SPN FIC - Creature Comforts
Entry #4 in the Farm!Verse (curtain fic) series.
He can put up with almost anything, Dean figures; all he really needs, most of the time, is a place to lie down, close his eyes, turn the world off for a little while. But finally - finally - he's got something better than "good enough."
CHARACTERS: Dean and Sam
GENRE: Gen
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: None
LENGTH: 874 words
CREATURE COMFORTS
By Carol Davis
He can put up with almost anything, Dean figures; all he really needs, most of the time, is a place to lie down, close his eyes, turn the world off for a little while. He's slept on mattresses that felt like they were full of gravel, or dried peas. (A million peas, Princess, not just one.) Dealt with entire symphonies of smells, very few of them pleasant. Cigarette smoke. Soured Chinese take-out. Sweat. Old fish. Bleach. That lingering, curdling sweetness that says someone, or something, died not long ago - if not on the bed, then underneath it.
When he grew old enough to understand, Dad told him what the war was like.
Gunfire going on nearby. Everything saturated with that suffocating humidity that never went away.
No bed.
Just the ground. Sometimes, not even that.
He can sleep sitting up. A handful of times, he's slept standing up. Dad insisted that he learn. Said there'd come a time when he'd be glad he could turn things off to that degree - and Dad was right. It's come in handy, once or twice.
But he remembers other times, other places.
Cassie's apartment. Lisa's house. Home, of course; the bed in his blue bedroom.
He remembers rooms strobing with the rainbow colors of the neon outside. Remembers the din of arguments, the sound of sex, of broken heaters and air conditioners, the shrill and clank of air in the plumbing. Heavy footfalls up above. Gunshots. Freeway traffic.
And he remembers silence.
His brother's body, still, gray, cold.
"Are you all right?" Sam asks him, frowning.
They've chosen two separate rooms. There's no reason for them to share one, Sam says. In fact, it would be ridiculous. There are three bedrooms: one slightly larger than the others, at the front of the house, two more, almost identical, in the back. The larger one and one of the small ones face each other across a narrow hallway. Dean made sure they picked those. Sam made sure they picked mattresses that cost more than they've ever spent on anything.
"That's -"
"Dude," Sam said.
There was a little money left after they bought the farm. (Bought the farm. That will never not be funny. Black humor, yes, but what the hell. They've each already bought the farm half a dozen times, which takes the sting out of the whole concept.
Sort of.)
Sam insisted they spend a big chunk of it on beds.
Mattresses and box springs. Sheets and pillows, for crying out loud. All of it new. All of it decent quality. "You spend a third of your life in bed," Sam pointed out.
Yeah. Like that's ever been true.
"I don't need -" Dean tried to argue.
And Sam looked him right in the eye. Pulled a bitchface.
"Yes you do," he said.
So there's this. His bed, in his room. A mattress that isn't swaybacked, isn't stuffed with cornhusks. Doesn't smell of anything. Firm. Wrapped in soft, clean sheets, topped with a thick, warm blanket.
He's had all that before, he thinks, and it didn't matter all that much. At least, it didn't matter at the time.
Somehow, this does.
It's his bed.
In his house. Their house.
"Stop," Sam says firmly, and when Dean grimaces in his direction, Sam tells him, "Stop waiting for the other shoe to drop."
"Can't help it," Dean mutters.
"You have to. We have to."
He's right. If this is going to work, they have to give in a little. Let this be home. Let it be normal.
The silence isn't absolute here. There are crickets, audible even when the windows are closed, louder when Dean lifts the sash of the one nearest to his bed to admit a mild breeze sweet with evergreen and wildflowers.
Most of the nights of their lives, they've slept hemmed in by closed windows and doors, with thick ribbons of salt laid along the sills, the thresholds.
It didn't work. Not really.
Evil got through in spite of it.
"You gonna leave that open?" Sam asks from the doorway.
Dean doesn't respond right away. Something moves into the edge of his field of vision, and he glances down to find the dog sitting alongside him, her head well within reach if he lowers his hand from the windowframe.
"Yeah," he says. "I am."
It's time they gave in and lived, he figures.
He feels like friggin' Goldilocks discovering the baby bear's bed, he thinks as he slides in between the sheets, settling a little bit gingerly onto a mattress that doesn't shift or creak or tilt. Doesn't stink in memory of the anonymous parade of people who have made use of it before - because there were no others.
This one's his.
His bed, in his room, in his house.
The dog rests her chin on the bed near his left hip, just long enough for him to stroke the soft blond fur between her ears. Then she pads quietly away, across the hall, to bid goodnight to Sam. They'll discover later on that she sleeps in the hallway between their two rooms, keeping watch over both of them.
He can put up with just about anything, Dean thinks.
It's a marvel that tonight - and on a lot of nights that follow - he doesn't need to.
