his head before twisting to look inside once more.
John was taking a long pull on the vodka, and everything else was back on the table and covered in sticky, darkening blood. Then John picked up some more clean gauze and stuffed it in his mouth. On top of the mirror shard, Dean could see what looked like two small pebbles, yellow veined through with dark gray. Dad's back teeth.
They'd probably been knocked loose on the hunt, but no way were they fine before. John was strong enough for damn near anything; Dean hoped to be just like him someday. But even John could still be laid low by something as small as... this.
Dean felt his own teeth throb in sympathy as he looked at his father leaning back in the chair, forehead shining with sweat and bloody hand still clenched around the bottle.
He shivered, and then began to move away.
"Dean."
Dean froze.
"I know you're there, so you listen to me. You have to learn how to take care of yourselves, you and Sammy." His speech was slurred through the gauze he was still biting hard. "Can't afford to be going to civilians with this, it's asking for trouble."
Dean didn't answer, waiting for John to continue.
But John remained silent, just taking deep breaths and scraping his boot against the floor.
Dean took off for the house like a shot.
***
The next day, after fourth period, Dean broke into the nurse's office and stole a whole month's supply of mouth rinse from the School Fluoride Program. He took enough for thirty kids, and he started slipping a dose into Sam's water every Saturday when they went out running.
From then on, whenever Sam grinned at him with those perfect, gleaming white teeth, Dean felt a rush of personal pride in a job well done.
***
Now
Dean was just minding his own business when it started.
They were in a motel out near the airport in Albuquerque, where they'd just wrapped up a case. Just some ghouls that needed to be taken out before they could tear up any more corpses. Gross, but nothing too hard.
Sam was in the shower, leaving Dean alone to drink beer in front of an old TV with a blurry green spot in the upper corner.
Dean watched The Simpsons with the volume low and his mind on autopilot. Bart and Lisa flitted across the screen, ageless in their cartoon world. He swallowed a mouthful of beer and felt a low thrum of pain in his cheek, like he'd bitten the inside and hadn't noticed.
Once Sam was out of the bathroom, Dean wiped down the mirror and examined his mouth in the fluorescent light, but he couldn't see anything unusual. He came back out and flopped into bed, scowling.
"What's wrong?" Sam paused over his duffel holding a clean t-shirt and a beat-up paperback.
"Nothing. Just a piece of food caught in my teeth or something." Dean shrugged and turned up the volume.
***
"That still bothering you?" Sam was giving him the Eyebrows of Serious Concern from where he was folded in the passenger seat.
They were leaving Utah. Leaving Salina, where some character from the Black Hawk War had risen up from the desert sand and started attacking the descendants of Mormon settlers.
By the time Sam and Dean had shown up, a group of local Ute tribesman had already dispatched the ghost. The leader gave them a "'Round here, we take care of our own" kind of speech, but they were thanked nonetheless for their troubles and given room and board for the night.
"It's nothing. I'm handling it." Dean had been sucking on his cheek in silence since they got on the road. His tooth had kept bothering him for almost a week, even though he'd spent every meal chewing carefully on one side, and checking on it every morning and night. His distress must have been pretty obvious, if Sam's badgering was anything to go by.
"Clearly," Sam scoffed, sarcastic. "Clearly you're fine."
"What do you want me to do, huh? I can't just walk into a dentist's office. None of our cards or IDs are any good right now. I'm just gonna wait until it gets better."
"Three days, Dean. Three more days and then you're at least gonna let me take a look at it."
"Please, like you know anything about teeth..." Dean trailed off, defeated by the surfacing knowledge that his brother had probably learned all about this shit. During all their years at risk of grievous bodily harm, Sam had gone through multiple phases of absorbing medical training textbooks like a sponge.
"Actually, I do. I know a lot more than you think." Sam's voice bordered on smug. "And I just want to help."
Dean pressed harder on the gas, and Sam coughed and rolled up his window against the road dust.
***
Three days later they were in Kentucky, on the northern edge of the swamps at Reelfoot Lake. Dean was in so much pain that it distracted him from the Buru they were hunting.
He'd nearly gotten his foot bitten off while he was busy worrying at that sore spot with his tongue and cradling his face.
"That's it," Sam said, between the breaths he was catching after he finished sinking the beast's dead body into the muddy water. "Time's up. We're doing something about that tooth, tonight."
"Man, I just washed these pants! And how does a Buru even get to Kentucky, anyway?" Dean could hear the awkward note in his own voice, dissembling.
"Don't change the subject. Why are you making such a big deal out of a stupid toothache? And why-?"
