Sleight Life, for thruterryseyes
Title: Sleight Life
Recipient: Thruterryseyes
Rating: PG-13
Words: 3,100
Warnings: Sam angst, hurt Dean, [Spoiler]permanent injury, amputation/limb loss, ableist comment by an OC
Summary: Fast-forward five years: the Winchesters have settled down somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. Sam is a victim of umbrella theft, there may or may not be tiny water demons living in the bathroom, and it never stops raining. Oh, and then there’s the whole angst and lack of communication thing. Yeah. It’s going about as well as you’d expect.
After thinking about it some, the police decide to let Dean go with a warning.
A few exceptions aside - namely the involvement of dead or damaged bodies - trespass violations don’t generate a whole lot of excitement. Some middle-aged guy with no prior record caught wandering around a disused grain terminal? Hell no, more paperwork than it’s worth.
There’s no fanfare to accompany his release, just a bored processing officer calling a name that’s both Dean’s and not. Mostly not, although these days the line between real and imagined can get a little smudged. Dean suspects there’s a joke hidden in there somewhere, the kind that’s supposed to be clever rather than funny.
“Want to watch your step, son,” one of the officers calls after him. “Hate to see a fine up-standing citizen like yourself back here again.”
There’s the sound of muffled laughter.
He stiffens, mouth pressed into a flat line, and forces himself to keep going.
“Bag of dicks,” Dean mutters. He swings his duffle bag over one shoulder and makes his way out to the front of the station, navigating around two strung out junkies arguing over their last cigarette.
His pace speeds up as a set of automatic glass doors come into view.
They slide open in a rush of cold, clammy air that Dean should have grown used to by now, but somehow hasn’t. After several hours stuck in an overcrowded cell with people who think of soap as an optional extra, being outside again feels like the next best thing to a shower. He takes a breath and looks around, glaring at nothing in particular.
Even at a little after one a.m. there’s a stream of traffic passing. It moves in random fits and starts, as though time’s skipping over a scratch on reality. An ambulance speeds past, the siren drowning out the rhythmic blur of tyres on wet, gritty asphalt.
It was a dark and stormy night…
Dean snorts.
Dark, yeah, even with thousand watt lights glowing from the windows of empty office buildings, because seriously. Kind of hard to escape, what with the whole nighttime thing. No storms, though, just the fine, steady drizzle that falls from the sky three hundred days of the year and doesn’t quite qualify as rain.
He heads towards a covered corner with a good view of the street and pulls out his cell.
The first message is from Sam.
Twenty minutes
Dean rolls his shoulders, feels something inside him uncurl and relax. Not that he thought Sam wouldn’t come collect him, but - whatever. He stares at the message for a moment, searching for clues. It’s difficult to tell from thirteen letters and a space just how pissed Sam is, but Dean’s hopeful it’ll be closer to, ‘You drank all my milk’ than, ‘You sold your soul without discussing it first.’
He gives an uncertain mental shrug.
It’s Sam, so who knows. Could go either way.
The next one is about the return of an overdue library book. Dean smirks. He types out a quick reply, lets the crew know he’s good, and then shoves the phone into his back pocket. ‘Cause sure, those fucking security guards never stood a chance against Bird and the others, not really. Still, he’ll sleep better knowing they made it out okay and aren’t banged up somewhere.
A sudden gust of wind turns scraps of soggy paper and abandoned plastic into a makeshift tumbleweed around his ankles.
Dean shivers, the novelty of the cold wearing off, and glances at his watch.
There’s probably enough time to make a mad, cross-country dash for the border before Sam arrives. Mexico sounds nice. Hell, right now he’d settle for Louisiana, mosquitoes and all. Kick back in the sun for a while and have a few beers. Or maybe he’d branch out and experiment a bit, try one of those sweet, froufrou drinks with a kick in the tail and tooth-picked cherries.
He frowns as a cramp twists through his leg.
Dammit.
Okay, so no dashing.
He shifts a little and leans against the wall, one hand absently kneading knotted muscle, and scans the street. He’s just about decided to admit defeat and head back inside for a bit when he hears the approaching rumble of the Impala. It pulls up at the curb about halfway down the block.
