Ruddy With the Light (Sam/Dean PG-13)
Title: Ruddy With the Light
Author: hansbekhart
Rating: PG-13
Summary: And yeah, Sammy’s here, however long that’ll last, and he’s got the car and the road and that’s been enough for as long as he’s been counting but god, he wishes Dad was here so badly sometimes that it’s like a physical wound, an actual literal missing limb that’s open and oozing and never so much as scabs over, because he just doesn’t. Know. What to do about Sam.
Notes: So I ficced for charity and ended up with a story that didn't want to leave me alone. This is a sequel to The Miner's Lamp, which was posted just before Christmas with a pretty simple set-up: Sam falls in love first. This is what happens afterwards. There will be a third part to this story, devoted to the porn. Thanks as always to shored, who is far too patient with me.
And yeah, Dean’s been in love before. A couple of times, maybe. Cassie, of course. There was a girl in Des Moines who was his first kiss, he loved her. Jacob in New York City, the summer after Sam left, holed up in a craphole apartment on the eigth floor, fucking against every available surface. And Dad. Not in any weird way, not like that, he just wouldn’t know what else to call that sick burn of love that a child has for their dad. What the demon had to tell him wasn’t exactly news, you know, but it was never even about that. Never about who Dad loved more. Knowing that you’re not the favorite, that you’re less loved than the other never made Dean love his Dad any less. He never stopped trying, of course; not to be loved more than Sam because Sam is everything, Sam is the center of his family and his world, but simply to be loved. To be someone that Dad could be proud of. That would’ve been enough.
And yeah, Sammy’s here, however long that’ll last, and he’s got the car and the road and that’s been enough for as long as he’s been counting but god, he wishes Dad was here so badly sometimes that it’s like a physical wound, an actual literal missing limb that’s open and oozing and never so much as scabs over, because he just doesn’t. Know. What to do about Sam.
**
The morning after - well, just the morning after, Dean gets Sam up before dawn and they head north. Sam dozes in the passenger seat while the sun comes up, his face pressed up against the glass. He dressed in the dark, scrubbed his hands over his face and through his hair and went back to sleep as soon as the car warmed up. Dean can barely look at him.
They stop for breakfast when Sam’s awake enough to bitch about being hungry, some greasy spoon just off the interstate that looks like the big bad wolf took over granny’s cottage and filled it with biker memorabilia without bothering to clear out all of the crochet knick knacks first. Sam gets the waffle combo; Dean gets cheese fries. It tastes like something died in the deep fryer and they’re hard enough to crack a tooth on, but the face Sam pulled at cheese fries at nine o’clock in the morning is enough incentive that Dean chokes them all down.
He talks without really thinking about it, music and girls and hunts and leads they should follow up on, whether they should go back to the roadhouse, see if Ellen had anything for them to do. It’s dry in Arizona in more ways than one and Dean’s fingers itch to be moving again. He’s still tired; every part of his body is heavy and his stitches pull every time he moves. He’s taking antibiotics with every meal but at least he’s back on solid food, although including the cheese fries in that catagory is a little iffy. Not so much the solid as the food.
He can’t stop talking, though. The waitress refills their coffee and the early morning sunlight is a watery gold that picks out every fingerprint, every bit of dust on the diner’s windows, and Dean talks. Sam doesn’t. Not much, anyway. Pass the sugar or normal people don’t eat cheese fries at nine o’clock in the morning doesn’t count.
Dean keeps talking because he thinks that if he stops, he might have to punch Sam in the face.
**
Dean likes bracelets, likes the weight on his wrist, the way you forget about it until you need something to touch. That’s what the ring is for, heavy and solid and small enough that no one ever notices him turning it around and around on his finger. Sometimes the jewelry means something, like the necklace. Sometimes things just catch his eye. The acai beads came from a hippie girl with almost as many piercings as opinions. The leather thongs came from a headshop in Portland, Oregon; Dean asked to see one of the bubblers on the high shelf and stuffed the thongs in his pocket when the girl’s back was turned.
Sammy never saw the red cord. Dean wore it the year he turned 24, from February 1, 2003 all the way to January 22, 2004. He spent that Christmas in San Francisco, drinking baijiu with the oldest man he’d ever met. His name was Su and even though he promised to put a knife between Dean’s eyes if he made one more goddamn Johnny Cash joke, they got on well enough that he gave Dean three red cords, for protection. It was Black Sheep year, hostile and turbulent, especially for those born under that sign. Red to keep you safe, Su told Dean, one for you and two for those you love. Dean, who had spent two weeks running errands in the hopes of prying some rare texts from Su’s withered old claws and had never once mentioned a brother, took them without protest.