"Shut up! You don't know!" Dean cut his brother's questions off with a shout, but his voice was muted by the sodden landscape. It was like the opposite of an echo, and twice as creepy.
They locked eyes and the moment stretched out before Sam twitched with a flicker of understanding that gave Dean a swooping feeling in his stomach.
He had always resented how well his brother could read him. Almost as much as he resented himself.
***
Dean sat in an overstuffed armchair with beige upholstery scratching his forearms, waiting for Sam to turn around from the motel table where he was arranging supplies.
Somehow, who the hell knew when or where, Sam had procured a brand new pair of medical-grade stainless steel dental pliers. Dean felt a pang of absurd gratitude, but said nothing. He still hoped the pliers would not be necessary.
Along with some gauze, cotton swabs and rubbing alcohol, Sam had also revealed a small vile of numbing agent, which Dean waved away, much to his brother's consternation.
"Come on, who needs that shit when there's vodka?" Dean held up the bottle, but did not add the part about family tradition.
"Sorry, am I offending your precious masculinity? This is going to hurt a lot. Seriously, man, this is gonna feel a lot worse before it gets better."
"Oooh, kinky, Sammy. Are you sure we're still talking about dentistry?"
"Very funny," Sam mumbled and rolled his eyes, then angled a lampshade in Dean's direction and bent over the chair. "Now open up and hold still while I take a look."
Dean put his head back and dropped his jaw, and Sam's expression shifted immediately from detached scrutiny to outright shock.
"Oh my god."
"What?"
"No wonder. Your molar is, like, completely wrecked. Your cavities have cavities, Dean. We definitely have to pull it out."
"Well, fuck," said Dean, and then took another swig of vodka, sloshing it around his mouth. He stared at a stain on the carpet.
When he raised his eyes again, Sam was only inches away with those pliers.
"Holy shit! Give me another minute here!" Dean nearly jumped out of the chair, and felt slightly dizzy as the vodka hit him along with the rush of adrenaline that he'd found often preceded imminent physical suffering.
Sam pulled his arm away, jerking it back sharply. "We should move you to the bed, anyhow. The light is better."
Dean rubbed his jaw protectively and thought about this before answering slowly. "Yeah... okay..."
They crossed the room to the first bed. Dean's brain bounced inside his skull as he threw himself down on his back with his head hanging off the far side, where the light was brightest. Almost immediately, his gut was compressed by Sam's full body weight on top of him, knees on either side pinning Dean's arms to keep him in place.
"What the hell?" Dean spluttered, "I mean, what the hell?! This sucks enough without you going all, all Orin Scrivello on me!" Dean tried to gesture with his trapped hands and succeeded only in straining his neck muscles as he craned his head a few inches. Sam held still, looming over him with a haunted, manic gaze.
"It's the only way to keep you from moving around too much. Trust me. Just relax as much as you can."
Dean felt his face go red, and knew what he must look like, all unguarded and vulnerable. He saw a matching blush rise high on his brother's cheekbones.
"Uh, this is kind of weird, Sam."
Sam only leaned in closer, and Dean flushed even more all over as Sam tugged gently on his chin with a thumb.
"Just relax," Sam said again. He was looking at Dean's mouth with a strange intensity.
Dean took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and opened wide. First he felt the metallic, sterile cold of the pliers, which actually kind of helped.
Then the pliers clamped down and started to wriggle, and he had to choke back a scream.
"Okay, it's... uh, it's moving. It's... I should be able to get it... right..."
Dean opened his eyes and a wave of red flared over his vision. He tried and failed to focus on the corners of the ceiling, upside-down, and refused to let himself make any of the embarrassing, half-animal noises that were threatening to escape into Sam's face.
"Just another sec..." Sam's hair was falling into his eyes and he was biting his bottom lip.
"Aaaaaggh," Dean managed, and began mentally counting backwards from ten. When he was almost to six, he felt the pressure in his gums give way. This was followed by a warm pulse of liquid over and under his tongue.
"I got it." Sam said, quiet and awestruck, with no hint of triumph. "There's... a lot of blood. Let me..."
Dean swallowed down the taste of iron as Sam dropped the pliers somewhere off to the side and felt around for the towel he'd positioned nearby, eyes never leaving Dean's mouth.
The pain thrummed, but it was better than before. Bearable. Dean's adrenaline had started go down, and he was suddenly left feeling totally exposed. Intimate.
Sam put the towel against Dean's cheek, almost absently, then leaned in even closer.
"Let me," Sam said again.
"Yeah, Sammy," Dean replied, not entirely sure what he was agreeing to.
