Merry Go Rounds and Burial Grounds Are All The Same To Me (12/?)
Title: Merry Go Rounds and Burial Grounds Are All The Same To Me
Author:whreflections
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: Sam/Dean
Word Count: will probably finish out around 150k or so. At present it’s a 88k WIP, but don’t let that discourage you from starting it because I’ve written that much in a month(this was supposed to a Big Bang that I realized I wouldn’t be able to finish in time. *sigh*), and I’ll be writing on this steadily every day so I’ll stay plenty ahead of where I’m at chapter posting wise and I plan to post every other day. ^^
Word Count for this chapter: 5,337
Genre: Little bit of everything. There’s romance and boys desperately in love and there’s crazy amounts of angst in places and drama and action and family and…just all over the place. But the boys in love thing, that’s the heart. <3
Spoilers: Need to have seen through 5.16
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Summary: After getting back from heaven, Sam feels like he’s hit a dead end. They seem to have finally drifted far enough apart that Dean’s unreachable, and he’s staring down the fact that it’s hard to keep the faith when you’re the only doing it, and that at this point they’re probably screwed no matter what he tries to fix. But if Ash is right then him and his brother are soulmates, and that gives him a little bit of something to hold onto, tells him that what he’s felt for his brother all along might not be so wrong. In a last ditch effort to do the right thing he sells his soul to hell to get Crowley to send him back to 6 years before the apocalypse on the night he left for Stanford, giving him the chance to not only fix his relationship with his brother, but to just maybe fix everything else too. Of course, all that hinges on just how inevitable fate really is, and if he fails, he’ll end up right where Lucifer wants him.
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They always stayed close enough to feel the fire.
The first hunter’s funeral Sam could remember had taken place in November the year he was 11. His name was Dillon Castille, and he’d died taking on a ghoul in Nevada. He’d stood between Dean and Bobby, and the three of them had watched the flames. He could still remember the heat on his face, how right then everything they did and everything they risked had all seemed that slightest bit more real.
Dean had slung an arm around his shoulders and pulled him in against his side, and it hadn’t made him forget, but he’d felt safe and just a little less overwhelmed, and that had been enough.
Sam pressed the heel of his hands against his eyes, rubbing until he saw stars. He’d cried too goddamn much lately; it seemed impossible he even had anything left.
“Did he say anything to you? Before?” He had to know, he had to be sure.
Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Dean shake his head. “He just told me…” He licked his lips. Sam could see the fire reflected in his eyes, flickering and dancing, masking the green and catching on the welling tear at the corner of his eye. “Said to look out for you, and that he was proud. I thought it was weird, but I didn’t…I just didn’t connect it.”
Sam hated himself a little for how shocked he was that dad had kept his word not to say anything to Dean, but mostly he was just relieved. The less Dean knew about the potential of what Sam could become the better, because he was never gonna go there. It’d just be one more thing to drag him down.
“Did he say anything to you?” His voice shook, and Sam buried his hands in his pockets. He wanted to reach out to him, but he knew that just then, Dean wouldn’t accept it. No matter how close they’d become over the years, this law was universal. When Dean’s walls came up, they came up all the way.
Sam looked away, staring steady into the flames. “No. Nothing.”
‘’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’
“What’re you readin’?”
Sam jerked, slamming shut the book that was in his lap. “Huh?”
“That book you’re not lookin’ at, you gotten anything out of it?” Bobby was leaning against the doorway, two beers dangling from his hand, and when Sam looked back he held one out. It was cold, fresh from the fridge, and his fingertips slipped on the condensation as he took it.
“Guess I hadn’t been paying too much attention for the past hour or so, but I read a little.” A paragraph, at least. Mostly he’d been sitting here on the back porch with his feet kicked up against the railing, trying to pretend to read while Dean worked on the Impala, music blaring loud enough that Sam could just barely make it out even across the distance. He’d gone through Ozzy, Three Dog Night, Cheap Trick and Deep Purple before he’d started back at the beginning. The past week, he’d been at the car from sunup to sundown and for most of that time Sam’s ass had been perched from some sort of ‘safe’ distance, watching him.
“Just what are you waitin’ on, Sam?”
Everything, it felt like. He was waiting for Azazel to call him to Cold Oak, waiting for Lilith, waiting to die, waiting for Lucifer. At the moment, he was waiting to see a glimpse of his brother that wasn’t all bravado and the mask he gave to the general public.
“I can’t talk to him while he’s like this, Bobby. Most he’ll tell me is that he’s fine, that I’m just projecting onto him that…” He shook his head, threw his hands up in the air helplessly. “That he’s really fine.” And most of the time, he looked like he believed it, too. Even knowing him as well as he did, there were some things Sam still didn’t know. For instance, he’d never figured out if Dean was really so good at faking it that he convinced even himself, or if inside he knew the truth and it was just the world he kept fooled. Neither were healthy, but the second was better, because if he at least knew, then it’d be less of a shock to him when it broke free. It was a shock to him anyway, it seemed, but that would be better than having himself buy into his own delusions.
“Well I got news for him, neither one of you boys are ‘fine’. But you aren’t supposed to be.” Bobby usually knew better than most people when to leave something the hell alone, and he went to head back inside, old porch boards creaking under his boots.
“Bobby? Did you know?”
“Did I know what?” By the dread in his voice, Sam could tell he hadn’t really needed to ask for that clarification.
“What he was going to use it all for, everything he asked you to bring him. Did you know?”
He leaned against the doorframe, let out a heavy breath that seemed to drag him down. “I suspected. How do you-“
“I just do.” He wasn’t ready to share that story with Bobby, not yet. He’d had enough of the way they looked at him when he said what all this had cost.
“Does Dean?”
He had to. No matter how many times he ragged on Sam for being the smart kid, there wasn’t much difference between them. He was the smart kid that had loved school, and Dean was the smart kid who’d never applied himself. If he’d tried, he’d have made it into college long before Sam, easy.
“I think he suspects. But no, he doesn’t know for sure.”
“Well then you better tell him. Because I think the only thing worse than hearin’ someone died for you, is bein’ kept in the dark about it.”
Worse was a bit of a stretch. Well. Probably. He could remember exactly how he’d found out Dean sold his soul for him, and yeah, it probably was true that the minute that had felt the absolute worst out of that whole night was hearing the confirmation of it from Dean’s lips after his brother had already point blank told him that no, he hadn’t made a deal. Still. Dean already knew enough; he had to know the truth. Sam rubbing in his face exactly what had happened wasn’t gonna help anybody. At least, that was what he was telling himself.
