oh moon, someone told me you're a piece of paper
very deep went down the well
sam/dean; dean as orpheus, and sam as eurydice-- or close enough; 2168 words
notes: kind of crack. beta'd by the lovely kronette on short notice, so many thanks are due to her. the title is from "the lyre of orpheus" by nick cave.
Dean Winchester believes in God. Well, sort of. He believes in God as much as any good demon hunter does; he’s seen the dark, he’s seen the shadows come to life, so somewhere inside him he believes the light can come to life too. Just because it hasn’t yet, not for him-well.
Only the truly, happily ignorant people of the world believe that just because something hasn’t happened yet, doesn’t mean it won’t, or can’t.
Dean also believes in the distinction between will and can. He believes in the possibility of things.
Example: just because no one’s successfully brought someone back from the dead, for instance, doesn’t mean it can’t be done. It probably won’t be done, because there are all sorts of complications, like for instance God, and the Devil, and all those fucked up zombie stories, but it is possible.
Dean Winchester believes in Hell, but only as a formality. He believes in the world of the dead, really, whatever that entails-Heaven, Hell, or something in between.
Really, though, he’s banking on it being something in between.
---
So here’s the thing: Sam’s dead. Dad’s dead. And here’s Dean, all alone in the world. The great, big, nearly Winchester-less world.
Only, here’s another thing: Dean Winchester doesn’t fucking give up. He doesn’t pussyfoot around, and he doesn’t sit on his ass moaning woe is me and all that shit. That’s Sammy’s bag.
Dean doesn’t have the hair for it, anyway.
Okay, and here’s one more thing: Dean is going to get Sam back.
Just because someone isn’t alive anymore, doesn’t mean they’ll be that way forever.
---
Dean’s daddy showed him it a long time ago. It’s pretty cleverly hidden, under some big fucking bush by the Mississippi, but it would have to be, right? The fire escape door to the underworld probably isn’t something the powers that be want just anyone finding.
But really, it’s a good thing Sam’s dead and not Dean, because Sam never saw this. Sam bitched and moaned and went on a soccer trip instead of coming with them, so Sam never saw the one place he could go if he wanted someone back from the dead.
Sam won a fucking trophy, but he never did see the little door to nowhere that could have gotten his precious Jessica back. Which is just fine with Dean. This sort of thing only works once, if it works at all, and that sort of trump card isn’t meant to be played on little blonde girls with nice tits. Even if they are the love of your life.
Which Jess wasn’t, so never mind.
---
So anyway. It takes Dean a good full week to find the damn thing, but find it he does, and it is just like he remembers it: a man-hole looking thing beneath the bush. Innocuous enough at first, but look at it long enough and it really does give him the creeps. He gets a here there’s something, and then there’s nothing feeling. It’s probably one of the more unsettling feelings he’s ever had, right up there with the time he got a handjob from a prostitute in Las Vegas, only to find out that she was actually a ghost and he was supposed to be sending her back to hell. Not, you know, letting her stick her hands down his pants.
Anyway, he almost doesn’t go in. Or rather, he thinks about almost not going in.
But Sammy’s down there, somewhere; Sam is part of that nothingness, and hell. What has he got to lose, really?
---
Going in is just as weird as he thought it would be. He’s still something, only everywhere around him is nothing, so he’s a little bit of nothing, too. Just at the edges.
It’s sort of like a tunnel, insofar as nothing can be a tunnel. And he knows where it’s leading him, because it’s leading him down, only it’s the sort of down that Dean knows is actually not a direction at all.
Still, he feels distinctly that he is going somewhere. That there’s a destination; an end to all this nothing. A something, or more specifically, a somewhere, pulling him forward.
---
While he is walking, Dean has time to think. For instance, he has time to think about why he is going after Sam and not Dad, and why he is going after Sam at all.
It’s like this: Dad always knew he was going to die, and probably at the hands of the Big Bad Demon, too. Once the boys had grown up and John could safely say he had done the best he could with what he had, pretty much his only consuming desire was to die.
Well, yeah. It was to find the Demon, and kill it, and get the satisfaction of being the one to rid the world of evil, and all that hunter propaganda, but really, John wanted to die. Honorably, and in some sort of battle, and preferably in a heroic attempt to save his sons, but he wanted to die. He wanted to get back to Mary.