Sam climbs out.
Seconds later a golfing umbrella springs open in a striped explosion of blue and yellow beneath the streetlights, like carnival bat wings.
Dean winces.
Jesus.
He’d thought Sam’s last umbrella - about half the size and covered in tiny spots - was bad, but this? In retrospect, maybe he should have left well enough alone and not found the umbrella a new home in the nearest dumpster. He was sure Sam had bought his explanation about someone stealing it -
“I’m telling you, there’s something shifty about Mrs Lukovic from 24B.”
“Mrs Lukovic took my umbrella?” Sam asked, incredulous. “Dean, she’s about three hundred years old. And blind!”
- but now, considering his brother’s latest monstrosity…
Dean straightens, grunting at the slight wobble of his leg. It’s stiff and aches like a bitch. He puts a hand on the wall for a moment to steady to himself, and then heads towards the car, conscious of the slick sidewalk beneath him, trying to keep his gait smooth and not stumble.
He pastes on a grin. “Hey, Sammy.”
A momentary beam from passing headlights throws Sam’s face into sharp relief.
Dean expects to find an expression that he’s seen too often over the last year, something caught between frustration and worry. Instead, Sam just looks tired. There’s a deep groove impressed between his eyebrows. His faded flannel is wrinkled and the buttons are crooked, as though he found it by accident, scrunched up in a dusty corner under the bed, and got dressed with his eyes shut.
The memory of teaching three-year-old Sam about the intricacies of buttons and zips tugs with sticky fingers at the back of Dean’s mind. For a while the kid had been totally obsessed with them. Set him up with some cartoons and one of Dad’s old shirts, and you’d think he’d won a trip to freakin’ Disneyland.
It’s curious, he thinks, not for the first time, that the small child of his memory is the same person standing before him, this man with slightly hunched shoulders and streaks of grey around his temples. Both are real and so familiar to him, yet somehow not, like rickety outlines traced over each other on translucent paper. He takes a breath of damp air and lets it out slowly, watches it curl between them in a cloud of white fog.
Sam blinks a few times and stares at Dean without speaking, face impassive.
Well, shit.
“Sorry, dude. I, um -”
“Don’t,” Sam says quietly. He shakes his head and looks away, gaze fixed on the backlit sign of the police department across the street. “Whatever you’re about to say, I don’t want to hear it.“
Dean fidgets with the sleeve of his jacket. “Yeah. Okay.”
The seconds tick by as they stand there, not saying anything.
Rain beads on Dean’s hair and trickles down the back of his neck, traces a frigid path beneath his collar. He doesn’t bother wiping the moisture away. He shuffles a bit, searching for a position that doesn’t hurt. The bag is a leaden weight at his side.
Then Sam turns and walks back to the driver’s side of the car, the line of his back stiff and unhappy.
“Sam?” Dean calls after him. “Sam!”
He waits for his brother to stop or turn around, but both Sam and his umbrella keep moving further away. The sound of the car door slamming closed echoes down the street.
*
Stairs suck.
Going up sideways works better, means Dean doesn’t have to bend his knee as much. He leads with his good leg, the way they taught him in rehab, and then drags the other one up to join it. Rinse and repeat.
Fluorescent lights throb overhead. The narrow stairwell is covered in a collage of old water stains and graffiti tags. Flakes of peeling, beige paint stick to the palm of Dean’s hand where it rests against the wall for balance. A cockroach scuttles along the skirting board at the edge of his vision and disappears into a ventilation grate.
Show off.
Dean heaves a sigh. Even the goddamn bugs can move faster.
Their apartment’s on the second floor, which isn’t actually all that bad. But right now, when Dean’s tired and hurting, it’s like ascending the Linoleum Mountain of Doom. He watches Sam’s beanstalk legs eat up the distance, no problem at all, and disappear around the corner.
Another sucky thing is his brother.
