fic (or, wth am I thinking)
Jul. 26th, 2009 05:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
whitereflectionI really don't have a right to be writing for this fandom yet, but I've just been wanting so much to try. :x For ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
maerhys' prompt of "S/D, future fic - I'd love to see them in their 50s or 60s and still super in love and happy together. Hunting, settled down, combo, whatever works." at the ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
samdean_otp community's First Sam/Dean OTP Comment Fic Meme.
Title: Our Endless Numbered Days
Author: Di (whitereflection)
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: R/M
Wordcount: ~6195
Summary: 45, 50, 55, 60--Growing older might suck unless you realize it means you're alive, and growing older together is awesome, because that means you've both survived.
Warnings: Wincest, non-explicit smexin', language
Disclaimer: Supernatural and all its characters are property of The CW, WB, E. Kripke, etc., etc.
*****
[.45 ACP]
For his upcoming forty-fifth birthday, Dean demands a strip-a-gram.
"A belly dancer one. And she'd better be hot. And stacked." The comforter rustles as Dean shifts next to him, and Sam eyerolls at the top-heavy hourglass figure gesture Dean is inevitably making.
"A stripper." The eyeroll has so much momentum it careens right into his words.
"A singing stripper."
"Oh, well, why didn't you say so. That makes all the difference."
Dean's clock radio-lit grin is suddenly right in his face as his brother rolls over and props himself on one arm over Sam. "Ain't right to be sarcastic to the birthday boy, Sammy. If it's a stripper the birthday boy wants, a stripper the birthday boy should get." He draws closer as he speaks until they're nose to nose, and Sam can't tell if he's trying to be intimidating, sexy, or just a dumbass. It's probably all of the above.
"Too bad you're forty years past being a boy." Sam makes his best pouting face. "Offer expired. So sad."
"It's still my damned birthday."
"Four decades past, Dean. Decades."
"Fuck you, you're not that much younger than me." Dean's eyes narrow, glittering menacingly, his voice going low, dangerous (and hot).
"At least I act my age."
"Yeah, so long as your age is bitch."
Sam's reply is a growl full of oh, it's on! as he tries to shove Dean onto his back and roll over onto him, but Dean gears up into all out boy equals young equals dominant alpha mode, wrestling Sam back against the mattress and pinning his wrists. Sam bucks up against his brother as Dean nips at the tip of his nose, his lips; he grinds up as Dean bites at the side of his neck. And he doesn't care if Dean makes cracks about him being a girl later, when Dean sucks at that perfect spot where neck and shoulder meet, he wraps his legs around Dean's and arches with a moan. To hell with a man's sexual peak happening at nineteen; Dean's still there.
Not that Sam won't get him back, of course. On Dean's birthday eleven days later, their dinner at Outback is interrupted by a singing telegram...delivered by a person in a gorilla suit.
Sam can't stop grinning almost to the point of pain at the expression on Dean's face. He's going to laugh himself sick for days, no months, remembering this. And the look Dean gives him after the singing gorilla leaves....
Dean seems ever so slightly mollified when, a few minutes later, the ex-gorilla returns, now in her belly dancer outfit. She is, indeed, very hot, and very stacked. Perhaps Dean might not kill him with one of the restaurant's steak knives after all. However, as they're leaving, with the hostesses and some of the waitstaff applauding as they walk out, Dean glances Sam out of the corner of his eye, lower lip protruding just the smallest bit, his hands stuffed in his pockets in his best sulking pose.
Sam beams at his brother with every last bit of innocence he can muster, even slings an arm over his shoulders. But man, he can only be evil for so long.
"She's meeting us back at the house. Not like she could give you a show in the restaurant there." And the change in Dean is like the sun rising and someone winning the lottery while finding out Santa's real on Christmas morning, all combined into one.
"Hell fucking yes," Dean breathes. "You do love me. You ass."
She's a really good stripper. Really, really good. He thinks the only way Dean could enjoy himself more is if Sam took the Impala off the blocks in the garage, transformed it (okay, fine, fine--her) into a woman, and then gave her a belly dancer outfit.
The best part, though, is afterwards, after the strip-a-gram woman's left, when Sam makes Dean sit back down on the couch, fires up some Scorpions on the CD player ("Rock You Like a Hurricane"), and does his own striptease. He's even practiced beforehand, thanks to Chippendale video clips out on the web. He feels only a little stupid and silly, but it's worth it, because c'mon, it's Dean's birthday. And Dean obviously appreciates all his gifts, very much. But especially this one.
Because there are certain things strip-a-grams won't do, but Sam will.
***
["Twine Ball exit -- 50 miles"]
Sam did it because he knew Dean never, ever would.
"You signed me up for the AARP?" His brother has had fifty years to perfect that mix of outrage, affront, and pissiness, and it takes only one short sentence to prove he can use the skill very well. Even the jumble of membership materials and the torn envelope they'd been mailed in fan out in just the right accusatory way as Dean throws them down with a thwap on the coffee table in front of Sam.
"Did you read the membership benefits?" Sam grabs the cover letter out of the papers and waves it under Dean's nose, who flinches back as if Sam's trying to make him smell a dirty sock. Which okay, maybe he'd done that morning, but that was a whole different situation entirely. People who stole the last yogurt one had intended to have for breakfast deserved that treatment, especially when they claimed on repeated occasions to hate all yogurt, and very specifically that type of yogurt with the extra healthy, good for digestion bacteria in it. Not to mention when they also ate the last pudding cup--which was supposed to have been Sam's thank you very much--at the same time.
"AARP." Dean replies, emphasizing each letter.
"You can get some really cool discounts through them."
"The American Association of Retired People."
"Did you see they offer insurance? Health, home, auto...check it out, vision plans. You were complaining last month that you might be needing glasses soon. This would be perfect-"
"Retired." Dean's arguments are shrinking in size but not in vehemence, and Sam wants to snicker but bites the inside of his lower lip before he can. The AARP thing really is a good idea, and he doesn't want to have Dean stomp down to the basement in a huff for power tool time before he can convince him of that.
Sam shrugs, a loose, casual roll of one shoulder. "Well, you are retired, mostly. Sort of. Kind of. We both are." And that's truth. Hunts in general are a lot rarer these days, as if the whole world felt the need after the Apocalypse-that-mostly-wasn't to take it easy, just chill out. Neither he or Dean are really in the condition for it anyway, what with years of being smacked around taking their toll. Sam especially has to take life more carefully, ever since things started aching a lot more and his joints went as grumpy as Dean in the mornings.
"Semi-retired, Sam. Semi." He points at Sam, chin raised, jabs of his pointing hand punctuating each syllable of the last word, and Sam can hear perfectly the So There that Dean doesn't say.
Yes, you're right, that is entirely different than retired, Sam wants to retort, but there was that avoiding Dean going to hide out with their power tools thing, and so instead he says, "But there's no American Association for Semi-Retired People. And you don't have to be retired to be a member. Just fifty. And you are fifty now. Or did your cake lie?" It'd been an awesome cake. It had said 'Happy 50th Birthday, Deanna! Love, Francis', and the women at the grocery bakery counter had been so amused that they'd found a small resin figurine of an old woman pushing a shopping cart to put on one corner of the cake top. Dean named the figure Edna and used it as a paperweight for odd notes for Sam (like "Bitches best make Edna some pancakes!" and "You took the last beer I'm gonna take your last stupid yogurt" and...oh, huh. Okay.)