Right now, his problem wasn’t Dean not dealing with what John had done, it was Dean not dealing with anything, period. He’d retreated into his ‘happy’ mechanic shell, and nothing else outside it really seemed to exist. There were things Sam could never say, like the fact that last night they’d fucked up against the wall before bed, and he’d almost wished they hadn’t. Dean would’ve probably called him a girl for thinking it, and yeah, maybe it was crazy, because it’d been sex, sex with Dean no less and sure, it’d been good. It was always good. But that was the thing…sex with Dean was always something else, even when they were fucking each other’s brains out, and until this week he’d never felt like just a warm body to Dean. Yeah, it was still sex, and he’d have had a near impossible time turning it down, but he hadn’t really wanted it either. Not like that.
All of that, that was the kind of thing he could never bring up, the kind of thing that had to resolve itself after bringing up other things. Like the underlying problem that Dean refused to acknowledge.
Sam pushed up out of the rocking chair, and he went out to where Dean was bent over the hood, tinkering with the engine. The music was nearly deafening this close and he reached over to turn it down, coming over to lean back against the car.
“Hey.”
“Hey.” Dean glanced up, caught sight of the beer in Sam’s hands. He wiped grease off on his jeans and held his hand out, questioning, and Sam handed it over without a thought. He drank deeply, like he was dying of thirst, and he nearly drained it before he handed it back to Sam, only around an inch in the bottom remaining.
“So…comin’ along alright?”
He shrugged, his attention focused back on the intricate workings of the car in front of him. “She’s alright. Still not gonna be up and runnin’ for awhile, but she’s comin’ along.”
“Anything I can help you with?”
He laughed, short and sharp and still too forced. “No thanks, Sam. I’d like to put her back together, not take her apart.”
He kicked at the dirt, watched the cloud of dust rise up around the toe of his boot. This was maddening. “Dean, don’t do this.”
“Don’t do what exactly, Sam?” He actually looked at him then, eyebrows raised, and Sam almost backed down.
“Shut down on me like this. I know this is hard, it’s hard for both of us, but-“
“Sam, I don’t know how many times I’m gonna have to tell you I don’t need to talk. I’m fine.” So ‘fine’ that he busied himself pretty quick, moving away from the car and heading back into the garage to search out some parts.
“No, Dean, you’re not fine. You’re as fucked up as I am, but the difference is, I can admit it. I can admit that I miss him, and this is killing me, and I don’t know what to do, but you, you’re acting like none of it happened, and Dean, I know you, man, this isn’t good, and sooner or later you’re-“
“I’m fine.” He ground the words out low and harsh, and almost as soon as he’d said it his mask snapped back into place. “Look, maybe I haven’t done the right thing here, and I’m sorry. If you need to talk to me, you know you can. Just…I dunno, yell at me, tell me you’ve got something to say, anything, and you know I’ll listen, but don’t worry about me. There’s nothing for me to talk about, Sam, I’m fine.”
Sam had followed him in under the shade of the garage while he was talking, and Dean stopped on his way out, reaching up with the hand that wasn’t juggling parts to pull Sam in for a quick kiss. It was more going through the motions than a gesture of affection, and Sam turned around, almost ready to actually bring that up.
Dean was already buried back under the hood of the car, humming along with Never Been To Spain, and Sam knew that trying to get any further just now would be like talking to a brick wall.
‘’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’
It wasn’t time yet for the zombie girl, but he’d known something was gonna bring it all to a head.
Nearly three weeks to the day after it had all gone down in Richardson, they ran into the spirit of a girl who’d died for her best friend. There’d been a robbery at the convenience store where they’d stopped to get gas, the guy’d gotten jumpy and fired, and she’d jumped in front of her. Sam had never really thought it was fair that over time most spirits became violent anyway, even the ones of good people like that, and the case as a whole had been pretty damn draining.
It was after that that Dean had pulled the car over on the side of the road somewhere in Alabama, looking down at a lake with emerald green water. Sam leaned up against the hood beside him, and when he leaned into Dean just a little he was glad to feel him lean right back.
“Sammy, I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize, Dean.” Really, he didn’t. If anyone in the whole world understood Dean and his moods(and honestly, no one probably did, not even Dean), it was Sam.
“Sure I do. The way I’ve been actin’…point is, I’m sorry.” He shifted just a little farther down on the hood, eyes squinting against the glare of the sun. “And for dad. I mean, he was your dad too, I shouldn’t be actin’ like I’m the only one that lost somethin’ here. It’s my fault he’s gone, and I’m sorry for that too.”
“Dean…” He didn’t even know where to begin. Before, he’d been able to talk as freely about this with Dean as he wanted, because all it had been were suspicions. They’d both been blindsided by what dad had done, and it’d been alright for him to agree that he suspected it then. Now, he knew for certain, and he couldn’t lie to Dean and tell him that he didn’t any more than he could tell Dean the truth.
“No, I know you’re thinkin’ it. I mean, it doesn’t take a genius to figure it out. I make a full recovery, then dad’s gone and the Colt’s nowhere? It had to be, Sammy, you know it, and it’s all because of me.”
“Dean, you can’t-“
“I can. I know it, and you do too. There’s no way to look at this other than to see that he died for me, and that…” There were tears in his eyes, and Sam ached to reach out to him. “You and dad…you’re the most important people in my life. And thinkin’ that in some form or other you’re both gonna end up dyin’ for me, that’s more than I know how to even start to deal with, so I get that you want me to talk to you about this, Sam, but I’m tellin’ you, I don’t even know what to say.”
“Dean, I know that…I know it’s too much. But dad doing what he did, he did it because you’re his son and he couldn’t watch you die. He didn’t really have a choice.” It was easier to think of it that way, and it helped a little that dad had made it seem like it was true. Maybe it was being a father or maybe it was being a Winchester, but when it came to sacrificing for them he’d never really made any choices, he’d just done what needed to be done.
Dean said nothing, and when Sam reached up to brush a tear at the corner of his eye away, Dean leaned over just enough to keep them from touching. “Don’t, Sam.”
However hard it had been not to tell him everything he knew, it was a hell of a lot harder to pretend that didn’t hurt.
“You want me to drive for awhile?”
Dean nodded, and he pulled the keys out of his pocket and dropped them in Sam’s hand. “Sure. Thanks.”
In the car, he curled up with his head against the door like he did sometimes when he was really tired, but Sam was pretty damn sure he didn’t sleep.
