Slip of the Keys

Flightless (Gen, PG-13)

2009-10-14T19:34:21Z

Title: Flightless
Rating: PG-13
Category: AU gen oneshot
Word Count: 8736
Characters: Castiel, Sam and Dean
Spoilers: Up to 5.04
Warnings: None
Summary: His mother either had a weird sense of humor or was crazy when she decided to name him after an angel that no one had ever heard about.
Author's Notes: So many, many thanks go to legoline who was brave enough to take this on when it was just a jumbled untitled fic and help turn it into this. As always, though, any remaining mistakes are mine alone and are not the reflection of anyone else. Cross-posted around.
Disclaimer: The following characters and situations are used without permission of the creators, owners, and further affiliates of the television show, Supernatural, to whom they rightly belong. I claim only what is mine, and I make no money off what is theirs.

- - - - -

A long time ago when he was a child, he decided it was easier to think of his mother as having a wicked sense of humor rather than believing her to be fully crazy. After all, he knew that crazy was contagious, and the idea that he could potentially become like her in the future terrified him. So, even though his mother named him Castiel, told him he was named after an angel—just like those she read about in that tattered Bible of hers—and tried to change his bathwater into wine on more than one occasion, he initially found it in his best interest to think of her as having some weird brand of humor. Maybe this was something she giggled about after he had gone to bed. Because, again, it was easier to believe in humor than crazy because if she was crazy, he could become crazy too, and a kid named Castiel had a hard enough time fitting in at school without being labeled a loon.

When he was just shy of twenty-five, his mother died. His father had been long gone by then, whether dead or drunk, but altogether disappeared, so Castiel mourned her death alone. She died at home, after spending time in a psychiatric hospital where she got fat from the processed food and drugs. In the hospital, she read the Bible to anyone who would listen and made posters that spelled “JESUS LOVES U” out of dried beans and macaroni noodles. Those posters covered the walls of her bedroom at home.

At the time of her death, Castiel had given up trying to convince himself that his mother’s ramblings came from humor. Having gone through school, he understood that she did, indeed, have a mental illness. But, despite her disorder and how it worried him, he had graduated with his high school diploma, and he had a bachelor’s degree in religious studies—because didn’t the people say that if you can’t beat them, you should join them? Although he was legally an adult and his mother and her guilt were no longer sitting on his shoulders, he decided not to change his name. He had a driver’s license, a social security card, degrees and certificates, and as weird as Castiel was for a name, it just wasn’t worth the hassle of trying to get it changed. Besides, after twenty-five years of living with the name, it had grown on him to an extent. He wasn’t sure what he would change his name to if he really wanted anyway.

In his late twenties, as he approached thirty, Castiel saw nothing overly wrong in the way he lived his life. He’d left behind the immaturity of high school where he was constantly teased for his name. Outside of the few religious studies students he met, most people didn’t read enough religious texts to recognize that he had been named after an angel anyway, given that it wasn’t all that popular of a name like Michael or something like that—it would just figure that he’d been named after an unpopular angel anyway. Still, this meant that the majority of introductions were frequently followed by, “Castiel, huh? Hell of a name, man” and left at that when Castiel didn’t offer anything further. While the religious studies students were more likely to notice the origin of his name, they typically didn’t comment on it. Most of the students believed he was simply very passionate about religion and “Castiel” was more of a nickname than anything real and legal.

At the university, he worked as an assistant to various professors. This meant that he did a lot of typing for professors who were trying to get their books published or he corrected term papers from first-year students who were only taking Religion101 as a blow-off class. It wasn’t an exciting job, but he was familiar with the material, thanks to his mother. It wasn’t even a comforting type of familiar at times, but it was better than enrolling as a psychology major and worrying even further about what he might become. Besides, his job allowed him to keep to himself, typically away from people who left him feeling awkward and uncomfortable for no apparent reason.

He dreamed nearly every night, visions of men who identified themselves as angels and welcomed him into their company. Even though he knew enough from overhearing coworkers talking that his dreams weren’t of the more popular variety for people to be having, he never saw anything abnormal in them. After all, he didn’t spend enough time with other people to dream about them, so of course he would dream about the books—and the material in them—in the library where he spent his days. Simple as that.

He lived alone in a one bedroom apartment with his tabby cat, Chuck. Nights after work consisted of flipping through the TV with cheap dinners on his lap while Chuck perched on the arm of the stuffed recliner. Castiel watched TV and read the newspaper, and he knew enough about the American dream to understand that his life wasn’t especially glamorous or exciting.

He wasn’t rich, but he could afford his apartment and bills, groceries and a new toy now and then for Chuck. He had sold his mother’s house and property, which gave him a small amount in a savings account to fall back on if the unfortunate were to happen. He wasn’t popular, but he didn’t really prefer company, given that his mother had drilled it into his mind that the majority of the human race was swine, fat for the slaughter at the hand of God. Even though he rationally knew that this was highly untrue and just more of his mother’s humor—craziness—he still could not shake those words from his subconscious, and he really didn’t feel all that comfortable around others, finding it difficult to fit in with other people. He didn’t have a girlfriend—or even a boyfriend—and the closest he had come to physical intimacy with another was in a hallway of high school when an upperclassman girl had kissed him on the lips as a dare from her friends.

But, it was all right, he supposed. He had a roof over his head, even if it dripped on particularly rainy days, and he had a warm bed when the nights got cold. He had food in his refrigerator, even if it didn’t always taste the best, and he had Chuck for company and somebody to talk to when the nights got too long and sleep was nowhere to be found.

So, yeah. It was all right.

- - - - -

Shortly after Castiel turned thirty, things began to change. Up until then his dreams had—for the most part—been pleasant, filled with images of chubby cherubs and white, billowing clouds. Images of never-ending blue oceans and clean, warm sunshine. These were the dreams where Castiel walked alongside other angels in a never-ending garden of spiraling paradise. He called the other angels, “Michael” and “Uriel,” “Raphael” and “Zachariah.” They called him “brother.” Having been accepted by others in the dreams—an acceptance he did not typically find in his real life—he awoke from these dreams surrounded by a sense of peace. It was though he was able to take a walk through his favorite religious texts, and he often enjoyed these dreams immensely.

But these dreams gave way to ones that were harsher, more violent and bloodied. In these, he descended into the pit of Hell, where demons shrieked at him and begged for pieces of his flesh. He fought on Earth against a white-eyed demon who lifted him by the throat and made him squirm and bleed.

He never died in these nightmares. He was always saved by shadowed figures that stood in the background and pulled him away from the white-eyed demon on Earth or the black-eyed monsters in Hell. Still, this didn’t make it any easier to go through.

Halfway through a night after the white-eyed demon had spit blood in his face and was choking off his air for the umpteenth time, Castiel snapped awake, nearly tumbling out of bed. Covered in a cold sweat, he sat up in the darkness as Chuck, eyes narrowed in what could have been feline concern, looked up from the foot of the bed. As Castiel trembled, Chuck moved closer to him, rubbing his head against Castiel’s hand that gripped the blankets with white knuckles. But, no matter what Chuck did, Castiel continued to shake, and he tried to remember how to breathe evenly. He tried to forget the feel of the demon’s hand pressing tight against his throat.

- - - - -

The nightmares continued, and soon they passed from the darkness into daylight. He began to fear he was losing his mind entirely when he thought he saw black-eyed people walking down the sidewalk past him. He even went so far as to open the phonebook and flip to the yellow pages in search of a good psychiatrist who might be able to give him enough drugs to quiet the voices and still the nightmares. But, he wasn’t ready to admit to such things because then, he’d be like his mother, and that was a road he wasn’t ready to walk down. Not just yet.

One day at the university, he was sitting by himself in the library in the far corner, away from the rest of the people, when a student approached him.

“Excuse me?” she said.

He looked up from the book that he was translating from Latin to English. The girl smiled when they made eye contact. She was pretty and young with deep red hair and pale skin.

“You work here, right?” she asked.

He nodded. “Yes.”

“I’m looking for a book,” she told him, shuffling through the stack of papers in her arms. “I was wondering if you could—if you have time, that is—if you could help me find this?”

He felt awkward talking to her, more than he usually did when engaged in conversation with strangers. But, he did his best to smile, and he advised her that the librarians at the front of the room could help her better than he could.

“Oh, okay, thanks anyway,” she said, and still shuffling through the papers, she turned to walk back to the front of the library where the librarians sat at their desks. As she walked away, a notecard tumbled from her papers onto the floor.

He paused. Then, moving out of his chair, Castiel picked up the card to give back to her, but she was moving quickly, and he didn’t want to leave the expensive Latin book on the desk by itself. He couldn’t risk that someone would steal or deface it.

So, he hesitated and looked down at the notecard to see that it was the call number of a book—probably the one that she had been looking for. Normally, he would have returned the notecard to the librarians at the front desk, but he was jarred by seeing To Castiel written in the corner of the card. Next to this, she had written, First—Lucifer and Michael, vessels. Second--??

As he knew that his name was not a familiar enough one that she could have meant another Castiel, along with the odd phrase about Lucifer and Michael and vessels, which didn’t even make sense and didn’t go along with anything he had ever learned, he decided that the book was nothing she needed immediately—or so he hoped. What was she talking about? Vessels? No, no, Lucifer and Michael were archangels. Unless…unless there was something he had overlooked somehow in all of his years of studying.

Troubled by this idea, he returned to table where his opened Latin book waited, closed the book, and tucked it under his arm before deciding to go in search of this book that she had been looking for. This book that was written on a notecard next to his name and Lucifer and Michael.

He was curious.

- - - - -

He found her book on the third floor of the library, tucked back into a corner that was rarely visited. It was a wonder that most of these books hadn’t been thrown out years ago, as their spines were cracked and flaking, held together by yellowed tape. Some of the books’ titles were no longer readable on their covers; he had to open up to the inside title page to determine their names. But, he found the girl’s book all the same.

It was a plain book with a brown cover and faded gold lettering. Written by Charles Shirley, the book was older than Castiel himself. He opened the book, quickly skimming and flipping through the pages. Inside, the words told him of the brothers Winchester, who fought against angels and demons alike. It was the story of how two brothers had lost everything—mother and father, friends and family alike—but saved everything—world and humanity—when the end pressed near.

Confused why such a book was placed in the nonfiction section as Castiel had never seen such a religious text before, he flipped back to the title page, past the copyright page, and he nearly passed over the dedication page before something made him stop.

There, the words on the dedication page read, For Sam and Dean. They started it, but they ended it too. Thanks, guys.

He stood there, looking at that page for longer than was necessary.

“Castiel?”

He looked up, prepared to see a woman standing there, but the space was empty. He looked around the corners of the book rows on either side of him, but he was completely alone on the third floor.

Sighing heavily, he shook his head and feared that now he was beginning to hear voices in the daytime in addition to experiencing the occasional flash of a nightmarish vision. But, he kept the book, the book about the Winchesters, and he went down to the desk on the first floor. He checked out the book, and he took it home.

He felt as though he had to read the book. He wanted to believe it was just because the book was located in the religious studies section of the library, so he should be fully educated on all sorts of religious materials. But, he knew that wasn’t the entire reason he took the book with him.

- - - - -

After a dinner of reheated macaroni and cheese, he settled into his chair in front of the TV. Instead of reaching for the TV remote, though, he picked up the book he had checked out from the library. A part of him still felt a little guilty that he had taken the book before the redhead student did. Yet, he promised himself that he would only keep the book for a night and return it early the next morning.

With Chuck perched on the back of the chair, Castiel opened the book and began to read.

- - - - -

“You will say yes to me,” Lucifer told Sam, and Sam said no.

“You will say yes to Michael,” Zachariah told Dean, and Dean said no.

Back and forth, the brothers and the angels went. The brothers refused each and every time, but the angels were not deterred.

In his words, Lucifer promised not to lie, but he did because he was Satan, after all. He had been lying and twisting the truth since Eve ate the apple from the Tree of Knowledge. Why would he change now?

In his words, Zachariah threatened, but Dean did not give way. He believed that he was stronger and smarter than these angels who had caused so much pain for him and Sam. Dean had been to Hell and back; he was not scared of a few angels.

As time passed, Lucifer twisted the truth further and further and Zachariah’s threats grew and grew. The brothers held fast, refusing and unwilling, because they believed that they could save the world without divine assistance.

But, then, one day, the brothers said yes. Sam did not say yes first. Dean did not say yes first. Sam gave way when Lucifer came to him in the form of his mother, and Dean gave way when Zachariah presented the form of his father. Both were lies, but Sam and Dean were only human. Great in their beliefs and abilities, but still human. Still boys who had lost their parents years too early.

They said yes in the same heartbeat, the same moment, and the same breath.

- - - - -

Once he had finished the story of how the Winchester brothers, Sam and Dean, allowed Lucifer and Michael to possess their bodies, Castiel fell asleep with the finished book in his lap. That night, he dreamt of an apocalypse where two men met in the middle of a field of blood. Behind them, armies waited with hungry eyes and cursing mouths. One man held an antique gun in his hands and pointed it at the other man, who was taller than the first. But, this tall man held a knife in his hands, and he smiled, as if he was pleased with the events around him.

Castiel knew in some unexplainable way that the tall man with the knife was Sam and the shorter man with the gun was Dean. He could never explain quite how he knew. It was just a feeling, sitting low in his gut, like how animals can sense a thunderstorm even though they can’t watch the news reports. He simply knew that one was Dean and the other was Sam.

In the distance where the hills rolled on until their black backs touched the red sky, a man stood alone. In his dream, Castiel could not see this man’s face, but he could see that the man had his face turned towards the sky as if he was praying. The man’s long trench coat, a faint khaki color, was splattered with blood. It whipped around him in the building wind.

As the man turned around to face Sam and Dean’s clashing armies, Castiel woke up, a scream caught in his throat.

- - - - -

He returned the book the next morning, barely making eye contact with the librarian. He spent a quiet day in one of the professor’s empty offices, where he continued the translation on the Latin book. His apartment was equally quiet, for which he was grateful, as he couldn’t completely shake the words of that Winchester book.

Later that night while he was changing Chuck’s litter, he heard a voice from behind him.

“He doesn’t look like I thought he would.”

Nearly dropping the brown paper sack half-filled with kitty litter, Castiel whipped around in the direction of the voice. There was no one standing behind him in the shadows of his apartment.

All the same, he felt it necessary to ask, “W-who’s there? Is there someone here?” His voice was pinched, making him feel small and stupid in his own home, and his heart was beating rapidly.

“Should we tell him?” the invisible voice asked. It seemed as though it was having a conversation with someone because there was a pause, followed by the masculine voice saying, “Shit. Maybe we got the wrong guy again, but she told us…”

This time, Castiel did drop the bag of kitty litter, and, scooping up Chuck underneath his arm, he ran out of the apartment and slammed the door behind him. He ran down the three flights of stairs to the sidewalk where he stood and watched his apartment from below. The window remained dark, then a light flickered for a few, hesitant seconds, and the apartment was once again doused in shadows. Shivering, Castiel held Chuck to his chest and waited for what seemed like hours in the drizzling rain until he gathered the courage to go back inside his apartment.

- - - - -

He found nothing out of place in the apartment, except for the bag of spilled kitty litter, which he had done himself. Despite these findings, he still was unable to calm down. So, he sat down in front of the TV, hoping to find a late-night talk show to distract his agitated mind. He was starting to believe more and more that these voices were part of augmenting hallucinations, and he was worried that he really would have to call a doctor for help sooner or later.

He struggled to stay awake, fighting against the soft press of sleep. But his eyelids grew heavy and his vision became fuzzy, and he dozed off again with Chuck curled into a warm ball on his lap.

- - - - -

“Think we should wake him?” There was a pause, and the voice said, “Looks like he’s pretty much awake anyway.”

Startled, yanked from his already troubled sleep, Castiel’s head snapped up from where he sat in the recliner.

“Who’s there?” he asked. He swallowed and gathered a bit of strength to make his voice sound slightly more threatening when he asked again, “Who’s there? Show yourself!” He stood up, shooing Chuck from his lap, and hurried into the bedroom where he kept a baseball bat by the edge of his bed. He never played any sport, really, as his mother said the devil was in sports and bred jealousy and anger. But, for some reason, the feel of the baseball bat in his hand, its heavy weight and smooth wood, helped to calm him.

He returned back to the TV room where he had heard the voices. The baseball bat was held tight in both of his hands, and his bedtime t-shirt was baggy and faded, clinging around the rolls of his stomach, and his boxer shorts were too short on his pale legs. He really wasn’t in any condition to be facing another person, but dammit, he almost preferred to see another person rather than think he was going crazy like his mother.

“Who’s there?” he said again, like he was some broken record stuck on repeat. He shook the bat in a way he hoped was menacing and said, “If you won’t show yourself, then…then get out of my apartment!” By then, the hour was closer to sunrise than sunset, and it had been a long night already. Part of him wanted nothing more than to get this whole ordeal done and over with.

There was a sigh from the darkness, as if the shadows were annoyed with him, and the voice—the familiar one that he kept hearing—said, “All right. Fine.” A pause, perhaps that second, unheard voice speaking, and the first voice said, “Look. He wants to see us, he can have a look.”

With that, light flashed and Castiel raised a hand to shield his eyes. He stumbled back, away, and tripped over his chair and nearly squashed Chuck when he collapsed down onto the floor again.

When the light at last cleared, there were two men standing in the middle of Castiel’s living room. They both looked at him curiously. The shorter of the two, wearing a two-sizes-too-big leather coat, cocked his head at Castiel and said, “So. You’re telling me that he’s the one that’s going to save the world. He doesn’t look at all like I remember.” It was the voice that Castiel had heard earlier.

The second man, the taller of the two with longer, shaggy brown hair, nodded, and said, “Don’t you remember? We knew that this day would come eventually.”

“Great.” The first one rolled his eyes and sighed. “This is not who I thought it’d be. This just looks like some sap and his cat, who are going to stop the apocalypse with a baseball bat. This isn’t him at all. Trust me on this, I know what he looks like, and this isn’t him. So, shit, that’s it. We’re screwed right now. Might as well call ole’ Lucifer and tell him we’ll sign up for his team this time instead.” The man snorted. “Shit. We’re so freakin’ screwed.”

Recognizing them, seeing them, the Winchesters, Sam and Dean, from his dreams, standing in his living room, Castiel scrambled to his feet.

“D-don’t,” he stuttered, holding a hand out to stop them from approaching—although part of him doubted that he would be able to stop them, no matter how hard he tried. “Don’t come any closer.” He continued backing up, not looking where he was going, and his breathing became more and more strained. His head was spinning and heart pounding, and he began to feel dizzy. Sweat broke out on his forehead and he felt as though he was going to puke.

“Hey, hey,” the taller man said, coming forward. “Take a breath. Breathe,” he said.

But, Castiel wasn’t listening. Sam and Dean were standing in his room. His dreams were coming to life. He was seeing his dreams from night while he was awake and that meant that the dreams were now hallucinations and hallucinations meant that he was going down just like his mother and it wouldn’t be long he’d be in a mental hospital…

The thoughts swirled, colliding and knocking against each other faster and faster, until Castiel’s vision began to grow fuzzy and black at the corners. He heard one of the men telling him to breathe, saying that he was hyperventilating and to get a hold of himself. But, the harder that he tried to control himself, the dizzier he became until the blackness grew too strong and he collapsed to the floor, still struggling to breathe. The last thing he saw before he went under were Chuck’s eyes, wide, green, and frightened.

- - - - -

He came to with water being splashed on his face. One of the men was saying, “Don’t! You’ll drown him!”

The other, the first and familiar voice, said, “Humans don’t drown in this much water. It’s got to be a lot more. You should know that, man.” Then the pitch of his voice changed, talking to Castiel now, and he said, “Wake up, c’mon, wake up.”

Castiel opened his eyes, and his vision was blurry at first. Then, things cleared, and he took in his surroundings. He was still in his apartment, and it was growing close to dawn, as the clouds outside were breaking apart and letting a deep purple light spread through them. Lowering his eyes away from the window, he saw the shorter man, the one in the leather coat, crouching on the floor next to him, while the tall guy lurked in the background.

Castiel flinched and tried to push himself away from them.

“Ah, that’s more like it,” the first man said, who Castiel knew to be Dean. “You know, you really can’t go passing out every time someone makes a smart comment about you. It’s going to be really hard for you to fight off evil if you’re going all narcoleptic on us now. Well, if you’re the guy we think you are, that is.”

Castiel lifted a hand to his temple where a pain was pounding through his head, as if it had the ability to rattle his skull right off. He winced, and when Sam and Dean stayed silent, he licked his lips, tasted blood—probably bit his tongue when he fell—and said, “I know you.”

“You do?” Dean asked. He looked over his shoulder at the tall one—Sam—before turning his attention back to Castiel. “Who told you?”

“No one. I…I saw you in my dreams.” Before either of them could say anything further, Castiel continued, “I know that sounds crazy, but it-it’s true.” He lowered his eyes, embarrassed to be admitting such a thing aloud.

“You think he’s telling the truth?” Dean asked Sam.

“Could be.” Then to Castiel, Sam asked, “Who are we then?”

“I think, I mean, I could be wrong, but I think you’re Sam and Dean. Winchester. Like I said I could be wrong because it was just a dream and dreams don’t mean anything, but that’s who I think you are—”

“Well, your dream is right. Because, yeah, I’m Sam, and this is Dean,” Sam said, confirming what Castiel already knew. “Now, what’s your name?”

“What? Do you really think this is him?” Dean said to Sam.

“It’s possible,” Sam answered. “If he recognized us from his dreams, don’t you think that means something? Let’s just ask him.” Sam came closer and sat down in the recliner next to Chuck, who purred happily at the chance to receive attention from someone. “All right, so you know that we’re Sam and Dean, now who are you?”

Castiel sighed. He was now officially and completely crazy. Not only was he seeing and hearing things, he was talking back to them and carrying on a conversation. He figured it wouldn’t be long until somebody at the university would have to call the hospital and get the men in white coats to take him away. But, he decided to appease these hallucinations—that came directly from his dreams, no less—in hopes that they would go away.

“My name,” he said, “is Castiel.”

“W-wait,” Dean said, shaking his head. “Say that again.” He looked up at Sam, who appeared pleased with Castiel’s response.

“Castiel,” he said, saying it slower and clearer, as if he had mumbled his words and they’d been confused.

There was a long pause as Sam looked at Dean and Dean looked at Sam, and Castiel realized that for some reason, his name meant something to them.

At last, Dean groaned and rolled his eyes, slapped his hands dramatically on his knees and said, “Well, that’s just great. Just freakin’ great. Here I thought he’d say his name was Bob or Dick or something, and we could keep going on our merry way.” He looked back at Castiel. “You have no friggin’ clue who you are, do you? You know about us, but I bet you don’t know about you.”

“Uh…” Castiel began, confused.

“It’s not his fault. You know they made him human when we got him out of there,” Sam interrupted. “Besides, I told you that he looked familiar. It is him.”

“But, it’s…” Dean rose to his feet, waving a hand weakly in Castiel’s direction. “Look at him, Sammy. He’s all pale and pudgy and weak now. It’s no wonder I wasn’t sure about him. He doesn’t look anything like he used to. Well. Maybe a little. But not much.”

Castiel lowered his head, wanting nothing more to crawl beneath a rock and die at that point.

“You really do lack all tact, don’t you?” Sam said to Dean. “I would’ve thought that one apocalypse would have been enough to knock all that asshole out of you.”

Dean laughed humorlessly. “Going to take more than one apocalypse to do that.” Before Sam could reply further, Dean crouched back down next to Castiel and rested a hand on his shoulder. “Cas, hey, Cas, look, sorry about all that pale and pudgy thing.”

“And weak,” Castiel mumbled into his chest.

“And weak,” Dean agreed. “Sorry about that. It’s just that…well…we, um, I don’t know quite how to explain this, but…shit.” He raised a hand and scratched the back of his head. “You looked sort of like a guy we used to know, but, uh, well, he was a real badass, and you’re more of a, ah, regular kind of guy…?”

“What?” Castiel said.

“Well? Any suggestions on how to explain this one to him?” Dean said, now looking back to Sam.

“I think we should be honest with him.”

“You sure he can handle it?”

“I’m still sitting right here,” Castiel reminded them in a morose tone.

“So you saw us in your dreams, huh?” Dean asked.

“I read about you in a book. Then I saw you in my dreams.”

“A book?” Sam said, raising his eyebrows. “What kind of a book?”

Castiel wiped a hand over his face. “It was basically the story of the Winchester family, and how Sam and Dean said yes to Lucifer and Michael and then…then the apocalypse happened and most of the people were killed in the battles…except that the writer was a prophet who couldn’t die until he told their story.” He swallowed and looked back to them.

“Well,” Sam said, “that’s part of it.”

Dean nodded. “Better than nothing though.”

“But the apocalypse?” Castiel asked.

“Happened,” Dean answered. “Just not in this time or this world. But it will. It’s coming.” He sighed and added, “Again.”

- - - - -

Before Sam or Dean would give him any further answers, they advised him to cancel his appointments for the rest of the day. So, early that same morning with Sam and Dean talking softly in the kitchen, Castiel called in sick to work for that day. It was the first time he’d ever called in, including that time when everybody else was out sick with the flu back in the winter of ’09, so his supervisor didn’t give Castiel too much trouble over the phone. She simply advised him to stay in bed, get some rest, and she’d be seeing Castiel tomorrow. Simple as that.

“No work today, then?” Dean asked once Castiel had hung up the phone and sat down in the recliner with Chuck in his lap.

“No,” Castiel answered.

“Good, because there are some things that we need to explain to you,” Sam said, coming out of the kitchen.

“I’m dreaming, aren’t I?” Castiel said after a long pause. “I mean, it’s just that now I’m so crazy I can’t tell the difference between when I’m awake and when I’m asleep, and it’s all just blending together, right?”

Dean looked up from where he was flipping through the dog-eared TV Guide and shook his head, while Sam admitted, “Not quite.”

“Then I’ve lost it.” Castiel laughed, a short, rather hysterical sound, and he lowered his face into his hands. After all these years of thinking he’d been able to escape his mother’s genetics and hold over him, it turned out he was no less mentally disturbed than she had been. “I’m completely crazy now,” he continued, shaking his head in his hands. “They’re going to take me away soon.”

“Not quite,” Sam said again.

“What?” Castiel said, looking up. He hadn’t realized that he’d been crying, but his palms were wet where they had been pressed against his face, and his eyes burned with tears.

“You’re not crazy,” Sam said. “Not at all, actually.”

“You’re a talking hallucination. I’m supposed to believe you?” Castiel asked incredulously.

“Well, it’s either that or sit there, crying into your cat’s fur,” Dean replied. He slapped the TV Guide down on top of the TV. “No offense, man, but suck it up, okay?”

“Dean,” Sam began, a warning.

“Not now, Sammy.” Back to Castiel, he said, “We’ve got an approaching apocalypse, and this really isn’t the time for us to play Dr. Phil with you and your sob-story life. Number one, you’re not crazy. Number two, it’s not a dream, and number three, it’s all freakin’ real.” He sighed, sounding exasperated, as he walked over to where Castiel was sitting. “Look, I get that you don’t have a friggin’ clue who the hell we really are or who you used to be, do you?”

Castiel shook his head. Secretly, he was thanking himself for deciding to take the day off work. It had been one of the best decisions he had made in a long time.

“Right. Okay,” Dean said, and he sat down, cross-legged, on the floor in front of Castiel. Seeing that there wasn’t any attention to be given, Chuck hopped off Castiel’s lap and trotted out of the living room in search of the bedroom where he could curl up and be comfortable.

“What’s your cat’s name?” Dean asked, suddenly changing the subject, as if he had noticed for the first time that Castiel owned a pet.

“Chuck,” Castiel answered.

“Chuck,” Dean repeated.

“Yeah.”

Dean looked to Sam, who raised his eyebrows. An unspoken message that Castiel didn’t understand passed between the two of them, as if the name of his cat held some great secret. Finally, though, Dean turned his attention back to Castiel as Sam leaned against the window, arms crossed over his chest.

“I’m going to get straight to it,” Dean said. “As we’ve mentioned, the apocalypse is coming. And I’m not talking about any movie apocalypse with melting icebergs and bad weather. This is the real deal, okay?”

“Revelations?” Castiel asked.

“What? Is this a revelation to us? Well no—” Dean began.

“Yes,” Sam interrupted, “just like Revelations in the Bible.”

Castiel was about to tell them that they had to be kidding, that this was more of his dream sequence gone awry, but he remembered Dean’s harsh words from before, and he asked instead, “What does this have to do with me?”

“You’re the one who’s going to stop it,” Dean said. “Well, you’re going to help us stop it. But, y’know, we still need you all the same. A rip off on the Three Musketeers deal, I guess?” Before Castiel could speak, Dean continued, “And I don’t tell me that you can’t do it or you don’t want to do it because that’s pretty much what I told you when you said the same thing to me, and well, I’m not nearly as much as a pushover now as you were back then. So, I won’t hear it. Somebody has to do it this time around, and trust me—us—you’ve got to be it.”

“Did you read about the end of the world in that book?” Sam asked. “With us?”

“A bit, yeah,” Castiel admitted. “How you and Dean agreed to be vessels for Lucifer and Michael, and that was just part of the end of the world. I mean, there was stuff before it…Lilith and the Seals, but…yeah.”

Sam’s face tightened, troubled, and he asked, “Have you seen it? In your dreams?”

“A bit…” Castiel said again.

Dean leaned closer to Castiel, and he said, “All right, then, you’re going to be seeing it up close and personal now. Hold onto your boxers there, buddy, because we’re taking a ride.” He grinned and said, “I’ll apologize in advance for all the pooping problems that’ll come after this. Laxatives will be your best friend for a while. Trust me.”

Just as Castiel was about to ask what Dean was talking about, Dean lifted a hand and covered Castiel’s eyes. The world went black, followed by white with everything and everyone screaming around him, and then everything died to black again.

Castiel opened his eyes.

- - - - -

Dean was on his left, and Sam was on his right. They stood beside him, looking out over a rolling landscape of blackened trees and smoke rising high into a red-orange sky. Not too far away, another Sam and another Dean were facing each other, eyes alight with something that wasn’t natural, and Castiel knew that they were now the vessels for Lucifer and Michael. The other Dean held a gun in his hand, and Sam held a bleeding knife. Their smiles were wicked and malicious. They looked nothing like the men who currently stood beside Castiel, but they looked exactly like the men that Castiel had seen many a time in his dreams.

Not far from other Sam and Dean—Michael and Lucifer—Castiel saw the man in the khaki-colored trench coat. As the armies met, surging into each other, black-eyed people fighting and screams rising into the air, the man turned around to reveal his face.

Castiel saw himself. But, even then, even looking at this man who was him, he looked different. More than different than the initial detachment people sometimes feel when looking at a photo of themselves. This self looked rougher around the edges, more violent and determined all in one. Beneath the long trench coat, he was wearing a button-down shirt and tie beneath. There was a large cut running down his cheek, and he had a hand clasped to his chest. Blood was dripping out between those fingers, and his skin looked ashen and his eyes were frightened. He stumbled over the terrain, pushing through the demons and monsters in an attempt to get closer to Michael and Lucifer.

“Is this the apocalypse?” Castiel asked to the Sam and Dean beside him, even though he already knew the answer.

“Yes,” Sam said quietly, almost reverently.

“From before,” Dean clarified.

“I’m here.”

Sam nodded, and Dean said, “Yeah. This is when you were dying.” After a pause, Dean added, “From before.”

“I was dying? What? I mean, I’m here and…”

“Time travel sure works wonders,” Dean said, and then he fell silent as the other Castiel looked upward and whispered unheard words to the heavens. He collapsed to the ground, still holding his chest and whispering. In front of him, only feet away, Lucifer and Michael lunged at each other.

“Father,” the other Castiel called, the single word heard above everything else.

“I think we’ve seen enough,” Sam said, and this time, it was he who lifted a hand to cover Castiel’s eyes. The last thing Castiel witnessed before darkness swam over him was the Lucifer plunging a knife in the Michael’s chest and the sound of Michael’s gun splitting the air.

- - - - -

He came to in his bedroom.