And he gives Dean the cute Sammy/puppy look--up from under the bangs he still keeps longer than he should, eyebrows raised, little smile--which causes Dean to get that exasperated yet fond expression. Which is the desired result, but at the same time something about the angle of Dean's head as he's looking down, the particular cast of light and shadow from the window behind Sam, the lines that fan out from the corners of Dean's eyes, the bit of sag to the skin under Dean's chin that never used to be there...and Sam suddenly sees an echo of Dad. Just for a moment, an afterimage, like catching a flash of sun that leaves purple splotches painted on the back of his eyelids. He blinks a few times and it's gone, or maybe he's blinking like that for other reasons--because it hits him just then, Dean's very nearly as old as Dad was when....
Yeah, now he's definitely blinking like that for other reasons, and Dean's looking down at him, question in his gaze. Sam just shakes his head with a wry smile and a bit of a laugh. The sort of life that their Dad had had then, and the hell that had gone down at the end for him...and now here he and Dean are, basically retired, working normal odd jobs, spending their free time on normal hobbies, Sam volunteering Wednesday mornings at the library to read to the kids. And he's just signed Dean up for AARP. Funny the way it is.
He pushes himself to his feet, wincing with a touch of embarrassment as his knees make kids' cereal popping-crackling sounds, and steps close to Dean, hugs him from behind. "I couldn't help it," he murmurs, feeling the hint of shiver that runs through Dean at the feel of Sam's breath against his ear. "They said you had to be fifty to join. And it just hit me, Dean's gotten to fifty. He's made it to fifty. He can be in this group, because he's actually fifty. Each year that's gone by, I...I mean, all the times I thought that was it...." Sam leans down a little to muffle a self-deprecating chuckle against Dean's shoulder. "I am the lamest of the lame. It just seemed so amazing that you were here to be old enough to be an American Association of Retired Person."
And that's where Dean should be giving him heck for being sappy and huggy, but instead he's just standing there, his hands over Sam's hands where they're resting on Dean's chest. "Ah, Sammy," he says quietly, and that's all. They stand like that for awhile, the room dimming gradually as the sun lowers, until finally Dean's stomach growls. Sam steps away, turning on lamps as he heads to the kitchen to throw together something for dinner, and Dean cleans up the mail he'd thrown on the coffee table earlier.
Later he realizes that Dean's taken the AARP membership card and has tacked it to the wall on Dean's side of the bed, just up over the headboard--and next to it right on the wall, not on some post it note, right on the wall, he's written with a black Sharpie marker, "Hell fucking yes I'm 50. Kick ass". Sam gives him shit that they're going to have to paint the wall now because of that, and Dean says the hell they're painting over it. And even though it's just up there with one thumbtack, right through the center, Sam doesn't try to take it down, even though it'd be easy to do so, because he soon realizes Dean has a new habit. Sometimes as they're drifting off to sleep, when Dean thinks Sam already is asleep, Dean reaches up and touches the card, a light brush of his fingers against the glossy cardstock.
Sam will request a replacement from the organization. Dean'll definitely want to carry it, he's sure, when Sam tells him the Village Inn they go to gives a free slice of pie when you show your card.
***
[I can't drive 55]
So the constant hurting that's always in his joints just gets worse, simple acts of movement he always took for granted become awkward, stiff, and Sam starts to mentally refer to himself as Gimpy. He does the best he can to put up with it all--up to and including a brother intent on mother hen-ing Sam into instanity. Eventually Sam is also past 50, and once he's got his own AARP membership and insurance, Dean nags him absolutely incessantly until Sam finally visits a doctor.
It's not that big of a deal, but it's life affecting enough: osteoarthritis. Medications and changing the types of exercise he does helps--going to the Y to swim instead of the jogging he'd had to give up--definitely does more than just the pain relievers and topical creams he'd already been using. But his knees have already crapped out on him. The damage of too many twisting and wrenching injuries, perhaps even the pressure stress of someone his height, plus the arthritis has targeted them worse than the rest of his joints, and now they're too far gone. When even physical therapy and hyaluronan injections have little to no effect, when even just a few stairs are still near-impossible and his formerly long stride remains shorter and almost shuffling, Sam's physician recommends knee replacements.
"Damn, Sammy, gonna go bionic on us?"
"Better, stronger, faster," Sam quips, and Dean smirks. Sam doesn't even bother to complain at the nickname anymore, even if it seems goofier and more ill-fitting on a near-middle-age man than it did when he was young. 'Sammy' has come to carry too much history, too much emotion, speaks too many words that Dean keeps close to his heart (I love you, I'll protect you, I have done and will do anything and everything for you) for him to turn his back on it just because of pride. It's not like losing a syllable proves he's an adult rather than a child anyway.
Plus, the only times Dean drops it to just Sam, it's when he's worked up or when he's truly pissed off, and Sam's found he doesn't care for the negative connotations of that anymore. He supposes that proves he's Pavlovian or something along those lines. Or maybe it's just his own version of (I love you, I'll protect you, I have done and will do anything and everything for you); because if a nickname proves Dean is happy and content, why not allow him that little thing?
Sam's doctor recommends going to Omaha for the surgery, rather than Des Moines, though their home in Atlantic, Iowa is close to half-way between the two. The Med Center in Omaha has taken to doing the Minimally Invasive Surgery style of knee joint replacement as standard, and the difference the smaller incision and less tissue trauma bring to recovery time and range of motion afterwards has proven significant. Considering Sam's to have both of his done at once, it seems worth it to be back on his feet again (literally)--and to get various aspects of his life back--that much sooner.
Hell, who knew that the condition of a person's knees could have such an impact on a person's sex life? Not that he had discussed it with his doctor. There was no way he would ever say "You know what? The phrase 'on your knees' needs to be part of my life again.", not to any level of medical personnel. Though, okay, he had said it to Dean, who had most emphatically agreed. Over the last few years they'd learned to get creative, but honestly there were certain things that both he and Dean missed, and missed a lot. Not to mention the when aching got bad enough it took away the desire for anything entirely, and that sucked the most. They were older, but they weren't old, and Sam knew neither of them wanted to give up the good stuff anytime soon.
After the first of the year, they make the trip west to Omaha. As he's being checked in, Sam realizes he's got goosebumps and his heart is beating just a bit too fast. It's been a long, long time since he's had to go into a hospital, and it seems so surreal that it's because an aging body part of his needs upgrading and not because someone that's his entire world is at death's door, looking as pale as if they'd already crossed over.
As the Patient Processing Representative (according to his name badge) steps away to photocopy Sam's insurance card, Dean leans very close to Sam and whispers, "You know, this is the first time in...I dunno, forever-"
"Yeah. I know. To be in here for some mundane reason, and not because...," Sam trails off, making an a jerky motion with his hands that is somehow supposed to communicate 'Dad, Dean, Dean, Dean', but mostly makes him look a bit spastic.
And Dean just blinks at him. "No, dude. I was gonna say, this is the first time you've been in a place like this under your own name since...since you were born. With a real insurance card that actually works." And then he does this goofy, doofy open-mouthed grin as if to say 'Ain't that swell?'.
It's Sam's turn to blink, and there's this laugh that chokes up out of his throat that makes him cough, and Dean makes a similar sort of noise, and then Sam just cracks up, loses it, and of course Dean does the same. They lean together, shoulder to shoulder, shaking with laughter that they sort of try to keep quiet but mostly fail at doing so. Sam's wiping tears from his eyes when Mr. Patient Processing Representative returns, and when he gets his insurance card back, he takes in every detail about it in a way that hadn't occurred to him to do before. That's really his name on there, not Peter Townshend or David Mustaine or Geoff Tate. It's not some 'borrowed' card from a down on his luck software programmer in Redmond or a blank-eyed insurance salesman from Poughkeepsie. It's for a real insurance company, not something like M&L Plumb Ins Corp (in tiny print below that "Keeping you safe in another castle since 1985").
