(no subject)
Title: Full Tilt Boogie (6/6)
Authors: hansbekhart & essenceofmeanin
Artist: ladyvyola
Rating: NC-17 (Sam/Dean, Michael/Dean, Sam/Michael, Sam/Dean/Michael, Sam/OC)
Summary: There are only two kinds of secrets: the ones you keep, and the ones you shouldn't have at all. When Sam and Dean take Michel on his first hunt (that doesn't involve a shtriga), they end up on the psychedelic dance floor of a long-vanished motel where disco never died and no one is quite who they appear to be. What was supposed to be an easy salt and burn descends rapidly into a morass of temptation and gold lame, bell bottoms and lies. No one gets to choose what secrets stay buried.
Unless they don't mind checking in ... forever.
"Okay, so, bear with me," Michael says.
"We have so far," Sam says, and Michael rolls his eyes.
"Just barely, Sam."
Michael’s a lot more sure of himself now that they’re all clothed, back in their own things, the same clothing that they were wearing back in the real world. Sam had closed his eyes - imagined them in the bar, the smell of Dean’s leather jacket, the way that Michael’s shirt had ridden up too high when he stretched. He didn’t have to do anything to put them to sleep and he didn’t have do to anything to give this back to them, but he snapped his fingers anyway beforehand. He figured a little warning was the least he owed them.
"This shirt was red," Michael said.
"You look good in blue," Sam replied.
Dean sprawls in a plastic chair. He’s clean now - Sam took care of that, too. Dean looks almost normal now, freshly scrubbed, disheveled like he was in the car for a long time. He opens his mouth to referee, but Michael’s talking again, heedless.
"I think we’ve made a fundamental mistake, here," Michael says, "in thinking that we’re in a real place."
Sam and Dean exchange a look. "We’re not, though," Sam says. "This isn’t the real world. Obviously."
"Yeah, you think that, but we’re still operating like it’s a real place. Like there are rules we have to follow, like we have to … find shit to get our job done. We looked for chalk and salt and shit when Sam could’ve just wished them into existence or something, like he did with the clothes. This isn’t real."
"How does this help us, though? Dreams aren’t real either, but you can still die in ‘em," Dean says.
"Yeah, but you can also change things, once you realize that you’re dreaming. Chris said - " He breaks off, looks at Dean. "The guy that died. Or didn’t die, I guess. He said that the last thing he saw before he woke up was the moon. He was staring up at the moon, and the hotel took him. I think Bones is the moon. That was all I could see until - until I woke up just now. I was dreaming of the moon. But I don’t think that it’s the moon, not really.”"
"What is it?" Sam asks, and then he gets it, so abruptly that he feels stupid. "It’s a disco ball, isn’t it?"
"Yeah," Michael says. "I think we’re inside Bones’ dream, that everything we’re seeing is just part of him. This whole time, I’ve been hearing the guitars -"
"Drums," Sam corrects
"I don’t hear drums," Michael says. "I hear guitars."
Sam hesitates. "Guitars? You mean, like - disco music? Because I heard that too, coming from the dance floor or something -"
"No," Michael says, frowning. "Guitars. There’s no goddamn guitars in disco and anyway, it’s inside my head.”
"It’s the solo from "Maggot Brain"," Dean says. "Funkadelic. The title track. Pretty fucking amazing stuff. Probably too advanced for a college radio kid like you, Sam."
The words ring some sort of bell in Sam’s head. He grabs at the thought as it passes him by, frowning over it. Can’t think where he would’ve heard that phrase before.
"What now?" Dean asks. "You said Bones told you that if you did what he wanted, he’d let us go, right? But we’re still here."
What I wanted, Sam thinks, but he doesn’t say it out loud. Wouldn’t have gotten the chance anyway, because a voice says, too loud and unexpected, "Actually, guys … you’re free to go."
It’s the redhead from the lobby, the check-in girl. She’s sitting across the table from Dean like she’s been there all along, a cigarette trailing from her fingertips. Her voice is rough, like she’s been smoking ever since she died. None of them startle, not even Michael, and some part of Sam is proud of that.
"Really," Dean says. "Just like that."
"Just like that," she says. She uncrosses and recrosses her legs, the dim light glistening on her long black boots, on her red nails. She scatters ash on the table when she gestures. "We got what we wanted, just like you guys did. Room still stinks of it, don’t it?"
"You’re a lot less nice now that you’re checking us out," Dean says, grinning.
"Hey, you get what you pay for," she says. "Was it good for you too? Cuz Sammy here had one whale of a time."
"Hey," Dean growls, the smile on his face going savage. The tension in his body is a threat. "Don’t you fucking talk about my brother, you bitch."
"My name is Monday," she says, pressing the tip of her thumb against her bottom lip as she smiles. "And you’re awfully touchy."
"If that’s what you guys think," Dean says, "then you’re dumber than I thought. Sam’s my brother. You think anything can change that?"
And it stuns Sam, whips all the air out of his lungs, all thought. He doesn’t want to hope.
"Sam," Dean says, not looking away from Monday, "I need a gun."
Sam can do that. The gun that Dean pulls out from under the table is double barrel, sawed-off 20 gauge. A Winchester, of course. When Dean levels it at Monday, it’s close enough to brush her eyelashes.
"Oooh, scary," she says. "Come on, guys. You can’t do shit to me. You’ve got as much chance of killing the boss as spit on a hot skillet. Just count yourselves lucky and go."
"What about all the people in here?” Michael demands. "What happens to them?"
She rolls her eyes. "They keep on, kiddo, like always. They’ve got a better shake in here than they ever did out there. You can’t do anything for them. You’re not gonna get a better offer from us."
"Yeah, it’s a pretty good deal," Dean says. "We’re gonna take a pass on it, though. Thanks anyway. See, you’re not real. If what my trusty sidekicks are telling me is true, then you’re just part of the bigger picture, not the saucy little redhead I see in front of me right now. You’re just some kinda … metaphorical construct. A fetishized zombie Barbie, left over from some dead dude’s imagination. Don’t get me wrong, that’s pretty cool. I’d have, like, ten of you if it was me. But to quote the philosopher … there is no spoon." He pulls the trigger.
Her brains paint the walls. Dean leaps out of his chair, rubbing furiously at his face. "Holy shit! It’s in my nose, Jesus fucking Christ -"
Fetishized zombie Barbie?" asks Michael.
Dean blows his nose into his hand and turns to glare at Michael. "It sounded better in my head," he says, and turns to Sam, raising his splattered arms. "Sam? Little help here?"
Sam barely sees him, staring at the wall. Construct or not, whatever was animating Monday is slick and glistening, and that’s what brings memory into sudden focus: the blood underneath his stretched, swollen palms, still wet from steam. "Maggot Brain," he breathes.