Dean had spent most of the drive home doing what he usually did when Sam shut down on him: chattering away about any and every damn thing that popped into his head. The latest issue of Miss Marvel and the coffee Dean bought from a hole-in-the-wall café near the workshop; a weird smell he’d noticed seeping up from the bathroom basin and was convinced stemmed from an infestation of tiny, fresh water Grindylow.
When Dean mentioned nuking the critters, Sam had snapped, “The only thing living in the pipes is mold. And you’re not using a fucking blowtorch - “
Gotcha, Dean thought.
Only Sam had broken off and closed his mouth again, fingers strangling the steering wheel. He’d waited for a bit, but Sam remained silent. So Dean had reached over and turned up the radio to a truly obnoxious level, succumbing to a stubborn silence of his own. If Sam was gonna be like that about it, then fine.
By the time Dean reaches the apartment he’s flushed, a film of sweat gathering on his upper lip. His mouth twitches into a brief smile at the sight of the door left standing slightly ajar.
Okay, so maybe Sam doesn’t completely suck.
Dean shoulders the door shut behind him and stands in the dark for a moment, catching his breath.
The apartment smells of musty, second-hand books and motor oil, the remnants of whatever it was Sam cooked for dinner, and some other thing Dean doesn’t have a name for but has always associated with his brother. The odour of moldy Grindylow is thankfully absent. Light from the kitchen illuminates a small strip of threadbare carpet, and he can hear Sam banging about inside, the gurgling whistle of the kettle.
Dean scrubs a hand across his mouth, and then makes his way over, poking his head cautiously ‘round the corner. Sam’s standing with his face to the cabinets, feigning a suspicious level of interest in a canister of tea.
The shriek of the kettle grows louder and louder. If he didn’t think it would freak out the neighbours and end up with a second trip to the police station, Dean would be tempted to start screaming right along with it.
Finally, Sam reaches over and pulls the kettle off the gas.
“So, what?” Dean asks, when the sound has died down to a petulant wheeze. A 1990s-era fridge with rust stains along the bottom rattles in the background, an oblivious chorus of one. “You going to keep ignoring me?”
Sam’s only answer is a shrug.
Dean’s jaw tightens. He’s done with this. Sam can just hang out in the kitchen and sulk all night if that’s what he wants. Dean raps a knuckle against the wall and says, “Great. See you in the morning, I guess.”
Head down, he shuffles slowly past the kitchen and towards his bedroom, beyond caring whether Sam notices or not. Behind him, there’s the sound of something hitting the counter with a splintering crunch, followed by a string of muffled curses. Dean swallows a sigh. At this rate they won’t have any mugs left at all and will be stuck using the tiny teacups that live in the back of a cupboard, making nice with the dust.
Although, he thinks, at least Sam will have his soul this time ‘round. So, you know, not a complete disaster. Could be worse.
The light bulb flickers a few times when he flips the switch, filling the room with a dim, yellow glow. Dean sinks down onto the edge of his bed with a groan. He concentrates on breathing steadily and sweeps a hand back and forth across the comforter in sharp brisk strokes, certain that the pain won’t gnaw quite as hard if only he can find the right combination and beat. Without thinking, he starts humming Katmandu in an off-kilter rumble.
“You okay?”
The voice startles him. His hand makes a final, abortive movement, searching out the last stray crumb, before falling still, palm resting over a faded patchwork of cotton. Dean blinks and looks up to find Sam standing in the doorway, gaze fixed somewhere over his shoulder, as though the blank wall behind Dean is covered with electric-bright messages.
Dean clears his throat and forces a smile that’s closer to a grimace, going for reassurance. “Yeah, just gimme a minute.”
Sam lifts his chin and studies Dean, eyes narrow. “Let me see,” Sam says. He takes a few quick steps forward and folds down into a crouch, reaching for the worn hem of Dean’s jeans.
“Dude, stop. It’s fine.” Dean bats his hands away. “For crying out loud, Sam! I said it’s fine.”
Sam rocks back on his heels, shoulders slumped. His face does that weird, scrunched up thing that usually means he’s trying not to cry.
Jesus, Sammy. You’re killing me here.