That uncertainly was still not cleared up when Sam touched Dean's lower lip with his own.
The press was brief, only two or three seconds, and then Sam pulled away with a thin string of bright red wet blood catching between them. It snapped, which seemed to snap something loose in Sam, as well. His eyes were glassy as he wiped his lip with a thumb and lifted off of Dean gingerly, as if trying not to disturb him from a shallow sleep.
"I - uh, sorry," Sam held out a plastic water bottle. "Here. Rinse with this, it's way safer than the tap water. You should, uh, go clean up."
Dean swung himself upright and took the water, not really knowing what else to do. Halfway to the sink, he turned. Sam was staring after him.
"Uh, thanks," Dean said, feeling more than a little dazed.
Sam just kept staring.
***
An hour later, Dean was vaguely watching a movie. Some straight-to-cable action crap. He really wasn't paying attention, too busy dealing with the ice pack on his cheek, the chalky taste of dry gauze, and the strange thoughts that kept swirling around his mind while he tried not to look at his brother. He had taken some fantastic painkillers, leftover from the last time they'd restocked at Bobby's. Probably not the best idea he'd ever had, on top of the vodka, but he felt like he'd earned a break. Besides, he had Sam around to make sure he didn't pull a Jimi Hendrix.
Sam, for his part, had busied himself packing away the med supplies, cleaning their hunting knives, and rinsing the worst of the blood - both Dean's and the Buru's - from their clothes. He came over to take the ice pack away, and finally sat down, his tall form hunched with his elbows on his knees in the armchair.
"So..." Sam started. "How you feeling?"
"So..." Dean drawled. "You got some kind of blood thing that I don't know about?"
It came out before he could stop himself. The meds were fucking with his subconscious, obviously. But it was kind of worth it just to see the look on Sam's face through the haze.
"No! God!" Sam stammered and ran a hand through his hair. "Uh, no. Not - it's not the blood."
"I get it, Sammy." Dean yawned. "You and me, always a blood thing. Blood is... thicker..." The meds were fucking with his brain-to-mouth filter, too.
"Yeah," said Sam. "Thicker than water. Blood brothers."
Dean felt the remote control lifted from his languid grip, and a warm hand landing on his ankle.
"You should sleep now. We can... we can talk tomorrow."
The hand rubbed a circle, and Dean blacked out.
***
Tomorrow came, and Dean didn't wake up until well into the afternoon. Sam had been up for hours, had maybe been up most of the night, judging by how exhausted he looked. He'd stood with his hands limp at his sides waiting for Dean to get dressed before they'd ventured out in search of a diner.
Dean stared longingly at the trucker eating a cheeseburger one table over, but grudgingly downed his lukewarm cream-of-something soup - surely the first of many bowls of soup, which was all he'd be able to handle for a little while.
Sam had ordered a fruity granola mix at first, but called the waiter back and changed it for what Dean was having. It was a nice token of commiseration, as was the tentative half-smile he gave Dean as he fumbled his silverware from his rolled napkin.
"Jesus. I swear, when I'm healed up I'm going to eat junk food for a week."
"That's probably how you got into this mess in the first place."
"Hey, you know I take care of my teeth." Dean feigned shock and then smirked. "And you gotta admit, a mouth this pretty is a terrible thing to waste."
Sam blanched for a split second before schooling his face into a practiced emo eye roll. Dean noticed it all, and did not let on as he felt his stomach do that inexplicable swooping thing. The sensation didn't go so well with his soup, though, so he did his best to ignore it while filing Sam's reaction away for future consideration.
"Sure, whatever gets you through the day." Sam mocked, but then appeared thoughtful. "Actually, you did set a decent example when we were kids. I mean, in terms of oral hygiene."
"Aw, thanks. That's big, coming from you. I think you actually wanted to be a dentist for a while there."
"Dean, I was, like, ten. I also wanted to be an archeologist and dig for dinosaurs."
"Well you do a lot of digging up old shit now," Dean made a flourish with his empty spoon. "So on top of last night's little performance, I guess you're not far from realizing your dreams after all."
Sam laughed, with a nervous edge at first and then more openly when Dean snickered back. Then Sam smiled, and there it was - the blinding grin Dean didn't get to see nearly often enough.
"You, man, you've got the great teeth in this family." Dean said, pointing at Sam. "Always made sure of that."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You don't remember what happened with Dad, that time?"
"Huh?"
Dean leaned into the worn wooden back of his chair. "Let me tell you a story, Sam..."
- END -
Comments and recs appreciated.
Happy Holidays!
*Crossposted to DW and LJ*
Also posted in AO3.