Why he had never taken this route himself, never gone through the nothing door, John had never said, and Dean had never asked. Maybe he had, and he had failed; or maybe he just couldn’t bring himself to. Maybe this was an out for John, that one last what if he had to hold on to, and he couldn’t bear to have it taken away from him.
But Sam-this is not Sam’s quest. This is not Sam’s holy fucking mission from God, not if Dean has anything to say about it. Sam is 23 and smart and really good in bed and a lot of things Dean isn’t. He is patient and good and has a smile that could put babies to shame and Dean has never met anyone so skilled at sucking cock.
Yeah. Sam’s great. More importantly, Sam is Dean’s; he is Dean’s baby brother, he is Dean’s travel companion, and he is probably the love of Dean’s life. Not that Dean would ever, ever admit that, but there it is. Dean’s fucking nuts about Sam.
Dean had threatened to march into Hell and kill Meg and all her stupid demon friends if they hurt his dad, and he would have, too, but really, Sam is the only person Dean would march into hell for and come back with. Dean knows this, and John knew this, and maybe the only person who didn’t know was Sam, but that’s okay.
Dean believes in surprises.
---
It seems like he’s been walking for hours, and of course he isn’t sure he’s been walking at all, but all of a sudden he steps out of nothing into a world of-more nothing. Only its nothing with substance, nothing with feeling, just without any sort of name.
Dean has no frame of reference for this type of nothingness, but that’s probably good, because that means he isn’t dead.
At this point, Dean’s a little lost. He had it in his head that he could just go down there and sort of, you know, grab Sam and run, but now he’s looking around and there’s millions of people around him, vague almost-shadows, and none of them are Sam, and shit.
He has no idea what to do.
Happily, though, the universe solves the problem for him. In the form of the Devil coming up to him, sticking his hand out, and introducing himself.
“You’d probably know me best as the Devil,” he says.
“Are you the Devil?” Dean asks, slightly suspicious.
The man shrugs and says, “For all intents and purposes, I guess I am.”
Dean shrugs back. “Good enough,” he says.
---
The Devil is more average-looking than Dean expected.
“I know,” the Devil says, “I hear that all the time.”
“I just thought you’d be taller,” Dean says noncomittally.
“I know,” the Devil says again. “Fucking universe, right?”
“Hey,” Dean says suddenly, and rubs his eyes. “Actually, you look like my calc teacher.”
And the Devil just laughs.
---
“So,” the Devil says, taking Dean by the elbow and guiding him through the crowd of shadows. “What are you going to give me for your brother?”
Dean laughs. “I may have just suffered massive internal trauma, and I may be a fucking jock, but I’m not stupid.”
“No?” The Devil tilts his head and gives Dean an unnerving, know-it-all kind of look, the kind of look Sam used to give him when Dean had just said something particularly stupid or done something particularly life-threatening.
“I’ll play you for him,” Dean says seriously.
The Devil slows to a stop, turns to look at Dean appraisingly. “If you lose?” he asks.
“My soul, or whatever,” Dean says.
“And if you win?”
“My brother and I get to walk out of that tunnel and go back to the real world. Or whatever world it is we come from, you know the one.”
The Devil considers for a moment, then sticks out his hand. “8-ball?” he asks, a smile on his face.
Dean grins, and shakes the Devil’s hand.
---
The Devil plays a mean game, all corner pockets and impossible angles, but no one, not no one, hustles a Winchester.
It just isn’t done.
It just isn’t, as Dean likes to say, even a remote fucking possibility.
---
For all that he probably hasn’t lost in a few thousand years, the Devil is surprisingly gracious about losing.
“There is, of course, a provision,” the Devil begins.
Dean waves his hand. “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he says, “look back, lose him forever, yada yada, I know the drill.”
“You don’t have to find him. He’ll be following you.” The Devil smiles again.
“For being the most evil being in the universe, you’re awfully smiley,” Dean remarks, putting down his cue.
The Devil smiles even wider. “Happy hunting,” he says, and vanishes.
---
The nothing hole is waiting for him, surprisingly easy to find through the dense crowds.
He pauses at the entrance, wondering if Sammy has found him yet, wondering if he should linger in case Sam isn’t quite there, but Dean isn’t any good at waiting. If Sammy is following, he is following, and Dean doesn’t want to spend any more time down here than he has to.