He grins over at Dean. "I feel like I just grew up."
"About damned time, too." Dean nods. "Most fifty year olds are starting their second childhoods, not just finishing their first." He fake-whispers to Patient Processing Representative, "He's a slow developer." Sam smacks him on the arm, which just sets Dean off giggling again, and Patient Processing guy looks like he's mentally counting down the seconds to Friday and perhaps planning how to die before he gets old and weird like them.
The surgery goes well, and Sam's only in the hospital itself a few days, which Dean says is fine because the floor he's on is markedly lacking in hot nurses. Sam protests muzzily, says the nurses there are awesome and they're like great buddies and the sisters he never had and he feels like he's known them forever especially that one who said Sam looked too young for a double knee replacement even though his hair is all salt and pepper now and he's got more lines on his face than Dean and where is the justice in that and damn, did Dean know how awesome these pain meds were and salt and pepper, he shouldn't have said that 'cause now he's craving french fries.
The next couple of days aren't quite such a happy time, because then the nurses turn traitor and make him start standing up, and he also realizes that Dean had left a purple, winged stuffed pony in the bed with him, and had some point put pink sparkly barrettes in Sam's hair. It's a good thing that Dean's sleeps at a nearby extended-stay motel, because if he would have tried to just lean over against the side of Sam's bed, Sam would probably take the chance to smother him with a pillow and/or the stuffed pony, plus it would be bad for Dean's back. Not that Dean seems to be suffering too much from this whole aging thing. Seriously, where is the justice in that. He just gets to look rakish and a bit rugged, the bastard. The nurses seem to always be amused around Sam, though they later assure him that his internal monologues were always quite internal, never ever external at all.
He's transferred to a rehabilitation facility near to the hospital to begin the first stages of recovery physical therapy. At the least, the less-invasive surgery has reduced his projected recovery time, but it's still a long couple of grueling weeks. First he's practicing standing and walking using parallel bars, and hell, does he miss the upper body strength he used to have in his late 20s and early 30s. Not that he wasn't decently fit now, but in no way was he buff like he'd been then. And the extra stress on places like his wrists, elbows, shoulders aggravate the arthritis there, making them hurt worse than usual. Sam's tired, drained, hurting, and just plain stretched thin as they work him up from the parallel bars to a walker and then to crutches.
And he's worried about Dean. Dean still had nightmares sometimes. Not constantly, not like used to happen back...back then. But sometimes, like a war veteran with PTSD. Something about being away from home has made it worse, like night after night in a motel room is firing old neurons and forcing old memories into the spotlight, and Sam watches Dean grow about as ragged as he feels. There are shadows underneath Dean's eyes, almost bruises, and Sam is pretty sure he's starting to not sleep much again. So he pushes himself to be better and stronger, faster. Sure, it's only been a couple weeks after a major surgery--one where he had two knees replaced when many only do one at a time--but Sam's done. He wants to be home. He wants Dean to be home.
Sam's therapist and her nursing staff are firm with him though. He's to go at the right pace, no more, no less, and he'll be discharged when they're sure he's ready--which is only a few more days, they assure him. But he's edgy, restless, impatient, and those last two or three days feel like they're going to last as long as a whole mess of Tuesdays and Wednesdays. When Dean comes that day for visiting hours, he leans over Sam's bed and kisses him absolutely senseless, even though Sam knows there's nurses just out in the hallway. Maybe he does it because they're right there out in the hallway. "Behave," he breathes-growls in Sam's ear. "Let them do their jobs. Let them do this right." Sam doesn't ask how Dean knows. Maybe they'd called Dean, or took him aside when he got to the rehab center--or maybe it's just that Dean just knows Sam that well.
Then the magical day comes, where Sam's finally discharged to go back home to Atlantic (back home to another month of outpatient physical therapy, but it's home and outpatient and thus Sam's so fine with it it's not even funny.). There's another reason the day's special, though: it's January 24th, Dean's birthday, and he's fifty-five. Sam figures they'll drive home, maybe hit a restaurant on the way for dinner. He'll have to give Dean an IOU for something more special for the occasion. But then Dean has to be Dean once again, as always.
"I want to go to the zoo," he says, after they've gotten Sam settled in the passenger seat of the Monte Carlo (Sam's car, even if he still seems to always end up riding shotgun; Dean will never own anything but the Impala--she who is pampered like a princess and who lives out her golden years as the grande dame and matriarch of the Winchester garage).
"The what?"
"The zoo. Henry-Doorly. Everyone says the place is awesome, we've lived in road trip distance for over ten years and we've never gone. I want to see monkeys."
"Monkeys." Sam feels a bit out of sync, but then again his head was full of home home home home home and maybe also a bit of home home home. But Dean's got that hopeful little boy smile going, and okay, this can work, Dean's birthday can now equal monkeys. There can still make it home by evening, can do the drive later just as easily as early. "Okay."
"Sweet." And yeah, it is. January in Nebraska is bracingly cold, but there hasn't been snow or ice for awhile, and the walkways are dry and clear. The sun is absolutely brilliant, so bright they have to buy sunglasses (after a prolonged squabble about how no, Sam is not getting the ones with the rhinestones, shut up Dean). It's more awesome than Sam would expected, after weeks cooped up in hospital-type rooms. Sam is able to walk and stand some, using his crutches, but not for that long and not on so many hills yet, so they have to get a wheelchair. It doesn't bother him, he's faintly surprised to realize, though maybe that's because Dean has to push him around everywhere. Sam waves at the other zoo visitors as they pass, smiling, and he sort of wonders who's getting the gift here today.
They visit the desert and nocturnal exhibits, the upper level of the rainforest pavilion, and spend nearly forever in the aquarium watching the penguins and staring up at the sharks and rays swimming overhead in the acrylic tunnel. Then there's the bears, the big cats, the aviary, and yes, the monkeys--though they have a spirited discussion as to whether someone of Dean's advanced age (Sam's words, Dean's version of it being something more along the lines of "I can still kick your ass, Sammy") should refer to them as primates instead of monkeys. A nearby toddler takes Dean's side in the debate, running about in flailing circles, flinging his arms in the air and yelling "MONKEYS!" whenever Dean says the word. Which he does so as often as he can, through the entirety of the gorilla and orangutang buildings, and Sam has to offer many many apologetic glances to the boy's long-suffering but good-natured mother.
The Skyfari chairlift rides are closed since it's off-season, as is the carousel, and they decide that they'll have to come back again when it's summer. And as they leave, Sam stops at the zoo's gift shop and buys Dean a stuffed monkey. He spends more than a few minutes wandering the aisles, looking at all the realistic plush toy animals, then buys his brother one with a silly face and googly eyes and dangling arms. Dean names it Bob, and it lives on the car's dashboard, squished up close to the window, for years, brown synthetic fur sun-bleaching purple and then lavender over time (just like the color of the winged pony that Sam never names but always makes sure to leave on Dean's pillow when he makes the bed).
They get home late, the good sort of exhausted. The best thing ever, ever, Sam decides, is stretching out in a real bed again, their real bed, and being able to spread his arms out wide. Then Dean drapes himself over Sam like a living blanket, and there's no teasing each other about cuddling; it's been weeks. Long weeks of not being able to feel the weight, the warmth, the solid reality of each other like this. Sam turns his head, and they're nose to nose, breathing each other's breath for quiet minutes.
