A Place to Sleep
Dean lay on his side, his front pressed close to a girl’s back. She was sleeping. Dean nestled his chin where her neck met her shoulder and made himself breathe in. Sometimes it seemed like he would forget to breathe until the burning in his lungs reminded him.
He ran his hand up her side, smooth skin under his fingers. She was wearing a pair of pink cotton panties and a tight t-shirt. They weren’t particularly sexy, but Dean didn’t care. In a way, he thought that made her seem more real. Her name was Rebecca, “call me Becks.” She’d come back to Dean’s motel room with him after a few drinks. She’d rubbed up against him and kissed him like she forgot to breathe too, except she made it seem like a good thing.
When it became obvious that Dean wasn’t…up for it, she’d been nice. She’d stayed. “There’s more to good company than sex,” she’d said. They watched a crappy horror movie on late night TV and she’d fallen asleep to the infomercial that was on after.
Dean wasn’t so sure he was good company. If he was, maybe Sammy would have stayed, instead of leaving him for bigger and better things. Dean didn’t begrudge his brother a normal life, but the unreturned phone calls, the way Sam had said goodbye like it was forever? Yeah.
Dad left too. Oh, sure, he called to check in. But every call had a new set of coordinates, a new assignment. It was just a check to see if Dean was still alive, still useful.
Maybe that was overly harsh, but Dean wasn’t in a warm and fuzzy mood.
He hadn’t been for a while, actually, it started when Sammy left and had only gone downhill from there. The little pills he’d been taking since he was fifteen- the ones for what the doctors had called clinical depression, but his father had called a funk- stopped working. Dean still took them, on the off chance they were doing anything at all, but he was pretty sure that was the only bit of optimism he had in him at this point.
Picking Becks up at the bar had been a last ditch effort on his part. Sammy had explained to him once about sex and endorphins and how they’d worked. He’d been trying to use his geeky upstairs brain to explain why Dean only listened to his downstairs one. Dean didn’t really get the science stuff, but he did know that sex made him feel better, if only for a little while. It distracted him from feeling like he was drowning in the air around him. Like the atmosphere itself was too heavy to move through. Like there was no point to even trying to swim to the surface. After sex Dean felt like he was floating on top of the darkness, a chance to breathe before the next wave dragged him back down.
So when Becks had looked up at him, kneeling between his thighs with smudged lipstick and pity in her eyes, to suggest a movie instead? Well. That was the last straw.
Dean closed his eyes and tried to feel Becks’ body next to his in the darkness. Her warmth was there, next to his skin, but it was abstract. It wasn’t really touching him. Her hair smelled like fruit and a few strands tickled his nose making it itch. He didn’t feel like making the effort to move his hand though. Eventually the itching went away.
The sandman was a bastard, never showing up when called. Metallica made it sound so easy. Sleep was the only form of relief he had now, and he wasn’t even sure if it counted. Did his body still suffer if his mind wasn’t awake to feel? Sammy would have enjoyed going around in circles with the question, having debates with himself from both sides. Dean didn’t care about the answer, or the question, but since he never woke up feeling rested anymore he suspected the answer was yes.
The next time Dean opened his eyes Becks was there, already dressed in the clothes she’d worn last night. Jeans and red top that had enough cleavage showing to say ‘I’m looking for a good time’ but not so much that it added ‘money up front and I don’t kiss on the mouth.’ He didn’t remember her moving from his arms so the Sandman must have made an appearance after all.
She reached over and brushed Dean’s hair back from his face. Her make-up was mostly gone this morning, leaving a woman with the beginnings of crow’s feet and lips that looked kind when she smiled. “Dean, honey, whatever it is that happened in your life, you can get through it.” She kissed his cheek. “I put my number in your phone. Call me if you ever want to hang out, or hook up. I’ve got a whole season of Mystery Science Theater on DVD, and a big bed; plenty big enough for two.”
