This Hour with the Living [R, Dean/OMC]
Title stolen shamelessly from Walt Whitman's "A Boston Ballad" and Jacoby Ellsbury shamelessly stolen from the Boston Red Sox and we all know where I stole Dean from, right? Beta by madame_meretrix, of course.
This Hour with the Living [R, Dean/OMC]
Five years ago, Dean's life didn't end. Now, this is how it begins.
Warnings: Set post-S3 with super vague spoilers for aired episodes. This story is, sadly, Sam Winchester free. (Also, my husband is apparently horrified that I cut a certain part of the story because he feels like it makes me look like a fake baseball fan. But I'm not putting it back in, so: to the 1.5 of you who are going to notice, you'll just have to trust that I know. Or, you know, just search out the answer I gave to someone else in comments. *g*)
This Hour with the Living
“I don’t date guys,” Dean says, the first time. His face is buried in the guy’s neck, tongue against his pulse, and he lifts his lips to get the words out. “Hope that’s not gonna be a problem.”
The guy’s mouth opens and loosely formed syllables tumble out; it’s a question, and Dean’s gone before the end of it hits the air.
The second time, Dean laughs and says, “This is a pretty big town, you know.”
The guy smiles. “Yeah, but it’s a small bar. You got a name?”
“It matter?”
“Guess not,” he says. “I’m Sam.”
“’Course you are,” Dean growls, grabbing the guy by the back of the neck and pulling him in close, so they’re sharing the same air. His lips tease over the corner of the guy’s-Sam’s-mouth when he says, “I don’t date guys.”
“Yeah,” Sam says, “I think I heard that somewhere.”
*
The morning sun hits the Common and Dean’s snowblind. People pass facelessly, backlit and shadowed, and he watches their shapes, their strides, searches for something familiar.
“You’re lying to yourself.”
Dean shrugs and leans back on the bench.
“Listen,” Sam says, sitting and shoving a coffee into Dean’s hands. “You might think it’s easier, playing it straight, but it’s so much worse in the long run, trust me.”
Dean huffs a bitter laugh.
“What?”
“If I ignore you, will you go away?”
“Not likely.” Sam smiles and takes a sip of his coffee.
“You’re not a good enough lay to get away with this fuckin’ white knight act,” Dean says, “you know that, right? And even if you were, I don’t need it.”
“Fair enough.”
The coffee’s black, bitter.
“So, you waiting for someone out here?”
“I don’t know,” Dean says. “Maybe.”
“Is it me?”
Dean lingers over a sip of coffee, a denial taking shape on his lips even as he pauses to consider how it is that there’s still someone in this world undamaged enough to ask that question.
“Yeah,” Sam says, beating him to it, “I figured. Well, you wanna wait back at my place? You left your coat, anyway.”
*
The third time’s not an accident.
“This is a pretty big town, you know,” Sam says.
Dean smiles. “Isn’t that my line?”
Sam just laughs and shakes his head, and he slaps a ten down on the bar. “Two Sams,” he says before turning back to Dean. “I think we both know what your line is.”
He moves in close, tilts his head to make up the inch or so Dean has on him. “I don’t sleep around,” he says, flicking his tongue lightly against Dean’s ear.
“That’s not the impression I got.”
“We all make mistakes,” Sam says, backing away. He grabs the beers off the bar and hands one to Dean. “Cheers,” he says, touching the rims of their glasses together before disappearing into the crowd.
*
The slushy pavement’s soaking Dean’s knees, leaving them aching and raw before stripping them of feeling entirely. It’s a good kind of numbness on the left, the one that hurts all the time.
“Everything or nothing,” Sam says.
Dean doesn’t answer. Sam’s cock drags across his cheek, over his lips; his ears are warmed by the haze of flushed skin and arousal.
Sam drops one leather glove, runs his fingers through Dean’s hair.
It’s winter’s last fuck you before spring warms the air, marks the anniversary of something that never happened and some other things that did, and his tongue is drunk, sluggish, but it’s over quickly just the same.
“This is everything I’ve got,” he says, wipes the back of his hand over his mouth.
“I don’t even know your name.”
“It matter?”
“Yeah,” Sam says, “it kinda does.”
He doesn’t offer to return the favor, and Dean drops the paper with his number into a puddle of slush and watches the ink bleed.
*
“Small world,” Dean says. He turns back toward the counter. “Two Sams and a Fenway frank.”
Sam shrugs. “Small park,” he says.
Dean hands over a beer, watches his own slosh around in its plastic cup. His hand shakes and he spills it like water, like whiskey over a grave.
“What do you think, we got a shot at it this year?”
“Long as Ellsbury gives us another fifty homeruns,” Dean says.
