Twilight Lace (Gen, G)
Title: Twilight Lace
Rating: G
Category: Gen oneshot
Word Count: 607
Characters: Dean, Sam, OFC
Spoilers: None
Summary: Short wedding fic
Author’s Notes: Thanks to
equinox_blue for her help as always.
Disclaimer: The following characters and situations are used without permission of the creators, owners, and further affiliates of the television show, Supernatural, to whom they rightly belong. I claim only what is mine, and I make no money off what is theirs.
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The mist falls on his skin and covers his eyelashes. He blinks and looks out to the mainland with its lights in the distance, bright little flickers jumbled together in a heap of the city’s chaos. Here, the gazebo glows behind him in the night, and the music, so far away now, is a low hum. When he hears the open-mouthed laughter of his brother, loud and uninhibited, he looks over his shoulder and smiles, but does not return. Not just yet.
He stands at the shoreline, hands in his pockets and feet in black shoes dotted with sand. His bow tie is hanging limply around his neck, and his top three buttons are undone to expose his necklace. The rain is quickening, warm and gentle, and he wonders what Sam will say when he sees the soaked tuxedo. The thought of Sam’s horrified face makes Dean laugh.
He should be going back to be beside his brother on today of all days, but Dean needs this moment of solitude to last a few moments longer. Needs this moment to stand out here in the rain with the island’s floral scents creeping around him on lacey little limbs. Needs to stand with the beach as never-ending blackness around him and listen to the waves as a continuous whisper.
Then he hears someone calling his name, and he turns toward the sound, lifting his head away from the ocean. Water falls from his hair into his eyes to blur his vision as the person comes closer.
Sam, suit still buttoned and pressed, is jogging down the beach with his coat flapping against his sides. When he reaches Dean, he says nothing for a moment. Only looks at his older brother’s disheveled form, absorbing everything that Dean is not saying. Sam’s hair, twisted dark with the rain, is plastered against his temples.
They stand, silent and staring, beside the ocean until Sam steps forward. “I want you there too.”
Dean nods. He has never doubted this through their months of plans and preparations for today. It has never been about Sam choosing Dean or her. Not trading one for the other. But now that the day is here and Sam is married with the vows said aloud, the reality is almost too much. “I know,” Dean tells him. “Just needed to think on my own for a bit.”
Sam smiles, almost sadly, and looks down at Dean whose eyes catch the light of the party. Out here, away from the bustling guests and overdone frills, Sam feels as though he can finally breathe. His wedding is over, and the reception still going; he managed to survive it all.
When he looks up, away from his brother who has been by his side for all these years, he sees a woman, dressed in white, standing on the gazebo steps. Her veil catches in the breeze and billows against her back, but she makes no move to go to Sam and ask why. Ask why his brother had to leave halfway through it all. Ask why her new husband had to go to him. She understands all the reasons.
Dean sees her too, sees her waiting without pushing forward to interrupt, and he rests his hand on Sam’s shoulder and squeezes tightly. Reassuring Sam that yes, he understands. Yes, he accepts it, and more than anything, yes, he approves. Sam grins and says something to make Dean laugh at last. Sam’s moving on in his life, but they will always be brothers. First and foremost. Above everything-everyone-else.
In the rain Sam and he walk back together, side by side.
End