Fic: Isn't it good again, 1/1
Title: Isn't it good again
Genre: gen, h/c
Rating: PG-13 for language
Word Count: ~3,000
Summary: Same 'verse as Swallow the Sky. Dean's got something on his mind. Now if only he would say it.
Warnings: permanently!injured Dean. OCs. Potty mouths.
Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended.
Note (s): 1. Yes, this is a Christmas fic :( Once upon a time (in November) it was a Thanksgiving fic. I can't help it, I'm slowwwwwwwwww. At least I finally wrote something? 2. You don't need to read Swallow the Sky for this one. Just know that Dean sustained a spinal injury at 14. 3: You might notice that Sam and Dean have almost an identical conversation here that they do in He's Come Undone. That's because I actually wrote today's fic first, and later stole the scene because I didn't think I was EVER going to finish this. But then I did finish it, and here it is. Yes, I am a one-trick pony. Enjoy.
Isn’t it good again
by wave obscura
It’s only ten in the morning when Regina knocks, if knocking is what you want to call it. She taps her talon-liked curled-over nails one-by-one against the door, shrieking in her rasping, smoke-rusty voice: “Sammy! Sammy open up, sweetie! Open this door. I brought you boys a treat for Hey-Suess’ birthday! Sammy?”
“Fuck me,” Dean moans from his bed.
Sam emerges from beneath his bedsheets. “Wah?”
“Sam fucking get rid of her. Get rid of her.”
“Sammy? It’s almost noon, honey, it’s time for you boys to be outta bed. It’s Christmas, boys. Sam are you in there? Deanie?”
“Good God.” Sam lets his face fall back into his pillow, echoing Dean’s moan. “She is not fucking for real.”
“Sam,” Dean’s voice is clipped and desperate, “you gotta keep her away from me. I’m serious. Now. Do it now.”
Sam hears the pain in Dean’s voice. He hops out of bed; the blankets tangle around one ankle so he has to jump across the room on one foot.
A mighty plume of cigarette smoke greets him at the door, and Regina smiles her parchment paper smile, the one silver incisor shining in the crisp December sun.
“Hey, Regina. Now’s really not a good--”
“Merry Christmas!” she declares, and holds aloft a paper grocery bag, which she uses to shove Sam out of the way and charge into the room. “Welcome to Hey-Suess’s birthday at the Lovesick Motel, boys! Guess what I’m gonna do, Sammy?”
She pauses.
“What?” Sam says.
“As manager of this here shitbox, I’m gonna give you today, free of charge. For being so handsome. Whaddya think a that?”
They’ve got the room paid up till the end of the month, but Sam smiles and nods anyway. “You’re a helluva landlord, Gina.”
Regina the crazy hotel manager sits at edge of Dean’s bed and pinches one of his toes. “Wake up, Deanie. It’s a holiday.” She shakes the toe once more, looks over at Sam. “Can he feel it when I do this? Can you feel it when I pinch your toe, honeypot?”
Dean stares at her, a look that could be mistaken for grogginess but Sam knows his brother is stabbing her to death inside his head.
“You still hurtin’ real bad, dearest?” she says without waiting for an answer. “Cause you know that mutherfuckin’ junkie bastard Jerry in 233? I can get him to track somethin’ down for you, you know. You shouldn’t be suffering on Christmas Day.”
Finally Dean opens his mouth. “Thanks, Gina, but I have plenty of--”
“Just a muthafuckin’ tragedy,” Regina wails, sweeping one arm in an arc above her head. “Young kid like you. I don’t know what in God’s hell your father was thinking, letting you play near train tracks. Look, here. Maybe this’ll help you feel better.” She reaches into the paper bag, digging for a moment. She smiles wide at Dean, pausing as if for dramatic effect, then holds aloft some kind of multi-colored slop in a pre-packaged plastic bowl.
Dean stares at it a moment. “I have nerve damage, Gina. That doesn’t look very potent.”
Regina laughs like a car that won’t start, only much, much louder. “Such a funny boy, Deanie! It’s a jello parfait, honeypot. My boys loved ‘em when they was younger. Got three flavors of jello, all held together by whipped cream.”
She pronounced her Ws in an aspirated fashion that doesn’t at all match the rest of her speech: “who-whipped cream.”
Sam, who is hanging out by the open door, as if he can suck Regina back outside just by using the power of his mind, clears his throat. “He doesn’t wanna eat, Gina.”