He kept the other two bracelets where he kept everything else precious, in the truck on the car, in a soft bag made of kidskin. The crash took them, along with everything else. Dad’s year’ll end with him in the ground and then it’ll be Sam’s turn. No semi, no mysterious disappearance; this time the danger’s in their road, plain as daylight.
**
Dean drives for as long he as he’s able to. He sleeps when Sam demands a turn. He fills the hours with bullshit until they’re bearable, until they’ve got a case and Sam can look at him without that -- that face, like he’s bleeding and he doesn’t want Dean to know about it. They go to the roadhouse. Dean gets laid, wakes up with a hangover far worse then he’d ever thought PBR could give him. Sam doesn’t speak to him until they hit the Atlantic Ocean. It’s cold there, the kind of cold that bites into your bones, wind blowing over thousands of miles of dark water.
Dean hates the ocean, hates both sides of it. The wind tastes like salt and the way the sunlight washes over the water reminds him of Bobby’s, of hammering away at his baby until she was whole again, of washing up until everything smelled of lemon. They used to play Hide-and-Go-Seek in the yard, blinded by metal, rust underneath their fingernails and ground into their skin. Sam only cut himself once, sliced open the back of his hand when he wedged himself into a space too small to get himself out of. Bobby found them in the shed with peroxide and a pair of tweezers, fat tears running down Sam’s face. Bobby cleaned the cut, bandaged it fine and promised Dean he wouldn’t tell John how it happened. Dean ‘fessed up to it himself a couple hours later, took his whacks like a man and got his hair touseled for it.
Dean hunkers down on the beach and cups a handful of sand between his palms. He lets the wind blow it away, tries to imagine letting go of someone like that.
A hand lands on his shoulder. Dean doesn’t look up. “Come on, man,” Sam says. “Let’s go inside. They’ve got lobster for like, five dollars.”
“Sick of lobster,” Dean mutters. Sam’s fingers are warm even though Dean’s jacket and Dean lets them lay there, wonders what Sam is thinking about. If he’s thinking about that. Sometimes Dean thinks that he can still taste Sam, his own goddamn brother, warm and slick on his tongue, hazy with fever and things that Dean has no words for. He twists around and looks up at Sam, meets Sam’s eyes. Sam looks like he’s dying and Dean thinks no, tries to say no but the word catches in his throat and all he can do is stare.
Dad, he thinks, and closes his eyes.
**
Yogi Bear threw Dean off a little bit, slowed him down, but it’s the painkillers that really fucked him up.
It blows too early, too big, and the explosion is an ugly whump of sound that lifts him almost gently and flings him into the darkness. He feels everything when he goes down, the rock against the back of his hand, his butt of his own gun slamming into his skull. No more, he thinks, and then Sam’s hands are on him, turning him over. He’s too rough and Dean’s brains feel like they’re sloshing out his ears but when he struggles Sam only wraps his fingers around both of Dean’s wrists and pulls them over Dean’s head, keeping him still.
Sam is big enough to do anything to him. He’s never thought that before. Never felt covered by his brother’s body, never been so goddamn aware of it. His shoulder digs into Sam’s thigh, his head in the crook of Sam’s arm. He’s so fucking big.
“You ok, man?” Sam says. He’s breathing hard, like he ran to Dean’s side. Should’ve been in the car, maybe he was. Maybe he ran when it blew too soon. “Dean? Say something. You ok?”
It gets harder and harder every time to say yes.
“Are my brains coming out? Then I’m fine.”
Sam leaves him in the car and goes to check on the fire. Dean leans his head back against the seat, wishes for headrests, reaches forward unsteadily and pats the dashboard. “I didn’t mean it, honey,” he says. The leather rubs against what could be a second degree burn on the back of his neck and he slumps over slowly. The leather smells rich, thick like the animal it used to be, comforting even though it isn’t his. He put it in by hand weeks ago and if it doesn’t have that new car smell, it’s only because it smells like Bobby’s yard instead. It isn’t the same seat that he’s slept on thousands of times, late at night as his dad chugs gas station coffee to stay awake, in the middle of the day when even Two for Flinching got old, in sickness and in health, but it’s close enough.
“I’m trying,” he says. The words get lost in the leather under his cheek, in the shadows of the footwell. “I am. I’m trying. Fucking it up. Sorry. Sorry, Dad.”
He can feel his cheek sliding across the seat, his head too heavy to hold up. He snuffles into leather and shuts his eyes so tightly that colors burst across the back of his eyelids. They look like every fire Dean has ever set. “Supposed to look after him,” Dean whispers.