Sam and Dean were both calmly sitting on his bed while Castiel was on the floor, rubbing his spinning head.

“So that was the apocalypse,” Castiel said.

Sam nodded.

“Do I get any sort of explanation? What does that all mean? I get that you two were used as vessels, but what about me? And how did you get here now? What’s going on?” He groaned at the sudden roll of a massive headache through his mind. He felt as though he was going to throw up.

“That was before,” Dean said. “As I’ve already said.” He stood up from the bed and approached Castiel. “Look, I don’t know how much you remember from before, but back then, you were an angel.”

“I was an angel?” Castiel gaped, the shock of this quieting his nausea.

“Will you let me finish? Man, I almost prefer you with that stick up your ass from before. Yes, Cas, you were an angel. You were dying in battle because you had just sacrificed yourself to save us. Both of us—me and Sam—were possessed, as you noticed, and your sacrifice sort of, ah, well, it saved our human souls and knocked those angel bastards out of us.

“Well, you would have died,” Dean continued, “except we used what was left of the angel mojo in us to send you to a bit of an alternate universe in the future. Apparently, you became human in the process, too, getting born and raised, puberty and pooping—all the perks of a good old human life. So, yeah, we didn’t see that one coming, but apparently the powers above figured that would help to hide you better from the uglies out there who were searching for you. So, for the last few years, we’ve been searching for you, too, and it took us longer than we thought because you do look different—guess you lost some of that angelic beauty or whatever the hell you want to call it since we didn’t recognize you at first. But, anyway, the point is that the apocalypse is coming again.”

“Which you’ve said,” Castiel replied. “So I…other me…was an angel?”

“Right,” Sam said.

“And I…fell?”

“Yeah, I guess you could say that,” Dean said. “But, when you did that, God, I guess, saw it as more of a sacrifice to save our—Sam’s and mine—human souls, so it wasn’t like you were banished or smited or whatever.”

“And afterwards, once Lucifer and Michael were out of us, Dean and I had to save you, so we were able to take your soul and send it far, far away in this world where you were born as a human,” Sam explained.

“But what about you two? Didn’t Lucifer and Michael want back in?” Castiel asked.

“Well, sure,” Dean admitted, “because they’re basically dicks with years—centuries¬—of unfinished business. But, well, when you ‘fell,’ as I guess we’re calling it, it knocked them out of us, but still left us with enough of their powers to be considered immortal ourselves. Like, they had sort of mind-melded with us?” He looked confused, trying to explain himself.

Sam shook his head at Dean, and to Castiel, he said, “Because it was such a sudden separation, they left enough of their souls, their beings—to call it that—in us to allow us to be immortal and live among the angels. So, we’re definitely not them anymore, but we also…well, we’re not what we used to be before the war.” He motioned to Castiel. “And, apparently neither are you.”

“So, if I used to be an angel…what about my mother?”

“Just some ordinary lady who got tapped,” Dean said. “Although I think somebody may have tipped her off to the point that she was carrying some once-upon-a-time angel…hence all the crazy God talk.”

“Oh,” Castiel said.

“Sorry,” Dean replied and frowned.

Castiel sat, sitting and thinking, before he said, “So, you’re asking me, as a human, for help?”

Both Sam and Dean nodded.

“You asked us for help last time,” Sam explained, “and we were just as human then as you are now.”

They sat in silence for a long time as Castiel stared at the floor and thought. For some reason, despite all the rationality telling him otherwise, he believed them. He had been dreaming of such things all his life. It seemed only too easy, too natural, for him to be hearing about them now.

“Do I have to accept your offer for you to…I don’t know? Take me with you?” he asked at last.

“Well, that sure would make things a lot easier,” Dean admitted. “But we won’t threaten you, Cas, or try to push you into this. None of that bullshit that your angel buddies from before tried on us, okay? Stomach cancer, my ass.”

“Can you…can you give me a day?” Castiel asked.

“To think?” Sam asked.

“You really think the apocalypse is going to wait?” Dean began, but Sam quieted him by resting a hand on his arm.

“Yeah,” Sam said, “we can give you a day. We’ll be back tomorrow night.”

With that, the two of them were gone with the sound of fluttering wings. The curtains danced in the breeze that suddenly swept through the rooms, and Castiel was alone once again.

- - - - -

The next day, after a few hours of sleep, he went into the park by the university to eat lunch and get some fresh air, away from his apartment.

As he was sitting on the bench and eating his lunch, thinking about Sam and Dean’s words and the vision they had shown him, a woman approached him.

“Mind if I sit down?” she said.

He looked up to see that it was the young redhead who had asked him about the book of Winchester in the university library a few days ago.

“It’s you,” he said, as she sat down on the bench beside him.

“Me?” she asked, but there was a smile on her face.

“The girl from the library. You were looking for that book…about the Winchesters.”

“Caught me.” She smiled again and pulled out a plastic bag filled with cut carrots from her lunch sack.

“Did you know?” he asked. “What that book was about?”

“Of course. I meant for you to find that notecard I dropped.”

“This was all planned?”

She nodded. “I’ll admit that I probably shouldn’t have brought that book into this time—this world really, because it doesn’t belong here at all—but I had to tell you somehow. I knew that if I started telling you all about who you used to be and about Sam and Dean, you’d really freak out and run away.”

“You knew about them?” he asked. “Then why wasn’t I in it, too? I thought I was part of the story.”

“You were,” she answered, “but I had to take you out. I edited Chuck’s copy…I was worried it’d really do a number on you if you saw your name in print there.”

“You sound as though you know me,” he said as she took a bite of a carrot.

Chewing, she nodded her head. When she swallowed, she said, “We, you and me, we’ve known each other for many, many years, Castiel. I was never sure if you’d be able to understand exactly what it was like to be human, but I see you do now. You made a great sacrifice for Sam and Dean back then, I hope you know that. I think it’s admirable.” She paused. “Many of us do…even if they’ll never openly admit to it.”

He stared at her, no longer hungry. At last, some form of recognition came to the forefront of his mind.

“Anna,” he breathed.

She smiled again. “I hope you tell them yes. We can’t do it without you.”

He looked up to the sky, to the endless blue overheard. “Well, I…” he said and lowered his head to look at her. But, his words stopped when he saw that the bench next to him was empty, as if she had never been there at all.

- - - - -

They came for him late that night, as they had promised.

“Well?” Dean asked from behind him.

Castiel stood with his back to them, looking out to the world where the wind rolled through the trees, crisp and clean. The clouds were thin and sparse around the full-bellied moon. When he turned to face Sam and Dean, he felt a little dizzy, a little light-headed, but he picked up Chuck, who was rubbing against his legs and purring. He pulled Chuck tight to his chest and swallowed past the lump in his throat.

“I have a question,” he said. “Two, actually.”

“Oh great.” Dean rolled his eyes.

“Yeah?” Sam asked.

“First, what about Chuck?”

Sam smiled. “He’ll be fine. Let’s just say that he wasn’t always a cat before this world.”

“Okay,” Castiel said, thinking about this. He was going to ask more, but he decided that if he continued asking questions, he would soon lose his nerve altogether. He needed to just ask what he had already planned out.

“What was the second thing?” Sam wanted to know.

Castiel looked up from where he was gazing down at Chuck and met Sam’s eyes. “If the apocalypse came, wouldn’t that have meant the world was destroyed?”

“Yeah,” Dean said.

“Then how are we here right now? What about this world?”

Dean smiled. “I would have thought all that Bible time would have taught you that lesson.”

“What’s that?” Castiel asked.

“That God forgives,” Dean replied. “That there’s always a second chance.”

“Oh.”

“So?” Sam asked.

“Then yes,” Castiel said, thinking of dreams and Anna, thinking of how he’d been surrounded by the answers to his past life for so many years. Thinking of second chances. “Yes, I’m ready.”

Dean looked to Sam and Sam looked to Dean. They both looked to Castiel.

“All right,” Dean said, “let’s do this.”

- - - - -

When Castiel slept again, he was a million miles away, neither on land nor in the sky, but caught somewhere between where no humans had ever walked. In this sleep, his dreams returned. This time, there was no blood, no tears or violence. The horrors from his nightmares had faded away.

Much later, he awoke in a place he recognized from so many dreams before. There, little by little, his memories returned to him. He closed his eyes, and he began to remember how it felt to fly.

End

Beer Break (Gen, PG-13)

2009-05-28T20:39:52Z

Title: Beer Break
Rating: PG-13
Category: Gen American Idol RPF/Supernatural crossover
Word Count: 1800
Characters: Adam Lambert and Dean & Sam Winchester
Spoilers: Vague for S4 Supernatural
Warnings: None
Summary: So yeah, they're talking about angels and the end of the world, but if a fan can appreciate Zeppelin, they can't be all bad--right?
Author’s Notes: Takes place a little while after Supernatural 4.22 and the American Idol finale.
Disclaimer: The following characters and situations are used without permission of the creators, owners, and further affiliates of the television show, Supernatural, to whom they rightly belong. As far as American Idol goes, everything here is fiction except for the names, which are used without permission. I claim only what is mine, and I make no money off what is theirs.

- - - - -

He's never been quite so happy to just go to the bar and kick back as he is tonight. After back-to-back interviews that have left him exhausted, he finally has a night free to go and enjoy himself before something else pops up in his schedule.

Adam's grateful for the interviews and the attention, the fans that scream for autographs and the reporters that can't quite figure out how to ask The Question. Oh yeah, he's so grateful for all of it--what guy wouldn't be?--because this is his dream coming true at last. All the same, though, it’s nice to just get away from the chaos and have a drink with some old friends. In a few weeks, he's going to be swept away for the big cross-country tour, and as much as he loves Kris and Danny, Allison and Matt, and all the others, there's nothing like being with the friends who knew him from before.

But, at the moment, those said friends are off somewhere else. Adam's pretty sure they're out on the floor, dancing or something, and sure, he likes to dance and have a good time, but shit, he's just so tired right now. Sitting at the bar and having a drink is one thing. Getting up and dancing? Well, he hasn't had that much sleep.

The bar's not extremely busy, seeing how it's a Tuesday night, so he can't help but notice the two men that walk in. Then again, he supposes, even if the bar were packed, they'd probably stand out. The two guys are all leather jackets and faded blue jeans, muddy boots and plaid button-down shirts. Definitely not something usually seen around these parts. Adam takes a drink from his glass and watches as they work their way across the room over to the bar.

The shorter of the two guys leans on the bar and manages to catch the bartender's attention. "Two beers," he says, pulling out his wallet.

"Anything else?" the bartender asks.

"That'll do it for now." The short one, the one with spiked hair and a little golden amulet resting on his chest, pulls out an assortment of bills and hands them to the bartender.

Once the bartender moves away, the guys uncap their beers and lean back against the bar, observing the scene. Adam's sitting a few seats away, watching them. Could be tourists, he thinks, given the way they stand out. Then again, maybe they just got off a shoot somewhere, but they don't look like any actors he recognizes. Still, they seem about as exhausted and worn as he feels, so yeah, maybe they're in the business after all.

"We really should keep moving," the tall one says with a frown. "I don't know if it's a good idea to be stopping here."

"Look, Sammy," the other replies, swallowing, "if we can't take a half an hour out of our goddamn lives for a beer, then we might as well just call it quits right now."

"Castiel said we were supposed to be looking--"

"I know what Cas said. But, hey, he's got that whole 'super angel' thing going for him. We? Are human. And humans need beer breaks."

The guy who Adam now knows is Sam frowns again. It makes him look downright bitchy and constipated all at the same time, which really, is too bad because when he's not grousing, he's a good-looking guy. Not quite Adam's type, but hey, good-looking is good-looking any way you slice it.

The short guy is scanning the room, drinking his beer and bobbing his head to the music. Then, he spots Adam, and his eyes widen a bit. "No way," he says.

"What?" Sam says. His hand moves to a bulge in his coat pocket. "What? Did you see something?"

The short guy ignores Sam and moves down the length of the bar to Adam. "Hey, man," he says, approaching, "I don't mean to pry or anything, but are you who I think you are?"

"And who would that be?" Adam asks, raising an eyebrow. He's already had a couple cases of mistaken identities, so he's learned it's better to let people tell you who they think you are.

"That one guy from American Idol...Oh shit, um..." The guy snaps his fingers, mentally searching.

Behind him, a clearly flabbergasted Sam says, "You watch American Idol?"

The shorter guy ignores Sam again and finally exclaims, "Adam! Adam Lambert, right?"

"That'd be me," Adam admits, and the guy's face lights up like he just won the lottery.

"No way. Sammy," he says happily, "do you realize who this is?"

Apparently, Sam does not realize who it is, and if he does, he certainly doesn't share the other guy's happiness over Adam's identity. He just does his bitchy-faced frown again and shakes his head.

"Hey, look," the shorter one says, "I'm sure you get this all the time, but we're huge fans. Well, I can't speak for Sam here, I suppose, but I am." He extends his hand for a handshake.

Adam accepts. Okay, just more fans. He can deal with this, so he shakes the guy's outstretched hand. "And you are...?" he says, looking for a name.

"Oh, yeah, I'm Dean. This is my brother, Sam."

"Brother?" Adam says. He has to admit that he didn't see that one coming, but hey, to each their own. Either that, or it's a guise. Maybe they're really not brothers, but they think it's easier telling people that story than the "hey, we're lovers" one. He’s seen crazier lies that guys use to cover up their personal lives.

"Yeah," Dean says. "Hey, you mind if I sit down for a sec?"

"Go ahead," Adam says, gesturing to the empty seats next to him. Sure, he wasn't looking for any personal interviews tonight, but fans are fans, and without them, he wouldn't be where he is now.

Dean sits down in the seat next to Adam while Sam remains standing and glancing from the crowd in the middle of the room to Dean and Adam.

"Hey, I just want to say, I'm sorry to hear that you lost," Dean says. "Man, when I found out you didn't win Idol, I told Sam that it must be another sign that the world really is ending." He laughs, and behind him, Sam scowls even more.

Adam gets the feeling that there's more to the story than what Dean's leading on. After all, they were talking about super angels a minute ago and now the end of the world? But, it could be slang for something, so he laughs lightly too. "Well, I wouldn't say it'd be comparable to the world ending. I mean, hey, I'm happy that I got to the number two spot. Out of all the people that tried out?" He shrugs. "That's pretty damn good, if you're asking me."

"Oh shit, yeah. Just, really, I was rooting for you. I didn't get to watch all the weeks because, well, there was some personal stuff I had to take care of, but man, bringing back the glam rock, huh? Not normally my thing--I can live without Queen--but you and Kiss? How crazy is that?"

"Tell me about it," Adam says, remembering that night when he got to stand next to Gene Simmons. Gene fucking Simmons. Shit. Just thinking about it again makes his head spin.

"I gotta say, I knew you were my guy when you came out with that Zeppelin song. Liked you before that, but shit." Dean slaps the bar. "That just nailed it right there."

"Yeah?" Adam says, grinning. Okay, so maybe the guy's a bit of a loose cannon and his "brother" is more bitchy than not, but hey, if somebody can appreciate classic rock, they get a good mark in Adam's book.

"Oh yeah. Seriously. Zeppelin rules. It's what I keep telling Sam here." Dean nudges Sam. "Right, Sam?"

"Right," Sam grumbles, looking down into his beer. "Look," he says to Adam, "it was really nice meeting you and I realize that my brother's excited and all, but we can't be staying long. We've got some...personal business to take care of."

"You guys going to be in town for a while?" Adam asks.

"Nah, probably not," Dean says. "Y'see, we've got this--how do I want to say it--got this real devil of a problem, and well, it doesn't wait."

"Isn't that how it always goes?" Adam says. "The nasty ones never do wait." He smiles, gestures to Dean's half-finished bottle. "So bad it won't even let you finish a beer, huh?"

"Ah, I'll just take it on the road with us. Too good of a beer to just let it go to waste." Adam's eyes must have widened a bit. He's no prude, given that he's broken a few rules here and there himself, but Dean's casualness at talking about it surprises him. "Oh," Dean says, seeing Adam's reaction, "if drinking and driving were the least of my problems..." He laughs at some joke that Adam can't follow. "Well, let's just say that the world would probably be a much better place."

Adam smiles, not quite sure what Dean's alluding to, but trying to be friendly all the same.

"Hey, look," Dean says, "before we run off, can I get an autograph? Just, y'know, when you hit it big, I can say, 'I met him once.'" Dean reaches over and grabs a napkin from the middle of the bar. "If you don't mind, that is."

"Yeah, no problem." Adam pats his coat. "You got a pen or something?"

"Here," Sam says, pulling a marker out of his pocket, which he hands to Dean, who then gives it to Adam.

Adam scribbles his autograph and then writes, Zeppelin Rules! beneath his name. He hands the napkin and marker back to Dean and grins. "There ya go," he says.

Dean looks down and reads the napkin. He smiles, big and wide. "You're freakin' awesome, man."

"Dean," Sam presses.

"All right, all right, Sammy." Then back to Adam, he says, "Great to meet you. Seriously. Big fan. Hey, maybe we'll see you around."

"Maybe," Adam says as Dean rises to his feet and follows Sam away from the bar. They don't waste time on any other good-byes or formalities; they move right to the exit door with Sam grumbling something about not having time to waste and Dean exclaiming, "Adam Lambert, man! Adam Lambert!"

Adam laughs and shakes his head. Not long after Sam and Dean leave, one of his friends, covered in glitter, emerges from the dance floor.

"Who was that?" she asks, nodding her head in the direction of the exit door.

"Crazy fans," Adam says. He chuckles to himself. "Just some crazy fans."

End

Seeing Purple (Gen, PG)

2009-05-25T17:50:33Z

Title: Seeing Purple
Rating: PG
Category: Gen RPF oneshot
Word Count: 1273
Characters: Adam, Danny, Kris and Allison
Warning: None
Summary: Everybody needs a little color in their life.
Author’s Notes: This is a stand alone oneshot, but it was inspired by this story regarding a mishap with hair dye. Takes place at the beginning of the tour.
Disclaimer: Everything here is fiction except for the names, which are used without permission. I claim only what is mine, and I make no money off what is theirs.

- - - - -

With a show this evening, Adam’s decided he better repaint his fingernails, given that some of the paint is starting to chip and look like shit. Adding another layer of the glossy black, he sings softly to himself. Even since the finale, he's been listening to more Queen than is probably healthy, and now he can't get the songs out of his head. But he has already accepted the fact that he's suffered worse ailments and goes with it.

He's just reached the verse in the song about Galileo and thunderbolts when he hears a curse followed by a clatter of something falling. Adam looks up in time to see Danny, wearing a bathrobe and baseball cap, rush into his dressing room.

"Did you do this?!" Danny asks, a bit breathless.

"Do what?"

"Do what? Do what?" Danny sounds frantic, as if someone just told them they had to be on stage in two minutes. He pulls off his baseball cap to reveal a head of purple tipped hair. His hair's messier and darker because it's wet--fresh from the shower obviously--but there's no mistaking the purple coloring in it. "Do this!" he says. He makes a gesture to his head.

Adam frowns. He remembers joking around with Danny earlier in the season, back when they were in the mansion in California that Danny should try out some color in his hair. But does Danny really think he was serious? Shit. It's a long tour across the country for them, and they all want to stay on each other’s good sides. Well, as much as possible anyway.

"Honest, man," Adam says, raising his hands in mock defense, "I didn't do it."

Danny pauses, considering, and he must decide that Adam really is innocent because he huffs and says, "Then who? Who else has hair dye? Did someone break into your stash?"

"I don't even have purple," Adam says. To prove his point, he turns and pulls out the drawer in his vanity set where all his hair dye is stored. Different colored bottles--blue and black and even a green--roll around as Danny comes forward and peeks inside. "See?" Adam says. "No purple." He blows over his nails, hoping the paint will dry before it gets smudged.

Danny grunts. "You think it was Allison? She dyes her hair a lot."

Kris, who's just coming in with an armful of papers--most likely their song lineups for the night--says, "Yeah, but she dyes hers pink and red."

Danny swears under his breath. It's obvious he's not liking his odds here.

"Maybe we have a secret hair-dyeing bandit on the loose," Adam says. He's decided that his nails could use another coat, so he's back to adding another layer of black to them.

"Don't joke about that," Danny says. "That's not even funny."

Adam grins. "It is just a little funny." A visual image of a man with rainbow hair sneaking into people's rooms like the toothfairy gone wrong pops into his head. He can't stop himself from chuckling.

Even Kris, sitting down, has to smile. "I'll agree with the little funny part."

Danny stands there, a bit dumbfounded because he was clearly wanting find the perpetrator and now he's only coming up empty-handed. Adam would feel a bit sorry for him--he likes the guy well enough--but, at the same point, he's got to admit that the purple doesn't exactly look bad on Danny. Besides, it probably would be good for Danny to break out of his shell now and again.

"How long until this stuff washes out?" Danny finally asks.

Adam shrugs. "Depends on the type. Couple washes? Couple weeks? Sorry, Danny, I don't know."

"Talk to your stylist," Kris suggests. "They might be able to strip it."

Adam glances over to Kris. "You know hair?" He's slightly surprised. Is this a new side of Kris he's never seen?

Kris chuckles and shakes his head. "Nah, I just heard Katy talking about it with her mom. She had a bad dye job one time. Turned all her hair orange."

"Ah," Adam says. This makes sense. After all, if Kris was hiding some scandalous rocker persona in his history, Adam's sure he would've found out a long time ago. Then, back to Danny, Adam says, "I think it works for you." When Danny's face flickers with disbelief, Adam adds, "Honest. You think I'd steer you wrong on this one? Add some purple into your wardrobe tonight, like, y’know, you did for Rock Week. It'll be a hell of a lot easier doing that than messing with your hair otherwise."

Danny sighs. "I don't know, guys..." He shakes his head. Now that his hair is starting to dry, the purple really isn't as dramatic as Adam had first thought. That's almost disappointing in a way because it's likely that ninety percent of the crowd won't even notice the new color. "I just wish I knew who did it."

"I'm sure we'll find out eventually," Kris says. "But I'm with Adam on this one. Just change your wardrobe plans tonight. Who knows how long you'll spend in your hair stylist's chair messing with that? You don't want to miss dress rehearsal because of some dye problem."

"Maybe you're right." He pulls the baseball cap back on. "I guess I better go talk to the wardrobe gals, huh?"

"Sounds like a plan to me," Adam says. He's back to blowing on his nails and wishing he had some silver glitter or something as an overcoat. Then again, he thinks, that might be over the top even for him.

After Danny's left, both Kris and Adam sit in silence for a few moments until a voice from behind Adam's vanity set asks, "Is he gone?"

"Yup," Kris says, not lifting his eyes from the papers in his hands.

"Damn," Allison says, coming out from behind the set and brushing off her knees. She exhales, blowing her hair out of her face. "I thought he was never going to leave. Talk, talk, talk..." She leans against the vanity set. "So," she says, grinning, "how'd I do?"

"Excellent job, m'dear," Adam says. They high-five and laugh.

"Maybe that’ll help the poor guy get some excitement in his life," Allison says. She flips her own hair dramatically and giggles. "Nothing like a little dye to add some color to your life, huh?"

"What I want to know is how you did it," Kris says. He looks up from the papers. "That took some talent."

Allison beams and pulls out a bottle of purple dye from her pocket. She shakes it and says, "Well, I just am that good. Plus, it does help that Danny sleeps like a rock."

As Adam and Allison laugh, Kris shakes his head. "You two are horrible." But, he's smiling all the same. It’s really not a malicious thing at all. Aren't pranks to be expected now and then? Plus, Adam's sure that Danny will forgive them…if he ever finds out who did it, that is.

"Who's next?" Allison asks. She looks over to Kris. "Oh and don't worry, Adam says you're off limits, since you're the winner and all." She laughs playfully. They all know Adam likes and respects Kris too much for a sneak hair dye attack. "I think the producers might kill us for that one."

"I'm touched," Kris says.

"Matt?" Adam suggests, frowning.

"Color?" Allison asks.

They both sit in silence, contemplating, until Kris says, "Green sounds good to me."

Adam laughs and he's reminded of why he likes Kris so much. Oh yeah, green sounds good to him, too.

End

Of High School and Hair Dye (Gen, PG)

2009-05-24T02:12:51Z

Title: Of High School and Hair Dye
Rating: PG
Category: Gen RPF oneshot
Word Count: 1250
Characters: Adam, Danny, Kris and Allison
Warning: None
Summary: Because Danny finds more pictures than the ones featuring guys and glitter.
Author’s Notes: So, this came about after a late night of surfing Adam Lambert sites where I ran across this.
Disclaimer: Everything here is fiction except for the names, which are used without permission. I claim only what is mine, and I make no money off what is theirs.

- - - - -

Adam's on his bed, eyes closed and music streaming through the headphones in his ears. He's not quite asleep yet, but he's comfortable enough that it'd take a hell of a lot of money to get him to move. First quiet moment in a long while. He sighs, content, as the playlist changes to a new song.

"Hey! Hey, Adam, there's a new picture of you on the Internet!" Somebody pats his shoulder. "Hey!"

Lazily, he opens his eyes to see Danny standing by his bed, laptop in his hands.

"Were you sleeping?" Danny asks, peering down at him through those geek-chic glasses of his. Of all the fashion trends, that's one Adam's not quite gotten. But, hey, to each their own. After all, he is the guy with silver eyeshadow in his suitcase.

"Not really," Adam mumbles, pulling the earbuds out and pausing his player. He moves over on his bed so Danny can sit down as he clicks through some opened windows on the computer. "What now?"

"New pictures of you. You didn't tell us about these!"

"New pictures?" Kris echoes as he exits the bathroom that he shares with Adam. Fresh from a shower, Kris is toweling off his hair, his t-shirt damp on his shoulders. "Of who?"

"Adam," says Danny.

Kris looks from Danny to Adam. Even though Adam's only known the guy for a few months, he's got a pretty good idea of what Kris is thinking because with he and Kris, things have just clicked that well. More of those drag pictures, hm? Kris is probably wondering. More sparkles and makeup, Adam? More of those photos where your tongue is down that guy's throat? Of course, Kris wouldn't say it in that sort of snarky tone. Kris doesn't do snark. Shit. Kris barely does sarcasm most days. But, still, his thoughts are probably somewhere in that range all the same.

"Yeah?" Adam says. "Let's see 'em."

Danny clicks on a tab in the opened Internet browser, and instantly, a photograph that Adam recognizes all too well pops up. Adam can't help but smile.

"This is the best you've got?" He punches Danny playfully in the shoulder. "And here I had my hopes up for something good and scandalous. You suck at this game, man."

Kris leans over Danny's shoulder, still towel-drying his hair. "Is that you?"

"Yup." Adam grins. "Changed a bit, didn't I?"

"A bit?" Danny says. "Try becoming a whole different person. It's like Dr. Frankenstein got to you. Transformed you and all that." He gives a quick glance at Adam, as if checking if there is still any resemblance between the guy who sits by him now and the young teenager in the photograph.

While Danny and Kris stare at the picture of Adam from his high school days, Adam shakes his head, still smiling to himself. There's a young kid in that picture, freckled with short, blonde hair barely spiked in the front. Proper suit coat, gray tie and gray shirt to match. So, maybe the picture was taken several years ago or so. Not all that long, but yeah, it really does seem like a lifetime ago.

"That's you," Kris says. It seems as if both he and Danny are unable to wrap their minds around that idea.

"Yup."

"Wow," Kris says.

"What made you change?" Danny asks.

Adam, sprawled out on the bed, shrugs and crosses his extended legs. "Why not?" he says. He's not avoiding the question, really. Not like he avoids all those questions from the reporters wanting to know the kind of company he'd prefer to keep in his bed. It's just that, well, he changed. Shouldn't be that big of a deal, right?

Danny gives a small laugh, but it's good-natured and easy. "This guy," he says, pointing to the computer screen, "just seems too normal to be you!"

"Well, you don't think I popped into this world wearing these, do you?" Adam asks. He lifts his hands and dramatically wiggles his fingers, making sleek, black nail polish and big, jeweled rings catch the light.

Danny and Kris both laugh along with him.

"Really, though, what made you change? Not trying to pry, but, well..." Kris gives a little shrug. He looks almost ashamed to be asking, but hey, Adam can't blame him for the curiosity. They're like different species that have been shoved together in this weird, freak experiment of American Idol.

Kris has his guitar and the Southern twang that comes out when he gets too sleepy or talks to his wife too long on the phone. When someone tells a dirty joke too loudly, he looks down, embarrassed, and he still blushes like he's twelve when someone compliments him on his song for the week. His stuff in the bathroom is limited to a razor, shaving cream and hairbrush. Adam couldn't even count all his own bathroom necessities if he tried.

"I didn't want to be that guy anymore," Adam says. He's not sure how better to explain it. "So, I said, 'Well, let's try this for today and see how it feels.' And I liked it, so it stuck. It wasn't like it was all at once though. Just a little here and little there." He shrugs, thinking back on what people said when he first started dressing differently, first started showing up wearing eyeliner, first time he wore leather pants...so many firsts there. "I don't know," he admits. "I guess, y'know, life's too short, so why not try as many different outfits on as possible?"

Danny and Kris look at each other. Adam can see that this concept has never occurred to them. He supposes that's what happens when you're from a small town that's not in California. Briefly, he wonders what would have happened to him if he'd been born in their towns instead of his own. He decides he'd still be that strawberry blonde, freckled kid...and probably still trying to convince himself that there wasn't even a door that would let him come out of the proverbial closet.

"If you guys want," Adam suggests, "I'm sure we can go downtown and pick you up some black dye for your hair. See how you like it." He smiles as Kris' eyes widen and Danny says, "Oh no way, man!"

At Danny's outburst, Allison peeks her head into the room. "What are you boys talking about?" she asks.

"Hair dye!" Adam says. "You want to help me in getting Kris and Danny new colors?" If anybody in this house understands his love for the dye, it's Allison.

Allison grins and hurries into the room. She leaps on top of Danny, looping her arms around his neck. "Purple for you!" she cries.

While Danny screams in mock horror, Allison laughs much too wickedly for a kid her age. Kris shakes his head and smiles. He picks up his towel and goes back into the bathroom, probably retreating before anyone can convince him that blue dye really would bring out his eyes.

Adam chuckles and looks at the photograph of himself still on Danny's computer. So, he changed some, yeah. For the better, for the worse, whatever. But, it got him here. It got him to this place where he can sing his heart out for all of America while staying in a house with some of the most talented people he's ever met, so he smiles and figures that all those changes couldn't have been that bad after all.

End

Untitleds Status Change

2009-05-13T19:46:40Z

Hello all,

After some thinking and prompting from others, I've decided to unlock a handful of untitled fics. They can all be found under the untitleds tag. They are of various ratings and genres, but they are all labeled accordingly so (hopefully) no one stumbles over something they didn't want to go stumbling over.

A complete list of the fics are listed below the cut for reading convenience.

(This list consists of all fics that are currently being unlocked. Any untitled fics that were already listed as public or the very limited fics not unlocked are not listed here.)

Untitled #1 (Gen, G): Pre-series about a pack of crayons and Sam’s first day at school

Untitled #2 (Gen, PG): "Born Under a Bad Sign" tag - Immediately following Bobby’s, Sam discovers that it was more than intuition that stopped Dean from shooting when Sam asked.

Untitled #3 (Slash, Adult): The first summer that John leaves them alone.

Untitled #4 (Gen, PG-13): Crossover with Heroes/Dark Angel - He had needed to see the priest, but another man got there first.

Untitled #5 (Slash, Adult): They stop at Caleb’s for an afternoon.

Untitled #6 (Gen, PG): There was a man sitting in class today.

Untitled #7 (Gen, G): It's one night during the last week.

Untitled #8 (Het, PG): He remembers the guitar from his life before this.

Untitled #10 (Gen, PG-13): There was more to Sam's gift than having the occasional vision.

Untitled #15 (Gen, PG): "Mystery Spot" - During the Tuesdays, Sam tries something new to save Dean.

Untitled #16 (Slash, PG): Because Sam and Dean are in love.

Untitled #18 (Gen, PG-13): Because blood's thicker than water

Untitled #20 (Gen, PG): Sam disappears to faraway places.

