yes, well.
Sep. 23rd, 2010 04:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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fleshflutter's The Sam and Dean are reunited (or Dean at least finds out Sam isn't dead) comment-fic meme just once more. Dunno if anyone will even see it over there since it seems to be winding down, but oh well.
Anyway, posting here since it went a little long for putting it in comments (yay, not gen \o/ I'm going to make cookies to celebrate. Okay, bake apart cookies. That still counts. :p )
[ETA: Changed my mind. I did post in comments over there, so it's at pt.1, pt.2, and pt.3 also.]
Title: Epilogue
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Dean/Sam
wc: 1915
Note: Forladyrhyanne's prompt of Dean wasn't consciously thinking about driving through the night to end up back at Stull cemetery when he got off work that day. But it's the first year anniversary since that day, there's a full bottle of whiskey in the passenger foot well of the Impala and if he's going to spend the day drunk anyway mourning the passing of his friend/brother/lover, his Sammy, this is probably the best place, since there is no way in hell he has any intention of doing it back at Lisa's in front of her and Ben. He wasn't expecting Chuck to appear out of nowhere telling him that both he and Sam are idiots and then for Sam to suddenly be there in front of him, looking shocked and a little scared. I am a freaking sucker for HEA schmoo. :|
Epilogue
Dean had definitely planned on remembering the anniversary. It was why he'd stopped at the liquor store a couple of days previous and gotten a bottle of whisky--and not just any old whisky. The good stuff, Johnnie Walker Blue Label. It'd been expensive as fuck, but it was worth it. Sam was worth it.
But what he hadn't planned, was the road trip to Stull.
To be honest, he hadn't really thought about where he was going to spend the day. He knew he was going to spend it toasting Sam, remembering him, mourning him. But there was something about letting this grief out that...he just didn't want Lisa or Ben to see. Not just because he didn't want them to see him drunk off his ass again; hell knew they'd seen him like that way too damned much early on. It'd been months before a single day would pass without him being lost in an alcoholic haze around them.
But mostly it was because he wasn't going to be mourning the loss of his brother. Dean was going to grieve on the anniversary of the day he lost his brother, his best friend, his lover. And that...no, not around them. That would be for Dean alone.
So he'd made sure the bottle of whisky was tucked away in the passenger-side footwell of the Impala, resting safely in its silk-lined wooden box, when he'd gone to his night shift job that evening. He'd figured he'd find some park or something, sit out on the hood of the car all day, from dawn until it went dark and he could see the stars. Then he'd let it all out while he got fucking wasted off what was probably the most expensive alcohol he'd ever bought.
He'd left work just after sun-up, called and left a message for Lisa that he wouldn't be back until late or maybe not until the next day (and she was a smart woman, so this would be no surprise to her--she knew what the date had been when Dean'd knocked on her door last year). Then he set out on the road.
Just...something drifted through the back of his mind as he drove, some sort of random thought of "I wonder what would happen if I just started driving and didn't stop." He'd had that thought many times that last year, but he'd never given in to it. He'd gone to work; he'd gone out for mindless errands; he'd gone home. Always.
Except this time. This time he gave in. When the on-ramp for the interstate came up on the right, Dean took it.
And that was how, hours later, Dean realized he wasn't just on any interstate--he was on I-70, heading west. Without even thinking about it, he'd unconsciously started heading for Kansas. For the Stull Cemetery.
Son of a bitch.
Then Dean let out a gusting breath, relaxed his hands from where they'd clenched around the steering wheel. Rubbing a hand over his face, he sighed again, suddenly feeling weary.
Okay, yeah. He could do that. It would...it would only be fitting. And it would only be maybe another five hours, tops. Driving that much, that was nothing for him. He could make it there by afternoon, easily.
*
Thanks to a crap-ton of construction and an accident involving a jackknifed semi outside of Columbia, Missouri, the sun was already starting to set when Dean pulled off the county road and through the cemetery's dilapidated entrance. The nastiest truck stop coffee still jittered through his veins and his jaw ached from clenching it so long.