He’s slid almost all the way into sleep by the time Sam gets back. Dean feels the wind when Sam opens the door and nothing else for a long time. Sam smells like ashes and sweat and when he finally lowers himself down it’s soft and slow, gentle like he wasn’t in the field, checking Dean for burns or brain damage. Dean’s awake enough that he should pull away. He should push Sam away, say no as many times as it takes. His head is too heavy to hold up but Sam lifts it easily, lifts him under the shoulders and lays Dean’s head across his broad thigh.
And he’s so warm.
“No more,” Dean whispers. “Can’t. No more.”
“I know,” Sam answers, his thumb stroking slowly over the ball of Dean’s cheekbone.
**
As soon as he’s sure that the burn on the back of his neck is no worse then the crappier kinds of sunburns, Dean flees to the car. Yeah, they built her up again but he’s done a lot to her since, gravel and mud and explosions that blow too soon. He likes the car so shiny he can see his face in it, purring like a stripper, glowing. He starts under the hood, changes the oil, makes sure she’s lubricated in every way she needs. He cleans out the trunk. They accumulate reams of paper on every case, missing persons reports, police reports, photocopies from crumbling books. There wasn’t a lot that was deemed salveageable from the wreck but they’ve made up for it in the months since. He digs out packages of Cheetoes from between the seats. He cleans the floormats. He smokes too much.
He challenges Sam to drinking games at night. Sam can’t hold his alcohol, always thinks he can and never remembers to put the little man back on the bottle after he’s taken his shot. Sam falls asleep with the TV still on, stirs only when Dean puts a hand over his forehead, and then only to tell him about endless galaxies circling overhead. Dean wants to tell him he’s just got the spins but he’s almost drunk enough to believe that there really are stars above them, not ordinary ceilings, pockmarked and grey.
Sam leaves him alone when he’s working on the car. Always has. Cars are Greek to Sam in the same way that grocery shopping and credit card fraud are, things that were always taken care of for him. And it’s a relief to be on his own, to not have to talk, not have to say that things are ok and he’s dealing and Dad’s gone and there’s nothing he can do about it. Feels good to stretch his muscles in the sun, feel the itching between his shoulderblades where Yogi took a chunk out of him, finally healing to pink skin.
The third day, Sam comes out when he’s pouring wax on the hood, settles in the back seat with his back braced against the door and his feet kicked up on Dean’s newly cleaned seats. He reads - it’s something about the history of the early church and how it destroyed Greek-style progressive thinking for a thousand years, and he trails off halfway through the explanation when Dean only blinks a little - and the sun rides from one side of the sky to the other. He’s wiping wax off from the back wells when Sam puts his book down and says he’s hungry. They’re low on bullets, low on silver; cheap enough to pick up whatever sterling WalMart has on sale, hand it all over to Janey in Fort Worth to melt down for them. Fill up on nonperishables, underwear. The last time they picked up shirts they were five for a pack, couple days before they hit Kansas and the world’s littlest, fastest zombie.
He leaves ammo to Sam, picks up undershirts and boxers, a couple buttonups and some tees that he thinks Sam’ll like, trendy things with screenprints that’ll flake off in a couple weeks. He lingers near the food, his fingers tracing over boxes of pasta, sauces. Dad never learned how to make anything better then grilled cheese sandwiches but Dean, Dean got pretty good. Balanced meals, favorite recipes, vegetables Sam would eat even when he was eleven and wanted nothing but hot dogs all the time.
They could get an apartment, something cheap. Something with a stove and a counter big enough to stack dishes on. Yeah, an apartment would be good.
Sam finds him in the jewelery section, up to his elbows in cheap silver charm bracelets. He’s got them in the cart and on his wrist and Sam hooks two fingers into one of them, twisting the bracelet tight against Dean’s skin. “It’s a girl?” he asks skeptically, and Dean pulls back a little too quickly.
“They’re on sale,” he says.
“Sure,” Sam says, his attention already wandering. “Let’s go get some hot dogs, man. What are you over here for, anyway? All of the silver’s on that counter.”
Dean glances up at Sam and then away. He can feel Sam looking at him, curious when Dean says nothing, fingers costume jewelery, the charm bracelets clinking quietly on his wrist.
And the stupid thing - the really stupid thing, is that he just wants to touch Sam. Not in any weird way, not like that (god, Dad, what do I do), but just to make sure that he’s really here. That first hunt after Stanford, it was the best thing ever and even if he never said anything about it, just kept Sam in line like always, all he wanted to do that whole weekend was - was hold Sam’s hand or something. It was lame beyond belief and kind of made Dean want to kill himself a little bit, but. Having Sam gone had been like feeling he’d just gotten his arm chopped off, and everything they’d ever said about that phantom pain was true.