‘’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’
It was past midnight when Dean brought it up again. They’d stopped for the night in Starkville, Mississippi at the Starkville Motor Court, and Dean had been quiet almost since dinner.
When Dean finally said something, Sam was digging around in his bag searching for a clean pair of boxers and thinking about the fact that tomorrow they should probably do laundry before they left town.
“I need you to tell me something.”
At first, his head was still mostly on the whole laundry thing, so he didn’t hear the quiet edge to the words. They didn’t have any detergent left, either. “Yeah?”
“Do you know something?”
There, he started to realize that he should probably be paying attention. “Do I know what, Dean?”
Dean got up off the bed, crossing the room toward him. “About dad, do you know something? Because if you do, I think I deserve to know what it is.”
This was just what he’d wanted to avoid. There was real calculating anger in Dean’s eyes, now, and he knew that even if he tried to deflect, Dean was watching him too closely. He’d already sworn to himself he wouldn’t lie to his brother again, but just then it was pretty damn tempting, no matter how much he hated it.
Dean kept coming, and it seemed pretty clear he already knew enough just by Sam’s silence. “Sam…” He pushed him, hard enough that Sam’s back hit the wall. Sam hadn’t tried to stop him, didn’t even raise a hand back to catch himself. This time, Dean’s anger was entirely deserved. He hated himself a little for it, too. Dean shoved at him again, Sam limp enough to let him. “What did you know? What’d he tell you?”
“Everything.” The whisper came out before he could stop it, his eyes flickering down. He could say this, maybe, but he couldn’t look at Dean while he did it. “I knew everything. Bobby too, he called him down to bring everything he needed and…he told me not to ever tell you. I knew you’d figure it out, but he didn’t want you to know, Dean, he was just trying to look out for you, to-“
Dean’s fist connected hard against his jaw, and his head knocked back against the wall, sharp pain shooting from both directions. He winced, blinked and refocused on Dean, his hand still clenched and raised back. His left hand fisted in Sam’s jacket, shaking him, and Sam pressed his palms back flat against the wall.
“What the hell do you think gives you the right? Either of you!” The words shook with rage, getting stronger as his voice rose. “You don’t just fuck with other people’s lives however you want, Sam! It’s my life, mine, and neither of you have any right forcing this on me just because it’s what you want! You’re so goddamned selfish, both of you, you just take what you want and it’s always from me.” He jerked forward, fist coming halfway before he stopped it, shaking his head and pushing off Sam’s chest as he shoved himself backwards, hand lowering. “Well I’ve had it. Because there is nothing left for you to take. Shoving something like this off on somebody, you had no-“
“Yeah, well you did it to me.” He spoke quietly, no match for Dean’s yelling that had to have been heard at least 3 rooms over. Still, Dean heard him.
“What?”
“You. You did it to me, before.” He pushed away from the wall, closing the space Dean had put between them. “April 29th 2007, I was killed, and on May 2nd you went to a crossroads demon and sold your soul to bring me back.” Even talking about it now with Dean right in front of him and whole with no memories of hell, it still hurt as much now as it ever had. “They gave you a year and you went to hell and I couldn’t save you. You were there for four months, and you put that on me. So yeah, Dean, I think I know how you feel, but I know how you felt now too. And you were scared, and you were sorry you hurt me, but you were never sorry you did it.” He held his head up, defiant, more certain of this part of his answer than he was of almost anything. “Well neither was dad, and neither am I.”
“So you turn around and do the same thing? That’s even worse.”
“You know, you’re a hypocrite. You have no idea, Dean, you have no idea what it’s like, but you wanna stand here and lecture me on how rational you’d act if I was dead? You really wanna test that theory, see how it works out?”
Dean’s jaw clenched, his eyes still stone cold. Sam hadn’t meant to get angry, he hadn’t, but he couldn’t really help it. It didn’t seem like it mattered at the moment, really. Dean hadn’t responded when he’d tried to reason with him, and he was too closed in to respond to Sam’s anger either.
When Dean turned and walked out the door, he slammed it behind him.
‘’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’
When Sam was 15, Dean drove off and left him on some backcountry road in Kentucky.
They’d been fighting about dad and school and what Sam wanted out of both and God knows what else and when Dean had finally yelled that Sam must just wish he had a different family and Sam hadn’t immediately said anything, Dean had kicked him out.
At first Sam had been more than ready to leave, and he’d slammed the door with as much force as he could manage and taken off walking back down the road the way they’d come. Dean had taken off, all spinning gravel and receding taillights, and Sam had been glad he went. At first.
He’d made it about 15 minutes before he regretted what he said, and about 30 before he was thinking of calling Dean. At the end of an hour he was sitting against a fencepost trying to make up his mind when he heard the Impala coming. Dean had stopped, not just put on the brakes but actually gotten out, and before Sam could even get up off the ground his brother was there offering him a hand up. Neither of them apologized and they didn’t talk about it, but they didn’t need to. When he was angry, Dean left. His anger burned out quick and he always came back, but that was just how it was, how it had been since he was a little kid and driving Dean crazy enough that he needed to get out of the room for 15 minutes even if it was just to walk down to the local gas station and buy them something that passed as dinner.
Maybe it was just too much irrational fear showing, but this time he wasn’t sure Dean was coming back. He’d been gone a day and a half already, and though Sam hadn’t tried to call him, Dean hadn’t called either. Sam was trying not to panic, but that was a hell of a lot easier said than done. He’d deserved Dean’s anger. Sure, Dean wasn’t right about everything, and he seriously needed to understand a little bit of perspective, but honestly Sam hoped he never got it. He didn’t want to die just to make Dean see how it felt.
If Dean wasn’t coming back on his own, though, that just meant that Sam had to go after him. He wasn’t about to let him go, not now, certainly not over this. It was just after sundown on the second day when he finally decided, and he tossed everything into his duffel and hiked to the highway to hitch a ride. It took just under two hours for a man in a beat up red Wrangler to pull over, rolling his window down.
“Where you headed?”
After my brother. He shrugged, putting on the smile Dean had told him could con a Navy SEAL. “Sioux Falls, South Dakota, but I can work with however far you’re goin’.”
“Well, I’m goin’ to Kansas City. That’ll at least get ya north a ways. That alright?”
“Sounds great, sir, thank you.” He folded into the front seat, stretched his feet out in the floorboard over his bag and stared out the window. It was just starting to rain.
“So…what’s in Sioux Falls?”
