(no subject)
Untitled
by whereupon
Sam/Dean. Season one, PG-13, 2,484 words.
Wish today was just like every other day.
They were once more into the flatlands, adrift upon blacktop tributaries that threaded one after another towards the heart of the country before twisting out for long stretches onto storm-spattered plains. These were lulling days, dangerously so; during the quiescent slump of afternoon, Sam sometimes worried that he would get used to them, that it would become difficult to move on. That hadn't yet happened, however, and a cynical, if realistic, part of him acknowledged that it was unlikely ever to; evil always resurfaced, always drew them on, had them hell-bent and white-knuckled carving yet another ley line towards time-forgotten towns that looked anonymous but were afterwards distinguishable by numbers of lives lost, lives saved.
But they were still here, for now, and when Dean shoved the newspaper at Sam, nearly upsetting Sam's coffee in the process, Sam raised his eyebrows rather than looking at the page. "What is it?"
Dean rattled the newspaper at him but answered anyway. "They got a drive-in."
"So? You've been to drive-ins before," Sam pointed out.
"They're like roller coasters, you can go to 'em a million times," Dean said, as though it should have been obvious.
Sam took a sip of coffee. "You hate roller coasters."
"No, I don't," Dean said defensively, narrowing his eyes. He hated them for the same reason he hated planes. "Drink your damn mermaid coffee."
"I'm trying to," Sam said, curling his hand protectively around the paper cup in case Dean tried to knock it over again and ducking his head in order to get a look at the advertisement's featured films before Dean stole the page back in order to finish the crossword.
His feet bumped his brother's beneath the table as he leaned back in his chair and contemplated a night spent watching monster movies in the Impala with Dean. They could much more easily watch horror movies from the comfort of their rented room, especially since they spent most of their time in the Impala hunting real monsters, but there was a lure to the idea of being suspended in the black of the night by the flickering movie-screen, arguing with Dean about b-movie logic. Perhaps Dean's excitement was contagious. Sam took another sip of coffee and watched the way his brother's teeth pressed into his lower lip as the pen scratched across newsprint.
In Dean's fighter-pilot hands the Impala arced smoothly into the lot. They had their pick of parking slots; the majority of the locals, it seemed, had already seen the movies (though really, who hadn't), knew something they didn't, or just had better things to do with their time. Sam privately could not think of a better way to spend the next few hours, but he was aware that much of the population was delusional when it came to things like this.
The snack bar was closed, the shades pulled down over its windows, and Sam was somewhat disappointed despite himself; he'd wanted popcorn. Dean reached into the backseat and extracted a box of red licorice from a plastic bag with a convenience store logo; Sam graciously accepted it in lieu. There was a bottle of whiskey between them and he could hear the white noise of dopplering car engines in the distance. Onscreen Bruce Campbell's Oldsmobile rolled up towards the mountains of Tennessee.
"I haven't seen this in years," Sam said, and immediately realized he was wrong. It had played on the muted television in the room just outside of Gulfport, where he'd given himself a migraine trying to decipher a Dark Ages text dealing ostensibly with werewolves. Dean had made fun of him at first; they hadn't even been hunting a werewolf, so the information hadn't exactly been vital. But then he'd put a glass of water and two pills on the nightstand and moved the laptop off of the bed so that he could sit beside Sam, who recalled the rest of that evening now as a snatch of sensations: a long stretch of being vaguely aware that his head hurt, Dean's profile silhouetted by the light of the television screen, Dean's shoulder against his. He thought he might have fallen asleep against Dean, but he'd woken up beneath the blankets, with his boots off, and he wasn't about to ask. He took it as a measure of his brother's affection for him that Dean hadn't ever brought it up.
"I watched it with Dad once while you were gone," Dean said. "Wasn't the same." Sam chose to believe he meant that it hadn't been the same because Sam hadn't been there, not because John had been.
"We've never hunted a tree demon," Sam said, gazing at the screen. He hoped to keep it that way.
"We killed that thing outside'a Nashville with a chainsaw, though," Dean said. Sam had broken three ribs in the process, had given Dean a black eye for taking such a stupid risk. They'd ridden out of there with their lives held close; they'd very nearly not ridden out of there at all.