“Pain meds. I’ll puke,” Dean clarifies.
“Puh-shah. Nobody throws up jello parfait. Jello parfait’s good for yah. My Joshie, the little fucker, he wouldn’t eat nothing else till he was in the goddamn sixth grade.”
“Seriously,” Sam says, ushering an invisible person out the front door and trying to look stern. “We’re not celebrating this year.”
“Not celebratin’?” Regina takes a flabbergasted drag off her cigarette, which by now has gone out between her yellowed fingers. “What the fuck do you mean, not celebratin’? Who the hell doesn’t celebrate Christmas?” She stands up. “That’s some goddamn bullshit, if I ever heard some bullshit. I’ll give you two some time to wake up and shower and all that good stuff. I’m gonna go get our ham, okay? I’ll be back.”
Dean sighs, looks as though he might weep. “We’ll see you in a few.”
Regina drops her cigarette butt into the glass of water by his nightstand and smiles down at him. “This is gonna be the best fucking Christmas ever, honeypot. You’ll see.”
Dean keeps his gaze on the ceiling, but forces a smile. “I’m sure.”
“How bad is it?” Sam asks when she’s finally gone.
It’s a stupid question. Dean is lying very still, flat on his back, staring miserably off into space at nothing.
“This is all Dad’s fault,” Sam says bitterly, and it’s so true. For reasons nobody knew, Dean’s pain has been holding him hostage for weeks, and Dad’s grand solution was, like always, to dump them in a pay-by-the-week motel until further notice, with strict orders for Dean to stay on bed rest.
They’d been here for nearly a month, and Regina has taken it upon herself to become their den mother.
“Put on that sweater she gave you,” Dean says, rubbing at his face.
“That thing’s ugly as shit.”
“Wear it anyway.”
“But it has a panda--”
“Sam,” Dean sharply interrupts, in that voice he uses when pain makes him irritable, “I said wear it anyway.”
Sam dutifully pulls on the sweater. “You’re being an ass. Take a pill.”
“It’s getting better.” Dean manages to sit without help, but Sam can see the strain in his face.
“Take it easy today, okay?” he says quietly.
Dean rubs his stomach. “Hungry. What all did Dad leave us?”
Dad always leaves them a collection of scraps, usually a few cans of soup, a box of Dean’s favorite crackers, an apple or two for Sam, a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter. Sam goes to the kitchenette, takes the paper bag out of the cupboard and rummages inside.
“Well,” he says, “Dad won’t be home for Christmas.”
Sam looks over at Dean, who’s rubbing the small of his back. Disappointment flashes over his face. “What makes you think…?”
“He left us a can of sweet potatoes and some marshmallows.”
Dean takes the news with a small, curt nod. “Ham with Regina it is,” he says. “Hey Sam.”
Sam closes the cupboard door. Nobody’s making fucking sweet potato casserole. Not today. “Yeah?”
Dean’s quiet for a minute, like there’s something he really wants to say. “Get me a pill, will ya? And your pillows?”
He trips over a few breaths while Sam stuffs pillows behind his back. Everything’s too quiet. Out of nowhere Sam has a vague memory--he and Dean on Christmas at some chain restaurant off the freeway, telling the waitresses they were waiting for their Dad coming off a truck driving job to have Christmas dinner.
Dad hadn’t shown up that year, either. But Dean wasn’t in pain all the time then, maybe he wasn’t even disabled yet, and Sam had so much hot cocoa he nearly peed his pants on the way home, and there was a tree near their table and some shitty Christmas music and snow outside and glasses and plates clinking and it felt like a holiday.
But not today. Today they were somewhere it never stopped fucking raining.
Dean blows out a puff of air, eases himself into the pillows. “That’s better,” he says. “Thanks.”
“I’m sorry, dude.”
“For what?”
“That this is Christmas.”
Dean shrugs. “At least we get ham.”
Sam nods. He turns on the TV. That fucking Rudolph special is on, the stop-motion one with abominable snowman. “Maybe that’s what Dad’s hunting.”
“Maybe,” Dean says. “Sam. I been thinking.”
“About what?” There’s something in the tone of Dean’s voice that makes Sam nervous. He stares at the TV. The abominable snowman looks tragically unthreatening.
Dean licks his lips. “About May.”
Sam lifts his eyebrows, allows himself some eye contact. “May?”
“Your birthday. Eighteen.” Dean smiles. “You’re gonna be a man. Maybe.”
