Dec 2005 - Supernatural - Turn The Page
So, I was watching "Supernatural", and got to thinking (as you do) about guns and cars and habits and brothers. And then this happened, and it's totally not my fault and I take no responsibility for it. Unless you like it, in which case, yeah, okay, it's Wincest, but just really mildly so. There, I admitted it.
Turn The Page by Pet
"Supernatural"
Sam/Dean, non-explicit
Not mine, no money, blah blah bitchcakes have you any wool?
"Turn The Page"
***
On good days, Sam wonders if maybe Dean isn't some kind of idiot savant, or emotionally stunted, or something. Or a really good actor, maybe, because there's no way someone who does what they do should be so cheery. Dean's the bubbliest killer Sam has ever met or heard about or read about, except in those trashy fantasy books he totally didn't read when he was a kid, and even they didn't have hunters and assassins as mellow and insouciant as Dean. On good days, Sam convinces himself that it's just that Dean really likes his work.
On bad days, days after nights when Sam wakes up from nightmares cold and shaking, days that seem dark around the edges and frozen in the middle and dim with the weight of evil things, Sam just wants to wring Dean's neck and get it over with, because it's fucking annoying to be around someone who never takes anything seriously.
They're somewhere near Santa Cruz, and they've been up for 72 hours straight tracking what Sam had thought might be a regular old human nutjob who'd been sinking fishing boats. But it had turned out to be a selkie, far from home, taking his revenge for the slaughter of sea lions, and Sam had watched stonefaced as Dean had 'dropped' the sleek skin to the sand. Then he'd 'slipped' and 'looked away' while the selkie darted forward to claim it, as he vanished into the sea in a heartbeat. Shades of gray, Sam has often thought, are a screaming pain in the ass. Give him a nice straightforward evil spirit any day.
They've got the selkie's promise to leave the States, though, and they're doing seventy-five with a cool night wind coming in the windows, and since the nightmares won't let him sleep, Sam's driving. Dean is out cold, has been since twenty seconds after they hit the highway, and Sam breathes a deep sigh of relief at the peace and quiet. Thinks about guns, and how they've lost two of their three pump action 12-gauge shotguns in the last couple of weeks. How Sam dropped his Beretta when they were getting chased by the loup garou up near Portland, how the last time he went to grab a clip he noticed how few they had left. One more thing to worry about, and he resolves to ask Dean about it when he wakes up.
Dean, who let the eerily beautiful, sad selkie go. Sam glances sideways at his brother, just in time to watch him tilt slowly sideways, topple in extended slo-mo until his temple rests awkwardly against Sam's upper arm, his face squished into unattractive wrinkles. Sam sighs, and lifts his arm, letting Dean settle with his cheek pillowed on Sam's thigh, head heavy with sleep. He figures Dean can use the rest. And they won't be stopping until they're well clear of the California border once again.
***
"When I asked about the guns, I kinda thought you'd say 'hey, Sam, let me show you the Winchester family stash,'" Sam pants, trying to keep the stack of rifles in his arms from sliding and falling everywhere as they hustle back to the car, "not 'Sam, we're gonna go visit the trolls.'"
"They hoard guns," Dean shrugs, sliding across the hood of the car on one hip, slapping at the duffel bag to swing it into the open back window on the fly. "It's not like they ever use 'em. They steal 'em from wherever, keep 'em out of the hands of your garden-variety Koresh types, and I swing by once in a while and stock up."
"Don't they mind?" Sam ducks into the car carefully, mindful of his extra inches. The little lumpy gray trolls had made him feel even taller than usual, though they'd kept their distance while Sam and Dean 'shopped.'
"Nah. Don't think so, anyway. They've never made too big a fuss." Dean floors the car down the bumpy, overgrown dirt track.
"So why are we hurrying?"
"Sam." Dean turns earnest, serious big eyes on him, and Sam scowls reflexively. "It's not polite to overstay your welcome, y'know. Maybe this is why we never get invited places."
"Oh for god's sake. Dean, we just stole their guns. I know I saw a rocket launcher back in there somewhere, are they gonna toast us?"