“Hey,” Dean says. He waits for Sam to look up, and then gestures at his left leg. “I’m good. Spent too long on it is all.”
Sam scowls. “You know what the doctors said.”
“Yeah, I -“
“Skin integrity’s important. Swelling and fluid build-up make injury and infection more likely.” Sam’s mouth works a little, as if trying to hold the words back. And then he’s off again. “And trigger nerve pain. If you don’t stay on top of this you’re going to end up back in the hospital.”
“Thanks for the halftime recap, Florence. You do remember I was there, right? I get it.”
“I don’t.”
Dean raises an eyebrow in confusion. “What?”
It’s always been like this with Sam. Sooner or later Dean finds himself marooned in the middle of a conversation he wasn’t even aware they were having. He blames the difficult, oversized brain ticking away inside his brother’s head. Figures Sam needs all that hair to keep it warm, like insulation or something.
Dean waits for Sam to elaborate.
When he doesn’t - ‘cause hell no, they’re so not doing the silence thing again - Dean says, “Want to share with the class? Don’t understand what?”
“Why you’re doing this.” Sam gives an abrupt laugh that’s stripped of humor. “We’re out, Dean. We finally got out of the life. And first chance you get, there you are, jumping straight back in again.”
Dean chews his lip, shifting as the pain ratchets up half a notch, spreading through the tight muscles of his hip and lower back. He searches for an explanation that Sam will accept. Finally gives it up as a lost cause and settles on the same response he’d used at sixteen when Laura O’Reilly’s dad came home early and caught them with his hand down her blouse.
“It’s not like that.”
“Right. You weren’t on a hunt. Just minding your own business when the police grabbed you off the street for no reason,” Sam says, voice heavy with sarcasm.
Dean flushes. “I’m not an idiot, Sam. I know I can’t -” Dean cuts himself off. Fuck. He stares down at his mud-encrusted boots, hands curled into loose fists, itching to hit something.
Sam pushes himself off the floor. “You’re going to get yourself killed,” he says softly.
“Wouldn’t be the first time.”
In fairness, it really did sound a lot funnier in his head.
Dean sees a flicker of something that might be fury or despair in Sam’s face before he turns his head away, running a hand through his hair. “Wow. Seriously?” The corner of Sam’s mouth twists into a pinched, lopsided smile. “You know what? Do whatever you want. Just don’t expect me to hang around and watch.”
The door closes behind him with a thump.
There’s a part of Dean that wants to get up and follow Sam out, storm down the hall and keep it going for a while. Snarl things he’ll regret in the morning just to fill the vacuum. Instead he stays very still and listens to Sam’s fading footsteps.
He isn’t sure how much time passes. Maybe it’s a minute, or maybe an hour.
Eventually he pulls open a drawer on the nightstand and takes out a packet of brand name painkillers, the heavy-duty kind that don’t get along too well with machinery or alcohol. In Dean’s experience they don’t get along with anything that’s not an immersive, half-conscious stupor, brightly colored, geometric shapes pulsing across the inside of his eyelids.
He thinks about it for a while, and then dry swallows one of the small, white pills.
When the room starts to blur slightly around the edges, Dean removes his boots and pushes his jeans down. He rests a hand on the carbon fibre socket and metal rod that serves as his left leg these days. The surface is smooth and slightly cool beneath his fingers.
He detaches the prosthesis with a grunt, setting it down within easy reach of the bed, and pulls off the silicone, cushion liner. His leg ends a few inches above the knee, a line of scar tissue curling across the end and up each side of his thigh, past deep divots in the muscle. The sight of the stump doesn’t bother him much any more; doesn’t summon up the panicked chant of wrong wrong wrong that had been a constant presence at the hospital, violating all the rules about visiting hours.
Over the years, Dean’s gotten real good at learning how to miss things. His leg’s just the latest entry on a long, messy list.
The rain’s picking up speed now, striking the windowpane in a spray of liquid bullets. Dean strips down to his underwear and crawls beneath the covers, thumping his pillow into shape a few times for good measure. Despite the drugs it still takes him a long time to fall asleep.
He doesn’t dream. Or maybe he does, but just doesn’t want to remember.