“Uh huh?”
“Well. You’ll be of age. Which means you don’t have to do…you know. Anymore. If you don’t want.”
Dean gestures vaguely around the room.
“Do what?”
But Sam’s missed his two-second window to figure it out. Dean’s given up whatever it is he wanted to say-- his face has gone blank and he’s guiding his legs off the edge of the bed. His crutches fell at some point during the night; they’re laying crisscrossed on the floor between to the two beds.
Dean looks at them like they’re across the universe. “Hand me those,” he mutters.
Sam retrieves them from the floor. Dean takes a crutch in each hand and goes still again, staring at a spot on the carpet. Something’s bothering him, but Sam knows better than to force it.
“Help me with my braces?” Deans says, sighing. “And pants.”
Wordlessly Sam bends down, pulls the leg braces out from underneath the bed and begins to fiddle with the velcro. Something is definitely up. Of course Dean’s never in love with the idea of needing help--especially not help getting dressed-- but his attitude about isn’t usually so... brooding.
As if he read Sam’s mind, Dean throws his shoulders back and smiles. “Set me up in the kitchen. Casserole’ll go good with the ham.”
Sam groans. “Do we really have to let her back in?”
“It’s Christmas,” Dean says, like Sam is a moron.
Sam locates a pan and drags a chair to the stove so Dean can sit while he cooks. Dean makes his way to the kitchenette, stares for a moment at the supplies, shifting from one crutch to the other. He seems antsy, almost nervous.
“You know what we need?” he says. “Garlic mashed potatoes. Like that one babysitter we had made that one time. ‘Member?”
“No,” Sam says. He furrows his brow pointedly at Dean. “I’ll go. You stay here.”
“Nah,” Dean swings himself toward the front door, “I could use the fresh air. Been days since I left this room.”
“You paid the room yesterday.”
“And what an adventure that was,” Dean snorts. “Come on.”
***
They walk in silence for most the way, Sam still groggy, Dean with his eyes on the treeline, still thinking.
The motel is on the edge of a four-lane boulevard, hugged on each side by what seems like vast and never ending car lots. There’s a market-- a market that probably doeson’t sell potatoes, Sam quickly realizes--on the corner at the other end of the lot, about a quarter mile down the street. It isn’t far but probably farther than Dean should be trying to go.
“You sure you don’t wanna stay here?” Sam asks, one last time.
“I’ll make it,” Dean says.
So they walk. The sidewalk gives way to gravel, and Dean picks his way through, Sam hovering close behind.
“Hey Sammy.”
A car zooms passed so close it makes the hair stand up on Sam’s arms. “What?”
They go a few more paces. Dean keeps his eyes on his feet, which crunch in the gravel. Most of the time he’ll do his best to walk but when the pain is bad he keeps his legs still, or maybe they won’t move, Sam’s never asked, and swings them both forward at the same time.
“What?” Sam says again.
“Before the accident,” Dean begins, and Sam can’t help but cringe.
He doesn’t like to think about it. He was ten years old. He was ten years old and he got to stay in one place for a whole year, and he had friends, and his own bedroom, and Bobby even bought him a Super Nintendo and he didn’t have to share it with anybody, it was all his. And yeah, he missed his big brother but he was ten years old so maybe he didn’t miss him as much as he should. And when Dean finally came home he was using the crutches but always smiling so Sam thought everything was fine again.
Sam was really too young to understand the difference between Before the Accident and After the Accident and what it meant to Dean. Even now, at eighteen, he’s still just beginning to understand, and it’s still so much easier to tell himself that Dean’s had eight years to adjust, that he never wonders what could have been, that he never wishes things were different.
“I’m sorry Dad’s not gonna show,” Sam says, maybe as some sort of deflection. Which is stupid, because Sam can tell by the look on Dean’s face that this is about Dad.
“It ever make you, you know, pissed off?”
“What?”
“That Dad never let you hunt. Cause of what happened to me.”
“No,” Sam answers. “I’m glad.”
“No you’re not.”
“Yeah I am.”
They come to the end of the gravel, back up onto the sidewalk. They’re close enough to the store now to make out the cigarette signs in the front window.
“You think we’d be out hunting with him right now? If I never got hurt?”
Sam sighs. “Maybe it’s a blessing, Dean. Maybe we all woulda been killed by now.”
Dean nods, lets his gaze wander to the horizon again, squinting against the sunlight.