“My uncle. And…maybe my brother. That’s what I’m hoping, at least.” Not that he really felt like talking about this to him. Not at all. The man nodded, and he didn’t push. At least the guy had a good sense of personal space. Or Sam just looked that dejected, he wasn’t really sure.
Guessing that Dean had gone to Bobby was a long shot, but right now it was the only guess he had. If he wasn’t there, Sam was gonna have to borrow a car and strike out on his own, but he was doing everything he could not to think that far ahead. Looking for Dean across the country wasn’t as bad as looking for dad because he knew Dean better, but needing to look for Dean like that…
The last time he’d travelled alone like this, it had been because he’d asked Dean one thing with his words and been hoping Dean understood that he was really asking another, and it’d backfired on him. ‘I think it’s best if we go our separate ways’ had really just meant, ‘I need you to ask me to stay’. That was the last time he’d hitched a ride, too. This time, he just needed Dean to tell him they were alright, that yeah, Sam had maybe been selfish, but they were gonna be ok. In the broader scheme of things, apocalypse considered, he didn’t really think what he’d done was all that selfish, but he could see how Dean would. But even so, he needed to hear that whatever was between them wasn’t gonna suffer for it. Because selfish or not, how he felt about Dean hadn’t changed and it never would, and he needed to believe that deep down, even if he tried Dean couldn’t stop caring about him either.
After three hours, they stopped for dinner in Memphis. It was barbeque, good like you could only get in Memphis, but he wasn’t really hungry. The last time they’d been here Dean had eaten a barbeque sandwich nearly the size of his head, and they’d stopped at Sun Records on their way of town. That had been back in 2004, when it looked like he’d had a whole other life stretched out before him and it was something incredible, something untainted.
Impulsively he pulled out his phone to check it, only to find it must’ve died awhile back. He’d watched over it nearly obsessively in the hotel room, but his head was only half there and he’d been staring at the damn thing waiting for it to ring so much that he’d apparently forgotten he needed to charge it. He slipped it back into his pocket, tried his best to think about the fact that it didn’t matter, because Dean wasn’t calling anyway.
“How about you?”
“Hm?” The guy(his name was either Carl or Caleb…Sam hadn’t exactly been paying attention) tilted his head, curious, and Sam realized the rest of that question had only been there in his head.
“You asked me what’s in Sioux Falls; what’s in Kansas City?”
He smiled, wiped his lips against the back of his hand. “My boy. He’s just 14 this year. His momma, me and her don’t exactly see eye to eye ever since she run out on me for the neighbor’s brother, but we were never married and she got custody so I don’t exactly have enough rights that I can complain too much without feelin’ like I’ll lose the right to see him altogether so…” He shrugged, took a sip of beer. “I get up there about 4 or 5 times a year. Tony, he’s a good kid.”
“I bet he is.” At least he had a father, that was something. He probably took it for granted, too, probably told himself he hated the way his father only showed up enough times to count on one hand a year, probably thought that he was getting a bad deal. Whatever he was getting, it was a better deal than not having a father at all. Course, things like that took time to learn, perspective. He’d never appreciated it much the first time around, either.
Back in the car Sam opened the duffel between his feet, rifled through dirty clothes until he found the car charger he’d mercifully shoved at the bottom. He’d almost been sure he’d left it in the Impala for a good few minutes. He held the wires up, shaking out the kinks. “Hey, do you mind if I…?” He gestured at the cigarette lighter, and Carl/Caleb shook his head.
“Nah, that’s fine.”
He plugged it in, curled the wire around to let it rest against his thigh. It had barely finished turning on when it vibrated, and he nearly jumped out of his skin. The little white envelope swirled onto the screen displaying ‘1 New Voicemail’, and his heart ratcheted somewhere up near the roof of his mouth.
He snatched the phone up, pressing 1, and the beat of time it took for the answering service to kick in and ask for his password seemed to take a lifetime.
You have 1 unheard message. New message:
“Hey, Sammy, it’s me. Uh…I just got back to the room, and you’re gone and…” Off the top of his head, Sam couldn’t immediately remember the last time he’d heard him this scared. “Sam, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left like that, but I was pissed and I just needed some time, you know? I thought maybe with some space I…dammit, Sam, where are you? Nobody around here remembers seein’ you leave and…look, don’t do anything stupid, ok? I…you know I…” He heard the sound of Dean’s breath against the phone, hard and frustrated around the words he couldn’t get out. “Please, Sam, call me when you get this. I get that you might not wanna see me right now, and if you don’t, that’s…that’s ok. Just call me or text me or something, hell, call Bobby if you’d rather, but at least let me know where you are and that you’re ok. I need to know you’re ok. Sammy, I-“
The message cut off.
“Shit.” He swore softly under his breath, drawing the phone down from his ear and rubbing the cuff of his sleeve across the screen, pretending to clean it so he had something to stare at.
“You don’t mind me askin’, who was that?”
“ ‘M brother.” He was already dialing Dean’s number, thumb racing across the keypad to type it almost faster than speed dial could’ve had him connected.
“The one you’re tryin’ to meet in South Dakota?”
He nodded, attention already zeroed in on the white noise of the line trying to connect. Dean got to it on the first ring.
“Sam?”
“Yeah, Dean. Hey.”
“Oh, thank God.” Dean sighed, and Sam’s fingers tightened around the phone. “You ok?”
He laughed, short and just a little forced. “Yeah, I guess.” Relatively speaking. “You?”
“Well, I feel like I’ve had a couple years taken off my life but other than that, yeah, I’m alright. Where are you? And what the hell, Sam, I mean I know I shouldn’t have left like that but did you really think I-“
“We should talk about this later.”
“Oh.” Just in one syllable he could hear the twist, Dean’s walls sliding back into place. “Yeah, no, sure, if you want some time then-“
“Dean, no, that’s not it at all, man; I just mean I hitched a ride. If you wanna come pick me up, we can talk once you get here.”
Even over the line, he could literally feel Dean’s relief. “Where are you?”
“We’re just leavin’ Memphis. Hang on.” He jostled the phone to the side, looking over at the guy whose name he still couldn’t remember who’d been nice enough to give him a ride. “Can you drop me off?”
He nodded, slow and easy. “Where’d you like?”
Anywhere, literally. He’d be happy to wait on the side of the road for a few hours knowing Dean was coming to get him. Dean was still on the other end of the line though, and he’d heard that last part.
“Hey, tell him to drop you off at a motel; you can go ahead and get us a room.”
Well, that worked. “Just a motel, somewhere along here? Anywhere’s fine.” Over the phone, he could hear the Impala’s engine roaring to life.
