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Fic: When I Wake Up a Second Time (Gorgeousness)
Sam, Dean – title from this björk song
for
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la_folle_allure, though lacking in angryI lie abstracted, and hear beautiful tales of things,
and the reasons of things;
They are so beautiful I nudge myself to listen.
I cannot say to any person what I hear—I cannot say
it to myself—it is very wonderful.
- Wonders, Walt Whitman
There’s something therapeutic about driving through the flat lands in the middle of the country, something indescribably comforting. Sam’s not one for poetry, whether or not he had an English major for a girlfriend, but watching the corn stalks sway as they meander down a long, empty highway makes him think of Whitman.
Dean is a rock-steady presence at his left – unmovable, perfect in every way that counts. Their thighs jostle together whenever Sam stretches his aching legs in the cramped foot well, and Sam thinks about all the things he can’t make himself say.:::
They pull into a run down parking lot at half past three in the morning and curl up around each other in the back seat. Sam can’t feel his legs, but he can see them tucked into the backs of Dean’s, so he figures they must still be there. It’s cold – cold enough that Dean has unpacked the heavy weather sleeping bags and zipped both together around them.
Sam misses the ocean, the salty breeze off the waves at night that would keep him warm long after summer was over and the beach blankets were put away.
It doesn’t take long for Dean to fall asleep, even with the way he’s crammed in against the back of the seat. His breath is even. Sam counts every exhale, timing the rise and fall of his own chest to match Dean’s, watching carefully for the condensation on the shiny leather in front of Dean’s mouth. Just to be sure.
He slips off the seat some time in the night, and wakes up to find Dean has followed him down and the entire bench is empty.:::
“I’m not gonna argue with you about this, Sam. You’re staying in the fucking car if I have to duct tape you and risk ruining the leather.”
“You can’t tell me what to do, Dean,” Sam says, and there it is, right on the tip of his tongue – you’re not Dad, don’t try to be Dad. He clamps his mouth shut just in time. Dean looks furious: even the whites of his eyes are visible from how wide they are.
He’s doing his best to stay calm when he says, “This thing has your scent, Sam. You know that. You know that it would find us as soon as the wind shifted, and neither one of us would see it coming. Stay in the damn car.”
Dean is right, and Sam knows it, but. “If it has my scent, do you think it’s not going to smell me all over you? We share clothes, we share conditioner. Hell, we slept practically on top of each other last night. Don’t go out there alone, Dean, c’mon.”
“We’re not gonna leave this thing roaming free and wild,” Dean says slowly, eyes on Sam’s, “and unless you have a buddy hanging around in town waiting for his opportunity to pick up an axe and chop away, I’m not seeing any other options here.”
The knot in Sam’s stomach loosens, undoes itself. “Give me a day to research, that’s all I want. I can find some way to throw it off the scent – anything. Please, Dean. One day.”
“And if you don’t find anything,” Dean prompts, but he’s already throwing the duffle back into the trunk and dismantling his machine gun.
Sam doesn’t feel the same fear bubble back up in his chest when he says, “Then I’ll stay in the car.” He can find something. He can.:::
There’s blood soaking through the back of Dean’s shirt, turning the grey a sickly shade of red. Sam’s hands feel clumsy when he presses them against the wound, and his elbows won’t lock right because he’s shaking and he can’t stop.
His tears splash down on Dean’s shirt, wet little blotches of emotion. Sam wishes tears could heal, and then his brother makes a choked sound and he doesn’t have time for wishing anymore.
The first aid kit hasn’t been stocked in two weeks – stupid on their part – so there’s no gauze inside to stem the flow. For a minute, Sam’s head is filled with visions of him standing alone next to a pyre that used to contain his brother. He rips his own shirt apart so viciously he leaves the imprints of his own nails on his stomach.
Shoddy as it is, the make-shift bandage holds until Sam gets Dean into the ER and starts yelling for help. Afterwards, Dean never asks where Sam’s favorite shirt went, and Sam doesn’t bring it up.:::
They stop on the side of the road somewhere past the Nevada state line and sit in the car for hours, silent, watching the clouds gather up ahead. Dean doesn’t say Are you ready? and Sam doesn’t tell him No. It’s better that way, because then Sam doesn’t have to lie. He doesn’t have to choose his words carefully to make sure that I can do anything if you’re here won’t come spilling out.
All he has to do is put his palm down on the seat between them and squint his eyes against the dry desert sun. Dean will understand – he always does.
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*LOVES*
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I could like visualize it in my head, and I could see it happening for reals and, and, and.
Sammy~~~~~
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Honey. I don't know WHAT you've been smoking, but you HAVE to do it more often. This? This is just DELICIOUS. You're writing just keeps getting better and better, darling. *twirls*
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Sorry this took so long to get back to, by the way. Meep!
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i love you to bits.
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+mem
^_^
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this was beautiful, achingly so. I'm glad dean didn't die...or did he? was that last scene heaven? okay, now I'm all confuzzled.
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Um. Any sense making?
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But my ending woulda been kind of kewl too, just sayin' ;D
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also, thanks again for the music, i wrote you something (i was watching Everybody Loves a Clown)
Sam doesn’t know how to grieve his father – how his actions and words should commemorate the man who raised him full of flaws and sharp anger, and who Sam had loved with an ache that felt more like grief. And now he doesn’t know what to do with this grief that swells, a belated love.
So he tries to obey. He finds his father’s voice from a few weeks ago, and a few years before that; and tries to mix the “I’m proud of you, Sammy” from his childhood and the “You’ll do what you’re damn well told” of his later adolescence till it reaches a coherent dialogue in his head. He paints a Tibetan sigil on the inside of his skull and holds clairvoyant conversations with his dead father; he says “Yes, sir” a lot more than he used to.
He figures Dad would want him to make sure he listens to Dean, but Dean doesn’t say much. So Sam tries to coax him into conversation using middle America banalities – “Are you okay, Dean?”, “Dean, do you need…?”. Dean should be thinking that Dad would have wanted him to take care of Sam, so Sam thinks Dean should be asking him things like that too. But all Dean does is roll under the Impala in the morning, and drink silent and sullen at night. Sam tries to make up for Dean’s unmoving emotional state, and asks him other things too; “Dean, should I …?”, “Do you think it would be cool if…?”, “Hey, do you remember when…?”. But his brother never really pays attention, and Sam, who usually pokes until Dean snaps in a whirl of deep-throated anger, withdraws again, wondering.
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And I remember reading it before and I don't think I commented because I wasn't sure I understood and didn't want to sound dumb.But HI! HERE I AM! ♥
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