Untitled #21 (Slash, PG): They meet again where it all started

Untitled #22 (Gen, PG): "On the Head of a Pin" - They drive east out of Wyoming and Sam thinks

Untitled #23 (Gen, PG-13): It's after the end, and the Sam and Dean show isn't quite what it used to be.

Untitled #24 (Gen, PG): Dark Angel - Ben dreams and Alec follows

Untitled #25 (Gen, PG): Sam's returned from Stanford, Jess died five months ago, and Dad is missing. But, other than that, some things never change.

Untitled #26 (Gen, PG): Dean shops and Castiel observes

I hope you enjoy them. :)

Untitled #26 (Gen, PG)

2009-04-29T15:32:30Z

Title: Untitled #26
Rating: PG
Category: Gen oneshot
Word Count: 1060
Characters: Dean and Castiel
Spoilers: None
Summary: Dean shops and Castiel observes.
Author’s Notes: From here. For astrothsknot who asked for something where Dean goes shopping. Castiel comes too. Dean resists the urge to kill him.
Disclaimer: The following characters and situations are used without permission of the creators, owners, and further affiliates of the television show, Supernatural, to whom they rightly belong. I claim only what is mine, and I make no money off what is theirs.

- - - - -

Dean found him at the end of the bath products aisle with a bright pink bottle in his hand. Dean groaned and rolled his eyes. Of all places for the angel to show up...

"What are you doing here?" Dean asked. Then, with a glance at the strawberry scented body wash, he added, "And with that?"

Castiel looked up from where he was reading the label on the back of the bottle. "It seems I was reading about how to 'infuse myself with the power of strawberries,'" he replied. "I was not aware that strawberries provided one with such a gift."

"Yeah, well? They usually don't, but when they're all liquid like in a bottle, they sure do wonders," Dean replied with a roll of his eyes.

Castiel placed the bottle back on the shelf and followed Dean as he turned down another aisle. "What are you shopping for, Dean?" he asked.

"The usual," Dean said. He stopped long enough to grab a new pack of blades for his razor. Next to him, Castiel had picked up a bottle of shaving cream and was turning it over in his hands.

"What are you doing?" Dean asked.

"Observing. I have received orders that I am to observe more about the human world."

"So you pick me."

"Is there someone else you suggest I should watch?"

Dean was about to spit out something smartass like Paris Hilton would probably appreciate a guardian angel on her shoulder, but he thought better of it. Knowing Castiel, Dean would have to give him a play-by-play explanation on who, exactly, was Paris Hilton and why she should have an angel with her. Instead, Dean exhaled and shook his head. "Whatever."

"This is cream," Castiel said as Dean began to walk away.

Dean stopped and turned around. "What?"

"Cream," Castiel said, holding up the blue can of shaving cream. "Cream is something that is normally used in desserts, isn't it? Odd that you would want to shave with it."

"It's a different kind of cream. Not edible."

"But cream is cream. All the same."

Dean sighed. "Do you speak English, man?"

"Yes, I speak English," Castiel answered, tipping his head to the side in that inquisitive manner he had adapted. "Do you not feel that I speak English adequately enough?"

"Well, just..." Dean put his hands on his hips, the handle of the shopping basket hanging off his wrist. Castiel was so much more annoying in a normal environment where they weren't out in old abandoned barns, fighting down demons. Put him in the middle of a store, and he just became a complete pain in the ass. "Look. Shaving cream is not edible. Whipped cream is edible. They're not the same thing. The end."

"I sense that you are growing agitated with me."

"You sense right," Dean said as he walked away. He still needed some groceries for them--he and Sam, who was back in the motel doing research. Hopefully, though, if Dean ventured into the grocery section, Castiel wouldn't end up trying to talk to the vegetables.

"Now, you need to buy food," Castiel said, moving with Dean down the aisles.

"Yup." Dean grabbed a bag of chips and dropped them in the shopping basket. The chips wouldn't last long between Sam and him, but they'd taste good anyway for their brief life.

"You choose unhealthy foods."

"What?"

"These are unhealthy," Castiel said. He had a bag of chips--the one Dean had just chosen--in one hand and a low-fat bag in the other hand. He was glancing back and forth between the nutritional labels. "The bag that you have chosen is higher in fat, calories, and sodium. It seems that the healthier choice would be the other brand."

Dean stared, flabbergasted. "And I care about that why?" he finally managed to sputter.

"Keeping one's body healthy should be a top concern. At least that seems to be what the magazines at the front counter were telling me. I would have assumed you would be following a similar healthy lifestyle."

"Cas?"

"Yes?"

Dean exhaled. His nerves were starting to fray. "Cas," he repeated again, trying to keep his voice level, "in case you haven't noticed, there's the whole 'been to Hell and back' thing I've got going on. And then there's, oh yeah, the apocalypse on our asses? Worrying about how many goddamn calories I'm eating is not exactly on my list of priorities. Not in the top ten. Not in the top hundred. Probably not even in the top one thousand, gottit?"

"So you do not pick your foods by nutritional value?"

Dean's answer was a curse under his breath.

Castiel nodded as if this made perfect sense, and he placed the two bags of chips back on the shelf.

Dean was halfway down the aisle, heading towards the beef jerky when Castiel asked, "Do you have a preference to your foods?"

Dean stopped and turned around. "What?"

"A preference? I am curious to know which foods appeal to you."

"And why's that?"

"I believe I already told you that. I am observing human nature. Food is a very large part of a person's life. I assume it would be for you, as well."

"Y'know, Cas, if you want to go and observe somebody, why don't you go observe Sam, hm? He's always up for some psycho-babble-bullshit and intellectual mumbo-jumbo, all right?"

"But Sam is not here. Sam is back at the motel room where he is working on his computer. I have already observed the both of you in that environment. I want to observe here."

"Well, if you're going to observe, can you at least observe quietly? I'd like to have a moment in my life where you're not breathing down my neck." Dean reached over and dropped a couple bags of jerky into his shopping basket.

"Dean?"

He sighed. "What?"

"Jerky. I know you have accused me before of not understanding the English language, but 'jerky'--and its other forms of ‘jerk’--is a word that has more than one meaning, does it not?"

"Oh God..." Dean groaned.

"Well, yes," Castiel said, "I am sure God would understand the origin of the word 'jerk,' but I feel that bothering Him with such trivial matters is not appropriate."

Dean shook his head and walked away. Stupid angels. Stupid, stupid angels.

End

Untitled #25 (Gen, PG)

2009-04-27T00:22:35Z

Title: Untitled #25
Rating: PG
Category: Gen oneshot
Word Count: 2040
Characters: Sam and Dean
Spoilers: None
Summary: Sam's returned from Stanford, Jess died five months ago, and Dad is missing. But, other than that, some things never change.
Author’s Notes: From here. For ongiara who asked for something set somewhere in the time frame of season 1 till early season 3 that has the boys butting heads while still trying to get used to being on the road together again, that has angst and some fancy martial arts moves and that is going to actually scare me. As in creepy (like mythology-wise or ghost or zombie or monster creepy). (The whole package or in parts.)
Disclaimer: The following characters and situations are used without permission of the creators, owners, and further affiliates of the television show, Supernatural, to whom they rightly belong. I claim only what is mine, and I make no money off what is theirs.

- - - - -

"I think we've got a case."

Across the table, Dean looked up, mouth full, and said, "Yeah?"

Sam glanced up just long enough to see the mashed up ball of what used to be a hamburger in Dean's mouth before he sighed and flicked his eyes back to the newspaper. "Yeah. Down south, near the border, there have been a strange number of deaths recently."

"It's hot down there. People die in heat."

"No, no, I think it's something different. I've got this feeling..."

Dean swallowed and shook his head. "If that's all you've got is just a 'feeling,' Sam, then I say no.” He pulled a wad of napkins from the dispenser in the middle of the restaurant table and proceeded to wipe his hands. “You can't trust your gut sometimes--especially when you've been out of this as long as you have been. I say we should be going after Dad."

"Like we have any clue where he is," Sam grumbled, turning a page in the newspaper rather than make eye contact with Dean. It'd been a little over five months since Jess's death and Sam’s departure from Stanford, but Dean still treated Sam like he'd just returned to hunting yesterday. It was a daily fight resisting the urge to remind Dean that, yes, he remembered everything there was to know about hunting and Dean should stop treating him like he was still four years old.

"Better than the bunch of people who wandered off into the desert and got lost story you're going for," Dean said.

"I don't know. Lots of accounts of dead plants, shattered rocks, animal deaths...pretty weird stuff to be happening in the same area with the deaths."

Dean snorted and wadded up his burger wrapper and used napkins. "Fine. Rock, paper, scissors, then." He held out his hands, one in a fist sitting on top of the other opened palm.

Sam rolled his eyes. Some things never died. But, at least this was one thing Dean wouldn't argue with and one thing Sam could win.

So, one, two, three, and yup, always with the scissors, Dean, always with the scissors.

Some things never changed no matter how long you were gone.

- - - - -

Down south, in a town not far from the Mexican border, they met with one of the local police who at first claimed there was foul play involved in the deaths of six townspeople. However, as Sam continued talking--Dean being too ornery in the heat to attempt any suaveness with the officer--the cop eventually admitted there was something odd about the cases.

"Odd?" Sam said, flicking glancing over to Dean. "Odd how?"

"All died too similarly. Out in barns or abandoned buildings. All of 'em died with their eyes wide opened--like they were scared or somethin'." The officer reached up and scratched underneath his hat. "Bunch of dead plants around the buildings too."

"Dead?" Sam echoed.

"Yeah. All black and shriveled up. Looked like somebody poisoned them, but we've sent them down to the lab for testing and nobody can make heads or tails of it."

"And these dead plants, they were at all the murder sites?"

The officer nodded. "Every single one. Something odd, I tell ya. You'd think these people were being poisoned, but we can't find anything."

"What's the cause of death?" Dean asked.

"Not sure. Doc's leaning towards heart failure, but you can't have six people die the same way all because of heart failure. Something's just not right." The officer shook his head. "Just not right."

- - - - -

Too many interviews and too much research later, they were back in the motel when Sam said, "I think I know what we're dealing with."

Dean looked up from where he was sitting on the bed, fat book on his lap and sweat on his face. "And?"

"I think--but hopefully I'm wrong--I think we've got ourselves a basilisk."

"A basilisk?" Dean echoed, eyebrows raised skeptically. "C'mon, those things are just old mythology.” He chuckled. “Like unicorns."

"Yeah? And those bugs we nearly got killed by a few weeks ago over in Oklahoma? Those were just coming off an old Native American myths about cursed land, but they sure seemed real enough. And, besides, we’ve seen crazier shit than that and you know it."

Dean rolled his eyes and closed the book on his lap. "Basilisks, huh? Isn't it like a big, ugly snake of some sort?"

"Yeah. Um, it's said to be the 'king of snakes.' There are a few different stories here, but they have the power to kill plants and break rocks with their breath. It's said that if you look directly at it, you'll die."

"Great," Dean grumbled. "We're dealing with a killer snake. A very killer snake." He wiped a hand over his face. "How do we stop it?"

"Well, basically, I think we've got to hold a mirror up to it. Looking at itself should kill it."

"But we can't look at it to do this."

"No. Otherwise, we'll die too."

Dean groaned. "Snakes, man. Why couldn't it just be a simple salt and burn?" He swore and flopped back on the bed, arm coming up to cover his eyes while Sam returned his attention to the research.

- - - - -

It was sunset when they left the motel, cool enough that they could do their job without heat exhaustion sinking in and light enough that they could see well enough to do said job. With Sam's research, they'd gotten a fairly good idea of where the basilisk was located, based on the places of recent deaths. Too, since the deaths occurred at night, Sam reasoned that the basilisk would be leaving its home at night and that was when they could place the mirror in front of it den to kill it.

"I still say this is a crappy idea," Dean grumbled as they trekked across the field behind a cluster of homes.

"But if we don't do anything about it, more innocent people are going to die," Sam pointed out. His mind flicked over to Jess who had died far too early and far too innocent with no idea what had happened until it was too late.

"Yeah, well? We could die, Sammy. Think about that."

Sam sighed. He thought about saying something back to Dean, like at least they knew what they were getting themselves into and they would be fine so long as they stayed out while it was still light out. But, he decided against it. Dean was already on edge because of the case and having Sam poke at him wouldn't help matters any.

They eventually split up as the sky began to grow darker with the reasoning being that they could cover more area that way. The field wasn't especially big, but if they didn't find the basilisk tonight, then it was likely that someone else would die.

Sam suddenly stopped where he was walking as he spotted a hole in the side of a sloping hill surrounded by dead plants and rock fragments. This had to be the basilisk's home.

Cautiously, he crept forward, holding the mirror in front of him and keeping his eyes on his feet. He didn't dare to look ahead any farther, fearing that the basilisk would come sneaking out of its home.

He stopped in front of the hole and placed the mirror right outside. The basilisk would see itself and die just as it was leaving to go and kill someone else. The plan seemed perfect.

Perfect, of course, until Sam felt something cool brush against the back of his pantleg. He swallowed and lifted his eyes up to the sky. There was a soft hissing sound, and a long body curled around his ankle.

Although he couldn't look at it, he knew it had to be the basilisk. The stupid thing was out before sundown, dammit.

His heart leapt into his throat immediately, beating madly. He couldn't look at the snake or else he would die, but he somehow had to pick his mirror back up from the ground. Yet, if the basilisk breathed directly onto his skin, he'd be harmed that way. He couldn't touch it either to get it off him because, again, skin contact. It probably wouldn't be deadly, but most likely, it'd be painful if the ruined plants and rocks were any indication of what happened.

The basilisk made a noise that almost sounded like a chuckle as it wrapped itself around Sam's ankle and began to slither up his leg. Sam swallowed, throat tight. A giant snake was working its way up his body. Not just any snake either, but one that would kill him if he so much as looked at it. He had to get that mirror somehow. Get the mirror while keeping his eyes up to the sky.

Slowly, he started to crouch down, and the basilisk, feeling Sam's muscles move, tightened itself on his leg to stop him.

"Sam!" Dean suddenly called out from behind him. "Don't move!"

"Dean! Don't get too close! It's on me!"

"Yeah, I know!"

How was Dean going to help him if Dean couldn't look at the basilisk? There didn't seem to be a winning solution to this mess. Sam's heart continued to beat faster as the basilisk slithered higher up him, its coils wrapping around his waist. Even though Sam chided himself for thinking as such, he couldn't shake the thought that either he or Dean was going to die on this hunt.

"Dean..." Sam began, unable to stop the waver in his voice. He was already regretting his choice to bring them on this crazy hunt. They should have gone after Dad. At least going after Dad wouldn't have ended up with them getting killed in the middle of a desert by a monstrous snake.

Suddenly, though, right when Sam was about to say he was sorry for running off to Stanford and everything else he had ever done to hurt Dean, the basilisk screamed. It tightened around Sam, squeezing the air out of him, before relaxing and dropping away. Then, the basilisk screamed again and exploded into a gooey mess all over Sam's pants and feet.

"Is it dead?" Dean called from behind Sam.

"I...I think so," Sam answered. Tentatively, with his eyes still turned upward, he poked his foot out, kicking the soft corpse in front of him. When there was no movement from the body, he swallowed and dared himself to look downward. A splattered mess of blood and guts and shiny snake skin was on the ground.

"Yeah," Sam breathed, "it's gone."

Dean came up beside him, mirror in hand. He looked down at what remained of the basilisk and exhaled. "Fucking snakes, man. God." He gave a lazy kick to the mess and shuddered. "Gross." Then after a beat, he looked over to Sam. "You all right?"

"Yeah," Sam said with a nod. "Yeah, I'll be okay." He wiped a trembling hand over his face where a few splatters of blood had hit. "How...how'd you know it was on me? You couldn't have seen it or else you would've died."

"No. I was looking around and saw you freeze up like you used to do when you got really scared as a kid." Dean shrugged. "So, I kinda figured something was up."

Sam smiled. Dean, always the big brother. "Thanks."

"Sure, no problem." Dean looked down at Sam's pants, which were covered in blood and slime. "I'm guessing you're going to want to get those cleaned up, huh?"

"Yeah, I'm thinking so. At least before somebody sees me and wonders what the hell I did to myself."

Dean slapped him on the shoulder. "All right, c'mon. But," he said, as Sam walked with him away from the field, "you get any of that shit inside my car? Oh man." Dean shook his head. "You'll be in trouble." He glanced over at Sam and, almost as an after-thought, he added, "Jerk."

Sam grinned. He knew the lines to this one. "Bitch."

After all, some things never changed no matter how long you were gone.

End

Untitled #24 (Gen, PG)

2009-04-24T17:52:46Z

Title: Untitled #24
Rating: PG
Category: Gen oneshot
Word Count: 1308
Characters: Alec and Ben
Spoilers: None specific
Summary: Ben dreams and Alec follows
Author’s Notes: From here. For tigriswolf who asked for something with Ben and Alec, mirrors and dreams
Disclaimer: The following characters and situations are used without permission of the creators, owners, and further affiliates of the television show, Dark Angel, to whom they rightly belong. I claim only what is mine, and I make no money off what is theirs.

- - - - -

"Do you think this is funny or something?"

There's a pause, a sigh from the shadows, before Ben answers unseen, "You don't hear me laughing, do you?"

Alec doesn't reply. Ben might not be laughing on the outside, but Alec's pretty sure he's still finding something humorous in all of this anyway. Then again, in the time he's come to know Ben--however little that may be--humor hasn't exactly been on Ben's list of priorities.

"So what are we doing here, then?" Alec asks. He moves forward into the room where Ben went before him. The space is dimly light, but his eyes adjust quickly. The electricity's long gone, and the sinking sun throws tiny rays of yellow and orange through the window cracks.

"She told me to come," Ben, still out of sight, says.

Alec nods. She. Ben's Blue Lady. There's no point in arguing with him now, telling him that she's not real and that the voices Ben hears are only in his head when he dreams at night. Ben would gut him for saying such a thing.

He goes deeper into the room until he's standing in the middle of an endless field of mirrors. From what little he knows about the outside world, he's assuming this was some kind of place people went to have fun before the Pulse. He's not sure why people would be amused by all these mirrors, but he's never been able to understand the ordinaries completely.

The mirrors reflect his image back and forth, throwing it around until he's surrounded by hundreds of images of himself. Some of the mirrors are broken, dirtied and dusty, and there are patches of shattered glass on the floor beneath his feet. When he looks closer, uses his enhanced vision, he can see smudged fingerprints on the glass. For a moment, he almost can hear a child's voice of excitement as she ran through this endless maze.

Alec shakes his head, trying to clear his mind, and asks, "And why did she tell you come here?" He remains still, watching and wondering where Ben is standing.

One of his reflections move and smile, catching Alec's eye. Ben.

"Have you ever wondered if there were more of us back at Manticore?" Ben says, answering a question with a question, as he is fond of doing.

"X5s?"

"No. No," Ben says, and his reflection moves along with a collection of others. Alec can't pinpoint which image is the real Ben out of all of them. He can't tell where his reflections end and where Ben's reflections begin. It's a dizzying--nearly uncomfortable--sensation.

"No," Ben continues, "more of us. You and me."

Alec shrugs. He wants to put his hands in his pockets, attempt a bit of nonchalance, but he doesn't completely trust Ben. They've been traveling together for a little over two months now since a near run-in with Lydecker back in Seattle. So with Ben, Alec's just following his old training in how Manticore taught them to keep their friends close and their enemies closer. Ben isn't exactly an enemy, but he's definitely not a friend, and for Alec, that's enough of a reason to keep him close.

"It's possible," Alec says.

"What do you think happened to them? Did you ever meet them? You were there longer than I was."

Alec shakes his head. "I didn't mean any of our clones, no. I was in the field most of the time, anyway."

"Ah, right, right," Ben says. His voice is smooth and slick. All that feline DNA making him nearly purr when he talks. "All those assassinations."

"Yeah."

Ben stays quiet, and a dozen of his images pace back and forth. In the dying sunlight, his skin appears golden.

"You know what I do find funny," he says after a long pause.

"Hm?"

"That you and I ended up doing the same thing even though we were raised apart. I escaped and you stayed behind, but we both killed and made sacrifices for something bigger than ourselves."

"That was my job," Alec says. "Whatever you do...it's...it's not the same."

"Isn't it? Death is death. It doesn't matter if I'm killing for my lady or if you're killing to make your CO happy. It's all the same in the end when we've got blood on our hands."

Alec considers arguing that it's not the same thing because the assassinations were different than what Ben is doing now out of his own free will. Ben kills because it's a game and it's fun and he's fallen so far off the radar that even Manticore that prides themselves in producing killing machines would toss him in the basement with the rest of the 'nomlies. Ben's more than deadly; he's psychotic.

"Why did she ask you to come here?" Alec asks instead, changing the subject.

"For guidance," Ben says. His images begin to move towards the exit door, so Alec follows. With Ben, it's always best to keep him in your sight if possible.

"Yeah?"

Ben's images converge until there's only one of him standing in front of the door and smiling at Alec. "Yeah," he says, before turning away and pushing open the exit door. Piercing, golden sunlight rushes in, and for a temporary moment, Alec is blinded.

After opening his eyes, he walks forward to where Ben has sat down on the steps leading out of the building. In front of them, the land rolls on with dead, brown grass lining the cracked pavement of an old parking lot. Far off in the distance, seagulls cry and swoop over a polluted ocean.

"She said that there are more of us out there," Ben says when Alec sits down next to him. Ben's eyes are focused on something faraway and his brow is furrowed in concentration.

"I'm guessing you don't mean other X5s."

Ben nods. Out here in the sunlight, Alec can see the darker stains on Ben's black shirt and pants. He's smart enough to know that only blood can make a spot darker than black.

"Do you want to find them?" Alec asks.

"She wants me to find them. She said that if we came here--you and I--we could see what it would look like with a whole army of us." He turns to look at Alec. "Could you imagine? An army of our genetics, born and bred for killing. They wouldn't be just any X5. They'd be us with our drive and our need to please her."

Alec decides not to point out that he's never felt the need to serve the Blue Lady as Ben does.

"She's shown me in my dreams what we could do. We would serve her, and she would become stronger." Ben sighs. "She would protect us. All of us, you know."

"Protect us?"

"From anyone that wanted to hurt us. Lydecker, Manticore, other Xs...anyone." Ben smiles, lips parting just enough to reveal his teeth.

Alec stays silent. Perhaps he should kill him right now. Reach over and snap his neck before he has a chance to go out into the world and continue his murders of innocent people. It's something he's considered before, but for many reasons, he can never bring himself to do it.

Before Alec can move, though, Ben stands and walks down the rest of the stairs to the ground. "Are you coming?" he says, even though they both already know the answer.

"Where are we going?"

Ben smiles, and there's something dark and animalistic in his eyes. Something that makes even Alec's heart trip over itself. He's not afraid of humans. But, Ben's falling further and further away from humanity each day.

"Whenever she tells us to go," Ben says, and he turns to walk off into the dying sun.

Alec sighs and rises to his feet to follow.

End

Untitled #23 (Gen, PG-13)

2009-04-22T16:08:21Z

Title: Untitled #23
Rating: PG-13
Category: Gen oneshot
Word Count: 1597
Characters: Dean and Sam
Spoilers: Vague for S4
Summary: It's after the end, and the Sam and Dean show isn't quite what it used to be.
Author’s Notes: From here. For mimblexwimble who asked for something about "how sure Dean is that Sam will turn, while Sam is sure that he won't and how completely Sam has lost Dean's trust. I want to know how the boys deal with those facts after Lucifer's released/not released, if Sam proves himself to be good. Still uses his powers but doesn't become evil. After everything is said and done, how do they go on? How does Sam live knowing that his older brother had no faith in him, and that it was pretty much his fault? How does Dean live knowing that he didn't have faith in the one person he should have?"
Disclaimer: The following characters and situations are used without permission of the creators, owners, and further affiliates of the television show, Supernatural, to whom they rightly belong. I claim only what is mine, and I make no money off what is theirs.

- - - - -

If this was a storybook, all tied up with a bow, it'd be the end. It wouldn't be a happy ending, Dean thinks, because he and Sam didn't go skipping off into the sunset with bluebirds singing on their shoulders and hot chicks with big tits praising them. It would be a sort of happy ending because, hey, at least Lucifer didn't rise. They managed to stop the apocalypse and all that shitstorm, so there's that to be thankful for at least.

But, nope, it can't be called a straight-out happy ending. Ruby's dead--one of those causalities of war--so Sam's not drinking her blood anymore, but he's still able to snap his fingers and turn demons inside out. Sam's not talking to him much either. It wasn't so much the whole "my older brother started the apocalypse" thing that got to him in the end. It was really more of Dean's constant lack of faith that Sam wouldn't go darkside in the end that silenced Sam.

Dean's not saying much either. He's still feeling pretty damn guilty, truth be told, that when push came to shove, he couldn't find it in his heart to have enough faith in Sam to trust him. He couldn't even believe in his own brother when he insisted that his new psychic shit wouldn't push him over the edge. Then again, Sam wasn't exactly giving Dean a lot of reasons to keep that faith, what with Sam off fucking demons and drinking their blood and ripping them apart with only a thought. Yeah, in Dean's defense, Sam wasn't exactly playing a good little soldier either. So, Dean's got guilt, but he's still pretty pissed off all the same.

So, all in all, it's not exactly a happy ending. Lucifer's still trapped, hurrah on that account, but the Sam and Dean show isn't doing all that great. They ride around in the Impala together, but they're a million miles apart all the same.

Dean decides it's a silver lining sort of ending, maybe. Not great, not perfect, but hey, at least Lucifer's not prowling around up on Earth. That's got to be a bit of sunshine right there.

"I wouldn't call it an end at all," Sam says from the passenger seat.

Dean glances over. Either he's been talking out loud to himself or Sam's mind reading tricks are still there. Admittedly, they're not as powerful as they were a couple months ago when Sam was reading the minds of angels, but a little bit of mind reading goes a long way all the same.

"Yeah?" Dean says, turning his eyes back to the road.

"Maybe the end of the Gospel of Winchester--or whatever it's called--but it's not the end. I mean, for us."

Dean shrugs. "I guess so." This is the most they've talked in a while. It's been half-hearted grunts and mutters for the last several weeks. Enough to get by, but not nearly enough to form a conversation.

Honestly, though, Dean doesn't know if he wants to have a conversation with Sam right now. Dean's still torn between wanting to punch Sam in the face over the whole nearly going over the dark edge--again--or punch himself in the face for not trusting his brother, who's supposedly the only person in the world he can trust. Needless to say, Dean's mind isn't getting along too well with itself.

"If you wanna talk about it," Sam says, "we can."

Dean looks over at him again. Sam's staring out the window, shoulders turned away from Dean, head bent down, and his body language clearly says, You don't want to mess with me, but he's the one who just said--

"Talk about what?" Dean says, feigning ignorance.

"You know."

Dean snorts. He knows bullshit when he smells it. "Yeah. Because talking about our feelings has always gone fan-fucking-tastic for us." He glances down at the steering wheel, and he's surprised to see his knuckles gone white.

"Well," Sam shoots back, "it's a hell of a lot better than you sitting over there and just thinking about it. Might as well get it out in the open, huh?" This time, he does lift his head to look at Dean. His hair's partially in his eyes, but there's no mistaking the challenge there.

Dean shakes his head and smiles humorlessly. "You don't want to do this, Sammy."

"Yeah? And why not?"

"Because...because it won't get us anywhere good."

Sam laughs, a bitter, wicked sort of sound. "Like we're doing so great now." He snorts. "Y'know, if you had just trusted me more--"

"Trusted you?!" Dean shouts, feeling something hot snap inside him. "You were off sucking down demon blood, and I was supposed to trust you?"

"Last time I checked, that's what brothers do!"

"That's it!" Dean yells, and he wrenches the steering wheel sharply to the right, pulling the Impala off onto the shoulder of the road. Gravel bursts up around them when he slams the brakes and turns off the engine. He climbs out of the car and throws his door shut just as Sam does the same on the other side.

"What do you want from me?" he shouts at Sam, the car between them. "You want me to get down and kiss your ass and beg your forgiveness for thinking that you were going darkside?"

"Well, it'd sure be a start."

"Aw, fuck you," Dean spits, rounding the front of the car. Sam still hasn't moved from his place by the passenger door. "You know what? I had angels, man, angels thinking you were about to board the Demon Express Train to Hell when you were off doing the nasty with Ruby in the dark. Why wouldn't I have thought you were heading down that road?"

"Because I'm you're brother, and you should've trusted me! Dammit, Dean, I've never let you down, and then, just because what? I tried to use my powers to help you stop the apocalypse, to kill Lilith, then you stopped having faith in me? I've always had your back. Always!"

Dean stands and stares at Sam, clenching and unclenching his hands at his sides. The urge to grab Sam by the collar of his shirt and punch him right in the face is pretty damn strong. Once, twice, and maybe then, they can move past this. Dean can get this goddamned feeling of guilt off his shoulders, and Sam can shut his everlasting mouth.

"You want to punch me?" Sam says. "Go ahead, and punch me if it'll make you feel better. It's not going to change the fact that when push came to shove, you didn't trust me. So, what? You're either pissed off at me for it or you're pissed off at yourself. Maybe both, but it doesn't mean--"

So, Dean punches him. Hard and sharp, quick enough that even Sam's psychic powers didn't see it coming. Sam doesn't say anything when it happens. He just turns his face away long enough to blink back the instinctive rush of water to his eyes and wipe his split lip.

"I've always been watching out for you, Dean," Sam says, turning towards him. There's a bit of red on his teeth when he talks. "And that's all I was doing before. Just trying to watch out for you. If I didn't think some good could've come from it, I wouldn't have done it." He inhales, turns and spits blood onto the road.

"How can I believe you?" Dean growls. There's a dull ache in his hand where he punched Sam, and he might do it again. Part of him doesn't really want to, but dammit, if Sam says something stupid or cocky, he will.

Sam sighs. "I don't know," he admits. "But if it's yourself you're mad at, then, maybe you should just remember that we won. We won. Okay? And it wasn't just you and it wasn't me. We were both there, and the only reason we won was because we were both there. And," he says and sighs. "And, if that's not enough to change things between us, then, well, I don't know what will be."

Dean stares at him for longer than is necessary before finally turning away and walking down the empty road. He tilts his head back and looks to the sky. He remembers how it turned black on those last days when they were all sure that Lucifer was breaking free to turn everything to blood and bones. Yeah, Sam was there. He was there all right with the demons who were willing to listen to him, and okay, yeah, they had fought. Standing right beside Dean, they fought, and it wasn't human in how they did it--more of that psychic mumbo-jumbo--but they fought the same fight all the same.

Dean stands for a long while before eventually turning around and going back to the Impala. Sam's sitting on the hood on the car, hands shoved in his pockets and eyes on the ground between his feet. Dean sits down beside him.

After a few moments have passed, Sam says, "We'll be all right eventually, y'know."

Dean stays silent. He's still angry. At Sam, at himself, at the whole damn world. But, he can't stay angry forever, he knows. If he can't move past this, then he's no better than what he claimed Sam to be.

"Yeah," Dean finally says. He sighs and looks down at his feet, where the toe of his boot barely touches Sam's own. "Yeah, I know."

End

Untitled #22 (Gen, PG)

2009-04-21T01:48:42Z

Title: Untitled #22
Rating: PG
Category: Gen oneshot
Word Count: 1358
Characters: Sam and Dean
Spoilers: 4.16
Summary: They drive east out of Wyoming and Sam thinks
Author’s Notes: From here. For legoline who asked for an angsty h/c coda for 4x16.
Disclaimer: The following characters and situations are used without permission of the creators, owners, and further affiliates of the television show, Supernatural, to whom they rightly belong. I claim only what is mine, and I make no money off what is theirs.

- - - - -

They stay in the hospital for a little less than a week. Once Dean's vitals stabilize after the first couple days, Sam can tell there's something more than his physical wounds that are bothering him. So, even though they could have left earlier, they stay in the hospital. He doesn't want to force Dean back into something that he's clearly not ready for.

They don't talk much, he and Dean. There's a heavy weight on Dean, and Sam's sure Castiel had something to do with it. But, the angel's not making an appearance and Dean's not talking, so Sam's forced to pace the room with silent questions running mad.