The car bounced slightly over the uneven ground, grasses as scrubby and brown-green as they had been a year ago. And Dean hadn't planned it, wouldn't have put that tape in if he'd remembered what music was on it; but Def Leppard's "Rock of Ages" was blasting from the stereo--just like it had a year ago when he'd sped to Stull so Sam wouldn't have to face dying alone.
The volume was cranked so high, the frame shook--to keep him awake, to keep him distracted so it all wouldn't hit him until he arrived. But the silence when he clicked the radio off and killed the engine was even more deafening.
Clouds were moving in, covering where the setting sun was starting to tint the sky orange. If it went flat and gray just like it had back then...Dean wondered how many more ways this day was going to mirror that one a year ago.
He got out of the car, walked around in a wide circle, before eventually toeing at the weeds and dust where there had once been a swirling, gaping maw of black. Where four rings had rested upon once-more solid ground. Where Dean had knelt, battered and broken inside and out.
Dean took a deep, shuddering breath. Right. Time for he and Johnnie to become good, good friends.
And when he turned around to go back to the car, he came face to face with Chuck.
There had been no one else in the cemetery a moment before--no one. Dean flinched back with a sharp, bitten-off curse, and started to swing.
The writer-prophet-whatever the fuck he was scrambled away, hands raised placatingly. "Hey, hey hey, wait, um, wait, it's just me."
"Yeah, well, hell of an entrance you made there, just me." Dean had checked his punch, but his body remained tensed, ready for a fight. He continued, voice low and gruff, "Care to explain why you suddenly decided to pop in from out of nowhere?"
Chuck at least had the grace to look abashed, and he didn't lower his hands, though Dean wasn't sure if it was to look submissive and non-threatening, or a continued gesture for him to be calm. "I, ah, sorry. Sorry about that. I've been meaning to get in contact with you for a few days, but things have been really, really busy, you know?"
"No, I don't know, and I don't really care to know."
"Okay, perfectly understandable," Chuck nodded. "Definitely understandable, I mean, you've certainly got a lot on your mind right now. Or at least one thing on your mind. Which is why I'm here actually. Because, Becky-- You remember Becky, right?"
The writer paused, continuing when Dean just gave him a look. "Okay, yes, we all remember Becky. Well, let's just say she's been writing a lot, and I do mean a lot recently, and that means she's been making me read a lot. I know we'd broken up, but then she wanted to just be friends, and I really couldn't say no to that, and now we're trying to do this long-distance sort of thing, so we're...we're sort of...whatever." He waved one hand. "It's complicated."
"Cool story," Dean snapped, tone more than a little sarcastic, "but that doesn't tell me why I really should give a shit, and why you're bothering me right now."
"Anyway," Chuck continued, as if Dean hadn't interrupted, "eventually because of her stories, I came to some...realizations, I guess you could say. The first of which is, and this is paraphrasing Becky, I am kind of an idiot and maybe don't know everything."
Dean snorted. "I'm inclined to agree with her on that."
"And the second realization is," Chuck continued again, without missing a beat, "once more to quote Becky--you and Sam are both kind of idiots."
Then, as Dean sputtered, started some scathing retort, Sam appeared, just blinked into existence next to Chuck. And Dean was stunned into silence.
Sam stood stock-still, as if doing anything other than remaining frozen, even blinking, would make everything around him disappear. He just stared at Dean with wide, longing eyes, and Dean wondered if that's the way he looked, too.
"And then there were my other realizations." The sound of Chuck's voice was startling. Somehow, for a moment, Dean had totally forgotten he was still there. "That sometimes endings aren't that hard, especially if they're happy ones. And that just because you've typed the words 'The End' doesn't mean there can't be an epilogue."
Dean saw Sam's throat working, saw his lips move as if to speak. His brother reached up a hand, like he wanted to touch Dean, but the almost scared expression on his face seemed to show that he feared this was just some hallucination or vision. Considering where he'd been, what could have been done to him, Lucifer had probably tormented him with scenes just exactly like this one, only to take it all away.
Then Dean was moving, walking forward with purposeful steps, and the moment he was close enough, he reached out to cradle Sam's face, his heart beating fast to feel his brother's warm skin and strong jaw beneath his hands again.
"You're back," Dean said, and it wasn't a question.