Dean hesitates. "Okay," he says. "Kind of harsh, but I can see what you’re getting at."
"No, no," Sam says. "That’s how they died. That’s why you’re hearing the song. It was playing when they died."
"Huh," Michael says. "So what the hell are you hearing, then?"
"His heartbeat," Sam says slowly. "They’re not drums at all. Fuck, Dean - that’s his weakness. I know how we can kill him."
Dean nods, already understanding. "Then lets burn this metaphorical motherfucker to the ground."
They set the fire by hand. There are gasoline stoves in the kitchen that they drain and soak up with rags. The shag carpeting goes up like dry kindling, billowing black smoke that chases them through the hallways. It feels like the last mile of a marathon; tired, dirty, every thought and action concentrated on crossing that finish line. The smoke stains Michael’s hair black and they don’t talk. They work in circles in spite of all logic and self-preservation, lighting the pool hall, the rooms, moving quickly towards the beating heart of the Red Room.
"When we get out, I’m eating the biggest goddamn cheeseburger I can find," Sam says at some point, only managing to get oil in his mouth.
It’d be easier to set the fire himself - find the exit, assuming that it’s still open now that Bones is three girls down, four to go, and force Dean and Michael to safety while Sam burned. But even if he was sure that it would work - he wants to do it by hand. He wants to see the Red Room gone. It’s a primal thing that they’re doing, and raising his hands and imagining the hotel gone is just too sanitary. It’s as unacceptable as pretending that he didn’t just fuck his brother and their friend, when he can still feel them on his skin.
The dance floor is so much smaller than Sam’s expecting. They huddle in the doorway and look in for a long moment, their torches held carefully away from each other. It’s a small room - a disco ball slowly revolving on the ceiling, a shag-covered DJ booth. Chipped, cheap tile where the carpet stops. It’s a horrible place to have died.
"You sure this is it?" Dean asks roughly. "We’ve got maybe a couple of minutes to make it back to the lobby - gotta use ‘em or lose ‘em, guys."
"This is it," Sam says, staring up at the disco ball.
Sam has been to evil places. Rooms and houses and bright clearings where death has happened and in its passing left a wound in the world so deep that it stops you in your tracks, every better instinct screaming to get away. Those places exist, and stay that way even after the Winchesters salt and burn whatever they can get to.
If the Red Room is evil, than it’s a banal sort of evil, swollen with sweaty desperation instead of true suffering. For all they know, Bones killed his girls because his club was going bankrupt, because disco was dying. It would make a sad sort of sense, Sam thinks, looking out at the empty tables, if Bones had refused to face the truth in the same way all of his victims had. This way it would never matter what the hotel looked like to outsiders. It would always be his.
"I always thought disco was sort of like lying," Dean says, as they step into the room, lifting their feet up like there’s a line of salt across the door. They saved the last can of gasoline for this room, and Michael takes it from Sam, sticking the gun Sam gave him in the back of his waistband. He moves towards the edge of the room, works on emptying the can. The fumes are unbearable almost immediately in the small room and Sam can smell the fire catching up to them. A couple of minutes was an optimistic estimate. "Nobody killed disco," Dean says, throwing the chairs into a heap in the floor. "Something better just came along, and disco died because all shitty music dies eventually, when there’s no soul or honesty in it."
"I always just thought you hated dance music," Sam pants, the sleeve of his jacket pressed tightly against his mouth.
"That too," Dean says. "You ready?" The light from the disco ball above their heads throws them all into soft-focus. It’s getting harder to see as the first smoke starts leaking underneath the closed doors. Sam didn’t want to close them, too aware of history repeating itself, but Dean just gave him a look and swung them shut. The disco ball makes Sam feel like he’s at a party, chips of light shivering across their faces even as the smoke gets thicker.
"Yeah," Sam says, gritting his teeth. "Gotta hurry."
The look on Dean’s face is grim. "Already?"
All that Sam can do is nod. The heartbeat is deafening, the only thing louder than the fire. Michael’s mouth is open and screaming and Dean is screaming back and Sam suddenly can’t hear either of them. He nods again when they look at him, everything he has wrapped around the heartbeat, keeping it away from them.
It was Monday that completed the puzzle, in more ways than one. Her unshakable belief that they couldn’t hurt her, against Sam’s unshakable belief that Dean could. They’d won, and the shotgun sucked parts of her skin and hair back into its barrels and it was a stench that Sam could probably still smell, if he got close enough to Dean.
A battle of wills, and it makes a stupid sort of sense to Sam. He imagines Bones locked out of his own home, pounding on the glass doors that line the lobby, that postcard landscape stretching out endlessly behind him, and maybe that’s what’s happening. The girls are easier to deal with, what’s left of them. Easier when he sees them all as facets of one thing, of the same too-vivid dream that has kept Bones alive all these years.
He wishes he could know more about Bones. The thought occurs to Sam a lot, has ever since he started questioning the way he was raised. Why some people stayed, could stay. The force of personality that it would take not to fade to the sort of ghost that walked hallways and stood in lonely windows, to become something malignant and sick.
A battle of wills on an entirely different scale. Bones refused to die even though he was the one that set the fire. Sam wonders if he regretted it, afterwards, when it was too late to stop the fire. Whether it was before or after the girls died. He can almost see it - laid on top of Dean and Michael like frames from a different movie. The girls spread around the room. Tuesday the first one to die when the ceiling started to cave in. Sunday and Friday melting together. Monday the only one to yank on the doors, trying to get out.
He flinches when Michael pinches him, hard, twisting the skin on Sam’s bicep between his fingers. It’s a low blow, a big brother move, but Michael only looks at him when Sam grabs him. "Sam," he says, patiently even though he’s yelling to be heard. "Sam! You ready or not?"
He’s ready. They’re all ready. Sam’s thoughts are reduced to quick bursts of light that slide across the walls he’s built around them, keeping the hotel out. Disco didn’t die, something better just came along, and that’s what Sam reaches for, watching Dean watch Michael watch him, hefting the weapons in their hands, that there’s something better than this. That the risk of hurting is better than what Bones is offering them. That they’re stronger than he is.
They swing chairs at the disco ball turning above their heads, but in Sam’s mind they’re more than that, and when they hit, the ball explodes as if they’d had axes. For a second, all that there is, is glass. The ball bursts like an infection and they cover their heads; that’s why they don’t see the blood. It pours out of the ball after a breathless, bright second where the glass slices their hands, the backs of their necks. It splashes on the floor wherever it doesn’t soak them through, and the slaughterhouse smell is enough that Sam forgets about the smoke, about the fire that Michael started in the DJ booth.