At last, one morning, Dean says, "Let's get going." There's still an IV line leading into his hand, but the oxygen tubes are gone. Both of his eyes wear dark rings, and he can barely open his left one. He looks worse than he has in a long time, and considering how often they get thrown around by supernatural bitches, that's saying something.

"You sure?" Sam asks. He wants Dean to admit--for once in his life--that he's not strong enough to go on. To stop pretending that he's some twisted version of a modern day G.I. Joe in a leather jacket. To let Sam carry the weight for once and break free of Dad's words of "be strong" and "don't cry" and, above all else, "watch out for Sammy." He wants Dean to admit he's human and he's weak.

But, Dean doesn't. He gives a faint nod and says, "Yeah. Let's go."

Sam sighs. He considers arguing, but he knows Dean doesn't have the strength for it. Besides, it wouldn't do any good anyway. So, he goes and calls the nurse for the discharge papers.

- - - - -

Dean sleeps in the backseat of the Impala as Sam drives them out of Wyoming. He doesn't have any real direction in mind. No place to go because he doesn't give a rat's ass about a hunt anymore. No hunt except the Big One, that is. But, it's not time for that. He has to worry about Dean before he can go after Lilith.

So, he merges onto I-80 to take them east through Nebraska and Iowa. The land's flat out this way, and the drive's easy enough. Gives him a chance to turn his mind on cruise control while Dean sleeps behind him.

Finally, though, ten, maybe closer to eleven hours later when he can no longer ignore the cramping in his legs, he turns off the interstate to find a motel for them to spend the night. His mind feels fuzzy and thick--too much time running circles in his own head.

It's well past midnight when he pulls into the motel parking lot, and the lady at the desk is curt with him when he first enters and asks for two queens on the first floor. But, after he explains that his brother just got out of the hospital and can't climb stairs very well, her features soften and she says, "Yeah, sure, sweetie, of course." She hands him the keys and asks, "You need some help with your brother? I can get my husband..."

Sam shakes his head. "No, no thanks. I can do it." He hopes his smile doesn't appear as tight and fake to her as it feels to him.

Back at the Impala, the corners of Dean's lips are twitching and he's mumbling something about the apocalypse when Sam wakes him.

"C'mon," Sam says, "I got us a place to crash." He pushes the driver's seat forward so Dean can climb out. "You need help?" he asks as Dean clambers out and onto the pavement.

"No. 'm fine," Dean replies, but he sways and Sam manages to catch him before he goes crashing into the Impala.

Dean begins to protest when Sam wraps an arm around Dean's waist and loops Dean's arm over his neck.

"Yeah, I know," Sam says as they walk slowly into the motel, "if I ever tell anybody, you'll kill me, blah, blah, blah and all that."

Dean snorts and says nothing.

- - - - -

Sam helps Dean into the bed closest to the door. Dean says something under his breath that might be a thanks before he rolls over onto his side, away from Sam. He brings his knees close to his chest, forming into an instinctive fetal position.

After a beat, wondering if Dean will say something more, Sam goes back out to the car to grab their duffels. He then locks the car and returns to the motel room, dumping the bags on the floor between their beds and heading to the bathroom.

He leaves the door cracked--just in case--and flicks on the light. Turning on the faucet, he stares at himself in the mirror while he lets the water run cold. He looks like shit, frankly speaking. Dark bags beneath his eyes, skin greasy and pale, and eyes bloodshot.

He shakes his head. It's been a long last couple of days. He bends down to cup his hands beneath the running faucet and splash water on his face. The brisk coldness feels good, and when he looks back at himself in the mirror, he looks a bit more refreshed. Not great, but maybe a bit better. Maybe.

He turns to the leave the bathroom when he sees Dean staring at him from his bed. Sam hesitates for a moment, inhales, and turns off the bathroom light. He crosses the room and sits down on his bed across from Dean.

"You want to talk about it?" he says, keeping his eyes on the floor between his feet, even though he knows what the answer will be.

"Nope," Dean answers--just as expected.

Sam sighs. They sit in silence a while longer until he says, "Whatever Alastair said, you know it's not true. He was just trying to mess with your head. He--"

"It's not about Alastair," Dean interrupts sharply.

Sam stays silent, waiting.

"It's not about Alastair," Dean repeats. The words are softer, more resigned.

"Castiel?"

Dean's silence is enough of an answer. After a few moments pass, Sam rises to his feet. "I'm going to grab something to drink. Want something?"

Dean shrugs. He's fallen back inside his own mind where something stronger than even Alastair is eating away at him. Sam sighs and pushes open the door to leave the room.

Outside, by the soda vending machine, Sam stands in the glow of the machine. He stands for longer than is necessary, thinking and staring.

He knows what he has to do--what he wants to do. Kill Lilith who dragged Dean into Hell, who broke Dean and made him into this person Sam doesn't recognize most of the time. After Lilith, there will be others. Any demon that ever laid a finger on Dean while he was in Hell. Any of them who laughed at him or spit blood in his face.

Sam curls his hand into a fist and feels a rush of heat between his fingers. He could do it, he knows, remembering the feel of Alastair's soul shredding in his hand. Just a little more practice and a little more power, and the demons will regret making the deal with Dean. They'll be the ones running from the Winchesters instead of the other way around for once.

From behind him, he hears a sound like the flapping of wings and a whisper of his name on the wind.

"Not now," he says to the vending machine. "Stay away."

The wings recede and the sound disappears.

He waits for a moment, listening, before shoving his money into the machine and letting two cans of soda fall to the bottom. He glances over his shoulder, cans in hand, before he goes back inside the room to be with Dean. The war is coming, he knows, and soon enough, he will be out there fighting in it. But, for now, his brother is broken, and he needs him. That, Sam knows, is where he belongs.

End

Untitled #21 (Slash, PG)

2009-04-19T19:07:46Z

Title: Untitled #21
Rating: PG
Category: Slash (Wincest) oneshot
Word Count: 1034
Characters: Dean/Sam, Castiel
Spoilers: Seeing up to 4.18 would be helpful
Summary: They meet again where it all started
Author’s Notes: From here. For halfshellvenus who asked for Sam/Dean, apologies that are finally heard.
Disclaimer: The following characters and situations are used without permission of the creators, owners, and further affiliates of the television show, Supernatural, to whom they rightly belong. I claim only what is mine, and I make no money off what is theirs.

- - - - -

"It is not too late for forgiveness," Castiel tells him.

Dean looks up from the motel's table where scattered newspapers show blurry pictures of bloody fields. In the photos, black-eyed people stagger over the horizon, guns and knives in hand. He doesn't say anything when he meets Castiel's eyes, simply stays quiet and stares. He's too tired for trivial words now.

"Forgiveness," Castiel says again. "You are never too late to ask for it. To offer it to another."

Dean shakes his head and closes his eyes. "Spare me the Ten Commandments," he mutters. He considers making a quip about Charlton Heston, but it doesn't matter. Not like Castiel would get it anyway.

Castiel moves around the table and sits down across from Dean. He rests a hand on top of the newspapers with their grisly articles, and they flutter and crumble to ash at his touch. "Move past these things," he says, eyes focused on Dean. "They will only hold you back as you cling to their false images."

"False?" Dean echoes. He laughs, a single, grainy note. "There's nothing false about these. That's what's going on out there, Cas. That's where...that's where..." He falters, and the words die on his tongue. Their taste is too bitter to speak aloud.

"I know. That is where Sam is. I have seen past these paper pictures. I've seen him in the flesh."

Dean looks up, trying to keep the hope out of his eyes. It seems as though it's been years since he's been in the same room with Sam, although he knows it couldn't have been nearly that long. A month, maybe, but things have been escalating too fast and too far lately, and time's slipping furiously through his fingers.

They used to share everything. Everything from the bed at night and the shower in the morning to breath and heartbeat, life and love, and--now? Now, nothing is as it was. Dean was too weak for Sam, so he stayed behind. Sam was too dark for Dean, so he left. Couldn't admit their only weakness was the lack of trust in the other, and they separated and went their ways. Now, the world hangs by fingernails on the apocalypse's cliff, and they could be separated forever.

"How...how is he?" Dean finally asks.

Castiel's smile is faint but kind; he has learned much about human emotions in the last year. "Go to him and ask. He will welcome your presence."

"But the demons..." Dean begins.

"He will not let them harm you. They may surround you, but they will not touch a hair on your head." Castiel rests his hand over Dean's. "Go to him. He is waiting for forgiveness as much as you wait." Castiel squeezes his hand, and Dean tumbles backwards in darkness.

When he opens his eyes, he's lying in the middle of an empty street. He lifts his head, and his heart sinks as he recognizes the buildings. It's been years, but he'll never forget the street in Lawrence where he was born.

As he rises to his feet, he sees the demons on the sidewalks. They watch him with their black eyes. Some of them wear their human faces and others let their rotting flesh and cracked bones show through. All of them, though, regard him as the enemy.

He walks down the street with them watching him, some even daring to walk alongside him so close that he can hear the soft swish of their clothing and smell the sulfur on their skin. But, as Castiel promised, none of them touch him.

He walks up the small walkway leading to his old home. On the porch, he hesitates and considers knocking, but he shakes his head and turns the knob. He enters the house and closes the door behind him.

The house is silent inside. Except for the murky darkness, everything is as he remembers it. For some reason, he's not surprised. This was where it started, after all.

"Sam?" he calls out. "Sam, are you here?"

There is the sound of creaking footsteps above his head. It is his answer.

He climbs the stairs with his heart in his throat. He doesn't go to his room. He doesn't go to Mom and Dad's room. He goes straight to Sam's.

The crib is gone, as he knew it would be, and the shelves on the walls are empty. The wallpaper's faded and peeling in the corners, and there are cobwebs around the ceiling light. But, a darkened figure with hunched shoulders stands at the window.

"Sam?" Dean whispers.

The figure turns at the sound, revealing Sam. His eyes widen. "Dean?" he says, shocked. Then, his features crumble, and he goes to his brother. "Dean, oh god, Dean."

They embrace in the middle of the room, and the gesture's awkward because it's been so long and so much has come between them. Then Sam lifts Dean's head, cradles his face in his hands, and says, "This was never supposed to happen."

"I know." Dean sighs. "I know. I shouldn't...I should've gone after you. I know you didn't want me...but..."

"Dean?"

"Yeah?"

"Shh." Sam smiles and presses his forehead against Dean's. His skin is warm, and he smells of smoke. "Is it too late?" he asks.

Dean doesn't know if Sam means the world's fate. He doesn't know if Sam means them. He remembers Castiel's words, though, and he says, "No. No, Sammy."

"Sammy." Sam grins. "You haven't called me that in a long time."

Dean smiles back, and he lets Sam rub his nose against his own. It's a silly little gesture, perhaps, but it's surprisingly intimate in spite of what they've been through. Outside, the demons are growling and the wind is building. It could be the wind from angel wings or the winds from the pits of Hell.

"Sam," Dean says.

"Let them come," Sam says, lips brushing against Dean's when he speaks. "I'm not leaving you again." Something in the air crackles, and Dean glances over to see fire on Sam's fingertips. "I never should have left."

Dean closes his eyes, and he doesn't argue. When they kiss, he knows that finally, forgiveness has been heard.

Untitled #20 (Gen, PG)

2009-04-17T15:52:05Z

Title: Untitled #20
Rating: PG
Category: Gen oneshot
Word Count: 1458
Characters: Dean, Bobby, & Sam
Spoilers: None
Summary: Sam disappears to faraway places.
Author’s Notes: From here. For rivers_bend who asked for Sam finding a "secret" place and wanting to show it to Dean. (pre-series).
Disclaimer: The following characters and situations are used without permission of the creators, owners, and further affiliates of the television show, Supernatural, to whom they rightly belong. I claim only what is mine, and I make no money off what is theirs.

- - - - -

At Bobby's place, Sam always got lost.

"He's not lost," Bobby mumbled from behind his opened newspaper. "You just can't find him."

All right, scratch that previous statement. At Bobby's place, Dean could never find Sam.

"What?" Dean said, turning around in his chair to face the newspaper curtain. "How do you know he's not lost? If I can't find him, then he's got to be lost. At least that's what Dad would say."

Yup, back to square one. At Bobby's place, Sam always got lost.

"Because I know where he is." A hand appeared from behind the newspaper to grab the coffee cup on the table. "So, if push came to shove, I could tell you where he is. And, when there's at least one person in the room who knows where another person is, that second person ain't lost."

Oh.

"So, you wanna tell me where Sam's at if you're so smart?" Dean snapped back.

The newspaper shuffled, a turning of pages, and Bobby said, "Nope. If Sam wanted you to know, he'd tell you himself."

Dean sighed, annoyed, and rose to his feet to leave the kitchen.

"Oh, and Dean?" Bobby's voice called back from behind the newspaper.

"Yeah?"

The newspaper went down, and Bobby's face appeared. "You better not use that tone of voice with me again, kid. You're only fourteen, and not yet old enough to go smartin' off like that."

"Yeah, okay, Bobby." Dean turned, leaving the kitchen and heading towards the door that led outside. Dammit, where was Sam? With Dean's luck, Dad would show up, back early from the latest hunt, and wanting to know where Sammy ran off to. And then what would Dean say? Oh yeah, Dad, I haven't been able to find him since yesterday afternoon. What? Don't get mad at me. Go talk to your great friend Bobby about that one.

Yeah. Dean didn't see that going all that well for him.

He pushed open the screen door and went outside to stand on the porch. As he stood, staring, he started to wonder if maybe Sam hadn't snuck out to one of the abandoned cars in Bobby's backyard. It didn't seem likely as, hey, Dean had already wandered around there last night, calling Sam's name. Calling and calling and calling until Bobby finally told him to shut it and get inside for some dinner.

Then again, maybe Sam just hadn't heard him before. After all, there were a lot of cars out there, and if Sam had wedged himself in the back of one of the cars in the farthest corner, then it was possible he hadn't heard Dean last night.

That thought in mind, Dean headed off for that faraway corner of the junkyard to see if maybe Sam was hiding out there. Yet, half an hour later, there was no Sam to be found, and Dean was pissed.

"Shit!" he shouted, kicking the tire of an old car. "Sam!"

"Yeah?"

Dean whirled around, breath yanked right out of him at the sound of the voice, and there, standing behind him, was Sam.

"Sam?" he said. "Sam! What the hell?!"

Sam shrugged. "Bobby said you were looking for me."

Dean exhaled sharply. He wanted to scream at Sam, ask him where the hell he'd been and what was he thinking by running off and scaring the crap out of him. Instead, Dean shook his head and said, "Don't do that again, all right?"

"Yeah, okay, sure," Sam replied.

- - - - -

Year and a half later, Dean shouted, "He did it again!"

"Did what again?" Bobby asked, flipping a grilled cheese sandwich in the sizzling frying pan.

"Ran off and got himself lost!"

Bobby shook his head. "Didn't we go through this last time you two were here? He's not lost, Dean."

“Oh, yeah, right, right. 'I can't find him,'" Dean shot back mockingly.

"And didn't we talk about your tone last time, too?"

"Yeah, okay, yeah, sorry, Bobby." Dean sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Any clue where he might be?"

"Yup."

"You want to tell me?"

"Nope. Sam will, when he's ready."

"Well, that's just damn peachy."

Bobby glanced over his shoulder. "Tone, Dean, tone."

- - - - -

On and off for the next few years, Sam was always wandering off to places where Dean couldn't find him. After a while, Dean gave up trying to look for him. Bobby never gave him any help, and besides, Sam always turned up sooner or later. There just wasn’t any point in stressing out about it.

One year, though, after Dad had dropped them off, they were standing in Sam's bedroom when he asked Dean, "You want to see where I go?"

"Huh?"

"The place I go where you can't find me," Sam explained.

"Oh," Dean replied nonchalantly. Then, getting it, he said, "Oh yeah! Yeah, yeah, I wanna see this great secret place of yours."

Sam smiled and crossed the room to his closet. He opened the doors and got down on his hands and knees to crawl inside. "You coming?" he asked, half of him inside the closet.

"Uh, yeah, sure," Dean said, hurrying after him.

Inside the closet, Sam pressed on one of the side panels that shifted and slid to reveal a small opening. He glanced over his shoulder to Dean. "Can you fit through there?"

"Look who's talking, Sasquatch," Dean said. In the last year, Sam had shot up six inches, not only catching up to Dean but growing past him.

Sam crawled forward and disappeared into the hole with Dean not far behind. It was a tight fit, but once they were through the initial entrance, it opened up into a slightly bigger space. Still, it wasn't a massive area. The floor space was maybe about as big as a bed, and the ceiling was just tall enough that Dean could kneel down and not hit his head.

"What is this?" Dean asked. There were a few slivers of light that pierced through the boards, but they weren't enough for Dean to see anything.

After a moment of listening to Sam scramble around in the dark, there was a click and a light came on, illuminating the entire area in full clarity.

Sam was at the other end of the space. He smiled and said, "It's kind of where I hide out when I come here."

Dean looked around. Pictures were plastered on the walls of the area. Brochures and pamphlets from places they'd visited, ripped photos from magazines, or just the rare Polarid of the three of them--Dad, Sam and Dean--were all here. Some of the places Dean recognized, and others he didn't, like the ones that showed large, cascading waterfalls or white castles on cliffs.

"What is this?" Dean repeated again.

Sam shrugged and crawled over to sit down next to Dean. "Bobby showed it to me a long time ago. Said he thought I might like it."

"It is pretty cool," Dean admitted, secretly wishing that he had a secret space like this. "But what's up with all the pictures?"

"I guess I like to come here and think about, I don't know, being somewhere else?"

Dean sighed and said nothing, simply staring. All those years he'd spent looking for Sam, thinking he'd run off to the farthest corner of Bobby's property, he'd been hiding right up in his room.

"Y'know, we go through so many places, but we don't actually see anything...does that make sense, Dean?"

"Kinda, yeah, I guess."

"I just...I like to come up here and think about going to all these places and just seeing them like a normal person would. Not looking for the ghost hiding in that house at the end of the street or where the nearest graveyard's at. I want...want to go traveling, Dean. I don't know if I'll ever be able to, so, maybe, I guess, maybe this is the closest I can get."

Dean didn't say anything for a long moment. He'd never really thought about wanting to go to a place "just to go." Every time they went somewhere, there was a purpose, a plan in motion, a hunt they were following. He wanted to scoff at Sam's silly dreams--all while being secretly envious of such dreams.

Instead, he said, "You're a dork, Sammy."

Sam laughed and leaned into him. "Takes one to know one," he said.

Dean sighed. He smiled and let them fall back into silence, simply staring at the pictures and thinking of faraway places. Above his head, Sam had a picture of a large canyon cutting through towering red rocks. The Grand Canyon, the caption read.

Maybe, Dean thought, maybe someday.

End

PixCT: 04.09

2009-04-09T18:33:39Z

It’s that time again…

Slash (Dean/Sam)

Adult

Midseries

~840 words

- - - - -

A combination of fic, pic, and cock, and that's really all there is to it.

All About COCK THURSDAY

So Far

September 07-September 08

September & October 08

DruCT: 04.02

- - - - -

Today

DruCT: 4.09

My fic:

Slash (Dean/Sam) oneshot

Adult

Midseries

~840 words

- - - - -

Dru’s Pic Pick

Dean wished he could be the type of man who didn't believe in curses. It would have made life so much easier to read something odd on the Internet, roll his eyes, and continue on his way without thinking twice. But, that wasn't the way things went. When he read about a "cursed" object on the Internet, well, it was time to load the duffel bags and hit the road.

"So, what exactly did the article say it was?" Dean asked now, scratching the back of his head.

Sam narrowed his eyes at the piece of paper in his hand and brushed bangs out his eyes. Beads of sweat were already forming on his forehead, despite the early morning hour of the day. By the time the sun rose high in the sky, they were both going to be sunburned red.

"Part of an old building. Um, an old children's hospital, I think? Yeah, yeah, right here, children's hospital."

"So what happened to it?"

"Fire. Destroyed most of the building. What hadn't been burned, they demolished anyway. It was too far gone, and besides, it was old and they wanted to clear the way for the newer places in town."

"Guessing some kids died in the fire."

"Yeah."

"And, so, their remains are probably scattered around here and now we've got a ghost haunting on our hands?" The townspeople had been reported as saying there were strange children playing near the arch at night. So, the ghosts of the children were running around because their spirits were still connected to the place where they died. It was so simple, it was downright annoying, Dean thought. They'd dragged their butts all the way out here into this stupidly hot desert just to do a simple salt and burn.

"Probably," Sam agreed. He folded the piece of paper and shoved it in his back pocket.

After that, they agreed it would be better to come back in the evening to do some digging around the area. In addition to attracting less attention, it would be cooler so they wouldn't die of heat exhaustion halfway through the excavation process.

They went back the motel and watched TV for a few hours. For dinner, Dean went to town and picked up burgers, fries, and a six-pack. They shouldn't have been drinking on the job--they both knew this, as it'd been a rule enforced all too well by Dad--but it was such an easy job that Dean didn't see why not. One beer turned into two, and soon, they'd had three beers each and the six-pack was gone, empty bottles resting on the nightstand by the bed.

It was warm in the motel room, air conditioner broken, and the heat and alcohol pulled them down. Pulled them down and covered them up enough for Dean to roll over and kiss Sam.

They'd done this before. More than times than Dean could count at least, but it felt new every time. Sam hesitated for a second, but he kissed back and that was just that. After a few unhurried moments later, Dean was tucking his cock back into his pants and Sam was saying he needed to get a shower.

They went out to the arch afterwards and did some digging around the area, only to find a few charred remains of nothing helpful.

"Maybe it’s near the arch itself?" Sam wondered. Dean shrugged, and Sam walked closer to the arch until he was standing underneath it.

Protected from the moonlight that fell down from above, Sam was caught in the shadow of the arch, and when he turned around to face Dean, a little boy looked back.

"Dean?" Sam called back, and his voice was young again, unaffected by puberty yet. "Dean, you okay?" Sam, the little boy, asked, seeing the way Dean's face fell.

Dean walked forward, leaving his shovel behind and joining Sam underneath the arch. They stood together, and although Dean couldn't see himself, he could tell by the way that Sam looked at him that he too was younger. Just looking down at his hands, he noticed the absence of scars and the disappearance of former calluses.

"You had a lot of freckles when you were a kid," Sam said.

"Yeah? So? You were chubby."

Sam tried to scowl, but his face was too young for such an expression and his mouth twisted its way into a grin

"So," he said, peeking out far enough from the arch to look up at the moon. When the moonlight hit his face, his features shifted and he was older again. "Think this is a curse we need to go any further with?" He pulled back inside the shadowed archway, and there he was, a young Sam, an innocent Sam.

Dean smiled. He reached for Sam's hand, small and pale, and he took it into his own. "Nah, this might be a curse that I can actually live with for once."

Leaning back against the wall of the arch, he pulled Sam close, still holding onto his hand. Together as two little boys, they watched the moon float across the night sky.

End

Untitled #18 (Gen, PG-13)

2009-02-28T14:13:00Z

Title: Untitled #18
Rating: PG-13
Category: Gen oneshot
Word Count: 472
Characters: Sam and Dean
Spoilers: Vague for S4
Summary: Because blood's thicker than water
Author’s Notes: This is a little (early) something for tigriswolf's birthday. A very long time ago (so long ago, it's nearly embarrassing), she said this to me, and I've been holding onto that comment ever since. Well, this isn't quite like that, especially given recent events in the show and the direction things seem to be heading for our dear brothers. But, it's a bit of dark!fic that I hope adds a little bit of happiness to your special day. :)
Disclaimer: The following characters and situations are used without permission of the creators, owners, and further affiliates of the television show, Supernatural, to whom they rightly belong. I claim only what is mine, and I make no money off what is theirs.

- - - - -

After Adam and Eve, after Lucifer built his palace, but before the horsemen rode and the earthquakes came, there was Sam and there was Dean and all the world between.

Sam climbed, looking for answers and looking for revenge, while following a girl demon with black hair and blacker eyes. But, Sam, he tripped and he stumbled, and somewhere during his great quest for Lilith's head on the proverbial platter, he fell. He fell hard and he fell fast, and it was over before he had a chance to catch himself.

Because, after all, the road to Hell, it's just paved with good intentions.

Even if those good intentions involve demons.

So, Sam came to Dean, and his eyes were clear. Beautiful and big as they had been since the day of his birth. But, he placed a hand on Dean's chest, and he silently blamed Dean while asking for forgiveness all the same.

His eyes were clear until he pushed his hand through Dean's chest and then his eyes turned white. He pushed his hand through Dean's shirt and flesh, and there wasn't a tear to the fabric or a drop of blood spilled. Bones were not broken and muscles were not shredded. But, he curled his cold fingers, and he wrapped them around Dean's heart that pulsed warm and pulsed strong and alive.

"Be my brother," Sam said while he squeezed, and Dean's blood turned from red to black, bubbling in his arteries as it rushed away from his heart. "Be my brother, and come with me."

Because, after all, blood's thicker than water as the saying goes.

Even if Cain killed Abel.

Dean had angels sitting on his shoulders, had been handpicked by the Lord to be saved from the depths of Hell, and he knew the difference between good and evil. He killed evil. He allowed good to live. But, this was his brother, and there was water from the river Styx flowing through his veins, making his skin bubble and darken, and this, this was Sam.

"I love you," Sam said, hand still on Dean's heart, "and I want you to live, but I can't have you standing in my way. There are things out there bigger than us now. Come with me, Dean, and you'll live. We'll live."

And, Dean, he so loved his brother, he sighed, breath rattling in his chest and tongue turning black in his head. He nodded and said, "Yes."

Sam smiled, and he released his hold on Dean. But, Dean's blood was already dark and his eyes darker, and he could only see Sam and nothing more. So, when Sam said it was time for the day of reckoning where the masses would burn and the seas would boil, Dean nodded and said, "For you, Sam, yes. For you, yes."

End

Light a Roman Candle (Gen, R)

2009-01-21T15:55:16Z

Title: Light a Roman Candle
Rating: R
Category: Gen oneshot
Word Count: 7170
Characters: Dean and Sam with Bobby, Castiel & OCs
Spoilers: Up through 4.10 "Heaven and Hell"
Summary: The day Sam loses his sight, the sun turns black.
Author’s Notes: Thank you to the following trio for providing thoughts and support: equinox_blue, inane_nana, and legoline. Each of them helped in one way or another, and I appreciate it all so much. Most of all, I appreciate their reassurances that, hey, I haven't fallen—completely—off my rocker yet. Thanks again.

With that said, I can be stubborn and not change things or add things in at the last minute. As such, any remaining mistakes are mine alone and are not the reflection of anyone else. Cross-posted around.

Disclaimer: The following characters and situations are used without permission of the creators, owners, and further affiliates of the television show, Supernatural, to whom they rightly belong. I claim only what is mine, and I make no money off what is theirs.

- - - - -

The day Sam loses his sight, the sun turns black.

Dean walks in with a bag of donuts and two large coffees, both black—cream and sugar in the sack for Sam—from the gas station down the street. Looking back, Dean will blame himself for not being in the motel beforehand. For going out and leaving Sam alone in those fragile moments before he lost his sight. Dean will blame himself, even though, deep down, and later—so much later—he’ll realize there was nothing he could have done to stop things.

Now, though, Dean places the coffees on the nightstand alongside the bag of donuts. He walks over to the window where the motel management has been kind enough to mount little hooks on the wall for him to hang his jacket. Two things happen simultaneously then. Sam, who is coming out of the bathroom, screams, and the sun turns black, plunging the room—the world—into darkness.

Dean flinches when the sun goes dark. Despite having seen a lot of terrible things during his life, something inside tells him that this isn’t anything that can be blasted away with rock salt or silver.

Yet, without hesitation, he runs to Sam, who’s collapsed to the floor on his knees, screaming an ugly sound of fear and panic. Sam’s hands tremble over his closed eyes as he cries out for Dean, for Dean to come and help him, help him right fucking now in that wretched tone.

Trying to keep the panic out of his own voice, Dean leads Sam around the end of the bed to sit him by the nightstand where a little lamp still glows. With the sun gone, the room is thick in shadows that rise high on the walls and slither across the floor. If Dean has to see what’s wrong with Sam, he’s sure as hell going to need light to do it.

“My eyes,” Sam chokes out once he’s seated and Dean is crouched in front of him, angled away so his shadow doesn’t blot out Sam’s face. “My eyes. They won’t…they won’t…”

“Okay,” Dean says, and he pulls Sam’s hands away from his face, places them in Sam’s lap like he’s four years old again and is being reminded not to pick the scars from his chicken pox. “Let me take a look.”

Sam breathes out, sighs, but it’s an edgy sound, and it’s apparent it does nothing to calm him. His eyes are closed, the lids relaxed as if he’s sleeping, while the rest of his face is lined in anxiety.

“Can you open your eyes?” Dean asks.

Sam shakes his head and swallows with his jaw clenched. “No. No, I can’t. It’s like…” He fumbles, searching for words in his distress. “Like the muscles are paralyzed or something. They just…they won’t work. Won’t open!”

“Okay, let me, let me lift up one of your eyelids,” Dean says. He’s trying to be rational, logical for Sam’s sake, but moments ago, everything was turned upside down. The sun is gone, swallowed down into the night’s gut, and Sam can’t open his eyes. Sometimes, Dean thinks, the world just lacks fucking logic.

With the side of his thumb, Dean lifts Sam’s eyelid, the soft lashes brushing against his skin. When he does this, sees that Sam’s eye is rolled so far back that only its slimy, white underbelly and squiggly capillaries are visible, something cracks outside. Something brilliant and blazing like lightning, and Dean pulls his hand away, letting Sam’s eyelid fall down again.

“Well?” Sam asks.

Dean licks his lips. “I…I’m going to try the other one,” he says, and so he does. Same sight here. White belly of the eye in its socket and flash of lightning, closer this time—practically a salesman outside their door.

“Dean?” Sam asks once Dean releases his hands and pulls away, no longer touching Sam.

When Dean doesn’t answer because bile rises up his throat to rest on his stupid, thick tongue, Sam presses, “Dean, please. Dean, tell me what’s going on.” His hands swim through the air, searching, until he leans forward and his palm connects with the side of Dean’s face in a soft slap.

He keeps his hand there, the fingers cold on Dean’s cheek, while he says again, “Dean? Dean, you’ve gotta tell me…”

Dean breathes in deeply as he stares at his little brother’s face with those horrible closed eyes of his. He thinks of everything he could say. Everything he should say, but nothing wise comes to his lips. After a pause, he says, “This isn’t good, Sammy.”

- - - - -

He tells Sam the truth. A part of him wants nothing more than to take a long drink of his coffee and a bite of his donut to pretend that nothing is wrong. Offer Sam some cream and sugar in his own coffee, stir it up, and let Sam eat a donut or two also. A bit of morning caffeine and carbohydrates to soothe the soul perhaps.

But Sam is nearing the edges of terror, and Dean knows that nothing except answers will take the edge off that terror. So, he tells Sam because he’s kept so much from Sam these last several months—about Hell, about demons and angels—that he doesn’t know if he can keep any more.

“Call Bobby,” Sam says once Dean’s finished.

“You think he’ll know what to do?”

“More than we will,” Sam points out, which is the truth, because neither of them have an idea of what they’re up against. What they do know is that taking Sam to an optometrist and getting his eyes checked out isn’t going to help them. They’re in something deeper and ranker than a physiological problem.

While Dean calls Bobby and fills him in, Sam rubs at his eyes. Every time he touches them, tries to open them, the sky sparks with rods of lightning, and the sun flickers, black to white and back again, like a dying bulb.

Dean whirls around, pulling the phone away to yell, “Stop it!” He doesn’t mean to shout, but his blood is rushing manically, and he can’t seem to get enough air. He wants to yell and scream at something.

“What’s happening?” Sam asks as Bobby, on the other end, says the same.

Phone pressed to his ear, Dean explains to both Bobby and Sam the crackles of light, the flickering sun outside the window. Sam says nothing; he lowers his hands limply into his lap.

Bobby says, “I saw. The sun. Didn’t know what was causing it.”

“Sam seems to be causing it. His eyes. Him. Whatever,” Dean replies.

“And this happened this morning. When the sun went dark, Sam went blind?”

