Fic!
Title: Binary Stars
Author: Suninmybones
Rating: Mature
Summary: Sam/Dean. A series of snippets in the boy's lives, all centered around the Impala. She makes them safer than any shotgun or talisman, a home surrounded by layers of metal and leather and oil and sweat.
Dean didn’t ever think that something as tiny as his brother could make sounds as big as these. Sammy’s face is so red Dean thinks steam might start coming out his ears, and his front is soaked with the fat tears and streaks of drool rolling down his face. His little fists are clenched tight and his face is scrunched up so that he looks like a wrinkly, red little raisin.
He does the things he is supposed to do: He checks Sammy's diaper, but he's clean. He tries a bottle, but that goes flying, the nipple popping off and sending milk everywhere. He makes faces, sticks out his tongue, makes monkey sounds, rubs circles with his hand on Sam's tummy in case he doesn't feel good. Sam calms down a little when Dean lays his cheek against Sammy's warm, bare stomach, his tears turning to pitiful whimpering sounds. But that doesn't last long either. Soon he's off again, sounding worse than a fire truck with his wailing.
Sam is supposed to go to sleep a lot, take two naps a day- and Dean thinks this is kind of weird because even when he was almost four instead of almost five like he is now, he only took one nap. He doesn’t take naps anymore, because he has other things to do. But Sammy, who is now eleven months old, still takes two long naps everyday. Dad says it's because Sammy is so little still.
“Christ, Dean, what’s his problem?” Dean turns, still holding his baby brother in his little boy arms, to see his father, scratching at his whiskers, eyes red and grumpy. He takes Sammy from Dean and looks him over with a frown. Sam let loose another round of wailing, and John hands Sammy back to Dean with a grimace of defeat.
"It could be the teething. Are we out of that numbing gel?" Dean bites the inside of his cheek as he searches through the duffel that contains all of Sam's things- two dirty bibs and a semi-clean one, formula, socks, six diapers, a nipple he had already chewed through, and one clean bottle, but no gel. He shakes his head without looking at his Dad.
"Grab yer shoes son." John jerks his head towards the door, grabbing his keys and wallet.
"Yes sir."
Dean fights with Sam to get him in his car seat, one they'd picked up at a Salvation Army when the first one had broken, and within minutes the Impala is rumbling warmly around them. Dean buckles himself in like he's supposed to, and dangles his feet over the seat. Sammy is alternating between screeching and crying big, fat tears, and chewing on his fist. Dean reaches over, pulls the chubby little fist out of Sam's mouth, and Sam immediately latches onto his pointer finger, suckling and gnawing gently.
Dean turns towards Sam so his arm will reach, wrinkling his nose at the feeling of baby drool coating his hand, and watches Sam lose steam to the rhythm of the Impala. His wailing turns to hiccups, and then he's just making these little baby whining sounds.
When Dean asks where they are going next, Dad doesn't answer and instead just says, You'll understand someday, son. But Dean understands now. He understands that their family, him and Dad and Sammy, can't have a house anymore. That they have to keep moving, trying to find the thing that took away their mom. Dad talks to him about it sometimes- that it is a monster, and that Dad has to kill it for Mom. Dean doesn't ever tell him, but it makes Dad sound like the prince, and Dean knows that his Dad will save them like the prince always does.
Dad leaves the radio off, and Dean watches the houses they pass by for a while, filled with other families with little brothers and Dads. And Moms. Some of them have lights on still, silhouettes showing from inside houses that are permanent fixtures in these people's lives.
Dean looks up and sees Sam's eyes are closed, and he has finally stopped crying. Dean closes his heavy eyes too, and hopes Sam won't wake up before him.
From the front, John's eyes find his sons sleeping, and his hands loosen on the wheel, no longer white knuckled. He feels his mouth lift in what seems to be a foreign feeling lately, the tired weight hanging over his body lifting a little as he observes the two beautiful things left in his life. He brings the Impala to a steady, slow cruise, and drives through the darkened streets with the Impala purring around him.
--
The Impala’s bones rattle over another hitch in the road, and they fall and bounce with her, familiar plummet and recovery. Sam and Dean are in the back seat, their carelessly rucked up t-shirts and jeans exposing skin that sticks warmly to her leather. Dean watches the tan dirt and beaten road lines pass by, blurring with the weight of their father’s lead foot. Dean has his legs stretched out over the seat, his side crushed comfortably against the door, and Sammy is pressed against his other side, his legs thrown over Dean's.
Dean sees Sam's mouth lift in a lazy smile, and turns his head. Sam looks up at him, sees the question on Dean's face, and makes a tiny fist, throwing it at Dean's arm.