They’re driven back, and when Sam turns around, there’s a body on the dance floor, curled on its side under the dripping disco ball.
Dean is the first one to move back towards it, slipping on the slick tile. Michael follows him, and Sam the last of all to step forward and see.
Bones turns bloody teeth towards them. The capillaries in his eyeballs have burst. The drums in Sam’s head are stuttering, losing momentum. Bones is dying. Michael kneels on the floor next to him. He reaches for Bones - some sort of comforting impulse - and then falters. He looks up at Dean, his eyes wide under a mask of gore. He’s crying from the smoke and there are two clean tracks down his cheeks. "Is this it?" he asks. "This is all it takes? All that we went through -"
"Maybe," Dean says tightly, close behind Michael. He dropped the chair when he went sliding, and now the shotgun’s back in his hands, cocked and ready. When Bones laughs, it’s a wet, clotted noise. His hands flop and twist on the ground. He died alone, Sam thinks, staring up at the disco ball like it had all the answers. Financial ruin - the end of their lifestyle - that couldn’t be all there was. One night, Bones set fire to the Red Room, taking seven dancers, five kitchen workers and three guests with him. If there was a secret there - he was gonna take it with him.
Bones grabs Michael’s outstretched hand. Michael winces, but doesn’t try and pull away. The fire is all around them, suffocating them. The ceiling groans. "You think it’s better out there?" Bones gurgles, his grin decayed and broken. He doesn’t even look human anymore. His heart thuds twice, hesitates, thuds twice more.
It’s Michael who answers, drawing his gun and pressing it to Bones’ forehead. "Yeah," he says, "It is."
The first thing that Sam thinks is that they’ve turned on the sprinkler system. Oh good, he thinks. I didn’t really want to burn to death. The water is cool on his forehead and he opens his mouth to let it wash the ash out of his throat. It takes him a lot longer than it should to notice that he’s lying on the ground.
He opens his eyes, and frowns. The moon is a thumbnail in the middle of a black sky, punctuated only here and there with rain clouds. Somebody is screaming. Still fogged and bruised and scared, the sound makes sense. Somebody should be screaming, bad things have happened.
Dean, Sam thinks, and reaches out. He reaches with his left hand, waiting for his fingers to hit the space Dean usually occupies, between Sam and the world. Dean sleeps closest to the door in every motel they live in, always within Sam’s reach. His fingers grope through empty space and then close on a sleeve.
"Dean," Sam says, and a woman sobs.
He jerks upright, dropping the woman’s sleeve as if it stung him. He’s outside. Out of the hotel, surrounded by air so clean and vast that it could suffocate him. There are people all around him, crawling on hands and knees or lying facedown in the muddy field, their hands clenched around the scant grass. The woman next to him is pretty even in polyester. She’s not the only one crying.
There’s so many people. Less than there should be. He doesn’t try to look around to see if Chris’ body made it out with them, tries not to think about it. "Dean!" he bellows, "Michael!"
The only answer he gets is more crying. They’re getting louder. Some of them are screaming, up on their feet like Sam is, hands spread at their sides. A woman grabs at Sam’s shirt and then reels away, stumbling on the uneven ground. Most of them are dressed like they’re still trapped in the hotel.
He can’t see Dean or Michael anywhere. He’s surrounded by people who never wanted to be rescued and he can’t find his brother, can’t find Michael, and if he could work the words past the knot in his throat he’d be screaming like the rest of them that Bones promised, that Bones said he’d let them all go.
"Sam!"
He doesn’t want to believe it at first. Can’t trust himself any more than he could’ve trusted Bones. But then it comes again: "Sam!"
He turns. Still half-believing, but they’re there, really there, the thump of disco heartbeats all gone, the only smell of smoke the one still lingering in his hair. They’re sitting together only a handful of yards away, Michael up on his knees, Dean cross-legged, blood washing off their faces in sticky trails. "Sam," Michael calls again, grinning with relief.
Sam drags in a long, shuddering breath and then he’s moving towards them, slipping on the wet ground, tripping over grass, sliding when his knees hit earth. They catch him before he can really fall, and he wraps his arms around them, shoulders bumping painfully against his chest. He buries his face into Dean’s neck, short hair prickling at his nose, Michael pressed tight up against his side. He holds on.
The creak of the car door echoes across the empty field. The slam of the trunk is even louder. The bag of salt is heavy in Sam’s hand. His footsteps are swallowed up in the fog as he walks across the road. It might be close to dawn, but it’s hard to tell in the fog, which touches the ground and swallows up the rest of the sky. It’s a bright no-color and it hurts his eyes to look at it.
He has to get another bag of salt out of the trunk before he’s finished. He walks back and forth, north to south. The salt is as thick as snow on the ground. In the daytime, it’s easy to see the trash on the ground, the remains of hundreds of partiers that didn’t get kidnapped. He counts two broken toilets, six bumpers and an uncountable amount of used condoms. He steps carefully around broken glass.
It takes two bags of salt but only one can of gas to cover the field. He’s careless with the gas, sloshing it over the condoms and the glass and the toilets. It won’t take a whole lot for the field to burn - it’s as full of plastic as latex - but he wants to be sure that nothing will ever, ever grow there again.
A cracked Bakelite bracelet is all the evidence he can find that people appeared there last night, missing years or months or weeks. Sam, Dean and Michael lost thirteen days. Michael was the one to call the hospital, a concerned citizen too distraught to leave his name. Letting the authorities know about all those people as they tucked their tails between their legs, climbed into the Impala and left. It was Dean who counted the survivors, and came up with twenty-seven, not including themselves. Less than half of those taken who made it out and didn’t turn to shadows or burn themselves alive.
They drove for the closest motel, Dean on a beeline like he was born with a homing device. Sam checked them in. Got two rooms, handed Dean one key and took the other for himself, carefully not looking into either of their faces. It was a relief that Dean didn’t say anything, that he nudged Michael when the kid opened his mouth. It was the room next door and Sam turned the TV on and left it running so he wouldn’t try to listen for their voices, for the bump of the headboard against the wall. He still didn’t sleep.
He doesn’t stay at the field for long. He didn’t see any cops on the way over but that doesn’t mean they’re not out there. Thirty people appeared in this field last night and someone could still be keeping an eye on it. He lingers just long enough to make sure that the fire is really going, and then he drives away.
He takes his time going back to the motel. God knows it could be the last time he drives the Impala. The roads are empty. He stops for donuts. He’s the first customer of the day and they have to go and dig the wands for the espresso machine out of the dish room. He doesn’t know how Michael takes his caffeine, so he gets him a large coffee, same as Dean. It’s habit, more than anything. He can’t imagine knocking on their door, waiting for them to answer it - hastily dressed, still fogged with sleep - but he loads it all into the car anyway, his double latte in his hand, the donuts in a bag on the passenger seat. They’re still warm from the deep fryer and they fill the whole car with the smell of grease and sugar.
