Fic: True and Total (Sam/Dean, J2, G) part 2 of 2
Back to Part 1
*****
Sam’s stupid phone alarm going off woke him up and he couldn’t even get mad about it. It was all his own damn fault that it was worse than usual because Dean had set it to play Taylor Swift’s new Christmas song at full volume. “You would be there tooooo, under the mistletooooe.”
Dean laughed at Sam scrambling and fumbling to shut his phone down as Taylor sang, “And telling me, I loooove yooouuuu. Just being in your armsss.” At least he didn’t throw his phone at Dean this particular time.
“Man, I was having the weirdest fucking dream,” Dean said, still muzzy from the hold the dream had on him for what had seemed like the whole damn night. His feet even felt cold, like he’d actually been tramping through the snowy woods all night like he had been in the dream. He’d been looking for…he’d found them. No, they’d found them.
“What was it, dogs chasing you or demons?” Sam asked, lit up all blue from the light coming from his phone screen over in the other bed. The Christmas lights around the window outside twinkled in green and red playing over the mess of Sam’s bed head.
“No, there wasn’t any chasing, and no demons. It was them, the guys on that dumb tv show about our lives, the ones that played us, the two actors in that other world, remember them?” Dean asked, trying to stretch his toes, god they were so cold he almost couldn’t feel them.
“Yeah, of course, what were their names? The guy that played you was Jensen and the other one was Jared, right? The guys that everyone thought kind of hated each other,” Sam said, sitting up in bed so he could see Dean.
“I was-no, we were searching for them, out in the woods, we were supposed to meet them, and there was so much damn snow and we…we finally found them.”
“Why were we looking for them though?” Sam asked.
“It was part of a case or something, we had promised Her we’d go find them. Otherwise She was taking them as her tribute this year.”
“Wait, hold on, who did we promise, a goddess or someone like that? What tribute?” Sam asked.
“Yeah, yeah we promised, Her. And She was happy when we found them,” Dean said with a strange smile. “Don’t you remember, Sammy, we were supposed to be the ones to remember. She said we would ‘Repeat It True and Total,’ whatever the hell that means.”
“I…I guess I do, now that you’re asking me. Honestly, that’s pretty weird now that I think about it. Who was She again?” Sam asked. "It’s slippery holding any thoughts of Her in my mind, like I’m having to tell myself to do it so hard I can’t exactly remember what I’m trying to remember.”
“Same here, all I can come up with is cold when I think of Her, cold as snow and ice and blowing winter wind,” Dean said.
“So we’re thinking She’s some kind of a snow or winter goddess then?” Sam asked. Dean could see his fingers moving over the screen of his phone.
“Using your google-fu, huh?” Dean teased.
“Sssh, have patience, young grasshopper. According to this, it’s probably, Chione, one of the daughters of Boreas who was the Greek god of the North Wind. Apparently She likes to freeze people and make ice sculptures out of them if they’re not honest,” Sam said.
“So that’s what we were saving them from? Hey, by the way, are your feet totally frozen, because mine are just starting to defrost or something and they really hurt now,” Dean said. He tried stretching his toes again and rubbing them together under the covers. Then he spotted their boots tangled up in a pile by the door in a puddle of water, presumably from melted snow. “Check out our boots.”
“Yeah, mine are not feeling right either, it’s really not good, we should go put them in some water in the bathtub, slowly bring up the temperature. I’d like to keep all ten of my toes.” Sam got out of bed and hobbled to the bathroom.
Dean could hear the bath water running and Sam peeing. He waited until he heard Sam’s feet splashing in the tub.
“So we were really out there in the woods, and I guess we found them, those actor dudes. Question is, did we save them or are they ice sculptures now? I guess they’d make pretty ones?” Dean asked as he sat next to Sam on the edge of the tub. He eased his feet into the water and hissed at the feeling of pins and needles going up to his ankles.
“We saved them last night…uh, don’t you remember when they kinda made up, right there in front of us?” Sam said.
