FIC: - Blind Spot - (3/14)
Title: - Blind Spot - Chapter 3/14
Author:
pdragon76
Rating: NC-17 (language, whump, sex)
Genre: Gen
Spoilers: AU, set six months after AHBL2
Disclaimer: All things Supernatural belong to Kripke, not me (rinse & repeat).
Summary: Dean’s on a slow burn after a bloody confrontation with an old nemesis. Sam’s got his hands full picking up the pieces. The Crossroads Deal isn’t the only timer ticking. Warnings for language, whump and sex.
A/N: Chapters post Saturdays Dragons Mean Time (DMT). Some liberties have been taken with locations. Apologies to any mortified Oregonians. Mad props to my iron-fisted, velvet-gloved betas.
kimonkey7 - you relentlessly demand more from my writerly self than I am capable of giving, and sometimes you get it. For that, the Dragons is eternally in your debt.
ailleann23 - you question, you prod, you poke, you cheer, you champion, you rock. What more can I say?
Ch 1 Ch 2
- Blindspot - : Chapter Three
Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.
~Michel de Montaigne
Dean leaned into the back of the chair, turned his face away as she straddled his thighs and perched on his lap. She snaked a hand down between them and rubbed at his dick through the denim of his jeans.
“I never did get to take your brother for a test drive. I bet you Winchester boys fuck like jackhammers.” Meg dropped her voice to a whisper on the last word, sent it into his ear on a warm breath.
His dick twitched. Oh, God, no. Nonononono. Sam’s right. I’ll fuck anything. He twisted and bucked with his hip, wrists straining against the sharp plastic cord.
“Get the fuck off me, bitch,” he growled, and then her tongue was in his ear. He flinched away from her questing mouth, and Meg reached up one hand to his damaged shoulder, sunk the tips of two fingers into the flesh at the point of dislocation.
“Stay still.”
It wasn’t terribly coherent, the string of expletives that left him. He arched against the back of the chair, lifted the front legs off the ground. Meg sat down hard in his lap, forced the chair back down and worked her fingers deeper into his shoulder. The sensation was white hot and it swept his skull clear, funneled every fiber of his awareness down into her fingertips, simplified him into one repeated syllable: Stopstopstopstopstop. Meg brushed her mouth against his grimace.
“Say please and I’ll stop.”
And then there it was. That explosive flare of rage that was wider and brighter and peaked higher than the pain.
Please? You motherfucking bitch. You can cut PLEASE out of my dead fucking body.
“No.” He strained the word through his clenched teeth.
Meg smiled against his lips. “You will.”
**********************************************************************************************
“Say please.”
Her bloodied fingertips inside his mouth.
The kid was clinging to his mother’s leg, reaching for the candy bar.
“Sir, can I help you?”
Dean swallowed, tasted metal. He looked up the gas station attendant, stepped carefully around the kid up to the counter.
“Pump four.”
There was a popping in the back of his jaw when he said it. He forced a yawn, teeth aching from the unconscious grind. Through the window he saw Sam gesturing to him over the roof of the Impala, hand to his mouth in the universal sign language for drink. He stepped back around the kid to the counter-side fridge and hooked two Cokes off the top shelf, held them up for Sam’s approval through the shop front glass before he dropped them on the counter.
“Those too,” he mumbled when the attendant pointed at them, thumbed through the notes in his wallet.
“Say please, sweetheart.”
Muscles twitching, gripping, straining. The mother bent to her child as she unwrapped the bar.
“That’s it, sir. You’re all done.”
Dean blinked at the attendant, realized he’d been waiting for change that wasn’t forthcoming. Sixty-five even. You moron.
“Right.” He snagged the drinks from the counter, gave the mother a twitch of a smile as she looked up at him passing.
He misjudged at the door and knocked a promotional stand with his hip, sent two spray cans of Amor All to the ground with a clatter. He hopped a little, winced, and was relieved when the woman coming in the door bent hurriedly and collected the skittered cans from the linoleum.
“Whoops,” she smiled, as she replaced them on the shelf. She pointed to the stitches in his cheek. “Clumsy streak?” she asked brightly.
He forced a smile, knew it didn’t quite get there.
“Somethin’ like that. Thanks,” he muttered, and brushed past her out towards the pumps.
**********************************************************************************************
Sam saw the kerfuffle inside the gas station from where he leaned, arms folded on the top of the car. Dean emerged a second later, made a beeline for the Impala. If Sam didn’t know any better, he’d say Dean simply seemed hungover. Severely hungover. He’d seen it enough times to know. But Sam knew what he was looking for, and he could see how Dean was favoring the ribs with his shortened right stride. Dean on a good day had a charge and a bounce at the core of his physicality. He was sharp and decisive, and he moved that way too. But right now? He had that kicked dog look about him. Sam could tell he was feeling every step. He’d never admit it. But Sam could tell.
“So, that was smooth,” he called out, as Dean got close.
His brother passed the drinks awkwardly into his left hand and flipped him off. Sam gave him a wide smile, shook his head. Inside the car he took the drinks as Dean eased into the passenger seat. He jammed one down between his thighs, passed the other back to Dean, and started the engine.
“You alright, man? You look a little pasty.”
Dean twisted the top off his soda, took a swig. “Sam, you’ve been tellin’ me I look pasty for four days. I look like shit. I get it. Thank you.”
“I meant, you know, more pasty. Like, puke pasty.”
Dean squinted at the windshield. He rubbed his eye, sniffed. “It’ll pass.”
Sam dropped his hands from the steering wheel. “You wanna wait it out? I can pull up over there.” He nodded to the parking bays beside the roadhouse.
Dean screwed up his nose, shook his head. “I got it.”
He didn’t have it. Half the Coke later, Dean barked: “Pull over”.
Sam obediently hit the brakes, veered to the shoulder.
Dean kicked the door as they came to a halt and twisted out. Sam killed the engine and cranked his window down, winced at the windshield while Dean lost his breakfast onto the gravel. He bit his lip, resisted the urge to get out, round the car and make a pain in the ass of himself.
It wasn’t the first time Dean had puked in the last few days. Sam checked his watch and winked up at the roof, did some mental arithmetic around the painkillers and the timing. He was pretty sure Dean was yakking on the back end of every dose.