He’s parking by the time he notices Dean, and even then, he hesitates. He collects the donuts, the duffle. Sorts through it as he glances out the window, watches Dean’s socked feet kicking back and forth over the edge of the second floor walkway, Dean himself draped between the metal posts of the railing, his head poked between the bars. The coffee is getting cold and so are the donuts, and that’s what Sam blames as his body gets out of the Impala, as his feet swing towards the staircase leading towards the second floor.
Dean watches him approach. Doesn’t look away from Sam’s face even when he has to crane his neck to do it. He doesn’t budge, so after a second, Sam sits down. The gap between the walkway and the railing is too small to fit his legs so he sits cross-legged, his knees bumping up against the railing.
"Sweet," Dean says when Sam hands him the coffee. The bag of donuts goes between them, open for rummaging. Dean flips the lid off the coffee, groans a little when he takes that first sip. The sound goes straight to the pit of Sam’s belly and for a moment all he can see is Dean’s mouth wrapped around his cock, Michael’s hand between them.
He turns away, hoping Dean doesn’t notice the look on his face. His latte is awful. Tastes like chemicals in there, like whatever they use to clean the machine didn’t get properly washed out. He drinks it anyway. It’s not the worst thing he’s ever had.
He risks a glance towards his brother. Soft, mussed hair, a hoodie on underneath his jacket, drawn up around his neck. Dean doesn’t own a hoodie; it’s probably Michael’s, but he’d have to see the logo on the front to be sure. When he looks up, Dean is staring at him again, the look on his face wry and uncomfortable.
"Shit," he says, glancing away.
"Yeah," Sam says.
"So, um," Dean says, and then sighs, scrubbing a hand through his hair. "Shit."
"I'm sorry," Sam says softly.
"Shut up," Dean says, frowning. He sounds tired.
"What did you mean, when you said you knew?"
He looks out over the parking lot instead of at Dean, who’s probably making a face at him. "Sam … come on," he says.
"I wanna know," Sam says. A car drifts by, just the flash of headlights across the fog. Sam can hear the TV he left on in his room, some cartoon with funny noises and lots of shrieking.
"It means I knew, all right?"
"How long?" Sam asks, and then, in a small voice, "All along?"
Dean shrugs. "Fuck. I don’t know. Probably. You’re not very good at hiding shit like that."
"Why didn’t you ever say anything?"
Dean shoots him a look of pure exasperation, and Sam has to laugh, just a little bit. "Why didn’t you, huh? You tell me that. I guess I thought it’d … take care of itself," he finishes uncomfortably.
"Yeah," Sam says. "Me too."
They’re quiet for a long time. Dean finally can’t hold off anymore and paws through the donuts. Sam can’t think of anything to say. The coffee sits uneasily in his empty stomach, setting his foot twitching underneath his thigh. He almost flinches away when Dean grabs it, wraps his hand around Sam’s boot and gives him a grim look.
"Stop," he says. "Okay?"
"Okay," Sam says, a bit meekly.
Dean pats Sam’s ankle. "Damn right," he says, and visibly braces himself. "Look. What it means is that you’re my brother and nothing can ever change that and you’re stupid for thinking anything else. Okay? We’ve kinda been through a lot in the last couple years and there’s nobody else I want watching my back more than you."
"Not even Michael?" Sam can’t help himself from asking.
Dean rolls his eyes. He stuffs the rest of his donut in his mouth rather than answer, and Sam finds himself … weirdly okay with it. He wants to be mad that Dean won’t answer that, even now - won’t give him a straight response. But either Sam’s lost the right to complain or he’s actually grown to like the kid, god forbid, so he doesn’t say anything.
Sam fishes a donut out of the bag. It’s still warm. "You shouldn’t forgive me," he says, turning it around and around in his hands. "I did something really wrong to you and Michael. I’m fucked in the head."
He watches Dean process that, staring down at his empty coffee cup like it has the right response inside. He sees Dean’s jaw firm, and when he glances back up at Sam he looks almost angry. "You’re my brother and nothing’ll ever change that, got it?" he says again, slow this time. Like he’s just stating the obvious. He gestures at the bag of donuts. "What, you think this is your Big Chicken Dinner? Come on, Sammy. You’re stuck with us."
"Us?" Sam echoes.
"Yeah," Dean says, "Us. The royal fucking we. Get off my case, man. Just - just take it, I’m tired of holding it out there."
They share a long glance. He’s been stealing looks at Dean for so long that it feels strange to just … meet his brother’s eyes, to let himself look back. Feels good. Dean quirks a smile at him, and Sam manages to return it.
Dean doesn’t move when Sam leans over to kiss him. His lips are dry, and it’s awkward for a long moment because he’s not kissing Sam back. Until he does, sucking in a shaky breath and Sam gets a taste of bitter coffee before Dean’s pulling back.
"God, Sammy … I don’t know if I was holding it out that far. You gotta give me a little bit of time on this one, okay?"
Sam wants to start counting out one Mississippi two, the ghost of backseat games to bug his older brother. Dean must see it in his eyes, and huffs out a soft laugh. They look away at the same time, stare into middle ground. Still grinning, just a little bit.
The door behind them creaks, and Sam twists his head to see Michael emerge, rubbing his eyes. He’s got the blanket wrapped around himself, presumably because Dean stole his hoodie. He sits on Dean’s other side, squinting amiably into the growing daylight. "Oh, sweet," he says, "donuts."
"Morning, sunshine," Dean says, and Michael grimaces.
"Yeah, whatever. Is that coffee? Is that coffee for me?"
"Yeah," Sam says, and thinks, you’d be good for him.
"Fucking awesome," Michael says, with satisfaction. "Thanks, Sam."
"Uh huh," Sam says. He sucks a long breath in - holds it - lets it out into air that’s warmer than what he took in. The sun is rising, just barely showing its face through the melting fog. The day’ll be a hot one. "Dean," Sam says, and when they turn to look at him, he asks, trying to keep the urgency out of his voice, "what now?"
Dean shrugs, grins suddenly. "Who the fuck knows."
"I know," Michael says, and he sounds so certain that Sam’s breath catches. Then he sees that long mouth smile, those blue eyes meet his own and know, just know. Sam smiles, tentatively, dips his head a little in acknowledgement, and Michael’s grin widens. "Breakfast," he finishes.
"Breakfast," Sam repeats, grinning.
"Yeah," Michael says, "yeah, that sounds about right."