Dean nods, even though Bobby—and Sam—can’t see him anyway. “Yeah, yeah, just like I told you.”

“Where are you two?”

“Kentucky.”

“I want you to get here as fast as you can. Don’t stop unless you have to. Don’t stop unless it’s an emergency.”

“Bobby…why?”

There’s a pause from the other end of the phone, only the sound of static whispers passing between them, before Bobby says, “I think…I think we’re looking at something apocalyptic. I think this might be the end of the world.”

- - - - -

Overseas in countries where oil is worth its weight in gold and the deserts are hot even under the moon, where people have never heard of Sam and Dean Winchester, where they don’t even speak the same language as the Winchesters, they look up to the sky and point.

“The sun!” a little girl cries. “Momma, what happened to the sun? Why did it go away?”

Her mother is a strong woman, who has birthed five children and buried three. She carried on after the death of her husband, who she loved but died in a bombing on the city bus, and remarried a man, who she does not love but has money to keep her family alive. Never once did she cry.

Now, though, with the sun black, she pulls her daughter tight to her and feels tears coming to her eyes. The sun is gone.

- - - - -

Dean packs quickly, hastily, before grabbing their bags in one hand and leading Sam by the other out to the car. As he helps Sam, who’s still shaky on his feet with no sight and too much vertigo, into the passenger seat, Dean hears a faint sound in the distance. He closes the passenger door, stands in the darkness and listens. From faraway, not in this town, but perhaps the next one over, bells are ringing.

- - - - -

They drive straight through for the next sixteen hours, stopping only once on a graveled road to piss in a ditch with weeds as high as Dean’s waist. Sam stays silent during the drive, and Dean isn’t in any mood to drag words from him. He’s weirdly grateful for the silence, grateful that he doesn’t have to make up excuses or false promises to calm Sam, given that he can barely calm himself and he’s not the one who’s lost his sight.

They arrive at Bobby’s sometime after seven in the morning, time for sunrise when there used to be a sun to rise, and Dean kills the engine after idling in the driveway.

“We’re here,” he says to Sam.

“I figured,” Sam replies, looking out his window as if he’s able to see the heaped masses of rotting metal and Bobby’s house in the background.

He waits in his seat with surprising patience until Dean opens the door and is by his side to walk them together up the driveway, sickly lit by the fluorescent barn light above.

Bobby meets them at the door, opening it up wide so Dean can keep a hand on Sam’s shoulder to lead him around the piles of stuff heaped on the floor. They go into the living room, where a wide array of books are already opened on Bobby’s desk. By the foot of the desk, there are ancient journals with Latin titles and cracked bindings in a dusty pile.

Dean helps Sam to sit on the sagging couch while Bobby crosses the room and slides some books around, searching for something.

“How’re you doing, Sam?” Bobby asks.

Sam nods, a small gesture. “Been better, I guess.” He forces out a weak laugh. “Kinda hoping I’ll be able to see soon.”

“You found anything?” Dean says.

“Nothing good, if that’s what you want to know,” Bobby replies, and it is what Dean wanted to know. His heart sinks a bit; he had been hoping for the past sixteen hours that this was a fluke, a spell gone wrong that could be fixed with a pinch of this and a pinch of that.

“How bad is it?” Sam says. “Dean said you mentioned…the apocalypse?”

Bobby nods, comes around the front of his desk to sit on the edge with a book opened in his lap. “I don’t know anything about you going blind like this. Haven’t found anything about that—short of not eating enough carrots—but the sun going black?”

“Could it be a solar eclipse?” Sam asks.

“No.” Bobby shakes his head. “I already checked that out. Next eclipse’s not due until 2012 in this area. Besides,” he continues, shifting his weight on the desk and sighing, “no eclipse would be so instantaneous. It’s a slow and gradual process for the moon to pass in front of the sun. We would’ve seen it coming.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s true,” Sam says.

Dean, from where he’s standing by the window and looking out into the endless black, asks, “Then what is it? Are we still going with the whole ‘apocalypse’ theory?” He turns to face Bobby and Sam, who has his head bent, eyes—as if he could see with them—focused on the ground.

“‘Fraid so,” Bobby admits. “Sun turning black? That’s pure apocalyptic stuff. And, normally, I wouldn’t be jumping to such a rash conclusion, but given all the demon mumbo-jumbo that’s been happening around you two…Well,” he says, sighs and reaches up to scratch underneath his cap, “maybe the apocalypse has waited long enough.”

“How do we outrun it then?” Dean asks.

“Outrun it?” Bobby looks flabbergasted. “Boy, you don’t outrun the goddamn apocalypse. You just duck down and hope you aren’t caught in its path.”

- - - - -

In a lean-to on the far edge of his rice field, the farmer sits on a stool and looks up at the dark sky. Around his feet, four chickens cluck and scratch at the dirt, hunting and pecking for what bugs they can find. The chickens have been good to his family, an egg or two a day from them, and then when they grow too old, off to the soup pot they go.

But now, with the sun gone, the farmer is worried about more than his white chickens. If there is no sun, the rice will not grow. There will be no grain for the chickens. Without the rice and chickens, he will be unable to feed his family. His beautiful wife and children will starve.

The farmer sighs and wipes a rough hand over his face. He’s never been a spiritual man, but he wonders if it would be too late to start praying now.

- - - - -

After some persuading, Sam and Dean make their way to the basement, into Bobby’s panic room because if Dean’s going to be sleeping, he wants to rest somewhere where he knows nothing—except the fucking apocalypse that is—can get to them.

Earlier, Bobby checked out Sam’s eyes, only to find the same thing Dean did. With every touch, the sun popped and sputtered, shooting down angry beams of lightning. There was a massive crack from the junkyard, and something sparked high into the sky. Dean assumed one of the cars had been hit. He didn’t leave Sam’s side long enough to go and find out.

“What d’you think?” Dean asks now, standing in the doorway of the panic room, as Bobby turns to go back upstairs.

“I…I don’t know,” Bobby admits. “Honest. This is the likes of something I’ve never even heard about.” He glances over to Sam, who’s sitting on the bed. “Look, I’m going to do some more reading, but in the meantime, you two need to get some sleep. You both look like death warmed over.” He doesn’t stick around to argue with Dean, who wants more answers, more solutions than Bobby can give right now.

Once Bobby’s gone, Sam says, “You can have the bed if you want.”

Dean looks up from where he’s unrolling a sleeping bag. “And miss the joys of sleeping on the floor? Yeah right.”

Sam smiles—the first that Dean can remember since this all began—even if it’s a small, sad smile. “You’re an idiot,” he mumbles and rolls over on the thin mattress to sleep, knees brought up high to fit on the too short bed.

On the cement floor, Dean looks up at the ceiling, at the slowly whirling fan and the devil’s trap. He closes his eyes and tries to sleep. In the silence of the room, he can still hear the bells.

- - - - -

Two weeks pass. Sam’s eyes remain closed and Bobby’s books remain open, but neither sees any answers. Dean leaves the house to go to the library and return as equally empty-handed. The sun remains hidden and the world stays dark.

One day, Sam wakes up in the early morning hours coughing blood. Dean swears and reaches for a nearby wastebasket where Sam hacks and spits out red foam.

When Sam—although shuddering—protests and says he’s fine, Dean wipes his mouth off with his sleeve and helps him back into bed. In the sleeping bag, Dean tosses and turns for a couple hours before realizing he’s not going back to sleep, not with the image of Sam’s bloody spit in the bottom of the plastic wastebasket in his mind. So, he plods out to the kitchen where Bobby’s sitting at the table and watching the small television on the counter.

On the screen, a newsman, wearing a beige suit, is illuminated from behind with a large spotlight. “…perhaps a prank,” he is saying in his deep and professional voice as Dean comes into the kitchen. “Others believe it is blood.” The reporter holds a microphone in one hand, and his stare into the camera is indifferent and plain. “Scientists in states bordering the Mississippi River are still testing the waters to determine the exact chemical makeup of this red substance…”

“Turn it off,” Dean whispers hoarsely.

Bobby looks up, over to where Dean’s standing in the doorway, and he reaches for the remote beside his cup of coffee. He punches a button, and the television dies.

“You know something?” Bobby asks.

“It’ll be blood,” Dean says, wiping a hand over his face. “It’ll be Sam’s blood.”

Bobby’s eyes widen. “You sure about this?”

“No…Yeah…Shit, I don’t know. Bobby, he coughed up blood this morning and now…?” Dean makes a weak motion to the TV. “That?”

Bobby doesn’t argue. Doesn’t try to assure him that maybe it’s just a coincidence, just a weird sort of thing that happened to happen at the same time. After all, how can he when the truth is too damn strong to ignore because Sam’s gone blind and the sun’s turned black? For that much, Dean’s thankful that Bobby doesn’t try to offer false platitudes.

“Rivers filling with blood. Another sign of the apocalypse, right?” Dean asks.

Bobby nods, silent.

Dean bends his neck and shakes his head. He swears, low and gruff. “Fuck.”

- - - - -

The first church, the one with the bells that started ringing on the east coast of America, collapses. Its frame was weary, weakened by the tormenting vibrations, and the hairlines fractures in its mortar eventually grew until they were gaping gashes in the walls. The church collapses, and its congregation and pastor rush outside, praying and crying, shouting to the sky and wanting to know why. Why, why, why, they ask to the dark clouds.

While this church’s bells have gone silent, three more churches’ bells begin the song anew.

- - - - -

They leave Bobby’s that afternoon despite his many protests to stay.

“No,” Dean says after he’s finished packing the car and Bobby stands with him in the driveway. “There’s something coming for us and I don’t want you to be in the middle of it too. If this is the end of the world, well, damn Bobby, you don’t need to deal with it because of us.”

“You’re a moron. You and Sam both.” But when he speaks, Bobby’s eyes are glassy and his lips form a tight smile. He pulls Dean in close, hugs him fiercely, and says, “You call if you need anything, okay?”

“Okay,” Dean agrees, and he holds onto Bobby a moment longer, while the back of his mind wonders if he’ll ever see him again. At last, he lets go—even as Bobby tells him yet again to stay and not run off—and climbs into the car.

He starts the engine and backs out onto the empty road. Bobby stands in the driveway, a black silhouette beneath the light. He lifts his hand in farewell before bowing his head and turning away into the shadows.

- - - - -

A day later, the news reports begin to roll in. The scientists have confirmed the red substance in the water is blood, which is now spilling into the Gulf of Mexico and then into the Atlantic Ocean.

“Where this blood is coming from, the scientists remain unsure,” the car radio reports, “as there are no animal bodies to account for such a large quantity of blood. Thousands of fish have already died because of the blood, however, and it is predicted that the rest of the marine life may be in terrible danger if this blood continues its deadly spread.”

From the passenger seat, Sam reaches forward, fumbles for a moment without his sight, before eventually turning off the radio. They ride along in silence until Dean says, “You never really liked fish anyway.”

Sam doesn’t even pretend to smile at that one. He tightens his mouth and asks, “Where are we going?”

Dean shrugs, doesn’t matter that Sam can’t see him. “Away. Somewhere in the middle of nowhere where we can’t hurt anybody with the apocalypse on our tail.”

Sam nods as if this makes perfect sense.

They drive past a church with its bells chiming loudly. Outside, a small cluster of people are gathered, fat candles and fatter Bibles in hand, to pray.

- - - - -

A group of fishermen go out in their boat. Their static radio has brought news that a river in America has turned red. All waters are connected, they know, which means that soon, their waters will be red as well.

They push off and float out faraway from the coast to drop their nets. But they’re too late. When they turn their spotlight to the water, they see the fish, hundreds—maybe thousands—floating on the surface of the water, their pink bellies turned up to the dark sky. The massive, hulking bodies of larger creatures—whales and sharks, squids and stingrays—bob slowly in the waters among the fish. A whale’s mouth hangs open; its row of baleen is stained red and its cloudy eye stares up at the fishermen. There is no water to be seen beneath the sea of death. The fish slap the side of the ship, their corpses the hollow sound of rain against the hull.

One of the men leans over the side of the boat and vomits into the sea.

- - - - -

They make their home in the middle of Montana. There is no one around for hundreds of miles at the little, slumping cabin Dean finds. They’ve got enough food and water inside the Impala to last for a couple weeks, he figures.

The cabin’s a rickety building, and the wind whistles through the window cracks at all hours of the day. But, the plumbing works, even though the water’s more yellow than clear when Dean turns the handle on the faucet, and it’s warm enough inside that they won’t freeze to death before the apocalypse comes a-knocking.

In the first several days since leaving Bobby’s, Sam coughs up blood twice more. But it’s two times too much, and it worries Dean, who sits on the moldy mattress next to Sam and rests a hand between his shoulders as Sam hacks into the bowl Dean offers.

“You good?” Dean asks when Sam’s breathing slows.

Sam nods wearily and wipes a hand over his tightened face and mouth. Red foam lingers at the corners of his lips. “Yeah…yeah…for now, anyway.”

As Dean stands to toss the bowl’s contents outside, Sam says, “You heard anything from the angels?”

Dean stops. “Angels?” He knows exactly what Sam means, but in the flurry of Sam’s condition, he’d forgotten all about the angels.

“Yeah. You know, Castiel and Uriel. Have they…have they said anything to you?”

Dean looks at Sam’s face, hopeful in spite of his closed eyes. “No,” Dean admits. “Maybe they’re waiting until the last minute. You know how those angels are…wanna make a fashionably late showing.” He forces out a chuckle. Before Sam can reply with words that will only push the guilt down harder on Dean’s back, Dean opens the door to the outside.

He gives the bowl a flick and tosses the bloody spit into the darkness. From somewhere in the distance, he hears the wind swirl in a sound like the flapping of wings.

- - - - -

Sam tries to call to Ruby using some of his new psychic powers to ask for guidance. If Heaven won’t tell them, he argues, perhaps the other side can give them some answers.

Ruby doesn’t answer.

“Maybe she just can’t hear you,” Dean suggests, opening a can of pork and beans.

“No,” Sam says with a shake of his head, “I don’t think she’s…around.”

“You mean…?” Dean grapples with the word choice. Doesn’t want to outright ask if she’s been taken back to the Pit, but where else would she go? Not like she has any family or friends she’d be telling good-bye.

“I think so. Maybe they took her back to get that side ready before the apocalypse.”

Sam keeps calling for her for the next several days. But she never shows and Sam stops calling.

- - - - -

In foreign cities of Europe with galleries of art hundreds of years old, the leaders of countries gather together. The table in the hall is long, spanning the length of the room, and the intricate glass windows rise high and dark along the wall.

“What are we going to do?” a woman asks in a tailored business suit. The lapels on her collar are white, the rest of the suit black.

The people look at her. They all have lined notebooks and electronic organizers in front of them, cell phones resting silent off to the side, and notes gathered from experts around the continent. Notes gathered but no answers found.

“What are we going to do?” the woman repeats when all she can hear is the sound of the cathedral’s chimes, low and deep, outside the building. She leads a country of millions, and she is not stupid. She knows that without the sun and now without the water, they do not have much time to act.

“I think…” a man says from the other end of the table. “I think there’s not much we can do. I think we should be asking what we are going to tell the people. Maybe the truth?” he asks.

Murmurs bubble forth from around the table because the truth now is such a dangerous, frightening thing.

- - - - -

After that, things escalate far too quickly, and Dean is thrown into a panic. Sam’s eyes drip blood one morning, fat, red dots that plop on his stale granola bar, which Dean snatches out of his hands before he can eat it. That night, while Sam lies on the bed and Dean stares out the window, the moon rises red and rusty in the night sky.

When Sam’s stomach becomes so upset that he ends up vomiting anything he eats into the toilet, the radio reports thousands of deaths from famine in a faraway country.

“Dean, what’s happening to me?” Sam asks, and he sounds so young, so afraid. He sounds nothing like the man Dean knows he is, nothing like the hunter who has killed demons and ghosts, faced down countless horrors.

Dean can’t answer. In the bathroom where they kneel by the toilet, he wraps his arms around Sam and pulls him close. Sam collapses, limp and heavy, against Dean, breathing hard in a struggle not to cry.

The smell of Sam’s vomit is hot and acrid in the room, and while Sam breathes heavily, Dean lifts his eyes to the small window. Part of him expects to see horsemen riding over the horizon.

- - - - -

Castiel comes at last, and his face is somber when he walks inside.

“I hope you have some news,” Dean says from where he’s trying to feed Sam sips of broth in hopes that Sam’s stomach will allow him to keep something—anything—down.

Castiel nods. It’s a slow and heavy gesture, though, and Dean’s heart falls.

“I think we need to talk about this outside,” Castiel says.

“No,” Dean says, “no more secrets. If you want to talk, you can say it in front of Sam.”

This isn’t what Castiel wants, evident by the way his face tenses, but he doesn’t argue. Instead, he crosses the room and sits on the bed across from Dean. “Sam is dying.”

“No,” Dean whispers, a growl.

“Yes, he is. He is dying, and when he is dead, Lucifer will walk free.”

“What?” Sam chokes out now, struggling to roll toward the sound of Castiel’s voice. “I thought you said the sixty-six seals had to be broken for Lucifer...”

“We were wrong,” Castiel admits, and he turns his eyes away from Sam and Dean. “We were wrong, and I am sorry.”

When neither Sam nor Dean speaks, Castiel continues, “Sam, you are the last seal. The only seal that seems to matter now. When you die, the seal breaks, and Lucifer walks free.”

“You didn’t know this?” Dean spits out, angry now, furious and ready to kill. “You guys and all your fucking ‘infinite wisdom’ didn’t see this?”

“I’m sorry. We didn’t. Sam was…he was told to be the anti-christ, the one who would oppose us and the Father. He wasn’t supposed to be…Not a seal itself. The demon blood…” Castiel begins, but the words fade away. For the first time, he appears unsure of himself and his holy mission.

“How do we stop it?” Sam asks, voice quiet and calm. “How do we stop me from dying?”

Castiel lifts his eyes from Sam’s face to Dean’s and says, “Dean has to kill you before it’s too late.”

“What?” Dean gapes.

“Use the demon’s knife that she gave you. Nothing else will work to destroy the demonic powers—the seed Azazel planted—inside him. You, Dean, you have to do it. You and no one else because you’re his brother and his blood. If you kill him before he dies on his own accord, Lucifer will not walk. The world will be saved. This is the holy task—why you were saved from Hell—that the Father has given to you.”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Dean growls. “You actually want me to stab him?”

“Lucifer—” Castiel begins, but Dean cuts him off.

“Get out.”

“Dean, please…”

“Get out of here before I stab you!” Dean hollers, rising to his feet and grabbing Castiel by the coat lapels. He drags Castiel across the room, away from Sam, away from the beds and to the door.

“Dean, you don’t understand,” Castiel pleads. He’s not afraid; Dean could never physically hurt him. But, he’s worried nonetheless, about the world and Lucifer.

“I understand just fine. You want me to kill him. Look—fuck—I sold my soul and went to Hell to bring him to life, okay? Go tell your angel buddies that until there’s a new plan, I don’t want to see any of you.” He shoves Castiel outside, even though he’s sure this is probably going to be one too many strikes against him up in Heaven—yelling and pushing around an angel—and slams the door. While waiting for Castiel to come back and smite him with a lightning bolt, Dean crosses the room to where Sam’s lying on the bed.

Castiel doesn’t return, and Sam and Dean are left alone.

- - - - -

Patches of infected skin break out along Sam’s legs and forearms almost overnight. The skin reddens, warms, and blisters, before peeling away in waxy clumps. Dean tries to apply the crude creams they have in their first aid kit. When the creams do nothing, Sam asks for something to at least dull the pain.

“What does it look like?” he asks Dean after swallowing some pills.

“Like…like the skin’s rotting.”

“Flesh-eating bacteria, then,” Sam answers. He snorts and shakes his head. “You checked the news lately?” he asks sardonically. “I’m sure this is the plague to a whole country of people.”

Dean hasn’t listened to the radio. Following Castiel’s visit, he’s too afraid of what he might find outside their cabin in Montana.

“We can get you to a hospital. Get something strong enough to treat this.”

“And say what? That I can’t open my eyes, I sometimes cough up blood, and, oh yeah, on my really bad days, blood comes from my eyes?” He sighs. “Besides, I’m sure the hospitals are filling up fast if it really is the plague. Plague and pestilence. All that…”

“Then what do you want me to do?” Dean asks, trying to keep the edge out of his voice. He feels helpless, unable to do anything except watch Sam deteriorate.

Sam breathes out. “I…I don’t know anymore.”

Later that night, after Sam’s asleep, Dean listens to the radio. Sure enough, across the globe, people are dying, dropping like flies in the streets from an unknown pathogen.

Dean doesn’t sleep that night. Sam’s breathing rattles and the sound of the bells grows louder.

- - - - -

A nurse wipes her forehead with her sleeve, as she fumbles to administer another dose of morphine to a patient in a country where the face of a queen is still on the coins. Too many patients, too much death that no one can stop. None of the doctors know what’s wrong, cannot place any of the symptoms to one curable—treatable—disease. All they prescribe is drugs for the pain. To keep the patients calm until their hearts give out and they’re slipped into black, plastic bags to be wheeled downstairs.

The morticians no longer bother with autopsies. They can’t keep up. The instructions that remain are to dig expansive, endless holes where bodies can be dumped by the dozens.

- - - - -

Sam loses the ability to walk not long after. The sores on his legs have grown larger, the bacteria eating away at his flesh and muscle, revealing the slick, red interior of muscles and the soft, pillowed yellow of fat. He refuses to allow Dean to take him to a hospital. Only asks for more pills to keep the edge off the pain.

“I’ll forgive you, you know,” Sam says.

Dean turns from where he’s reading more in the books Bobby gave him, searching vainly for one more solution, one more answer other than what Castiel offered. He now understands how Sam felt during that final year after Dean traded in his soul to Hell. Scrambling blind, fingers finding nothing but dust.

“Forgive me?”

“For killing me.” Sam sighs. “Dean, look. Maybe you should just…maybe you…end it…me so Lucifer can’t—” His words stumble, stutter over his shaking tongue. He’s not comfortable discussing it, but Sam’s always been rational, always looked at the bigger picture more than Dean ever will.

“No,” Dean grits out, hands curling to fists over the book’s yellowed pages. “No. I didn’t before. I won’t do it now.” He shakes his head. “No.”

They sit a while longer, and Sam’s voice is pained, thick with tears when he whispers, “I don’t want you to die, too.”

“Sam, shut up.”

“No, no. Dean, if I die? You die, too. Don’t you get it? If you kill me, you can live. The world can live.”

“And what?” Dean asks, turning around in his chair. “I’m just supposed to go on, like life is fine and dandy after I kill you? Like…like…I wouldn’t want to die right along with you?”

Sam swallows, the sound of it loud in the little cabin. “I want to know you’ll be okay.”

“No. No. The world’s not ended yet. We’re going to find a solution. You’re not dying. Lucifer’s not walking out of Hell. The damn world’s not ending.” He breathes out to control his heartbeat as acid sloshes in his stomach. “You’re not dying,” he repeats.

Sam nods, little boy gesture, too tired to argue for now. “Okay,” he whispers.

- - - - -

Castiel isn’t alone when he comes again.

“You have to kill him,” Uriel tells Dean, making a motion to Sam who is wincing while he applies bandages to the sores on his legs. Sam can’t see the gaping sores where bacteria eats its way to the bone, but he can feel the pain, feel the hot flash of agony, to know where to place the bandages.

“Yeah?” Dean says. “And what are you going to do about it? Can’t kill me, ‘cause I gotta kill him. And…you can’t kill him, because then there’s that whole ‘end of the world’ thing to deal with, hm? Can’t you just level the whole world? Sure would save the trouble of Lucifer getting out. Make life a lot easier on all of us.”

Before Uriel can speak, Castiel interrupts, “Those are not our orders.”

When he says no more, Dean asks, “Oh? The whole ‘free will’ stuff, right? It’s supposed to be me using my free will to save the world. You guys can’t help out, huh?” He shrugs, turns to Uriel. “So, in other words, there’s nothing you can do.”

“You impertinent swine…” Uriel begins, but Castiel places a hand on his chest and pushes him back. Gets him out of Dean’s face.

Castiel turns to Dean. “Why are you doing this?” he asks, genuinely confused. Dean remembers Anna and thinks of how Castiel doesn’t know what it means to defy an order. Doesn’t know how to think entirely for himself.

“He’s my brother,” Dean says. “I went to Hell for him. I can’t kill him.”

“Even if it means the lives of millions of people?” Castiel asks in that same even tone.

Dean swallows. Hates the guilt on his back now. “I can’t.”

Uriel snorts. “Selfish human. Going to destroy the entire world because you care about yourself too much.” He reaches forward and backhands Dean hard enough to leave him gasping and clutching the edge of the table to keep upright. “When the world ends and you’re in Hell, I hope you remember you could have stopped this.”

He storms out in a massive gust, leaving Castiel behind. Castiel watches Dean as he staggers upright again, bleeding from his nose and split lip.

“The Father will forgive you,” Castiel says. “Sam has said he will forgive you.”

Dean shakes his head, still a no because at the end, he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to forgive himself—God and Sam both be damned.

- - - - -

Somewhere beyond Indonesia, a group of islands disappear. They sink and go under, taking with them thousands of people and buildings. A man in a skyscraper on an opposite island, standing at his window and looking out at the inky water, will go home and tell his wife. He will tell her that it was like the islands, their city lights still twinkling, began to lower themselves into the water. There were no waves, no storm, no violence to suck them down. When the islands went under, the ocean rushed back in to fill the space they’d left behind and the lights went out.

- - - - -

The earthquakes come, fierce and trembling, and before the radio crackles and dies, Dean hears about mountains splitting and islands disappearing. The ground breaks apart, ripping the cabin in two, and Sam cannot stop weeping.

The tears fall from his eyes, even though he makes no noise, no sounds to indicate he’s upset. The tears fall quietly, and with every tear, Dean watches stars fall from the sky. They plummet to the earth, bursting into fiery blazes and pummeling anything in their paths. They crash through the house, pulling the roof from the cabin, while the wind rises to a deafening howl and the earth shakes.

Dean leans over Sam on the bed, screaming Sam’s name and shaking him, trying to get him to respond. Since the earthquakes started, Sam’s been unresponsive, a vegetable of blood and rotting meat on the bed.

“Sam!” Dean yells. He can barely hear his own voice above the roaring wind. Planks are torn from the cabin, flung into the swirling air to disappear in the darkness. Lightning cracks, jagged streaks across the black sky, where the stars pitch forward, fall from their heavenly stations and come hurling to the earth. The bells chime in monstrous tones, seeming to challenge the thunder in their volume. “Sam! Dammit! Please! Wake up!”

Dean clutches Ruby’s knife in one hand. He doesn’t want to use it. He’s refused angels of the Lord in using it. Its blade trembles in his hold.

Deafening, thunder crashes, and wind tears through the house, lifting the table and smashing it against what remains of the cabin’s walls. Dean ducks, covers Sam as a leg of the table sails over their heads.

“SAM!” he screams again, so loud and strong that he feels a burn in his throat. In the shadows, the illumination from the lightning and the falling stars, Sam’s face doesn’t move. Doesn’t respond.

This is it, Dean knows. This is it and there’s nothing that can save them anymore. It’s the end of the world, and in a few minutes, Dean will be dead right alongside Sam. He takes comfort in that thought, knowing that he’ll be gone, too. With that, knowing his death is imminent, he lifts the knife.

He bends forwards, presses his mouth close to Sam’s ear and whispers, “I’m so sorry, Sammy.” He’s crying now, crying just as Sam is, but his sobs wrack his body, make him tremble and shake, gasp and cough because even if he’s doing this to save Sam, to stop him from suffering when the earth swallows them whole and the stars flatten them into the ground, he’s still doing it. He promises to turn the knife on himself in the moment after.

He lifts the blade high, and he brings it down into Sam’s chest.

- - - - -

The bells stop.

The world stops.

Time stops.

- - - - -

There is a crystal moment of complete silence, and Sam’s eyes fly open. His eyes are there, no longer those white bellies from before, and he looks at Dean. Around them, wood, rocks, and dirt are frozen midair in the hushed room. A star, a flaming meteor, hovers at the foot of the bed. The wind is a mere whisper, a silken swirl past Dean’s face.

Sam’s skin is clean and smooth, no longer rotting away under the apocalyptic plague. He looks healthy and whole. Even though the knife remains in Sam’s chest, there is no blood, no slice through Sam’s shirt—as if it’s a magic trick.

Sam smiles. “Hey,” he whispers.

“Sam,” Dean chokes out, a broken syllable. “You…you’re not dead.” He’s still crying, tears still in his eyes and wet on his cheeks.

That same peaceful smile on his face, Sam replies, “No. Not right now. Not this time.”

Dean doesn’t know what to say. His heartbeat is loud in his ears; Sam’s breathing louder in the starkness. In that moment, all words are lost to Dean except one: “Sammy…”

Sam lifts a hand to rest it on Dean’s shoulder. “It’s going to be okay,” he whispers. “We’re going to be okay.”

Dean nods. He believes it.

- - - - -

On a beach faraway from Montana, two boys walk down the shore next to clear, blue water. One boy is older, one boy is younger. The older boy is slightly taller than the younger, who is quickly gaining height.

The older boy takes the younger’s hand in his own, and he squeezes slightly, gently, just enough to be reassuring.

They continue in silence until the younger boy smiles and says, “Let’s go home.” Hand in hand, they walk off into a brilliant and warm sun, leaving nothing behind but their matching footprints in the sand.

End

Hiatus

2009-01-15T15:31:57Z

Hello CT Readers,

I just wanted to let you know that I've decided to take a hiatus from CT.

In the meantime, I invite you to read past CTs over at cock_thursday and continue to enjoy drvsilla's latest CT at her journal.

Thank you.

♥

PixCT: 01.08

2009-01-08T21:16:55Z

It's that time again...

Fic:
Slash (Dean/Sam)
Adult

~1420 words

- - - - -

A combination of fic, pic, and cock, and that's really all there is to it.
All About Cock Thursday

So Far

PixCT: 01.01

- - - - -

Today

DruCT: 01.08

My fic:

Slash (Wincest: Dean/Sam) oneshot

Adult rating

~1420 words

- - - - -

Pix's Pic Pick

Elsewhere was not here.

Elsewhere there was death and tears. Elsewhere there were people screaming in the streets and babies wailing in their cradles. Elsewhere there were demons fighting against the angels in golden sparks of supernatural powers. Elsewhere there were plagues and pestilence, fire and brimstone, and four horsemen appearing on the horizon. Elsewhere Dean had tasted blood while seeing darkness and wondered if, after all his running and escaping with the powers of God Himself, the end was at last catching up. Elsewhere Sam, frightened and calm all in one, had leaned over Dean, pulled him tight to his chest and said, Hold on, you're coming with me. Elsewhere Sam had closed his eyes and Dean had closed his, and then there was the sound of wind blowing, a gust through tree leaves, breeze through their hair, and elsewhere and everything had faded away so that elsewhere was not here.

"Dean," Sam whispered, lips close to his ear. "Dean, you can open your eyes. It's okay now."

A sense of vertigo overwhelmed Dean for a moment until he felt Sam's hand close, tight and comforting, on his shoulder, and he opened his eyes unsteadily.

"Sam?" His voice was brittle, no longer the taste of blood there but tongue still dry. "Sam, are we...Did we...? Are we dead" he finally managed to spit out.

Sam shook his head. "Just temporarily MIA."

Dean sighed, a bit relieved. Although, if this was death, he could have welcomed it with opened arms. Together, he and Sam were standing under a massive maple tree with its leaves long gone and branches now covered in snow. The white flakes fell, soft and heavy, from the pale gray sky above. Beyond this tree, there were pine trees so tall and so green beneath the thick layers of snow blanketing their branches. Farther over, shorter than the pine trees, a building with red bricks and white windows, stood amidst the snowdrifts.

Dean leaned back against the tree as the snow drifted down onto his jacket and Sam's hair. The snow felt cold enough—real enough—on his fingers when he let a hand rest against the tree's bark. In a moment of childish whimsy, Dean leaned his head back and opened his mouth to let the snowflakes fall, fat and crisp, in his mouth. It’d been years since he’d seen snow elsewhere; the demons had seen to that, turning earth into a boiling, hellish wasteland.