It’s clearly not the answer he was looking for.
***
By some miracle they find a basket of potatoes, between the pre-made sandwiches and the wilted selection of produce. There are too many people in line and Dean breathes hard through his nose, pain and Dad and Christmas making him irritable, Sam can tell.
On the way home they don’t talk, and Sam walks extra slow so Dean won’t try to keep up.
Halfway home Dean veers into one of the lots and lowers himself down onto the hood of one of the cars.
Sam sits next to him. “I wish we could have green bean casserole,” he says stupidly.
“Sam.”
“Yeah.”
Dean picks at some peeling foam on his crutch. They’re old, the crutches, old and dirty and beat up. “Well. Like I said. You’re gonna be eighteen soon, so I been thinking... I been thinking I need to start being a little. You know. More independent.”
“You’re independent,” Sam says automatically. “Yeah, I mean, when your back... but you can’t help that.”
“Can’t expect you to help me outta bed for the rest of my life.”
Sam almost says sure you can but realizes he’s never really thought about it before. And then his brain empties of words. He kicks at the gravel at his feet. The cars rushing by seem louder now. Much louder.
Dean shifts. “Maybe you’ll wanna. I don’t know. Go to college or something.”
Sam blinks. “What?”
“What I’m trying to say is,” Dean says in a rush of air, “I want a wheelchair.”
So that’s what he’s been trying to say all morning. Sam sighs a little in relief. This is an easy one. He can answer this one. “So we’ll get you a wheelchair.”
“Not for all the time. Just... for days like this, you know?”
“I know, no, yeah, Dean, you should, you totally should-- it’d be good for you. On days like this.”
Dean’s silent, concentrating a little too hard on his crutch, picking at the foam.
“You’re worried about what Dad’s gonna say.”
Dean says nothing, doesn’t make eye contact with Sam, but swallows hard.
“This is nothing you did, Dean. He’ll understand.”
But even as the words are coming out of Sam’s mouth he’s not sure if it’s true. Dad comes down hard on Dean to take it easy, stay in bed, don’t over do it, keep off your feet, now that his painful episodes are lasting longer, and longer. But they never talk about it. Dad’s never actually came out and said you destroyed your own back, Dean.
“It doesn’t matter,” Sam says, “it doesn’t matter what he thinks. You need-- you want a wheelchair, you should have a wheelchair.”
“I get by okay without one.”
“I know. But still. You should have one.”
“How the fuck am I gonna pay for it?”
“We’ll get insurance somewhere. Dean--”
Sam’s interrupted by honking; an old Buick swings abruptly to the side of the road. Regina thrusts the entire top half of her body out the car window, waving her cigarette at them like a baton. “Boys! Boys what’re you doing just sittin’ there? Get in the car, we’ll give you a ride back. Get in the car, come on, come on boys get the hell in this car.”
Sam and Dean share a private eye roll, and Sam offers an arm so his brother can haul himself up. “You want me to get rid of her?”
“Yeah, because you did so well last time.”
“Shaddup. You want me to?”
Dean shakes his head, crutches forward. “She means well, right? She means well. That’s what I keep telling myself. She means well.”
They inch toward the waiting car. Sam stays at Dean’s shoulder. His brother seems lighter now, like a burden's off his back.
“We’ll get you wheelchair,” Sam repeats, low so only they can hear. “I’ll start researching tomorrow.”
Dean snorts, grinning. “‘Course you will.”
Gina arms swing wide like she’s trying to flag down a fucking airplane. “Sammy! You’re wearin’ my sweater! Ain’t that panda the cutest?”
“Yeah Gina.” He hovers at the passenger door to make sure Dean gets in alright, then runs around to the other side. A man he’s never seen before is at the wheel.
“This is Frank, honey,” Gina says. “Frank, this is Sam and Dean, and lemme tell you somethin’ they’re the goddamn cutest pair a brothers, and Frank, well Frank’s a no good goddamn sleezy fuckin’ used car salesman, but there ain’t a more honorable--”
Sam tunes out. He leans back and closes his eyes.
Maybe Dean’s right. Maybe he’ll want to go off to college someday. Maybe life won’t always be back pain and sweet potato casserole and shitty motels.
But right now he doesn’t want to think about it. Gina’s yacking away, Jiggle Bells is sounding tinnily from the blown-out speakers and the whole car is thick with the savory-sweet smell of glazed ham.