Sam bent easily to Dean's tug, and Dean pressed his lips against his brother's. They were chapped and dry, like they so often used to be, but for the longest time Sam didn't respond at all. Then he breathed out Dean's name as a sigh, and he opened to Dean like he always had before. Dean felt Sam's hands settle on his waist, and Sam kissed him back like Dean was the water Sam hadn't been allowed to drink for a year.
Dean's hands slid up into Sam's shaggy hair, and god, he'd thought he'd never feel Sam's hair between his fingers again. As he clutched it, stroking his tongue deep into Sam's mouth, his brother pulled Dean close with a low, throaty moan.
There was a sound of someone clearing their throat nearby, and Chuck gave a small cough. "Well, I guess I'll just be getting back, you know, to Becky and my...," he waved one hand, "whatever. And I'll just leave you to your whatever there." The writer-prophet-whatever he was smiled, looking more than a little smug. "You boys have a good life." Then, an eye blink later, he was gone.
Sam pulled back just slightly. "How...how did he--?"
"Fuck if I know," Dean muttered. He was getting seriously stupid inside about how he could feel Sam's breath against his face, how feeling that was sending warmth through what had been only emptiness and ache in his chest for so long. "I've given up trying to figure him out." He slid one hand to cup the back of Sam's neck. "Hey. C'mere."
Dean led Sam over to the Impala. "Wait here a sec." As his brother stood by the hood, Dean retrieved the whiskey from its box in the car, then moved back to sit on the vehicle's hood. Sam stared for a moment as if not comprehending, until Dean patted the metal next to him. "C'mon, I won't bite."
Sam laughed quietly, scooting up the hood to sit next to Dean. "But I like biting," he said almost shyly.
"Ah, yes." Dean leaned back against the windshield, smile wide and a bit predatory. "That's right, you do." He opened the Johnnie Walker Blue Label and took a long drink, savoring the just-perfect burn.
Maybe expensive alcohol could taste good even when you were drinking it while mourning, but it tasted even better if you were celebrating instead. And, after he passed the bottle to his brother to give him a turn, saying, "Welcome home," Dean found that good whisky tasted the best when he licked it from Sam's lips.
fleshflutter's The Sam and Dean are reunited (or Dean at least finds out Sam isn't dead) comment-fic meme just once more. Dunno if anyone will even see it over there since it seems to be winding down, but oh well.Anyway, posting here since it went a little long for putting it in comments (yay, not gen \o/ I'm going to make cookies to celebrate. Okay, bake apart cookies. That still counts. :p )
[ETA: Changed my mind. I did post in comments over there, so it's at pt.1, pt.2, and pt.3 also.]
Title: Epilogue
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Dean/Sam
wc: 1915
Note: For
ladyrhyanne's prompt of Dean wasn't consciously thinking about driving through the night to end up back at Stull cemetery when he got off work that day. But it's the first year anniversary since that day, there's a full bottle of whiskey in the passenger foot well of the Impala and if he's going to spend the day drunk anyway mourning the passing of his friend/brother/lover, his Sammy, this is probably the best place, since there is no way in hell he has any intention of doing it back at Lisa's in front of her and Ben. He wasn't expecting Chuck to appear out of nowhere telling him that both he and Sam are idiots and then for Sam to suddenly be there in front of him, looking shocked and a little scared. I am a freaking sucker for HEA schmoo. :|Epilogue
Dean had definitely planned on remembering the anniversary. It was why he'd stopped at the liquor store a couple of days previous and gotten a bottle of whisky--and not just any old whisky. The good stuff, Johnnie Walker Blue Label. It'd been expensive as fuck, but it was worth it. Sam was worth it.
But what he hadn't planned, was the road trip to Stull.
To be honest, he hadn't really thought about where he was going to spend the day. He knew he was going to spend it toasting Sam, remembering him, mourning him. But there was something about letting this grief out that...he just didn't want Lisa or Ben to see. Not just because he didn't want them to see him drunk off his ass again; hell knew they'd seen him like that way too damned much early on. It'd been months before a single day would pass without him being lost in an alcoholic haze around them.
But mostly it was because he wasn't going to be mourning the loss of his brother. Dean was going to grieve on the anniversary of the day he lost his brother, his best friend, his lover. And that...no, not around them. That would be for Dean alone.