Dean's lips are smooth, and Sam can feel the sensation of them brushing against his lightly again, again, hum through him all the way down to his toes. The skin along Dean's cheek and jaw is rough and stubbled against his palm, and he thinks that maybe the taste of Dean's kiss is better here, in this place, in the familiarity and security of home. His scalp tingles as Dean runs his fingers through Sam's hair, stroking.
"Welcome home," Dean says.
"Happy birthday," Sam says back.
***
[Route 60 (Winchester Transit Center to Great America)]
There's more Sharpie marker writing on the wall around that old AARP membership card these days. The card is dingy-looking, drying paper rough around the edges, its print faded in places, and black words have spread out in irregular inches around it. It's become Dean's place to memorialize milestones--from pithy comments swearing at/celebrating another birthday, to a note about Sam coming home from 'getting cyborg parts', even a very small, very neatly written sentence that states only 'See you later Bobby.' There's also a spot where Sam wrote their names with a series of hash marks scratched next to them, tallying where each scored a particularly good joke or prank on the other; Dean's currently ahead by three. Along the right side, reaching out toward Sam's side of the bed, are a few favorite quotations and edging the left, Dean's scrawled a list of his top ten favorite bands (#1, 4, and 9 are--still--Metallica).
And down at the bottom, near where Dean wrote the first phrase ten years back, is the newest sentence. It reads "HOLY FUCK WE'RE OLD!!!", in large, capital letters, bracketed by smiley faces. Sam has never seen his brother write smiley faces like that before, nor has he since. He had a passing thought at the time the writing appeared earlier that year, just after Dean's sixtieth birthday, to doodle little hearts and sparkles by the smiley faces. But then he resists, quashes the thought. The sentence is exultation; Sam isn't messing with that.
Not that Dean doesn't piss and moan about being old still. Sixty seems to be the point where he decides he's truly over the hill, and he's melodramatic and blustering about it--sort of like he doesn't really believe it a bit, but has decided that's just how you act at that age. Sam plays along, shows his brother, lets Dean show him, that Dean's still going strong. Every time, he says the same thing, "You're not old, you're aged, like whiskey," and keeps calling Dean 'Gentleman Jack' until he grins and cuffs Sam upside the head.
It's the truth, anyway. Dean's just aged, and age agrees with him. Maybe he's not as wide in the shoulders as he used to be, but that just makes the rest of him look rangier. He's never gone really grey like Sam has, just a sprinkling here and there in hair that's mostly wheat-gold from sun since Dean started helping out with a buddy's fencing and roofing company. The wrinkles at the corner of his eyes crease when he smiles (and when Sam's on top, he'll press a kiss to those places to feel those marks of happiness against his lips), he's got a farmer's tan and of course, still those freckles. Perhaps he has lines etched to either side of his mouth nowadays, but they're nothing compared to the furrows Sam's developing--though when Sam has griped about this, Dean just pats his shoulder, saying, "You're still gorgeous, Samantha. Ya whelp."
So yeah, the 'mature years' are treating Dean just fine. Sam on the other hand.... He traces his fingers over his face, feeling those furrows. Crap. They're becoming like trenches. He then rubs his hand over his jaw and chin and grimaces--and he's going to end up with jowls, he's sure of it. Next to him, Dean laughs quietly, and Sam flicks the condensation from his beer bottle at him.
"I'm telling ya, you're a pretty, pretty princess, Sammy." He ruffles Sam's hair into his eyes, which pretty much blinds him. Sam's gone beyond long hair to outright shaggy these days (though even Dean keeps his a bit longer lately, enough to curl slightly over his forehead and touch his collar in back). Add in the couple weeks of scruffy--and grizzled--mustache and beard growth, and Sam's really starting to fit his Sasquatch nickname. Shaking the hair from his eyes, Sam takes another draw from the bottle and leans his head back to rest against the edge of the wood bench (two individual chairs of wide, bare cedar slats that hook together at the arm between them; Sam found it at the hardware store, screwed and bolted the pieces together, never got around to staining or painting it), hears Dean holler, "Get off my lawn!"
The gaggle of kids tumbling down the sidewalk in front of their house giggle and whoop at him. They know he's the guy that brings the popsicles to the neighborhood's block party every summer. Their parents walking with them wave, and Sam smiles and waves back, greets them. Dean nods and gestures with his drink in salute. It's a familiar exchange.
Many evenings and weekends find them out there on the covered porch, lounging on the bench. Sam would never have imagined people-watching, world-watching to be a worthwhile way of spending time when he was younger--would have boggled to picture Dean doing so. But now...it's peaceful, relaxing. It's a chance to just savor that the rest of the world is, and that they still are. And today's a particularly good afternoon for it--it's balmy for late September, and the sky's turquoise blue and only dotted with cotton clouds. There's just enough wind to make the trees rustle and send coloring leaves tumbling down, and to fragrance the air with the scent of distant grills.
Which reminds Sam. "Should get the charcoal started soon."
"Mmm." Dean's agreement is lost in a long, lazy swallow. A droplet of his beer trails over his lower lip, down his chin, disappearing along the curve of his neck. Sam's gaze follows the drip, and he ponders leaning over and tasting it. He decides to trace the path with his tongue later. He's comfortable stretched out the way he is right now.
Hollow echoes of hammering sound from somewhere down the block, and Sam can just barely hear the tinny music from a radio. The wind gusts up a little bit until the trees hiss. Someone's dog barks, deep and low, and a higher pitched yapping answers it. Their bench gives a creak as Dean stretches, adjusts his ball cap (the well-worn, white one with the red 'N' on it and just the right curve to the brim). The wind teases some of Sam's hair back into his eyes, and he shakes it away again then casually reaches over and plucks Dean's hat off, puts it in his own head backwards.
Dean snorts as Sam looks over at him with a smug, close-lipped smirk. "Classy. I take back the pretty. You're the homely princess." So Sam bats his eyelashes at him, and Dean makes a dorky kissy-face back. And when Sam shifts his right hand on the shared chair arm between them to just brush Dean's left, his brother lays his hand on top of Sam's, rubs Sam's arthritis-knobby knuckles lightly for a moment, lets their fingers intertwine.
Later that evening they'll grill burgers as the sunset paints the sky salmon and orange, and Sam will bug Dean to switch from ground beef to ground turkey like he has because, you know, cholesterol. Dean will grouse that Sam only got whole grain buns instead of normal white, and Sam will nag that he needs the fiber and he should really eat more salad than just that. They'll have ice cream sandwiches for dessert (that Dean will pretend to not notice are the low-fat type), and they'll listen to the Husker/Hawkeyes game until they both doze off during the post-game show.
And someday later, in five years, ten years more, Sharpie marker notes will be added to the bedroom wall when they are old enough for Medicare, and when they each reach Social Security age.
Sam twists his hand underneath Dean's until they're palm to palm, fingers interlocked. He smiles at nothing in particular, and Dean steals back his hat.
*****
*****
Notes:
Way back when, my Dad used to go on and on about how he wanted a belly dancer singing telegram for his 40th birthday (Thank god not a strip-a-gram. Thank. God.) Mom did get him one--which came to our restaurant table in a gorilla suit. And then came back for a second round in a belly dancer outfit. There are still pictures somewhere.