It feels like a holiday.
:::
The end.
Genre: gen, h/c
Rating: PG-13 for language
Word Count: ~3,000
Summary: Same 'verse as Swallow the Sky. Dean's got something on his mind. Now if only he would say it.
Warnings: permanently!injured Dean. OCs. Potty mouths.
Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended.
Note (s): 1. Yes, this is a Christmas fic :( Once upon a time (in November) it was a Thanksgiving fic. I can't help it, I'm slowwwwwwwwww. At least I finally wrote something? 2. You don't need to read Swallow the Sky for this one. Just know that Dean sustained a spinal injury at 14. 3: You might notice that Sam and Dean have almost an identical conversation here that they do in He's Come Undone. That's because I actually wrote today's fic first, and later stole the scene because I didn't think I was EVER going to finish this. But then I did finish it, and here it is. Yes, I am a one-trick pony. Enjoy.
Isn’t it good again
by wave obscura
It’s only ten in the morning when Regina knocks, if knocking is what you want to call it. She taps her talon-liked curled-over nails one-by-one against the door, shrieking in her rasping, smoke-rusty voice: “Sammy! Sammy open up, sweetie! Open this door. I brought you boys a treat for Hey-Suess’ birthday! Sammy?”
“Fuck me,” Dean moans from his bed.
Sam emerges from beneath his bedsheets. “Wah?”
“Sam fucking get rid of her. Get rid of her.”
“Sammy? It’s almost noon, honey, it’s time for you boys to be outta bed. It’s Christmas, boys. Sam are you in there? Deanie?”
“Good God.” Sam lets his face fall back into his pillow, echoing Dean’s moan. “She is not fucking for real.”
“Sam,” Dean’s voice is clipped and desperate, “you gotta keep her away from me. I’m serious. Now. Do it now.”
Sam hears the pain in Dean’s voice. He hops out of bed; the blankets tangle around one ankle so he has to jump across the room on one foot.
A mighty plume of cigarette smoke greets him at the door, and Regina smiles her parchment paper smile, the one silver incisor shining in the crisp December sun.
“Hey, Regina. Now’s really not a good--”
“Merry Christmas!” she declares, and holds aloft a paper grocery bag, which she uses to shove Sam out of the way and charge into the room. “Welcome to Hey-Suess’s birthday at the Lovesick Motel, boys! Guess what I’m gonna do, Sammy?”
She pauses.
“What?” Sam says.
“As manager of this here shitbox, I’m gonna give you today, free of charge. For being so handsome. Whaddya think a that?”
They’ve got the room paid up till the end of the month, but Sam smiles and nods anyway. “You’re a helluva landlord, Gina.”
Regina the crazy hotel manager sits at edge of Dean’s bed and pinches one of his toes. “Wake up, Deanie. It’s a holiday.” She shakes the toe once more, looks over at Sam. “Can he feel it when I do this? Can you feel it when I pinch your toe, honeypot?”
Dean stares at her, a look that could be mistaken for grogginess but Sam knows his brother is stabbing her to death inside his head.
“You still hurtin’ real bad, dearest?” she says without waiting for an answer. “Cause you know that mutherfuckin’ junkie bastard Jerry in 233? I can get him to track somethin’ down for you, you know. You shouldn’t be suffering on Christmas Day.”
Finally Dean opens his mouth. “Thanks, Gina, but I have plenty of--”
“Just a muthafuckin’ tragedy,” Regina wails, sweeping one arm in an arc above her head. “Young kid like you. I don’t know what in God’s hell your father was thinking, letting you play near train tracks. Look, here. Maybe this’ll help you feel better.” She reaches into the paper bag, digging for a moment. She smiles wide at Dean, pausing as if for dramatic effect, then holds aloft some kind of multi-colored slop in a pre-packaged plastic bowl.
Dean stares at it a moment. “I have nerve damage, Gina. That doesn’t look very potent.”
Regina laughs like a car that won’t start, only much, much louder. “Such a funny boy, Deanie! It’s a jello parfait, honeypot. My boys loved ‘em when they was younger. Got three flavors of jello, all held together by whipped cream.”
She pronounced her Ws in an aspirated fashion that doesn’t at all match the rest of her speech: “who-whipped cream.”
Sam, who is hanging out by the open door, as if he can suck Regina back outside just by using the power of his mind, clears his throat. “He doesn’t wanna eat, Gina.”