"Nah." There's a moment of silence, and then the car speeds up. "Don't think so."
***
Another nightmare, another vague feeling of something terrible coming, something evil, and THERE- Sam wakes up, gasping and jerking upright, shaking for long moments before he remembers the hotel, the rainstorm...the light is still on, and blinking, he turns. Dean's sitting there, quietly cleaning a handgun. Glancing at Sam, then away, eyes heavy with unspoken concern, the radio on low, the sound of rain outside. Awake, watching. Watching over Sam. Sam lets his eyes fall closed, curls around his pillow, back into the warm place in the blankets, and falls asleep again. When he wakes up, it's nine nightmare-free hours later, and he's wrapped around Dean instead of the pillow.
He's had plenty of sleep and no hints of trouble, but somehow Dean's endless good cheer grates on Sam that day anyway. Dean talks about curses and Sam grunts crankily at him until Dean says something really clever and he's drawn in against his will. They eat lunch in a public library, looking up the best ways to avert the Evil Eye.
***
The things eating the local sheep and sheepdog population outside Boulder are apparently feline in origin: Dean is violently allergic, and once Sam stops laughing, he takes care of the problem with a quick warding charm, some pepper spray and a garden hose. Dean sneezes all the way to the county line, wiping at streaming eyes and telling Sam to "shud da fug ub, you fugger," when Sam's hoots of mirth get too loud. It's kind of nice to be laughing like this, Sam thinks, and then realizes with a not-totally-pleasant shock that Dean can always make him smile.
When they stop in Briar Creek, Sam insists on sleeping in his own bed, solo, even though he knows he has more nightmares that way. He's not sure why it feels important to get a little distance, but it does.
***
"Now, that's a handsome picture," Dean tells the mirror that's reflecting both of them. Sam peers at himself, seeing tilted eyes and sharp fox-features, then glancing at Dean. Huge eyes, almost too pretty, the handsome face more familiar than his own, and he's shocked as always to remember that Dean's quite a bit shorter. Sam doesn't feel taller than Dean. Dean is bulletproof, teflon-coated, it's inconceivable that Sam should be taller than he is.
"Yeah, we're some lookers," he hears himself say, brushing mockingly at his battered blue windbreaker and stained jeans. "Totally prime, what a winner."
"Now, hey now." Dean slings an arm around his waist, cocks an eyebrow and grins at Sam from the mirror. "Don't be talkin' bad about my little brother."
"Why, you afraid I'm gonna take all the good lines?" Sam can't help but grin back, and the arm around him feels like home.
"That's right, hot stuff," and Sam has to screech and jump at the pinch on his ass, while Deam spins smugly out of smacking-back range. "You're some competition, all right."
Dean goes home with a tall skinny girl named Janeane that night, and Sam jerks off in bed alone, thinking about nothing in particular.
***
"Look. Look." Sam's almost bouncing he's so excited. "Okay, so, this guy Simpson, maybe he wasn't so crazy after all. Maybe there are these energy lines, I don't wanna call 'em Ley Lines that's way too 'ooh lets get naked and dance around trees,' but check it out." He points to the map. "Haunting. Haunting. Boggart. Water fey. Haunting. All on a line. With a better electromag--" he trails off, finally looking at his brother. "Dean. DEAN!"
"What?" His eyes snap away from the next picnic table over, where the buffed-up guy with no shirt on is doing something manly with a football.
"Oh, for..." Sam snaps the diary closed, throws the pen, slams his map to the ground. "Jesus, Dean! You just got some last night, now you're looking for more?"
"Hey. It's not fair to deprive half the popu-"
"I know, I know, half the population of the earth of the greatness that is Dean Winchester. It's the same shit you said when I caught you with Ben Johnson in the treehouse. When I was fourteen." Sam knows he sounds like a total bitch, but he can't help it. "Could you just try not to bestow your greatness all at once?"