Sam nods, looks out toward the entrance to the stands. There’s a flash of green visible through the tunnel between the Cuban sandwiches and the Dunkin Donuts.
“So, uh,” Sam says, and Dean cuts him off: “We all make mistakes, isn’t that what you said?” He shakes his head, adds softly, “That don’t mean we gotta repeat ‘em.”
A wave of sound erupts outside, and on the screen, Ellsbury’s rounding second and the ball’s nowhere in sight.
“One down,” Sam says.
It’s the bottom of the first and Ellsbury’s the leadoff hitter. It’s a good start to the season.
Dean raises his cup.
“It’s Dean,” he says. “Winchester.”
*
The Common blooms pink, fades to red and gold and then grey.
The coffee’s still black.
“Tell me something. About yourself,” Sam says. “God, just so I can pretend I’m not crazy, bringing coffee out here for a complete stranger.”
“No one asked you to,” Dean says.
“Yeah, well. I want to be here if he ever shows up.”
There’s a pair of pigeons ten feet away, huddled together for warmth, pecking at the ground for scraps only they can see.
“Who?” Dean asks.
“Whoever it is you’re waiting for.” Sam sips his coffee, throws a piece of bagel toward the pigeons, watches them eat.
His lips are soft, coffee-warm when Dean kisses them, parted and glistening when Dean walks away.
*
He doesn’t watch the birds fly south a sixth time.
The passenger seat’s as empty as the day he put the car in storage, and he fills it with long strings of curses, silent apologies, warmer breezes.
In the back seat, he dreams; he saves the world, Sam saves him, and there’s no one there to save Sam. The images spin wildly, pin him up against the walls that keep Sam alive in his mind until they crumble into ash, Sam a broken kamikaze among the ruins of his success.
Dean takes his own suicide mission, fails, tries again.
The salt is in clumps and the guns jam, and the world is safer.
It’s eighty-five degrees in Fort Myers in February, and Ellsbury knocks one out of the park.
It reminds him of Boston, of years spent watching faces pass, of a meeting Sam never meant to keep. It reminds him of a scrap of paper, discarded, ink bleeding out on the half-frozen ground, of the one person he knows who’d greet him by name.
It reminds him of home.
*
Dean squints into the sun as it sets over the Common. It’s colorless, almost, and the darkness that creeps along behind it is cold and long.
He doesn’t turn his head when the other side of the bench creaks.
“You waiting for someone?”
Dean nods.
“Is it me?”
Dean closes his eyes for a minute and then nods again.
“Then let’s go,” Sam says.
###
This Hour with the Living [R, Dean/OMC]
Five years ago, Dean's life didn't end. Now, this is how it begins.
Warnings: Set post-S3 with super vague spoilers for aired episodes. This story is, sadly, Sam Winchester free. (Also, my husband is apparently horrified that I cut a certain part of the story because he feels like it makes me look like a fake baseball fan. But I'm not putting it back in, so: to the 1.5 of you who are going to notice, you'll just have to trust that I know. Or, you know, just search out the answer I gave to someone else in comments. *g*)
This Hour with the Living
“I don’t date guys,” Dean says, the first time. His face is buried in the guy’s neck, tongue against his pulse, and he lifts his lips to get the words out. “Hope that’s not gonna be a problem.”
The guy’s mouth opens and loosely formed syllables tumble out; it’s a question, and Dean’s gone before the end of it hits the air.
The second time, Dean laughs and says, “This is a pretty big town, you know.”
The guy smiles. “Yeah, but it’s a small bar. You got a name?”
“It matter?”
“Guess not,” he says. “I’m Sam.”
“’Course you are,” Dean growls, grabbing the guy by the back of the neck and pulling him in close, so they’re sharing the same air. His lips tease over the corner of the guy’s-Sam’s-mouth when he says, “I don’t date guys.”
“Yeah,” Sam says, “I think I heard that somewhere.”
*
The morning sun hits the Common and Dean’s snowblind. People pass facelessly, backlit and shadowed, and he watches their shapes, their strides, searches for something familiar.
“You’re lying to yourself.”
Dean shrugs and leans back on the bench.
“Listen,” Sam says, sitting and shoving a coffee into Dean’s hands. “You might think it’s easier, playing it straight, but it’s so much worse in the long run, trust me.”
Dean huffs a bitter laugh.
“What?”
“If I ignore you, will you go away?”
“Not likely.” Sam smiles and takes a sip of his coffee.
“You’re not a good enough lay to get away with this fuckin’ white knight act,” Dean says, “you know that, right? And even if you were, I don’t need it.”
“Fair enough.”
The coffee’s black, bitter.
“So, you waiting for someone out here?”
“I don’t know,” Dean says. “Maybe.”
“Is it me?”