The End.
Authors: hansbekhart & essenceofmeanin
Artist: ladyvyola
Rating: NC-17 (Sam/Dean, Michael/Dean, Sam/Michael, Sam/Dean/Michael, Sam/OC)
Summary: There are only two kinds of secrets: the ones you keep, and the ones you shouldn't have at all. When Sam and Dean take Michel on his first hunt (that doesn't involve a shtriga), they end up on the psychedelic dance floor of a long-vanished motel where disco never died and no one is quite who they appear to be. What was supposed to be an easy salt and burn descends rapidly into a morass of temptation and gold lame, bell bottoms and lies. No one gets to choose what secrets stay buried.
Unless they don't mind checking in ... forever.
"Okay, so, bear with me," Michael says.
"We have so far," Sam says, and Michael rolls his eyes.
"Just barely, Sam."
Michael’s a lot more sure of himself now that they’re all clothed, back in their own things, the same clothing that they were wearing back in the real world. Sam had closed his eyes - imagined them in the bar, the smell of Dean’s leather jacket, the way that Michael’s shirt had ridden up too high when he stretched. He didn’t have to do anything to put them to sleep and he didn’t have do to anything to give this back to them, but he snapped his fingers anyway beforehand. He figured a little warning was the least he owed them.
"This shirt was red," Michael said.
"You look good in blue," Sam replied.
Dean sprawls in a plastic chair. He’s clean now - Sam took care of that, too. Dean looks almost normal now, freshly scrubbed, disheveled like he was in the car for a long time. He opens his mouth to referee, but Michael’s talking again, heedless.
"I think we’ve made a fundamental mistake, here," Michael says, "in thinking that we’re in a real place."
Sam and Dean exchange a look. "We’re not, though," Sam says. "This isn’t the real world. Obviously."
"Yeah, you think that, but we’re still operating like it’s a real place. Like there are rules we have to follow, like we have to … find shit to get our job done. We looked for chalk and salt and shit when Sam could’ve just wished them into existence or something, like he did with the clothes. This isn’t real."
"How does this help us, though? Dreams aren’t real either, but you can still die in ‘em," Dean says.
"Yeah, but you can also change things, once you realize that you’re dreaming. Chris said - " He breaks off, looks at Dean. "The guy that died. Or didn’t die, I guess. He said that the last thing he saw before he woke up was the moon. He was staring up at the moon, and the hotel took him. I think Bones is the moon. That was all I could see until - until I woke up just now. I was dreaming of the moon. But I don’t think that it’s the moon, not really.”"
"What is it?" Sam asks, and then he gets it, so abruptly that he feels stupid. "It’s a disco ball, isn’t it?"
"Yeah," Michael says. "I think we’re inside Bones’ dream, that everything we’re seeing is just part of him. This whole time, I’ve been hearing the guitars -"
"Drums," Sam corrects
"I don’t hear drums," Michael says. "I hear guitars."
Sam hesitates. "Guitars? You mean, like - disco music? Because I heard that too, coming from the dance floor or something -"
"No," Michael says, frowning. "Guitars. There’s no goddamn guitars in disco and anyway, it’s inside my head.”
"It’s the solo from "Maggot Brain"," Dean says. "Funkadelic. The title track. Pretty fucking amazing stuff. Probably too advanced for a college radio kid like you, Sam."
The words ring some sort of bell in Sam’s head. He grabs at the thought as it passes him by, frowning over it. Can’t think where he would’ve heard that phrase before.
"What now?" Dean asks. "You said Bones told you that if you did what he wanted, he’d let us go, right? But we’re still here."
What I wanted, Sam thinks, but he doesn’t say it out loud. Wouldn’t have gotten the chance anyway, because a voice says, too loud and unexpected, "Actually, guys … you’re free to go."
It’s the redhead from the lobby, the check-in girl. She’s sitting across the table from Dean like she’s been there all along, a cigarette trailing from her fingertips. Her voice is rough, like she’s been smoking ever since she died. None of them startle, not even Michael, and some part of Sam is proud of that.
"Really," Dean says. "Just like that."
"Just like that," she says. She uncrosses and recrosses her legs, the dim light glistening on her long black boots, on her red nails. She scatters ash on the table when she gestures. "We got what we wanted, just like you guys did. Room still stinks of it, don’t it?"
"You’re a lot less nice now that you’re checking us out," Dean says, grinning.
"Hey, you get what you pay for," she says. "Was it good for you too? Cuz Sammy here had one whale of a time."
"Hey," Dean growls, the smile on his face going savage. The tension in his body is a threat. "Don’t you fucking talk about my brother, you bitch."
"My name is Monday," she says, pressing the tip of her thumb against her bottom lip as she smiles. "And you’re awfully touchy."
"If that’s what you guys think," Dean says, "then you’re dumber than I thought. Sam’s my brother. You think anything can change that?"
And it stuns Sam, whips all the air out of his lungs, all thought. He doesn’t want to hope.
"Sam," Dean says, not looking away from Monday, "I need a gun."
Sam can do that. The gun that Dean pulls out from under the table is double barrel, sawed-off 20 gauge. A Winchester, of course. When Dean levels it at Monday, it’s close enough to brush her eyelashes.
"Oooh, scary," she says. "Come on, guys. You can’t do shit to me. You’ve got as much chance of killing the boss as spit on a hot skillet. Just count yourselves lucky and go."
"What about all the people in here?” Michael demands. "What happens to them?"
She rolls her eyes. "They keep on, kiddo, like always. They’ve got a better shake in here than they ever did out there. You can’t do anything for them. You’re not gonna get a better offer from us."
"Yeah, it’s a pretty good deal," Dean says. "We’re gonna take a pass on it, though. Thanks anyway. See, you’re not real. If what my trusty sidekicks are telling me is true, then you’re just part of the bigger picture, not the saucy little redhead I see in front of me right now. You’re just some kinda … metaphorical construct. A fetishized zombie Barbie, left over from some dead dude’s imagination. Don’t get me wrong, that’s pretty cool. I’d have, like, ten of you if it was me. But to quote the philosopher … there is no spoon." He pulls the trigger.
Her brains paint the walls. Dean leaps out of his chair, rubbing furiously at his face. "Holy shit! It’s in my nose, Jesus fucking Christ -"
Fetishized zombie Barbie?" asks Michael.
Dean blows his nose into his hand and turns to glare at Michael. "It sounded better in my head," he says, and turns to Sam, raising his splattered arms. "Sam? Little help here?"
Sam barely sees him, staring at the wall. Construct or not, whatever was animating Monday is slick and glistening, and that’s what brings memory into sudden focus: the blood underneath his stretched, swollen palms, still wet from steam. "Maggot Brain," he breathes.
