Supernatural fic, Journey.
Title: Journey
Rating: PG-13
Warning: Some bad language
Summary: Dean POV. Life’s one long journey for Dean, but where will it end?
Pre and throughout series, spoilers for Devil’s Trap
Disclaimer: Of course, the boys are not mine. The CW owns them now!
innie_darling was a very helpful beta, and deserves praise and many cookies.
**
There was a time before the journey, but Dean can’t remember it. Memories flutter in his peripheral vision like ghosts. He turns to see them but they’re gone, flown away back to the blinding light. Even with his eyes shut the light gleams and burns his eyelids.
Happier times, maybe, but that’s all bullshit. No one’s really happy. That’s a story people tell when they feel bad for themselves.
**
The road, the car; that’s home. Where home will always be. Steady turn of the wheels over the tarmac. The sound of the wheels is comforting, like a heartbeat, thump thump thump. Road signs tell how far there is to go, never how far has already passed.
Close in the car, the three of them crushed together tight. Wrestle, fight. Stern voice stops the ‘kidding around’. Focus, help navigate, that’s Dean’s job. The cog in the wheel, the oil in the system. No amount of words can shut out the anger and bitterness, but Dean tries anyway. Fruitlessly. Pointlessly.
Sam’ll come round. Dad’ll understand. It won’t fall apart. That’s a lie Dean tells himself when he feels bad about life.
**
Two of them now and the Impala’s never felt bigger. Cavernous space that envelops Dean in crushing bonds. Too much said. Too much unsaid. The silence suffocates, takes away Dean’s breath and now he can’t speak or feel. It’s better that way. Dad snaps and praises alternately. Dean can’t make up for the loss of the son Dad loves the most. Prefers even though he’s gone. Perhaps because he’s gone, to the life they all should have had. Dean tries to be better, tries to be the best.
Sam’ll come back. Dad’ll appreciate it. They’ll be together again. That’s a lie Dean tells himself when he can’t take it anymore.
**
Alone, racing up the highway, to the sea; racing to hope, to family. To rejection and loneliness…
A traffic jam holds him up and Dean’s tense. No delays now, not when he’s on his way. Drums his hands on the wheel, patterns out his tension with every thump. He stretches as best he can, flexes his hands on the wheel. The cars glimmer ahead of him in a long line of people going everywhere and going nowhere, all at once. A line of lemmings stuck in a row.
Dean stretches his legs. He hates the proximity of the nearby cars, of the people and crowds of the city. He needs to get out. He’s got places to be. They hang on him like a smell, visible and shining in the air around him. He wants a shower.
There at last. Brave face, cocky answer. Teamwork clicks back into place. The fire, the light is unexpected, but he’s here isn’t he, so he knew, somehow, that it was calling him back.
They are two, and Dean tells himself they’ll soon be three. He doesn’t know if it’s a lie or not.
**
The journey’s where it’s at, and at least he has company now. All he wants is to be on it, racing to the next destination, wherever that is. He can remember the freeway numbers, but not the towns they’ve been through. He can remember the hot waitresses, but not which diners they worked in. He knows area codes, but can’t remember the names of his many high schools.
Illinois, North and South Dakota, New Jersey… no sense or reason, follow a lead here, a hunch there. Follow Dad’s coordinates. Move with purpose and no aim at all. Kill time till Dad calls, till it strikes, till Death comes.
The open road; the freedom of doing ninety with no one in sight. Dean sings along and Sam makes a face, eyes burn reproach into Dean’s side. Eyes roll and shoulders shrug, but that’s Sam’s way. Dean mocks, Sam disparages.
There’s white between the words on the page, and that’s where the love is. The spaces are needed as much as the letters, or nothing would make sense. Not that anything makes sense to Dean anyway, despite the lies he tells Sam.
**
Sam has a crumpled map forgotten on his lap, out too early, too hopefully, in preparation for the road. Sam may think he’s on Dean’s trip, in Dean’s life but Sam navigates, and Dean’s just the driver.
Sam has the stopover planned. Sam looks forward to dinner, and to research, and to bed. He actually now looks up the cheesiest motels he can find, Dean’s sure, because they seem to end up at some beauties. Ones that make them stand out; that make the journeys less the same and more individual.
There’s never a stop for Dean, it’s endless road and the Impala, and travelling toward a goal. Dean isn’t sure what. The demon or death, whichever comes first and then more of the same.
**
Three of them now and Dad’s navigating, Dad dictates. Dean should be happy, he’s got what he wanted, but somehow he isn’t. That bitch happiness eludes him like she always does.
Sam’s moving toward Dad, it’s always the two of them, and then Dean, despite what they think. Dean worries, maybe he’s lost them both. Maybe he’s always alone.
He keeps them apart, and lies to himself that he can stop them both, if he has to.
**
Dean’s in the car and Sam’s driving, but only because Dean hurts, too much to think, to stay awake. Sam’s driving and navigating, and Dean’s along for the ride. Sam and Dad fighting as usual, and Dean doesn’t mind it now. Means they’re alive and here.
Locks eyes with Sam, Sam agrees with him. Hopes.
The crash comes and it’s not a shock, because this must be where the road ends. Not a shock, but not wanted. He’s needed, isn’t he?
Opens his mouth to scream. He’d reach out if he could move. Then darkness.
If there’s something after the darkness, Dean wants it to fucking hurry. He’s got a journey to finish.
**
Feedback is my friend.