He’s done his part. Now Sam and the Devil have to do theirs.
He puts one foot in front of the other and begins to walk.
---
Doubt begins to creep up on him as he begins to sense the walk is ending, but he keeps walking.
Anything is possible, and it is possible that Sam is behind him, and it is possible that Sam is not.
Dean believes in the possibility of things, which means he believes that it is still possible for him to fuck this up, so he doesn’t turn around, and he doesn’t shout back to Sammy as he is longing to do, and he just keeps fucking walking, because hey.
Dean Winchester doesn’t give up.
---
They stumble out into the sunlight, warm and sweet on their faces, the brown Mississippi gurgling by, and Dean has never been so fucking grateful for the sun and the sound of rushing water as he is now.
He turns around, finally, and sure enough there is Sam behind him, giant, floppy-haired Sam, rubbing his eyes and squinting in the bright and unexpected light.
Dean doesn’t say anything, he just looks at his brother, and Sam looks back, and it is almost a girlie-girl moment and Dean is almost about to throw his arms around Sam’s neck and kiss the living shit out of him, when Sam says, “You didn’t bring anything to eat, did you?”
Dean frowns. “Fuck you,” he says, “I just brought you back from the dead.”
Sam rolls his eyes expressively, as only Sam can, conveying all the disdain in the world. “Oh sure,” Sam says, “but you didn’t think to bring me a fucking sandwich.”
Dean’s thoughts turn from kissing to killing, but he grits his teeth and turns his back on his brother. “Should’ve left you there,” he mumbles.
After a moment, Sam gives a low, deep-chested chuckle, and says, “Damn, I must give some fucking mind-blowing head.”
Not that Dean would ever, ever admit it, but Sam’s pretty much right.
---
Dean Winchester believes in God, and he believes in the Devil, too, even if he is sort of average-looking.
Dean believes in his family, and he believes in his guns, and he believes in the power of Sam’s smile, and in the power of his own, well, assets. Because if a girl won’t fall for one she’ll certainly for the other, right?
Dean believes in the difference between can and want to.
He can live without Sam; he just doesn’t want to.
And that, as far as Dean is concerned, is that.
sam/dean; dean as orpheus, and sam as eurydice-- or close enough; 2168 words
notes: kind of crack. beta'd by the lovely kronette on short notice, so many thanks are due to her. the title is from "the lyre of orpheus" by nick cave.
Dean Winchester believes in God. Well, sort of. He believes in God as much as any good demon hunter does; he’s seen the dark, he’s seen the shadows come to life, so somewhere inside him he believes the light can come to life too. Just because it hasn’t yet, not for him-well.
Only the truly, happily ignorant people of the world believe that just because something hasn’t happened yet, doesn’t mean it won’t, or can’t.
Dean also believes in the distinction between will and can. He believes in the possibility of things.
Example: just because no one’s successfully brought someone back from the dead, for instance, doesn’t mean it can’t be done. It probably won’t be done, because there are all sorts of complications, like for instance God, and the Devil, and all those fucked up zombie stories, but it is possible.
Dean Winchester believes in Hell, but only as a formality. He believes in the world of the dead, really, whatever that entails-Heaven, Hell, or something in between.
Really, though, he’s banking on it being something in between.
---
So here’s the thing: Sam’s dead. Dad’s dead. And here’s Dean, all alone in the world. The great, big, nearly Winchester-less world.
Only, here’s another thing: Dean Winchester doesn’t fucking give up. He doesn’t pussyfoot around, and he doesn’t sit on his ass moaning woe is me and all that shit. That’s Sammy’s bag.
Dean doesn’t have the hair for it, anyway.
Okay, and here’s one more thing: Dean is going to get Sam back.
Just because someone isn’t alive anymore, doesn’t mean they’ll be that way forever.
---
Dean’s daddy showed him it a long time ago. It’s pretty cleverly hidden, under some big fucking bush by the Mississippi, but it would have to be, right? The fire escape door to the underworld probably isn’t something the powers that be want just anyone finding.
But really, it’s a good thing Sam’s dead and not Dean, because Sam never saw this. Sam bitched and moaned and went on a soccer trip instead of coming with them, so Sam never saw the one place he could go if he wanted someone back from the dead.