After a moment, Dean brought his head forward to meet Sam's eyes. "Tastes like cotton candy," he remarked, puzzled.

"Yeah," Sam replied, as if this was perfectly normal. "I think the tree might taste like chocolate." Without waiting for a comment from Dean, Sam reached around behind Dean and broke off a piece of the bark. The snow fluttered away from it with the movement, and Sam lifted, brought the bark to his mouth, and bit down. He crunched silently before swallowing and smiling. "Yup. Chocolate."

Wide-eyed, Dean stared. "Sam…” he said cautiously. “Sam...what did you do?"

Sam shrugged. "I had to get us out of there."

"So you brought us to Willy Wonka's magical land?" Dean tried to keep the panic—anger and fear—out of his voice, resulting with a biting sarcasm.

"It wasn't quite the way I planned it. Wanted something nice. Something that wasn't..." He wavered, searching for the best description. "Wasn't all that back there."

Dean exhaled sharply and walked out from beneath the tree to stand in the drifts of snow by the pine trees that grew as if they had the ability to touch the clouds. "And what do these taste like?" he asked, still cynical.

"Not sure. Can't remember. Give them a shot, I guess? If not, it’s not like they’ll kill you. Just pine trees, after all."

Rolling his eyes because only a moment ago they were on the brink of the apocalypse, prepared to die alone in fire, and now, there was this. This world of candy and snow that Sam had created with his ever-developing mind powers.

Dean tugged on the pine branch, pulled off a single needle and took a small bite of it with his front teeth. Instead of the expected harsh bitterness, a rush of sugary sweet spearmint flooded his mouth. He took another bite and another before popping the whole needle in his mouth. Spearmint through and through, crunchy like a candy cane.

He turned back to where Sam was still standing beneath the chocolate flavored maple tree, hands in his pockets and small smile on his face.

"You son of a bitch," Dean said, laughing. "I don't even want to know how you did this, but goddammit..." He laughed again, didn't know what else to do now, feeling so happy and stupid in this world where snow tasted of spun sugar and trees of candy.

Sam walked through the snow, came closer and wrapped his arms around Dean, linking his hands at the small of Dean's back. He bent his neck to rest his forehead against Dean's, their eyes closing automatically together.

"We can't stay here," Dean said. "They need us back home."

"I know." Sam's breath was warm against Dean's face. "But will they really miss us? Think, we could be happy here, Dean. Just you and me."

Dean smiled and didn't need to see to know that Sam was doing the same. "We could. We would be." He sighed, leaned in closer, lips barely brushing against Sam's when he said, "Sure as hell is tempting."

"Yeah," Sam sighed.

When they kissed, it was as light and gentle as the snow falling on them. So much lately had been done in fear and haste, never knowing if the angels were standing outside their doorway with holy orders, never knowing if the demons had found them at long last with preparations to take them to Hell, and truly, never knowing if it was going to be their last time together before death separated them for good. Now, here, they could savor the time. Make things last.

They fell down into the snow, a little goofy and careless because here, there was nobody around, nobody to hide from or to judge them. Sam was over Dean, hand up Dean's shirt and exposing his belly to the cold air, but it didn't matter. Not when Sam's other hand was working at Dean's pants, unbuttoning and pulling down the zipper, pushing past underwear and finding Dean already hard.

"Sammy," Dean breathed when Sam wrapped a hand around his cock and slowly pumped.

Sam kissed him against, more tongue this time than before, mouth opening wide and taking all that Dean had to offer. He worked his own pants out of the way to press himself against Dean, naked cocks next to one another, caught between denim and their bodies. They rocked together, Dean's arms thrown around Sam's neck, and Sam kissing him, tasting of cotton candy and chocolate. There was nothing hurried here, nothing desperate or panicked, and they took their time, enjoyed the warm blush that swept over them together.

"Love you," Sam whispered, hips thrusting deliciously against Dean. "Love you so damn much."

Dean chuckled through his gasps. So close now. He could feel it rising, approaching, and oh yes, nearly there now.

Sam babbled, words tumbling forth, pulled from his lips by this sweet ecstasy and able to speak without being overheard by angels and demons. "Always going to keep you safe, Dean. You know that, yeah? Going to keep you safe," he rambled. Then his words stopped, choked off, and he trembled, coming on Dean's stomach. Dean shuddered shortly after, lost to his own orgasm, and they lay like that, curled together in the snow, for a moment. Eventually, though, Sam rolled over and off, letting Dean clean them up with the bottom of his t-shirt.

On their backs, they looked up at the grey sky, past the tree branches and building top.

"I meant it, you know," Sam said after a moment of silence. "It doesn't matter. I'll do whatever it takes to keep you safe."

Dean smiled, snow on his eyelashes now, and he reached over to find Sam's hand in the snow. They linked fingers, and Dean gave a tight squeeze. "I know you will," he answered and pulled Sam closer.

Sam sighed, happy and easy, and rested his head on Dean's chest. He closed his eyes while Dean looked back to the sky and watched the snow drift down.

End

PixCT: 01.01

2009-01-01T23:10:18Z

It's that time again...

Fic:
Slash (Dean/Sam)
Adult
Preseries

~420 words

- - - - -

A combination of fic, pic, and cock, and that's really all there is to it.
All About Cock Thursday

So Far

Sept 07 - Sept 08

Sept/Oct 08

Nov 08

Dec 08

- - - - -

Today

DruCT: 01.01

My fic:

Slash (Wincest: Dean/Sam) oneshot

Adult rating

Preseries

~420 words

- - - - -

Dru's Pic Pick

Dean brought home the bottle with its gold foil seal and green glass body. Figured that they needed something special to ring in the new year, given that Dad was gone and it was just the two of them. Not that this was anything unusual. Unusual would have been having Dad home instead out in the snow.

They drank straight from the bottle, didn't bother with cups because they didn't want to do the dishes later. Sam hiccupped when the bottle was halfway gone and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His eyes were drowsy when he leaned over to Dean, sitting next to him on the couch, and said, "I think I wanna kiss you."

Dean pulled the bottle away from his lips and looked to Sam, who was fourteen and clumsy, hair too shaggy and limbs too long, and Dean said, "Oh really?"

"Really," Sammy said. He smiled. "I think I'm drunk."

"Is that so?"

Sam nodded, plucked the bottle from Dean's hand to set it on the floor, and climbed into Dean's lap. He twisted and turned until he was straddling Dean's legs, knees on either side of Dean's hips.

"Can I kiss you?" Sam asked, leaning down. His breath was sweet and warm, and his hands curved over Dean's shoulders to pull him closer.

Dean swallowed. Smiled. Shrugged and said, "If you want." His words were casual; his heart was going crazy. He hoped he didn’t give anything away.

Sammy leaned in, leaned down, and brought his lips against Dean's. It was a soft kiss, a gentle kiss. Both nothing and everything like Dean had imagined. When Dean lifted his hands to tangle fingers in Sammy's hair, Sam jerked, hips jutting just enough for Dean to feel the hard line of Sam's cock against his belly.

They kissed and kissed until Dick Clark started the countdown, and Sam rolled off to the side while the numbers fell from ten to zero. They watched the ball drop, big and sparkly, in Times Square, and when a new year had started, Sam leaned over again for another kiss.

"Y'know," Sam whispered, forehead still resting against Dean's, eyes closed, as people whooped and hollered on the television, "I wouldn't have done that if I'd been sober."

Dean smiled. Kissed Sammy again. Said, "I know." He decided not to tell Sam that the drink he’d brought home was non-alcoholic and the only drunkenness had been in Sam's head. Dean just decided to enjoy the kisses—however they came.

End

PixCT: 12.25

2008-12-25T13:08:04Z

It's that time again...

Fic:
Slash (Dean/Sam)
Adult
Preseries

~1880 words

- - - - -

A combination of fic, pic, and cock, and that's really all there is to it.
All About Cock Thursday

So Far

PixCT: 12.18

- - - - -

Today

DruCT: 12.25

My fic:

Slash (Wincest: Dean/Sam) oneshot

Adult rating

Preseries

~1880 words

- - - - -

Pix's Pic Pick

“Dean…Dean,” Sam whispered, tugging at his sleeve. “Are you seeing this?” His voice was incredulous, thin with excitement and disbelief, and his eyes were wide, darting over the sight before them.

“I…I think so,” Dean managed to sputter after swallowing past the choking lump in his throat. He was seeing it, but truth be told, he wasn’t quite ready to believe it.

“Well, I don’t see what’s so hard about it, quite frankly.”

Dean turned in the direction of the voice where a large reindeer walked up beside him, its blackened hooves clicking over the glittering tiles. The reindeer turned its head, eyelevel with Dean, and said, “Bobby did tell you that you were in for some Christmas magic after all.”

Yes, Bobby had said that. Bobby who came downstairs just as Dean had been finishing his fourth beer—here’s how to celebrate Christmas the Winchester way, folks, when your dad leaves you and your brother again to go after something bigger and better with a gun—and placed the newspaper wrapped package in front of him. When Dean unwrapped the bundle to reveal a stuffed reindeer, Bobby smiled, saying he thought the boys—even as old as they were—deserved a bit of Christmas magic. Said he thought it might be a nice change from the previous holidays.

Dean hadn’t argued, hadn’t asked, had simply shaken his head and said, Yeah, okay, thanks and then headed off to slide into bed with Sam. Then they both were awaked by a large, living, reindeer in their bedroom, asking them to climb aboard his back. Well. They did. Okay, rather, Sam did—still too naïve for his own good at sixteen years old—and Dean was forced to follow along. A whirlwind ride later, they stood in what appeared to be—if Dean was willing to admit such things to himself—Santa’s workshop at, yup, the North Pole.

“Bobby knew this would happen?” Sam asked now, looking away from the scene where elves, dressed in iridescent red and green uniforms adorned with bells and bangles, hurried about, fussing with toys and the other reindeer.

“I…I…don’t know,” Dean admitted.

“Well,” said Comet—the reindeer next to them—simply, “if he did, he did. If he didn’t, he didn’t. Either way, you two are here, right?” For a reindeer, Comet didn’t beat around the bush with things. “Now, is there anything I can get for the two of you? Something to eat? Drink? Anything you want to see?”

“Something to eat would be great,” Dean said. He was surprisingly clear-headed for as much as he had drank earlier in the evening. He decided that the alcohol’s effects couldn’t be felt in this dream world.

“Anything in particular?” Comet asked. Across the room, two elves were laughing as they fought to tie a package bigger than the both of them combined. Their laughter was bright, the sound of bells ringing.

“What do you have?” Sam asked.

Comet chuckled—a strange sort of sound from a reindeer. “Anything!” he exclaimed. “It’s the North Pole! All of the finest chefs come here! They cook all year long just to make perfect meals for the world’s hungry children on Christmas.”

Dean was going to ask why he’d never heard of Santa playing Meals on Wheels in all the Christmas stories he’d heard from the other kids at school, but Sam interrupted. “Pancakes sound great! Pancakes and sausage and scrambled eggs! Egg nog! Christmas cookies!” He stopped, face blushing, as if realizing how ridiculous he might have sounded. “Um, please? If that’s okay?”

“Okay? Why, that’s great!” Comet said. “Anything you ask for, it’s yours! It’s why I brought you here. Thought you two deserved a Christmas like this for once. Now, c’mon, follow me.”

He turned, heading down a hallway with green and red tiles, as Sam and Dean followed. A puppy with long, floppy ears and a fat tummy ran towards them, out of an opened room with an assortment of baby animals rolling over one another playfully. The puppy collided into Sam’s legs clumsily. Sam chuckled and picked up the puppy, which squirmed and yipped in his arms, all while licking his face. Sam laughed again, and he looked over to Dean, eyes glittering and happy.

They ate pancakes and bacon, sausage and donuts, orange juice and egg nog, frosted sugar cookies and chocolate fudge, and more food than they even knew existed in a bustling hall, where the cooks wore tall, white hats and warm, rosy cheeks. The chefs packaged up the food in fancy tins with big, looped bows and handed the packages off to elves who disappeared with them around a corner, off to deliver them to the children over the globe. Meanwhile, Sam’s puppy scampered around his feet, eating the bacon Sam sneakily dropped to the floor, while Dean—finally starting to maybe, just maybe believe—poked Sam in the ribs and said, “Pretty good, huh?”

When they were done eating, Comet introduced them to some of the elves. Noel, who knew twenty different recipes for candy canes by heart, and Jingle, who enjoyed racing the reindeer during the “off season.” There was Pep—short for Peppermint—who could make a bell that rang so pure and clear, and Holly, who spent most of the year out in the greenhouse, nursing her poinsettias to grow dazzling and beautiful.

“Santa’s going to be leaving soon,” Comet announced as Dean and Sam helped a group of elves string popcorn and cranberries. “He wants to see the two of you.”

“Us?” Sam said.

“You two. Quickly, now, follow me.”

Dean glanced at Sam and mouthed, Santa? while Sam shrugged his shoulders, and they hurried to keep up with Comet, who was almost halfway across the room by then, proving that four legs could move much faster than two.

“Sam and Dean, I’d like to introduce you to Mr. Claus,” Comet said as they approached a massive sleigh that was being loaded with wrapped gifts and packages. With those words, a tall man turned around and smiled down at the boys.

“Sam and Dean Winchester,” the man said. “How are the two of you doing? Enjoying yourselves?”

Neither of them said anything for a moment, too taken aback to speak. Finally, Sam sputtered, his voice cracking like he had started puberty all over again, “S-Santa…?”

The man laughed, loud and open, holding onto his stomach, and said, “Yes! Yes! No need to act frightened, you two! I’m not going to bite!”

“Well…it’s just…” Dean mumbled.

“Just what, son?”

“Just…that, well, I mean, we’re both so old, I thought…y’know…”

“Thought that Santa didn’t exist when you’re as old as you two are?” Santa asked.

Dean and Sam both nodded.

Santa crouched down to bring himself at eyelevel with them. “You met all my chefs, right? And they’re adults. You met my elves, some adults, too. Boys, allow me to let you in on a little secret: I don’t go away when you get older. I go away when you stop believing, okay? It’s clichéd, I know. Trust me, I’ve seen all the Christmas movies ever made—got a lot of free time when you only work one day a year—but clichéd or not, it’s the right message.” He smiled then, a bit sad and soft, a sharp contrast to his boisterous laughter. “I know you two have it pretty hard sometimes, and I’m sorry for that. If I could change things for the two of you, I would. I can’t give you your mom back and I can’t change your daddy, but is there anything I can do for you? Any special gifts you might want to take back with you?”

Dean looked over at Sam, and even though neither of them said anything aloud to each other, they both had the same wish for Christmas. It wasn’t a new car. It wasn’t that fat puppy. It wasn’t even to go to college some day and live a safe life away from hunting.

Sam leaned forward and whispered in Santa’s ear, and Dean didn’t hear his words—didn’t need to—because he knew that Sam’s wish was the same as his own: For them to never be separated and to always—no matter what—have each other.

When Sam backed away, Santa smiled and said, “I’ll see what I can do about that.” Then he looked to Comet. “Would you show these two their room for the night? I think they need some sleep, as I’m about to be off soon.”

Comet nodded. “Will do, sir.”

He took Sam and Dean to a large, sprawling room with a fully decorated Christmas tree in the corner and a crackling fireplace below a row of bulging stockings. The bed was covered in pillows and warm, soft blankets so thick that Sam sank down when he sat on the mattress.

“How will we get home?” Dean asked as Comet turned to leave.

Comet smiled. “Just go to sleep. It’ll be all right when you wake up. Don’t worry.” He glanced to Sam, who was pulling up the covers and sliding in underneath. “Now, the both of you, sleep well, and I’ll see you in the morning.”

When he was gone and Sam and Dean were alone, Dean climbed onto the bed next to Sam and said, “Some Christmas, huh?”

Sam grinned. “Yeah, no kidding.”

Dean laid down, curling around Sam, his chest against Sam’s back, cock against Sam’s bottom, and he kissed the bare skin of Sam’s neck. “Hey you, Merry Christmas,” he whispered.

Reaching back, Sam found Dean’s hand, brought it over top to rest their entwined fingers together on his stomach. “You too, Dean. You too.”

Dean wanted to say more, wanted to ask what Sam had thought of it all, but the warm embrace of sleep pulled him down, and he drifted off, happy and satisfied with Sam beside him.

The next morning, Dean awoke to the sound of Sam saying, “Dean, Dean, c’mon, I think Bobby made breakfast.” Dean rolled over and opened his eyes to the small room that Bobby had cleared out for them to stay in while Dad was gone. There was no Christmas tree in the corner and there was no crackling fireplace. There was dust on the windowsills and gray morning light coming in through the tattered curtains. Nothing remained from the beauty of last night except Sam, who was crouching on the covers with eyes eager and bright.

“Hey, Dean?” Sam asked.

“Hmm?”

“You remember last night? Tell me it wasn’t a dream.”

Dean groaned and pushed himself up. Sitting, he was able to see the stuffed reindeer looking at him from the end of the bed. The stuffed reindeer Bobby had given to him the previous night with the promise of it bringing some Christmas magic for the boys. The reindeer with a red tag that said “Comet” and two big, soft eyes that were all too familiar. In the dim light, Dean could swear the reindeer was smiling at him.

Perhaps it was.

Dean smiled and reached for Sam to pull them down together. “Yeah, I remember,” he whispered and kissed Sam on the cheek. “I remember, Sammy.”

End

PixCT: 12.18

2008-12-18T19:46:22Z

It's that time again...

Fic:
Slash (Dean/Sam)
Adult

~3050 words

- - - - -

A combination of fic, pic, and cock, and that's really all there is to it.
All About Cock Thursday

So Far

PixCT: 12.11

- - - - -

Today

DruCT: 12.18

My fic:

Slash (Wincest: Dean/Sam) oneshot

Adult rating

~3050 words

- - - - -

Dru's Pic Pick

He awoke with his cock heavy between his legs, the urge to piss felt as soon as he swung his feet to the floor and opened his eyes. On the other side of the room, the bathroom door was closed, and rising to his feet, Dean swore gruffly. Of course Sam had to be in the bathroom now when his fucking bladder was going to burst.

Dean padded over the green shag carpeting, muscles tightened to hold back the urge to just go, and he knocked rapidly on the door. "Sam? Open up, I gotta go."

"Dean?" Sam's voice from the other side of the door was muffled, thick, almost as if he'd been...crying? But, there would be time to deal with Sam’s emotions later. Right now, Dean had to pee like a fucking racehorse.

"Yeah, who else? Damn milkman? Open up already, will ya?"

"Just...no, uh...wait..."

"Open up now Sam, or else I'm going to piss on your pillow, swear to God."

"Don't, please, don't...I...uh..." There was the sound of something rustling on the other side, clothing perhaps, and Sam's tone was now edged, panicky and jumpy.

Dean frowned. What was he doing in there? Jerking off? Tough luck then, Dean thought. He wasn't going to stand out here, jumping around like a three-year-old in pull-ups while Sam finished beating down his morning wood.

Dean reached for the door handle and swung the door open at the same time Sam shouted, "Dean, no!"

Then the door was opened and Sam was exposed, and the sheer shock of the sight made Dean completely forget about his bathroom urges.

Neither of them said anything for a long moment until Dean sputtered out, his voice cracking, "Sam?"

The person who was very obviously not Sam while still very obviously being Sam nodded. "Yeah..." He held a towel to his naked chest, and his fingers curled into white knuckles in the faded terry cloth. "I think...I think I got hit by a spell."

"Uh, yeah. I'd say so," Dean replied, scratching the back of his head.

To put it bluntly, Sam the he was now Sam the she. Dean simply gaped, taking it all in. Sam's hair was still the same length, but his face was narrower, masculine jaw line softened and cheekbones more pronounced. His height, which had caused some people to give him a second glance as a man, now seemed downright freakish as a woman. The blue jeans on his waist fell down below his rounded hips at an awkward angle, too big, too baggy, for his new, slimmer body, and peeking out behind the protective towel, were the soft swells of breasts.

"You're a girl," Dean said after another minute of staring.

"Yeah."

Dean shook his head. "What...when...? Wait, wait, hold on," he said and worked his way into the bathroom, being careful not to trip over Sam's clothing strewn across the floor. He stood in front of the toilet and pushed down his pants to pee, thankful and relieved at last. Sam turned his—her? No, still him. It was still Sam under there. Still Dean's brother, yes—turned his face away, eyes downcast.

When Dean had finished and washed his hands, he asked, "All right, then, um, when'd you change?"

Sam shrugged, shoulders tiny in a way his hadn't been since before puberty. "Last night, I guess? I dunno. I woke up and well..." He made a weak motion to encompass his body. "It was all here."

"All of it?"

"Yeah." Then, seeing Dean's pointed look, Sam clarified, "The whole works, trust me. I checked it out."

"Oh."

While Sam reached for his shirt, turning his back to Dean to get dressed, somehow seeming embarrassed about his new body, Dean asked, "Any clue who did it?"

"Probably that witch you pissed off yesterday."

"Witch?"

"The one with all the cats you kept on teasing."

"Ah, right. Well, those cats were funny looking," Dean replied, remembering that witch they had met to talk about a recent ghost homicide and her dozens of cats, all them fat, little sausages of creatures with no tails. The no tails was what Dean had found most amusing, really, and was what he had pointed out to Sam with a chuckle.

"You didn't need to make fun of them, though.” Sam turned back around, finishing the top buttons on his shirt. “I think that upset her."

"Why would you say that?"

Sam rolled his eyes, and Dean couldn't help but notice even his lashes were longer, more feminine, too. "Remember that big sculpture out in front of her house?"

Dean nodded, he did. It was a large stone design of interlocked circles, some thinner than others, but all twisted together in an open ball. The largest band on the circle had the Zodiac signs across its belt, little engraved animals and people rotating around the axis.

"After you walked off and went back to the car, she just stood there, glaring at you and patting that damn thing. She said...something—I couldn't catch it, wasn’t English—but dude, she wasn't happy."

"All right, so we find her and make her change you back. I don't care what it takes," Dean said, leaving the bathroom and going out to the bedroom. "We're getting you back...as a man...none of this girly body part mess."

"No," Sam said.

"No?"

"No. There's no 'we' about this one, Dean. You pissed her off. Somehow, I doubt she’ll be greeting you with opened arms. I'll go alone and deal with her. I think it might be better that way."

Dean snorted and rolled his eyes. "Yeah, right. Like I'm really going to let you go after this bitch alone."

"Yeah, you are," Sam said simply. His voice was still pissy even with the new soft undertone to it. "You come along, she'll probably turn me into a frog."

Dean inhaled deeply, not liking his options. He didn't like being the accused cause of Sam's curse, and he didn't like Sam going after the witch alone. They stood, staring at each other for a long moment, as if the first to blink was going to win his side of the argument. Finally, Dean snapped, "Fine...fine. Just, just keep your damn phone on you so you can freakin' call if something happens. And?" Dean continued, raising his finger to point it at Sam. "You're not back in an hour, I'm tracking your GPS down and coming after you, witch or not, gottit?"

Sam nodded. "Gottit."

Forty-five minutes later after Dean's nervous energy made him clean all of their guns and knives and then go to work on the bathroom sink, Sam came back in, still a girl. He looked ridiculous, clothes too big on him, eyes too bright and wide on his face, too damn pretty for his own good.

"Well?" Dean asked. "How'd it go? Why are you still a woman? Didn't she change you back? Are you going to stay like this forever? How can you still be a girl?"

"I've got some good news and some bad news," Sam interrupted, sitting down on the bed as Dean stood in front of him, arms crossed. If it’d been Dean, he would’ve tied that witch up and made her change him back into a man. There wouldn’t be any argument. He wouldn’t be a girl, that’s for sure.

"All right, spill it."

"Bad news, you did cause it. You made fun of her cats, so, well, how did she put it? She decided that she was ‘going to make fun of something you loved.’"

"But!" Dean sputtered.

"But," Sam continued, shooting a pointed glare at Dean to quiet, "but, it's not permanent. Since she cursed me while touching that...sculpture, or whatever, of hers, I'll only be a girl during my astrological period."

"Which is...?"

"Taurus, Dean." Sam wrinkled his face. "Can't believe you don't know that."

"I'm sorry I don't spend my time reading that section of the newspapers. Kinda looking at them for more important things than my fucking horoscope."

"Anyway,” Sam said with a heavy sigh, “the sun moves out of Taurus in about another three weeks. I'll change back into a guy after then."

"And...is this something that'll happen every year?"

"No." Sam shook his head. "One shot sort of thing."

“Oh. Well. That’s good then.”

“Yeah,” Sam agreed, but he kept his eyes off Dean’s face, placing them instead on his hands which were twisting nervously in his lap.

“Hey,” Dean said after a moment, pushing Sam lightly on the shoulder. “You okay?”

“Fine…fine…”

“Bullshit.”

“Yeah, well, maybe.” Sam exhaled, long and heavy, and stood up, crossing the room to the bathroom. He lingered in the doorway, finding more interest in examining the hinges than speaking to Dean, which was an oddity for Sam who wanted to talk about everything.

“Um, hey,” Dean said, unsure of what he was supposed to be saying. Normally, he had a pretty good feel of what Sam wanted him to say—something emotionally bonding—but this, this was new territory. Sam had seemed okay with things and then, suddenly, he had switched, gotten all quiet, and now Dean didn’t know what the right words could possibly be. “You, uh, you wanna talk about it?”

Sam’s laugh was a short bark of cynicism. “Yeah? And what do you want me to say? That, thanks to you, I’m a girl for the next three weeks? Yeah, thanks Dean. Way to go and piss off a witch.”

“Well, shit, it’s not like it’s permanent. You’ll have all your junk back in three weeks, so what the hell are you griping about?” It wasn’t the smartest thing he’d ever said, and he regretted it as soon as it was out of his mouth. But, it was out anyway. Out and slamming into Sam, who whirled around, facing Dean head-on.

“Oh, fuck you,” Sam snarled. “It has nothing to do with my ‘junk,’ all right? I’m a girl, which is a hell of a lot different than any other spell we’ve ever been through…”

“Yeah, how so?”

Sam turned his head away, hair falling down over his face, revealing the slim line of his neck and the collar of his shirt, now baggy against his thinner frame. He didn’t say anything for a long moment, just watching his fingers, thinner too, curl and uncurl against the wooden doorframe.

“Sam?” Dean pressed, rising to his feet. Dammit, was he going to have to drag this out of Sam?

“You…you remember when I was possessed?”

Dean halted, caught between the beds and the bathroom, and he swallowed. “The Meg demon…?”

“Yeah. That one.”

“Yeah, I remember.” Not that he could forget. The way Sam’s eyes had gone black as if they’d rolled all the way back in his head. The way Sam had punched him, anger pouring out of him—

“That’s…that’s what it feels like. Like I’m trapped—again—in some body that isn’t even mine. Okay? That’s what it’s like. And it doesn’t matter that it’s not permanent, okay? It just…it’s like being in that position all over again, and it’s not…well, it’s not fun, okay?”

Dean chewed on his lower lip, trying to think of something to say that wouldn’t make him sound like a complete asshole. Instead, he came forward and rested his hand on Sam’s shoulder, the first they’d touched since Sam’s change last night. He only wanted to comfort Sam, like he always did, a pat, a kiss, anything to let Sam know that, okay, yeah, he had fucked up by pissing off that witch and Sam had paid for it, but he was sorry.

Instead, Sam shrugged out from beneath Dean’s hand. “I can’t,” he whispered, swallowing tightly. “I…Dean…I just can’t…”

Dean nodded, but it was a stiff and awkward gesture. “Okay, yeah, yeah.” He backed away, didn’t know if Sam wanted him so close. “Um, you wanna, you wanna come back to bed?”

Sam shook his head. “No, I’m going to stay in here for a bit. Get a shower or something, I guess.”

Dean muttered something that he hoped sounded agreeable, and as Sam closed the door, Dean went back to bed. He didn’t bother changing out of his clothes, simply shucked off his shoes and curled underneath the covers. On the other side of the room, the shower ran on and on for what seemed like hours until Dean drifted off into sleep and Sam remained separated on the other side of the door.

They stayed in the motel room for the next couple days, only leaving to grab food from the small diner down the street. Sam spent most of his time in front of the laptop, pinching the bridge of his nose and making tiny, erratic notes on the motel’s stationary pad.

From across the room, Dean watched Sam, as if trying to see where his brother ended and the girl began. He wasn’t an unattractive girl, really. He was attractive in the way that Sam always had been attractive. But, there wasn’t any defining line between brother and girl, really. It was a blend of the two, mixed together so tightly that Dean gave up with the staring before Sam turned around and glared at him.

Two weeks later, Dean realized that he missed Sam. Not Sam the man. Not Sam the woman. Just—Sam. Sleeping next to him in bed, going for a run in the morning with him, hell, even grabbing coffee together in whatever cheesy gas station in whatever cheesy town they’d landed in. Since Sam’s change, there was a wall built between them, a divide that Sam refused to let Dean cross, and well, quite frankly, Dean thought, that just sucked.

Four days later, three days before the curse was up, over a breakfast of day old donuts, Dean said, “I miss you.”

Sam looked up. His girly eyes widened, hair almost covering them, and he said, “What?” There was chocolate on his lips from the donut, and his fingers were smack-smacking against each other, sticky with glaze and icing.

“I miss you,” Dean repeated, feeling a bit stupid, but feeling like this was the right thing to say anyway.

“Uh, I’m right here,” Sam said, obviously confused. His half-eaten donut hovered between his mouth and the opened box on the table between them.

“No, no, that’s not what I meant. I mean, dammit, Sam,” Dean struggled, wiping off his hands on the scratchy brown napkin, “you haven’t so much as made eye contact with me for two weeks now. Two weeks! Shit! That’s…this…” He pushed out his chair and stood, walking around the other side of the table to stand over Sam.

“Wha…wait, what are you doing?” Sam sputtered. He dropped his donut and squirmed in his chair, his long, lithe limbs jumping stupidly.

“Punch me later,” Dean said before he bent down, grabbed Sam’s face and kissed him.

Sam froze, body tensing, and his hands curled into fists on the arms of his chair. But he didn’t push Dean away.

Sam tasted like chocolate from the donut, sweet and rich, and he tasted like Sam. His lips were smaller, face thinner, but that was it. It was still him underneath this girly skin, and when Dean closed his eyes, he knew that it was still his brother under there. Still Sam.

After a beat, Dean pulled back to see Sam breathing heavily and staring up at him. His cheeks were flushed, and his lips were wet, partially opened.

“So. Yeah,” Dean said, and he began to back away, returning to his seat while waiting for Sam to slap him across the face at the same time.

Instead, though, Sam stood up and wrapped his arms around Dean, crumbling when he buried his face in the crook of Dean’s neck. “Dean,” he whispered. “I missed you, too.”

Dean chuckled lightly, cupping the back of Sam’s head and kissing the side of his face. “Hey, hey, it’s okay.” With Sam still holding onto him, he walked them backwards to fall onto the bed, Sam sprawled awkwardly on top.

“You going to be okay now?” Dean asked, looking up at Sam.

“I think I can manage for another three days,” Sam admitted, smiling. “How about you? You going to be okay and stop staring at me when you think I’m not looking?”

“You knew...?” Dean began, but Sam only laughed, stopping him.

“You’re not as clever as you’d like to think you are.”

Dean rolled his eyes, rubbing Sam’s face with his thumb, quiet, little circles over Sam’s skin. No morning stubble here, just unbroken smoothness. “Yeah, whatever.”

"Hey, you know, I was thinking, maybe you'd like to see what it's like...?"

Dean looked up, met Sam's playful eyes. "See what what's like?"

Sam grinned, and through all the changes, his dimples, those stupid things he'd had since a baby, were still there, proving that it was Sam amidst all that estrogen. He dropped his hand lower, back of his knuckles brushing over Dean's cock pressed between them. "You know..." Sam drawled off.

"Sam," Dean said bluntly while trying to keep the smile out of his voice, "I've done it with a girl before. Lots of times. I don’t think you’ll be showing me anything new."

"Yeah, but you haven't done it with me as a girl. Might be kinda, y'know, fun? I'd like to give it a try."