---
Title from an Iron & Wine CD and from a line in the song Passing Afternoon on that CD
(http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Passing-Afternoon-lyrics-Iron-Wine/02331D388BC88BAC48256EFE000669AF)
http://www.mediafire.com/file/qmznmlyymya/PassingAfternoon.mp3 (sorta became the background music for the last section without my intending it)
Section titles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.45_ACP
http://weirdal.wikia.com/wiki/Lyrics:The_Biggest_Ball_of_Twine_In_Minnesota
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Can%27t_Drive_55
http://www.vta.org/schedules/SC_60.html
One last link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentleman_Jack
maerhys' prompt of "S/D, future fic - I'd love to see them in their 50s or 60s and still super in love and happy together. Hunting, settled down, combo, whatever works." at the samdean_otp community's First Sam/Dean OTP Comment Fic Meme.Title: Our Endless Numbered Days
Author: Di (
whitereflection)Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: R/M
Wordcount: ~6195
Summary: 45, 50, 55, 60--Growing older might suck unless you realize it means you're alive, and growing older together is awesome, because that means you've both survived.
Warnings: Wincest, non-explicit smexin', language
Disclaimer: Supernatural and all its characters are property of The CW, WB, E. Kripke, etc., etc.
*****
[.45 ACP]
For his upcoming forty-fifth birthday, Dean demands a strip-a-gram.
"A belly dancer one. And she'd better be hot. And stacked." The comforter rustles as Dean shifts next to him, and Sam eyerolls at the top-heavy hourglass figure gesture Dean is inevitably making.
"A stripper." The eyeroll has so much momentum it careens right into his words.
"A singing stripper."
"Oh, well, why didn't you say so. That makes all the difference."
Dean's clock radio-lit grin is suddenly right in his face as his brother rolls over and props himself on one arm over Sam. "Ain't right to be sarcastic to the birthday boy, Sammy. If it's a stripper the birthday boy wants, a stripper the birthday boy should get." He draws closer as he speaks until they're nose to nose, and Sam can't tell if he's trying to be intimidating, sexy, or just a dumbass. It's probably all of the above.
"Too bad you're forty years past being a boy." Sam makes his best pouting face. "Offer expired. So sad."
"It's still my damned birthday."
"Four decades past, Dean. Decades."
"Fuck you, you're not that much younger than me." Dean's eyes narrow, glittering menacingly, his voice going low, dangerous (and hot).
"At least I act my age."
"Yeah, so long as your age is bitch."
Sam's reply is a growl full of oh, it's on! as he tries to shove Dean onto his back and roll over onto him, but Dean gears up into all out boy equals young equals dominant alpha mode, wrestling Sam back against the mattress and pinning his wrists. Sam bucks up against his brother as Dean nips at the tip of his nose, his lips; he grinds up as Dean bites at the side of his neck. And he doesn't care if Dean makes cracks about him being a girl later, when Dean sucks at that perfect spot where neck and shoulder meet, he wraps his legs around Dean's and arches with a moan. To hell with a man's sexual peak happening at nineteen; Dean's still there.
Not that Sam won't get him back, of course. On Dean's birthday eleven days later, their dinner at Outback is interrupted by a singing telegram...delivered by a person in a gorilla suit.
Sam can't stop grinning almost to the point of pain at the expression on Dean's face. He's going to laugh himself sick for days, no months, remembering this. And the look Dean gives him after the singing gorilla leaves....
Dean seems ever so slightly mollified when, a few minutes later, the ex-gorilla returns, now in her belly dancer outfit. She is, indeed, very hot, and very stacked. Perhaps Dean might not kill him with one of the restaurant's steak knives after all. However, as they're leaving, with the hostesses and some of the waitstaff applauding as they walk out, Dean glances Sam out of the corner of his eye, lower lip protruding just the smallest bit, his hands stuffed in his pockets in his best sulking pose.
Sam beams at his brother with every last bit of innocence he can muster, even slings an arm over his shoulders. But man, he can only be evil for so long.
"She's meeting us back at the house. Not like she could give you a show in the restaurant there." And the change in Dean is like the sun rising and someone winning the lottery while finding out Santa's real on Christmas morning, all combined into one.
"Hell fucking yes," Dean breathes. "You do love me. You ass."
She's a really good stripper. Really, really good. He thinks the only way Dean could enjoy himself more is if Sam took the Impala off the blocks in the garage, transformed it (okay, fine, fine--her) into a woman, and then gave her a belly dancer outfit.
The best part, though, is afterwards, after the strip-a-gram woman's left, when Sam makes Dean sit back down on the couch, fires up some Scorpions on the CD player ("Rock You Like a Hurricane"), and does his own striptease. He's even practiced beforehand, thanks to Chippendale video clips out on the web. He feels only a little stupid and silly, but it's worth it, because c'mon, it's Dean's birthday. And Dean obviously appreciates all his gifts, very much. But especially this one.
Because there are certain things strip-a-grams won't do, but Sam will.
***
["Twine Ball exit -- 50 miles"]
Sam did it because he knew Dean never, ever would.
"You signed me up for the AARP?" His brother has had fifty years to perfect that mix of outrage, affront, and pissiness, and it takes only one short sentence to prove he can use the skill very well. Even the jumble of membership materials and the torn envelope they'd been mailed in fan out in just the right accusatory way as Dean throws them down with a thwap on the coffee table in front of Sam.
"Did you read the membership benefits?" Sam grabs the cover letter out of the papers and waves it under Dean's nose, who flinches back as if Sam's trying to make him smell a dirty sock. Which okay, maybe he'd done that morning, but that was a whole different situation entirely. People who stole the last yogurt one had intended to have for breakfast deserved that treatment, especially when they claimed on repeated occasions to hate all yogurt, and very specifically that type of yogurt with the extra healthy, good for digestion bacteria in it. Not to mention when they also ate the last pudding cup--which was supposed to have been Sam's thank you very much--at the same time.
"AARP." Dean replies, emphasizing each letter.
"You can get some really cool discounts through them."
"The American Association of Retired People."
"Did you see they offer insurance? Health, home, auto...check it out, vision plans. You were complaining last month that you might be needing glasses soon. This would be perfect-"
"Retired." Dean's arguments are shrinking in size but not in vehemence, and Sam wants to snicker but bites the inside of his lower lip before he can. The AARP thing really is a good idea, and he doesn't want to have Dean stomp down to the basement in a huff for power tool time before he can convince him of that.
Sam shrugs, a loose, casual roll of one shoulder. "Well, you are retired, mostly. Sort of. Kind of. We both are." And that's truth. Hunts in general are a lot rarer these days, as if the whole world felt the need after the Apocalypse-that-mostly-wasn't to take it easy, just chill out. Neither he or Dean are really in the condition for it anyway, what with years of being smacked around taking their toll. Sam especially has to take life more carefully, ever since things started aching a lot more and his joints went as grumpy as Dean in the mornings.
"Semi-retired, Sam. Semi." He points at Sam, chin raised, jabs of his pointing hand punctuating each syllable of the last word, and Sam can hear perfectly the So There that Dean doesn't say.
Yes, you're right, that is entirely different than retired, Sam wants to retort, but there was that avoiding Dean going to hide out with their power tools thing, and so instead he says, "But there's no American Association for Semi-Retired People. And you don't have to be retired to be a member. Just fifty. And you are fifty now. Or did your cake lie?" It'd been an awesome cake. It had said 'Happy 50th Birthday, Deanna! Love, Francis', and the women at the grocery bakery counter had been so amused that they'd found a small resin figurine of an old woman pushing a shopping cart to put on one corner of the cake top. Dean named the figure Edna and used it as a paperweight for odd notes for Sam (like "Bitches best make Edna some pancakes!" and "You took the last beer I'm gonna take your last stupid yogurt" and...oh, huh. Okay.)