Dean had to struggle with what to say and what not to say here, he wasn’t sure what Sam remembered. “It’s coming back to me now, yeah, so I guess those guys are okay at least. And hey, we’re not ice sculptures ourselves, so win win right? But this Chione chick, she’s still out there maybe still freezing people?” Dean asked, trying not to think about how hot it had been to see the two men who looked exactly like them kissing so passionately.
“We got her to take a break from judging people, remember the whole honesty thing?” Sam asked, stretching his toes in the warm water.
“Right…it was an honesty tradeoff. We promised to be honest to save those guys, and then they promised to be honest and saved us. No one turned into human popsicles, joy and celebrating all around.”
“What do you think about that whole ‘Repeat it True and Total’ thing?” Sam asked, leaning into Dean so that their sides and legs were pressed together.
“Chione just meant that I’d now be able to say the whole thing again if I needed or wanted to, if I heard those words,” Dean said, enjoying being leaned into so much he didn’t notice how much his feet were stinging as they warmed up.
“The whole thing, you mean you’ll say it, if I say the magic words?” Sam asked.
Dean nodded, knowing what would undoubtably be coming next, because Sam was Sam.
“Dean, Repeat it True and Total,” Sam said with an enigmatic smile on his lips.
Dean couldn’t tell if he was teasing or not. “Yeah, the whole thing about us being soulmates, made for each other, ride or die, together til the end. You know all that already anyway, right?”
“Oh yeah, you bet I do, I just wanted to hear it again,” Sam said.
“You little bitch,” Dean said, elbowing Sam in the ribs.
“Ow, you jerk, that really hurt,” Sam said, rubbing his side. “Thanks for saying it again.”
“You know I’m unable to not say it…right? It’s not like I want to go around spouting off about our true love saving the world all freaking day” Dean said.
“Yeah, I know, I know, you gotta admit it’s pretty funny though. I promise I won’t do it all the time,” Sam said, smiling that wide and beautiful smile Dean rarely saw these days.
“Oh, isn’t that so very very magnanimous of you,” Dean said.
“Oooh, big words for a little guy,” Sam said, standing up in the warm water and looming over Dean to make his point.
Dean jabbed his brother’s flat belly with his finger, since it was right there. “You take that back right now.”
“We’re truth tellers now, can’t do it,” Sam said, grabbing at Dean’s finger and missing.
Dean’s hand came to rest on Sam’s hip, his fingers wrapped around the flesh and bone automatically, testing out the fit. “My hand fits just right here,” Dean said, the truth tasting fresh and clean on his tongue.
Sam’s hand covered Dean’s and he met his eyes. “Like I was made for you, and you were made for me.”
Dean pretend-gagged at that, but he knew Sam could see the emotion in his eyes before he continued the faux-barfing noises. “My own little honest Abe,” Dean said in a voice that sounded almost strangled with emotion.
Sam stood up even taller in the bathtub, feet splashing as he towered over Dean. He stared down at Dean’s hand, still gripping his hip. “Not so little,” Sam said.
“Yeah, yeah, story of my life, only got a few years to be the biggest brother,” Dean said, standing up right into his brother’s space. Being near to him like this was always the hardest and the best thing.
“You’ll always be my big brother, Dean. You’re just not the tallest, that’s all,” Sam said, trying to get Dean to meet his eyes, finally he gave up and tipped Dean’s chin up, holding him still.
“Sammy, I-“
Sam leaned down the few inches still separating them and pressed his lips gently to Dean’s. They were somehow even softer than Dean had imagined they would be. All these years, he’d wanted this, the desperation to take and claim surged through him, but he clamped it down. He didn’t want to spook Sam here at the beginning of everything. He pulled away and smiled when Sam growled and then frowned, his eyes were still tightly closed. Dean closed his too, leaned up on his tiptoes blindly searching for Sam’s mouth again. Dean’s feet slipped in the tub, and Sam caught him before he went down.