“I was, um,” Dean says. “looking for a bracelet.”
Sam reaches for the charm bracelet again, taps it. “Not good enough for you?” His fingertips linger on Dean’s wrist, warm and calloused. Dean’s mouth is dry. He licks his lips before speaking.
“No, it’s - Chinese New Year is in a couple weeks.” Sam blinks a little, stares at him. “It’s your year, dumbass. You wear a red bracelet to protect yourself or something, I dunno, some old bastard in San Francisco gave them to me and they were in the car when. You know. But you need it, so. I don’t think they have anything like that anyway.”
And Sam’s staring at him like he’s grown extra heads and it’s enough to make Dean shuffle a bit from side to side, firm up his jaw.
“Dude,” Sam says. “You’re insane. And anyway, you can’t use something from WalMart to protect anybody. Everything here is probably -- steeped in residual evil or something.”
Dean grunts something, sends Sam off with Artie Mutt’s credit card, spies red out of the corner of his eye.
**
The cord burns in his pocket, his fingers stealing back to play with it over and over. It’s warmer then it should be. Sam eats three hot dogs and makes a different disgusted face for each of them, chasing each bite with a sip of Coke as if his life depended on finishing them. The floors are sticky beneath Dean’s boots and the neon overhead flickers just enough to drive Sam up the wall. He glances up every few seconds, squinting at the lights as if glaring at them will fix them. Dean rolls the bracelet between his fingers. He can’t speak. All of his words crowd in his throat until he thinks he’ll throw up, spew words and stomach acid all over the last crumbs of Sam’s lunch. He knows that Sam is looking at him.
“Dean,” Sam says. “Dean, hey.” And Dean can’t help the noise that comes out his throat, low and raspy and so needy that he wants to die. He drags Sam’s hand down to the table, the one that was broken, still sore enough that Sam winces a little when Dean’s fingers pull at him. He ties the cord around Sam’s wrist without looking at him, without looking over at the elderly couple that settle themselves right next to their table, even though there’s no one else around.
“Dean,” Sam says again, quiet, soft. He keeps his wrist where Dean’s holding it, holds still as Dean turns the cord around and around, rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger, the backs of his knuckles ghosting Sam’s skin.
And. And he can’t believe that he’s actually - and in WalMart, for god’s sake, two old people staring over Sam’s shoulder, their eyes flickering over the way Dean leans his forehead against Sam’s, how they can’t quite look at each other. Sam smells like hot dogs and Diet Pepsi and Dean hates diet sodas, they’re a crime against humanity but so is this, his own goddamn brother.
And Sam laughs, just a little bit, his eyes closed and his mouth twisted. “It’s okay,” he whispers. “You don’t have to.”
“Yeah,” Dean says, and kisses him.
**
Back when Dad first disappeared, Dean wondered how he’d be able to tell Sam, if Dad was dead. How long he should wait for some sign from Dad, whether it would be better to call Sam or drive all the way to California to see if Sam wouldn’t slam the door in his face. Whether Sam would even believe him. He looked through obits for a solid week, everywhere in California and then back along Dad’s route, just in case. He practiced saying it, saying Sam I think Dad’s dead over and over even though he never managed it out loud.
Just seeing Sam again knocked all the breath out of his chest. Pictures all over the wall, textbooks everywhere and a girl, a fucking girl who settled as comfortably underneath Sam’s arm as if she’d always been there. And yeah, Dean had felt like shit but as soon as he saw Sammy, he’d been able to breathe again. As soon as Sam threw him to the floor, Dean’s brain beating Sam I think Dad’s dead over and over. And Sam had never even considered it. He’s fine, he’s always fine, but I’ll help you get him back anyway, and Sam did. Every mile, every step, all the way to taking Dad’s feet while Dean got his head when they loaded him into the Impala, wrapped in a sheet.
He watches the back of Sam’s neck as they wait in line to pay, watches him drop Mutt’s card into the girl’s palm. It probably won’t be good for much else after this. Too bad. Mutt was a big spender at WalMart, got all kinds of coupons in the box in Tucsan. His mouth feels swollen and obvious. He’s waiting for the girl to see the resemblance but no one ever does and she waves them through with barely more then a have-a-nice-day. Dean is blinded by sunlight when they leave, a thousand gleaming suns dancing across windows and cars and Sam’s hand finds the back of his neck and stays there.