Sam tilted his head in acknowledgment, though not surrender. "Life imitates art?"
"Nah, it's the other way around," Dean said. "They tell stories about guys like us."
"Yeah, to keep kids in school," Sam said dryly, to watch the flash of Dean's eyes. "To keep 'em off the streets at night."
"They tell 'em around campfires," Dean said. "All the kids go to bed wishin' they could be heroes."
"They tell 'em in bars," Sam countered. "They make 'em into dirty jokes."
"Dirty, yeah, jokes, hell no," Dean said, and Sam grinned. The bottle of whiskey was empty, nestled in the footwell. He nudged it with his boot when he stretched. He craved suddenly a cigarette, not so much the nicotine but the smolder illuminated between his fingers, the shadows it threw, the exhale made into ritual. He couldn't remember the last time he'd smoked. He thought he might have bummed a cigarette off somebody down the hall junior year. He popped the latch of the glove compartment; Dean used to keep a packet in there against emergencies, the way other people kept a snow brush beneath the seat or a spare tire in the back. Dean had all of those things, too; like any good hero, he was prepared for any emergency. He'd once MacGyvered his way out of police lockup using only a paper clip, though he'd had Sam's help with that one.
"Here, wait a second," Dean said, turning in his seat. The heel of his hand skimmed briefly against Sam's shoulder as he reached once more into the backseat. Sam heard the rustle of plastic and then Dean proffered a shrink-wrapped pack.
"Dude," Sam said at the miracle of his brother. "Coincidence or luck?"
"Neither," Dean said. "I know you."
"So, fate," Sam said. Dean fished a lighter out of his pocket and Sam held out a cigarette, used it to light another before handing the first to Dean.
"What are we, star-crossed?" Dean said. "I think the argument here's psychology. Skinner's rat box."
"Pavlov," Sam said. "Or maybe you just love me. What else'd you get?"
"Jesus, you're greedy," Dean said. "Maybe that was everything. Count your blessings. Good things come to those who wait."
"Anything seems good to somebody who's waited long enough," Sam said.
"See, psychology, like I said." Dean took a drag from his cigarette and looked back at the screen. A few minutes later, he turned in time to catch Sam staring at him, and smirked victorious. Their victories were always shared; from the backseat he produced another bottle of Jack and Sam thought, and thou, beside me singing in the wilderness.
The credits were rolling, but Sam wasn't sure which movie they were for; he couldn't remember how long he and Dean had been there. A couple of hours, at least. It seemed like he could have been forever here with Dean, slipping cigarettes and passing bottles with a thrill that felt illicit. They were the stuff of legends, old as myth. Sam couldn't recall ever being happier, and though he thought Dean already knew, he didn't dare let him see. He drew the line at providing visual confirmation; Dean held more than enough sway over him, and had more than enough ammunition to remind him. Dean knew all of his secrets, all of his cards and his tells. Dean knew his birthday, his nightmares, his favorite color. Once Dean had gone to his knees before him in the men's room of a gas station in the Adirondacks; Sam remembered trying not to make any noise, remembered the precise texture of the faded cotton of his brother's shirt, remembered the cracked tile beneath the splayed flats of his hands as Dean rendered his thoughts staccato, short-burst transmissions. Dean loved him more than anything, more than life itself; Sam was on to him.
Dean handed the bottle back to him and Sam raised it to his mouth, about to take a swallow when Dean opened the door and got out of the car. Sam's fingers twined around the mouth of the bottle as he set it carefully down; though he didn't know where Dean was going, he would follow his brother anywhere, hell or heaven. He was surprised to realize that theirs was the only car left in the lot. "The movie's still playing," he said. Dean was leaning against the front of the hood, head tipped back. Wind slipped lightly across the back of Sam's neck.
"Credits don't count," Dean said. Sam went over to him; his eyes were closed. He opened them and looked at Sam. "'sides, we've seen 'em like a thousand times. Maybe more."
"Probably more," Sam agreed. They had a history, he and Dean. They had watched entirely too many horror movies in entirely too many motel rooms. He could practically recite all of The Shining; at college once it had proved to be a useful skill.