Dean just looked at her. “Okay.” Okay? Here she was being nice and all he could manage was an ‘okay’?’ But even that felt like it stuck in his throat.
She didn’t take offense at his unenthusiastic response. “Seriously, hon. You can get through this. The world keeps turning and the sun keeps coming up. You’ll see.” Dean wondered what she thought happened to him, and remembered some vague comments he’d made at the bar about Sam being gone. She probably thought his brother had died. It wasn’t true, but it explained why she was being so nice to him. It wasn’t so untrue either. His Sammy was dead, buried alive under textbooks, term papers and polo shirts. A new, normal Sam had taken his place.
“I have to be at work in an hour. I’ll see you around, Dean.” She picked her purse up from the bedside table and slung it on her shoulder. She went to the door, and hesitated, hand on the doorknob. Dean could see that she sensed something was wrong, you didn’t have to be Miss Cleo for that. In the end though, he was just a bar hook-up gone bad. They didn’t owe each other anything, and she’d already been nicer than most would have been. He watched her leave without moving, the hesitation only lasting a second. The door clicked shut and it was thirty second before he realized what the burning in his chest meant. He sucked air in through his nose. It felt like a chore.
He didn’t move from the bed for long time.
When he did, it was to get his gun.
*~*~*
Sam pulled into the parking lot of the Starlight Motel. The building was a washed out blue that came across as gray at first glance. He put the car in park and turned the key in the ignition. The engine shut off and silence filled the vacuum. He looked at the door in front of him, not getting out of the car yet. Room 5, his father had told him. The first Sam had heard from John Winchester in three years and all he’d said was the state, the name of the motel, and the room number. “Sam. Just come.” He’d said right before hanging up.
Sam wasn’t sure what lay in wait inside the motel room, but the Impala in the parking spot next to his own car indicated that either his father or Dean would be there, maybe even both. Whatever had made John Winchester pick up the phone and call the son he’d estranged himself from was either very good or very bad. Sam knew which one he was hoping for.
He got out of the car and walked up to the door. He knocked, but there was no answer. A twist of the doorknob revealed the room was locked. He fished a paperclip out of his pocket - old habits die hard and this one had come in handy more than once- and picked the lock.
The door opened with a short creak revealing one bed, an old TV, a nightstand and a desk. In the desk chair sat his father, head in his hands clutching his head, elbows on his knees like his head was too heavy to sit up straight.
“Dad?” Sam said. He entered the room and closed the door behind him. His father looked at him.
Sam felt his lungs freeze. His father looked…broken was the only word Sam could think of. His eyes were red like he’d been crying and his hair was greasy and wild. Sam had never seen his father cry. He wanted to turn around. Leave before whatever had made the indomitable John Winchester shed tears could touch him.
“Sam,” John said. His voice was thick and rough and Sam saw him swallow hard before speaking again. “You should go. I shouldn’t have called.”
At his father’s rejection, Sam felt familiar anger form in the pit of his stomach. “You called me here, Dad. You can’t just send me away.”
“Just go, Sam.” His father’s tone didn’t hold the answering anger Sam was expecting. Instead it just sounded defeated.
“Not until you tell me why. I’m not going to do what you say just because you say it. I’m not your soldier anymore. That’s what Dean is for.” Sam regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth. His father gasped and dropped his head back in his hands. The pit of anger in Sam’s stomach quickly morphed into dread.
“Dad,” Sam didn’t want to ask, but he couldn’t stop himself. “Where’s Dean?” John just shook his head slightly and went back to facing his knees.
And then, as if saying his name conjured him, Dean appeared. He lay on the bed. At first Sam thought he was sleeping but then saw Dean’s eyes were open, staring somewhere beyond the motel wall.
A quick glance at his father told Sam that John wasn’t watching Dean, he was still hunched over and Sam thought he saw tear drop to the ground, soaking into the cheap carpet.