The third and final part to this series has been posted and can be found here.
Author: hansbekhart
Rating: PG-13
Summary: And yeah, Sammy’s here, however long that’ll last, and he’s got the car and the road and that’s been enough for as long as he’s been counting but god, he wishes Dad was here so badly sometimes that it’s like a physical wound, an actual literal missing limb that’s open and oozing and never so much as scabs over, because he just doesn’t. Know. What to do about Sam.
Notes: So I ficced for charity and ended up with a story that didn't want to leave me alone. This is a sequel to The Miner's Lamp, which was posted just before Christmas with a pretty simple set-up: Sam falls in love first. This is what happens afterwards. There will be a third part to this story, devoted to the porn. Thanks as always to shored, who is far too patient with me.
And yeah, Dean’s been in love before. A couple of times, maybe. Cassie, of course. There was a girl in Des Moines who was his first kiss, he loved her. Jacob in New York City, the summer after Sam left, holed up in a craphole apartment on the eigth floor, fucking against every available surface. And Dad. Not in any weird way, not like that, he just wouldn’t know what else to call that sick burn of love that a child has for their dad. What the demon had to tell him wasn’t exactly news, you know, but it was never even about that. Never about who Dad loved more. Knowing that you’re not the favorite, that you’re less loved than the other never made Dean love his Dad any less. He never stopped trying, of course; not to be loved more than Sam because Sam is everything, Sam is the center of his family and his world, but simply to be loved. To be someone that Dad could be proud of. That would’ve been enough.
And yeah, Sammy’s here, however long that’ll last, and he’s got the car and the road and that’s been enough for as long as he’s been counting but god, he wishes Dad was here so badly sometimes that it’s like a physical wound, an actual literal missing limb that’s open and oozing and never so much as scabs over, because he just doesn’t. Know. What to do about Sam.
**
The morning after - well, just the morning after, Dean gets Sam up before dawn and they head north. Sam dozes in the passenger seat while the sun comes up, his face pressed up against the glass. He dressed in the dark, scrubbed his hands over his face and through his hair and went back to sleep as soon as the car warmed up. Dean can barely look at him.
They stop for breakfast when Sam’s awake enough to bitch about being hungry, some greasy spoon just off the interstate that looks like the big bad wolf took over granny’s cottage and filled it with biker memorabilia without bothering to clear out all of the crochet knick knacks first. Sam gets the waffle combo; Dean gets cheese fries. It tastes like something died in the deep fryer and they’re hard enough to crack a tooth on, but the face Sam pulled at cheese fries at nine o’clock in the morning is enough incentive that Dean chokes them all down.
He talks without really thinking about it, music and girls and hunts and leads they should follow up on, whether they should go back to the roadhouse, see if Ellen had anything for them to do. It’s dry in Arizona in more ways than one and Dean’s fingers itch to be moving again. He’s still tired; every part of his body is heavy and his stitches pull every time he moves. He’s taking antibiotics with every meal but at least he’s back on solid food, although including the cheese fries in that catagory is a little iffy. Not so much the solid as the food.
He can’t stop talking, though. The waitress refills their coffee and the early morning sunlight is a watery gold that picks out every fingerprint, every bit of dust on the diner’s windows, and Dean talks. Sam doesn’t. Not much, anyway. Pass the sugar or normal people don’t eat cheese fries at nine o’clock in the morning doesn’t count.
Dean keeps talking because he thinks that if he stops, he might have to punch Sam in the face.
**
Dean likes bracelets, likes the weight on his wrist, the way you forget about it until you need something to touch. That’s what the ring is for, heavy and solid and small enough that no one ever notices him turning it around and around on his finger. Sometimes the jewelry means something, like the necklace. Sometimes things just catch his eye. The acai beads came from a hippie girl with almost as many piercings as opinions. The leather thongs came from a headshop in Portland, Oregon; Dean asked to see one of the bubblers on the high shelf and stuffed the thongs in his pocket when the girl’s back was turned.
Sammy never saw the red cord. Dean wore it the year he turned 24, from February 1, 2003 all the way to January 22, 2004. He spent that Christmas in San Francisco, drinking baijiu with the oldest man he’d ever met. His name was Su and even though he promised to put a knife between Dean’s eyes if he made one more goddamn Johnny Cash joke, they got on well enough that he gave Dean three red cords, for protection. It was Black Sheep year, hostile and turbulent, especially for those born under that sign. Red to keep you safe, Su told Dean, one for you and two for those you love. Dean, who had spent two weeks running errands in the hopes of prying some rare texts from Su’s withered old claws and had never once mentioned a brother, took them without protest.