When they stopped for the night, he’d do some surfing for an alternative, maybe schedule a little late night B&E at the local pharmacy. It wasn’t the sort of ethically vacant exercise he would normally consider, but he had to admit, a little solo outing wouldn’t hurt for keeping his stealthy in shape. They’d hustled prescriptions in the past, but Sam didn’t think it seemed any more morally robust than a midnight raid. Either way, they were screwing someone, but he had no intention of turning this trip into a cookie-tossing tour of the roadside diner menus.
Under normal circumstances, having Dean puking his guts up on the side of the road was the kind of unexpected and gala event that called for snapshots and the creation of laptop screensavers. Sam’s inner sibling was dying to lean across the seat and shout: I TOLD you it was too soon, Yakky McSpewsAlot.
But he figured Dean was having a hard enough time of it without his input. Broken ribs and violent regurgitation were not good bedfellows. This Sam knew.
The last time Sam had cracked a rib they had been working a gig in Berkeley, California. It was nearly a year ago now. A guy named Eddie Panetta had stumbled across a voodoo doll in his pawn shop, and in the grand tradition of stupid decisions begetting even more stupid decisions, he had managed to accidentally curse the entire English faculty of the local university using nothing but an instructive website, a couple of library books and some questionably accented Creole.
When they’d tracked Dumb Eddie to his dingy little pawn shop a couple of blocks from the university, he’d rabbitted. Sam fronted the charge through the busy shopping district and damned if Eddie Panetta hadn’t led his high school track team to some sort of glory in his heyday because the little asshole had been fast. Sam had lost him for good when he rounded the corner outside a little music shop at full tilt and tripped over a Rastafarian homeless guy with a loud beanie and a change tin. He had sent the guy and the tin sprawling, quarters spraying like buckshot, and Sam had managed to keep his feet for a few pin-wheeling strides before the bum’s cardboard placard had gotten tangled up in his shoes. By then he’d gathered enough momentum to bounce off the first of the alfresco café tables next door to the music store. He’d taken three chairs, along with the people sitting on them, to the deck.
Dean was already out of breath by the time he’d caught up, so the fifty yard stretch of human debris had almost killed him. He laughed so hard Sam thought his brother was going to have a heart attack. It wasn’t until after Dean had gotten everyone righted and tucked the chairs back under the café table that he’d seen what the beanied man’s placard had said.
LET’S BE HONEST: IT’S FOR BEER.
While Sam sat at the table and nursed his freshly fractured rib, Dean had trotted down the street to the liquor store and come back with a fucking six pack for the bum. He’d still been laughing when he handed it over and shook the guy’s hand.
It wasn’t an injury he was forgetting in a hurry. For one, Dean was still slinging shit about it twelve months later. And two? You just didn’t forget about breaking a rib. It hurt. He remembered spending the better part of four weeks being very careful about the way he did…well, just about everything.
Dean was only a few days out the other side of a major ass kicking. Sam was acutely aware that a six hourly yak was the last thing his brother really needed.
He leaned over the bench seat and rummaged in his duffel, came up with a half full bottle of water. Then he stretched across and punched the glove box, pulled a handful of napkins out from beneath the folded maps.
“You alright?” he called out, when Dean’s retching seemed to subside.
Dean gave him an irritated wave over one shoulder. “Peachy. Thank you.”
Okay. Alright enough for sarcasm..
Sam waited, tapped the steering wheel and put a hand over his own mouth when Dean’s guttural, violent stylings made his own stomach dip. The slap of round two onto the stones almost sent him out of his own door for a sympathetic hurl.
“You okay?” he ventured again through his fingers.
Dean hoiked and spat, hand flapping blindly at the car door handle. He braced there for a minute - head down - breathing heavily through his nose.
“Dude,” he said finally, and his voice was raw.
It was classic Dean short-hand for Back off and Sam instantly complied. He rubbed his thighs and chewed the inside of his cheek, gazed out the windshield down the interstate.
Finally, Dean’s boots made a clumsy re-entry onto the floor of the car and he pulled the door shut again, face chalk-white and hand over his eyes.
“You wanna wait a second?” Sam asked, and Dean gave him a miniscule nod, swallowed hard.
They sat in silence while Dean struggled with his roiling gut.
“You know, you haven’t had anything to eat since breakfast, man. Maybe we should stop and get some food into you.”
Dean lifted his hand from his face, gave Sam an incredulous grimace. “I’ll pass, thanks.”
“You want some water?” He held out the bottle, and Dean waved it away.
“Dude, I am right on the edge here. Please.”
Sam propped the water bottle on the seat beside him and backed right off. Dean had been quiet enough since they left Bobby’s. He had no interest in adding sullenness to the uncomfortable silence between them.
He was used to Dean’s lengthy foul moods. Sam was practiced in the art of enduring his grunted responses and glances of abject irritation for the simplest oversights or actions. He knew when a blown stack was going to bring his brother back into line, and when it was wiser to let the sleeping giant lie. Dean was a moody piece of work, no question. He had a short fuse and a fast mouth, was prone to periods of infuriating intractability. There had been that time in Texas when Dean had gone four days without saying anything at all. To this day, Sam still had no clue why. He had been pretty certain it had nothing to do with him specifically, but the swelter of simmering rage coming off his brother had discouraged enquiry. Sam had pitched a fairly smack-worthy sulking fit in response, and made himself scarce until whatever it was had cleared.
This was an altogether different brand of quiet. It wasn’t really silence at all. Dean wasn’t winning any awards for Conversationalist of the Year, but he was responsive enough to Sam’s attempts at interaction. Sure, he seemed a little distant, but that was par for the course, right? Given the situation?
“Don’t lean on him.” Bobby had said. “Let him pick the pace.”
Sam stopped at the next town and booked them into a motel. He had an evidentiary argument prepared about the possibility of Dean puking in the Impala and being unwilling to clean it up, but it proved unnecessary. Dean didn’t argue when he pulled into the parking lot, and half an hour after check-in he was crashed out in an armchair.
He looked about as uncomfortable as a sleeping person could be without waking up because of it. Sam left him where he was, threw a blanket over him when the sun dipped down and the crisp night air crept in beneath the motel room door. Dean had been splitting his downtime between the couch and the bed at Bobby’s too, depending on his level of discomfort. Laying flat was a largely overrated experience when you had a chest injury.
He was still snoring in the chair when Sam came in at one in the morning from his pharmaceutical reconnaissance.