Sam wasn’t stupid, and he still remembered everything he’d learned growing up, so when he saw the tell-tale flicker of Dean’s image on top of his sudden appearance, the knowledge that Dean was dead hit him like a club to the gut. His fist came up to his mouth to keep in the wail that wanted to break free. He kept watching Dean.
Dean just laid there, eyes still glued to the wall. Sam watched him for what felt like hours but was probably only a few minutes. Then Dean moved.
Sam watched his brother get up. He moved slowly, like he was aching. He stood and went directly to the corner of the room. He bent down and the necklace Dean always wore dangled from his neck, the amulet swinging back and forth. It looked like Dean was digging around in his bag, which wasn’t visible but the movements were familiar to Sam after living with his brother for most of his life. Dean stood up.
He was holding a gun.
Sam shook his head in silent denial, this had already happened, there wasn’t anything he could do. Dean sat back down on the bed. He cocked the gun and rested it on his lap. He stared at it, stroking the grip with his thumb.
When Dean brought the muzzle up to his head Sam couldn’t keep the cry of, “Dean,” from escaping his lips. It didn’t stop Dean from pulling the trigger, nothing would anymore.
Sam jumped at the sound of the gun in the previously silent room. Blood sprayed a few feet, Sam saw a piece of his brother’s brain fly through the air, but it all disappeared before hitting the ground. Dean disappeared before his body hit the bed.
Sam collapsed back against the door and slid to the ground. Now that the death echo- and that’s what it was, Sam was sure- was gone there was nothing in the room that gave away what happened here. The bed was made, a flowery comforter over thin pillows. The carpet was clean; there was no hole in the wall where the bullet would have lodged. Someone had cleaned the place up, wiped away the evidence of Dean’s death. Dean’s suicide.
Sam couldn’t speak. His throat was closed over a lump the size of his fist. His Father wiped a hand over his eyes, brushing away tears.
“He won’t respond to me, and I thought…” John wouldn’t look at Sam. “I thought maybe he’d see you.”
Sam remembered the lore on death echoes. Sometimes an echo could be made aware of its death if someone they had a strong emotional connection with tried to communicate with them. Sam found it hard to believe Dean hadn’t responded to their father the way he had in life, jumping to attention at a just a glance from John Winchester. But maybe things had changed in the years Sam had been away from his family.
“How long before he…comes back?” Sam struggled to get the question out.
“Few minutes,” John said. He reached down to his side where Sam couldn’t see and pulled up a bottle of bourbon. He took a swig right from the bottle. Sam wanted to be angry about that, his father drowning his sorrows in a bottle like always, but couldn’t summon the energy. Not when John had probably been sitting here for who knows how long watching his eldest take a gun to his own head. Sam wished he had his own bottle right now.
“Are you sure he,” Sam pause to choose his words better. “Did something supernatural happen to make him…?” He couldn’t finish the sentence. Couldn’t verbalize the death of his brother.
John didn’t answer right away. Instead he tossed a pill bottle at Sam. The paper stuck to the orange plastic had Dean’s name on it. It was for Zoloft. It had been filled recently, and there were about half of the original amount in the bottle so Dean hadn’t stopped taking them.
“How long has Dean been on medication?” Sam asked.
“Since high school,” John said. Sam’s heart squeezed in his chest. How had he missed that? How could he have been ignorant of such an important part of his brother’s life? “I guess…it wasn’t enough anymore.” There enough anger and disgust in the words to make Sam look at his father more closely. The emotions weren’t directed at Dean, John’s hatred was directed solely at himself. For not noticing? For dismissing Dean’s symptoms? Sam didn’t know for sure, but past experience with the way his father treated Dean made it an educated guess.
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?” Sam said. Why didn’t Dean tell me?
John took another gulp of his bourbon. “Pills helped, and he didn’t want anyone to know. Didn’t want anyone thinking he was weak ‘cause of it.” And yeah, that sounded like Dean. Who always wanted to be strong for his little brother. Sam would have been the last person Dean would have wanted to know. Sam’s fingers curled around the bottle, hard plastic giving slightly in his grip.