Recipient: Thruterryseyes
Rating: PG-13
Words: 3,100
Warnings: Sam angst, hurt Dean, [Spoiler]permanent injury, amputation/limb loss, ableist comment by an OC
Summary: Fast-forward five years: the Winchesters have settled down somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. Sam is a victim of umbrella theft, there may or may not be tiny water demons living in the bathroom, and it never stops raining. Oh, and then there’s the whole angst and lack of communication thing. Yeah. It’s going about as well as you’d expect.
After thinking about it some, the police decide to let Dean go with a warning.
A few exceptions aside - namely the involvement of dead or damaged bodies - trespass violations don’t generate a whole lot of excitement. Some middle-aged guy with no prior record caught wandering around a disused grain terminal? Hell no, more paperwork than it’s worth.
There’s no fanfare to accompany his release, just a bored processing officer calling a name that’s both Dean’s and not. Mostly not, although these days the line between real and imagined can get a little smudged. Dean suspects there’s a joke hidden in there somewhere, the kind that’s supposed to be clever rather than funny.
“Want to watch your step, son,” one of the officers calls after him. “Hate to see a fine up-standing citizen like yourself back here again.”
There’s the sound of muffled laughter.
He stiffens, mouth pressed into a flat line, and forces himself to keep going.
“Bag of dicks,” Dean mutters. He swings his duffle bag over one shoulder and makes his way out to the front of the station, navigating around two strung out junkies arguing over their last cigarette.
His pace speeds up as a set of automatic glass doors come into view.
They slide open in a rush of cold, clammy air that Dean should have grown used to by now, but somehow hasn’t. After several hours stuck in an overcrowded cell with people who think of soap as an optional extra, being outside again feels like the next best thing to a shower. He takes a breath and looks around, glaring at nothing in particular.
Even at a little after one a.m. there’s a stream of traffic passing. It moves in random fits and starts, as though time’s skipping over a scratch on reality. An ambulance speeds past, the siren drowning out the rhythmic blur of tyres on wet, gritty asphalt.
It was a dark and stormy night…
Dean snorts.
Dark, yeah, even with thousand watt lights glowing from the windows of empty office buildings, because seriously. Kind of hard to escape, what with the whole nighttime thing. No storms, though, just the fine, steady drizzle that falls from the sky three hundred days of the year and doesn’t quite qualify as rain.
He heads towards a covered corner with a good view of the street and pulls out his cell.
The first message is from Sam.
Twenty minutes
Dean rolls his shoulders, feels something inside him uncurl and relax. Not that he thought Sam wouldn’t come collect him, but - whatever. He stares at the message for a moment, searching for clues. It’s difficult to tell from thirteen letters and a space just how pissed Sam is, but Dean’s hopeful it’ll be closer to, ‘You drank all my milk’ than, ‘You sold your soul without discussing it first.’
He gives an uncertain mental shrug.
It’s Sam, so who knows. Could go either way.
The next one is about the return of an overdue library book. Dean smirks. He types out a quick reply, lets the crew know he’s good, and then shoves the phone into his back pocket. ‘Cause sure, those fucking security guards never stood a chance against Bird and the others, not really. Still, he’ll sleep better knowing they made it out okay and aren’t banged up somewhere.
A sudden gust of wind turns scraps of soggy paper and abandoned plastic into a makeshift tumbleweed around his ankles.
Dean shivers, the novelty of the cold wearing off, and glances at his watch.
There’s probably enough time to make a mad, cross-country dash for the border before Sam arrives. Mexico sounds nice. Hell, right now he’d settle for Louisiana, mosquitoes and all. Kick back in the sun for a while and have a few beers. Or maybe he’d branch out and experiment a bit, try one of those sweet, froufrou drinks with a kick in the tail and tooth-picked cherries.
He frowns as a cramp twists through his leg.
Dammit.
Okay, so no dashing.
He shifts a little and leans against the wall, one hand absently kneading knotted muscle, and scans the street. He’s just about decided to admit defeat and head back inside for a bit when he hears the approaching rumble of the Impala. It pulls up at the curb about halfway down the block.
