claire&dean | build up a new us of flowers and blood
BUILD UP A NEW US OF FLOWERS AND BLOOD
claire/dean(implied dean/castiel). pg-13. au after the rapture; warnings for underage relationship. ~1,950
She remembers space.
(c) title from flowers and blood by mariee sioux.
a/n: i’m a horrible human being.
Build up a new us of flowers and blood
Feet up on the dashboard.
Not on the dashboard, he says.
Her feet slip, hit the seat, toes curling over the hot leather.
It had rained for days and she couldn't leave, not like she usually could, usually would; neither could he. Four days inside that motel room, the one with the wool blankets and the landscape paintings, the bad TV reception and no hot water, the one where they said nothing at all and he almost, almost stepped too close, again. She wouldn't have been able to explain the smell of dirt on her, she knew that. But now it's hot, drying out, he can breathe again, he says, and they're both leaving, she can't go out on her own.
The world must have never been this green, the sky this blue, never so much colour ever, the ground black-thick, soft, rocks kicking up under the wheels as they cut across the back roads. She's been counting them between the mile markers, staring out the front window, picture framed of clouds stretched everywhere.
She's young, she hasn't been anywhere.
She used to ask where, but he just laughed. That's cute, he had said.
||
Then there was a grey room and yellow sheets and she was alone, all air and moon shadows and refracted mirror light from static TV. She wasn't thinking, she didn't have to.
She sat up. Fingers purple and stick, sweet when she licked them. Tangled hair, blankets at her feet, wearing only a shirt, something familiar she’s sure, shorts, bare skinny white legs. She reaches for the sheets.
It could have been quiet. Might have been.
He comes in, rushes in, burst of light and a slamming door. It all tumbles and trips then, tries to find its place, it turns in and comes apart. He drops the plastic bag on the chair by the door, and he smiles sadly, and he kisses her head, gently, sweetly, she leans into it.
He has never called her by her right name, but she won't tell him. She tumbles, trips, settles into the way he looks at her, stands by her, almost-touches her, finger brush behind her ear.
||
She remembers space.
She thinks she remembers time.
She remembers flying.
She knows there was wide, white places and months of grace and suffocating dark illumination. She knows what this was and what he lost. She won't say it, he doesn't have to know. She's young and she's awake, she knows what it means to tell the truth.
So, she runs, for days if she has to, feet bruised and out of breathe and scared, when it serves him best.
||
She's helping him look for someone, that one someone. She's making up incantations, the old language soft and worn on her tongue, but it’s not the same, she knows it's not. He doesn't notice.
Read faster, he says, We gotta find him.
Find him, find who, she doesn't know. She must know. He talks about him, doesn't say his name. So, she's supposed to know. She knew before.
He's out there, he'll say and it's that look, the distant and burned one, He's with her.
The tip in his voice, it goes low and angry, how it shapes around his lips and everything swings into dark. She knows her. He says her name more. Ruby. She remembers some of her, dark hair, dark eyes, the tilt of a smile.
He fingers shake over the bowl. She's saying the words she doesn't know. She has her eyes closed, just like she remembers. Just like he never taught her.
I can't find him, she'll say, I'm sorry.
And he'll smile and he'll look away, away from her and towards the world he's always talking about saving, he never will, and she won't know, won't know. She never knows what to do and he never says anything about it.
She thinks she's doing okay.
||
He'll catch her looking too human, too vacant and flawed and wondering. She's been daydreaming. She'll see the fear, loud and vicious, screaming behind his eyes, screaming it like he never will out loud, and her heart will break in a way she's never known, never thought possible.
It hurts in a way she can't mend.
You still there, he'll joke, snapping his fingers in front of her face.
Of course, she'll say.
And his hands are bigger than hers when they frame her face, hers frame his, and she knows she'll never be able to touch, not like he wants, he won't let her.
(We can't, we can't, he says and he's been laughing, that one she hates, that everyone must hate because this is when he shuts up, closes down, breaks down, he's not there anymore, turned towards a world that will never know him. We can't, we can't, you know why.)
She must love him, she must, now, to stay, to go for all those days, to keep twisting her words, building up all that false grace with her hands in front of her and nothing ever comes of it; she's powerless and it shivers through her bones, jumping along her nerves, the absence she doesn't trust, the memory she can barely sharpen.
She must love him, she must, but, oh god, what could she possibly know of love?
||
Daddy had stopped praying, just before.
He could talk to them instead and she thinks, me too, maybe me too.
Are you coming back, she asks, He needs you, you can see that, he needs you.
She wants to go home. She can't. She's been tired for days, for weeks, for as long as her body can remember, all the aches in all the bones, all the idly spun secrets working their away out of her, comforting and fascinating in a new, pale shade of light. He's sleeping; he'll miss her. Come find her, keep her close and she'll stay. She'll miss him, she knows she will, and his almost-touches.