“We should get out of here,” Sam said.
“Out of the tub, or out of the motel?” Dean asked.
“Let’s go home, I’d rather do this there, huh?”
They helped each other out of the tub, more hands-on than usual or necessary. Their feet were red with the cold and painful. They still managed to pull on socks and wet boots, they were packed up and on the road with takeout breakfast on their laps within a few minutes.
They were going home. To do this, Sam had said. In the moment, Dean had known what he meant when he’d said it in the bathroom, but as they drove in silence, hour after hour, Dean started to lose track of it, the truth of it.
“Sammy, tell me-you know, the whole thing,” Dean said.
Sam turned in his seat, tucking one leg under him like he always did and chuckled when he saw Dean’s face. “Are you losing the plot again?”
“Yeah, goddamn I hate getting whammied like that,” Dean said.
“We had to tell the truth, the whole truth to each other. So that Chione wouldn’t turn them into ice sculptures. And then they had to do the same so we wouldn’t be either. That’s all, we just had to give Her the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”
“I remembered all that part,” Dean said.
“Is it the rest you forgot? Dean-seriously, already?” Sam asked.
“Never mind,” Dean said, unable to keep the scowl off his face.
“You’re adorable when you do that,” Sam said.
“I’m no such thing, adorable, gimme a break, fuck that,” Dean said, staring ahead down the nearly empty highway.
“To me you are, when you ask for the chick flick moments we both know you love,” Sam said with a chuckle.
Dean heard Sam’s amusement and just said the words, “Fine, if you’re making me ask, then why don’t you go ahead and, Repeat it, True and Total.”
“Dean, the whole truth is, we’re together, we’re in this for good, for forever, and I’m glad that we both know that now,” Sam said, reaching across the distance between them and holding Dean’s hand on his thigh.
“Thanks, Sammy,” Dean said after a long moment of soaking in his brother’s words. He drove one-handed the whole way back to the Bunker, and that’s the Truth, True and Total.
The End
*****
Sam’s stupid phone alarm going off woke him up and he couldn’t even get mad about it. It was all his own damn fault that it was worse than usual because Dean had set it to play Taylor Swift’s new Christmas song at full volume. “You would be there tooooo, under the mistletooooe.”
Dean laughed at Sam scrambling and fumbling to shut his phone down as Taylor sang, “And telling me, I loooove yooouuuu. Just being in your armsss.” At least he didn’t throw his phone at Dean this particular time.
“Man, I was having the weirdest fucking dream,” Dean said, still muzzy from the hold the dream had on him for what had seemed like the whole damn night. His feet even felt cold, like he’d actually been tramping through the snowy woods all night like he had been in the dream. He’d been looking for…he’d found them. No, they’d found them.
“What was it, dogs chasing you or demons?” Sam asked, lit up all blue from the light coming from his phone screen over in the other bed. The Christmas lights around the window outside twinkled in green and red playing over the mess of Sam’s bed head.
“No, there wasn’t any chasing, and no demons. It was them, the guys on that dumb tv show about our lives, the ones that played us, the two actors in that other world, remember them?” Dean asked, trying to stretch his toes, god they were so cold he almost couldn’t feel them.
“Yeah, of course, what were their names? The guy that played you was Jensen and the other one was Jared, right? The guys that everyone thought kind of hated each other,” Sam said, sitting up in bed so he could see Dean.
“I was-no, we were searching for them, out in the woods, we were supposed to meet them, and there was so much damn snow and we…we finally found them.”
“Why were we looking for them though?” Sam asked.
“It was part of a case or something, we had promised Her we’d go find them. Otherwise She was taking them as her tribute this year.”
“Wait, hold on, who did we promise, a goddess or someone like that? What tribute?” Sam asked.
“Yeah, yeah we promised, Her. And She was happy when we found them,” Dean said with a strange smile. “Don’t you remember, Sammy, we were supposed to be the ones to remember. She said we would ‘Repeat It True and Total,’ whatever the hell that means.”