So he'd made sure the bottle of whisky was tucked away in the passenger-side footwell of the Impala, resting safely in its silk-lined wooden box, when he'd gone to his night shift job that evening. He'd figured he'd find some park or something, sit out on the hood of the car all day, from dawn until it went dark and he could see the stars. Then he'd let it all out while he got fucking wasted off what was probably the most expensive alcohol he'd ever bought.
He'd left work just after sun-up, called and left a message for Lisa that he wouldn't be back until late or maybe not until the next day (and she was a smart woman, so this would be no surprise to her--she knew what the date had been when Dean'd knocked on her door last year). Then he set out on the road.
Just...something drifted through the back of his mind as he drove, some sort of random thought of "I wonder what would happen if I just started driving and didn't stop." He'd had that thought many times that last year, but he'd never given in to it. He'd gone to work; he'd gone out for mindless errands; he'd gone home. Always.
Except this time. This time he gave in. When the on-ramp for the interstate came up on the right, Dean took it.
And that was how, hours later, Dean realized he wasn't just on any interstate--he was on I-70, heading west. Without even thinking about it, he'd unconsciously started heading for Kansas. For the Stull Cemetery.
Son of a bitch.
Then Dean let out a gusting breath, relaxed his hands from where they'd clenched around the steering wheel. Rubbing a hand over his face, he sighed again, suddenly feeling weary.
Okay, yeah. He could do that. It would...it would only be fitting. And it would only be maybe another five hours, tops. Driving that much, that was nothing for him. He could make it there by afternoon, easily.
*
Thanks to a crap-ton of construction and an accident involving a jackknifed semi outside of Columbia, Missouri, the sun was already starting to set when Dean pulled off the county road and through the cemetery's dilapidated entrance. The nastiest truck stop coffee still jittered through his veins and his jaw ached from clenching it so long.
The car bounced slightly over the uneven ground, grasses as scrubby and brown-green as they had been a year ago. And Dean hadn't planned it, wouldn't have put that tape in if he'd remembered what music was on it; but Def Leppard's "Rock of Ages" was blasting from the stereo--just like it had a year ago when he'd sped to Stull so Sam wouldn't have to face dying alone.
The volume was cranked so high, the frame shook--to keep him awake, to keep him distracted so it all wouldn't hit him until he arrived. But the silence when he clicked the radio off and killed the engine was even more deafening.
Clouds were moving in, covering where the setting sun was starting to tint the sky orange. If it went flat and gray just like it had back then...Dean wondered how many more ways this day was going to mirror that one a year ago.
He got out of the car, walked around in a wide circle, before eventually toeing at the weeds and dust where there had once been a swirling, gaping maw of black. Where four rings had rested upon once-more solid ground. Where Dean had knelt, battered and broken inside and out.
Dean took a deep, shuddering breath. Right. Time for he and Johnnie to become good, good friends.
And when he turned around to go back to the car, he came face to face with Chuck.
There had been no one else in the cemetery a moment before--no one. Dean flinched back with a sharp, bitten-off curse, and started to swing.
The writer-prophet-whatever the fuck he was scrambled away, hands raised placatingly. "Hey, hey hey, wait, um, wait, it's just me."
"Yeah, well, hell of an entrance you made there, just me." Dean had checked his punch, but his body remained tensed, ready for a fight. He continued, voice low and gruff, "Care to explain why you suddenly decided to pop in from out of nowhere?"
Chuck at least had the grace to look abashed, and he didn't lower his hands, though Dean wasn't sure if it was to look submissive and non-threatening, or a continued gesture for him to be calm. "I, ah, sorry. Sorry about that. I've been meaning to get in contact with you for a few days, but things have been really, really busy, you know?"
"No, I don't know, and I don't really care to know."
"Okay, perfectly understandable," Chuck nodded. "Definitely understandable, I mean, you've certainly got a lot on your mind right now. Or at least one thing on your mind. Which is why I'm here actually. Because, Becky-- You remember Becky, right?"