“Pain meds. I’ll puke,” Dean clarifies.
“Puh-shah. Nobody throws up jello parfait. Jello parfait’s good for yah. My Joshie, the little fucker, he wouldn’t eat nothing else till he was in the goddamn sixth grade.”
“Seriously,” Sam says, ushering an invisible person out the front door and trying to look stern. “We’re not celebrating this year.”
“Not celebratin’?” Regina takes a flabbergasted drag off her cigarette, which by now has gone out between her yellowed fingers. “What the fuck do you mean, not celebratin’? Who the hell doesn’t celebrate Christmas?” She stands up. “That’s some goddamn bullshit, if I ever heard some bullshit. I’ll give you two some time to wake up and shower and all that good stuff. I’m gonna go get our ham, okay? I’ll be back.”
Dean sighs, looks as though he might weep. “We’ll see you in a few.”
Regina drops her cigarette butt into the glass of water by his nightstand and smiles down at him. “This is gonna be the best fucking Christmas ever, honeypot. You’ll see.”
Dean keeps his gaze on the ceiling, but forces a smile. “I’m sure.”
“How bad is it?” Sam asks when she’s finally gone.
It’s a stupid question. Dean is lying very still, flat on his back, staring miserably off into space at nothing.
“This is all Dad’s fault,” Sam says bitterly, and it’s so true. For reasons nobody knew, Dean’s pain has been holding him hostage for weeks, and Dad’s grand solution was, like always, to dump them in a pay-by-the-week motel until further notice, with strict orders for Dean to stay on bed rest.
They’d been here for nearly a month, and Regina has taken it upon herself to become their den mother.
“Put on that sweater she gave you,” Dean says, rubbing at his face.
“That thing’s ugly as shit.”
“Wear it anyway.”
“But it has a panda--”
“Sam,” Dean sharply interrupts, in that voice he uses when pain makes him irritable, “I said wear it anyway.”
Sam dutifully pulls on the sweater. “You’re being an ass. Take a pill.”
“It’s getting better.” Dean manages to sit without help, but Sam can see the strain in his face.
“Take it easy today, okay?” he says quietly.
Dean rubs his stomach. “Hungry. What all did Dad leave us?”
Dad always leaves them a collection of scraps, usually a few cans of soup, a box of Dean’s favorite crackers, an apple or two for Sam, a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter. Sam goes to the kitchenette, takes the paper bag out of the cupboard and rummages inside.
“Well,” he says, “Dad won’t be home for Christmas.”
Sam looks over at Dean, who’s rubbing the small of his back. Disappointment flashes over his face. “What makes you think…?”
“He left us a can of sweet potatoes and some marshmallows.”
Dean takes the news with a small, curt nod. “Ham with Regina it is,” he says. “Hey Sam.”
Sam closes the cupboard door. Nobody’s making fucking sweet potato casserole. Not today. “Yeah?”
Dean’s quiet for a minute, like there’s something he really wants to say. “Get me a pill, will ya? And your pillows?”
He trips over a few breaths while Sam stuffs pillows behind his back. Everything’s too quiet. Out of nowhere Sam has a vague memory--he and Dean on Christmas at some chain restaurant off the freeway, telling the waitresses they were waiting for their Dad coming off a truck driving job to have Christmas dinner.
Dad hadn’t shown up that year, either. But Dean wasn’t in pain all the time then, maybe he wasn’t even disabled yet, and Sam had so much hot cocoa he nearly peed his pants on the way home, and there was a tree near their table and some shitty Christmas music and snow outside and glasses and plates clinking and it felt like a holiday.
But not today. Today they were somewhere it never stopped fucking raining.
Dean blows out a puff of air, eases himself into the pillows. “That’s better,” he says. “Thanks.”
“I’m sorry, dude.”
“For what?”
“That this is Christmas.”
Dean shrugs. “At least we get ham.”
Sam nods. He turns on the TV. That fucking Rudolph special is on, the stop-motion one with abominable snowman. “Maybe that’s what Dad’s hunting.”
“Maybe,” Dean says. “Sam. I been thinking.”
“About what?” There’s something in the tone of Dean’s voice that makes Sam nervous. He stares at the TV. The abominable snowman looks tragically unthreatening.
Dean licks his lips. “About May.”
Sam lifts his eyebrows, allows himself some eye contact. “May?”
“Your birthday. Eighteen.” Dean smiles. “You’re gonna be a man. Maybe.”