“I…I guess I do, now that you’re asking me. Honestly, that’s pretty weird now that I think about it. Who was She again?” Sam asked. "It’s slippery holding any thoughts of Her in my mind, like I’m having to tell myself to do it so hard I can’t exactly remember what I’m trying to remember.”
“Same here, all I can come up with is cold when I think of Her, cold as snow and ice and blowing winter wind,” Dean said.
“So we’re thinking She’s some kind of a snow or winter goddess then?” Sam asked. Dean could see his fingers moving over the screen of his phone.
“Using your google-fu, huh?” Dean teased.
“Sssh, have patience, young grasshopper. According to this, it’s probably, Chione, one of the daughters of Boreas who was the Greek god of the North Wind. Apparently She likes to freeze people and make ice sculptures out of them if they’re not honest,” Sam said.
“So that’s what we were saving them from? Hey, by the way, are your feet totally frozen, because mine are just starting to defrost or something and they really hurt now,” Dean said. He tried stretching his toes again and rubbing them together under the covers. Then he spotted their boots tangled up in a pile by the door in a puddle of water, presumably from melted snow. “Check out our boots.”
“Yeah, mine are not feeling right either, it’s really not good, we should go put them in some water in the bathtub, slowly bring up the temperature. I’d like to keep all ten of my toes.” Sam got out of bed and hobbled to the bathroom.
Dean could hear the bath water running and Sam peeing. He waited until he heard Sam’s feet splashing in the tub.
“So we were really out there in the woods, and I guess we found them, those actor dudes. Question is, did we save them or are they ice sculptures now? I guess they’d make pretty ones?” Dean asked as he sat next to Sam on the edge of the tub. He eased his feet into the water and hissed at the feeling of pins and needles going up to his ankles.
“We saved them last night…uh, don’t you remember when they kinda made up, right there in front of us?” Sam said.
Dean had to struggle with what to say and what not to say here, he wasn’t sure what Sam remembered. “It’s coming back to me now, yeah, so I guess those guys are okay at least. And hey, we’re not ice sculptures ourselves, so win win right? But this Chione chick, she’s still out there maybe still freezing people?” Dean asked, trying not to think about how hot it had been to see the two men who looked exactly like them kissing so passionately.
“We got her to take a break from judging people, remember the whole honesty thing?” Sam asked, stretching his toes in the warm water.
“Right…it was an honesty tradeoff. We promised to be honest to save those guys, and then they promised to be honest and saved us. No one turned into human popsicles, joy and celebrating all around.”
“What do you think about that whole ‘Repeat it True and Total’ thing?” Sam asked, leaning into Dean so that their sides and legs were pressed together.
“Chione just meant that I’d now be able to say the whole thing again if I needed or wanted to, if I heard those words,” Dean said, enjoying being leaned into so much he didn’t notice how much his feet were stinging as they warmed up.
“The whole thing, you mean you’ll say it, if I say the magic words?” Sam asked.
Dean nodded, knowing what would undoubtably be coming next, because Sam was Sam.
“Dean, Repeat it True and Total,” Sam said with an enigmatic smile on his lips.
Dean couldn’t tell if he was teasing or not. “Yeah, the whole thing about us being soulmates, made for each other, ride or die, together til the end. You know all that already anyway, right?”
“Oh yeah, you bet I do, I just wanted to hear it again,” Sam said.
“You little bitch,” Dean said, elbowing Sam in the ribs.
“Ow, you jerk, that really hurt,” Sam said, rubbing his side. “Thanks for saying it again.”
“You know I’m unable to not say it…right? It’s not like I want to go around spouting off about our true love saving the world all freaking day” Dean said.
“Yeah, I know, I know, you gotta admit it’s pretty funny though. I promise I won’t do it all the time,” Sam said, smiling that wide and beautiful smile Dean rarely saw these days.