"Double fives." He laughs, happy that he saw it before Dean did and that he's now ahead in the game. Dean rubs his arm and pretends Sam's got more pack to his punch than he does, rolling his eyes at Sam's victory face.
"Alright, Sam," Dean's voice is warm as the waves rolling off the asphalt. "You win, King Dork."
Sam smells fruity sticky sweet, like the remnants of the popsicle at the corners of his mouth and on his chubby fingers. He moves, because he's sliding off the seat and pushing Dean over with him, and lays his warm curly head on Dean's shoulder, sighing quietly. It's too hot to be so close, but it's too hot to move, so they stay like that and watch the desert move away. Both boys have their eyes trained on the other cars around them, searching their license plates. Neither of them are paying too much attention to the game anymore, the heat softening their muscles and weighting their eyelids.
They watch the road fall away under them, like this constant forward motion is their home.
--
Dean comes awake in the cramped space of the back seat. He can feel Sam's shoulder and elbow digging into his stomach, and it hurts, but he doesn't move. Sam's baby curls are tickling his nose, thick with the smell of him, of sweat, and leather, and the t shirt he is wearing that is Dean's. (Dean could never, ever shake the smell of baby powder from his nose when he was smashed up against Sam- maybe by association, something he could never forget from Sam's diaper years, and Dean thinks it's kind of ridiculous because Sam is twelve now and hasn't been covered in the sneeze-inducing silky powder in years.) He can feel his hand tingling from being crushed under Sam's body where his arm is wrapped around his stomach.
It's dark, except for the streetlights, which pass by at a steady rhythm. Bum. Bum. Bum. He watches the light make the shadows from Sam's eyelashes extend across his cheek and then jump back again, and wishes he could go back to sleep. There's no tape playing, no music at all. Just the whoosh of the cars passing by and the steady breathing coming from Sam.
He looks up and sees his dad staring at him in the rearview mirror. John looks to Sam and his eyes linger on the bigger arm wrapped around him, and Dean's breath gets stuck at the back of his throat. Dean stares back, his pulse fast and thick, daring his father to say anything. He's sixteen years old and he's too big to be in the back seat with Sam, but. Well. It's a whole damn lot more comfortable than the head to foot alternative, and Dean's been sticking to that story for years. Besides, he's not about to subject his nose to the rank smell of Sam's feet. Because that is some serious injustice, even comparatively speaking in reference to the shit they see in their lives everyday.
John looks back to the road with a grimace that passes for one of some sort of discomfort found in the depths of his seat and Dean tucks his head down, avoiding looking up front. Sam shifts, turns inwards so that he is almost facing Dean, his nose brushing across Dean's throat, and he makes a small sleep noise. Dean falls asleep with his nose in Sam's hair, thinking of the first time it was him changing Sam's diapers, because Mom wasn't there to do it and Dad was at the bar with Jack and Jose, and Sammy was crying and somebody had to, right?
--
“Sam, Jesus. Sammy.”
Sam’s fingers grapple clumsily for a grip on the door, his arm bent up and back, his shoulder starting to ache. He digs his heel into the interior, his other pressed hard against the opposite door, his thigh muscles tightening and quivering around Dean, trying to find some purchase in the cramped space. They're both too fucking long for the backseat now.
Dean’s breath is hot against his temple, his open mouth pressed sloppily against Sam’s pulse, as he reaches for that spot-
Dean pushes Sam’s damp bangs away from his forehead, forcing Sam’s head back and exposing his neck. Sammy makes a sound high in his throat, his shallow grunts turning into incoherent babble. Dean turns Sam’s head towards him, their open mouths pressed together as he swipes his tongue across Sam's bottom lip and that makes it impossibly hard to not breathe each other in. The air between them becomes nonexistent in wake of their bodies as Dean rocks in closer, imagines that their ribs have just enough space between them that if he could push further, deeper into Sam, they would interlock together, perfect fit.
“Oh, God, Dean-“
Dean manages to find the head space to grin against Sam's lips and digs his knuckles into his spine, forcing him up off the leather and into Dean, closer, and plants a kiss as damn square as he can get it on Sam's pretty little mouth.
“Not quite Sammy, but I’m glad you feel that way.”
Dean's kinda proud that he can rock Sam's world so hard that Sam can't come up with a witty comeback right then. But later, when Dean's laid up against the car with Sam's head on his chest and the rest of his long self stretched along Dean, and they are cuddling like a couple of girls, Sam reaches up without looking up at Dean and smacks his palm to Dean's forehead.