* * * * *
He can put up with almost anything, Dean figures; all he really needs, most of the time, is a place to lie down, close his eyes, turn the world off for a little while. But finally - finally - he's got something better than "good enough."
CHARACTERS: Dean and Sam
GENRE: Gen
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: None
LENGTH: 874 words
CREATURE COMFORTS
By Carol Davis
He can put up with almost anything, Dean figures; all he really needs, most of the time, is a place to lie down, close his eyes, turn the world off for a little while. He's slept on mattresses that felt like they were full of gravel, or dried peas. (A million peas, Princess, not just one.) Dealt with entire symphonies of smells, very few of them pleasant. Cigarette smoke. Soured Chinese take-out. Sweat. Old fish. Bleach. That lingering, curdling sweetness that says someone, or something, died not long ago - if not on the bed, then underneath it.
When he grew old enough to understand, Dad told him what the war was like.
Gunfire going on nearby. Everything saturated with that suffocating humidity that never went away.
No bed.
Just the ground. Sometimes, not even that.
He can sleep sitting up. A handful of times, he's slept standing up. Dad insisted that he learn. Said there'd come a time when he'd be glad he could turn things off to that degree - and Dad was right. It's come in handy, once or twice.
But he remembers other times, other places.
Cassie's apartment. Lisa's house. Home, of course; the bed in his blue bedroom.
He remembers rooms strobing with the rainbow colors of the neon outside. Remembers the din of arguments, the sound of sex, of broken heaters and air conditioners, the shrill and clank of air in the plumbing. Heavy footfalls up above. Gunshots. Freeway traffic.
And he remembers silence.
His brother's body, still, gray, cold.
"Are you all right?" Sam asks him, frowning.
They've chosen two separate rooms. There's no reason for them to share one, Sam says. In fact, it would be ridiculous. There are three bedrooms: one slightly larger than the others, at the front of the house, two more, almost identical, in the back. The larger one and one of the small ones face each other across a narrow hallway. Dean made sure they picked those. Sam made sure they picked mattresses that cost more than they've ever spent on anything.
"That's -"
"Dude," Sam said.
There was a little money left after they bought the farm. (Bought the farm. That will never not be funny. Black humor, yes, but what the hell. They've each already bought the farm half a dozen times, which takes the sting out of the whole concept.
Sort of.)
Sam insisted they spend a big chunk of it on beds.
Mattresses and box springs. Sheets and pillows, for crying out loud. All of it new. All of it decent quality. "You spend a third of your life in bed," Sam pointed out.
Yeah. Like that's ever been true.
"I don't need -" Dean tried to argue.
And Sam looked him right in the eye. Pulled a bitchface.
"Yes you do," he said.
So there's this. His bed, in his room. A mattress that isn't swaybacked, isn't stuffed with cornhusks. Doesn't smell of anything. Firm. Wrapped in soft, clean sheets, topped with a thick, warm blanket.
He's had all that before, he thinks, and it didn't matter all that much. At least, it didn't matter at the time.
Somehow, this does.
It's his bed.
In his house. Their house.
"Stop," Sam says firmly, and when Dean grimaces in his direction, Sam tells him, "Stop waiting for the other shoe to drop."
"Can't help it," Dean mutters.
"You have to. We have to."
He's right. If this is going to work, they have to give in a little. Let this be home. Let it be normal.
The silence isn't absolute here. There are crickets, audible even when the windows are closed, louder when Dean lifts the sash of the one nearest to his bed to admit a mild breeze sweet with evergreen and wildflowers.
Most of the nights of their lives, they've slept hemmed in by closed windows and doors, with thick ribbons of salt laid along the sills, the thresholds.
It didn't work. Not really.
Evil got through in spite of it.
"You gonna leave that open?" Sam asks from the doorway.
Dean doesn't respond right away. Something moves into the edge of his field of vision, and he glances down to find the dog sitting alongside him, her head well within reach if he lowers his hand from the windowframe.
"Yeah," he says. "I am."
It's time they gave in and lived, he figures.
He feels like friggin' Goldilocks discovering the baby bear's bed, he thinks as he slides in between the sheets, settling a little bit gingerly onto a mattress that doesn't shift or creak or tilt. Doesn't stink in memory of the anonymous parade of people who have made use of it before - because there were no others.
This one's his.
His bed, in his room, in his house.
The dog rests her chin on the bed near his left hip, just long enough for him to stroke the soft blond fur between her ears. Then she pads quietly away, across the hall, to bid goodnight to Sam. They'll discover later on that she sleeps in the hallway between their two rooms, keeping watch over both of them.
He can put up with just about anything, Dean thinks.
It's a marvel that tonight - and on a lot of nights that follow - he doesn't need to.
* * * * *