"Sam, hey, Sammy." Suddenly Dean's all concern and warm body language and leaning close, hand on his arm. "It's you and me, you know that, right? Anyone else, that's just blowing off steam. You and me, buddy. Forever, for good."
"That's what I'm afraid of," Sam hears his own voice saying, and turns and walks back to the car, and doesn't say another word for three hours.
***
"Don't tell me about your emotional problems," Dean holds up a warning hand when Sam, sheepish, finally turns to him and opens his mouth. "Just get your ass over here." Another fleabag hotel, another anonymous night in a place that won't remember them in the morning, and Sam's just as happy to take a seat next to Dean on the bed, let himself get headlocked and noogied and affectionately abused for a few minutes, Dean's way of making sure all's well. And if he ends up with his head on Dean's belly after, stretched out beside him, staring at the ceiling, well. It's just how they fell.
"You were kinda freakin' out there, huh?" Dean's still got a hand on his head, and Sam can feel him breathe, and his voice is mocking but only a little bit. "Having an estrogen moment?"
"Something like that," Sam chokes out, and he's so lonely, and Dean is right there, and warmhumanwarm, and Sam loves him so much, and it's just not right, so he's up and on the other bed before he can even breathe.
"Sam." All teasing gone, and Dean's right there next to him, hand on his shoulder, too close.
"Don't." He shoves the hand away.
"Quit being such a spaz." That same hand, smaller and stronger than his own, grabs his chin, pulls his face around, and he's blinking his lashes against Dean's cheek, breathing his breath. One breath, two, and they're kissing, soft and light and warm. "It's no big deal," Dean finishes, close enough that Sam can't see both his eyes without going crosseyed. "You and me, right?"
"Right," Sam agrees, dazed, and Dean, showing unusual restraint, doesn't push it. They get chinese and watch the WWF on fuzzy cable, and don't talk about it, and fall asleep with the light still on. But the next day when Sam reaches over to brush plaster dust from Dean's hair, he lets his hand linger, just a little bit. And when Dean smiles at him, winks and grins and tilts his head, Sam smiles back.
Fin
Yikes. That took longer than I thought (but then, I've never written the 'cest. Not even the Carters! Or Mama Lynn/Baby Boy! So it was something of a new experience for me). Ah, brotherly love.
Turn The Page by Pet
"Supernatural"
Sam/Dean, non-explicit
Not mine, no money, blah blah bitchcakes have you any wool?
"Turn The Page"
***
On good days, Sam wonders if maybe Dean isn't some kind of idiot savant, or emotionally stunted, or something. Or a really good actor, maybe, because there's no way someone who does what they do should be so cheery. Dean's the bubbliest killer Sam has ever met or heard about or read about, except in those trashy fantasy books he totally didn't read when he was a kid, and even they didn't have hunters and assassins as mellow and insouciant as Dean. On good days, Sam convinces himself that it's just that Dean really likes his work.
On bad days, days after nights when Sam wakes up from nightmares cold and shaking, days that seem dark around the edges and frozen in the middle and dim with the weight of evil things, Sam just wants to wring Dean's neck and get it over with, because it's fucking annoying to be around someone who never takes anything seriously.
They're somewhere near Santa Cruz, and they've been up for 72 hours straight tracking what Sam had thought might be a regular old human nutjob who'd been sinking fishing boats. But it had turned out to be a selkie, far from home, taking his revenge for the slaughter of sea lions, and Sam had watched stonefaced as Dean had 'dropped' the sleek skin to the sand. Then he'd 'slipped' and 'looked away' while the selkie darted forward to claim it, as he vanished into the sea in a heartbeat. Shades of gray, Sam has often thought, are a screaming pain in the ass. Give him a nice straightforward evil spirit any day.
They've got the selkie's promise to leave the States, though, and they're doing seventy-five with a cool night wind coming in the windows, and since the nightmares won't let him sleep, Sam's driving. Dean is out cold, has been since twenty seconds after they hit the highway, and Sam breathes a deep sigh of relief at the peace and quiet. Thinks about guns, and how they've lost two of their three pump action 12-gauge shotguns in the last couple of weeks. How Sam dropped his Beretta when they were getting chased by the loup garou up near Portland, how the last time he went to grab a clip he noticed how few they had left. One more thing to worry about, and he resolves to ask Dean about it when he wakes up.