"Watch the stars, Sammy," Dean said, tipping his head back once more. Sam was enthralled by the line of his throat, but he obliged his brother, bumping up beside him against the cool metal. The eloquent distance of the stars made him cross-eyed, made him dizzy. Either they were receding, or he was; he couldn't remember which it was, so he closed his eyes and let himself be anchored by the physicality of Dean, who always knew where he himself was; since Sam defined himself by his proximity to Dean, that was enough. Dean was essentially Sam's cartography incarnate. He was an avenger in renegade disguise.
Sam drowsed there, content, indolent beside his brother, one hand on the glossy chrome curve of the bumper for balance. He was aware when Dean turned to look at him; he was aware of Dean looking at him, and he was aware of Dean's hand slipping under his shirt to rest hot and steady against the plane of his stomach. "You're missin' out," Dean said sometime later, and Sam blinked awake.
"On what," he said. Dean's hand was still on his stomach. His brother did that sometimes; he had this way of twisting in where Sam didn't expect him, of slipping past Sam's boundaries, edging in through alleyways, past sentries, a thief adroit. Dean broke all of his laws, but Sam didn't mind; as far as he was concerned, he was fair game for Dean. For him Dean had broken every kind of law for as long as he could remember.
"It's a real, it's a beautiful fuckin' night," Dean said, sounding half-asleep, and in the dying light of the drive-in screen, his color was high, his face all planes and curves and shadows shifting. Sam made a small noise in his throat, not quite agreement. He got his hands on the collar of Dean's shirt and used it to drag Dean closer; they stumbled together, knocked off-balance and not minding. Their aim was terrible at first; they were a collision of mouths and chins and noses. They kissed sloppy, and deep, and perfect. The short hairs at the nape of Dean's neck pricked at Sam's fingers. The sky was clouded with angels and crows' wings and the bones of foreign gods shifted underfoot. Dean was leaning into Sam, one hand in Sam's back pocket. An engine revved somewhere in the distance, tires squealing, racing out fast into the great sprawl of night. Dean rested his forehead against Sam's shoulder and breathed against the hollow of Sam's throat. They would sleep in the car and wake to sunrise.
Tethered, grounded once more in the morning, by the morning, they drove quietly back to the motel, the Impala creeping out-of-place down streets still closed with the hour. Sam's eyes ached vaguely with the beginning of a hangover and he knew that if Dean said something, or he did, they'd bristle and snipe at each other within minutes. They slept beneath yesterday's sheets in the safety of their room. The cold dregs of Sam's coffee still waited forgotten beside Dean's completed crossword on the table. Neither of them could recall how Dean had gotten the bruise darkening above his elbow. He squinted at Sam and buried his face back into the pillow.
In the long slant of afternoon Sam wandered outside to gather shreds of crinkling plastic and the clatter of empty bottles from the front seat. Dean watched from the doorway with a hand held over his eyes to shield them. "This town ain't big enough for the two of us," he said when Sam's shadow stretched out across the asphalt like a high noon draw.
"What town is," Sam said rhetorically, not really paying attention as he reached for the crumpled cigarette packet. Dean's lighter was wedged beneath the seat; he straightened from retrieving it and pitched it neatly to Dean, who stepped out into the sunlight to make the catch. Sam shut the car door and when he rejoined his brother, their shadows overlapped, no boundaries between them.
The next morning they woke to news of bedsnatched children; the doors of the homes of the missing had been sained dark with blood, sorrow-cursed. Sam rested his elbows on the table and when the waitress, who wouldn't have cared anyway, wasn't looking, Dean dosed their coffee like a sacrament against what lay ahead. One for my baby, one more for the road; three would be courage, but they already had bravado, and four a prayer that they didn't yet need. They had their eldritch destination and they turned the Impala west accordingly, driving for hours beneath a sky shattered with storm. Roughened by close quarters, they argued, and in a diner with dingy yellow walls they forgave each other unspoken. There were miles left to go. They got back in the car and the road turned before them; though stories cannot go on forever, there was time enough.