And he gives Dean the cute Sammy/puppy look--up from under the bangs he still keeps longer than he should, eyebrows raised, little smile--which causes Dean to get that exasperated yet fond expression. Which is the desired result, but at the same time something about the angle of Dean's head as he's looking down, the particular cast of light and shadow from the window behind Sam, the lines that fan out from the corners of Dean's eyes, the bit of sag to the skin under Dean's chin that never used to be there...and Sam suddenly sees an echo of Dad. Just for a moment, an afterimage, like catching a flash of sun that leaves purple splotches painted on the back of his eyelids. He blinks a few times and it's gone, or maybe he's blinking like that for other reasons--because it hits him just then, Dean's very nearly as old as Dad was when....
Yeah, now he's definitely blinking like that for other reasons, and Dean's looking down at him, question in his gaze. Sam just shakes his head with a wry smile and a bit of a laugh. The sort of life that their Dad had had then, and the hell that had gone down at the end for him...and now here he and Dean are, basically retired, working normal odd jobs, spending their free time on normal hobbies, Sam volunteering Wednesday mornings at the library to read to the kids. And he's just signed Dean up for AARP. Funny the way it is.
He pushes himself to his feet, wincing with a touch of embarrassment as his knees make kids' cereal popping-crackling sounds, and steps close to Dean, hugs him from behind. "I couldn't help it," he murmurs, feeling the hint of shiver that runs through Dean at the feel of Sam's breath against his ear. "They said you had to be fifty to join. And it just hit me, Dean's gotten to fifty. He's made it to fifty. He can be in this group, because he's actually fifty. Each year that's gone by, I...I mean, all the times I thought that was it...." Sam leans down a little to muffle a self-deprecating chuckle against Dean's shoulder. "I am the lamest of the lame. It just seemed so amazing that you were here to be old enough to be an American Association of Retired Person."
And that's where Dean should be giving him heck for being sappy and huggy, but instead he's just standing there, his hands over Sam's hands where they're resting on Dean's chest. "Ah, Sammy," he says quietly, and that's all. They stand like that for awhile, the room dimming gradually as the sun lowers, until finally Dean's stomach growls. Sam steps away, turning on lamps as he heads to the kitchen to throw together something for dinner, and Dean cleans up the mail he'd thrown on the coffee table earlier.
Later he realizes that Dean's taken the AARP membership card and has tacked it to the wall on Dean's side of the bed, just up over the headboard--and next to it right on the wall, not on some post it note, right on the wall, he's written with a black Sharpie marker, "Hell fucking yes I'm 50. Kick ass". Sam gives him shit that they're going to have to paint the wall now because of that, and Dean says the hell they're painting over it. And even though it's just up there with one thumbtack, right through the center, Sam doesn't try to take it down, even though it'd be easy to do so, because he soon realizes Dean has a new habit. Sometimes as they're drifting off to sleep, when Dean thinks Sam already is asleep, Dean reaches up and touches the card, a light brush of his fingers against the glossy cardstock.
Sam will request a replacement from the organization. Dean'll definitely want to carry it, he's sure, when Sam tells him the Village Inn they go to gives a free slice of pie when you show your card.
***
[I can't drive 55]
So the constant hurting that's always in his joints just gets worse, simple acts of movement he always took for granted become awkward, stiff, and Sam starts to mentally refer to himself as Gimpy. He does the best he can to put up with it all--up to and including a brother intent on mother hen-ing Sam into instanity. Eventually Sam is also past 50, and once he's got his own AARP membership and insurance, Dean nags him absolutely incessantly until Sam finally visits a doctor.
It's not that big of a deal, but it's life affecting enough: osteoarthritis. Medications and changing the types of exercise he does helps--going to the Y to swim instead of the jogging he'd had to give up--definitely does more than just the pain relievers and topical creams he'd already been using. But his knees have already crapped out on him. The damage of too many twisting and wrenching injuries, perhaps even the pressure stress of someone his height, plus the arthritis has targeted them worse than the rest of his joints, and now they're too far gone. When even physical therapy and hyaluronan injections have little to no effect, when even just a few stairs are still near-impossible and his formerly long stride remains shorter and almost shuffling, Sam's physician recommends knee replacements.
"Damn, Sammy, gonna go bionic on us?"
"Better, stronger, faster," Sam quips, and Dean smirks. Sam doesn't even bother to complain at the nickname anymore, even if it seems goofier and more ill-fitting on a near-middle-age man than it did when he was young. 'Sammy' has come to carry too much history, too much emotion, speaks too many words that Dean keeps close to his heart (I love you, I'll protect you, I have done and will do anything and everything for you) for him to turn his back on it just because of pride. It's not like losing a syllable proves he's an adult rather than a child anyway.
Plus, the only times Dean drops it to just Sam, it's when he's worked up or when he's truly pissed off, and Sam's found he doesn't care for the negative connotations of that anymore. He supposes that proves he's Pavlovian or something along those lines. Or maybe it's just his own version of (I love you, I'll protect you, I have done and will do anything and everything for you); because if a nickname proves Dean is happy and content, why not allow him that little thing?
Sam's doctor recommends going to Omaha for the surgery, rather than Des Moines, though their home in Atlantic, Iowa is close to half-way between the two. The Med Center in Omaha has taken to doing the Minimally Invasive Surgery style of knee joint replacement as standard, and the difference the smaller incision and less tissue trauma bring to recovery time and range of motion afterwards has proven significant. Considering Sam's to have both of his done at once, it seems worth it to be back on his feet again (literally)--and to get various aspects of his life back--that much sooner.
Hell, who knew that the condition of a person's knees could have such an impact on a person's sex life? Not that he had discussed it with his doctor. There was no way he would ever say "You know what? The phrase 'on your knees' needs to be part of my life again.", not to any level of medical personnel. Though, okay, he had said it to Dean, who had most emphatically agreed. Over the last few years they'd learned to get creative, but honestly there were certain things that both he and Dean missed, and missed a lot. Not to mention the when aching got bad enough it took away the desire for anything entirely, and that sucked the most. They were older, but they weren't old, and Sam knew neither of them wanted to give up the good stuff anytime soon.
After the first of the year, they make the trip west to Omaha. As he's being checked in, Sam realizes he's got goosebumps and his heart is beating just a bit too fast. It's been a long, long time since he's had to go into a hospital, and it seems so surreal that it's because an aging body part of his needs upgrading and not because someone that's his entire world is at death's door, looking as pale as if they'd already crossed over.
As the Patient Processing Representative (according to his name badge) steps away to photocopy Sam's insurance card, Dean leans very close to Sam and whispers, "You know, this is the first time in...I dunno, forever-"
"Yeah. I know. To be in here for some mundane reason, and not because...," Sam trails off, making an a jerky motion with his hands that is somehow supposed to communicate 'Dad, Dean, Dean, Dean', but mostly makes him look a bit spastic.
And Dean just blinks at him. "No, dude. I was gonna say, this is the first time you've been in a place like this under your own name since...since you were born. With a real insurance card that actually works." And then he does this goofy, doofy open-mouthed grin as if to say 'Ain't that swell?'.
It's Sam's turn to blink, and there's this laugh that chokes up out of his throat that makes him cough, and Dean makes a similar sort of noise, and then Sam just cracks up, loses it, and of course Dean does the same. They lean together, shoulder to shoulder, shaking with laughter that they sort of try to keep quiet but mostly fail at doing so. Sam's wiping tears from his eyes when Mr. Patient Processing Representative returns, and when he gets his insurance card back, he takes in every detail about it in a way that hadn't occurred to him to do before. That's really his name on there, not Peter Townshend or David Mustaine or Geoff Tate. It's not some 'borrowed' card from a down on his luck software programmer in Redmond or a blank-eyed insurance salesman from Poughkeepsie. It's for a real insurance company, not something like M&L Plumb Ins Corp (in tiny print below that "Keeping you safe in another castle since 1985").