“Memphis?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll be there as quick as I can.”
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Master post is here.
Author:whreflections
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: Sam/Dean
Word Count: will probably finish out around 150k or so. At present it’s a 88k WIP, but don’t let that discourage you from starting it because I’ve written that much in a month(this was supposed to a Big Bang that I realized I wouldn’t be able to finish in time. *sigh*), and I’ll be writing on this steadily every day so I’ll stay plenty ahead of where I’m at chapter posting wise and I plan to post every other day. ^^
Word Count for this chapter: 5,337
Genre: Little bit of everything. There’s romance and boys desperately in love and there’s crazy amounts of angst in places and drama and action and family and…just all over the place. But the boys in love thing, that’s the heart. <3
Spoilers: Need to have seen through 5.16
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Summary: After getting back from heaven, Sam feels like he’s hit a dead end. They seem to have finally drifted far enough apart that Dean’s unreachable, and he’s staring down the fact that it’s hard to keep the faith when you’re the only doing it, and that at this point they’re probably screwed no matter what he tries to fix. But if Ash is right then him and his brother are soulmates, and that gives him a little bit of something to hold onto, tells him that what he’s felt for his brother all along might not be so wrong. In a last ditch effort to do the right thing he sells his soul to hell to get Crowley to send him back to 6 years before the apocalypse on the night he left for Stanford, giving him the chance to not only fix his relationship with his brother, but to just maybe fix everything else too. Of course, all that hinges on just how inevitable fate really is, and if he fails, he’ll end up right where Lucifer wants him.
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They always stayed close enough to feel the fire.
The first hunter’s funeral Sam could remember had taken place in November the year he was 11. His name was Dillon Castille, and he’d died taking on a ghoul in Nevada. He’d stood between Dean and Bobby, and the three of them had watched the flames. He could still remember the heat on his face, how right then everything they did and everything they risked had all seemed that slightest bit more real.
Dean had slung an arm around his shoulders and pulled him in against his side, and it hadn’t made him forget, but he’d felt safe and just a little less overwhelmed, and that had been enough.
Sam pressed the heel of his hands against his eyes, rubbing until he saw stars. He’d cried too goddamn much lately; it seemed impossible he even had anything left.
“Did he say anything to you? Before?” He had to know, he had to be sure.
Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Dean shake his head. “He just told me…” He licked his lips. Sam could see the fire reflected in his eyes, flickering and dancing, masking the green and catching on the welling tear at the corner of his eye. “Said to look out for you, and that he was proud. I thought it was weird, but I didn’t…I just didn’t connect it.”
Sam hated himself a little for how shocked he was that dad had kept his word not to say anything to Dean, but mostly he was just relieved. The less Dean knew about the potential of what Sam could become the better, because he was never gonna go there. It’d just be one more thing to drag him down.
“Did he say anything to you?” His voice shook, and Sam buried his hands in his pockets. He wanted to reach out to him, but he knew that just then, Dean wouldn’t accept it. No matter how close they’d become over the years, this law was universal. When Dean’s walls came up, they came up all the way.
Sam looked away, staring steady into the flames. “No. Nothing.”
‘’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’
“What’re you readin’?”
Sam jerked, slamming shut the book that was in his lap. “Huh?”
“That book you’re not lookin’ at, you gotten anything out of it?” Bobby was leaning against the doorway, two beers dangling from his hand, and when Sam looked back he held one out. It was cold, fresh from the fridge, and his fingertips slipped on the condensation as he took it.
“Guess I hadn’t been paying too much attention for the past hour or so, but I read a little.” A paragraph, at least. Mostly he’d been sitting here on the back porch with his feet kicked up against the railing, trying to pretend to read while Dean worked on the Impala, music blaring loud enough that Sam could just barely make it out even across the distance. He’d gone through Ozzy, Three Dog Night, Cheap Trick and Deep Purple before he’d started back at the beginning. The past week, he’d been at the car from sunup to sundown and for most of that time Sam’s ass had been perched from some sort of ‘safe’ distance, watching him.
“Just what are you waitin’ on, Sam?”
Everything, it felt like. He was waiting for Azazel to call him to Cold Oak, waiting for Lilith, waiting to die, waiting for Lucifer. At the moment, he was waiting to see a glimpse of his brother that wasn’t all bravado and the mask he gave to the general public.
“I can’t talk to him while he’s like this, Bobby. Most he’ll tell me is that he’s fine, that I’m just projecting onto him that…” He shook his head, threw his hands up in the air helplessly. “That he’s really fine.” And most of the time, he looked like he believed it, too. Even knowing him as well as he did, there were some things Sam still didn’t know. For instance, he’d never figured out if Dean was really so good at faking it that he convinced even himself, or if inside he knew the truth and it was just the world he kept fooled. Neither were healthy, but the second was better, because if he at least knew, then it’d be less of a shock to him when it broke free. It was a shock to him anyway, it seemed, but that would be better than having himself buy into his own delusions.
“Well I got news for him, neither one of you boys are ‘fine’. But you aren’t supposed to be.” Bobby usually knew better than most people when to leave something the hell alone, and he went to head back inside, old porch boards creaking under his boots.
“Bobby? Did you know?”
“Did I know what?” By the dread in his voice, Sam could tell he hadn’t really needed to ask for that clarification.
“What he was going to use it all for, everything he asked you to bring him. Did you know?”
He leaned against the doorframe, let out a heavy breath that seemed to drag him down. “I suspected. How do you-“
“I just do.” He wasn’t ready to share that story with Bobby, not yet. He’d had enough of the way they looked at him when he said what all this had cost.
“Does Dean?”
He had to. No matter how many times he ragged on Sam for being the smart kid, there wasn’t much difference between them. He was the smart kid that had loved school, and Dean was the smart kid who’d never applied himself. If he’d tried, he’d have made it into college long before Sam, easy.
“I think he suspects. But no, he doesn’t know for sure.”
“Well then you better tell him. Because I think the only thing worse than hearin’ someone died for you, is bein’ kept in the dark about it.”
Worse was a bit of a stretch. Well. Probably. He could remember exactly how he’d found out Dean sold his soul for him, and yeah, it probably was true that the minute that had felt the absolute worst out of that whole night was hearing the confirmation of it from Dean’s lips after his brother had already point blank told him that no, he hadn’t made a deal. Still. Dean already knew enough; he had to know the truth. Sam rubbing in his face exactly what had happened wasn’t gonna help anybody. At least, that was what he was telling himself.