The writer paused, continuing when Dean just gave him a look. "Okay, yes, we all remember Becky. Well, let's just say she's been writing a lot, and I do mean a lot recently, and that means she's been making me read a lot. I know we'd broken up, but then she wanted to just be friends, and I really couldn't say no to that, and now we're trying to do this long-distance sort of thing, so we're...we're sort of...whatever." He waved one hand. "It's complicated."
"Cool story," Dean snapped, tone more than a little sarcastic, "but that doesn't tell me why I really should give a shit, and why you're bothering me right now."
"Anyway," Chuck continued, as if Dean hadn't interrupted, "eventually because of her stories, I came to some...realizations, I guess you could say. The first of which is, and this is paraphrasing Becky, I am kind of an idiot and maybe don't know everything."
Dean snorted. "I'm inclined to agree with her on that."
"And the second realization is," Chuck continued again, without missing a beat, "once more to quote Becky--you and Sam are both kind of idiots."
Then, as Dean sputtered, started some scathing retort, Sam appeared, just blinked into existence next to Chuck. And Dean was stunned into silence.
Sam stood stock-still, as if doing anything other than remaining frozen, even blinking, would make everything around him disappear. He just stared at Dean with wide, longing eyes, and Dean wondered if that's the way he looked, too.
"And then there were my other realizations." The sound of Chuck's voice was startling. Somehow, for a moment, Dean had totally forgotten he was still there. "That sometimes endings aren't that hard, especially if they're happy ones. And that just because you've typed the words 'The End' doesn't mean there can't be an epilogue."
Dean saw Sam's throat working, saw his lips move as if to speak. His brother reached up a hand, like he wanted to touch Dean, but the almost scared expression on his face seemed to show that he feared this was just some hallucination or vision. Considering where he'd been, what could have been done to him, Lucifer had probably tormented him with scenes just exactly like this one, only to take it all away.
Then Dean was moving, walking forward with purposeful steps, and the moment he was close enough, he reached out to cradle Sam's face, his heart beating fast to feel his brother's warm skin and strong jaw beneath his hands again.
"You're back," Dean said, and it wasn't a question.
Sam bent easily to Dean's tug, and Dean pressed his lips against his brother's. They were chapped and dry, like they so often used to be, but for the longest time Sam didn't respond at all. Then he breathed out Dean's name as a sigh, and he opened to Dean like he always had before. Dean felt Sam's hands settle on his waist, and Sam kissed him back like Dean was the water Sam hadn't been allowed to drink for a year.
Dean's hands slid up into Sam's shaggy hair, and god, he'd thought he'd never feel Sam's hair between his fingers again. As he clutched it, stroking his tongue deep into Sam's mouth, his brother pulled Dean close with a low, throaty moan.
There was a sound of someone clearing their throat nearby, and Chuck gave a small cough. "Well, I guess I'll just be getting back, you know, to Becky and my...," he waved one hand, "whatever. And I'll just leave you to your whatever there." The writer-prophet-whatever he was smiled, looking more than a little smug. "You boys have a good life." Then, an eye blink later, he was gone.
Sam pulled back just slightly. "How...how did he--?"
"Fuck if I know," Dean muttered. He was getting seriously stupid inside about how he could feel Sam's breath against his face, how feeling that was sending warmth through what had been only emptiness and ache in his chest for so long. "I've given up trying to figure him out." He slid one hand to cup the back of Sam's neck. "Hey. C'mere."
Dean led Sam over to the Impala. "Wait here a sec." As his brother stood by the hood, Dean retrieved the whiskey from its box in the car, then moved back to sit on the vehicle's hood. Sam stared for a moment as if not comprehending, until Dean patted the metal next to him. "C'mon, I won't bite."
Sam laughed quietly, scooting up the hood to sit next to Dean. "But I like biting," he said almost shyly.
"Ah, yes." Dean leaned back against the windshield, smile wide and a bit predatory. "That's right, you do." He opened the Johnnie Walker Blue Label and took a long drink, savoring the just-perfect burn.
Maybe expensive alcohol could taste good even when you were drinking it while mourning, but it tasted even better if you were celebrating instead. And, after he passed the bottle to his brother to give him a turn, saying, "Welcome home," Dean found that good whisky tasted the best when he licked it from Sam's lips.