This time, Dean did smile, open and wide, and said, "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah." Sam leaned down and tilted his head just right to kiss Dean again.

They rolled on the bed, now with Sam on his back with Dean leaning over him, kissing and touching. It wasn't entirely new—Dean knew how girls felt and how girls smelled, the sounds they made when he kissed them—but it was new just as Sam had said: It was him as a girl and that changed everything right there.

Dean rested a hand on the button of Sam's jeans and pulled back for a moment. "You sure about this?" he asked.

Sam smiled, small breasts warm where they pressed up against Dean's chest. "Totally," he said, and he pulled Dean back down, all questions and hesitations flying out the window.

End
"If You Could Only See the World" by Tonic

PixCT: 12.11

2008-12-11T21:48:47Z

It's that time again...

Fic:
Slash (Dean/Sam)
Adult
Preseries

~1390 words

- - - - -

A combination of fic, pic, and cock, and that's really all there is to it.
All About Cock Thursday

So Far

PixCT: 12.04

- - - - -

Today

DruCT: 12.11

My fic:

Slash (Wincest: Dean/Sam) oneshot

Adult rating

Preseries

~1390 words

- - - - -

Pix's Pic Pick

The area was bustling with children and their ice cream cones and parents and their cameras. Here at the park, the masses clustered towards the more exciting things—the loop-de-loop slide and the rainbow colored monkey bars. No one really paid much attention to the big, blue eye in the back of the park, tucked away behind some trees and curving sidewalks. No one, that was, except for Sam and Dean.

"I can't believe Dad sent us out here to check this out," Sam grumbled. He was seventeen years old that summer, perpetually grumpy and continually blinded by the hair in his eyes. He didn't argue much with Dad about the little things anymore, choosing instead of hit Dad at his most sensitive points, which only erupted into volatile arguments that Dean found himself stuck in the middle of one way or another.

"He didn't," Dean confessed after a beat, pushing aside a low-hanging tree branch so they could enter the cleared area where the eye was on a metal tube, staring straight at them.

"He didn't?"

"I…I thought we should."

"You?" Sam sputtered, and Dean tensed, waiting for an onslaught of arguments of how they could have stayed back in the motel room, how Sam could have been working—at a real job with a real income, as he was fond of pointing out lately—or how, simply, Dean was still Dad's little soldier, following one great hunt to another without thought.

"Look. Just," Dean said, raising his hand and stepping forward, "just drop it, okay? Give me your debate team arguments later. I think this is something we should see."

Much to his surprise—and gratitude—Sam didn't say anything farther. He came closer to stand beside Dean and look down into the hole that was at the bottom of the eye's pipe. "It's a periscope," Sam said after a moment of squinting into the hole.

"A what?"

"Periscope," Sam repeated, stepping back and standing up straight. "Like in submarines, y'know? Using mirrors to see in a different direction than where you're facing."

"Oh."

"You sound disappointed," Sam said. He looked confused. Dean would have thought Sam looked concerned as well, but given his petulant attitude in the recent months, that might have been wishful thinking.

"Eh," Dean said, trying to shrug it off. "Guess what I heard wasn't true."

"What did you hear?"

"Wasn't real, so it doesn't matter."

"Dean..."

"Here, just...just let me take a look. Maybe you're doing it wrong," Dean said as he approached the periscope. Sam moved out of the way so Dean could bend down and squint awkwardly into the dirty viewing hole at the base of the silver pipe. He didn't see anything for a moment, everything dark and fuzzy as he shifted and sputtered to get his eye aligned just so. Then, clearly, he was able to see the park behind them—the parents and children, ice cream and loop-de-loop slide.

No, no, this wasn't right. He had heard...

"Look, if you'd just tell me what's going on, maybe we can get this figured out," Sam was saying off to Dean's side. “Sure would be a lot faster with the both of us thinking together than you alone.” Dean resisted the urge to swat at him, knowing it would throw off his balance and ruin his sight alignment when Sam hit him back.

He reached up and slapped the top of the eye instead, and a hollow clanging sound reverberated through the metal, causing the little mirrors to vibrate slowly. As the mirrors shook, the scene began to fade, faded away from the children and their ice cream, no more rainbow monkey bars, and yes, yes, this was it right here.

The images faded, shifted, until Dean was seeing something different. A bedroom. Had to be one of a motel, given the layout of the small room with two adjacent queen beds and yellow paisley wallpaper. On a bed, the one closest to the door that Dean always took, Sam and he were lying on the golden blankets. They were mostly naked—Sam wearing only his boxers and Dean in unbuttoned blue jeans—and they were kissing, hot and desperate.

Heat flashed through Dean in the park as he watched the scene. He wasn't surprised, really; he and Sam had fooled around before—out of boredom, sometimes from being too buzzed after a hunt on the fury of adrenaline, sometimes just because he'd look at Sam and Sam'd look at him and, well, that was that. But, it wasn't a regular thing. And if it was, Dean certainly didn't want to think about it being so.

In this scene of yellow paisley wallpaper and mustard colored bedcovers, they were on the bed, curled into one another with hands down each other pants', and Dean wasn't stupid, knew exactly that hands were wrapped around cocks. Could tell by the way their wrists flexed and their hips twitched into the other, all tight and needy, like they couldn’t get enough. In the bedroom, Sam was saying something with his eyes closed, but Dean couldn't hear his words—could only see Sam's furrowed brow and the way Dean squeezed his own eyes shut and glassy tears dribbled out the sides.

"Dean, what the hell are you looking at? The playground can't be that interesting," Sam huffed next to him.

"Shut up, give me another minute."

The scene in the periscope faded away, and then Sam was standing in front of a bus and holding a ticket to California in his hand, while Dean nodded, small and sad. In Dean's hand, he held a flyer with a university logo on the top, the rest of the words too little to read, and this, this right here was exactly what Dean had feared. Sam would never tell him that college was on the horizon, but this eye had been rumored to show the future and sure enough, that's what it was showing.

Dean swallowed, feeling a bit dizzy at the knowledge, and with that, the images blurred together, as if someone had pressed the fast-forward button and caused everything to go spinning together in a mad blur of color. The image suddenly stopped, too abruptly in a drunken sort of jerky way, and a motel room door opened to reveal an irritated, dark-haired girl in her blue underwear. Sam, so different—older and larger—walked into the picture behind her, and his mouth opened in astonishment, as he stopped and stared at something amazing. Following his view, Dean and Bobby stood on the other side of the door, both equally older, matching Sam's age progression. Dean watched his mouth smile, move and say something to Sam, before he entered the motel room, ignoring the short girl off to the side.

In some flash of misunderstanding, Sam came at him with a knife, screaming inaudibly, while Bobby pulled him back and the dark-haired girl cowered in the corner. Bobby calmed down Sam, and then, then Sam crashed into Dean in an embrace so tight it knocked the wind out of Dean even now—years away.

That was enough. Dean stood up, away from the periscope.

"Well, that was a hell of a long time," Sam said, tossing hair out of his eyes with a flick of his head. "Must've seen something real good."

Dean swallowed, looked at his brother, who was leaving him for college, leaving him, but returning anyway—somehow, some way returning with a dark-haired girl by his side in a motel room with a little red heart on its door.

But, returning all the same.

"Yeah," Dean said, breathing out sharply to control the racing of his heart. Sam would leave, but Sam would come back. That's all he wanted to know. Sam would come back. "Real good, Sammy."

He turned away, slapping Sam on the shoulder and letting his hand linger for perhaps longer than necessary, as he remembered the scene of the two of them in the yellow paisley motel room. "Let's go get some ice cream," he said.

Sam stiffened, confused, but he shrugged. "Okay, yeah, ice cream."

Dean smiled and glanced behind him to where Sam was framed by the late afternoon sun. It'd be all right. Sam would come back. They'd be together in the end. Yes, all would be all right.

End

Untitled #16 (Slash, PG)

2008-12-08T02:55:07Z

Title: Untitled #16
Rating: PG
Category: Slash oneshot
Word Count: 703
Characters: Sam/Dean
Spoilers: Vague up through 4.10.
Summary: Because Sam and Dean are in love.
Warnings: Brother incest.
Author’s Notes: Sometimes I get a bunch of words in my head, and I mix them up and throw them out to see where they land. Sometimes they do things. This is a general idea I've had in my mind for a while, and it's written in a really rambly and quite messy format way too late at night. But, here it is because, eh, I'm kinda fond of it anyway, despite its crazy lil' way. Written to "Crosses" by José González (listen)
Disclaimer: The following characters and situations are used without permission of the creators, owners, and further affiliates of the television show, Supernatural, to whom they rightly belong. I claim only what is mine, and I make no money off what is theirs.

- - - - -

No one's ever asked him why. He doesn't suppose that anyone ever will. Except himself. He's the only person who has asked, Why do you love him, Sam? Why do you love Dean?

When he asks himself, he always answers.

Because he's my brother. Because he's self-sacrificing, and he'll give and bleed for me more than anyone else in this world ever can or ever will. Because he sold his soul to a demon in a black dress so I could open my eyes, look upon this world, and draw another breath even though it meant he would stare down the dark tunnel of Hell for a year and cry in its pits for another four months—another forty years.

Because he knows my every secret—the ones I've kept hidden from even myself, the ones that don't really matter for anything but a blink of the eye, and the ones that matter so much they hurt at their sheer thought. Because he knows these secrets, and he never judges me in spite of them or turns his eyes away.

Because when he was four years old, only a child—a child in his pajamas and bare feet—he saved my life from demon’s fire and ran across the dark grass with me in his arms. Because over twenty years later, he's never stopped saving my life, even if the only time he can hold me in his arms now is when we crash, fall, and come together like planets colliding among the stars.

Because even in his anger, his darkest moments of human rage, it's never lasting like the hundreds of grudges I've watched him hold before. Because he makes me laugh when I'm crying or bleeding or aching deep down inside where no medicine can ever heal. Because he's beautiful, inside, out, all over, in more than the glow of his eyes at sunset or the way his freckles can only be seen when he's just emerged from the shower with skin, soft and warm.

Because he taught me everything I know, from how to write my alphabet or holding a gun or how to love, truly, completely and forever. Because when he kisses me with his eyes closed, I can feel it in him that this is no one night stand, no half-hearted attempt at passion and that this is it for the both of us. Because we can fight, spit and sling insults and fists, but, more importantly, we can fully and wholly forgive one another in a way that would make even the pious angels jealous. Because he needs me and I need him, and we don’t give a damn if he's my weakness and I'm his, so long as we're together in this.

Because when I fall asleep, curled into him, he lets me sleep and pulls the blankets over me, kissing the top of my head and wrapping his arms around me to never let me go all night long. Because it doesn’t matter if we fall asleep in clothing, in skin, under the blankets or in the back of the car, we’re going to sleep entwined.

Because he let me leave for California and collegiate hopes since it was my dream for a new life—a safe life—even if it meant he would stay behind and suffer alone, suffer silently in my absence. Because he let me leave, knowing that no matter how many school credits and fat textbooks, how many girls and miles and broken years came between us, I'd still come back to him in the end.

Because he watched me die and I watched him die, and nothing, nothing ever—not even the death of the whole goddamn world itself—can equal the loss and pain we felt in those moments. Because at the end of the day, at night when the shadows fall after the battle, after Heaven and Hell itself come to our doorstop to separate us, we're always going to come home to each other—home that is each other.

Because he is my brother, he is my love.
Because he is my love, he is my brother.

Because—because, I love him. That's why. That is why.

End
"Crosses" by José Gonzalez

PixCT: 12.04

2008-12-04T20:42:32Z

It's that time again...

Fic:
Slash (Dean/Sam)
Adult
Preseries

~1520 words

- - - - -

A combination of fic, pic, and cock, and that's really all there is to it.
All About Cock Thursday

So Far

Sept 07 - Sept 08

Sept/Oct 08

Nov 08

- - - - -

Today

DruCT: 12.04

My fic:

Slash (Wincest: Dean/Sam) oneshot

Adult rating

Preseries

~1520 words

- - - - -

Dru's Pic Pick

"I'm running away," Sam announced as Dean was eating breakfast.

Dean looked up from the car magazine he had swiped from the library. The magazine was two weeks overdue, and they were six hundred miles away. He decided that if they ever passed through that little town again, he'd be sure to return it. Until then, he'd enjoy it guilt-free. "Running away?" Dean asked, swallowing down a spoonful of soggy oat o’s.

"Nobody here understands me. I hate school. I can’t make friends because we move around all the time. I'm tired of Dad telling me what to do, where to go, all that. I hate being a teenager!" Sam waved his hand much too zealously for a fourteen year old boy. His backpack strap slid off his shoulder with the movement, and he faltered, catching the pack before it fell to the floor.

Dean leaned back in his chair, ignoring the magazine and the cereal soaking up the milk. Focused his attention instead on Sam's scrunched face of irritation. "You got food?"

"Yeah."

"Enough to get by? Could be a while until you can find another grocery store."

"For a few days. I grabbed a knife, too. I can always hunt and eat something...like cook for myself?"

Dean nodded, kept his face impassive. "Got some warmer clothes? Mittens and stuff? The nights get cold around here. You don't want to be getting frostbite and ruining your fingers. Won’t be able to use that knife of yours."

"Yeah. I've got a blanket, too. I even packed one of those old plastic tarps of Caleb's. That way I can sleep on the ground at night and not get wet."

Dean frowned and nodded. "Well, it sounds like you're ready to go then." He stood up and slapped Sam warmly on the shoulder. "You going to write to me? You better."

"Yeah. I'll call your cell from a payphone. I brought a bunch of quarters.” For emphasis, Sam patted his front pocket, which jingled with the weight of the extra change. “Just don't let Dad know."

"No way," Dean replied, shaking his head. "Promise I won't say anything."

Sam nodded. "All right, then, well, I'll see you later."

"Take care of yourself, Sammy."

"You too," he said, opened the door and out he went.

Dean walked to the window above the kitchen sink, watched Sam walk away, growing smaller as he tromped over the thick layer of autumn leaves and into the cluster of trees on the hill. He finished his cereal, washed and rinsed the bowl, and dried it with the towel hanging from the refrigerator door handle. Sam was smaller now, but still visible in the distance, and Dean smiled and shook his head. Crazy kid.

He grabbed his auto magazine and hopped onto the countertop so he could keep his view out the kitchen window. Every few pages, he'd glance up, check to make sure Sam's coat was still bobbing through the tightly laced trees and return to his reading. Once he was done with his magazine and Sam had completely disappeared into the forest, Dean sighed and hopped off the countertop. He grabbed a flashlight and his coat from the hook by the doorway.

Halfway out the door, he paused, remembering, and turned around to scribble a quick note to Dad. Made up something about going exploring with Sammy. They were all right, don't worry, be back by dark, promise. He placed the note by the coffee maker--first place Dad would go when he came home--and then went back outside.

He found Sam where he thought he would: tucked underneath the teepee of tree roots. Sam had laid the tarp on the ground as he'd said and covered himself with an old faded blanket, his head resting on his backpack. He was sleeping, even though it was only late in the afternoon. He'd been tired lately--too much schoolwork and Dad dragging them from one place to another without a break. Poor kid was just stressed. Needed a break out of the house and away from reality.

Dean smiled and, bending down, he rapped his knuckles on the mossy outside of the tree. "Knock, knock," he called.

Sam stirred and rubbed at his eyes. "Dean?" he murmured. "What...what are you doing here?"

"Thought you could use some company on your little trip." He paused, looking around the little area Sam had made for himself. "Can I come in?"

Sam shrugged indifferently. "If you want," he replied, sitting up and pulling the blanket so Dean could plop down beside him. The plastic of the tarp crackled when Dean sat, much like the crackle of the faded brown leaves outside their little tree teepee.
"How'd you find me?" Sam asked.

"Just a good guess," Dean replied, deciding not to reveal that this was the spot he came when they first moved here a few weeks ago. Had ran outside after Sammy was asleep and Dad was dozing on the couch with the TV still on. All anger and frustration welling up inside him and he had ran out here to curl beneath this tree's protection just to clear his head in solitude.

They sat in silence for a while until Sam offered Dean one of his granola bars. "Want one? I packed bunches."

Dean accepted, of course, and they ate their bars quietly, looking out through their little hideaway at the sparse greenery and the endless brown plants.

"Hey, Sammy?" Dean said after a long moment.

"Hm?"

"I will miss something if you leave."

"What's that?"

Dean leaned over, kissed Sammy, quick and light, and pulled back. "Going to miss that."

Sam shrugged, eyes downcast. "You'll find somebody else." Stubborn little bugger, Dean thought. Guess the adolescent stress was wearing on him harder than Dean'd assumed.

"You think?" Dean asked. He bent down, gave another kiss, longer this time. Long enough for Sam's hand to curl into a loose fist where it rested in his lap.

"Well..." Sam answered then. "I mean...the girls at school do like you a lot..."

Dean rolled his eyes dramatically. "They're just girls, Sam." He leaned in for a kiss again, longer, deeper still. He opened up his mouth for this one until Sammy gave in and lifted his hands up to rest on the sides of Dean's face.

"You mean it?" Sam asked, a bit breathless when Dean stopped.

"I mean it. Just girls. Not like you and me."

Another kiss. This one strong enough for them to tumble down together, plastic tarp crinkling beneath them as Sammy came to fall on top. Their legs twisted together in the blanket, getting caught, but neither cared enough to notice.

"Being a teenager sucks," Sam admitted.

Dean pursed his lips, pretended to think about this for a moment. "Yeah, it really does. But," he said, placing a hand at the small of Sam's back and pulling him in closer, "it gets better."

"Yeah?" Sam asked. He leaned down eagerly into Dean. He was straddling Dean's waist, rocking slowly back and forth, with one hand resting on Dean's chest. The change in his front pocket jingled with every small thrust.

"Oh yeah."

That was all Sam needed, Dean knew. That little bit of reassurance, and Sam finally gave into the kisses fully, groaning in the back of his throat when Dean threaded fingers through his hair. He slipped a hand down between them, cupped Sam's cock pressing hard against his zipper, and squeezed gently, just enough for Sam to inhale and whisper, "Dean..."

With that one hand, Dean unbuttoned Sam's jeans, slipped his hand inside, and wrapped his fingers around Sam's cock. Gently, he gave a few slow, long strokes, and that was all it took for Sam to come, shuddering in Dean's arms. He gasped, breath warm against Dean's cheek, and when his breathing finally evened out, he pulled back and said, "It...it's getting dark, don't you think?"

Dean looked up, craning his neck to see out of the tree, and said, "Yeah, I guess you're right."

"You think Dad'll be worried?"

"Might be."

"Maybe we should head back...?"

"Well, what about your big plans?" Dean asked as he handed Sam a handkerchief to clean himself up. Damned thing was covered with oil and smelled of gasoline from the shop. A little bit of spunk wouldn't hurt it.

Sam frowned, looking up from where he was wiping off his belly, and said, "Maybe...maybe I should give it a shot tomorrow? Head out bright and early? You don't have to work tomorrow so, maybe you could come with me?"

"Yeah, that sounds like a good plan."

They packed up their things, and Dean helped Sam roll the tarp back into a tight little roll so it could fit in the backpack again. When everything was put away, they started the long walk back to the house. Next to him, Sam smiled and laughed at Dean's stupid jokes, and that right there, the sound of Sam at ease, was all Dean needed to hear to know that the day had a happy ending to it.

End

Caught Between Snow and Sky (Slash, Adult)

2008-12-03T02:01:52Z

Title: Caught Between Snow and Sky
Rating: Adult
Category: Pre-series slash (Wincest) oneshot
Word Count: 8329
Characters: Dean/Sam, John, and Bobby
Spoilers: None
Summary: For them, growing up has never been about learning how to let go.
Warnings: Underage brother incest
Author’s Notes: Written for angstpuppy with the following prompts: “shaving (face, groin, anywhere!!!), innocent but unknowingly sexual Sammy, blowjobs.” Thank you to drvsilla for the overthinky and to Tracy Chapman for the music. Any remaining mistakes are mine alone.
Disclaimer: The following characters and situations are used without permission of the creators, owners, and further affiliates of the television show, Supernatural, to whom they rightly belong. I claim only what is mine, and I make no money off what is theirs.

- - - - -

Winter

The snow clicks against the windshield, little crystal fingernails against the glass, and the radio glows in the darkness of the car.

Dean sighs and pulls back the sleeve of his coat to look at his watch, reading that it’s been over an hour since Dad said he’d be back.

As the wipers swipe noisily across the windshield, clearing away the gathering snow and ice, Dean chews on his bottom lip. Dad wouldn’t want Dean to come after him, but Dad’s never been an hour late like this before. The weather’s bad and the monster even worse.

Worry rising in his belly, Dean exhales sharply in frustration, his breath a cloud of steam in the car’s chilly interior, and he yanks the keys from the ignition. The car is pitched in the darkness when the radio dies, and the wipers lie, paralyzed in mid-sweep.

He climbs out of the car, biting back a curse at the coldness, the way the frigid wind whips through his clothes and bones. At the trunk of the car, he gathers a gun and a machete with its blade long and thick. Slamming the lid shut, he turns and heads off into the forest, his flashlight a beam of light slicing its way through the inky black of the trees.

- - - - -

His finds Dad in the monster’s den, which is a musty cave in the side of a hill. The creature’s nowhere to be seen, but Dad’s lying unconscious on the ground. In the pale illumination of Dean’s flashlight, he can see blood speckled on Dad’s face like red freckles, and his leg looks chewed to hell. Dean doubts he’ll be able to walk on it for a long time—if ever again.

Carefully, body prickling with awareness that the monster might be close by, Dean hurries over to Dad to check if he's even still breathing. After Dean places his cheek close to Dad's lips and feels the soft puff of air, he shakes him by the shoulder in an attempt to rouse him.

“Dad?” Dean whispers, glancing over his back. “C’mon, Dad, it’s me. You gotta get up.”

Dad groans, and when his head lolls on his shoulders, his eyes open for the briefest of a moment. They’re bleary and faraway, and they tell Dean that he’s all alone in this right now.

Dean moves closer to Dad, to try and pick him up when suddenly, Dean’s slammed to the ground from behind with a roar. The wind is knocked out of him, and he gasps and wheezes, watching the flashlight clatter away and machete tumble from his fingers.

Whatever the hell it is—Dean can’t remember the exact name of the monster now—has its mouth clamped on his arm, jaws working madly. The taste of his blood has sent it into a wild frenzy, and it’s snarling as it tries to eat away at him.

When something crunches in his arm—a bone, a joint—he screams, out of pain, out of fear and anger, and he kicks at the creature and rips at its fur with his free hand, but he can’t loosen its grip. Lying on his back, he can feel skin being torn, and the hot slick of his blood and its saliva running up his arm, pooling in his armpit.

Frantically, he twists, trying to throw it, trying to save himself, and in the murky shadows, his fingers bump against something familiar and blessed. The smooth handle of his machete.

The pain and fear are nearly driving him senseless, into a blind panic, but he wraps his hand around the handle, and he brings the blade down as hard as he can manage, slicing through the monster’s neck. The beast spasms, jerks and twitches, before the torso collapses in a dead weight on top of him.

With a groan, Dean pushes up on its snout until the jaws encasing his arm loosen, and he can shake free. The head thumps to the ground beside him, and he lies there, on his back, trying to breathe against the white hot pain ripping its way through his body. He feels dizzy, sick like he’s going to vomit, and he simply tries to remember how to breathe. In. Out. In. Out.

Then he hears a low groan from beside him, and he remembers: Dad.

Dean staggers drunkenly to his feet, swaying for a moment. Once he’s regained his balance, he retrieves the flashlight, keeping his damaged arm close to his body as he moves. He leaves the machete and figures he’ll come back for it later. He can’t carry Dad, the flashlight, and the machete now with only one arm.

“Dad, c’mon, get up,” Dean says, wrapping his good hand in Dad’s collar, tugging him to his feet.

Dad rocks on his feet and groans again. Something that sounds like Dean, but might be damn, given the circumstances. He stands, bobbing on his one leg and putting his full weight against Dean, but he’s standing and right now, that’s enough. His ruined foot trails behind him dumbly like a dead limb.

Dean squeezes the flashlight up into his armpit, holding it there because his other arm is too hurt to do much of anything beyond bleed and throb right now. The illumination of the flashlight bobs through the trees as Dean and Dad stagger slowly, weakly, back to the car, with the snow falling on their faces.

- - - - -

After laying Dad down in the backseat, Dean drives to the nearest gas station with his bad right arm curled clumsily in his lap. At the store, he stumbles to the phone booth where he shakily shoves quarters into the machine. His fingers are cold and feel too thick to be of any use.

The line rings two, three times, and by the fifth ring, Dean’s beginning to lose hope when, “Hello?”

“Bobby?”

A pause. “Dean?”

“Yeah. Bobby, Dad’s hurt real bad. Me too. I—I don’t know if I can drive much farther. I…”

“Where are you?”

Tiredly, Dean gives him directions, and Bobby says, “I’m on my way, kid. Be there real soon. Hang on,” before he hangs up with a sharp click.

Dean replaces the receiver, pauses to right his tipping self, and trudges back to the Impala where he collapses into the passenger seat. From the back, Dad breathes in light, but steady, sighs.

Dean looks out his window where the snow is falling faster now, coming down in thick gusts and swirls. His head spins, agony eating away at him, and he focuses on keeping awake. It’d be too easy to go under now, he knows. Too easy to let the pain take hold of him. All the same, he cannot stop the hot water from rising to his eyes.

He flops his head back against the seat and sighs heavily. Yesterday, he turned seventeen years old. Today, he could have died.

- - - - -

Bobby arrives soon, just like he promised, and he leaves his own car in a far corner of the parking lot. Says he knows the owner of the gas station and besides, nobody’s going to run off with that hunk of junk anyway.

He climbs into the driver’s seat of the Impala, the car dipping with his weight, and once he shuts the door, he glances from Dean to Dad and back to Dean.

“How’re you doing?” Bobby asks, starting the car.

Dean nods. He knows Bobby can’t see his arm tucked next to the door in the darkened shadows of the parking lot. The pain’s a low beat, thrumming through him, but a headache’s formed, dark and vicious, behind his eyes.

He licks his lips. “Been better,” he manages to croak out.

Bobby’s face tightens. Worry, anxiety, maybe even fear all mixing together.

“Yeah,” he replies as they pull onto the street, “I’m sure you have been.”

- - - - -

When they roll into Bobby’s driveway, snow crunching under their tires, Sam’s already running out of the house and up to the car. In the stark illumination of the porch light, Dean can see he’s wearing only a t-shirt and jeans too baggy over unlaced tennis shoes. His cheeks are bright pink and there are goosebumps on his bare arms in the cold.

“Get your brother inside,” Bobby instructs, slamming the driver’s door closed. “I’ll get your dad.”

Sam nods. Doesn’t question Bobby, and he hurries around the front of the car to where Dean’s pushing open the passenger door. But, even the littlest movement of his torso’s muscles sends the pain flaring into his arm and side again, so that opening the door is a struggle for Dean.

“Take him into the side room you cleaned out,” Bobby says to Sam. “I’ll get to him in a minute after I get John cleaned up.”

Sam reaches for Dean, snowing melting in small droplets when it hits the skin of his bare arms. “Lemme,” he says, “lemme help you.”

Normally, Dean would say no and protest because it’s not Sammy’s job to protect him. Always been the other way around. But he can’t argue, not when his good side is slumped against Sam, and he's breathing sporadically, raggedly, while wondering if the taste of copper on his tongue might be blood.

“Can you walk?” Sam asks. Hair falls in his eyes when he looks up.

“Yeah,” Dean breathes, his breath a hot cloud in the air.

“Okay, c’mon. We’ll go slow. No hurry.”

Leaning heavily into Sam, Dean walks with him up to the house where Sam pushes the doors open with his hip, refusing to let go of Dean.

They finally step in one of Bobby’s side rooms where the books have been cleared out and shoved aside to reveal a large bed.

“Sit down,” Sammy says, helping to ease Dean on the bed. As soon as Dean sits, he crashes down, face mashing into the covers and fatigue overtaking him.

Without being asked, Sam unties Dean’s boots and lifts his legs onto the bed. Then, gently, ever so carefully, he tugs Dean to the center of the bed to place his head on the pillows there.

“Thanks, Sammy,” Dean says. His voice is weaker, fading, now that he feels safe and secure. That he can simply give in and not fight to stay strong.

“Don’t mention it,” Sam replies, looking down at Dean. His lips are pinched together in obvious distress. “You want me to get you anything? Something to drink?”

“No, ‘m okay.”

Sam nods and sits down at the end of the bed beside Dean’s feet. Together, they wait in silence for a moment or two before Sam tentatively reaches out and begins rubbing Dean’s leg. His hand moves slowly, lightly, and Dean closes his eyes against the feeling. His arm still hurts, but the comfort of Sam helps to diminish that pain.

After what seems like ages, Dean hears footsteps and Bobby say, “All right, I’ll take a look at him.” A pause and the steps grow louder, closer. “Sam, you should probably wait outside for this.”

“No, I’ll stay. I’m not going to leave Dean.”

Dean hears the shrug in Bobby’s voice when he answers, “Suit yourself, I guess.” Something rattles and then Bobby says, “Give your brother these, Sam.”

Suddenly, Sam’s offering Dean an assortment of pills and a bottle of Jack Daniels. “Here, drink,” Sam says, his adolescent hand seeming silly and small on the neck of the whiskey bottle.

Without questioning, Dean swallows down the pills with a slug of Jack. He winces as the alcohol burns his throat.

As Bobby goes to work on his arm, carefully clipping the matted fabric and washing away the dried blood, Sam lies down beside Dean so they’re eye to eye on the bed. His eyes are big, wide and wondering so close like this.

Sam reaches for Dean and finds his good hand tucked up beneath his chest, closed into a tight, sweaty fist.

“Dean,” Sam says, wrapping his fingers around Dean’s hand, “remember what you used to tell me when I was little?”

“Hm?” Dean mumbles because the drugs are washing over him and pulling him under. Their warmth spreads through his body, only strengthened by the feeling of Sam holding his hand, Sam so close.

“You said, ‘Hold my hand. Hold my hand if it hurts.’” Sam smiles, faint and small, and bit by bit, the memories come back to Dean of when they were younger, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as the old saying goes, and how Dean used to hold Sam’s hand. When Sam scraped his knee, cut his finger or fell from a tree. When he received a bad grade, was picked last for kickball, or teased by the pimple-faced bullies at the end of the blacktop. All those times and more, Dean held his hand.

Now, Sam whispers softly, “Hold my hand, Dean. Hold my hand if it hurts.”

Dean squeezes Sam’s hand and sighs. “Okay,” he whispers. “Okay.”

- - - - -

When he wakes, the sun is rising, a soft pink blush behind antique lace curtains. It’s stopped snowing, and the white hills roll over each other, disappearing until their backs touch the sun. Beside him, Sam sleeps, mouth open and lax, features softened in rest. Their fingers, still entwined, rest between them.

Dean glances at his arm and sees that it’s encased in a hard plaster from his fingertips to halfway up his upper arm. Must have been a fracture of some sort, he figures, meaning that he won’t be using it for quite a while. He sighs and tries not to worry about how hard things are going to be without his dominant right hand, believing that it can't be that difficult to gain control of his left hand.

He turns his attention back to Sam and stares at his face. Pudgy baby cheeks starting to give way to the harder lines of a future, someday man. Childhood freckles beginning to disappear into smooth, unblemished skin. In this quiet moment, Dean thinks Sam’s beautiful, even if that’s not quite the word he uses when he says it inside his head. Not quite the word he uses when he feels it inside his heart.

Sammy stirs, body shifting and fingers slipping away from Dean’s. He yawns before opening his eyes. When he’s finally awake, he smiles at Dean.

“Feeling better?” he asks, voice still sleep-thick and dreamy.

“More or less.”

Sam nods, and then something shifts on his face, tension rising behind his brightening eyes.

“Sammy?” Dean whispers, worried.

“I—uh—I gotta use the bathroom,” Sam stutters before he quickly rolls away from Dean and hurries out the door.