He grins over at Dean. "I feel like I just grew up."
"About damned time, too." Dean nods. "Most fifty year olds are starting their second childhoods, not just finishing their first." He fake-whispers to Patient Processing Representative, "He's a slow developer." Sam smacks him on the arm, which just sets Dean off giggling again, and Patient Processing guy looks like he's mentally counting down the seconds to Friday and perhaps planning how to die before he gets old and weird like them.
The surgery goes well, and Sam's only in the hospital itself a few days, which Dean says is fine because the floor he's on is markedly lacking in hot nurses. Sam protests muzzily, says the nurses there are awesome and they're like great buddies and the sisters he never had and he feels like he's known them forever especially that one who said Sam looked too young for a double knee replacement even though his hair is all salt and pepper now and he's got more lines on his face than Dean and where is the justice in that and damn, did Dean know how awesome these pain meds were and salt and pepper, he shouldn't have said that 'cause now he's craving french fries.
The next couple of days aren't quite such a happy time, because then the nurses turn traitor and make him start standing up, and he also realizes that Dean had left a purple, winged stuffed pony in the bed with him, and had some point put pink sparkly barrettes in Sam's hair. It's a good thing that Dean's sleeps at a nearby extended-stay motel, because if he would have tried to just lean over against the side of Sam's bed, Sam would probably take the chance to smother him with a pillow and/or the stuffed pony, plus it would be bad for Dean's back. Not that Dean seems to be suffering too much from this whole aging thing. Seriously, where is the justice in that. He just gets to look rakish and a bit rugged, the bastard. The nurses seem to always be amused around Sam, though they later assure him that his internal monologues were always quite internal, never ever external at all.
He's transferred to a rehabilitation facility near to the hospital to begin the first stages of recovery physical therapy. At the least, the less-invasive surgery has reduced his projected recovery time, but it's still a long couple of grueling weeks. First he's practicing standing and walking using parallel bars, and hell, does he miss the upper body strength he used to have in his late 20s and early 30s. Not that he wasn't decently fit now, but in no way was he buff like he'd been then. And the extra stress on places like his wrists, elbows, shoulders aggravate the arthritis there, making them hurt worse than usual. Sam's tired, drained, hurting, and just plain stretched thin as they work him up from the parallel bars to a walker and then to crutches.
And he's worried about Dean. Dean still had nightmares sometimes. Not constantly, not like used to happen back...back then. But sometimes, like a war veteran with PTSD. Something about being away from home has made it worse, like night after night in a motel room is firing old neurons and forcing old memories into the spotlight, and Sam watches Dean grow about as ragged as he feels. There are shadows underneath Dean's eyes, almost bruises, and Sam is pretty sure he's starting to not sleep much again. So he pushes himself to be better and stronger, faster. Sure, it's only been a couple weeks after a major surgery--one where he had two knees replaced when many only do one at a time--but Sam's done. He wants to be home. He wants Dean to be home.
Sam's therapist and her nursing staff are firm with him though. He's to go at the right pace, no more, no less, and he'll be discharged when they're sure he's ready--which is only a few more days, they assure him. But he's edgy, restless, impatient, and those last two or three days feel like they're going to last as long as a whole mess of Tuesdays and Wednesdays. When Dean comes that day for visiting hours, he leans over Sam's bed and kisses him absolutely senseless, even though Sam knows there's nurses just out in the hallway. Maybe he does it because they're right there out in the hallway. "Behave," he breathes-growls in Sam's ear. "Let them do their jobs. Let them do this right." Sam doesn't ask how Dean knows. Maybe they'd called Dean, or took him aside when he got to the rehab center--or maybe it's just that Dean just knows Sam that well.
Then the magical day comes, where Sam's finally discharged to go back home to Atlantic (back home to another month of outpatient physical therapy, but it's home and outpatient and thus Sam's so fine with it it's not even funny.). There's another reason the day's special, though: it's January 24th, Dean's birthday, and he's fifty-five. Sam figures they'll drive home, maybe hit a restaurant on the way for dinner. He'll have to give Dean an IOU for something more special for the occasion. But then Dean has to be Dean once again, as always.
"I want to go to the zoo," he says, after they've gotten Sam settled in the passenger seat of the Monte Carlo (Sam's car, even if he still seems to always end up riding shotgun; Dean will never own anything but the Impala--she who is pampered like a princess and who lives out her golden years as the grande dame and matriarch of the Winchester garage).
"The what?"
"The zoo. Henry-Doorly. Everyone says the place is awesome, we've lived in road trip distance for over ten years and we've never gone. I want to see monkeys."
"Monkeys." Sam feels a bit out of sync, but then again his head was full of home home home home home and maybe also a bit of home home home. But Dean's got that hopeful little boy smile going, and okay, this can work, Dean's birthday can now equal monkeys. There can still make it home by evening, can do the drive later just as easily as early. "Okay."
"Sweet." And yeah, it is. January in Nebraska is bracingly cold, but there hasn't been snow or ice for awhile, and the walkways are dry and clear. The sun is absolutely brilliant, so bright they have to buy sunglasses (after a prolonged squabble about how no, Sam is not getting the ones with the rhinestones, shut up Dean). It's more awesome than Sam would expected, after weeks cooped up in hospital-type rooms. Sam is able to walk and stand some, using his crutches, but not for that long and not on so many hills yet, so they have to get a wheelchair. It doesn't bother him, he's faintly surprised to realize, though maybe that's because Dean has to push him around everywhere. Sam waves at the other zoo visitors as they pass, smiling, and he sort of wonders who's getting the gift here today.
They visit the desert and nocturnal exhibits, the upper level of the rainforest pavilion, and spend nearly forever in the aquarium watching the penguins and staring up at the sharks and rays swimming overhead in the acrylic tunnel. Then there's the bears, the big cats, the aviary, and yes, the monkeys--though they have a spirited discussion as to whether someone of Dean's advanced age (Sam's words, Dean's version of it being something more along the lines of "I can still kick your ass, Sammy") should refer to them as primates instead of monkeys. A nearby toddler takes Dean's side in the debate, running about in flailing circles, flinging his arms in the air and yelling "MONKEYS!" whenever Dean says the word. Which he does so as often as he can, through the entirety of the gorilla and orangutang buildings, and Sam has to offer many many apologetic glances to the boy's long-suffering but good-natured mother.
The Skyfari chairlift rides are closed since it's off-season, as is the carousel, and they decide that they'll have to come back again when it's summer. And as they leave, Sam stops at the zoo's gift shop and buys Dean a stuffed monkey. He spends more than a few minutes wandering the aisles, looking at all the realistic plush toy animals, then buys his brother one with a silly face and googly eyes and dangling arms. Dean names it Bob, and it lives on the car's dashboard, squished up close to the window, for years, brown synthetic fur sun-bleaching purple and then lavender over time (just like the color of the winged pony that Sam never names but always makes sure to leave on Dean's pillow when he makes the bed).
They get home late, the good sort of exhausted. The best thing ever, ever, Sam decides, is stretching out in a real bed again, their real bed, and being able to spread his arms out wide. Then Dean drapes himself over Sam like a living blanket, and there's no teasing each other about cuddling; it's been weeks. Long weeks of not being able to feel the weight, the warmth, the solid reality of each other like this. Sam turns his head, and they're nose to nose, breathing each other's breath for quiet minutes.
Dean's lips are smooth, and Sam can feel the sensation of them brushing against his lightly again, again, hum through him all the way down to his toes. The skin along Dean's cheek and jaw is rough and stubbled against his palm, and he thinks that maybe the taste of Dean's kiss is better here, in this place, in the familiarity and security of home. His scalp tingles as Dean runs his fingers through Sam's hair, stroking.