He kept the other two bracelets where he kept everything else precious, in the truck on the car, in a soft bag made of kidskin. The crash took them, along with everything else. Dad’s year’ll end with him in the ground and then it’ll be Sam’s turn. No semi, no mysterious disappearance; this time the danger’s in their road, plain as daylight.
**
Dean drives for as long he as he’s able to. He sleeps when Sam demands a turn. He fills the hours with bullshit until they’re bearable, until they’ve got a case and Sam can look at him without that -- that face, like he’s bleeding and he doesn’t want Dean to know about it. They go to the roadhouse. Dean gets laid, wakes up with a hangover far worse then he’d ever thought PBR could give him. Sam doesn’t speak to him until they hit the Atlantic Ocean. It’s cold there, the kind of cold that bites into your bones, wind blowing over thousands of miles of dark water.
Dean hates the ocean, hates both sides of it. The wind tastes like salt and the way the sunlight washes over the water reminds him of Bobby’s, of hammering away at his baby until she was whole again, of washing up until everything smelled of lemon. They used to play Hide-and-Go-Seek in the yard, blinded by metal, rust underneath their fingernails and ground into their skin. Sam only cut himself once, sliced open the back of his hand when he wedged himself into a space too small to get himself out of. Bobby found them in the shed with peroxide and a pair of tweezers, fat tears running down Sam’s face. Bobby cleaned the cut, bandaged it fine and promised Dean he wouldn’t tell John how it happened. Dean ‘fessed up to it himself a couple hours later, took his whacks like a man and got his hair touseled for it.
Dean hunkers down on the beach and cups a handful of sand between his palms. He lets the wind blow it away, tries to imagine letting go of someone like that.
A hand lands on his shoulder. Dean doesn’t look up. “Come on, man,” Sam says. “Let’s go inside. They’ve got lobster for like, five dollars.”
“Sick of lobster,” Dean mutters. Sam’s fingers are warm even though Dean’s jacket and Dean lets them lay there, wonders what Sam is thinking about. If he’s thinking about that. Sometimes Dean thinks that he can still taste Sam, his own goddamn brother, warm and slick on his tongue, hazy with fever and things that Dean has no words for. He twists around and looks up at Sam, meets Sam’s eyes. Sam looks like he’s dying and Dean thinks no, tries to say no but the word catches in his throat and all he can do is stare.
Dad, he thinks, and closes his eyes.
**
Yogi Bear threw Dean off a little bit, slowed him down, but it’s the painkillers that really fucked him up.
It blows too early, too big, and the explosion is an ugly whump of sound that lifts him almost gently and flings him into the darkness. He feels everything when he goes down, the rock against the back of his hand, his butt of his own gun slamming into his skull. No more, he thinks, and then Sam’s hands are on him, turning him over. He’s too rough and Dean’s brains feel like they’re sloshing out his ears but when he struggles Sam only wraps his fingers around both of Dean’s wrists and pulls them over Dean’s head, keeping him still.
Sam is big enough to do anything to him. He’s never thought that before. Never felt covered by his brother’s body, never been so goddamn aware of it. His shoulder digs into Sam’s thigh, his head in the crook of Sam’s arm. He’s so fucking big.
“You ok, man?” Sam says. He’s breathing hard, like he ran to Dean’s side. Should’ve been in the car, maybe he was. Maybe he ran when it blew too soon. “Dean? Say something. You ok?”
It gets harder and harder every time to say yes.
“Are my brains coming out? Then I’m fine.”
Sam leaves him in the car and goes to check on the fire. Dean leans his head back against the seat, wishes for headrests, reaches forward unsteadily and pats the dashboard. “I didn’t mean it, honey,” he says. The leather rubs against what could be a second degree burn on the back of his neck and he slumps over slowly. The leather smells rich, thick like the animal it used to be, comforting even though it isn’t his. He put it in by hand weeks ago and if it doesn’t have that new car smell, it’s only because it smells like Bobby’s yard instead. It isn’t the same seat that he’s slept on thousands of times, late at night as his dad chugs gas station coffee to stay awake, in the middle of the day when even Two for Flinching got old, in sickness and in health, but it’s close enough.
“I’m trying,” he says. The words get lost in the leather under his cheek, in the shadows of the footwell. “I am. I’m trying. Fucking it up. Sorry. Sorry, Dad.”
He can feel his cheek sliding across the seat, his head too heavy to hold up. He snuffles into leather and shuts his eyes so tightly that colors burst across the back of his eyelids. They look like every fire Dean has ever set. “Supposed to look after him,” Dean whispers.