Sam climbs out.
Seconds later a golfing umbrella springs open in a striped explosion of blue and yellow beneath the streetlights, like carnival bat wings.
Dean winces.
Jesus.
He’d thought Sam’s last umbrella - about half the size and covered in tiny spots - was bad, but this? In retrospect, maybe he should have left well enough alone and not found the umbrella a new home in the nearest dumpster. He was sure Sam had bought his explanation about someone stealing it -
“I’m telling you, there’s something shifty about Mrs Lukovic from 24B.”
“Mrs Lukovic took my umbrella?” Sam asked, incredulous. “Dean, she’s about three hundred years old. And blind!”
- but now, considering his brother’s latest monstrosity…
Dean straightens, grunting at the slight wobble of his leg. It’s stiff and aches like a bitch. He puts a hand on the wall for a moment to steady to himself, and then heads towards the car, conscious of the slick sidewalk beneath him, trying to keep his gait smooth and not stumble.
He pastes on a grin. “Hey, Sammy.”
A momentary beam from passing headlights throws Sam’s face into sharp relief.
Dean expects to find an expression that he’s seen too often over the last year, something caught between frustration and worry. Instead, Sam just looks tired. There’s a deep groove impressed between his eyebrows. His faded flannel is wrinkled and the buttons are crooked, as though he found it by accident, scrunched up in a dusty corner under the bed, and got dressed with his eyes shut.
The memory of teaching three-year-old Sam about the intricacies of buttons and zips tugs with sticky fingers at the back of Dean’s mind. For a while the kid had been totally obsessed with them. Set him up with some cartoons and one of Dad’s old shirts, and you’d think he’d won a trip to freakin’ Disneyland.
It’s curious, he thinks, not for the first time, that the small child of his memory is the same person standing before him, this man with slightly hunched shoulders and streaks of grey around his temples. Both are real and so familiar to him, yet somehow not, like rickety outlines traced over each other on translucent paper. He takes a breath of damp air and lets it out slowly, watches it curl between them in a cloud of white fog.
Sam blinks a few times and stares at Dean without speaking, face impassive.
Well, shit.
“Sorry, dude. I, um -”
“Don’t,” Sam says quietly. He shakes his head and looks away, gaze fixed on the backlit sign of the police department across the street. “Whatever you’re about to say, I don’t want to hear it.“
Dean fidgets with the sleeve of his jacket. “Yeah. Okay.”
The seconds tick by as they stand there, not saying anything.
Rain beads on Dean’s hair and trickles down the back of his neck, traces a frigid path beneath his collar. He doesn’t bother wiping the moisture away. He shuffles a bit, searching for a position that doesn’t hurt. The bag is a leaden weight at his side.
Then Sam turns and walks back to the driver’s side of the car, the line of his back stiff and unhappy.
“Sam?” Dean calls after him. “Sam!”
He waits for his brother to stop or turn around, but both Sam and his umbrella keep moving further away. The sound of the car door slamming closed echoes down the street.
*
Stairs suck.
Going up sideways works better, means Dean doesn’t have to bend his knee as much. He leads with his good leg, the way they taught him in rehab, and then drags the other one up to join it. Rinse and repeat.
Fluorescent lights throb overhead. The narrow stairwell is covered in a collage of old water stains and graffiti tags. Flakes of peeling, beige paint stick to the palm of Dean’s hand where it rests against the wall for balance. A cockroach scuttles along the skirting board at the edge of his vision and disappears into a ventilation grate.
Show off.
Dean heaves a sigh. Even the goddamn bugs can move faster.
Their apartment’s on the second floor, which isn’t actually all that bad. But right now, when Dean’s tired and hurting, it’s like ascending the Linoleum Mountain of Doom. He watches Sam’s beanstalk legs eat up the distance, no problem at all, and disappear around the corner.
Another sucky thing is his brother.