Why did you leave, she asks, I can't do this anymore.
They won't talk to her, not like they did to Daddy.
||
I need you around, always, he had said.
She said, Yes, yes, I'll always be here.
There's no one left for me.
I know, she said, I know.
He had kissed her then, kissed her like he wanted to, like she wanted him to; not on her head, on the palms of her hand. He pulled towards him, on the bed, legs twined, and kissed her in the dark, she could taste him, mint and gun powder. She knew that taste, the air of it, the skin across his collarbone when he finished the bottle and let her wander, let her touch, explore, know.
She kissed him back, nervous, childish. Triumph in her eyes, his too, when they pulled back and he never let her go. She doesn't know what she's saying anymore, what she means when she says it, she could be signing her life away, she will, she will keep doing it, yes, yes, yes.
You'll be with me.
Yes, she said, stale heartbeats, memory of it and the sound of it, Yes.
||
They're in a town where everyone knows everyone, except her. She's leaving for a week, she hasn't been gone in a long time, she thinks it's time. He's been drinking again and he's been yelling at himself, getting closer, pulling back and, sometimes, she's yelling at him, too.
She doesn't mean it. She doesn't get it. She tries to stop it, she can't. He just laughs, that laugh, and kisses the tips of her fingers.
He asks questions she doesn't have to answer and he seems to understand, accept, all these hand-me-down faults.
Where are you going?
She is pulling on a coat, her coat, the one he got for her, somewhere, she can't remember. Must have been before, in all the white spaces and time she forgot to count.
When are you coming back?
She looks at him. He looks away. She wants to cry, wants to reach out and feel him, wants to take that gun on the dresser and pull it, pull it, again and again and again, she wants to walk out that door and run and never come back, leave him, let him search and never find, let him die, just let them all die.
They are not for her.
But she won't.
Just--come back, soon.
I always do, she says.
She wishes it were a lie.
||
Tedious, she thinks. (A list of words she was supposed to memorize, writing them over and over again, Mom in the kitchen, the music playing so she can’t hear.)
It's the end. She's losing grip. She's running out of lies. He's running out of justifications. They're both running out of excuses.
She can't heal him. He'll stare at her and she'll hold the whiskey while he stitches and the musty room closes around them; he'll sleep on the couch, she'll stay up all night, watching him while he pretends, body turned away the entire time.
In the morning, he'll lift her out of bed and into the car. She'll wake up miles away, different clothes, always in the same place, her head in his lap, rattle-hum of the car clattering around her.
He's losing grip, too. Holding on too tight. She's losing air.
||
She's only gone a day. Got as far as the next town over, walking through ditches and wild grass, avoiding roads where people can see.
She's sitting at a swimming pool, sweater and jeans in the empty heat, sunscreen-summer smell. A small girl, smaller than her, pink frills on the hems of her bathing suit, runs past her and waves; her mother comes stumbling after, sunglasses hiding her eyes, arms out, calling.
She might go back to Illinois, she thinks. She looks around--she doesn't know where she is.
He finds her, like he usually does. She's sitting at a park bench, a pack of peanuts and water in a styrofoam cup in front of her.
He doesn't say anything, not at first, just looks at her, curious, small faraway glance, then stares off towards the road.
Dean.
I thought you were looking for your dad, he says. He holds out his hand to her. It's shaking. She takes it.
He buys her ice cream and he says nothing, not anymore. Vanilla melts onto her fingers. She's lied, he's been a liar, too, they both know it now. Its all found its place, out here in the open, in her leaving and him leaving, too.
She knows he knows.
He breathes. She wants to burst her lungs, she wants to go home, she wants to forget. She wants him to forget, too. She wants to start over, she's never wanted to be here, come back come back, she pleads, let me not be here, not like this, not any longer.
He starts the car and they're driving.
You can't wander off anymore, he says, voice cracked, hands cracked, world crack-cracking, the road coming apart underneath them. The world has never been this grey, this cold, this innocent and stained.
She nods.
||
She's supposed to save him. He, the other one, the one that she said yes to, not knowing, not even thinking, told her. He saved him once.
This is what it came to and she's filling in the blinding sway, moving faster so he can never catch up.
She'll have to save him again. It'll be the end, for sure, and all she'll have are almost-touches and the reality of someone who knows very little, nothing at all, the despairing and scattering shake that will make them twist, curves in the road. They'll never break, not when they're lies are so displaced, so delicate, can't hurt it, not now. It's all they have and she'll never save him, not like he expects.
She's young, she's never been anywhere, and they're driving to the dark, strange unknown.