--
end
by whereupon
Sam/Dean. Season one, PG-13, 2,484 words.
Wish today was just like every other day.
They were once more into the flatlands, adrift upon blacktop tributaries that threaded one after another towards the heart of the country before twisting out for long stretches onto storm-spattered plains. These were lulling days, dangerously so; during the quiescent slump of afternoon, Sam sometimes worried that he would get used to them, that it would become difficult to move on. That hadn't yet happened, however, and a cynical, if realistic, part of him acknowledged that it was unlikely ever to; evil always resurfaced, always drew them on, had them hell-bent and white-knuckled carving yet another ley line towards time-forgotten towns that looked anonymous but were afterwards distinguishable by numbers of lives lost, lives saved.
But they were still here, for now, and when Dean shoved the newspaper at Sam, nearly upsetting Sam's coffee in the process, Sam raised his eyebrows rather than looking at the page. "What is it?"
Dean rattled the newspaper at him but answered anyway. "They got a drive-in."
"So? You've been to drive-ins before," Sam pointed out.
"They're like roller coasters, you can go to 'em a million times," Dean said, as though it should have been obvious.
Sam took a sip of coffee. "You hate roller coasters."
"No, I don't," Dean said defensively, narrowing his eyes. He hated them for the same reason he hated planes. "Drink your damn mermaid coffee."
"I'm trying to," Sam said, curling his hand protectively around the paper cup in case Dean tried to knock it over again and ducking his head in order to get a look at the advertisement's featured films before Dean stole the page back in order to finish the crossword.
His feet bumped his brother's beneath the table as he leaned back in his chair and contemplated a night spent watching monster movies in the Impala with Dean. They could much more easily watch horror movies from the comfort of their rented room, especially since they spent most of their time in the Impala hunting real monsters, but there was a lure to the idea of being suspended in the black of the night by the flickering movie-screen, arguing with Dean about b-movie logic. Perhaps Dean's excitement was contagious. Sam took another sip of coffee and watched the way his brother's teeth pressed into his lower lip as the pen scratched across newsprint.
In Dean's fighter-pilot hands the Impala arced smoothly into the lot. They had their pick of parking slots; the majority of the locals, it seemed, had already seen the movies (though really, who hadn't), knew something they didn't, or just had better things to do with their time. Sam privately could not think of a better way to spend the next few hours, but he was aware that much of the population was delusional when it came to things like this.
The snack bar was closed, the shades pulled down over its windows, and Sam was somewhat disappointed despite himself; he'd wanted popcorn. Dean reached into the backseat and extracted a box of red licorice from a plastic bag with a convenience store logo; Sam graciously accepted it in lieu. There was a bottle of whiskey between them and he could hear the white noise of dopplering car engines in the distance. Onscreen Bruce Campbell's Oldsmobile rolled up towards the mountains of Tennessee.
"I haven't seen this in years," Sam said, and immediately realized he was wrong. It had played on the muted television in the room just outside of Gulfport, where he'd given himself a migraine trying to decipher a Dark Ages text dealing ostensibly with werewolves. Dean had made fun of him at first; they hadn't even been hunting a werewolf, so the information hadn't exactly been vital. But then he'd put a glass of water and two pills on the nightstand and moved the laptop off of the bed so that he could sit beside Sam, who recalled the rest of that evening now as a snatch of sensations: a long stretch of being vaguely aware that his head hurt, Dean's profile silhouetted by the light of the television screen, Dean's shoulder against his. He thought he might have fallen asleep against Dean, but he'd woken up beneath the blankets, with his boots off, and he wasn't about to ask. He took it as a measure of his brother's affection for him that Dean hadn't ever brought it up.
"I watched it with Dad once while you were gone," Dean said. "Wasn't the same." Sam chose to believe he meant that it hadn't been the same because Sam hadn't been there, not because John had been.
"We've never hunted a tree demon," Sam said, gazing at the screen. He hoped to keep it that way.
"We killed that thing outside'a Nashville with a chainsaw, though," Dean said. Sam had broken three ribs in the process, had given Dean a black eye for taking such a stupid risk. They'd ridden out of there with their lives held close; they'd very nearly not ridden out of there at all.