“Uh huh?”
“Well. You’ll be of age. Which means you don’t have to do…you know. Anymore. If you don’t want.”
Dean gestures vaguely around the room.
“Do what?”
But Sam’s missed his two-second window to figure it out. Dean’s given up whatever it is he wanted to say-- his face has gone blank and he’s guiding his legs off the edge of the bed. His crutches fell at some point during the night; they’re laying crisscrossed on the floor between to the two beds.
Dean looks at them like they’re across the universe. “Hand me those,” he mutters.
Sam retrieves them from the floor. Dean takes a crutch in each hand and goes still again, staring at a spot on the carpet. Something’s bothering him, but Sam knows better than to force it.
“Help me with my braces?” Deans says, sighing. “And pants.”
Wordlessly Sam bends down, pulls the leg braces out from underneath the bed and begins to fiddle with the velcro. Something is definitely up. Of course Dean’s never in love with the idea of needing help--especially not help getting dressed-- but his attitude about isn’t usually so... brooding.
As if he read Sam’s mind, Dean throws his shoulders back and smiles. “Set me up in the kitchen. Casserole’ll go good with the ham.”
Sam groans. “Do we really have to let her back in?”
“It’s Christmas,” Dean says, like Sam is a moron.
Sam locates a pan and drags a chair to the stove so Dean can sit while he cooks. Dean makes his way to the kitchenette, stares for a moment at the supplies, shifting from one crutch to the other. He seems antsy, almost nervous.
“You know what we need?” he says. “Garlic mashed potatoes. Like that one babysitter we had made that one time. ‘Member?”
“No,” Sam says. He furrows his brow pointedly at Dean. “I’ll go. You stay here.”
“Nah,” Dean swings himself toward the front door, “I could use the fresh air. Been days since I left this room.”
“You paid the room yesterday.”
“And what an adventure that was,” Dean snorts. “Come on.”
***
They walk in silence for most the way, Sam still groggy, Dean with his eyes on the treeline, still thinking.
The motel is on the edge of a four-lane boulevard, hugged on each side by what seems like vast and never ending car lots. There’s a market-- a market that probably doeson’t sell potatoes, Sam quickly realizes--on the corner at the other end of the lot, about a quarter mile down the street. It isn’t far but probably farther than Dean should be trying to go.
“You sure you don’t wanna stay here?” Sam asks, one last time.
“I’ll make it,” Dean says.
So they walk. The sidewalk gives way to gravel, and Dean picks his way through, Sam hovering close behind.
“Hey Sammy.”
A car zooms passed so close it makes the hair stand up on Sam’s arms. “What?”
They go a few more paces. Dean keeps his eyes on his feet, which crunch in the gravel. Most of the time he’ll do his best to walk but when the pain is bad he keeps his legs still, or maybe they won’t move, Sam’s never asked, and swings them both forward at the same time.
“What?” Sam says again.
“Before the accident,” Dean begins, and Sam can’t help but cringe.
He doesn’t like to think about it. He was ten years old. He was ten years old and he got to stay in one place for a whole year, and he had friends, and his own bedroom, and Bobby even bought him a Super Nintendo and he didn’t have to share it with anybody, it was all his. And yeah, he missed his big brother but he was ten years old so maybe he didn’t miss him as much as he should. And when Dean finally came home he was using the crutches but always smiling so Sam thought everything was fine again.
Sam was really too young to understand the difference between Before the Accident and After the Accident and what it meant to Dean. Even now, at eighteen, he’s still just beginning to understand, and it’s still so much easier to tell himself that Dean’s had eight years to adjust, that he never wonders what could have been, that he never wishes things were different.
“I’m sorry Dad’s not gonna show,” Sam says, maybe as some sort of deflection. Which is stupid, because Sam can tell by the look on Dean’s face that this is about Dad.
“It ever make you, you know, pissed off?”
“What?”
“That Dad never let you hunt. Cause of what happened to me.”
“No,” Sam answers. “I’m glad.”
“No you’re not.”
“Yeah I am.”
They come to the end of the gravel, back up onto the sidewalk. They’re close enough to the store now to make out the cigarette signs in the front window.
“You think we’d be out hunting with him right now? If I never got hurt?”
Sam sighs. “Maybe it’s a blessing, Dean. Maybe we all woulda been killed by now.”
Dean nods, lets his gaze wander to the horizon again, squinting against the sunlight.