Right now, his problem wasn’t Dean not dealing with what John had done, it was Dean not dealing with anything, period. He’d retreated into his ‘happy’ mechanic shell, and nothing else outside it really seemed to exist. There were things Sam could never say, like the fact that last night they’d fucked up against the wall before bed, and he’d almost wished they hadn’t. Dean would’ve probably called him a girl for thinking it, and yeah, maybe it was crazy, because it’d been sex, sex with Dean no less and sure, it’d been good. It was always good. But that was the thing…sex with Dean was always something else, even when they were fucking each other’s brains out, and until this week he’d never felt like just a warm body to Dean. Yeah, it was still sex, and he’d have had a near impossible time turning it down, but he hadn’t really wanted it either. Not like that.
All of that, that was the kind of thing he could never bring up, the kind of thing that had to resolve itself after bringing up other things. Like the underlying problem that Dean refused to acknowledge.
Sam pushed up out of the rocking chair, and he went out to where Dean was bent over the hood, tinkering with the engine. The music was nearly deafening this close and he reached over to turn it down, coming over to lean back against the car.
“Hey.”
“Hey.” Dean glanced up, caught sight of the beer in Sam’s hands. He wiped grease off on his jeans and held his hand out, questioning, and Sam handed it over without a thought. He drank deeply, like he was dying of thirst, and he nearly drained it before he handed it back to Sam, only around an inch in the bottom remaining.
“So…comin’ along alright?”
He shrugged, his attention focused back on the intricate workings of the car in front of him. “She’s alright. Still not gonna be up and runnin’ for awhile, but she’s comin’ along.”
“Anything I can help you with?”
He laughed, short and sharp and still too forced. “No thanks, Sam. I’d like to put her back together, not take her apart.”
He kicked at the dirt, watched the cloud of dust rise up around the toe of his boot. This was maddening. “Dean, don’t do this.”
“Don’t do what exactly, Sam?” He actually looked at him then, eyebrows raised, and Sam almost backed down.
“Shut down on me like this. I know this is hard, it’s hard for both of us, but-“
“Sam, I don’t know how many times I’m gonna have to tell you I don’t need to talk. I’m fine.” So ‘fine’ that he busied himself pretty quick, moving away from the car and heading back into the garage to search out some parts.
“No, Dean, you’re not fine. You’re as fucked up as I am, but the difference is, I can admit it. I can admit that I miss him, and this is killing me, and I don’t know what to do, but you, you’re acting like none of it happened, and Dean, I know you, man, this isn’t good, and sooner or later you’re-“
“I’m fine.” He ground the words out low and harsh, and almost as soon as he’d said it his mask snapped back into place. “Look, maybe I haven’t done the right thing here, and I’m sorry. If you need to talk to me, you know you can. Just…I dunno, yell at me, tell me you’ve got something to say, anything, and you know I’ll listen, but don’t worry about me. There’s nothing for me to talk about, Sam, I’m fine.”
Sam had followed him in under the shade of the garage while he was talking, and Dean stopped on his way out, reaching up with the hand that wasn’t juggling parts to pull Sam in for a quick kiss. It was more going through the motions than a gesture of affection, and Sam turned around, almost ready to actually bring that up.
Dean was already buried back under the hood of the car, humming along with Never Been To Spain, and Sam knew that trying to get any further just now would be like talking to a brick wall.
‘’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’
It wasn’t time yet for the zombie girl, but he’d known something was gonna bring it all to a head.
Nearly three weeks to the day after it had all gone down in Richardson, they ran into the spirit of a girl who’d died for her best friend. There’d been a robbery at the convenience store where they’d stopped to get gas, the guy’d gotten jumpy and fired, and she’d jumped in front of her. Sam had never really thought it was fair that over time most spirits became violent anyway, even the ones of good people like that, and the case as a whole had been pretty damn draining.
It was after that that Dean had pulled the car over on the side of the road somewhere in Alabama, looking down at a lake with emerald green water. Sam leaned up against the hood beside him, and when he leaned into Dean just a little he was glad to feel him lean right back.
“Sammy, I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize, Dean.” Really, he didn’t. If anyone in the whole world understood Dean and his moods(and honestly, no one probably did, not even Dean), it was Sam.
“Sure I do. The way I’ve been actin’…point is, I’m sorry.” He shifted just a little farther down on the hood, eyes squinting against the glare of the sun. “And for dad. I mean, he was your dad too, I shouldn’t be actin’ like I’m the only one that lost somethin’ here. It’s my fault he’s gone, and I’m sorry for that too.”
“Dean…” He didn’t even know where to begin. Before, he’d been able to talk as freely about this with Dean as he wanted, because all it had been were suspicions. They’d both been blindsided by what dad had done, and it’d been alright for him to agree that he suspected it then. Now, he knew for certain, and he couldn’t lie to Dean and tell him that he didn’t any more than he could tell Dean the truth.
“No, I know you’re thinkin’ it. I mean, it doesn’t take a genius to figure it out. I make a full recovery, then dad’s gone and the Colt’s nowhere? It had to be, Sammy, you know it, and it’s all because of me.”
“Dean, you can’t-“
“I can. I know it, and you do too. There’s no way to look at this other than to see that he died for me, and that…” There were tears in his eyes, and Sam ached to reach out to him. “You and dad…you’re the most important people in my life. And thinkin’ that in some form or other you’re both gonna end up dyin’ for me, that’s more than I know how to even start to deal with, so I get that you want me to talk to you about this, Sam, but I’m tellin’ you, I don’t even know what to say.”
“Dean, I know that…I know it’s too much. But dad doing what he did, he did it because you’re his son and he couldn’t watch you die. He didn’t really have a choice.” It was easier to think of it that way, and it helped a little that dad had made it seem like it was true. Maybe it was being a father or maybe it was being a Winchester, but when it came to sacrificing for them he’d never really made any choices, he’d just done what needed to be done.
Dean said nothing, and when Sam reached up to brush a tear at the corner of his eye away, Dean leaned over just enough to keep them from touching. “Don’t, Sam.”
However hard it had been not to tell him everything he knew, it was a hell of a lot harder to pretend that didn’t hurt.
“You want me to drive for awhile?”
Dean nodded, and he pulled the keys out of his pocket and dropped them in Sam’s hand. “Sure. Thanks.”
In the car, he curled up with his head against the door like he did sometimes when he was really tired, but Sam was pretty damn sure he didn’t sleep.
‘’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’
It was past midnight when Dean brought it up again. They’d stopped for the night in Starkville, Mississippi at the Starkville Motor Court, and Dean had been quiet almost since dinner.