Dean, who let the eerily beautiful, sad selkie go. Sam glances sideways at his brother, just in time to watch him tilt slowly sideways, topple in extended slo-mo until his temple rests awkwardly against Sam's upper arm, his face squished into unattractive wrinkles. Sam sighs, and lifts his arm, letting Dean settle with his cheek pillowed on Sam's thigh, head heavy with sleep. He figures Dean can use the rest. And they won't be stopping until they're well clear of the California border once again.
***
"When I asked about the guns, I kinda thought you'd say 'hey, Sam, let me show you the Winchester family stash,'" Sam pants, trying to keep the stack of rifles in his arms from sliding and falling everywhere as they hustle back to the car, "not 'Sam, we're gonna go visit the trolls.'"
"They hoard guns," Dean shrugs, sliding across the hood of the car on one hip, slapping at the duffel bag to swing it into the open back window on the fly. "It's not like they ever use 'em. They steal 'em from wherever, keep 'em out of the hands of your garden-variety Koresh types, and I swing by once in a while and stock up."
"Don't they mind?" Sam ducks into the car carefully, mindful of his extra inches. The little lumpy gray trolls had made him feel even taller than usual, though they'd kept their distance while Sam and Dean 'shopped.'
"Nah. Don't think so, anyway. They've never made too big a fuss." Dean floors the car down the bumpy, overgrown dirt track.
"So why are we hurrying?"
"Sam." Dean turns earnest, serious big eyes on him, and Sam scowls reflexively. "It's not polite to overstay your welcome, y'know. Maybe this is why we never get invited places."
"Oh for god's sake. Dean, we just stole their guns. I know I saw a rocket launcher back in there somewhere, are they gonna toast us?"
"Nah." There's a moment of silence, and then the car speeds up. "Don't think so."
***
Another nightmare, another vague feeling of something terrible coming, something evil, and THERE- Sam wakes up, gasping and jerking upright, shaking for long moments before he remembers the hotel, the rainstorm...the light is still on, and blinking, he turns. Dean's sitting there, quietly cleaning a handgun. Glancing at Sam, then away, eyes heavy with unspoken concern, the radio on low, the sound of rain outside. Awake, watching. Watching over Sam. Sam lets his eyes fall closed, curls around his pillow, back into the warm place in the blankets, and falls asleep again. When he wakes up, it's nine nightmare-free hours later, and he's wrapped around Dean instead of the pillow.
He's had plenty of sleep and no hints of trouble, but somehow Dean's endless good cheer grates on Sam that day anyway. Dean talks about curses and Sam grunts crankily at him until Dean says something really clever and he's drawn in against his will. They eat lunch in a public library, looking up the best ways to avert the Evil Eye.
***
The things eating the local sheep and sheepdog population outside Boulder are apparently feline in origin: Dean is violently allergic, and once Sam stops laughing, he takes care of the problem with a quick warding charm, some pepper spray and a garden hose. Dean sneezes all the way to the county line, wiping at streaming eyes and telling Sam to "shud da fug ub, you fugger," when Sam's hoots of mirth get too loud. It's kind of nice to be laughing like this, Sam thinks, and then realizes with a not-totally-pleasant shock that Dean can always make him smile.
When they stop in Briar Creek, Sam insists on sleeping in his own bed, solo, even though he knows he has more nightmares that way. He's not sure why it feels important to get a little distance, but it does.
***
"Now, that's a handsome picture," Dean tells the mirror that's reflecting both of them. Sam peers at himself, seeing tilted eyes and sharp fox-features, then glancing at Dean. Huge eyes, almost too pretty, the handsome face more familiar than his own, and he's shocked as always to remember that Dean's quite a bit shorter. Sam doesn't feel taller than Dean. Dean is bulletproof, teflon-coated, it's inconceivable that Sam should be taller than he is.