Dean hesitates. "Okay," he says. "Kind of harsh, but I can see what you’re getting at."
"No, no," Sam says. "That’s how they died. That’s why you’re hearing the song. It was playing when they died."
"Huh," Michael says. "So what the hell are you hearing, then?"
"His heartbeat," Sam says slowly. "They’re not drums at all. Fuck, Dean - that’s his weakness. I know how we can kill him."
Dean nods, already understanding. "Then lets burn this metaphorical motherfucker to the ground."
They set the fire by hand. There are gasoline stoves in the kitchen that they drain and soak up with rags. The shag carpeting goes up like dry kindling, billowing black smoke that chases them through the hallways. It feels like the last mile of a marathon; tired, dirty, every thought and action concentrated on crossing that finish line. The smoke stains Michael’s hair black and they don’t talk. They work in circles in spite of all logic and self-preservation, lighting the pool hall, the rooms, moving quickly towards the beating heart of the Red Room.
"When we get out, I’m eating the biggest goddamn cheeseburger I can find," Sam says at some point, only managing to get oil in his mouth.
It’d be easier to set the fire himself - find the exit, assuming that it’s still open now that Bones is three girls down, four to go, and force Dean and Michael to safety while Sam burned. But even if he was sure that it would work - he wants to do it by hand. He wants to see the Red Room gone. It’s a primal thing that they’re doing, and raising his hands and imagining the hotel gone is just too sanitary. It’s as unacceptable as pretending that he didn’t just fuck his brother and their friend, when he can still feel them on his skin.
The dance floor is so much smaller than Sam’s expecting. They huddle in the doorway and look in for a long moment, their torches held carefully away from each other. It’s a small room - a disco ball slowly revolving on the ceiling, a shag-covered DJ booth. Chipped, cheap tile where the carpet stops. It’s a horrible place to have died.
"You sure this is it?" Dean asks roughly. "We’ve got maybe a couple of minutes to make it back to the lobby - gotta use ‘em or lose ‘em, guys."
"This is it," Sam says, staring up at the disco ball.
Sam has been to evil places. Rooms and houses and bright clearings where death has happened and in its passing left a wound in the world so deep that it stops you in your tracks, every better instinct screaming to get away. Those places exist, and stay that way even after the Winchesters salt and burn whatever they can get to.
If the Red Room is evil, than it’s a banal sort of evil, swollen with sweaty desperation instead of true suffering. For all they know, Bones killed his girls because his club was going bankrupt, because disco was dying. It would make a sad sort of sense, Sam thinks, looking out at the empty tables, if Bones had refused to face the truth in the same way all of his victims had. This way it would never matter what the hotel looked like to outsiders. It would always be his.
"I always thought disco was sort of like lying," Dean says, as they step into the room, lifting their feet up like there’s a line of salt across the door. They saved the last can of gasoline for this room, and Michael takes it from Sam, sticking the gun Sam gave him in the back of his waistband. He moves towards the edge of the room, works on emptying the can. The fumes are unbearable almost immediately in the small room and Sam can smell the fire catching up to them. A couple of minutes was an optimistic estimate. "Nobody killed disco," Dean says, throwing the chairs into a heap in the floor. "Something better just came along, and disco died because all shitty music dies eventually, when there’s no soul or honesty in it."
"I always just thought you hated dance music," Sam pants, the sleeve of his jacket pressed tightly against his mouth.
"That too," Dean says. "You ready?" The light from the disco ball above their heads throws them all into soft-focus. It’s getting harder to see as the first smoke starts leaking underneath the closed doors. Sam didn’t want to close them, too aware of history repeating itself, but Dean just gave him a look and swung them shut. The disco ball makes Sam feel like he’s at a party, chips of light shivering across their faces even as the smoke gets thicker.
"Yeah," Sam says, gritting his teeth. "Gotta hurry."
The look on Dean’s face is grim. "Already?"
All that Sam can do is nod. The heartbeat is deafening, the only thing louder than the fire. Michael’s mouth is open and screaming and Dean is screaming back and Sam suddenly can’t hear either of them. He nods again when they look at him, everything he has wrapped around the heartbeat, keeping it away from them.
It was Monday that completed the puzzle, in more ways than one. Her unshakable belief that they couldn’t hurt her, against Sam’s unshakable belief that Dean could. They’d won, and the shotgun sucked parts of her skin and hair back into its barrels and it was a stench that Sam could probably still smell, if he got close enough to Dean.
A battle of wills, and it makes a stupid sort of sense to Sam. He imagines Bones locked out of his own home, pounding on the glass doors that line the lobby, that postcard landscape stretching out endlessly behind him, and maybe that’s what’s happening. The girls are easier to deal with, what’s left of them. Easier when he sees them all as facets of one thing, of the same too-vivid dream that has kept Bones alive all these years.
He wishes he could know more about Bones. The thought occurs to Sam a lot, has ever since he started questioning the way he was raised. Why some people stayed, could stay. The force of personality that it would take not to fade to the sort of ghost that walked hallways and stood in lonely windows, to become something malignant and sick.
A battle of wills on an entirely different scale. Bones refused to die even though he was the one that set the fire. Sam wonders if he regretted it, afterwards, when it was too late to stop the fire. Whether it was before or after the girls died. He can almost see it - laid on top of Dean and Michael like frames from a different movie. The girls spread around the room. Tuesday the first one to die when the ceiling started to cave in. Sunday and Friday melting together. Monday the only one to yank on the doors, trying to get out.
He flinches when Michael pinches him, hard, twisting the skin on Sam’s bicep between his fingers. It’s a low blow, a big brother move, but Michael only looks at him when Sam grabs him. "Sam," he says, patiently even though he’s yelling to be heard. "Sam! You ready or not?"
He’s ready. They’re all ready. Sam’s thoughts are reduced to quick bursts of light that slide across the walls he’s built around them, keeping the hotel out. Disco didn’t die, something better just came along, and that’s what Sam reaches for, watching Dean watch Michael watch him, hefting the weapons in their hands, that there’s something better than this. That the risk of hurting is better than what Bones is offering them. That they’re stronger than he is.
They swing chairs at the disco ball turning above their heads, but in Sam’s mind they’re more than that, and when they hit, the ball explodes as if they’d had axes. For a second, all that there is, is glass. The ball bursts like an infection and they cover their heads; that’s why they don’t see the blood. It pours out of the ball after a breathless, bright second where the glass slices their hands, the backs of their necks. It splashes on the floor wherever it doesn’t soak them through, and the slaughterhouse smell is enough that Sam forgets about the smoke, about the fire that Michael started in the DJ booth.