“Oh, isn’t that so very very magnanimous of you,” Dean said.
“Oooh, big words for a little guy,” Sam said, standing up in the warm water and looming over Dean to make his point.
Dean jabbed his brother’s flat belly with his finger, since it was right there. “You take that back right now.”
“We’re truth tellers now, can’t do it,” Sam said, grabbing at Dean’s finger and missing.
Dean’s hand came to rest on Sam’s hip, his fingers wrapped around the flesh and bone automatically, testing out the fit. “My hand fits just right here,” Dean said, the truth tasting fresh and clean on his tongue.
Sam’s hand covered Dean’s and he met his eyes. “Like I was made for you, and you were made for me.”
Dean pretend-gagged at that, but he knew Sam could see the emotion in his eyes before he continued the faux-barfing noises. “My own little honest Abe,” Dean said in a voice that sounded almost strangled with emotion.
Sam stood up even taller in the bathtub, feet splashing as he towered over Dean. He stared down at Dean’s hand, still gripping his hip. “Not so little,” Sam said.
“Yeah, yeah, story of my life, only got a few years to be the biggest brother,” Dean said, standing up right into his brother’s space. Being near to him like this was always the hardest and the best thing.
“You’ll always be my big brother, Dean. You’re just not the tallest, that’s all,” Sam said, trying to get Dean to meet his eyes, finally he gave up and tipped Dean’s chin up, holding him still.
“Sammy, I-“
Sam leaned down the few inches still separating them and pressed his lips gently to Dean’s. They were somehow even softer than Dean had imagined they would be. All these years, he’d wanted this, the desperation to take and claim surged through him, but he clamped it down. He didn’t want to spook Sam here at the beginning of everything. He pulled away and smiled when Sam growled and then frowned, his eyes were still tightly closed. Dean closed his too, leaned up on his tiptoes blindly searching for Sam’s mouth again. Dean’s feet slipped in the tub, and Sam caught him before he went down.
“We should get out of here,” Sam said.
“Out of the tub, or out of the motel?” Dean asked.
“Let’s go home, I’d rather do this there, huh?”
They helped each other out of the tub, more hands-on than usual or necessary. Their feet were red with the cold and painful. They still managed to pull on socks and wet boots, they were packed up and on the road with takeout breakfast on their laps within a few minutes.
They were going home. To do this, Sam had said. In the moment, Dean had known what he meant when he’d said it in the bathroom, but as they drove in silence, hour after hour, Dean started to lose track of it, the truth of it.
“Sammy, tell me-you know, the whole thing,” Dean said.
Sam turned in his seat, tucking one leg under him like he always did and chuckled when he saw Dean’s face. “Are you losing the plot again?”
“Yeah, goddamn I hate getting whammied like that,” Dean said.
“We had to tell the truth, the whole truth to each other. So that Chione wouldn’t turn them into ice sculptures. And then they had to do the same so we wouldn’t be either. That’s all, we just had to give Her the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”
“I remembered all that part,” Dean said.
“Is it the rest you forgot? Dean-seriously, already?” Sam asked.
“Never mind,” Dean said, unable to keep the scowl off his face.
“You’re adorable when you do that,” Sam said.
“I’m no such thing, adorable, gimme a break, fuck that,” Dean said, staring ahead down the nearly empty highway.
“To me you are, when you ask for the chick flick moments we both know you love,” Sam said with a chuckle.
Dean heard Sam’s amusement and just said the words, “Fine, if you’re making me ask, then why don’t you go ahead and, Repeat it, True and Total.”
“Dean, the whole truth is, we’re together, we’re in this for good, for forever, and I’m glad that we both know that now,” Sam said, reaching across the distance between them and holding Dean’s hand on his thigh.
“Thanks, Sammy,” Dean said after a long moment of soaking in his brother’s words. He drove one-handed the whole way back to the Bunker, and that’s the Truth, True and Total.
The End