Sam won a fucking trophy, but he never did see the little door to nowhere that could have gotten his precious Jessica back. Which is just fine with Dean. This sort of thing only works once, if it works at all, and that sort of trump card isn’t meant to be played on little blonde girls with nice tits. Even if they are the love of your life.
Which Jess wasn’t, so never mind.
---
So anyway. It takes Dean a good full week to find the damn thing, but find it he does, and it is just like he remembers it: a man-hole looking thing beneath the bush. Innocuous enough at first, but look at it long enough and it really does give him the creeps. He gets a here there’s something, and then there’s nothing feeling. It’s probably one of the more unsettling feelings he’s ever had, right up there with the time he got a handjob from a prostitute in Las Vegas, only to find out that she was actually a ghost and he was supposed to be sending her back to hell. Not, you know, letting her stick her hands down his pants.
Anyway, he almost doesn’t go in. Or rather, he thinks about almost not going in.
But Sammy’s down there, somewhere; Sam is part of that nothingness, and hell. What has he got to lose, really?
---
Going in is just as weird as he thought it would be. He’s still something, only everywhere around him is nothing, so he’s a little bit of nothing, too. Just at the edges.
It’s sort of like a tunnel, insofar as nothing can be a tunnel. And he knows where it’s leading him, because it’s leading him down, only it’s the sort of down that Dean knows is actually not a direction at all.
Still, he feels distinctly that he is going somewhere. That there’s a destination; an end to all this nothing. A something, or more specifically, a somewhere, pulling him forward.
---
While he is walking, Dean has time to think. For instance, he has time to think about why he is going after Sam and not Dad, and why he is going after Sam at all.
It’s like this: Dad always knew he was going to die, and probably at the hands of the Big Bad Demon, too. Once the boys had grown up and John could safely say he had done the best he could with what he had, pretty much his only consuming desire was to die.
Well, yeah. It was to find the Demon, and kill it, and get the satisfaction of being the one to rid the world of evil, and all that hunter propaganda, but really, John wanted to die. Honorably, and in some sort of battle, and preferably in a heroic attempt to save his sons, but he wanted to die. He wanted to get back to Mary.
Why he had never taken this route himself, never gone through the nothing door, John had never said, and Dean had never asked. Maybe he had, and he had failed; or maybe he just couldn’t bring himself to. Maybe this was an out for John, that one last what if he had to hold on to, and he couldn’t bear to have it taken away from him.
But Sam-this is not Sam’s quest. This is not Sam’s holy fucking mission from God, not if Dean has anything to say about it. Sam is 23 and smart and really good in bed and a lot of things Dean isn’t. He is patient and good and has a smile that could put babies to shame and Dean has never met anyone so skilled at sucking cock.
Yeah. Sam’s great. More importantly, Sam is Dean’s; he is Dean’s baby brother, he is Dean’s travel companion, and he is probably the love of Dean’s life. Not that Dean would ever, ever admit that, but there it is. Dean’s fucking nuts about Sam.
Dean had threatened to march into Hell and kill Meg and all her stupid demon friends if they hurt his dad, and he would have, too, but really, Sam is the only person Dean would march into hell for and come back with. Dean knows this, and John knew this, and maybe the only person who didn’t know was Sam, but that’s okay.
Dean believes in surprises.
---
It seems like he’s been walking for hours, and of course he isn’t sure he’s been walking at all, but all of a sudden he steps out of nothing into a world of-more nothing. Only its nothing with substance, nothing with feeling, just without any sort of name.
Dean has no frame of reference for this type of nothingness, but that’s probably good, because that means he isn’t dead.
At this point, Dean’s a little lost. He had it in his head that he could just go down there and sort of, you know, grab Sam and run, but now he’s looking around and there’s millions of people around him, vague almost-shadows, and none of them are Sam, and shit.
He has no idea what to do.
Happily, though, the universe solves the problem for him. In the form of the Devil coming up to him, sticking his hand out, and introducing himself.
“You’d probably know me best as the Devil,” he says.
“Are you the Devil?” Dean asks, slightly suspicious.
The man shrugs and says, “For all intents and purposes, I guess I am.”
Dean shrugs back. “Good enough,” he says.
---
The Devil is more average-looking than Dean expected.
“I know,” the Devil says, “I hear that all the time.”