They’re driven back, and when Sam turns around, there’s a body on the dance floor, curled on its side under the dripping disco ball.
Dean is the first one to move back towards it, slipping on the slick tile. Michael follows him, and Sam the last of all to step forward and see.
Bones turns bloody teeth towards them. The capillaries in his eyeballs have burst. The drums in Sam’s head are stuttering, losing momentum. Bones is dying. Michael kneels on the floor next to him. He reaches for Bones - some sort of comforting impulse - and then falters. He looks up at Dean, his eyes wide under a mask of gore. He’s crying from the smoke and there are two clean tracks down his cheeks. "Is this it?" he asks. "This is all it takes? All that we went through -"
"Maybe," Dean says tightly, close behind Michael. He dropped the chair when he went sliding, and now the shotgun’s back in his hands, cocked and ready. When Bones laughs, it’s a wet, clotted noise. His hands flop and twist on the ground. He died alone, Sam thinks, staring up at the disco ball like it had all the answers. Financial ruin - the end of their lifestyle - that couldn’t be all there was. One night, Bones set fire to the Red Room, taking seven dancers, five kitchen workers and three guests with him. If there was a secret there - he was gonna take it with him.
Bones grabs Michael’s outstretched hand. Michael winces, but doesn’t try and pull away. The fire is all around them, suffocating them. The ceiling groans. "You think it’s better out there?" Bones gurgles, his grin decayed and broken. He doesn’t even look human anymore. His heart thuds twice, hesitates, thuds twice more.
It’s Michael who answers, drawing his gun and pressing it to Bones’ forehead. "Yeah," he says, "It is."
The first thing that Sam thinks is that they’ve turned on the sprinkler system. Oh good, he thinks. I didn’t really want to burn to death. The water is cool on his forehead and he opens his mouth to let it wash the ash out of his throat. It takes him a lot longer than it should to notice that he’s lying on the ground.
He opens his eyes, and frowns. The moon is a thumbnail in the middle of a black sky, punctuated only here and there with rain clouds. Somebody is screaming. Still fogged and bruised and scared, the sound makes sense. Somebody should be screaming, bad things have happened.
Dean, Sam thinks, and reaches out. He reaches with his left hand, waiting for his fingers to hit the space Dean usually occupies, between Sam and the world. Dean sleeps closest to the door in every motel they live in, always within Sam’s reach. His fingers grope through empty space and then close on a sleeve.
"Dean," Sam says, and a woman sobs.
He jerks upright, dropping the woman’s sleeve as if it stung him. He’s outside. Out of the hotel, surrounded by air so clean and vast that it could suffocate him. There are people all around him, crawling on hands and knees or lying facedown in the muddy field, their hands clenched around the scant grass. The woman next to him is pretty even in polyester. She’s not the only one crying.
There’s so many people. Less than there should be. He doesn’t try to look around to see if Chris’ body made it out with them, tries not to think about it. "Dean!" he bellows, "Michael!"
The only answer he gets is more crying. They’re getting louder. Some of them are screaming, up on their feet like Sam is, hands spread at their sides. A woman grabs at Sam’s shirt and then reels away, stumbling on the uneven ground. Most of them are dressed like they’re still trapped in the hotel.
He can’t see Dean or Michael anywhere. He’s surrounded by people who never wanted to be rescued and he can’t find his brother, can’t find Michael, and if he could work the words past the knot in his throat he’d be screaming like the rest of them that Bones promised, that Bones said he’d let them all go.
"Sam!"
He doesn’t want to believe it at first. Can’t trust himself any more than he could’ve trusted Bones. But then it comes again: "Sam!"
He turns. Still half-believing, but they’re there, really there, the thump of disco heartbeats all gone, the only smell of smoke the one still lingering in his hair. They’re sitting together only a handful of yards away, Michael up on his knees, Dean cross-legged, blood washing off their faces in sticky trails. "Sam," Michael calls again, grinning with relief.
Sam drags in a long, shuddering breath and then he’s moving towards them, slipping on the wet ground, tripping over grass, sliding when his knees hit earth. They catch him before he can really fall, and he wraps his arms around them, shoulders bumping painfully against his chest. He buries his face into Dean’s neck, short hair prickling at his nose, Michael pressed tight up against his side. He holds on.
The creak of the car door echoes across the empty field. The slam of the trunk is even louder. The bag of salt is heavy in Sam’s hand. His footsteps are swallowed up in the fog as he walks across the road. It might be close to dawn, but it’s hard to tell in the fog, which touches the ground and swallows up the rest of the sky. It’s a bright no-color and it hurts his eyes to look at it.
He has to get another bag of salt out of the trunk before he’s finished. He walks back and forth, north to south. The salt is as thick as snow on the ground. In the daytime, it’s easy to see the trash on the ground, the remains of hundreds of partiers that didn’t get kidnapped. He counts two broken toilets, six bumpers and an uncountable amount of used condoms. He steps carefully around broken glass.
It takes two bags of salt but only one can of gas to cover the field. He’s careless with the gas, sloshing it over the condoms and the glass and the toilets. It won’t take a whole lot for the field to burn - it’s as full of plastic as latex - but he wants to be sure that nothing will ever, ever grow there again.
A cracked Bakelite bracelet is all the evidence he can find that people appeared there last night, missing years or months or weeks. Sam, Dean and Michael lost thirteen days. Michael was the one to call the hospital, a concerned citizen too distraught to leave his name. Letting the authorities know about all those people as they tucked their tails between their legs, climbed into the Impala and left. It was Dean who counted the survivors, and came up with twenty-seven, not including themselves. Less than half of those taken who made it out and didn’t turn to shadows or burn themselves alive.
They drove for the closest motel, Dean on a beeline like he was born with a homing device. Sam checked them in. Got two rooms, handed Dean one key and took the other for himself, carefully not looking into either of their faces. It was a relief that Dean didn’t say anything, that he nudged Michael when the kid opened his mouth. It was the room next door and Sam turned the TV on and left it running so he wouldn’t try to listen for their voices, for the bump of the headboard against the wall. He still didn’t sleep.
He doesn’t stay at the field for long. He didn’t see any cops on the way over but that doesn’t mean they’re not out there. Thirty people appeared in this field last night and someone could still be keeping an eye on it. He lingers just long enough to make sure that the fire is really going, and then he drives away.
He takes his time going back to the motel. God knows it could be the last time he drives the Impala. The roads are empty. He stops for donuts. He’s the first customer of the day and they have to go and dig the wands for the espresso machine out of the dish room. He doesn’t know how Michael takes his caffeine, so he gets him a large coffee, same as Dean. It’s habit, more than anything. He can’t imagine knocking on their door, waiting for them to answer it - hastily dressed, still fogged with sleep - but he loads it all into the car anyway, his double latte in his hand, the donuts in a bag on the passenger seat. They’re still warm from the deep fryer and they fill the whole car with the smell of grease and sugar.
