FILLED: zero integrity (part 1/2)stella_downOctober 9 2011, 13:29:33 UTC
this is really dark. I hope that's okay. D:
* * *
The yellow ones are as thick as bullets, almost wedging in his throat before Dean tosses back a quick ounce of whiskey to wash them down. He wipes his mouth off on his sleeve, leans his head back against the couch and lets out a long, tight breath.
The clock’s ticking while he waits for the constant barbed wire of pain in his leg to dim around the edges. Whatever this shit is, it works slow. Dean straightens up, cracks his neck, and the time on the clock reads 1:13 AM. Half an hour.
Sam’s been down since ten or so. He insisted that he was fine, and Dean knows he’s got no right to force the truth out of his brother when he’s been lying to his face right back. Bobby’s somewhere he can’t remember.
He’s been laid out on this couch with a pint of Jack and the cast propped up on a stack of pillows to keep it elevated, sunk in a mire of alternating self-pity and disgust. Just another Saturday night. The whiskey’s helping, though, like it always does.
After a few more minutes of numbness, Dean sits up, his stomach suddenly gnawing. There’s half a leftover pastrami Reuben in the fridge and Dean wants it as much as he's ever wanted anything. It’s all he can think about right now for some reason - coleslaw and Russian dressing on rye.
He props himself up on the couch arm and comes to a shaky stand. This cabin is so pitch dark at night it's almost un-fucking-inhabitable, all dust and loose floorboards and cobwebbed corners for brown recluses to hide in and wait until he falls asleep to crawl all over his goddamn face. The thought gives Dean a horrible itch right under his nose. He rubs it with his free hand, rough, and then his center of balance is shifting and his good leg decides to buckle under his weight. When his knees hit the floor, the impact sends up a cloud of dust thick enough to make him sneeze twice in a row.
“Fuckin' A," he moans, sniffling.
Dean roots around in the darkness for his cane and gives it another shot, choosing his steps carefully. The floor’s kind of wobbling in front of him, blurring in and out of focus, and he has to stop for a moment to catch his breath in the kitchen doorway. Jesus, his leg is itching.
Rufus's sorry excuse for a fridge doesn't even have a working light. Dean digs around on the top shelf blindly until his fingers brush the paper-wrapped sandwich.
He sits down heavily on the floor, the fridge door swinging shut next to him. There’s a little ambient light coming in from the side yard and he squints, trying to unwrap the Reuben. His head feels heavy, thick, like it's been packed with cotton, and his chin’s starting to droop. Fuck that. He’s not sleeping, not yet. Someone’s got to stay up and make sure Sam’s all right, be there if he needs help, keep him safe, protect the house and everything. He’s just got to keep it together a little longer.
With bleary eyes, he pulls the whiskey flask out of his coat pocket and tries to unscrew the cap, but his stupid fingers won't do what they're supposed to and a bunch of it spills down all over his chest, stinging and cold.
"Fuck," Dean mumbles, pissed at himself. He takes a long, angry pull from the bottle, then follows it with a sloppy bite of the sandwich. It feels like there are lead weights on his eyelids trying to drag them shut. He’s not going to pass out. Not in the kitchen. That’ll earn him a lecture from Bobby and he hates hearing them because he knows Bobby’s right. Or, even worse, one of those looks from Sam that just eviscerates him, withers him on the spot, makes him feel small and pathetic and guilty, guilty, guilty.
Vertigo sweeps over him in a sickening wave, blotting out his vision, and Dean realizes he’s got to make it back to the couch, now, fast fast fast. He slumps forward, lands on his elbows and tries to crawl but everything is moving too slow, all warped and dizzy and screwed up. The weirdest part is that his leg feels fantastic.
Dean can hear his voice trying to say something before the walls crash down and his ears are ringing and his stomach is in free fall and there's copper in his mouth and the floor rushes up to meet him --
Re: FILLED: zero integrity (part 2/3)stella_downOctober 9 2011, 13:44:20 UTC
* * *
Something’s shaking him.
Dim sensation of his face scraping against hardwood.
Someone’s saying words but they're buried under a layer of white noise, distorted, almost like being underwater. It’s fucking annoying. He wants to make it shut up but he can't get his arm to move.
"Dean," says the alien echo, reverberating, hurting his ears. "Dean, can you hear me?"