Dean had spent most of the drive home doing what he usually did when Sam shut down on him: chattering away about any and every damn thing that popped into his head. The latest issue of Miss Marvel and the coffee Dean bought from a hole-in-the-wall café near the workshop; a weird smell he’d noticed seeping up from the bathroom basin and was convinced stemmed from an infestation of tiny, fresh water Grindylow.
When Dean mentioned nuking the critters, Sam had snapped, “The only thing living in the pipes is mold. And you’re not using a fucking blowtorch - “
Gotcha, Dean thought.
Only Sam had broken off and closed his mouth again, fingers strangling the steering wheel. He’d waited for a bit, but Sam remained silent. So Dean had reached over and turned up the radio to a truly obnoxious level, succumbing to a stubborn silence of his own. If Sam was gonna be like that about it, then fine.
By the time Dean reaches the apartment he’s flushed, a film of sweat gathering on his upper lip. His mouth twitches into a brief smile at the sight of the door left standing slightly ajar.
Okay, so maybe Sam doesn’t completely suck.
Dean shoulders the door shut behind him and stands in the dark for a moment, catching his breath.
The apartment smells of musty, second-hand books and motor oil, the remnants of whatever it was Sam cooked for dinner, and some other thing Dean doesn’t have a name for but has always associated with his brother. The odour of moldy Grindylow is thankfully absent. Light from the kitchen illuminates a small strip of threadbare carpet, and he can hear Sam banging about inside, the gurgling whistle of the kettle.
Dean scrubs a hand across his mouth, and then makes his way over, poking his head cautiously ‘round the corner. Sam’s standing with his face to the cabinets, feigning a suspicious level of interest in a canister of tea.
The shriek of the kettle grows louder and louder. If he didn’t think it would freak out the neighbours and end up with a second trip to the police station, Dean would be tempted to start screaming right along with it.
Finally, Sam reaches over and pulls the kettle off the gas.
“So, what?” Dean asks, when the sound has died down to a petulant wheeze. A 1990s-era fridge with rust stains along the bottom rattles in the background, an oblivious chorus of one. “You going to keep ignoring me?”
Sam’s only answer is a shrug.
Dean’s jaw tightens. He’s done with this. Sam can just hang out in the kitchen and sulk all night if that’s what he wants. Dean raps a knuckle against the wall and says, “Great. See you in the morning, I guess.”
Head down, he shuffles slowly past the kitchen and towards his bedroom, beyond caring whether Sam notices or not. Behind him, there’s the sound of something hitting the counter with a splintering crunch, followed by a string of muffled curses. Dean swallows a sigh. At this rate they won’t have any mugs left at all and will be stuck using the tiny teacups that live in the back of a cupboard, making nice with the dust.
Although, he thinks, at least Sam will have his soul this time ‘round. So, you know, not a complete disaster. Could be worse.
The light bulb flickers a few times when he flips the switch, filling the room with a dim, yellow glow. Dean sinks down onto the edge of his bed with a groan. He concentrates on breathing steadily and sweeps a hand back and forth across the comforter in sharp brisk strokes, certain that the pain won’t gnaw quite as hard if only he can find the right combination and beat. Without thinking, he starts humming Katmandu in an off-kilter rumble.
“You okay?”
The voice startles him. His hand makes a final, abortive movement, searching out the last stray crumb, before falling still, palm resting over a faded patchwork of cotton. Dean blinks and looks up to find Sam standing in the doorway, gaze fixed somewhere over his shoulder, as though the blank wall behind Dean is covered with electric-bright messages.
Dean clears his throat and forces a smile that’s closer to a grimace, going for reassurance. “Yeah, just gimme a minute.”
Sam lifts his chin and studies Dean, eyes narrow. “Let me see,” Sam says. He takes a few quick steps forward and folds down into a crouch, reaching for the worn hem of Dean’s jeans.
“Dude, stop. It’s fine.” Dean bats his hands away. “For crying out loud, Sam! I said it’s fine.”
Sam rocks back on his heels, shoulders slumped. His face does that weird, scrunched up thing that usually means he’s trying not to cry.
Jesus, Sammy. You’re killing me here.
“Hey,” Dean says. He waits for Sam to look up, and then gestures at his left leg. “I’m good. Spent too long on it is all.”