She's wrong and she's afraid and she's a liar, this isn't it, this isn't love or whatever she can call it now, she's stupid, she's weak, she's falling so fast, gravity overwhelming and swollen and punch-drunk nothingness--
She'll stay.
end.
claire/dean(implied dean/castiel). pg-13. au after the rapture; warnings for underage relationship. ~1,950
She remembers space.
(c) title from flowers and blood by mariee sioux.
a/n: i’m a horrible human being.
Build up a new us of flowers and blood
Feet up on the dashboard.
Not on the dashboard, he says.
Her feet slip, hit the seat, toes curling over the hot leather.
It had rained for days and she couldn't leave, not like she usually could, usually would; neither could he. Four days inside that motel room, the one with the wool blankets and the landscape paintings, the bad TV reception and no hot water, the one where they said nothing at all and he almost, almost stepped too close, again. She wouldn't have been able to explain the smell of dirt on her, she knew that. But now it's hot, drying out, he can breathe again, he says, and they're both leaving, she can't go out on her own.
The world must have never been this green, the sky this blue, never so much colour ever, the ground black-thick, soft, rocks kicking up under the wheels as they cut across the back roads. She's been counting them between the mile markers, staring out the front window, picture framed of clouds stretched everywhere.
She's young, she hasn't been anywhere.
She used to ask where, but he just laughed. That's cute, he had said.
||
Then there was a grey room and yellow sheets and she was alone, all air and moon shadows and refracted mirror light from static TV. She wasn't thinking, she didn't have to.
She sat up. Fingers purple and stick, sweet when she licked them. Tangled hair, blankets at her feet, wearing only a shirt, something familiar she’s sure, shorts, bare skinny white legs. She reaches for the sheets.
It could have been quiet. Might have been.
He comes in, rushes in, burst of light and a slamming door. It all tumbles and trips then, tries to find its place, it turns in and comes apart. He drops the plastic bag on the chair by the door, and he smiles sadly, and he kisses her head, gently, sweetly, she leans into it.
He has never called her by her right name, but she won't tell him. She tumbles, trips, settles into the way he looks at her, stands by her, almost-touches her, finger brush behind her ear.
||
She remembers space.
She thinks she remembers time.
She remembers flying.
She knows there was wide, white places and months of grace and suffocating dark illumination. She knows what this was and what he lost. She won't say it, he doesn't have to know. She's young and she's awake, she knows what it means to tell the truth.
So, she runs, for days if she has to, feet bruised and out of breathe and scared, when it serves him best.
||
She's helping him look for someone, that one someone. She's making up incantations, the old language soft and worn on her tongue, but it’s not the same, she knows it's not. He doesn't notice.
Read faster, he says, We gotta find him.
Find him, find who, she doesn't know. She must know. He talks about him, doesn't say his name. So, she's supposed to know. She knew before.
He's out there, he'll say and it's that look, the distant and burned one, He's with her.
The tip in his voice, it goes low and angry, how it shapes around his lips and everything swings into dark. She knows her. He says her name more. Ruby. She remembers some of her, dark hair, dark eyes, the tilt of a smile.
He fingers shake over the bowl. She's saying the words she doesn't know. She has her eyes closed, just like she remembers. Just like he never taught her.
I can't find him, she'll say, I'm sorry.
And he'll smile and he'll look away, away from her and towards the world he's always talking about saving, he never will, and she won't know, won't know. She never knows what to do and he never says anything about it.
She thinks she's doing okay.
||
He'll catch her looking too human, too vacant and flawed and wondering. She's been daydreaming. She'll see the fear, loud and vicious, screaming behind his eyes, screaming it like he never will out loud, and her heart will break in a way she's never known, never thought possible.
It hurts in a way she can't mend.
You still there, he'll joke, snapping his fingers in front of her face.
Of course, she'll say.
And his hands are bigger than hers when they frame her face, hers frame his, and she knows she'll never be able to touch, not like he wants, he won't let her.
(We can't, we can't, he says and he's been laughing, that one she hates, that everyone must hate because this is when he shuts up, closes down, breaks down, he's not there anymore, turned towards a world that will never know him. We can't, we can't, you know why.)
She must love him, she must, now, to stay, to go for all those days, to keep twisting her words, building up all that false grace with her hands in front of her and nothing ever comes of it; she's powerless and it shivers through her bones, jumping along her nerves, the absence she doesn't trust, the memory she can barely sharpen.
She must love him, she must, but, oh god, what could she possibly know of love?
||
Daddy had stopped praying, just before.
He could talk to them instead and she thinks, me too, maybe me too.
Are you coming back, she asks, He needs you, you can see that, he needs you.
She wants to go home. She can't. She's been tired for days, for weeks, for as long as her body can remember, all the aches in all the bones, all the idly spun secrets working their away out of her, comforting and fascinating in a new, pale shade of light. He's sleeping; he'll miss her. Come find her, keep her close and she'll stay. She'll miss him, she knows she will, and his almost-touches.