Sam woke him, gave him a couple of minutes to decide where he wanted to spend the rest of the night. After a stumbling, assisted relocation to one of the beds, Sam offered him a couple of the swiped Vicodin. Dean was groggy, but insistent. He flatly refused.
“Seriously, man. I’m done with the puke pills. Those things are fucking me up, Sammy.”
Sam sighed, threw the pills onto the bedside table.
Great, Dean. Makes that little burglary of a family business all worthwhile.
**********************************************************************************************
As soon as he backed off the painkillers, the dreams started.
He woke to Sam shaking him; his chest completely seized, fists balled tight in the sheets.
“Dean! Wake up, man. Take a breath.”
Caught somewhere between sleep and waking, Dean lifted a defensive hand, struggled when Sam caught him by the wrist.
“Heyheyhey. Wake up.”
Dean gave the lamp-lit room a sweeping, disoriented survey. Sam clapped a palm to his cheek, brought his wild gaze back to his face.
“Dean, take a breath. Breathe, man.”
He exhaled and his chest loosened, gripped again when he sucked in a ragged lungful of air. It lit up his fractured ribs like the fourth of July, and he grimaced as Sam gently coaxed him up, got him sitting on the side of the bed.
“Come on, sit up. Lean forward.”
Dean palmed the sweat off his forehead, and raked a shaking hand down his face. His heart was hammering high in his chest. He could feel it thumping painfully at the base of his throat. Sam hopped on his haunches, calmly waited him out.
“Goddamn that fuckin’ bitch,” Dean breathed, shook his head. “Holy shit.”
“S’okay, man. It’s gonna happen. Just…hang on a sec.”
Sam got up, and Dean was glad to have him out of his face for a whole lot of reasons, embarrassment being pretty high on the list.
Dude, you had a fucking dream. Pull yourself together.
He fisted his trembling hands, tried to regulate his breathing. He felt spent and hot, like he’d just come off a sprint. Sam returned a second later and crouched in front of him again, pressed a wet washcloth to the back of his neck. It felt good, helped, and it made him feel like a ginormous shit.
Cool cloth to the back of the neck. Why did I never think of this shit when he was bouncing off the back end of a vision?
Sam silently hooked the water off the bedside table and propped it on his knee, waited while Dean’s breathing slowed.
“You alright?” he asked finally, and his voice was easy and low, as if Dean had stubbed his toe. Not freaked out - you giant pussy - in his sleep.
Dean pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezed his eyes shut. “Yeah. Just give me a second here. Sorry, man.”
“Is this about the waitress in Tampa?”
Dean opened his eyes, dropped his hand down between his knees and frowned up into Sam’s twitching smile. Oh, you’re a fuckin’ comedian now?
“She was pretty scary.” Sam was barely suppressing his grin.
Dean huffed off a laugh in spite of himself. “She was, wasn’t she?”
Sam chuckled. Dean snatched the water from him, took a swig.
“You know I did her twice, right?”
And that cracked them both up until Dean choked on his water, and had a coughing fit that nearly broke another rib.
**********************************************************************************************
Dean woke the next morning, muscles stiff as a board and about as sore as he had been since he first got back on his feet at Bobby’s. He had a wrecking ball headache but for the first time in nearly a week, he didn’t feel like he was going to hurl at any moment.
Jo called while he was midway through an enormous plate of scrambled eggs and bacon at the motel diner. He pulled the cell out of his jacket pocket, looked at the caller ID, and had two simultaneously unpleasant realizations.
He’d forgotten to call Jo back, which meant that given her parting comment, he was front runner for Asshole of the Century. And he also couldn’t take the call in front of Sam, which meant he was going to have to stand up.
“Sonuvabitch.”
He spat it out around a mouthful of eggs and toast, and Sam snapped his head up from his pancakes on the other side of the table.
“Who is it?” he demanded, clearly alarmed by Dean’s outburst.
Dean took his time working through his mouthful, pointed at it and rolled his eyes. Stall, stall, stall… He flipped the phone open and barked a “Hang on,” around his eggs to Jo, heard her tinny and outraged Dean! as he pressed the phone against his upper arm. He gave Sam an apologetic grimace and swallowed.
“Some job I had lined up, ‘fore last week. Forgot to call the guy. Be back in a minute.”
Sam watched him carefully slide along the diner seat and pause at the edge. “Dude, don’t get up. Just take the call here. What’s the problem?”
Dean sucked in a breath and stood, bit his lip so he didn’t groan out loud. Just take the fucking puke pills. I am such an ass.
He flapped his hand at Sam. “Oh, this guy’s a real piece of work. This could turn nasty.”
He took a step towards the diner door, and Sam called him back. Dean turned, innocence personified and cell in hand, looked at him expectantly.
“Hmmm?”
“You’re on a cell, Dean. How nasty can it get?”
Dean frowned at him, suddenly pissed. Fuckin’ brainiac.
“What are we? Conjoined? Just…eat your fuckin’ pancakes, Sam. Jesus. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Sam held his knife and fork up in surrender, shook his head. “Okay. Whatever. Christ, don’t freak out.”
Dean hit the diner door hard on his way through it. He’d forgotten to call Jo back, which was unforgivable enough given the circumstances. But it was lying to Sam that was really getting his goat.
It’s temporary, he reminded himself. Just till you get there. Maybe a little longer.
It didn’t make him feel any better. On top of that he was sore and cranky and still waiting for the coffee he had ordered roughly thirty years ago when they had first entered the diner. He ran through a few potential excuses before he put the phone to his ear as he stepped off the curb into the parking lot.
“Jo, I am so sorry. I swear to God, I was gonna call. I am a complete jackass.”
Honesty was always the best policy, right?
“Yes. You are. Oh, my God, Dean. You are such a jackass.”
“I know. I know. Seriously. We’re on our way. We left yesterday. It’s just been…slow going.”
“What? You boys get lost?”
“No. I mean, yes. I mean… we had some car trouble.” He made a face at the asphalt, pressed his fingers against his forehead. Oh, my God. Since when did I stink this bad at lying?
“Holy shit, you crashed the Impala?”
“No, I didn’t crash the Impala,” he snapped. “Nobody’s crashing the Impala.”
He sighed, regrouped. “Look, we just got held up in this stupid town, but we’re leaving after breakfast. We’ll be there in, like, a day and a half. I’ll call you then.”
