fic: you and me and the pillows make three
Reposting the commentfic here, 'cause I like having my fic all in one place. Also, gives me the chance to edit it a wee bit! Thus:
you and me and the pillows make three
PG, 1200~ words, post-4x22.
Written for nomelon's PILLOW FORT! prompt over at the post-season four commentfic schmoop meme.
*
After the big firework display and the crazy, angel-assisted dash out of town, the apocalypse gets old real fast. There’s jack all to do right now, just ‘regrouping’ as Cas so mildly puts it. Which means: Chuck pacing back and forth around their motel room as he rambles about how his life is so unfair (and yeah, it’s the four of them stuck in just one room, because Cas says one is easier to protect and he’s got a kinda crazy look in his eyes these days); Castiel staring really intently at a stain on the wallpaper most of the time, because he’s doing freaky, internal angel things; and Sam just… moping.
And okay, Dean figures Sam has kinda got reason to be moping a bit, what with inadvertently releasing Lucifer and all, but it’s still pretty much the worst regrouping ever.
Five days into it and Dean’s about one more crappy takeout away from going full-on Jack-Nicholson-in-the-Shining. Also, he’s watched all the pay-per-view movies and almost all of the porn as well. Chuck had been a tad unimpressed with that. (Sam had just sat and frowned at the table whilst Cindi-with-an-I made squeaky little fake-orgasm-noises for ten high-pitched minutes.)
“Jesus, fuck it, I’m done,” Dean exclaims to the room at large. He grabs the bedclothes off of the bed he’s sharing with his ten-foot-tall brother - because that’s how low his life has sunk lately - and bundles them into his arms.
“What - what are you doing?” says Chuck, with startled, watery eyes like some kind of alcoholic woodland creature. “Oh no, no, are you going to hang yourself with the sheets? Please don’t do that. Don’t hang me with them either,” he adds, at the flat stare Dean shoots him.
“If I wanted to kill you, Chuck,” he says, “you would be pretty fuckin’ dead by now.”
Chuck gulps. “Noted,” he says, and then he backs into the bathroom and locks the door.
Five days of this. Dean’s life sucks.
He tosses the armful of bedclothes to the edge of the room and glances at Sam. The kid’s sat in the corner, back to the wall, frowning down at his loosely clasped hands. Apparently the possible Chuck-hanging threat just wasn’t threatening enough to make him look up.
“Hey,” Dean says, snapping his fingers. “C’mere.”
“Why,” Sam says, dully.
“We’re buildin’ a pillow fort.”
Sam blinks at his hands. Then he lifts his head and blinks at Dean. “Uh,” he says.
“I mean it,” Dean adds, grabbing the pillows off of Chuck’s bed - technically Chuck’s and Cas’, but the angel’s too busy communing with wallpaper for a little thing like sleep - and chucking them onto their own. “Pillow fort. That’s an order.”
“I… what-” Sam trails off, shaking his head. He licks his lips slowly and then he sighs, unfolding onto his feet and steadying himself on the wall - how long has he been sat down there? Dean wonders, grimly - as he eyes the fort-in-progress warily. He sighs. “Okay, sure. Pillow fort. I brought on the apocalypse, so let’s play with pillows.”
“Better’n staring at your manicure for five hours straight,” Dean points out.
Sam flinches, ducking his head. “I’m not,” he says. “I wasn’t - I want to be out there, fixing this. Not stuck in here staring at walls while the world is - we don’t even know what’s going on out there.”
“And we’re not gonna until Cas is done doing-” Dean pauses, eyeing Castiel’s motionless figure. “-done doing whatever it is he’s doing. So get the fuck over here and build me a pillow fort.”
Sam sighs again, but his lips twitch upwards and he catches the pillow Dean throws at him.
Four pillows to two grown men - one taller than average thank you very much, and one giant-sized - isn’t really the greatest pillow-to-person ratio ever. In the end, after a bit of squabbling and some shaky attempts at laying bedclothes as foundations, they’re pretty much lying on the bed with a pillow-tent balanced precariously over their heads and their limbs tucked into weird, intimate places.
In this context, when Dean says ‘pretty much’, what he means is ‘exactly that.’
Sam huffs out a breath next to him, hot air gusting right across Dean’s ear. When he breathes in again, Dean can feel the intake of air, and when Sam shifts a little, making the tent wobble in a terrifying kind of way, his elbow digs into Dean’s sternum
“This is a pretty lame fort, man,” Sam says, eventually.
“Screw you,” Dean says. “This is the best pillow fort ever.”