"Yeah, we're some lookers," he hears himself say, brushing mockingly at his battered blue windbreaker and stained jeans. "Totally prime, what a winner."
"Now, hey now." Dean slings an arm around his waist, cocks an eyebrow and grins at Sam from the mirror. "Don't be talkin' bad about my little brother."
"Why, you afraid I'm gonna take all the good lines?" Sam can't help but grin back, and the arm around him feels like home.
"That's right, hot stuff," and Sam has to screech and jump at the pinch on his ass, while Deam spins smugly out of smacking-back range. "You're some competition, all right."
Dean goes home with a tall skinny girl named Janeane that night, and Sam jerks off in bed alone, thinking about nothing in particular.
***
"Look. Look." Sam's almost bouncing he's so excited. "Okay, so, this guy Simpson, maybe he wasn't so crazy after all. Maybe there are these energy lines, I don't wanna call 'em Ley Lines that's way too 'ooh lets get naked and dance around trees,' but check it out." He points to the map. "Haunting. Haunting. Boggart. Water fey. Haunting. All on a line. With a better electromag--" he trails off, finally looking at his brother. "Dean. DEAN!"
"What?" His eyes snap away from the next picnic table over, where the buffed-up guy with no shirt on is doing something manly with a football.
"Oh, for..." Sam snaps the diary closed, throws the pen, slams his map to the ground. "Jesus, Dean! You just got some last night, now you're looking for more?"
"Hey. It's not fair to deprive half the popu-"
"I know, I know, half the population of the earth of the greatness that is Dean Winchester. It's the same shit you said when I caught you with Ben Johnson in the treehouse. When I was fourteen." Sam knows he sounds like a total bitch, but he can't help it. "Could you just try not to bestow your greatness all at once?"
"Sam, hey, Sammy." Suddenly Dean's all concern and warm body language and leaning close, hand on his arm. "It's you and me, you know that, right? Anyone else, that's just blowing off steam. You and me, buddy. Forever, for good."
"That's what I'm afraid of," Sam hears his own voice saying, and turns and walks back to the car, and doesn't say another word for three hours.
***
"Don't tell me about your emotional problems," Dean holds up a warning hand when Sam, sheepish, finally turns to him and opens his mouth. "Just get your ass over here." Another fleabag hotel, another anonymous night in a place that won't remember them in the morning, and Sam's just as happy to take a seat next to Dean on the bed, let himself get headlocked and noogied and affectionately abused for a few minutes, Dean's way of making sure all's well. And if he ends up with his head on Dean's belly after, stretched out beside him, staring at the ceiling, well. It's just how they fell.
"You were kinda freakin' out there, huh?" Dean's still got a hand on his head, and Sam can feel him breathe, and his voice is mocking but only a little bit. "Having an estrogen moment?"
"Something like that," Sam chokes out, and he's so lonely, and Dean is right there, and warmhumanwarm, and Sam loves him so much, and it's just not right, so he's up and on the other bed before he can even breathe.
"Sam." All teasing gone, and Dean's right there next to him, hand on his shoulder, too close.
"Don't." He shoves the hand away.
"Quit being such a spaz." That same hand, smaller and stronger than his own, grabs his chin, pulls his face around, and he's blinking his lashes against Dean's cheek, breathing his breath. One breath, two, and they're kissing, soft and light and warm. "It's no big deal," Dean finishes, close enough that Sam can't see both his eyes without going crosseyed. "You and me, right?"
"Right," Sam agrees, dazed, and Dean, showing unusual restraint, doesn't push it. They get chinese and watch the WWF on fuzzy cable, and don't talk about it, and fall asleep with the light still on. But the next day when Sam reaches over to brush plaster dust from Dean's hair, he lets his hand linger, just a little bit. And when Dean smiles at him, winks and grins and tilts his head, Sam smiles back.
Fin
Yikes. That took longer than I thought (but then, I've never written the 'cest. Not even the Carters! Or Mama Lynn/Baby Boy! So it was something of a new experience for me). Ah, brotherly love.