“Sure,” Jo drawled caustically.
God, he could just about see the look on her face. Bitch.
“Fine, whatever. You call me. I’ll call you. There’ll be calling. Just…don’t do anything stupid ‘til we get there. Okay?”
There was a half minute pause in which Jo appeared to be reserving her right to stupidity in his absence.
“Jo?” he prompted, and he heard her sigh on the other end of the line.
“Okay. But you better call. My right hook’s a helluva lot better than the last time you copped it in the face, Dean.”
He slapped the phone shut, stared at it for a second in frustration.
“So’s mine, you bitch,” he muttered.
When he turned back to the diner, Sam was standing at the window. He tossed his palms upward, motioned Dean back in through the glass.
Dean lifted a hand in acknowledgement, turned back towards the parking lot. He took a couple of deep breaths, palm against the tightness of the stitches in his chest. He needed to take the puke pills. And Sam would go to town on him for being a stubborn ass and not taking them in the first place. Probably for an hour. Maybe two.
It was going to be a really long day. He could tell.
**********************************************************************************************
“This is a bit of a pickle, Dean.”
He tried to lift his head, couldn’t. “Dad?”
There was a rough palm against his cheek. Warm. Familiar. Fingers beneath his chin, tilting his face up. He blinked, tried to focus.
“Your brother’s coming for you.”
Dean felt the tears making slow progress down his cheek to his jaw. “I’m so sorry. Please don’t be mad at me. ”
John smoothed a thick thumb across his cheek, tears mingling with blood against his skin. “I’m not mad at you, kid. You have to hold on a little longer. Don’t you give up on your brother, Dean.”
“I’m so sorry, Dad.”
“Don’t be sorry, Dean. Just hold on.”
Dean closed his eyes. “Dad, please. Please, will you just finish it?” His voice barely a whisper. So tired.
His father’s hands were against his cheeks. “Dean, look at me.”
He forced his eyes open a crack. Saw his request denied in his dad’s grim, intense eyes. “Please, Dad. ‘M ready. Please.”
“Uh-uh. No, you’re not, kiddo. You hang in there. Your brother’s on his way.”
“Sam’s dead.” The words were barbed. Caught in his throat.
“Don’t give up on your brother, Dean.” John smiled at him. It was a soft upturning of the lips. Sad and worried and proud. “I need you to remember something for me, okay?”
“You’re dead.” Dean’s brow creased. “What? Dad, I can’t…”
“Yes, you can, Dean. Dig deep, kid. You’re gonna remember something for me. Not right now, but later.”
“Dad?”
And then his Dad was whispering in his ear, and Dean was thinking: Not more secrets. I can’t carry any more secrets. Why is this fucking family so full of goddamn secrets?
**********************************************************************************************
Dean was dreaming again.
Sam let him go for a few miles. At the best of times, Dean could make a nap look like hard work. He tossed, he turned, had been known to carry on entire conversations whilst snoozing. Sleep just wasn’t his strong suit. For the last twenty miles, it had been his pretty standard fare - a little irregular breathing, general restlessness. Nothing that approached the disturbing performance at the motel in the early hours of the morning.
They needed gas and it was time for a break. Sam’s attention was wandering, and he’d stifled enough yawns to warrant coffee and a leg stretch at the very least. Under normal circumstances they’d grab drinks to go and switch drivers, but Sam had no intention of letting Dean behind the wheel just yet. He’d made it clear before they left Bobby’s that Dean’s options were shotgun or walking. Dean had wisely avoided an argument.
Sam was pulling into the gas station when the map in Dean’s lap crackled, his fingers fisting around it. He tensed, teeth bared and boot heels scraping at the floor of the Impala. Sam killed the engine at the pump and twisted towards his brother.
“Dean.”
Dean’s knee jerked up, face creasing. He choked out “Dad?” and that was enough for Sam. He shot a hand out and tugged hard on Dean’s jacket at the elbow, an unexpected flush of grief warming his own face.
“Dean. Wake up.”
Dean came to with a start, snapping upright and blinking groggily at the glove compartment.
“What?” he grunted.
Sam kicked open his door. “You were dreaming.” About Dad. What were you dreaming about Dad?
Dean wiped his mouth, ran the hand down his jeans. It took him a second to get his bearings.
“Where are we? Is this Missoula?”
“Yeah. You okay?”
Dean rubbed a hand back and forth through his hair. He shook his head a little, as if to clear it.
“We’re in Missoula? How long’ve I been out?”
“Coupla hours. You want coffee? I need coffee.”
Dean nodded, rested his temple against the passenger window. He closed his eyes again.
“You feelin’ okay? Those pills making you sick?”
Dean frowned. “No, man, I’m just tired. Get the damn coffee.”
Sam gassed up and took a piss. Grabbed a couple of sandwiches and two cups of coffee that smelled like jet fuel. When he pre-warned Dean as he handed it over, his brother seemed unperturbed.
Back on I-90, Sam laid out his plan for the rest of the day.
“’Kay, so I figure we head for Kennewick, crash for the night, be in Portland by lunch tomorrow. How’s that sound?”
“We can’t drive straight through?”
“Yeah, we can, but in about three hours you’re gonna be gettin’ sore and cranky and pissing me off. And there’s no fire, so… I’d rather take it slow.”
Dean sipped his coffee, gave Sam an uncharacteristically docile “Okay.”
Sam had planned to keep his mouth shut. He really, really had. But ten miles out of Missoula, he couldn’t help himself.
“You’re pretty quiet, man.”
Dean didn’t look up from the map in his lap. “Well, I don’t mean to be.”
“No. It’s okay. I mean, I’m not - I just… If you need to talk about anything…”
Dean turned his wrist carefully, looked at his watch and grimaced. “Sam…”
“I know. I know. And I’m not pushing. I’m really not. I just want you to know that, you know, if there’s anything you need me to do or say, you just gotta ask and it’s as good as done.”
“I know, Sam.” Dean scratched his nose, huffed off a laugh. “Goddamn it.”
Sam shot him a glance. “What’s so funny?”
Dean squinted at him. “You just lost me fifty bucks.”
“What?”
“Bobby. He had fifty bucks on Missoula.”
“What?”
“Yeah. Sonuvabitch. But hey, credit where credit’s due, Sammy. I didn’t think we were gettin’ outta his driveway without a group hug.”