He’s parking by the time he notices Dean, and even then, he hesitates. He collects the donuts, the duffle. Sorts through it as he glances out the window, watches Dean’s socked feet kicking back and forth over the edge of the second floor walkway, Dean himself draped between the metal posts of the railing, his head poked between the bars. The coffee is getting cold and so are the donuts, and that’s what Sam blames as his body gets out of the Impala, as his feet swing towards the staircase leading towards the second floor.
Dean watches him approach. Doesn’t look away from Sam’s face even when he has to crane his neck to do it. He doesn’t budge, so after a second, Sam sits down. The gap between the walkway and the railing is too small to fit his legs so he sits cross-legged, his knees bumping up against the railing.
"Sweet," Dean says when Sam hands him the coffee. The bag of donuts goes between them, open for rummaging. Dean flips the lid off the coffee, groans a little when he takes that first sip. The sound goes straight to the pit of Sam’s belly and for a moment all he can see is Dean’s mouth wrapped around his cock, Michael’s hand between them.
He turns away, hoping Dean doesn’t notice the look on his face. His latte is awful. Tastes like chemicals in there, like whatever they use to clean the machine didn’t get properly washed out. He drinks it anyway. It’s not the worst thing he’s ever had.
He risks a glance towards his brother. Soft, mussed hair, a hoodie on underneath his jacket, drawn up around his neck. Dean doesn’t own a hoodie; it’s probably Michael’s, but he’d have to see the logo on the front to be sure. When he looks up, Dean is staring at him again, the look on his face wry and uncomfortable.
"Shit," he says, glancing away.
"Yeah," Sam says.
"So, um," Dean says, and then sighs, scrubbing a hand through his hair. "Shit."
"I'm sorry," Sam says softly.
"Shut up," Dean says, frowning. He sounds tired.
"What did you mean, when you said you knew?"
He looks out over the parking lot instead of at Dean, who’s probably making a face at him. "Sam … come on," he says.
"I wanna know," Sam says. A car drifts by, just the flash of headlights across the fog. Sam can hear the TV he left on in his room, some cartoon with funny noises and lots of shrieking.
"It means I knew, all right?"
"How long?" Sam asks, and then, in a small voice, "All along?"
Dean shrugs. "Fuck. I don’t know. Probably. You’re not very good at hiding shit like that."
"Why didn’t you ever say anything?"
Dean shoots him a look of pure exasperation, and Sam has to laugh, just a little bit. "Why didn’t you, huh? You tell me that. I guess I thought it’d … take care of itself," he finishes uncomfortably.
"Yeah," Sam says. "Me too."
They’re quiet for a long time. Dean finally can’t hold off anymore and paws through the donuts. Sam can’t think of anything to say. The coffee sits uneasily in his empty stomach, setting his foot twitching underneath his thigh. He almost flinches away when Dean grabs it, wraps his hand around Sam’s boot and gives him a grim look.
"Stop," he says. "Okay?"
"Okay," Sam says, a bit meekly.
Dean pats Sam’s ankle. "Damn right," he says, and visibly braces himself. "Look. What it means is that you’re my brother and nothing can ever change that and you’re stupid for thinking anything else. Okay? We’ve kinda been through a lot in the last couple years and there’s nobody else I want watching my back more than you."
"Not even Michael?" Sam can’t help himself from asking.
Dean rolls his eyes. He stuffs the rest of his donut in his mouth rather than answer, and Sam finds himself … weirdly okay with it. He wants to be mad that Dean won’t answer that, even now - won’t give him a straight response. But either Sam’s lost the right to complain or he’s actually grown to like the kid, god forbid, so he doesn’t say anything.
Sam fishes a donut out of the bag. It’s still warm. "You shouldn’t forgive me," he says, turning it around and around in his hands. "I did something really wrong to you and Michael. I’m fucked in the head."
He watches Dean process that, staring down at his empty coffee cup like it has the right response inside. He sees Dean’s jaw firm, and when he glances back up at Sam he looks almost angry. "You’re my brother and nothing’ll ever change that, got it?" he says again, slow this time. Like he’s just stating the obvious. He gestures at the bag of donuts. "What, you think this is your Big Chicken Dinner? Come on, Sammy. You’re stuck with us."
"Us?" Sam echoes.
"Yeah," Dean says, "Us. The royal fucking we. Get off my case, man. Just - just take it, I’m tired of holding it out there."
They share a long glance. He’s been stealing looks at Dean for so long that it feels strange to just … meet his brother’s eyes, to let himself look back. Feels good. Dean quirks a smile at him, and Sam manages to return it.
Dean doesn’t move when Sam leans over to kiss him. His lips are dry, and it’s awkward for a long moment because he’s not kissing Sam back. Until he does, sucking in a shaky breath and Sam gets a taste of bitter coffee before Dean’s pulling back.
"God, Sammy … I don’t know if I was holding it out that far. You gotta give me a little bit of time on this one, okay?"
Sam wants to start counting out one Mississippi two, the ghost of backseat games to bug his older brother. Dean must see it in his eyes, and huffs out a soft laugh. They look away at the same time, stare into middle ground. Still grinning, just a little bit.
The door behind them creaks, and Sam twists his head to see Michael emerge, rubbing his eyes. He’s got the blanket wrapped around himself, presumably because Dean stole his hoodie. He sits on Dean’s other side, squinting amiably into the growing daylight. "Oh, sweet," he says, "donuts."
"Morning, sunshine," Dean says, and Michael grimaces.
"Yeah, whatever. Is that coffee? Is that coffee for me?"
"Yeah," Sam says, and thinks, you’d be good for him.
"Fucking awesome," Michael says, with satisfaction. "Thanks, Sam."
"Uh huh," Sam says. He sucks a long breath in - holds it - lets it out into air that’s warmer than what he took in. The sun is rising, just barely showing its face through the melting fog. The day’ll be a hot one. "Dean," Sam says, and when they turn to look at him, he asks, trying to keep the urgency out of his voice, "what now?"
Dean shrugs, grins suddenly. "Who the fuck knows."
"I know," Michael says, and he sounds so certain that Sam’s breath catches. Then he sees that long mouth smile, those blue eyes meet his own and know, just know. Sam smiles, tentatively, dips his head a little in acknowledgement, and Michael’s grin widens. "Breakfast," he finishes.
"Breakfast," Sam repeats, grinning.
"Yeah," Michael says, "yeah, that sounds about right."
The End.