"Silence and Cyclones," PG-13 (language), Episode Coda and SPOILERS for 4:01
Title: Silence and Cyclones
Author: SylvanWitch
Rating: PG-13 (language)
Category: Episode Coda and SPOILERS for 4:01, "Lazarus Rising."
Summary: There's nothing to say. Storm's coming.
Author's Note: I guess I'm incapable of watching an ep now without immediate ideas coming into my head for these codas. I have a feeling there's going to be less honest chatter this time around, however, so these might take on a slightly different tone.
Disclaimer: If they were mine, they'd know better than to try to keep secrets. *rolls eyes*
It’s quiet in the Impala.
Not the comfortable quiet they used to have.
Not even the quiet of crappy music tossed casually into the back seat.
No.
This is the biding quiet of the calm before catastrophe, the air leaden like a sky just before the cyclone rips it open.
Sam wants to say, “I love you, but you don’t know me anymore.”
Dean wants to say, “I love you, and I know you to your core.”
Of course, that contributes to the silence.
Lost in his thoughts, each brother pretends he’s told the whole truth, when, in fact, neither is acquainted with that particular bitch anymore.
And besides, she was always over-rated.
Angels, Dean thinks. Bullshit. He holds on to what he recalls of his mother, what her life was like in the moments he can’t quite remember and will never, ever forget. Was there a prayer on her lips at the last?
He thinks the screaming in his head is more like it.
Sam, too, is remembering, but in his case, it’s a different light, though maybe not less infernal. From his palm pours something brilliant that brings in its wake a wave of roiling black vomitus. Sometimes they scream, but more often than not they just flop around like landed bass, volitionless, puppets with their strings cut.
He can’t be proud of it, even if it means he’s killing demons. The pulse he doesn’t feel beneath his fingers means he’s failed.
So many.
And beside him, his brother, who is yet another Sam didn’t save.
Dean breaks the quiet with his fingers tapping against the leather wrapping the wheel, hums something under his breath that’s heavy on the backbeat and hard all over.
In his head, he imagines starting a conversation.
“So, turns out we were wrong about Castiel. He’s an angel. Apparently, I’m on a mission from God.”
But he can’t get the words out. Like when his throat was constricted from too long disuse-or too much screaming (Dean doesn’t like to think too hard about that, no sense stirring up what’s happy to sink)-he can’t seem to make the sounds.
Likewise, Sam sits in his usual seat and says nothing, though he’s thinking, “My powers aren’t evil, Dean. They do good. I kill demons all the time. I can do other things, too. Let me show you.”
For as much as he wants Dean to really see him, though, Sam can’t make it happen. He wonders when he stopped trusting his brother. Then he wonders if he ever really did.
“Yeah,” he says, meaning it.
“What?” Dean shoots him a quizzical look and Sam manages half a smile, the side of his face his brother can see.
“I was just thinking about my security deposit…”
Dean laughs, and though Sam can hear there’s something wrong there, he lets it be, pretending for a minute that things are fine, that he isn’t a phantom now, nor his brother what’s left of a memory he spent his time burying.
“Dude, that Elvis has left the building.”
There’s a different kind of quiet then, like they’re both hearing what Dean just said.
“Dean, did that even make sense?”
“Shut up. And cut me some slack. I was dead for four months. I totally deserve pity points.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’ll be back in fine form in no time. You wait and see. And you know what’ll help me?”
Sam says nothing but knows that Dean can sense the inquiring look.
“Sabbath. What’d you do with my tapes, Sam?”
“Uh…”
“Tell me you didn’t trash them!”
“Uh…”
“It’s a good thing you’re my brother, man, or I’d have to kill you just on principle.”
“Yeah, right, as if you could…”
“Bitch.”
“Jerk.”
Catastrophe’s coming. Already the air is cycling into funnels. But something, anyway, is alright.
It’s what they’ve got for now.
Peace,
SW