Chapter Four
Author:
pdragon76
Rating: NC-17 (language, whump, sex)
Genre: Gen
Spoilers: AU, set six months after AHBL2
Disclaimer: All things Supernatural belong to Kripke, not me (rinse & repeat).
Summary: Dean’s on a slow burn after a bloody confrontation with an old nemesis. Sam’s got his hands full picking up the pieces. The Crossroads Deal isn’t the only timer ticking. Warnings for language, whump and sex.
A/N: Chapters post Saturdays Dragons Mean Time (DMT). Some liberties have been taken with locations. Apologies to any mortified Oregonians. Mad props to my iron-fisted, velvet-gloved betas.
kimonkey7 - you relentlessly demand more from my writerly self than I am capable of giving, and sometimes you get it. For that, the Dragons is eternally in your debt.
ailleann23 - you question, you prod, you poke, you cheer, you champion, you rock. What more can I say?
Ch 1 Ch 2
- Blindspot - : Chapter Three
Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.
~Michel de Montaigne
Dean leaned into the back of the chair, turned his face away as she straddled his thighs and perched on his lap. She snaked a hand down between them and rubbed at his dick through the denim of his jeans.
“I never did get to take your brother for a test drive. I bet you Winchester boys fuck like jackhammers.” Meg dropped her voice to a whisper on the last word, sent it into his ear on a warm breath.
His dick twitched. Oh, God, no. Nonononono. Sam’s right. I’ll fuck anything. He twisted and bucked with his hip, wrists straining against the sharp plastic cord.
“Get the fuck off me, bitch,” he growled, and then her tongue was in his ear. He flinched away from her questing mouth, and Meg reached up one hand to his damaged shoulder, sunk the tips of two fingers into the flesh at the point of dislocation.
“Stay still.”
It wasn’t terribly coherent, the string of expletives that left him. He arched against the back of the chair, lifted the front legs off the ground. Meg sat down hard in his lap, forced the chair back down and worked her fingers deeper into his shoulder. The sensation was white hot and it swept his skull clear, funneled every fiber of his awareness down into her fingertips, simplified him into one repeated syllable: Stopstopstopstopstop. Meg brushed her mouth against his grimace.
“Say please and I’ll stop.”
And then there it was. That explosive flare of rage that was wider and brighter and peaked higher than the pain.
Please? You motherfucking bitch. You can cut PLEASE out of my dead fucking body.
“No.” He strained the word through his clenched teeth.
Meg smiled against his lips. “You will.”
**********************************************************************************************
“Say please.”
Her bloodied fingertips inside his mouth.
The kid was clinging to his mother’s leg, reaching for the candy bar.
“Sir, can I help you?”
Dean swallowed, tasted metal. He looked up the gas station attendant, stepped carefully around the kid up to the counter.
“Pump four.”
There was a popping in the back of his jaw when he said it. He forced a yawn, teeth aching from the unconscious grind. Through the window he saw Sam gesturing to him over the roof of the Impala, hand to his mouth in the universal sign language for drink. He stepped back around the kid to the counter-side fridge and hooked two Cokes off the top shelf, held them up for Sam’s approval through the shop front glass before he dropped them on the counter.
“Those too,” he mumbled when the attendant pointed at them, thumbed through the notes in his wallet.
“Say please, sweetheart.”
Muscles twitching, gripping, straining. The mother bent to her child as she unwrapped the bar.
“That’s it, sir. You’re all done.”
Dean blinked at the attendant, realized he’d been waiting for change that wasn’t forthcoming. Sixty-five even. You moron.
“Right.” He snagged the drinks from the counter, gave the mother a twitch of a smile as she looked up at him passing.
He misjudged at the door and knocked a promotional stand with his hip, sent two spray cans of Amor All to the ground with a clatter. He hopped a little, winced, and was relieved when the woman coming in the door bent hurriedly and collected the skittered cans from the linoleum.
“Whoops,” she smiled, as she replaced them on the shelf. She pointed to the stitches in his cheek. “Clumsy streak?” she asked brightly.
He forced a smile, knew it didn’t quite get there.
“Somethin’ like that. Thanks,” he muttered, and brushed past her out towards the pumps.
**********************************************************************************************
Sam saw the kerfuffle inside the gas station from where he leaned, arms folded on the top of the car. Dean emerged a second later, made a beeline for the Impala. If Sam didn’t know any better, he’d say Dean simply seemed hungover. Severely hungover. He’d seen it enough times to know. But Sam knew what he was looking for, and he could see how Dean was favoring the ribs with his shortened right stride. Dean on a good day had a charge and a bounce at the core of his physicality. He was sharp and decisive, and he moved that way too. But right now? He had that kicked dog look about him. Sam could tell he was feeling every step. He’d never admit it. But Sam could tell.
“So, that was smooth,” he called out, as Dean got close.
His brother passed the drinks awkwardly into his left hand and flipped him off. Sam gave him a wide smile, shook his head. Inside the car he took the drinks as Dean eased into the passenger seat. He jammed one down between his thighs, passed the other back to Dean, and started the engine.
“You alright, man? You look a little pasty.”
Dean twisted the top off his soda, took a swig. “Sam, you’ve been tellin’ me I look pasty for four days. I look like shit. I get it. Thank you.”
“I meant, you know, more pasty. Like, puke pasty.”
Dean squinted at the windshield. He rubbed his eye, sniffed. “It’ll pass.”
Sam dropped his hands from the steering wheel. “You wanna wait it out? I can pull up over there.” He nodded to the parking bays beside the roadhouse.
Dean screwed up his nose, shook his head. “I got it.”
He didn’t have it. Half the Coke later, Dean barked: “Pull over”.
Sam obediently hit the brakes, veered to the shoulder.
Dean kicked the door as they came to a halt and twisted out. Sam killed the engine and cranked his window down, winced at the windshield while Dean lost his breakfast onto the gravel. He bit his lip, resisted the urge to get out, round the car and make a pain in the ass of himself.
It wasn’t the first time Dean had puked in the last few days. Sam checked his watch and winked up at the roof, did some mental arithmetic around the painkillers and the timing. He was pretty sure Dean was yakking on the back end of every dose.