He’s slid almost all the way into sleep by the time Sam gets back. Dean feels the wind when Sam opens the door and nothing else for a long time. Sam smells like ashes and sweat and when he finally lowers himself down it’s soft and slow, gentle like he wasn’t in the field, checking Dean for burns or brain damage. Dean’s awake enough that he should pull away. He should push Sam away, say no as many times as it takes. His head is too heavy to hold up but Sam lifts it easily, lifts him under the shoulders and lays Dean’s head across his broad thigh.
And he’s so warm.
“No more,” Dean whispers. “Can’t. No more.”
“I know,” Sam answers, his thumb stroking slowly over the ball of Dean’s cheekbone.
**
As soon as he’s sure that the burn on the back of his neck is no worse then the crappier kinds of sunburns, Dean flees to the car. Yeah, they built her up again but he’s done a lot to her since, gravel and mud and explosions that blow too soon. He likes the car so shiny he can see his face in it, purring like a stripper, glowing. He starts under the hood, changes the oil, makes sure she’s lubricated in every way she needs. He cleans out the trunk. They accumulate reams of paper on every case, missing persons reports, police reports, photocopies from crumbling books. There wasn’t a lot that was deemed salveageable from the wreck but they’ve made up for it in the months since. He digs out packages of Cheetoes from between the seats. He cleans the floormats. He smokes too much.
He challenges Sam to drinking games at night. Sam can’t hold his alcohol, always thinks he can and never remembers to put the little man back on the bottle after he’s taken his shot. Sam falls asleep with the TV still on, stirs only when Dean puts a hand over his forehead, and then only to tell him about endless galaxies circling overhead. Dean wants to tell him he’s just got the spins but he’s almost drunk enough to believe that there really are stars above them, not ordinary ceilings, pockmarked and grey.
Sam leaves him alone when he’s working on the car. Always has. Cars are Greek to Sam in the same way that grocery shopping and credit card fraud are, things that were always taken care of for him. And it’s a relief to be on his own, to not have to talk, not have to say that things are ok and he’s dealing and Dad’s gone and there’s nothing he can do about it. Feels good to stretch his muscles in the sun, feel the itching between his shoulderblades where Yogi took a chunk out of him, finally healing to pink skin.
The third day, Sam comes out when he’s pouring wax on the hood, settles in the back seat with his back braced against the door and his feet kicked up on Dean’s newly cleaned seats. He reads - it’s something about the history of the early church and how it destroyed Greek-style progressive thinking for a thousand years, and he trails off halfway through the explanation when Dean only blinks a little - and the sun rides from one side of the sky to the other. He’s wiping wax off from the back wells when Sam puts his book down and says he’s hungry. They’re low on bullets, low on silver; cheap enough to pick up whatever sterling WalMart has on sale, hand it all over to Janey in Fort Worth to melt down for them. Fill up on nonperishables, underwear. The last time they picked up shirts they were five for a pack, couple days before they hit Kansas and the world’s littlest, fastest zombie.
He leaves ammo to Sam, picks up undershirts and boxers, a couple buttonups and some tees that he thinks Sam’ll like, trendy things with screenprints that’ll flake off in a couple weeks. He lingers near the food, his fingers tracing over boxes of pasta, sauces. Dad never learned how to make anything better then grilled cheese sandwiches but Dean, Dean got pretty good. Balanced meals, favorite recipes, vegetables Sam would eat even when he was eleven and wanted nothing but hot dogs all the time.
They could get an apartment, something cheap. Something with a stove and a counter big enough to stack dishes on. Yeah, an apartment would be good.
Sam finds him in the jewelery section, up to his elbows in cheap silver charm bracelets. He’s got them in the cart and on his wrist and Sam hooks two fingers into one of them, twisting the bracelet tight against Dean’s skin. “It’s a girl?” he asks skeptically, and Dean pulls back a little too quickly.
“They’re on sale,” he says.
“Sure,” Sam says, his attention already wandering. “Let’s go get some hot dogs, man. What are you over here for, anyway? All of the silver’s on that counter.”
Dean glances up at Sam and then away. He can feel Sam looking at him, curious when Dean says nothing, fingers costume jewelery, the charm bracelets clinking quietly on his wrist.
And the stupid thing - the really stupid thing, is that he just wants to touch Sam. Not in any weird way, not like that (god, Dad, what do I do), but just to make sure that he’s really here. That first hunt after Stanford, it was the best thing ever and even if he never said anything about it, just kept Sam in line like always, all he wanted to do that whole weekend was - was hold Sam’s hand or something. It was lame beyond belief and kind of made Dean want to kill himself a little bit, but. Having Sam gone had been like feeling he’d just gotten his arm chopped off, and everything they’d ever said about that phantom pain was true.