“Sure,” Sam says. If Dean twists his head to look, their truly awesome fort will probably collapse, but he’s pretty sure he can hear Sam smirking. “Of all the pillows I’ve balanced on my face, this is definitely the best.”
“Boy doesn’t know awesome when it’s staring him in the face.” Dean wiggles a little to the right, squashing his shoulder tighter into Sam’s. It’s the best he can do as far as jocular nudgings are concerned right now, okay. “Can’t trust your judgement, man.”
Sam stiffens beside him - impossible to ignore, in these cramped conditions - and for a second Dean thinks Jesus Sammy it’s just a pillow fort, until he rewinds the words in his head and remembers where they were five or six days ago.
“I,” Sam says, quiet enough that if they weren’t pressed so tight together Dean probably wouldn’t have heard him. “I know I - didn’t make the best decisions, these last couple of - all year, really.”
“Sam,” Dean begins.
“I thought I was doing the right thing,” Sam whispers. “I thought I was - fucking myself up irreversibly, yeah, and I deserved everything you, you - and I was pretty damn sure I wasn’t gonna survive it, but I thought. It was-”
“Sam,” Dean says again, twisting his head around, pillow sagging against the side of his face.
Sam blinks across at him, so close that Dean can’t even see all of his face. Just the way his mouth is working, and the muscle tightening in his jaw, and the watery sheen to his eyes. Sam breathes out heavily as Dean studies him, draws in another hitching breath that makes the pillow above them shiver.
“Hey,” Dean says, awkwardly unfolding his arm until he can rest his hand on Sam’s chest. He can feel it shaking, just a little. “Hey. Shoulda known you’d fall in with the bad kids without me around to keep an eye on you.”
“Dean,” Sam says.
“Drugs are bad, okay,” Dean says. “Just say no.”
“The apocalypse, Dean.”
Dean taps Sam’s chest, shutting him up. Shifts onto his side a little - and is frankly impressed when the pillows don’t collapse over them - so he’s facing Sam properly. Nose to nose, pretty much.
“It’s okay, Sammy. It is. We can fix this.” He slides his hand up onto Sam’s shoulder and gives it a little shake. “Also, always practice safe sex.”
“You are-” Sam begins, and then stops. He closes his eyes, and somehow that little motion is enough to tip their foreheads together.
“The pillow fort is pretty good,” he whispers, instead.
“I told you so,” Dean whispers back.
*
you and me and the pillows make three
PG, 1200~ words, post-4x22.
Written for nomelon's PILLOW FORT! prompt over at the post-season four commentfic schmoop meme.
*
After the big firework display and the crazy, angel-assisted dash out of town, the apocalypse gets old real fast. There’s jack all to do right now, just ‘regrouping’ as Cas so mildly puts it. Which means: Chuck pacing back and forth around their motel room as he rambles about how his life is so unfair (and yeah, it’s the four of them stuck in just one room, because Cas says one is easier to protect and he’s got a kinda crazy look in his eyes these days); Castiel staring really intently at a stain on the wallpaper most of the time, because he’s doing freaky, internal angel things; and Sam just… moping.
And okay, Dean figures Sam has kinda got reason to be moping a bit, what with inadvertently releasing Lucifer and all, but it’s still pretty much the worst regrouping ever.
Five days into it and Dean’s about one more crappy takeout away from going full-on Jack-Nicholson-in-the-Shining. Also, he’s watched all the pay-per-view movies and almost all of the porn as well. Chuck had been a tad unimpressed with that. (Sam had just sat and frowned at the table whilst Cindi-with-an-I made squeaky little fake-orgasm-noises for ten high-pitched minutes.)
“Jesus, fuck it, I’m done,” Dean exclaims to the room at large. He grabs the bedclothes off of the bed he’s sharing with his ten-foot-tall brother - because that’s how low his life has sunk lately - and bundles them into his arms.
“What - what are you doing?” says Chuck, with startled, watery eyes like some kind of alcoholic woodland creature. “Oh no, no, are you going to hang yourself with the sheets? Please don’t do that. Don’t hang me with them either,” he adds, at the flat stare Dean shoots him.
“If I wanted to kill you, Chuck,” he says, “you would be pretty fuckin’ dead by now.”
Chuck gulps. “Noted,” he says, and then he backs into the bathroom and locks the door.
Five days of this. Dean’s life sucks.
He tosses the armful of bedclothes to the edge of the room and glances at Sam. The kid’s sat in the corner, back to the wall, frowning down at his loosely clasped hands. Apparently the possible Chuck-hanging threat just wasn’t threatening enough to make him look up.