Alone, Dean swallows at the brief flash of how Sam’s jeans were stretched over the hard line of his dick. It shouldn’t be that big of a deal. Morning wood. Sure, it happens to every guy, and what, with Sammy growing up now, it’s bound to happen to him, too.

But, now, Dean thinks of Sam in the bathroom, pants around his ankles, fisting his cock, willing it down and—Dean throws his good arm over his eyes. Tries to push the image out of his mind. Tries not to think about why he’s thinking about Sam like this.

- - - - -

Sam returns to school that Monday, driven by Bobby, who enrolled him earlier last week when Dad first started on this case. The house is left silent during the day except for Dad’s grumblings and the radio Bobby keeps on in the kitchen. Dean spends most of his time in bed with one of Bobby’s books propped in his lap. His ribs are bruised and so is his leg. Nasty son of a bitch monster really beat him up good.

But as afternoon draws to a close, Bobby picks Sam up from school, and the bedroom isn’t so dark and quiet anymore.

Sam throws his homework at the foot of Dean’s bed and shakes snow from his hair.

“Here,” he says, shoving a pack of index cards at Dean, “help me study.”

“What?”

“I got a test tomorrow. Hold up the flashcard so I can study. I wanna ace this one. I don’t want the other kids to think I’m the stupid new kid.”

Dean rolls his eyes but can’t contain his grin. “You’re such a dork.”

Sam smiles back, big and open, and says, “Takes one to know one, dorkface.”

- - - - -

Late one night, a little over a week since they’ve been here, Dean gets up for a drink of water. Even though Sam sleeps in the same bed right next to him since Bobby doesn’t have enough spare bedrooms, Dean can’t bear to wake him to ask for the favor.

As he approaches the kitchen, he hears voices. Bobby’s and Dad’s. Dean freezes outside the cracked door.

“I think we’ll head out this weekend,” Dad is saying.

“Like hell you will,” Bobby snaps back.

“What? You want me to just stay here and move in? I’ll be all right, busted leg or not. Worked with worse.”

“It’s not about you, you stupid ass. You’re a parent now. Got two kids. Dean’s in no condition to go hunting again. Have you looked at his arm? It’s a mess. He needs some time off.”

“He’ll be fine,” Dad starts, but Bobby quickly interrupts.

“Bullshit.” Footsteps and there’s the sound of a cupboard slamming shut. “You gonna drag Dean off? What about Sam?”

“Sam can stay. Let him stay in school. I need Dean with me.”

“Fuck you,” Bobby spits, and Dean holds back a gasp. It’s rare to hear Bobby use that word, rarer still to hear Bobby in such anger. “Those boys need some rest. You can’t give them a normal life like they deserve, so at least give them this now while you can.”

John growls something vicious Dean doesn’t catch and then falls silent. At that point, Dean decides not to listen anymore. He turns and goes back to the bedroom, where he slides under the covers next to Sammy.

- - - - -

Dad doesn’t leave that weekend. The next day, he announces they’ll stay a while longer.

Dean never finds out why he decided to stay. He doesn’t ask. He’s simply grateful for the reprieve in however it comes.

- - - - -

Spring

Early spring looks the same as winter here at Bobby’s; it could be the same month, really, except the tattered calendar on the side of the refrigerator says otherwise. Dean looks out the window and then back to the calendar. He’s not sure which one to believe.

All that matters is that his arm still hurts more than it should, and his ribs ache if he laughs with Sam just a little too long and little too hard.

He’s gotten better at eating with his left hand, but he’s too afraid of what his writing will look like to try that. Nevertheless, he decides that he’ll try one more thing with his left hand to see if maybe he has some sort of ambidextrous power. Can’t be Superman, but hey, he figures he’s got to have his own set of special talents, too.

In the bathroom, he looks at himself in the mirror and decides he needs to give shaving a shot. It’s been a while since he’s done it, well before the accident that left him with one good hand. Not that he grows facial hair all that fast yet. Not like Dad, who can go to bed clean-shaven and wake up with a full beard.

But, it’s been a while for Dean nonetheless, and the hair’s starting to get scratchy; it prickles whenever he rolls against his pillow at night. He’s got to do something about it, he decides.

Which is why he’s now standing in the bathroom, fumbling with the medicine cabinet with his stupid, clumsy left hand because his right one is still wrapped in the gauze and plaster. There’s a latch on the side of the cabinet door, one that he has to lift up and twist, that is suddenly more difficult than it should be.

As if able to telepathically understand Dean’s troubles, Sammy pushes the door open and peeks his head inside.

“You need some help? Sounds like you’re swearing a lot.”

“I’m…I’m fine,” Dean says impatiently, more upset at himself instead of Sam.

“Yeah, ‘course you are,” Sammy replies sarcastically. He pushes past Dean and pops open the medicine cabinet effortlessly. “What’d you need?” he asks, looking over his shoulder to Dean, who lowers himself to the edge of the bathtub.

“Stuff.”

“Stuff?”

Dean sighs. He’s not getting out of this one. Can’t sneak or lie. “I was going to try to clean myself up.” He makes a weak motion to his face.

Sam nods and pulls out a new razor from the opened pack on the second shelf along with a can of shaving cream. “I’ll help you,” he says.

“I can do it.”

“Yeah? With your left hand? As if you won’t cut yourself fifty times in the first ten minutes.” Sam shakes his head, and he pulls a chair up to the edge of the sink. “Sit down.”

Instead of arguing, Dean simply plops down in the chair as Sam squirts a generous amount of shaving cream on his palms.

“You know what you’re doing?” Dean asks, knowing that Sam’s still too young to grow any facial hair of his own.

“Watched you and Dad enough. Can’t be hard.” He leans down and gently smears the cream on Dean’s face, covering his cheeks and chin, upper lip and below his ears. The cream is cool against Dean’s skin, and it warms slowly as Sam spreads it. Dean holds his breath, watching Sam’s concentrated face with a curious fascination.

Then, Sam pops the plastic protective cap off the razor and runs the blade underneath water from the faucet.

“Gentle, just...man, be careful,” Dean says.

“I know,” Sam whispers, like they’re sharing something that’s a secret. Something that Dad and Bobby shouldn’t know about.

He lifts the razor to Dean’s cheek and lightly, cuts through the shaving cream. Dean can hear the low scratch as the hairs are sliced away. When Sammy pulls the razor away, its head is covered in clouds of the cream. He taps it on the edge of the sink, turns on the faucet and lets the water wash away the rest. Then he repeats this. One stripe, two stripes.

The cheeks are the easiest for him. Big, open planes of skin. When he gets to Dean’s chin, how it dips in the middle, Sam pauses, considering.

“Do it in littler pieces,” Dean says. “Just to be careful, y’know.”

“Okay.” Sammy nods. Instead of long, unbroken strips, he moves the razor slower, removing smaller pieces of the cream.

When he finishes, he runs a washcloth under the water and wipes off Dean’s face, cleaning away any remaining residue. The whole time, Dean doesn’t move. He watches Sam’s perfection, his intent focus to make this absolutely right.

“Better?” Dean asks, twisting his head and pretending to model, as Sam rinses off the washcloth, the cream clouding the water that dribbles from it.

Sam turns to look at him, and he places both of his hands on Dean’s face, one hand on each cheek. “Feels better,” he remarks, grinning. “Like a baby’s bottom.”

“Maybe you should go to cosmetology school then.”

Rolling his eyes, Sam huffs, “Ha-ha, Dean. You’re so funny.”

Dean looks up at him, smiling. “I know it.”

- - - - -

This, it becomes their time. When they can close the bathroom door and be able to talk without worrying that Dad’s listening or Bobby’s peeking. Every Saturday morning while Dad and Bobby take their coffee to the kitchen and talk over opened newspapers, Sam and Dean go into the bathroom.

Sammy’s always so precise, so focused and sometimes, Dean thinks Sam forgets he’s there at all. Like Dean himself has slipped out of the room and Sam’s not seeing anything but the skin in front of him. It’s a different side of Sam here. One that doesn’t normally appear around the house unless he’s doing schoolwork with his nose in a book.

Now, so close, feeling Sammy’s warm breath on his skin, Dean can see how Sam’s tongue peeks out between his lips, eyebrows brought together in concentration. His t-shirt sags down when he bends forward, revealing the smooth, pale skin around his collarbone and upper chest. Not like Dean’s never seen Sam naked before. Has seen him naked lots of times. It’s just different, this, these little peeks of skin between layers of clothing. It’s just different, this, because they’re older now, and seeing your brother naked was supposed to be something that stopped after turning three years old.

“There, finished,” Sam says, pulling Dean out of thoughts he knows he’s better off not exploring.

Dean nods as Sam hands him a washcloth. “Thanks,” he says.

“Yeah, no problem.” Sam pauses, watches him as he wipes his face off, awkwardly with his left hand. “I still think it’s funny.”

“What’s funny?”

“Dean Winchester, mighty hunter, all bandaged up.”

Dean glowers and tries to whip the washcloth at Sam, who giggles and darts out of the way. Sam snickers as he leaves the bathroom. “So cute when you get angry,” he singsongs, stupid thirteen year old boy voice, imitating something off one of Dean’s TV shows.

Still. Dean’s not angry. Never could be with Sammy.

- - - - -

The morning Dad gets out of bed without the cane is the morning Dean knows they’re leaving the next day. Won’t matter one bit what Bobby says this time.

Dean tells Sam this during their Saturday morning together.

The razor in Sam’s hand freezes in mid-air, its top still glopped in cream.

“We’re leaving?” Sam says, wide-eyed.

“Well, me and Dad are leaving, I think. Not you. Dad’s up and walking. Limping, but walking.” Dean shrugs. “Don’t see why he’d stick around here much longer.”

“Well, what am I going to do? Should I stay here with Bobby so I can finish up the school year or do I have to transfer again?” He rinses off the razor blade, but in his frustration, he turns the faucet on too high and water splashes over the edge of the sink.

“What do you want to do?” Dean asks carefully.

“I don’t know. I don’t know!” Sam shouts. He breathes out, hard and edgy, fighting back his anger. “I just want to stay at school instead of transferring again. I just got here! But—” He stops instantly, whips away from Dean and washes the still clean razor again.

“But…?”

“But then I don’t get to see you because Dad’s going to take you with him while I’m stuck here, and I don’t want to have to choose between school and you!” He turns back to Dean, face flushed and eyes wet.

In that moment of Sam’s admission and Dean’s overwhelming need to comfort his younger brother, something in the air shifts and pushes Dean to his feet. He leans, bends near Sam, their faces coming closer, and the smell of the shaving cream is filling the room. Can’t see anything but Sammy, can’t smell anything but the shaving cream, can’t feel anything but wanting to make it better for Sam—

Suddenly Dad yells for them.

“Boys!”

Sam turns his head before Dean can get any closer and yells back, “Yeah, comin’!”

Dean freezes as realization chills him in what he almost did. He suddenly feels sick and sinks dumbly back to his chair.

“Dean,” Sam says, turning back to him.

“Just…go,” Dean replies, unable to meet Sam’s eyes.

“But Dean…”

“Go on. Dad’ll be wondering what’s keeping you. I’ll catch up in a minute.”

Sam sighs, torn, before Dad hollers again, and he exits the bathroom, leaving Dean alone in the chair. By himself, Dean lifts his free hand to his face, the skin damp and clean by Sam’s own steady hand. He touches his cheeks and chin before his fingers finally settle on his lips.

- - - - -

Later that night when they’re getting ready for bedtime, well after Dad’s told them both that they’re heading out tomorrow morning, Dean sits down on the bed and says to Sam, “Hey, about that thing earlier today…in the bathroom?”

Sammy looks up from where he’s tugging off his pants. He stands in front of Dean now in only his briefs and socks. His knees are still as knobby as they were when he was eight, but his legs are longer, much longer, and a semblance of muscle is beginning to form underneath his pale skin.

“What thing?” Sam asks, pulling off a sock and tossing it in the heap with his pants.

“Nev-never mind,” Dean replies with a shake of his head. If Sam doesn’t remember it, he isn’t going to talk about it. No need for them to have to talk about it anyway. It could have happened. It didn’t happen, though. There’s a difference.

“You mean when you tried to kiss me?” Sam says evenly.

Dean looks up quickly, head nearly snapping off his neck. He doesn’t know what to say to that. Instead, he opens and closes his mouth, startled, like a fish just yanked from the water.

Calmly, Sam pulls on his flannel pajama pants and an old t-shirt of Bobby’s before he climbs onto the bed, not saying a word until he kneels on top of the covers, looking down at Dean.

“That’s what you were going to do, right?” Sam says, eyes focused and clear. Not questioning, not afraid.

Dean raises his hand in a dismissive gesture then shrugs. “It was nothing.”

“It was something,” Sam shoots back. “You just…you just can’t do something like that…almost do something like that and pretend it didn’t happen.”

Dean wants to roll away from Sam, but to do that, he would have to roll onto his bad arm. Instead, he merely sinks lower in a deluded hope that the pillows and blankets will pull him under and allow him to escape.

Sammy looks away, hands on his thighs as he kneels there, and he swallows, his throat bobbing over the small Adam’s apple.

“Did you want to?” he asks after a long while, face still turned away.

“What?”

He looks back to Dean. “Did you want to?” he repeats.

The tension rises in the room, filling their silence, before Dean says, “Maybe. Yes. I don’t know.” He shakes his head, face scrunching in confusion and anxiety. His heart beats rapidly, almost leaving him breathless.

Sam exhales, says, “Well, I do know,” and he leans down, and he kisses Dean.

It’s soft, light, and fleeting. Nothing like the girls’ opened-mouth, sloppy kisses Dean’s experienced in the backseats of cars and below the bleachers. Nothing dirty or foul or even broken in it.

Sam pulls away as quickly as he bent down, and he says, “There. Lightning didn’t hit us. And it was what you wanted.”

“Was it what you wanted?” Dean asks as Sam slips beneath the covers, bumping against Dean as he wiggles and squirms, trying to get comfortable.

Sam rolls over to face Dean, and very simply, unashamed, he says, “Yes.”

- - - - -

Instead of making Sam choose between school and him, Dean makes the choice the next morning. He goes to Dad and says, “I need to stay here.”

Dad looks up from where he’s tying his boot. “What?” he says, the laces still wrapped around his fingers. “I thought you were coming with me. I know your arm’s not fully healed yet, but I thought…”

“Well. I think it’s best…for Sam if I stay behind. Bobby’s gone too much, and somebody’s got to take care of Sam. Do what’s best for him.”

Dad doesn’t speak for a long moment, thinking, and then—much to Dean’s surprise—he says, “Yeah, I think you’re right on this one.” He scratches the back of his head. “Probably good for someone to keep an eye on Sam. He is still pretty young, I guess.”

Dean nods, fights down the urge to throw himself at Dad and break into a ramble of gratitude. “I’ll let Sam know,” he says quietly.

He turns away to where Sam’s peeking around the corner of the bedroom, grinning from ear to ear. Dean breaks into a triumphant smile, hurrying towards Sam where they crash into each other and he wraps his one arm around Sam to pull them happily onto the bed.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Sam says, giggling as they sink into the old mattress. Their feet twist together as they fall and roll on the bed. “Thank you so much, Dean, thank you.”

Dean just laughs.

When both have quieted, Sam looks up at him from where he’s lying beneath Dean. He runs a finger over Dean’s face, tracing his eyebrows and line of his jaw.

“I want to try it again,” Sam says.

“Try what?” Dean asks, because for as much as he’ll always be four year older, Sam’s mind will always be four years ahead.

“What we did last night,” Sam says, moving his hand to Dean’s lips.

“Oh,” Dean breathes, soft and smiling.

“Yeah,” Sam replies. His eyes are mischievous but warm beneath his bangs. Dean watches those eyes grow bigger then close completely, as he leans in to kiss Sam over and over.

- - - - -

Summer

At the end of the school year, John comes to get them at Bobby’s. He thanks Bobby for watching them, and he asks Dean how his arm’s feeling. Bobby took the cast off weeks ago, and the bright pink ridges have now faded to glassy white streaks on his skin.

For Dad, Dean wiggles his fingers and says, “Feels almost as good as new.”

Dad nods and says, “Well, that’s great then.”

He drives Sam and Dean three states away where he can rent a house for dirt cheap and still be close enough to a few unsolved cases. The house doesn’t have air conditioning, and it’s here, during these summer months as the temperatures soar and the humidity swells, that Sam and Dean discover they can’t get enough of each other. Dad leaves for days at a time, trusting the both of them to be all right on their own. Dean gets a job down at the garage, just a few days a week, and Sammy becomes a newspaper boy, just a few mornings a week.

But the rest of the time, the days they both have off or in the evenings after Dean comes home from work, they’re all over each other, insatiable hunger tearing at their bellies and filling their heads.

They spend all day in bed one lazy Monday morning when they both have work off. They’re naked, too hot to sleep in clothes, and Sam rests his hand on the soft rise of Dean’s stomach, fingers resting, playing in the thatch of hair that goes lower to where Dean’s cock rests soft against his leg.

“Show me,” Sammy says.

“Show you what?”

“How you do it.” He lifts his hand, and his knuckles graze over the line of Dean’s dick, which twitches at the touch. “I wanna see.”

“Not like you haven’t before,” Dean replies, referring to all the late nights he’s jacked off with Sam in the next bed over, both knowing Sam was awake and listening.

“No. Not like this. Not in the light. I wanna see how you do it.” When Dean doesn’t move, Sam bends his head and kisses him on the ear. “Please.”

They spend the rest of the afternoon in bed, hands on their cocks, watching, but never touching the other, until the sheets are filthy with sweat and spunk, and Dean says, breathless and hot, “We should go. Get something done.”

But Sam smiles and says, “One more time. Let’s do it one more time.”

- - - - -

Then there’s the Wednesday when Dean comes home from the garage. He’s covered in grease and smells of gasoline. But as soon as he enters the house, Sammy leaps on him, wraps his legs around Dean’s back and twists his fingers in Dean’s hair to make Dean stagger, catching himself on the edge of the counter before they fall to the floor together.

“Missed me?” Dean says, laughing, as they kiss, open-mouthed and frantic. Sam tastes like the peanut-butter sandwich that’s half-eaten and now forgotten on the countertop.

“You have no idea,” Sammy says, long wiry limbs clutching Dean fiercely. He’s almost too tall to be clinging to Dean like this, but then he jerks his hips up against Dean’s belly and—oh. Right there. The hard bump of Sam’s cock pushing out, against his red cotton shorts.

“Oh, God, Sam,” Dean breathes, and he twists around to seat Sam on the countertop where he yanks down Sam’s shorts and wraps a fist around his cock. He holds Sam’s face in one hand and jacks him off with the other, leaving Sam coming and covered in black grease smudges.

- - - - -

Dean would like to think he has more self-control than Sam. After all, he’s seventeen—almost eighteen, an adult—and Sam’s younger, lacking any rational thinking to say no to this, to them.

Dean knows he’s full of shit in thinking he has any self-control when it comes to Sam the day he passes by Sammy in the bathroom, door slightly cracked.

Sam’s standing at the sink, squirting shaving cream on his palms and rubbing it on his cheeks. The smell of the cream, crisp and slightly perfumed, pulls Dean back to where this all started, and he throws the door open completely, dropping the mail he was holding right there in the hallway. The envelopes flutter to the ground, forgotten.

He shoves Sammy against the opposite wall, kissing him greedily as little, breathless moans escape from Sam’s mouth.

The smell of the shaving cream is overwhelming, filling Dean’s head and driving him mad. It’s smeared on his hands where he cups Sam’s cheeks, and he kisses his way down Sam’s neck and runs his hands up beneath Sam’s shirt to spread the cream as he goes.

Then he drops to his knees and undoes the button on Sam’s shorts. They’re never done this before, even if it’s something they’ve talked about in pinched, secretive whispers, and Dean looks up at Sam before going on.

Sam swallows as he nods, shaving cream smeared messily on his face, some dotting his eyebrows and hair.

Dean lowers the zipper and pulls down his shorts to reveal Sam’s cock, already rising pink and hard. He doesn’t waste any time. Doesn’t want to change his mind. Wants to give this to Sammy, so he wraps his hand around the base of Sam’s cock and his lips over the top.

Instantly, Sam jerks like he’s been electrified, whining high and needy as he slaps a hand against the wall behind him. “Dean…” he whimpers. His legs twitch, dancing uncontrolled.

Dean gradually slides his mouth down farther, taking as much of Sam as he can. It tastes different than he expected, stronger and stranger, but not bad. Just Sam.

When he pulls back, he sucks lightly as Sam whispers, “Dean, please, Dean, Dean, please, Dean, please…” The same two words rolling together as Dean licks his cock and tongues his slit, hand holding him steady at the base. His fingers reach back and cup Sam’s balls, drawn tight and hot between his legs.

Then Sam chokes and stiffens and says, “Dean, I—”

Dean nods. He knows and pulls off, pumping Sam’s spit-slicked cock with a tight fist.

“Yeah, c’mon, Sammy, c’mon,” he whispers, and then Sam shouts and spills over, grabbing Dean’s shoulder to stay upright. His come hits the front of Dean’s t-shirt, splatters and sticks.

When he’s finished, Dean stands and embraces Sam to kiss again. They’re both covered in shaving cream and spunk, but Dean lifts and carries Sammy back to bed. There, on pulled back covers and a faded fitted sheet, Sam twists and turns until he's on top of Dean, straddling his waist.

"Can I try?" he asks as his hands settle on the brass buckle of Dean's belt.

"Mmm, if you want," Dean says, although he's not sure exactly what Sam will be trying. Right now, he's happy to give Sam whatever he wants. Whatever will make Sam happy.

Sam undoes Dean's belt and button, pulls down his zipper and tugs at his pants. To help him, Dean arches his back to raise his hips so that Sam can pull his jeans to his knees. Then, Sam slinks down until he's kneeling over top Dean's ankles. He bends forward, grasping Dean's cock, and licks the top experimentally.

Dean inhales sharply and clutches the blankets with white knuckles to stop himself from shooting off the bed in shock.

"Like that?" Sam asks. He smiles slightly.

"Uh...yeah," Dean replies, as Sam gives another long lick up the shaft. He runs the tip of his tongue below the ridge of the head and then back down to the base again. After a few times of this, he looks up at Dean, who's breathing in quick, little gulps.

Sam looks as though he's about to say something, but he changes his mind and lowers his head to wrap his mouth around Dean's dick.

Shivering, Dean whispers, "Yeah, right there, yeah." He's not going to last much longer, watching Sam like this, feeling his mouth on him and the soft brush of Sam's hair when he bends his head down closer.

Sam bobs his head in an awkward fashion, and when he tries to take in all of Dean, he gags slightly before pulling back to the head where he runs his tongue over the top and sides.

"Sam…Sammy…Sam, pull off," Dean whispers, hoarse and fragile, as he shoves feebly at Sam's shoulder. Fortunately, Sam pulls back just as the heat rolls up and through Dean, and he comes with a strangled shout. Sam watches Dean's cock pulse and twitch, leaking where it rests on Dean's belly.

While Dean catches his breath, Sam smiles and wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand before flopping back down on top of Dean to make out until their stomachs growl as a reminder that it’s two hours past dinner.

- - - - -

They spend the summer exploring nearby caves and abandoned houses, misty marshes and thick forests. They spend the summer exploring each other in touches and kisses, gasps and groans.

One morning when it’s still dark outside and Dad’s bustling around in the kitchen, preparing for the next hunt, Sam rolls over in bed and says to Dean the words no teenage boy ever says: “I love you, you know.”

Right there, Dean knows that any illusions he ever had of going back and pretending this never happened are gone forever.

He couldn’t be happier.

- - - - -

Autumn

On the weekends that Sam doesn’t have too much homework or any extracurricular activities to grumble over, Dad drags him along on hunts. This weekend is one of those where Dad admitted to needing an extra pair of eyes. They enter the forest as the sun sets, turning the trees from green to black with shadows, and Dad says, “I’m taking Sam with me. Dean, you head north and see if you can find that house.”

“Sir?” Dean asks, confused. Dad’s never asked them to separate before.

“We’ve got to find the house. The one that I showed you in that book at the diner? It’s where this thing lives. It’ll be faster if we split up. If you find the house, don’t go inside. We’ll meet back at the car in an hour with updates, okay?”

Dean nods, looking to Sam instead of Dad. Sam appears uncomfortable, most likely not wanting to be left alone with Dad, who could launch into a lecture of the importance of hunting versus schoolwork at any point. But, this is no time to argue with Dad. This is time to get to work.

Alone, gun in hand, Dean treks through the part of the forest he’s been assigned. He finds no house. Nothing even close, and he sighs and turns back to go to the car. He hopes that Dad and Sammy had more luck.

- - - - -

He slides onto the hood of the car and pulls his knees up to his chest. The leaves swirl around him, tapping on the metal noisily. The sun has almost completely set, darkening the world, and Dean sighs and pulls back the sleeve of his coat to look at his watch, reading that it’s been over half an hour since Dad said he’d be back.

Dean remembers last time he waited for Dad like this. Remembers that he almost waited too long. This time, though, Sammy is with Dad. If Dad’s hurt, Sam could be in trouble.

Without thinking further, he climbs off the car and runs back into the forest, his flashlight a beam of light slicing its way through the murky black of the trees.

- - - - -

He can’t see Dad when he bursts into the room, gun drawn and Sam screaming. He can see Sam, though, see him running away with blood wetting his back as the shadow monster rips into him again.

“Hey!” Dean bellows. The monster pivots in the air, and its glowing eyes fix on Dean. It lets out a pleased warble and moves closer. “Yeah, that’s right,” Dean sneers, until he can smell the rotting, rank breath of this bitch, and then he shoots. The creature screams, its shadowed form scattering into infinite particles. It’s not dead, just gone and scared away, but that’s good enough for Dean right now. He runs over to Sam, who’s standing, leaning against the wall, breathing hard.

“How’re you?” Dean asks, reaching out for Sam, who immediately collapses into him.

Sam nods jerkily, once, twice, and Dean knows he’s hurting even if he won’t admit it. He wraps an arm around Sam’s waist, mindful of the marks the creature left on his back. “C’mon, I’ll get you to the car.”

“Dad,” Sam says, stopping as they make their way down the stairs.

“Where’s he at?”

“Basement, I think. Got locked down there when we entered. Said he wasn’t going to wait for you…could, could take care of it on his own.”

“Shit. Okay. I’ll get him in a minute. Need to get you out of here, though, before it comes back, smelling your blood.”

They move carefully, slowly, back to the car as Sam hisses and winces all the way.

“Ssh, ssh,” Dean says, leaning over and pressing his face in Sam’s hair as they walk. “It’ll be over soon. Just hang in there, Sammy. Just hang on.”

At the car, Dean helps Sammy into the backseat and lays a blanket over him. “I’ll be right back,” Dean tells him. “Just gotta get Dad.”

Sam nods, burying his face into the soft material of the blanket and curling his legs up to keep warm. His eyes are pinched shut against the pain in a feeling that Dean remembers all too well.

Hating to leave Sam behind, Dean has to force himself to return to the house. He finds Dad in the basement as Sam had said, behind a set of latched doors. When Dean opens the last one, Dad’s more angry and dusty than anything, and he gruffly snatches the gun that Dean offers him.

“Where’s Sam?” Dad snaps, wiping cobwebs from his face.

“In the car. His back’s really bad. Tore up.”

“All right, I’m going after it. Show it who it messed with.”

“We should get back to the motel…”

“In a minute, Dean, let me take care of this now.”

“Dad!”

“What?!” Dad growls, spinning around.

“Dad, we need to take care of Sam first. Get him back to the motel. It’s really bad, his back. He needs to be taken care of first…Please.”

Dad stiffens, and Dean braces himself for a verbal assault, but instead Dad grits out, “Fine. Let’s go then.” He may not be happy about leaving, but he’s leaving all the same, which is all that matters right now to Dean.

- - - - -

At the motel, Dad opens up the first aid kit and rests it on the nightstand while Dean helps Sam onto the bed. Resting Sam on his side so that his back is near the edge of the bed, Dean has to be careful not to touch the wounds when he moves him on the mattress. Sam groans, biting down not to scream, and his face is pale, shiny with sweat.

“Is he going to be okay?” Dean asks as Dad cuts open Sam’s shirt, moving it away from the lacerations. Outside, through the window, Dean can see snow beginning. Big, fat flakes that will melt as soon as they hit the ground, leaving no trace that they existed at all. Winter, though, is on its way.

“Yeah. He’ll be fine. Just need to get these bandaged up and cleaned and then he can rest.”

While Dad cleans away the blood in gentle strokes of a warm washcloth, Dean climbs onto the bed, ignoring his muddy boots and dirty coat, and he lies on his side to face Sam.

“Hi,” he whispers.

“Hi,” Sam says back. His eyes are closed against the pain, but he still manages a small smile.

Dean reaches for him, reaches for Sam’s hands and pulls them to his chest, forming a tight ball of their gathered fists.

“Remember what I used to tell you?”

“As if I could forget,” Sam says softly. There might be a laugh in there, hidden beneath his words, but Dean can’t be sure.

Dean leans in and kisses Sam on the forehead, knowing Dad will be none the wiser for it. He runs his fingers through Sam’s hair. “Hold on, Sammy,” he whispers, his nose brushing against Sam’s own. “Hold on if it hurts and never let go.”

Sam sighs. “Never, Dean...never.”

End

PixCT: 11.27

2008-11-27T15:08:39Z

It's that time again...

Fic:
Slash (Dean/Sam)
Adult
Preseries

~505 words

- - - - -

A combination of fic, pic, and cock, and that's really all there is to it.
All About Cock Thursday

So Far

PixCT: 11.20

- - - - -

Today

DruCT: 11.27

My fic:

Slash (Wincest: Dean/Sam) oneshot

Adult rating

Preseries

~505 words

- - - - -

Pix's Pic Pick

He swiped the can from school, even though Sammy looked away when he did it and later said, "Dean, that's for the poor," and Dean smiled and replied, "They won't miss one can, will they?"

At home, a two-bedroom, gray apartment on the third floor, Dean pulled out eggs from the back drawer of the refrigerator and an old yogurt container filled with pure white crystals of sugar. He revealed plastic baggies filled with pinches of cinnamon and ginger.

Sam let his backpack drop to the floor, startled and astonished, not sure what to say, so he gaped, his mouth flopping open in amazement.

Dean said nothing. Lifted aside their few chipped plates and out came a plastic-wrapped pie crust. He opened the lid of the pumpkin pie can with his swiss army knife, dumped the orange mush into a bowl, and mixed in the sugar and eggs, spices stolen and hidden. He used no recipe, had no smudged notecard passed down from grandma or a cookbook inherited through the family line. He simply added and simply stirred before pouring the sweet-smelling mix into the empty crust. When he was done, he opened the door on the oven and in went the filled pie.

Then he turned to Sam and said, "It'll take about an hour, c'mon." He smiled and wrapped his arm around Sam's shoulder.

They walked to the bedroom they shared, where they shucked out of their too-thin, thrift store coats and fell together on a too-old, creaky, stained mattress. They fell together, holding onto shirt collars and faces, kissing desperately and sweetly because, this, this right here in each other was all they had. Mom was gone. Only a gravestone across the country to see her in and only smoky visions to remember her by. Dad was gone. Might be home for Thanksgiving, he'd said before he left. Called last night from a payphone a three-hundred miles away and said it looked like Dean and Sam would be alone for this holiday again.

They lay side by side, facing each other, and Sam curled into Dean, kissing and touching and holding. They didn't ruck up their shirts, didn't unzip their jeans, didn't stroke their cocks. They left things quiet, caught in this precious moment as the pumpkin pie scent wafted through the rooms, warm and comforting.

The light coming in through the makeshift curtain of a towel hung over the window was the golden yellow of a winter sunset. It painted their faces and wiped away the shadows.

"Dean," Sam whispered, top of his head tucked under Dean's chin.

"Yeah, Sammy?"

Sam swallowed, watched his fingers curl and uncurl in the pilled fabric of Dean's sweater. "Thanks," he said after a long pause.

Dean didn't say anything. Simply pulled Sammy closer, pulled him tighter and kissed the top of his head.

There, embraced in his brother's warmth and the aroma of cinnamon and ginger, Sam closed his eyes. He closed his eyes, and he knew exactly what he was thankful for.

End