It’s clearly not the answer he was looking for.
***
By some miracle they find a basket of potatoes, between the pre-made sandwiches and the wilted selection of produce. There are too many people in line and Dean breathes hard through his nose, pain and Dad and Christmas making him irritable, Sam can tell.
On the way home they don’t talk, and Sam walks extra slow so Dean won’t try to keep up.
Halfway home Dean veers into one of the lots and lowers himself down onto the hood of one of the cars.
Sam sits next to him. “I wish we could have green bean casserole,” he says stupidly.
“Sam.”
“Yeah.”
Dean picks at some peeling foam on his crutch. They’re old, the crutches, old and dirty and beat up. “Well. Like I said. You’re gonna be eighteen soon, so I been thinking... I been thinking I need to start being a little. You know. More independent.”
“You’re independent,” Sam says automatically. “Yeah, I mean, when your back... but you can’t help that.”
“Can’t expect you to help me outta bed for the rest of my life.”
Sam almost says sure you can but realizes he’s never really thought about it before. And then his brain empties of words. He kicks at the gravel at his feet. The cars rushing by seem louder now. Much louder.
Dean shifts. “Maybe you’ll wanna. I don’t know. Go to college or something.”
Sam blinks. “What?”
“What I’m trying to say is,” Dean says in a rush of air, “I want a wheelchair.”
So that’s what he’s been trying to say all morning. Sam sighs a little in relief. This is an easy one. He can answer this one. “So we’ll get you a wheelchair.”
“Not for all the time. Just... for days like this, you know?”
“I know, no, yeah, Dean, you should, you totally should-- it’d be good for you. On days like this.”
Dean’s silent, concentrating a little too hard on his crutch, picking at the foam.
“You’re worried about what Dad’s gonna say.”
Dean says nothing, doesn’t make eye contact with Sam, but swallows hard.
“This is nothing you did, Dean. He’ll understand.”
But even as the words are coming out of Sam’s mouth he’s not sure if it’s true. Dad comes down hard on Dean to take it easy, stay in bed, don’t over do it, keep off your feet, now that his painful episodes are lasting longer, and longer. But they never talk about it. Dad’s never actually came out and said you destroyed your own back, Dean.
“It doesn’t matter,” Sam says, “it doesn’t matter what he thinks. You need-- you want a wheelchair, you should have a wheelchair.”
“I get by okay without one.”
“I know. But still. You should have one.”
“How the fuck am I gonna pay for it?”
“We’ll get insurance somewhere. Dean--”
Sam’s interrupted by honking; an old Buick swings abruptly to the side of the road. Regina thrusts the entire top half of her body out the car window, waving her cigarette at them like a baton. “Boys! Boys what’re you doing just sittin’ there? Get in the car, we’ll give you a ride back. Get in the car, come on, come on boys get the hell in this car.”
Sam and Dean share a private eye roll, and Sam offers an arm so his brother can haul himself up. “You want me to get rid of her?”
“Yeah, because you did so well last time.”
“Shaddup. You want me to?”
Dean shakes his head, crutches forward. “She means well, right? She means well. That’s what I keep telling myself. She means well.”
They inch toward the waiting car. Sam stays at Dean’s shoulder. His brother seems lighter now, like a burden's off his back.
“We’ll get you wheelchair,” Sam repeats, low so only they can hear. “I’ll start researching tomorrow.”
Dean snorts, grinning. “‘Course you will.”
Gina arms swing wide like she’s trying to flag down a fucking airplane. “Sammy! You’re wearin’ my sweater! Ain’t that panda the cutest?”
“Yeah Gina.” He hovers at the passenger door to make sure Dean gets in alright, then runs around to the other side. A man he’s never seen before is at the wheel.
“This is Frank, honey,” Gina says. “Frank, this is Sam and Dean, and lemme tell you somethin’ they’re the goddamn cutest pair a brothers, and Frank, well Frank’s a no good goddamn sleezy fuckin’ used car salesman, but there ain’t a more honorable--”
Sam tunes out. He leans back and closes his eyes.
Maybe Dean’s right. Maybe he’ll want to go off to college someday. Maybe life won’t always be back pain and sweet potato casserole and shitty motels.
But right now he doesn’t want to think about it. Gina’s yacking away, Jiggle Bells is sounding tinnily from the blown-out speakers and the whole car is thick with the savory-sweet smell of glazed ham.
It feels like a holiday.
:::
The end.