Sam tilted his head in acknowledgment, though not surrender. "Life imitates art?"
"Nah, it's the other way around," Dean said. "They tell stories about guys like us."
"Yeah, to keep kids in school," Sam said dryly, to watch the flash of Dean's eyes. "To keep 'em off the streets at night."
"They tell 'em around campfires," Dean said. "All the kids go to bed wishin' they could be heroes."
"They tell 'em in bars," Sam countered. "They make 'em into dirty jokes."
"Dirty, yeah, jokes, hell no," Dean said, and Sam grinned. The bottle of whiskey was empty, nestled in the footwell. He nudged it with his boot when he stretched. He craved suddenly a cigarette, not so much the nicotine but the smolder illuminated between his fingers, the shadows it threw, the exhale made into ritual. He couldn't remember the last time he'd smoked. He thought he might have bummed a cigarette off somebody down the hall junior year. He popped the latch of the glove compartment; Dean used to keep a packet in there against emergencies, the way other people kept a snow brush beneath the seat or a spare tire in the back. Dean had all of those things, too; like any good hero, he was prepared for any emergency. He'd once MacGyvered his way out of police lockup using only a paper clip, though he'd had Sam's help with that one.
"Here, wait a second," Dean said, turning in his seat. The heel of his hand skimmed briefly against Sam's shoulder as he reached once more into the backseat. Sam heard the rustle of plastic and then Dean proffered a shrink-wrapped pack.
"Dude," Sam said at the miracle of his brother. "Coincidence or luck?"
"Neither," Dean said. "I know you."
"So, fate," Sam said. Dean fished a lighter out of his pocket and Sam held out a cigarette, used it to light another before handing the first to Dean.
"What are we, star-crossed?" Dean said. "I think the argument here's psychology. Skinner's rat box."
"Pavlov," Sam said. "Or maybe you just love me. What else'd you get?"
"Jesus, you're greedy," Dean said. "Maybe that was everything. Count your blessings. Good things come to those who wait."
"Anything seems good to somebody who's waited long enough," Sam said.
"See, psychology, like I said." Dean took a drag from his cigarette and looked back at the screen. A few minutes later, he turned in time to catch Sam staring at him, and smirked victorious. Their victories were always shared; from the backseat he produced another bottle of Jack and Sam thought, and thou, beside me singing in the wilderness.
The credits were rolling, but Sam wasn't sure which movie they were for; he couldn't remember how long he and Dean had been there. A couple of hours, at least. It seemed like he could have been forever here with Dean, slipping cigarettes and passing bottles with a thrill that felt illicit. They were the stuff of legends, old as myth. Sam couldn't recall ever being happier, and though he thought Dean already knew, he didn't dare let him see. He drew the line at providing visual confirmation; Dean held more than enough sway over him, and had more than enough ammunition to remind him. Dean knew all of his secrets, all of his cards and his tells. Dean knew his birthday, his nightmares, his favorite color. Once Dean had gone to his knees before him in the men's room of a gas station in the Adirondacks; Sam remembered trying not to make any noise, remembered the precise texture of the faded cotton of his brother's shirt, remembered the cracked tile beneath the splayed flats of his hands as Dean rendered his thoughts staccato, short-burst transmissions. Dean loved him more than anything, more than life itself; Sam was on to him.
Dean handed the bottle back to him and Sam raised it to his mouth, about to take a swallow when Dean opened the door and got out of the car. Sam's fingers twined around the mouth of the bottle as he set it carefully down; though he didn't know where Dean was going, he would follow his brother anywhere, hell or heaven. He was surprised to realize that theirs was the only car left in the lot. "The movie's still playing," he said. Dean was leaning against the front of the hood, head tipped back. Wind slipped lightly across the back of Sam's neck.
"Credits don't count," Dean said. Sam went over to him; his eyes were closed. He opened them and looked at Sam. "'sides, we've seen 'em like a thousand times. Maybe more."
"Probably more," Sam agreed. They had a history, he and Dean. They had watched entirely too many horror movies in entirely too many motel rooms. He could practically recite all of The Shining; at college once it had proved to be a useful skill.