"No," he tries to say, indignant.
"I need you to listen to me, okay? How many--"
* * *
"I don't know. I don't - what's he been taking? How strong is it? I mean, is it - is he --"
"First aid kit in the van. Glove compartment.”
“Bobby -- “
“Don’t have all night, Sam.”
Door slamming.
“Goddamn it, boy. You die on me and I swear -“
* * *
His eyes open, sudden rush of daylight stinging his pupils, and Sam is leaning over him. He blinks. Sam’s face is all twisted up and his eyes are red and swollen.
"Dude," Dean rasps. His mouth tastes like a fucking wet cigarette. "What's wrong?"
Sam makes this sound halfway between a disbelieving laugh and a sob.
"You don't even remember?"
Dean tries to sit up on his elbows, and when the nausea hits, he can barely breathe through the stifling garrote around his lungs. The force of it drops him back down onto the couch. He sucks in a deep breath, then lets it out through his nose. Inhale, exhale.
"Get me some water?" he asks, voice cracking, and Sam’s mouth goes tight like he’s just said the wrong thing.
“Yeah. Yeah, okay, Dean.”
And he’s gone, just like that.
Dean stares at the ceiling, holding his stomach contents at bay through sheer willpower. He’s done something wrong. Sam’s seen him hungover a thousand times and he’s never made that face. That’s his messed-up, emo, werewolf-shooting face, and it’s because of something he did. It’s just that there are so goddamn many things Dean’s already screwed up, fouled up beyond all repair, and they don’t talk about them very much these days, Sam and Dean, and if he lies here and goes over each and every word he wishes he could forget, every stupid thing he’d sell his soul to fix, he’d never get up off of this couch.
“The tap water sucks in Montana,” Sam is saying somewhere off to the left.
He hauls himself into a sitting position, and Sam hands him a porcelain mug with a Star of David on it, then a lemon-lime Gatorade and a pink tablet shaped like a bear. Dean eyes them warily.
“Electrolytes and B vitamins,” Sam explains, his voice strained.
Dean opens his mouth, and Sam immediately cuts him off.
“Don’t argue. Seriously.”
He nods, feeling too disgusting to put up a fight, and chases the bear vitamin down with the mug of water. It swirls up horribly in his mouth, this taste like coal briquettes and rotten meat, and he claps his hands over his face, willing himself to swallow the whole thing. When it’s empty, Sam takes the cup back.
“How are you feeling?” he asks quietly.
Dean clears his throat. “Feel like shit.”
“You know -“ Sam breaks off, an expression on his face like this conversation is physically painful. “You almost died last night, Dean.”
Re: FILLED: zero integrity (part 3/3)stella_downOctober 9 2011, 13:47:48 UTC
It’s starting to make sense. Vague memories of the kitchen floor, throwing up all over himself, Bobby funneling some shit down his throat. His skin goes cold with shame. Like always, it doesn’t show on his face.
“Yeah, well.” Dean can’t come up with anything else to say. He stares at the floor hard enough to burn a hole. “Go ahead. Get angry. Deck me one. I deserve it.”
He can feel the couch dip when Sam sits down next to him.
“I’m not mad at you, Dean.”
“Well, that’s just awesome."
Sam’s arm settles around his shoulder, fingers brushing his neck. It’s such an unexpected gesture that Dean startles, almost dropping the Gatorade, and when he glances over, wondering what the fuck, Sam's just got this earnest, worried look on his face, that's all.
It hits him then, how Sam is trying so fucking hard to hold it together even though he’s two suits short of a deck, and the guilt wells up inside him like a living thing.
“I don’t know what I’m doing, Sam,” he confesses, looking away, anywhere but at his brother. “Feels like, like we’ve been running in circles for so long, you know?”
His throat goes tight. He'd probably cry if he had the energy.
“I’m just so goddamn tired. Tired of all this.”
Sam doesn’t say anything for a little while. Then he slips his arm away and stands up awkwardly, his posture wavering, and Dean can tell from the way his eyes go vacant that he’s off in crazy town again.
“Yeah,” Dean whispers. He watches Sam’s face, unmoving, then slips a hand under the couch cushion for the bottle of Norco, swallows one dry. “Guess you are, too.”