When Dean finally said something, Sam was digging around in his bag searching for a clean pair of boxers and thinking about the fact that tomorrow they should probably do laundry before they left town.
“I need you to tell me something.”
At first, his head was still mostly on the whole laundry thing, so he didn’t hear the quiet edge to the words. They didn’t have any detergent left, either. “Yeah?”
“Do you know something?”
There, he started to realize that he should probably be paying attention. “Do I know what, Dean?”
Dean got up off the bed, crossing the room toward him. “About dad, do you know something? Because if you do, I think I deserve to know what it is.”
This was just what he’d wanted to avoid. There was real calculating anger in Dean’s eyes, now, and he knew that even if he tried to deflect, Dean was watching him too closely. He’d already sworn to himself he wouldn’t lie to his brother again, but just then it was pretty damn tempting, no matter how much he hated it.
Dean kept coming, and it seemed pretty clear he already knew enough just by Sam’s silence. “Sam…” He pushed him, hard enough that Sam’s back hit the wall. Sam hadn’t tried to stop him, didn’t even raise a hand back to catch himself. This time, Dean’s anger was entirely deserved. He hated himself a little for it, too. Dean shoved at him again, Sam limp enough to let him. “What did you know? What’d he tell you?”
“Everything.” The whisper came out before he could stop it, his eyes flickering down. He could say this, maybe, but he couldn’t look at Dean while he did it. “I knew everything. Bobby too, he called him down to bring everything he needed and…he told me not to ever tell you. I knew you’d figure it out, but he didn’t want you to know, Dean, he was just trying to look out for you, to-“
Dean’s fist connected hard against his jaw, and his head knocked back against the wall, sharp pain shooting from both directions. He winced, blinked and refocused on Dean, his hand still clenched and raised back. His left hand fisted in Sam’s jacket, shaking him, and Sam pressed his palms back flat against the wall.
“What the hell do you think gives you the right? Either of you!” The words shook with rage, getting stronger as his voice rose. “You don’t just fuck with other people’s lives however you want, Sam! It’s my life, mine, and neither of you have any right forcing this on me just because it’s what you want! You’re so goddamned selfish, both of you, you just take what you want and it’s always from me.” He jerked forward, fist coming halfway before he stopped it, shaking his head and pushing off Sam’s chest as he shoved himself backwards, hand lowering. “Well I’ve had it. Because there is nothing left for you to take. Shoving something like this off on somebody, you had no-“
“Yeah, well you did it to me.” He spoke quietly, no match for Dean’s yelling that had to have been heard at least 3 rooms over. Still, Dean heard him.
“What?”
“You. You did it to me, before.” He pushed away from the wall, closing the space Dean had put between them. “April 29th 2007, I was killed, and on May 2nd you went to a crossroads demon and sold your soul to bring me back.” Even talking about it now with Dean right in front of him and whole with no memories of hell, it still hurt as much now as it ever had. “They gave you a year and you went to hell and I couldn’t save you. You were there for four months, and you put that on me. So yeah, Dean, I think I know how you feel, but I know how you felt now too. And you were scared, and you were sorry you hurt me, but you were never sorry you did it.” He held his head up, defiant, more certain of this part of his answer than he was of almost anything. “Well neither was dad, and neither am I.”
“So you turn around and do the same thing? That’s even worse.”
“You know, you’re a hypocrite. You have no idea, Dean, you have no idea what it’s like, but you wanna stand here and lecture me on how rational you’d act if I was dead? You really wanna test that theory, see how it works out?”
Dean’s jaw clenched, his eyes still stone cold. Sam hadn’t meant to get angry, he hadn’t, but he couldn’t really help it. It didn’t seem like it mattered at the moment, really. Dean hadn’t responded when he’d tried to reason with him, and he was too closed in to respond to Sam’s anger either.
When Dean turned and walked out the door, he slammed it behind him.
‘’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’
When Sam was 15, Dean drove off and left him on some backcountry road in Kentucky.
They’d been fighting about dad and school and what Sam wanted out of both and God knows what else and when Dean had finally yelled that Sam must just wish he had a different family and Sam hadn’t immediately said anything, Dean had kicked him out.
At first Sam had been more than ready to leave, and he’d slammed the door with as much force as he could manage and taken off walking back down the road the way they’d come. Dean had taken off, all spinning gravel and receding taillights, and Sam had been glad he went. At first.
He’d made it about 15 minutes before he regretted what he said, and about 30 before he was thinking of calling Dean. At the end of an hour he was sitting against a fencepost trying to make up his mind when he heard the Impala coming. Dean had stopped, not just put on the brakes but actually gotten out, and before Sam could even get up off the ground his brother was there offering him a hand up. Neither of them apologized and they didn’t talk about it, but they didn’t need to. When he was angry, Dean left. His anger burned out quick and he always came back, but that was just how it was, how it had been since he was a little kid and driving Dean crazy enough that he needed to get out of the room for 15 minutes even if it was just to walk down to the local gas station and buy them something that passed as dinner.
Maybe it was just too much irrational fear showing, but this time he wasn’t sure Dean was coming back. He’d been gone a day and a half already, and though Sam hadn’t tried to call him, Dean hadn’t called either. Sam was trying not to panic, but that was a hell of a lot easier said than done. He’d deserved Dean’s anger. Sure, Dean wasn’t right about everything, and he seriously needed to understand a little bit of perspective, but honestly Sam hoped he never got it. He didn’t want to die just to make Dean see how it felt.
If Dean wasn’t coming back on his own, though, that just meant that Sam had to go after him. He wasn’t about to let him go, not now, certainly not over this. It was just after sundown on the second day when he finally decided, and he tossed everything into his duffel and hiked to the highway to hitch a ride. It took just under two hours for a man in a beat up red Wrangler to pull over, rolling his window down.
“Where you headed?”
After my brother. He shrugged, putting on the smile Dean had told him could con a Navy SEAL. “Sioux Falls, South Dakota, but I can work with however far you’re goin’.”
“Well, I’m goin’ to Kansas City. That’ll at least get ya north a ways. That alright?”
“Sounds great, sir, thank you.” He folded into the front seat, stretched his feet out in the floorboard over his bag and stared out the window. It was just starting to rain.
“So…what’s in Sioux Falls?”
“My uncle. And…maybe my brother. That’s what I’m hoping, at least.” Not that he really felt like talking about this to him. Not at all. The man nodded, and he didn’t push. At least the guy had a good sense of personal space. Or Sam just looked that dejected, he wasn’t really sure.