“I just thought you’d be taller,” Dean says noncomittally.
“I know,” the Devil says again. “Fucking universe, right?”
“Hey,” Dean says suddenly, and rubs his eyes. “Actually, you look like my calc teacher.”
And the Devil just laughs.
---
“So,” the Devil says, taking Dean by the elbow and guiding him through the crowd of shadows. “What are you going to give me for your brother?”
Dean laughs. “I may have just suffered massive internal trauma, and I may be a fucking jock, but I’m not stupid.”
“No?” The Devil tilts his head and gives Dean an unnerving, know-it-all kind of look, the kind of look Sam used to give him when Dean had just said something particularly stupid or done something particularly life-threatening.
“I’ll play you for him,” Dean says seriously.
The Devil slows to a stop, turns to look at Dean appraisingly. “If you lose?” he asks.
“My soul, or whatever,” Dean says.
“And if you win?”
“My brother and I get to walk out of that tunnel and go back to the real world. Or whatever world it is we come from, you know the one.”
The Devil considers for a moment, then sticks out his hand. “8-ball?” he asks, a smile on his face.
Dean grins, and shakes the Devil’s hand.
---
The Devil plays a mean game, all corner pockets and impossible angles, but no one, not no one, hustles a Winchester.
It just isn’t done.
It just isn’t, as Dean likes to say, even a remote fucking possibility.
---
For all that he probably hasn’t lost in a few thousand years, the Devil is surprisingly gracious about losing.
“There is, of course, a provision,” the Devil begins.
Dean waves his hand. “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he says, “look back, lose him forever, yada yada, I know the drill.”
“You don’t have to find him. He’ll be following you.” The Devil smiles again.
“For being the most evil being in the universe, you’re awfully smiley,” Dean remarks, putting down his cue.
The Devil smiles even wider. “Happy hunting,” he says, and vanishes.
---
The nothing hole is waiting for him, surprisingly easy to find through the dense crowds.
He pauses at the entrance, wondering if Sammy has found him yet, wondering if he should linger in case Sam isn’t quite there, but Dean isn’t any good at waiting. If Sammy is following, he is following, and Dean doesn’t want to spend any more time down here than he has to.
He’s done his part. Now Sam and the Devil have to do theirs.
He puts one foot in front of the other and begins to walk.
---
Doubt begins to creep up on him as he begins to sense the walk is ending, but he keeps walking.
Anything is possible, and it is possible that Sam is behind him, and it is possible that Sam is not.
Dean believes in the possibility of things, which means he believes that it is still possible for him to fuck this up, so he doesn’t turn around, and he doesn’t shout back to Sammy as he is longing to do, and he just keeps fucking walking, because hey.
Dean Winchester doesn’t give up.
---
They stumble out into the sunlight, warm and sweet on their faces, the brown Mississippi gurgling by, and Dean has never been so fucking grateful for the sun and the sound of rushing water as he is now.
He turns around, finally, and sure enough there is Sam behind him, giant, floppy-haired Sam, rubbing his eyes and squinting in the bright and unexpected light.
Dean doesn’t say anything, he just looks at his brother, and Sam looks back, and it is almost a girlie-girl moment and Dean is almost about to throw his arms around Sam’s neck and kiss the living shit out of him, when Sam says, “You didn’t bring anything to eat, did you?”
Dean frowns. “Fuck you,” he says, “I just brought you back from the dead.”
Sam rolls his eyes expressively, as only Sam can, conveying all the disdain in the world. “Oh sure,” Sam says, “but you didn’t think to bring me a fucking sandwich.”
Dean’s thoughts turn from kissing to killing, but he grits his teeth and turns his back on his brother. “Should’ve left you there,” he mumbles.
After a moment, Sam gives a low, deep-chested chuckle, and says, “Damn, I must give some fucking mind-blowing head.”
Not that Dean would ever, ever admit it, but Sam’s pretty much right.
---
Dean Winchester believes in God, and he believes in the Devil, too, even if he is sort of average-looking.
Dean believes in his family, and he believes in his guns, and he believes in the power of Sam’s smile, and in the power of his own, well, assets. Because if a girl won’t fall for one she’ll certainly for the other, right?
Dean believes in the difference between can and want to.
He can live without Sam; he just doesn’t want to.
And that, as far as Dean is concerned, is that.