Dean lingers over a sip of coffee, a denial taking shape on his lips even as he pauses to consider how it is that there’s still someone in this world undamaged enough to ask that question.
“Yeah,” Sam says, beating him to it, “I figured. Well, you wanna wait back at my place? You left your coat, anyway.”
*
The third time’s not an accident.
“This is a pretty big town, you know,” Sam says.
Dean smiles. “Isn’t that my line?”
Sam just laughs and shakes his head, and he slaps a ten down on the bar. “Two Sams,” he says before turning back to Dean. “I think we both know what your line is.”
He moves in close, tilts his head to make up the inch or so Dean has on him. “I don’t sleep around,” he says, flicking his tongue lightly against Dean’s ear.
“That’s not the impression I got.”
“We all make mistakes,” Sam says, backing away. He grabs the beers off the bar and hands one to Dean. “Cheers,” he says, touching the rims of their glasses together before disappearing into the crowd.
*
The slushy pavement’s soaking Dean’s knees, leaving them aching and raw before stripping them of feeling entirely. It’s a good kind of numbness on the left, the one that hurts all the time.
“Everything or nothing,” Sam says.
Dean doesn’t answer. Sam’s cock drags across his cheek, over his lips; his ears are warmed by the haze of flushed skin and arousal.
Sam drops one leather glove, runs his fingers through Dean’s hair.
It’s winter’s last fuck you before spring warms the air, marks the anniversary of something that never happened and some other things that did, and his tongue is drunk, sluggish, but it’s over quickly just the same.
“This is everything I’ve got,” he says, wipes the back of his hand over his mouth.
“I don’t even know your name.”
“It matter?”
“Yeah,” Sam says, “it kinda does.”
He doesn’t offer to return the favor, and Dean drops the paper with his number into a puddle of slush and watches the ink bleed.
*
“Small world,” Dean says. He turns back toward the counter. “Two Sams and a Fenway frank.”
Sam shrugs. “Small park,” he says.
Dean hands over a beer, watches his own slosh around in its plastic cup. His hand shakes and he spills it like water, like whiskey over a grave.
“What do you think, we got a shot at it this year?”
“Long as Ellsbury gives us another fifty homeruns,” Dean says.
Sam nods, looks out toward the entrance to the stands. There’s a flash of green visible through the tunnel between the Cuban sandwiches and the Dunkin Donuts.
“So, uh,” Sam says, and Dean cuts him off: “We all make mistakes, isn’t that what you said?” He shakes his head, adds softly, “That don’t mean we gotta repeat ‘em.”
A wave of sound erupts outside, and on the screen, Ellsbury’s rounding second and the ball’s nowhere in sight.
“One down,” Sam says.
It’s the bottom of the first and Ellsbury’s the leadoff hitter. It’s a good start to the season.
Dean raises his cup.
“It’s Dean,” he says. “Winchester.”
*
The Common blooms pink, fades to red and gold and then grey.
The coffee’s still black.
“Tell me something. About yourself,” Sam says. “God, just so I can pretend I’m not crazy, bringing coffee out here for a complete stranger.”
“No one asked you to,” Dean says.
“Yeah, well. I want to be here if he ever shows up.”
There’s a pair of pigeons ten feet away, huddled together for warmth, pecking at the ground for scraps only they can see.
“Who?” Dean asks.
“Whoever it is you’re waiting for.” Sam sips his coffee, throws a piece of bagel toward the pigeons, watches them eat.
His lips are soft, coffee-warm when Dean kisses them, parted and glistening when Dean walks away.
*
He doesn’t watch the birds fly south a sixth time.
The passenger seat’s as empty as the day he put the car in storage, and he fills it with long strings of curses, silent apologies, warmer breezes.
In the back seat, he dreams; he saves the world, Sam saves him, and there’s no one there to save Sam. The images spin wildly, pin him up against the walls that keep Sam alive in his mind until they crumble into ash, Sam a broken kamikaze among the ruins of his success.
Dean takes his own suicide mission, fails, tries again.
The salt is in clumps and the guns jam, and the world is safer.
It’s eighty-five degrees in Fort Myers in February, and Ellsbury knocks one out of the park.
It reminds him of Boston, of years spent watching faces pass, of a meeting Sam never meant to keep. It reminds him of a scrap of paper, discarded, ink bleeding out on the half-frozen ground, of the one person he knows who’d greet him by name.
It reminds him of home.
*
Dean squints into the sun as it sets over the Common. It’s colorless, almost, and the darkness that creeps along behind it is cold and long.
He doesn’t turn his head when the other side of the bench creaks.
“You waiting for someone?”
Dean nods.
“Is it me?”
Dean closes his eyes for a minute and then nods again.
“Then let’s go,” Sam says.
###