“Hey,” Dean says, snapping his fingers. “C’mere.”
“Why,” Sam says, dully.
“We’re buildin’ a pillow fort.”
Sam blinks at his hands. Then he lifts his head and blinks at Dean. “Uh,” he says.
“I mean it,” Dean adds, grabbing the pillows off of Chuck’s bed - technically Chuck’s and Cas’, but the angel’s too busy communing with wallpaper for a little thing like sleep - and chucking them onto their own. “Pillow fort. That’s an order.”
“I… what-” Sam trails off, shaking his head. He licks his lips slowly and then he sighs, unfolding onto his feet and steadying himself on the wall - how long has he been sat down there? Dean wonders, grimly - as he eyes the fort-in-progress warily. He sighs. “Okay, sure. Pillow fort. I brought on the apocalypse, so let’s play with pillows.”
“Better’n staring at your manicure for five hours straight,” Dean points out.
Sam flinches, ducking his head. “I’m not,” he says. “I wasn’t - I want to be out there, fixing this. Not stuck in here staring at walls while the world is - we don’t even know what’s going on out there.”
“And we’re not gonna until Cas is done doing-” Dean pauses, eyeing Castiel’s motionless figure. “-done doing whatever it is he’s doing. So get the fuck over here and build me a pillow fort.”
Sam sighs again, but his lips twitch upwards and he catches the pillow Dean throws at him.
Four pillows to two grown men - one taller than average thank you very much, and one giant-sized - isn’t really the greatest pillow-to-person ratio ever. In the end, after a bit of squabbling and some shaky attempts at laying bedclothes as foundations, they’re pretty much lying on the bed with a pillow-tent balanced precariously over their heads and their limbs tucked into weird, intimate places.
In this context, when Dean says ‘pretty much’, what he means is ‘exactly that.’
Sam huffs out a breath next to him, hot air gusting right across Dean’s ear. When he breathes in again, Dean can feel the intake of air, and when Sam shifts a little, making the tent wobble in a terrifying kind of way, his elbow digs into Dean’s sternum
“This is a pretty lame fort, man,” Sam says, eventually.
“Screw you,” Dean says. “This is the best pillow fort ever.”
“Sure,” Sam says. If Dean twists his head to look, their truly awesome fort will probably collapse, but he’s pretty sure he can hear Sam smirking. “Of all the pillows I’ve balanced on my face, this is definitely the best.”
“Boy doesn’t know awesome when it’s staring him in the face.” Dean wiggles a little to the right, squashing his shoulder tighter into Sam’s. It’s the best he can do as far as jocular nudgings are concerned right now, okay. “Can’t trust your judgement, man.”
Sam stiffens beside him - impossible to ignore, in these cramped conditions - and for a second Dean thinks Jesus Sammy it’s just a pillow fort, until he rewinds the words in his head and remembers where they were five or six days ago.
“I,” Sam says, quiet enough that if they weren’t pressed so tight together Dean probably wouldn’t have heard him. “I know I - didn’t make the best decisions, these last couple of - all year, really.”
“Sam,” Dean begins.
“I thought I was doing the right thing,” Sam whispers. “I thought I was - fucking myself up irreversibly, yeah, and I deserved everything you, you - and I was pretty damn sure I wasn’t gonna survive it, but I thought. It was-”
“Sam,” Dean says again, twisting his head around, pillow sagging against the side of his face.
Sam blinks across at him, so close that Dean can’t even see all of his face. Just the way his mouth is working, and the muscle tightening in his jaw, and the watery sheen to his eyes. Sam breathes out heavily as Dean studies him, draws in another hitching breath that makes the pillow above them shiver.
“Hey,” Dean says, awkwardly unfolding his arm until he can rest his hand on Sam’s chest. He can feel it shaking, just a little. “Hey. Shoulda known you’d fall in with the bad kids without me around to keep an eye on you.”
“Dean,” Sam says.
“Drugs are bad, okay,” Dean says. “Just say no.”
“The apocalypse, Dean.”
Dean taps Sam’s chest, shutting him up. Shifts onto his side a little - and is frankly impressed when the pillows don’t collapse over them - so he’s facing Sam properly. Nose to nose, pretty much.
“It’s okay, Sammy. It is. We can fix this.” He slides his hand up onto Sam’s shoulder and gives it a little shake. “Also, always practice safe sex.”
“You are-” Sam begins, and then stops. He closes his eyes, and somehow that little motion is enough to tip their foreheads together.
“The pillow fort is pretty good,” he whispers, instead.
“I told you so,” Dean whispers back.
*