When they stopped for the night, he’d do some surfing for an alternative, maybe schedule a little late night B&E at the local pharmacy. It wasn’t the sort of ethically vacant exercise he would normally consider, but he had to admit, a little solo outing wouldn’t hurt for keeping his stealthy in shape. They’d hustled prescriptions in the past, but Sam didn’t think it seemed any more morally robust than a midnight raid. Either way, they were screwing someone, but he had no intention of turning this trip into a cookie-tossing tour of the roadside diner menus.
Under normal circumstances, having Dean puking his guts up on the side of the road was the kind of unexpected and gala event that called for snapshots and the creation of laptop screensavers. Sam’s inner sibling was dying to lean across the seat and shout: I TOLD you it was too soon, Yakky McSpewsAlot.
But he figured Dean was having a hard enough time of it without his input. Broken ribs and violent regurgitation were not good bedfellows. This Sam knew.
The last time Sam had cracked a rib they had been working a gig in Berkeley, California. It was nearly a year ago now. A guy named Eddie Panetta had stumbled across a voodoo doll in his pawn shop, and in the grand tradition of stupid decisions begetting even more stupid decisions, he had managed to accidentally curse the entire English faculty of the local university using nothing but an instructive website, a couple of library books and some questionably accented Creole.
When they’d tracked Dumb Eddie to his dingy little pawn shop a couple of blocks from the university, he’d rabbitted. Sam fronted the charge through the busy shopping district and damned if Eddie Panetta hadn’t led his high school track team to some sort of glory in his heyday because the little asshole had been fast. Sam had lost him for good when he rounded the corner outside a little music shop at full tilt and tripped over a Rastafarian homeless guy with a loud beanie and a change tin. He had sent the guy and the tin sprawling, quarters spraying like buckshot, and Sam had managed to keep his feet for a few pin-wheeling strides before the bum’s cardboard placard had gotten tangled up in his shoes. By then he’d gathered enough momentum to bounce off the first of the alfresco café tables next door to the music store. He’d taken three chairs, along with the people sitting on them, to the deck.
Dean was already out of breath by the time he’d caught up, so the fifty yard stretch of human debris had almost killed him. He laughed so hard Sam thought his brother was going to have a heart attack. It wasn’t until after Dean had gotten everyone righted and tucked the chairs back under the café table that he’d seen what the beanied man’s placard had said.
LET’S BE HONEST: IT’S FOR BEER.
While Sam sat at the table and nursed his freshly fractured rib, Dean had trotted down the street to the liquor store and come back with a fucking six pack for the bum. He’d still been laughing when he handed it over and shook the guy’s hand.
It wasn’t an injury he was forgetting in a hurry. For one, Dean was still slinging shit about it twelve months later. And two? You just didn’t forget about breaking a rib. It hurt. He remembered spending the better part of four weeks being very careful about the way he did…well, just about everything.
Dean was only a few days out the other side of a major ass kicking. Sam was acutely aware that a six hourly yak was the last thing his brother really needed.
He leaned over the bench seat and rummaged in his duffel, came up with a half full bottle of water. Then he stretched across and punched the glove box, pulled a handful of napkins out from beneath the folded maps.
“You alright?” he called out, when Dean’s retching seemed to subside.
Dean gave him an irritated wave over one shoulder. “Peachy. Thank you.”
Okay. Alright enough for sarcasm..
Sam waited, tapped the steering wheel and put a hand over his own mouth when Dean’s guttural, violent stylings made his own stomach dip. The slap of round two onto the stones almost sent him out of his own door for a sympathetic hurl.
“You okay?” he ventured again through his fingers.
Dean hoiked and spat, hand flapping blindly at the car door handle. He braced there for a minute - head down - breathing heavily through his nose.
“Dude,” he said finally, and his voice was raw.
It was classic Dean short-hand for Back off and Sam instantly complied. He rubbed his thighs and chewed the inside of his cheek, gazed out the windshield down the interstate.
Finally, Dean’s boots made a clumsy re-entry onto the floor of the car and he pulled the door shut again, face chalk-white and hand over his eyes.
“You wanna wait a second?” Sam asked, and Dean gave him a miniscule nod, swallowed hard.
They sat in silence while Dean struggled with his roiling gut.
“You know, you haven’t had anything to eat since breakfast, man. Maybe we should stop and get some food into you.”
Dean lifted his hand from his face, gave Sam an incredulous grimace. “I’ll pass, thanks.”
“You want some water?” He held out the bottle, and Dean waved it away.
“Dude, I am right on the edge here. Please.”
Sam propped the water bottle on the seat beside him and backed right off. Dean had been quiet enough since they left Bobby’s. He had no interest in adding sullenness to the uncomfortable silence between them.
He was used to Dean’s lengthy foul moods. Sam was practiced in the art of enduring his grunted responses and glances of abject irritation for the simplest oversights or actions. He knew when a blown stack was going to bring his brother back into line, and when it was wiser to let the sleeping giant lie. Dean was a moody piece of work, no question. He had a short fuse and a fast mouth, was prone to periods of infuriating intractability. There had been that time in Texas when Dean had gone four days without saying anything at all. To this day, Sam still had no clue why. He had been pretty certain it had nothing to do with him specifically, but the swelter of simmering rage coming off his brother had discouraged enquiry. Sam had pitched a fairly smack-worthy sulking fit in response, and made himself scarce until whatever it was had cleared.
This was an altogether different brand of quiet. It wasn’t really silence at all. Dean wasn’t winning any awards for Conversationalist of the Year, but he was responsive enough to Sam’s attempts at interaction. Sure, he seemed a little distant, but that was par for the course, right? Given the situation?
“Don’t lean on him.” Bobby had said. “Let him pick the pace.”
Sam stopped at the next town and booked them into a motel. He had an evidentiary argument prepared about the possibility of Dean puking in the Impala and being unwilling to clean it up, but it proved unnecessary. Dean didn’t argue when he pulled into the parking lot, and half an hour after check-in he was crashed out in an armchair.
He looked about as uncomfortable as a sleeping person could be without waking up because of it. Sam left him where he was, threw a blanket over him when the sun dipped down and the crisp night air crept in beneath the motel room door. Dean had been splitting his downtime between the couch and the bed at Bobby’s too, depending on his level of discomfort. Laying flat was a largely overrated experience when you had a chest injury.
He was still snoring in the chair when Sam came in at one in the morning from his pharmaceutical reconnaissance.