Re: FILLED: zero integrity (part 3/3)sinnerforhireOctober 10 2011, 13:42:55 UTC
Oh, I loved it! (Unfortunately, I could really identify with Dean here--activated charcoal is some nasty-ass shit. D:) You did a fabulous job with this prompt, I couldn't have asked for a better fill!
(Oh, and the icon is my default--I post from my iPhone/iPad mostly, and the LJ app won't let me post anything else. I'm glad you like it though!)
* * *
The yellow ones are as thick as bullets, almost wedging in his throat before Dean tosses back a quick ounce of whiskey to wash them down. He wipes his mouth off on his sleeve, leans his head back against the couch and lets out a long, tight breath.
The clock’s ticking while he waits for the constant barbed wire of pain in his leg to dim around the edges. Whatever this shit is, it works slow. Dean straightens up, cracks his neck, and the time on the clock reads 1:13 AM. Half an hour.
Sam’s been down since ten or so. He insisted that he was fine, and Dean knows he’s got no right to force the truth out of his brother when he’s been lying to his face right back. Bobby’s somewhere he can’t remember.
He’s been laid out on this couch with a pint of Jack and the cast propped up on a stack of pillows to keep it elevated, sunk in a mire of alternating self-pity and disgust. Just another Saturday night. The whiskey’s helping, though, like it always does.
After a few more minutes of numbness, Dean sits up, his stomach suddenly gnawing. There’s half a leftover pastrami Reuben in the fridge and Dean wants it as much as he's ever wanted anything. It’s all he can think about right now for some reason - coleslaw and Russian dressing on rye.
He props himself up on the couch arm and comes to a shaky stand. This cabin is so pitch dark at night it's almost un-fucking-inhabitable, all dust and loose floorboards and cobwebbed corners for brown recluses to hide in and wait until he falls asleep to crawl all over his goddamn face. The thought gives Dean a horrible itch right under his nose. He rubs it with his free hand, rough, and then his center of balance is shifting and his good leg decides to buckle under his weight. When his knees hit the floor, the impact sends up a cloud of dust thick enough to make him sneeze twice in a row.
“Fuckin' A," he moans, sniffling.
Dean roots around in the darkness for his cane and gives it another shot, choosing his steps carefully. The floor’s kind of wobbling in front of him, blurring in and out of focus, and he has to stop for a moment to catch his breath in the kitchen doorway. Jesus, his leg is itching.
Rufus's sorry excuse for a fridge doesn't even have a working light. Dean digs around on the top shelf blindly until his fingers brush the paper-wrapped sandwich.
He sits down heavily on the floor, the fridge door swinging shut next to him. There’s a little ambient light coming in from the side yard and he squints, trying to unwrap the Reuben. His head feels heavy, thick, like it's been packed with cotton, and his chin’s starting to droop. Fuck that. He’s not sleeping, not yet. Someone’s got to stay up and make sure Sam’s all right, be there if he needs help, keep him safe, protect the house and everything. He’s just got to keep it together a little longer.
With bleary eyes, he pulls the whiskey flask out of his coat pocket and tries to unscrew the cap, but his stupid fingers won't do what they're supposed to and a bunch of it spills down all over his chest, stinging and cold.
"Fuck," Dean mumbles, pissed at himself. He takes a long, angry pull from the bottle, then follows it with a sloppy bite of the sandwich. It feels like there are lead weights on his eyelids trying to drag them shut. He’s not going to pass out. Not in the kitchen. That’ll earn him a lecture from Bobby and he hates hearing them because he knows Bobby’s right. Or, even worse, one of those looks from Sam that just eviscerates him, withers him on the spot, makes him feel small and pathetic and guilty, guilty, guilty.
Vertigo sweeps over him in a sickening wave, blotting out his vision, and Dean realizes he’s got to make it back to the couch, now, fast fast fast. He slumps forward, lands on his elbows and tries to crawl but everything is moving too slow, all warped and dizzy and screwed up. The weirdest part is that his leg feels fantastic.
Dean can hear his voice trying to say something before the walls crash down and his ears are ringing and his stomach is in free fall and there's copper in his mouth and the floor rushes up to meet him --
Reply
Something’s shaking him.
Dim sensation of his face scraping against hardwood.
Someone’s saying words but they're buried under a layer of white noise, distorted, almost like being underwater. It’s fucking annoying. He wants to make it shut up but he can't get his arm to move.