Sam scowls. “You know what the doctors said.”
“Yeah, I -“
“Skin integrity’s important. Swelling and fluid build-up make injury and infection more likely.” Sam’s mouth works a little, as if trying to hold the words back. And then he’s off again. “And trigger nerve pain. If you don’t stay on top of this you’re going to end up back in the hospital.”
“Thanks for the halftime recap, Florence. You do remember I was there, right? I get it.”
“I don’t.”
Dean raises an eyebrow in confusion. “What?”
It’s always been like this with Sam. Sooner or later Dean finds himself marooned in the middle of a conversation he wasn’t even aware they were having. He blames the difficult, oversized brain ticking away inside his brother’s head. Figures Sam needs all that hair to keep it warm, like insulation or something.
Dean waits for Sam to elaborate.
When he doesn’t - ‘cause hell no, they’re so not doing the silence thing again - Dean says, “Want to share with the class? Don’t understand what?”
“Why you’re doing this.” Sam gives an abrupt laugh that’s stripped of humor. “We’re out, Dean. We finally got out of the life. And first chance you get, there you are, jumping straight back in again.”
Dean chews his lip, shifting as the pain ratchets up half a notch, spreading through the tight muscles of his hip and lower back. He searches for an explanation that Sam will accept. Finally gives it up as a lost cause and settles on the same response he’d used at sixteen when Laura O’Reilly’s dad came home early and caught them with his hand down her blouse.
“It’s not like that.”
“Right. You weren’t on a hunt. Just minding your own business when the police grabbed you off the street for no reason,” Sam says, voice heavy with sarcasm.
Dean flushes. “I’m not an idiot, Sam. I know I can’t -” Dean cuts himself off. Fuck. He stares down at his mud-encrusted boots, hands curled into loose fists, itching to hit something.
Sam pushes himself off the floor. “You’re going to get yourself killed,” he says softly.
“Wouldn’t be the first time.”
In fairness, it really did sound a lot funnier in his head.
Dean sees a flicker of something that might be fury or despair in Sam’s face before he turns his head away, running a hand through his hair. “Wow. Seriously?” The corner of Sam’s mouth twists into a pinched, lopsided smile. “You know what? Do whatever you want. Just don’t expect me to hang around and watch.”
The door closes behind him with a thump.
There’s a part of Dean that wants to get up and follow Sam out, storm down the hall and keep it going for a while. Snarl things he’ll regret in the morning just to fill the vacuum. Instead he stays very still and listens to Sam’s fading footsteps.
He isn’t sure how much time passes. Maybe it’s a minute, or maybe an hour.
Eventually he pulls open a drawer on the nightstand and takes out a packet of brand name painkillers, the heavy-duty kind that don’t get along too well with machinery or alcohol. In Dean’s experience they don’t get along with anything that’s not an immersive, half-conscious stupor, brightly colored, geometric shapes pulsing across the inside of his eyelids.
He thinks about it for a while, and then dry swallows one of the small, white pills.
When the room starts to blur slightly around the edges, Dean removes his boots and pushes his jeans down. He rests a hand on the carbon fibre socket and metal rod that serves as his left leg these days. The surface is smooth and slightly cool beneath his fingers.
He detaches the prosthesis with a grunt, setting it down within easy reach of the bed, and pulls off the silicone, cushion liner. His leg ends a few inches above the knee, a line of scar tissue curling across the end and up each side of his thigh, past deep divots in the muscle. The sight of the stump doesn’t bother him much any more; doesn’t summon up the panicked chant of wrong wrong wrong that had been a constant presence at the hospital, violating all the rules about visiting hours.
Over the years, Dean’s gotten real good at learning how to miss things. His leg’s just the latest entry on a long, messy list.
The rain’s picking up speed now, striking the windowpane in a spray of liquid bullets. Dean strips down to his underwear and crawls beneath the covers, thumping his pillow into shape a few times for good measure. Despite the drugs it still takes him a long time to fall asleep.
He doesn’t dream. Or maybe he does, but just doesn’t want to remember.