Sam woke him, gave him a couple of minutes to decide where he wanted to spend the rest of the night. After a stumbling, assisted relocation to one of the beds, Sam offered him a couple of the swiped Vicodin. Dean was groggy, but insistent. He flatly refused.
“Seriously, man. I’m done with the puke pills. Those things are fucking me up, Sammy.”
Sam sighed, threw the pills onto the bedside table.
Great, Dean. Makes that little burglary of a family business all worthwhile.
**********************************************************************************************
As soon as he backed off the painkillers, the dreams started.
He woke to Sam shaking him; his chest completely seized, fists balled tight in the sheets.
“Dean! Wake up, man. Take a breath.”
Caught somewhere between sleep and waking, Dean lifted a defensive hand, struggled when Sam caught him by the wrist.
“Heyheyhey. Wake up.”
Dean gave the lamp-lit room a sweeping, disoriented survey. Sam clapped a palm to his cheek, brought his wild gaze back to his face.
“Dean, take a breath. Breathe, man.”
He exhaled and his chest loosened, gripped again when he sucked in a ragged lungful of air. It lit up his fractured ribs like the fourth of July, and he grimaced as Sam gently coaxed him up, got him sitting on the side of the bed.
“Come on, sit up. Lean forward.”
Dean palmed the sweat off his forehead, and raked a shaking hand down his face. His heart was hammering high in his chest. He could feel it thumping painfully at the base of his throat. Sam hopped on his haunches, calmly waited him out.
“Goddamn that fuckin’ bitch,” Dean breathed, shook his head. “Holy shit.”
“S’okay, man. It’s gonna happen. Just…hang on a sec.”
Sam got up, and Dean was glad to have him out of his face for a whole lot of reasons, embarrassment being pretty high on the list.
Dude, you had a fucking dream. Pull yourself together.
He fisted his trembling hands, tried to regulate his breathing. He felt spent and hot, like he’d just come off a sprint. Sam returned a second later and crouched in front of him again, pressed a wet washcloth to the back of his neck. It felt good, helped, and it made him feel like a ginormous shit.
Cool cloth to the back of the neck. Why did I never think of this shit when he was bouncing off the back end of a vision?
Sam silently hooked the water off the bedside table and propped it on his knee, waited while Dean’s breathing slowed.
“You alright?” he asked finally, and his voice was easy and low, as if Dean had stubbed his toe. Not freaked out - you giant pussy - in his sleep.
Dean pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezed his eyes shut. “Yeah. Just give me a second here. Sorry, man.”
“Is this about the waitress in Tampa?”
Dean opened his eyes, dropped his hand down between his knees and frowned up into Sam’s twitching smile. Oh, you’re a fuckin’ comedian now?
“She was pretty scary.” Sam was barely suppressing his grin.
Dean huffed off a laugh in spite of himself. “She was, wasn’t she?”
Sam chuckled. Dean snatched the water from him, took a swig.
“You know I did her twice, right?”
And that cracked them both up until Dean choked on his water, and had a coughing fit that nearly broke another rib.
**********************************************************************************************
Dean woke the next morning, muscles stiff as a board and about as sore as he had been since he first got back on his feet at Bobby’s. He had a wrecking ball headache but for the first time in nearly a week, he didn’t feel like he was going to hurl at any moment.
Jo called while he was midway through an enormous plate of scrambled eggs and bacon at the motel diner. He pulled the cell out of his jacket pocket, looked at the caller ID, and had two simultaneously unpleasant realizations.
He’d forgotten to call Jo back, which meant that given her parting comment, he was front runner for Asshole of the Century. And he also couldn’t take the call in front of Sam, which meant he was going to have to stand up.
“Sonuvabitch.”
He spat it out around a mouthful of eggs and toast, and Sam snapped his head up from his pancakes on the other side of the table.
“Who is it?” he demanded, clearly alarmed by Dean’s outburst.
Dean took his time working through his mouthful, pointed at it and rolled his eyes. Stall, stall, stall… He flipped the phone open and barked a “Hang on,” around his eggs to Jo, heard her tinny and outraged Dean! as he pressed the phone against his upper arm. He gave Sam an apologetic grimace and swallowed.
“Some job I had lined up, ‘fore last week. Forgot to call the guy. Be back in a minute.”
Sam watched him carefully slide along the diner seat and pause at the edge. “Dude, don’t get up. Just take the call here. What’s the problem?”
Dean sucked in a breath and stood, bit his lip so he didn’t groan out loud. Just take the fucking puke pills. I am such an ass.
He flapped his hand at Sam. “Oh, this guy’s a real piece of work. This could turn nasty.”
He took a step towards the diner door, and Sam called him back. Dean turned, innocence personified and cell in hand, looked at him expectantly.
“Hmmm?”
“You’re on a cell, Dean. How nasty can it get?”
Dean frowned at him, suddenly pissed. Fuckin’ brainiac.
“What are we? Conjoined? Just…eat your fuckin’ pancakes, Sam. Jesus. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Sam held his knife and fork up in surrender, shook his head. “Okay. Whatever. Christ, don’t freak out.”
Dean hit the diner door hard on his way through it. He’d forgotten to call Jo back, which was unforgivable enough given the circumstances. But it was lying to Sam that was really getting his goat.
It’s temporary, he reminded himself. Just till you get there. Maybe a little longer.
It didn’t make him feel any better. On top of that he was sore and cranky and still waiting for the coffee he had ordered roughly thirty years ago when they had first entered the diner. He ran through a few potential excuses before he put the phone to his ear as he stepped off the curb into the parking lot.
“Jo, I am so sorry. I swear to God, I was gonna call. I am a complete jackass.”
Honesty was always the best policy, right?
“Yes. You are. Oh, my God, Dean. You are such a jackass.”
“I know. I know. Seriously. We’re on our way. We left yesterday. It’s just been…slow going.”
“What? You boys get lost?”
“No. I mean, yes. I mean… we had some car trouble.” He made a face at the asphalt, pressed his fingers against his forehead. Oh, my God. Since when did I stink this bad at lying?
“Holy shit, you crashed the Impala?”
“No, I didn’t crash the Impala,” he snapped. “Nobody’s crashing the Impala.”
He sighed, regrouped. “Look, we just got held up in this stupid town, but we’re leaving after breakfast. We’ll be there in, like, a day and a half. I’ll call you then.”