"Dumbass. No God complexes allowed." Dean can feel Sam's lips smile against his skin.
--
“C’mon, Sammy, C’mon.”
Sam keeps making these terrible grunting noises, sounds like the air's been knocked out of him, or like he's choking on his own blood but Dean is pretty sure- pretty goddamn sure- that that is his imagination.
“Dad, there’s too much blood, I can’t see what I’m doing. Dad, we need a hospital.” Dean can't stop his voice from shaking, but is glad it's his voice and not his hands. Sammy's depending on his hands. But he can't see what he's doing, and damnitfuck. It's too dark in the car and Sam’s middle is just a mess of the shirt he’d been wearing- Dean’s oldest Metallica t-shirt, his favorite for years, but now, now- and his blood. Blood everywhere and it's all Dean can see, all he can smell, and all he can hear in his ears except for Sam. Sammy.
“No, Dean- damnit. You do it yourself, there's not a hospital within sixty goddamn miles of this place.” The Impala's reaching way past her speed meter, too fast on the dark roads they can't see the turns in. Dean clenches his teeth, so full of things he knows he needs to do and unable to do any of them.
He grits his teeth and rips the rest of the shirt away, searching for the ends of the wound, feeling the insides of his brother and shuddering because with all the things he ever wanted with Sam, this kind of intimacy wasn’t one of them.
Sam- Sammy, pleasenoSammySammySammy- come on, boy- look at me- look at me, Sammy- you keep your eyes on me, goddamnit, and you listen to me, Sammy. You stay awake, you hear me? SamSammySammy. His hand slaps messily at his brother's colorless cheek, and he presses his lips to Sam's head, tells him he's fine, he's fine.
He stops the bleeding with a bunch of cursing and praying, one thing he's overly practiced in and another he's never tried before. The stitches are sloppy black lines against the fleshy mess of Sam, but hours later when Dean finally drags the unconscious weight of his brother through a motel room door and lays him out across the bed, he takes another look and thinks for stitching blind, he coulda done a lot worse. And they'll get him to a hospital tomorrow, somewhere clean and professional so right now what Dean's done to hold him together will be okay. It'll be okay for now.
--
Sam clenches his teeth tight, feels them grinding together and imagines grit in them. He hasn't brushed his teeth in... eleven hours? He flexes his hands, knuckles, curling his fingers in and out, in and out, and his knee is bouncing spastically, his legs always too long for this damn car.
He knows he looks angry, but Dean hasn't spared him a glance so looking it isn't doing him much good. But knowing that doesn't help. He's still so pissed he can't see straight. His nails bite into the skin on his palm and he closes his eyes, hopes it will give him perspective.
"Sam, what's got your panties in such a twist?" Dean laughs as he says it, a doggish grin pulling at the gash on his cheek. He turns towards Sam and rests his elbow on the steering wheel- and Sam's seen this a million times, this face, this- Don't worry, Sammy, it's all good, I'm too good to get hurt, I'm too damn good- see, Sammy, see? Dean's got all these balls in the air, and he's always been so damn good at keeping everyone looking at the tricks his hands are doing, so they don't look at anything else. Because he's bright, and people can't help but look at him. But Sam knows where to look to catch the shadows, too see Dean struggling to keep all of the balls in his control, can see the shaking in his hands and the nervous ticks that give away his lies- the way his eyes are always checking for the exits, the doors outta this place.
Sam doesn't answer, his nostrils flare with the breath he tries to let go of slowly. He shakes his head and watches his knuckles whiten.
"C'mon, Sam, what're you so pissed-" He turns flash quick and shoves Dean hard in the chest, knocking him back against the driver's side door and baring his teeth. The grin falls off Dean's face quick and his eyes are wide, searching, looking at Sam and waiting for him to explain. Sam imagines he can hear the juggling balls fall to the circus floor in a tired heap.
He obliges with fury and fear spilling from his pores and his words in waves, in rushes.
"You stupid sonofabitch- goddamnit, Dean- what the hell's the matter with you?" Sam heaves in a breath and shoves at Dean's chest again. Dean's expressions flicker through surprised, then defensive, then a joking consoling mesh and Sam reads it like a story book, complete with color pictures.
"Sammy- Jesus, we had it under control. Dad had me covered, you know that. Besides," He tries to smile a little, his mouth twitching upwards. "was just an angry poltergeist. Nothin' I couldn't'a handled, man."