"Watch the stars, Sammy," Dean said, tipping his head back once more. Sam was enthralled by the line of his throat, but he obliged his brother, bumping up beside him against the cool metal. The eloquent distance of the stars made him cross-eyed, made him dizzy. Either they were receding, or he was; he couldn't remember which it was, so he closed his eyes and let himself be anchored by the physicality of Dean, who always knew where he himself was; since Sam defined himself by his proximity to Dean, that was enough. Dean was essentially Sam's cartography incarnate. He was an avenger in renegade disguise.
Sam drowsed there, content, indolent beside his brother, one hand on the glossy chrome curve of the bumper for balance. He was aware when Dean turned to look at him; he was aware of Dean looking at him, and he was aware of Dean's hand slipping under his shirt to rest hot and steady against the plane of his stomach. "You're missin' out," Dean said sometime later, and Sam blinked awake.
"On what," he said. Dean's hand was still on his stomach. His brother did that sometimes; he had this way of twisting in where Sam didn't expect him, of slipping past Sam's boundaries, edging in through alleyways, past sentries, a thief adroit. Dean broke all of his laws, but Sam didn't mind; as far as he was concerned, he was fair game for Dean. For him Dean had broken every kind of law for as long as he could remember.
"It's a real, it's a beautiful fuckin' night," Dean said, sounding half-asleep, and in the dying light of the drive-in screen, his color was high, his face all planes and curves and shadows shifting. Sam made a small noise in his throat, not quite agreement. He got his hands on the collar of Dean's shirt and used it to drag Dean closer; they stumbled together, knocked off-balance and not minding. Their aim was terrible at first; they were a collision of mouths and chins and noses. They kissed sloppy, and deep, and perfect. The short hairs at the nape of Dean's neck pricked at Sam's fingers. The sky was clouded with angels and crows' wings and the bones of foreign gods shifted underfoot. Dean was leaning into Sam, one hand in Sam's back pocket. An engine revved somewhere in the distance, tires squealing, racing out fast into the great sprawl of night. Dean rested his forehead against Sam's shoulder and breathed against the hollow of Sam's throat. They would sleep in the car and wake to sunrise.
Tethered, grounded once more in the morning, by the morning, they drove quietly back to the motel, the Impala creeping out-of-place down streets still closed with the hour. Sam's eyes ached vaguely with the beginning of a hangover and he knew that if Dean said something, or he did, they'd bristle and snipe at each other within minutes. They slept beneath yesterday's sheets in the safety of their room. The cold dregs of Sam's coffee still waited forgotten beside Dean's completed crossword on the table. Neither of them could recall how Dean had gotten the bruise darkening above his elbow. He squinted at Sam and buried his face back into the pillow.
In the long slant of afternoon Sam wandered outside to gather shreds of crinkling plastic and the clatter of empty bottles from the front seat. Dean watched from the doorway with a hand held over his eyes to shield them. "This town ain't big enough for the two of us," he said when Sam's shadow stretched out across the asphalt like a high noon draw.
"What town is," Sam said rhetorically, not really paying attention as he reached for the crumpled cigarette packet. Dean's lighter was wedged beneath the seat; he straightened from retrieving it and pitched it neatly to Dean, who stepped out into the sunlight to make the catch. Sam shut the car door and when he rejoined his brother, their shadows overlapped, no boundaries between them.
The next morning they woke to news of bedsnatched children; the doors of the homes of the missing had been sained dark with blood, sorrow-cursed. Sam rested his elbows on the table and when the waitress, who wouldn't have cared anyway, wasn't looking, Dean dosed their coffee like a sacrament against what lay ahead. One for my baby, one more for the road; three would be courage, but they already had bravado, and four a prayer that they didn't yet need. They had their eldritch destination and they turned the Impala west accordingly, driving for hours beneath a sky shattered with storm. Roughened by close quarters, they argued, and in a diner with dingy yellow walls they forgave each other unspoken. There were miles left to go. They got back in the car and the road turned before them; though stories cannot go on forever, there was time enough.
--
end