“I was, um,” Dean says. “looking for a bracelet.”
Sam reaches for the charm bracelet again, taps it. “Not good enough for you?” His fingertips linger on Dean’s wrist, warm and calloused. Dean’s mouth is dry. He licks his lips before speaking.
“No, it’s - Chinese New Year is in a couple weeks.” Sam blinks a little, stares at him. “It’s your year, dumbass. You wear a red bracelet to protect yourself or something, I dunno, some old bastard in San Francisco gave them to me and they were in the car when. You know. But you need it, so. I don’t think they have anything like that anyway.”
And Sam’s staring at him like he’s grown extra heads and it’s enough to make Dean shuffle a bit from side to side, firm up his jaw.
“Dude,” Sam says. “You’re insane. And anyway, you can’t use something from WalMart to protect anybody. Everything here is probably -- steeped in residual evil or something.”
Dean grunts something, sends Sam off with Artie Mutt’s credit card, spies red out of the corner of his eye.
**
The cord burns in his pocket, his fingers stealing back to play with it over and over. It’s warmer then it should be. Sam eats three hot dogs and makes a different disgusted face for each of them, chasing each bite with a sip of Coke as if his life depended on finishing them. The floors are sticky beneath Dean’s boots and the neon overhead flickers just enough to drive Sam up the wall. He glances up every few seconds, squinting at the lights as if glaring at them will fix them. Dean rolls the bracelet between his fingers. He can’t speak. All of his words crowd in his throat until he thinks he’ll throw up, spew words and stomach acid all over the last crumbs of Sam’s lunch. He knows that Sam is looking at him.
“Dean,” Sam says. “Dean, hey.” And Dean can’t help the noise that comes out his throat, low and raspy and so needy that he wants to die. He drags Sam’s hand down to the table, the one that was broken, still sore enough that Sam winces a little when Dean’s fingers pull at him. He ties the cord around Sam’s wrist without looking at him, without looking over at the elderly couple that settle themselves right next to their table, even though there’s no one else around.
“Dean,” Sam says again, quiet, soft. He keeps his wrist where Dean’s holding it, holds still as Dean turns the cord around and around, rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger, the backs of his knuckles ghosting Sam’s skin.
And. And he can’t believe that he’s actually - and in WalMart, for god’s sake, two old people staring over Sam’s shoulder, their eyes flickering over the way Dean leans his forehead against Sam’s, how they can’t quite look at each other. Sam smells like hot dogs and Diet Pepsi and Dean hates diet sodas, they’re a crime against humanity but so is this, his own goddamn brother.
And Sam laughs, just a little bit, his eyes closed and his mouth twisted. “It’s okay,” he whispers. “You don’t have to.”
“Yeah,” Dean says, and kisses him.
**
Back when Dad first disappeared, Dean wondered how he’d be able to tell Sam, if Dad was dead. How long he should wait for some sign from Dad, whether it would be better to call Sam or drive all the way to California to see if Sam wouldn’t slam the door in his face. Whether Sam would even believe him. He looked through obits for a solid week, everywhere in California and then back along Dad’s route, just in case. He practiced saying it, saying Sam I think Dad’s dead over and over even though he never managed it out loud.
Just seeing Sam again knocked all the breath out of his chest. Pictures all over the wall, textbooks everywhere and a girl, a fucking girl who settled as comfortably underneath Sam’s arm as if she’d always been there. And yeah, Dean had felt like shit but as soon as he saw Sammy, he’d been able to breathe again. As soon as Sam threw him to the floor, Dean’s brain beating Sam I think Dad’s dead over and over. And Sam had never even considered it. He’s fine, he’s always fine, but I’ll help you get him back anyway, and Sam did. Every mile, every step, all the way to taking Dad’s feet while Dean got his head when they loaded him into the Impala, wrapped in a sheet.
He watches the back of Sam’s neck as they wait in line to pay, watches him drop Mutt’s card into the girl’s palm. It probably won’t be good for much else after this. Too bad. Mutt was a big spender at WalMart, got all kinds of coupons in the box in Tucsan. His mouth feels swollen and obvious. He’s waiting for the girl to see the resemblance but no one ever does and she waves them through with barely more then a have-a-nice-day. Dean is blinded by sunlight when they leave, a thousand gleaming suns dancing across windows and cars and Sam’s hand finds the back of his neck and stays there.
The third and final part to this series has been posted and can be found here.