“Sure,” Jo drawled caustically.
God, he could just about see the look on her face. Bitch.
“Fine, whatever. You call me. I’ll call you. There’ll be calling. Just…don’t do anything stupid ‘til we get there. Okay?”
There was a half minute pause in which Jo appeared to be reserving her right to stupidity in his absence.
“Jo?” he prompted, and he heard her sigh on the other end of the line.
“Okay. But you better call. My right hook’s a helluva lot better than the last time you copped it in the face, Dean.”
He slapped the phone shut, stared at it for a second in frustration.
“So’s mine, you bitch,” he muttered.
When he turned back to the diner, Sam was standing at the window. He tossed his palms upward, motioned Dean back in through the glass.
Dean lifted a hand in acknowledgement, turned back towards the parking lot. He took a couple of deep breaths, palm against the tightness of the stitches in his chest. He needed to take the puke pills. And Sam would go to town on him for being a stubborn ass and not taking them in the first place. Probably for an hour. Maybe two.
It was going to be a really long day. He could tell.
**********************************************************************************************
“This is a bit of a pickle, Dean.”
He tried to lift his head, couldn’t. “Dad?”
There was a rough palm against his cheek. Warm. Familiar. Fingers beneath his chin, tilting his face up. He blinked, tried to focus.
“Your brother’s coming for you.”
Dean felt the tears making slow progress down his cheek to his jaw. “I’m so sorry. Please don’t be mad at me. ”
John smoothed a thick thumb across his cheek, tears mingling with blood against his skin. “I’m not mad at you, kid. You have to hold on a little longer. Don’t you give up on your brother, Dean.”
“I’m so sorry, Dad.”
“Don’t be sorry, Dean. Just hold on.”
Dean closed his eyes. “Dad, please. Please, will you just finish it?” His voice barely a whisper. So tired.
His father’s hands were against his cheeks. “Dean, look at me.”
He forced his eyes open a crack. Saw his request denied in his dad’s grim, intense eyes. “Please, Dad. ‘M ready. Please.”
“Uh-uh. No, you’re not, kiddo. You hang in there. Your brother’s on his way.”
“Sam’s dead.” The words were barbed. Caught in his throat.
“Don’t give up on your brother, Dean.” John smiled at him. It was a soft upturning of the lips. Sad and worried and proud. “I need you to remember something for me, okay?”
“You’re dead.” Dean’s brow creased. “What? Dad, I can’t…”
“Yes, you can, Dean. Dig deep, kid. You’re gonna remember something for me. Not right now, but later.”
“Dad?”
And then his Dad was whispering in his ear, and Dean was thinking: Not more secrets. I can’t carry any more secrets. Why is this fucking family so full of goddamn secrets?
**********************************************************************************************
Dean was dreaming again.
Sam let him go for a few miles. At the best of times, Dean could make a nap look like hard work. He tossed, he turned, had been known to carry on entire conversations whilst snoozing. Sleep just wasn’t his strong suit. For the last twenty miles, it had been his pretty standard fare - a little irregular breathing, general restlessness. Nothing that approached the disturbing performance at the motel in the early hours of the morning.
They needed gas and it was time for a break. Sam’s attention was wandering, and he’d stifled enough yawns to warrant coffee and a leg stretch at the very least. Under normal circumstances they’d grab drinks to go and switch drivers, but Sam had no intention of letting Dean behind the wheel just yet. He’d made it clear before they left Bobby’s that Dean’s options were shotgun or walking. Dean had wisely avoided an argument.
Sam was pulling into the gas station when the map in Dean’s lap crackled, his fingers fisting around it. He tensed, teeth bared and boot heels scraping at the floor of the Impala. Sam killed the engine at the pump and twisted towards his brother.
“Dean.”
Dean’s knee jerked up, face creasing. He choked out “Dad?” and that was enough for Sam. He shot a hand out and tugged hard on Dean’s jacket at the elbow, an unexpected flush of grief warming his own face.
“Dean. Wake up.”
Dean came to with a start, snapping upright and blinking groggily at the glove compartment.
“What?” he grunted.
Sam kicked open his door. “You were dreaming.” About Dad. What were you dreaming about Dad?
Dean wiped his mouth, ran the hand down his jeans. It took him a second to get his bearings.
“Where are we? Is this Missoula?”
“Yeah. You okay?”
Dean rubbed a hand back and forth through his hair. He shook his head a little, as if to clear it.
“We’re in Missoula? How long’ve I been out?”
“Coupla hours. You want coffee? I need coffee.”
Dean nodded, rested his temple against the passenger window. He closed his eyes again.
“You feelin’ okay? Those pills making you sick?”
Dean frowned. “No, man, I’m just tired. Get the damn coffee.”
Sam gassed up and took a piss. Grabbed a couple of sandwiches and two cups of coffee that smelled like jet fuel. When he pre-warned Dean as he handed it over, his brother seemed unperturbed.
Back on I-90, Sam laid out his plan for the rest of the day.
“’Kay, so I figure we head for Kennewick, crash for the night, be in Portland by lunch tomorrow. How’s that sound?”
“We can’t drive straight through?”
“Yeah, we can, but in about three hours you’re gonna be gettin’ sore and cranky and pissing me off. And there’s no fire, so… I’d rather take it slow.”
Dean sipped his coffee, gave Sam an uncharacteristically docile “Okay.”
Sam had planned to keep his mouth shut. He really, really had. But ten miles out of Missoula, he couldn’t help himself.
“You’re pretty quiet, man.”
Dean didn’t look up from the map in his lap. “Well, I don’t mean to be.”
“No. It’s okay. I mean, I’m not - I just… If you need to talk about anything…”
Dean turned his wrist carefully, looked at his watch and grimaced. “Sam…”
“I know. I know. And I’m not pushing. I’m really not. I just want you to know that, you know, if there’s anything you need me to do or say, you just gotta ask and it’s as good as done.”
“I know, Sam.” Dean scratched his nose, huffed off a laugh. “Goddamn it.”
Sam shot him a glance. “What’s so funny?”
Dean squinted at him. “You just lost me fifty bucks.”
“What?”
“Bobby. He had fifty bucks on Missoula.”
“What?”
“Yeah. Sonuvabitch. But hey, credit where credit’s due, Sammy. I didn’t think we were gettin’ outta his driveway without a group hug.”
Chapter Four