They waited in silence after that, broken only by the swish if liquid in John’s bottle. Fifteen minutes later Dean appeared again. On the bed, like before, just staring at the wall.
Sam stood, feeling so much older than he had an hour ago. He walked into Dean’s line of sight and crouched next to the bed, eye to eye with his brother. “Dean,” he said.
Nothing. Not an ounce of recognition or acknowledgement. “Dean. It’s me, Sam.” He put his hand on the bed. “It’s Sammy.”
A flicker that time. “Remember me, Dean? Remember Sammy? Talk to me, man. See me.” He waved his hand in front of Dean’s empty face. “Come on, Dean. See me.”
Dean’s brows furrowed and awareness came into his eyes slowly. Sam kept talking to him, repeating variations of “Sammy,” and “I’m here.” When Dean’s eyes finally met his Sam choked back a sob.
“Sammy?” Dean whispered. He sounded like he’d just woken up, voice rough from disuse.
“Yeah. Hey, Dean.” Sam whispered. “You’re such a jerk, you know that?” Sam meant it to be a tease, but it came out harsher than intended. Anger at Dean for taking himself away.
“Sammy?” Dean repeated. He seemed confused. Not uncommon for recently dead spirits. Sam swallowed hard at the realization that Dean now fell into that category.
“It’s me, Dean.” Sam knew he needed to get through to Dean before he disappeared again, or he’d have to start all over the next time. “Do you remember what happened?”
Dean blinked, long and slow. “I shot myself.” Sam nodded and swallowed back more tears. “Did it work?”
Sam curled his hands into fists. “Yeah, you asshole. You’re dead,” he spit out. Being angry at his brother wasn’t going to help, and he’d probably regret it later, but damn it, couldn’t Dean at least pretend to be sorry?
Dean didn’t seem to register Sam’s tone. He just sighed in what sounded like relief. “Good.”
“How can you say that, Dean?” Sam yelled this time, punched the mattress with his fist and was reminded that Dean wasn’t really there when his body didn’t bounce with it. “Why?” Sam asked.
Dean stared at Sam, and instead of the emptiness of before his expression was one of peace. “It hurt, Sammy. All the time.”
“That’s not good enough,” Sam said. He heard his father make a noise of protest from his chair, but ignored it. “Why didn’t you come to me?”
“Sammy.” Dean smiled and Sam wanted to hit him for it. “I’m not normal.”
Dean’s words were like claws in Sam’s heart, scoring marks that he knew were never going to heal. Sam deflated, his anger falling from him all at once. “Dean, I never wanted… I… ” He couldn’t find the words and force them out.
Dean flickered and Sam panicked. It was his last chance to say something, anything to his brother. “I love you, man.” He tasted salt from tears he hadn’t been able to contain. When we the last time he’d told his brother how much he meant to him? Had he ever? No chick flick moments Dean always said. Now instead they had a Greek tragedy. “You’re such a fucking jerk and I always loved you.”
Dean flickered again. His hand came up to the top of Sam’s head and moved back and forth in a motion that would have ruffled Sam’s hair. Dean’s hand just went right through the brown strands. “I’m glad you got to say goodbye, Sammy.” He pulled his hand back and a white light began to grow behind him. “Bitch.”
Sam watched the white light envelope his brother, and fade away. He was left on his knees next to an empty bed in a motel room with his father. “Dean.” He brushed his hands over the spot Dean had been in on the bed. He crawled up and put his head down on the pillow to stare at the same spot Dean had stared at, the last thing he’d seen before he died. He curled up in his brother’s death bed and tried to feel remnants of Dean, but there was nothing. The only scent on the pillow was musty motel. Sam stayed there for a long time, breathing in air that smelled nothing like his brother.
The only sound to break the silence was bourbon going down his father’s throat.