Why did you leave, she asks, I can't do this anymore.
They won't talk to her, not like they did to Daddy.
||
I need you around, always, he had said.
She said, Yes, yes, I'll always be here.
There's no one left for me.
I know, she said, I know.
He had kissed her then, kissed her like he wanted to, like she wanted him to; not on her head, on the palms of her hand. He pulled towards him, on the bed, legs twined, and kissed her in the dark, she could taste him, mint and gun powder. She knew that taste, the air of it, the skin across his collarbone when he finished the bottle and let her wander, let her touch, explore, know.
She kissed him back, nervous, childish. Triumph in her eyes, his too, when they pulled back and he never let her go. She doesn't know what she's saying anymore, what she means when she says it, she could be signing her life away, she will, she will keep doing it, yes, yes, yes.
You'll be with me.
Yes, she said, stale heartbeats, memory of it and the sound of it, Yes.
||
They're in a town where everyone knows everyone, except her. She's leaving for a week, she hasn't been gone in a long time, she thinks it's time. He's been drinking again and he's been yelling at himself, getting closer, pulling back and, sometimes, she's yelling at him, too.
She doesn't mean it. She doesn't get it. She tries to stop it, she can't. He just laughs, that laugh, and kisses the tips of her fingers.
He asks questions she doesn't have to answer and he seems to understand, accept, all these hand-me-down faults.
Where are you going?
She is pulling on a coat, her coat, the one he got for her, somewhere, she can't remember. Must have been before, in all the white spaces and time she forgot to count.
When are you coming back?
She looks at him. He looks away. She wants to cry, wants to reach out and feel him, wants to take that gun on the dresser and pull it, pull it, again and again and again, she wants to walk out that door and run and never come back, leave him, let him search and never find, let him die, just let them all die.
They are not for her.
But she won't.
Just--come back, soon.
I always do, she says.
She wishes it were a lie.
||
Tedious, she thinks. (A list of words she was supposed to memorize, writing them over and over again, Mom in the kitchen, the music playing so she can’t hear.)
It's the end. She's losing grip. She's running out of lies. He's running out of justifications. They're both running out of excuses.
She can't heal him. He'll stare at her and she'll hold the whiskey while he stitches and the musty room closes around them; he'll sleep on the couch, she'll stay up all night, watching him while he pretends, body turned away the entire time.
In the morning, he'll lift her out of bed and into the car. She'll wake up miles away, different clothes, always in the same place, her head in his lap, rattle-hum of the car clattering around her.
He's losing grip, too. Holding on too tight. She's losing air.
||
She's only gone a day. Got as far as the next town over, walking through ditches and wild grass, avoiding roads where people can see.
She's sitting at a swimming pool, sweater and jeans in the empty heat, sunscreen-summer smell. A small girl, smaller than her, pink frills on the hems of her bathing suit, runs past her and waves; her mother comes stumbling after, sunglasses hiding her eyes, arms out, calling.
She might go back to Illinois, she thinks. She looks around--she doesn't know where she is.
He finds her, like he usually does. She's sitting at a park bench, a pack of peanuts and water in a styrofoam cup in front of her.
He doesn't say anything, not at first, just looks at her, curious, small faraway glance, then stares off towards the road.
Dean.
I thought you were looking for your dad, he says. He holds out his hand to her. It's shaking. She takes it.
He buys her ice cream and he says nothing, not anymore. Vanilla melts onto her fingers. She's lied, he's been a liar, too, they both know it now. Its all found its place, out here in the open, in her leaving and him leaving, too.
She knows he knows.
He breathes. She wants to burst her lungs, she wants to go home, she wants to forget. She wants him to forget, too. She wants to start over, she's never wanted to be here, come back come back, she pleads, let me not be here, not like this, not any longer.
He starts the car and they're driving.
You can't wander off anymore, he says, voice cracked, hands cracked, world crack-cracking, the road coming apart underneath them. The world has never been this grey, this cold, this innocent and stained.
She nods.
||
She's supposed to save him. He, the other one, the one that she said yes to, not knowing, not even thinking, told her. He saved him once.
This is what it came to and she's filling in the blinding sway, moving faster so he can never catch up.
She'll have to save him again. It'll be the end, for sure, and all she'll have are almost-touches and the reality of someone who knows very little, nothing at all, the despairing and scattering shake that will make them twist, curves in the road. They'll never break, not when they're lies are so displaced, so delicate, can't hurt it, not now. It's all they have and she'll never save him, not like he expects.
She's young, she's never been anywhere, and they're driving to the dark, strange unknown.
She's wrong and she's afraid and she's a liar, this isn't it, this isn't love or whatever she can call it now, she's stupid, she's weak, she's falling so fast, gravity overwhelming and swollen and punch-drunk nothingness--
She'll stay.
end.