Guessing that Dean had gone to Bobby was a long shot, but right now it was the only guess he had. If he wasn’t there, Sam was gonna have to borrow a car and strike out on his own, but he was doing everything he could not to think that far ahead. Looking for Dean across the country wasn’t as bad as looking for dad because he knew Dean better, but needing to look for Dean like that…
The last time he’d travelled alone like this, it had been because he’d asked Dean one thing with his words and been hoping Dean understood that he was really asking another, and it’d backfired on him. ‘I think it’s best if we go our separate ways’ had really just meant, ‘I need you to ask me to stay’. That was the last time he’d hitched a ride, too. This time, he just needed Dean to tell him they were alright, that yeah, Sam had maybe been selfish, but they were gonna be ok. In the broader scheme of things, apocalypse considered, he didn’t really think what he’d done was all that selfish, but he could see how Dean would. But even so, he needed to hear that whatever was between them wasn’t gonna suffer for it. Because selfish or not, how he felt about Dean hadn’t changed and it never would, and he needed to believe that deep down, even if he tried Dean couldn’t stop caring about him either.
After three hours, they stopped for dinner in Memphis. It was barbeque, good like you could only get in Memphis, but he wasn’t really hungry. The last time they’d been here Dean had eaten a barbeque sandwich nearly the size of his head, and they’d stopped at Sun Records on their way of town. That had been back in 2004, when it looked like he’d had a whole other life stretched out before him and it was something incredible, something untainted.
Impulsively he pulled out his phone to check it, only to find it must’ve died awhile back. He’d watched over it nearly obsessively in the hotel room, but his head was only half there and he’d been staring at the damn thing waiting for it to ring so much that he’d apparently forgotten he needed to charge it. He slipped it back into his pocket, tried his best to think about the fact that it didn’t matter, because Dean wasn’t calling anyway.
“How about you?”
“Hm?” The guy(his name was either Carl or Caleb…Sam hadn’t exactly been paying attention) tilted his head, curious, and Sam realized the rest of that question had only been there in his head.
“You asked me what’s in Sioux Falls; what’s in Kansas City?”
He smiled, wiped his lips against the back of his hand. “My boy. He’s just 14 this year. His momma, me and her don’t exactly see eye to eye ever since she run out on me for the neighbor’s brother, but we were never married and she got custody so I don’t exactly have enough rights that I can complain too much without feelin’ like I’ll lose the right to see him altogether so…” He shrugged, took a sip of beer. “I get up there about 4 or 5 times a year. Tony, he’s a good kid.”
“I bet he is.” At least he had a father, that was something. He probably took it for granted, too, probably told himself he hated the way his father only showed up enough times to count on one hand a year, probably thought that he was getting a bad deal. Whatever he was getting, it was a better deal than not having a father at all. Course, things like that took time to learn, perspective. He’d never appreciated it much the first time around, either.
Back in the car Sam opened the duffel between his feet, rifled through dirty clothes until he found the car charger he’d mercifully shoved at the bottom. He’d almost been sure he’d left it in the Impala for a good few minutes. He held the wires up, shaking out the kinks. “Hey, do you mind if I…?” He gestured at the cigarette lighter, and Carl/Caleb shook his head.
“Nah, that’s fine.”
He plugged it in, curled the wire around to let it rest against his thigh. It had barely finished turning on when it vibrated, and he nearly jumped out of his skin. The little white envelope swirled onto the screen displaying ‘1 New Voicemail’, and his heart ratcheted somewhere up near the roof of his mouth.
He snatched the phone up, pressing 1, and the beat of time it took for the answering service to kick in and ask for his password seemed to take a lifetime.
You have 1 unheard message. New message:
“Hey, Sammy, it’s me. Uh…I just got back to the room, and you’re gone and…” Off the top of his head, Sam couldn’t immediately remember the last time he’d heard him this scared. “Sam, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left like that, but I was pissed and I just needed some time, you know? I thought maybe with some space I…dammit, Sam, where are you? Nobody around here remembers seein’ you leave and…look, don’t do anything stupid, ok? I…you know I…” He heard the sound of Dean’s breath against the phone, hard and frustrated around the words he couldn’t get out. “Please, Sam, call me when you get this. I get that you might not wanna see me right now, and if you don’t, that’s…that’s ok. Just call me or text me or something, hell, call Bobby if you’d rather, but at least let me know where you are and that you’re ok. I need to know you’re ok. Sammy, I-“
The message cut off.
“Shit.” He swore softly under his breath, drawing the phone down from his ear and rubbing the cuff of his sleeve across the screen, pretending to clean it so he had something to stare at.
“You don’t mind me askin’, who was that?”
“ ‘M brother.” He was already dialing Dean’s number, thumb racing across the keypad to type it almost faster than speed dial could’ve had him connected.
“The one you’re tryin’ to meet in South Dakota?”
He nodded, attention already zeroed in on the white noise of the line trying to connect. Dean got to it on the first ring.
“Sam?”
“Yeah, Dean. Hey.”
“Oh, thank God.” Dean sighed, and Sam’s fingers tightened around the phone. “You ok?”
He laughed, short and just a little forced. “Yeah, I guess.” Relatively speaking. “You?”
“Well, I feel like I’ve had a couple years taken off my life but other than that, yeah, I’m alright. Where are you? And what the hell, Sam, I mean I know I shouldn’t have left like that but did you really think I-“
“We should talk about this later.”
“Oh.” Just in one syllable he could hear the twist, Dean’s walls sliding back into place. “Yeah, no, sure, if you want some time then-“
“Dean, no, that’s not it at all, man; I just mean I hitched a ride. If you wanna come pick me up, we can talk once you get here.”
Even over the line, he could literally feel Dean’s relief. “Where are you?”
“We’re just leavin’ Memphis. Hang on.” He jostled the phone to the side, looking over at the guy whose name he still couldn’t remember who’d been nice enough to give him a ride. “Can you drop me off?”
He nodded, slow and easy. “Where’d you like?”
Anywhere, literally. He’d be happy to wait on the side of the road for a few hours knowing Dean was coming to get him. Dean was still on the other end of the line though, and he’d heard that last part.
“Hey, tell him to drop you off at a motel; you can go ahead and get us a room.”
Well, that worked. “Just a motel, somewhere along here? Anywhere’s fine.” Over the phone, he could hear the Impala’s engine roaring to life.
“Memphis?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll be there as quick as I can.”
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Master post is here.