"Dean," says the alien echo, reverberating, hurting his ears. "Dean, can you hear me?"
"No," he tries to say, indignant.
"I need you to listen to me, okay? How many--"
* * *
"I don't know. I don't - what's he been taking? How strong is it? I mean, is it - is he --"
"First aid kit in the van. Glove compartment.”
“Bobby -- “
“Don’t have all night, Sam.”
Door slamming.
“Goddamn it, boy. You die on me and I swear -“
* * *
His eyes open, sudden rush of daylight stinging his pupils, and Sam is leaning over him. He blinks. Sam’s face is all twisted up and his eyes are red and swollen.
"Dude," Dean rasps. His mouth tastes like a fucking wet cigarette. "What's wrong?"
Sam makes this sound halfway between a disbelieving laugh and a sob.
"You don't even remember?"
Dean tries to sit up on his elbows, and when the nausea hits, he can barely breathe through the stifling garrote around his lungs. The force of it drops him back down onto the couch. He sucks in a deep breath, then lets it out through his nose. Inhale, exhale.
"Get me some water?" he asks, voice cracking, and Sam’s mouth goes tight like he’s just said the wrong thing.
“Yeah. Yeah, okay, Dean.”
And he’s gone, just like that.
Dean stares at the ceiling, holding his stomach contents at bay through sheer willpower. He’s done something wrong. Sam’s seen him hungover a thousand times and he’s never made that face. That’s his messed-up, emo, werewolf-shooting face, and it’s because of something he did. It’s just that there are so goddamn many things Dean’s already screwed up, fouled up beyond all repair, and they don’t talk about them very much these days, Sam and Dean, and if he lies here and goes over each and every word he wishes he could forget, every stupid thing he’d sell his soul to fix, he’d never get up off of this couch.
“The tap water sucks in Montana,” Sam is saying somewhere off to the left.
He hauls himself into a sitting position, and Sam hands him a porcelain mug with a Star of David on it, then a lemon-lime Gatorade and a pink tablet shaped like a bear. Dean eyes them warily.
“Electrolytes and B vitamins,” Sam explains, his voice strained.
Dean opens his mouth, and Sam immediately cuts him off.
“Don’t argue. Seriously.”
He nods, feeling too disgusting to put up a fight, and chases the bear vitamin down with the mug of water. It swirls up horribly in his mouth, this taste like coal briquettes and rotten meat, and he claps his hands over his face, willing himself to swallow the whole thing. When it’s empty, Sam takes the cup back.
“How are you feeling?” he asks quietly.
Dean clears his throat. “Feel like shit.”
“You know -“ Sam breaks off, an expression on his face like this conversation is physically painful. “You almost died last night, Dean.”
Reply
“Yeah, well.” Dean can’t come up with anything else to say. He stares at the floor hard enough to burn a hole. “Go ahead. Get angry. Deck me one. I deserve it.”
He can feel the couch dip when Sam sits down next to him.
“I’m not mad at you, Dean.”
“Well, that’s just awesome."
Sam’s arm settles around his shoulder, fingers brushing his neck. It’s such an unexpected gesture that Dean startles, almost dropping the Gatorade, and when he glances over, wondering what the fuck, Sam's just got this earnest, worried look on his face, that's all.
It hits him then, how Sam is trying so fucking hard to hold it together even though he’s two suits short of a deck, and the guilt wells up inside him like a living thing.
“I don’t know what I’m doing, Sam,” he confesses, looking away, anywhere but at his brother. “Feels like, like we’ve been running in circles for so long, you know?”
His throat goes tight. He'd probably cry if he had the energy.
“I’m just so goddamn tired. Tired of all this.”
Sam doesn’t say anything for a little while. Then he slips his arm away and stands up awkwardly, his posture wavering, and Dean can tell from the way his eyes go vacant that he’s off in crazy town again.
“Yeah,” Dean whispers. He watches Sam’s face, unmoving, then slips a hand under the couch cushion for the bottle of Norco, swallows one dry. “Guess you are, too.”
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*cuddles them all*
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(Oh, and the icon is my default--I post from my iPhone/iPad mostly, and the LJ app won't let me post anything else. I'm glad you like it though!)
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Also, I really felt like I was there in that cabin. Such rich details!
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