Sam bites his tongue and digs his palms into his eyes, his skin feeling hot and his heart beating in his skin, pulse, pulse, pulse. Tears he can't stop sting his eyes, fall, and he's angry and humiliated because he's seventeen and he didn't even want to go on this goddamn hunt and- and Dean- he was so close- if Dad hadn't pulled Dean outta the way- he- he'd be- "You knew, Dean, you knew you were supposed to wait for me." He tries to cover up the sob that falls out of him in the middle of his words with a big breath, but it doesn't work and he hates every second of it. He's almost sorry that he started this in the first place. He should've waited until he had his emotions under control a bit, til he could breathe and not imagine Dean on the floor, quiet and so, so quiet because Sam couldn't get there. Sam didn't get there.
It's not like they've never been hurt. Every single one of them has had their fair share of too close, too damn close moments. It's always get better, get up, and move on to the next life threatening situation. But somehow Dean has made it so that it's only okay that him and Dad get the concussions and the broken ribs and the claw marked backs. Not Sam, never Sam. He's old enough to take care of himself now, he's competent in all of the skills a hunter needs, by default, and he can give Dean a run for his money every time they spar, and if he's going to go on a goddamn hunt with his brother and Dean says he's going to wait for Sam to cover him instead of charging in before Sam is in his goddamned position, then Sam expects him to do that. So damn Dean. Goddamnit.
Sam grabs Dean's shirt in his fist and he feels Dean tense under his hand, ready for a fight, for the blow and tangle. Sam thinks of the blood- he's watched Dean lose so much of it over the years, he sometimes wonders how Dean has anymore left in him at all. He hauls Dean up close to him, real close, and Dean's mouth tastes sour sweet when he kisses him, hard, knocks their teeth together like he's desperate enough to kill for this- this first bursting moment of Dean's smell, his taste, the feeling of his mouth and the way his hands clutch wrap around Sam's jaw and his big fingers tangle in Sam's hair. Dean's fingers tug, sending shivers down Sam's neck, down his spine, and he melts, falling into this like a heady drug, his anger not strong enough to make him resist it, and his fear enough to make him hungry for it.
Sam exhales sharply through his nose, Dean's warmth and the evidence of his life spreading through Sam like the sun on his skin. Rough- skinned hands wipe at the tears, warmed to his skin, and Dean's hand follows the salty trail down Sam's jaw, his neck, down to the dip in his collar bone where the moisture is caught. His thumb swipes at it, the blunt of his nail scraping over Sam's skin gently. Dean grabs Sam's leg and hauls it up, around his hips. Sam falls back against the door to compensate, the doorframe hitting him between his shoulder blades painfully. Their mouths make a wet sound as they separate, and heavy breaths fill up the soundspace of the Impala.
Dean covers him, falls onto him, his arms braced against leather on either side of Sam. Sam turns his head to oblige as Dean's teeth scrape over his ear lobe, and he runs his hand up under Dean's shirt, his instincts begging him to touch every part of Dean to make sure it's all there. And he's not surprised by the intensity of that because it's like this every time, this desperation to keep each other close birthing fierce possessiveness in the both of them.
--
Neither of them have solid memories of living in one place for longer than it took to find the next job, or of living somewhere that wasn’t borrowed, paid for with dirty money, or scammed out from under someone. When they remember the places they have been, they remember waving blacktop, gas station pit stops, powdered sugar stinging sweet packaged doughnuts, ambiguous friends of their father who had extra rooms or a cot to throw out. They remember late nights in motel rooms spent whispering, or watching midnight reruns. Training drills, shared toothbrushes and shared colds and shared clothing and shared everything else, the smell of salt and gunpowder and responsibility.
But out of everything they remember- the moving, running things through their lives, ther are four constants: Their father, the Impala, each other, and the changing landscape, every corner teeming with shadowy creatures and whispered legends with more reality to them than the general populace is comfortable exploring.
Their father, obsessed as he was, never once seemed anything less than towering, solid, and immovable. He was the hero of their childhoods, the one who stalked off into the night to save the unsuspecting people of these small, nameless towns. The hero that conquered the serpent, that tore down the giant because he was the only one that could.
The warm, humming thrumming metal and leather of the Impala was more home to them than any other place they had ever lain their heads down. It was a barrier from the darkness of the outside, lit up by streetlights and motel vacancy signs.
Both of them can remember falling down in and out of sleep, cushioned by leather and metal- more secure than any motel with its paper walls and its salted carpets. She makes them safer than any shotgun or talisman, a home surrounded by layers of metal and leather and oil and sweat, where Sam feels safe, safe in the backseat with his brother, and where Dean feels like a family, and invincible, like nothing could touch them.