"Welcome home," Dean says.
"Happy birthday," Sam says back.
***
[Route 60 (Winchester Transit Center to Great America)]
There's more Sharpie marker writing on the wall around that old AARP membership card these days. The card is dingy-looking, drying paper rough around the edges, its print faded in places, and black words have spread out in irregular inches around it. It's become Dean's place to memorialize milestones--from pithy comments swearing at/celebrating another birthday, to a note about Sam coming home from 'getting cyborg parts', even a very small, very neatly written sentence that states only 'See you later Bobby.' There's also a spot where Sam wrote their names with a series of hash marks scratched next to them, tallying where each scored a particularly good joke or prank on the other; Dean's currently ahead by three. Along the right side, reaching out toward Sam's side of the bed, are a few favorite quotations and edging the left, Dean's scrawled a list of his top ten favorite bands (#1, 4, and 9 are--still--Metallica).
And down at the bottom, near where Dean wrote the first phrase ten years back, is the newest sentence. It reads "HOLY FUCK WE'RE OLD!!!", in large, capital letters, bracketed by smiley faces. Sam has never seen his brother write smiley faces like that before, nor has he since. He had a passing thought at the time the writing appeared earlier that year, just after Dean's sixtieth birthday, to doodle little hearts and sparkles by the smiley faces. But then he resists, quashes the thought. The sentence is exultation; Sam isn't messing with that.
Not that Dean doesn't piss and moan about being old still. Sixty seems to be the point where he decides he's truly over the hill, and he's melodramatic and blustering about it--sort of like he doesn't really believe it a bit, but has decided that's just how you act at that age. Sam plays along, shows his brother, lets Dean show him, that Dean's still going strong. Every time, he says the same thing, "You're not old, you're aged, like whiskey," and keeps calling Dean 'Gentleman Jack' until he grins and cuffs Sam upside the head.
It's the truth, anyway. Dean's just aged, and age agrees with him. Maybe he's not as wide in the shoulders as he used to be, but that just makes the rest of him look rangier. He's never gone really grey like Sam has, just a sprinkling here and there in hair that's mostly wheat-gold from sun since Dean started helping out with a buddy's fencing and roofing company. The wrinkles at the corner of his eyes crease when he smiles (and when Sam's on top, he'll press a kiss to those places to feel those marks of happiness against his lips), he's got a farmer's tan and of course, still those freckles. Perhaps he has lines etched to either side of his mouth nowadays, but they're nothing compared to the furrows Sam's developing--though when Sam has griped about this, Dean just pats his shoulder, saying, "You're still gorgeous, Samantha. Ya whelp."
So yeah, the 'mature years' are treating Dean just fine. Sam on the other hand.... He traces his fingers over his face, feeling those furrows. Crap. They're becoming like trenches. He then rubs his hand over his jaw and chin and grimaces--and he's going to end up with jowls, he's sure of it. Next to him, Dean laughs quietly, and Sam flicks the condensation from his beer bottle at him.
"I'm telling ya, you're a pretty, pretty princess, Sammy." He ruffles Sam's hair into his eyes, which pretty much blinds him. Sam's gone beyond long hair to outright shaggy these days (though even Dean keeps his a bit longer lately, enough to curl slightly over his forehead and touch his collar in back). Add in the couple weeks of scruffy--and grizzled--mustache and beard growth, and Sam's really starting to fit his Sasquatch nickname. Shaking the hair from his eyes, Sam takes another draw from the bottle and leans his head back to rest against the edge of the wood bench (two individual chairs of wide, bare cedar slats that hook together at the arm between them; Sam found it at the hardware store, screwed and bolted the pieces together, never got around to staining or painting it), hears Dean holler, "Get off my lawn!"
The gaggle of kids tumbling down the sidewalk in front of their house giggle and whoop at him. They know he's the guy that brings the popsicles to the neighborhood's block party every summer. Their parents walking with them wave, and Sam smiles and waves back, greets them. Dean nods and gestures with his drink in salute. It's a familiar exchange.
Many evenings and weekends find them out there on the covered porch, lounging on the bench. Sam would never have imagined people-watching, world-watching to be a worthwhile way of spending time when he was younger--would have boggled to picture Dean doing so. But now...it's peaceful, relaxing. It's a chance to just savor that the rest of the world is, and that they still are. And today's a particularly good afternoon for it--it's balmy for late September, and the sky's turquoise blue and only dotted with cotton clouds. There's just enough wind to make the trees rustle and send coloring leaves tumbling down, and to fragrance the air with the scent of distant grills.
Which reminds Sam. "Should get the charcoal started soon."
"Mmm." Dean's agreement is lost in a long, lazy swallow. A droplet of his beer trails over his lower lip, down his chin, disappearing along the curve of his neck. Sam's gaze follows the drip, and he ponders leaning over and tasting it. He decides to trace the path with his tongue later. He's comfortable stretched out the way he is right now.
Hollow echoes of hammering sound from somewhere down the block, and Sam can just barely hear the tinny music from a radio. The wind gusts up a little bit until the trees hiss. Someone's dog barks, deep and low, and a higher pitched yapping answers it. Their bench gives a creak as Dean stretches, adjusts his ball cap (the well-worn, white one with the red 'N' on it and just the right curve to the brim). The wind teases some of Sam's hair back into his eyes, and he shakes it away again then casually reaches over and plucks Dean's hat off, puts it in his own head backwards.
Dean snorts as Sam looks over at him with a smug, close-lipped smirk. "Classy. I take back the pretty. You're the homely princess." So Sam bats his eyelashes at him, and Dean makes a dorky kissy-face back. And when Sam shifts his right hand on the shared chair arm between them to just brush Dean's left, his brother lays his hand on top of Sam's, rubs Sam's arthritis-knobby knuckles lightly for a moment, lets their fingers intertwine.
Later that evening they'll grill burgers as the sunset paints the sky salmon and orange, and Sam will bug Dean to switch from ground beef to ground turkey like he has because, you know, cholesterol. Dean will grouse that Sam only got whole grain buns instead of normal white, and Sam will nag that he needs the fiber and he should really eat more salad than just that. They'll have ice cream sandwiches for dessert (that Dean will pretend to not notice are the low-fat type), and they'll listen to the Husker/Hawkeyes game until they both doze off during the post-game show.
And someday later, in five years, ten years more, Sharpie marker notes will be added to the bedroom wall when they are old enough for Medicare, and when they each reach Social Security age.
Sam twists his hand underneath Dean's until they're palm to palm, fingers interlocked. He smiles at nothing in particular, and Dean steals back his hat.
*****
*****
Notes:
Way back when, my Dad used to go on and on about how he wanted a belly dancer singing telegram for his 40th birthday (Thank god not a strip-a-gram. Thank. God.) Mom did get him one--which came to our restaurant table in a gorilla suit. And then came back for a second round in a belly dancer outfit. There are still pictures somewhere.
---
Title from an Iron & Wine CD and from a line in the song Passing Afternoon on that CD
(http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Passing-Afternoon-lyrics-Iron-Wine/02331D388BC88BAC48256EFE000669AF)
http://www.mediafire.com/file/qmznmlyymya/PassingAfternoon.mp3 (sorta became the background music for the last section without my intending it)
Section titles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.45_ACP
http://weirdal.wikia.com/wiki/Lyrics:The_Biggest_Ball_of_Twine_In_Minnesota
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Can%27t_Drive_55
http://www.vta.org/schedules/SC_60.html
One last link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentleman_Jack