Sam used to wonder how many times they had passed over this road, this one piece of pavement, back and forth, while miles and miles of road fell under the hungry monster wheels of the Impala that eats it up like nothing, nothing else.
The Impala held every part of their childhood. The parts that they wanted to forget- filled with tension and anger and suffocation- and the parts they didn’t- the warmth of nostalgia, the smell of her interior aged old and perfect. The moments recorded in their lives worth remembering, every single one of them, carved into leather seats and seven mix tapes.
But then. On the cusp of the opportunity to take back their lives, to get the revenge Sam and Dean had been raised on, everything had splintered, fallen apart like a molded book. It took less than ten seconds for everything that had been solid underneath them to come apart at the seems, as breakable as bones.
Crashbang, and the Impala was a few scraps of crushed metal, every preserved memory worth saving smashed with her, irretrievable between the folds and rips of her body.
Crashbang, and their life was reduced to junkyard trash, and then their Dad was laying on the floor, a broken man without light in his eyes anymore, never as invincible as they had made him up to be.
--
The sun is warm on the back of Sam's neck, his skin tingling under the sensation after weeks of overcast, bone cold rain and snow. The last job had kept them busy long enough for the both of them to go a little stir crazy.
He sits cross legged on the ground, the grass still cold under his bare feet, and watches Dean disappear under the hood of his baby again and again, hell bent on finding out where that rattle is coming from. He's still relearning the knots of the new body, where she fits and where she doesn't. His shoulders are relaxed, his hands and his smiles coming easy to Sam, and it makes Sam feel warm more than the sun does.
Sam lays back, turns his head so he can watch Dean's legs step towards the toolbox, and back. Warmth curls in his stomach.
Without realizing it, he thinks adstringo as he looks at his brother. The Latin term for bind.
His years away showed just what it was like to be two separate people, instead of Sam and Dean. SamandDean. What it was like to have his own self, without anyone else involved. What it was like to not be able to fall back on someone without doubt. He had never realized just how dependent he and Dean were on each other until he had left. Until he had woken one night, drenched in sweat and choking on his fear and bile, and Dean wasn't there. He wasn't there because Sam had pushed him away, and it hurt, the absence of his brother, of the other parts of him that he had torn out and left behind.
But he was glad he'd done it. He had found Jessica, he had loved her, and he had killed her. He would get the revenge she deserved. He had realized how he wanted to live, and the only condition he had come up with was not without Dean.
"Sam, hand me that socket wrench by your foot."
He does, and his knuckles knock the blunt end of Dean's fingertips- Dean's got grease under his nails and a nick on his left forefinger, and Sam's fingertips are cold from the condensation of his beer- and Dean smiles at him in thanks.
--
Sam looks like a cat, the long length of his body stretched out on the ground, his arms crossed over his eyes to block the sun, absorbing the warmth while it's there.
It's time to get the kid some new clothes.
Dean stares for a minute, his eyes lingering on the patch of Sam's stomach that's exposed where his shirt has come up with his arms. His stomach is somehow miraculously still darkened by the sun, even after these weeks away from it. Dean's mouth actually waters, and he thinks maybe he can put off getting Sam new clothes for another couple of weeks, if it means he gets to enjoy the view for a little longer.
He can still see the silky edges of the scar where he had stitched Sam up years ago, holding Sam's blood in his hands. He swallows hard and shivers, wants to reach out and touch it, run his fingers over it while he remembers how close Sam has come to being taken away from him, while he remembers how important it is to protect Sammy.
He turns back around, his eyes scanning over the insides of the Impala. She's been doing good for a while now, and he thinks that problem with the starter is finally done being dealt with. There were always a few hitches, even before the accident. After he rebuilt her, those problems had given way to others. But everything worth anything in this life is bound to have a few kinks in it, so he doesn't mind.
"Sam, hand me that socket wrench by your foot."
They are taking a few days off, time to rest after their last case that had taken them nearly a month and a half to deal with. They don't really have anywhere to be, and Dean's a little hungry, so he's thinking they'll make a stop at that grease joint they'd passed by three or four miles back. And maybe he'll grab a place for the night and Dean can pay all the attention to that little patch of tanned stomach that he wants to.
Dean looks past the hood of the Impala to the sun, squinting to watch for clouds, wiping the back of his hand across his forehead. Later, Sam will finally stop laughing at him and reach over to wipe off the grease, above his right eye, that he doesn't know is there.
He looks down at Sam again, bleached spots of light from the sun in his vision, and leans his hand against the warmth of his baby's paint.
--
Sam will never admit it, but he loves the Impala. Loves her almost, he thinks, as much as Dean does.
--